Re: Materialist politics

"In other words, classical liberalism is idealist because it is not rooted in an understanding of the balance of social forces within society." Only private actors in an economy making choices with their own money can come closest to understanding the material conditions within society. This is not an idealism, but rooted in the material reality of human psychology. The state, however, is shielded from the consequences of mismanaging the economy. Whether it's the Labour government's 1947 Planning Act responsible for delays in housing construction or the Tory's in 1980 granting tenants the "right-to-buy" council homes at below-market rates and sucking up both supply and demand even further, the state will always have an incentive to favor its ideological whims over market realities because, barring extreme circumstances, the state will never go out of business. And it's neither the fault of the classical liberal or of the migrant that the Third World is saturated with illiberal regimes intent on driving local economies into the ground and socializing the costs. As for taxing the rich, I agree it's unlikely to drive them away from their home country. But that tax money doesn't come out of their budget for luxury expenses; it comes out of the funds they would have used for private investment. Those are investments that would have gone towards more jobs and higher-paying jobs for those college-educated Brits you wish to anchor down. And because private investments are predicated on private risk and reward, they are far likelier to be well-placed than whatever ideological boondoggle the state is likely to fund.