Comment by tovej

Comment by tovej 3 days ago

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The EU is aggressively neoliberal or liberal-conservative, and that is the reason universities have begun to be more expensive. It's related to austerity, privatization, the aggressive revision of tax codes, and New Public Management.

The left has not been popular in the EU since the 70s, which is why this development has gotten increasingly aggresive in the last few decades. You cannot seriously suggest that the EU has moved left in any meaningful way. The EU commission is currently trying to implement that every new regulation can only pass once an old regulation can be removed. It's a neoliberal dream, where the amount of regulation can only go down, and public funds are allocated to private companies more and more.

This is especially true for universities, where public funding programs for research has begun to be funneled to startups instead of research groups.

seec 3 days ago

Ah yes, the neoliberal boogeyman.

Here is what Wikipedia has to say on the matter. > Neoliberalism is often associated with a set of economic liberalization policies, including privatization, deregulation, depoliticisation, consumer choice, labor market flexibilization, economic globalization, free trade, monetarism, austerity, and reductions in government spending.

Do you agree with that definition ? If so, none of what is happening in the EU is consistent with that description. If not, I'm all hears for what you think it means.

> The left has not been popular in the EU since the 70s What constitute the left has mutated and is not called as such anymore. It is now found in the "green" parties and adjacent. The hard left is actually very popular, at least as much as the right wing, but I'll grant you they are becoming less desirable because people are pushing back on the immigration the hard left is very much for that. It is incoherent because it mechanically reduce the power/earning of their supposed electorate but on the other hand it grants them dominating power in key places and they get the votes of the bourgeoisie.

Here is some data on public government spending in the EU. https://www.statista.com/statistics/263220/public-spending-r... https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/government-spendin...

Most of the rich countries are over 50% and approaching 60% very fast. After COVID, spending has increased at an insane rate, via debt creation. It's basically like a poor family using credit to buy an ultra expensive fancy car but I guess that's very austere to you.

It's balsy to pretend that the EU suffer from austerity when the data readily show the contrary. The only tax revisions to be found are to raise them, not the other way around.

To be clear, I'm all for the targeted raising of taxes on the boomers, who got us into this mess. I also think some of the regulations goals are laudable (notably transition to electric everything and building improvements but I disagree that regulation is the way to get there. Considering that the EU economy is basically in the dump, I'll say that the world largely agree with me.

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  • tovej 2 days ago

    On that same wikipedia page you cite, we have the following on the EU: "The European Union (EU), created in 1992, is sometimes considered a neoliberal organization, as it facilitates free trade and freedom of movement, erodes national protectionism and limits national subsidies."

    Ideological rhetoric doesn't change the fact that neoliberalism has taken an even stronger hold in the EU since it's inception. The market is being deregularized, and austerity measures are being implemented.

    Reporting a single public spending ratio figure like your source does says nothing. I'll note that Finland is at the top. I'm Finnish, and Finland has been suffering through two right wing austerity governments during the last three election periods. Austerity brings the public spending numbers up, because it stifles growth. Finland has sold off many of it's public monopolies, including the electric grid, the phone network, and energy companies. The current government even tried to sell the waterworks.

    Austerity is visible in fewer public support programs, cuts to unemployment benefits, student benefits, etc. This government even went so far as to give the richest Finns a tax break, further deepening the crisis.

    You claim that green parties are left. This is sometimes true, sometimes not. In general, green parties in the EU lean liberal (right wing), as is the case in Finland. Maybe you're confusing left wing politics with liberalism again, which is what the previous poster did. This is an american view of politics. Immigration and social values are not left-right problems. These are culture war issues that the conservatives in the US have drummed up.

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qcnguy 3 days ago

> where public funding programs for research has begun to be funneled to startups instead of research groups.

It is darkly amusing that in one post you claim "the left has not been popular since the 70s" whilst admitting that the EU is centrally planning new companies. That's very much the sort of thing the left did in the 1970s.

> You cannot seriously suggest that the EU has moved left in any meaningful way ... the EU commission is currently trying to implement that every new regulation can only pass once an old regulation can be removed.

