“So you ticked disagree that Govts should have ability to penalise companies that lie to thier consumers? Or can you get to +10 without going to that extreme?�

There is a self-regulatory effect in the goodwill that is heavily destroyed. The main thing I’d want to do is penalize the *people* that gained from it. People don’t have a share price, they’re fine if they can just walk away with the cash.
If someone misleads the public to earn some cash, they should be the ones fined for it. Why randomly hurt innocent shareholders even more?

The best way to protect the commons is private property rights. It doesn’t work for everything, such as air pollution, but it does solve a lot of things. If there was a public lake that everyone could fish out of with no limits, pretty soon the fish would all be gone. Instead of simply regulating the limits, a property right would incentivise conservation.

Also of note here which is quite crucial is the fact that the right ideology for one scenario may *change* for another. Socialism and redistribution of wealth is a poor strategy indeed if there is hardly any wealth to redistribute. It’s a large problem for us looking onto third world countries and thinking in a first world mindset. Moderate socialism is not such a bad thing when the economy is already working well. However, there’s no surer way of keeping third world countries in poverty if we insist they follow our standards. Laissez-faire capitalism, even if you don’t agree with it, is a good strategy if you’re looking for growth rather than perhaps percieved “fairness”. After you’ve built up everything, *then* your socialist policies are more viable. Making people rich and then taking some from them is better than having no-one rich at all. Even if that means that the workers have very poor conditions, it’s an investment in the future so we can achieve that. And you don’t stop at socialism, either. Once the gap between the rich and the poor has been reduced, you can relax your redistribution somewhat to help the growth again.

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That’s only one of the many problems with it. Another is that it often doesn’t work. Huge power concentrations can occur which create massive injustices.

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The problem with right-wing libertarianism is that it asserts only humans have rights….and therefore whenever a human “mixes their labour” with a mineral, plant or animal form they somehow gain a MORAL RIGHT to exclusively (ab)use that form.

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Economic Left/Right: -8.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.51

actually david i suspect that would proably make you more like a lot of people here; your displacement is along the economic axis

have not read the full thread so apologies if someone has made that point, or if the facts contradict me!

how easy would it be to to generate a anonymising graph function ?

Could be an interesting way of testing how approximate to centre this site’s (political compass) axis calibration is for given populations. (0,0) ought to be defined as the centre of opinion, at least for that given population, two axes casts just slightly more light, than one!

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Ben:
I agree. That’s why I commented much earlier here that the Greens must ‘create a strong Green magnet’ to attract the additional votes.
Without those votes, we have no power. No power, and no ability to put into place the policies those voters entrust us with.

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BJchip:

if you’re still reading this, that was a good little synopsis above. Much appreciated

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Husky nut, that’s an interesting question. I think the answer is ‘any of the political parties could move down, if they saw the opportunity’.

Which is why I made the point that we shouldn’t be about moving our spot, or Labour’s spot, or picking an empty spot. We should be about drawing voters to our spot, since we picked it by believing in the issues the spot represents.

That would be the ultimate victory for the green party. Not selling out to get more votes. When I go on in another thread about GE and how it hurts the Greens, I’m trying to draw the greens to my spot. I think it’s a more defendable spot, and more voters will be drawn to it, so long as they don’t have to worry about the green cloud that draws them towards the antiscientic camp. My opinion, of course.

I see it as ultimately more consistent with the green philosophy, which is in most respects scientific and liberal. Except on economic issues, which I have no great beef about. Economics is an arena more practical than moral, and I have few qualms about trying an alternative to some of the last 20 years’ madness, and the swing to the ‘left’ hasn’t hurt the economy, quite the opposite has happened. I can’t see that economics defines the Greens in any way other than that they have a scientific approach to the problem, and in science you have to experiment. So we experiment with the economy. If that causes horror in the Libertarianz camp, too bad. They’re the ones who see economics as a moral issue, not me.

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RedGreen – Alright, a 10 by giving honest answers rather than trying to max out/gross out your friends or enemies. respectfully BJ

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I think it’s possible to get a 10, ‘cos once when I did the test I got a -10 on each axis…

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I don’t actually believe DF got a 10… I think he was winding us up … if so, good on you David, I appreciate it, but we are a tad curious what the real numbers were

respectfully
BJ

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David Farrar:

Pip asked you: “So you ticked disagree that Govts should have ability to penalise companies that lie to thier consumers? Or can you get to +10 without going to that extreme?”

For you to have scored a perfect ten, you would’ve had to tick ‘strongly disagree’.

Is your vision of economic freedom then one where you are *free to* lie, cheat, defraud, embezzle, manipulate and exploit?

Back when I was a member of the Libertarianz, I asked someone in the Young Free Radicals (as Libz on Campus were known back then) about how absolute economic freedom can be consistent with notions of fair dealing and business integrity. His reply was that laissez-faire has a self-regulatory mechanism (he was vague and incoherent about this) that prevents the circumventing of the requirements of fair and honest business dealings.

Leaving aside the merits of this for now, the point is that he says laissez-faire IS ABOUT fair and honest economic activity. So my question to you is: Why then do you think companies should get away with lying to their customers? What shouldn’t they be penalised? Having scored a 10, you demonstrate that you are an absolute economic libertarian, which means either you don’t subscribe to the idea of corruption-free business, or you’re saying that economic freedom should not involve considerations of integrity and honesty, or both. Either way, it’s not a good look for the *virtues* of economic freedom now, is it?

