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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Challenges, challenges
It is perhaps too easy to assume that Western democracy, capitalism and liberalism will continue to thrive and prosper, certainly in the West, and that they will continue to act as a model for countries elsewhere. To counter any complacency, here are two long-term challenges which the Western model faces.
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As for the discrimination this is the man who attended a pro refugee demonstration in his first act as Labour leader and had a pretty substantial lead outside of white people in the election, not that white people can't be discriminated against.
Surely these charges would be better laid at the Conservative party? Assuming that is that they were vaguely made at the Labour party...
As a left winger myself I have never been more enthused by democracy, I imagine many on the left feel similar it is often those who are losing who start to feel less enthused about democracy, although the election wasn't actually lost for the Tories it felt like a loss for many and the comments about raising the voting age and young people being too stupid/bribed did not come from the left.
If freedom, democracy and anti discrimination is your worries then Corbyn's Labour are a better bet than what we have had before and what we have in government currently.
The bigger picture in terms of threat to western democracy is from the Chinese model of long-term central planning coupled with relative economic but not political freedom for individuals. Depending on which economist you turn to, this is either progressively closing on the Americans or heading for collapse under its own contradictions. Yet with clear attractions for many smaller nations.
This is the post-truth era; the age of half-truths and blatant lies. Debate is to be ducked (see TMay and DCameron in the last two elections). Go negative, stay negative, whether project fear or plain insults. BBC "balance" means your lies will get as much coverage as your opponents' lies. That's how elections are fought and won, and just as often lost but never mind.
Where there may be a real danger is that authoritarianism of the left and right appears to be becoming more popular as nation states struggle to keep up with globalisation. There has been a strong liberal response to this - It's just been conducted in French by Emmanuel Macron. In Britain, our electoral system and two parties' takeover by their authoritarian wings means It's more of a struggle - but that's more of a political problem rather than an intellectual one.
http://www.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/948355557022420992
If we ordered Kim and Trump to both strip naked (horrible thought I know give the mountains of flesh on display) would we find that they both had very small ones?
We need to renew our commitment to equality of opportunity, we need to be more vigorous about demanding excellence from our public services, we need to break away from the bureaucratic mindset that thinks problems can be solved with enough tick boxes and forms and we need to tackle the multinational tech giants that leach off our society without paying back much needed taxes.
But I don't perceive the overall crisis of confidence or any real doubt that our model is the correct one, even if there is not a consensus on how it should be tweaked going forward. For most of us this is economically the best time to be alive in history. We need to focus on making and keeping that true for those excluded.
The cycle that pushed it into dominance is on the wane and other combinations of political, religious, economic and social models are on the rise. They will subsume and dominate a collapsed, bloated, complacent and introspective West.
https://ourworldindata.org/democracy/
Well within my lifetime there was not a democracy in South America, now there is only one dictatorship. Half of africa is democratic, something unknown in its history. While some are imperfect democracies in Europe, the only truly authoritarian country is Belarus.
Iran, for all its foibles, has one of the more democratic regimes in the middle east, far more so than the pro western absolute monarchies across the Persian Gulf.
In terms of debate, all sorts of political ideas that once were unspeakable are now openly discussed, such as white supremacism in the US and expelling Muslims from the UK and Europe.
Populism is a threat, in its depiction of the "Will of the People" over "Elites", often where the populist movement is financed by millionaires pursuing a hobby horse.
At the moment there is something like $1,200 bn of pretty much untaxed profits sitting waiting for a deal with Trump that will allow it to be repatriated with minimal tax to the US. If that deal is done he may well be re-elected given the boost it will give the US economy but it is worth reflecting where that unimaginable sum of money came from. It very largely came from profits in Europe that were hidden away by frankly fictitious fees, IP rights and other devices from the Treasuries of Europe so that the profits of activities in our country were technically accrued in a place where they would not pay tax.
On a GDP basis 16% of that sum, approximately $192bn, was made and excluded from tax in the UK. Even at current rates of CT that means that $40bn of that sum should have been paid to HMRC, or, more colloquially, us. It wouldn't have solved all of our problems, not by a long shot, but it would have helped.
