Reasons for not moving right like young men

Fascinated to learn more about the mediaeval approach to social welfare. As you say, there has never been a “golden age” of stable, self-sufficient families. Even at the top of the social ladder, life could be incredibly insecure. Researching the life of Margaret Beaufort at the moment - what a turbulent time she was born into. Her mother, the Duchess of Somerset, had nine children by three fathers. Wonder what the gingham-apron parade would make of that.

Going back to mediaeval social welfare: I read once that following the dissolution of the monasteries, vulnerable people also lost a major source of support in the form of the Church.

Please send me links to any papers you could recommend (or have authored!), I would love to read them.

Oh also, on the subject of black conservatives in the US and their arguement that state support was used to weaken black families. They probably have a point, there were some very specific policies brought in that made it genuinely much more affordable for fathers to live away from their children than with them. That's not really the case elsewhere to anything like the same extent. There's a danger in copying American talking points too exactly I think although it's always useful to look at what is similar.

You put it much more succinctly than me!

Well, yes but capitalism isn't exactly winning the argument right now either
After the second world war the alternative to communism was dominated by Keynesian thinking. Effectively, capitalist but also trying to save capitalism for eating itself. After Thatcher/Reagan this fell out of fashion, and neo liberalism seemed to have won, especially after the collapse of those communist economies which as you say don't work. But arguably the neo-liberal.economic order of things has been dying a death since 2008. If Communism was proven ultimately unable to survive then the same can be said of the more modern iterations of Capitalism. Trump supporters as well as lefties are quite aware of this fact. And you could argue that, in contrast to the "decadence" of the West, China which has a centralised planned capitalist economy is winning the argument. Whether the argument is that neo-liberalism is bad or that democracy is bad is not agreed.

I don't think we should go all Chinese. I also don't think that communism is a good idea or even a return to old Keynesian principles. But there needs to be some.sort of change because the EU in particular never recovered from 2008 and in the current system young people.cant even afford houses. I think a proportion of people on the right (Farage) and the left (TRAs) sort of realise this but are in denial, chasing after diversions like social justice causes or blaming immigration. Both of which are important issues in their own right but won't solve the central contradictions in the economy. And MAGA addresses it by embracing rejection of some aspects of neo-liberalism (tarifs rather than free trade) and exaggerating to other parts (trickle down wealth) to the point it's an ideology.

I feel like I'm writing an essay but I don't think it's fair to write everyone voting further left of as being hopelessly deluded about communism/part of a cult. Any more than it is to write all Reform voters of as stupid either. Some of them, on both sides, probably are a bit culty/deluded, but equally they're reacting to a problem the centre doesn't have an answer to at the moment.

Apart from various kinds of fecklessness there are always accidents, disabilities and illness.

The question should be, how can you not? Trickle-down economic liberalism has failed in spectacular ways as well. The collapse in living-standards hasn't even required an aggressive state, Beijing-style: all the UK state had to do was shrink away.

There are good reasons to be suspicious of the authoritarian tendencies of the left, but for the right to use this as cover for its own negligence is very weak.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/21/children-raised-under-uk-austerity-shorter-than-european-peers-study

Parish records are one of my areas of expertise

In medieval/early modern times widows, bastards, single mothers were part of the "deserving poor" and had to be supported by the parish. How that worked varied- you can see sometimes the parish was extremely reluctant and sometimes more sympathetic. And there were always chaotic people. One example is a child who was born out of wedlock and raised by his father and stepmother. When they both died the Parish went and asked the mother to raise him but she would only do so if they paid her a certain amount to support him which they ultimately said they would as it was cheaper than finding alternative provision. There were all sorts of shenanigans with women in labour being pressured to name the father (so a different parish would be responsible for the cost) or women in labour being hustled over parish lines.last minute.

Societies have changed but there's never been a golden age of traditional society where the nuclear family provided all for all children. Some father's always abandoned their children even in olden times, some women were feckless, some women were raped. And parents (mothers and fathers) were much more likely to die leaving children orphaned or fatherless.

During the massive social upheavals of the Victorian time and the industrial revolution when the poor law was enacted, the old system was replaced by workhouses. This was partly justified by the idea that providing to much support was encouraging feckless behaviour. But the end result of removing parish support and introducing workhouses wasn't less children born out of wedlock. It was more dead children, more abandoned children, and more women working as prostitutes to support their children.

Conservatives do make the argument that the presence of a safety-net weakens the strength of the family. But there will always be some men (and some women) who are violent to their dependents, with or without the possibility of their partners making a state-assisted escape. To the question of how many families should justifiably be left to endure abuse, so as to keep government small and taxes low, conservatives never have an answer.

Just because you weren’t following that SWP scandal when it became public knowledge doesn’t mean the rest of us are also unaware of what happened to those young female activists.

It was examined and reported across all the papers and discussed on MN by both people it directly affected and people whose friends were directly affected.

What I’m trying to say is that if you personally don’t know anything about something that happened it doesn’t mean it didn’t actually happen.

Things that you don’t know about, or don’t like hearing about, are not automatically unfounded political flack or untrue.

It’s a favoured (and misused) term with all the recent ploppers 🤔🤔

I do think there is an element to the changes on the left which is about the fact that when put to the test, the attempts to create true economic equality not only failed, they failed in a pretty spectacular way which involved some of the most deadly and oppressive governments to have ever existed. Whether you want to talk about communist China, or Cuba today, they hardly come across as societies filled with equality or even equality of opportunity.

