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March 25, 2007
When All Else Fails, Blame American Capitalism
This morning I'm flipping through the paper, and come across an AP article titled "Youngsters in Britain Seen as Menace to Society". Ok, I think, another article about how the country is going to pot. More about crime, juvenile delinquency, and the general decay of manners.
And that's pretty much how the story started out. Pretty soon, however, the political correctness started in. The Institute for Public Policy Research, described as "center-left", decided that it's all the fault of the complainers, terming it all "pedophobia". "There has always been a culture in Britain that's a bit anti-children," said one of the researchers.
Standard stuff, however regrettable. Then came this:
Britain's poor performance may be one of the downsides of the country's embrace of American-style free-market competition -- a move that has unleashed enormous economic energy since the 1980s, but widened inequalities and left many without a safety net.
I had another drink of coffee to make sure I wasn't dreaming.
So it's American-style capitalism then, that has caused all these poor "youths" go commit crimes? A lack of welfare checks causes them to join gangs?
You don't have to have all of the figures in front of you to know that Western countries have been spending more and more on the social welfare "safety net" and less and less on the military. I recall some figures recently published in the Washington Times in which during most of the Cold War the United States spent 8-10% of GDP on its military, and the UK over 5%. Today the US is at 4% and the UK 2.3%. During the height of the Cold War in the 1950s and 60s 50% of the Federal budget went to the military. Today it's 19%. I'm sure the figures are similar for the UK.
No safety net? What do people like Jill Lawless and the people at the Institute for Public Policy Research think the rest of the money was spent on?
Posted by Tom at March 25, 2007 9:10 PM
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Comments
Well, of course it's our fault, Tom! It always is because we are so evil...just ask our own left-of-center politicos!
Posted by: Anna at March 27, 2007 10:44 AM
You might want to recheck the qoute at the top of your page. Orwell never said nor did he ever write those words. Churchill said something like it, but not Orwell.
Posted by: Matt at March 27, 2007 12:02 PM
Communism is alive and well in the "west", America included! Witness: The teachers in Seattle who banned Legos because they "encouraged capitalistic behavior in the children"!
Posted by: DagneyT at March 28, 2007 6:23 PM
I'd actually been meaning to remove "George Orwell" from that quote but never got around it. There's some debate as to where the quote originates.
Posted by: Tom the Redhunter at March 29, 2007 8:56 PM
