Libertarian Party Uk

[Azrael]

Let's do it on a bulletin board level: If you filled in the Political Compass for the Labour government, they'd be right of the y axis, and above the x axis.

"Bulletin board level".

Did the parade of "ex" socialists, "ex" Marxists and "ex" Trotskyites all have Damascene conversions to neo-liberalism? If so, they got a bit confused along the road: instead of a pared-down state, government and the public sector are more bloated than ever; £500 million spent drawing up contracts for PFI on the Tube; tax-raids on pensions; money thrown at the NHS; education spending to reach £74 billion.

Or maybe Labour figured that if they abolished a dead-letter clause and made a few pro-business squeaks, it'd be enough for the press to label them "right-wing" and, incredibly, "conservative". Instead of running around trying to re-nationalize everything, focus on the cultural war you're really interested in, box clever on the economy, and advance egalitarianism on the quiet.

I think the political compass just lost true north.

 

[BlueSquareThing]

That long haired twat has the name Felix Bungay, no wonder he's such a twat, a name like that would damage anyone!

The University of York Tory Gits League says that:

Felix Bungay (proposition) and Hedley Mellor (opposition) debated the motion "This House supports a federal structure for the UK". The motion did not pass. The votes were as follows:
For : 4
Against: 6

So, 10 Tories at York then

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

You propose social ownership and self management of the MoP?

Minus state intervention I think the most likely form that larger scale production would take is that of voluntary co-ops, self employed producers working in smaller workshops would be more common than now.

 

[Blagsta]

"Bulletin board level".

Did the parade of "ex" socialists, "ex" Marxists and "ex" Trotskyites all have Damascene conversions to neo-liberalism? If so, they got a bit confused along the road: instead of a pared-down state, government and the public sector are more bloated than ever; £500 million spent drawing up contracts for PFI on the Tube; tax-raids on pensions; money thrown at the NHS; education spending to reach £74 billion.

Or maybe Labour figured that if they abolished a dead-letter clause and made a few pro-business squeaks, it'd be enough for the press to label them "right-wing" and, incredibly, "conservative". Instead of running around trying to re-nationalize everything, focus on the cultural war you're really interested in, box clever on the economy, and advance egalitarianism on the quiet.

I think the political compass just lost true north.

You should have a gander at the David Harvey book I keep recommending to people. He points out that neo-liberalism in practice often means the expansion of state power, but an expansion that serves to benefit capital.

 

[tim]

I do wish you lot would stop misusing the word "libertarian".

Shouldn't they be free to use it any way they like?

 

[Blagsta]

Minus state intervention I think the most likely form that larger scale production would take is that of voluntary co-ops, self employed producers working in smaller workshops would be more common than now.

I always had you pegged as some free market nutcase. I think it was you banging on about fractional reserve banking, fiat currency etc. Usually the preserve of the extreme right and/or conspiraloons.

 

[Blagsta]

Shouldn't they be free to use it any way they like?

Try reading the thread?

 

[LLETSA]

You should have a gander at the David Harvey book I keep recommending to people. He points out that neo-liberalism in practice often means the expansion of state power, but an expansion that serves to benefit capital.

John Gray too.

The reason why the state became ever more bloated with neo-liberalism are more than obvious.

Capitalism in all its forms has never been able to do without a strong state to impose its will.

 

[LLETSA]

"Bulletin board level".

Did the parade of "ex" socialists, "ex" Marxists and "ex" Trotskyites all have Damascene conversions to neo-liberalism? If so, they got a bit confused along the road: instead of a pared-down state, government and the public sector are more bloated than ever; £500 million spent drawing up contracts for PFI on the Tube; tax-raids on pensions; money thrown at the NHS; education spending to reach £74 billion.

Or maybe Labour figured that if they abolished a dead-letter clause and made a few pro-business squeaks, it'd be enough for the press to label them "right-wing" and, incredibly, "conservative". Instead of running around trying to re-nationalize everything, focus on the cultural war you're really interested in, box clever on the economy, and advance egalitarianism on the quiet.

I think the political compass just lost true north.

You can't advance egalitarianism while at the same time persuing a pro-business agenda that has seen economic inequality widen increasingly over the past thirty years.

 

[Fedayn]

You can't advance egalitarianism while at the same time persuing a pro-business agenda that has seen economic inequality widen increasingly over the past thirty years.

