Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38753808

Oh dear.

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

Never mind, Corbyn wont be in a job long. And almost certainly if May calls an election.

He will be out if will fail to get even second place in the by election. Everyone knows that Labour, is not the Labour it was.

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

I think we are getting hung up on the relative libertarian credentials of process and means and outcomes here and not getting the bigger picture. Corbyn's outcomes are libertarian because they create economic and social freedoms. The means of getting there do not necessarily have to be authoritarian. Measures such as investment in jobs, the environment, housing, education and training, enhancing worker and human rights etc are enabling devices. This kind of intervention is also a libertarian process. No doubt some of these cannot be achieved without laws and codes of conduct that restrict employers ability to unfairly exploit their workers. If you think taxation is authoritarian rather than an essential funding device then I suppose all political colours are authoritarian. My yardstick is the extend to which the vast majority have their liberties advanced.

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

Tulip Siddiq? (No, me neither) Obviously high profile. :dozey:

So Corbyn imposes a three line whip to vote in favour of triggering article 50. We'll see how effective that is, eh?

Source

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

I think you mean liberalism rather than libertarianism? Libertarianism is about as little government as possible, i.e the very basics. Liberalism is less dramatic although generally supports free markets and individual freedoms (the former is why I wouldn't classify Corbyn as liberal).

What you're talking about, government intervention in reducing inequality as inequality itself is barrier to true freedom, is social liberalism.

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

The difference between conservatives, socialists and traditional libertarians is as follows:

Socialists: What you do with your body and with other folk is your business, but what you do with your money is government business

Conservatives: What your do with your money is your own business, but what you do with your body and with other folk is government business

Libertarians: What you do, who you do it with and what you spend on is none of the government's business

There's been a lack of a truly Libertarian political party in the UK for many years. The Liberals used to be one, but since the SDP Alliance and the coming of the Lib Dems they've slipped more towards the Socialist/Social Democrat idea of tax and spend and green "initiatives" (aka banning things).

The biggest problem is that no politician has the guts to campaign on a manifesto of what they won't be doing, and no politician ever wants to reduce the state's (read: politicians') power over daily life. The only PM who came close to it was Thatcher, who privatised the big state run monopolies, but continued with authoritarian social policies regarding sex education and so on.

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

The Liberal Democrats would describe themselves as Social Liberals I think although that is a lot of overlap.

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

Well seems like democracy isn't that big of a thing to many elected representatives when it doesn't suit them and it's clear that the agenda of some over parliaments vote on article 50 is to attempt to derail brexit completely.

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

Instead of doing their job,namely doing what their electorate wish, i suspect a lot of labour MP's will be using the brexit vote to follow a personal agenda against Corbyn

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

They'd do well to remember their electorates as they'll get spanked if it's a leave area...

We know MP's have a built in desire for self -protection that overrides all else.

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

I like your attempt to characterise Conservative, Socialist and Libertarian, but I'm struggling a bit with this semantic discussion we are having, because it could become completely arid and is probably impossible to resolve. We may talk about Liberalism as if it was something different than Libertarianism, but they are differentially towards the same end of the same spectrum and are qualitatively similar in many ways. Meanwhile, the desire to have a common understanding of the terms we use, is constantly frustrated by the continuous morphing of meanings in common parlance. e.g. For a long time the right of the Conservative Party and the GOP have been referred to, pejoratively, as 'NeoCons', then that term quickly drifted out of use and now they get labelled as NeoLiberals! Perhaps they are both.

I'm fascinated by your characterisation of green initiatives as anti-libertarian because it involves banning things. In fact, green initiatives are ways of bringing about urgent change by offering better and more sustainable ways of doing things. Well-executed initiatives are enabling. Ironically, resistance to such change comes from 'neoliberals' like Murdoch, clinging to the old ways and technologies of money-making. It is they who denounce the green movement as being a fascistic, authoritarian scam. I'm waiting, tapping my desk, for them to realise, as the left has, that the future is green and that there is money to be made. Trump, for example, ought to be massively investing in the development and manufacture of green tech in those old coal and steel towns he used to win the election. Instead he wants to contribute to the demise of our civilisation by digging up coal again and extracting shale gas.

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

It's the Americanisation of it that is causing the confusion, it's what started this conversation in the first place as British writers are using the American definition of liberal more and more. Europe has a specific meaning that differs from the American meaning. In America liberal is used for most of the left.

However Libertarianism is the same across the West IIRC. It's defined by almost no government at all. A Libertarian would want to drastically reduce the size of government including the NHS and welfare. They would not want to use state intervention to reduce inequality as they would claim that this is better achieved by the government getting out of the way. Corbyn is not a libertarian at all. I think old school liberals, classical liberals, are a lot closer to that than modern day European liberals.

I think after that it gets more difficult. A lot of people from Nick Clegg to Daniel Hannan could be described as a liberal by some definitions. The latter example being why it's so stupid to use the American definition of liberal when talking about British politics. The Liberal Democrats themselves split into two groups divided between how much they think the state should get involved in the economy but united on social freedoms. I think what you've described earlier was social liberalism. The idea that economic inequality is a barrier to freedom so that should be addressed.

I would say where liberals differ from Corbyn is that Corbyn believes in equality of outcome. He wants to use taxation, welfare, regulation and other things to bring everyone onto the same level as much as possible.

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

I agreed with everything you said apart from the bit left in quotes.

Nobody is looking for equality of outcome. That is impossible because we are all different and make different use of the cards we are dealt. The only way in which we can be seen as equal is in the Christian cultural sense of having equal value as human beings. I had this same conversation with someone on FB the other day who was trying, disparagingly, to characterise Socialism as seeking 'equality' - meaning equality of outcome. She then proceeded to shoot the notion down. Really, 'equality' is the sloppy shorthand for 'equality of opportunity'.

I don't believe that you are misrepresenting the concept of 'equality' so that you can then shoot its supporters down, but we do need to be clear what is meant by it in the labour movement - by socialists. Socialism has developed the concept of equality of opportunity from the cultural Christian concept of humans being equally valued regardless of their socio-economic status, race, gender etc. Given that 'equality' means 'equality of opportunity' we can now see attempts to redistribute wealth, maintain free universal education and health services, occasional quotas for women and the disabled in jobs, special needs education, translations of documents for newly arrived immigrants etc as means of levelling the playing field - to give everyone an equal chance of success. This is what the labour movement has always been about since the 19th Century. For an equally long period the right wing press and politicians have sought to diss this admirable ambition by accusing the left of wanting everyone to be the same or have the same wealth and power.

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

If this line of posting continues I intend to do the decent thing and go into the drawing room and retrieve my revolver :D