socialism

Socialism: What If The Labour Party Had Won?

January 15, 2020 Nic Elliott Podcasts 0:55:39

Even though the Conservative Party won a comfortable majority in the December 2019 UK General Election, it’s still worth talking about what life would have been like under Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist Labour Party.

What would happen when the economic policies of nationalisation, massive spending and capital controls started yielding truly negative results? Would the Labour Party move towards the centre ground of politics again, or double down on more state ownership?

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The Berlin Wall Fell 30 Years Ago

November 7, 2019 Andrew Elliott Podcasts 00:34:25

It’s the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall – a crucial moment in the late 20th century that signalled the end of the Cold War and the retreat of Communism.
So what has changed since then, and do people born after this moment have different sensibilities when it comes to who the “bad guys” are?
We discuss whether terrorism was the replacement of communism as that perceived enemy, and how it impacts popular culture, and today’s political debate.

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Dr Kristian Niemietz Interview: Socialism, Capitalism and Liberalism

September 19, 2019 Andrew Elliott Podcasts 00:46:42

We are joined by the Head of Political Economy at the Institute of Economic Affairs, Dr Kristian Niemietz, for a conversation on the phenomenon of modern support for socialism, whether apologists for capitalism help their cause, and whether we’ll see a new classical liberal revolution in our lifetimes.

You can find Kristian on Twitter as @K_Niemietz

And you can buy his latest book, Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies here on Amazon.

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The Left Right Game 2

September 1, 2019 Andrew Elliott Podcasts 00:35:46

After Andrew surprised Nic a few episodes ago with The Left Right Game, Nic has been thinking and planning a way of getting his own back, and taking the game a step further.

In this edition, we look at whether certain organisations and people are more “Left” or “Right” wing (or a bit of both), rather than just looking at government policies, like we did the first time.

Will you agree with our determinations? How right wing or left wing are you based on our definitions? Does it change how you think about the political spectrum?

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Bit of a chat: driving whisky, ruining Monopoly and the Chuka Umunna Award

August 7, 2019 Andrew Elliott Podcasts 01:18:49

In this edition, we have a longer chat than usual, but try to get in all the smaller topics that we feel were too short to be podcasts in their own right, or that we just want to rant about.

We discuss gaming culture, and whether the terminology is creeping into political life, how Andrew feels like we’ve been brainwashed into thinking the game Monopoly is really capitalism, and Nic names the first recipient of the Chuka Umunna Award.

And over a whisky or two, we talk about how Brexity the new Boris Johnson cabinet can be, and whether the Tories are missing a trick with making everything about Corbyn.

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The Left Right Game

July 13, 2019 Andrew Elliott Podcasts 00:28:44

This week, I surprise Nic with a new jape: The Left Right Game!

I had the idea to state a number of different, collectivist policies and Nic had to tell me whether they were left or right wing, with evidence of course, to test my theory that many people associate all forms of statism with the left. Did Nic fall into my trap?

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The Uniqueness of Human Thought and Win-Win Transactions

June 26, 2019 Andrew Elliott Podcasts 00:42:23

Why is it that only humans trade?  In this edition, we discuss how the human capacity to think has lead us to invent the concepts of specialisation and exchange, and that there is a common fallacy that trade transactions aren’t in fact Win-Win.

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What’s Up With Communism?

June 14, 2019 Andrew Elliott Podcasts 00:59:04

This week another book on communism was published. We know what you’re thinking. This time, it’s going to be different… So we question various obvious, and not so obvious, aspects to communism. What happens to privacy when others decide what I am allowed? How much slavery is acceptable? How is value determined? How can communism cope with scarcity? After all, resources aside, there are only a certain amount of man (or robot) hours in a day, limiting what we can build.

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Portrait of Mao Tse-tung

Why Is It OK To Laugh At Communism?

April 5, 2019 Nic Elliott Podcasts 00:29:59

This week we discuss why we find buying each other communist memorabilia amusing but would not feel the same about fascist merchandise. We also question the rules around humour and what makes one ideology an acceptable target, but another not? Will Nic stop using his treasured Soviet tea set?

Photo by Kirill Sharkovski on Unsplash

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Could peaceful, purist socialism actually work?

January 24, 2019 Nic Elliott Podcasts 00:30:47

Real socialism, apparently, has never been tried. For the group of socialist purists that believe a peaceful voluntary system could work globally, it could be a workable reality. We discuss the specifics of such a plan, and how it might work in practice. Could it be that they’ve cracked a way of beating a free market system of productivity and choice?

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