I think the words 'nail on head' are apt here.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

I always had you pegged as some free market nutcase. I think it was you banging on about fractional reserve banking, fiat currency etc. Usually the preserve of the extreme right and/or conspiraloons.

Hehe, I still may be a free-market nutcase mind you. Just not from that end of the political spectrum. I appologise in advance for any 'banging on' that may occur in the future as a result of this.

 

[Azrael]

You can't advance egalitarianism while at the same time persuing a pro-business agenda that has seen economic inequality widen increasingly over the past thirty years.

Well, no. "Third way" thinking is incoherent and ultimately doomed. But then, you can't advance economic equality full stop. If the left accepted this it would loose the justification for its existence.

I suspect the cannier members of Labour do realise it, at least unconsciously, which is why they've turned their focus to cultural issues. Or maybe not. More likely, they're playing the long game, and realise that openly attacking capitalism isn't the way to go.

If Labour had really put egalitarianism behind them, they'd have revoked their support for comprehensive schooling, not a symbolic clause in their constitution. Or they'd have rolled back the expansion of the universities, and increased the stringency of exams.

For now, they know that they're guaranteed attacks from economic purists, which helps them no end. Mr Kinnock's manufactured war with Militant writ large. I'll happily have a look at Mr Harvey's book on neo-liberalism, but I'd be surprised if it showed Labour in a new light. The question isn't just the size of the state, but what its desired ends are.

 

[Blagsta]

You're quite mad aren't you.

 

[Azrael]

C'mon Blagsta, you can do better than ad hominem.

Do you dispute the bit about comprehensive schooling, to give just one example.

 

[LLETSA]

Well, no. "Third way" thinking is incoherent and ultimately doomed. But then, you can't advance economic equality full stop. If the left accepted this it would loose the justification for its existence.

I suspect the cannier members of Labour do realise it, at least unconsciously, which is why they've turned their focus to cultural issues. Or maybe not. More likely, they're playing the long game, and realise that openly attacking capitalism isn't the way to go.

If Labour had really put egalitarianism behind them, they'd have revoked their support for comprehensive schooling, not a symbolic clause in their constitution. Or they'd have rolled back the expansion of the universities, and increased the stringency of exams.

For now, they know that they're guaranteed attacks from economic purists, which helps them no end. Mr Kinnock's manufactured war with Militant writ large. I'll happily have a look at Mr Harvey's book on neo-liberalism, but I'd be surprised if it showed Labour in a new light. The question isn't just the size of the state, but what its desired ends are.

Well yes, actually.

I'm not going to get into debating the frankly deranged idea that the declining old sellout Labour Party has a hidden communist agenda, but you must be the only one who still takes seriously, or even mentions, 'Third Way thinking,' whatever it was supposed to be.

All of the things you mention, you may have noticed, are, rightly or wrongly, supported by all the mainstream parties, including the Tories. Whether economic equality is achievable is debatable, but Labour never believed it was, although many of its leading members may once have believed that economic inequality could be reduced, a belief adopted by the Tories and other mainstream parties, too, when they realised that capitalism runs more smoothly when drastic differences in income cause rising tensions. Still, I doubt if that'll make much impression on the kind of right-winger who, as communism recedes into history starts to see increasing numbers of communists everywhere. In their eyes even billionaires are communists these days. There's a word for those who manufacture enemies when the real ones disappear, but it escapes me for the moment. Oh yeah, that's it: nutters.

I think you'll find, too, that there was nothing manufactured about Kinnock's war with Militant. He meant it and they got thrown out, split and declined, never again to re-emerge in anything like as confident a guise. He did it so that the capitalists and their media would trust Labour to hold office again.

So, unable to argue that capitalism hasn't always been totally reliant on the state and that neo-liberalism hasn't seen its expansion everywhere, you move the goalposts and talk about the aims of the state. You will find that this relates to the points made above about the way the big two mainstream parties have for a long time shared many of the same aims, stemming from both the (broadly speaking) right of the political spectrum and the left, and have used the state to advance them.

 

[LLETSA]

C'mon Blagsta, you can do better than ad hominem.

Do you dispute the bit about comprehensive schooling, to give just one example.

