The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

THE LAST DITCH

Can a libertarian be a Socialist?

Published by Tom

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My only grave objections to socialism are the force involved in establishing it and the (usually far greater) force involved in maintaining it. If all the Socialists in Britain want to pool their assets and share their joint earnings equally in a sort of virtual commune, that's absolutely fine by me. Actually, it would be great if that were a condition of joining the Labour Party. I am sure the multi-millionaire Milliband brothers and the even better-heeled Tony Blair would have no problem with it. Polly Toynbee would no doubt contribute both her homes in a heartbeat. I, for one, would follow their experiment with interest and would take their views far more seriously in future. I try hard to live my life in accordance with my principles and would admire and respect them for – for the first time in their lives – doing the same.

I just don't think they should be allowed to force anyone to join their commune or, having joined, to prevent them from leaving in accordance with the contractual terms. Not only would I think better of them for putting their money where their mouths are, I would also consider them libertarians from that point onward, no matter how restrictive and illiberal the rules under which they agreed to live.

This last may seem an odd observation to offer on a Thursday morning but then I had an odd response on Twitter to my recent post about whether libertarians can be social conservatives. Mr Leo Klinkers, who tweets as @europafederatie, told me firmly that:

A true libertarian is neither conservative nor progressive. He is a Libertarian.

It's not the worst view I have encountered from a non-libertarian as to what it means to be one. I am resignedly accustomed, for example, to those who think our beliefs reveal a personal desire to live a wild life of drug-fuelled libertinage. Still his observation puzzles me. As far as I am concerned libertarians are just as free to join a socialist commune as they are a monastery. They are perfectly free to campaign for voluntary arrangements to create any type of society they desire. Libertarianism can by definition have nothing to say about what people should do with their freedom, provided they don't use force or fraud on others. Individual libertarians, on the other hand can and do have firm, and widely divergent, views on how best to live a good life.

I am happy to embrace as libertarian brothers and sisters all those who would do far different things with their political and economic freedom than me. Pace Mr Klinkers, social conservative though I may be, I think that does make me a true libertarian.

49 responses to “Can a libertarian be a Socialist?”

  1. Richard Carey Avatar
    Richard Carey

    I agree totally. The issue is coercion. There is nothing in libertarian principle against voluntary socialism. Neither is there any obligation on a libertarian to approve of libertine behaviour.

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  2. Perry de Havilland Avatar
    Perry de Havilland

    Interesting. I also wrote about that some years ago.
    http://www.samizdata.net/2003/05/libertarian-socialism/

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  3. Cascadian Avatar
    Cascadian

    A quick read of the communist manifesto should be enough to disabuse any idea that socialists could be libertarian.
    Lets remember this mob gave us the NHS and Labour exchanges.

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  4. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    I don’t think a libertarian can be a Marxist, but it would be possible to fashion a new form of socialism based on voluntary pooling of capital and income, surely? It’s not likely, I confess. Marxism and its many variants attract control freaks in pursuit of the most dangerous quest in politics – the unified answer to everything. Their sadistic desire to control would not be satiated by life on a voluntary commune and nor would their followers’ masochistic desire to submit.

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  5. Cascadian Avatar
    Cascadian

    I make very little distinction between todays socialists and marxists (eg Obama, Milliband). Therefore I think your thought experiment is flawed.
    Even the 1950’s British socialists had a high degree of control-freak about them.
    So I just don’t accept that a socialist would be able to reconcile freedom of the individual or minimal government with their dogma.

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  6. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Is it not the case that extremist market libertarians also feel they have the answer to everything – that following the opinion of those with money (no matter how they got it) will ultimately result in a better world…?
    A libertarianis no less a control freak than a marxist in hat he is prepared to go to a, possibly violent, extreme, in order to ensure that his fellow man abides by his philosophical conclusions.

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  7. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    “A libertarianis no less a control freak than a marxist in hat”
    Does the type of hat have a bearing?
    And do you think if you keep repeating this bullshit that people will eventually lose interest in correcting your lies and some poor fool will actually believe you?

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  8. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Har har,
    Andrew,
    Lies?
    That is a strong word.
    What exactly are you referring to… and where exactly were he corrections?

