Re: Ho-hum

Well, I'm not going to argue over minutiae, suffice to say that all my information about the US comes from American expats living in Britain. The fact remains that in Britain we have rights in a variety of functions, as consumers, as workers, as people just trying to enjoy ourselves, which you don't have in the US, where all rights tend to be reduced down to a single right: property. This is the fundamental difference between the US and Europe. I disagree with you fundamentally in that I do not believe that one can separate economic and political power. I disagree with you in your belief that you can have a politics that is neoliberal and yet civilised - kind to refugees etc. - I suppose like the Libertarian Party. Political ideas can only gain traction on the basis of social classes, and the class base of this liberal centrism is too minute for it to be successful in times of economic crisis, such as we are now in. In practice it always leans in to the right, as we have seen recently with Blair. It is no accident that politics everywhere tends to be a one-dimensional spectrum running from right to left, because this reflects the opposed material interests of the oligarchs who own the means of production (Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, etc.) and those whose only source of income is from selling their labour power in the capitalist marketplace.