David Davis
[Subsequent edit by author] Further to receiving one-star ( = very poor) I should just rectify my omission, which was clearly observed by the respondent. I forgot to mention the requirement, that will encumber any incoming Libertarian or Revolutionary-Liberalist administration, whether in England, or the UK, or elsewhere, to criminalize and proscribe the existence of any bodies calling themselves “Trade Unions”, which behave in ways shown by the 19th- , 20th- and 21st-Century British models of same. These outfits have proved themselves, through the deliberate policies and actions of their “officers”, to be far far more insidiously dangerous to life and liberty than any “terrorist” organisation, even the IRA and “Al-Quaeda” (whatever that might be), both of whom might be thought responsible for the deaths of up to 10,000 people each. The deaths probably attributable to the prevalence of “Trade” “Union” and “Workers’ Council” actions within the past 120-odd years probably run into the millions, aside from the planned and avoidable destruction of the UK’s heavy industries, docks, mining industries, railways and shipyards. (None of this needed to happen: the ability to fire all redundant labour upon the advent of better technology, thus keeping wage rates and hours to JapoChindoBraMexican levels, was prevented.)
Roll on the custard pies and rotting tomatoes….but Libertarians ought to begin speaking for real people, not just metropolitan political intellectuals like ourselves.
The coagulation-government is getting stick and rotting-cabbages from various quarters, for seeming to allow Francis Maude (who is, I admit, a bit of a slimy toad at times) to suggest that people should stock up on motor fuels before any putative strike by tanker drivers.
But I wonder…there could be a subtext here. Perhaps some clever Tory strategist thought that by artificially creating a fuel shortage at the pumps before any strike took place, the mass of inchoate but not negligible public opinion could be turned angrily against “UNITE”, whatever sort of GramscoStaliNazi front-organization that might be. I mean to say, it describes itself as a “Trade Union”, although it’s f**k-all to do with trade, and isn’t a union in any meaningful sense with regard to its members’ welfare – only its “officers’ ” wefare, power and prosperity.
Some of this unfocussed but very public mob ire might then rub off against the “Labour Party”, which predictably has failed to come out condemning the “union” – only mouthed platitudes about “the way to solve the crisis is by the negotiations”, as if there was anything meaningful for the drivers’ employers to talk about.
I just wonder if it’s a “cunning plan”. Of course, the predictable mainstream-media-response has been to toast the coagulation for its incompetence and “dangerous advice” (I mean to say! We used to keep old Duckhams 1-gallon oil cans and keep petrol in them for year after year – I always had 6 gallons in the house at any time, when in London years ago – about two-thirds of a tankful). But them the MSM is not on the side of any administration that is not overtly and aggressively GramscoStaliNazi. Perhaps because it thinks that most people viscerally are that, inand to their very bones….and they may sadly be right. Hitler got in, after all, by not misreading the mood of the German general public.
My own suspicions are that there is actually a glut of petrol, with the general populace getting a bit cheesed off with the escalating price, and so cutting back a bit. Cue the threat of a strike, and then we have government ministers putting it out that we ought to get filling up; the sheeple then go out and comply, thereby draining the over-filled storage tanks..
By this time next week, the reports will be how the threatened strike fizzled out – oh, and by the way, petrol is now £1.50.
RSP
The whole thing is so very strange, that I don’t know what to make of it. I’m inclined to just remind myself that the primary ruinous trait of government is not conspiracy, but incompetence. The bigger the government, the more opportunity there is for incompetence, and never in history has government been as big as it is now. I suspect that, from a far-future historical perspective, they will say “and it was never as big again”.
As humanity has developed, we have created systems of social management- tribes, city states, empires, now “democracies” which have each initial served a useful purpose and then clung on after their utility was past. We already have the instruction manual for the type of society that would best suit our current stage of development- it is “liberalism” or “libertarianism” as we now call it. I suspect that by the time we get to implement it, that will already be out of date too.
It is a pity really. Things could be so much better.
By panicking the population into filling up now, drivers tanks are full and all the petrol stations can restock and be full to the brim when the strike starts.
[…] Well, because the government is telling them to panic-buy. Is this deliberate? What could the government gain? Apart from a massive injection of duty and VAT, that […]
Is there more to it? Quite possibly.
But, more importantly, “Libertarian Alliance Against Freedom Of Association and for Oppressive Denial Of Such by the State shocker!”
In answer to Whoops:- Is a Libertarian supposed to allow the inception, growth and ultimate dominance of organizations specifically-designed to suppress liberalism? In the state of development that Human civilisation is still in (we are living at The Dawn of Time) I contend that we are not obliged to tie our hands behind our backs while the Forces Of Darkness (and I believe them truly to be this) are allowed to prosper unhindered.
