Neither controlling nor laissez-faire

We don't know who Martin Ball is but he's unimpressed with Tory 'nudging'. This is Mr Ball's letter to today's FT:

"If the Conservative party believes it is the role of government to influence individual and organisational behaviour (“Nudging not nannying to achieve social goals”, August 5) then it clearly clings to the view that the man in Whitehall knows best. No matter what fashionable and seemingly innocuous word is used, this is unmistakable nannying. Either you believe individuals are capable of making the best choices for their lives or you follow your paternalist instincts and direct them. If shoppers and customers believe businesses are not conducting themselves properly, then the power to alter this behaviour is rightfully with them. Any attempt at conditioning from a lofty political perch will not be successful or indeed desirable.

The choice for the Conservative party is clear: either it is a party of individual freedom or it wants to further go down the authoritarian route of the Blair-Brown years. There is a nation wanting to be liberated from state interference and the Conservative party should once again lead the way in setting it free."

But surely there is a middle way between state control of social life and a complete laissez-faire approach?  You could even call it conservatism!  Here's an incomplete list of where the current Tory leadership has been willing to reject both state control and a laissez-faire approach:

• Provision of more support for new parents in the form of maternity nurses and healthcare visitors.

• Support for marriage including a tax allowance of a-yet-to-be-defined kind and more investment in relationship education and counselling.

• Encouragement for firms to act socially responsibly... David Cameron has criticised BHS for its 'Little Miss Naughty' clothes range... W H Smith for selling chocolate oranges at the cashpoint... the music industry for violent messages... and this week Michael Gove questioned the publishers of Nuts and Zoo.

• George Osborne has proposed a cooling-off period between when people sign up for store credit cards and when they can use them.

• Mr Osborne has also proposed higher taxation of alcopops to discourage irresponsible drinking amongst teens and Boris Johnson has introduced a complete ban on alcohol on London's public transport.

• Jeremy Hunt has warned against "damaging gambling liberalisation".

• Ed Vaizey, only yesterday, reminded local councils that they have powers to protect children from violent films.

In today's Telegraph Mary Riddell writes about the party having "staked out a limbo between the Left's command-and-control instinct and the Right's wish to expunge the state from family life."  This isn't easy territory.  There isn't ideological purity but, as Riddell suggests, most people will approve of most of David Cameron's 'limbo choices'.

9.15am: "When Was the Last Time You Heard a Cameroon Mention "Freedom"?" asks Guido

Comments

[Oberon Houston]

Is there not a simple test in all of this? People should be left alone to live their lives in peace as long as they take responsibility for that. If they do not adversely affect others and have a responsible attitude to obeying the law, raising families, integration and work then they shouldn't be pesetered by the state.

Nudging should have this object, not conformance to specific preferences.

[Chad Noble]

The only people who need nudging are politicans to remind them to f*** off out of our lives.

Why not try the really simple idea of stripping government back to the bone, thus slashing the size of the state and taxes and let people organise their lives for themselves?

When was the last time that was attempted?

The Tory approach is identical to the Labour one in the sense that they start believing that politicians are part of the solution, when they are actually the problem.

[Letters From A Tory]

There is absolutely no reason why a government can set the conditions that they feel are most conducive to a productive and happy society. I'd much prefer they use the incentives/disincentives approach as an alternative to Labour's obsession with legislating what we can and cannot do.

[Malcolm Dunn]

I really hope this thread does not descend to the depths it did after Michael Gove's speech. I disagree wholly with Mr Ball. 'Nudging' can work as has been proved by the majority of people being happy to recycle waste without the need for legislation. It is a good alternative to the target driven, legislation heavy approach adopted by the current government.

[brian]

"Why not try the really simple idea of stripping government back to the bone, thus slashing the size of the state and taxes and let people organise their lives for themselves?"

Now that sounds like proposal I could really vote for.

The only problem is that we have an upcoming generation who have never made a decision in their lives and would rather someone ran their lives for them as they waddle from the kitchen table to the sofa. These buffoons would be terrified of having to think for themselves.

[Paul Oakley]

Tim - it might be Martin Ball formerly of the Bruges Group. Decent bloke by the way.

[RichardJ]

I don't want the state legislating or nudging. I just want it to leave me alone. Is that too much to ask?

http://www.order-order.com/2008/08/when-was-last-time-you-heard-cameroon.html

[Happy Tory]

One of the main jobs of government is to create systems that are capable of organising themselves for the greater good of all. Like the private sector does, with a bit of regulatory tweaking round the edges. And like our proposed Education reforms will do. Government should set out to create the conditions that will require minimum day-to-day input from government, yet still achieve what society needs (e.g. a productive economy, well educated children). In terms of our policy formulation, we haven't got there on health yet, but we're getting there on Welfare by creating the incentives that will allow good outcomes to be achieved without government having to do the day-to-day delivery. This is the sort of nudging that I'm interested in - nudging on a systemic level. Not so much nudging on a simple A to B level, as that can too easily become nannying, but instead creating the framework that achieves good outcomes. There is plenty of scope for (and need for) nudging with incentives within a given framework.

[councilhousetory]

At a meeting in 1975, Margaret Thatcher reached into her briefcase and pulled out a book. According to John Ranleagh in Thatcher's People, she held the book up for all of us to see - 'this' she said sternly, 'is what we believe' and she banged the book down on the table.

The book was The Constitution of Liberty by F A Hayek.

Now, I'm not one of Thatcher's people and have never met her, but I am one of 'Thatcher's Children', a concept tories should be familiar with.

