Power, which used to be the responsibility of Cabinet, has now been diffused away to quangos, devolved governments, NGOs, and judges. Like La Serenissima before us, it seems impossible for the government of the day to do anything meaningful about the structural problems facing us. As the world changes around us still, Britain is currently powerless to act domestically or internationally. This was the tragedy of Venice. She had not forgotten how to be grand nor rich nor even how to administer — only how to act. Venice did not collapse overnight. She became a museum slowly, then all at once.
Britain need not follow the Serene Republic. But to do so, we must give up the pretence that politics as usual will get us out of this. Winning an election is not the same thing as possessing power. We must have politicians who are willing to understand how the existing system functions so they can begin to cut the Gordian knots of the restraints that bind us to managed decline. As this will necessarily involve wresting power back from the endless sea of quangos, NGOs, and other veto players which have enjoyed a comfortable existence under this new settlement, a plan for institutional resistance must be prepared. All the things that have been quietly removed from the political arena must be put back into play. Our own version of The Myth no longer serves us — and so it must be discarded. We are not favoured by the divine, nor do any of the quasi-religious mantras of the legalistic class provide us any fortune.
It is from forty years ago, but if you want to understand how the UK government works just watch Yes Minister.
While i agree that UK and not only also Western situation is well described, i think the decadence of Venice was structurally linked to forces it could not control=
The growth of European land empires due to centralization.
The Portuguese discovery of an alternative sea way to the spices.
For Venice to survive would have to stop being a trading city state, it would have to build an empire to get more people.
If UK wasn’t an island will it have lasted?
Parliament remains supreme and can abolish this nonsense with a vote. The obstacle is not so much a lack of will to do what is required as a lack of interest in doing it. It is true that the 21st century Sir Humphreys will place endless objections in the way of ministers but the root of the problem is that the three main political parties of the past 30 years have supported the Blairite status quo.
All of the things we rail against here: the quangocracy, Net Zero, mass third world immigration, a bigger state with more powers over the populace, were enthusiastically supported by the Tories, Labour and the LibDems. The Tories supported all of these things every bit as much as Labour (probably more in the case of Net Zero) until their Damascene conversion, which took place about five minutes before the last election. Forgive me if I am suspicious of their sincerity. I remember “immigration down to the tens of thousands” and the “bonfire of the quangos”. Suella Braverman is on the record saying it was Rishi Sunak who prevented her from cracking down on legal migration, not “the blob”.
@Marius. I could not agree more. Badenoch is making all the right noises, and may well mean them, but I very much doubt the oily rump of the Conservative Party would let her follow through.
I imagine that ‘how to deal with the Establishment’ is a question that bothers Reform a great deal.
Draining the swamp, shrinking the Civil Service are all too difficult to achieve by mass cancellation because the Uniparty is an add-on to those really in power. At least some of the Establishment functions are necessary in a connected society so the task is like defusing a bomb – a bomb which has naturally evolved measures to prevent easy disassembly.
My suggestion is to pick a few highly visible parts of the Establishment that are of limited usefulness and end them. So defund the BBC. Wind up the Arts Councils. Thin out the QUANGOs. There would be howls of outrage… but it would ‘just’ be noise, and the example would set the expectations for the future.
Marius points out that, in theory, Parliament could repeal all this – take all these powers back.
Whether Parliament would be allowed, in reality, to do this – is another question.
Clovis Sangrail – no one will be allowed to stand as a Conservative candidate if they support the ECHR, Net Zero and so on. There are screams of anguish about “the purge” – as if the people concerned were being executed (the language used by opponents is absurd “shot at dawn”, “lynched”), rather than just being told they can not stand as candidates for Parliament for a political party.
Discovered Joys – although I would not “thin out” the QUANGOS, I would abolish-all-of-them. Including the “House of Lords” – which is mainly now a retirement home for establishment leftists.
However, the same question arises as in relation to the point that Marius makes – what will Parliament be allowed to do in practice, not in theory – in reality.
It is often said that the security service can blackmail troublesome Members of Parliament (everyone has something that can be used against them – or used against a loved-one) – and that is true, but is not really necessary – as officials control everything that ministers (of any party) see and hear, and tell them what is possible and what is not possible.
