It’s impossible to remember Tony Benn without splitting his political contribution into parts. He was the technology and science minister who pushed Concords and nuclear power forward. That reflected his interest in technology. He later renounced nuclear power but his ministerial contribution has been understated.
He will be remembered primarily for his wider political philosophy.
Tony Benn is one of the few modern politicians who can be compared to the old Greek political philosophers. He became an individualist who stood alone for his views but argued against individualism. He was one of the most competitive politicians that I ever met but he deplored competition. These contradictions led him inevitably into conflict with the Labour Party and he did great damage to the Party and helped perpetuate our time in opposition.
In the long run it is his campaigning political philosophy which will write his place in political history – a modern Socrates.
So.
The obvious question.
How do we get rid of you? (Tony Benn)
It is so sad this man has left us. He was of the old school, the kind with a certain integrity that today is only a puff of wind as it catches the ear on passing. I didn’t appreciate him in the way I should when I listened to him, I wish I had. He told it as he saw it, my kind of guy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP9LS17iIyM
He will be missed greatly.
RIP.
Philosophy by definition must obey the Rules and the Spirit of Truth.
One of which is the 3 Principles of Good Communication and Honest Argumentation
1) Communicate clearly.
2) Charitably acknowledge any good intention of any other participant, especially opposing ones.
3) Be willing and able to self-correct, especially when shown by an opposing other to be mistaken.
Another mark of honest-professionality is to make one’s own participation, at least in Formal Argumentation and Moral Reasoning, both Deductively-Valid and Inductively-Strong, counting any and all enthymemous argumentation as Invalid and False [by its omission of relevant fact or factor].
So your group-think use of the ‘term’ “political philosophy” is not only an oxymoronic one but is logically False and spiritually misleading.
By ‘Remit’ the politician must deliberately deceive The Public, with such premises as
“They do not ‘need-to-know'”,
“We the government must protect the Public from their own tendency to panic.
so for instance we’ll whitewash ethnic-persecution and genociding as “Ethnic Cleansing”,
and being-shot-in-the-back-by-own-troops, we’d better legislate as being “Friendly-Fire”.
——————-
Tony Benn was a manipulative Politician;
never a philosopher.
{And the fact that many professional and academic philosophers employ fallacies including enthymemes, often just to win popularity or more security and multiple-livings out of the Common Weal & Purse, is no justification for counting politicians to be ‘guardians and champions of The Truth’.
His memory and name should not be spin-doctoringly exploited as “a modern Socrates”,
nor indeed eulogised however veiledly as a Valid, Truthful and Emulable leader of People.
Nor, come to that, should any mere politician.
When I was younger, Tony Benn was the unacceptable face of the Labour Party. I remember him during an election campaign effectively suggesting widespread confiscation of assets and the party dropped noticeably in the polls overnight. As a Bristol resident I remember when he lost in the 1983 election, although he returned to Parliament in a by-election in Chesterfield. A senior Conservative at the time remarked that they weren’t upset that he was back because it was easier to keep an eye on him.
Over the subsequent years I could see that he was a man prepared to stand by his principles even when they were unpopular. As with some of the other far-left politicians, I can respect and admire his stand even though I disagree with where he was standing. Modern politics needs more men of his calibre across the spectrum, prepared to stay true to their principles instead of blowing in the wind of populism that has afflicted all the major parties for the last couple of decades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Benn
The printing firm Benn brothers was taken over by Extel which was subsequently
itself taken over by the Financial Times. By that time he may not have had much interest in the business, or even any holding in it.
The family certainly is, or was, in the business of printing and news.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Benn
And Stephen is the third Viscount Stansgate.
Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.
(The more things change, the more they stay the same)
Lord Soley,
I assume you know former PM Blair rather well (I do not mean to imply a personal friendship i have no idea about that) and so I should be reticent to quote him to you but yet I am not.
In his book “A Journey: My Political Life” Blair says some rather compelling things about Benn’s friendship for his own wife’s family, his intelligence and his erudition. He also states the strong case for his pushing the left to the far left and the far left to appeal to the imaginary. In both our societies figures as distinct from one another as Reagan, Clinton, Blair, Thatcher, Cameron and others who are often remembered as partisan and consistent actually ran toward the center bracketing out their opponents in apparent reasonableness. There are in politics sayings which explain a lot by the the fact that they are true and those which explain a lot although they may not be true.
One of the latter is a saw in America that “in the middle of the road there are only yellow lines and dead armadillos”. Meaning one should always pick a lane and full speed ahead. I think that this is a very partial truth at best. I am not sure what the deceased exactly did or believed but I hope the Labourites did not make him drink poison and his passing was under distinct circumstances.
Many of us most hold positions which are likely to be opposition positions but try to apply our philosophical commitments in practical compromises. Blair seemed to believe that the late figure had become a “national treasure” to many in the UK. I suppose the Gadfly of Athens also worked hard at reasoning through ideas not in vogue. Yet, perhaps he was more reconciled to political isolation. I suppose if their situation are analogous it argues well for the idea that this is a more tolerant age. Presuming their was no coerced hemlock involved.