If you read Hayek, you will not find any prevaricating about finding middle ways. Thatcher's achievement wasn't only economic, but also changed the individual/collective debate in favour of individualism. nulab may have only tinkered with the economic reforms, but they have thoroughly attacked the resurgence of individualism.

If the tories continue nulabs work, egged on by this site, this child of thatcher will no longer belong to the party.

[Guido Fawkes]

Kapow! Tory MP John Whittingdale, Chairman of the Commons' Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee, has leapt to the defence of the new Batman film.

"The BBFC's decision to give The Dark Knight a 12A certificate is the correct one," he says.

"The film is not suitable for the vast majority of those under 12 - which is what 12A means. However, parents of 11-year-olds may decide that their child is able to sufficiently mature to appreciate what is a very good - if bleak - film.

"The alternative - a 15 certificate - would have prevented 13- and 14-year- olds from seeing what is fast becoming the most popular film of the year and would have led to huge protest. They would of course then have watched it either on pirate DVDs or from the web.
"When more and more children are accessing video from satellite TV, video on demand and the internet, the responsibility is on parents to ensure that their children are not watching unsuitable material.

"Cinema is no different and that was recognised by the creation of the 12A certificate."

From this morning's Standard.

[Tanuki]

People in the UK are truly fed up with having every aspect of their lives micro-managed by bureaucrats. We in the Conservative party could win one hell of a lot of votes by calling a halt to the pervasive and stultifying growth of managerialist government. The Man in Whitehall doesn't know about *me* so why should he tell me how to live my life?

"I will not be pushed, taxed, filed, means-tested, ID-carded, nudged, choice-edited or regulated. My life is my own". --The Prisoner, updated for 2008.

[Norm Brainer]

"If the tories continue nulabs work, egged on by this site, this child of thatcher will no longer belong to the party."

My thoughts exactly.

"I will not be pushed, taxed, filed, means-tested, ID-carded, nudged, choice-edited or regulated. My life is my own"
I wonder if they'll use that in the remake :)

[Bob B]

Whether the fabled man in Whitehall knows best or not, the subprime mortgage debacle, failing banks, pollution and climate warming hardly support the Panglossian fantasy that with laissez-faire, markets will inevitably lead to socially optimal outcomes.

It seems to me the intelligent debate is about what forms of regulatory intervention in markets are mostly likely to lead to more socially efficient market outcomes. After all, in the last resort, property rights depend on a superstructure of laws, courts, a reliable independent judiciary and cost-effective and accountable law enforcement agencies.

On analysis, the rallying cry of: Free Markets is seen to be an oxymoron.

As Edmund Burke put it: Liberty, too, must be limited in order to be possessed.

Conservative parliamentarians, like Lord Shaftesbury, largely pioneered the factory acts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_Acts

Winston Churchill, as President of the Board of Trade, introduced the Trade Boards Act of 1909.

There was a time when Conservatives were generally better informed about our history.

[David Bean]

Why do people use the expression 'laissez-faire' to mean 'a bad thing'? Is it because it was the phrase used in our 19th century history courses at school, as prescribed by statist academicians and curricular authorities, in the straw-man arguments they used to push the view that everything was terrible before our enlightened left-wing leaders kindly volunteered to step in to everyone's lives, sort everything out and make it all okay? It would seem not all modern-day 'Conservatives' were perceptive enough to see through the bias.

Of the policies outlined above, the first two are excellent, as they're designed to support and promote family life. Naturally we should welcome tax cuts, but some additional support for new parents can hardly be a bad thing either. I also think it's fair to say that alcohol has no place on public buses and light rail, and that it's a good idea to change the regime on the taxation of alcohol so that poor-quality drinks a person could only ever drink to get drunk are taxed proportionately more than decent drinks that discerning people can appreciate. But come on, slagging off businesses trying to provide customers with what they want, censorship and complaints about 'damaging liberalistion'? Is this a joke?

The Conservative Party should be about getting the baby back into the bath from which Labour chucked it out a long time ago.

[Sammy Finn]

Guido:

The Standard is quoting from conservativehome.

John Whittingdale left that comment yesterday:

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/localgovernment/2008/08/ed-vaizey-counc.html#comment-125465100

[Jennifer Wells]

There's something very juvenile about so many of the commentators who blog here. One idea entered their schoolboy brains at 15 and that's freedom. The answer to everything is no state, no laws, just licence. Crazy. Life is much more complicated. As David Willetts has so rightly said, a conservative is a libertarian with children.

Libertarians may wish there wasn't a welfare state but there is. So long as the public insists we have such a state the state will need to find ways of reducing social breakdown. Most of Cameron's ideas are necessary for this.

[RichardJ]

"Whether the fabled man in Whitehall knows best or not, the subprime mortgage debacle, failing banks, pollution and climate warming"

It was statist institutions, the Fed and BoE, that encouraged banks to lend wrecklessly. If the commercial banks didn't know they'd have a big daddy bank ready to rescue them they might think twice.

As for pollution, private property rights are the best, if imperfect way to deal with this problem.

[confused]

I don't understand. What does George Osborne know about anything? Why is he the Shadow Chancellor, potentially making decisions about taxes and spending?

[RichardJ]

"There's something very juvenile about so many of the commentators who blog here."

We resent being treated like juveniles. We are fully grown adults and believe we know what is best for our families and children. The government and other people may have differing opinions but I see no reason why those opinions should be forced on us. I don't want to force people how to live their lives, in return I resent being forced how to live mine. Personally I have no time for drug-taking, promiscuity etc but those are my choices.

"Libertarians may wish there wasn't a welfare state but there is. So long as the public insists we have such a state the state will need to find ways of reducing social breakdown."