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  9. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    By the way,
    My experience here has been that people have entirely refused to engage with what I am saying – I sincerely hope that familiarity will eventually make them more receptive (exposure effect).

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  10. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    I’m referring to almost everything you say in regards to libertarianism. The corrections usually follow your comments.
    Plenty of people have engaged with you including myself. Just because someone doesn’t agree, doesn’t mean they’re refusing to engage.

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  11. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    My comments regarding libertarianism are that it is an extremist position and that as such, it is dangerous.
    And it is the unfounded righteousness of libertarians which makes them dangerous.
    Do they reject law, or just reject the laws for the benefit of those without money?
    They believe that the benefit to others should be the value of work, that control of capital will naturally fall to those who are most able to provide this value and that the word “government” is the source of all our troubles.
    But in their certainty, they will support those who claim that their power grubbing is “work” simply because they have managed to get money – regardless of the benefi others, ignore the games which take place to control capital which have no relation to the understanding of reality or moral quality and ignore the fact that government can be a mechanism for providing freedom.

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  12. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Also, for the most part, they support “violent” government policies exactly to the extent that they benefit those with money – see Tom’s stance on government taxation to pay for bond holders…. but refusal to support “violent banditry” for benefits

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  13. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    Libertarianism has nothing to do with money. I believe there would be better outcomes for poor people as well as rich people in a minarchist state.
    We don’t seek to enforce our “philosophical conclusions” by violence, only to defend our, and our families’, lives and property. The key requirement to be a libertarian is that you abjure the initiation of force or fraud. That’s not extreme. Your insistence that the state is permitted to use violence in order to redistribute property in ways of which you approve is however, I respectfully submit, extreme. Not least since more than half of mankind experienced such regimes in the last century and the only redistribution achieved was to the political elite granted a monopoly of force – and even this only last until the economies concerned collapsed.

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  14. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    I support a minarchist state, but one in which people are ensured a basic minimum to survive.
    If you reject the basic minimum, you believe that ultimately (even if you don’t think it will occur) others’ starvation is a price worth paying for your families’ wealth.
    I think that my idea – that we should allow limited violence in an attempt to reduce the practical reality of want – is preferable to your view that either a) want shall never occur or b) that in your society all want is morally justified.
    I am trying to base my views on the most broadly accepted views here – that people require certain things to live and that we should attempt to provide them with these things no matter what they do.
    You are stating ht certain ideas take precidence – the idea of work – and that you would be prepared to kill to enforce these ideas.
    I just personally feel hat there is more room for disagreement with your view point than mine – especially since we live in a world where the labour of most is not a requirement for the life of all.

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  15. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    If you are proposing an idea with which others might disagree then ou cannot claim to be proposing a “non-violent” philosophy.

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  16. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    “If you are proposing an idea with which others might disagree then ou cannot claim to be proposing a “non-violent” philosophy.”
    Yes, I can – if I am not the one offering the violence.

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  17. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    If you are proposing a social system (involving others) with which others might disagree, and you are not prepared to brook disagreement, the you are offering violence.

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  18. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    I don’t assert the primacy of work. I don’t work (much) any more because I saved enough over 30 years not to have to. I think no less of myself for that (though it is hard to break the habits of three decades).
    When I needed money to survive, working was the most acceptable choice to me. There was nothing undignified or unpleasant about it. Apart from thirty years as a lawyer, I spent two years (if you add up school and university vacation jobs) as an unskilled building labourer and another three months as a time clerk in a steelworks for example and have happy memories of both.
    My other choices were theft, beggary or welfare. Since I was perfectly capable of earning, the last would just have been the moral equivalent of the first two organised violently on my behalf by the state.
    No-one here is telling you to work. We are just telling you to man up and accept the consequences of not working, rather than demanding that others do.

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  19. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    That’s a silly thing to say, Mark. More people have engaged here with you than with me!
    I am not complaining. I have patiently and willingly provided you with a platform for your half-baked theories. I do so not from love for you (though I am developing a kind of Stockholm Syndrome affection). I do so because you express the ill-thought-through ideas by which most British citizens live and therefore present a superb opportunity to engage in the discussion we would like to have with all of them.

