Quick caveat — holy shit this article is painful to read. TL:DR; David Leonhardt thinks pro-immigration policies are bad, Denmark’s SocDems are justified on grounds that “being a traditional Social Democratic thinker means you cannot allow everyone who wants to join your society to come” because immigrants “undermine … cohesion … [burden] the working class … [strain] benefit programs, [crowd] schools, and … [compete] for housing and blue collar jobs.”
Then, yada yada “brahmin left” are too privileged, lecture others on intolerance (he quotes Piketty, but a quick and dirty google search reveals that[ Leonhardt has no grounds to quote him](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-35982528)). Liberals in America are doomed because they have been pro-immigration, in short.
But, what *really* got my goat was that he says Denmark has “compiled a record that resembles the wish list of a liberal American think tank” — namely, lowering the retirement age for blue collar workers, restricting landlords from raising rents for five years after buying a property, and passing a law that requires 15% of farmland become natural habitat. [I’m going to give props — they also created a carbon tax on livestock and expanded abortion access, which are good policies.]
In what world are we living where those are *liberal* policies ? As a liberal, this is absurd. There are good policies and bad policies to tackle the issues of social insurance pension solvency, rent prices, and natural habitat conservation — and every single one seems like it was done badly in Denmark. To lower rents, why not incentivize development and weaken the position of landlords to raise rents? To increase natural habitat, why not incentivize farmers to replace cultivated land with natural habitat by subsidizing it, or just outright purchasing it from them? [Admittedly Bernhardt does a shit job of clarifying the mechanism they did use, but as he presents it, sounds like hogwash policy]
Anyway — plenty of rage bait in this article, but I’m going to stop reading and come back to it later
financeguy1729 on
Immigration, immigration, immigration
obsessed_doomer on
Romania might elect a fascist in a few months, it is 99.5% native population.
Die Linke (very pro-immigration) almost tripled their vote share in the german elections, whereas their splinter party BSW which tried to be tough on immigration didn’t even make the cut to get seats.
The second place party in France last year weren’t the “sensible immigration-sceptical conservatives”, they were the “Oct 7 was pretty funny ngl” left.
Immigration is obviously part of the conversation but an immigration-only brush fails to explain European politics.
Significant-Bat4356 on
People in Denmark want to see stricter immigration policies, and as a democracy I think its government is complying. HOWEVER, I would not see this as a victory for “liberalism.” It’s in many ways a reverse on the progress we’ve been making these past decades. If anything, it should go to show that liberalism needs more than just the democratic process and free elections to sustain itself (the U.S. is a case enough).
Bankrupt_Banana on
One word,nine letters,five vowels and four consonants: EDUCATION
5 Comments
Quick caveat — holy shit this article is painful to read. TL:DR; David Leonhardt thinks pro-immigration policies are bad, Denmark’s SocDems are justified on grounds that “being a traditional Social Democratic thinker means you cannot allow everyone who wants to join your society to come” because immigrants “undermine … cohesion … [burden] the working class … [strain] benefit programs, [crowd] schools, and … [compete] for housing and blue collar jobs.”
Then, yada yada “brahmin left” are too privileged, lecture others on intolerance (he quotes Piketty, but a quick and dirty google search reveals that[ Leonhardt has no grounds to quote him](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-35982528)). Liberals in America are doomed because they have been pro-immigration, in short.
But, what *really* got my goat was that he says Denmark has “compiled a record that resembles the wish list of a liberal American think tank” — namely, lowering the retirement age for blue collar workers, restricting landlords from raising rents for five years after buying a property, and passing a law that requires 15% of farmland become natural habitat. [I’m going to give props — they also created a carbon tax on livestock and expanded abortion access, which are good policies.]
In what world are we living where those are *liberal* policies ? As a liberal, this is absurd. There are good policies and bad policies to tackle the issues of social insurance pension solvency, rent prices, and natural habitat conservation — and every single one seems like it was done badly in Denmark. To lower rents, why not incentivize development and weaken the position of landlords to raise rents? To increase natural habitat, why not incentivize farmers to replace cultivated land with natural habitat by subsidizing it, or just outright purchasing it from them? [Admittedly Bernhardt does a shit job of clarifying the mechanism they did use, but as he presents it, sounds like hogwash policy]
Anyway — plenty of rage bait in this article, but I’m going to stop reading and come back to it later
Immigration, immigration, immigration
Romania might elect a fascist in a few months, it is 99.5% native population.
Die Linke (very pro-immigration) almost tripled their vote share in the german elections, whereas their splinter party BSW which tried to be tough on immigration didn’t even make the cut to get seats.
The second place party in France last year weren’t the “sensible immigration-sceptical conservatives”, they were the “Oct 7 was pretty funny ngl” left.
Immigration is obviously part of the conversation but an immigration-only brush fails to explain European politics.
People in Denmark want to see stricter immigration policies, and as a democracy I think its government is complying. HOWEVER, I would not see this as a victory for “liberalism.” It’s in many ways a reverse on the progress we’ve been making these past decades. If anything, it should go to show that liberalism needs more than just the democratic process and free elections to sustain itself (the U.S. is a case enough).
One word,nine letters,five vowels and four consonants: EDUCATION