And all of the above depends on the Conservatives and the Reform Party having a majority in the House of Commons – and if they continue to stand against each other, they-will-not.
So we will not need to speculate about what Parliament will be allowed to do – as there will not be a majority in Parliament anyway.
“…a plan for institutional resistance must be prepared.”
Blah, blah, blah, bullshit.
You can vote yourself into socialism but you always have to shoot your way out.
Fred Z – How much shooting did Lech Walesa do? 🤔
Change will more likely come to Britain when the economy falters rather than when a Tory/Reform alliance takes power.
Fred Z – socialism collapsed in Eastern Europe, as Towering Barbarian points out – although Mr Walesa (noble man though he was) was not the most important factor.
Roue e Jour – “falter” NO.
The economy would have to utterly collapse before the establishment considered radical change – and they might well decide that the radical change that is needed, is full Collectivism.
The public?
The public cheered Winston Churchill to the skies in 1945 – and then voted for the Atlee Labour government, i.e. voted to turn Britain into a second rate nation.
Neither the establishment elite, or the ordinary public – are pro rolling back the state.
Even if things totally fall apart – they might just blame “the rich”.
@Marius
Parliament remains supreme and can abolish this nonsense with a vote.
It is possible but I think you probably underestimate the difficulty. Were parliament to vote, who is going to carry out that new law? The civil service. And you can bet they will do so dragging their feet, kicking and screaming. But you also should not underestimate the civil service’s power. If the government is an existential threat to the civil service it will be no holds barred. We already see what has been happening to Farage, and that is just a gentle tap compared to what they are capable of. Ginned up scandal, leaking of tax returns and private information, CSAM on their computers, everyone’s welfare payments are wrong, or missing, the buses don’t run on time, shutting down crucial businesses for coloscopy style tax audits, and frankly I would not put murder past them. They have vastly more resources, vastly more people, vastly more connections, vastly more tentacles into every corner of Britain. And they are there forever, politicians have to face re-election very frequently.
So, sure they can pass a vote, but can they actually enact it? But if you think they will go quietly into the night, you are wrong. They will burn it down rather than give it up, and they have a lot of firewood and matches, mostly pre-positioned.
Not saying action isn’t required, just that if such a plan were undertaken it would be civil war and a lot of people would die, and the country would be a burning heap after they were done. Of course you might argue that it is already a burning heap, and I’m not sure I’d disagree.
“I think you probably underestimate the difficulty. Were parliament to vote, who is going to carry out that new law? The civil service. And you can bet they will do so dragging their feet, kicking and screaming. ”
Thats why you don’t legislate new laws to replace the current ones, you just repeal the existing ones. Removing a law entirely does not require anything to be implemented. Civil Servants only have power if the law gives it to them, no law on subject X = no power over subject X.
The other way is just remove budgets. If Parliament reduces the budget of Quango A by 90% they’d be forced to sack 90% of the staff. Those remaining might still have legal powers, but if there’s only a handful of them left they’ll never get to wield it. The judiciary cannot touch budgetary decisions. If they attempt to it gives Parliament the perfect opportunity to clip their wings.
SO:
“Statist Pigs gotta Statist Pig”?
Seizing the exclusive right to violence is ALWAYS an early move in totalitarian coups.
ALWAYS out of the “BEST POSSIBLE MOTIVES, of course.
Paul:
“…The public cheered Winston Churchill to the skies in 1945 – and then voted for the Atlee Labour government, i.e. voted to turn Britain into a second rate nation.”
Was it not the Great Georgian Sociopath,Stalin, who quipped:
“it’ is not who votes that counts.
It is WHO COUNTS THE VOTES”
As before, I read the article there, but I’ll comment here.
I find the article very ominous. After all, there must have been at least some people in Venice who correctly identified Venice’s problems – but still were unable to solve them. Perhaps the same fate awaits Great Britain.
I agree with what Roué le Jour said: change isn’t going to come until things get worse – a lot worse. Right now, for the vast majority in Britain, life isn’t too bad: their bellies are full, they’re warm and there’s something good on the telly. But things will change when the lights start going out – which may be closer than we think.
@Fraser Orr
I don’t think it will be easy. But the power is there. The first stage and most important stage is having a government in place which is willing to drive change. As I said, all three historic main parties have supported the status quo. Cameron, Johnson and Sunak were not forced into allowing mass immigration by the civil service, they 100% supported it.
