Canada & Conservatism

[Dilip Panjwani]

I like this post because it recognizes that socialism can work when the parties are well known to each other. So Tom, what then do you think about Bob A's idea of circles within circles, in which everything derives down to the local level and reputations of the locality can actually be communicated to higher levels?

Interesting about the Amish. If we took religion totally out of it, could the Amish idea of hard work and dedication of everyone work in Bob A's model of DM? Yes, there are always people who want to be lazy, but the Amish handle this by (I think) having some sort of ... I can't think of the word in English. It means to make the person an outcast. They would be out on their own, not welcome in the Amish community.

And if we talk about lazy people, we must also talk about the Capitalist equivalent ... the domineering property owners who use their property rights (expounded on by Sid in this thread) to keep everyone below them oppressed via high rents and usage costs. If we are going to remove lazy people from the community, maybe we also need to remove these bad actor land owners and give their land back to the community for betterment of the whole society. This could not be done arbitrarily, it must have safeguards, but it seems as necessary as the measures against lazy people.

I am not sure if Bob A would include my idea of circles within circles in his DM, but the set-up of circles within circles would certainly be one of the pillars of a truly Libertarian society...

[Bob Gillanders]

Greed: a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (such as money) than is needed.
If someone is greedy without harming anyone else, you cannot rob him, though you would certainly pity him for wasting his life to accumulate what is not needed! Society is not harmed by greed which does not harm anyone else, but society is certainly harmed by Marxist principles which resort to robbing the rich to reward the lazy...

Greed is a primary cause of poverty in the USA.

The financial crash of 2007 was the result of greedy bankers gaming the system, paying themselves obscene bonuses while foreclosing on home-owners sending them into poverty.

The pharmaceutical industry jacking up prices on life saving drugs sending their customers into poverty.

Large companies paying their CEO’s multi-million dollar salaries, bonuses, and stock option plans, while paying workers less than a living wage.

These are all examples of greed by the few causing poverty to the many. All these people are not lazy. Poverty is the lack of money, not a sign of laziness.

[Dilip Panjwani]

Greed is a primary cause of poverty in the USA.

The financial crash of 2007 was the result of greedy bankers gaming the system, paying themselves obscene bonuses while foreclosing on home-owners sending them into poverty.

The pharmaceutical industry jacking up prices on life saving drugs sending their customers into poverty.

Large companies paying their CEO’s multi-million dollar salaries, bonuses, and stock option plans, while paying workers less than a living wage.

These are all examples of greed by the few causing poverty to the many. All these people are not lazy. Poverty is the lack of money, not a sign of laziness.

The right way of dealing with these greedy companies is to enable non-greedy entities to compete with them in their businesses by providing services at a reasonable price, and thus driving the greedy ones out of business.... not by robbing them as a Marxist would recommend!

[Tom O'Donnell]

...

And if we talk about lazy people, we must also talk about the Capitalist equivalent ... the domineering property owners who use their property rights (expounded on by Sid in this thread) to keep everyone below them oppressed via high rents and usage costs. If we are going to remove lazy people from the community, maybe we also need to remove these bad actor land owners and give their land back to the community for betterment of the whole society. This could not be done arbitrarily, it must have safeguards, but it seems as necessary as the measures against lazy people.

Consider what happened during Covid. Local shops were closed here, while behemoths like Walmart remained open. Crowding hundreds of people into one store as opposed to having people dispersed to many stores. Why did this happen? Did Walmart close down the competition? No, the government did.

If people let the free market play out, then everyone has a choice to support or not support businesses. If I don't like that CEO Joe Blow makes umpteen millions of dollars I don't have to frequent any of his businesses - that is unless government grants him a monopoly or special exemptions and I have no choice.

As for Bob A's idea of local governance, at least where I live we already have that.
I live in a town of about 35K people. Not enough to know every person but small enough that my wife and I have had a sit down meeting with the mayor about a neighbourhood concern for about 30 minutes (she has kept Mondays open for a few hours each week to address citizens' concerns) and we have attended a couple of town council meetings that are open to everyone. My personal view on government is that there are a few - very few - things that need a federal government and that most other things should be handled at a local level.

