Been busy for a couple of days and apparently got a ban for three days for using the L word. Will avoid using it in future but given the situation will go into some detail about why it was appropriate.
It all started back in Feb when in discussing British history, on p20, post 384 in response to Lord Sovereign I posted a brief mention of British economic and social history.
I doubt and hope as a Brit it doesn't get that bad. However something dramatic really needs to happen to remove the Tory party, or at least drastically reducing their insanity since the late 70's. [I think the former is frankly more likely as the level of corruption and nepotism inside the current system is very deeply embedded.]
I should point out that the faulty dogma is not just the stupidity and corruption since 1979 but also was the dominant factor in the period ~1850-1930, much to the devastation of the country and its interests. We could have been much better off as a nation and people if this had been realised as crippling and reversed for good in say the 1880-90s.
This prompted this response p20, post 385
You're painting your own political biases onto the matter. That isn't remotely helpful when it comes to macro-historical analysis.
When it comes to the "turning" in Britain, assume that the universal rules of these things hold true. Party nomenclature is meaningless. The divide of our time is establishment versus populism. To the detached observer, neither side is even close to saintly.
The insanity, corruption and nepotism you reference are systemic. Your bias leads you to fixate on the Tories, but that's dead end-- I think you'll see that, if you consider the matter impartially. After all, only a complete imbecile (one frankly not even worth the rope one might use to hang him) would think Blair better than Cameron (or Corbyn better than Johnson, for that matter). These... figures... are all symptomatic of the same issue. All representatives of the same blighted system.
Of course, the alternative is going to look suspiciously like a next-gen Nigel Farage, with better optics and more radical ideas (including embracing some pretty lefty socio-economic ones). We see that trend across the West with the populist movement. Culturally hard-right, very nativist, anti-immigration, economically protectionist (with even some tendencies towards autarkic plans), against the more elitist forms of social democracy (e.g. subidies for posh stuff) but vocally in favour of redistribution towards the blue collar workers.
Probably not quite the future you're hoping for. Nevertheless the one we're all going to get. Naturally, this isn't going to solve the problems either, but if you take the above, add a few mass executions and remove all semblance of democracy, you have the basic shape of Caesarism.
& - since he replied to the 2nd bit separately.
P.S. -- Your dogged insistence on pretending that the very heyday of British supremacy was somehow bad for Britain continues to baffle me. It's as if you live in a bizarro world, where everything's reversed!
Note that there's a lot of assertion but no actual supporting argument. It contains Skags preference for personal abuse over data with his blind faith. What I said was nothing to do with political bias and everything to do with bitter experience. As I pointed out repeatedly its to do with respective policies rather than party labels.
On the 2nd point as I pointed out in 1850 Britain was the most technologically, economically and industrially powerful nation on the planet. By ~1910 it was at best 3rd and its a well know argument that those two policies were a big factor in that. Others may disagree but unless and until their willing to post reasonable arguments in support of their case rather than simple assertions their right and everybody else is an idiot they will carry no weight with me.
Because while he has shown himself to be foolish in the past I wasn't too surprised but since he had shown some ability to argue reasonably at times I made the error of trying a reasoned response. Post 387, p20
Your applying your own bias rather than knowledge of the facts on the ground.
a) The comparison isn't for an extremely corrupt and parasitical Tory party with Blair - who was basically a Thatcher-lite - or Corbyn - who was very hard left.
Its more with pre-1979 leaders on either side of the divide, the Health's and Callaghan's and their predecessors.
There was no need for Britain, relatively much weaker than in its 1850 version to return to a version of the same dead end other than personal greed and short sighted interests.
b) In ~1850 Britain was the most advanced economy in the world. Inertia keep things going well for a while but the stupidity of the government regime,
especially under the Liberal Party for the 1st ~60 years steadily undermined this. Without government support - such as tariffs or realistic education systems - as in most other developed states Britain increasingly dropped behind.
It wasn't in the interest of owners or the fiscal section to invest in British industries in the face of subsidized competition. A classic example was the steel industry where faced with such an unbalanced playing field existing stock - in which capital had already been invested - was run into the ground and the workforce squeezed as much as possible rather than big spending on new more modern and efficient plants.