There is no need for civil war. Civil servants can be sacked. So can judges. Bleating traitors in the media can be ignored. I also agree with Jim, don’t argue about the details, close the department and make everyone redundant. Once you start saying “You can’t just….” you have given in to Sir Humphrey.
Bruce Gentner – I think the 1945 election was straight (not rigged) – the bitter truth was that about half the population voted for a cult whose members carried party membership cards which had the contents of “Clause Four” written on them – i.e. that everything, “the means of production, distribution and exchange” (everything from a steel plant to the local corner shop) should be under the “democratic” control of the state.
There is no way of really sugar coating what about half the public did – not just in 1945, but in many other elections. As already mentioned members of the Labour Party carried membership cards with the contents of Clause Four written on them – it was not a secret conspiracy, it was very much “in your face”.
No wonder Conservatives were shell shocked and did not really produce positive plans to roll back the state – they were too busy trying to limit a cult that had the support of about half of the British people. Even in the 1970s taxes on investment were over 90% – that is insane, no society can survive that over the long term.
Marius is correct that Civil Servants and Judges can be dismissed if Parliament changes the law – but I doubt he has ever served in elected office (at any level) – it is much harder to do anything in practice than in theory. Although, YES, at least Members of Parliament do not undergo “training” as local councilors – telling you what you may do and what you may NOT do, and how you can be removed from public office if you step outside approved positions.
How local government has changed over recent years is truly shocking – there used to be no “training” and no approved ideology which someone could be removed if they dissented from.
Cameron – yes the “heir to Blair”, Johnson – believed different things on different days (a nice way of saying that he did not really believe in anything), Sunak – always claimed to be on the right, but never did anything that was in any way “right wing” – either as Prime Minister or as Chancellor (indeed looking at the amount of money spent, on Covid lockdowns and so on, Mr Sunak was the worst Chancellor of my life time – on spending, not on taxes).
No – I am not going to defend any of these three.
By the way…..
Ambrose Evans-Prichard in the “right-wing” Telegraph newspaper is denouncing Kemi Badenoch for her “purge” of leftist Conservative candidates – people who support Net Zero and all the rest of it.
If Kemi gives way on this (and the pressure on the lady is intense) then she is finished.
There is no point in “winning” an election if your own Members of Parliament are really leftists.
Ambroze
Schrodinger’s Dog,
W|hen the lights go out they’ll blame data centres and Elon Musk and not “Windy” Milliband. They are already tee-ing this up.
Paul:
AEP is an odd case. He is quite sound on many things, but an absolute loony wrt the Net Zero scam. He really believes it. What can you do? But he does at least think that we should exploit the North Sea in the short term, so he is not on the Ed Miliband level of stupidity.
As to the 1945 general election, which was truly a disaster which still affects us, I think it was a product of its times. Our great “ally” the Soviet Union was genuinely popular, amongst people who had never met a genuine Soviet Socialist. Those who had, such as George Orwell, were less enamoured, but even he saw himself as a socialist and voted Labour.
I think that after the political and economic upheaval of the 1920s and 30s, people really thought that central planning could “win the peace” the same way it “won the war”. That somehow we could all pull together and work for he common good.
It is a beguiling concept, even if it is at odds with all observed reality.
Of course, the “welfare state” of the 1940s was nothing like it is now. People were expected to work, and there was plenty of work to be had. And Britain was a united and homogenous society then in a way it is not now. I do not begrudge my tax money going to help a genuinely needy British person who really cannot work due to illness. People who turn up uninvited on dinghies would get short shrift from me, however.
@Marius
There is no need for civil war. Civil servants can be sacked. So can judges. Bleating traitors in the media can be ignored. I also agree with Jim, don’t argue about the details, close the department and make everyone redundant. Once you start saying “You can’t just….” you have given in to Sir Humphrey.
TBH I find both yours and Jim’s comment a bit naïve, with all due respect, because I think you are both excellent commenters and very clear thinkers even when I disagree with you. But can I just point out that here in the United States we tried this exact strategy and it was an abject failure despite pretty favorable circumstances. Look at the debacle surrounding USAID. Surely one of the most evil agencies in the government and it was IMPOSSIBLE to shut down. It never really was, it was instead moved to the state department where it is no doubt accumulating a massive budget again. Look at the DoE an organization that Trump has been trying to cancel for ten years now.
