Harry's Last Stand

“Are You Having It or Not?”
In the Shadows of the Welfare State
JM Smith

"On her first day in Britain, Friede encounters a country still shaped by war, scarcity, and the uneasy beginnings of something new, a social democratic Britain.
Before you is another chapter from The Green & Pleasant Land, which Harry Leslie Smith was working on at the time of his death."

https://open.substack.com/pub/jmsmith/p/are-you-having-it-or-not?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

#HarrysLastStand #harryLeslieSmith #JohnSmith #SocialDemocracy

‘for every percentage point increase in the Gini coefficient of income inequality there was a roughly identical increase in support for far-right parties. Measures introduced by mainstream parties in government, such as tightening eligibility and rendering harsher conditions for welfare benefits, had fuelled ‘distrust and disenchantment’ amid increasing precarity, weaker unions and a declining labour share in economic output’

#socialDemocracy #responsibleGovernment #taxesPayForSecurity

https://www.socialeurope.eu/social-rights-the-idea-whose-time-has-come

Today, my membership cancellation has been processed by the NSW Branch of the #Labor Party (#NSWLabor). It no longer represents me, nor many thousands of others I’m sure, and has used up all the loyalty and trust I once had invested in it.

From now on my membership fees and any donation I might have made to the Party will be directed elsewhere (not a political party), to where I think will help #Australia get back on track to #SocialDemocracy where the benefits equally flow to all Australians and not just the #ChoosenFew. As for my vote, it will have to earn it back.

#Poverty is a political choice
#HousingAffordability is a political choice
#CivicLiberties are a political choice
#EquityDiversityInclusion are a political choice
#WealthDistribution is a political choice
#CostOfLiving is a political choice

There is no getting away from #politics nor our civic duty to make sound political choices for all of us living, on this stollen land, on the great #SouthernLand.

#Antifa #TaxTheRich #AusPol

Two key declarations in the neoliberal surge of the eighties were made my Thatcher and Reagan

In '86 Reagan described the 9 most 'terrifying' words in the English language as "I'm from the government and I'm here to help"

I remember this being reported in Rolling Stone like it was some kind of counter-culture platitude, unworthy of serious analysis or consideration

In '87 Thatcher said "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families"

#neoliberalism #politicalEconomy #socialDemocracy #whereToFromHere

The only successful western social democratic parties are from within the Nordic countries. Why is that? Because of culture, tradition and relatively strong unions? Or because they've rejected neoliberalism before it was too late? Or because they've become more populist or TAN-left?

#socialdemocracy #politics #eupol #ukpo #uspol