Lets be clear. There was no way Britain would maintain a position as workshop of the world because as Disraeli said and history showed the rest of the world wouldn't allow it. However it could have had a much stronger position with a more rational and responsible policy. Larger states such as the US and a unified and centralised German were always likely to overtake us in absolute terms but we could have had a qualitative equivalence per capita with them by say 1914.
You live in a strange world if you think Britain's economic and technological position in 1914-30 relative to its primary rivals was better than it was in
1950.
I note I did make one typo here as I ended referring to 1950 but hopefully its obvious I meant 1850. I pointed out he had misread me - whether accidently or purposely as I was comparing the pre and post 1979 position in Britain. Similarly I emphasised that my stance was on policy rather than party as it was the Liberals mainly responsible for the initial problem. Disreli could be an sick asshole at times and got some things wrong but overall he knew better what the country needed. I also gave reasons why what I said was accurate.
This was the response, post 388
Your irrational hate-boner against sensible economic policies doesn't consitute "facts on the ground", nor does a decent understanding of economics constitute a bias (merely an advantage).
Imagine thinking Tony Blair is "Thatcher lite". That's like thinking Bill Clinton is "Reagan lite". A position usually only embraced by the crowds at international socialist gatherings. In other words: not a view entertained by functioning humans.
But more importantly: trying to pretend that Thatcher or Blair or anyone in this whole period should be compared to pre-1979 figures relies wholly on (guess what) ignoring the facts on the ground. Such as the fact that post-war policies (quasi-communist ones, for a while) had driven Britain to the edge of ruin-- something that had caused Thatcher to emerge in the first place. (Of course, all the economic illiterates blamed everything wrong in the '80s on her, when the reality is that she was too moderate in addressing the underlying problems. Her policies were painful, but in the way that cutting away gangrenous flesh is painful. The problem is that she was actually a 'soft doctor', who balked at cutting away enough. So the flesh-rot remained; and remains to this day.)
All in all, you show a tendency to idolise the idiots who cause the festering wounds, and to then heap all blame on the surgeons who cut away the diseased flesh. That's never going to be a helpful method. Perhaps you would fit in with the coming "Caesarists", though. Probably too brutal and bloody for your liking, but as I outlined, I'm pretty sure our civilisation's specific iteration of that faction will hate free trade and the mercantile spirit-- almost as much as you do.
(Thankfully, every Caesar is followed by an Augustus; the most committed surgeon of them all, who doesn't stop cutting until all the rot is gone.)
You describe the empire that arose out of the chaos of the Napoleonic wars and boomed economically. The empire that conquered a quarter of the planet. The political, economic and military superpower of the age. The naval leader so well-positioned that it could out-produce Germany by three-to-one without major upset, while the German effort ruined the German economy. You decribe all this, and you imagine that it constitutes a failure.
I know that you hate free trade, because you seem to imagine it's the devil and that we need the government to save us-- but do step beyond this impulse for a moment, and grasp that the reason Britain so utterly outcompeted France was that Britain swerved towards free trade, whereas France was stuck in doomed mercantillism. When the Laki eruption destroyed crops across Europe, Britain was well-positioned to import food from elsewhere. France faced shortages, and then famine. That's why there was a French revolution, not an English one.
(And later on, Britain still opted for free trade, whereas Napoleon dicked about with his continental system. I wonder how that went for him...?)
You don't even realise this, because you have to blame everything on the liberals, but the truth is: they only consolidated a pre-existing trend. A glorious trend. A bountiful trend. One that brought prosperity and stability, and allowed Britain to shove all rivals off the map. The so-called Great Game? Russia lost that. The French? Turned into little bitches after Fashoda.
The policies that you imagine were so terrible were the ones that allowed Britain to basically win the nineteenth century.
And you know what--
--Britain could have won the twentieth century, too! By doing the opposite of what you think. Because what you handily ignore in your screed is that the period starting with 1914 had some pretty important stuff happen. And in the course of that, Britain butchered its young male population for no good reason, and pissed away its own empire. They could have kept it. They could have kept it all. Everything that had been built up by the people you thanklessly dismiss. Everything that was then torn down by people you no doubt idolise.
The Americans have some reason to be grateful, though. You ideologically descend from a long line of self-immolators, whose previous generations have ensured that when the universal empire does come, it'll be an American empire. Had it not been for the works of your fore-bears, it could have been very different.
