I was reminded the other day when this tweet
popped in my twitter/X feed of a previous post, For Whom the Bell Tolls, that I made back in October 2022. So I revisited the post and the comments and, I’m sorry to say, what I found is nearly all cope. We can always quibble about the questions, analysis, etc. involved in a piece of research but the graphs for both the US and UK broadly track reality and we can see this because the party affiliations align with dimensions measured on the graph. There is just no point pretending otherwise unless you want to avoid reality and the practical lessons entailed therein. We need to stop ignoring that there is little interest in ‘right wing’ economic policies that are justified in terms of right-wing values that are anymore than moderate. That is just the reality; the vast bulk of the electorate sits within the left-centre of the economic values spectrum and so they must be addressed at the very least in that idiom if you want to attract their consideration and support. The same is true re social values except that here we can say that a supermajority of the electorate is situated here, as is the overwhelming majority of the conversative electorate, precisely where you would expect the latter to be, in the upper half of the authoritarian/libertarian spectrum. The only reason why we or the party apparatus could or would ignore either or both is ideological. This is instructive.
Addendum: This is how the traditional left-right axis appears on the political quadrant:
Which is almost in centre of Brexit voters’ values.
That’s a fun chart.
Slight typo though, he has the arrows and year dates on the wrong ends of the lines.
I’m also amused that Nigel Farage-supporting Brexit voters are to the left of Stalin.
Surely the guy who did the chart could get a nice juicy job doing climate data. They’d grab him immediately! Talent! Lots of money in that field these days.
Looks like 95% of voters are letwingers no matter what they call themselves. No wonder the place is a dump. Pathetic.
I see the coping continues.
No, Brexit voters hold economic values across the left-centre spectrum with the mean being centre-left. And what distinguishes the Brexit voter from the Lab & Lib Dem is that they are social conservative.
You’re not reading the graph correctly. The left-right spectrum would be a line drawn from the bottom left corner to the top right so any to the right of top left and bottom right would be right-wing. In that light it’s split more or less evenly.
Are you able to source the questions asked that determined where people stood on issues? I’ve seen a good number of these surveys and the questions are mostly shit awful and don’t really describe voter thinking. You may recall quite a few of these tests were discussed on the old Cat and people were very critical.
That chart’s Y-scale is all messed up.
Progressives are the most totalitarian these days.
The libertarians are closer to the conservatives.
Maybe it needs 3 dimensions.
The questions aim to identify economic and social values. There are always issues re questions but it’s clear from the results, as I say in the post, broadly align with voter identification. Sure, you could probably sharpen the questions but this isn’t going to radically alter the results.
Why is this so difficult to accept?
Haha.
The section that Brexit voters are supposed to be is far left-authoritarian. That is Stalinism. It’s ludicrous.
The chart is the most stupid rendition of stupid crap data I’ve ever seen in fifty years of processing data. In short it is elephant sh*t, since it’s worse and smellier than bullsh*t.
It is not coping to reject false data, and this data is off the planet false.
Second comment is that the Conservatives and Labour are supposed to have moved massively rightwards in three years. That’s bonkers.
The Tories under Rishi have gone so far left since he was gonged as leader by the elites that they’re now a mainstream green-progressive party these days. And Labour have gone even further left: they’re a bunch of antisemitic communists.
So to suggest both parties have hurdled rightwards is about as ludicrous as you can think of.
Perhaps the guy just got his axes arse about. I haven’t seen such a silly graph in a long long time, and as a scientist I have seen a lot of graphs.
You’ve misread the graph, Bruce, I can’t put it any plainer than that. I’ve added an addendum to help you and others. Brexit voters, firstly, have economic values that overlap considerably with Conservative voters, and secondly, have economic values that traverse the left and centre. And this tracks with what we learned of Brexit voters back in 2015/16, that they were largely Labour voters in the midlands and north that had been increasingly marginalised by Blairism. These are well-understood facts.
No, the Y-scale is perfectly fine. Libertarians are not closer to conservatives on social questions. Hopefully, the addendum is useful for you and others reading the graph.
Mmm…looks interesting.
I’ll be able to give it more time tomorrow.
D.v.
Um, the Y axis says “authoritarian” and the X axis says “Left wing”. The entirety of the supposed Brexit demographic is between those two axes. That is insane. It is wrong. The Brexit demo pretty much coincides with the US MAGA demo. Right wing conservatives based solidly on Christian morals and ethos.
