I saw Franklin Cudjoe as I walked into the main lobby of the Sheraton. And then bumped into Kendra Okonski. It was a nice start – there are familiar libertarian faces. It could be rather overwhelming to attend a conference with almost 700 people if you don’t know anyone!
The first session was a networking event organised by Atlas (although it was still the Heritage Resource Bank). It was very good to finally be able to put faces to names.
Then, the talks.
First up was a a session of “Why Limit Government?”. Carrie Lukas (Independent Women’s Forum) spoke first, and her main message was that governments have a tendency to try to be like “parents”. But their parenting skills are usually horrendous as they need to keep their “children” (read the citizens) in perpetual childhood. That way, they can remain in power – ie: as long as the people feel that they are powerless without the government, they will keep voting for the same politicians, in the same way that a child will always go back to the protection of the parents so long as they continue to feel that they are still too young to look after themselves.
Then, Johnny Munkhammar (European Enterprise Institute) argued that the bigger the size of government, the less freedom the people will enjoy. This is because a big government needs to take more resources from its people in order to sustain itself (there is no such thing as “duit kerajaan” as the kerajaan always take from the people via taxation). The more the government takes, the less the people have. The less the people have, the less able they are to do what they want to do (ie: they become less free). He also explained that it is possible to initiate free market reforms. Several countries in East Europe have shown that it can be done.
Finally, Grover Norquist (Americans for Tax Reform) explained the two steps he felt are necessary to ensure that the government is limited. Once, don’t raise taxes. Two, don’t spend too much. I think the first one is obvious. But, the second is interesting. Grover suggested that we need to ensure data is available to check how much was spent and on what. It is not enough to check the budget as this only outlines how the government intends to spend. It is more important to check how much was actually spent, and we need to make sure there is a way to do so.
Then came the session I have been waiting for – “A Conservative Vision for a Just Society”. There were actually three people on the panel, but I am only going to blog about what Ian Duncan Smith said. Really, Heritage should just have given the platform to Ian alone and let him give a keynote speech rather than make it a panel discussion.
Ian spoke about how the right have for too long allowed the left to dominate debates about social justice. And we have allowed left-leaning politicians and thinkers to talk about poverty reduction as if it is just about money. It clearly is not just about money. Ian believes that there are at least five main factors that cintribute to poverty: family breakdown, economic dependency and worklessness, educational failure, debt, and addiction. He explained how his Centre for Social Justice has worked tirelessly to look into the inter-related issues causing poverty before making around 200 policy recommendations to David Cameron. Ian is pleased that David has, up to now, accepted almost 30 of the recommendations, and he hopes the party will take more.
Ian went on to describe how, if we were to build a stronger Britain, we must work to create a welfare society, not a welfare state. A welfare society is all the actors who can help deliver welfare without the state – institutions like the family, charities and local community. A welfare society is longer lasting as the “love” is unconditional. Unlike a welfare state where the “love” is conditional upon the people voting for the same interventionist political party. Ian believes that a welfare state will weaken a welfare society, or even prevent it from being born, because a welfare state will make people feel they do not need society – who need relatives when “Big Daddy” can give you welfare benefits?
But Ian admitted that creating a welfare society in an environment where the people are more familiar with a welfare state would be difficult. You cannot graft the free market onto a government-dependant society. This will not work. You have to educate the people about the importance and the superior morality of self-sufficience, and then only the conservative vision of a just society can be realised.
Filed under: Misc
Recent Comments