The Right’s Dependence on Welfare
A recent comment by Don Brash [about 7mins45secs into the video] gave me the clue as to why the right are so dependent on the ‘welfare’ argument. They are, to put it bluntly, dependent on ‘welfare’ as...
View ArticleBelieving what you need to believe
It’s a common belief that politics and policy-making would be better if it availed itself of the fruits of scientific endeavour. Some call it ‘evidence-based policy‘ and it is often those on the left...
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Out of control
Ever had that out of control feeling? Sometimes, you just can’t keep things under control in politics. You know how it goes – somehow Treasury documents get accidentally posted on websites; somehow...
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What ground is ‘left’ when it comes to land, assets – and nationalism?
Whose land is it? It’s the issue that won’t go away [and here], so it’s probably a good time to ask “Where should the left stand on the land (and ‘our’ assets)?” “Stand in the place where you live” –...
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Disdaining democracy
Universal Male Suffrage in France - A bad day for economic efficiency All those years ago – you know, way back when John Key wasn’t the Prime Minister – the populace, so we found out, was getting...
View ArticleAdam Smith and the Left and Right of Moral Sentiment – A Christmas Tale
[I’m on holiday in a place with very limited and irregular cellphone coverage and access to the internet. That means I haven’t included links in this post but, when I’ve quoted from Adam Smith’s work,...
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Flagging interest in ‘folly’ of vexillology
Changing our brand? John Key seems like an unlikely vexillologist – or should that be vexillographer?. That aside, what was John Key ‘flagging’ when he proposed a referendum on New Zealand’s national...
View ArticleSelling rope
There’s an anecdote, probably apocryphal, that in the early 1920s Lenin claimed that capitalism would provide the rope to hang itself. When some wag (reputedly Grigori Zinoviev, a close associate)...
View ArticleOn the very idea of ISIS – Part I
The very idea of wanting to explain a practice–for example, the killing of the priest-king–seems wrong to me. All that Frazer does is to make them plausible to people who think as he does. It is very...
View ArticleOn the very idea of ISIS – Part II
In the first part of this post I argued that beliefs held by individuals are not a good basis on which to analyse geopolitical events. Both beliefs and their associated collective-level behaviours are...
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