The decline of Bureaucratic Elites and the Rise of Thatcherism

[supermonkeywtf09]

wow its neat to see how the program got started as I really enjoy the Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister series. I am not even British! I am from New Zealand and I love it :D

[losapocosmico]

that sexy, sexy thing...

[DrCruel]

Honestly. Doesn't this narrator sound like someone that Sir Humphreys would have hired?

[megamarsvin]

Bitten by the dog or scratched by the cat. The poor will be the poor, the rich will be the rich.

[pspboy7]

Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister was pure gold because it was so accurate and spot on.

[Iberotimuka]

@pspboy7 still is, it's remarkable, still as relevant today as it ever was, MP expenses corruption, our uncomfortable in but not in relationship with Europe, the nuclear deterrent, budget cuts, are we still a military power, our political agenda just goes round and round in circles

[DrCruel]

"Yes Minister" is ideological propaganda devised by radicals? Why - because it told the truth?

Why should I be surprised by such a claim. This is from the same neo-socialist nutter that blamed everything bad about Western society on Edward Bernays.

[acr08807]

@DrCruel One of the producers of Yes Minister, Anthony Jay, wrote party political speeches for Margaret Thatcher. Pretty much everyone else involved was on the left. I never detected any pro-Thatcher bias in the show, and I'm hardly a Thatcherite. I don't think it was political propeganda at all. And the notions that people didn't understand self-interested behavior before public choice theory was formalized, and that public choice theory has cured the problem, are both ludicrous.

[DrCruel]

@acr08807 I dare not add anything else. You've summed it perfectly.

[YoungIvyScholar]

what's the music at 1:55 ish?

[vlengoc]

@YoungIvyScholar From the description: "Note: Features the New Order song "Age of Consent" from the 1983 LP "Power, Corruption and Lies""

[PavedStones]

Isn't this a delicious irony though? Yes Minister, which appears to expose the cynical workings of bourgeois government, was in fact but another tool of the self-interested, corrupt politicians to advance their carreers at all cost. A formidable public relations offensive. This takes us to a whole other level of reading :) Appalling cynicism, Sir Humphrey!

[Hemouth]

women shouldnt be allowed to vote lets not mention become fking prime minster

[mushmouth4life]

is this an except from some longer documentary

[deadgoblin86]

please tell me I've not clicked on a thatcherism apologist channel....... PLEASE TELL MEE

[deadgoblin86]

@deadgoblin86 oh no, shit, I was. Fuck this guy, I looked on his channel. Libertarian scum.

[UnitedBritannia]

@deadgoblin86 Who's a libertarian? Certainly not me. I'd class myself as a Liberal Conservative, which means I have very little in common with libertarians. Supporting free markets and a neo-liberal economic model doesn't make somebody a libertarian - politics and ideology are far more complicated than that!

[deadgoblin86]

@UnitedBritannia 'free markets' do not make people free, they impoverish whole groups who have not the resources to protect themselves from exploitation. Regardless of the badge you wear, the full consequence is believing in liberty is to believe all should have it, not belief in the freedom for some to deny freedom to others. The full consequence of a 'liberal' is to be an 'anarchist'. So... as you can tell, I'm still not very sympathetic

[UnitedBritannia]

@deadgoblin86 The neo-liberal economic model is not perfect (there is no such thing), but the free market is the most effective method, so far discovered through human endeavour, of spreading opportunity and prosperity. The alternatives have not achieved anything like the kind of success free markets have in this regard. Economic independence from the State, and the right to own property, are essential tenants of individual liberty without which true freedom cannot exist.

[deadgoblin86]

@UnitedBritannia Why yes, the free market appears the best example of a bad sort because no system outside the current maketary model has been sufficiently tried. You may not be aware that you are defending the most redeeming features of a dying beligerant giant. Time has come for change; for something greater. I must tell you, further comment invites video response from my alter ego, ( so I sincerely wish you do!!!).

[UnitedBritannia]

@deadgoblin86 But what form would this "something greater" take? I'd argue that we did actually have an essentially socialist economic model in this country in the post-war period until 1979. What else could you call a system within which elected representatives bowed to pressures asserted by unelected trade unionists, where entire industries were owned soley by the government, where protectionist currency controls were imposed in an attempt to prevent the free movement of capital...

