The origin story for Vienna becoming the world’s most celebrated example of social housing began after World War I. In the postwar elections, the Social Democratic Workers’ Party gained power, ushering in an era known as “Red Vienna.” The new government leaders inherited a housing crisis so dire that overcrowding forced 170,000 Vienna residents to become what were called “bed-goers,” leasing sleeping space in shifts while still paying extremely high rents. Often, a single sink and toilet were shared by dozens of strangers. Tuberculosis spread so readily in these cramped quarters that it was known across Europe as “the Viennese disease.”

So the new Viennese government devoted its resources to building municipal housing complexes named after figures like Karl Marx and George Washington, demonstrating the ruling party’s commitment to both its “social” and “democratic” missions.

[...] Today, that housing is created mostly by limited-profit associations, organizations that often receive public support in return for tight government restrictions on rent charged and a requirement that any profits be put back into more social housing construction. Many of these limited-profit associations are operated by labor unions.

In these social housing communities, tenants’ long-term tenure in their apartments is guaranteed under the law. Apartments can be passed down among generations under the original terms. The tying of rent charged to a percentage of household income means that renters in Vienna are protected from losing their home when illness or job loss occurs.

[...] As a result, half of the city’s residents live in social housing, which creates a price-dampening effect on for-profit housing that is forced to compete with high-quality subsidized housing. That competitive pressure combines with vigorous rent control on private housing to make Vienna one of the cheapest renting cities in all of Europe, even on the for-profit market. Given the fact that good housing is central to both a household’s and a city’s well-being, it is no surprise that Vienna is frequently ranked the most livable city in the world.

[...] Tight regulation of privately held land in Vienna ensures that social housing construction is ongoing. At least two-thirds of any private land sold must be diverted to rent-limited housing. “Since the ground that can be built on is a limited resource, we don’t see housing as a fit for the private market,” Maltschnig says. The result: anyone with an urgent housing need gets immediate shelter and prompt placement in a municipal apartment. Vienna has virtually no visible homeless population and no slum areas of low-quality housing and concentrated poverty. And Vienna is not alone: several other nations, like Singapore and Finland and Sweden, have followed a similar blueprint in achieving remarkable social housing success, too.

https://jacobin.com/2023/10/red-vienna-public-affordable-housing-homelessness-matthew-yglesias/

What is less obvious and yet just as damaging is the hyped coverage of the threat. Milei and Wilders are not “shocks”. The resurgence of reactionary politics is entirely predictable and has been traced for a long time. Yet every victory or rise is analysed as new and unexpected rather than part of a longer, wider process in which we are all implicated.

The same goes for “populism”. All serious research on the matter points to the populist nature of these parties being secondary at best, compared to their far-right qualities. Yet, whether in the media or academia, populism is generally used carelessly as a key defining feature.

Using “populist” instead of more accurate but also stigmatising terms such as “far-right” or “racist” acts as a key legitimiser of far-right politics. It lends these parties and politicians a veneer of democratic support through the etymological link to the people and erases their deeply elitist nature – what my co-author Aaron Winter and I have termed “reactionary democracy”.

[...] This could not have been clearer than when the Guardian launched a lengthy series on “the new populism” in 2018, headlining its opening editorial with: “Why is populism suddenly all the rage? In 1998, about 300 Guardian articles mentioned populism. In 2016, 2,000 did. What happened?”. At no point did any of the articles in the series reflect upon the simple fact that the decisions of Guardian editors may have played a role in the increased use of the term.

[...] My analysis of the noscripts and abstracts of over 2,500 academic articles in the field over the past five years showed that academics choose to frame their research away from such issues. Instead, we witness either a euphemisation or exceptionalisation of far-right politics, through a focus on topics such as elections and immigration rather than the wider structures at play.

This therefore leaves us with the need to reckon with the crucial role the mainstream plays in mainstreaming. Elite actors with privileged access to shaping public discourse through the media, politics and academia are not sitting within the ramparts of a mainstream fortress of good and justice besieged by growing waves of populism.