And here you are among the throngs of the Fellachen that populate the ruins of a better world, shouting at the statues of the men who once built that world, and blaming all your woes on them-- not even knowing (or simply not wishing to know) that all the ruination that came to it was wrought by your ideological kinsmen.
...The bottom line, however, is that none of your partisan bias matters. The fact that you're fixated on "those evil Tories!!!" only illustrates how irrelevant your position is in the greater scheme of things. As I explained: the struggle of the age is one of the establishment (for which the main political parties are merely different "front-offices") and a populist movement thriving on mass discontent (which is by definition oriented against the elites of all established parties, and if it co-opts one of them, it'll be by evicting its elite wholly).
The populists (or 'radicals', if you will) win that struggle every time. And in the event, we'll see them oppose globalism and enact protectionism. You might even like them, economically. Although I get the impression that you're not one for public executions, so I think you won't like the through-line of their revanchist politics as a whole. But not to fret, because no matter how far it takes things, Caesarism never lasts, either. It's not the answer to Modernity; merely its last howl.
The true answer comes thereafter, with the Principate. Which, in the case of the West, will feature all the things I get the impression you might dislike. Traditionalist mores, a tendency towards religious universalism, abolition of democracy (and of the appeal to the masses altogether), considerable socio-cultural stratification, very small and primarily local government, an intense hatred of fiduciary currency and corresponding dedication to a gold standard, and a return to unfettered trade (with most of the world, at least). That's the nature of the Principate. It'll last for a good few centuries, and even millennia later, it'll be seen as the golden age of our civilisation.
I've mentioned this before, but when Augustus was an old man, and close to his dying day, he travelled by ship along the coast, on his way South. And on the journey, his ship was passed by a merchant vessel from Alexandria. When the merchants saw whose ship it was, they greeted him almost as worshippers. This was not needed by any means; but here was the man who had made the sea safe by eradicating piracy; who had lowered their taxes and fostered commerce by his decrees. And they called out to him: "Through you we live, through you we sail, through you we enjoy our freedom and prosperity!"
That's the sort of future I hope we too will enjoy. It is made through enacting the precise policies that you seemingly imagine to be detrimental. But they have been the policies of the wise for thousands of years, and they always will be. No matter how many generations of fools seek to ruin the work of the wise, we find that good sense always returns in the end.
Leaving aside the rambling insults and lack of actual factual content there's a number of clear errors here. Tried to reference them in order but there's so much myopic junk in his last post its difficult.
a) He can't decide whether I have a blind hatred of the Tories or the Liberals.
Actually as I've said before I don't do hatred. Its the preserve of the idiot and the lazy and those who seek to control them.
b) The policies that I describes were the ones that crippled our position. It was the preceding policies that he hatred that made Britain the economic and industrial colossus it was in 1850 when the policies he advocates were implemented.
c) As Ive said before and I say again later don't "hate" free trade. Its a good idea in theory at least but its a bloody disaster when everybody else is protectionist as it cripples investment opportunities in your own country.
d) Thatcher engaged in a massive programme of social engineering, transferring resources and wealth from the wealth creators to the oligarchs that Skag adores. British industry was devastated, education and social services crippled. the benefit of North Sea oil was thrown away. In modern Britain the vultures from the last 45 years are coming home to roost with an improvised society coming apart at the seams, many people struggling to get by, even with multiple jobs, housing expensive and insecure and wealth concentrated in a relatively small proportion of the population who have massive tax exemptions. A country is 1st and foremost about is people and without them no country can last no matter how brilliant the rulers might be.
e) Britain couldn't have won the 20thC. Even for Skag that's a delusional position. Unless we go on some sort of intelligent Nazi conquest spree [assuming intelligent Nazis isn't a total oxymoron
] which sees us conquer say most of continental Europe we would never had the demographic or territorial mass to be the No. 1 by 2000. Unless you assume that some sort of disaster wipes out most of the world and leaves Britain largely untouched. Too many nations would have greater resources than us. We could have done better with better policies and be a good bit better placed now but would be an upper 2nd rank power.
