tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13722343.post7533123962550061189..comments2023-10-29T14:44:07.458+00:00Comments on The Dossing Times: Inequality is good.Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13851386083389876851noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13722343.post-79217072242380359612007-06-10T17:02:00.000+01:002007-06-10T17:02:00.000+01:00Great post Simon,we are facing a lot of the same i...Great post Simon,<BR/>we are facing a lot of the same issues here in the states. In healthcare for instance, the poor have it far better then the middle class. But our standards of poverty are a joke. You have to be really poor to meet them. So it's the middle class that really gets the shaft, and they make up the bulk of the uninsured.<BR/><BR/>An important point to make is that not everyone has to buy into the same economic Faustian bargain. I want to make a lot of money, but I have no desire to indulge myself in any extravagances. I want to be secure, but beyond that, I want to provide security for the people and causes that I care about. That is what economic freedom is about for me. People can be generous without the state doing it for them. Egalitarians like to leave that possibility out of their arguments.<BR/><BR/>Still driving my 1994 Honda Civic... by choice.Godwhackerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06337984432156799228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13722343.post-82862707924459822872007-06-10T14:14:00.000+01:002007-06-10T14:14:00.000+01:00Dividing society into winners and losers, which ne...Dividing society into winners and losers, which neo-liberals such as the PDs and Nicolas Sarkozy in France have done sits badly with some people because everyone knows that to have winners, you must have losers.<BR/><BR/>Oops, tautologous attack! My sense was rather that many people feel that a valorisation of this 'winners and losers' dichotomy takes on a moral tone in neo-liberal rhetoric, which usually translates into the poor being responsible for their own mess.seanachiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15359354940953059605noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13722343.post-28584729275572597102007-06-10T11:57:00.000+01:002007-06-10T11:57:00.000+01:00I agree with the general run of what you said ther...I agree with the general run of what you said there but to be honest, equality of <I>opportunity</I> has been the main focus of the (non-extreme) left for many years. There have been few attempts to redistribute wealth evenly, and I don't know anybody on the left that seriously believes we should all be learning more or less the same wages.<BR/><BR/>The success of various countries in ensuring this equality of opportunity is mixed and rarely dependent on a certain politico-economic ideology. For instance, a country like France - which has been erroneously dismissed as 'socialist' by many of its detractors - has been lead into a dead end of real inequality because of its blind insistence on a meritocratic education/work relationship that ignores the real imbalance of opportunity across racial lines. In other words, affirmative action is needed.<BR/><BR/>Sweden would be an example of a country where an almost perfect equality of opportunity has been achieved, while the US is one that falls somewhere between those it and France. Ireland does well enough on equality of opportunity but small prosperous countries with relatively strong democratic institutions generally do.<BR/><BR/>Why the stink over McDowell? I think it was probably less his policy but his hubris, and arrogance. Many people remain quite queasy about an overbearing fetishisation of economic success, even those that themselves are doing quite well. Dividing society into winners and losers, which neo-liberals such as the PDs and Nicolas Sarkozy in France have done sits badly with some people because everyone knows that to have winners, you must have losers.<BR/><BR/>Braying then, is considered by many to be indecent. It might not be, objectively, a rigorous political interpretation but it means a lot come elections. Even Bertie recognised this a couple of years back by making a timely claim to be the last living socialist in Ireland. He might have been ironic but he also knew that the idea of socialism does not have as bad a name among the Irish as one would imagine.seanachiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15359354940953059605noreply@blogger.com