Labour leftists have never understood this basic fact: ordinary people don’t hate rich people. In fact they admire many of them. They don’t wince when they see a footballer and his WAG posing by the pool in Hello! — they think, ‘That looks like a nice life. Good on them.’ Corbyn bemoaned footballers’ pay as part of his proposal to enact a law preventing people from earning above a certain amount of money. Yes, a maximum wage. ‘I would like there to be some kind of high earnings cap,’ he said. It’s the worst idea a British political leader has had in years, and it reveals pretty much everything that is wrong with the left today.
First there’s the sheer authoritarianism of it. It will never come to pass, of course, because Corbyn’s footballer-bashing and bodged populism and general inability to connect with anyone outside of Momentum and the left Twittersphere means Labour won’t be darkening the door of Downing St for yonks. But that Corbyn is even flirting with the notion of putting a legal lid on what people can earn is pretty extraordinary. It would basically be a stricture against getting rich, a restriction on ambition, a state-enforced standard of living: you could be comfortable and middle-class, but not loaded. There’s a stinging moralism, too. Labourites complain about those on the right who look down on the ‘undeserving poor’, but what we have here is not all that different: a sneering at the undeserving rich, a prissy concern with the bank balances and lifestyles of those who’ve made a bomb.
In the UK, the expression “made a bomb” means “make a lot of money”. Of course, Corbyn, who is thick, might think that it means making an explosive device. Given his associations, the idea of people “making a bomb” might appeal to this man, if not for the same reasons.
Man on 8:1 median ratio (excluding “expenses”) tells those on 20:1 median ratio they are rich, ho hum.
ordinary people don’t hate rich people
Actually I think they do, when said people got rich on the taxpayer teat, like Corbyn and many of his public sector allies.
Note that Corbyn only targets “companies awarded government contracts” but not actual government employees. Aside from footballers I wonder if this includes anyone contracted by the BBC, in particular a certain ex-footballer.
Didn’t Britain already have a long experiment with 95 percent income tax rates in the middle 20th century? The rate that inspired the most libertarian rock song ever?
Let me tell you how it will be
There’s one for you 19 for me
Ah, Gene, that takes me back. Couldn’t find a version from the Beatles themselves on Youtube but here is a version from George Harrison and Eric Clapton: Taxman. And here is its Wikipedia entry.
The great thing about this is that Corbyn and the “useful idiots” of Momentum will be thinking of city fat cats and the rest of what they endearingly call the “Capitalist Scum”.
Your average bloke in the street thinks about their favourite footballer who would be playing for Real Madrid or some unheard of team in China rather than their preferred marketing organisation that owns a football stadium (the Premier League folks ceased being “teams” decades ago).
So whilst Jeremy and the Idiots great, we’ll destroy the banking industry, your average bloke in the street goes “Oh No! We’ll lose Costa / Ibrahimović / Sánchez / Agüero”)*
* – Delete as applicable.
This is the great difficulty that Labour has, since its active constituency has shrunk to the lentil eaters of Highgate and Islington along with an assortment of internet Social Justice Warriors and other misfits.
Truly, the Tooting Popular Front is in control of Labour and is destroying the legacy of a century and more.
Thank God.
Wage controls caused the ridiculous healthcare system in the US which still persists 70 odd years later. God only knows what it would bring into being in the UK.
Though with modern infrastructure, I can well see Galt’s Gulch becoming a real thing. The pieces are sliding into place.
I was dismayed when I saw thay Corbyn had been saying this. Purely because it’s so stupid that even Labour might boot him out, and with a new leader they might stand a chance of winning again.
(Bringing in footballers an example of the undeserving rich just made it doubly stupid. Think of all those working-class Labour voters who regard top footballers as the epitome of the deserving rich.)
They have already tried Cal. A vote of no confidence in Corbyn went 172 against to 40 for, back on 28th of June 2016. He’s still there and will remain for the duration, er destruction…
That’s what I’m hoping. Those members like Communism, so maybe they’ll worship him all the more now…
Will you please stop writing this kind of stuff about Corbyn.
