David :
Your skepticism is well founded. So, let me put it another way : "If we
give
benefit of doubt until proven otherwise, this seems to me to be a
worthwhile
example of RC." Deserves looking into anyway.
To put a well-intentioned spin on it --could be wrong, but let's just
say--
the writer wanted to "give" something to the Left in describing this
development and chose a phrase that could be taken in a benign sense.
But, yeah, usually "social justice" is a phrase which masks some dubious
stuff
that I dislike as much as you do. Might be different in Israel, though,
about
which I simply cannot say one way or another.
Billy
message dated 8/14/2011 10:13:41 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:
Yeah, except that I don't believe in "social justice." In most cases it is
just "social injustice" put on the other foot, or, rather, the original
persecuting group, whether or not individuals within the group had anything
to do with the original "social injustice." One is paying for past sins of
(some of) their ancestors today. Others are paying for the sins of
someoneelse's ancestors today and wonder what the heck they did to deserve it.
They
did nothing. They are just the wrong color or ethnicity.
It just makes more victims. One has to avoid the vengeance motive. An eye
for an eye eventually makes everyone blind, and solves nothing.
David
_
"There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no
virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as "caring" and
"sensitive" because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is
merely saying that he's willing to try to do good with other people's
money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such
programs
is telling us that he'll do good with his own money -- if a gun is held to
his head."--P. J. O'Rourke
On 8/14/2011 3:50 PM, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar wrote:
A very nice reply to DRB's question about what the alternative to
capitalism and socialism ("capilism" - nice, Chris!) would look like.
Sent from my iPhone
On Aug 14, 2011, at 13:35, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote:
(http://ads.worldjewishdaily.com/openx/www/delivery/ck.php?oaparams=2__bannerid=22__zoneid=17__source={obfs:}__cb=0e0b62fc50__oadest=http://www.worldje
wishdaily.com)
Breaking Jewish News Updated Throughout The Day
What Now?
In Its Search for Social Justice, Israel Must
Take the Third Way
August 14, 2011
By Benjamin Kerstein
The protest movement that has dominated Israeli politics and culture for
the past month would seem to have run its course. It has succeeded in
changing the public discourse, rearranging priorities across the social and
economic spectrum, bringing hundreds of thousands into the streets, and
garnering the support of an overwhelming number of Israelis, according to some
reports, as much as 90 percent.
In terms of concrete accomplishments, however, not much has happened. The
Netanyahu government has put together a blue-ribbon panel to examine the
situation and recommend reforms. According to _Haaretz_
(http://www.worldjewishdaily.com/toolbar.html?4t=extlink&4u=http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/ne
tanyahu-i-understand-my-views-on-israel-s-economic-policy-need-to-change-1.3
77784) , there are some good signs that the panel, unlike most similar
bodies, may actually intend to do something:
Netanyahu told Professor Manuel Trajtenberg, the head of the panel of
experts who will talk with protest leaders, that he understood it was
necessary
to change economic policy.
But Trajtenberg went further, telling Netanyahu he had to change his
fundamental positions. Netanyahu agreed and said he had read a new book about
how Herzl adapted himself to changing circumstances.
"I understand my views need to change," Netanyahu reportedly replied.
There is a strong possibility, however, that this is simply a stalling
tactic. Netanyahu may well be hoping that, come the U.N. vote on Palestinian
statehood in September, the protests will be quickly forgotten and things
will return to normal. By the time the panel issues its report, no one will
care or even pay much attention.
If true, this is likely wishful thinking on Netanyahu's part. The
objective economic factors that have driven the protests - income inequality,
high
prices, shortage of housing, under funded public services, etc. - will not
go away by themselves. Even if public sentiment is moderated by concern
over security issues, after a short period of time it will likely return,
angrier than ever, to the issue of social justice. No god, the saying goes,
can
stop a starving man.
There is no need, however, for Israel to wait on the PM's panel. The
process of reform can be undertaken immediately, and on a non-partisan basis.
At
this very moment, a viable right-left social justice bloc already exists
in the Knesset. It would be composed of the major opposition parties Kadima
and Labor, along with large sections of the Likud and the religious
parties.
