[Via Terry Flew] In the wake of his essay for The Monthly, Kevin Rudd has written close to 7000 words for the Fairfax papers on the economy, claiming that the opposition’s approach is something akin to the Premiers’ Plan of the Great Depression. In this piece, Rudd poses the alternatives to Labor’s course of action – do nothing or retrenchment in spending. The latter, is of course, the logical implication of the Liberals’ obsession with debt and deficit.
The article follows a week when the Liberal Party again tore itself apart on climate change, ending with a bizarre op/ed from Tony Abbott (the frontbencher who won’t comment on Indigenous housing – core to his shadow portfolio – because of an embargo from the publishers of his book). Abbott recited all the old denialist saws about “cooling”, but in the process called on the opposition to pass the government’s CPRS because the Coalition needed clear political space to concentrate on its economic message.
But what is that message? There isn’t one. It’s an entirely oppositional stance – repeating the mantra of “debt and deficit” at every opportunity. The Liberals gave up even trying to articulate an economic policy, hoping – as Shaun Carney observes in an acute analysis – that the economy would hit rock bottom and that they would resume their rightful place as natural “economic managers”. As Carney observes, economic credibility isn’t a given, it has to be established. That groundwork has not been laid. And, if things turn out not to be as bad as everyone was predicting, the Coalition is left without any political strategy whatever.
Equally, if that is true, then Labor has pissed billions of dollars away with their ill-conceived stimulus packages.
Everybody wins, everybody loses.
Choice of the Fairfax media is interesting. Methinks scores are still being settled for “Utegate” with the News Ltd media. Meanwhile, The Oz has the thoughts of Tony Abbott.
Equally, if that is true, then Labor has pissed billions of dollars away with their ill-conceived stimulus packages.
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That’s not know yet. We have an excellent opportunity here to evaluate the economic ideologies because Europe has kicked the Social Dems out generally. Australia, thus far, smells less of shit than other developed countries. If we recover quickly the argument in favour the pragmatic transideological appraoch that charcaterizes this nation will be vindicated.
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If the criticisms of the Neo-liberals of Kevvie’s spend-a-thon are apt, and I’m not sure they aren’t, than what will happen is this country will stagnate under the weight of debt. Trouble is that does not necessarilly prove the stimulating wasn’t necessary and economists will probably go on playing ideological ping-pong.
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Sigh.
Mark – But what is that message? There isn’t one.
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Of course there’s a message. the same old message there always was. You can’t expect a buncha ignorant peons to run the country suh. One needs must’ve been at a school where the prefects have towels that are rolled tightly and wetted at the end what.
Abu, I think its quite easy to make the argument that the stimulus packages are causing the good economic performance, hence the money hasnt been pissed away. Secondly Adrien, Australias debt burden is insignificant and irrelevant. The government could easily monetise the debt that it has taken on in financing the deficit, its not a problem, and is at best a bad distraction
Adrien, Australias debt burden is insignificant and irrelevant.
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Yes I hear that constantly from the Soc Dem economists. From the NeoLib economists I hear alarm bells. See the dilemma.
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Again that’s in the future, so: We. Don’t. Know. That.
On the econ ping pong The Economist editorializes:
Just thought I’d throw it in. Now fight!
The Economist is hardly a neutral umpire, having long been a proponent of the (former) neoliberal orthodoxy.
Rudd continues his criticism of the Australian:
http://www.watoday.com.au/breaking-news-national/pm-takes-a-swipe-at-papers-criticism-20090725-dwp2.html
Adrien @6: “From the NeoLib economists I hear alarm bells. “
So? Whose ideology set us up for the GFC in the first place? I prefer to take people seriously when there is not evidence that they have no grasp of reality.
Neoliberal models probably work better on the catwalk.
Is Quiggins having a night-off!?That must mean that the accounting for his salary,will undergo some change electronically!?
@3 and @5
Your comments indicate you fail to understand the point I am making. The point is that if Mark’s premise is indeed true:
Then, equally, the other side of the coin is true – the Rudd ‘solution’ turns out to be pointless and frivolous waste. Hence, money has been pissed away.
This all hinges on the assumption that Mark’s premise is true. You can’t really subscribe to his theory without accepting the corollary. I am sure that Mark grasps the problem, even if you don’t.
So, to quote @3: “sigh”.
Kevin Rudd is against neoliberalism and extreme capitalism (whatever that is.) Yet isn’t fiscal conservatism just another version of neoliberalism? And spending during a recession then cutting spending during a recovery just hands power back to the extreme capitalists doesn’t it? These issues are on my blog too.
Abu Chowdah
comments should be taken in context – and the context of this piece is the economy in Australia.
It would be a bit boring if every sentence had to be qualified so that (if a reader plucked it out selectively) it would be obvious which economy it was referring to.
If things don’t go as badly in Australia as has been predicted (and the signs are already there that this is so, with predictions being wound back) BUT the rest of the developed world goes down the gurgler, Blind Freddy will (rightly or wrongly, perception being all that matters) credit the stimulus package for the difference in outcomes.
If we all go down the gurgler together, but Australia takes longer to get there, Blind Freddy will credit the stimulus packages for the difference in the rate of change. (And there is a significant difference to personal outcomes in losing a job six months into a recession and losing a job twelve months in).
If some developed countries – those that didn’t stimulate – go down the gurgler and others – which did – don’t, the Government is sitting pretty.
John Passant, my mother told me never to ask rhetorical questions.
Just a guess, but I suspect the real reason the Fairfax press ran Rudd’s latest epistle was that it was cheap.
Fairfax is so broke that the Age no longer publishes a racing form. The Saturday edition is one-fifth the size it used to be, and yesterday there were very, very few ads — and those that were published were mostly employment ads. The classifieds have gone to the web, the big display ads for expensive shoes and handbags are nowhere to be found, and once you get past the front pages, it’s all wire service copy.
The paper has the smell of death about it, and handing over the main feature space so a politician can use it as a vehicle for unchallenged self-promotion enhances the stench.
Regardless of what we think of Rudd and his policies, it is a sad, sad thing to see a newspaper sink so low.
handing over the main feature space so a politician can use it as a vehicle for unchallenged self-promotion enhances the stench.
They’ve been doing that for years – Howard, Costello, Abbott, Justin Madden and the list goes on. Surely these people have their own PR machines. And don’t get me started on all the Chris Berg/John Roskam IPA articles in the Opinion page.
I think Rudd is worried that support for neoliberalism could easily turn into fascism. It is the exact same individuals who support a rampant free market and rant against the Nanny State and government regulation who provide the ground troops for fascist-type governments and he wants to marginalise those people at least on the moral level.
I’m amused by the surly responses from some anti-government voices that Rudd should stop wasting his time writing essays and get on with his job of running the country. It’s typical of a stream in Australian management mentality: thinking and managing are mutually exclusive pursuits.
Rudd’s ‘blood toil tears and sweat’ rhetoric is part of an evolving strategy. He seems to adopt the tactic deliberately of painting the future as more horrible than he thinks it will actually turn out to be, which leads the opposition into the trap of predicting it will be even worse. Subsequently he can claim credit for modest successes while dismissing the opposition as shrill alarmists. It’s clever.
I think Rudd just wants to get elected again.
The difference, Helen, is that the papers made the pretense of publishing stenography from sock-puppet third parties. Yesterday’s big spread was simply a case of “save us some contributor fees, fill a few pages, will ya’, Kev?”
And of course he was happy to oblige.
The Age and the SMH have been valuable, immensely valuable, vehicles for articulating the correct-thinking thinking side of political debates. Bay dredging, turning off the lights, presenting the crisis of climate change in a morally responsible focus — the Age has been on the barricades with the angels on all those issues. The public conversation needs such an advocate, which may be another reason why the Rudd article was given such prominence. With Fairfax poised to fall into the hands of the receivers, the argument needs to be advanced that subsidies to defend the quality press are needed.
Let us all hope (and pray, if you are spiritually inclined) that the favour Fairfax did Rudd will translate into support from Canberra.
JillS,
Pity (or perhaps not) that your crude stereotypes are simply wrong. The people “…who provide the ground troops for fascist-type governments…” are not those who believe in the freedom of the individual, but those who believe in suppressing it for the supposed gains that the suppression may bring.
I am also calling a Godwin’s law violation.
I would also suggest a quick read here if you think that the essay has any economic credibility at all.
I think the neoliberal types JillS is referring to Andrew believe in a strong state and advocate eugenicist-type solutions to social problems and overpopulation.
Therefore, they don’t seriously believe in the freedom of the individual because the freedom of the individual is dependent on everyone being free, the freedom of all, and all that entails, not just the freedom of exploiters to exploit and the strong to crush and eliminate the weak.
