The 'inner-city left'

[Dangles]

<Split from the 'Abbott to the ABC' thread>

[Tannin]

Fair enough comment there Dangles, except that you are a bit confused about terms. "Social issues" as you term them are by definition nothing to do with left and right. "Left" means concerned with the breaking down of economic domination and privilege; "right" means in favour of entrenching and extending economic inequality and inherited privilege. The "inner city left" you speak of isn't left at all except insofar as it supports equality of economic opportunity (which is in general peripheral to its main aims, which are not relevant to the left-right distinction).

[pietillidie]

Ah yes, the inner city left that everyone hates but knows nothing about. Surely the 37 most powerful people in the country! Apparently, not only do they control national policy and sprinkle dessicated small children on their muesli, they even live in multi-storey dwellings!

Have there been any sightings this week? And since when we're dessicated small children vegan fare?

[Dangles]

[watt price tully]

[Tannin]

[Mugwump]

[Mugwump]

[David]

[Tannin]

[Tannin]

Here is some useful background reading.

[pietillidie]

[I do so want to get involved in this latter conversation, but let's invite David to move us to another thread before I get blamed for derailing it ]

[Mugwump]

Your definition is �interesting� because it is so highly tendentious. As you frame it, only a monster would support the Right. And once you start thinking like that you�re losing a part of the truth.

You make plutocracy a creation of the Right (and you seem to regard the Right as simply neo-liberalism). I disagree. I think Thatcher, Reagan etc were soap bubbles on the surface of globalisation, which is about technology, not ideology. If you want to reduce plutocracy, you�ll need a theory (preferably politically viable) of how to manage inequality in an age of globalisation.

I agree that excessive concentration of capital � which we probably have now - impairs consumer markets and causes capital to chase unproductive assets in the hope of asset inflation. It�s a big problem. But it is only a creature of the Right if you start with your somewhat circular definition. I should add that globalisation has actually decreased inequality, looked at on a world scale, but I assume we are talking about national politics here.

Given the above, since the the modern Left can't get at the plutocrats, increasingly it just whacks middle incomes to support a government which has its own provider interest. Earn $80,000 equivalent in the UK and you work half the next week for the government. However, the (underlying) tax rate of 50%+ on relatively modest incomes is not busting inequality as you expect, because governments overstretch.

Most modern problems give rise to the cry "what is the government doing about it?� �. Followed by a minister quoting stats on rising spending that is not making much difference. That�s what happens when an economic agent is so remote from the payer and receiver, and when the payer and receiver are separate entities. Since I�m an economist, I could insert a whole bunch of stuff about producer and consumer surplus here, but I�ll spare both of us. If the government did much less, and was more demanding of some of its dependants, I think it might make more inroads into real inequality. But it might have to upset many on the Left to do so.

�Freedom of individual commercial contract and suppression of broader community rights are, of course, one and the same thing�. You�d need to explain to me why the community�s rights are suppressed when I sell my labour for goods in a free exchange, unless you believe that the state, as a representative of the commons, owns everything � including my labour and my body - on behalf of everyone. History has given us some tragic lessons in where that leads. I must be misunderstanding you.

I�d say the state provides facility which makes it possible for us to earn a living and to live in a pleasant society � including managed inequality. It has a perfect right to taxes commensurate with that. After that, it is starting to own things to which it has no right. The job of the political Right is to keep scrutinising that on behalf of a free man or woman. It's also, increasingly, the job of the Right to fix the fiscal overstretch (deficits and debt) so beloved of Leftward governments- a profligacy that usually makes inequality worse, eventually.

As to the question of negative externalities (air and water contamination etc), then there�s a wide body of economic theory which agrees, Right and Left, that the costs of production should be reflected in the price of the good, and that this is a role for government. You don�t need to be on the Left to believe that.

Enough ! I won't post any more on this as this is already too long. You can have the last word.

[Wokko]

I would've thought the free market should reflect the price of someone's labour/goods produced by said labour. Anyway, probably best not to provoke Nick's Comintern.

As for this government and free speech, remember there is a cadre of libertarian/free speech types in the Liberal Party but is a self described "broad church" and the totalitarians won that argument when the 18c amendments got dropped. Seem those types are still well in control of the party at the moment (see: Internet Filter).

[pietillidie]