I think that is all perfectly clear and the graph is perfectly off the face of the planet with bells, whistles and pink flying elephants. I wish I knew what he was using because it sure is powerful stuff.
I am not in the habit of misreading graphs, rather it has been my job and calling for forty years to interpret data and graphs to determine whether they are true. This one is so dumb it would make Dumbo the Flying Elephant embarrassed.
It’s not difficult to accept, but we need to see the questions backing this result.
We used to go over lots of these surveys in the old Cat and the general view was that most were next to useless as the questions weren’t properly crafted.
Have a look at the result with basically ~2/5ths of Labor voters residing in the top left quartile of the chart suggesting they’re less authoritarian than conservative voters. That’s baloney.
You then have ~3/5ths of labor voters residing in the bottom left quartile suggesting they have libertarian values. A quick scan of the UK libertarian party manifesto would show this is crap.
Ok here are the two necessary changes to that abortion of a dataset.
First the top and bottom tags should be rearranged. The top one should say “Libertarian/traditional social values” and the bottom should say “Authoritarian/progressive social values” since those reflect the current division in society. The progressives are the authoritarians and the conservatives are the libertarians.
Secondly the entire Brexit and Conservative voters blobs should be in the top right hand side, since those demos reflect conventional free market capitalist viewpoints. They sure don’t reflect Marxist-socialist economic outlooks as the chart says they do. Tradies for example are as free market capitalist as they come, they aren’t frigging commie totalitarians.
Now further, the left wing blobs should be brought fully into the authoritarian/left wing sector, since the Left is completely authoritarian-totalitarian. They aren’t a single iota libertarian. Completely intolerant of counter viewpoints.
I’ll repeat myself: this is the stupidest lefty “graph” that I’ve ever seen in many decades of watching stupid lefties being stupid. It makes the infamous Hockey Stick look almost plausible, which it entirely isn’t.
Have to agree.
It’s almost like a mirror image of what should be presented.
Yeah, I’d like to see how they work the party aspect on this political quadrant as well as the scales on both axes. But none of this means that the graphs are broadly inaccurate. These graphs are simply indicative of the economic and social values in and of the electorate. The UK and the US political quadrants are broadly similar and illustrate what occurred in the Brexit vote and in 2016. There is simply no way around these facts.
No Dover the graph and the claimed directions are completely unbelievable.
The Conservative Party has been sprinting leftwards under Sunak. Not rightwards. Truss tried to turn it around but the elites ejected her and inserted Sunak without a vote.
And no the graph does not reflect the US voting patterns or social dynamics either. Trump supporters for example are libertarians and conservative Christians with classical laissez faire economic outlook. The authoritarian thing is a fever dream of the Left, and intense projection since they’re the totalitarians.
As for the Labour Party you obviously haven’t been watching the news. They are full on Corbynists these days: communist antisemites. The UK is going to be so screwed after the election. Ah well. Got to have another learning experience before they have a hope of regaining any national sanity.
I’m not saying we’re any better here, since we aren’t. Only about a decade behind the US and the UK.
Freedom of speech?
Now and then, but the justifications are different and they can produce different results. Rule of thumb, justification for conservatives is that speech is ordered to the pursuit of truth, whereas for the liberal it’s ordered to individual autonomy/ expression.
TO seek the truth.
the conservative or the liberal?
???
If you have framed everything as a binary 0 = false, progressive and 1 = true, conservative (whatever that actually means) then yes you’re going to get some truly bizarre outputs.
This is why I consider polyarchy is more important; it is better at getting to the truth. The truth doesn’t always win arguments, but it does win tests.
No, firstly, it’s ‘authoritarian/traditional’, and secondly, Trump won by winning over Reagan/Blue Dog Democrats and the right portion that otherwise avoids voting; pretty much similar to who Brexit won over in 2016.
No, the majority of conservative voters would have centrist economic values. They are going to be supportive of individual initiative, private enterprise, limited intervention, and moderate welfare for the needy. Brexit voters will also largely do so as well.
The blobs are where they are because that is where the answers they have given have placed them on the political quadrant. They are ‘libertarian’ on abortion, divorce, promiscuity, and the like, however much you may dislike that characterisation.
You have a “libertarian problem”.