f) Not sure how we could have stopped Imperial Germany in 1914-18 without going to war? From that point on things were always going to be bloody. They could have been better with different management, both political and militarily but again laissez faire and free trade in a protectionist world had already had an impact. Despite the 1st artificial dyes being invented in Britain it was Germany that dominated the world chemistry industry. Similarly the steel industry and many aspects of technical production were hindered by generations of limited education and a desire for unskilled employees and along with the problems of being crippled by the disadvantages Skag's policies imposed on us.
g) The empire was always going to be a wasting resource. The dominions have already gone their own way and one of the 1st steps that Canada did after gaining independence in 1867 was to impose tariffs on industrial products, including on those from the UK. Most of the rest were resource dumps and India was already by 1900 seeing moves towards independence. Note again that when they received large scale self government after WWI one of their 1st moves was to impose tariffs on foreign imports., including of course on Britain.
h) While Skag is a devout defeatist who looks forward to doom and disaster I'm definitely not. Far more cynical and pesimistic than I was in my youth, in part because of the disasters I've seen under his hero's but unlike him I think that people, not just a small self proclaimed elite, matter and can make a difference.
i) I doubt many people taxed so heavily under the Principate and later its natural result the Dominate thought taxes were low.
Especially when the pretty much untrammeled emperor was less than sane and responsible. Later on of course it became even worse.
j) The story about Augustus is a strange interpretation. For one thing he was the one who caused much of the chaos and destruction by his prolonged civil war before his eventual victory finally brought a period of large scale peace and allowed operations like hunting down pirates and suppressing banditry. For another thing as he definitely had an iron fist, no matter how much he cloaked it with a velvet glove none of those merchants were going to say anything other to him. And remember he was a largely good emperor once he gained power.
By this time I admit I was losing patience with the continued insults, ignorance and lack of any factual content so my next post was somewhat less constrained, post 394
That you think the stupidity that crippled Britain after 1850 could have 'won' Britain the 20thC when it clearly damaged us greatly shows how incapable of serious understanding you are. Just look at how dependent so much of British industry and economy was dependent on industrial products from Germany and the US because of the failure of the policies you support! At how poorly much of the population of Britain was educated compared to that of its primary rivals. Try and consider some facts rather than dogma.
I don't object to free trade in a system where its practiced by all. I do object to clinging to it and even worse the laissez faire stupidity in a world where opposing policies make them disastrous is a bloody idiotic error. I refer to the "evil Tories" as you put it because the current policies of the party are both morally redundant and have been shown to be a fucking disaster, other than for a small oligarchy of the sort you favour. As I made clear in my last post party is irrelevant to me compared to policies.
Unlike you I both lived through and understand what happened in the 1970-current period in Britain. Your delusions unfortunately are held by too many idiots and fanatics in this country which helps keep the current vermin in power. That you prefer extremism over responsible government shows how far apart we are. Your more of a Ceasrist supporter than I am by a long way. I agree that Augustus brought much needed peace and stability, after his own wars for the throne but it was largely by ignoring the egomania you value so highly in powerful figures.
Basically your saying your an idiot who puts dogma ahead of reality. You prefer to rely on your own desires rather than what actually happened.
The repsonse, post 395 was as follows. Because there's so much straightforward BS here I'm broken it into sections for ease of reply. Note again his love of personal abuse over reasoned argument.
Your failure to engage with any argument demonstrates how biased and blinded you are. Quite regrettable, since you seem capable of fairly decent arguments when you're not compromised by knee-jerk impulses caused by ideological blinkers. Unfortunately, here, all you can post is an elaborate version of "I'm right because I'm right and you're a doo-doo head because you say things I don't like, so there!"
Here Skag is seeking to reverse the actual position as he has never said anything other that "I'm right because I'm right himself" and its difficult to see how he could hide that fact from himself. He's projecting his own flaws onto me.
For someone who claims to have lived through so much, you behave suspiciously like a college-aged socialist. Might be cause for some reflection.
I have lived through the period and so I know what was happening as he clear does not. He can make any claims he makes but without any actual evidence for his viewpoint it carries zero weight. A wise man should always be willing to take his own advice but I can't see him doing it.
Anyway, you've neglected to respond to any fact, you just repeat the same nonsense claims, and you're clearly unwilling to talk like a serious person. This is evidenced by your knee-jerk reaction to the mention of the Tories ("morally redundant and have been shown to be a fucking disaster"), at which juncture you deliberately ignore the wider point: that both parties are symptomatic of systemic failure. You don't want to see that, because you prefer hating the Conservatives specifically, and you don't want facts getting in your way.