As already said, the Tories also support comprehensive schooling now, and many always did. But then, the Tories, despite thirty-odd years of neo-liberalism and the decimation of one-nation paternalism are 'commies' now as well, aren't they?

 

[Azrael]

All of the things you mention, you may have noticed, are, rightly or wrongly, supported by all the mainstream parties, including the Tories.

Absolutely. This doesn't invalidate my case; it helps it.

I don't believe in some communist conspiracy. If any of the knurled fellow travelers in the Labour Party remain, they'll soon be dispatched to the taxidermist and displayed for nostalgia purposes. Labour's egalitarianism has become an instinct, just as conservatism once was. It's adapted itself to the times, but its aims are the same. This is why it goes unnoticed by purists who focus of economic minutiae.

The Conservative Party has traded principle for power since before the Second World War, and as I said a page or so back, has been compromising with left-wing ideas at least since Macmillan's The Middle Way. Mr Cameron is the apotheosis of this pathetic trend, nailing the coffin on grammar schools and other conservative causes.

I've yet to meet anyone who suggests that Millitant was a serious movement. From what I gather it was a joke even amongst the far left. Mr Kinnock needed to "crush the left" to regain credibility, so he selected a patsy, inflated its importance, and snuffed it out.

I don't know where you've got the idea that I think capitalism can exist separate from a strong state: I've ridiculed it in this very thread. What I do think is that Labour are boxing clever, waging a war of attrition through education, the public sector, and culture. The old ideas haven't died; merely changed their spots.

 

[Azrael]

As already said, the Tories also support comprehensive schooling now, and many always did. But then, the Tories, despite thirty-odd years of neo-liberalism and the decimation of one-nation paternalism are 'commies' now as well, aren't they?

On grammar schools specifically, too many in the Conservative Party have disregard them. Meritocracy is, after all, anathema to the instinctive Toryism that preceded Edmund Burke. At best, they didn't prioritize their restoration.

But they're also anathema to socialism. Anthony "If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy every fucking grammar school" Crossland understood this perfectly.

He wrote, "The school system in Britain remains the most divisive, unjust and wasteful of all the aspects of social inequality," and more tellingly, "Society's educational talent scouts will spot the future Bevins and Morrisons at an early age, and rush them off for training as members of the elite; and the Trade Unions will be led by the indifferent residue, and the Labour Party entirely by Old Etonians."

Well, it was Fettes actually, but close enough.

 

[LLETSA]

Absolutely. This doesn't invalidate my case; it helps it.

I don't believe in some communist conspiracy. If any of the knurled fellow travelers in the Labour Party remain, they'll soon be dispatched to the taxidermist and displayed for nostalgia purposes. Labour's egalitarianism has become an instinct, just as conservatism once was. It's adapted itself to the times, but its aims are the same. This is why it goes unnoticed by purists who focus of economic minutiae.

The Conservative Party has traded principle for power since before the Second World War, and as I said a page or so back, has been compromising with left-wing ideas at least since Macmillan's The Middle Way. Mr Cameron is the apotheosis of this pathetic trend, nailing the coffin on grammar schools and other conservative causes.

I've yet to meet anyone who suggests that Millitant was a serious movement. From what I gather it was a joke even amongst the far left. Mr Kinnock needed to "crush the left" to regain credibility, so he selected a patsy, inflated its importance, and snuffed it out.

I don't know where you've got the idea that I think capitalism can exist separate from a strong state: I've ridiculed it in this very thread. What I do think is that Labour are boxing clever, waging a war of attrition through education, the public sector, and culture. The old ideas haven't died; merely changed their spots.

There you go again, claiming that Labour is able to pusue an egalitarian agenda (which you don't define but merely allude to with vague murmurings about education, culture and the public sector) at the same time as determinedly applying the same policies that have seen inequality accelerating for thirty years. And yet you deny that you see some secret communist agenda at work. What exactly do you think 'the old ideas' of Labour are?

The Tory party was a pragmatic party long, long before the post-WW2 era. That's why some leading Tories were uncomfortable with the ideological dogmatism of 'Thatcherism', or more accurately neo-liberalism. The reason why, prior to Thatcher, they adopted part of the agenda of the soft left and make some pretence at doing so now is, as already pointed out, because they know that capitalism runs more smoothly when social tensions are softened by a less starkly unequal society.