I think Rudd is worried that support for neoliberalism could easily turn into fascism. It is the exact same individuals who support a rampant free market and rant against the Nanny State and government regulation who provide the ground troops for fascist-type governments and he wants to marginalise those people at least on the moral level.
That’d be why they call the most well known flavour National Socialism.
Bill Posters – So? Whose ideology set us up for the GFC in the first place? I prefer to take people seriously when there is not evidence that they have no grasp of reality.
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The common theme of commentary on the GFC is pretty much that neoliberal ideology set us up for a fall. The neoliberals argue that the mess was caused by govt blakmailing the private sector into providing housing loans to people who could not afford them. I have heard similar arguments about the Great Slump. What I have seen is that people have taken the view that one would expect given their idelogial disposition. I am inclined to think that therefore the dismal science is infected by secular theology. What I have seen is two sides eager to write their own drafts of he history eschewing understanding for victory.
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I believe that as long as this goes on we will be condemned to relive the past. I also believe that the ideological pundits are probably most accurate whe criticizing their opposition. Each are blind to their own faults.
Andy C – The Economist is hardly a neutral umpire, having long been a proponent of the (former) neoliberal orthodoxy.
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Since the GFC, The Economist has repeated the mantra that neo-liberal ideology led to the GFC. Also, because its readership actually requires accurate iformation, it must needs try to provide it. I think it was Noam Chomsky who said that such publications were the most trustworthy because the system relied on the accuracy of their content.
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That said the editorial I quoted did not take sides but simply illustrated that the two sides are now polarized because their common ground – monetary policy – is useless. I myself think that, because of the reversal of economic policy and the resultant different approaches, we may have an excellent natural experiment which might excavate some wheat from the ideological chaff. If, that is, it isn’t buried under a swamp of partisan bollocks.
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Carl Sagan said:
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Or economics.
I’m not as cynical as Sagan, in politics and economics if you can put up clear reasons why something is the case, or why we should do something, and that argument seems reasonable, understandable and can withstand the attacks from the fringe tribes, then you’ll gain critical mass and make an overarching change in people’s thinking. It’s just that it’s a slow process. Look how far humanity has come, but on the flip side we’re only just turning away from religion as our dominant moral systems.
‘What I have seen is two sides eager to write their own drafts of he history eschewing understanding for victory.
I believe that as long as this goes on we will be condemned to relive the past.’
Well Adrien I rather lean to the belief that the global economy, like the global climate, is beyond the current capability of the human race either to understand or to manage with any real competence. Therefore the sound and fury of the combatants in the political games making their deductive arguments have only the vaguest connection with the substance of the natural forces they purport to be discussing.
I mean when someone wants to pose the contrasting argument in terms of Fairfax v Catallaxy, it tells you a lot about the chances that anyone is genuinely seeking enlightenment.
I mean when someone wants to pose the contrasting argument in terms of Fairfax v Catallaxy, it tells you a lot about the chances that anyone is genuinely seeking enlightenment.
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Well if you’re saying that about me then you’re not saying that about me.
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I don’t think economies are managed. I agree that they are too complex to be fully understood but I tend to think some common sense principles might work such as: if you bail out irresponsible businesses they will persist in their irresponsibility; if you convert $1 into a $100 via nifty maths you are spending money you don’t have; if you lend someone with an annual income of three donkey turns and a bottla moonshine a hundred grand they probably won’t pay it back – etc.
No Adrien, I was referring to Andrew at #23.
Simple principles are rarely sufficient to develop a proper understanding of incredibly complex adaptive systems, such as climate and the global economy. Complex adaptive systems involve large numbers of variables, many of them not able to be measured with any useful accuracy (e.g. confidence in analysing economic behaviour), in relationships that are almost impossible to understand or predict (e.g. reinforcing feedback loops in climate science).
The result is that people fall back on John Howard’s famous ‘common sense pub test’, which is code for ‘what my pre-existing ideology inclines me to believe anyway’.
After how many schooners, Ken?
Ken – The result is that people fall back on John Howard’s famous ‘common sense pub test’, which is code for ‘what my pre-existing ideology inclines me to believe anyway’.
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Which is now Kevie’s common sense pub talk. Kevvie’s got the conch everybody. Well done Kevvie.
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I think that your points are correct. I would add however that sometimes common sense can be a curative and simplicity our saviour. For example, my three axioms viz bad consequences for folly above are both simple and common sense and yet Wall St and Washington and govts and banks the world over believed complex maths instead. The complex maths says you can turn a dollar into a hundred no problem.
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Common sense says that that is bullshit.
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The concept of a feedback loop is brilliant and so useful. It needs to drummed into kids at school.
Could I just ask the Neo-liberalism = Fascism crew to substantiate that. It seems a mite spurious hyperbole to me.
But you can turn one dollar into a million, as long as it’s only notional wealth that never actually gets exchanged for goods and services. Thus we can have putative house values escalate to ridiculous levels, generating increases in wealth that make people feel terrific, just as long as not too many try to cash in at the same time. It’s all a giant Ponzi scheme.
However it’s perfectly possible for an economy to be built on smoke and mirrors while ever enough people are convinced they’re the only ones dumb enough not to see the emperor’s miraculous clothes. Will it all end in tears eventually? Well probably, but whether it’s after two years or five or 20, nobody can either predict or control with any certainty. Of course SOME people will turn out after the event to have predicted it but there’s no way of knowing who they are beforehand, and no reason to believe they’ll get it right next time.
The obsession with getting or at least claiming certitude about things which are inherently uncertain is one of the blights of the age. It’s ruined reasoned discourse and prevented sensible analysis of good public policy.
‘Of course SOME people will turn out after the event to have predicted it but there’s no way of knowing who they are beforehand, and no reason to believe they’ll get it right next time.’
For a contemporary example, look no further than Steve Keen.
Who are the “neoliberals”?
To go back to Tony Abbott for a second. Ignore all the guff about “the earth is cooling” and the harebrained analogy between “tobacco trading” and carbon trading. The interesting thing is for once his political analysis is basically correct – the Coalition is on a hiding to nothing by fighting the CPRS as they are presently doing.
The question is why he feels the need to lecture his colleagues about political strategy in the opinion pages of a national newspaper rather than in the caucus room.
JG @ 37 – there are no neoliberals to be found anywhere anymore JG. This mysterious tribe arose in the 1950s, and have left evidence of their civilisation in the form of dozens of journals, thousands of articles and policy statements.
And yet, despite their apparent dominance, within a few short years, this tribe mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth, such that today nobody can find a single one.
Success has a thousand fathers, while failure is an orphan, and all that…
the Coalition is on a hiding to nothing by fighting the CPRS as they are presently doing.
Well, no one is actually putting forward an alternative. The Libs are going to get a hiding, and they deserve it, because rather than standing for something they’re trying to out do Labor.
If they put up a rational alternative they wouldn’t cop a hiding. That’s not to say they wouldn’t lose, but at the very least they would be well positioned to make a run back to office once the middle class started to notice their cost of living going up and their quality of life coming down.
Excellent riposte Mercurius.
But they’re still out there oh, yes sire, those dastardly neo-liberals, morphing into something else even more nasty.
Why just the other day I was reading a blog comment by one of them advocating the breeding out of certain sorts of people, the infanticide of others, the ringing of Australia with intecontinental ballistic missiles to keep out the coming Asian hordes, the banning of trade unions and all forms of labour market regulation, the savage reduction if not elimination of most forms of taxation, the abolition of all forms of social welfare, human and civil rights’ law, the imprisonment without trial of all suspected terrorists, and much much more.
M#39
And the few that have been captured and exhibited in public claim “the Market made me do it” and “I was only placing orders”.
Reminds of me of traveling through the US late last year and unable to find anyone that had ever voted for Dubya.
I like this one: ‘the savage reduction if not elimination of most forms of taxation. That’s like the brutal defeat of cancer.
Michael, as long as we have a money econony taxess will be with us just as will cancer short of some genetic revolution that breeds out naturally occurring cancer cells in all of us.
But it’s a question of how to manage taxes fairly and equitably for the benefit of the entire body politic not just the rich, and how to stop naturally occurring cancer cells eating away the entire bodily organism to the point of systemic collapse.
I like that analogy. We will always have taxation and its destructive effects, it’s a necessary evil, so the key is to minimise it. Just like cancer, it will probably always be around with its destructive effects so long as there are living organisms, we just need to work to ensuring its impact is minimal as well. I think you’ve got something there, Phil!
If you don’t want to pay taxes then you should say so Michael.
Here’s an idea. Free for the asking. Why don’t you start up a ‘No Taxation Party’ and vote to secede. Maybe then we can bundle all those who think there should be no taxes into one state, let them sort it out, no political representation or economic presence whatsoever for them in *our” state, in which we will go ahead and introduce taxation and social spending based on that excellent old-fashioned notion: from each according to their ability to each according to their needs.