The challenge for our government and the governments of Europe is to ensure that the next $1,200bn of profits is taxed on a fair and even basis with the other profits generated in our economy. At the moment the non tax paying Amazon and Uber are being allowed to exploit their special status to destroy the parts of our economy that do pay taxes. This will not end well.
We have been exploited in the same way that third world countries were all so often exploited by the Oil giants in the 20th Century where the profits of their activities were hidden away from where the resource was exploited. The reasons that they have got away from this are similar. Our political systems have been corrupted and influence has been bought by political donations and PR spin. This makes changing this a real challenge for our politicians. So far their steps up to the plate have been tentative at best.
Much to agree with there, Miss Cyclefree. The use of "I'm offended, so this opinion must be silenced, after the mandatory penance of repudiation and apology" to close down a debate rather than have an argument to see whose ideas are best is rather depressing.
It's not the quality of ideas thst matters, it's the size of your button.
After watching the paper review on Sky this morning and reading the oped above, I have come to the conclusion that ms cyclefree is actually Michael Daubney
For example over 40% of gdp is spent by the state and 35% of gdp taken by the state in taxes while both the Head of State and the Upper House of Parliament are unelected.
In China as the middle class grows so it is increasingly likely they will want a greater choice over their leaders than that made by the Communist Party Congress.
Amazon, notoriously, has made pretty minimal profits worldwide as it has consistently reinvested revenues in its business. Has Uber ever made a profit at all ?
There are big and complex issues surrounding the increasing dominance of a few technology companies, and there is certainly some tax that has been avoided in Europe, but the figures you postulate are imaginary.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/donald-trump-penis-cpac_us_56d9d2cbe4b0000de4047294
These are the vampires of the modern world.
Plus we’ve been compliant for ages, thanks to our superb Head of Legal and Regulatory Affairs.
What I am arguing against here is the idea that a business is only of use to society based on the amount of tax it pays: does that mean that the BBC is also a vampire?
I would point the finger at one politician in particular, but given his current role that would probably derail an interesting thread.
I am sure that the waiters serving tax dodging billionaires their lunch get something from the day too, but dont expect them to do it unquestioningly forever.
Pretty much everywhere you look elements of the far left are trying, and often succeeding, in stifling debate that runs counter to their orthodoxies.
I’m still not comfortable with the demonisation of companies who provide huge benefits to consumers just because the take advantage of the rules to minimise their taxes as if the only benefit they produce were their contribution to the treasury.
If I were the governor of any given province in Manchuria I would right now be panicking. I wonder if that will filter through to Xi in Beijing? To judge from his recent actions he's already getting quite nervous.
Quangos have always been a jobs for the boys joke - there is an entire Yes Minister episode on it from 1981 - and if ever a system needed reform it's that one. The problem is coming up with
a morean effective system to replace it.Edited because on reflection my earlier post implied the quangocracy does work.
He is a layman with a wide-ranging and informed non-professional experience of the tsector. He has vast experience of education. On the basis that the best regulators are those with relevant experience on both sides of the fence but those not prone to "professional capture" he is an ideal regulator.
The opposition to him isdriven by the fact that he is not of the Left and certain people don't agree with his views. You are clearly one of those and perfectly illustrate my point.
I have to go. Have a good day.
What actually should happen is a much smarter sales tax system than VAT currently is. Remove Corporation Tax and bin it completely, but tax sales and activity.
The people trying to shut down discussion of his suitability are rightwing snowflakes wanting safe spaces, not left wing ones
Edit: apart from the LEI carve out.
Edited extra bit: that's for Next Chancellor on Betfair.
That said, the road to hell, etc...
Rest assured, however, that whoever you have your investments with is having to work a bit harder to ensure that they are doing the right thing, no matter how tedious hearing about MTFs and RTS 28 reporting might be to hear or read about.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/28/politics/north-korea-missile-launch/index.html
There is a problem when so many are locked out of the benefits of the system and particularly so if - as is increasingly the case - they see no means of changing it from within. At that point, 'smash the bastards' becomes an attractive mantra, no matter how self-defeating it might be: the joy of the action and of the retribution it brings would seem worth it, for a while. It took a long time for the Russian revolution to pay dividends.