But does the public really insist on a welfare state that rewards people for their own stupidity? I suspect a lot of people who support the current welfare system would not support free treatment for drug addicts or teenage mothers. Our aim should be to slim down the welfare state while we can, not further extend government control to deal with the consequences.

[DAVID TUFNELL]

I believe people should make informed decisions about their life style which means that government has to ensure accurate information is readily available and understandable. "Traffic lights" on food items is but one example.

[the last toryboy]

Some of this seems fine. Tax breaks for marriage, I can support that.

But on the other hand...

"Protect people from violent films"??? what on earth is that all about?

How on earth is it the states business and not the parents business?

Assuming a film is even something you need 'protecting' from at all.

There is already the classification system, you need more?

[the last toryboy]

And the reason why state interference is always so suspect is because, well - look at the state.

The fact is that only a very slim minority of politicians have any place in lecturing other people about morality or how to run their lives, because just look at them! Theres something about motes and beams in the Bible, maybe they should read that.

[Jennifer Wells]

Three questions for the libertarians:

1/ What will you do about the fact that most of the children who disrupt classrooms are the children of broken homes?

2/ That many families are drowning in debt, debts that they incurred by entering agreements with smallprint they never read?

3/ Travelling home on the tube is often a nightmare because of alcohol-fuelled loutishness. Would you end the alcohol ban that has improved things so much?

[the last toryboy]

and regarding subprime - the housing market is the most trussed up, regulated market there is. How anybody could dare describe the current situation, with stamp duty, planning laws, government dictated interest rates etc as "laissez-faire" is beyond me.

[RichardJ]

"1/ What will you do about the fact that most of the children who disrupt classrooms are the children of broken homes?"

Privatise the schools, let them deal with it how they choose. Also shut down a welfare system that encourages broken homes.

"2/ That many families are drowning in debt, debts that they incurred by entering agreements with smallprint they never read?"

Tell them to read the sodding smallprint next time. We'd also put an end to Central Banks that encourage commercial banks to lend wrecklessly. And that's before we go into the argument about establishing a 100% gold standard.

"3/ Travelling home on the tube is often a nightmare because of alcohol-fuelled loutishness. Would you end the alcohol ban that has improved things so much?"

We'd privatise the tubes and leave it up to then owners. As they're currently state-run there's nothing wrong with the authority running them trying to run them as if they were privately owned. Therefore I have nothing against the booze ban, providing it works.

[the last toryboy]

For Jennifer Wells

1) Homes broken by the welfare state, things like tax breaks for marriage might wean people off that. So I can support that.

2) That is a combination of things, a failure of existing regulations because the FSA were not doing their job, and most importantly of all, the blame can be laid at the door of one G.Brown who kept interest rates too low for too long thus causing a huge boom in his desperate attempt to stop the business cycle. I rather doubt that radical measures like abolishing the government monopoly on currency are ever going to happen, but more regulation isn't the answer. If politicians are going to meddle with interest rates they need to do a better job.

As for bailing out the imprudent with the money of the prudent, that is just sick. I wasn't fool enough to get mortgaged up to the hilt. Many many people were not in fact. Those who did need to accept the consequences of their actions and move on, maybe after bankruptcy proceedings. The idea that they should be entitled to some of /my/ money because I didn't get into that position is frankly vile. I may as well have mortgaged myself up to the eyeballs as well if thats the society we live in. Hardly encouraging responsibility is it.

3) No opinion or experience, I don't live in London.

[brian]

@Jennifer Wells

1/ What will you do about the fact that most of the children who disrupt classrooms are the children of broken homes?

I would remove the disruptive children to a special unit and I would make it possible for teachers to manhandle disruptive children without fear of losing their jobs. Discipline has to start somewhere and if the parent won't do it then teachers should be able to enforce some discipline without being fired.

2/ That many families are drowning in debt, debts that they incurred by entering agreements with smallprint they never read?

I would do nothing - they've learned an important lesson which is "Never sign before you read". You cannot protect people from their own stupidity or greed.

3/ Travelling home on the tube is often a nightmare because of alcohol-fuelled loutishness. Would you end the alcohol ban that has improved things so much?

No. The ban is a good idea. Libertarians believe that you can live as you wish without harming others. Loutishness is no covered as it is being deliberately offensive to others.

[Chad Noble]

Jennifer, well let's look at the Tory answers:

#1 Blame heterosexual lads' mags.

#2 Continue to take a huge slice of people's money in tax instead of reducing the state and letting people keep more of their *own* money.

#3 Ban alcohol on public transport for everyone instead of policing existing laws and punishing the small minority of wrong-doers.

[Spectator]

councilhousetory said:
"At a meeting in 1975, Margaret Thatcher reached into her briefcase and pulled out a book. According to John Ranleagh in Thatcher's People, she held the book up for all of us to see - 'this' she said sternly, 'is what we believe' and she banged the book down on the table.

The book was The Constitution of Liberty by F A Hayek."

A most interesting book - especially the apendices. One of them is a essay entitled "Why I am not a conservative". Hayek described himself as a Burkean Whig - the very antithesis of conservatism.

[Bob B]

"It was statist institutions, the Fed and BoE, that encouraged banks to lend wrecklessly. If the commercial banks didn't know they'd have a big daddy bank ready to rescue them they might think twice."

Calling Walter Bagehot a statist is a new one for me and looks like the predictably juvenile stuff from the libertarian lobby.

Just why did central banks, like the BoE and the Fed, evolve a lender of last resort facility to stem the domino effect of banking panics in the first place?

