Still too busy to think straight, although the end is in sight – at least I think it is. In lieu of interesting original content, I direct your invaluable attention towards Mr Thompson who, sadly, really did need to write a blog post explaining why admiring one aspect of a person doesn’t mean you automatically agree with everything that person says.
That the quality of political debate is being reduced to such a pathetically dismal level – these desperate, clawing attempts to land any sort of wound on your opponents, no matter how utterly spurious or inane your argument really is – is a source of continued angst for me, and makes me want to get my spanking bat out.
It’s depressing that anyone would accuse Dan Hannan of dog whistle racism – although I don’t really know enough about Hannan to know about his specific attitudes, but one the really interesting features of liberalism, especially classical and libertarianism (in which category Hannan places himself) is, as a rule, most of us are lovers of Free Trade. Free Trade explicitly demands free movement of people, which means we’re quite often the most pro-immigration people in the room.
One of the other interesting things about individualists is that your race, gender, sexuality, physical ability are usually completely irrelevant – it may decrease the odds of you meeting, but when you do meet you’re going to be taken on your merits. Now if you haven’t got any merits and want a head start because you’re male, white, hetero-sexual and gosh darn it British then you can, pardon my french, obtenez baisé. It works the other way too, though – no special favours for anyone is the nice easy way of treating people equally.
But, away from theory and into the nitty gritty of winning elections, you’d think with immigrants being public enemy number one there’s more populist mileage in condemning Hannan for that. In fact, let’s check the pulse of the majority, for a second:
Free movement of Capital: Evil.
Free movement of Goods and Services: Evil.
Free movement of People: Ultimate Evil.
Seems to me the best way to defeat libertarians is to focus on the ‘soft on immigration’ aspect, which is why the Conservatives will never be a libertarian party, and which is why I’ll never be a Tory, and why, obviously, I’ll never be Prime Minister. Free Movement of People? I may as well club baby seals for all the votes that’d win.
Hmmm… did I accidently write a blog post here?
Update: The “Not Labour Honest” Conspiracy blog has an interesting take - condemning Hannan for not being a proper libertarian. This tickled me.
Tom James said...
28 Aug 09 at 2:13 am
I have some questions to ask regarding this point:
1) You dismiss race, gender, class, and physical ability as sources from whence people can gain status or power. Is your acceptance of “merit” as a determinant of status or power entirely down to the utilitarian benefits (“the best person for the job”) or is it moral (“smarter people are better”)?
2) Please can you give a detailed and thoroughly worked out description of precisely what “merit” is? If possible include examples from the real world where someone’s merit has determined their status and position.
3) Do you believe that there has been any situation where people really *are* taken solely on their merits?
Tom James said...
28 Aug 09 at 2:47 am
Re Hannan:
He is an attention seeker.
I’m not in the least bit angsty that people are attacking Hannan because he said he respected Enoch Powell.
Either Hannan is a political idiot or he just wants attention.
He is an idiot because right or wrong, any politico who praises Enoch Powell gets a slap. This is because Enoch is largely associated in the public mind with being racist. Right or wrong it is stupid for politicos to say they admire EP.
But I suspect the actual reason he said it is because Hannan has become addicted to controversy and having his name in the spotlight.
After that YouTube video of him slagging off Brown and the NHS thing he’s discovered his true calling: the kid who eats his own snot just to gross everyone out.
Mark Reckons sez:
The reason politicians smear is because smearing *works*. This is why I could never be a politician: I actually enjoy political debate.
Mandelson can earn a few points and look good by making a cheap shot at the Conservatives. It actually takes Mandelson less time to do this than a thorough point by point dismissal of Hannan’s arguments (which would be boring and thus would not make the front pages and furthermore would mean we wouldn’t be talking about him).
I’m not saying I like it, I’m just saying that this is the nature of politics. Spectacle and smear and general dicking around.
They should leave the serious debating to us bloggers.
Roger Thornhill said...
28 Aug 09 at 8:15 am
@tom James,
re:3,
two places immed come to mind: the track and the trading floor.
One place certainly not: the public sector.
Charlotte Gore said...
28 Aug 09 at 8:56 am
No I didn’t. I was talking about how certain individuals interact with other people, you’re talking about how we live in a collectivist world so of course people get status or power from membership of privileged collectives.