I’m more conservative than most “conservative” political parties yet there is nothing that isn’t “un-libertarian” about me. Arguably the Libertarian Party here and in the US is more conservative than most of the establishment conservative parties in the west, or at least the establishment wings thereof.
I simply believe in personal responsibility and that the state controlling the decision-making process is usually a net negative. I don’t think there should be laws about promiscuity. When was the last time we had those? I do think there should be fault-based divorce, if the parties voluntarily agree to it.
You’re probably not that interested in the above.
There isn’t really a consistent conservative argument for what mainstream conservatives (pre-Overton window shift) would disagree with libertarians on regarding most issues. There would also be a lot more agreement than disagreement anyway.
I don’t disagree that there is significant overlap between libertarians and conservative voters, but as with your example re divorce, I don’t think voluntary agreement by the parties is re fault divorce is necessary re marriage, and this is indicative of the difference between actual conservatives and right-liberals/ libertarians.
Thank you for having a reasonable discussion and conceding some of the claims I have made. They’re true so there’s no point denying them and holding up conservatism as some sort of unassailable ideal; in this thread, we have a solipsistic, wannabe authoritarian atheist (who hates other atheists) arguing for extra-judicial killings perpetrated by a corrupt piece of trash with masses of collateral murders; there isn’t a conservative philosopher at all who supports this trash. Henry VIII and James II weren’t conservatives, they were shits, bad rulers, evil men who challenged the pre-existing order, “knocking down fences rather than asking why the fences were there in the first instance”.
There is much in conservatism and indeed Catholic political economy that libertarians, paleoconservatives and even anarcho-capitalists need to take seriously; not only are they good arguments but they are simpatico in application.
It’s funny I’ve mentioned Barnhizer lately, he’s working with the Ayn Rand Institute, the Brownstone Institute and the Ludwig von Mises Institute people.
That is only because you’re not reading it in its terms but on your terms. Authoritarian here just means traditional on social values. How is this not clear?
Same as above.
Dover
Labor supporters don’t reside there. Can you get the questionnaire?
You’ve seen enough of these bullshit surveys to raise the antenna, but you’re accepting it blindly.
This isn’t looking at the Conservatives under Sunak.
Yes they do.
If you have an FT sub try here, otherwise google British Election Study, but it can’t be much different than the US version here.
I see that years of being nagged, abused and accused of being “statists” has conservative cats convinced that libertarians aren’t socially located alongside the spastic bleeding progressives.
Have you forgotten the years of being lectured to by these dunderheads about everything from gay marriage to open borders lunacy to drug decriminalisation.
How badly are some of you idiots suffering from Stockholm syndrome?
Not as bad as you supporting mass murderer Duterte.
Bloke eliminated some drug dealing scum bags. No one except The Guardian and other progressives give a shit. Traditional conservatives care even less as it occurred in another country. Meanwhile actual Filipinos, if you ever bothered to talk to any, care more about the activities of the CCP in the region.
He killed thousands of people because he didn’t like them, he killed them without trial. There’s no intellectual honesty in banning drugs and allowing alcohol and tobacco.
Right. Let’s see you consistently be isolationist.
He killed mainly working classes and was (silently) supported by many middle class folks. Funny that he had his own drug problems and close supporters of his appear to look the other way on drug biz in his home town. A country is in a pretty bad way when killing 6k++ extra-judicially improves things, or appears to.
“If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful.”
So we know Duterte is not about actually saving the lives of drug users. He’s on a religious power trip and likes killing people, because “conservatism”
Ordinary Filipinos like this? Do they like the idea of murdering alcoholics and tobacco smokers too?
You are looking for a housemate.
2 people apply. They are exactly the same. Same age. Same career. Same intelligence. One likes a beer. The other asks if you mind if he shoots up heroin in the house after offering you some meth.
Which do you choose as your housemate?
What a stupid analogy.
One likes a beer after work while the other shoots up heroin.
How about one is a violent alcoholic mess and the other cokehEd.
You ridiculous blot, The extrajudicial police murders amounted to 30,000 dead by reliable estimates. It was a killing field.
Moreover, in a poor country with little in the way of controls and oversight, the bulk of the murders would have been committed so the cops would control the drug trade.
No one fkn asked you. Buzz off.
No one asked you to comment either, dipstick. Your arguments are stupid and an embarrassment to the site, which is saying something. Piss off yourself.
Mate. This is why no one good wants to engage with you. Who wants to get dragged into the mud by a pig, when they know you enjoy the shit.
