Paul Marks has also been following what Tory great white hope Oliver Letwin has been saying… and Paul sees that Letwin is still trapped within the statist meta-context that ultimately undermines even the best intentions.
Having read Antoine Clarke‘s recent Samizdata article If the Conservatives have a Future… (and read a review by Dr. Gabb) I wish I had been at the Oliver Letwin meeting. However, I have two concerns about Dr. Letwin.
Firstly in all the interviews I have heard Dr. Letwin give (and I have heard many interviews – the most recent only a couple of days ago) his devotion to the ‘public services’ shines through.
It is simply not true that local control will make such ‘public services’ as health and education work. For example, my fellow inhabitants of Kettering, Northamptonshire have no more influence over the work of Kettering Borough Council than they do over the work of Whitehall – nor will some administrative reorganization change this. The only way ‘local control’ is good is if it financed by local taxation – then people can ‘vote with their feet’ by going to the area with the lowest taxes (ditto regulations).
Nor will “getting civil society involved” help matters – as this tends to mean either Blair government style ‘public-private partnerships’ (i.e. sleaze – with the taxpayers being robbed even more than they are by the state acting alone), or George W. Bush style government subsidies for such things as churches and private charities (such ‘help’ can only corrupt the institutions of civil society).
If the state must exist (and human beings of good will can argue well on both sides of this question) then the ‘wall of separation’ between the state and civil society must be maintained – any mixing of the two leads inevitably to corruption. The ‘public services’ CAN NOT work – if Dr. Letwin feels he can not say that (because the voters demand that they work) then he should remain silent. I do not know what the voters will accept – but I do know that telling them pleasing stories is unwise (as when the promises can not be kept the voters will be angry).
My other concern about Dr. Letwin is that he does not seem to understand the true nature of the economy. The economy is not basically sound with a few nasty problems. No – the economy is basically unsound.
Firstly the economy is based on a fiat money credit bubble. Some people (such as Antoine Clarke) may well be very bored by me banging about this so I will keep things short. The basic economic structure of Britain and all the main Western nations is in a state similar to (if not worse than) 1929. It is true that at least we have less chance of beggar-thy-neighbour tariff wars today – but the credit-money bubble must burst (and the collapse will be very bad).
Secondly the Welfare State ‘entitlement programs’ of the Western World continue to grow. Even without a credit-money collapse these Welfare State programs would bankrupt all Western nations (including the United States). As it is the Welfare State will collapse when the credit-money bubble bursts.
Dr. Letwin and the rest of the ‘Front Bench’ of the Conservative and Unionist Party give no sign of understanding any of the above. Their policy concerns are roughly of the same order as being concerned with the lay out of the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Paul Marks
