European Elections

A profile tool for the European elections. By answering 30 questions on social and economic policy it places you on a political compass and gives you an idea of the party or parties with the ideas closest to yours. Apparently my beliefs fit in closest with the ideology of either the SNP or the Liberal Democrats, and more widely, the centre-right Moderaterna Partiet in Sweden. This is pretty accurate as I'd probably vote for all three depending on my place of residence.

State Solution

There seems to be at present a belief that the political consensus after the economic crisis, is universally anti-capitalist.

It is not a consensus. Socialism and a planned economy for 'need not profit' do not work, and have been shown not to work throughout history. Growth in all planned economies has stagnated because need is indeterminable to any efficient or accurate standard. Waste of resources and wholesale corruption are the predictable results.

Sweden has recently voted to end the state monopoly on pharmacies, Apotoket AB, taking them outwith an exclusive club, the only other members of which are Cuba and North Korea. It is currently impossible to purchase paracetamol in the supermarket, and subsequently the cost of pharmaceutical products is prohibitive due to a lack of competition.

Inefficient industries are not sustainable, and so should not be propped up by the state, and via a higher burden of taxation; at least not in the long term. Competition is an important element of price control, and it follows therefore that monopolies should be prevented whether they are state controlled or private corporations.

Tariffs and subsidies of industry and agriculture, should also be abolished. The principal effect of these trade barriers is to keep the third world under developed, and no matter how much aid we give to developing countries, we will not solve their problems of hunger and disease. These are things they must do themeselves. Indeed those projects which have provided the most assistance within the developing world have actually been capitalist in nature, be they conditional cash transfer schemes or microfinance initiatives.

I also believe that the European Union could, by removing barriers to trade with the third world, systematically improve the lives of those who live there through the boom in trade that would result. I fundamentally believe the maxim of Adam Smith, that "trade is always advantageous, though not always equally so, to both parties."