Now buzz off. Dot doesn’t require your spastic “help”.
Dot didn’t ask you to engage either, mate, in the usual hectoring tone of yours. You drag every single conversation into the mud because you are a pig and always been one. You have nothing to add to any discussion because you’re a depressed arsehole with serious mental issues.
Arky “conservatives have been nagged, abused and accused for years by libertarians”
Flakey “libertarian” then immediately chimes in with nagging, abuse and stupid accusations.
You really are stupid.
Arky “conservatives have been nagged, abused and accused for years by libertarians”
Have they? Perhaps you could give examples instead of dressing in a white robe implying newly found victimhood.
Flakey “libertarian” then immediately chimes in with nagging, abuse and stupid accusations.
And the flakey Peronist comes out with lecturing, hectoring, name calling and stupid analogies.
Perhaps, but nowhere close to being as dense as you.
I’m not traditional conservative. I have done a few of these surveys. Every time I hit smack bang in the centre of each axis. If you could read for comprehension, you would have seen that my original comment was addressed to the conservatives, not speaking on their behalf.
I have done a few of these surveys. Every time I hit smack bang in the centre of each axis.
You idiot, those surveys are basically useless and inconsistent.
Lecturing more like. And hectoring.
You’re sperging out.
Calm down and get some help.
You should’ve been looking in the mirror when you posted that. You genius.
The dickhead “libertarian” who doesn’t want anyone to complain about lockdowns resorts to “I know you are, but what am I”.
Nice argumentation there Einstein.
Not a good graph at all. I reiterate that 95$ are lefties, the ones above the horizontal line are Chardonnay Socialists. The English have always liked authoritarianism, the Upper Class knowing whats good for everyone else and the Lower Classes grizzling about but still want to move up the ladder.
Interesting observation Ranga
95%
Lefties skew it 45 degrees to try to make libertarians non-existent.
YOU are socially leftist.
Accept it.
Whatever you call left and right doesn’t even matter.
The goal is the minimise coercion.
Is compulsory schooling and state-funded education either or both considered left or right-wing?
Libertarians respect parental choice in decisions to raise their children outside of abuse and neglect; whereas the above policy ideas are typically viewed as left-wing.
Why is your goal, your highest value, to eliminate coercion?
Answer: because you share the leftist error that humans are basically good.
Traditional conservatives realise that this is not true.
Humans can do good, if they are led to it by duty and responsibility. In these circumstances rights and freedoms can exist. Otherwise they can’t and don’t.
Coercion is bad not in and of itself, but because it’s use indicates that the old society of responsibilities and duties has eroded to the point that the stupid state that put in place all the Pollyanna policies based on the erroneous belief in the goodness of mankind is now in the final phase of forcing it’s citizens to do all the things it assumed would just happen if it was all cool and acted like hippy Jesus. Or even worse, forcing other citizens to do things to compensate for the nature of all the shit citizens. Which is why under libertarian social policies the state can never shrink.
Never again argue against state coercion re. lockdowns.
You never again argue against state subsidies.
You took the subsidised vaccine and bought the subsidised company’s shares.
LOL.. I actually paid for the vaccine and which company have I bought that was state subsidized, you goofball.
FMD, your retorts are piss weak. Just so bad.
You paid for something so no subsidy was involved.
serious question: how fkn stupid are you?
I mean, really, you think that “subsidise” is the same as “free”.
Are you serious.?
I have no idea if a subsidy was involved as I paid for it. Having said that, I fail to sent the deranged point your making. I pay taxes and if the government is offering me a deal I shouldn’t take it? Perhaps, you should be telling the government to stop the subsidy, Hanging your coat on this argument is another example of your rank imbecility.
The libertarian view is and has always been that the state is at fault in the subsidy rackets, and not really the people who take them up on it, leaving aside outright corruption.
Also very, very interesting.
The “libertarian” insisting people should not argue against locking citizens in their homes 23 hours a day.
Some “libertarian”. What a fkn pillock.
Which libertarian ever argued in favor of lockdowns, you delusional twat?
This is why you always come unstuck. you can’t argue on merits, go into a late night alcoholic rage if you’re challenged, accuse someone of doing the very things you are, and make shit up when it’s not going your way,
There’s no libertarian on this or the old site who’s ever argued in favor of lockdowns.
There is though, a Peronist asshat, who gets a hard-on for extrajudicial mass murder.
