However they work on the basis of lowering the self-esteem and self expectations of the vast majority of people who can’t afford the money or time to live these clean, holy lifestyles. What we need is a paradigm shift where people are encouraged to improve themselves in their diet, their travel habits but also their economic and social outlook. Place basic educational psychology and entrepreneurship classes alongside maths and english in schools. Make people BELIEVE they can improve their lives. Make people BELIEVE things can be better. The most pervasive and enduring element of class is that people do or do not believe that they are entitled to social and environmental improvement based upon their experience. Expectation is intimitely tied to experience. Of course I have my doubts as to whether such widespread belief in social mobility is desired by society as a whole.

In conclusion, less elitism, less guilt tripping, more self-esteem building please.

It’s perfectly true that being free to do something is not the same as being able to do it and that this lack of ability is sometimes caused by social injustice. But a reasonable point like that does not need the perversion of language you’re employing. In an unequal society, where there is sometimes exploitation, being free to do something is not enough. Freedom is not enough. See how easy it is to be honest about this?

Next, try being honest about what the word “Liberal” means. This is not a Liberal website.

Nothing is more likely to entrench class difference and perpetuate economic inequality than instituting the precedent of redistribution, as it is not a one-off measure which solves the problem in one bound - instituting redistribution makes the state’s ability to reduce inequalities dependant on maintaining class differences.

The success of redistribution as a policy is only possible if the policy goals increase in their unobtainablility - which is obviously perverse and undesirable.

Dependancy culture is the clearest manifestation of illiberalism at large, whether it means drug addiction, lack of transport choices, benefit dependancy, fiddling with laws and systems until they break under the weight of interference or whatever else. This is because it is the dependancy which stops you from being free to do what else is required.

There is no generalised case to be made for intervention/interference - only in exceptional circumstances where the reasoning for making it is clearly and overwhelmingly made is it acceptable, and even then much thought should be given to the method of doing so (take Iraq as an all-encompassing example).

Until the government can shake off it’s habit for interference it will continue to oppress the people by its actions.

Yes. I wouldn’t, on that basis, endorse coercion to address those inequalities, however.

i accept your point about people choosing different career paths, but it also clear that many people earn less not because of choice, but because of circumstance - whether that is genes, educational opportunities, or other factors. So there is a balance. But i’m sure you accept that too.

On the economics point, i was trying to say that we shouldn’t shy away from indirect taxes because of inequality because they are a useful tool. Instead we should address inequality. Or at the very least mitigate against the effects of indirect taxes on inequality with other measures.

best.

Duncan

This approach is where we look at who is fit to solve a given ‘problem’ (assuming there is one).

What is peculiar is why, so very often - all too often - a top-down decision-maker or central government is considered to be better at delivering a solution.

It seems to me there is plenty of precedent to suggest otherwise, and indeed anyone looking at (say) Ministers’ CVs will find that few are any more competent within their portfolios than any one of us. History proves we do not have the skill to manage everything from the centre.

Perhaps the ‘liberal left’ should be that in mind.

When you say you want to give people its true cost, how would that work? Isn’t that indirect taxation an attempt to factor in the indirect costs? So for example, when we slap a £25 congestion charge on higher pollution vehicles - that to me sounds like an attempt to factor in the indirect cost of pollution.

Please don’t conflate congestion and pollution!

Actually, Falco, much as I agree with most of what you say, the concept of positive liberty does not necessarily enable the state. It merely concerns itself with internal impediments to individual autonomy (rather than external threats as negative liberty does). It is perfectly possible to be concerned with positive liberty while still maintaining that the state should be minimal, since only a small state is able to offer the sort of social situation in which positive liberty is able to develop. Others will dispute that but it is not positive liberty itself they are contending, but a different (and wrong) way of achieving it.

Duncan - Perhaps we would need to see a more concrete proposal for what you have said but I think it is economically incoherent. What you are basically saying is that you would like to tax people based on the choices they make, but you can’t because that will necessarily impact more on the poor. So instead you will tax them on the basis of income but at the point of where they use (are forced to use) carbon generating goods or services. BTW, it is worth noting that according to Stern, car drivers are already paying MORE in taxes than the value of the damage to the environment they are causing is estimated to be, so perhaps your system would advocate (in reality) reducing taxes on cars and petrol.

The main problem with this is that it assumes that earning power is arbitrary - that it isn’t itself a choice that people, to some extent, are able choose. I.e. someone might choose to study for a Phd and be poorer because of it, or they may choose to get a job now or train to get a more productive job later. Or they may spend a lot of time being completely inactive. Under a free market system, people have to evaluate how much they want to be able to drive a car (for example) and, therefore, whether to make the sacrifices involved in getting a regular job to pay for it. Under your scheme, by contrast, rich people have to be punished for choosing to drive a car, while poor people have to be compensated for not being able to afford the punishment. This would incentivise inactivity (or even studenthood as is one of my sins:)) and encourage people to be less productive than they otherwise might choose to be because the various taxes are scaling on things they are doing are scaling perfectly just to “pinch” at the right level.

Sunny - “how do we get rid of that class difference entrenchment without some redistribution of wealth and opportunity?”