Civil servants cannot be sacked. They are almost impossible to let go given union rules. They have spent a century baking these privileges into ever corner of the institutions of Britain. And certainly we can try to override union rules but if the civil service goes on strike the country will grind to a halt, especially since they will focus the strike on the parts that hurt the voters the most. Again Musk did try the “shut down the department” strategy and it was a failure. Why? Because government agencies provide enough services to people that it hurts when they are no longer there, and when it hurts they kick up a huge stink and it becomes more and more difficult to govern. Do you think a people who could not survive the most mealy mouthed of “austerity” measures (meaning we increase spending a little more slowly) will allow a government to bring the country to their knees? The government has power, but that power is rooted in a mandate and subject to voter review.
There are two ways to bring about smaller government: one is to make a massive effort to convince a large mass of people of the benefits of liberal values to the degree that they are willing to suffer through the traumatic change. The other is to burn it all to the ground and start again, either via civil war or an all out war on the civil service which will have exactly the same effect.
People in power, permanent power, do not give it up without blood running in the streets.
To be clear, I think were Reform to take over with a big majority they can make a difference, they can reduce spending a bit, they probably can get immigration under control, they can sort of shut down Net Zero (though that will be EXTREMELY hard given how many rich, powerful people have their trotters in the food trough). But in the time they will have they can only have limited effect. I wish them well but to say it is a herculean task is to overestimate the capabilities of Hercules.
Do not underestimate the powers against them, look at the situation with Reform MPs, look at Ann Widdecombe, and frankly that is just their idea of a slap on the wrist. You can 100x it if they were actually to try to actually, functionally, challenge the power of the entrenched class. Democracy, we must remember, is largely a veneer to give an imprimatur of legitimacy to the ruling class that governs largely for their own ends. They do not want “power to the people” they want “the people to think they have power” when they in fact have practically none.
Were we talking about the US here I’d start in on a diatribe about how AI and robotics will save us by generating vast wealth that even the government can’t outspend, but we are talking about Britain, and unfortunately Britain’s terrible policy choices over the past forty years makes it extremely difficult for them to participate in this new Industrial revolution, so they will get all the down side and none of the upside. Those are forces beyond politics that leave me to despair of the future of Britain and for the young people, some of who I know, who have to live their lives in the wreckage of these policies and transformative events.
I fund interesting that most people on the political center and the right do not understand or seem oblivious to the importance and impact of political violence and intimidation in Democracy.
It seems they have some sort of mental shift= this is democracy that do not happen.
Instead the Left understands it pretty well. Note how the media which is the current priesthood class are mostly activists disguised as journalists. When there are attacks by the political left, they dont call it an attack, they bring the narrative words “protest” “incident”.
PS: i notice the censorship of the “reputable” media about the recent revelations about COVID by Senator Rand Paul.
Stalin at Potsdam was incredulous Churchill lost the 1945 election. At least in hindsight though, Labour’s victory in 1945 wasn’t that surprising.
Consider in July 1945 the following factors were present:
– The British economy had been at the very least a partial command economy due to war requirements now for six years, so central planning/command economy was no longer a particularly alien concept
– Likewise heavy taxation had become the norm through the war
– Britain had committed to a more intensive war economy faster than the Germans did
– Churchill had gladly formed a coalition government with Labour in 1940, and had wanted the coalition to continue longer rather than have the election. Therefore, Churchill’s attempts to portray Labour as particularly threatening and bad fell flat
– Within that wartime coalition government, Labour had controlled many of the domestic focused ministries
– Public had been exposed to several years of pro-Stalin and pro-FDR (Mr New Deal) propaganda. Relations with USSR were still overall good, meaning anti-socialist appeals to the electorate had less force
– Pre-Churchill Tory party had become (unfairly) demonised for appeasement and Great Depression era politics, and Churchill himself had contributed to this
– Wartime coalition had established the committee that created the Beveridge Report
– Churchill was a poor manager of the Conservative Party during wartime
– Education and information programmes provided to British servicemen during the War were often left leaning. Anthony Burgess’ early novel A Vision of Battlements, based on his own wartime service in Gibraltar, illustrates some of these education programmes
– The wartime conditions of the election affected turnout. At 72%, the turnout was higher than the relatively uncompetitive 1935 election (71%) but was lower than the even more uncompetitive 1931 election (76%, led to National Government winning 518 seats). In the 1950 and 1951 elections turnout was 83/84% and Labour’s majority was almost completely wiped out in 1950 and then the Tories outright won in 1951.
