The Hard Right in all parties should always be posed the America Test: "Would that be permitted, or even tolerated, in the United States?" The answer is very often no.
So it is with responses to what might by British standards be considered extreme weather conditions. Any economic arrangement is a political choice rather than a law of physics, and no "free" market is responsible for Americans' successful negotiation either of their heaviest snowfalls or of their most scorching heat.
Contrast that with the responses to similar phenomena where State activity is minimal or nonexistent. Perhaps including Britain before very long at all, possibly under Rishi Sunak, and certainly under Liz Truss, Keir Starmer or Ed Davey.
The free market in the face of climate change is the road to even more deindustrialisation.
ReplyDeleteAnd that is why it is being promoted. We must fight for the State as the only means of addressing climate change, which always exists, in such a way as to defend and expand our achievements rather than dismantle them.
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