As Orrin Judd likes to say, “All comedy is conservative,” (for reasons explained here) and according to London Times writer Rod Liddle, so is all punk rock:
Nor did McLaren really get the ideology behind punk rock; it was never leftist, in essence, much though the music press at the time wished that it were. If anything, it was part of the primal, pre-Thatcherite, radical right; it wanted to kick over staid and desiccated institutions and replace them with something more dynamic. It had no truck with trade unions, organised labour, co-operatives, peace and love; it was viciously individualistic. Ayn Rand would have loved punk rock. Look at the music writers who cut their teeth on punk — Julie Burchill, Tony Parsons, Garry Bushell. All well to the right of centre.
Hey, anarchy is what’s to the right of libertarianism; the punk and new wave bands that espoused folk-Marxism and collectivism were (and are) just anarcho-authoritarian poseurs anyhow.
(H/T: 5’F)
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