I wonder whether people are getting less party political and more interested in the issues of the day.

I said that 'if socialists were made to read economics, there would be no socialists'.

The context of your post seems to be way out of whack with that.

"That was fun and to round off the day, I am off to steal a charity collection box and then desecrate a place of worship.” - Smokey, The Selhurst Arms, 26/02/02

Nice! Two targets with one fell unsupported swoop! Pretty sure the gays like Labour too, you could probably throw them in as well Derbs...

People talk about how Corbyn's unelectable but maybe it would be better looking at it the other way round. The centre left across Europe is on its knees and has been since the crash, because they have no coherent narrative in which they can offer hope while accepting austerity. That's why Pasok were wiped out by Syriza in Greece, why the Spanish Worker's Party have been overtaken by Podemos, and even why Labour were crushed by the Scots Nats north of the border, with Sturgeon playing heavily on Labour's lack of social justice.

What I think your seeing across Europe is the youth looking at their parents' houses, jobs and standards of living and for the first time since WW1 realising that they probably won't have it as good as them. All the while they're being peddled this crap by the right about paying back for an economic mess they played no part in, and they're rightly sticking 2 fingers up at it and increasingly turning to the far left. The condescending tone of people like Blair, Campbell and those in the media towards what's happening is only fuelling the flames, and that's why I really wouldn't be surprised if those on the right aren't sowing the seeds for their own destruction and Corbyn does a lot better than people think he will.

Edited by serial thriller (13 Aug 2015 1.20am)

If punk ever happened I'd be preaching the law, instead of listenin to Lydon lecture BBC4

If these 'household names' of socialist economic thought were so 'great', how can none of them have come up with a working, practical alternative to capitalism? Before you say they have, they clearly haven't as capitalism rules the planet.

Furthermore, 'Socialist economics' is an oxymoron performed by a bunch of elitist professors having a circle jerk about something that will never happen.

"That was fun and to round off the day, I am off to steal a charity collection box and then desecrate a place of worship.” - Smokey, The Selhurst Arms, 26/02/02

There are hundreds of libertarian economists and yet there isn't one country on the planet which is truly libertarian. Economic theory and economic reality are miles apart, and to suggest that only practical economics gets anywhere is to show a total ignorance to the history of applied economics. For example, Marxism only really rose to prominence with the Russian revolution, which occurred decades after Marx's death. Popular economists like Hayek and Rand were really fringe thinkers when they wrote.

There is a dogmatism to your posts which I find worrying. You assume that those with a different ideological standpoint to you are merely ignorant, hence claiming that no economists can be socialist even when this flies in the face of reality. Socialism has happened, is happening and will probably happen again, yet your last paragraph highlights that you aren't willing to engage on an intellectual level with its ideas, instead wishing to smear the views held be millions, purely because they are at odds with your own.

You love brandishing us on the left as totalitarian, fascist and blinkered, but I wonder what terminology you would use of your own views on tho thread if you were to take a step back?

If punk ever happened I'd be preaching the law, instead of listenin to Lydon lecture BBC4

What a load old woof.

"It's not the bullet that's got my name on it that concerns me; it's all them other ones flyin' around marked 'To Whom It May Concern.'"