When Your Enemy Is in the Process of Destroying Himself, Stay Out of His Way.
Do not, absolutely do not, talk about his errors lest he listen.
Stumm. Omerta. Shut up.
We hear what you’re saying Fred, but Corbyn certainly won’t. He’s the Messiah of the Left with cheese in his ears. A Marxist who, like most Marxists I’ve met, haven’t read much Marx beyond the Manifesto. He will continue on his gormless way relentlessly; bless his bicycle clips! A Fred Kite for the snowflake generation.
Fred Z, true. Evil is it’s own undoing. Let’s sit back and enjoy the great undoing. On the list of the undoing includes Black Lives Matter, The Democratic party in America, The Obama “Legacy”, Obamacare, SJW’s and their absurd “safe spaces” and hatred of everything white and male, etc.
Anyone who thinks a limit on earnings is a great idea is someone who simply does not understand the concept of CREATING something of value, that value being created means that the whole kit and caboodle is not zero sum. In normal-speak, that means that getting rich by making something does not make other people poor. Indeed, if other are purchasing your good or service, then that means that EVERYONE is getting wealthier all at the same time from the free trade, that it’s a win-win. That’s how voluntary trade works, when both parties GAIN from the trade, ergo they do it by choice.
Actually, studies seem to show that people do envy those with more than themselves. And why should that surprise us? Don’t we all want to improve our station in life? But Corbyn wants to stop others doing better than himself, by pushing others down. An athlete who ‘won’ by tripping others up is not a nice person, and should not succeed. Far too often, the left wants to handicap the best, hoping for votes from the rest.
@Johnathan Pearce:
Amusing?: Yes.
True?: Not necessarily proven. His being thick has not been unequivocally substantiated. However he really does seem to be an amusing example of “shooting-oneself-in-the-foot”, but a lot of seemingly otherwise intelligent idiots appear to do that on a regular basis. In this particular case however, it seems to be just an ad hom on Corbyn – a logical fallacy.
I consider that you are letting yourself down.
The ad hom is a classic logical fallacy that usually flags the person making the ad hom as being out of ammunition in the rational argument department. They would lose the debate.
I would therefore recommend sticking to facts.
Just because one has quoted someone (Brendan O’Neill) who seems to make some apparently valid criticisms/points about Corbyn, does not of itself justify using the quote as some kind of appeal to the consensus (that would be another logical fallacy) substantiating the calling of Corbyn “thick”. That still remains a matter of opinion.
Over the years I have had Samizdata in my feed aggregator I have enjoyed reading and sometimes contributing (usually in positive fashion, I hope) to Samizdata discussions, but that enjoyment would be diluted somewhat where bigoted or irrational opinions are being rammed into my eyeballs in opening posts. Sometimes (as now) I might protest.
I reckon that you probably have a good mind and probably could do a lot better for the contributors to this forum.
So, prove me wrong – if you would prefer.
This is in the context of the stated ethos of Samizdata, which is given as:
Of course, if this is not a genuine statement, then I should retract everything I have said, above.
Slarti:
True?: Not necessarily proven. His being thick has not been unequivocally substantiated. However he really does seem to be an amusing example of “shooting-oneself-in-the-foot”, but a lot of seemingly otherwise intelligent idiots appear to do that on a regular basis. In this particular case however, it seems to be just an ad hom on Corbyn – a logical fallacy.
I disagree. If you hold views that are repeatedly shown to be fallacious and cannot change your mind, because you are wedded to an ideology based on said fallacies, then that means you lack intelligence, as well as have a weakness in your character. I think my assessment of Corbyn is based on a long list of actions and comments that show him to be a man not just of weak judgement, but unable to process the most basic concepts (such as that a free market is not a zero-sum game). To go on believing in central planning, punitive taxation, micro-regulation of every facet of life, and so on, is, I submit, a sign that the holder of such a set of views is dense.