We’ll look in on you in say five years’ time, and see who and how many are left standing.
Deal?
Deal.
How about I make it easier for you. Unfortunately, I’ve established a career in the Australian military, and linked a lot of my engineering experience with Australian industry thinking that I would spend my life as a citizen of Australia, working for the benefit of this country (and civilised people everywhere), and raising educated, balanced and healthy children who would then live productive lives within this country, working to better it and create wealth within it as they went through their lives, just as I tried to do.
But, in all honesty, I don’t think this country is worthy of people like that who want to give their best. When I’ve finished my career in the military, which will be quite soon, and I’ve got a green card, I’m going to take up this offer and work to build a society that brings out the best of the human spirit, in the greatest democracy yet to be established on this planet.
I don’t think you really need to wait five years to see the outcome. That part of the USA is already rated as one of the best places to live in America, and I personally think it’s probably one of the best places to live on earth (if not the best when everything is considered). But, like your links on the Catallaxy thread, I won’t dismiss your point without due dilligence and respect regardless of my first impressions, and we’ll reassess within five years of my relocation.
I’m going to take up this offer and work to build a society that brings out the best of the human spirit, in the greatest democracy yet to be established on this planet.
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What Iceland?
ROFL
So you’re in the military, Michael, and you’re against taxation?
I’d suggest you (a) look up the word ‘hypocrite’ and then deeply consider its meaning; (b) flick through a couple of tomes on history and see if you can work out the one major reason that taxation was introduced (hint, hint, very few people can afford to run armies out of their own resources…) and (c) move to New Hampshire as soon as possible, as they deserve you far more than we do (and the sooner I stop paying your wages the better…)
I’m for small government/minimal taxation, you idiot. And out of the few unquestionably legitimate roles for government, national defence would have to be in the top three.
But you are totally correct that one the key drivers in the growth of government has been the need, or perceived need, for greater defence/security spending. You could say its been a godsend for socialists such as yourself.
No Michael, you appear to be the idiot, and a hypocrite to boot, as you have proven in every post that you have made to this blog. Please do us all a favour and do as mehitabel suggested.
Your report in five years time would at least make interesting reading.
Golly Michael, that Free State project sounds mighty interesting.
20,000 armed and fiercely independent people drawn together more by they don’t like rather than by what they like to set up a small self-governing (gonna go the full autarky too?) enclave in a small state in the heart of a massive multi-industrial/military/entertainment/bureaucratic empire intimately plugged into every orifice of a globalised economy.
It’ll be the reality show with the biggest cast yet.
“Defence” spending is a complete waste of resources and a great evil, Michael S.
You are right that to the extent that capitalism has latterly been unable to find productive outlets for its surplus capital has meant that it has privileged the armaments industry and national military forces as means of soaking up excess capital at the same time as enabling the system that profits from that to wage wars against impoverished peoples, destroy their ages-old means of production and rip off their resources for the benefit of the minority of rich countries and their necessarily armed-to-the teeth military.
There’s a quite elegant symmetry to it all, if you like to discern patterns.
Hahaha aw c’mon Michael stop winding us up. Don’t you know the last attempt to secede from the USA in the name of liberty didn’t turn out so well for the secessionists?
Anyway they’ve been pushing this project since 2001 and so far they haven’t got even halfway to their target of 20,000 volunteers – a target which will only trigger another timeline with a further five years to run – so I hope you’ve got some plans to keep yourself busy until about 2025.
You’re not serious I hope. I would find such a capacity for self-delusion in a serving member of the military (if that’s really true, which somehow I doubt) … unsettling.
Nabakov: 20,000 armed and fiercely independent people drawn together more by they don’t like rather than by what they like to set up a small self-governing (gonna go the full autarky too?) enclave in a small state in the heart of a massive multi industrial/military/entertainment/bureaucratic empire intimately plugged into every orifice of a globalised economy.
It’s great ain’t it! But I think you’re mistaken, those fiercely independent people aren’t drawn together by what they don’t like, they’re drawn together by a belief in the human spirit and the belief that each individual is equally important and free to live their lives to their own ends. And that small state is also plugged into the globalised economy and benefiting from it, not just surrounded by it. Also the surrounding states tend to be a bit orientated that way as well (for example, Vermont has even more liberal gun laws), although New Hampshire is probably the most ‘live free or die’ overall.
Adrien: No Michael, you appear to be the idiot, and a hypocrite to boot, as you have proven in every post that you have made to this blog. Please do us all a favour and do as mehitabel suggested.
You’ve made the allegation, now point out one example of hypocrisy, Adrien.
How about we do something that benefits all of us. Whenever you come across someone like myself tell them if they want to be like that they should consider the Free State project and leave Australia to its naturally socialist future.
You’re not serious I hope. I would find such a capacity for self-delusion in a serving member of the military (if that’s really true, which somehow I doubt) … unsettling.
Ken, how much are you willing to bet that I’m not a serving member of the Australian (regular, not reserve) military? Put up a figure now in this public forum, and make it worth my while, or shut your pathetic yap.
Heh I worked for Defence Support once Michael, I am so glad you outed yourself as a career serving military man, it makes so much more sense.
Anyway, we have our deal, right. Let’s compare notes in five years.
Don’t you know the last attempt to secede from the USA in the name of liberty didn’t turn out so well for the secessionists?
I don’t know what you are referring to exactly, but the Free State Project is not about secession. It’s about a return to the Constitution and the American model as put forward by the US Founding Fathers. In other words, a return to the ideals of personal liberty and responsibility, free markets and limited government.
Anyway they’ve been pushing this project since 2001 and so far they haven’t got even halfway to their target of 20,000 volunteers – a target which will only trigger another timeline with a further five years to run – so I hope you’ve got some plans to keep yourself busy until about 2025.
They’ve also, so far, not implemented an income tax. They don’t have a publicly mandated school system (yet, somehow, seem to have a lot of high tech, highly educated workers). They’ve, so far, resisted federal government intrusion from everything from national ID cards (by passing pre-emptive legislation) to seat belt laws. And this is despite there being a majority Democrat legislature due to resistance to the Iraq war and Bush’s big government policies, which will probably start to change into the future (the number of Democrats, that is).
And there’s even a few things that might make you happy: such as support for gay marriage and drug law reform, which is not overwhelming in most of the USA.
So, I really only see the Free State Project enhancing a free and progressive society, not effecting it. What I’m alluding to is that by using the Free Stater network I will be able to get assistance in getting a green card, relocating my family and assimilating quickly into a like-minded community. Strong civil society does that sort of thing – unlike the supposedly civil social democratic model, where everyone tries to live at everyone else’s expense, and everyone attempts to force their views on everyone else.
“And that small state is also plugged into the globalised economy and benefiting from it”
And the Free State enclave will contribute in turn how? And even the most gated of estates still has to deal with the State on the State’s own terms.
By all means go for it Michael and if it gives you the life you want then you earnt it. But I strongly suspect the original vision will either end up severely compromised with much squabbling (which happens with any human unit larger than one) or just dwindle to a hardcore element that will generationally dissolve like so many such dreams before in the river of human history.
How ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm once they’ve seen the farm?
Michael it all sounds tremendously exciting and I hope you and your 700 intrepid buds in New Hampshire get Ron Paul up in ’12 and everything goes really really well for you and yours.
*Moves quietly away*
And the Free State enclave will contribute in turn how? And even the most gated of estates still has to deal with the State on the State’s own terms.
Through trade, probably of high tech services mostly.
But I strongly suspect the original vision will either end up severely compromised with much squabbling (which happens with any human unit larger than one) or just dwindle to a hardcore element that will generationally dissolve like so many such dreams before in the river of human history.
Well, that’s sort of how the American model has panned out to some extent. Of course, it still is the world’s only superpower and the largest economy by lots, despite it’s current problems. But hopefully we can bring a stop to that, noting that the only certainties in life are death, taxes and the socialist desire for more taxes.
….you forgot thread hijacking on the intertubes by some clown with an axe to grind.
Would anybody else like to make this thread all about them?
Michael, don’t you feel the slightest bit of a twinge in abandoning us so peremptorily and flouncing off to entirely different continent where you think you and your family will be better off and bugger the rest of the folks back home?
I mean did all those years in the military which we were told inculcated into people like you all those admirable notions about protecting Australian society and the little people, the defence of women and children, mean so little to you that you can so callously abandon us now in our hour of need to a fate you believe to be terminal?
Isn’t this the least bit like a captain refusing to go down with and refusing point blank to offer assistance and succour to the crew and passengers on his capsizing ship?
