It seems that our good friend Alasdair has been in other places, writing in exactly the same flabbergasted fashion, attacking, insulting, backing up Philip Blond and defending himself – I mean, Milbank – from all those slanderous attacks:

For example, at Rain and Rhinoceros, in a critical post called ‘Milbank and the Papal Cosh’, ‘Maclagan’ writes:

Ordoliberalism is not at all the same as the Austrian School — though there were overlaps and the latter is not the same as the Chicago School. The German social market is based on ordoliberalism and any self-respecting US Republican of the current ilk would regard it as more or less commie. See Wilhelm Roepke (an ordoliberal) *The Social Crisis of our Time* and for a clearing up of confusions as shown in one entry on this blog, Maurice Glasman *Unnecessary Suffering*.

Further, in the comments to an article by Philip Blond in The Statesman, ‘Maclagan’ writes:

… Blond’s crucial points. First of all, he IS talking about the recent British left. Secondly, the continental versions of ‘positive liberty’ deriving from Rousseau are really versions of negative liberty after all, as Blond implies. Here the State enacts a general will but this general will is for the autonomous liberty of each individual.So even if the state is ‘positively’ trying to ensure equal opportunites and non-interference by some with the liberties of others, its goal is still the ‘negative’ increase of freedom of choice. Moreover, the frredom of the state as such has tended to be expressed as the ‘negative’ liberty of the nation state from outside interference and its freedom to extend its own bounds and choose its own role in the world. By contrast, a true, ‘strong’ version of positive liberty lies in the antique, not the modern Republican tradition. Here real freedom lies in the choice of virtue, political participation and the life of contemplative wisdom. The state then exists to promote this true freedom and thereby the genuine flourishing of its citizens. However, this promotion cannot be done by central bureacratic control. It can only be achieved ‘socially’ through the cultivation of habits of excellence in community life and the production of goods. The Christian invention of the Church as an extra-legal community beyond the state vastly increased this sense of the priority of ‘society’. As Blond suggests, real freedom for the individual depends upon cooperation with others in networks of interpersonal relationships. But the Rousseausist caricature of antique positive liberty destroys tradtioned communities as preventing the pure freedom of the individual as supposedly something ‘uninfluenced’. Scandinavia in fact proves Blond’s point here. Its peacable equality depends on conservative tradition and shared values; its constitutionalism, like Britain’s, has deep medieval roots owing little to France or the US.

And then over at the Conservative Home’s Platform, he has this to say:

Blond is not suggesting closed, compulsory guilds. Instead he is rethinking the guild-idea in contemporary terms. What he suggests is ‘free guilds’–that is, professional associations that would require certain standards of good practice to be met by memebers. This would extend to quality of produce, treatment of workers and consumers, fair pricing and financial rewarding of employees. In return, subscribing frims would be able to display a badge of good practice which would give them a competitive advantage. In this way a modified and freely emergent ‘guild monopoly’ can allow good practice to drive out bad and prevents chronic and iniquitous monopoly which is based on bad practice driving out good. That the free market based on individualism does not encourage this twin phenomenon of monopoly and deleterious crowding-out is nonsense. But a more moral market, in which reciprocal exchanges took account of more than profit and participants competed also in excellence of practice would be a still freer market. This is a crucial part of Blond’s case: the more one has ‘tacit’ restraints on self-interest, the less one needs external state enforcemnt of contract and policing of the dire consequences of individualism. Likewise, the more one has trust within a firm and with its concumers, the less a firm needs to police its employees and the more risk and enterprise are nurtured. Blond is arguing that ethics actually favours more and not less economic liberty. In this respect he is thinking with the most creative economists today. It is his critics who know little about cutting-edge economic thought. And the Pope and the people influencing the Pope like Bruni and Zamagni are indeed saying similar things.

Hmmm … seems remarkably familiar -  even with the typos – especially if you’ve been following the comments at Milbank in Monstrosity of Christ, or if you’ve read some of his -  I mean, Milbank’s – works. Unless, of course, it’s a very, very clever ploy …