You can’t but you are assuming that the redistribution has to be coerced (and by a state). The free market is all about the redistribution of wealth via consensual transactions. So long as state mandated monopolies are avoided, everyone has the opportunity to better themselves materially so long as the rule of law and property rights are properly enforced.

Most people also have moral values that include helping those worse off and putting them into a better position, and would be prepared to help the poor via voluntary and charitable means. Hence redistribution can happen but directly, unmediated by expensive bureaucrats who take a large cut of all tax takings home for themselves:)

You could take away most of the money that rich people have. The problem with this is that it would destroy property rights, (rights are only in existence so long as they are universal), and screw the economy.

Or you can wait, things will change over time provided you provide decent educational oppertunities, (bye bye comprehensives), it will take longer but has the advantage of actually working.

Re the Americanisation/Liberty argument, please, for flying f*cks sake, learn the difference between negative liberty, (liberty) and positive liberty, (being an interfering, authoritarian b*stard).

Bishop Hill: you are right that people weren’t free in the Soviet Union. There may have been some ‘positive freedoms’ as you mention, but very little negative freedom (liberty). The government didn’t empower people, it restricted what they could do with their lives. The challenge for the liberal left, which i accept Libertarians would take issue with, is to promote positive freedom and negative freedom at the same time.

As you say, there are trade-offs here - your taxes may pay for my public services (or visa versa) so you are losing some of your liberty to fund my positive freedom. There is tension between the two - which liberals on the right see as unacceptable and liberals on the left seek to negotiate. The issue for left is where to set the boundaries that will not be crossed - red lines that prevent liberty from being eroded - whilst seeking to address inequalities in ways that give more people greater control over their own lives.

Sunny: what i was trying to say was that indirect taxes are a good way of including the social cost of something like flying in the price of a flight. Carbon emmissions are an externality - so the task of government uses taxes and similar tools to make sure that the true costs of something are reflected (e.g. putting a price on carbon; taxing fuel). The value of this is that there is still choice available to consumers - but many, seeing the full cost of the journey, will decide to spend their money on other things (e.g. going out for dinner) or more carbon efficient ways of travelling (e.g. the train). This way the governnent sets the framework, but people themselves negotiate the trade-offs. And markets come up with new fuels, which have create carbon emmissions, because there is an incentive to do so.

The problem that the left has with this kind of thing is that indirect taxes often fall disproportionately on the poor. The effect is that some people simply can’t afford to fly because of the (hypothetical) new taxes - so people worried about inequality often oppose measures that are good for the environment. My point was that, instead of opposing them altogether, the left should push for complemtary measures in the tax system (redistribution) so that the effects of the taxes are not regressive and we still get the environmental benefit of the taxes themsleves. So green taxes etc shouldn’t depend on inequality, or make it worse.

Its not something I disagree with. And the point is, how do we get rid of that class difference entrenchment without some redistribution of wealth and opportunity? Maybe you can debate that with Bishop Hill?

Jeannie - um, where?

Duncan, I have an issue with this statement… or maybe I’m not clear about its implication:
To give an example, the aim should be to clarify the real costs of travel by car, train and plane, so that people can assess their relative value for money, rather than to price people from one section of society off the roads and out of the skies The principle should be that indirect taxation should neither rely on inequality, nor accentuate it. So moves towards greater indirect taxation should be ‘offset’ by other measures in the tax and benefit system to prevent disproportionate effects on low income groups.

When you say you want to give people its true cost, how would that work? Isn’t that indirect taxation an attempt to factor in the indirect costs? So for example, when we slap a £25 congestion charge on higher pollution vehicles - that to me sounds like an attempt to factor in the indirect cost of pollution.

Sunny - It is not that we don’t take into account, we just argue that freedom (of our kind) is what breeds opportunity (of your kind). There is even a contemporary word for this contention: Rawlsekianism (a combination of the libertarian Hayek and the social democrat Rawls).

See: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2006/12/04/is-rawlsekianism-the-future/

Unlike Tories (of certain stripes at least), we aren’t interested in entrenching a class system that benefits only the few. Our values include that of equality and social justice. we merely contend that without liberty, none of those values are possible, since a coercive state managed by a bureacracy makes a poor replacement for the protections offered by the rights of property, free association and exit.

The problem with intertwining the two meanings is that while seeking some “freedom to” you decide to swap it for some “freedom from” - we think we’ve just swapped one kind of freedom for another. But at this point you may well discover that your “freedom to” is in fact just a little bit of equality. And worse, you aren’t in a position to change things back because you’ve lost your “freedom from”.

As another way of looking at this, we could think about the old Soviet Union. There, everyone had access to education and healthcare, guaranteed by the state. Would you argue that the Russians enjoyed a significant measure of freedom?

Well it doesn’t really, because aforementioned intervention also involves taxing people, therefore making them less able to afford whatever it is we’re talking about and therefore less free.

Now, would you libertarians mind not endlessly raising that stupid point at every opportunity.

And since we’re on definitions (from Miriam Webster)
freedom: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action

Given that definition, affordability is a constraint so government intervention does indeed make people more free. And of course the moral case for it is pretty strong too.

In theory everyone has the opportunity to become PM. But if the system is biased against working class people, then the problem lies with the system, not the definitions of ‘opportunity’ and ‘liberty’. Then the system does need repair.