Me:
(Notice here I never said any “libertarian” argued in favour of anything)
..
”Libertarian”:
You 5 minutes ago:
Between the verbaling, the lacking comprehension skills and the ceaseless abuse, do you still wonder why a huge chunk of contributors just don’t bother with your bullshit anymore? I suspect there has been some mental degradation in the last few years. Get help.
I did? Point to it, or apologize for being a meathead.
It’s a direct quote from you, you pillock.
You really don’t remember what you wrote minutes before?
I apologise for getting a bit short with someone I now realise has an actual disability.
This is what you said, you semi-comatose nimrod.
Who suggested ” people should not argue against locking citizens in their homes”?
Go!
Between the verbaling, the lacking comprehension skills and the ceaseless abuse, do you still wonder why a huge chunk of contributors just don’t bother with your bullshit anymore?
I’m still waiting for you to highlight where I said I’m in favor of lock-downs. I am in favor of locking up loons like you in metal asylums though.
Have you ever wondered that about yourself and how the old blog had to be closed down for a few days because of your behavior when you went nuts? Have you ever wondered when you had the keys to this place people were threatening to walk because of the way you acted. You even had Tom protesting and he’s one of the nicest people here. Look in the mirror, you asshat, because the very things you accuse others of, are the very things you do yourself.
You need to be locked up or seriously medicated.
I’m still waiting for the comment where I said I supported lockdowns.
Go!
Is English your second language?
If you can’t understand the words in front of your stupid face, I, nor anyone else can help you.
No one said libertarians were in favour of anything.
Get it?
Dumbarse.
Well actually English is my second language, but it doesn’t help figuring out you’re a fatmouth idiot, who’s now dissembling and trying to slink away from supporting his dishonest claim. You can do that in most languages.
Juan, really you’re just fcking hopeless. I’m done with you as you’re a waste of time and effort.
You have been comprehensively beaten all over the playing field tonight.
You are truly a dope.
First you take great offence at the idea that “libertarians” are abusive and nagging. You respond by immediately diving in with abuse and a long series of replies (nagging). Thus proving me completely right in a way I couldn’t have better demonstrated if I tried.
You then take offence that you think I have misquoted your words, but while doing that you become hopelessly confused and apparently think something completely different to what I said is being said. Then you fail to recognise your own words from minutes ago quoted back to you.
Then you apparently belatedly recognise you have f’ed up and start demanding I prove some new thing you made up slightly closer to your actual original words.
Along the way you beclowned yourself by equating “subsidise” with “free”. I guess all those Falcons and Commodores with price tags of $29,000 back in the day weren’t subsidised, nor are all the rooftop solar panels now.
You have been comprehensively beaten all over the playing field tonight.
That actually applies to you. It started because you brought up a singularly stupid analogy comparing the occasional beer after work against someone doing serious amounts of heroin. That was your argument to Dot and it was laughably stupid, like most of your augments.
Keep reminding us how smart you are. It’s fun to read.
First you take great offence at the idea that “libertarians” are abusive and nagging. You respond by immediately diving in with abuse and a long series of replies (nagging).
Let’s ignore the fact that you jumped into Dot’s conversation in your hectoring way and then came up with a stupid analogy to justify your dense argument.
Keep repeating that and at some stage even you will believe this tripe.
There no confusion at all. When you support a mass murdering president and suggested to Dot that being against coercion shouldn’t be a guiding principle of the state, I suggested you have no claim to be against lockdowns because by your guiding principles then everything can be justified. You then turned this around to say I supported lockdowns. You’re a dishonest, thickheaded asshat (however, that doesn’t need repeating because we all know that),
While I don’t support any subsidies, you would turn down subsidies for solar panels, but go full retard in support of subsidizing the car industry. Why don’t you start up a car making business?
Lastly, I’m not in favor of the covid subsidy, but to suggest that means I shouldn’t partake is so stupid, it doesn’t even deserve a reply.
Just keep advocating Peronism as it’s a great laugh.
Lastly, where did I make the claim a subsidy means something is free?
You hectoring clown.
You realise no one else is reading this embedded comment thread?
And I sure as hell aren’t reading yet another insane screed From an effeminate midget.
Arky is right here. If you’re opposed to coercion per se, not merely unjustified coercion, you are arguing from a liberal/ progressive position, bottom right of quadrant.
