Ritchie started the day with a cracker!

With this:

There’s been a powerful article on the New Yorker web site this weekend.
It documents the hundreds of millions of dollars David and Charles Koch have given in the USA to fund those who promote so many of the issues this blog opposes.
These are the people behind the Cato Institute that does so much to promote tax havens.
These are the people behind the Heritage Foundation.
These people are paying for the Tea Party movement,
What do these people think. Take this:

Many of the ideas propounded in the 1980 (Libertarian Party] campaign [they funded] presaged the Tea Party movement. Ed Clark told The Nation that libertarians were getting ready to stage “a very big tea party,” because people were “sick to death” of taxes. The Libertarian Party platform called for the abolition of the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., as well as of federal regulatory agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Energy. The Party wanted to end Social Security, minimum-wage laws, gun control, and all personal and corporate income taxes; it proposed the legalization of prostitution, recreational drugs, and suicide. Government should be reduced to only one function: the protection of individual rights. William F. Buckley, Jr., a more traditional conservative, called the movement “Anarcho-Totalitarianism.”

And why do they fund these think tanks:

That November [in 1980], the Libertarian ticket received only one per cent of the vote. The brothers realized that their brand of politics didn’t sell at the ballot box. Charles Koch became openly scornful of conventional politics. “It tends to be a nasty, corrupting business,” he told a reporter at the time. “I’m interested in advancing libertarian ideas.” According to Doherty’s book, the Kochs came to regard elected politicians as merely “actors playing out a script.” A longtime confidant of the Kochs told Doherty that the brothers wanted to “supply the themes and words for the scripts.” In order to alter the direction of America, they had to “influence the areas where policy ideas percolate from: academia and think tanks.”

These people want to destroy democratic politics as we know it.
They want to change society forever so that it becomes a brutal place for all but the elite winners – like them.
They deny our right to think for ourselves.
They deny climate change.
They deny the need to compensate for the abuse of the market.
They want to destroy our rights to choose.
And these are the ideas that the anarcho-capitalists who comment here, often endorse.
These are the ideas that creep into the Taxpayer’s Alliance.
And from there into the Mail and Express.
And into the Tories.
This is what we face: corrupting capitalisms that wants to destroy our society.
Cameron and Clegg are just starting that process.
But they pave the way for much worse.
And big money funds this. Daily. And I am sure it funds those who promote this vicious creed.
And that’s what we have to oppose.
Because such groups set out to destroy all we value.
They do so with a low profile. From tax havens. Behind fronts. And they do so with a mixture of respectable activity. But the aim is to destroy our democracies none the less.
This is the challenge we face.
Wake up and smell the coffee. This is what’s out there. And it’s spreading, like a cancer.
It’s what the left has to kill for good.
Without money to match only ideas can win the day.
There’s some serious thinking to do.

Big Tim Worstall responds to the part about the Koch Brothers here. And he is right in everything he says; rich people have money to spend... as they wish.

Ritchie's view of libertarians is completely facetious, he even claimed he was one. We already know that Ritchie puts democracy above liberty. In truth I think that Ritchie is a pessimist (and a control freak), so I'll go through each of his complaints and try to set him straight.


1. These people want to destroy democratic politics as we know it.
Not immediately and not totally (Minarchists still see the need for government but a very, very small one) but we think that the current system could be improved by diluting the power held by The Commons, The Cabinet and The Prime Minister.

2. They want to change society forever so that it becomes a brutal place for all but the elite winners – like them.
We want to change society to encourage winners, we also want society to be more aware of other individuals needs; and through enlightened self interest come to the conclusion that voluntarily helping others works to one's benefit. At the moment we heavily tax the most successful and productive to allow the least successful to be unproductive, the incentive in the current society is to sponge from the state, this is wrong in so many ways.


3. They deny our right to think for ourselves.
/facepalm Libertarianism is all about individuality, thinking and acting for oneself. The Nanny State on the other hand promotes 'unthinking' by taking decisions out of people's hands and making them for them.

