I have a habit of tackling right-wing libertarian extremists in the UK - who seem to have taken a dislike to me as a result. I can live with that.
And I make no apology for my attitude towards them. Their self-interested greed threatens the well being of vast numbers of people in this country, and most especially the young, the old, the sick, the disabled and those unable to work for any reason - including those that are no fault of their own. All of these people they would leave to the vagaries of the market - knowing full well they do not have the means to take part in the market and that they are as a result destined to abject poverty.
It's easy to assume that these people just populate the right wing blogosphere. But that, unfortunately, is not true. They also populate the Tory party. I hear Tory MPs like Mark Field promoting 15% flat taxes for the UK, based on Hong Kong with no VAT either.
And I hear the same sentiment echoed time and again by new entrants to parliament from the Tory right.
And I realise that these people are not there to promote society as we know it - but something very different indeed. They're seeking to overthrow that society we have enjoyed and replace it with a very explicit culture where the haves take all, and the rest are condemned to serve them without hope, chance of change or any effective means of sustaining anything other than what will be a quite basic living - and certainly much worse than that which many enjoy now. You can't remove the safety net from so many and deliver anything else.
I am glad that awareness of this is now growing - largely because the Tea Party and its associates have taken such a hold on the Republican party in the States and this same madness is becoming more explicit there as a result.
Paul Krugman has delivered listening attacks on Paul Ryan's budget proposals over the last few days - all worth reading. As he makes clear - this is greed without economic analysis.
Martin Wolf has now joined in - no doubt influenced by his weekend trip to the States. As he says in the FT:
What does the rise of libertarianism portend for the future of the US? This is not a question of interest to Americans alone. It matters almost as much to the rest of the world. A part of the answer came with the publication of a fiscal plan, entitled “Path to Prosperity”, by Paul Ryan, Republican chairman of the house budget committee. The conclusion I draw is the opposite of its author's: a higher tax burden is coming. But that leads to another conclusion: much conflict lies ahead, with huge implications for politics, federal finance and the US ability to play its historic role.
In can't quote extensively, but note his conclusion:
The Ryan plan is a “reductio ad absurdum” — a disproof by taking a proposition to a logical conclusion. It would turn the government into a miserly provider of pensions and health insurance. These functions would absorb three-quarters of non-interest spending by 2050. Other functions, including even defence, would collapse. This is most unlikely to happen. Indeed, even if the government were astonishingly successful in curbing the growth of spending on health, the share of federal spending in GDP is almost certain to be above 20 per cent.
A long-term fiscal fight looms. The solution may even have to come out of a crisis. But Mr Ryan has given the president an opportunity, by defining what surely will not happen. Mr Obama must seize it.
Not just Mr Obama.
Mr Miliband and Mr Balls too - because this is not so far removed from right wing Tory thinking.
And even Orange Book Lib Dem thinking.
Yes, we're in for a fight. And the right have to lose. For the sake of the people of the UK, US and around the world this abusive philosophy based on greed and exploitation has to be shown for what it is - a blatant attempt to abuse.
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Hi Richard,
With the above in mind, it’s worth looking at the sorts of tools used by the right to promote libertarianism – I refer in particular teenage libertarian bible, Atlas Shrugged. It’s due to be released as a movie relatively soon, which can only make the necessity of countering it stronger.
Last year I took the opportunity to blog my way through it, and to unpick its arguments in detail. You might find it interesting – the first post is here: http://wp.me/pdk8T-3F.
***Standing ovation!***
Libertarianism is an ironic title for a movement which seeks to imprison so many inside poverty without – as you rightly say – much hope or support.
It is a brainless philosophy of pure greed and self indulgence and must be defeated.
I won’t deny that I see merit in aspects of Libetarian thinking, but I must add that I see merit in aspects of most theories of government… the thing about theories is that they work… in theory.
I have had long discussions with people who wholeheartedly subscribe to libetarian ideas, and genuinely seem to believe that they can create a more fairer society which provides effective incentives for productivity and endeavour which are equally open to everyone – and whilst they speak from positions of relative comfort, they don’t speak from positions of inherent privelage.
The big issue, aside from the fact that it’s just not going to work (a minor quibble, I know, but worth mentioning) is that most of what I hear is deeply selective.. they only want libetarian policies where it suits them. They want a state that does little, but it still has to provide the things that *they* value.. so a welfare system is something which expensively and unecessarily takes away personal responsibility.. but police and military services to protect person and property are essential. They think that everyone should be left to achieve things by their own endeavour, but baulk at the notion that this, surely, means that inheritance taxes should be used as the means of levelling the playing field and reducing the immense head-starts that those born to wealth and security benefit from.
That’s what exposes most libetarians for what they are – self-interested. And the point, here, is that they’re not just self-interested from the point of view of someone who just doesn’t believe in libetarianism, they’re self-interested from the point of view of anyone who does.
It’s not irrelevant that the Christian right in America has taken to this thinking. These are people who claim to follow the will of a loving and benevolent God, yet often display only hatred towards certain groups in society. They want the state to leave them alone, but want it to clamp down on what certain consenting adults do in private. If I actually was a libetarian, I’d look at the other people on my side of the battlefield and seriously wonder if I was on the right team.
I especially enjoyed your last sentence!
As a numbers person, all these political debates are just petty tribalism. Show me the money.
You attack “libertarianism” or whatever the right in the UK claim to support, but does that mean you defend big government? To what level? 70% income tax and corporate tax and make the government do everything for everybody and keep inflating it to no limit?
Surely the truth is somewhere in the middle, and that’s where numbers people should be able to have a rational conversation.
I want free NHS and free access to universities for the smart and bright, and a modicum of support and training for those unable to find work, but I don’t want to finance foreign wars, or every single aspect of our lives – surely privitized telecoms, privitized trains, and airlines will always work better than the government equivalent.
This just comes down to numbers, maybe a 15%-35% flat tax does pay for those social services if the defense spending is eliminated, and sure more toll roads are introduced.
Is that libertarian thinking? maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle, and it’s worth having the conversation as numbers people instead of as blind political grand standing people? leave that to the political wankers.
If the state is the best supplier of a service – and it is of education, health, transport infrastructure, justice, law and order, security, social security and much more then I am all for a big state is that is what people want
And increasingly they do and will
Especially health – it’s the choice of people who have met much of their material need
Put simply – the ballot box should be allowed to let people choose as big a state as they want
It’s financial markets that deny that choice
It’s no wonder democracy is not delivering in that case
I’d take exception to the assertion that the state is the best supplier for transport infrastructure.
You are sort of hand waving though. How big does the state need to be for it to no longer be called a ‘libertarian’ paradise?
Can’t we just meet in the middle? Kill the stupid projects, privatize the trains planes and telephones etc, and get on with it?
Why compromise on the sub-optimal?
It worries me that anyone is still even suggesting that the Lib Dem Party, at least the ones that are in there, is any sort of soft option of Toryism.
Cable is as hard core as they come on corporate benefit liberalisation – even some Tories have their concerns on some bits. Hence his manic support for open borders for transnational corps to bring in cheap labour.
And Clegg is the foremost proponent for the UK being totally embedded in an EU that has been, from its inception, a corporate benefit machine. EU policy and EU Directives have been drafted by transnational corps throughout.
The fact that he got his nod and wink Clegg-up via Leon Brittan, who has more than any other individual led the charge for EU and transatlantic liberalisation for transnational corporations over the ast 20 years, and who then ensured that ‘his boy’ went on to where he is now, clearly shows where things are at.
The sooner people see through the way that the ‘soft side’ of the Lib Dems has been taken for a ride by those who are the actual movers, and how extreme they are, the better.