Oddly enough (and slightly off topic) I am re-reading Frederick Forsyths novel The Fourth Protocol written in 1984 (so 42 years ago).
It is fiction but what startled me was the (fictional) analysis by Kim Philby describing the take over of the Labour Party by outright Marxist/Leninist activists and the recommendations to seize power after the next election which put the Labour Party into power. It is chillingly applicable to the state of the UK at the moment.
https://oceanofpdf.com/authors/frederick-forsyth/pdf-epub-the-fourth-protocol-download-42166105644/
If you don’t want to read the whole book, chapters 4 and 5 are the parts that I found disturbing.
I agree on this.
I tend to disagree about the specific forces mentioned by lucklucky:
Italy being isolated by the Alps, it might have been difficult for the European empires to gain a foothold; were it not that, first the ruler of Milan, and then the Republic of Venice, allied with French Kings to gain an advantage over Italian rivals.
That gave France a foothold.
(Spain already had one, but was not making much of it.)
It was not just an alternative route to the spice islands: it was mostly novel navigation techniques, which made it possible for European countries with direct access to the Atlantic to rule the world. For a while.
That put Venice, and Italy in general, at a competitive disadvantage.
@ Fraser again. I don’t think any of this will be easy! But it can be done. You mentioned DOGE and USAID but I don’t think they were entirely failures, were they? People still seem to be moaning about USAID, so at least some of the efforts must have worked. But you will need succeeding Republican administrations to make further progress.
TBH I believe the main obstacle to change in Britain is not the politicians or the civil servants or the courts, but the population itself. Too many people are too comfortable with the status quo: public sector workers, benefit claimants and recent immigrants aren’t going to vote against the system which is keeping them. Combined, that is a big vote. Add to that the midwit middle classes who would rather wring their hands about the state of the nation than vote for change. If you look at the comments under articles in the Telegraph, allegedly a right of centre publication, you will find hordes of people who thought the covid oppression didn’t go far enough and very few pensioners, even wealthy ones, prepared to countenance a change to the ‘triple lock’ system that has increased pensions 45% ahead of inflation since it was brought in.
From the outside (I live in Hong Kong but still visit the UK regularly) this seems mad, because Britain looks shabbier every time I visit. Unfortunately most Brits are pretty parochial and really do not realise how far they are slipping down the prosperity rankings. Remember, the majority of them think Britain is as wealthy as Switzerland!
JohnK – I do not like AEP’s Keynesianism, I do not like it – because (as you know) it is false.
He also, back in the day, exaggerated the crimes of Mr and Mrs Clinton – this was a very serious blunder, because by accusing them of committing crimes they had NOT committed, he made it easy for the establishment to discredit anyone who accused the Clintons of crimes – including crimes they had-indeed committed.
Fraser Orr – yes yet it will be incredibly difficult, for example Trade Union “laws” dating right back to 1875 (the legalization of obstruction – “picketing”) and Civil Service “laws” that date back even before then (the “reforms” of that dreadful man Sir Charles Trevelyan) would have to be repealed.
But Marius is still technically correct – in theory (in theory) Parliament could repeal all these “laws”.
Marius – when my mother visited Switzerland, British living standards were higher – although this was in the 1930s….
When I was young and healthy I should have visited Switzerland – as Tolkien did. That visit is normally left out of accounts of his life – but the visit left a deep impression on his mind – for example the setting of Rivendell is partly inspired by scenes he observed in Switzerland.
@Marius
You mentioned DOGE and USAID but I don’t think they were entirely failures, were they?
It was entirely a failure if measured by “government efficiency”. It had some TINY wins, but the goal was to get government spending under control and the amounts changed were a thimble in the ocean and the budget deficit is as large today as ever. As to USAID it was moved under the State Department where no doubt it will rise again from the Musk-y ashes. As to people going on about it? It is a shot across the bow “we will fight for every dollar of government spending irrespective of how preposterous.” A promise of overwhelming pain to any future reformers who think that not pouring money into corrupt NGOs is good.
