Somehow I managed to escape school without reading Lord of the Flies. I've just watched the 1963 film version, which I think is great. The hero of the story, Ralph, gets voted as leader of a group of children who are deserted on an island. He stands for decency, friendship, and loyalty. He's one of the people in this world who will talk to anyone, the sort who at parties aren't constantly looking around the room trying to find someone more important to speak to. A thoroughly decent chap. But his downside is that he is too authoritarian. His emphasis on rules stands in the way of the children having fun. Ralph seems to be an authoritarian Tory.

Most of the children are lured by Jack, who says "Bollocks to the rules!" and promises them utopia for all by joining his 'tribe'. But Jack's utopia soon becomes much more oppressive than Ralph's Toryism. Instead of being a more egalitarian, less top-down society, it becomes a dictatorship, with children being beaten, and people staying with Jack out of fear. It quickly turns murderous. Jack, for all his progressive-sounding speech, is even more authoritarian than Ralph.

If both models - Ralph's and Jack's - are flawed, is there a better way? Well, yes. It is a free society. Free societies let individuals make choices about their lives. The power of politicians to tell people what to do is limited (either by constitution, or by precedent and culture). But free societies rely on impartial institutions like the police and the legal system to protect the rights of individuals. Only a combination of freedom and the rule of law provide a truly progressive society.