When Labour lost power in 1979, Roy Hattersley remarked that it was because Labour had gotten a load of poor into the middle classes so they voted Conservative. In other words, by making people better off it was losing their vote.
When Labour came to power in 1997, they used Clinton style Tax Credits and made everybody a bit better off. Extra pocket money for poorer families. Ten years on, these people are where they were still, we have less and less social mobility and everyone is in their place. Of course this doesn't guarantee Labour victory as the polls show.
My question is: Is Labour's attitude of giving people a bit of money, but stopping social mobility for deliberate electoral gain? If you look at Roy Hattersley's remarks it might be possible to see, and it is well known that left wing politics like religion thrive on social poverty.

hi there,

i think you may be right to be honest. but....

there have been a lot of people made a lot more well off and most of them wouldnt vote conservative since they were poor in the 1st place due to the conservatives

but on a slightly different point.....a lot of middle class conservative voting people are now feeling the pinch...this may play into labours hands.

snoopyuk

Originally posted by snoopyuk
hi there,

i think you may be right to be honest. but....

there have been a lot of people made a lot more well off and most of them wouldnt vote conservative since they were poor in the 1st place due to the conservatives

Polls indicate otherwise, I know the statistical flaws in this comment, but it does negate some of your certainty about most of the well off. Perversely, the polls indicate that the poor have given up on Labour. But this deviates from the obvious incentive problem.

but on a slightly different point.....a lot of middle class conservative voting people are now feeling the pinch...this may play into labours hands.

Labour are going to get the blame for anyone feeling the pinch, they're the government..... I know it's difficult to remember because there is no leadership whatsoever.

And does that mean that the Conservatives are incentivised to make the poor rich. And does that mean that the Conservatives should realise that it is in their interests to be altruistic, and what does that say about Nash's stable society based on only self interest..... Labour have to be selfish and the Conservatives kind. Kinda paradoxical methinks.

And finally, if altruism comes into the equations, instead of having equations that can see stable solutions that go on forever, why not try to use them to predict environments staying stable for at least a finite given amount of time? Why do we need a society that lasts forever if no one does, and it demands that we are only serving the self to the exclusion of helping others. This has gotten to the point of a rant, and if no one replies, I think I'll forget it. Sad though, this is the conspiracy that most of the theorists believe in. Make people uncaring. It's in the assumptions, and it's how our society is run, care and no-care, like love and hate are all self fulfilling prophecies.

[edit] also if you know something is in shape to last 100 years, you can check it in 50, and you have 50 to sort it out, and it's still stable. This I suppose comes down to the philosopical question: If the form decided today should last forever, or if future generations make up their own minds.

[edit on 28-8-2008 by redled]

Couldn't edit, but if that is all right, then is the decision to make your generation supreme over all others arrogant? And if so, then is this a case of the arrogance of the equation makers (ie their assumptions)? And if so, were the equations themselves not serving their vested interest in being remembered forever? Hitler's 4th Reich? 50+1 States? God help Georgians, Georgia will stand.

Conclusion of the rant. I suppose this all boils down to Godel in proving that maths can't prove anything, rather human judgement. I don't have children, but whether I do or don't, I will trust my future family children's judgement.

Godel: Maths cannot be proven to prove that we cannot contradict by what is proven in maths what is proven in maths. Whatever that means.........

Postive liberty is relationships. Negative freedom seeks to have no input. Postive liberty is forming new relationships. Negative freedom is abouut keeping them in the context of society. There is no maths to support or repudiate this.

Or maybe they have to be convinced that they are right.

So maybe attack only those who think that THEY are right ti the exclusion of others. Allow freedom of expression within not harming each other is the positive liberty. We need structure, but we are good to trust each other, not despots.

Hopefully the last on what has become a log.

If game theory is based on players in a poker game, then it assumes distrust. In life, we can have graphs connecting the players with different states of relationship from one to the other. You can also factor in a player's mood, not modelling us like computers, but hey.

Consider a game where you know that you get the same result with two of your possible moves which are what you want (note, not necessarily optimal, maybe the choice of two cars, one is worth more but you prefer the other) but one gives your game partner a positive, the other a negative. In poker you do them down, but in life, if that person is your mate and you're not in some mad vindictive mood, would you not allow him the positive, even though it is less relative gain than doing your mate down. I think the whole game theory approach disintegrates from there mathematically, but do not know enough game theory to ramble on.......

Replace cars with Bananas, meat. You've got your fill, do you let your mate some?

[edit on 19-9-2008 by redled]

Final point. (Notice previous that this is a rant).

Was made to me by pointing out that dogs are very selfish in hiding bones. If it keeps, we get into the Prisoner's Dilemna. If it rots, we share. Most games in nature are about getting what we want and little else. It is almost easier to care, hence the genetics in the face of the environment ensured it.

Point is, our emotions evolved when it (bananas, meat) rotted. Things that don't rot divide us.

Any political party in office will work towards or even blatently legislate to increase the vote in their favour.

A couple of examples which spring to mind are the Tories giving voting rights to ex-pats and the right to buy to council tenants, Labour introducing postal voting and increasing immigrant naturalisation. There must be many more examples on both sides.

It can go wrong tho, im sure that labours enthusiasm for devolution was a calculated attempt to strenthen their support in their heartlands and sap the support of the nationalist parties. How that one has back fired!

And if bananas grew in tins in trees, what then to altruism.

I think this log completes with:

When the prize rots, we share.
When the prize keeps, we distrust.

Point is, we evolved before diamands, rather whilst our prizes rotted. So it is genetically inevitable we are altruistic. We by random share our bananas, it feeds back and we both get stronger. This gives us better breeding chance. So nature necessitates altruism. Maybe the DNA exists within an environment?

[edit on 23-9-2008 by redled]

Here we go again, just don't read this i seem to need to fill out a thread with garblings......

Political parties, if they do what they should with us, will govern well, but with each other their are no rules and levels of trickery to which they will go.
Now negative liberty which our society is based upon is I behave in relation to you as you to me so that we don't diminish each other's liberties andd act totally selfishly, but people in political parties do just that to each other. In fact people in power are expected to to maintain the checks and balances of our constitution.
So the negative liberty model is for us, to make sure we do not behave in an unstable fashion, but those in power do what the hell they want. Funny thing though is that this positive liberty is stable because of the checks and balances.
Now negative liberty was sold as getting rid of class divisions, but as it works, means those with class do what they want, and those without are not allowed to. So negative liberty is just a tool for the powerful to control us and trample us underfoot.

I hope this log has ended now.......

[edit on 25-9-2008 by redled]