Libertarianism

Libertarianism is a strange ideology in that its adherants present almost utopia-like visions of what the world would be with their system in place, and yet can offer no real examples in the world or at any time in history where Libertarianism in "pure form" has ever existed to demonstrate that their claims are true.

The Libertarian ideology has much in common with Anarchy- it is opposed to "government intervention" in mostly every form. In Anarchy of course, there is no government, and what you get is a system where the strong thrive and the weak perish. Libertarianism however, allows for a very limited form of government, where people voluntarily pay for this government to exist and set some basic laws aimed at protecting people from "force and fraud", enforcing these laws using a police force and military.

It is important to note that taxes under a Libertarian system are voluntary. Central to the Libertarian argument is the idea that "taxes are theft" and that the government has no right to take your money if you do not choose to give it.

So if the government stops collecting taxes then how does it provide things like schools, hospitals, roads ect? The answer is, under Libertarianism - it simply doesn't. Everything gets privatised.

There is confusion as to whether Libertarianism is to be defined as a Left Wing or Right Wing ideology. Many Libertarians will reject the "Anarchy" label.
This is strange because lets suppose under their system people voluntarily decide NOT to pay any taxes- how then can the government afford to provide a military or police force if it has no money? There is no use in setting laws if there is no means to enforce them, therefor this system would be no different to anarchy.

This scenareo is hardly unlikely. Libertarians constantly complain about taxation and yet they expect once the system they support comes into practice, suddenly these very same people will all start VOLUNTEERING to pay taxes to the government!

Libertarianism can be an attractive ideology because it is (at first glance) seen to be a consistent ideology- it supports non-government intervention in both economic AND social matters whereas other ideologies are a mixture of different ideas. However this consistency falls apart when one realises that in a debate on any given issue, the biggest division is not between Libertarians and non-Libertarians, but amoungst Libertarians themselves who seem to endlessly bicker.

Debate and discussion with Libertarians is something that personally I have found to be frustrating. The ideology is very rigid. Basically it is Libertarians Vs. the world- if you support anything other than Libertarianism, you are a supporter of "big government fascism" or you are a "communist" or whatever.

Ultimately I find the problem with Libertarianism is that it does not mesh with reality. Libertarianism talks a lot about "individualism" and how there is no such thing as society. Libertarians "just want to be left alone" from "government intrusion" ect. Yet the reality is, we all live and interact with other people all the time and have to function in wider society.

The assumption behind Libertarianism is that government action = loss of freedom.

Actually, I think there are plenty of instances where lack of government action has equaled a lack of freedom and plenty of examples where government action has enhanced rather than diminised peoples opportunity, freedom and safety.

Libertarians do not believe in Democracy- which they loosely define as majority rule, because they consider it to be a form of "tyranny" and at risk of the "majority" making bad decisions. A free market system, Libertarians argue, is much more responsive to peoples needs. Under a free market system, we vote with our money. We have the power to "take our business elsewhere" if we do not get our needs met. Since businesses must make a profit to survive, it is argued that businesses will yield to peoples demands.

I think there are two things to be said about this argument. The first is that on the one hand, Libertarians oppose "majority rule", but at the same time they support a system which essentially is "majority rule" anyway. Think about it. A business is going to become bigger and more dominant the more people buy their products. That doesn't mean to say the majority of people are making rational decisions. The products being purchased might be bad for them or bad for the environment ect. But if it's what lots of people are buying- then that business becomes bigger and more dominant. On other hand, if only a small number of people demand a certain product, there is going to obviously be a much smaller market. So the whole market is shaped around "majority choice".

The second thing to be said about this is that if we vote with our money, then this clearly is not "fair", since some have a lot more money than others, and consiquently a lot more power to shape the market.

Libertarians are extremely selective when promoting their ideology. They will say "look at this country, it has higher living standards - this is due to it having Libertarian charactaristics and if it were only even MORE libertarian, it would have even higher living standards!".
They will then point to "government intervention" as being to blame for virtually every social and economic problem in existance.

The reality is, many countries in the world today have a mixed economy consisting of both private and public and Libertarians are simply trying to attribute everything positive to their ideology and everything negative to "government intrusion"- and yet they ignore many achievements of government intervention and ignore the many failiures of the "laissez faire capitalist markets".

This blame game is very ironic because Libertarians often speak of how they consider "taking responsibility" to be a very important attribute.

I have personally come to reject the ideology of Libertarianism because I feel that if it were put into practice in the real world, it would basically result in Anarchy - where the most ruthless in society end up controlling everything at the expense of everyone else.

Back to the 80's with the Tories

So, since May 2010, Britain has had a Tory government once again. Having observed them for a couple of months now I have come to the conclusion that it looks like we are seeing a repeat of recent history.

The set up is familiar- the story goes that in the late 1970's, Britain was a wreck. Strikes and unions had brought the country to its knees, unemployment was an outrage, the economy was in tatters- we were the sick man of Europe. And then Margaret Thatcher got in, administered her "tough medicine" and saved the day, making Britain Great again.
Now, the story goes, that our countrys economy is in crisis. There has been the global recession. We are saddled with huge national debt. Labour got in and wrecked the economy again, and now its the Tories to the rescue, again.

But are the Tories really so great at running the country? Back in the late 70's when unemployment was at around 1.4 million, Thatcher campaigned with the famous poster "Labour isn't working". What happened? Did Thatchers oh so brilliant economic policies lead to a fall in unemployment? No, the fact is, unemployment shot up to well over 3 million. All she ever did was blame others for this.