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  20. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    Tom’s stance in relation to all contracts is that people should honour them. I don’t recommend violent extortion to repay the debts the state has incurred on behalf of the nation. It’s just that violent extortion is the only revenue the state (or any state) has. A libertarian government would repay the national debt and incur no more, whereupon the tax needed to repay it would be cancelled.

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  21. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    Want existed before there were states – and was addressed by families, charities (particularly churches) and so on. Charity is a much better vehicle for relieving want because charities can make one on one decisions about whether need is genuine and how great it actually is. The state just has silly general rules, because that’s all it can have. Hence most tax to pay for welfare goes in government overheads and much of what’s left goes to fraudsters. A fraction of the amounts involved, donated to charities, would achieve better results. Consider that the total welfare budget in the US divided by the number of recipients would make them all well paid. The state is a defective tool and must be used only when nothing else is available.

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  22. Richard Carey Avatar
    Richard Carey

    What nonsense. Your only legitimate complaint, as far as I can make out, is that libertarians reject redistribution via coercion, which you think means that theoretically we consent to poor people starving, but we don’t consent to this, because these theoretical people will be prevented from starving by voluntary charity. I stress the theoretical nature of this complaint, because we are nowhere near a minimal state, let alone an anarchist society, so it’s not valid to criticise us for letting people starve, because we are not doing this.
    The rest of what you say, such as calling us dangerous extremists, is just straw man rubbish.

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  23. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    Respectfully, Mark you are barking up a whole forest of the wrong trees here. I know you don’t like being characterised (truthfully) as an advocate of violent coercion of your fellow man. I understand that – to assuage your guilt (which by the way is a sign that you are not yet lost to humanity) – you want to make me your moral equivalent.
    But face the facts. I live a society that flies daily in the face of all that I believe to be moral and is drifting steadily towards worse. When I left Britain in 1992, there had never been anyone arrested for saying something wrong. When I returned in 2011, the news media were full of stories of people arrested for blogging, tweeting or facebooking “hate speech” – even that famously directed at a horse.
    Have I reacted with any violence? No. I don’t even swear on my blog. I am quietly, calmly (and often without hope) trying to reason with the violent, corrupt ideas of the majority of my fellow citizens. In doing so, I am exposing myself – as the vice of speech control tightens – to the risk of spending my declining days in gaol. You yourself called me an extremist in the past two days, though I only ever express the Enlightenment ideas on which our civilisation was built..
    You don’t agree with me. I get it. But you can’t honestly accuse me of violence. The English language is a wonderful, flexible material for the expression of thought and can be twisted into the most extraordinary (and sometimes beautiful) shapes by those who know how to use it. But nothing you can imagine, say, write or sing can twist the truth to make me the violent one in this dialogue. The attempt does you no credit.
    I am no threat to you though the ideas you advocate are a constant threat to me.

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  24. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    If I were to decide to conduct all of my transactions using barter, or IOUs or my own invented currency (The Mark?), I would still (if I were a UK resident) incur a tax in pounds sterling – they would simply calculate the equivalent price of any goods I recieved and tax me on that. I would need Pounds to meet this tax obligation. So, conducting business isn’t simply a matter of two people reaching an agreement – we also require access to State Money in order for the deal to go ahead.
    Since we need State Money to live, a tight fiscal policy, which reduces the amount available, increases the power of those who still have money – the rich and those connected to the political/financial-elite bank-government nexus.
    (Think about it this way – if the amount of water were somehow reduced by a natural disaster, those who controlled access to the remaining supplies would have more power than they did before.)
    Libertarians generally support tight fiscal policy – they support policies (especially when combined with loose monetary policy) which directly lead to a concentration of power – probably in the hands of those connected with government. So whose freedom are they concerned with, except for the freedom of the rich?
    Don’t support the State Money System? Fair enough. But seeing as that is the system which does exist now, why advocate the policies most likely to result in a concentration of power? If you are serious about undermining the power of the state you should advocate flooding the economy with money.
    (It’s rather like an abolitionist goading a slave-master to whip harder… “but I don’t support slavery..!”)
    Anyway, the really worrying thing about Libertarianism is that they don’t view their opponents as people with differing opinions – they view them as evil persecutors. For the most part they can’t see how someone could legitimately disagree with their view of taxation, law etc…. which is a dangerous attitude to hold. That doesn’t mean that I think they are personally or presently dangerous…

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  25. David Davis Avatar
    David Davis

    I think the Georgists did this, didn’t they?