Militant may have been many things, but Labour's leadership did take it seriously due to Liverpool city council and so did capitalism's media with its hysterical coverage.

'Labour's egalitarianism has become an instinct, just as conservatism once was. It's adapted itself to the times, but its aims are the same.' Sorry, this doesn't make any sense.

(And what's a 'knurled fellow traveller' when its at home? If you can give me some tips on how to avoid this process of 'knurling' I'd be grateful, because it sounds nasty.)

 

[LLETSA]

On grammar schools specifically, too many in the Conservative Party have disregard them. Meritocracy is, after all, anathema to the instinctive Toryism that preceded Edmund Burke. At best, they didn't prioritize their restoration.

But they're also anathema to socialism. Anthony "If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy every fucking grammar school" Crossland understood this perfectly.

He wrote, "The school system in Britain remains the most divisive, unjust and wasteful of all the aspects of social inequality," and more tellingly, "Society's educational talent scouts will spot the future Bevins and Morrisons at an early age, and rush them off for training as members of the elite; and the Trade Unions will be led by the indifferent residue, and the Labour Party entirely by Old Etonians."

Well, it was Fettes actually, but close enough.

The Tories who mattered didn't prioritise grammar schools because they understood that capitalism as it had evolved was better served by the comprehensives. You seem to think that the Tory Party ought to be more ideologically driven than it ever has been in reality, even in recent decades.

Crossland could have been describing the way the grammar school system worked with that quote, couldn't he?

 

[danny la rouge]

Did the parade of "ex" socialists, "ex" Marxists and "ex" Trotskyites all have Damascene conversions to neo-liberalism?

It was the lure of power that convinced them.

You really need to look at what neoliberalism is. It isn't a pared down state at all. (And, incidentally, you should look at Thatcher's actual actions, in contrast with her pronouncements. There was a subsidized state alright, just not for the benefit of plebs).

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Most of the libertarians I've encountered, while they are in many ways pretty vile (e.g. on the NHS), do at least have a genuine commitment to anti racism, anti homophobia and so on, and tend to favour drug legalisation. They're also usually pro open borders.

 

[nino_savatte]

Which reminds me, Thatcher was something of a libertarian. Now that may strike some as a rather wacky thing to say but, when Matthew Parris announced that he was gay, she didn't bat an eyelid.

 

[BlueSquareThing]

Which reminds me, Thatcher was something of a libertarian. Now that may strike some as a rather wacky thing to say but, when Matthew Parris announced that he was gay, she didn't bat an eyelid.

I cant quite see how that makes her libertarian?

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

This US libertarian on another site was very pro immigrant. He said that indiginous workforces in places like the UK were just lazy and that immigrants were hard working and there was no reason whatsoever to limit their numbers.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

As part of my course, we had this guy from the EG West Centre which is a Newcastle Uni thinktank come and give us a talk about his vision for education in the UK. He said that education in the UK was a near-total failure, with parents having so little choice, and said that the Department of Education should be abolished and everyone would get a voucher equivalent to the current cost of sending a child to school in Britain. They could use that voucher to take their child to any school they desired.

Thing is, some of the points he made were quite compelling. He said that a large proportion of our schools would have simply closed down if they were commercial businesses. He reckoned that things couldn't get any worse how they were and his radical move would be at least a bit better, and that the voucher would ensure that there was still free education

 

[nino_savatte]

I cant quite see how that makes her libertarian?

There are plenty of other things that make her a libertarian: her dislike of regulation for one thing.

 

[butchersapron]

A purely polemical dislike of regulation shadowed by real growth of the state and regulation - regulations aimed at her political enemies - just look at the anti-union legislation for example. A consistent liberatartian should fully endorse the freedom of labour to organise and so on.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Yeah, but the 'Swamped by immigrants' stuff, the clause 28 homophobia, the militarism, none of that really chimes with libertarians I've chatted to.

Most are genuinely socially liberal IME, they're just economically social darwinist with it

 

[butchersapron]

Yeah, but the 'Swamped by immigrants' stuff, the clause 28 homophobia, the militarism, none of that really chimes with libertarians I've chatted to.

Most are genuinely socially liberal IME, they're just economically social darwinist with it

I think it's a handy myth that she was a social liberal - spread by the new (mostly genuine) tory social liberals who want to impose her politics but gloss over the rest of it.