For the history, try Michael Bordo: The Lender of Last Resort - Alternative Views and Historical Experience
http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/economic_research/economic_review/pdfs/er760103.pdf

[Malcolm Dunn]

Some of the answers you've received Jennifer defy belief. If that's what Libertarian means count me out!

[RichardJ]

"Just why did central banks, like the BoE and the Fed, evolve a lender of last resort facility to stem the domino effect of banking panics in the first place?"

Because we had a fractional reserve gold standard rather than a 100% gold standard. It is notable that the Fed and BoE couldn't prevent the Great Depression. In fact they may well have helped to exacerbate it.

"Some of the answers you've received Jennifer defy belief. If that's what Libertarian means count me out!"

Which answers in particular? I know my comment about privatising the schools was radical but refusing to bail people out for not reading smallprint is hardly shocking.

[Richard]

1/ What will you do about the fact that most of the children who disrupt classrooms are the children of broken homes?

Give the schools the power to punish them for their bad behaviour. Teachers should be allowed to use the cane in schools. The home life of these children is no excuse for their bad behviour.

2/ That many families are drowning in debt, debts that they incurred by entering agreements with smallprint they never read?

That is their own fault. The print may be small but it should still be read.

3/ Travelling home on the tube is often a nightmare because of alcohol-fuelled loutishness. Would you end the alcohol ban that has improved things so much?

There should be no ban on alcohol on public transport. Alcohol is not the problem, it is the bad behaviour. What you need to do is punich the act - in this case loutishness - and not the cause - alcohol.

We need to stop making excuses for people who behave badly or make a mess of their lives.

[Lindsay Jenkins]

Spot on Richard J and quite a few others too.

Most surprising that a Conservative would back a middle way. That is the land of the Fabian – third way, middle way. Nudge, nudge towards more state control, more state interference. And heavens its been going on for a 100 years so we should have realised what it's all about by now.

And is privatising schools or indeed privatising the health service really so radical? Think about nationalising them in the first place. How extreme was that?

[Deus Ex Machina]

Whether the fabled man in Whitehall knows best or not, the subprime mortgage debacle, failing banks, pollution and climate warming"

It was statist institutions, the Fed and BoE, that encouraged banks to lend wrecklessly. If the commercial banks didn't know they'd have a big daddy bank ready to rescue them they might think twice.

As for pollution, private property rights are the best, if imperfect way to deal with this problem.

This is just wrong. how do private property rights deal with the classic problem of externalities in the modern world? Similarly you cant not have central banks. this is actually a legitimate example of the state adding value, all be it one that requires significant reform. you cant just plonk a copy of 'the wealth of nations' on the table and say 'debate over'.

we need to be sensible, in this discussion take your lead from Bob B and Jennifer Wells

[RichardJ]

"how do private property rights deal with the classic problem of externalities in the modern world?"

If your factory pollutes my back garden I'll sue you.

"Similarly you cant not have central banks"

People used to say that about exchange controls and state-owned water companies.

[Chocolate Orange]

"But surely there is a middle way between state control of social life and a complete laissez-faire approach? You could even call it conservatism! Here's an incomplete list of where the current Tory leadership has been willing to reject both state control and a laissez-faire approach"

"In today's Telegraph Mary Riddell writes about the party having "staked out a limbo between the Left's command-and-control instinct and the Right's wish to expunge the state from family life." This isn't easy territory. There isn't ideological purity but, as Riddell suggests, most people will approve of most of David Cameron's 'limbo choices'."

NNNOOOOO!!!!!

The enthusiastic adoption of "nudging" by Cameroons is not surprising. It is another form of Blairite triangulation to justify the Cameroons' social democracy - what Harold MacMillan called The Middle Way and was labelled Butskellism in the 1950s.

Nudging appeals the new Tory political class who delight in hectoring and patronising people on their lifestyle choices.

The big question is what happens if nudging fails or appears to fail in the eyes of the Cameroons. So far, on green issues, Dave and Gideon have announced policies introduce new taxes, regulations and nannies. That's not judging, it a kicking with a jackboot.

[Guido Fawkes]

I'm a Libertarian with children. The problems of family breakdown have more to do with the perverse incentives of the welfare state than too much freedom.

[Venture Man]

I knew a Martin Ball back in his (and my) CCF days ("Conservative Past" if you will). Good man and committed libertatian conservative.

It is a false dichotomy to insist on nanny-state control vs. laissez-fair law and do as you please.

A free society will need to evolve strong social norms, and your actions will have social consequences. Good reputation and pro-social behaviour will affect how others treat you - as a customer, employee, parent, pupil, friend, partner, etc. You may have less insulation from the consequences of your actions than you do today.

Victorian mechanisms for modern values, you might say.

[Lindsay Jenkins]

I agree Chocolate Orange. If you read The Middle Way it is a justification for nationalising the means of distribution - a half way house to full nationalisation. And where did MacMillan get the arguments from? The Fabian Society.

So David Cameron, in taking a leaf out of Blair/Macmillan etc, is going down a well marked socialist road. Unfortunate.

[Tony Makara]

The art of government inevitably means a degree of control, the question is whether the degree of government is in the collective interest of the people and bourn out of pragmatism, or whether it serves only the interests of a few.

A great deal of the control imposed by the Labour government has been ideologically driven. It has been government aimed specifically at empowering statism and therefore government for governments sake. Hopefully a Conservative government will learn lessons from this and move away from the controlling instinct of the state. Certainly we must have government and government must impose legislation when it is in the interests of the nation. However government using government to empower government presents a dangerous scenario and must be countered.

