Comments by "earthstick" (@earthstick) on "Starmer is Unfit to be Prime Minister: David Starkey" video.

  1. Magical thinking, 'let there be light, and then there was light'. I have to say though, all we are doing, and all we have ever been doing, is talking about it. And as I have said before, 'we can't talk our way out of this...'.
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  2. I agree that leaving the market to distribute resources according to individual needs vs. the individual's financial ability, is better than the state distributing resources according to whatever criteria the state decides. But we do not lack free-market apparatus; we have a decentralized regime, we have privatised rail and utility services, Labour gave the BoE independence, and outsourced much of government to NGOs. Here is the Achilles heel: A functioning free market depends on businesses being willing to compete with each other. Competition drives down prices and makes resources available to more people. But business is motivated by profit, competition is secondary. Businesses would rather gain a monopoly over the market, have no competition, and charge whatever they like. If they cannot achieve a monopoly, then they might decide to form cartels instead of competing. The free-market system alone is incomplete because something more is needed to motivate businesses to compete, otherwise they are only in conflict with the customer. The socialist candidate is centralised regulation, and it is susceptible to corruption. What is the Conservative candidate? To be sympathetic to the free market ideal, the Conservative motivating candidate must be decentralised, and embedded into all players, it is the moral element of free-market spirit. The conundrum is that the business criterion of profit/loss is at best amoral, but it is perfectly evident that profit can be made immorally. If businesses operate without moral judgment while aiming to maximise profit, then they will choose immoral business practices, there's no shortage of evidence. If we are going to pursue the free-market ideal and we have no moral compass, then all that remains is corruptible centralised regulation, i.e. the antithesis of the free-market. A free-market can only function properly if business leaders have a moral foundation. Although the woke cringe at the idea of morals, they are profoundly moralistic. We can also see they recognise the need for morals within businesses because they are enforcing morals such as diversity hire, climate controls, stakeholder capitalism, and so on. The difference is the chosen morals.
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