Well David, that’s pretty much the same line taken by the forces of darkness.
I’m sure there are plenty of Polish tanker drivers keen to replace striking English ones.
To Mr Ecks:- Are we supposed to give The Forces Of Darkness an advantage then, whenever admonishing them to “Turn To The Light”? Will they heed us? I think not. So what does anyone suggest is the correct way to behave on this battlefield? Exhort the Enemy to behave civilly and agree with us, or kill the effing bastards until they’re dead? Whis is what they have cheerfully and often said about liberalism.
They do have an advantage. That’s why they’re winning. But nobody said it would be easy, and “if you can’t beat them join them” attitudes do nothing but guarantee their total victory.
But to be more specific to the post, the problem with trades unions is not what they are and what they do, but their cosy relationship with government and the acres of employment legislation they have had their pals push through Parliament over the years. In a freed labour market they would have far less power.
In a freed labour market, what’s the point of them? What would they exist for? To try to persuade people that if they gang up to threaten employers that they’ll “not work” if they don’t get their demands, and that, moreover, they’ll gang up on other employers and workers elsewhere to hinder those too, that that’ll work for the new-buggers?
I don’t think that’d wash in a “free labour market”, do you?
They’re winning because we haven’t stopped the effing bastards early enough. That’s why.
They have “had their pals push through employment legislation for them”, because we didn’t terminate them forcefully, early enough. “Pals” just push through what they are told to push through. Our trouble is that we haven’t got any “Pals”. It does not matter that much, but also it’s because our world-view, and our perspective on how People Ought To Live, has _//become shocking and awful//_ , because _//we let//_ people like the “trade union” wallahs go in and “be”, and “lobby” and “do”, because we thoght they had a right so to do. I think now that this was a grave, grave, mortally deep mistake. There is “right” and there is “wrong”. Objectively. They are _//objectively//_ in the wrong, and for wicked reasons, based on deliberation.
Premeditated evil is always worse than accidental evil, as Common Law affirms. Waht is happening to us is _//what they meant to happen//_ .
Either we are right to say liberalism is right, or they are right to say it’s wrong and that therefore people should subsume their individual rights into a superior group which decides everything for them. If we are right, good. If they are right, then we will go down anyway unless we move onto their chosen ground and assault them using the weapons they have had destinied for us. None of our “intellectual” persuasion offensives, lasting decades, has worked, so it’s worth a try, don’t you think?
If you think I’m not a “true libertarian”, I’m happy to discuss the position.
I really am: this whole intellectual masturbation thingy, this agonisation about force and “their rights” (when they deny ours explicitly) is getting rather tiresome now for me, really, and I mean it.
I think it’s time to have this discussion, which has been shied away from since I certainly remember, and probably before. We are talking 40 years here, and time is running out.
Trade Unions are voluntary asssociations. Liberalism does not compel people to continue working (that would be compelled servitude). The issue is simple: Do you support liberalism for all, or only for the factions you support?
Tony
The problem is; you can’t create a liberal rights based society by taking away rights and being illiberal. It doesn’t even come down to whether it is a good or bad idea. It just won’t work. This is how they work. They look at society, they decide some Damned Thing is bad, and they decide to abolish it; either by salami slicing (particularly post-1960) or by direct prohibition.
The enemies of liberalism are numerous, and trades unions are, these days, among the lesser of them. Our rights and liberties have been stolen by reformers, pressure groups, opinion formers, “charities”, lobbyists, campaigners, angry bereaved mothers, cranks, lunatics, charlatans and frauds. Most of them driven by pure self interest clad in robes of virtue, or by a millennialist certainty that unless drastic illiberal action is taken this instant, we are all doomed. If you wanted to write a list of every such force, you would not finish it before exhausting the planetary paper supply.
We live in history; future historians will discuss how our society progressed, including in our future. Rome went from a tribal monarchy to an oligarchic republic to a dictatorship to an imperium to a final rump, over many centuries. Perhaps the problem for Libertairans is that we are so busy opposing aspects of our historical process that we rarely present a vision of where we could go instead. We are in the historical process of creating the first global society. What will it look like? The Enemy know what they want. What do we want?
Humans naturally organise into collectives. We are herd animals. The question is how we can do so in a positive, rather than negative, manner in the future. How do people find identity and manage power in a mass society? If libertarians can’t answer that question- or if every one of us offers a different answer to it- we really aren’t much use and, probably, we deserve to lose.
I agree with Ian B. The unions hardly register on the scale of enemies. I’ve never been that sure they were such at threat in the 1970s. They were as much a response to crap management as a Moscow-funded conspiracy to knock us out of the Cold War.