I was involved in some Twitter debate yesterday about attacks that have been made recently on what has been described as the liberal left, who have been described by some as ‘enemies of working class people’.
Blah, blah, Soud’s a liberal leftie, sez Spud. Followed by:
But does that mean I am an enemy of the working class? I really do not know why.
Because every actual suggestion you make about anything at all fucks over the working class.
For example, your concentration upon fairness, equity, redistribution, at the expense of overall growth.
Over any meaningful period of time it is economic growth, not redistribution, which makes the difference to working class lives. If we stopped with the post-war Labor dispensation then we’d all be on £7k a year now (inflation adjusted into 2016 £). That’s if we had a perfectly egalitarian income distribution. If we’d stuck with the 1970s one then we’d all be on about £14k.
Over time growth is what matters, not the distribution at any one time. Which is why you’re an enemy of the working class. You not only seek to restrict growth – this GDP cannot be infinite nonsense – even when you think you’re increasing growth you’re actually depressing it.
Essentially, because you know no economics but presume to design the plan for an economy. A right and proper enemy of the people.
This is fun though:
John McDonnell was one of those who said that. Under him the ‘maxed out credit card’ mantra was on official Labour position.
And his chief economics adviser rejected modern monetary theory not because it did not describe very accurately how the money economy works, but because he suggested that it did not include a specifically Marxist class based explanation of the process of money creation. As a result he preferred an obviously wrong neoclassical theory.
That’s why I could not work with McDonnell.
If you shut your eyes, listen carefully and wish, you can still hear John McDonnell weeping into his cornflakes.
Y’know, I seem to hear loud cheering.
The subtleties of language.
Capt. Potato writes “I could not work with McDonnell”
Meaning is: “McDonnell could not work with me”
Subtext is: “nobody can”.
One of the lefts defining features appears to be open borders and the denigration of the native population in favour of immigrants. The importation of millions of low skilled third worlders , and east europeans has a negative effect on the native population in terms of housing costs, access to health care etc . The working class has borne the brunt of these depradations. The fact that the potato cannot see these facts even when they are staring him in the face – see his post about Sweden illustrates the delusional world the potato exists in.
Didn’t McDonnell once claim that public sector employment increase tax receipts?
I have to admit this is Comedy gold:
It so happens that I consider myself to be on the liberal, or more precisely, the libertarian left. I am strongly in favour of moves to reduce inequality, to support working people and their priorities, and to reduce the power of wealth, not least by redistributing it.
Maybe Corbyn should have had him speak to some of the ‘Red Wall’ seats?
At the same time I also pretty profoundly anti-racist; pro-feminist; am deeply sympathetic to issues around LGBTQ issues, whilst acknowledging the stresses within those movements; and am welcoming of significant free movement of people. This makes me socially libertarian. Add the two together I could be described as liberal left. I am unashamed about it
I’ve always found it very ‘libertarian’ to describe 45% of the voting public as ‘fascist’ or ‘racist’ – definitely something a ‘socially libertarian’ person would do. I wonder if he can define a ‘woman’
I have to also admit to being what I suspect most people would call an intellectual. It’s hard to be a professor and deny that. I am, again, unashamed of it.
I am reminded of a quote from someone who could be considered the ‘anti-Murphy, the late Peter Bauer – ‘such ridiculous statements could be repeated many times over – their presence in the so -called ‘quality press’ tells us much about the contemporary intellectual scene’
But does that mean I am an enemy of the working class? I really do not know why.
I get it that the neoliberal left might be described as such. I am inclined to make that point of some in the Labour Party right now.
It’s almost People’s liberation front of Judea territory now.
What a f%^&ing Eejit – just beyond satire.
An ‘intellectual’ is something other people say about you. Almost nobody who genuinely is one refers to themselves that way.
Really smart people are keenly aware of their limitations and of how much they don’t know.
Really smart people are keenly aware of their limitations and of how much they don’t know
‘Egon Krenz’ I think it was who successfully posted on the potato patch that the Cap’n was omninescient.
Is he actually a professor now, or merely a professor of practice 3 times over?
Does the Easterlin Paradox suggest that growth does not increase welfare?
What if growth is the wrong goal? What if the more you know, the less you need?
Martin, Peter Jenkins recounted that Tony Benn once announced that he intended to shed the stigma of being an intellectual, to which Crosland rejoined that he had better acquire it before he started to worry about losing it.
The Easterlin Paradox confuses many things. For instance you can have Bezos’ level of wealth, but if you have bone cancer and you’re going through a divorce I doubt you’re going to be happy.
I’m always impressed that so many senior East German politicians are able to contribute to the potato harvest.