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  26. Cascadian Avatar
    Cascadian

    You reveal a lot by calling it “State Money” you imply that the state owns all money which is a socialist concept. Another socialist ploy is to attribute “dangerous” thought to those they do not agree with, making such statements then partially withdrawing them as not your personal view is cowardly.
    Further, I do not believe libertarians support any particular fiscal policy beyond sanity in the marketplace.

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  27. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    I’ll just pick up on the last point as it’s the one you’re really worried about:
    “Anyway, the really worrying thing about Libertarianism is that they don’t view their opponents as people with differing opinions – they view them as evil persecutors.”
    The entire point of libertarianism is that it gives you the option to disagree.
    Government doesn’t give you that option. If you don’t want to support its schemes, you go to prison, if you resist you might die.
    You want to tell me what to do, I don’t want to tell you what to do.

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  28. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    Quite.

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  29. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    I am actually in favour of privatising money. Governments have consistently proved themselves to be the least trustworthy imaginable bodies to run a currency.
    There is no reason why banks or other private institutions should not issue their own bank notes. If Tesco gift vouchers could be traded for Boots gift vouchers etc, they would be well on the way to being cash. Private companies would be less likely to issue promises to pay on which they could not deliver. Any suspicion that they were doing so would lead to a rapid run as people swapped their notes for others issued by companies with better balance sheets.
    For so long as government has a monopoly on this activity, yes I want it to conduct itself prudently. You see no similarity, as you have often said here, between personal finances and those of a country. You sneer crudely at those who do. Yet if your logic were correct, the UK could solve its unemployment problem right now by, say, launching a space programme to put Brits on Mars and printing more money to pay for it. or indeed any other massively expensive raft of programmes. But even the barmiest Keynesians understand that printing unbacked money debases it.
    Our government has systematically debased our currency in that way throughout my lifetime and continues to do so, but still you call for more. If you were Chancellor of the Exchequer, sterling would be debased on a Zimbabwean scale within months.

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  30. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    You want the government, as a controller of money, to conduct itself prudently, because you fear inflation.
    From a Libertarian perspective, this makes no sense. If I wish to save my wealth, I can do so by keeping money under the bed, keeping it in the bank, buying a house, buying shares, government bonds, linkers, foreign currency, exotic financial products, paintings, bottles of wine…
    If I want to conduct business transactions I must have pounds.
    Essentially, you are putting protecting those who have chosen to keep their money under the bed over allowing those who don’t have ready access to cash to do business.
    What’s the justification for that?
    I’m also in favour of multiple currencies – but I think the taxation system would have to be seriously altered to make such a thing possible – probably wouldn’t wok with taxes on transactions so taxation would have to be poll or land tax. Might be able to impose a tariff on some products?
    The point remains that the policies you are advocating now only serve to undermine the freedom of ordinary people – even to the extent of preventing them fro. Engaging in business.
    ” You see no similarity, as you have often said here, between personal finances and those of a country. You sneer crudely at those who do. Yet if your logic were correct, the UK could solve its unemployment problem right now by, say, launching a space programme to put Brits on Mars and printing more money to pay for it. ”
    There isn’t any and they could.
    If I were chancellor of the exchequer, or whatever, the first thing I would do is cut tax until the economy recovered. The second thing I would do is build more houses. The third thing I would do is make sure work paid, while providing a decent minimum to hose without it.
    Then, actually punish crime, and I think England might be a rather lovely place to live.

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  31. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    OK – I’m not convinced.
    Most Libertarians don’t feel there is room for disagreement on taxation, whereas there almost certainly is.

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  32. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    No, it’s government that doesn’t feel there is room for “disagreement” on taxation. If I don’t pay, they will send people to imprison me.
    Whereas under libertarianism you can only take people’s money through voluntary transaction. If they want to pay, great! If they don’t, hard luck, have a look at what you’re offering and try again.
    You’re perfectly free to disagree all you like.