The neighbourhood concern was people speeding on the roads right near our condo - a big problem since we live across the street from an elementary school and half block from a retirement home - and although it took about a year or so they did eventually put up four-way stoplights which helped manage the problem.

I personally look forward to what happens if/when Musk and Ramaswamy draining the swamp of lifetime civil servants whose only contribution to society is blocking people who want to get things done. From what I've seen they will somewhat copy the Milei plan in Argentina.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Bob A, Sid's suggestion is worth considering. The Marxist brand has just too much baggage attached to it, justified or not.

Those of us with family members murdered and other family members tortured and many threatened with death when they were very old senior citizens have no question or doubt of whether the Marxist brand's reputation is justified or not.

[Frank Dixon]

Canada's political development -- a short overview
By Frank Dixon, Kingston

Part One: 1867-1968

Canada began as a nation with Confederation in 1867, and had Conservative Prime Ministers for 25 of the first 29 years, excepting only Liberal PM Alexander Mackenzie for four years in the mid-1870s, following the Pacific Scandal, over massive Conservative corruption in the cross-country railway planning project. John A. Macdonald, a Kingston lawyer without whose visionary leadership Canada would very likely have become part of the United States by 1900, was PM for about 20 years, and he had been a leader before Confederation as well, being the prime mover of that game-changing concept. He died in office in 1891 at age 76. But the Conservatives were governing with men well into their 70s in the mid 1890s, failing to develop the next generation of leadership talent, leaving a vacuum which the Liberals eventually exploited.

Canada then elected Liberal Wilfrid Laurier, age 55, in 1896 as PM for the next 15 years, at a time when western Canada, especially the prairies, was filling up with European immigrants. The electoral dynamic underwent enormous transformation and expansion, with women finally gaining the right to vote in the 1910s. Laurier, Canada's first francophone PM, had been universally admired, even by his rivals, since he entered national politics in his mid-30s, more than 20 years before becoming PM. Canada became known worldwide during the Laurier era.

Robert Borden served as a very good Conservative PM from 1911 through World War I, when Canada contributed enormously to Britain's sustenance with supplies, and grew its armed forces for a massive effort, leading to eventual victory in late 1918. The Canadian cost in casualties and material was vast; this is insufficiently understood today, since most wider histories barely mention Canada. Income tax was first introduced in that era. Canada was then in a constitutional position of essentially following orders from Britain; this would gradually change towards greater independence in the following decade. Women entered the business workplace in great numbers during the war, with some half a million Canadian males serving overseas.

Borden handed over to the very intelligent, grudge-holding, pedantic Arthur Meighen shortly after the war ended, and Meighen was eventually bested by the peculiar Liberal genius William Lyon Mackenzie King in nasty battles through 1926. Those two had been very bitter enemies since they had first met as undergraduate students at the University of Toronto in the early 1890s. King, who had earned five university degrees, and remains the only Canadian PM to hold a doctorate, would go on to set the record of service term as PM for any Commonwealth nation at that time, more than 22 years. King confounded everyone, friend and foe alike, with his unique governance style. He could never have succeeded in the television era.

King's rule was first interrupted for five years by the wealthy Conservative PM R.B. Bennett from 1930-35, coinciding with the Great Depression, which hit the world very hard, few places harder than Canada, especially in the west. Bennett, a hard-working, imperious lawyer, eventually became the most reviled PM in Canadian history; probably at least 100,000 Canadians died of starvation during that era, although a fully complete and accurate tally has never been compiled. After King won crushing re-election in 1935, Bennett retired at age 65, to the nobility in England. Liberals would rule for 22 straight years, with King retiring in 1948, then handing over to the brilliant Louis St. Laurent. King gave a very good performance as PM during World War II, when Canada was in from the start in 1939 (the USA didn't enter the war until late 1941), and once again punched well above its weight, to enormous societal and material cost. Britain in particular received many billions of dollars in Canadian aid and supplies, mostly never repaid, and even only grudgingly acknowledged publicly.