Musk described the DOGE’s goal as a “target rich environment”. The fact that they barely hit anything tells you just how good the civil service’s shielding is.
TBH I believe the main obstacle to change in Britain is not the politicians or the civil servants or the courts, but the population itself.
Yes, you are 100% correct here. Ultimately you need to change the minds of the population. And an election of “these guys are bad so lets swing to Nigel for a while” is not nearly enough. If there was a clamoring in Britain for a smaller state undoubtedly you could have one, but there isn’t, in fact there is really a clamoring for a bigger state for the most part.
Harry Browne during his run for US President had this slogan: “Would you give up your favorite government service if you never had to pay taxes again?” And the resounding answer is not “no”, it is “hell no!”.
As to Hong Kong, OMG, that must have been an amazing thing to watch, to go from one of the most free market libertarian states on the planet to crushed under the heel of one of the most repressive regimes on the planet.
The fact is, you are not thinking of DOGE as an ongoing process, which i submit is a mistake.
In fact, DOGE was never meant to be a process “to get government spending under control”: it was meant to expose cash flows. To get gov.spending under control, you need that sort of info; but it’s only a start.
Not an unreasonable answer, if your favorite gov.service is the justice system… as long as that system does not include Soros prosecutors.
No doubt, the free market could do better than Soros prosecutors: witness Viking-age Iceland. But it would take time for such a spontaneous order to emerge.
Actually, Hong Kong was still rated the most free economy of the world in 2025 (based on 2023 data).
That just goes to show the importance of the distinction that i often make, between freedom from coercion and freedom from arbitrary power.
Paul:
I read AEP’s articles in he Daily Telegraph. I must confess I had not picked up that he was a Keynesian. These days he mostly seems to go on about nut zero, which I find quite painful to read.
As to the Clinton crime family, I do recall he seemed quite sound on this subject, but it was 30 years ago. Bill Clinton seemed to have been involved in many crimes, up to and including murder, so I am not sure how AEP could have accused him of anything worse. Apart from Bill’s long history of rape, there was the use of airfields in Arkansas for drug running, as well as the deaths of so many people who may have known too much. The most famous was of course Vince Foster, who shot himself in the back of the head with a revolver he did not own, but there were many others.
JohnK
It was the number of murders – when you accuse someone of a murder they did not commit, it casts doubt upon other people accusing the Clintons of crimes they did commit.
AEP just passed on, as true, all the allegations without carefully checking each one – that was a terrible blunder, all the Clinton defenders had to do was point out that the Clintons could not have murdered X person (because they were already dead, or were still alive – or whatever) and all charges against the Clintons (including the true ones – such as the one you mention) were made to look silly.
And, yes, AEP is a Keynesian – he was 30 years ago as well.
AEP believes what the education system teaches – whether it is Net Zero, “stimulus” economics, or whatever.
The Telegraph contains too many such people – especially in its coverage of cinema and the other arts.
The last Doge of Venice was a good man who did what he could.
However, the economy of Venice had declined due to the compulsory guild system and other regulations – so Venice was (even before the French conquest) more of a destination for leisure travelers (seeking gambling, high class prostitutes and so on), rather than a center of manufacturing and real trade – and the increasing range of artillery meant that the lagoon was not the protection it had been in the past.
Venice did not have the economic power to have an army capable of keeping the French away from the shore of the lagoon – and once the French were there, they could (with long range cannons) bombard the city – forcing surrender.
And Napoleon was bound to find some excuse or other to invade – because he knew that the churches in Venice were filled with gold and silver, which the French Republic desired to steal – as it was looting so many other places in the Italian and German lands.
The fiat money experiment had failed – by 1797 that was obvious, so gold and silver for real money had to come from somewhere – and there was gold and silver in Venice that had (for example) been turned into works of art in the churches, over a thousand years.
Steal the gold and silver (the plunder of conquest – including great works of art) – and melt it down.
Constantine had done the same thing with the gold in pagan temples – in order to restore gold coinage to the Roman Empire.
The armies of the French Republic were a plunder machine – both “living off the country” (stealing food, raping women – and so on), and sending gold and silver (and gems) back to Paris (keeping a cut for themselves – of course).