[UnitedBritannia]

@deadgoblin86 and where the top rate of income tax (i.e. anyone earning over £20,000) could be as high as 98%. If these aren't the hallmarks of a socialist economic model I'm not quite sure what is! Surely this WAS an alternative to the free market and it FAILED - utterly and miserably. And was there opportunity and prosperity for all in Stalin's communist Russia? Never mind me as an "apologist" for Thatcher - are you an apologist for the worst excesses of socialism and authoritarian communism?

[deadgoblin86]

@UnitedBritannia a resource based economy, rather than a monetary economy is what shape it would take. You seem to have your politics mixed up, my anarchist beliefs in voluntary association make me against authoritarian models. Bakunin is vastly different to Marx and Stalin. I suggest you look a few more things up first.

[8DX]

@UnitedBritannia In socialist economics, supertax was not the deciding factor (or "equal wages"). The deciding factors were: nationalised industry (no individual motivation to succeed), 100% employment, regulated production according to 5-year plans, and stupid and counterproductive government policies.

[bonfirejovi]

@deadgoblin86 Actually all systems have been tried and welfare capitalism has proven to be the best one. Try again buddy.

[opetke]

Adam Curtis is not a documentarian...he's a propagandist.

[roryphelan]

@opetke

Who isn't?

[Kenta19191919]

Can I buy the DVDs?

[C33M33]

Is this from the Pandora's Box series entitled the League of Gentlemen?

[timetochilli]

then thatcher gave that power to even more dangerous people businesses men and coporations. that is what cameron would do replace a elite with another

[billyysands]

thanks for thses united britiania i loved yes minister and i want to understand

history

[UnitedBritannia]

Your welcome - I hope you'll find the other clips informative. YouTube can be a great tool for educating people about the world we live in. Ignorance is the enemy of freedom, remember that!

[cook119]

what's the song that starts at 2:00?

[UnitedBritannia]

It's "Age of Consent" by New Order from the album "Power, Corruption and Lies". Great track, from a great band, from a great album!

[93rardo]

What a fallacy. Thinking that bureaucrats only follow their one interests and therefor privatising stuff. It are the entrepeneurs who only think of their own power and interests at the cost the public good. Look at the mess we are in now.

[MarcusCMarcellus]

Wow, it's hard to believe someone who actually believes entrepreneurs are responsible for the depression and bureaucrats are the answer can read and write. All the major polices behind the current collapse, from artificially low interest rates, easy inflationary money, mandated relaxed lending standards to gain points with minorities to huge deficits, confiscatory taxes, useless foreign wars and on and on were the products of government and its bureaucracy. Entrepreneurs provide real jobs.

[93rardo]

All the major policies behind the current collapse you just described happened under Republican President Bush.

You are clueless and beyond redemption.

[CurtHowland]

"happened under Republican President Bush."

One is left wondering why, then, Obama has only expanded those same destructive policies.

Maybe, just maybe, "party" has nothing to do with it. It has to do with benefiting the bureaucracy. Bush expanded, Clinton expanded, Reagan expanded, Nixon expanded, FDR, Hoover, Lincoln, all of them.

...except Martin Van Buren. But I digress.

Government does nothing that is not done cheaper and better by voluntary efforts in interested individuals.

[93rardo]

I don't believe everything done privately is more efficient and effective than done publicly. Do you think the military would be better run privately than publicly?

During the years 1941-45 the USA was a planned (war) economy. This is what got the US out of the depression.

[CurtHowland]

You reversed it. No, not everything private is more efficient. However, anything government does will be done more efficiently by voluntary interaction of interested individuals.

Yes, even war, because WW2 would have ended very quickly using private efforts to kill off the top Nazi leaders, instead of "respecting" them and defeating their armies.

"what got the US out of the depression."

I suggest you read something on the subject. You could not be more wrong.

[93rardo]

Ending WW2 by killing the Nazi leaders? If that happened new leaders would have immediately been replaced. When Roosevelt died, the war didn't stop, it was continued by his succesor Truman.