King and St. Laurent as PMs gradually introduced relief measures such as old age pensions, unemployment payments, and health care assistance, under strong pressure from progressive parties, including the forerunner of today's NDP. The societal impact of smaller political parties in Canada, through limited but effective electoral success, was and remains a major point of distinction from the United States, where there have been two major parties, and two only, for virtually two centuries, leading to today's era of Congressional constipation. The immediate post-war period in Canada was a time of rapid economic growth and development, more secure and higher wages, and a major shift towards an urban landscape. Canada was among the world's most prosperous nations, and attracted new waves of European immigration, this time largely from southern and Balkan Europe, as well as a growing number of non-Caucasian newcomers.

Significant new infrastructure, such as dams, pipelines, hydro networks, nuclear power, highways, air transport, colleges and universities, mines, and residential neighborhoods, was all being developed nationwide, following the war. Newfoundland and Labrador finally entered Confederation in 1949, 75 years ago this year, after nearly a century of lost opportunity since Confederation, through their own indecision and political squabbling. It was, and remained for a good while, virtually a Third World entity, in aspects ranging from economy to education to health care to infrastructure to political integrity. The province has been the main beneficiary of Canadian intra-provincial equalization payments into the hundreds of billions of dollars, much of which has been wasted or embezzled over those eight decades.

St. Laurent stayed on too long as PM, and got into a nasty pipeline squabble. He was defeated at age 75 in 1957 by the upstart surprise Conservative populist John Diefenbaker, who won a minority government, and then a year later won the biggest majority in Canadian history, with about 80 per cent of Commons seats, in 1958. The Liberals were then beset by internal conflict, and generational turnover, and were reduced to a mere rump of their usual nationwide strength.

PM Diefenbaker then gradually squandered his enormous position through party infighting, indecision, and struggles as he encountered regained Liberal strength. Before becoming PM, he had never run anything beyond a small Saskatchewan law office, and it rapidly showed. One description I have recently heard about Diefenbaker cast him as an honest version of Donald Trump, an oversimplification, to be sure, but rather on the mark in many ways. He was a dithering, pompous blowhard, who made more enemies every day, and had little concept of how to govern a nation which spans six time zones. Voters took notice, and elected as PM the Nobel Peace Prize winner, diplomat Lester Pearson, to minority Liberal governments in the mid-1960s. Pearson extended into universal health care, again pressured by the NDP; it was King who had first postulated the modern welfare state for Canada in his classic treatise 'Industry and Humanity' in 1918, before he became PM.

The powerful rise of Quebec protest and nationalism, from the 1950s, saw the bilingualism and biculturalism of Canada developed at last, as Liberal Pierre Trudeau first won the Liberal leadership, then swept to victory as PM, in summer 1968, winning a majority government with strong enough support across the nation. Trudeau, a very wealthy intellectual and activist from Montreal, was not even in Parliament until 1965, and had been a New Democrat until then. The telegenic Trudeau was the first Canadian leader to exploit the power of television in governance and campaign performance.

(End of part one)

[Bob Armstrong]

Dilip decentralization in Libertarianism is called a structure of "circles within circles".

DM's decentralization is called a structure of a "collection of villages (Local Political Units)".

Tom refers to the decentralization experience in a middle sized town of about 35,000 residents.

So it appears that we do have a consensus building that big is not beautiful. Big has separated the elector from those they elect. Big has allowed one nation to hold the rest hostage by the threat of dystopia (Russia putting nuclear option in Ukraine back on the table). Big has led to Capitalism evolving into Big destroying the little businesses, monopolies with conspiracy to keep prices high.

This may be a commonality developing here on CT, which could form the basis of some multi-political supported re-structuring of society here in Canada?

Is this how we can avoid the coming dystopia?



Bob A (Willing to build a civil, citizen-generated, non-political "new societal structure", leaving aside differences re Democratic Marxism for later)

[Bob Gillanders]

Those of us with family members murdered and other family members tortured and many threatened with death when they were very old senior citizens have no question or doubt of whether the Marxist brand's reputation is justified or not.