Frank, we have a modern day MP who is just as unpopular as Benn in his day, and akin to Benn, the only man who appears to have any cajones or an ability to oppose those cretins we have in power. This guy, George Galloway, is the one. He though doesn’t have the grace of Benn, who was an eccentric aristocrat with a heart for the poor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPam_aAWnJA
A man who looks out for the poor today, in the real sense of it, and one who understands what is going on, has to be a person of true grit over here. I think the closest you have to it is Ron Paul.
Interesting comments from Maude about Jack Galloway, who certainly analyses political organisation to great effect.
He is a socialist in a way that no other MP is at the moment.
I don’t know what Dennis Skinner is up to at the moment,
(Lord Skinner of Bolsover?) but he pales in to the historical insignificance of Clay Cross, by comparison.
When I am confronted by Galloway, either in person or otherwise, I am aware of how modest my own political beliefs are!
Benn was never like that, but a conforming cabinet minister (secretary of state?), but with powers of expression which were very useful for the job. A good many don’t have them.
Having “political-speak” and seeing through it too, is a valuable thing to have.
Maude Elwes,
I appreciate your sense of loss and your appreciation for Benn’s point of view. It is true that Ron Paul stood outside the mainstream while functioning as a Congressman and leading a major faction of a major party. The truth is that Obama is in many ways the most sincerely focused on the poor of any President I can think of but our economy is so different from Johnson or FDR’s economies. I do not believe right and left equate to good and evil nor their opposites. I consider myself right wing and have no trouble saying that some on the far left are morally superior and more useful thinkers than some on my end of the spectrum and the spectrum has more than two dimensions.
Today in America most of our economy is consumer spending:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/consumer-spending-and-the-economy/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
Most of our federal budget is devoted to entitlements which are in some way or other at least near to transfer payments:
http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/budget-entitlement-programs
Agriculture is our largest industry and is ever less understood by power. But there are many problems that cannot be addressed in that economic sector.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/agriculture.html
The truth is that Obama is crippling America in favor of the kind of help we cannot afford and driving off those who can produce and sustain a good quality of life for the less advantaged.
Our labor force participation is very low and does not affect out unemployment statistics anymore:
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/labor-force-participation-2013-lowest-35-years
I believe high American consumption helps the world’s poor to some degree and so I oppose austerity. But I oppose insanity even more. We have to pay our debts, employ people, preserve resources and build social value. None of these things are easily done here now.
I believe high American consumption helps the world’s poor to some degree and so I oppose austerity
=========
Yep, and I bet you haven’t a clue as to how much is owed, and what levels of cuts are need to break even.
ie. You won’t include the amount owed for pensions because its off the books.
Lord Blagger,
I oppose austerity in the American sense I do favor cutting government spending. For Americans of my type Austerity still has the connotation of social and personal sumptuary regulation or guidance. That is what I oppose. I have spent years trying to establish a conversation on the real public indebtedness and know it better than all but a handful of people.
1. Our public debt at the federal level (less than 19 Trillion dollars) AND
2. Our misreported deficits at the federal level (10 trillion dollars) AND
3. Our unfunded liabilities to which we are legally committed (about 50 Trillion dollars) AND
4. All of our State debts and liabilities (4 trillion dollars) AND
5.All of our Local and Municipal debts and Liabilities (3 trillion dollars) AND
6. the cost of treaty commitments which are not funded (8 trillion dollars).
So a conservative estimate of just under 100 trillion dollars would pay us out. We also have numerous other needs, deficits and also resources that do not enter into this list. I have proposed a whole set of plans to address these issues. We need to restructure and make real changes. I am fairly radical but not a believer in what my set of friends would call austerity. All of these figures are debatable. The need to act to change things is not debatable.
That should bring our public indebtedness to somewhere near
The UK government debts are 9 tr GBP (15 tr USD) in comparison
The US GPD is 15.68 trillion
So if you owe 100 tr, you need no public spending for a long time. None. Not only that, the 100 tr will increase with inflation and interest rates dependent on the type of the debt.
Basically, its screwed. You can’t reduce the debt by any realistic amount of austerity. Same in the UK.
That leaves defaulting, in full or in part. The question then is how people react to it.
@LB:
That is why I have been writing for years, all this debt should be cancelled. Whatever the fall out. The ponce de leon’s in the city should face the music just as the rest of us have had to. All their assets frozen and confiscated by the state. Each one of them lining up for the ‘hand outs’ they paid for in their taxes. That way it’s justice for all and we will truly be all in it together.
It has to be taken seriously otherwise it will not be long before we see a repeat of the Ukraine experience right here in our midst.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00iY4cpEQDY
This thread is going a bit off the topic…please try to keep further comments focused on the subject of the original blog post by Lord Soley.
Thanks
Hansard Society
Lord Soley and Hansard,
It seems that discussing Toney Benn’s demise is closely joined to discussing some of the economic issues that came up in this discussion. However, I agree a memorial should remain a memorial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9UDBG9blrA
The first remarks and the first four minutes or so are the most relevant to my remarks as this is a link to PMQ.