Cameron has staked his reputation on the Big Society and Labour will gun for it on any pretext (a fig-leaf for cuts being the current refrain). Cameron cannot afford to fail twice.
I hope to God that analysis is wrong. The Big Society is a monumental clusterfuck waiting to happen, the last thing that can happen is for it to succeed.
49 comments:
The Big Society is a monumental clusterfuck waiting to happen
Obo, this implies that you understand wtf Call Me Dave is on about. Care to enlighten me (honest Q)?
Well, it's not exactly fucking clear what the Big Society is, but it's abundantly clear that iDave is going to fund it by stealing people's money.
No matter how well-intentioned it may be, it's never going to get past that little issue.
As to what it actually is, it looks like iDave's going to take this stolen money and dish it out to "deserving causes", i.e. causes that Tory politicians deem as deserving.
If that doesn't terrify you, nothing will.
Government funding projects by stealing money... as opposed to?
So Big Society is a euphemism for Government, and acts like any and all Government, stealing money to fund special interests. And we are shocked/noticing the distinction because?
I think iDave is making it up as he goes along....
“As to what it actually is, it looks like iDave's going to take this stolen money and dish it out to "deserving causes"”
Actually I thought the idea was that it was all about getting people to take on responsibilities as well as rights, and thus reduce the need for taxation/theft. But I don’t really know, so I could be wrong.
P.S: Obnoxio. Do you consider yourself to be financially aware? A proponent of Austrian Economics? Its just if you wanted to read a good book explaining how economics really works, from ‘our’ perspective (generally right wing libertarians) you could use this. Its pitched at a level that any clown could get: http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Economy-Grows-Why-Crashes/dp/047052670X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279555590&sr=8-1
You're not a libertarian. You're a Tory. The two have precious little in common. ;o)
I’m a practical and pragmatic libertarian who see’s the Tories as the most useful conduit (or certainly least worst). Not all Tories are libertarians, not all libertarians are Tories. But if you draw a ven-diagram you will see a certain bit overlap, I’m in that bit. I’m also an advocate of Austrian economics and an advocate of localism.
Your an anarchist clown. I would also point out your a bit fat, but then again I’m not the vision of godliness I was ten years ago so I’m going to let that one slide.
Ahhhh ... "pragmatic". The fig-leaf of social democrat authoritarians the world over.
“Ahhhh ... "pragmatic". The fig-leaf of social democrat authoritarians the world over.”
Jesus.... You sound like my old drill sergeant who once confidently asserted ‘today it’s a top button undone, tomorrow it’s a submarine hatch’
Get a sense of proportion!
Perhaps. Or perhaps, contrary to your view of yourself, you are in fact just another social democrat who has heard the word libertarian.
YOU are accusing ME of being under informed??????
Seriously.....
Coming from the man who can't get past the basics of how Anarcho-Capitalism might work.
I'm not accusing you of being under-informed. I'm accusing you of being a very well-informed statist thug.
LMAO......seriously, I laughed like a fucking drain when I read that!
I favour a state at less than a tenth of its current size. Just enough to enforce the (reduced in scope) law and employ enough police to arrest the occasional rapist and Raoul Maot, and in return you routinely compare me to Joe Stalin.
YOUR OFF YOUR HEAD!!
"Big Society" is an oxymoron. The Christian Church was founded by 14 men, the Scouting movement started with 22 boys, CAMRA was started by 4 drinkers, TheyWorkForYou by 2 guys, Linux by 1 guy deciding something would be fun. That's society, that's the little platoons that make civil society happen, and they never needed the state to help them.
What Cameron is proposing is just the state, clothed in Burkean language.
"YOUR OFF YOUR HEAD!!"
I think you'll find it's actually "you're off your head."
"I favour a state at less than a tenth of its current size. Just enough to enforce the (reduced in scope) law and employ enough police to arrest the occasional rapist and Raoul Maot, and in return you routinely compare me to Joe Stalin."
At the very core of your belief is the fact that there must be some group of people, who are somehow blessed with the wisdom and knowledge to exercise coercion on the rest of the people.
The only difference between that and Joe Stalin is a matter of degree.
At the very core of your belief is the fact that there must be some group of people, who are somehow blessed with the wisdom and knowledge to exercise coercion on the rest of the people.
So who should provide services to the public and who decides where, when and how they are provided. Just interested to know.
Isn't this Big Society effort really about quangos, with highly paid management, as usual?
It'll be interesting to see who will end up being the highly paid management. Do you think we will find their names familiar?
"So who should provide services to the public and who decides where, when and how they are provided. Just interested to know."
I don't understand the question.
Who decides where, when and how a dry cleaning service is provided? God?
So you would want the private sector to provide it all, fair enough. So surely the heads of corporate organisations will have all the power.
"Who decides where, when and how a dry cleaning service is provided? God?"
I doubt it, for "He cleans in mysterious ways" does not have quite the same ring to it...