Sorry Vlad, I didn't anticipate this reaction. I did not intend to deny violence in the past under the brand of Marxism. What your family suffered is terrible and I take your account of it at face value. We do need to strive for a world without violence. I hate political labels, very confusing and with various meanings around the world. That's why I joined Sid in encouraging Bob A. to rename his non-violent democratic version of Marxism.

[Bob Gillanders]

Dilip decentralization in Libertarianism is called a structure of "circles within circles".

DM's decentralization is called a structure of a "collection of villages (Local Political Units)".

Tom refers to the decentralization experience in a middle sized town of about 35,000 residents.

Bob, I think you are on the wrong path. I don't think you can force the world into small units, whether they be circles or LPU's.
If you go small, they will go big, and the big will eat the small.

You need a concept of governance which is scalable.

[Dilip Panjwani]

... encouraging Bob A. to rename his non-violent democratic version of Marxism...

Any version of Marxism still has the unworkable disastrous economic elements of Marxism, with its eventual ruining of society, whatever name you may want to give it...

[Pargat Perrer]

Consider what happened during Covid. Local shops were closed here, while behemoths like Walmart remained open. Crowding hundreds of people into one store as opposed to having people dispersed to many stores. Why did this happen? Did Walmart close down the competition? No, the government did.

If people let the free market play out, then everyone has a choice to support or not support businesses. If I don't like that CEO Joe Blow makes umpteen millions of dollars I don't have to frequent any of his businesses - that is unless government grants him a monopoly or special exemptions and I have no choice.

But there is a second way you can be left with no choice, and also a third way.

Second way: the well-financed business drives out the competition by temporarily lowering prices below levels that a smaller operator can compete with. Amazon has excelled at this business model. As soon as all the competition is bankrupted, the monopoly is in place and prices rise back up. Any new competition that tries to appear will see prices temporarily go down beyond what the new business can charge at a profit.

Third way: the thing that needs donw, whether it's a product or service, is not profitable under ANY business model. But it still needs getting done to meet the needs of some people, which could be you and your family. But since it can't be profitable, it is left undone and your needs go unmet. This is a BIG reason for government taxation, and in a perfect world, all the unmet needs would be filled under taxpayer-funded programs even if they all suffer a loss. Very specialized medical programs would be an example. If you have a child with Down's Syndrome, you need specialized services in your small town.

Also, small point but very important ... no such thing as "free market". If you are against lies spread by mainstream media, you should also hate this term.

As for Bob A's idea of local governance, at least where I live we already have that.
I live in a town of about 35K people. Not enough to know every person but small enough that my wife and I have had a sit down meeting with the mayor about a neighbourhood concern for about 30 minutes (she has kept Mondays open for a few hours each week to address citizens' concerns) and we have attended a couple of town council meetings that are open to everyone. My personal view on government is that there are a few - very few - things that need a federal government and that most other things should be handled at a local level.

The neighbourhood concern was people speeding on the roads right near our condo - a big problem since we live across the street from an elementary school and half block from a retirement home - and although it took about a year or so they did eventually put up four-way stoplights which helped manage the problem.

I personally look forward to what happens if/when Musk and Ramaswamy draining the swamp of lifetime civil servants whose only contribution to society is blocking people who want to get things done. From what I've seen they will somewhat copy the Milei plan in Argentina.

When I brought up small local units (I mistakenly used the phrase "circles within circles" forgetting that was Dilip's term, and Bob A. uses the term "Local Political Units" which sounds like something the Coneheads would say ...
(nasal voice..."Our parental units are attending the meeting of the Local Political Unit at the local judicial offices in the central business area." LOL)
but in any event, I was referring to something Bob said about this, which is that communications pass up and down the chains from the local units to the bigger units to the ultimate biggest unit, and reputations of people (whether they are lazy or greedy or whatever) can be known. Of course, it is an idealized idea and would surely suffer from corruption because .... people are human.