Michael S, just from the point of view of research, I’d like to point out that your Free State Project is extremely self-selecting, and success can’t be claimed to be due to the intervention. Twenty thousand like-minded people may be a community, but it’s not a successful libertarian experiment. If you recruited in another 20,000 uneducated dickheads, people who don’t think like you at all, lazy bums, drug addicts, stoners and gun nuts and then your society worked out, well then you would have proven something. Especially if those people weren’t able to go next door for a minimum wage job, couldn’t get Medicaid, etc.
Sadly your experiment is so compromised that it won’t prove anything.
But good luck with the anti-seat belt and pro-drug laws. They’ve always proven a winner wherever they have been retained! Particularly in combination!
The essays will have no effect whatsoever in terms of changing votes. They are designed to rally the faithful (same with the 2020 summit, really).
If it’s so harebrained, Robert, why does it lead to the very position you’re espousing? Unless …
“probably of high tech services mostly.”
Ah, the whole Jeffersonian self-sufficient rural communities thang v2.0. 200 year old New England barns refurbished to house little family bespoke coding clans. Good luck outbidding the extended Indian version of this model in the global marketplace.
You’d be better off growing hydroponic pot. India faces massive barriers to US markets here. Whereas on the ground you can do retail from the cellar door and arrange medium to long range distribution systems while checking the whites of your potential partner’s eyes at the local tavern.
I’d certainly put my hand up to see what a libertarian Free State, coupled with good old fashioned Yankee ingenuity, could come up with THC delivery wise. And quality moonshine too.
However, when it comes to the ATF and the DEA taking an interest, I never heard of you. In fact I never even commented on this thread.
An interesting point there JillS #63.
And if I was nastier than either of us, I’d have added “so Michael, what’s to stop you fucking off again when your next community fails to live up to your expectations either?”
Also ” But hopefully we can bring a stop to that.”
Do you know what happens when people try to “bring a stop to all that” in the US in any concerted, non-connected and public fashion that may also impinge on revenue? The Federal Government, regardless of ideological stripe, sends in Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Republic or Janet Reno and the ATF.
I’d suggest flying under the radar as most of the rest of us do but I suspect many of your Free State compatriots won’t be able to resist sticking their heads up to sound off, only to attract the cold beady eye of the State and the ridicule of everyone else who thinks doors should be marked “open” not “closed”.
JillS: I mean did all those years in the military which we were told inculcated into people like you all those admirable notions about protecting Australian society and the little people, the defence of women and children, mean so little to you that you can so callously abandon us now in our hour of need to a fate you believe to be terminal?
JillS, I certainly entered the military with those ideals. But now I regret dedicating so much of my life to it. It’s a false morality – all too often we see the good people get sacrificed to the ungrateful and unworthy (and this is not just limited to the military sense). We’ve gone way beyond providing protection for the ‘little people’, there’s an ingrained sense of not wanting to be held accountable for your actions and choices in this, and so many other, societies that were once founded on good moral principles. And anyway, there’s only so much that can be done by the good people, only so much burden they can carry. A society can’t be saved by the moral few, it must learn to save itself. It’s better that the moral few live their lives for themselves and enjoy the benefits of their good choices than go down with the sinking ship. Besides, if I’m going to bring my children up with these values, and they choose to live by them, don’t they deserve to have the best opportunities they can get?
But thats by the bye – yourself and the rest of this generation will be fine. It will take a while for Asia to ramp up to full capitalistic production and mineral wealth will keep Australia from becoming the poor cousin of Asia for a generation or so.
sg: If you recruited in another 20,000 uneducated dickheads, people who don’t think like you at all, lazy bums, drug addicts, stoners and gun nuts and then your society worked out, well then you would have proven something. Especially if those people weren’t able to go next door for a minimum wage job, couldn’t get Medicaid, etc.
The society I would like to promote is unattractive to lazy bums and drug addicts. I think that’s a good thing. I would rather they found a social democracy some where and claimed their minimum wages, welfare and government funded health care. I’d say achieving that is part of success. But I’m quite happy with gun nuts and recreational drug users, of which there’s plenty already in New Hampshire, often belonging to what they call the ‘creative class’.
Nabakov: Ah, the whole Jeffersonian self-sufficient rural communities thang v2.0. 200 year old New England barns refurbished to house little family bespoke coding clans. Good luck outbidding the extended Indian version of this model in the global marketplace.
While I kind of like the vision of coding in an old New England barn, your comment raises in important point. We both know first-world western nations aren’t going to be doing the manufacturing, or primary industries like agriculture and mining too much into the future. It comes down to innovation, design, creativity and value-adding services. Free and vibrant societies are generally pretty good at that. I encourage you to have a look at the New England area in this regard and the companies that are there – it’s really quite inspiring. Societies obsessed with equality, operating under the constraints of excessive regulation and taxation, not so much. They usually end up without equality or wealth.
So, in your ideal society someone else picks up the trash. Some other taxpayer, in fact. You’re happy with social democracy cleaning up the mess provided you don’t have to pay. You even define it as “success”.
How are you going to handle the non-recreational drug users? They will flock to your brave new world to lose themselves in hard drugs and rob you.
How are you going to handle the non-recreational drug users? They will flock to your brave new world to lose themselves in hard drugs and rob you.
I’m not sure those type of people will flock to a society that encourages individual responsibility. But as for anyone who is committed to living a life of crime, we both know the answer to that, when we’re talking about a society of fierce individualists, who believe in property rights, and live in state that upholds the rights of the individual to defend themselves and their property. (BTW, New Hampshire was the safest American state in 2008).
So, in your ideal society someone else picks up the trash. Some other taxpayer, in fact. You’re happy with social democracy cleaning up the mess provided you don’t have to pay. You even define it as “success”.
Social democracy creates these problems and I’m happy with anyone spending their own money however they like. If you want a social democracy, then you should expect to attract and create these types of people, and you should expect to pay for it. I don’t want it.
I would deal with poverty with a small social wage that doesn’t cancel out when someone supplements it with a job, and a vibrant labour market with lots of opportunity (with the only exceptions being the elderly and disabled). This wouldn’t create the problems that social democracy does, like the ones you’ve mentioned, but in most places there would be permanent calls to increase the welfare payments, minimum wages, other subsidies and handouts, and obligations on employers. So it can only be achieved in a culture of individual responsibility.
No matter how you say it, it still sounds the same, Michael – you want your neighbours to foot the bill for the hard cases while you live the good life, tax free. It would be sad if it weren’t such a perfect little representation of everything that’s wrong with libertarian ideology.
“Defence” spending is a complete waste of resources and a great evil, Michael S.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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The State exists primarily to create a peaceful zone. To do tis it needs must impose law within and defend the borders from forces without. Yes it’s evil but it’s necessary.
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Tht said I don’t think that states are founded on moral principle. Very few. They are founded on the need to protect the money go round. Ours was founded as a jail to get rid of all the people who were pinching stuff off the rich.
I’m always puzzled about how these libertarutopians reconcile their fantasies with empirical reality. I mean it’s not as if we lack evidence of what happens when people live together without a functioning state, and the overwhelming evidence is that the outcomes are awful. Maybe the libertarutopians are convinced they are a special breed of humans and can confound past experience if only they say things like ‘fierce individualists’ and ‘vibrant labour market’ often enough.
Anyway I’d be more impressed if they went and founded their colony in Somalia or Agfhanistan or Mindanao rather than New bleedin’ Hampshire, where they can free ride on the world’s biggest military and the world’s biggest prison system and on the infrastructure and social services paid for by the rest of the population.
“But now I regret dedicating so much of my life to it. It’s a false morality – all too often we see the good people get sacrificed to the ungrateful and unworthy (and this is not just limited to the military sense)”
Yeah so? This again has been going on forever. Good luck finding any military anywhere that didn’t complain about the political leadership of the time. Yet one of the few saving graces of the messy, self-serving and frequently incompetent political systems enjoyed by a bit of North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific is that no one there thinks the military can do it better. Exhibit A. The Pentagon.
So you went into the military and had your eyes opened by how little the cannon fodder are decently resourced by an unthinking me me me society. Damme, you’ll be discovering steam next.
This is not new. Or necessarily good. But just how things have always worked.
So yeah, in your case Michael, fucking off from the society where the taxplayer paid (albeit cheaply) for the skills and experiences you think will make you a desirable addition to a new community in another country does make sense.
I have one big question for the Free State and any other attempts at socially and politically gated communities? How will you able to control your kids’ access to the rest of the world while ensuring they cultivate useful and objective knowledge and judgement skills?
Maybe the libertarutopians are convinced they are a special breed of humans and can confound past experience if only they say things like ‘fierce individualists’ and ‘vibrant labour market’ often enough.
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Libertaraians tend to remind me of the radical leftists I knew at Uni. People in love with a model who conveniently ignored the jagged edges of human reality. And my frustration is shared by others.
