Fight for the System, Not the Results

Deborah Grayson guest writing at Left Foot Forward discusses the notion that the Suffragettes did not win themselves the vote through their campaign but rather it was economic forced. She isn't happy with that idea:

"In this second version of history, [it isn't?] people that change things, but blind economic forces."

I'm no economist but I'm pretty sure that economic forces don't exist independently of people. Aren't these "blind economic forces" the net result of people making choices?

This narrative has come to dominate ideas about social change, and is incredibly disempowering:
...
Until some impersonal force decides that your demand is ‘economic’ you might as well have stayed at home watching repeats of Top Gear on Dave. It’s a narrative that helps us deal with the liberal guilt about the privileges we enjoy, and justifies us giving up the fight for a more equal world. And it clearly works to the advantage of those who already hold power by dissuading people from taking any kind of action to challenge them.

Ms Grayson seems to think that the only thing one can fight for is a given result. Thus if you cannot force people to give you what you want you have nothing to campaign for. She's wrong, as any Libertarian can tell her. Fight for a better system Deborah!

It's All About the Money

I've heard people claim that Libertarians are obsessed with money and are incapable of measuring things by any other means. If so we're not alone. I give you the Equality and Human Rights Commission:

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the EHRC, said the study revealed that while British attitudes towards issues of race, gender and sexuality are now "light years" ahead of previous generations, the reality on the ground has yet to fully catch up. In consequence, there are deep divisions in Britain's classrooms, different experiences of the criminal justice system and a stubbornly large pay gap between men and women. In full-time work, women are still paid 16.4% less than men, a figure that rises to 55% in the finance sector.

It would seem that for the EHRC the only way to measure someone's worth is by how much they get paid. Hence, if women are not being paid the same as men they are not being considered equal to them. Now who's obsessed with money?