[Andrew Ian Dodge]

"Nudging" is authoritarianism with a euphemistic name. Its statist meddling and not "the middle ground".

Not surprised Wittingdale has something reasonable to say. He is a sound bloke and one of the only decent MPs left in Cameron's team.

I see many commentators here are pushing the authoritarian line that libertarianism/laissez faire= anarchism. This is a misnomer that is either duplicitous when peddled or shows a complete lack of understanding of libertarianism.

[Venture Man]

So lets take the list at the top and see:

Maternity nurser / health visitor provision: piggy backing advice on existing welfare services - paternalist. And ignoring how much mothers can worry about HVs being invasive and judgmental.

Marriage tax allowance - just a fairness/neutrality argument - no relevance

Support for voluntary sector counselling services - pro-social so long as there is a plan to ween them off state support and become truly voluntary.

Calling out firms on inappropriate choices - fine so long as it avoids hectoring, threatening or regulating - doing fine so far and a contrast to Labour. Though not sure Gove got it quite right - hard to tell through the media madness.

Store credit cooling off - pure paternalism though that does not prove it is not right.

Alcohol taxation - underlying message of rationalising alcohol taxation and aligning it alcohol content is fine - eye-catching headline was pure new labour spin.

Public transport alcohol ban - legitimate action of a transport operator, though arguably a second-best to actually enforcing laws against public-drunkness and loutishness.

Gambling - pure paternalism again - but again one with an arguable case in its favour.

Film violence - mixed messages agani muddled by spin - with a illiberal mood emerging whether intended or not.

Overall the mistake would seem to be assuming that all this amounts to a coherent policy. Cameroon seems clear on the rules of nudging but not sure the rest of the shadow cabinet get it.

[Malcolm Dunn]

Richard J. All your answers @12.32 were nonsensical in my opinion. I wasn't sure if you were serious or not.

[Tony Makara]

In response to Malcolm Dunn on RichardJ, sometimes I get he feeling that RichardJ is tripping over himself in an attempt to prove that he is a hardcore Thatcherite. As someone who believes in privatization myself I am forced to recognize that there are some areas that cannot be privatized. Nontheless I believe we should still allow certain state-owned concerns, like education, to operate as independently of the state as possible.

[brian]

@Malcoln Dunn at 12:49

"Some of the answers you've received Jennifer defy belief. If that's what Libertarian means count me out!"

Maybe this will help http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/libertarian

You can always use this quiz to decide where you stand (ignore the US "Bonus" questions at the bottom)

http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp/index.html

[RichardJ]

"Richard J. All your answers @12.32 were nonsensical in my opinion. I wasn't sure if you were serious or not."

They might be radical but hardly nonsensical. Schools used to be privately run once. People who don't read the smallprint have only themselves to blame. I said I supported the tube drink ban providing it works but would prefer the tubes to be privatised so the owners could decide. How are those ideas nonsensical?

[John Leonard]

Much as I side with the freedom and self-determination of the individual over the state, I do think that this debate is currently two-dimensional when it should be three-dimensional.

I find it interesting that no one here has considered the commercial aspects to these matters and whether the actions of the Conservatives are intended to curb the excesses of commercial power without getting into an outright dispute with those very commmercial interests rather than interfering in individuals lives?

In my view one of the reasons why this country is now in the state it is because for 11 years Blair, Brown and the rest of their labour lackies have been in awe of the commercial sector. As a result we have a credit crunch and all the symptoms that will ensure Labour's downfall.

Are those defending the rights of individual choice actually unknowingly defending commercial interests against their own best interests? Are politicians actually trying to defend the individual and society from corporate greed and excess?

Have we reached a situation where the actions of commercial organisations are paramount? Are we saying that Government, the nation, society, the family and the individual are now subservient to the demands and actions of the commercial sector?

When it comes to choice of how my society is moulded, if I am to hand that choice to someone else. I would rather it be an elected political body (imperfect as it is) that I and my peers can get rid of if needs be, than to kow-tow to a set of commercial interests who are controlled by a select few, many of whom reside outside the jurisdiction and control of this nation or its people and whose sole interest is their own advancement and the bottom-line.

Perhaps, just as the Conservative's had to curb the powers of the Unions back in the 80's now perhaps they need to curb the powers of selective parts of the commercial sector for the good of the country as a whole and for the good of the people within it?

[Tony Makara]

What is a free society anyway? Are our women free to walk in safety late at night. Are old people safe in their homes? Are teenagers safe from knife crime? Those who claim to stand for laissez-faire run the danger of becoming as ideological and dogmatic as free-traders or communists. Liberty cannot be extended to those who menace society. The first prerequisite of civilization is order and respect for the forces of law, all else follows.

[Chocolate Orange]

The enemies of freedom are never finally vanquished. They always live to fight another day. Today we can see the enemies of freedom preparing a renewed assault on our liberty. They do not mean to harm us. In fact, they mean to help us. But their ideas are out of date, their methods have failed and their advance must be derailed. I am speaking of the politicians and public officials who believe that they know best how to organise our lives.

We are seeing this bureaucratic over-reach in the EU too. The desire for harmonisation and homogenisation – on tax, on regulation, on so many aspects of public and private life. It is the last gasp of an outdated ideology, a philosophy that has no place in our new world of freedom.

David Cameron, November 2007 (Hat tip to Guido).

From freedom to bureaucratic nudge in 9 months how very very sad and depressing!!!

[thatcherite and proud]

Three questions for the libertarians:

1/ What will you do about the fact that most of the children who disrupt classrooms are the children of broken homes?

2/ That many families are drowning in debt, debts that they incurred by entering agreements with smallprint they never read?