I have read about the subject and this is my conclusion. Have you read about the subject?

[CurtHowland]

> Have you read about the subject?

Yes. Economically, the US didn't get out of the depression until after the FedGov demobilized and repatriated the soldiers, which all the Keynesians said would cause a far worse depression than had ever happened.

Yet, 1946 saw the greatest economic growth in American history.

As to the military options, I bow to your so much greater experience and erudition.

[93rardo]

The war mobilization got the unemployment down and the industry running again.

Anyway, maybe I was a bit fierce. No offence.

[CurtHowland]

This has some excellent references:

mises.o rg/Community/forums/t/6615. as px

(take out the three obfuscating spaces)

It's easy to conclude that decreased unemployment numbers have meaning, but the fact is they went down because of conscription. So no actual production happened with the new workers, unlike when private employment increases which directly relates to increasing economic output.

[93rardo]

Yes, unemployment went down because of conscription. No, there was actual production. Production of war material. In fact, the demand for labour was so large that women were encourage to enter the work force.

[CurtHowland]

A perfect example of the "Broken Window Fallacy".

War material is not production, because it is thrown away. It is literally claiming wealth by destroying wealth.

Hazlit's "Economics In One Lesson" goes into this in detail, highly recommended.

Or do a YouTube search for "the money hole".

[93rardo]

A lot of commercial production is not real production either because it is consumed (and therefor thrown away).

It just shows that we are producing to much. We need to produce and buy services whether we really need it or not, otherwise there would be huge unemployment and the system would collapse.

The present capitalist system is crazy.

[CurtHowland]

"whether we really need it or not, otherwise..."

What you're describing is utterly false, based upon Keynesian models of "perfect competition" that do not exist in real life.

Unemployment is created by minimum wages, trade licensure and regulation. There is no sustained "overproduction", because entrepreneurs constantly adjust production to meet demand, as communicated by interest rates and prices.

Interference with those interest rates (Federal Reserve) and prices (regulation) causes bubbble

[CurtHowland]

Also, there is a great deal of difference between "consume" and "throw away".

Throw away food, the ultimate consumable, people starve.

[CurtHowland]

Sorry for the multiple postings, I'd add this to the other if I could.

mises.o rg/humanaction/chap30sec2.a sp

"But if the government fixes prices at a height different from what the market would have fixed if left alone, this equilibrium of demand and supply is disturbed."

[Myndir]

"A lot of commercial production is not real production either because it is consumed (and therefore thrown away)."

The objective of production is consumption. Producing stuff that is not either consumed or part of the process of producing consumables is retarded.

[asmodeus585]

I agree, but can this kind of capitalism has isn't a truly 'free" market. In my opinion there should be a disctinction made between economic liberalism and the corporative capitalism we have now.

[timetochilli]

private power is percively the problem. when they are economical effected it ends up effecting everyone. what you really need is anarcho-socialism where the public run their own affairs in small communities

[CurtHowland]

> private power is percively the problem.

There is no such thing as "private power".

In order to make money, a PRIVATE interest has to serve their customers. They better they serve, the more money they can make.

It is only PUBLIC interests that can command taxes to pay their costs. They have no interest in serving anyone, since the money they make comes not from service but from the threat of force.

[dinkolino2]

@timetochilli anarcho-socialism is an oximoron

[mickyh234]

i am interested by this idea of yours about 'interested individuals' and voluntary interaction but are not entirely sure about the way in which this would work. How, for instance are you to find these individuals who wish to work for a government that any level headed person distrusts?

[CurtHowland]

> who wish to work for a government that any level headed person distrusts?

None, of course. Voluntary interaction is not government, since government is the institution of coercion.

That means that people build what they want built, not what is politically expedient. Roads, dams, canals, bridges, social insurance, police, all existed prior to government taking over their funding and making them coercive.

There is a need, a demand for services, best met by interested individuals cooperating.

[gamewizard]

@93rardo

WRONG! The biggest thing that precipitated the recession, the housing market bubble, was sown way back during the Democratic Carter administration when laws were passed requiring banks to give more loans to the poor who couldn't afford to pay them back. The number of people buying homes who couldn't afford to pay for them hit critical mass. Another Democratic blunder that got us into this was the repeal of Glass-Steagall under Clinton allowing banks to take too much risk.

