Benn was definitely the best Prime Minister that Britain never had. A man of real integrity and social conscience. During the war promises had been made by the coalition government that "when this was all over", things were going to be better than before. There was to be no return to the squalour and depression of the 1930s, there would be a fairer distribution of resources, more public housing, state-provided medical care, universal free education, and a pensions and welfare system. Benn witnessed the sacrifices which ordinary British people had made, and was wedded to the idea that those promises had to be kept.
You could argue it was Denis Healey that split the party. Its a shame that a split makes the party weaker, just another floor in democracy. Surely democracy is choice and a split is a good thing cause it offers more choice. Unfortunately it doesnt work out like that. Tony Benn you can rest in peace and know you gave your all.
The biggest problem with socialism is that it monopolizes charity - and when anything is monopolized with the state power and its full coersive violent force, it creates all sorts of terrible unintended consequences, where you are not really helping those in need, but you end up creating those who live for being in need countries like france where the tax rate is the highest to support its socialist system, voluntary charity giving is minimal. in countries where government confiscates less money - people give to charity more. private charities can also become corrupt and inefficient but the good news is charities compete against one another so they have the incentive to streamline their operation. But when government is the main source of charity, there is zero competition and very little oversight - there is fat bloated bureaucracy, corruption as power to wield so much money attracts corruption and shameless buying of votes the idea of socialism might have come from a noble sentiment, but the world works in far more complex ways, and cannot be centrally designed by a huge government - because the bigger the goverment, the bigger the distortion and wastage and corruption on all levels.
Easy to say if you're in no particular needs. Charity is a cold, heartless thing, as Clement Atlee put it. Charity doesn't solve people's problems, and can't, logically, because that isn't it's purpose. At best charitable giving is a trade off between selfishness and pity, or guilt, with a point of diminishing delivery vastly short of the elimination of needs. Mostly it's a way for people with money to make themselves feel better about themselves. As such it's a form of commodity, where the rich can purchase social and political honour for themselves. A transaction, rather than a surrendering of wealth or power. It can only work, for the rich, if that deep economic inequaity continues to exist, rather than being solved and ended by the process, and if the conditions of the presumed recipients remains pitiful. Otherwise the return to a donation in terms of social and political honour becomes nil. So a system and an ideology like yours requires that the needy be _kept_ in a pitiful state, rather than lifted entirely and universally out of need and enabled to live in dignity. And this is without pointing out that market relations necessarily and systematically redistribute income from customers, workers and suppliers to the owners of business capital, continuously, so what is being donated is only ever a tny percentage of what wealthy charitable donors extract from the rest of society which makes and keeps them wealthy and others poor. Public services which are universal in their delivery give people rights (and thus freedoms from their inverses) and are necessarily more efficient than private charities, both because they are natural monopolies, and because the state can realise economies of scale which individual charites cannot, and because their delivery is vastly more effective and systematic, which is the part of the concept of efficiency which liberals habitually ignore and forget, assuming that a profit justifies avoidable scarcity of actual supply. There is no intrinisc problem with state institutions being inefficient, or government bureaucracy being any worse than private sector bureaucracy (consider the reams of paper, virtual and otherwise, involved in all the contracts you and I are required to sign all the time for each and every service and product we purchase, hire, lease, borrow and so on, and the vast array of bureaucratic meaningless work and useless jobs the private sector has produced and forced people into over the last century, as lampooned in Mike Judge's Office Space). Public sector efficiency is enforced the same way as private sector efficiency, by pressure from management responding to pressure from politicians, which is endless and relentless. There is always funding restraint, except in the US military, it seems. But from the point of view of those of us in all kinds of need, lets fucking try it, my man. Lets fucking try universal state administered solutions, because out here in the real world, life is getting rapidly more grim for the vast majority of peple, while your way is being tried.
Democratization of the socialists parties. I do agree. Once I was part of the PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores - Worker´s Party) in Brazil, the party which elected Pres. Luís Ignácio LULA da Silva and his successor - Dilma Roussef. I left the party in 1994, in disagreement with the party´s national direction, which chose (actually, imposed) a different name for the party candidate for the Governor´s of Rio de Janeiro, from the name choosen by the majority of the party in Rio. It was unlegal, unfair and autocratic. The party stoped to listen it´s bases and doing so, it turned itself in a centralized and not democratic party. Lost it´s representativiness. So, I left the party in protest (although I was just a junior member - never occupied any post in the party´s administration) for that authocratic behavoir from the central comitte ... which represented Lula. But, anyways, I kept my vote on PT, due to the lack of another larger and workable party from the left in Brazil. When a socialist party lost it´s representativiness, lost it´s "flavor", it´s attractiviness, it´s meaning - and open ways for the right wing parties to win the elections - or stole it, as in the case of the "emperor" Bush II, son of Bush, the 1st - director of CIA. And now the west blame on the Putin´s KGB past !!! What is the difference?
Socialism turns grown men into overgrown children still living at home with his parents. Except even worse, because a state is never benevolent like a real parent. While it takes away your initiative socialist countries - like fascist countriest, are also unforgiving when the myriad rules are not obeyed - considering that we are 5% of the world's population but 25% of the world's prison population one would say that we are doing *extremely well* in comparison with all other socialist/fascist countries in the past.
An idealist in the best possible way. I think his vision is the correct vision, i see a good willed socialism as the only viable method of organising a civilsed modern authentically democratic society.
Tony Benn would have made an awful PM. I respect him immensely but some of his points of view were quite ridiculous and contradictory. He is a true hero of the left though, which is a very rare thing indeed.