No one now is looking at planned economies in the old Chinese or Soviet style, at most you might get some elements of a planned economy, but that's nothing new - conservatives used to do that sort of thing all the time for select industries.

So there seems no one with a plan to really opt out of capitalism, and the most globalist sort of capitalism too in many cases. So how do you act like a lefty in that world?

Yes, I think that is true, there is the perception for women, especially where men are not reliable, that state support increases their choices and independence.

OTOH, the conservative would say that what happens is that you end up with more unreliable men who don't feel that caring for their children, or those children's mothers, is really their primary responsibility, it's the job of the state. But the fact is that even if they give significant financial support, they can't replace a father and his role in the family.

This is a really typical argument of black conservatives in the US who see the welfare state as something that significantly destabilised black communities by causing a massive drop in single parent families, and interrupted what had been an upward trajectory for black families prior to that. Some think that was the point, to create a set of voters who will always vote dependants on the state.

But yes, it may explain some differences in voting patterns between men and women.

The traditional left were about economic equality. Modern progressivism is about everything equality except that. They're about economic opportunity, not outcome, and it's a very American idea.

Thanks for the Hope not Hate mention - I took a look & they do some really good investigative work. I saw their profile of the American eugenicist, Simone Collins - was she the woman you mean?

Having lived in Beijing, i can tell you that it’s not really feasible to have more than one child unless you are very wealthy. Apartments are relics of the one-child policy (how many could you have in a two bedroom?) and school is so competitive, so you just have to sink so many resources into your child.

I know they outlawed private tutoring to somewhat fix this problem but … it’s spiritual in nature. You cannot accept a child just doing ‘ok’ in life, it’s a huge loss of face.

(I think the same dynamic happens in South Korea)

Perhaps your last paragraph has picked up on something, namely the meaning of independence for men and women.
In a money based economy, the independence of a woman looking after small children is precarious.
If she stays at home, her partner may or may not deign to give her any or enough money. She and the child have no income of their own. Even if the relationship becomes abusive, she is stuck.
If she prefers to maintain her independence by working, employers may or may not pay her enough for childcare to be affordable.
In both cases she's better off, and at least has more choices, if the state provides some assistance ( eg child allowance, free childcare hours etc) that is based on rules for eligibility rather than personal whims and moods, or market forces.

I think that even outside of the UK, the Greens have typically existed outside of traditional left/right labels. They have more recently been perceived as left and I think have sometimes been affected in their policies by a lot of self-identified left wing people joining Green parties and changing the kinds of policies they support.

But increasingly I think left and right are not useful labels and that's a limit in these kind of polls. What does it mean if women are becoming more left, if that means on the one hand embracing neomarxist identity politics, and on the other abandoning all the traditional economic ideas of the left like protecting industry and anti-globalism?

hat incidentally is why I actually do not give two shits when people come on FWR and accuse people of abandoning the left, the left they are talking about has nothing that I can see to do with actual leftism.

A lot of the men I see talking about this are in fact pretty much where they have always been policy wise. One thing I have noticed is that men seem more likely to resent policy approaches they feel turn them into a recipient of the charity of the state. What they want is independence and dignity in their work, safe neighbourhoods and to largely be left alone.

I don't think China is doing at all well.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/chinas-population-falls-fourth-straight-year-2026-01-19/
Policymakers have made population planning a key part of the country's economic strategy and this year Beijing faces a total potential cost of around 180 billion yuan ($25.8 billion) to boost births, according to Reuters estimates.
Key costs are the national child subsidy, which was introduced for the first time last year, as well as a pledge that women throughout pregnancy have "no out-of-pocket expenses" in 2026, with all medical costs, including in vitro fertilisation (IVF), fully reimbursable under its national medical insurance fund.
China has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world at around 1 birth per woman, well below the 2.1 replacement rate. Other East Asian economies including Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore have similarly low levels of fertility at around 1.1 births per woman.

If, as seems to be happening in China, all people were all well fed, with a low infant mortality and confidence in a reasonably prosperous future, and the birth rate fell to stabilise the world population then that might not be a bad thing: but I don't think that's what the Greens have in mind.

So young women are actually becoming more right wing?

When that delightful fellow heading Extinction Rebellion was asked what he felt the world's population should be, he answered about 700k, and it should be made to happen.
Remind me what the population currently is, and how getting to 700k could "be made to happen"?

True, but perhaps the mistake is to see the Greens as in any sense "left wing". In England at least their roots are in the pastoralist fascists of the 20th century. Opponents of industry, especially mechanised farming. Oswald Moseley (of the British Union of Fascists) was one of the founders of the Soil Association. Environmentalism is anti-working class and fundamentally anti-human. A frequent claim of the Greens is that there should be many fewer humans, especially in poor countries. A thoroughly regressive movement, even if some of its objectives (like preventing climate change) are warranted.

Even trans politicians are saying- why the political.obsession? That insistence on that discussion at all times- it's a cynical strategy.
I'd rather talk about all the things that affect my life and those of others. Transpeople share the same planet.

You're just stringing words together. 'Political obsession'
The obssession comes from the left, denying reality, defying the law, demolishing free speech, bullying and punishing dissent.
The Greens are just as likely to deliver an end to democracy as Reform.

Alternatively there are really vulnerable transpeople and there are people who don't give a monkeys but find this a great way to divide- women from women, women from men.
Even trans politicians are saying- why the political.obsession? That insistence on that discussion at all times- it's a cynical strategy.
I'd rather talk about all the things that affect my life and those of others. Transpeople share the same planet.
And so, after pages of comnents, we get to the nub of it.
Women STFU.