3/ Travelling home on the tube is often a nightmare because of alcohol-fuelled loutishness. Would you end the alcohol ban that has improved things so much?

Answers form the free market camp:

1) Reduce the public welfare handouts which encourage reckless breeding, and discriminate against couples in welfare allocations. It it was tougher to be a single mother (and I'm talking about the feckless youth not divorcees and widows) Sharon would think more before getting up the duff.

2) The FSA already is more proscriptive on lendign (fair treatment, know your customer, best advice, 14 day cooling off) than in almost any other area of life. Still didn't help as the problem is lenders making poor business calls knowing the government will bail them out. A few bank runs, and bank failure would do far more to stop the debt crisis of families that any demand management. So stop the moral hazard of bailing out lenders who lend to poor credit individuals - Northern Rock etc government interference encourages lending to such people

3) Run the tube as a for profit business where the decision to allow or not allow alcohol is determined by the impact on revenues - let consumers decide if, voting with their money, they prefer alcohol free, or alcohol serving transport.

Your see Jenifer - all these problems are in part created by political interference, the question is just who you trust more to provide answers - individuals, or politicians.

[Malcolm Dunn]

Richard J, privatising schools and the London Underground would help promote good behaviour how exactly?

[Alan.S]

I have not verified the numbers below but it is indicative of the public view of Parliament
"The 635 members of the House of Commons, are the group that cranks out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us inline and they have the following recent history.
29 have been accused of spouse abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
9 have been accused of writing bad cheques
17 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year"
We definitely need less interferrance in our own lives from the people who obviously cannot live their own responsibly

[Jennifer Wells]

The libertarians have provided no convincing answers to my questions of 12:20pm.

[private success, public failure.]

"The libertarians have provided no convincing answers to my questions of 12:20pm."

At least they offer hope - Better the chance of success with a new approach than the demonstarted failure of Government "solutions".

PS your tube question is frankly ridiculous - this sort of policy is exactly the thing that private companies decide all the time - and the measure of maximising profit is a much better arbitrator of consumer's beign happy with the result that grandstandign politicos.

[Donald Burling]

Every good manager knows that not enough supervision allows things to drift; too much suppresses initiative and leaves people frustrated.

If we abolished government we would be free to murder, steal and do anything else we wanted. Few would advocate that kind of freedom.

I happen to believe that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom", and that people would be happier if guided by principles of Christian morality, If they can be nudged rather than forced in that direction, so much the better.

[Andrew Ian Dodge]

As someone who believes in privatization myself I am forced to recognize that there are some areas that cannot be privatized.

Like what for instance? Just remember those privitised industries that are so bad are that way because of government meddling and/or with the case of the railways they were not fully privitised.

Some people don't seem to get that the fact that people are getting murdered is because of government meddling. First they take away the right of the individual to defend him or herself; then they give children so many rights that young thugs are almost untouchable.

[John Barstow]

Yes I agree you can definately call the approach 'Conservatism.'.

Conservatism is about stewardship, about conserving what is best and upholding vital British interests and traditions. How Conservatism it ever got associated with 19th century unfettered liberalism is quite a mystery.

The market economy and economic freedom is generally a good thing, but to any instinctive Conservative family and society values demands that the market has certain limitations. Take sunday Trading. Yes hard work is fine, but people need a day of rest, otherwise they got trapped on a 7 day treadmill. Hence the sound rationale for restrictions on sunday trading. And we are the party of the established church. That is one example.

And Mrs. Thatcher herself was quite pragmatic in economic affairs. She was pro the NHS delaring it 'safe in our hand' and she recognized the limitations on privatisation. - hence her recognition of Royal Mail as a vital strategic service, evolved our 300 years.

Successful enterprize economies have sound state infrastructures(e.g. Singapore).

And anyway there is much more to Conservatism than about discussing an approach to ecomic affairs. Protection of the Constitution and our instiutions is one such important value. Conservatives like to cherish instiutions. Labour aided and abetted by Liberals like to indulgin constitutional vandalism which the UK has suffered in the past 11 years. I personally would have no objection to the restoration of hereditary peers.

So yes there is a fair lot of blue water between us and Labour.

[Chocolate Orange]

"The libertarians have provided no convincing answers to my questions of 12:20pm.

Posted by: Jennifer Wells | August 07, 2008 at 17:40"

Because we cannot be bothered with you, your inflated self-importance or your silly questions.

[David Sergeant]

Mr Ball is saying two things. The choice is between nannying and free market and nudging is the same as nannying.

Nudging is the same as nannying in the same way walking is to sprinting. The idea that government should offer no incentives for doing sensible things or disincentives for doing silly things is crazy. I suspect Mr Ball is actually a Labour troll trying (it would appear successfully) to stir up the lunatic fringe of the Conservative party. The idea that there is no room for policy between individual freedom and going further down the authoritarian route is simplistic nonsense. For a start you can have a policy of backtracking down the authoritarian route. One can only say that some of the stuff written by "free marketeers" is so impractical to be childish, they can't be serious, or Conservatives.

[David Belchamber]

The trouble is we have now had 11 years of Labour government with all the micro-management, welfare dependence, non-jobs, PC nonsense, dumbed down exams and all the other things that you normally associate with Labour.

Government should merely try and create a benign environment, in which businesses, institutions and individuals can flourish and grow, restrained only by legislation that prohibits truly anti-social behaviour.

Government, get off our backs but control excesses that impact on other people.