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But that said I believe that their central point which is that individual liberty is reinforced and made possible by individual responsibility is apt. Vital in fact. I believe his secondary point that there is a delinking of freedom and responsibility is true. And I do believe that social engineering which I wouldn’t exclusively associate with Social Democrats contributes to the problem.
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I’d like to also just say that many here at LP have made statements that tend to be a little dreamy and rose-coloured in their views of humanity. In fact politically engaged people all suffer from a sort of idiocy.
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Except me of course.
Nabakov your cat is nice but Kalus’s is better. It’s blue. N’ah n’ah n’ah!
In short Michael, if you signed up for armed service as blindly as you make out, I’m damned glad you left with your eyes open.
Yes, sure find your Shangri-Lai nestled in the bosom of some socio-political-demographic land of gently rolling valleys and little white churches. With the odd civil war cannon on the village green, placidly reminding you of how the US tore itself apart in on of the bloodiest civil wars ever about issues you’re trying to escape…and that some of the scabs are still tender.
But remember one showboating gunshot could set off an avalanche. By that time though you should have well enough tucked away to afford a nice Swiss lakeshore villa.
You don’t? Well then forget it. Like any hippie, survivalist, libertarian, taxpayer revolt “back to mine” movement is gonna last longer than a crumpet in today’s overheated and overconnected world.
If you think everything’s going to crap, go Swiss like Bowie and Chaplin. An Alpine redoubt run by socialist capitalists.
“People in love with a model who conveniently ignored the jagged edges of human reality.”
And commonsense, ridicule and failure won’t change their minds. As you point out, they’re in love. Totally.
And when it’s unrequited, they spill their guts and go for others who they didn’t think spilled enough. Thank some monthestic deity that these days, such rejections from reality are funneled into grease traps like Catallaxy.
Where else can you see Birdy, Greenslime and CL all bellowing, spitting, snapping and staggering around on the same thread, at complete cross purposes with themselves, never mind the others?
Pray explain to me on no more than one half of a sheet of paper Michael how the administrative systems for the Free State won’t end up like that.
I’m always puzzled about how these libertarutopians reconcile their fantasies with empirical reality. I mean it’s not as if we lack evidence of what happens when people live together without a functioning state, and the overwhelming evidence is that the outcomes are awful. Maybe the libertarutopians are convinced they are a special breed of humans and can confound past experience if only they say things like ‘fierce individualists’ and ‘vibrant labour market’ often enough.
Anyway I’d be more impressed if they went and founded their colony in Somalia or Agfhanistan or Mindanao………
I’m always puzzled how left-wingers seem to believe simply having a government makes people more moral, productive and civilised. A society is as good as the morality of the people in it. Unless you impose martial law from an external source, government is drawn from those people. Somalia has no functioning government (last time I checked) but it has civilised elements, tribal warlords and criminal elements etc. If Somalia had a government, guess what, it would look exactly the same, just like heaps of other African nations that have governments. And it will continue looking exactly the same until the people change. And when the people change, Somalia will change, and that’s regardless of whether it has a functioning government or not. Ditto Afghanistan.
Similarly, first world western nations generate wealth and have freedom when the people take responsibility for themselves as much as possible, and reject the idea that they should be able to live at the expense of others, and don’t lobby the government to do their bidding because they’re envious that someone else has made some money. When first world western nations forget this is how their quality of life came about, then they will lose it. It’s got nothing to do with having a strong state. A state is simply a tool of the people, and they can use that tool for good or misuse it.
………..rather than New bleedin’ Hampshire, where they can free ride on the world’s biggest military and the world’s biggest prison system and on the infrastructure and social services paid for by the rest of the population.
I’m not going looking for sources but I believe New Hampshire routinely consumes federal resources at the lower end out of the fifty states, and it has held the highest Iraq casualties per capita of all US states, if it does not at this moment. Last year it was the safest state in the US, so I’ll have a stab that it’s prison population isn’t filling all those American prisons. It’s not taking any free rides.
So you went into the military and had your eyes opened by how little the cannon fodder are decently resourced by an unthinking me me me society. Damme, you’ll be discovering steam next.
No. The Australian military is neither under resourced or underpaid, nor treated as cannon fodder. I’m saying Australian society is not worthy of me risking my life. It’s not that good.
So yeah, in your case Michael, fucking off from the society where the taxplayer paid (albeit cheaply) for the skills and experiences you think will make you a desirable addition to a new community in another country does make sense.
The taxpayer didn’t pay cheaply for my skills and experiences. The military equipped me for life as a professional, whereas when I joined I didn’t have any qualifications and had dropped out of uni. I think I got a good deal even though it included operational service. Now if I said to people like yourself that the military is an opportunity for poor people to make a go at life, you’d call it exploitation.
I have one big question for the Free State and any other attempts at socially and politically gated communities? How will you able to control your kids’ access to the rest of the world while ensuring they cultivate useful and objective knowledge and judgement skills?
I’m not sure what you’re getting at exactly. I’ll bring my kids up with good values and demonstrate the benefits of a free society, and they’ll experience first hand what it takes to have that sort of society. As for controlling their ‘access to the rest of the world’, well, I won’t and I don’t want to – New Hampshire is five hours drive from New York City BTW. They will need to make their own moral choices on how they live their lives just like everyone else.
If you think everything’s going to crap, go Swiss like Bowie and Chaplin. An Alpine redoubt run by socialist capitalists.
What’s socialist about the Swiss? I’d say they’re only socialist if you’re coming from an anarcho-capitalist perspective. They don’t have a public health system for example.
Pray explain to me on no more than one half of a sheet of paper Michael how the administrative systems for the Free State won’t end up like that.
Again, not really sure what this question is asking. The administrative systems for the ‘Free State’ would be the government of New Hampshire? It has a strong constitution which embodies the values that can rationally be demonstrated to form the basis of a free and progressive society, and not conflict with each other. It has a legislature that is constructed to minimise the influence of special interest groups and to reflect the broadest wishes of the people. The only reason it will change is if the people change. Hopefully by promoting it as a solution for people who want more freedom will ensure that the majority of the population retains a desire for freedom, so it won’t collapse away from these ideas.
Well Michael, according to the US Census Bureau NH gets more federal govt spending per individual than California, even though it’s so terribly independent and has a much lower rate of poverty. It also has very high property taxes. I suggest that as soon as you arrive there you campaign to drop those evil govt tax subsidies to at least below california’s level. I mean, really! NH appears to be less rugged and independent than those namby pamby west coast liberals!
Ken @29,
All I was seeking to illustrate was that Kevin was wrong on the basic, easily (dis)provable, points that were presented as facts in his argument. If he wanted to make a more nuanced argument that would have been much more difficult to refute.
Personally, though, if someone makes very basic errors like that then I am less likely to believe they can be a useful source of enlightenment.
sg, here’s some data for you:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/ftsbs-timeseries-20071016-.pdf
http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/fedspend_per_taxesbystate-20071009.pdf
New Hampshire usually ranks near the bottom of ‘Federal Taxes Paid vs. Spending Received by State’ and is always one of the 17 or so states that is on the ‘payer’ side of the interstate wealth redistribution deal (that’s unless things have changed lots really recently).
It also has very high property taxes.
Around third highest in the US. But across all taxes, near the lowest overall tax burden on its citizens. I think property taxes are a better way to go, and I’d rather see a sales tax get established before an income tax.
Brilliant!
Noteworthy that the argument of many on the right that we needed a cleansing recession to purge speculative excesses has now completely disappeared from public view, perhaps they realized this not a vote-winner. New argument is that because government policy worked it wasn’t necessary in the first place.
And here is the Rudd rebuttal (Ruddbuttal), courtesy of Ross Gittens…
http://newsletters.fairfax.com.au:80/cgi-bin16/DM/y/hBv6i0RBLX40JIu0R67l0Gh
The Swiss have universal, compulsory, government-subsidised health insurance, in which people pay according to their ability, and are paid for according to need.
And the Swiss have one of the longest communalist and anti-capitalist histories on the continent of Europe; the Jura Workingmen’s Federation being only the first that jumps to mind, being one of the founding institutions of modern Anarchism. I’ve said it before; Switzerland is the model for today’s dysfunctional arse-out-of-pants republics: five hundred years ago it was as dirty and violent as Somalia, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan c. 1998 and Southern Lebanon all rolled into one green little blood-soaked arena of Reformation and Counter-Reformation. These days they’ve got funicular railways, prosperity, a law against almost everything, five languages in every school, a nuclear bunker/wine cellar in every apartment block and no libertarians.
I’d move to Switzerland myself if the f*&king Swiss would have me.
Oh gawd I wouldn’t do that Liam, or at least if you must move to the Italian speaking part (even the french speaking part comes in a distant second).
