Lefty Loony for Liberty?

Jeremy Corbyn has suddenly taken over the British political scene and galvanised many to this support. Although it’s hard to disagree with all his stances, his socialistic economic policies will bring any libertarian close to a heart attack. What I want to say is that there is no need to actually worry. The Left Loony is good for Liberty!

How exactly you ask. Well as I have mentioned here, the status quo with regards to economic policy is interventionism. The situation is so dire that to say the people who believe in capitalism are in a minority is actually an understatement; it’s almost non-existent! If we want to wait around for people to change their minds it will take us generations, if that. What works much better is for people to observe the failures of interventionism themselves. Remember the notion of a fully centrally planned economy? People, laymen and scholars alike, actually took it seriously. After experiencing the system in reality and when its failures finally rose to the surface, the whole notion sank in the sea of does-not-work ideas. Today, it’s near impossible to bring about that type of economic system again because most people know that it just doesn’t work.

Similarly with the interventionist state it’s realistic to think that it will lead to its own demise rather than people coming to realisation through reason that it does not work.  As such, why not have the demise sooner than later?

Most people view Labour on the left and Conservatives on the right. Labour as Socialists and Conservatives as Capitalists. Now in reality both are on the left and both are Socialists, just to different degrees. Tory policies are too little too late. In the grand scheme of things, Britain is still spending too much and has a tremendous amount of ever increasing debt. Given this context, if Conservatives win at the next General Election and UK does go into a recession, people will see it as a failure of Capitalist/’Right Wing’ policies. On the other hand, if Corbyn comes to power and when his socialistic policies lead to total economic disaster, we will be one big step closer to people realising the shortcomings of socialism. Not only will he bring the inevitable closer but he’ll also take the blame for it. What more could we as Libertarians want from a Prime Minister?

With this idea in mind, I not only sleep well at night with the idea of Corbyn coming to power but I actually dream of it! Hope this helps some other British Libertarians out there who are suffering from Lefty Loony Induced Insomnia.

8 Comments

  1. There is every reason to worry. The international Credit Bubble economy is going to burst long before 2020 – and Mr Corbyn, and his demented Comrades, will declare that the free market has failed and now is the time for a “planned economy”.

    I agree with you that the Conservative Party government has not done what really needs to be done (the wild spending and regulating continues – because that is what the voters seem to want) – but the chickens will come home to roost long before the next General Election.

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  2. I’m inclined to agree that Conservative central planning is dangerous because its failure may be blamed on a lack of enough central planning!
    I also believe today’s Conservative party is far more conservative (maintaining the status quo) than the aspirational party of Thatcher and Major’s eras.

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  3. Ideas don’t stay dead forever; the general public can have a very short memory indeed. There is no reason why communism won’t be reanimated here in the UK or any country for that matter.

    There is a socialist current sweeping through the USA, Canada and Europe right now, add to that the pink tide in Latin America and the fact that the world’s second biggest economy is (on paper at least) communist and we see that many are loosing faith in capitalism. Wheater or not we actually have anything close to real capitalism does not matter to millions of people.

    I’m not the sort of person to celebrate being ‘right wing’ but Jeremy Corbyn, and his ideals are certainly nothing to be scoffed at….

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  4. Many years ago, there was a ‘moral panic’ about ‘snuff’ movies and the like, I recall reading of a man convicted of possession of an illegal horror film called ‘Cannibal Holocaust’, but it was all pretend. This struck me as tyrannical and unjust, after all in the 20th century there were such events for real under socialism in the Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, and it was all done by the sort of people Mr Corbyn seems to admire so much. His idea of progress is to copy those people.

    So what is it, exactly, that you are looking forward to? Lunch or being lunch?

    As the Sage of Kettering will tell you, I am not joking.

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  5. When the British Conservative Party lets Maoist China build nuclear power stations in our country, the threat posed by Corbyn’s brand of leftism seems to pale into insignificance.

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    1. Richard, you are quite right in terms of the current magnitude of the threat.

      However, Mr Corbyn may well be dreaming of the North Korean Army replacing the British Army, to provide some ‘diversity’ and ‘reliability’ in the conduct of public affairs…

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    2. Energy is a sticky one, as today it is almost up there with national defence. If you do have a state, it cannot begin to assert the conceit of legitimacy if it does not defend the nation, including threats to fundamental infrastructure such as power and water.

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  6. What the general public think about politics is decided by in the first place the state education service,followed by the BBC dominated media, both of which are stuck on to the socialist/statist way of doing anything. Socialism will never get the blame. Look at Venezuala. They actually voted in that government.

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