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  33. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Yeah, ok, fair enough – I suppose there are always limits to what people will accept. I guess the problem is that what Libertarians view as “voluntary” certainly isn’t – As Obama put it “you didn’t build that”… It’s a question of who gets control of natural resources, who gets power.
    There is an old Chinese saying “The rich are always ready for peace”, which I think applies here. I can imagine a world in which Libertarian ideas work – but it would have to be one in which poverty was already eliminated, otherwise people will not have the power to make a truely free choice, and would rightly be justified in objecting to a “no-taxation” policy which simply accepted the status quo as the right.

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  34. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    Your comment might be true if the only way for poor people to stop being poor was to have money stolen for them by the state. That seems to be the assumption behind everything you say, in fact. Yet was anyone ever raised out of poverty by welfare payments? The experience of China under Mao demonstrated, it’s actually about the least effective solution. When the Chinese government set them free to earn their way out of poverty (the one method that never appeals to you, Mark) it triggered the greatest decrease in poverty in human history. Work, with as little government interference as possible, is the solution to poverty and always has been.

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  35. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    “It’s a question of who gets control of natural resources, who gets power.”
    Absolutely, you can have a monopoly directly running, or controlling through regulation, an industry. Or you can have a free market.
    Markets produce better results than monopolies so the answer’s a no-brainer.
    “I can imagine a world in which Libertarian ideas work – but it would have to be one in which poverty was already eliminated, otherwise people will not have the power to make a truely free choice, and would rightly be justified in objecting to a “no-taxation” policy which simply accepted the status quo as the right.”
    You’re putting the cart before the horse – libertarianism (really just the free market) is not only the best way, but the only way to lift people out of poverty. Government wants the poor, it wants people to rely on it, it wants a ready source of emotional propaganda. It doesn’t give a shit about the people it’s supposed to be helping.
    And it doesn’t require any great leap of faith to believe this. You can see with your own eyes that the more government controls an industry, the poorer that industry will be. Prices will be higher, quality will be lower, and supply will be inadequate (a universal trademark of government services is queues). Always. Because the customer is no longer king.
    Just as this applies to food, education, housing, etc. it applies to welfare. The government’s welfare system exists for the government, not the people it’s supposed to be helping.
    So the idea that government is the best way to help the poor is a very naive one indeed.

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  36. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Was Maoist China famous for the generosity of its welfare payments?
    I am entirely convinced that the market is the best way for people to express and receive what they want – which is why I do not generally advocate “anti-market” or central-planning policies… quite the opposite. I advocate distributing money as widely as possible, so that as many people as possible are able to make their own decisions about the business they engage in.
    If you support multiple currencies, you support the same thing. You believe that people should be free to make transactions between themselves, without anyone standing in their way. By arguing to limit the money available to them (under the current system where such money is a necessary condition of business) you limit the freedom of the ordinary man.
    As for ownership – I could accept your “clogs-to-clogs” argument. I’m rich enough that the current distribution of wealth doesn’t particularly bother me personally and arrogant enough to believe that I could one day be rich, given a level playing field. But I also recognize that there is no good argument for justifying the distribution of existing capital on the basis of birth, luck or power… that the arguments for the redistribution of ownership are valid, will not go away and that if someone does wish to make these objections – if they are not rich, or not convinced by the “american dream”… we must deal with them in the way that does the least damage to the operation of the market and our freedom of choice – namely – a citizens basic income.
    You must recognise that people will disagree with your views on ownership (“you didn’t build that”), that you have provided no compelling moral argument as to why you should – and that therefore the only choice is to either crush them with force or to compromise.
    I support compromise.
    How about you?

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  37. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    What is the free market?

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  38. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    http://lmgtfy.com/?q=free+market+definition

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  39. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Are you actually thinking about what is written here, or is it a case of casting pearls before swine…?

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  40. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    Far be it from me to intervene in the internal dialogue that seems to have leaked onto the page here, but I think you have asked yourself a very good question. But you are far too unkind in calling yourself a swine. There’s a good man in there somewhere and you do at least try to engage honestly for far longer than most statists do before resorting to ad hominem.