[93rardo]

@gamewizard

You are right that under Clinton Glass-Steagall was repealed and that was a very bad move. However, the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act was part of a general trend which has been going on now for the last 3 decades of more capitalism and less regulation. This general trend has been mainly led by the Republicans.

[ETericET]

@gamewizard May I ask. Who was in control of congres at the time this bill pasted?

[gamewizard]

@ETericET

No bills get passed without a President's signature so ultimately whether ANY bill passes is under the control of the President. it does not matter which matter which party controls Congress. If it's a bad bill, the President can veto it. The final responsibility rests with the President who signed it.

[ETericET]

@gamewizard You didn't answer my question. But thanks anyway. Don't bother now, I smell an agenda lol.

[ETericET]

@gamewizard Ok I researched it on my own. I now see why You didn't answer the question. It was a GOP controled congres and the 3 people that introduced the bill that killed Glass-Steagall was Gramm–Leach–Bliley. All 3 were GOP.

[ETericET]

@gamewizard Ya a democratic blunder introduced by 3 republicans in a republican congres. But you are right, the only thing I can see here is when the democrates let the republicans get power it's a BIG blunder. lol

[gamewizard]

@ETericET

It still doesn't matter. The President had the power to block the bill but didn't so obviously he agreed it was a good bill or else he would have vetoed it.

[ETericET]

@gamewizard That would boil down to opinion. Myself I also find it important to see who's idea it was. Are you also implying that had the bill come one year later when bush was in power he would have vetoed it? I find that highly unlikely. lol Bottom line is the whole idea was a gop idea. I looked at the voteing record also to see what percentages of what party voted for it. Up to about 25% of the deoctaes voted against it depending if it was the house or senate. On the republican side 2%.

[ETericET]

@ETericET PART 2: So being a gop idea with only 2% of republicans voteing against I would conclude that bush would have signed it into law had it come one year later when he was there. 98% of repulicans wrong on the issue acording to what you have said about the bill witrh up to 25% of democrates voting against. Looks like I better switch what seems to smarter party.

[ThatIsNotDeadWhich]

@ETericET Oh, killing Glass-Steagal was a quite bipartisan show of Un-American Activity. Clinton's economic team - Geithner, Summers, Rubin, Greenspan - are all deeply implicated in the destruction of the last New Deal restraints on Wall Street's cupidity. Geithner, in particular, is a nasty little piece of human garbage, who arguably created the current hostile climate in EU-Russia relations.

The Dems beat the GOP, of course, but only in the same sense getting robbed beats getting murdered.

[ETericET]

@ThatIsNotDeadWhich I can't argue that. They both are not working in the peoples interest. .

[Reazzurro90]

Sounds like exactly what Italy is going through.

[Edmorus]

This is all happening again under Obama. Government is going to grow exponentially and with it, the number of bureaucrats who, being on Obama's payroll, will ensure he wins another term. Meanwhile, the individual citizen will be squashed by higher taxes, inflation, strikes, massive public debt and very possibly a bankrupt nation.

[CurtHowland]

Let's not make this partisan. Every President has presided over growth of government in the US, even Reagan who talked "free market" yet blew the budget like FDR.

Obama is now merely building on the foundation built by the wartime "emergency powers" granted to the Georges Bush.

[Edmorus]

You're right, and GWB was certainly a big spender, but that spending took place in relative good times (or what appeared to be good times) for the economy. It seems to me that Obama is being extremely reckless in his fiscal policy at a time restraint is called for.

[CurtHowland]

Indeed. If there were a book of all the wrong things to do during an economic downturn, it seems Obama is trying to do them all.

But still, those "let's prop up our buddy's failing business" bailouts started under Bush2 last summer. Obama is just doing it bigger.

Not to worry. The US dollar will follow the Zimbabwe dollar into hyper-inflation history. All fiat currencies eventually do.

Is the British "pound" still worth 16 ounces of silver? Nope.

[Edmorus]

What gets me most is that what Obama, and my leader Brown, are doing is so clearly wrong-headed and dangerous yet hardly anyone seems to be making a fuss about it. Frightening stuff.