"Liberty without Licence";

[David Cooper]

Anyone who saw the "greetings cards" episode from the last series of The Apprentice will recall how the losing team fell down by choosing to promote cards with an aggressive environmentalist message. Sir Alan famously described the approach as "preachy". Fair analogy?

Put another way, a message of this kind from a government spokesman asking nicely that people act or refrain from acting in a certain way will have two possible underlying messages: -

1. Do as we ask or we will make law. A couple of weeks ago I suggested that this would be replacing the rule of law with the "rule of the threat of law" - not desirable.

2. Do as we ask or we will wring our hands and get rather angry. This would prove the nudge in question to have had as little force, and possibly to have created as much resentment, as the famous exhortation to eat five egg sized potatoes every day.

Of course the public at large may indeed do as asked ("as nudged") rather than as forced by law. But is it right, at a time when the electorate is demonstrating that it is fed up with 11 years of having been overtaxed, overregulated, overgoverned and badly governed (and excessively governed by the EU, but let's not stray too much), to be backing some form of benevolent paternalism as a panacea for good government?

[Tanuki]

David Cooper@19:22 gets is sort-of right but from the wrong end of the tube.

A democratically elected government is always the *servant* of those who elected it, not their master.

The future should be for the Electorate to say to the Government Do as we tell you - or you and your party will deservedly spend the next couple of decades in squalid electoral oblivion.

[Bob B]

"As for pollution, private property rights are the best, if imperfect way to deal with this problem."

How exactly have property rights protected those enduring the noise pollution from Heathrow?

Some (many?) scientists are saying more extreme weather - and the damage it brings - are the result of global warming. If so, whom do I sue if my neighbourhood gets flooded or my roof gets blown away by a tornado?

Technical stuff: resolving externalities issues via litigation or bargaining, as Coase suggested [*], was based on the working assumption for purposes of the analysis that litigation or bargaining costs are negligible. But that is hardly a realistic assumption for the real world, especially if many parties are involved either as prospective polluters or as victims.

In any event, resolution via bargaining or litigation very much depends on how property rights are defined in law. One of many complaints about China's government concerns inadequate or no compensation for those adversely affected by the building of dams and other state projects.

Compensation settlements remain outstanding from the dioxin disaster at Bhopal on 3 December 1984.

[*] the reference is to the Coase paper: "The problem of social cost" (Journal of Law and Economics, October 1960):
http://www.sfu.ca/~allen/CoaseJLE1960.pdf

[RichardJ]

"Richard J, privatising schools and the London Underground would help promote good behaviour how exactly?"

Jennifer asked what I thoht of the booze ban on the underground. I said it should be up to the tube operators. Therefore it would be them who decided how to prevent bad behaviour. The same applies to schools - privatising them allows them to a)expel bad children and b)means that those who actually pay for their education have an incentive to maketheir children behave. Alternatively many badly behaved children should have left school at 14 to start work. Learning is clearly not for them and better they are doing something productive than making life difficult for everyone else.

"How exactly have property rights protected those enduring the noise pollution from Heathrow?"

They haven't because the government won't allow them to. Most libertarians would take the view that if an airport is making your life Hell then you're entitled to sue for compensation. Unfortunately the government puts the interests of the airport above the interests of justice.

[Malcolm Dunn]

A total cop out Richard.

[Geoff]

I used to know Martin Ball about 10 years ago assuming it is the same one. If it is; his views are similar to then and I still have a great deal of sympathy with many of them.

He also had a nice sideline at the time in selling A4 laminated photographs of Baroness Thatcher.

[RichardJ]

"A total cop out Richard."

Malcolm, I am actually quite surprised by your comment. I have made genuine attempt to answer your points and that is your response without even explaining why I have copped out. The point I have been making is that it is up to private individuals and institutions to find ways to deal with loutish or unpleasant behaviour. Libertarians believe in private property rights - which means that policies on how to deal with badly behaved children in schools or on the tubes should be decided by the owners of those institutions. When commit acts of aggression e.g. murder, burglary then the government steps in via the police force.

[RichardJ]

For what it's worth, if I was running a the tubes I would probably introduce a booze ban for an experimental period to see if it worked. If I was running a school I'd reintroduce traditional teching methods and isolate trouble makers from those wishing to learn, expelling them if they didn't buck their ideas up. You don't need the government to do that, just for schools to have the freedom to do it themselves. So how exactly is that a cop-out?

[snegchui]

In freedom, there are two sides that must be reconciled in their contradictory starting points: (1)Freedom to do actions: (2)Freedom from the actions of others. Government, community action , Religion , call it what you like will have the role of arbiter or the rule of might is right will prevail.
Can argue till the cows come home or skip over the hills and far away, there will be subjective resolutions which you can only try to mitigate by making the collective decision as broad as possible. Like sports, I would, when in doubt, favour the attacker (freedom to)
A point of view.

[Oberon Houston]

This debate is interesting. For those who are new to Tory politics, you may be starting to realise that there are people from the same party who have very different views.

This is nothing new. The conservative party essentially boils down to a coalition of two groups, and therefore policy must balance our traditionalist and communitarian (local governance) wing against those in the libertarian and individualist wing. Thatcher coined a name for this - Wet and Dry (as opposed to Left and Right). Understanding that there are different positions within the party is important I think as it means less violent disagreement and more specific debate.

Malcolm I'm surprised at you - the dismissive attitude towards Richard seems to fail to realise what 'wing', or camp, he is in. For me I'm a bit of both (Wet & Dry - but more Wet if that helps - Tim Montgomeris is very Dry, Guido is Wet, Chad Noble is so wet he has become a fish and swum away.... etc. etc...)

Compromise will be needed by both factions in policy development, and it always did. Nothing new folks, get used to it and keep the debate going.

