The same product, via the same pipes: how can it possibly cost different amounts from different companies?
It can't. Of course it can't.
For that matter, the same product, via the same wires: how can it possibly cost different amounts from different companies?
It can't. Of course it can't.
For that matter, the same product, via the same wires: how can it possibly cost different amounts from different companies?
It can't. Of course it can't.
If people realised that, though, then they might ask why the utilities were delivered by cartels of pretend-competitors, instead of being where they belonged, in public ownership.
And that would never do.
Oh, no. That would never do at all.
Lindsay writes"cartels of pretend-competitors".
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of what Noam Chomsky said, when a student asked him why he was "anti-markets".
He said "who is against markets? Certainly not me."
"The neoliberals hate free markets-Ronald Reagan was the most protectionist, anti-trade President in American history."
"He doubled trade barriers, massively increased the debt, and ordered the Pentagon to train incompetent US management against superior Japanese competitors"
"Neoliberalism means an intrusive, powerful interventionist state helping the strong against the weak"
"These people hate markets-they use the government to protect their cartels.""
"It's state capitalism"
Exactly-who still believes the fantasy that neoliberalism means small government?
Well, I never have, for a start. But then, I don't want either.
ReplyDelete"I don't want either"
ReplyDeleteWell, we happened to have just such a small state during the era that saw Britain's greatest cultural and architectural achievements-most of which would be impossible with today's Leviathan state and shrivelled civil society.
I'm just reading Simon Heffer's riveting new book on the Victorian era-and how low taxes and small government drove our greatest achievements. I recommend it to you.
The first schools available to every child, were opened and run by the Church of England, or other religious denominations and voluntary groups.
Local parishes built the great network of sewers along the Embankment and through the West End and the City.
After the great slum clearances, the local authorities invited private developers in to build new homes for workers.
Oxford had its own women’s colleges by the early 1880s. Graduates founded and staffed girls’ schools — notably the famous headmistresses Dorothea Beale, of Cheltenham Ladies’ College, and Frances Buss, who founded the North London Collegiate School for Ladies.
All of these institutions for the education and improvement of women were founded with charitable or private money.
When taxation was minimal, it was far easier for the under-taxed rich to follow Christian precepts and engage in philanthropy.
Simon Heffer adds ""The greatest Victorian philanthropist was, indeed, a woman. The heiress Angela Burdett-Coutts built churches, established (with the help of Charles Dickens) a refuge for prostitutes, funded schools in Devon, built a hall for market traders in the East End (for which she was dubbed ‘Queen of the Costermongers’), funded public parks and, above all, built modern, clean apartment blocks for working people all over London, most of which still stand today. Gladstone had her given a peerage in recognition of her generosity — though she was barred, as a woman, from sitting in the Lords""
Florence Nightingale used a fund raised in her name to build a training school for nurses, greatly raising standards of medical care. And there were great male philanthropists too — notably George Peabody, the American businessman who showed his love for his adopted country by building apartment blocks for working people that still stand today.
Thomas Holloway founded not just a magnificent university college for women — Royal Holloway at Egham in Surrey, one of the finest buildings of the 19th century — but also a mental asylum for the middle classes.
It's a brilliant book.
But it's a very unoriginal thesis, and one long, if not exactly debunked, then at least greatly corrected.
ReplyDeleteAdvancing it, as he himself has lately written in relation to the death of Margaret Thatcher, makes him a Liberal, not a Tory.
Once you've read it, please let us all know what factual errors he's made.
ReplyDeleteBald assertions just won't do-especially when this us such an excellently and diligently-researched book.
Read it, if you've still got an open mind.
I have not accused him of factual error. I don't think that you quite understand how History works.
ReplyDeleteIf you even understood the argument, you'd realise Heffer is actually making the same point as Maurice Glasman when Glasman says "I don't want the state to help your mum-I want the state to help you help your mum" and criticises the 1945 Labour Government's nationalisation model for handing the levers of power to "people with PPE's in Whitehall" instead of workers.
ReplyDeleteBoth Heffer and Glasman admire the"enabling state" rather than the current top-down model.
Christianity in Europe died the day the state took over most of its duties- from schooling to healthcare.
Take that up with every Christian Democratic Party.
ReplyDeleteHeffer is an atheist.
He is indeed-but he wishes Britain to remain a Christian country and he notes the great contributions Christianity made to our culture in the book.
ReplyDeleteMeaning what, exactly?
ReplyDelete