Child poverty rose rapidly under Margaret Thatcher. The economy went from boom to bust. There were fewer opportunities and support available for the average person to move forward in life.
Even the idea that taxes were made much lower for the majority of people under the Conservative governments of the 80's and 90's is a myth.

What about quality of life? It can hardly be claimed that Thatcher created a nation more at ease and with fewer strikes.

Thatcher pioneered the Privatisations of the 80's. Now our energy prices are going through the roof, and many people struggle to pay the bills, hitting elderly people especially hard.



As for public services, the NHS and education suffered. The Tories present themselves as being "tough on crime". What really happened under the Tories? Between 1979 and 1997, crime DOUBLED.

The myth goes that the Tories are the Eurosceptic party- and yet it was a Conservative government that took this country into the common market and sold away more and more powers to the EU.

The myth is also that Tories are against mass immigration- when in fact under Thatcher, the numbers of immigrants coming into Britain continued to rise.

On virtually every major issue, the Tories failed. And now the past is repeating itself.

David Cameron is an eton educated snob. He is an arrogant PR man. So far his "coalition" government with the Lib Dems are showing ALL the classic signs of yet more "Thatcherism".

100,000 NHS frontline staff predicted to go due to NHS cuts, which the Tories promised they wouldn't do.

The increased threat of crime due to cuts in police budgets and police numbers.

Increased university tuition fees.

Broken promises on Europe and Immigration.

The Tory attitude is and always has been that when everything is falling apart- the government should just step back and do nothing.

The contradictions in right-wing ideology

Political ideology is a more complicated issue than one might assume. The more you study it, the more you begin to realise terms like "left wing" and "right wing" are not very well defined.

For example, depending on the establishment of the day, certain opponents might be labelled "communists" or "nazi's", and yet when you examine these labels in greater detail, they may contain no substance at all.

Having researched political ideology for a while now, I have come to the conclusion that there are many false assumptions which confuse the political spectrum.

If you take economics, you can broadly define the "right wing" as leaning towards the laissez-faire free market capitalism, and "left wing" as leaning towards a planned and regulated economy.

The confusion arises when the "social" aspect to ideology comes into play. Many on the "right wing" will identify themselves as being pro-family values, anti-immigration, opposed to the "decline in moral values" in society, tough on crime and of a socially conservative, religious outlook.

Many on the left are commonly percieved to be less religious, in favour of multiculturalism, tolerant of diverse lifestyles and so on.

But in my opinion, these aims and attitudes are the exact opposite of what each ideologies said economic system will, in practice, achieve.

I shall focus here particularly on right-wing ideology. It is my opinion that very Capitalist economic systems bring about a very social darwinist "survival of the fittest" type of society, as opposed to the religious values that social conservatives talk up.

The right wing talk of "family values" and envision a society where the nuclear family is the norm, where community life is abundant and national pride is strong, and yet they support an economic system which places "individualism" at its very heart.
"There's no such thing as society"- as Margaret Thatcher once said. How can you develop strong community relations in an economic system based on constantly competing with your neighbours?

Surely for family life to flourish people need to spend time together- not all of their time working. People need to have enough money to afford to live in a decent home. And yet those on the right wing will oppose such measures as maternity and paternity leave and oppose the minimum wage and so on.

Those on the right continually talk about immigration. And yet it is the very capitalist economic system they support which encourages mass movement of people. Such phrases as "British jobs for British workers" are meaningless in a capitalist economic system. Globalisation can and does result in jobs going overseas and in migrant workers moving in to compete for local jobs. Measures to restrict immigration are bad for big business.

I do agree that our welfare state needs to look after our own people first- otherwise it is simply unsustainable to have large numbers of people not paying into the system sponging off of it. But many on the right use the fact that there are foriegn and domestic "spongers" as a reason to ABOLISH the welfare state altogether.

I do not feel that Captialism encourages a more "moral" society by any means. Just take a look advertising used by businesses to sell their products. Businesses encourage us to feel that without their product, you are socially unacceptable. They do this by saying their product will make you smarter, younger looking, more sexy ect ect, and the implication is that without it you won't be quite as sexy and cool as everybody else who does own the product.
"Sex sells" is a well known saying in business. Just take a look at our celebrities and modern movies. Do any of these things set good examples for children? Most movies now are full of sex and violence- because that is what "sells".
And yet - those on the Right wing continually complain about the moral decay in socity, despite capitalism playing a very large role.

Capitalism is all about self interest. Big businesses don't CARE about family values, or doing what is for the good of society, or in national interest. As long as they can make a profit- they will do it. If that means bringing in multitudes of immigrants to the country because these people will accept lower wages- they will do it.
If that means making men and women work all hours of the day on a low wage so they barely get any family time together and can barely afford the nicer things in life- they will do it.
It doesn't matter if encouraging alcohol consumption 24/7 in pubs, clubs and at football matches leads to anti-social behaviour if that's what makes a profit.
Doesn't matter if encouraging young teenagers to dress in a sexually provocative manner is "bad for social values"- because it's making a profit.
It doesn't matter if families are destroyed, communities are divided, moral values are destroyed and national identity is eroded, as long as they make their money and it benefits their selfish interests- none of that stuff matters.

So when right wing politicians promote capitalism and "social values" in the same breath, I honestly believe they are speaking in very contradictive terms.