Posts by Idiot Savant
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If the left isn't for individual freedom (in its substantive sense of requiring the economic resources to be actually realised rather than merely theoretical), then what is it for?
So, what are you saying? 4WDs and flat-screen TVs for everyone? The Left is a broad church, and I, for one, think it should still have room for those who think there should be moral, ethical, and practical constraints on consumption. (Or, as you put it, the "realisation" of "economic resources.")
That's a rather perverse reading. The economic resources required for individual freedom to be actually realised are things like free healthcare and education and a welfare state which allows people to continue to pursue their life-plans regardless of the vagaries of fortune, rather than one which drives them further into poverty. It's not about consumption, its about the state providing stuff so that we are free to get on with our lives.
If you want to attack consumerism, fine, be my guest. But individualism is perfectly compatible with being on the left. it just requires a bunch of old fuddy-duddies to lose the sticks up their arses and stop purporting to represent people who have never consented to such.
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Though I suppose you could believe that Labour does not think that inequality leads to negative social effects. This a) flies in the face of their public statements; and b) requires us to belive that they are inutterably stupid. Intellectual charity demands I believe they are evil instead.
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in that case why make claims about the mental state of actors you haven't got a clue about?
On the grounds that if they really gave a shit, they'd do a lot more. They don't, therefore they don't - classic modus ponnens.
It is not as if the solutions to inequality are unknown. Progressive taxation and redistribution are not some grand mysteries which elude us. Labour does not pursue these policies because it does not want to. And that puts them squarely on the hook for failing to tackle what is supposedly their chief concern: inequality.
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If there were some serious government carrot/stick, we might convince our landlord to replace the fittings similarly to how he has improved the insulation since that became subsidised.
I'd suggest regulating for minimum standards to solve the problem of split incentives in rental properties, but someone - probably a landlord - would cry "nanny state".
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Also: the bullshit false dichotomy between economic and social leftism is, of course, bullshit: we can have both, and in fact I think have to go together. I think that the left should be running on economics at the moment, because when there's a global economic crisis caused and prolonged by mad right-wing policies, I think there's one really obvious case to be made, but that isn't to say we should throw the rest under the bus.
Unfortunately, many people seem to think it means exactly that.
No, this does not follow from the premises.
I'm not talking about premise - I'm talking about their actual policy record. For a party supposedly committed to greater economic equality, Labour is awfuly timid in enacting policies that would help. Yes, they've had successes - Working For Families is the best move we've seen on that front for a long time. But it is still basically tinkering around the edges of the problem.
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What does it say about a government that thinks it needs to take such an easy choice out of the hands of ordinary New Zealanders? Do they think we are stupid?
You can make the same argument about any form of consumer regulation: unsafe food, unsafe cars, products that do not work as advertised, rip-off loans. And the answer is that not everyone does serious due-dilligence whenever they buy a lightbulb (or a car, or a happy meal, or a heater), and that in the absence of regulation some will inevitably be ripped-off. Consumer regulation protects us against this. And to turn your argument back on you, if its a choice you think no sane person would ever make anyway, why are you so upset to lose it?
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I fear we end up with a conservative (i.e. hands off and leave the economy to stagnate in a 1980s stylee) vs "unionist" (can't think of right term but screw the fat cats, care ONLY about redistribution not creation etc) option for economic policy in our political landscape. All power to those who fall into those lines, but it ain't doing much for me.
Looking at Labour's actual economic policies, they still seem very interested in creation. They are still commited to things like R&D credits, the fast forward fund, and to stacking the labour market to drive productivity growth. As for redistribution, they'll defend WFF and Kiwisaver, but have already sworn off any tax changes. In other words, they're happy to see inequality - and all its resulting social ills - increase.
If anything, they need more redistributive policies, while retaining their smart growth focus of the past few years. But when they're crawling back to the centre, I doubt we'll see anything like that in the near future.
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I take your point, but still think that the movement really needs to have a conversation about the influence of the New Left, and the long-term viability of its associated ideologies.
Alternatively, we could have one about the deadness of the Old Left, and its long-term viability.
In case you hadn't noticed, class isn't the organising principle it was in Marx's day.
Many, I think quite rightly, suspect that the main contribution of the "personal is political" to the Left has been the movement's increasing atomization and its frustrating tendency to focus on the purely symbolic. There's been a corresponding unwillingness to talk about the "big picture," economically speaking.
Clearly those of us who take the language of equality seriously and believe that it isn't just about rich and poor should just STFU, take our lumps, and bow our heads in obediance to our self-appointed leaders of the economic-only left.
Fuck that.
And it's here that we might start talking about the accommodation, since the Lange government, between social liberalism and economic liberalism. To what extent has the decision to focus on individual rights and social issues been a kind of symptom of neoliberalism itself, of individualism and consumerism more generally?
I'd rather see it as a success of the left's language of equality. Once you start taking it seriously, its something which relentlessly expands. Some of the areas it expands into are areas which parts of the right support as well. Only the insanely tribal would see that as a Bad Thing.
If the left isn't for individual freedom (in its substantive sense of requiring the economic resources to be actually realised rather than merely theoretical), then what is it for? A dead worldview of DWM union bosses? Again, fuck that.
Labour can't focus solely on economic issues, and avoid social ones just because some rightwingers might screech "PC gone mad" or "won't somebody think of the children!" or whatever trite slogans they latch on to these days.
And if they do, they'll lose a large chunk of their current activist base. But if they want to commit suicide in that fashion, we would unquestionably be better off without them anyway.
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Danyl, and I think the relevant Standardistas pushing this line, are straight white males. Its easier to dismiss things as 'social engineering', 'nanny state' and (to quote Danyl) "the tendency of many on the left to reduce almost every debate to a grievance issue that puts them offside with 99% of the population," when you're not a member of the small minority with a genuine grievance.
The desire on the part of some to throw women, gays and Maori overboard for electoral advantage is not endeering. I didn't like it when Don Brash did it, I hate it even more from the left.
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They appear to have calmed down somewhat now
Wait till 15:00 Tuesday. It'll be back into urgency to pass the SuperCity (eating a member's day in the process), essentially "just because we can".
That bill at least has had a select committee process, even if it was ignored and corrupted by the government. But we're quickly heading back to old habits of being the fastest legislature in the west, because the government has an easy majority with a party which does not care for the democratic process (yes, I'm looking at you ACT).
It is, at least, a strong argument against majority government, and even easy government. Hamstring the fuckers, I say!