Of course, such people may possess a certain fox-like cunning, and be good at winning power, manipulating people (for a while) and the like. But an inability to master even the most basic aspects of economics, and champion ideas that have been disastrous whenever tried, shows an inability to think in abstract terms, to consider how incentives work, etc. Such a person is not, in my view, particularly intelligent. It is not, in my view, a logical fallacy to comment on Corbyn’s thickness in this sense.
It is always footballers, never pop stars or actors. This alone neatly illustrates who dominates the Labour Party these days.
From nearly the beginning of Corbyn’s leadership, I have been convinced that he and his circle are playing a very long game. Their first Objective is to gain total control of the Labour Party including purging all dissenting voices.
Electoral success is not essential at this stage. In some ways it would be a distraction because a large Parliamentary Labour Party would include people who are ideologically ‘unsound’. Purity first: then, through Purity, Power.
Nothing that Corbyn says in public is addressed to the public. It is designed to bring the boat rockers into the open to make their destruction easier.
I think decnine nails it.
Nothing Corbyn and co do is aimed at winning an election any time soon, just ensuring they have the Labour Party locked down as a Hard Left Party. Regardless of how badly they do in 2020, even if they are down to well under 100 MPs, that still represents a wealth of political riches the hard Left couldn’t dream of 5 years ago. Just as there’s a lot of ruination in a nation, there’s a lot in a political party too, and despite being unelectable on a national scale, the momentum (ha ha) of an established political name (The Labour Party) will guarantee a certain number of seats regardless of the nature of the people standing or their policies. This is the goal – a Hard Left party, in Parliament with a significant bloc of MPs. Thats a massive leap forward, for the Hard Left.
Richard Thomas:
How so?
I think you’re giving Corbyn too much credit. He’s merely a wank-hanky for the kind of masturbatory politics favoured by students and public sector workers.
I suspect that, while Corbyn knows that the sense of importance this gives him is illusory, he can’t help but cling on to it as any man might who has reached later life and realised that he has contributued precisely nothing of value to the world.
But I don’t think we should look on him as any kind of political force. We should just hope that the stupidity and malevolence of the people who support him will wear itself out sooner rather than later.
I’m not sure that I’d fully agree with this:
‘Labour leftists have never understood this basic fact: ordinary people don’t hate rich people. In fact they admire many of them. They don’t wince when they see a footballer and his WAG posing by the pool in Hello! — they think, ‘That looks like a nice life. Good on them.’’
Ordinary Britons probably don’t ‘hate’ rich people, but there is a long and deep cultural streak in many Britons that dislikes, questions, disrespects and ridicules rich people, for a variety of reasons. People who attained their wealth in ways that are considered ‘undeserving’, people who flaunt their wealth in public, people who ‘forgot where they came from’ or who ‘get above themselves’. The UK halfsheet newspapers often pander to this sort of sentiment with stories about how this or that rich person has mis-stepped or behaved in some unapproved way. The current example would be Sir Philip and Lady Green, now christened ‘Sir Shifty’ by the red-tops, because the retail store chain that he headed collapsed and the pension fund was underfunded. Nobody has suggested that he has done anything illegal, but he continues to live a lavish lifestyle and so he is pilloried as being uncaring, unfeeling, unfair and just plain Bad.
Football (soccer) players are another group that it is popular to denigrate – the very appellation WAG was devised for their womenfolk, and the newspapers are filled with stories of their excessive spending (often calculated in terms of how much they make per minute, so that the average wage earner can compare directly and disapprove) and their social pecadilloes.
This is the social undercurrent that Corbyn seeks to tap and exploit – the common and subtle belief held by many Britons that anyone who is obviously rich by any other route than pure accident of chance or birth, is somehow more-or-less undeserving, that great wealth is somehow ‘unfair’, and that its acquisition must necessarily have involved some sort of inequity or underhanded dealing – that because person A has more, persons B through Z must somehow be left with less and were somehow cheated or mistreated.
llater,
llamas
I can’t help but think this sort of thinking could be discredited for many generations by a select set of example public hangings. But then again, everyone wants t be a Viking, until it is time to do Viking shit.
@Slartibartfast.