Benn was definitely the best Prime Minister that Britain never had. A man of real integrity and social conscience. During the war promises had been made by the coalition government that "when this was all over", things were going to be better than before. There was to be no return to the squalour and depression of the 1930s, there would be a fairer distribution of resources, more public housing, state-provided medical care, universal free education, and a pensions and welfare system. Benn witnessed the sacrifices which ordinary British people had made, and was wedded to the idea that those promises had to be kept.
May he be remembered as a wonderful human who used his time on earth to the betterment of his fellow man.
He was a good man!
You could argue it was Denis Healey that split the party. Its a shame that a split makes the party weaker, just another floor in democracy. Surely democracy is choice and a split is a good thing cause it offers more choice. Unfortunately it doesnt work out like that. Tony Benn you can rest in peace and know you gave your all.
The biggest problem with socialism is that it monopolizes charity - and when anything is monopolized with the state power and its full coersive violent force, it creates all sorts of terrible unintended consequences, where you are not really helping those in need, but you end up creating those who live for being in need
countries like france where the tax rate is the highest to support its socialist system, voluntary charity giving is minimal. in countries where government confiscates less money - people give to charity more. private charities can also become corrupt and inefficient but the good news is charities compete against one another so they have the incentive to streamline their operation. But when government is the main source of charity, there is zero competition and very little oversight - there is fat bloated bureaucracy, corruption as power to wield so much money attracts corruption and shameless buying of votes
the idea of socialism might have come from a noble sentiment, but the world works in far more complex ways, and cannot be centrally designed by a huge government - because the bigger the goverment, the bigger the distortion and wastage and corruption on all levels.
Easy to say if you're in no particular needs. Charity is a cold, heartless thing, as Clement Atlee put it. Charity doesn't solve people's problems, and can't, logically, because that isn't it's purpose. At best charitable giving is a trade off between selfishness and pity, or guilt, with a point of diminishing delivery vastly short of the elimination of needs. Mostly it's a way for people with money to make themselves feel better about themselves. As such it's a form of commodity, where the rich can purchase social and political honour for themselves. A transaction, rather than a surrendering of wealth or power. It can only work, for the rich, if that deep economic inequaity continues to exist, rather than being solved and ended by the process, and if the conditions of the presumed recipients remains pitiful. Otherwise the return to a donation in terms of social and political honour becomes nil. So a system and an ideology like yours requires that the needy be _kept_ in a pitiful state, rather than lifted entirely and universally out of need and enabled to live in dignity. And this is without pointing out that market relations necessarily and systematically redistribute income from customers, workers and suppliers to the owners of business capital, continuously, so what is being donated is only ever a tny percentage of what wealthy charitable donors extract from the rest of society which makes and keeps them wealthy and others poor. Public services which are universal in their delivery give people rights (and thus freedoms from their inverses) and are necessarily more efficient than private charities, both because they are natural monopolies, and because the state can realise economies of scale which individual charites cannot, and because their delivery is vastly more effective and systematic, which is the part of the concept of efficiency which liberals habitually ignore and forget, assuming that a profit justifies avoidable scarcity of actual supply. There is no intrinisc problem with state institutions being inefficient, or government bureaucracy being any worse than private sector bureaucracy (consider the reams of paper, virtual and otherwise, involved in all the contracts you and I are required to sign all the time for each and every service and product we purchase, hire, lease, borrow and so on, and the vast array of bureaucratic meaningless work and useless jobs the private sector has produced and forced people into over the last century, as lampooned in Mike Judge's Office Space). Public sector efficiency is enforced the same way as private sector efficiency, by pressure from management responding to pressure from politicians, which is endless and relentless. There is always funding restraint, except in the US military, it seems. But from the point of view of those of us in all kinds of need, lets fucking try it, my man. Lets fucking try universal state administered solutions, because out here in the real world, life is getting rapidly more grim for the vast majority of peple, while your way is being tried.
RIP Tony.
It's a real loss that we don't have Tony Benn today. He was a true political leader and a man of the people. R.I.P
I wouldn't listen to what the Torygraph has to say about Tony Benn!
Good guy Benn RIP
Democratization of the socialists parties. I do agree.
Once I was part of the PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores - Worker´s Party) in Brazil, the party which elected Pres. Luís Ignácio LULA da Silva and his successor - Dilma Roussef.
I left the party in 1994, in disagreement with the party´s national direction, which chose (actually, imposed) a different name for the party candidate for the Governor´s of Rio de Janeiro, from the name choosen by the majority of the party in Rio. It was unlegal, unfair and autocratic. The party stoped to listen it´s bases and doing so, it turned itself in a centralized and not democratic party.
Lost it´s representativiness.
So, I left the party in protest (although I was just a junior member - never occupied any post in the party´s administration) for that authocratic behavoir from the central comitte ... which represented Lula.
But, anyways, I kept my vote on PT, due to the lack of another larger and workable party from the left in Brazil.
When a socialist party lost it´s representativiness, lost it´s "flavor", it´s attractiviness, it´s meaning - and open ways for the right wing parties to win the elections - or stole it, as in the case of the "emperor" Bush II, son of Bush, the 1st - director of CIA.
And now the west blame on the Putin´s KGB past !!!
What is the difference?
Socialism turns grown men into overgrown children still living at home with his parents. Except even worse, because a state is never benevolent like a real parent. While it takes away your initiative socialist countries - like fascist countriest, are also unforgiving when the myriad rules are not obeyed - considering that we are 5% of the world's population but 25% of the world's prison population one would say that we are doing *extremely well* in comparison with all other socialist/fascist countries in the past.
An idealist in the best possible way. I think his vision is the correct vision, i see a good willed socialism as the only viable method of organising a civilsed modern authentically democratic society.
I imenselly enjoyed this article.
Tony Benn would have made an awful PM. I respect him immensely but some of his points of view were quite ridiculous and contradictory.
He is a true hero of the left though, which is a very rare thing indeed.