4. They deny climate change.
Right-Libertarians are sceptical of any excuse used to levy a tax. I for one don't deny climate change, the Earth has changed its climate several times in the history of it's existence. Anthropogenic Global Warming on the other hand is inconclusive and once there is some clear, unadjusted results that show without a doubt that it is happening then I will buy into it again. At the moment I just see it as a scare fad like Avian flu, Swine flu, the coming Ice Age.

5. They deny the need to compensate for the abuse of the market.
...what? If you mean people being conned into deals then we have the law to deal with it (assuming that you use the non-aggression axiom as the main definition of a law). If you mean fluctuations in the market then all I can say is that it happens... someone will lose their job in one market but that means another job opening in another market.

6. They want to destroy our rights to choose.
See the answer to 3

7. And these are the ideas that the anarcho-capitalists who comment here, often endorse.
By my count Ritchie you have got 1/6 right when talking about anarcho-capitalists, half a point for the democracy one and half a point for the climate change one. If you are talking about Minarchists then you only have half a point on the climate change front. Keep trying though... one day we might take you out of the remedial class. :-)

8. These are the ideas that creep into the Taxpayer’s Alliance.
The TPA is a vaguely libertarian organisation, their main issue is balancing the nation's book (something that you should understand) and making sure that the taxpayer's money is well spent.

9. And from there into the Mail and Express.
...urgh. Calling those rags newspapers is like calling the Guardian a newspaper. It is an insult to real newspapers.


10. And into the Tories.
The Conservative party does indeed have a libertarian wing among its back-benchers; Douglas Carswell (Tory libertarian of choice for Dan Hannan, a libertarian Tory MEP), Steve Baker (founder of the Cobden Centre and mascot for the Devil) and Philip Davies (MP of choice for the libertarian blogger Dick Puddlecote). For the most part they are more pragmatic libertarians than those of us who are LPUK members or independent of political parties.

11. This is what we face: corrupting capitalisms that wants to destroy our society.
First let's try an wipe off the red mist all over this one... so we capitalists want to destroy society... let's work through it as a class shall we? Capitalists work in their own self interested (enlightened or otherwise), true. Capitalism (operated by capitalists) requires society (the interaction of individuals) to function, true. Capitalism wants to to destroy society, what? Ritchie, rethink that comment then try again.

12. Cameron and Clegg are just starting that process.
Yes they are because Cameron is (a little bit) more liberal than your pin-up Jonah Brown and Clegg is an Orange Booker who are my Lib Dem group of choice.

13. But they pave the way for much worse.
Yeah, like people becoming richer, more people getting employed, people free to do as they choose as long as they don't harm anyone else... sounds terrible!

14. And big money funds this. Daily. And I am sure it funds those who promote this vicious creed.
Does it? Where do I get my cheque?

This is rich coming from the man paid for by the Trade Unions who have a history of embezzling money from the taxpayer while there is a Labour government in charge...

15. And that’s what we have to oppose.
Every individual is free to choose in a libertarian society. If you and others of a similar mindset wanted to get together an make an area that is your perfect idea of the world you can as long as no adult is FORCED to live there.

16. Because such groups set out to destroy all we value.
What, like freedom and all that good stuff? Freedom is the reason that libertarians exist, we exist to live free.

17. They do so with a low profile. From tax havens. Behind fronts. And they do so with a mixture of respectable activity. But the aim is to destroy our democracies none the less.
Pot-Kettle-Black H/T to Tim Worstall again.

This is from the man who campaigns to close the tax gap (something I agree with on the conditions that the Tax meets with Adam Smith's definition of good tax practise, something not true in modern British Tax Law), against Tax avoidance and then uses Tax avoidance to lower his tax payments.

18. This is the challenge we face.
Life is all about challenges Ritchie!

19. Wake up and smell the coffee. This is what’s out there. And it’s spreading, like a cancer.
So we are a cancer now? I don't think that people who want to increase potential profit for everyone chould be described as a cancer.

20. It’s what the left has to kill for good.
Oh so you show your true colours now Ritchie, some might take that as a death threat.

21. Without money to match only ideas can win the day.
Are you looking for someone to fund you by any chance? I hear B&Q will hire people regardless of age Ritchie, possible new career for you I think.

22. There’s some serious thinking to do.
How about you start with the justification for all your posts...ever.




I think I got a little sarcastic towards the end.