If someone has got to Corbyn’s age and is still spouting a failed ideology – ideology that has been seen to fail repeatedly during his lifetime – then suggesting that he is a bit thick is a reasonable observation. That or he is deliberately mendacious. Given that he was apparently “thinking aloud” while on camera and still came up with this rampant nonsense, so much so that his own party is rapidly distancing itself, I’m inclined to the former.
@ Alisa, who wrote:
‘Wage controls caused the ridiculous healthcare system in the US
How so?’
I think the writer was – inartful. Wage controls during WW2 were one reason for the widespread introduction of health ‘insurance’ provided by and through employers, as a way to increase worker compensation without exceeding cash wage limits. That’s why the largest health insurer in CA still bears the name of a shipbuilder – Kaiser.
But, of course, the ridiculousness of the US healthcare system, while it has some of its roots in government wage controls during WW2, required a further 60 years of government meddling to be brought to its present state.
llater,
llamas
Mr O’Neill is correct – but then he normally is.
Nothing for me to add.
@Johnathan Pearce: Thanks for the response to my comment above. I think I understand now. So you’re not calling Corbyn “thick” as a matter of opinion, but simply as the only explanation that would seem to make sense of his various statements:
– though I don’t know about the “…weakness in … character” bit as I am not a psychiatrist.
However, if Corbyn seems to hold to fallacious views, as you say, then that doesn’t necessarily substantiate that he is thick (stupid) per se. It might be easier to dismiss him as simply being thick, but I wouldn’t be too quick to do that as it could indicate something more complex. For example (say) that either/both:
(a) he is merely unable to articulate his ideas or reasoning logically (it’s the human condition), and/or
(b) he does not intend or is unwilling or unable to provide any better/rational reasoning for his otherwise apparently fallacious views because they are being put forward as a cloak/disguise for something else, and he is not yet prepared to reveal what that might be.
My preferred approach to things that puzzle me about people’s statements or behaviour is to ask myself “Under what circumstances could that statement/behaviour seem to make sense?”
I can’t help but feel that one might too easily underestimate Corbyn, and that he could be a fanatic religio-political ideologist cast in the same sort of mould as Michael Foot (who always seemed a bit loopy to me), who led the UK Labour Party to its greatest election defeat in modern history, though he steadfastly never lost his conviction in socialism.
For example, as @decnine says above (January 11, 2017 at 9:54am):
People like that aren’t necessarily “thick”, but would be operating with deliberate and undisclosed purpose. Historically, successful religio-political ideologically-driven would-be leaders operating in that manner have shown themselves to be a potential – if not real – existential threat to mankind – as in implacably evil. Look at the death-tolls that have seemingly inevitably and consistently accompanied some of the “-isms”: Islamism, Marxism, Communism, Progressive National Socialism (Nazism), Fascism.
They all operate according to a seemingly common formula of HATE 101, based on the creation of an artificial and antithetical dichotomy where there is an ideologically intolerable and evil “Other” who must be dealt to, or expunged, usually for “the greater good” of the rest of “Us” – i.e., the selected non-evil non-Others (please please please let that include me!), or something.
Take Shrillary’s eye-opening statement about the “basket of deplorables” for example, which happy little “Other” collective noun apparently encompasses more than 50% of the American population. How can one hate so many people? Where’s the love in that? Where’s the room for love in that?
I’m not suggesting that Corbyn is necessarily in the same league as Shrillary, or – worse – Hitler, but he just might be if he’s unhinged enough, and one never knows. Adolf apparently had a pretty inauspicious early life as a failed artist and only later started collecting his incoherent thoughts together whilst incarcerated in Cell 9 where he wrote most of Mein Kampf. The rest, as they say “is history”, and that greatest of all German political leaders will never be forgotten. And that’s another thing in common – these “-isms” all seem to have to have a “Book of Truth”, or manifesto, setting out the wisdom substantiating the relevant dogma.
I read today on Guido Fawkes (https://order-order.com/2017/01/10/mosley-im-no-longer-fascist-im-now-labour-member/) and watched an accompanying video clip where Max Mosely, son of the infamous British fascist Oswald Mosely, was in a TV interview:
Adam Boulton: “Are you still a fascist?”