No, you’re now both arguing selective coercion. In other words, you don’t like lockdowns, but extrajudicial killings are fine.
No, you’re just being silly. There is justified and unjustified coercion. Road laws are coercive but they are justified if they coordinate vehicular traffic in a way that respects both order and liberty. I’m not offering an opinion on Duterte.
Dover, we’ve been through the roads argument before and it has been labored on the old blog. It doesn’t really need to be rehashed.
No, what we see here is a great deal of selective coercion, where my coercion is necessary, but I don’t like yours.
The guiding principle in the libertarian world is do no harm (or potential harm) to others, otherwise leave adults alone.
re 1, you don’t need to rehash the roads argument, it is simply an example of justified coercion.
re 2, that is simply the nature of the making distinctions. It’s unavoidable.
re 3, it’s underdetermined. What do libertarians mean by ‘harm’? Is it only physical? Is it also emotional? Is it also financial? If you’re also going to include ‘potential’ harm that greatly expands the scope of its application to? And then you have the problem of why it should be limited to individuals? Why not also include groups? Further, there is also the problem of why the harm principle also doesn’t to some extent protect adults. All in all, you’re not avoiding 2.
re 1, you don’t need to rehash the roads argument, it is simply an example of justified coercion.
More like sensible rather than justified. You could justify lockdowns if you’re so inclined. Sensible? Not so much.
Libertarians generally go for minimal government intervention and coercion, emphasizing personal freedom and voluntary interactions. When it comes to road rules and regulations, some libertarians may argue that certain rules, such as those governing traffic/safety, are necessary to prevent harm and ensure the smooth functioning of society. However, they may also contend that these rules should be kept to a minimum and implemented in a way that minimizes coercion and maximizes individual autonomy.
Some libertarians might propose alternative solutions to government-imposed road rules, such as privatization of roads and highways, where the owners of the roads would set their own rules and regulations, or relying more on market mechanisms like insurance incentives to encourage safe driving behavior.
Libertarians recognize the need for certain rules to maintain order and safety, they often advocate for solutions that prioritize individual liberty and voluntary cooperation over coercive government intervention.
Basically, what has been discussed on this subject ad nauseam.
Distinctions in terms of what exactly? Take abortion should it be banned completely?
See legal definitions for harm and you’ll get a better picture.
Why do you need to include “groups” when a group of people are individuals? There’s also nothing in libertarian thinking that says a group of people cannot bring a class action to remedy a wrong. I don’t know what you’re getting at here.
Further, there is also the problem of why the harm principle also doesn’t to some extent protect adults.
It does, but not in the context you’re alluding to.,
No I’m not.
Sensible, minimal, and the like are just terms that mean justified. You’re just trying to avoid the obvious here.
Private roads, and the like just changes who imposes the rules (coerces) on these roads. It doesn’t remove the fact of coercion.
Making distinction can appear ‘selective’, ad hoc, and the like, to people that don’t accept your priors.
I have referenced legal definitions of harm. You could also incl. defamation/ slander and now even misgendering and so on, so again, the harm principle is not the limiting principle you think it is.
Only because you read it in a particular way given your background principles. As soon as those change, the harm principle itself expands or contracts.
You’ve completely lost the plot with this fanatical belief set based on unreality.
Don’t flip out and call anyone at home.
Duterte killed perhaps 30,000 people with his insane war on drugs, Portugal no one got killed because of drug law liberalisation (violent crimes in fact fell). It has one of the least intrusive governments in the world and a high HDI.
Unless you think the government murdering 30,000 people isn’t a sign of the state growing and becoming leviathan.
Lefties only constitute 95% of this graph if you ignore the social values Y-axis.
so basically everybody is left-wing economic and has authoritarian social values
explains a lot
and anyway, who chose those colours?
they should all be lined up and shot along with the people responsible for taking butter out of sandwiches
While libertarians exist, they are marginal, existing on the political periphery.
Explain that to Happy Hammond up there on his soap box. Whenever there’s a political discussion he’s always bringing up libertarians as though they rule the world.
The last forty years of “free trade” and globalisation weren’t inspired by libertarian economists? Are you seriously arguing that the drive to globalisation, erosion of borders and the rise of “free” trade policies weren’t helped along by libertarian ideology?
Utter crap.
You had left wing governments (Hawke and the NZ Labor Party) dismantling a great deal of the protectionist edifice in both of these countries, you irredeemable nutball. The reason is that tariffs and quota walls were impoverishing these countries. NZ was in worse shape and was close to being considered a third world country at the time.
