Paraphrasing Monbiot

Reading George Monbiot's piece entitled "As the dream of economic growth dies, a new plan awaits testing", a wave of fatigue hits me. For a moment I am daunted, as if surveying a vast army massed against me, a horde of fallacy, ignorance and lies, all dressed up in the glittering armour of faux-intellectual twaddle.

But, as Psalm 27 teaches: "Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear".

Amen.

In keeping with the title of this post, the brief paraphrase of Monbiot's article is:

Our economic system is screwed because of too much freedom. The government hasn't interfered enough, and what we need is more government control.

This, according to Moronbiot, is 'a new plan that awaits testing'. In fact it's the same old, dirty, communist turd with a veneer of eco-polish.

As is de rigeur, we get the mis-representation of capitalism, used here to signify the government-regulated corporatist structure which has brought us to this pretty pass, and wearisome though it is, I am forced to restate the meaning of the word:

Capitalism: an economic system based on private property and freedom.

Not for Georgie-boy, of course, anything short of Pol Pot massacring a third of the population is wicked laissez-faire, but he's found himself a 'capitalist' he likes, neo-Keynesian cockwaffler Nuriel Roubini. Why does he like him? Because Roubini is quoted as saying; "Karl Marx, it seems, was partly right". Sure, Karl Marx was partly right, to the same extent that if I drank a pint of weak beer and pissed into the Atlantic Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean would be partly alcoholic. But with the Moron, all roads lead to Marx.

So, anyway, the 'new plan' comes courtesy of a book written by some cunt called Professor Tim Jackson, which I'm not going to bother researching, but my bet is that his professorship came out of one of those posh Christmas crackers. I'm satisfied that if Mong likes it, it must be bad, and from what I can glean, it seems to be a cut and paste job from Hazlitt's 'Economics in One Lesson', where he's taken all the fallacies which Hazlitt explodes, and stitched them together. One thing's for sure;

"It requires more government intervention than we're used to; but so does every option we face from now on..."

Well, of course! Especially since;

"the financial crisis was caused not by isolated malpractice but by the systematic deregulation of the banks by governments, in order to stimulate economic growth by issuing more debt."

Yeah, 'laissez-faire', right? But, I'm confused. You see, in the above statement, the cause of the crisis was government action aimed at creating more debt. That this government action is characterised as 'deregulation' changes nothing. The government intervened in pursuit of a policy to create more debt. That ain't laissez-faire, motherfucker, quite the opposite, that's the government fucking things up, according to your own explanation. So if that was the problem, how the fuck is more government intervention the solution? Don't tell me, I can guess; if we keep doing the same thing over and over again, we're bound to get different results one of these days, right George?

And as ever, shot through Monbiot's musings is the hatred of consumption, and in one way I agree. I think in this age of austerity, poncified, pontificating, ivory-tower reds like George Monbiot are a luxury we can't afford.

Hat tip: An Englishman's Castle