Thanks to Jolyon Maugham and 'Nearly Legal' my attention has been drawn to the winning article in 18-121 category of the Adam Smith Institute 'Young Writer on Liberty' competition. This is by someone called Theo Clifford. His argument is that the UK's housing problem comes down to the fact that:
Britain needs more slums
Yes, you read that right. One of the UK's leadign right wing think tanks, much beloved of Margaret Thatcher, has published an article (and let's ignore the author's age; it is of no consequence) that suggests that the UK's housing problem demands that:
Sweeping deregulation is the only way to provide Britain with the slums it is crying out for.
And how does he define these slums? They are housing that:
in the eyes of local authorities ... are too small, or too tall, or the ceilings are too low, or the windows not energy efficient enough.
No doubt they also lack proper fire exits, have dubious sanitation, are built of asbestos, aren't watertight, are wired by cowboys, have gas fittings that have not been checked and much else too.
So, the Right's answer to the wealth inequality that is preventing young people accessing housing is not to tax land, or property gains, or to introduce a land value tax, or address the issue of empty houses and undeveloped land, or indeed to have the state use its capacity to build infrastructure using ideas like People's Quantitative Easing, but is instead to permit slums and all the abuse, including that by unscrupulous landlords that always goes with them.
When it comes to a particular sort of poverty, whether it be of thinking or aspiration, you have to admit that the Right really does corner the field, and what is shocking is that the Adam Smith Institute now thinks it is possible to publish articles in support of Rachmanism.
Cathy come home, is all I can say in response.
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Ah yes, Adam Smith. Why is it that he has an institute and is known as the ‘father of economics’ but his contemporary Sir James Steuart doesn’t (not that I can find just now, anyway, I think there was one for a time) and isn’t?
Could it be perhaps that, while Steuart and others of the day were quite happy to openly discuss and accept that peasants living a happy, self-sufficient and sustainable life on the Commons would have to be forcefully deprived of that way of life in order for what would become known as Capitalism to take root and flower, Smith preferred to gloss over this aspect with airy-fairy talk of invisible hands and so forth. This airbrushed and sanitised version of events was and is naturally much preferred by those who exploit us, hence the one gets his own institute and is celebrated while those who would properly explain the brutal reality are suppressed. So then, from an institute which exists solely to assist in sugar-coating the exploitation of the masses, what else would anyone expect?
Though I know little about economic history, i think calling this institute after Adam Smith is an example of Neoclassical economists misinterpreting Adam Smith as one of their own. He was a Classical economist, and thought there is a significant difference between wealth creation and parastic rent-extraction. The Neoclassicals lump all ways of getting rich together, and think they’re all good.
rentiers desperately defending their position?
Slums were, at least, cheap. I expect int he world of this writer, they would command a ‘market rent’ i.e. also be expensive.
Do you not think that perhaps Theo Clifford was taking the piss and that the Adam Smith Institute fell for it?
If said Theo is really serious it is too depressing to contemplate.
He has a blog
I think he is serious
I’m surmised the article didn’t also say:
” the more we force people into death-trap, mouldering slums, the more motivation they will have to get out of them and better themselves and become entrepreneurially inspired. Reducing people to abject penury is a time-honoured method of punishing them for their lack of initiative and zeal to become a vampyric rentier and until we have a society that has become 100% vampyric rentier we will not have acheived our goal.”
An image of the young William Hague sycophantically grinning on meeting Thatcher comes to mind-clearly this young man need to be condescendingly patted on the head whilst being told he’s ‘doing the right thing.’
Having recovered from my immediate reaction as to how anyone could write/believe such nonsense, my second thought was ‘a definite future Tory MP then’.
But leaving that aside, what does this tell us about the type and level of social history young people learn? I assume any knowledge of the state of housing for many millions of people up to and including the 1960s (and beyond, but I’ll come back to that in a minute) is completely lacking. If not what I assume we have is yet another person who clearly believes that many of his fellow human beings deserve to be treated like scum.
And talking of modern day slums, not many years ago now, just a mile or so from the centre of Nottingham, I could have taken you to a group of four garages – still with their up and over doors – each of which had been converted into a bedsit. I assume the Adam Smith institute would approve.