Tom, how would you feel about your "free market" if a train derailed right in your neighborhood spewing toxious chemicals causing the whole town to be evacuated but too late to prevent many people from breathing in toxic fumes ... and you later found out the accident happened because the railroad was deregulated completely and was allowed to ship said chemicals at the lowest cost possible which meant bypassing any safety checks? Happens almost daily in "free market" USA.

[Pargat Perrer]

Any version of Marxism still has the unworkable disastrous economic elements of Marxism, with its eventual ruining of society, whatever name you may want to give it...

and you also wrote to Bob G.:

"The right way of dealing with these greedy companies is to enable non-greedy entities to compete with them in their businesses by providing services at a reasonable price, and thus driving the greedy ones out of business.... not by robbing them as a Marxist would recommend!"

So first of all, there ARE NO NON-GREEDY FOR-PROFIT ENTITIES. None. Zero.

There never will be any unless it is put into law by government but to do that, you'd have to force people to go against their nature. and resourceful greedy people will ALWAYS find ways around it.

So ... BOOM ... there goes Libertarianism up in smoke.

"providing services at a reasonable price" is not a concept for-profit entrepreneurs hold dear. In fact they don't care a fart about "reasonable price" they care only about profit.

You fail to comprehend human nature. You apply laziness to socialists without understanding greed applies to socialists and capitalists and Libertarians alike.

[Pargat Perrer]

Sorry Vlad, I didn't anticipate this reaction. I did not intend to deny violence in the past under the brand of Marxism. What your family suffered is terrible and I take your account of it at face value. We do need to strive for a world without violence. I hate political labels, very confusing and with various meanings around the world. That's why I joined Sid in encouraging Bob A. to rename his non-violent democratic version of Marxism.

It should again be stated that tortures and murders and property expropriations all happen under right-wing fascism as well. One must be against ALL POLITICAL EXTREMISM to be considered to have a fair and balanced viewpoint.

If you want to learn all about the 20th century major events (the two World Wars, the Cold War, etc) which gets deeply into all of communism, socialism, capitalism, fascism and does so in an entertaining fiction narrative, but includes all the major real-life actors and their real-life actions ... Hitler, Chamberlain, Lenin, Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt, Truman, Oppenheimer, Marshall, etc etc ... I highly recommend a trilogy of books by author Ken Follett. In the following order,

"Fall of Giants"
"Winter of the World"
"Edge of Eternity"

These are all very thick books. Follett is a true master of characterization and so you get deeply involved in the characters living out their lives in the real-life 20th century events, and dealing with the consequences of all the extreme political systems as they clash with each other.

but Bob G. you seem to be more of a video watcher than a reader?

[Dilip Panjwani]

and you also wrote to Bob G.:

"The right way of dealing with these greedy companies is to enable non-greedy entities to compete with them in their businesses by providing services at a reasonable price, and thus driving the greedy ones out of business.... not by robbing them as a Marxist would recommend!"

So first of all, there ARE NO NON-GREEDY FOR-PROFIT ENTITIES. None. Zero.

There never will be any unless it is put into law by government but to do that, you'd have to force people to go against their nature. and resourceful greedy people will ALWAYS find ways around it.

So ... BOOM ... there goes Libertarianism up in smoke.

"providing services at a reasonable price" is not a concept for-profit entrepreneurs hold dear. In fact they don't care a fart about "reasonable price" they care only about profit.

You fail to comprehend human nature. You apply laziness to socialists without understanding greed applies to socialists and capitalists and Libertarians alike.

You need to recognize market forces: If providing services at a reasonable price gets one a better market share, that business would go for it. The Libertarian philosophy is to enable lots of competition (from easy access to capital), so that the consumer gains... just as the workers do, with greater demand for their work.

[Peter McKillop]

You need to recognize market forces: If providing services at a reasonable price gets one a better market share, that business would go for it. The Libertarian philosophy is to enable lots of competition (from easy access to capital), so that the consumer gains... just as the workers do, with greater demand for their work.

What is "easy access to capital?" What is the source of this capital? Who decides which business start-ups qualify for easy access? Etc.?