What it comes back to is global governance. Transnational corporations and geographically mobile billionaires with no innate loyalty to a given country or type of country, make it hard to regulate wealth, which easily flies to safe havens. To some extent, the West - with its rule of law and safety from arbitrary government - still has an advantage as a safe haven there but it's one that can't be guaranteed indefinitely not least because those with vast wealth risk of starving the tiger they're riding. Getting to grips with low-tax microstates that free ride off the security provided by larger countries would be a start.
But internally, there needs to be a recognition that there is a generational unfairness in the way that wealth is created and distributed, something reflected in the changes in party support. As the party of government, the Conservatives have the best opportunity to do something about that - though the experience of the Dementia Tax shows the political danger of doing so (though it has to be said, the political stupidity there was the timing rather than the policy itself). Even so, it must try a great deal harder or else the rather brittle economic and political system that Cyclefree identifies could crack a lot faster than many think possible.
People are fed up with these constant attempts to smear people who don't subscribe to left0-wing orthodoxies.
And the monopoly thing is of course a significant issue, but again has little to do with tax. The new online behemoths have become virtual monopolies in their particular spheres for reasons quite other than tax - and history has shown how difficult and time consuming and fraught with unintended consequences it is to grapple with the problems of new monopolies.
The likelihood of the Trump administration doing anything useful in this respect must be somewhere around zero. And we just abandoned the other institution with the economic heft to address the problem...
The outrage at his appointment is pure and predictable hypocrisy considering the numbers of leftish quango appointments in recent years.
Is it:
a) somebody who employs smarter minds than our current (any?) crop of legislators; or
b) somebody you KNOW is indulging in illegal tax evasion practices - and can stand that up in a court of law?
Have you indulged in a new name to better show off your unthinking class warrior credentials? Is Foxy now like the Tooting Popular Front's Wolfie?
What we don't know is how effective US missile defence is. It may be that you have to send 20 rockets to have a chance that one will get through, and that although he has all the technology he just can't afford enough of them.
However his career to date and his published work doesn’t suggest that the sentence 'He is well qualified and of independent mind with broad knowledge and experience of the sector from several angles' is justified.
Edited for clarity.
What they do is legal. This is the fault of our politicians. That is the challenge that they must address. I have mentioned this because for me it is a specific example of the sorts of challenges that @Cyclefree is talking about in her piece. How do we control such powerful monopolies and near monopolies who have the capacity to take such advantage? Is western, liberal democracy really up to that challenge? How will it respond to the power of big data that these companies are developing? The most serious challenges to our democracy do not come from crazies with various sizes of buttons. They come from legal, permitted companies operating in the way that we allow them to operate and in what they deem to be their own best interests.
(I am all in favour of the appointment, that said - these boards need a cross-section of society for balanced input.)
I can claim I’ve taught at two universities, but that doesn’t mean I was on the academic staff. Nor does it mean that I was teaching in the academic sense. At one I was instructing in a fairly narrow field, at the other (a foregn one) I was talking about the practice of a particular subject in the UK.
And in part they haven’t been bcause I think that we are at risk of losing the art of debate. There is too much assertion not enough argument. Too much complacency - largely by those who benefit. And the Left has hardly been at the forefront of encouraging a diversity of opinion. Free speech is not some optional extra. It’s at the heart of our culture - or should be.
A man who once described working class students as "universally unattractive" and "vaguely deformed"
Who Tweeted "Actually mate I had my Dick up her Arse" referring to a fellow judge on Top Chef.
Who feels that feminism is a “wonderful insight into the joyless, sanctimonious weltanschauung of the censorious left” not sure if his fe;;ow judge felt either of those emotions during the Top Chef photoshoot
Who described the Suicide of Tory activist Elliott Johnson after an alleged campaign of bullying as “Not exactly page one stuff”.
Busy day yesterday deleting Tweets!!
Edited for clarity.
Since I wrote it the Chinese government, according to the news, announced that it intends to lift a further 43 million people out of poverty. Meanwhile we can’t even manage to build houses for our population. Unless we can justify and improve our current political and economic set up, we will face problems.
And one issue which has concerned me is the emptiness of the arguments when people do try and justify what has bern established for a while. I think that is in part because people have not had to hone their arguments, have not had to face debate. Too many - both on the left and right - want to stop the question “why” even being asked, let alone have a debate about what the answer might be.
A vigorous democracy will not survive, let alone thrive, in such circumstances.