Anarchy or Liberty, part two
Hello again.
By the way thank you for taking the time to read my half-baked crazed ranting.
An important concept that many liberals/moderates and conservatives miss is that of justice. Perhaps on first hand this seems strange for me to say. Of course these people believe in justice. But are we talking about justice in a legal or economic sense? I think the point is to think about both.
A conservative would conclude that some form of centralised authority is needed for legal justice. They would also conclude that any attempt to create economic justice i.e. equality would create a disincentive for capital to invest in the economy, the richest and most creative people would leave the country, the economy would collapse and so tax revenues would decrease. The decrease in state coffers would affect it's ability to maintain law and order and so justice would be denied.
Liberals would generally agree with this statement but would be critical of some of the laws that conservatives would support and would more likely to favour a progressive income and/or wealth tax. Making less laws and raising more taxes makes more sense economically as the state could focus on, for example, imprisoning murderers and sex offenders as opposed to banning women and homosexuals from serving in the armed forces and handing out lengthy prison sentences for petty or non-violent offences.
I think both arguments have merit. However the argument about capital flight and also inflation (which conservatives and libertarians bring up to justify lowering wages and benefits) isn't entirely convincing. If anything, governments are deliberately causing inflation by providing massive direct benefits and state subsidies to the rich.
The amounts of money spent rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq and bailing out the banks could easily be directly distributed to the very poor and low paid workers. In fact this basically makes a mockery of the argument that government cannot achieve equality, at least in highly developed nations. Perhaps this is a point for another blog post, but wages could be capped at say £250 per annum ditto corporate profits. Empty houses could be made available to buy at say £5000 and the government could even give people £25K over a year if they just don't feel like working for a year, or if they need to complete a further year at university, raise a child or care for an elderly relative.
I think the real point about justice is how easy it is to evade prison for certain offences. I'm thinking rape, which is incredibly hard to prove and convict and also tax evasion. Moreover, it is obvious to probably most people how the very rich and particularly current or ex politicians, policemen and military personnel and also celebrities seem to be able to mostly avoid the consequences of their actions that most ordinary people would never get away with. Without getting into this too much I think much of this, certainly in the UK, is the fault of the right-wing press and media. Abroad, one can think of the cases of OJ Simpson and Oscar Pistorious.
By the way thank you for taking the time to read my half-baked crazed ranting.
An important concept that many liberals/moderates and conservatives miss is that of justice. Perhaps on first hand this seems strange for me to say. Of course these people believe in justice. But are we talking about justice in a legal or economic sense? I think the point is to think about both.
A conservative would conclude that some form of centralised authority is needed for legal justice. They would also conclude that any attempt to create economic justice i.e. equality would create a disincentive for capital to invest in the economy, the richest and most creative people would leave the country, the economy would collapse and so tax revenues would decrease. The decrease in state coffers would affect it's ability to maintain law and order and so justice would be denied.
Liberals would generally agree with this statement but would be critical of some of the laws that conservatives would support and would more likely to favour a progressive income and/or wealth tax. Making less laws and raising more taxes makes more sense economically as the state could focus on, for example, imprisoning murderers and sex offenders as opposed to banning women and homosexuals from serving in the armed forces and handing out lengthy prison sentences for petty or non-violent offences.
I think both arguments have merit. However the argument about capital flight and also inflation (which conservatives and libertarians bring up to justify lowering wages and benefits) isn't entirely convincing. If anything, governments are deliberately causing inflation by providing massive direct benefits and state subsidies to the rich.
The amounts of money spent rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq and bailing out the banks could easily be directly distributed to the very poor and low paid workers. In fact this basically makes a mockery of the argument that government cannot achieve equality, at least in highly developed nations. Perhaps this is a point for another blog post, but wages could be capped at say £250 per annum ditto corporate profits. Empty houses could be made available to buy at say £5000 and the government could even give people £25K over a year if they just don't feel like working for a year, or if they need to complete a further year at university, raise a child or care for an elderly relative.
I think the real point about justice is how easy it is to evade prison for certain offences. I'm thinking rape, which is incredibly hard to prove and convict and also tax evasion. Moreover, it is obvious to probably most people how the very rich and particularly current or ex politicians, policemen and military personnel and also celebrities seem to be able to mostly avoid the consequences of their actions that most ordinary people would never get away with. Without getting into this too much I think much of this, certainly in the UK, is the fault of the right-wing press and media. Abroad, one can think of the cases of OJ Simpson and Oscar Pistorious.
Labels: Afghanistan, capital flight, conservatives, inflation, Iraq, liberals, Libertarian, liberty, Objectivism, prison
posted by Legal Smeagol at 8:33 AM
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