[CurtHowland]

I adore the "Peter Schiff Was Right" youtube videos. He and other Austrian economists have been yelling as loudly as they can that "tax and spend" was going to lead to disaster.

Maybe Brits need a dose of Sean Gabb:

w w w.libertarian.c o.u k

[Edmorus]

Peter Schiff is excellent - thanks for the tip. At the moment we Brits have Daniel Hannan (you may have seen his recent speech to Brown on here) and then there's UKIP but neither are taken seriously by the UK media - yet...

[WorstThereEverWillBe]

why are all the anti thatcher comments thumbs down and the pro thatcher comment thumbs up? doestn all have to be celebration

[abhishiv]

lol so true

[1moredub]

Strangely, this is right back where we are again in both Europe and America. Government and bureaucratic control of our lives....it is always a disaster.

[danny88101]

Privatised everything allowing for the exploitation we now suffer from the energy companies. Thanks a lot Bitch.

[psychodave0]

Energy is expensive because it's hard to get, not because you're being exploited. A government monopoly just makes it even easier for you to be exploited anyhow.

[danny88101]

Wrong, state ownership makes it accountable to the people, who could vote out the Government if they feel exploited.

[vikramkrishnan]

by that principle the USSR should have been the most accountable

[danny88101]

No because the Soviet Union was not a proper democracy with free and fair elections.

[vikramkrishnan]

But state ownership of resources leads to stagnation (I remember India before we started out with free market reforms). Having said that I do completely recognize that markets themselves are amoral(not immoral but amoral) and manic depressive(and move in booms and busts). Hence careful oversight is needed.

[danny88101]

I would settle for a mixed economy, with the Government have huge tools of regulation and stakes within the private companies.

[vikramkrishnan]

Govt should very strictly regulate those sectors of the economy where there is very little product differentiation and where the product is used by a large number of people need the product daily i.e coal and O&G, electricity, Banks etc. In these sectors stability of supply is important not innovation

[rayyf69]

If gov have huge stakes in private companies, Fanny mae freddy mac for example. Shouldn't' we expect the government to protect these companies from new competitors via regulation, taxation, or other interfere in that market. Thus these firms thus may potentially exploit consumers as they have no fear of loss of market share to competators.

[CurtHowland]

The problem being that a "mixed economy" is unstable. It always tends to accumulate more power into government control.

That's because moribund government programs are not allowed to fail, while businesses that are not profitable fail every day. Eventually, all that are left are the inefficient, bloated government programs supported by taxation.

[rayyf69]

This assumes the selective process to be as powerful as a market selective mechanism. Infact the selective mechanism in democracies relies on citizens voting. However as was illustrated by phil Converse in "belief systems in mass publics" Voters are largly ignorant of ideology and can often not even describe it. Voter ignorance is therefore not a valid selective mechanism. Also there is a problem in regards to the value of the vote. Votes have very little value in large democracies.

[bklynbroker]

What makes you think a government that has that much power through owning so much of the nations productivity will allow the citizens to vote it out? Someone below mentioned the USSR which you claim was n9ot a porper democraxy. Well, why wasn't it? Because it did not need to be a democracy as it controlled all the levels of power.

Many have said it before and history has proven it true, that when the state owns all then the citizens are nothing but slaves to the state.

[a199215]

@psychodave0

Of course. OPEC would never artificially rise the price of oil to maximize its profits at the expense of everyday people.

[ThatIsNotDeadWhich]

@psychodave0 This is certainly false. The best energy companies in the world are, without exception, public utilities - GazProm, EDF, Ruhrgas, the Italian gas utility, Vattenfall, and so on and so forth.

[rayyf69]

Also wouldn't public ownership of everything be a invitation for extreme exploitation ? As in Garrett Harding's (68) the tragedy of the commons. In a system where the costs are socialized we should expect depletion of the good public ally owned. The marginal cost to the exploiter is dispersed but the marginal benefit overuse his to keep. Incentives to police public goods are not as great as when they are privately owned.

[boganlewis]

she was a great leader why don't we have anyone like this now? thanks for putting this up