In an earlier statement, you imply that if you don’t subscribe to this brand of economic freedom, it means you’re necessarily anti-freedom. This is both fallacious and intellectually dishonest. The freedom the Left (if you like) touts is freedom FROM rather than freedom TO. In other words, we believe in freedom *from* exploitation (natural resources, workers’ rights etc.), manipulation, abuse of power, corrupt and dishonest practices, and so on.

Also, to have scored a perfect 10, you would have had to answer, in the affirmative, the statement ‘What is good for the company is necessarily good for everyone is society’. Sounds to me that the natural corollary of this would be for corporations to dictate to society and its people how to run their lives, since corporations are the fount of all that is virtuous and desirable. What happened to ‘freedom to run your own lives’ then?

Additionally, you cannot then argue on the one hand for the rule of law, then assert on the other that corporations should observe non-compliance with the law.

And don’t you and your ilk staunchly advocate ‘getting tough on crime’? Or does this exempt white-collar crime? This seems to be your stance, given that you rule out any role for the government to prosecute companies for fraud/dishonesty/corruption, consistent with the stance of absolute non-interference by the state. Moreover, whatever happened to ‘one law for all’? Exceptions/exemptions for corporations/corporate elites, perhaps?

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-8.5, -6.31. Nice to find like minds.

Like DR’s comments.. the danger in courting a demgraphic too rigidly/openly is in your chosen group being poached. But who of the main parties could move sufficiently left/down to court this quadrant any more? The big question (and I’m sure a green marketer has the answer to this) is how large is the demographic of Q3?

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Economic Left/Right: -7.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.21

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David – The MARKED difference between Greens and Libertarians is how the price on the use of the commons is set. I am sure you understand the phrase “tragedy of the commons” and have probably read through the actual article that introduced it. I respect your abilities but you still need re-education

Greens insist that the use of the commons be costed and that everyone, businesses included, pay the cost. At present that’s a carbon tax, since there’s no other practical way to cost the use of this commons. You come up with another and we’ll listen…. or at least I will (I can’t speak for everyone here, they’ve made it plain I am tolerated but they don’t always agree

Business repeatedly has pointed at this sort of issue and said basically “Hell no, we won’t pay for what we have always had for free”… and other things which shouldn’t be said in front of the children. However, the commons is disintegrating. The ability of the planet to support the burden we place on it is beginning to break down. The price of the commons HAS to be costed into business models in order for an adjustment to be made sensibly.

Maybe the tax is at the wrong rate… or isn’t clearly compensated by some other reduction in general tax take as it should be… we can talk about those issues, but the cost of the use of the commons HAS to be made clear to give meaningful feedback to a market based system.

Basically you “trust” business to do the right thing. Business WILL do the profitable-next-quarter thing very accurately and better than government could do it. It manages next year pretty well but its 20 year plans are random guesses. Moreover, the most profitable thing may NOT be the best thing for the country or the planet. Business need not care about that and doesn’t, as long as it does not break the law or appear to risk getting caught breaking the law.

Greens trust government because the long view, the collective welfare of the whole country and the care of the planet are simply not the business of business. There is no way for a business to set a price on the use of carbon independently and uniformly. The damage is irretrievable and inconceivable if we simply leave things to the invisible hand of the market.

The feedback to the economic system occurs over decades and centuries as our indirect and uncosted destruction of the commons (environment) turns into direct economic costs. The warming that will occur in the next 50 years is already in the pipe. The effects will not abate even if the US had a Green revolution and tossed Bush in the slammer where he belongs.

We don’t hate business (though some business PEOPLE have earned our opprobrium). We simply want to ensure that everyone including business, pays a fair price for use of the commons.

Refusing to pay for what you use makes you what David? What word do you use for people who don’t pay for what they take? Freeloaders is probably the gentlest term I would use.

That’s your freedom. Freedom to be freeloaders… no better than “dole bludgers” or simply thieves. Stealing from your children.

Gawd… +10? Attila the Hun couldn’t have got more than a +8 … and here I am hanging out with people who score -9?… this place definitely gives new meaning to the word “stretch”

respectfully
BJ

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David Farrar:

When you buy ice from Inuit would you sell it elsewhere?
If so, with what would you transport it should you choose to market it?
Would not that that fuel choice and the fuel choices of all the other free peolpe on this planet ultimately affect others on this planet?

I assume you know that Inuit are the people you call “Eskimo” ?
(… of course you are “free” to call them what you want, whether it is the name they choose to be known by or not.)

One finite planet, a variety of interrealated life forms in many habitats …
all affected by the behaviours of others.

“Freedom” is an interesting concept.

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Yes David, but you can take ignoring your impact on others to extremes too. Are you advocating that, as +10 implies, or is there some method to your ‘I couldn’t give a damn if it hurts you’ madness?

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Dude, you’re sitting on +10 and you’re talking about extremes?

So you ticked disagree that Govts should have ability to penalise companies that lie to thier consumers? Or can you get to +10 without going to that extreme?

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Yes Clara but you can take that to extremes. You can say that me buying ice off eskimos instead of off you, my next door neighbour, negatively impacts you so hence I should be forced to buy off you.

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I completely agree with you DF except that my living my life as I want cannot negatively impact on anyone or anything (including the environment).

But I agree that on the face of it LibS/LibE is a nicely defined and easily understood (and legislated) way to do things.

You haven’t read enough Hobbes or Locke.

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No it means freedom to run your life as you want to, not as the ruling political party wants you to. It means if I want to buy ice from eskimoes and they want to sell to me, I can.

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