Many armies in history have behaved like this – the Romans certainly did.
But let us end on a positive note – Venice is still there, and it is wondefull – and it is not (unlike London) “Diverse”.
If you can afford to visit Venice – do so.
Paul:
Interesting information about AEP. I tend to believe almost anything about the Clinton crime family, but the fact is they will never face justice. Even Hillary’s egregious abuse of government email on her private server, which is without doubt a most serious crime, yet she got a free pass from the FBI.
If AEP really is a Keynesian I am surprised and disappointed. If he were alive today I rather hope that even Keynes would not be a Keynesian. Keynes never foresaw the way governments would use fiat money to establish massive, unpayable debts, all to produce welfare systems which will eventually bring down the entire economy. He actually thought that in good times governments would pay down the counter-cyclical debts they had accrued in bad times. He would have had to accept the falsity of this belief. After all, when the facts change, you have to change your mind, don’t you?
Nah. I think anyone not on the dole will be amazed by how well life goes on without the civil service, which might even provide the cultural shift Britain badly needs.
@Rick Deckard
Nah. I think anyone not on the dole will be amazed by how well life goes on without the civil service, which might even provide the cultural shift Britain badly needs.
You think so? When pensioners aren’t getting their pensions, when the unemployed (who have nothing to do and are usually a pretty pissy angry crowd) don’t get their money. When the news shows video of disabled people going hungry because their benefits have stopped, and granny, who can’t get to the shops because the buses have all stopped, and even if she could didn’t have her pension to pay for a loaf of bread or food for her sad meowing cat, weeping and telling you it is worse then during the war. Mums crying because they can’t feed their children without free school lunches and whatever the British equivalent of SNAP is. Food banks with empty shelves because demand is so high. When schools are shut down and the bin men leave their loads on the street, when hospitals are barely functioning, when quangos join in in solidarity and we start having rolling blackouts and many other such things. When the police, fire and ambulance services aren’t getting any money, so there isn’t even the ability of public services to deal with the ensuing chaos. And of course all the lefties who support big government, start getting all the other labour unions to strike too.
And however bad it gets, the news media multiplying it all by 100.
I’d refer you to the winter of discontent. It was a disastrous time in Britain. And that was just an argument about wage rises, not about actually firing civil servants. For that I’d refer you to the miners strike during Thatcher’s tenure which resulted in huge amounts of violence for having the audacity of shutting down government run coal pits that were losing large amounts of money.
Again, the civil service have their tentacles enmeshed in every corner of British society and they’d be happy to tear it all down to save their power and budgets.
JohnK – J.M. Keynes was not the friend of Western society that he presented himself as, quite the contrary. Indeed I think he would be pleased at the decay since the 1960s. His economic opinions were closely connected to his social opinions – and practices, ditto his associates – both in Cambridge and in Bloomsbury.
Fraser Orr – yes the public servants would do that, and the media would take their side. I remember the media constantly condemning “CUTS” from 1979 onwards – even as government spending went UP.
Government spending was going UP – yet the media said it was being cut. They lied without shame – and they lied constantly. And they lied specifically – “the NHS is being cut” – as the NHS budget went up (however measured) every year.
And the BBC and so on are certainly not more honest than they were in 1979 – they are even more dishonest now than they were then.
Paul:
I am not sure you are not being unfair on Keynes. True, he was wrong, but he was not a socialist at least.
If he were alive now, I wonder if he would accept that he had been mistaken? He felt that government spending should not exceed 25% of GDP, and now it is approaching twice that. That alone means his theories cannot work. Also, he expected governments to pay down the debts they incurred when financing counter-cyclical stimulus. We now know that that never happens, and that the money instead goes on an ever expanding welfare state, something which I feel he would have deplored.
His idea of the bancor as an international trading currency would have been hard, and backed by gold, though not convertible into gold, so he did not entirely abandon the barbarous relic. His hope was that the bancor would lead to more balanced trade between countries. The situation whereby China makes everything could not have happened under the bancor system. Instead, the Americans insisted that a gold backed Dollar had to be the world’s reserve currency. Until they stopped backing it with gold in 1971. Now international trade is backed by nothing, which can be created at will by one country, an exorbitant privilege indeed, though clearly one which cannot last.