And who believes they'll really do it? They only got to that point after ignoring decades of warnings from the right that their left wing approach would crush their own economic power, which it did.

It's a common enough claim that "the left" refers to exactly the same set of ideas that it did in 1930, and therefore that no modern entity is left wing. But this is spurious. There are still left wing people and groups, that claim to be so and nobody disagrees with them.

All that happened is that as left wing economics became discredited over the course of the 20th century the left became better at obfuscating what they were doing. After the working classes disappointed by not rising up in revolution, the concept of equality shifted to be about gender and race instead. The EU doesn't want to openly nationalize industries, but is really keen on feminism, regulation and mass third world migration.

And economically, the left didn't need to obfuscate much. The gap between heavy regulation and nationalization is small. CEOs get to pretend that they're still in charge, but with no strong commitment to private property rights they're ultimately just transient administrators and there's not much reason to sign up for the stresses of being one. So - no startups.

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  • tovej 3 days ago

    Centrally planning? My guy, the EU is not founding companies, it is giving existing companies subsidies. The profits of those companies will not be public, they are private.

    Nationalization and regularization are both on the decline. The opposite has happened: privatization of state monopolies and deregulatization.

    I also think it's hilarious that you think a) the EU is feminist, and b) that feminism is leftist. What you are describing is liberalism, a right wing political position.

    And even the liberal right is losing ground to the conservative right. The EU commission is far more conservative than it ever has been, and hard-right parties are in government in at least six EU countries (see e.g., https://www.politico.eu/article/mapped-europe-far-right-gove...), with conservative governments elsewhere. This is a strict break with tradition, where the extreme right has been excluded from European governments by consensus of other parties ever since the second world war.

    Your beliefs are not aligned with reality. I am also personally in the middle of this research money refunnelling, I can vouch forst hand that research money is being funneled to startups and other private companies, while austerity measures are hitting hard across the EU.

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    • qcnguy 3 days ago

      > My guy, the EU is not founding companies, it is giving existing companies subsidies. The profits of those companies will not be public, they are private. I can vouch forst hand that research money is being funneled to startups and other private companies

      Nobody claimed it isn't, but governments trying to pick winners by subsidizing startups is still the same old left wing politics. You don't see the USA spray grants around at the scale the EU does, do you? I'm pretty sure they don't directly subsidize startups at all.

      BTW companies are routinely created in the EU specifically to access the 'free money' of grants. The act of offering subsidies creates companies. The profits - if any - will be taxed heavily. They are only partly private. We agree, though, that this is not as extreme as the 100% profit tax that occurs under nationalization.

      > I also think it's hilarious that you think a) the EU is feminist, and b) that feminism is leftist.

      The EU leadership class all demanded a female EU Commission president before Ursula vdL mysteriously failed upwards into the role without explanation:

      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/23/eu-leaders-cal...

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      • machomaster 2 days ago

        > You don't see the USA spray grants around at the scale the EU does, do you? I'm pretty sure they don't directly subsidize startups at all.

        Not true at all. The amount of support is comparable. It's just that you have to count everything, not only whatever is classified under pure "grants". R&D paid by the government (external financing). Tax credits (R&D, CHIPS, IRA, clean energy). Loan guarantees. SBIR/STTR (America's Seed Fund). Non-dilutive grants/contracts for R&D, often followed by government procurement contracts (Spacex, etc). DoD/Darpa, NIH, NSF, NASA, DOE, EDA. Earmarks. Congressional "community projects". Sector bailouts...

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    • seec 3 days ago

      You are arguing about form and semantics.

      Yes the bureaucrats have added a indirection level to shield themselves from consequences and fill the pockets of their friends. This is basically the definition of corrupt communism. Where political figure assign and distribute the work and rewards the commissars who oversee the work. Your head is so far up your ass that you don't even realise that you basically described the Chinese system, which is, guess what, freaking communist.

