Reasons for not moving right like young men

[Warmlight1]

Are women put off the right because of outright boorishness and right wing female Mps who are promoted withing a very constrained patriarchy and consequently end up not making sense? Is it also to do with the ingressing on women's right by the ultra religious?
Are public services more important to women than men? Was specifically female leadership significant in New Zealand during the pandemic and ultimately safer and was that about gender?
Or something else?
Brexit?
Why is there a difference of direction?

I agree to a point but I would say you can see a similar effect in other places as well, where the policies weren't so pointed - I think it's more about the effects of dependency long term. I can't anywhere with long term dependency as the norm for a community where you don't see devastating effects on families.

🙄

Just as a note on mediaeval life - the peasantry were on average two foot shorter than the nobility. Whether or not you think this is ok depends on where you’re planning to park your time machine, I guess.

Not to be confused with long-term unemployment, of course, which is Just Market Forces.

Yes, I totally agree with this. I've found the reaction of the established left to Trump's economic stuff so interesting in that regard, because it seems pretty obvious to me that the things that it is challenging are the things that the left, until recently, also wanted to challenge.

If it were the Democrats only that would be no surprise, they are uber-capitalists, but the fact that he left in places like the UK or Europe or Canada have realigned to push free trade and trading blocks in response, and slagging off the stupid working classes who are interested in what Trump's realignment hopes to accomplish, is just wild to me.

I'm not the one who suggested that the differernce between the left and right was about supporting equality vs those who supporting hierarchy, so you don't need to convince me it's not so. But I do think there is a contingent on the left that thinks of themselves this way, and the lack of serious economic options is a big part of why they are so invested in all the identity decolonisation stuff.

I don't think I said anything about markets deciding things.

I'm not sure who you think you are arguing with, but I;m not interested in it being me.

“The market will accept certain things, and that’s that.”

Wasn’t this you?

I agree, those who are interested in the economic policies certainly aren't hard left. In fact I think even in the US, and much more in places like the UK, the gap between the policies and approaches that left and right parties and individuals advocate is pretty razor thin.

Which is why it's frustrating to have people claiming that there is some huge moral gap between them. It's like people claiming that when someone like Farage, who is supposedly "far right" in these discussions, says that health care should look to more European models, he wants to destroy health care so the poor would be going without or bankrupt. Like the people in Germany or France then, where the people making that claim are usually perfectly happy to send their kids to live? And you can repeat that through many of the controversial issues, it's not that there aren't serious policy questions, but rarely if ever is there not significant common ground.

I don't think I have said it's silly to vote for any party because of all this. I think it has created a problem for some groups struggling with their politicl identity.

A lot of the times when I see people being called far left now, I think it's often little to do with economic policy, it's about identity politics mainly, in the sense of a marxist paradigm the elides class with identity characteristics. Which some might argue isn't "really" left but for many seems to have replaced the more classical sense of it.

See: Liz Truss.

Ah, so it was you. Help me to understand why Trump’s defiance of globalism is brave, but Liz Truss’s failed attempt proved that it cannot be done?

Meaning: I’m ready with the gotchas on identity politics, but god help me if I have to sound coherent about anything financial…

In fact, ARE you Liz Truss, @TempestTost? If so hello, I remember you from the Lib Dem stand at Fresher’s Fair 1993. You probably don’t remember me, however :)

I don't know who pissed in your cornflakes this morning, but fuck off.

Charming xxx

Mind you, that’s probably just what the real Liz Truss would say. Give Nigel a flirty peck on the cheek from me :)

For the most part women tend to understand the importance of public services and an adequate safety net because even if you haven’t needed it yourself you generally know someone who has.

Maybe North Korea and Iran wouldn't be very successful in any circumstances, but they (and Cuba) have been subject to crippling American economic sanctions for decades; so I'm not sure it is a well controlled economic experiment.

In that case however, they would be participating in the global economy, and it's unlikely they could do that while maintaining a planned economy.

That's I think the fundamental problem, if you participate in the global economy, you have to use the tools of the global economy, and then you are bound by the nature of that system.

The only people who really get out of the system are isolated. Could an isolated economy that wasn't batshit do better for it's people, I would think so. But I can't really think of any examples that are really modernised nations.

Just to throw it out there - I think as long as we charge interest on money and have inflation, which is the heart of capitalism, and as long as we expect to receive profit that doesn't represent work, we are limited to a model of infinite growth, and that leads to many of the excesses and economic and also environmental issues we see.

How would we move away from that monetary system without destroying the livelihood, savings, pensions, business interests, of so many people - not only the rich but also just regular people? Not to mention crashing the resources of governments to provide salaries, welfare benefits, infrastructure.

There isn't any realistic answer I have seen from either side of the political aisle, and therefore people just keep trying tweaks to keep it going without bringing the whole thing down. It''s not just the selfish rich that have a strong interest in keeping it moving.