(Note: it’s probably timely for the BBC to dig out a superb series on housing from 1989 ‘The Home Front’ presented by Patrick Nuttgens (producer Mark Rowland). Episode 2, ‘What about the Workers’ deals specifically with slum housing and attempts to deal with it.)
Ivan
Is that on Youtube anywhere?
And thanks
Richard
I Googled it before I put my comment up and have just done it more thoroughly again and can’t find it. As you might imagine, most of the stuff that comes up relates to the Home Fronts of the 1st and 2nd world wars. Looking at Patrick Nuttgens wikipedia entry I see he wrote ‘The Home Front: housing the people 1840 – 1990’, so I assume the BBC production was based on that. I only know about it because the OU has access to the BBC archive and I used some material from the series for a joint OU/BBC production a few years ago. A great pity it’s not publicly available as I was struck by what a superb series it was – probably the most informative and insightful thing I’ve seen or read on housing ever.
Unlikely to be repeated then….
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Home-Front-Housing-1850-1990/dp/0563207140
He certainly was at one stage a Lib Dem supporter.
So was Mark Littlewood of the IEA
That’s the libertarian wing of the LibDems
It might have more force if he said Britain needs more slums – and I’m prepared to live in one.
His blog does at least say “Writing down my thoughts while I’m still young enough to know everything”, so there may be hope for him – if not the Adam Smith institute.
Don’t know how old this young man is but I hope he will modify his views before maturity sets in.
My eyes light up and I get quite excited and vociferous when the letters NHS appear. Now getting to grips with LVT, how fantastic
Being a new convert but far from expert it seems we surely must embrace it.
I now have another subject to assail my dog friends with.!
only just found out that Andy Wightman did a LVT on England for Caroline Lucas. I being rather dim find it understandable if I concentrate hard. You all probably know already, I am still playing catch up. I am having a very latent political wake up. I guess people are too busy earning a living to get involved with issues, time precious, knackered at the end of the day, I know I was.
One might wonder whether this is just a few steps ahead of current DWP policy. The reduced benefit cap will make housing unaffordable for many families if they don’t have a job, or when they lose their jobs. The government is clearly determined to destroy the social housing sector. In the private rented sector, where it is really the landlords who are getting large subsidies at public expense, they blame it all on the tenants. This could logically lead to allowing landlords to cram more tenants into properties, supposedly to reduce the cost of housing benefit, but doubtless making each property more profitable to the landlord, and in practice not necessarily reducing the housing benefit bill anyway.
However, given the DWP’s obsession with trying to get everybody, even the severly disabled, to work, but often only for their benefits, not for the minimum wage (let alone the living wage), perhaps the more logical destination is the return of the Victorian workhouse. But this time, they would of course be run by the usual contracting-out companies, who are already deeply involved in the DWP, not to mention in the prison service (which may be a closely related area).
Apparently The Adam Smith Institute is one of the world’s leading think tanks. Independent, non-profit and non-partisan, it works to promote libertarian and free market ideas through research, publishing, media commentary, and educational programmes. The Institute is today at the forefront of making the case for free markets and a free society in the United Kingdom.
The fact that Mr Clifford can present such drivel and economic hogwash to ASI and not only have it published by them, but they think it is winning material speaks volumes about that organization!
Why do I think of Charlatans, Carpet Baggers and Snake Oil Salesmen whenever I hear their name mentioned.
Had Adam Smith been alive today I think he would have found the winning article quite shocking!
Given that Richard is a supporter of environmental causes and yet also supports mass immigration – at what point would he recognise that there has to be a limit to building in one of Europe’s most densely populated countries?
I find it remarkable that the Green party – which once used to advocate population REDUCTION – now favours a come one come all policy AND, bizarrely, that the number of children one has is a matter of personal choice.
The Greens are not held back by FPTP. They are shackled by their own (self-righteous) incoherence.
Maybe you have not noted the articles I have occasionally published from my friend and Green New Deal colleague Colin Hines?