      Feminism is absolutely leftist and is straight from the Marxist playbook. De Beauvoir and Sartre are the parents of modern feminism and are both heavily influenced by Marx. In the Soviet Union the propaganda for equality was extremely strong and women were just considered another regular worker, same as the men. In fact feminists played a key role in the revolution of 1917 and gained suffrage right away. Funnily enough, women complained that they were exploited, because unlike feminist in rich capitalist countries that can afford to give "freedom" to women in exchange for very little work/value, the soviet women were actually required to work, the country being too poor to afford them easy jobs. But you'll tell us how actually it's all liberalism and whatnot, for sure you have a special history we don't know about that contradict every common sources we know about. For sure.

      Yes the EU is becoming more right-wing and conservative. This is course correction after decades of left/center-left (and greens) domination. But do you realise that this fact is completely contradictory to your point of view.

      The argument is that the EU *was* pushing socialist policies and establishing a soft-form of communism. You contest that, claiming neoliberalism domination but then you admit that right-wing/conservative are just coming into power. I mean it was literally yesterday.

      > For the first time, a right-wing majority is emerging at the European Parliament as the European People's Party flirts with groups that would have been considered too toxic to work with in the past. The pivot has given the EPP a choice but also created a headache for Ursula von der Leyen.

      https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/11/15/how-the-epp-us...

      A news that was published literally 15 days ago. It cannot be that both the EU was ruled by neoliberals and they are just coming into power at the same. Do you realised how disingenuous you are ? If not this is frightening.

      > Your beliefs are not aligned with reality.

      No clearly you have a delusional point of view. Even wikipedia that is famously tilting left is basically disagreeing with you on everything. Get a grasp.

      > while austerity measures are hitting hard across the EU.

      Of course that's coming. They have ran out of others people money and debt level are unsustainable. But I would also contest you personal anecdote with one of mine, since I know someone who is currently receiving subsidies for a musical concert via EU. So maybe you are just bad a selling your projects on top of having a distorted view of reality. To be honest that would make sense because even the hardest left-wingers are not stupid enough to believe the garbage they sell to the wider populace. They pretend in public but in private they'll tell you about whatever power trip they are currently chasing.

      You seem to be getting high on your own supply; that can't be good.

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      • tovej 2 days ago

        Just read your own text back please. It is full of ideological rhetoric and devoid of calm rational discussion.

        Let's just pick out some examples here: "Your head is so far up your ass that you don't even realise that you basically described the Chinese system", "But you'll tell us how actually it's all liberalism and whatnot, for sure you have a special history we don't know about that contradict every common sources we know about", "even the hardest left-wingers are not stupid enough to believe the garbage they sell to the wider populace", "You seem to be getting high on your own supply".

        Please calm down and respond to the points I made if you wish to debate me. As it stands you are making incorrect assumptions about my views while hitting random political talking points along the way. It's not really possible to respond to this wall of nonsense, as it barely has any connection to the discussion at hand.

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  • seec 3 days ago

    Well the common theme of leftist is that they are in complete denial of reality.

    This is how you get some dude that will argue with a straight face that EU problems absolutely come from neoliberalism when many of the biggest members are closing on 60% public spending to GDP ratio. I just can't imagine the cognitive dissonance at this point.

    I wish it would be simple ignorance or plain stupidity because it would mean that would be somewhat solvable. But they are simply and purely lying and they have been doing it for so long that they don't even know where/what reality is anymore. That's a bit sad when you think about it.

    At least the "good thing" is that since they are nothing but parasites, eventually they successfully destroy the host system. Then comes the reality check and for a while the parasites get evacuated.

    By the way, HN is infested with Marxist types, which is hilarious considering it is supposed to be a forum for a filthy capitalist endeavor. But this is the way of life of the parasite: identify a valuable target and destroy it from the inside. Find another supply, rinse and repeat.

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    • tovej 2 days ago

      Ok, you seem to be some type of conspiracy theorist.

      I have lived in the EU my whole life, and have always followed politics with an analytical eye. I'm not a Marxist, I just follow politics closely because it is important for my job.

      I wish you all the best, but I think you need to get out of whatever social.media sinkhole you got these opinions from first.

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