Again he has posted NO facts but only his opinions. Its him that has failed to give any supporting arguments to his opinion. Facts seems to be something he is definitely scared of.
Neither have I actually denied that other parties have their shortcomings, another fabrication from him. I have pointed out this but he chooses to ignore that point because it suits his own bigotry. There is a crisis in western society at the moment. The prime difference between us is that I think people can make a difference and change things. As he's repeatedly said he hated the economic success and political rights of modern society and wants it destroyed and replaced by the narrow blinkered regime he favours. That this would mean the deaths of many tens of millions if not most of the world's population doesn't matter to him as much as achieving his desire dystopia. Which is probably impossible anyway because of the sheer level of destruction that would develop if he got the world-wide collapse he wished.
Your bias is further shown when you consistently equate every faction that ever supported free trade as if they're interchangable; you just lump them all together as homogeneous advocates of "laissez faire stupidity". (The phrasing shows your bias again.) Obviously, you're ignoring countless relevant factors and differences, but you step past that because you want them to all be the same. Of course, you also think they're all elitists, when the 19th century liberals were in reality the party of the common man-- as were their American counterparts (the Bourbon Democrats). But to you, everyone who loves free trade is "for a small oligarchy". You even accuse me of this (apparently having missed the many times I've called for the removal -- and if needed outright destruction -- of the current establishment cadre).
Free trade and liassez faire are actually separate policies, so he's wrong again! Also wrong in that I have not made any claims that all forms of free trade are interchangeable. That's actually
his repeated claim.
I see lissez faire as stupid because it was a disasterous failure for Britain both in 1850-~1940 and 1979-current and similarly when the US has more recent dabbled with such ideas it resulted in serious decline again. I have seen no evidence it can actually work - definitely not from Skag who has shown just empty rhetoric and venom because I question his beliefs.
Skag calls for the removal of the current entire system warts and all. He wants a small oligarchy as he has said repeated in many posts on this thread. That at least some of the current oligarchy are likely to be members of the new one he desires seems to pass him by. Yet another failure in logic from him.
You also refuse to note that Britain out-competed mercantillist France and staved off disaster in this way, but I get that you wouldn't want to talk about that. It undermines your thesis that free trade will kill you if it is not "practiced by all". (Historical evidence notwithstanding.) Speaking of that: you claim that you "don't object to free trade in a system where its practiced by all", but that's a shameless deception, since you consistently disparage free trade as "laissez faire stupidity". Which tells me that you're just lying through your teeth, and will always find some reason why free trade is supposedly bad.
In the 18thC mercantilist Britain massively out-competed aristocratic France - despite the latter having a system that he prefers and thinks more 'successful'. This was in large part because Britain was a more open system with greater ability for people to rise from the lower levels of society and was less crippled by royal, religious and aristocratic privilege, which again he wishes restored to the world.
In the early 19thC the economic develops that had started from ~1750 continued to see Britain develop economically and technologically. It hit its 1st serious problems in ~1850 when the foundations of that grow were weakened - in part because there was a new dominate elite arising that adopted policies with disastrous result. There were the two mentioned and the accompanying replacement of previous technological and industrial leaders who were generally people with practical knowledge with managers who had no real understanding of the actual operation of their businesses. This among other factors included a desire to deskill their employees so as to undermine their economic power. There were other issues related in that as Britain's absolute position started to decline its early lead meant that a lot of production in many industries was for export so the short-termers increasingly in charge saw their employees solely as costs. It is a fairly complex issue but since Skag is interested in dogma he won't accept that and denies that
Again Skag resorts to insults when he lacks supporting arguments. I believe what I said. Its just that he can't acknowledge that without admitting he made an error so he resorts to more falsification to hide the failure of his argument.
In other words: you dodge every topic that disproves your bias, and you cling to your dogmas because you consider your opinions and -- indeed -- your feelings about these things more important than the truth. As I said: that's never going to get results. It's only going to make you look dumber than you ought to be.
As anyone reading the above sees I've 'dodged' nothing. Its Skag that has been a clear evidence vacuum.
