By propping up a viciously anti-poor government, and by giving it a false air of progressiveness, enabling even more radically right-wing policies than a minority Conservative government would be able to implement.
Why the lib-dems are shit
- Thread starter butchersapron
- Start date
By propping up a viciously anti-poor government, and by giving it a false air of progressiveness, enabling even more radically right-wing policies than a minority Conservative government would be able to implement.
No i'm a Liberal, I don't share any of the Christian Conservative tradition that the Tory right has. For instance I’m very much against prohibition of drugs, and for LGBT equality. I have some similarities with the Libertarian Tories when it comes to scaling back quangos and bureaucracies and agreeing with decentralization of power.
So you're slightly dissimilar to some Tories. Well done.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
You're a Tory have the guts to admit it, you coward
stethoscope
Well-Known Member
The Lib Dems haven't even been that effective at softening Tory policies so far anyway - Clegg basically admitted that he had changed his mind on speed and ferocity of cuts even before the election, I don't see many Lib Dems ministers openly condemning and standing against the cuts in various areas or proposed changes to benefits, housing, etc, they've backtracked on their tax principles, they seem to stand unnopposed to Pickles various civil liberty proposals, etc.
Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
decentralization of power = increasing the power of unaccountable private tyrannies. This in turn increases the need for more centralised state power to suppress protests against the social injustices caused through anti-poor measures and to bail out the private sector when they fuck shit up. Google the 1980s you thick cunt.
It must be reassuring to be so certain of your enemies, and so ready to identify them.
Why would I listen to anyone who is so rude and hostile? I think poverty is increased through the centralization of state power as it restricts people's abilty to produce and trade freely. Hence why attempts to create planned economies resulted in mass starvations, corruption and economic stagnation. Private companies can't help but be accountable to those who have the freedom to choose whether to purchase their products of services.
stethoscope
Well-Known Member
Except, as neo-liberal private sector economies grow around the world, we find the gap between the rich and poor increasing.
fractionMan
Custom Title
so you're a neo-liberal tory then
Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
Ha, just noticed your tagline Steph. That's gotta be my favourate line of the whole two seasons! 
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
Closure of nurserys, closure of social services, people losing jobs, pay and conditions being further eroded (my occupational sick pay is at risk for example), having to do more work for less money, library closures, leisure centre sell offs and that's just Birmingham.
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
You're a Thatcherite tory.
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
stethoscope
Well-Known Member
Ha, just noticed your tagline Steph. That's gotta be my favourate line of the whole two seasons!
Proper Tidy
Arsed
You thick deranged brainwashed fucker. The only people private companies are accountable to are their shareholders.
What was Chile like? Poland and Russia in the 90's? Argentina under the junta? Iraq? Were these free libertarian utopias? You idiot cunt.
"Neo-liberals are just fascists with self-help books"
No in all those countries you had a centralisation of state power, that was wielded against people.
Even if you can show that statement to be true then it doesn't follow the wealth of the poor hasn't increased. You also have to consider how the poor living in countries with planned economies are faring, but a comparison is almost impossible due to variable factors of resources.
fractionMan
Custom Title
Yes, people getting poorer is actually them getting richer. You're right.
No that's not what I said. What I said is that an increased gap between rich and poor may not be an indicator of increased poverty, but rather of increased wealth.
If you have 10 people and each has one coin then there is 0 gap between the rich and the poor. If you give 9 of these people another 2 coins and one person 20 coins then the gap between the rich and the poor increases, but so does the wealth of the poor.
And if there is the same amount of things to buy with this 'wealth', then they are poorer than before, because the only measurement of wealth in this sense is its ability to purchase goods and services, which has diminished due to the increased difference between their respective amounts.
stethoscope
Well-Known Member
Nasty public sector employing people - let's get rid of it and transfer it to the private sector instead. Oh but wait, we've had a global recession and private firms aren't hiring. Oh, and the private sector will only want to get involved where there are profits to be made. Ok, let's get people volunteering instead. Great. Oh hang on, we can't survive as no one is donating any money to support such ventures because they're out of work and we're in a recession. Help! Government!
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Exactly. Osborne came up with a great soundbite about measuring poverty relative to the median making no sense if we were getting richer, but it misses the point completely. Absolute poverty is defined as <$2/day/person, but this is a fuck of a lot more serious in the UK than it is in the developing world where monthly rents might be $10 and locally produced goods are priced according to local wages. If the general level of incomes goes up, so does the cost of living. It's nonsensical to claim that the poor person has got richer because they have more money, when their cost of living has risen faster than their income, thanks to most of the rise in productivity getting siphoned off to the richest.
fractionMan
Custom Title
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