They are participating in an arena where power is deeply unevenly distributed, where the structural inequalities the far right wants to strengthen are also often core to our systems and where the rights of minoritised communities are precarious and unfulfilled. They have therefore a particular responsibility towards democracy and cannot blame the situation we all find ourselves in on others – whether it be the far right, fantasised silent majorities or minoritised communities.

https://theconversation.com/look-to-the-mainstream-to-explain-the-rise-of-the-far-right-218536

Zionism as a Fascist Ideology and Movement: Zionist Relations with Nazi Germany by Faris Yahya Glubb

https://liberatedtexts.com/reviews/zionism-as-a-fascist-ideology-zionist-relations-with-nazi-germany-by-faris-glubb/

After World War II, Finland’s militant trade unions created one of the world’s strongest welfare states. Today, the country spends more on the welfare state than any other OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) country, at around a quarter of GDP. Finland regularly tops the rankings of the happiest countries in the world and is arguably one of the most successful examples of the social democratic model.

At the heart of the Finnish class compromise is the tradition of social dialogue between unions, employers, and the government, which has led to annual nationwide and sectoral negotiations on wage setting for all union members, tripartite negotiations on new legislative proposals, and the expansion of the welfare state. But this social contract is about to be torn apart by a newly elected right-wing government.

While Finnish politics made international headlines in recent years with a center-left coalition led by five women and headed by the young social democrat Sanna Marin, a radicalized right won a majority in the last parliamentary election in April 2023. As a result, the conservatives, the Christian Democrats, a Swedish minority party, and the far-right Finns Party formed a government. Since then, the coalition has launched the strongest attack on workers’ rights and social security in the history of the Finnish welfare state.

https://jacobin.com/2023/10/finland-true-finn-far-right-wing-welfare-state-workers-rights/

Mercoledì 22 novembre il Parlamento europeo ha approvato con 305 voti favorevoli, 276 contrari e 29 astensioni una proposta che, nascendo direttamente dalla Conferenza sul Futuro dell'Europa, richiede la modifica dei Trattati dell'Unione europea e che chiede al Consiglio europeo di convocare una Convenzione di riforma dei Trattati.

La proposta mira da un lato a rafforzare la capacità dell'UE di operare e dall'altro ad aumentare il peso della voce delle cittadine e dei cittadini. In particolare, la proposta di riforma prevede un sistema "più bicamerale" per evitare situazioni di stallo, attraverso il voto a maggioranza qualificata e l'uso della procedura legislativa ordinaria; il riconoscimento al Parlamento di un pieno diritto di iniziativa legislativa e del ruolo di colegislatore per il bilancio a lungo termine e una revisione delle norme sulla composizione della Commissione (rinominata "esecutivo europeo").

Il Presidente della Commissione, che dovrebbe ricevere la nomina del Parlamento e l'approvazione del Consiglio (contrariamente a quanto avviene oggi), potrà scegliere i propri Commissari sulla base di preferenze politiche, tenendo conto dell'equilibrio geografico e demografico, e avrà la possibilità di presentare una mozione di censura sui singoli Commissari. Sono proposte inoltre la pubblicazione delle posizioni degli Stati membri dell'UE su questioni legislative, per garantire una maggiore trasparenza in seno al Consiglio e la creazione di meccanismi di partecipazione adeguati e il rafforzamento del ruolo dei partiti politici europei, per dare più voce ai cittadini.

Sempre nell'ottica del rafforzamento degli strumenti democratici, la proposta prevede l'introduzione del pieno diritto di iniziativa legislativa per il Parlamento e di strumenti di democrazia diretta, inclusa la possibilità di avere dei referendum europei.

Altro elemento cruciale della proposta del Parlamento è l'aumento significativo del numero di decisioni prese a maggioranza qualificata (ad esempio in caso decisioni di sanzioni) e la sostituzione del metodo dell'unanimità con quello della maggioranza rafforzata (almeno quattro quinti dei membri del Consiglio che rappresentano gli Stati membri e che riuniscono almeno il 50% della popolazione europea) da utilizzare per le decisioni in materia fiscale.

Inoltre i deputati chiedono un maggiore spazio di manovra e soprattutto di rendere condivise le competenze su temi importanti come salute pubblica, protezione civile, industria e istruzione, mentre attualmente sono di competenza esclusiva degli Stati membri.

https://euroeconomie.it/blog-detail/post/215982/riforma-dei-trattati-ue:-il-parlamento-europeo-approva-la-proposta

This campaign came about because the current poverty index tends to look at mid-range luxury items, the price of which is often less affected by inflation, rather than the bottom-of-the-range necessities that the poorest in society actually rely on, and which have been massively hit by inflation.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/26/terry-pratchett-jack-monroe-vimes-boots-poverty-index

Release of 11000 people from prison during Covid led to only 17 of them committing new crimes, only one of which was violent

https://twitter.com/dustinbpalmer/status/1590879271605923840

The study - Is green growth happening? An empirical analysis of achieved versus Paris-compliant CO2–GDP decoupling in high-income countries - identified 11 high-income countries that achieved “absolute decoupling” between 2013 and 2019: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

The analysis showed that the emission reductions achieved in these countries fell dramatically short of the rates required to comply with the Paris Agreement.