As far as the US goes, the Reagan administration ran a protectionist policy when one considers US policy on steel and towards Japan, which at the time was considered a threat to US industry. US policy forced Japanese carmakers to begin quotas on imports and to establish carmaking operations in the US.
Friedman’s influence carried through on domestic policy, such as the tax regime.
You have no idea what the fck you’re talking about, and it would be a good thing if you just STFU on this topic. You’re a waste of time.
….the Reagan administration has failed to promote free trade. Ronald Reagan by his actions has become the most protectionist president since Herbert Hoover, the heavyweight champion of protectionists.
Read the PDF, dipstick and if you ever have a sense of shame come back here and apologize with the promise you’ll never discuss economics again.
He doesn’t have a sense of shame.
….the Reagan administration has failed to promote free trade. Ronald Reagan by his actions has become the most protectionist president since Herbert Hoover, the heavyweight champion of protectionists.
Read the PDF, dipstick and if you ever have a sense of shame come back here and apologize with the promise you’ll never discuss economics again.
“No Dover the graph and the claimed directions are completely unbelievable.”
It might be moe believable if they had normalised the results about both axia.
Missed this yesterday:
Makes no sense. The one’s above the horizontal line around the Y-axis are in the Australian context Menzies’s forgotten people. They are mixed economy supporters that have traditional social values.
The most populist and influential Western government policy of the 20th century was the New Deal. They had to change the US Constitution so that FDR wasn’t President for life, it made him so popular.
I would question the label of authoritarian on the Y axis. Perhaps a better characterisation would be “interventionist”, referring to government intervening in the economy and social issues. Perhaps it is just semantics, but Stalinism is not actually on that graph at all as an option, and using the word authoritarian lets Dunning-Kruger specials like Bruce pretend that it is.
To me, the lesson of this graph is that no one wants laissez-faire free market capitalism, except the capitalists who run the show. The choice should mostly be between technocrat progress or NIMBY nativism as the guiding ideology of government intervention. The fact that libertarianism is even existent at all among the elected class is an aspect of the chokehold veto power that capital has over the political process, enabled by rubbish law like Citizens United.
What would this achieve apart from the pretense of precision. The graph is indicative; it is telling you in broad outline the positions of the electorate in terms of its economic and social values.
Nearly all I’m seeing in this thread is cope rather than coming to terms with the electorate as it is.
I’m not convinced by the addendum – need to think more.
FT analysed the data from the British Election Study, so you data wonks can go for it.
The capitalists “who run the show” are not laissez-faire free market types but cronies who benefit from government intervention in the marketplace.
So they are pretty much like the electorate too.
What are you having trouble with?
It’s debatable how much the electorate benefits from government intervention in the market, although they may think they do. Which is to say the real interests of big business and the general public are often at odds.
But that isn’t at issue, Roger. The issue is the location of the electorate, broadly speaking, and when I look at the graph it looks like a gold mine bonanza for an actually conservative party.
I mentioned on an OT last week that Reform is polling only 1 or 2 pts behind the Tories.
Dover, I don’t buy the left/libertarian-social right/authoritarian-social correlation.
It may have aligned in the past, but the last few years have brought out the leftist social moralist jackboots. Just the ‘morals’ have shifted.
What’s the other axis supposed to represent? Social control top left vs. laissez-faire bottom right?
Depends on what you mean by conservatism.
If you think it means taking away rights, reversing decades of multicultural enrichment, dismantling cultural institutions, cutting green tape that is preventing rapacious corporate exploitation of the environment, and removing common law consumer protections… those are not actually popular.
I would argue that that is not actual conservatism, but reactionary recidivism. To be conservative, the thing you are conserving has to actually exist. The world you want, db, no longer exists. You want to tear down modern society. You are the opposite of a conservative.
You can “argue” whatever suits your prejudices, whether the argument is valid is a different question.
mUnturd
The change was made after FDR was dead.
You are an ignorant fool.
mUnturd
The most “rapacious corporate exploitation of the environment” these days is by renewable rent seekers, clear felling trees for wind factories and covering productive farmland with solar panels.
No, it doesn”t if you are paying attention to the electorate as it presents itself. Conservative voters, on the Y-axis are all moderately or significantly socially conservative. And, further what worries you even more is that a good deal of Labour and Lib Dem voters are also moderately or significantly socially conservative.