If the State did food, we'd all starve.
The anonymous questions are a case in point. It superficially appears that the poster would have difficultly determining the difference between yours and my position on just about everything, bar the courts and police. I would even have defence privately run for God’s sake.
Obnoxio, you remind me of those guys in The Life Of Brian; whom when Brian stands up and says “we must remember who the real enemy is” they all chime “The Judian people’s front!”; “No the Romans” Brain replies, “oh...them”.
Your undefined view point is so niche you would struggle to find more than a few thousand proponents in the country, and that’s before I even make the old joke about maybe anarchist could achieve something if only they got organised.
You have more in common with me that the vast majority of population, and yet all you can do is attempt to paint me as statist thug for the fact that my plan is sane and addresses the problem anti-social behaviour and retains a tiny amount of the state.
As soon as you can explain how you would deal with a Raoul Moat or Peter Sutcliff or random car thief your ideas will have some credibility. If you can explain how you would deal with child abuses and polluters, or anyone else that benefits by abusing something that they do not have a right to.
In a nutshell, then, because the majority of people think the way you do, or even more so, you are right?
Or is it perhaps because they don't think that they hold your opinions?
There's nothing "undefined" about my viewpoint, it's quite clear. I don't need some thug with a gun to make me do the "right" thing.
You obviously do.
But I am still idly curious as to how you can admit that every different model of the state in human history, from classical liberal to communist dictatorship has always ended up with all the power and the money, while the drones wind up getting fucked up the arse from the cradle to the grave, and still demand that the state is a necessary evil?
You really are no different from any socialist: "yes, yes, socialism failed last time and every time before that, but if we just apply these tweaks there'll be fluffy bunnies and sunshine and the moon on a stick for all ... next time!"
Replace the word "socialism" with "state" and you have Kingbingo's rosy solution to all the world's problems.
Meanwhile, even in Switzerland, which is the role model you so readily espouse, we have shit like this.
The size of the state has nothing to do with its propensity for sticking its nose into your life and telling you what you can and can't do.
Lmao to the post above this :P
You think Obo posts principled comments about not using violence because it's a great way to find support and readership?
If that pragmatism, then it's not even a winner on the emotional front. Anarchism is a matter of not attacking other people to get your own way... it's not any more complex than that. The division between Anarchist and Minarchist (or Conservative as Kingbongo seems to be) is 10 times larger than the difference between Extreme Minarchist and Total Authoratarian.
The Anarchist has non-aggression as his principle, the Minarchist and Socialist have aggression, and the principle is the most important part, lest we simply be flinging around personal opinion from the barrel of a gun.
Also, there is not meaningful distinction between "provision" and "provision by the private maket" and more than there is a distinction between "physical food" and "food". Sure metaphysical/public things all sound ladida happy fun time, but they mean fuck all once you apply actual definitions (shooting people to get your way).
Also, I don't understand (ethical - obviously I am fully aware economically) why people have to consider these imaginary super powerful "corporations" when the Anarchist is just as supportive morally of 6 billion 1 man operations.
@Kingbingo: Last time I checked, you solution didn't stop Raoul Moat. He shot his girlfriend, killed her boyfriend and then another cop. Free Society: Wouldn't have been alowed on property anywhere near her home, wouldn't have been served food or been able to secure housing or weaponary anywhere near her home (or then travelled anywhere near it as no company would have supported his travel there on their roads). He wouldn't have even got off the first shot, and if he did, he'd have been caught before death number 2 (and not only because the target wouldn't exist). Then, after all this solutions the state can't possibly enforce, free people still have private defense/police to turn to.
Anarchism: Infinite Solutions, State: Shoot people. So obo can come up with solutions when your love does.
On top of that, why the fuck does Obo have to come up with shit? "Don't point a gun at people to get your way" isn't a complex fucking concept. It's not like we need to prove it by beating Ford at coming up with the assembly line (and you know, predicting another million innovations and free interactions), when not shooting people is already simply understood as a moral action.
I'll give you every answer you can imagine the day after you shoot someone Kingbingo. Prove to me that you're a pragmatist and not just pussying out by allowing another organisation to do that which you know is wrong.
And of course people have come up with solutions for everything from car thiefs to pollution - your ignorance is not a fucking argument. You're a tosser, either admit you want to shoot people or stfu.
2 posts about this* now.
Well 3 above this one...
@Roger Thornhill: It's always worth pointing out, as people seem to think the concept theoretical, that WHEN the state provided food, people really did starve. In Early Modern France, in the USSR, China... If the state can't provide food I can't believe anyone is backward enough to hold onto the idea that it can provide justice.
"So you would want the private sector to provide it all, fair enough. So surely the heads of corporate organisations will have all the power."
They won't have any power because you won't have to buy their stuff. Markets work like the ultimate PR where everyone can have a bit of what they want. Government is the opposite in that it imposes a single solution for everyone.