I made a further post on page 21, post 405 - which covers some of the points I've already mentioned in more detail along with other arguments in support of my case. I was still seeking to present evidence despite the continued lack of evidence I was being countered with.
Lets look at some facts. In post 384 & 387 I replied to a prior comment pointing out that the dominant dogma that had handicapped Britain for the past 40+ year was actually a rehash of an earlier period ~1850-1930 of similar policies that seriously handicapped Britain's continued economic success. Anyone who had done any studying of the earlier period would know there's a wide literature on the issue and why free trade in a protectionist world and even more so laissez faire policies are so damaging to a nation. Admittedly we're talking from a sample size of one as Britain in those periods was the only sizeable power ever to be stupid enough to impose such policies for a prolonged period - let alone to do it twice!
I gave one fairly well known example, of the decline of the British steel industry but could easily give others.
In post 385 & 388 Skallagrim responded with personal abuse, argument by assertion that his dogma was right with no supporting evidence, assorted claims about what I was thinking that were generally way off reality and then a comment about Augustus which was irrelevant to what I was saying and in at least some elements inaccurate.
As such I would be fully entitled to call him Mr Pot if I so wish.
To look at some of the points in more details.
a) I specifically said with regards to free trade that it doesn't work in an otherwise deeply protectionist word which is basic economic theory that even most neo-classical economies would accept. Its probably the most efficient method if you can ensure that at least the bulk of the other powers are playing by the rules but not when everybody else is using different rules.
b) I have pointed out the flaws in laissez faire ideas and why they don't work. I know of no nation which has become a significant economic power without significant intervention by the government to support its business - with arguably one class of exceptions* - especially in the last few centuries. There are plenty of nations which have failed because government has intervened too much and/or in support of the wrong causes, generally vested 'elites' which has been significant in the post 1979 period in Britain. However that some governments get it wrong doesn't necessary mean any and all government support is going to fail.
* - the class exception would be possibly those generally small and lightly populated nations which get a big mineral windfall. Most obviously here are the gulf oil states which have achieve massive wealth largely by chance. This is questionable as an exception because when the oil is no longer a valuable resource, unless they have used the wealth to develop other sources of income which I think few (if any) have done their likely to fall back into relative irrelevance. A similar example was the Pacific island of Nauru which had large quantities of easily mined phosphate and at one point was one of the richest per capita nations in the world as a result. However the resource was largely exhausted in the 1990's which has left the small nation with a devastated ecology due to the widespread strip mining and the lack of alternative sources of revenue.
Given that in the period 1840-60 Britain was clearly the dominant economic power and that by ~1900 it had fallen a long way behind its primary rivals I find it totally unrealistic, not to say comical for Skallagrim to say that continuing the same policies would have made Britain the dominant economic power through the 20thC as well!
I remember reading back in the 1970's a reference to a parliamentary commission which had been drawn up to look at Britain's economic and technological decline that while Britain would inevitably lose ground as other nations industrialized, especially larger ones like the US or a unified Germany it should not have lost as much ground. The thing that horrified me about this was that the commission dated from the 1880s or 1890s yet unfortunately vested interests prevented changes to improve matters.
It was only in 1914 when the decline in Britain's capacities was made clear by the needs of war that new/revived industries were created and the option to continue a reconstruction and revival of the economy and society was ignored. Even after the great depression and further US tariff increases prompted the British government to abandon free trade the more damaging laissez faire policies were continued until again the shock of war prompts reforms.
Skallagrim argued that the period of Labour government under Blair and then briefly Brown was a significantly different period but this is a somewhat dubious argument. While they didn't directly continue the policies of extensive social engineering of Thatcher and Major to transfer funds and resources to the very rich they did nothing really to reverse those policies. Similarly the de-regulation of financial institutions that was the major factor in the 2008 depress was not reversed or anything done to mitigate against the dangerous of fiscal recklessness by the banks. [Note I'm not saying that sorting out Britain's fiscal sector problems would have prevented the depression but it would have done something to mitigate the problem for Britain when the shit hit the fan].