Given the widespread sentiment across all sectors of society in favor of
reform, major legislation would also likely be supported by Meretz, the
religious nationalist parties, and the Arab parties. Such an informal
coalition
would compose well over half the Knesset. More than enough to enact the
reforms the public is demanding so fervently.
This is the case because, in spite of its success over the last few
decades in remaking Israeli society, the free market system favored by
Netanyahu
actually has very little political support in Israel. At most, it is
fervently believed in by Netanyahu and a few of his close advisors. Everyone
else
has gone along because it seemed to be necessary and seemed to be working.
Now, it seems to be doing neither.
For most of Israel's neoliberal era, support or acquiescence in free
market policies was also driven by two other factors: an acknowledgement of
the
historical failure of socialism, and a fear of returning to the bad old
days of Israeli austerity and the domination of the Labor Party. Neoliberalism
appeared to be, under these circumstances, the only viable policy.
There is already another option, however, and it may be uniquely
well-suited to Israeli society: the "third way."
Third way economic policies have been described by economist _Joseph E.
Stiglitz_
(http://www.worldjewishdaily.com/toolbar.html?4t=extlink&4u=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2001/stiglitz-autobio.html)
as a system that
recognized the important, but limited, role of government, that unfettered
markets often did not work well, but that government was not always able
to correct the limitations of markets.
A successful third way policy would be a synthesis of the virtues of
socialism and the free market system, while using both systems to ameliorate
each other's flaws. It would involve, for example, a country in which
businesses are encouraged to flourish and grow, but the tax revenues garnered
by
this growth are then channeled into the public sector in order to provide for
a more equitable distribution of wealth and a strong foundation of basic
services like education and health care.
In a small, tightly-knit, socially conscious, but also dynamic and
innovate nation like Israel, a third way policy would likely be both
successful
and garner widespread political support.
The third way is often linked to two other political-economic concepts:
the "_radical center_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_center_(politics))
" and _communitarianism_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communitarianism) .
A radical center stresses the importance of a pragmatic middle way between
more extreme ideological poles, while communitarianism emphasizes the
importance of recognizing the non-political binds that unite various
communities within a larger nation, as well as a recognition of the
responsibility
of these communities to their members and the state's responsibility, in
turn, to these communities.
In many ways, Israel is already a communitarian society, with a highly
fractured society composed of many different ethnic and cultural groups, most
of which are nonetheless united on certain basic principles. The state,
moreover, grants substantial rights and autonomy to many of these groups and
recognizes the importance of their communal bonds.
The radical center has had a rough time of it in Israel as late, but there
are strong indications that it also exists, albeit in latent form. The
90-something percent of Israelis who support the protests come, must come,
from many different groups and sectors in Israeli society. It is highly
unlikely that this massive majority supports the more extreme demands of the
protest leaders. They come, must come, from Israel's beleaguered middle class.
They want radical change, but they want that change to be neither socialist
nor neoliberal in nature. They must be, in other words, radical centrists.
Squeezed between the radical socialists and anarchists who are attempting
- quite unsuccessfully - to hijack the current discontent to their own
ends, and a small but powerful neoliberal establishment, this radical center
needs and deserves a third way, and the Knesset should act immediately to
satisfy its demands.
It should do so by informally establishing the social justice bloc I
mentioned above. This bloc should then propose legislation that deals solely
with social and economic reform, avoiding the fraught and irrelevant issues
that have driven Israeli politics to its current impasse.
Israel has reached another historic moment. The failure of neoliberalism
has been far less severe than that of socialism, and the human cost has been
hardly comparable, but it has failed nonetheless. If Israel wants to avoid
the terrible consequences of that failure that have now engulfed most of
the rest of the world, it must act and act soon.
Israel is lucky in that all the tool to do so are readily available. There
is a third way and there is the political means to enact it. The radical
center in the streets has found the will to act. It is time for the radical
center in the Knesset to do the same.
--
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
<[email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) >
Google Group: _http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism_
(http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism)
Radical Centrism website and blog: _http://RadicalCentrism.org_
(http://RadicalCentrism.org)
--
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
<[email protected]>
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism
Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