Yes to bringing back accountability - it's sadly lacking in public and civic life, brass necks abound and nobody has the honour to admit to mistakes or corruption, resignations happen too rarely and there's a revolving door for disgraced pols to get back into government.

But no to further distribution of power.

Under Thatcher and Blair and Cameron/Clegg, far too many quangos, regulators, regional bodies, NGO-partnerships, and devolved parliaments were created that are all basically talking shops that waste public money.

As an example: I live in N Ireland and our parliament regularly breaks down because one of the main parties withdraws from participating in it. And during these periods the public sector can't function properly without MLAs making decisions and budgets being allocated. And when our MLAs are sitting, they spend too much of their time relitigating The Troubles and trying to get one up on each other on cultural issues rather than tackling the feckin' insane multi-year waiting lists our health service has (I've been on a waiting list for assessment and treatment for FIVE years). They don't build or maintain infrastructure properly and they don't help with the housing crisis.

So I want fewer people with their hand out for salaries at the expense of the public purse and a hell of a lot more accountability from the public sector to the public.

Well then it's back to the idea that you moderate and regulate the worst excesses of capitalism and have support systems in place to assist the inevitable losers. Because inherent in the system is the need for people who lose out, it's not a moral failing. And that's where you get the need for taxation, healthcare, unemployment benefit all the safetynet. And mechanisms to prevent monopolies (Adam Smith would approve) including nationalisation of services which don't mesh well with competition. And that's sort of where the "left" today are. It's not super radical or new but it's different to the current conservative model which is slightly to the right of Thatcher economically. And different again to the Trumpian/Reform/populist right model which is also to the right of Thatcher economically but combined with anti-globalist sentiments. I think the MAGA model is the absolute worst of both worlds myself. But I can understand why people voted for it because while it isn't just the selfish rich who have an interest in keeping the whole thing moving (as you said) plenty of people feel they no longer have an interest. So you would hope the selfish rich, and the less rich who also don't want the whole thing to collapse would see the need for some economic rebalancing. Before enough people are pissed of to destroy it for everyone.

@TempestTost
Which is why it's frustrating to have people claiming that there is some huge moral gap between them. It's like people claiming that when someone like Farage, who is supposedly "far right" in these discussions, says that health care should look to more European models, he wants to destroy health care so the poor would be going without or bankrupt.

It's not that people think wanting to change the NHS to a European style insurance system is morally bankrupt I think. It's more that they don't trust Farage because he has said many different things on the subject over the years, including that the NHS should be replaced with an American system. So it's not the idea that's morally bankrupt it's Farage. Adding to the general sceptism would be the fact that while French/German health systems work well they aren't really any solution to the problems facing the NHS (largely caused by an aging population), face those same issues themselves and are more expensive. That combined with Farages own financial interests strongly suggests the NHS would NOT be in safe hands.

"I'm going to feed the baby to the sharks if it cries... Actually I'm going to distract the baby by letting him watch Finding Nemo... Theoretically it's probably better if we feed the baby to the sharks not that I would ever do that. I would probably show the baby finding Nemo... Etc".
"Why won't you let him hold the baby. He clearly said he would show it Finding Nemo. What's so evil about that?"

The idea that people left of centre are ex officio more honest and ethical - combined with the traditional FWR grumbling about "populism" - is really quite funny in a context where Labour are transparently cancelling local elections to save the Prime Minister's skin, and not even bothering to come up with a plausible excuse.

The problem with discussing capitalism is that the concept itself was (I understand) derived by Marx, who didn't like it, and imbued it with negatives. A more positive take is that 'capitalism' is a regulated market economy underpinned by democracy, the rule of law, freely accessable information and a belief in the value of people living their lives as they choose. It's a very successful system and over the last couple of generations has lifted millions around the world out of poverty. It might mean a smaller state than something further left, but it still involves in a bureaucracy to adminster the laws etc. To be honest, I prefer the label 'liberalism'. I'm not sure that a good many on the Left really get this, especially the diversity point: the left equivalent is a very limited, approved version of diversity based on ideology rather than individuals' private choices.

The alternative I see being discussed isn't communism, however. It's technofeudalism. That is, a very small number of obscenely rich people own everything and rent it to the masses. As we seem to be moving towards renting the right to seek work, find a place to rent, engage in the gig economy, even find romance, I can see the point that's being made. Trump and his minions are busily undermining the rule of law and democracy, spreading disinformation and creating hate.

Marx would have said that wealth being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands is a precursor to communist resolution becuase <Hegelian reasons> but history's clearly proven this wrong - the first Communist states should have been the UK, France or the US- not less developed Tsarist Russia.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the subject of this thread: I don't accept that men are inherently more accepting than women of material inequality. I think men are more likely than women to support Reform (and women more likely than men to support the Greens) is simply about self-interest.