Max Khan Hayward

Some more positive news for today: I'll be participating in this fantastic event on 18th February at Senate House in London - please share with any school students/teachers you know who may be interested! tinyurl.com/philosophylond…

@Shrink_at_Large Extending the freeze means people pay *more* inheritance tax, not less.

Wow. Reeves extends the inheritance tax freeze until 2030 while scrutinizing benefit claimants’ bank accounts. By lifting the freeze instead, she could raise the same amount—just over £2 billion—that she’s pursuing from claimants as ‘fraud,’ making them ill in the process #Budget

@s_everson @lastpositivist Agreed!

@MaxKhanHayward @lastpositivist One problem with popular discourse is that the mainstream media were almost entirely innocent of any genuine interest in, let alone cognisant of any duty to explain, the actual policy proposals of Corbyn/McDonnell. In that respect you’re right: it was all about created vibes.

The ever so Sensible response to Corbyn in the UK has just been so instructive. An interesting thing about our political tradition is parties issue a manifesto outlining what they're going to do, and the parliamentary party are more or less committed to that vision. ...

@s_everson @lastpositivist Economically, the Starmer enthusiasm for industrial strategy signals a confidence in the role of the state that is probably closer to Corbyn than, say, Blair. Probably the biggest difference is beliefs about the costs and risks of borrowing, printing money and high taxation.

@s_everson @lastpositivist Morally, the Starmer comfort with private enterprise doesn't imply acceptance of the rightwing view that profit reflects moral desert and that redistribution is wrong, and the Corbyn desire for nationalisation doesn't imply moral opposition to the existence of all private profit.

@lking_mirotech @lastpositivist I must admit I find little to like or admire in the UAE's social-economic system. What makes me a leftist is that my interest is NOT whether a system benefits entrepeneurs, but whether it benefits society more generally. Encouraging entrepeneurs can do that. But it often doesn't

@s_everson @lastpositivist Yes! Absolutely! And of course our priorities should change over time. When many people are suffering malnutrition because of sheer lack of access to calories our priorities will be different from a situation where obesity and cancers are a greater threat.

@MaxKhanHayward @lastpositivist It’s also a question of course as to what criteria are to be used for judging, say, efficiency. Is a market which provides cheap but un-nutritious food more efficient than one that provides less cheap but more nutritious food?

@s_everson @lastpositivist Absolutely! But framing the debate as one between "Radical Left" and "Boring Centre" occludes options between wild-west free markets and centralised state industries (well-regulated markets, industrial strategy, commercialised state-owned firms, public-private competition etc.).

@MaxKhanHayward @lastpositivist A fair amount there is going to depend on quite how unprescriptive is the notion of being run by the market.

@s_everson @lastpositivist ...an extremist to think that privatised infrastructure monopolies are frequently inefficient, incompetent and extractive, driving up costs and reducing benefits to ordinary people and the poor. If we can acknowledge these things, I think it would greatly improve our politics.

@s_everson @lastpositivist ...treating this as an ideological debate between a monolithically-defined "Left" and "Centre". It doesn't make someone inegalitarian to think that private interprise often produces innovations that benefit the less-well-off, nor does it make someone...