Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Inaccurate Labels
From: emd@ham.almanac.bc.ca
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 93 21:49:12 PST
Distribution: can
Organization: Robert Smits


jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison) writes
>In article <kwP2wB1w164w@ham.almanac.bc.ca> emd@ham.almanac.bc.ca writes:
>>jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison) writes:
>>>liberals! socialists! 
>>>
>>>we fiscal conservatives. supply siders, free marketers. libertarians etc.
>>>hijacked the word liberal long ago, as an epithet, slurr, curse, insult
>>>etc. understand?
>>>
>>
>>In your befuddlement you're not reading clearly. I said Liberal, not liberal.
>
>If you mean liberalist, libertarian, economic liberalism, then OK, I 
>misunderstood you. If you are trying to invoke a long past party that
>may have stood for those principles, in order to argue that today's
>Liberals aren't socialists, then you are wrong. let's not try to 
>apply antiquated dictionary defiinitions, to what the term has come to mean,
>today.

I've always been able to distinguish between "Liberals" and "liberals", where 
the former are members of the Liberal Party of Canada. In my view, the 
Liberal Party of Canada has very little to do with "liberalism". Nonetheless,
I argue that the term "liberal" has NOT come to mean something else, despite
the rantings of the ideological right who continually misuse the term. 
Repeating your propaganda ad nauseum doesn't make it so.

>
>>That you are also confused about what a liberal is is not surprising. Whether 
>>or not one advocates tax 'n' spend policies or not has little to do with 
>>liberals or socialism, although some liberals and some socialists may have
>>followed such policies. 
>>
>My premise is that what the party *says* it wants to accomplish, even
>if it appears superficially compatable with free market economics, and
>true individual liberties, doesn't matter. Got it? The NDP may pretend
>to be mildly business friendly, and on paper may not want to disembowel 
>what free markets we do have. But so what? 

I've not argued that defining a party's policies depended on believing
what they said about their policies. On the contrary, you SHOULD look
at what their policies result in.

>If I can show that their
>policies lead to the same failures that 'true Socialism' (your
>definition of Socialism' then the NDP is at heart no different than
>Socialism. 

Bullshit, pure and simple. None of the provincial NDP goverments 
currently in power are organizing all the means of production (or
even a substantial part) into state owned and operated enterprises. 
They don't believe in it, and they don't act like it either. 

>You want to use some poli-sci's dictionary of Socialism.
>I do not. The political scientists want to stick convenient labels
>on political parties, as a means of classification; just as one
>gives names to different breeds of dogs. Naming the superficial
>qualities doesn't make a lot of difference, although it might
>let you pick a less radical (and more prone to reform) political
>party, but not much else. I'm more interested in where things wind
>up if a political party is allowed to implement everything it says
>it wants to do.
>

I'm perfectly happy to use Webster. And while I would agree that 
differences that are superficial in nature aren't terribly meaningful,
there is a vast difference between parties like the various social-
democratic versions in Canada and Europe which want fundamentally 
to come up with a "fair" version of capitalism, and socialists, 
who want to overthrow capitalism altogether. To deny that difference
denies reality.

>So I am not the one who is confused. You are the one who sorts out
>the political parties on convenient, superficial qualities. 
>You: 'The Liberals say they are business oriented, therefore they
>are center right, more capitalist than socialist' Wrong. One has only
>to look at the socialist tendencies of the Trudeau years to recognize
>that the Liberals had a socialist streak in them. It isn't what the
>political party says, it is what it does, and what is the result.
>

Yes, let's look at what the Liberals did. Beyond preserving their
friends in boardrooms all over the country, what did they do?
Look at what they did with capital cost allowances, for example.

1. Under Trudeau, the income Tax Axt was amended to allow machinery,
equipment, and buildings acquired by manufacturing or processing
enterprises to be deemed to have been acquired at 115 % of their
actual cost for the purpose of calaculating capital cost allowances.

2. John Turner's budget of 1972 allowed a two-year write-off of the 
cost of machinery for manufacturing and processing, or a 50% rate of 
C.C.A.'s per year.

Capital cost allowances are really signifigant in economic terms. 
Besides draining revenue from the government, they bias the 
direction of our economic growth. So, individuals are clobbered 
two ways. 

First, individual taxpayers had to make up for revenue losses 
caused by the higher allowances to corporations. In 1951, corporate
direct taxes amounted to 28 % of all federal gov't revenues. 
Individuals contributed 26.7 %. According to Turner's 1973 budget,
individual taxpayers were providing 49.9 % of gov't revenues, while
corporate taxation provided only 12.2 %

Second, by encouraging private investment in capital equipment, 
the Liberals caused an investment boom. Because they ignored the 
need to reduce the economic pressure on the individual, (even 
if only to compensate for the higher interest rates caused by 
the investment boom), interest rates rose, and investment in housing 
declined. To quote Eric Kierans, "The large decline in housing starts 
in the face of overwhelming needs added to the scarcity, and became 
one of the key elements in rising prices and unemployment. Canada 
exchanged investment in housing for investment in machinery."

Added to this kind of treatment, the Liberals now embarked on a
program of direct corporate welfare. Through the Area Development
Incentives Act (ADIA) and the DREE program, the Liberals threw
money at corporations - not took them over. 

ADIA, for example, GAVE away grants of up to $5 million per project,
plus making the projects eligible for accelerated capital cost 
allowances, thereby reducing the amount of income tax payable.

