Comment

I'm starting to think that the Left might actually be right - Telegraph

1
RoadWarrior8/06/2011 11:22:50 am PDT

Populism, while manifesting on the right as racist or nationalistic, manifests on the left, with far greater regularity since WWII, as redistributionist and as class warfare.

Populism is the opposite of democracy because it consists of a tyranny of the majority and a denial of rights, whether to ethnic minorities in one case or to producers in the other case.

The fact that Charles Moore has the credibility of a convert does not, by itself, make his line of argument correct.

“The Rich” do not run any global system and such a comment is damningly conspiratorial in its timber. And the working class are made to work ever harder, ironically, only when less capital competes for their services, which is why hick-ups in capitalism can be politically self reinforcing, providing for an alternative route to Hayek’s serfdom; namely, as leftist populism vitiates underinvestment, competition for labor lessens and so worsens the terms of trade for workers vs. employers, again further “proving” the failures of capitalism, further strengthening populism, lessening investment, and so on.

Wages increase as the capital-to-labor ratio increases. Wages will fail to increase until excess labor is absorbed. Excess labor will not be absorbed until investment creates sufficient jobs to do so. Investment occurs with investor confidence that their investment will not be expropriated outright or by taxation or regulation or shared with labor monopolies and extortion, aka unions.

This is simple stuff and self-evident.

Somehow, these self-evident truths, elude leftists, even those who are trained in economics.

The most telling line I know, reflecting the leftist mind, is the following lyrics from “I’d Love to Change the World” by Ten Years After in 1971, two years after they played Woodstock.

“Tax the Rich, Feed the Poor
Till there are, Rich no More”

Notice that their redistributionist goals

1) express the belief that giving the poor money is the best way to help the poor and
2) express ONLY the objective of eliminating the rich, NOT of eliminating poverty

This reveals prioritization of class warfare over humanitarian objectives.

I guess economics—and rising tides—just ain’t their bag.