Whilst I am not in entire agreement with Colin nor is it true to say by any stretch of the imagination that I am a supporter of mass migration
I haven’t tried this before, but I thought it would be interesting to engage in some introspective analysis on this piece using Bernard Lonergan’s transcendental precepts, or to put it more informally, the Four B’s. I have tried to be charitable using the old maxim, give credit where it is due.
The Four B’s are: Be Attentive, Be Intelligent, Be Reasonable and Be Responsible.
So firstly, Be Attentive. Well Theo has certainly cottoned on to the fact that there is a housing crisis, due to the lack of affordable housing which make it difficult for young people like himself to get onto the housing market. “The market desperately wants to provide houses people can live in at prices they can afford”, he says. But then he concludes that not only do we need more slums, but Britain is “crying out” for them! Does he know what a slum is? The Oxford English Dictionary defines a slum as:
i) an overcrowded and squalid back street district;
ii) a house or building unfit for human habitation.
It seems quite likely that he does not know (or chooses not to know) what a slum is, as he has probably led a sheltered life with his parents, and if he has ever visited a slum while on holiday then I expect it has always been with a four star hotel nearby equipped with proper sanitation and amenities. So he has not been attentive here.
Second, Be Intelligent. He does have an argument. It is that local authorities with their “exhaustive safety inspections and energy efficiency standards” are making it difficult to provide homes which pass all their stringent tests. He says, “Government regulations designed to clamp down on ‘cowboy landlords’ restrict people’s ability to choose the kind of accommodation in which they want to live.” Housing should cater for the needs of the individual and family, which vary from one to the next. So he concludes that slums are needed. But by this he means slums that are unfit for human habitation because it has been deemed by local authorities that they “are too small, or too tall, or the ceilings are too low, or the windows not energy efficient enough.” It passes the dictionary definition, but it is not an intelligent use of the word. He is interpreting it in a narrow sense.
Thirdly, Be Reasonable. Let’s adopt his narrow sense of the term ‘slum’ and see if he is making a reasonable case. He is arguing from the housing crisis (fact) to the need for slums. But even if it were true that slums would solve the housing crisis, it does not follow that to solve the housing crisis we need slums. It is a classic example of the fallacy, if A, then B; but B is true, therefore A is also. Britain is crying out for a solution to its housing crisis, not for slums, and I believe Mr Murphy has presented a far better alternative elsewhere.
And finally, the fourth B, Be Responsible. At this point I have to bow to his youth, and accept that he cannot be held responsible for producing such a blatantly ignorant, stupid and incoherent piece of work. There are redeeming features. He shows concern. But the responsibility must certainly be borne by the Adam Smith Institute for awarding this hopeful young man with the prize that will feed his ego, and fuel his passion to produce more of this semi-rational nonsense. I hope (and pray) that he will meet the right people to inspire and guide him to put his talents to good use, for the country, our world-wide society, and for himself.
The young man clearly does not know that housing CAN be potentially built cheaply and sustainably using better materials but the market won’t allow it because it takes the time an oil tanker needs to turn full circle before business and industry can make the necessary changes to practices.
Hemp springs to mind here.
What a thoroughly depressing state of affairs it has become when such ideas are lauded by so called respected think tanks. No thought has been put into how ordinary people will be affected by living in slum housing. I despair of the society we are heading towards.
“No thought has been put into how ordinary people will be affected by living in slum housing”
No thought is needed. The thought has already been done.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17185294
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/67689/cities-new-frontier.pdf
There are plenty of government and academic studies into poverty accommodation.
You are confusing ignorance with thoughtless malice.
It is not that they do not know, it IS that they do not CARE.
Every society “needs” their poor. Poor defines rich. Those that have not, define those that have.
Your failure is in not recognising that “poor” is an industry in itself.
Just look at how much advertising, news-stories, television-stories etc are taken-up by reporting (commercialising) this countries/worlds poor, deprived and sick.
agenda21 .smart cities /wifi gulags
http://www.itv.com/news/wales/2015-07-16/see-the-uks-first-low-cost-energy-smart-house/
Can do.
Won’t do.
We exist in an age, and with government, that thinks of protecting property investment before provision of housing.