For some more examples of how corporations were treated by the 
Liberals, look at a couple of the oil companies. Imperial Oil, 
for example, had net earnings of $1.5 Billion from 1965 to 1971. 
It's income tax over this period was $290 million, making a tax 
rate of 19 %. They were this low because Imperial Oil was allowed 
depreciation and amortization allowances of $394 million and 
$84 million in deferred taxes. It was left with a profit of $709
million. 

Shell Oil didn't fare so badly, either. From 1964 to 1969, it's 
net earnings were $516,557,000 - more than half a billion dollars 
on which they paid not ONE CENT of taxes. For 1970, they set aside 
$16 million for income tax on earnings of $123 million, a rate of 
13 %. 

And you go around howling that the Liberals are socialists? The 
Liberals set up the CORPORATE welfare state, in which individual 
Canadians were forced to carry a heavier tax burden because large,
often foreign owned corporations did not pay their share.

Far from seizing the means of production, the Liberals did all
they could to assist the damn corporations.

>>>Maybe you should do some kind of post-modernist, neo-keynesian politically
>>>correct deconstruction of the word liberal. After all, words don't have any
>>>meaning anyway, right? We'll just settle for the usual liberal, style over
>>>substance arguments. 
>>>
>>
>>It's traditional sense was, and is perfectly clear, although you don't 
>>seem to comprehend it. From Websters Ninth Collegiate Dictionary (1983)
>>come the following applicable definitions
>
>The traditional sense? Now that's a great way to judge them. They were
>once this, therefore they must still be. These dictionary definitions
>are fine, but they don't correspond with what the parties are actually
>doing (or advocating).
>>

They weren't meant to. We were discussing the inaccurate way you
use words, not the inaccurate way the parties use them.
The word liberal didn't change it's meaning because the Liberal
party wasn't liberal. The Progressive Conservatives aren't 
progressive either, but that doesn't change the political meaning 
of progressive.

>>- liberal : of or constituting a political party advocating or 
>>associated with the principles of political liberalism; esp : of
>>or constituting a political party in the United Kingdom associated
>>with ideals of individual esp economic freedom, greater individual 
>>participation in government, and constitutional, political and 
>>adminstrative reforms designed to secure these objectives
>>
>>While this doesn't seem to describe the Liberal Party of Canada very
>>well, it's hard to see what YOU would object to here....
>
>So are we going to argue about what the Liberals should be? or what they
>ARE? So we have this old definition, and we have current political
>parties who use this term, to try and evoke certain pleasant images,
>while cloaking what they are really up to. Style over substance.
>(it doesn't matter that they DON'T fit the above definition, but they
>use it, so it must apply to them. Sure. It's futile for me to say 'hey you
>aren't really liberals', so therefore the meaning of the term has changed,
>and can't assume the definition you give)

The definition was of the word "liberal", not the party philosophy of
the Liberal Party of Canada, which of course isn't "liberal". You still 
don't say what you object to in the definition, other than to say that
Liberals misuse the word so it must apply to them. Pretty twisted logic,
if you ask me. 

>>- liberal : one who is open minded or not strict in the observance of 
>>orthodox, traditional or established forms and ways
>>
>>Well, this is probably objectionable. Someone who's open minded. Gosh!
>>And may not believe in doing everything the old way!
>>
>ther word it too vague, so it is almost meaningless. 

Not meaningless in the general sense, but not precise enough for a 
political philosophy, I agree.

>
>>- liberalism :a theory in economics emphasizing individual freedom from 
>>restraint and usu. based on free competition, the self regulating market,
>>and the gold standard
>>
>>Boy it sure sounds like radical "left wing" stuff, huh?
>
>Nope. You are still confusing what the party says they stand for, with
>what their policies do achieve, or would achieve.
>
>If your point is that there is confusion over what the term 'liberal'
>means, then I agree. If you are trying to say I'm ignorant about what
>the classic definition means, then you are wrong. *they* are the ones
>who cloaked themselves in the term, to make themselves palatable;
>their own failure has tarnished the word they describe themselves with.
>
>If you wan't me to believe that since a party
>labels itself in a certain  way, that the party actuall IS that way;
>then I don't buy it.
>>

My point is not that there's confusion over what "liberal" means. It's 
that a lot of people are using it inaccurately, and in my opinion, 
dishonestly. 

>>- liberalism : a political philosophy based on belief in progress,
>>the essential goodness of man, and the autonomy of the individual and
>>standing for the protection of political and civil liberties
>>
>>Well, here I can see you objecting again. Probably to the "goodness" 
>>part. You capitalists all believe everyone is inherently EVIL, right?
>>
>You're just playing games. So if you say you're GAY, am I supposed to
>think you are happy? If you say you are a liberal-democrat, am I
>supposed to believe you are in favor of individual economic freedom, markets
>and free enterprise?  make up your goddam mind. I really see no 
>point in arguing this, because I doubt if you will say it is fine
>to ignore the true meaning of one word (gay, for example), but I'm
>supposed to follow another's definition to the letter (liberal).
>
>If you do, then it's pretty selective of you; you are either a
>pedant who is trying to get people to follow the dictionary to the letter
>(annoying; not bad; but probably wouldn't work), or you are just
>a smart ass who wants to invoke one definition but ignore others as
>it suits himself.
>
Newsgroups: can.politics