Syd, I agree with your point about communism. Having lived in Berlin for seven years, I knew former East Germans who complain about things which were simply consigned to the dustbin when the overly-confident West Germans took over. (It wasn’t so much re-unification as a dissolution and annexation, but that’s another topic). Meanwhile, stuff which the East Germans did well – running kindergartens, for example, or looking after old people – have been quietly restored along the old lines, just with a lot more effort and expense to do it not quite as well.

I disagree strongly that we need the “sweeping shift to the Left” you call for. The ‘Left’* has simply got no answer to the following:

1. Austerity
Every Labour government, ever, has increased public spending. The next one can’t. So what’s its purpose?

2. Globalisation
How do you reconcile it with Keynesianism? As Francois Hollande has learnt, you can’t tax wealth before it disappears into an offshore haven. You can’t tax profits without failing growth targets. You can't borrow without being punished by the markets. Without more taxes you can't spend more.

3. Post-industrial consumerism
Collective or class solidarity has been so severely fractured as to make it a very sick man indeed. (That’s if it ever truly existed in the first place, which personally I doubt). The flag-waving lefties who bang on endlessly about it (from Owen Jones to Nick Gusset) are as deluded as those East Germans who, in response to current problems, get nostalgic about their old socialist republic.

*for want of a better term. Disclaimer: I object to traditional conservative views (many of which I hold) being lumped in with radical economic liberalist views (which I don't) and calling it “right-wing”. Just like lumping Bennite socialism (with which I have some sympathy) with beer-and-sandwich Union baronialism (with which I do not) is an unfair caricature of “the Left”.

...we must expand...get more pupils...so that the knowledge will spread...

1. Is austerity actually working? People are starting to get austerity fatigue [Link] . Have the ideas of Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogof been shown to work? We're borrowing more, the deficit isn't going down [Link]
People are on more fragile or zero hour contracts and many that are working are more reliant on benefits than ever.
My understanding was that the government need to earn more tax dollars (to coin a phrase) Is this happening? Where is the investment?
2. globalisation. We are in the s*** here. Rather than individual countries setting the rules, they are increasingly being set by conglomorates and corporations. The worldwide market means that production can just be moved to where it is cheapest. Whoever is in power government wise can do sweet fa about it - unless all countries got together and told the corporations that actually, there is no-where you can go that is a tax haven. Wherever you trade-you pay tax. Highly unlikely.
3. You titled it post industrial consumerism but didn't mention it. Consumerism and the must have the latest gadgets attitude we all have (me included) is merely a non-working soma for the masses. Does this new phone really make me happier? I am seeing a rise in a collectivism or mass protests against the above. I think social media has helped this.

* Union baronialism! Always makes me laugh when union leaders are referred to as barons. What is a baron (or baroness) Johnny. Definitely not someone democratically elected is it? Makes me laugh how language is b******ized for effect.

[Link]

Here's our Nige on channel 4 news last night looking rather uncomfortable when asked about working mums.

Nick........ you know that the more you and the left wing meeja highlight UKIP/Farage's apparent failings, the more the people like them and they go up in the polls mate!

At this rate they will achieve a landslide victory in next Thursday's bi-election.

Keep it up.

Boom Boom

Johnny,

A few thoughts....

I disagree strongly that we need the “sweeping shift to the Left” you call for.

I would underline that while I do think we need a considerable shift leftwards (not just to sate my own preferences, but also to balance the ledger of two decades and more of "conservative" (small 'c') rule, "sweeping" was nonetheless a deliberately vague choice of words. One man's giant leap is doubtless another's incremental step. Thus, out of interest, would you say our increasing tilt to the right is wholly desirable? Is any political groundshift a good thing if it is largely unconstrained? Or would you concede that whilst you'd prefer not to see a "sweeping" shift to the left, some corrective action leftwards (perhaps more minor than "sweeping" ) is required to re-balance the landscape?

