Why Progressvism Has Failed

[al Roumi]

bollox. why would anyone but the upper class be conservative if that was even remotely true?

Indeed! That is the very question I ask myself!

My answer for the UK is that the (current) Tories are not actually that conservative, they are very concerned with being a progressive government. Hence the greater tax on the rich that you point to.

Tax cuts are sold on the premise that you will keep what you have, and get more from it -what could be more conservative?

or tax cuts for the rich because a progressive tax system already taxes them more than is healthy for both them and the economy. i.e. little to do with consertvatism at all.

High taxes for the rich are about redistribution of wealth (I can see you shuddering) and should be about boosting the lot of the disenfranchised -that is socially progressive taxation.

And don't give me that "trickle down" tosh, the primary beneficiaries of economic growth are the investors -the rich. Yes growth means more jobs for those without capital investment but the main way for them to feel the benefits of economic power remains some form of wealth distribution, channeling (i.e. through the welfare state) the proceeds of growth directly to helping those not directly profiting from the profits of commerce.

[Furunculus]

My answer for the UK is that the (current) Tories are not actually that conservative, they are very concerned with being a progressive government. Hence the greater tax on the rich that you point to.

Tax cuts are sold on the premise that you will keep what you have, and get more from it -what could be more conservative?

High taxes for the rich are about redistribution of wealth (I can see you shuddering) and should be about boosting the lot of the disenfranchised -that is socially progressive taxation.

PVC has already supplied a perfectly adequate definition of what conservatives 'aspire' to, stick with it; "Conservative means preserving the fabric of society, not entrenching social divide and dysfunction. The term was actually coined to appeal to the lower classes."

Sounds more like an excellent justification for western free-market economies, rather than anything that is specifically tory.

No, I am not a supporter of redistributing wealth as an explicit goal in itself, though i am perfectly comfortable with social welfare including the principle that the richer end of the scale should pay proportionately more. again, there is nothing unconservative in this view.

[al Roumi]

PVC has already supplied a perfectly adequate definition of what conservatives 'aspire' to, stick with it; "Conservative means preserving the fabric of society, not entrenching social divide and dysfunction. The term was actually coined to appeal to the lower classes."

Sounds more like an excellent justification for western free-market economies, rather than anything that is specifically tory.

No, I am not a supporter of redistributing wealth as an explicit goal in itself, though i am perfectly comfortable with social welfare including the principle that the richer end of the scale should pay proportionately more. again, there is nothing unconservative in this view.

Historicaly, "preserving the social fabric" has been used (you may argue abused?) as a manifesto for opposition to all sorts of changes to the status quo, front and center among such changes were attempts to the erode the security and power of the privileged. That the poor or less well off have sided with the status quo rather than choosing to further the promise of greater equality has always been a great tragedy. In any case it is usually the aspiring and middle classes who drive social change, either self servingly or on the behalf of others.

That promise of greater equality sounds sensationalist but it is exactly what drove (drives?) support for communism. It's a harder rationale to understand in the context of somewhere "comfortable" like the present day UK, but far far easier in say early 1900's Russia, Italy etc where the rich/poor contrast was so stark and there was absolutely no safety-net bar your own family and its assets.

Off topic, but in the same vein, to my mind it is the welfare state and post-war progressive politics that did for support for communism in the west, or at least the UK.