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  41. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    I’m not being funny, but is there any actual substansive objection to my comment above?
    This is what I meant by “refusing to engage with what I am sayng”… I don’t hink there was ant real objection to my “japanese electicity” post and i don’t see any objection to my point here.
    It just seems to me that th inconveient arguments are ignored.

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  42. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    I don’t see any new substantive arguments. You are just restating the same tired cliches. You want me to accept that’s life’s a lottery? It is. But generally, the harder we work, the luckier we get. If we allow the fact that some people get a raw deal from fate to blind us to the more important fact that people can, should and many do make their own luck we end up with a flaccid, unproductive society.
    As for your point about China, the size of the welfare payments is not the point. Under Mao there was (subject to the usual huge problem of corruption) total redistribution of wealth and an elimination of individuality sufficient to satisfy any Guardian reader. Yet the Chinese people are happier now, in general, when they have a chance to do better.
    You admit you have a chance to do better (though oddly you call it arrogance to say so). Quit whining, quit advocating violence and do something to make your life better.

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  43. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    The substansive argument is that the government must provide the people with the means to do business, if we live in a system in which government money is necessary for business (which we do). Supporting a tight fiscal policy in the current conditions is simply reducing the ability of those without access to money to do business.
    If we blindly accept the dogma that whatever the market accepts is true – people will exploit it！
    George Soros has said that the more you believe in the free market, the less true it is. It is the classic professor ignoring the dollar bill in the street. You, as a libertarian, shold be the greatest critic of management, of business – because this criticism is the only way it can thrive. But you aren’t.
    You are simply an apologist for the powerful (in the economic sphere).
    You think that I shoud look to my own interest rather than be concerned for the justice of the system as a whole? Never.
    And frankly, how could the Libertarian system exist without people like me, prepared to think and challenge acceptec wisdom?
    Your dogmatic linertarianism is exactly what makes libertarianism an impossible dream.

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  44. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    And it is a massive point about Mao.
    There is an infinite difference between a central management system insisting that everyone works – that everone should work from an iron smelting plant in their garden – and a system in which people are free not to work – are free to decide the means in whic they work – are free to organise themseves in accordance with the market.
    If you can’t see that, you are an idiot.

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  45. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    whoops… substantive…
    moggsy take note.

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  46. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    “…frankly, how could the Libertarian system exist without people like me, prepared to think and challenge acceptec wisdom?…”
    In what parallel universe is your half-soaked crypto-Keynsianism not the accepted wisdom? Your thinking is utterly conventional Mark, which is why you are so welcome to express it here. It is the very conventional half-thinking that we must struggle against to avert economic collapse.

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  47. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    I am not going to trade abuse with you. The central tenet of state communism is that wealth belongs to the state (cosmetically as a trustee for “the people”) and that economic resources shall be deployed not in accordance with the wishes of those who generate them, but as politicians direct.
    You hold the same view in essence. You talk of all money as if it belonged to the Government. You propose to take the logic less far, but once the logic is accepted, there will be a Mark II and a Mark III advocating that the “citizen’s wage” should be more and more. And if the population is ill-educated economically, those arguments will always be seductive.
    State power is the greatest threat to freedom, whether wielded by democrats or not. The founding fathers of the USA understood that, which is why their constitution is all about limiting that power and – to the extent it exists – making it difficult to wield.

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  48. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    And yet… and yet… the founding fathers created a system with actual slavery – genocide etc.
    It doesn’t seem to me that less government is better… look at the wild west – let’s look at what people do when their is no government – often much the same as what they do when there is one – kill and subjugate each other.
    The difference between you and me is that you think an ethical argument will suffice to stop horrible things from happening – but there is no evidence for this! Everyone knows what is right and yet when push comes to shove… how many people care?
    Sure, here are saints, but they are rare. That’s why they are saints.
    I think that we have to stop push coming to shove. Ethics are less important than systems – put people in a positin to listen to ethical arguments –

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  49. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Also, people like war.
    It’s fun.

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Your blogger

Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.

Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.

He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that

“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”

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    1. Sailorcurt's avatar

      Hate to tell you this, but it’s not going to end until you end it. You think people to whom…

    3. Lord T's avatar

      They are servants. Just not of the public. He gets a full pension because he did his job for his…

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