The ‘Left’* has simply got no answer to the following:

1. Austerity
Every Labour government, ever, has increased public spending. The next one can’t. So what’s its purpose?

The next one can't increase public spending because? Of course it can -- in any number of ways; however (and of course), there will be consequences (inflation might be one, depending on the action it takes) if it does so. Perhaps it's a semantic point, but it is wrong to say it "can't". It can...but it probably won't due to the consequences. That's another debate, though -- and not a short one, either. Second point is why is increasing public spending a bad thing (it's implicit in your statement that you think it is)? Looking at any number of industries that have been de-nationalised to reduce the public bill, you could argue there are cases where the reverse is true. The reality is that governments should be judicious makers of policy; not merely doctrinaire (left or right). As for the question "what's its purpose?" I'm not sure what you're referring to. Austerity? Or the next labour government? Or a labour government that can't increase spending? Austerity would seem to have now served any purpose that it might once have had. The government appear to me entirely hamstrung with regard to what to do next.

2. Globalisation
How do you reconcile it with Keynesianism? As Francois Hollande has learnt, you can’t tax wealth before it disappears into an offshore haven. You can’t tax profits without failing growth targets. You can't borrow without being punished by the markets. Without more taxes you can't spend more.

It's a problem, as you rightly point out. The only possible answer is to regulate the markets and to regulate in turn the corporate world. You can likely make a strong case that governments, given their inclination towards short-termism (not least because their main priority is getting themselves re-elected every few years), are never going to have much appetite to make that happen. An ironic consequence of democracy, I suppose. What I do think -- and I don't have the answer with regard to how -- is that we need to fine-tune our system in a way that serves the interests of people rather than commercial enterprises. It's quite clear to me that the pendulum has swung far too far in the latter's favour in the past two decades and while I think in principle the right carries the can for this, the situation in which we now find ourselves really shouldn't be palatable to those on either the right or the left hand side of the equation (since most right-wing voters gain no more benefit from a world lop-sided in favour of the interests of enterprise than left-wing voters do. They just think they do because in their desire to be "upwardly mobile" (whatever that means) they swallow the line their betters provide them).

3. Post-industrial consumerism
Collective or class solidarity has been so severely fractured as to make it a very sick man indeed. (That’s if it ever truly existed in the first place, which personally I doubt). The flag-waving lefties who bang on endlessly about it (from Owen Jones to Nick Gusset) are as deluded as those East Germans who, in response to current problems, get nostalgic about their old socialist republic.

You make no point (other than mentioning it in the title of the bullet) about Post-industrial consumerism so I can't really respond to that. I can tell you I think it's an unedifying spectacle, but I think you could probably guess my perspective without my needing to spell it out. I'd hope you feel the same. With regard to collective or class solidarity being a very sick man indeed, I would agree that it has become or at one point became so but (and this is where we may differ) I think it is now becoming, or soon will be, re-emergent. Social constructs tend to come and go...as opposed to simply living and dying out...and I think there is evidence (from ACT-UP in the early 90s to the Wall Street Protests in the late 10s and doubtless other examples too) over the past two decades that forms of solidarity and community (perhaps not defined by social class, but certainly by common interests) are being, if slowly, re-born and are proving highly influential and effective. The best example I can give is the early days of the AIDS movement, where the solidarity of a disenfranchised (and largely hated) class of people (HIV positive/AIDS sufferers) within two years forced the official medical establishment of the United States to re-write its drug approval rules. These sorts of protest groups from the largely unfettered left have not only made the world a better place but, ironically, have massively benefitted the right. It is now everyday cancer patients who reap the continuing benefits of those rules having been re-written. I would be very careful if I were you about writing off the impact of community solidarity. The evidence suggests that it is alive and well, even if the media would rather starve such stories of oxygen.

Apologies for banging on. An interesting debate.

Edited by sydtheeagle (14 Nov 2014 4.28pm)

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.