Possibly worse of all was that while they did put some money into new infrastructure, to avoid direct government spending and the open tax or borrowing increasing which would have been attacked by their opponents they massively expanded the
PFI policy initially developed by the Tories. As warned by many sources, by pushing back the actual spending to later governments this comes at much greater cost in the longer term. Obtaining funds from this route is far more expensive than direct government loans. Even worse when the contracts finally end and the massive bills are paid off the private contractors NOT the state which paid for them will own the facilities which will mean either paying through the nose to keep using them or further expenditure to build new facilities. Furthermore while there were contractual constraints on the private investors to meet conditions of service those have often been bypassed by those contractors selling on the contract to a new group which then claims those conditions don't apply to them!
Skallagrim ended with a strange comment about Augustus. Leaving aside other possibilities the simple and obvious factor was that when Augustus won the final civil war he finally brought much needed peace, which was what enabled them to have stability. That was nothing really to do with the internal political and economic policies that he followed after he won. He just didn't engage in massive foreign wars or seek to extract massive wealth from the population.
He also claimed it was free market. I don't know about internally, possibly it was although I suspect there would be some internal trade. However it definitely wasn't a free trade world as there were taxes on merchants traveling beyond the empire and both Rome and assorted foreign powers gained considerable wealth from such measures.
Similarly I find it strange he suggests that under Augustus there was massive religious intolerance - which goes against everything I've read. There was some hostility towards some of the eastern cults, in part possibly a left-over from his programme of demonizing Antony and Cleopatra and the religions of Egypt as decadent and foreign and some that were seen as violent. It was far worse under the Dominate then again after Christianity took over.
The reference to Mr Pot is to an old adage "the pot calling the kettle black" This refers to days when cooking was done over an open wood or coal fire so an item which spend a lot of time over the fire - such as a pot - would gather a lot more soot than something like a kettle that would only be over it a relatively brief time. Not sure how well known or not it is outside the UK so expanding on that point here. Just in case its not familiar to many some posters here. Given his behaviour I stand by my criticism of his repeated hypocritical statements.
The reposne was another set of insults again totally denuded of actual factual argument, in the 2nd part of post 406. Again he performs personal insults to actual evidence for his claims which remain totally lacking.
The way you appear to talk to an imaginary audience, as if autistically narrating your warped view of what is actually being discussed, serves to underscore the revelation that you are evidently talking with (or rather: to) an imaginary version of myself. A version that, in your mind, is heard saying things I never claimed.
Take your delusions elsewhere, please.
I understand that references to the topic of this thread may confuse you (indeed, many things appear to confuse you), but the fact is that you are creating a bizarre derail to spew your dogmatic nonsense about economics. You don't anwer arguments (in fact, you literally pretend they don't exist), and you veer off to rant maniacally about your pet obsession regarding free trade and its supposed evils. Just above, someone complained about derails, but that derail was minor compared to your persistent harping on this off-topic matter.
Seriously, take your obsession elsewhere. It's no crime for you to be ignorant of economics, but it's irritating when you then insist on ventilating your dogmatic views very insistently and repeatedly, in a thread not even about the subject, while actively complaining about all attempts to connect the tangent (or even steer it back) to the actual topic under discussion. (Although I understand your reluctance to discuss it, since you obviously don't grasp the issue. You even completely misinterpret my comments about the religious developments during the Principate to suggest that we're talking about intolerance, which I didn't mention. But then again, that idea of "religious universalism" meaning "intolerance" is another obsession of yours, so I shouldn't be too surprised...)
If you want to warble about the gospel of Keynes, do start a thread about. I'll be sure to stay far away from it.
He's not even trying to pretend he's capable of a serious response here - just personal insults and wild reversals of the actual facts to try and excuse his behaviour.
There were further posts a couple of pages later where Skag continued to deny he could be wrong and threw in more false allegations and his beloved insults but this is long enough and covers why I find him incapable of a serious adult discussion when his sacred cows are threatened by even the mildest criticism.
I was planning a post like this a while back but got hit by Covid then by the time I recovered there was a post on the thread calling for more moderate language. I spoke to the mod in question and said I would refrain from further comment.
Unfortunately since then Skag has made a number of posts seeking to misrepresent what was actually said and try and pretend he was a responsible poster and I was the one being ignorant and rude. Hence my anger in some later posts. Not working today so finally had time to respond on the issue.
As I've said this is to let people know what the actual conflict was about./ I fully expect that he will reply with further misdirection and attempts to blame me for his failing but I'm not interested in that. This is so 3rd parties aren't deceived over what was actually said.