I lived in Zurich for a year, and while it got a lot better once I discovered the ‘rebel’ side on the opposite side of the river to the wealthy / ultra-conservative side, the deadly lack of humour was just well, deadly.
Having said that there was something wonderful about public announcements apologising for a train being a minute and a half late, and their waste disposal, energy and other basic infrastructure systems rocked, as did the ready availability of mulled wine and roast chestnuts during winter (highly necessary to survive -5).
When I opened the paper the first thought I had was what a monster it was. And after reading it made me feel proud that we had a prime minister who didn’t talk down to people and was willing to explain policies to people as if they were adults.
After the Bush-Howard years, when it seemed like a deliberate policy to lower the IQ of the western world, grown up debate is back. Obama is trying something similar.
In a subtle way, too, I think Rudd is challenging the Canberra press gallery to concentrate on serious debate and meaty policy instead of utes or strippers or air hosties.
…..but don’t expect me not to be biased.
When I opened the paper the first thought I had was what a monster it was. And after reading it made me feel proud that we had a prime minister who didn’t talk down to people and was willing to explain policies to people as if they were adults.
After the Bush-Howard years, when it seemed like a deliberate policy to lower the IQ of the western world, grown up debate is back. Obama is trying something similar.
In a subtle way, too, I think Rudd is challenging the Canberra press gallery to concentrate on serious debate and meaty policy instead of utes or strippers or air hosties.
…..but don’t expect me not to be biased.
Aren’t you Tasmanian, Myriad? Are you going to force me to make cheap jokes comparing the two cold, hilly, unfriendly, alcoholic islands?
But yeah. Anywhere you can get rösti with your pork knuckle, and where you can drink mulled wine and eat cheese until you stop, has got to be a place worth saving from the next Flood.
Efficient free tax systems be damned. Give me fondue or give me death.
Nabakov – Thank some monthestic deity that these days, such rejections from reality are funneled into grease traps like Catallaxy.
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Is that right.
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Where else can you see Birdy, Greenslime and CL all bellowing, spitting, snapping and staggering around on the same thread, at complete cross purposes with themselves, never mind the others?
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Yes never mind the others because then you’d have to admit that the above pundits aren’t typical of the Cat. I think the reason that they comment there is because Catallaxy has a more liberal comments policy than other blogs. None of those guys is a libertarian.
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And I’ve encountered plenty of people here who are in love with theory and get angry when you challenge it. I believe the Sermont on the Mount, the bit viz the log in one’s own eye, is the prime document for the ethics of political debate.
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Just sayin’.
But Liam, the Swiss are sooooooooooooooo boring! I mean really!
yeah I’m Tasmanian Liam, and please don’t hold back!
I can assure you that there is a large, dark and bottomless chasm between the humourlessness of the German speaking Swiss and Tasmanians. We might take a while to warm up, but we actually *do*.
There’s also a frisson of difference between 3 months in the minuses and an occasional day of 8 degrees in Hobart. :p
‘But Liam, the Swiss are sooooooooooooooo boring! I mean really!’
Unlike the frolicking funster Aussies I encounter every day. Or those carefree, crazy individualist Japanese that I work with. Not to mention those zany Chinese.
And don’t get me started on the Mongolian lamb.
‘Yes never mind the others because then you’d have to admit that the above pundits aren’t typical of the Cat.’
Pundits?
The Cat?
Don’t know what you’ve been smoking Adrien, but can I have some?
For your info, a pundit is commonly: an expert or opinion-leader who analyzes events in an area of expertise in the popular media.
Using that definition, the assorted commentators to whom Nabakov referred are pundits in the same sense as Glen Milne is a journalist.
@58
Why don’t they like seatbelt laws? It appears to be an emminently sensible legislative move. All cars should be made to include seatbelts. How do they plan to make cars without seatbelts anyway? Or are they going to remove them?
Liam: The Swiss have universal, compulsory, government-subsidised health insurance, in which people pay according to their ability, and are paid for according to need.
It works for me. Why don’t we do this rather than our current doomed-to-crapness setup?
Liam: and no libertarians.
Any country that has direct democracy, low taxation, a devolution of govenrment power to the cantons, a citizens militia, a tendency of independence and not to getting involved in other people’s business or conflicts, doesn’t get jealous of other people’s wealth or success, and happily respects it’s citizens privacy especially regarding banking – but no libertarians! – is alright by me.
Why don’t we try to be more like it?
a tendency of independence and not to getting involved in other people’s business or conflicts, doesn’t get jealous of other people’s wealth or success
Oh boy you need to get out more – the Swiss facilitated the Nazis in return for being ‘neutral’ and have suffered severe and deserved scandals over the collossal amounts of pilfered loot from Jews stored in their famous bank accounts, which they refused to hand back for years and years.
If that’s your definition of not getting involved in other peoples’ business and not getting jealous about other peoples’ success may I interest you in this fine bridge…
Ps – did I mention that the Swiss didn’t give women the vote until 1971?!
Gittins can be great-to-brilliant 95% of the time. I could use the word pundit and Gittins in the same sentence without irony or quotation marks. But he says Rudd’s piece was “marred by partisanship”.
Some of us like partisanship – I suspect it has something to do with democracy. Sorry, I don’t want to agree with Wilson Tuckey or Tony Abbott.
Unlike the frolicking funster Aussies I encounter every day. Or those carefree, crazy individualist Japanese that I work with. Not to mention those zany Chinese.
And don’t get me started on the Mongolian lamb.
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Just because Aussies are vulgar, Japanese are strangely uptight, Chinese are doing their best top be identical and the Mongolians like to skin you alive doesn’t make the Swiss any more interesting Adrian.
look they’re all pretty good these days, good amplifiers, good speakers, woofers and tweeters, dolby, etc.
not much to choose between them, but avoid the Swiss models.
“Nabakov your cat is nice but Kalus’s is better. It’s blue. N’ah n’ah n’ah!”
You’ve forfeited your right to refer to my blue cat gravatar, Adrien. He’s about as impressed with you as I am. As should be clear by looking at his wee blue face. Not impressed cat is not impressed…
“avoid the Swiss models”
Yes.
The models from Eastern Europe are thinner, cheaper and less tainted with Nazi gold.
You’ve forfeited your right to refer to my blue cat gravatar, Adrien.
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Um no I haven’t.
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He’s about as impressed with you as I am.
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What did I do?
Oh I get it. You’re Swiss aren’t you?
No, but I really like Swiss cheese, and so does the cat. Also, we’re both incredibly boring. Well, the cat’s not, but if I’m around I tend to lower the mood, and then he’ll start on on some damned thing til we can’t stand the sight of each other.
Adrian – For your info, a pundit is commonly: an expert or opinion-leader who analyzes events in an area of expertise in the popular media.
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I knew that. I meant punter.
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Don’t know what you’ve been smoking Adrien, but can I have some?
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No
Cats are never boring Klaus. I can’t tell whether you’re boring because I forgot to speak postmodernism.
Ginja, I don’t think you’ve understood the sense in which Gittins is using the word ‘partisanship’. Immediately after saying the essay was ‘marred by partisanship’ he lists a few very important Liberal-implemented policies that any serious essay on these topics could not have failed to mention. Gittin’s isn’t using it as shorthand for ‘disagreeing with Wilson Tuckey’; he’s merely noting in a concise way that the essay is a party political document which has a purely party political purpose. In any event, is partisanship really a necessary constituent of democracy, or merely a feature of the extant versions of it?
Gittin’s more or less nails it elsewhere:
“The notion that the Libs could be fairly described as “neo-liberal free-market fundamentalists” is laughable. And yet Rudd boasts about the success of the Hawke-Keating governments’ micro-economic reforms and promises more reforms of his own. Micro-economic reform and neo-liberal mean the same thing. As an ideological warrior, this guy’s a phoney.”
Broadly correct. The Howard government was a meandering and often half-hearted neo-liberal government rather than a fundamentalist one. However, on the phoniness point Gittins is absolutely right. Over the course of the 80s and 90s, ‘micro-economic reform’ meant ‘implementing the neo-liberal agenda’, which is of course what Hawke and Keating did with considerable competence. Only on blogs like LP, and in publications like the Fairfax papers and The Monthly, can anyone seriously suggest that Hawke and Keating were not neoliberal (and even then, it seems a relatively recent phenomenon; nothing to do with the ALP’s political ascendancy or recent events in financial markets, I’m sure). They wouldn’t stand for such nonsense at GLW, for example.
I can’t help but get the sense that these essays are creating fantastic cover for actually doing some more neo-liberalisin’ Bring on the Henry tax review report!
BBB
I don’t even know what that means, but the smiley says everything’s alright, so it must be.
BBB, you will also notice that Rudd’s ghost-written essay left financial deregulation out of his list of Hawke-Keating reforms that were to be lauded and built upon.
