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Opinion & Analysis |
Wednesday, October 9, 2008 |
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It's wrong to be Left and right to be RightOPINION: Right-wingers, or capitalists, favour freedom for all to act in free markets, writes Tony Allwright THE TURMOIL in the financial markets has led many people to rejoice that the right-wing philosophies of free-market capitalism have been demonstrably defeated and that socialism now rules, as if socialism is something to aspire to, to be proud of. It's true that a lot of capitalists are currently, in a socialist manner, seeking government help for their failing businesses, but this is evidence not of capitalism failing but whingeing bosses frightened to confront the marketplace when it turns nasty. Nevertheless, recent events have served to reinforce in many minds the wickedness of capitalism. If there is one universal term of derision propagated by much of the media and so-called liberal groups, it is the epithet "right-wing". It explains all that is wrong with anyone who embraces capitalistic values. The term conveys a sense of money-crazed heartlessness, devotion to self-aggrandisement through oppression of the less fortunate, and dishonest and/or unethical behaviour in pursuit of profit. Broadly, a right-winger favours laissez-faire capitalism and free markets, whereas a left-winger opts for socialism and fair play. But let's look at these concepts a little more closely. Capitalism is about individuals free to use their skills and money to produce things that people want to buy in open markets, and enjoying the profits that this activity brings. More profit goes to those who do this better. Socialism is about ensuring, through central planning and control, that the available wealth is shared equitably among all, regardless of ability or effort. On a first reading, both sound honourable, though clearly capitalism produces losers whereas socialism does not. Or is this so? Looking around the world, where are the economic winners and losers? Without exception, the winners are entities such as America, Europe, Australia and Japan, which have broadly adopted capitalism, while those that have embraced socialism always lose, most notably the Soviet Union, but also places such as Cuba, much of Africa, North Korea, Syria and Burma. Remarkable for the effect of the transition from socialism to capitalism is China, where an explosion of new-found wealth (250 per cent in a decade) is occurring due to the introduction of a limited amount of capitalism. The interesting question is, why does capitalism always produce winners and socialism losers? Capitalism is predicated on millions of individuals making free choices in a never-ending quest to better themselves. Entrepreneurs choose to invest their money in profitable enterprises. Workers choose to take up jobs that maximise their satisfaction and wages. Consumers, shopping in free markets, choose to buy those things that best improve their lives, at lowest cost, which happen to be precisely what the successful entrepreneurs and workers produce, as they constantly compete to improve quality and reduce cost.
Freedom to innovate and invest cannot prosper except in an ambience of free political choices, where people freely choose their leaders. Capitalism and democracy are inextricably intertwined around freedom. Socialism, on the other hand, is predicated on the decisions of central planners, who decide how industry, employment and wealth are to be distributed. They are few in number compared to the population, and are necessarily the authority in the land, as otherwise their decisions cannot be enforced. The populace on whom these decisions are imposed have little freedom to make choices. And since the central planners do not themselves usually suffer directly the effects of poor decisions (as the hoi polloi do), there is little incentive to improve on them. So you have a climate in which the choices are few, and made by only a handful of brains - rather than by the millions in the population - while on the other hand the absence of disciplinary feedback ensures a steady deterioration in the quality of those choices. A repressive regime is essential to enforce the central decisions, and to suppress criticism and ideas lest they threaten the central planners as they slide into incompetence, accountable to no one but themselves. No wonder economies and peoples under the thumb of socialism are the most miserable in the world, while the richest and happiest live under capitalism. No wonder it is capitalist countries that asylum-seekers and economic migrants seek. Left-wingers, or socialists, favour state intervention, with its inevitable inefficiency, plus the crushing of personal liberties. This has proven to be a truly wicked philosophy, which found its true soul in the murderous regimes of Stalin's Soviet Union and in Mao's China. Right-wingers, or capitalists, simply favour freedom for all to act, coupled with free markets, with minimal state interference in people's pursuit of wealth and contentment. That's why it's wrong to be Left and right to be Right. And why it's an honour, not an insult, to be labelled right-wing. • Tony Allwright is an engineering and industrial safety consultant, and blogs on international and national issues at www.tallrite.com/blog.htm © 2008 The Irish Times
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More on this subject in a blog post entitled “Right To Be Right” |