Max Mosley: “No, I’m a member of the Labour Party.”
When asked if he regretted what he wrote years ago demanding “end coloured immigration”, he wouldn’t say that he regretted what he wrote, but only said that he “…would have phrased it differently”.
So, that’s at least two what might be potentially dangerous wingnuts in the Labour Party, and one of them is it’s leader. Are there any more? God help Britain if they start writing a “New Labour Manifesto”, or something.
I think you all miss a very salient point…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/12/jeremy-corbyns-3million-state-funded-salary-and-pension-revealed/
Jezza ain’t going short anytime soon is he.
Thanks, Llamas.
Alisa, llamas gave you too short an answer, and I think he was a little too dismissive of the original comment.
To the extent health insurance existed prior to WW2 (and it didn’t much; most people simply paid their doctors for services rendered, and not always in cash) it was a private matter. When wartime wage and price controls were introduced by the Roosevelt administration companies desperate to find ways of attracting workers (with so much of the workforce being in the military) began offering employee benefits of various sorts. Health insurance became one of them. The government turned a blind eye to the obvious fact that health insurance has significant value and decreed that it was not “compensation”. It thus became the norm, at least for employers of any size (especially union shops), and remained so after the war ended and controls were lifted. Thus its existence as a standard employee benefit became embedded in our culture, to the point that now it is not merely standard, it is functionally mandatory (under Obamacare). The “ridiculousness” (llamas’ word) of our health care system is certainly an objective fact, and much (most) of that can be laid at the feet of government meddling, but none of that could have happened (or at least, could not have happened as easily or pervasively) without the root problem of widespread third-party payment for medical care. In my opinion Richard Thomas’ comment was entirely correct.
I think Slartibartfarst doesn’t really understand what an ad hominem attack is. He is arguing that perhaps Corbyn is not stupid, in some objective sense, and I suppose there’s a case to be made there. But an attack is ad hominem, and thus is a logical fallacy, only if it attempts to use some personal characteristic of the proponent as an argument against the validity of his argument. And that is clearly not the case here. Johnathan is saying that Corbyn is stupid because he espouses policies which are demonstrably wrongheaded; he is not arguing that their wrongheadedness is somehow proven by Corbyn’s (alleged) stupidity. It is precisely the reverse of an ad hominem attack. There is no logical fallacy here.
As to Slartibartfarst’s argument that Corbyn may not really be “thick”, I can only quote Forrest Gump: “Stupid is as stupid does.”
Laird, 7:32 pm (just above): :>))
Now to read your previous comment….
Re health-care comment: As to final sentence, somewhat agnostic after a quick reading. But states’ decision not to allow interstate insurance (very very short form!) has had a hand in gumming up the works, for sure. And I s/think it against the Commerce Clause besides.
Thanks, Laird 🙂
@Laird: Heh. Very droll and it is quite possible that I am confused and don’t understand anything, let alone what an ad hominem attack is, and that that doesn’t necessarily preclude me from having a bit of fun now and then pretending that I understand these things.
One would arguably have to be a bit confused anyway if one described oneself – as I sometimes do – as “a Christian Yorkshire-Welsh Jewish Muslim atheist”, though I am otherwise pretty solid as to what gender I am and this is consistent with my gender preference, so my wife on the one hand and my partner on the other know precisely where I stand.*
And who could argue anyway against the profound truth from the lips of that famous American philosopher, Forrest Trump: “Stupid is as stupid does.”?
* That’s unless I happen to be sitting down in my local gay bar at the time, buying a round of drinks for everyone and swilling beer and saying loudly “bottoms up!” to my neighbours at the bar. My partner Jules – whom I absolutely adore, he’s such a darling – says that’s what they call “taking risks” and he usually intervenes and hauls me out of there before, in my drunken state, I inadvertently cause a fight and get hurt.