It really is a bizarre essay. If it stopped at defending the fiscal strategy (which was perfectly reasonable) and suggesting that the GFC pointed to the need for a tighter global and domestic financial regulatory and supervisory structure then it would have been fine.
It is when the essay morphs into a political polemic where the problems really begin because he has no sound way of both claiming the Hawke-Keating reform legacy and critiquing “neo-liberalism” as he defines it.
At some stage he will be forced to reconcile some of the inconsistencies in his approach to policy.
The essayist’s contribution to 4 Corners tonight was cringeworthy. He tells Indian reporters, “Look, we love India. My kids love Bollywood! If it wasn’t for Indian food, Ausralia would have been stuck with English cuisine for another 100 years.”
The essayist is no historian. He treats his interlocutors like children. He seems naive and childish. On the evidence, I’d say morning TV not only rots the viewers’ brains, it can cause regular guests to seriously regress.
A bit unfair there, Ambigulous. Rudd’s ‘contribution’ was a 15 second extract from a speech, the context of which was completely removed. Sounded to me as though he was answering a question, but who knows?
Anyway, the real pity was that Julia Gillard declined the opportunity for a real interview, which shows the priority she places on the issue.
Yep, unfair is my motif.
I got the impression he was speaking to a few reporters sent over from India (a group came to investigate the student-bashings story).
You’re right: it’s Julia Gillard’s Department. Scams are scams and should be squelched.
“At some stage he will be forced to reconcile some of the inconsistencies in his approach to policy.”
I really do doubt it. Rudd is under zero political pressure from the Coalition, who couldn’t construct a coherent policy narrative to save themselves, and he won’t be for years yet (at the very least). Who is going to call him to account? Not the centre-left, for whom a few agreeable tick-the-boxes remarks in the weekend broadsheets is enough to guarantee support for any old policy.
I just re-read this bit of the essay:
“Micro-economic reforms, such as tariff reform, labour market reform and competition policy reform, undertaken in Australia in the 1980s and 1990s, were the principal underlying drivers of the surge in productivity growth in the late 1990s.”
Classic. It’s an unequivocal statement of praise for the neo-liberal experiment as performed in Australia. In an essay about the evils of neo-liberalism. He really is a very clever politician.
Anyway, I do wonder how he is going to play things on tax reform, which will go off with a real bang next year. He’s almost certainly going to get the usual neo-liberal policy prescriptions out of Treasury (broader bases, simplification, lower taxes on investment, reductions in company tax, abolition of imputation, etc.) As a fiscal conservative and fundamentally sound economic rationalist, he will want to implement a lot of it. In doing so, he’ll get a free pass from Teh Left. But he’ll still need a decent cover story that allows Teh Left to weather the inevitable cognitive dissonance. I can’t quite see it yet.
BBB
Michael my point was, if NH gets more tax support from Teh Evil Gubt than California, which is socialist liberal heaven and stocked full of poor people, then maybe your Bon Jovi-style “live free or die young”[1] ideology is not the cause of their success. Dare I say “historical accident” or “good luck” or “a complex range of factors”?
[1]: This metaphor has been deliberately mixed. But Bon-Jovi wrote “New Hampshire”,right? Or was it New Jersey? Anyway, their name abbreviates to BJ, so whatever.
BBB: this is how the media subty drags things towards a right-wing view on economics. Apparently Rudd has to praise the Libs for their surpluses – even though those surpluses were “achieved” in part by budget cuts to the undeserving poor (the budget for aboriginal affairs, for instance).
Given our economy was on the up when Howard took over – indeed Keating has made the point that Howard’s savage cuts in his first budget stomped on growth – and that we later were raking in revenues from high commodity prices, our budget would have been in a strong position regardless. I don’t accept Costello’s mock heroics on surpluses.
And Gittins says micro economic reform is the same as neoliberalism. Maybe, but there are shades of neoliberalism – even those of us deeply dubious about the whole neoliberal project should recognize that. For instance, I wouldn’t die in a ditch to defending the Hawke-Keating government, but the enterprise bargaining system introduced in the early ’90s was a world away from Work Choices (which effectively outlawed trade unions).
And as for partisanship, all I can say is that while partisanship has been taken to ridiculous extremes by the Right in the Thatcher-Reagan era, I don’t now how democracy is to operate without disputes and contestation. Honestly, explain to me how.
…I meant subtly.
BBB
The partial solution to the “cognitive dissonance” could be significant reform to the interaction between the tax/welfare/transfer system to significantly lower EMTRs for marginal workers. If accompanied by the reforms you mentioned above, it would enable Rudd to sell an overall package as both efficiency enhancing and equity improving. The difficulty will be in making the package revenue neutral. From that perspective it is a real shame that the government took raising the GST off the table as it would have given them many more options and IMHO it will eventually have to increase anyway.
Ginja, the point is that Rudd in now benefiting from Australia’s favourable fiscal position in that it has given him the scope to significantly loosen fiscal policy. Yes, the libs made the “Beazley black hole” seem worse than it was. Yes, Howard benefited from the revenue growth associated with the mining boom. But if you compare Australia with other countries, fiscal settings were kept under much better control here – and some credit for that has to go to the Howard government.
Frankly, I can’t believe that you can’t see the hypocrisy of praising the microeconomic reform agenda and then getting stuck into the conservatives for their neo-liberal policies. He has two choices, he either think that microeconomic reform is important – in which case his attack on neoliberalism is just politicking. Or he really think the neoliberal project was misplaced – in which case much of the microeconomic reform agenda was also misplaced.
When I was marking essays at uni, if someone had served up that essay to me I would have passed it, but barely, because the arguments contained within are internally inconsistent. Yet here you are getting all excited because our dear leader is capable of commissioning one of his staff members to ghost write a hack essay!
As I just remarked on another thread, LO, I’m sure Rudd is well aware of the contradiction in his economics/ideology narrative. I doubt it matters to him. He’s much more of a political animal than he’s made out to be. Political discourse doesn’t have to be true or coherent to be effective. The whole point of his essay is political – to justify current policy, diss his opponents, stir up the right wing media and commentariat, and to lay the grounds for the ALP’s campaign.
Political discourse doesn’t have to be true or coherent to be effective.
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Indeed it’s positively a disadvantage.
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I don’t even know what that means
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It’s a subterranean contextualization of contra-discursive vector dynamics.
Perhaps Mark, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t rip into him for that inconsistency and I certainly won’t put up with people like Ginja saying:
“When I opened the paper the first thought I had was what a monster it was. And after reading it made me feel proud that we had a prime minister who didn’t talk down to people and was willing to explain policies to people as if they were adults.
After the Bush-Howard years, when it seemed like a deliberate policy to lower the IQ of the western world, grown up debate is back. Obama is trying something similar.
In a subtle way, too, I think Rudd is challenging the Canberra press gallery to concentrate on serious debate and meaty policy instead of utes or strippers or air hosties.”
I mean, please! It is an average undergraduate essay at best!
Anyway, there are consequences to the intellectual incoherence in that over time there will be widening gap between the rhetoric that comes out of these polemics and the policy on the ground. That will eventually undermine his credibility.
Re Mark 121
Exactly. Rudd is a politician. The essay wasn’t a scholarly essay, designed to be logically consistent and factually based, with sources properly acknowledged. It certainly wasn’t designed to be original. It was a political statement, written to achieve a political objective.
Howard, from whom Rudd has learnt a lot, used to do the same thing. Of course he didn’t write long essays for the Fairfax press, or even the Murdoch press. That would have looked totally fake. Howard spoke verbal essays, full of the same types of contradictions and half truths, but on talk back radio. Same objective, same message, different medium.
Rudd, The Intellectual, uses The Monthly and the Fairfax Press, not the Alan Jones show to achieve his objective. At other times, Rudd, The Loveable Geek, uses Rove and FM radio. But that is just a detail.
“I mean, please! It is an average undergraduate essay at best!”
Really, LO? If that is your considered opinion then the essay is still streets ahead of the vast majority of media political commentary, and Ginja’s point still stands.
You obviously haven’t read many undergraduate essays lately Polonius – it wasn’t a complement.
You obviously haven’t read many undergraduate essays lately
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You obviously haven’t read much media commentary lately.
Actually good question which is more derivative, clunky, boring, predictable, childish and ignorant: the average undergrad essay or the press gallery?
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When I think of the average undergrad and the fact that academics have to read hundreds of thousands of their words every year I’m surprised the suicide rate isn’t higher.
