Re: Big purple digit

In article <ddfr-18B280.12593819042008@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, 
ddfr@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (David Friedman) wrote:

>  jgd@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (John Dallman) wrote:
> > I'm afraid my belief at the time, and since, remains, that their 
> > economic policies are largely formulated in terms of benefit to the 
> > wealthy, and have to have explanations that are intended to attract 
> > the votes of the less wealthy pasted on afterwards.
> 
> Quite a lot of people are of the opinion that those who disagree with 
> them about policy do so because they are wicked people. 

"Wicked" has problems with definitions. "Selfish" and "foolish" are 
terms with clearer meanings. 

For example, earlier in the eighties, quite a lot of unemployment was 
deliberately created in the UK by shutting down nationalised industries, 
or vastly reducing the numbers of people they employed. This achieved 
political objectives - taking revenge on the unions - at the cost of 
putting large numbers of people out of work. This was bad for other 
businesses, because suddenly their customers had no money, and 
unsurprisingly produced a recession. 

A more gradual approach with less of an element of punishment, and more 
of straightforward economic reform, could have worked rather better. But 
it wouldn't have produced nearly such a sense of power. 

> I think the attitude may be a little more common in the U.K., with 
> its past of a fairly well defined class system, than in the U.S., but 
> it is, unfortunately, common everywhere.

Yes ... some of the accusations one sees bandied around between USAnians 
when less polite newsgroups get into politics go way beyond anything 
seen here. 

In the UK, for a long time, the poor have seemed fair game. Even if you 
were amongst the poor; the loss of solidarity amongst them is one of the 
most interesting developments of the post-sixties era. 

-- 
John Dallman, jgd@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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