We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day – What have the Conservatives conserved? It’s quite wrong to suggest that the Conservative Party has not actually conserved anything. On the contrary, it has carefully conserved the legacy of the last Labour government so that the next Labour government will be able to pick up where it left off.
– Andrew Z
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Government spending is vastly higher, even taking account of inflation, today in 2023 than it was in 2010.
Even Margaret Thatcher did NOT reduce government spending overall – but the lady did reduce government spending as a proportion of the economy by 1990, after a terrible start in 1979 – under the terrible Chancellor Howe, who greatly increased taxation, overall, and broadly kept to the government sector pay promises of the out going Labour government. Real reductions of taxation (over all) did not happen till Nigel Lawson became Chancellor. Just as real reform of the labour market did not happen till the terrible James Prior was no longer Employment Secretary – the “compassionate One Nation Toryism” of James Prior turned out to mean MASS UNEMPLOYMENT.
The MASS UNEMPLOYMENT was due to the tax increases of Chancellor Howe (“he cut the top rate of income tax” – and almost doubled the Sales Tax VAT and greatly increased other taxes as well) and the utter failure to roll back the powers given to the unions (union power is given by Acts of Parliament, 1875, 1906, and so on) by James Prior. Nigel Lawson and Norman Tebbit did the work that Howe and Prior should have done and utterly failed to do.
Could a Nigel Lawson cut taxes today? Could a Norman Tebbit fundamentally reform the labour market now?
Most likely NOT – the Civil Service and various other unelected bodies are much more Collectivist now than they were then, but it is POSSIBLE that ministers with nerves of steel could roll back the state.
Somehow Mr Sunak and Mr Hunt do not spring to mind – but they may surprise us all yet.
Still – “bottom line” government spending has exploded, and such follies as the Covid Lockdown and HS2 can not be honestly defended.
On the cultural side…..
Suella Braverman and Kemi Bandenoch can make speech after speech denouncing the “Woke” agenda as Frankfurt School Marxism, which it is, but their speeches will have no more practical effect than Paul Marks typing this on Samizdata – not whilst such things as the Equality Act of 2010 remain the law of the land.
It is not an exaggeration to say that “Woke” (Frankfurt School Marxist) cultural policies are compulsory now – at both national and local government level.
Following socially conservative policies in relation to the culture is illegal – unlawful.
In practice being a Conservative, if that Conservative actually tries to put thoughts into action, is a crime in the United Kingdom.
I have no idea if my half brother Anthony “Tony” Marks is still alive – but he would be delighted at many of the laws and regulations that now exist in the United Kingdom.
“So you thought you beat us in 1989 when the wall came down” he might say in a mocking tone.
And I would have no real “come back”.
I was making an observation about this earlier today, and thought I’d share it with the rest of the readers of this site.
Basically, what we are presented with here in the West these days is the effective end of “adversarial governance”, in the sense that what vestiges there are of “party” are effectively dead and gone. For whatever reasons… My own take is that the parties have all been taken over by the Tracy Flicks of the world (see the illuminating movie with Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick, Election, if you don’t get the reference…), and the walking corpses of the party structures have been suborned entirely to the needs of the oligarchy.
For examples, see what McCain did about Obamacare’s repeal, when he found himself in a position to actually vote on it. Or, how thoroughly munged-up the whole BREXIT thing became under the supposed Conservatives. For that matter, look at the way the Dutch are dealing with the EU’s decision to shut down agriculture…
Ain’t none of these “parties” in any way responsive to the electorate. They’re all of an effective piece, doing their own thing, attempting to “manage” the expectations and desires of the people they theoretically work for. There’s been a multi-national coup, and we didn’t even notice it. There are no effective differences between the parties, and about all the Republicans or the Conservatives are doing these days would be to act as grounding rods for public discontent. You can vote Republican or Conservative, and about all you’re actually going to get is lip service while they keep on keeping on with the policies you don’t like, because they’re all of a singular piece, these politicians.
There is, in other words, no effective difference between them. You don’t like Obamacare? Vote Republican? Well, you’re gonna get it, anyway. Don’t like what’s going on in Ukraine, going back to 2014? Vote Republican? Guess what? It ain’t going to stop; they’re going to do what they want to do, and never mind your input as a voter.
Right now, the oligarchy is wearing the Conservative and Republican parties as skinsuits, having taken them over and run them for their own benefit, which ain’t that of the electorate. Note how little actual fiscal sanity has come in, when you vote Republican here in the US. They still keep spending money like drunken sailors, saying that they have to. They lie with utter sincerity, saying that they’ll do things differently if you give them the House, the Senate, the Presidency. Did they? They got handed all three in 2016, and what did they do with them?
Not a goddamn thing.
By this, you can tell that they are totally co-opted, co-dependent, complicit in everything that is going on. They fought tooth and nail against Trump, when he tried to control the border, and now where are we? Oh, yeah; millions upon millions of illegals infiltrated so that they can run down the wages and raise the taxes on actual US citizens. While we pay for it all, giving the illegals free phones, transportation, and everything else you can imagine. They’re throwing indigent veterans out of their housing to put illegals in, paying the hotel owners a premium. Meanwhile, the taxes go up, the dollar is worth less, and not a goddamn thing is being done about it.
Face the facts: The Republicans and the Conservatives are both examples of “controlled opposition”, up there to serve as anodes for the rage and the discontent at the actual policies and the results thereof. So long as these parties are there, the actual responsible oligarchs can hide behind “opposition” and do as they like.
Honestly? If you want to influence things, my advice is abandon the semblance of opposition, join the Labour party or the Democrats, and then make them respond to you as one of their “coalition”. So long as you play the game, voting for the ineffectual captured “opposition”, you’re going to be without any influence whatsoever.
It’s either join their party and take a chunk of it over, so they have to listen to you, or blow the whole thing up and start over.
I see a blow-up happening, myself. This can’t go on, the way it is…
The first priority of any politician is to get elected/reelected. Anything they tell you otherwise is bunk. The left is dedicated to permanent one-party rule, and while the right doesn’t push this, they DO insure that none of it will get rolled back. Replacing the hammer and sickle with a banana and gavel is a start, but replacing it with a ratchet and pawl would be just as appropriate.