#117 sg: Michael my point was, if NH gets more tax support from Teh Evil Gubt than California, which is socialist liberal heaven and stocked full of poor people, then maybe your Bon Jovi-style “live free or die young”[1] ideology is not the cause of their success.
sg, the data I’ve linked for you at #82 above shows that for every year between 1981 and 2005 New Hampshire received less federal expenditure per dollar of tax paid than California. Furthermore, New Hampshire never in any year received more expenditure than tax paid, unlike California. You’ve quoted more recent data I assume (which you didn’t link), but how long do you think it will be before it all goes back to the status quo of the last 20 years?
Dare I say “historical accident” or “good luck” or “a complex range of factors”?
Sure, in the same way that the USSR not becoming really wealthy was just bad luck or a complex range of factors.
“When I think of the average undergrad and the fact that academics have to read hundreds of thousands of their words every year I’m surprised the suicide rate isn’t higher.”
Some of us willingly continue to return to blog comments threads, so we’re hardly going to go off and kill ourselves over undergrad essays.
It’s not going to return, MS, unless the funding arrangements are changed. California has declined steadily from 1.08 to 0.78, and there is no particular evidence the decline should stop at that; NH has oscillated around 0.72 for the past 10 years or so. And the more recent figures suggest that the lines may have crossed.
Also, do you notice how the proportion of spending in that time series suddenly drops for NH at precisely the time that its rank in federal tax burden drops precipitously? (From 20 to 39 in one year). This I think might be a consequence of the deficit mechanism they mention in the footnotes – when the deficit starts, the small states get less of it than the large states, and then this effect magnifies in subsequent years.
It’s very easy for a small, high-tech and historically lucky state to remain wealthy and independent when it is able to provide services to a massive eastern seaboard industrial/technological complex which is propped up by states like NY and NJ. Not to mention DC. It’s no evidence of the effectiveness of your model – look at neighbouring Massachusets, which is in a similar tax situation but has a much more socialist approach.
Incidentally, if you “don’t care how other people spend their money” presumably you won’t object to the good folk of NY “choosing” to spend their govt money on buying all the junkies there 1 way tickets to your permissive utopia?
Of course you don’t mind that the people of NY spend their money on “socialist” projects – it soaks up the dross from NH that they would otherwise have to deal with themselves. Just as you don’t mind if other people in Australia spend their money on medicare and methadone, providing you don’t have to pay taxes. So transparently selfish.
“Incidentally, if you “don’t care how other people spend their money” presumably you won’t object to the good folk of NY “choosing” to spend their govt money on buying all the junkies there 1 way tickets to your permissive utopia?”
Ha ha. Then we’d see the free market in all its glory.
Clement Attlee put it best:
Few thought he was even a starter.
There were many who thought themselves smarter.
But he ended PM, CH and OM,
An earl and a Knight of the Garter.
On the fiscal position Rudd inherited, all I can say is that some people who pride themselves on being able to see through Rudd’s spin are curiously susceptible to Coaltion spin.
The Coalition goes on about leaving a surplus and paying down debt. All I can say to that is: “So what?!”
Look at the states. Until recently they were all pretty much in the same position – mostly in surpluses, paying off debt, or in very mild deficit. Yes, they had injections of GST money, but they also have a very tough job of service delivery and limited options to raise revenue.
And look at the big stuff the Coation can claim credit for – they don’t strike me as all that impressive.
For instance, selling off Telstra. Polls told us that was unpopular, but there were also many parts of the Coaltion’s core constituency – older, wealthier voters – queuing up for their little slice of the action. The GST did come with political pain, but Peter van Onselen has advanced the interesting theory that it may have saved Howard – rallying a government in trouble.
As Gittins points out, the Coaltion gave large tax cuts 8 years in a row. And let’s not forget the gratuitous handouts for the upper-middle and upper classes: capital gains tax cuts, private school handouts, private health insurance rebates. Add to that Seasprite helicopters that never became operational, advertising on an epic scale, I could go on and on.
I can’t help but get the sense that these essays are creating fantastic cover for actually doing some more neo-liberalisin’
Tis already rampant in QLD.
some people who pride themselves on being able to see through Rudd’s spin are curiously susceptible to Coaltion spin.
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Yeah funny that.
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If you were going to teach practical political philosophy at schools, in a rational world you’d teach that it is in your interests to be a swinging voter. But, for some reason I can’t quite figure, I reckon that won’t make it onto any curricula anytime soon.
Anyone bother to Google Michael Sutcliffe ? sorta makes me wonder about the um, ‘conditions of employment’ at his work place.
SG #131, California is typical of the usual process. A country or state is recognised as a ‘land of opportunity’, usually due to the actions of a few pioneering industrious types. Productive people get to it and begin to generate wealth and opportunity. The wealth and opportunity attracts more people looking for an easier life. They form a large social bloc with political clout. They vote themselves a comfortable life but the public budget starts to suffer, but even then the legacy of the ‘land of opportunity’ still lingers and this bunch morally guilt pressures the state to put in place big welfare policies and government social programs, put in employment regulation etc. The state begins to rely increasingly on fewer and fewer productive people to support it and increasingly this works up the chain, as the lesser productive people either can’t be productive under the tax burden and become welfare cases, or leave for new opportunities. Eventually only the fewest most productive people and industries remain and the burden on them is increased. Then the system becomes unstable, falls into ruin or collapses.
From the link above:
Wikipedia states:
This is what is happening in California. From the gold rushes, through agriculture and onwards it became an economic powerhouse culminating in things like Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Eventually it rose to the world’s fifth largest economy. As the socialist policies and burden of government regulation (plus, I personally believe, other factors such as welfare programs working to make immigrants quickly unproductive) set in, it has started to slip. I think it is now around the tenth largest economy. And this will continue, albeit as a slow process, but it will continue, unless California makes some adjustments. As an economy it is simply becoming less competitive. Accompanying this, the living standards of the majority of citizens will also slip, and new opportunities will look elsewhere.
Exactly the same process is happening in Massacheusetts. There is quite lot of emigration out of Massacheusetts to New Hampshire from people wanting to escape high taxes and take advantage of new opportunities. It will be a slow process, but in time Massacheusetts will stagnate and slip just like California. Now, the difference is if New Hampshire doesn’t allow the same things to happen then it won’t have to stagnate and can continue to maintain the high wealth and high standards of living into the future. (And if the people of New Hampshire make those choices, then it is morally right that they should receive the benefits).
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Lang Mack #136: Anyone bother to Google Michael Sutcliffe ? sorta makes me wonder about the um, ‘conditions of employment’ at his work place.
I’ve, um, done this and I sorta don’t know what you’re, um, crapping on about. Why don’t you, um, sorta, enlighten me on the ‘conditions of employment’ at my, um, workplace?
“culminating in things like Hollywood and Silicon Valley.”
Amd let us not forget the defence sector – a truly massive transfer of tax payer dollars to an unaccountable private industry sector.
“As the socialist policies and burden of government regulation (plus, I personally believe, other factors such as welfare programs working to make immigrants quickly unproductive) set in, it has started to slip.”
The Governator is a socialist? Well I never. And US welfare programs turning Mexican immigrants into lazy layabouts? How long do you think Californian agricultural and service industries would last if that was true?
Also fascinated to hear how 20,000 libertarians apparently unable to make a fist of it where they were, could suddenly be transformed into a wealth machine just by huddling together to enjoy what basically amounts to a 10% cut in overall taxes while bitching about Obama.
If they had what it takes, wouldn’t they be doing it already? And the mirror of this is that no notices or cares how many libertarians have gone Galt.
Let’s face it: Libertarians – a self-designed and over-engineered component for global supply chains that don’t need it anyway. And with lousy after sales service.
Careful how you respond Michael. The paras above are laden with booby traps for those that haven’t really thought through their hardnosed ideological stances.
And that includes you pinkos too.
“Anyone bother to Google Michael Sutcliffe ? sorta makes me wonder about the um, ‘conditions of employment’ at his work place.”
That’s a crap response. A seriously crap. Attack the argument, not who’s making it.
OK, by all means make fun of libertarians in general. God knows I have.
But Michael’s been pretty damn civil in the face of some serious personal provocation. He’s argued his corner without resorting to demanding investigations of his interlocutors’ personal lives.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more Lang Mack’s “google Mike” strikes me as pretty bloody nasty. And it also implies that Lang Mack has given up arguing on substance which is not a good look for you is it?
Yeah, yeah, I said some sarky things on this thread. But you’ll find they’re all in the service of making an actual point.
But “google the fucker so we can expose him as the hypocrite he is” only works if someone has publicly announced one thing while behaving quite the other way.
Whereas Michael is just a private citizen advancing his views in a boisterous blog thread.
So Michael, California’s wealth is due to historical factors and luck, but New Hampshire’s is due to libertarian principles? I think your theory about California is as fantastic as your theory about New Hampshire.
But it would appear you need to comment anonymously, given the behaviour of some others on this thread, sadly…
Hear hear, Nabakov.