Anon above: Too funny, thankfully we'll never find out. You and OTC can join the Marxists in the depressing and frustrating reality that the world you crave will never happen! Enjoy!
Anon above: (I am not the anon above that, but the Anon 5 above this)
If you do not crave non-aggression, do you then crave aggression? That must be a very unhealthy and pathetic state to live in, so I find myself happier and less frustrated, knowing that I am a superior human being to you in everyway.
Freedom can be earned without casting off the state, once we have accepted truth, and live freedom actively by casting off involuntary relationships, irrationality and abuse local to us. it is only the Marxists who live frustrated by delusion, and Statists who live frustrated that their Utopia never does, never will and never can exist.
"Too funny, thankfully we'll never find out."
What's funny? Where is the use of force in the buyer/seller reationship?
"You and OTC can join the Marxists in the depressing and frustrating reality that the world you crave will never happen! Enjoy!"
We already have a relatively free market economy in many areas and I don't find it at all depressing. More market is better, less is worse.
So we're all happy then, that's a relief. My fear of total Market control over services would be in my case quite scary. My son has cystic fibrosis, a rare genetic disease and needs intense medical provision. What market forces would make the provision of such services profitable and at the same time affordable.
You'd probably be surprised.
Explain how? The number of people who are unfortunate enough to suffer from it are so few.
The number of people who like to dress up as babies and get fed and nappy changed by a prostitute is also pretty low yet the market brings forth people who specialise in providing this service
"What market forces would make the provision of such services profitable and at the same time affordable?"
Charity.
Before the stranglehold of the NHS most, if not all, doctors worked in charity hospitals donating their time. In those days,you became a doctor to heal people rather than make a load of money. Then, as now, equipment could be either donated or bought by bequest. (Equipment being a lot cheaper with no taxes of course)
Of course this is simply one way of doing it but the thing about an AnCap society is that we don't know how things will pan out. There is no road-map.
JohnW
Never of those answers give me any confidence in providing the treatment that he currently gets from the NHS.
That's nice, unfortunately, none of the treatment I've had from the NHS makes me think it's worth anything more than a call centre in Bangalore.
That is not answering my question from above. I know you hate the NHS but stick to the point.
With all the anonymi I have no idea of who you are or what point you are referring to.
But the fact of the matter is that government regulation of pharma and clueless NHS shopping habits means that we pay a bloody fortune for the NHS. YOU may think you're getting a bloody bargain, but you're getting it at the cost of 20 million other people.
The NHS makes medicine expensive, not cheaper.
So private treatment of Cystic Fibrosis would be cheaper. Why would a private company invest in a service for so few people.
Why do they do it now?
They dont as far as I am aware and if they do it would be with NHS staff and using knowledge gained through the research done in the Royal Brompton. Not private. As with most private doctors who gain their training subsidised by the state and work for both private and state. This is just an ideological argument and so far noone has given me the answers that would give me more faith in a private system for my son. And as a result this is a deadend conversation and as I know too well..lif is too short. Good luck in your blogosphere life!
Before you go: how do they do it in countries which don't have an NHS (which is most of the world)?
Experienced public health care in the US..poor. Public health care in Spain not great. And in my son's case the French system gave incorrect treatment and made his condition worse. So not all roses out there either. My faith is private corporations to be compassionate is lacking. Bye
Should the Anon with the child with CF still be loitering, could I ask you a couple of questions, please?
Were you aware that your baby was likely to have CF prior to his birth? Did you (or your partner) request/be offered testing for CFTR gene mutations? Were you aware of a history of CF in either of your families?
In simple terms: did you know pre-birth that your child was likely to be at risk from CF? If yes -- and as brutal as it sounds -- then you made the decision to have that child in those circumstances. If this is the case, why should you expect others to help mitigate the costs associated with your own choice?
No but I see you argument. In a system that treatment was based on personal decisions the moral questions become endless. Soldiers should pay over the odds for their treatment..it is their choice to be in the army and be injured in war. It is a long road and not one I care to go down.
Soldiers should be shot... they're murderers for hire.
As for your child, I don't know what you think "private" is, but it's YOU. You're private, I'm private, Obo is private. The "market" is lots of private people DOING STUFF. Why in gods name would one of those things not be curing cystic fibrosis? Why are you here telling us to solve the problem of CF when it implies that you don't want to work to solve the problem, because people working/doing stuff is all the private market is.
I'd happily donate to your sons CF treatment, I don't see the issue. What I do take objection to is the idea that you'd rather sit back and let someone else steal for a mediocre treatment and no medical innovation (no chance of a serious cure ever). Private market = people doing shit, if you don't think people will help, you're on the wrong fucking planet, cause that government of yours is people too. And guess what, those people don't give a shit about peoples health, or they wouldn't be murdering millions in the middle east.
Does the arms trade want to help too??
Does the arms trade want to help what? The arms trade is the industry that makes and sells weaponary, they want to help sell weaponary... what a vague question.
I know, I'm sorry!
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