At the achieved rates, the 11 countries would on average take over 200 years to get their emissions close to zero, and would overall emit more than 27 times their fair-shares of the global carbon budget for 1.5 °C.

Jefim Vogel, from the Sustainability Research Institute at Leeds and the lead author, said: “There is nothing green about this. It is a recipe for climate breakdown and further climate injustice. Calling such insufficient emission reductions green growth is highly misleading, it is greenwashing.

[...] Professor Jason Hickel, from the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and co-author of the study, added: “The pursuit of aggregate economic growth in high-income countries makes it virtually impossible to achieve the required emission reductions.

“If high-income countries are to meet their Paris obligations, they should pursue post-growth strategies: scale down energy-intensive and less-necessary forms of production, reduce the consumption of the rich, shift from private cars to public transit. This reduces energy demand and enables us to decarbonise much faster.

“We also need to accelerate renewable energy deployment and efficiency improvements with public financing. Post-growth can help by liberating productive capacities – factories, labour, materials – that can be remobilized to achieve urgent social and ecological goals.

“Policies like a green job guarantee can be used for this, ending unemployment and ensuring adequate livelihoods for all. We should focus the economy on what is required for wellbeing, fairness, and ecological sustainability.”

https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news-environment/news/article/5393/green-growth-not-happening-in-high-income-countries

If you want to show that growth is genuinely green, you must bring evidence that GDP has decoupled from all environmental pressures. After five years actively searching for this particular proof, I have never seen anyone managing to do tha

[...] In the largest systematic review of the decoupling literature (835 articles), Haberl et al. (2020) synthesise all the studies looking at decoupling rates of PIB from greenhouse gases in high-income countries during the last decade. Using production-based indicators, there is indeed absolute decoupling: with 1 additional point of GDP comes -0.04 points of emissions. Minuscule but absolute. But if one uses consumption-based indicators instead, the absolute decoupling disappears: 1 additional point of GDP brings +0.22 points of emissions.

One final observation. Footprints are difficult to calculate as they require sophisticated global models. I can speak for France because that’s a country I know fairly well. Based on the Global Carbon Project data (the data used by Our world in data), France reduced its consumption-based emissions by 25% from 1995 (500 million tons, 8.7 ton per person) to 2021 (375 million tons, 5.8 tons per person). But this is far-away from reality. Looking at more refined and recent data from the French government, we get a slightly different picture. The carbon footprint in 1995 was 11 tons per person, 26% higher than the Our World in Data / Global Carbon Project estimation, and the one in 2021 was 8.9 tons, 53% higher. The difference is substantial. The -25% reduction announced by Our World in Data is actually only a -9% reduction, so 2,7 times smaller

[...] When it comes to the decoupling we need to effectively address the multiple biocrises of today, all scientific evidence confirm that it hasn’t happened yet. Being precautious, we should not expect much more than what we already had, that is relative decoupling with rare situations of often local and temporary – and in any case meagre – absolute decoupling of a few isolated resources or impacts. I say this without a celebratory grin. I actually wish green growth existed. Of course, there are also social issues linked to economic growth, but taking ecosystems out of the picture would simplify the problem, or at least give us more time to solve it. I have no sentimental prejudice here, it just feels so irresponsibly foolish to bet the survival of humanity on a highly improbable miracle. My worry is that we’re losing precious time arguing that maybe, one day, perhaps, if-this-if-that, decoupling could happen. In the meantime, we are merely tinkering with a system that should be radically transformed.

The story of decoupling is reassuring; it’s a don’t worry, everything is fine, everything is going to be okay kind of thing to say. And this is precisely why that story is dangerous. As ecosystems are getting nightmarishly worse, the fable of green growth is acting as a kind of macroeconomic greenwashing, especially when mobilised to discredit other, more radical solutions to the ecological crisis.

https://timotheeparrique.com/a-response-to-paul-krugman-growth-is-not-as-green-as-you-might-think/