wadia-miester
Mighty Rearranger
The Ave ernings in the UK are £25K or close to it I believe
Rather than using reason he was using his unsupported opinion on unrelated issues. Connecting 'tax cuts' to 'flat tax' via welfare dependency. Pretty unconvincing.Your opinions of what Hutton wrote and the reasons for America's black underclass are just that, an opinion.
Define 'right'. If you were a supporter of a large unproductive state apparatus then you would be against it. Does that make you 'left'? If you wanted a reduction in state overhead (and hence more resources for social purposes) and a reduction in taxation on the poor then you might be for it, and therefore 'right'? I think the instinctive reaction to it depends on whether you're pro-state or pro-people, and that doesn't line up left-right. Opposing it because you oppose some of the people proposing it is rather dim. IMO.If flat tax is not political then why is it mainly championed only by those on the right?
Do most people know how much tax very low earners pay? Or how close to 'flat' the current system actually is?I'm not quite sure I see the relevance of your effective tax rate table. It's interesting, useful even, but doesn't reveal anything that most people don't already know.
I never said anything of the kind. My linking flat tax to a right-wing agenda was merely to show that it is political.Opposing it because you oppose some of the people proposing it is rather dim.
I'd phrase that as whether you're pro-society (the human race in general) or pro-individuals (only interested in your own welfare). That lines up fairly nicely into left (the former) and right (the latter).t depends on whether you're pro-state or pro-people
I absolutely agree. Anyone on the right is an evil nasty (Bush/Thatcher) while those on the left are thoroughly decent folk (Mao/Stalin).michaelab said:I'd phrase that as whether you're pro-society (the human race in general) or pro-individuals (only interested in your own welfare). That lines up fairly nicely into left (the former) and right (the latter).
Paul please explain how left wing US social policies have created this?Paul Ranson said:The ring fencing of a largely black underclass in the US is a product of leftwing social policy not 'tax cuts'.
Left wing thinking has always failed to appreciate that commerce is a natural state of human behaviour and a commercially successful ecomony is the engine room of a prosperous nation.michaelab said:If flat tax is not political then why is it mainly championed only by those on the right?
Frankly I dont see what Mao or Stalin have to do with genuine left wing thinking. They are no more Marxists than J Edgar Hoover,7_V said:I absolutely agree. Anyone on the right is an evil nasty (Bush/Thatcher) while those on the left are thoroughly decent folk (Mao/Stalin).
Aren't we getting a little tired of kindergarten politics?
Regards
Steve
Practically everyone sits somewhere between the two, Greg - at least in today's UK. The Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems are all on that rickety fence.greg said:I sit somewhere between the two on a rickety fence.
They both ran countries where the state was paramount and the individual was secondary (except of course for those individuals who occupied positions of authority in the state).greg said:Frankly I dont see what Mao or Stalin have to do with genuine left wing thinking. They are no more Marxists than J Edgar Hoover,
Actually, and oddly, Libya is probably as close as I can think of.7_V said:They both ran countries where the state was paramount and the individual was secondary (except of course for those individuals who occupied positions of authority in the state).
...And those countries which are (or were) run by genuine left wing thinkers are where exactly?
Well I think you (as usual) do the 'right' a disservice. There's an interesting column by Anatole Kaletsky in today's Times which touches upon this, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1061-1802553,00.html.I'd phrase that as whether you're pro-society (the human race in general) or pro-individuals (only interested in your own welfare). That lines up fairly nicely into left (the former) and right (the latter).
You could just as easily characterise them as pro-idealism vs pro-pragmatism. Depends which end of the telescope you look down.michaelab said:I'd phrase that as whether you're pro-society (the human race in general) or pro-individuals (only interested in your own welfare). That lines up fairly nicely into left (the former) and right (the latter).
Michael.
And they say that Socialism doesn't work.greg said:Actually, and oddly, Libya is probably as close as I can think of.
So am I.greg said:Paul - still waiting for your explanation regards left wing policies and New Orleans.
I'm not sure about that, Greg.greg said:You could just as easily characterise them as pro-idealism vs pro-pragmatism. Depends which end of the telescope you look down.
I must add that I dont see idealism as necessarily "good" or pragmatism as essentially "bad". Would you not agree though that the concept of "small government" is a practical one, whereas the concept of watered down Marxism is an idealistic one? I am talking about the left and right wings of thinking rather than real world politics,7_V said:I'm not sure about that, Greg.
With domestic policy, both the right and the left have their own ideals - for example, desiring 'small government' or excellent public services - and both wings have to be pragmatic about what can be achieved in practice.
I've never considered neo-con thinking anything other than right wing thinking - they believe they are being utterly pragmatic IMO.7_V said:With foreign policy, the idealist approach is to support regimes which have democracy and a good level of human rights. Pragmatism is the approach of aiming for stability and supporting the regimes that seem to provide this or those that are 'the enemy of your enemies', irrespective of their politics or human rights. Thus the neo-cons tend towards idealism (and they were leftists now considered rightists), while the pragmatic approach is the more traditional one typified by Henry Kissinger and his school of thought.
I accept that any sane government aims to support policies that they believe are for the good of their nation. I dont think many right wing thinkers believe their thinking is just caring for themselves, but in supporting concepts such as small governement, low taxes, and minimal state intervention it isnt hard to dispute that they believe in a social structure which rewards effort, endeavour and enterprise and ultimately isolates sections of the weak, the infirm and the poor.7_V said:The point is that all sides - left, right, idealists, pragmatists - support policies that they believe are for the good. The views that 'the left cares for others; the right care only for themselves' or 'idealists/pragmatists = good/bad' are vastly oversimplified and are the realms of tabloid journalism, populist politicians (who tend amazingly to come to their senses after retirement) and naive loonies of all persuasions.
Steve
I'm broadly in agreement with you Greg, although in the two specific cases above I disagree. I'd say that 'small government' is an ideal which is never achieved in practice. It's a property of bureaucracies that they tend over time to become less and less efficient as bureaucrats build up their empires and power bases.greg said:...Would you not agree though that the concept of "small government" is a practical one, whereas the concept of watered down Marxism is an idealistic one?
...
I would equally argue that Thatcher's pragmatism obscured the damage caused to our social fabric. She was very effective in achieving certain enormously beneficial changes to our economy (and some very damging ones too) but along the way changed the very shape of our society for the worse (IMO). I would say this was a pragmatist, almost utilitarian method.
...It could be said that both swings were necessary to bring us (in the UK) to a general centrism and there is nothing to say we wont move back to one wing or another - if we do it would almost certainly be to the right.