I’d just love to see him at the pub trying to get chummy with some actual union workers. They’d laugh ‘im out of the place.
Fbfhfjf For a given definition of laughter…There may be a ballistic quality to his expedited exit..
Fbfhfjf
Van Patten will be able to explain in detail how Murphy was banned by the good publicans of Downham Market from all the hostelries in town – predictably for being an entitled, offensive and loud arse.
Fbfhfjf
I have been hunting down direct evidence (At the request of several contributors here) and am still searching through the Deep web (takes a bit of time)to find it.
My understanding is there was an altercation/ argument with a landlord in Downham Market (residence before Ely) and it escalated to the point where Murphy demanded the landlord apologize for creating a scene – this the infuriated landlord flatly refused to do. Murphy doubled down and he was promptly banned by the landlord in question (this being around the early 2000s) The landlord was so incensed he promptly contacted Pubwatch ( a voluntary scheme covering many towns/cities in England) for Downham and asked that the ban be extended across the board. Obviously I think not every pub in Downham Market was covered but that the remaining hostelries were ones where the clientele probably would have reacted badly to being lectured so it became a ‘de facto’ ban from the entire town. Clearly this is anecdotal but based on his reaction to any criticism – both on his comical Youtube skits and on his blog (he has blocked 20,000 on Twitter) it certainly seems plausible…
@VP – i find it difficult to believe that anyone would want to share a pint with the potato , (other than a simpering PSR) in the first place.
@moqifen I dunno. It could be fun. Once!
“ At the same time I also pretty profoundly anti-racist; pro-feminist; am deeply sympathetic to issues around LGBTQ issues, “
Those are mutually exclusive as long as T remains in the alphabet soup of self appointed victims.
“and am welcoming of significant free movement of people. “
I’ll bet he won’t be prepared to define significant as that will limit his ability to label people fascist. As he’s a self confessed progressive and any discussion about policy amongst progressives tends to be a race to the absurd my bet is that significant will tend towards infinity.
So if growth is good, but it takes away from my happiness by enclosing everything (like the Commons I love to live on, self-provisioning with water at least), is it just tough titty for me, might makes right, only the popular survives?
What if you didn’t assume growth was good for everyone, and let us use our nonviolent free speech to teach you how to live, by example?
Could you ever be satisfied with purely virtual growth to play with (truck and barter with each other in fictitious financial goods) , without having to enclose real things, so everyone could be happy?
A lot of recent growth *has* been virtual. How many kilograms does social media weigh? How many boxes does YouTube fit in? What’s the density of online medical examinations?
“is it just tough titty for me, might makes right, only the popular survives?”
As Mother Nature teaches by example all around you: Yes, tough titty.
As highschool should have taught you: the “popular” wins, if only through peer pressure, regardless of the actual sanity of whatever is in vogue.
Especially when any counter-opinion is “non-violent”.
There is no such thing as “non-violence” in nature. Just because you can’t see/notice the Eternal War going on doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
And pretending it doesn’t count because we’re human and have “other choices” is plain old stupid and a classic case of denial.
There’s actually some classic math in population biology to describe how the choice of forming a “social group” diminishes individual choice ( and as a result potential “happyness” ), even while improving the chances of survival ( and potential “well-being” ) of the group as a whole.
And the course those social groups take is most definitely not determined through “non-violence” in even the most basic forms. It’s the big bastard that hogs all the females, along with his current Favorite(s) who does.
In Nature Might does make Right. More so as population pressure starts to limit resources and things get tight.
And under the thin veneer of “Civilisation” (ymmv on exactly what that is depending on geographical location..) humans are still very much part of Nature. As plenty cases in history, recent or ancient, have proven.
Which means the basic rules still very much apply, and any kind of philosophy or “alternative” will lose out against the good old-fashioned percussive application of a stick to the noggin.
Or, less “violently” , the opinion of an individual against a contrary majority opinion in the (local) group.
(Learning how to) deal with this is an important part of “Adulting”.
Part of that “dealing with” depends on the ability and willingness to pick up that stick and apply it to a choice of noggins if the situation calls for it.
For if you don’t or can’t, the actual bastards will walk all over you, and your non-violent picket signs.
A lesson they obviously don’t teach in Hippie School.
There’s your Dismal Answer for you.
A comment on the graph.
Fortunate for Tim’s argument that it only extends to 2016 & doesn’t include the latter period, when the country’s been run on the principles of Spudonomics.
For we’re all spudonomists now, aren’t we?
@Tim
If what they’re saying is true, then when you’re in the UK again you should extend an olive branch and invite him out for a pint.