Longrider
It begs the question what, on Mr Corbyn’s terms, amounts to ‘failure‘. He took a holiday in East Germany in the 1970s I understand. What we might regard as a ‘bug‘ of socialism, millions of corpses and millions more under tyranny, in poverty and misery, might be the ‘feature‘ that, if not the outcome hoped for, is the worthwhile consequence.
Exactly.
Corbyn likely believes that his ideology never failed, but was instead temporarily defeated by the cunning slave-owners of capitalism, and merely needs tweaking this time around to avoid such pitfalls. To him, that ideology is clearly the moral choice which has been derailed by immoral forces, and the fighter-for-justice gets up, dusts off, and tries again.
How many more years would the USSR have had to exist before it wasn’t a “failure”? Forever? Nothing lasts forever. It didn’t fail so much as it was defeated, by people who considered it to be an immoral system. Any system with a built-in enforcement, no matter how immoral, could probably survive in the absence of a strong fight against it.
We don’t fight against that ideology because we consider it to be an inefficient “failure”. We fight against it because we consider it to be immoral. Were I confronted with proof that communism and its attendant loss of the individual could survive 1000 years – thus, that communism wasn’t a “failure” – I’d still fight against it, because TO ME, the individual is more important. The viability of the immoral ideology is of no import to me.
Corbyn’s adherence to an immoral system that hasn’t yet reigned doesn’t speak to his intellect. It speaks to his character. If the question is, which economic system is the most efficient, then slavery may well be the correct answer.
But that really isn’t the right question.
The excuse to hang on to failed ideologies is always that it hasn’t been done correctly. Corbyn probably hopes to find a way to square the circle, and thus be mentioned in the history books as the greatest politician of all time. Besides, when first introduced, Communism had an aura of perfection about it. Corbyn might think that he’ll live long enough to impose equality on everyone, and not be around when it all goes sour.
Julie, we’re veering rather far afield from the original post, but I’d nonetheless like to address your comment about state prohibition of interstate insurance. I understand the argument that permitting the sale of insurance (of various types, not merely health insurance) across state lines would probably be more efficient and beneficial to consumers in that it would likely introduce more competition to the industry. And I bow to no one in my appreciation for, and support of, free markets. However, there is a legitimate counter-argument to be made.
Insurance is a highly regulated industry, almost as regulated as banking, and has been for a very long time. As libertarians we may decry this, and prefer to let the market “regulate” it, but many people believe that it is a legitimate function of government to protect its citizens from bad financial actors. Once you reach this conclusion, it is a very short step to having government ensure (or at least attempt to ensure) that an insurance company has the financial capacity to meet its obligations and pay legitimate claims when presented. Hence regulation, and especially rules concerning capital adequacy. And in our federal system that role properly falls to the states; certainly there is nothing in the Constitution which adds that role to the federal remit. But if you (meaning, obviously, the federal government) force interstate insurance, you necessarily take away much of the states’ authority to protect their own citizens, and to establish the terms under which insurance companies can operate within their borders. This cuts to the very heart of federalism. And as long as those rules are applied equally, to in-state as well as out-of-state insurers, there is absolutely no violation of the Commerce Clause; in fact, it is only by the thorough bastardization and willful misreading of that Clause that the federal government can assert any such authority in the first place. (Of course, for the last 80+/- years our courts have been doing just that, but that’s another discussion.) So, bottom line, forcing states to accept the interstate writing of insurance policies would be yet another nail in the coffin of federalism, and one more step down the road of converting the states from semi-sovereign entities into mere satrapies. I therefore oppose it.
Laird (and others): I’m afraid it was me who hijacked this discussion by asking questions about the history of health insurance in the US – but seeing as we are fairly far down in the thread, as well as being really curious about the subject, I’ll allow myself yet another question: how did the current status quo, where most/all states do not allow the purchase of insurance across states’ borders, come into being?
By pure coincidence I have just stumbled into this, which may well turn out to be the good part of the answer to my question – comments would be appreciated.
Llamas wrote,
Which is to say that the writer wasn’t intentionally deceitful. LOL
Artful means cunning trickery.