So, as I said, these are, to employ another metaphor, rich, fertile soils for any actually conservative party to cultivate. Black volcanic soil, you could say.
Monty re-defines “conservatism” to suit his own prejudices. He does not debate in good faith.
He’s not alone there.
I have been consistent over years in saying that leftists like me are the true conservatives in the current state of events, and right-wingers like you lot are in fact bomb-throwing anarchists.
This is a logical consequence of the right continually losing the culture wars for decades: society is resting on institutions of leftist bent. They always have been, really. That is the glorious legacy of British law, and the Whigs in particular. They played the long game, and they won.
The right is trying to dismantle society, an elite project that began with Thatcher and Nixon and has succeeded on the economic side through globalism and neoliberalism, without getting many wins on the social side. Now they are trying to finish the job, but it’s too late. They will fail, again.
You are the mirror image of the right-liberal, but rather than misunderstanding the role that economic liberalization has played in liberalizing social norms and roles, the left-liberal wants to pretend that social liberalization itself has played no role in economic liberalization. And it goes without saying that the term ‘society’ is no more than a husk in the mouths of liberals, whether left or right.
Dover. I’m not getting your point about economic liberalization and social liberalization. Should we have advanced from hunter gatherers or not so much?
The point has nothing to do with hunter gathers which is just a throwaway line by those mugged by reality. The point being made is that a liberalized economy has its own preferred social forms: smaller families, delayed marriage formation, extended adolescence, and the like.
Read Roger Scruton.
helps if you think of the quadrants as paddocks
open a gate and get the first ones moving then the rest will follow
mUnty playing the ‘equivocation’ game again?
of course he need not wonder how the grass got greener
or how the system of gates and paddock operates
just trust that greener is better
I suppose that getting fat in a big green paddock is a birth-right in a ‘modern’ society
At the end of the day, this graph is a scam and it is malinformation, evil and dishonest propaganda.
They’re saying Brexit voters are like Hitler and Stalin and the conservatives and even the Lib Dems are that way inclined.
This is a complete falsehood. They’re all trending down 45 degrees on the axis bisecting the lower right quadrant [the good part where moral and rational people exist].
Corbyn, Wong and our Greens, along with the worst COVID authoritarians are at the extreme corner value of the upper left quadrant [the bad part where evil and irrational people ‘exist’].
Reply to dot above:
The graph is not saying this at all. It is saying that Brexit voters, Conservatives, Lib Dems, and Labour voters harbour economic values that are strongly left to moderately right with the mean somewhere on the centre-Left. In UK, this is probably a historical artifact of cradle to grave social services in the immediate post-WW2 period, NHS, and the like. The same graph for the US, which broadly follows this graph simply has more spread for conservative voters in respect of economic values, but the mean, rather than being moderately left, is marginally right on economic values. While the mean on social values for Dems is strongly progressive/ libertarian, whereas for both UK and US conservatives are both substantively conservative on social values, with the US being maybe being marginally stronger.
As for where people, better or worse ‘exist’, both graphs say that very few people exist in the bottom right, most exist in the left half, the top right constitutes a substantial minority, and the game is won in the top left quadrant.
I’m going with Dot. Anyway, it looks like horseshit. Not even a smidgen of any of the bubbles touched the bottom right quad. There are neither libertarians nor classic liberals in the UK. Okay.
Here’s an example of the problem that I think you were even involved with at the old Cat.
On one of those surveys we discussed, there was a question as to whether you supported abortion. If you answered no, your answer would have carried you towards the top left quad. It’s a little more complex than that, though. You could still be against abortion, but don’t support a ban.
Skull!
Why ignore the fact that the UK graph broadly replicates the US graph? The only difference is that the UK graph probably cleans up most of the scatter that you see on the periphery in the US map, and the US maps show that the population in the bottom right quadrant is marginal, and that whatever is there resides in the top left of the bottom right quadrant (these are the right-liberals/ classical liberals). It’s just cope to ignore this.
Without knowing if the axes were the same as these graphs, its obvious why answering the question in support of an abortion in the negative placed you north of the line, because the graph judges such an answer as indicative of authoritarian/ traditional social values. As to whether that is a mistake, no, it isn’t. It is identifying your social values, it isn’t predicting how you might equivocate regarding your social values at the level of policy.