[John Barstow]

Part of the reason why we need good enlightened state intervention from time to time is for sound Tory reasons i.e. patriotism and the UK National Interest.

Take energy security. It is degrading that we are so dependent on Europe for energy supples and that Labour ministers go to the continent with their begging bowls begging for cheaper deals.

We therefore need to think British and invest massively in our own domestic energy
base, with particular reference to nuclear and clean coal. With our own domestic energy services soundly led we can provide good skilled employment for generations of british people and sell cheaply to UK industry and improve its competitive edge globally not to mention sell cheap to the UK customer who is also a UK voter. So it is in our own interests as Conservatives to have a policy like this.

Patriotism equals Conservatism.

[Oberon Houston]

... waiting for Cahd Noble to read my post at 07:45... spot the deliberare mishtake [sic] Chad....

[Malcolm Dunn]

The owners of those institutions Richard are the state and David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove etc are trying to make those institutions better than they are currently.
Who owns them really is irrelevant. I'm interested in practical politics which will improve the lot of the people not ideological battles that have little practical application. We went through all that in the FCS in the '80's when the Libertarian wing of the party seriously argued that there should be the 'freedom' to use heroin. I had thought we'd grown up as a party since then. (Not suggesting Richard that you're arguing for the freedom to use heroin) but I completely fail to see how privatising schools or the LU would suddenly make the people who use them behave better. That's why I called your response a cop out.

[RichardJ]

"The owners of those institutions Richard are the state and David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove etc are trying to make those institutions better than they are currently."

Jennifer was asking what the (pure) libertarian answer was so I gave it. Nobody said it had to be politically possible :p. I certainly wouldn't go into an election calling for the privatisation of the schools!

My most recent post before this one set out what I thought politicians running those institutions should do to improve behaviour, albeit in very brief detail. Incidently I think a libertarian-style assault on aspects of the welfare state that encourage people to breed without responsibility and dispose of the fathers could be popular. This might go some way to fixing the problem of bad behaviour in schools in the long term.

[Kenneth Walker]

'Nudging' is another form of 'nannyism'. What do you do if the 'nudging' does not work? Ignore it and say, "What the hell" or proceed to the logical next step of introducing legislation to produce the desired effect (which it won't)? It is not the function of government to express preferences about social behaviour. The principle that people should be free to act in any way that they please provided that their bevaviour does not harm others is a fundamental precept of true Conservatism. Legislation must be limited to protecting the public from behaviour which does harm others.

[Bob B]

Any more for 125% mortgages?

Try Yvette Cooper, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, on Northern Rock and mortgages on Newsnight . . .
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1cxZOjeCX0

[Mark Demmen]

I would think that most liberal conservatives accept that maintaining freedom under the rule of law is the most important function of government, hence the traditional concept of the 'strong' state.

The current debate is surely about what else the state could and should do. My fear is that the nudge agenda is simply another example of the Tory party following the intellectual mainstream because it doesn't really know what it believes, just as the party absorbed the politics of the welfare state in the early post-war years. This is the fundamental weakness of conservatism identified by Hayek, and which was left unaddressed in the Tory party, with disastrous results for the nation - still playing out - until the Thatcherite counter-revolution.

It seems clear that Cameron and co have become wedded to a vision of a moralising, busybody state, and have failed to recognise that the expansive state is the source of many of our problems - corroding individual responsibility and the vitality of the little platoons. The party appears to have returned to its old bad habits.

I'd lay a bet that the opinion poll support will start sliding. People have just had enough of the political class interfering in their lives.

[Fred]

"Libertarians believe in private property rights - which means that policies on how to deal with badly behaved [drinkers] on the tubes should be decided by the owners of those institutions."

To hell with that approach. If I am a consumer of that service why the hell shouldn't I have the right to determine directly how the service is provided? Boris should have told the tube bosses to run a poll and then determine from that whether drinking on the tube should be permitted. But we all know that would have ended up with the exact same policy as we have today.

I'm glad that this issue has come up though. It seems the blog world is nothing more than the natural home of the lunatic libertarian wing of the Tory party. I'm a Tory party supporter but I definitely don't believe in libertarianism. Libertarianism is exactly the kind of nonsense that gets our party into trouble every time. WWII veterans that end up living in poverty in their old age, drug addicts living in cardboard boxes, vagrants on the streets - it all gets reported in the newspapers, Mother Theresa pops up and condemns Britain as being worse than Calcutta and before you know it we are the nasty party. Some people can't look after themselves or their own children and it is a constant battle to intervene in their lives and save them from themselves and others. But this is a common-law society so what applies to the weakest members of society must apply to us all. The only way around this is to label those that have difficulty looking after themselves as "mentally disabled" then take some of their rights away to protect the rights of the majority - but there isn't anything particularly libertarian about that and the principle of common-law would be permanentaly washed down the toilet.

[Christopher Chantrill]

Yes, there is a middle way between state control and complete laissez-faire. But it is not politicians "nudging" people. That is still a form of state control.

The middle way is Burke's little platoons, Berger and Neuhaus's mediating institutions, and Novak's three sectors: political, economic, and moral-cultural.

The political sector is the power sector. It should stay out of the moral-cultural sector.

[Chad Noble]

LoL. Just seen your post Obe Wan.

[rod sharp]

Whether it is described as nannying, nudging or some other euphamism, the interference by the state, whatever its political colour, amounts to fascism. My father fought for 6 years from 1939 to get rid of the fascist ideology, but once again it is creeping back insofar as the politicians always know best and must dictate to the rest of we peasants.