Nigel Lawson on state of the UK economy (09Oct11)

Ex-Conservative chancellor Nigel Lawson gives his views on the UK economy, and the state of the crumbling Mickey Mouse Euro currency and Eurozone debts.

Recorded from Sky News, 09 October 2011.

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News & Politics

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• 2011

[jjcale1111]

They call themselves Tories... but they are just another variety of socialists

[liarpoliticians]

@jjcale1111 I'd give a million thumbs up for your comment if I could.

[sinclair61]

What is crucial is....manufacturing goods that people want to buy! This smokescreen of deception is beginning to lift I feel. They have nowhere to turn anymore....the game is up.

[TheLiberalKnight]

@liarpoliticians Lawson is not a socialist, though. He reversed Britain's economic relative decline from 1900-1980. For that, he deserves a lot of credit.

[Bastiat90]

But to me, utopia cannot exist. Simple because we all have different ideas on what constitutes it. The best solution is to let people get on with their lives provided they don't infringe upon the freedoms of others. If a group of communists want to declare statehood in the hills of Norfolk, let them. It won't bother you or I in the slightest.

I'm rather enjoying this discussion now!! Thankyou. It's much better when we are both polite!

[Bastiat90]

Nothing wrong with Marxism old chap! What Marx wrote bears little relation to what Marxists claim he wrote. For example, he praised the 'revolutionary' power of capitalism and its role in destroying feudalism. He praised its powers of regeneration. He once wrote that India was lucky to have been colonised by Britain rather than Russia! I'm not going to claim Marx was a right winger, but his legacy deserves a much more comprehensive analysis than one's by Terry Eagleton.

[Bastiat90]

If people want to set up a collective property system amongst their local community, I would not stop them. Personally, I'm an individualist. But if people want a communitarian lifestyle that is their choice and they are free to make it. Property rights are one of the main facilititators of personal liberty, whether an individual owns the property or a collective.

[MetaReaLizard]

@Bastiat90 That's not exactly true... If I am guilty of anything it's that I was a little to lazy to examine your arguments thoroughly. India has had a caste based class system for a long time and well Maoist China isn't really my view of a utopian society. Mao and Stalin were lunatics that frankly perverted the revolutionary aspects of marxism to their own ends: dictators. I'm not a marxist, but he does provide a strong antithesis to capitalist theory that should be considered.

[MetaReaLizard]

@Bastiat90 Oh I agree with you about Churchill. I also disagree with most taxation and support de-centralisation of state power, to direct democratic local bodies. However I have a fundamental disagreement with right-libertarians about property rights of land and resources. A more mutualist approach is required that respects a balance between individual and collective property rights. I see Land Value Tax as the best way to do this without penalising producitivity.

[Bastiat90]

Churchill was overrated, and were it not for the 2nd World War, would be a footnote in political history and an example of its most notorious charlatans.

I'll admit I'm a dogmatist, and I disagree with most taxation. I believe in a local sales tax to fund local services for those who cannot, through physical or mental disablement, cannot provide for themselves.

[MetaReaLizard]

@Bastiat90 Capitalism reflects a very strong aspect of human nature. Churchill supported Land Value Tax if memory serves me correctly, Friedman also. I believe introducing such a system within a freemarket framework could with, some collective infrastructure, be a progressive societal move. To me it isn't about capitalism being better than socialism, it's about how we can develop and synthesise what works. Until it requires a new label, that is human nature also.

[Bastiat90]

Lot of respect for Stiglitz as an economist (not that he needs it from me, nor cares for it), but the invisible hand exists whether he agrees or not. Let me get a point in here; capitalism can be bad. Let me now paraphrase Churchil. Capitalism is the worst of the economic systems, except for all others. But it runs on human nature, and all other economic systems run against it.

[MetaReaLizard]

@Bastiat90 "The reason that the invisible hand (i.e. the idea that the pursuit of self-interest would lead to the well-being of society) seemed invisble, was that it wasn't there." Jospeh Stiglitz

You know just because you are not 100% right doesn't make you wrong. Self interest is for certain an aspect of humanity. We are also a social species. Nothing is black and white be it ethics or economics. We as a species and a society are learning, don't cling to the past; learn from it.