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Gift Idea |
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Good to report that as at
FREED AT LAST, |
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BLOGROLL
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What I've recently
But it's not
entirely honest in its subtle pro-Palestinian bias, and therefore needs
to be read in conjunction with an antidote, such as See detailed review +++++
BP's ambitious CEO John Browne expanded it through adventurous acquisitions, aggressive offshore exploration, and relentless cost-reduction that trumped everything else, even safety and long-term technical sustainability. Thus mistakes accumulated, leading to terrifying and deadly accidents in refineries, pipelines and offshore operations, and business disaster in Russia. The Macondo blowout was but an inevitable outcome of a BP culture that had become poisonous and incompetent. However the book is gravely compromised by a litany of over 40 technical and stupid errors that display the author's ignorance and carelessness. It would be better to wait for the second (properly edited) edition before buying. As for BP, only a wholesale rebuilding of a new, professional, ethical culture will prevent further such tragedies and the eventual destruction of a once mighty corporation with a long and generally honourable history. Note: I wrote
my own reports on Macondo +++++
A horrific account of:
More details on my blog here. +++++
After recounting a childhood of convention and simple pleasures in working-class Aberdeen, Mr Urquhart is conscripted within days of Chamberlain declaring war on Germany in 1939. From then until the Japanese are deservedly nuked into surrendering six years later, Mr Urquhart’s tale is one of first discomfort but then following the fall of Singapore of ever-increasing, unmitigated horror. After a wretched journey Eastward, he finds himself part of Singapore’s big but useless garrison. Taken prisoner when Singapore falls in 1941, he is, successively,
Chronically ill, distraught and traumatised on return to Aberdeen yet disdained by the British Army, he slowly reconstructs a life. Only in his late 80s is he able finally to recount his dreadful experiences in this unputdownable book. There are very few first-person eye-witness accounts of the the horrors of Japanese brutality during WW2. As such this book is an invaluable historical document. +++++
This is a rattling good tale of the web of corruption within which the American president and his cronies operate. It's written by blogger Michele Malkin who, because she's both a woman and half-Asian, is curiously immune to the charges of racism and sexism this book would provoke if written by a typical Republican WASP. With 75 page of notes to back up - in best blogger tradition - every shocking and in most cases money-grubbing allegation, she excoriates one Obama crony after another, starting with the incumbent himself and his equally tricky wife. Joe Biden, Rahm Emmanuel, Valerie Jarett, Tim Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Steven Rattner, both Clintons, Chris Dodd: they all star as crooks in this venomous but credible book. ACORN, Mr Obama's favourite community organising outfit, is also exposed for the crooked vote-rigging machine it is. +++++
It is really just a collation of amusing little tales about surprising human (and occasionally animal) behaviour and situations. For example:
The book has no real message other than don't be surprised how humans sometimes behave and try to look for simple rather than complex solutions. And with a final anecdote (monkeys, cash and sex), the book suddenly just stops dead in its tracks. Weird. ++++++
It's chapters are organised around provocative questions such as
It's central thesis is that economic development continues to be impeded in different countries for different historical reasons, even when the original rationale for those impediments no longer obtains. For instance:
The author writes in a very chatty, light-hearted matter which makes the book easy to digest. However it would benefit from a few charts to illustrate some of the many quantitative points put forward, as well as sub-chaptering every few pages to provide natural break-points for the reader. +++++
The author was a member of Britain's V Force, a forerunner of the SAS. Its remit was to harass Japanese lines of command, patrol their occupied territory, carryout sabotage and provide intelligence, with the overall objective of keeping the enemy out of India. Irwin is admirably yet brutally frank, in his descriptions of deathly battles with the Japs, his execution of a prisoner, dodging falling bags of rice dropped by the RAF, or collapsing in floods of tears through accumulated stress, fear and loneliness. He also provides some fascinating insights into the mentality of Japanese soldiery and why it failed against the flexibility and devolved authority of the British. The book amounts to a very human and exhilarating tale. Oh, and Irwin describes the death in 1943 of his colleague my uncle, Major PF Brennan. +++++ Other books here |
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After
48
crackling, compelling, captivating games, the new World Champions are,
deservedly,
England get the Silver,
No-one can argue with
Over the competition, |
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