All I’m responsible for is my own dealings with other people.
Scott said...
28 Aug 09 at 9:46 am
@ Tom James – apparently, this was before the NHS TV outing and Hannan hasn’t done anything since. What this is, is the govt trying a smearing campaign and digging up everything from the past!
@Charlotte Gore – The problem with complete freedom of movement, is that the residents of a country pay taxes for services. If anyone comes and can have the services rendered to them and then clear off without paying taxes, then that surely is not correct??
Stu said...
28 Aug 09 at 10:17 am
Scott, I think that’s precisely the point Charlotte was making.
Big Government approaches are anti-immigration by necessity. Small government = less taxation = less need to keep people out.
Newmania said...
28 Aug 09 at 11:04 am
Would you accept there is such a thing as an English People , that their country is England and that the wish to retain its character is legitimate?
The moral value of the imagined community of memory and allegiance ( to quote David Marquand ) is not something I would so lightly dismiss it has proved useful in the past . The market for Labour by the way is not free and never can be .
I suppose you will join idiot Mandelson in recommending that unemployed ship workers whose jobs are outsourced to cheap Poles go and find work in Europe
Well it worked pretty damn well for him.
Charlotte Gore said...
28 Aug 09 at 11:39 am
I accept that there are people who think like that, but I’m nationalist and have absolutely no desire to see or interest in any sort of state mandated culture or racial demographic.
If you mean I’m not a nationalist, or a socialist, or a fascist then yet.
Newmania said...
28 Aug 09 at 1:21 pm
No it is the State that has sought loosen old loyalties by allowing immigration to quintuple despite the consistent objections of the English , by funding a cultural assault on the Nation know as Multi-culturalism and by propagandising on behalf of its project to remove democracy and outsource government to unaccountable courtiers in the EU . ( Referendum on which avoided on the delightfully simple grounds it would have been lost) .
The Labour market cannot be a free market because people have lives commitments and loyalties which interfere with their function as work units as preferred by the State ,Marxists and Liberals who once were the champions of self determination for people’s as well as atomised workers .
I have no objection to your homogenous view of humanity disinterest in England and retaining its character . I have no objection to a world view that leaves out loyalty community and imagined communities that sustain many. I am unconcerned if have no sense of a network of ties from family to community and the Nation as its expression.. I just wish the Liberal Party would be a little clearer about their contempt for the Nation as a thing worth defending when they want votes .
Charlotte Gore said...
28 Aug 09 at 3:04 pm
Hmm. Government deliberately trying to ‘loosen old loyalties?’ Are you sure?
I wish they’d make their contempt for nationalism more clear.
Oranjepan said...
28 Aug 09 at 5:08 pm
Tom James said...
28 Aug 09 at 7:00 pm
@Roger Thornhill
Re: the trading floor, there are two broad arguments as to why free markets are not meritocracies:
1) The price system does not reward ability. If you want people’s earnings to reflect their ability, therefore, you can’t have a free market.
This simple point is both obvious and universally ignored. Consider:
Bonuses for executives and traders have increased over the past 30 years – are you really claiming that traders and executives now are actually “better” than traders and executives from 30 years ago?
(Traders and execs now have access to better tools, but surely this is an argument for paying the providers of said tools rather than the people who use them?)
The point about the free market is that it signals demand. It does not reward past performance, but indicates what people *should* do in the future.
As the free market does not reward past performance (90 year old retired executives can’t go back to their former employers and demand more money from them now because they weren’t paid as much 30 years ago as their replacements are now) the free market cannot be a meritocracy.
The best thing about the free market is the way it matches supply to demand. It is this very thing that means it is not meritocratic. The best nurse in the country probably earns no more than the average plumber.
2) You really need to read “Fooled by Randomness” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It is very rare to find a trader who is successful because of “merit” rather than simple luck. Taleb makes this argument better than I can so I strongly suggest you read the book.
And as for the public sector – do you have any evidence that the public sector is more or less meritocratic than the private sector? If so please direct me to the relevant material.
Tom James said...
28 Aug 09 at 7:26 pm
@Scott:
Indeed. But my point stands. Praising Enoch Powell is a politically silly thing to do and Hannan must have known that his statement of admiration would be dragged up and used out of context to attack him – so why did he say it?