Anything is the answer when not run by a corrupt self serving tyrant. Such systems inevitably attract those people.scarbunny post=18.71136.714974 said:
UK Class divide.
- Thread starter Danny Ocean
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Are you seriously telling me you'd be happy in your good job earning the exact same as someone who has a job that doesn't involve a lot of hard work? I'm well educated and I work bloody hard and I've gotten pissed off in the past when I discovered I was being paid the same as some well educated but lazy colleagues. I'd definitely not be happy going to college for 4 years to get a degree and then work hard to earn the same as the guy who scratches his ass in the train station. Most people are the same. This is why communism is fine for insects but doesn't work for humans.scarbunny post=18.71136.714974 said:
It dosnt work for humans because humnas are greedy and self serving and are only interested in what they can do for them selves. However I love my job, hell I took an 8K odd pay cut to take this job I would do it for free if everything was provided by the state.cianer post=18.71136.715094 said:
In a communist system you would get people doing things that they love rather than what pays well, increasing the happiness of the population as a whole, I know doctors who hate the job and only went in for the money a few actually love it and they are much better at the job, more compasion ect.
We've already got the Welfare state, although it doesn't seem to be working too well. We could increase the taxes on the rich and reduce those on the poor even further, but then again that could be taken too far. Some people say it's already being taken too far. Families that earn more than a £40,000 (I think) need to pay 40% tax already, and that's only for the system, to help the poor.
There's only so much the welfare state can achieve when government and business are deliberately trying to keep unemployment high and wages low. There is plenty of money for better facilities - it's being wasted on warmongering and propping up the profits of business (case study: my local hospital is being rebuilt. Cost of job = £300M; fee charged by construction firm = £1BN - over 200% rate of profit, with £700M that could be spent on medicine and nurses's wages being pocketed by greedy shareholders).
Is this what people mean when they say we are approaching communism?
Depends.
If a Telegraph reader says it, they generally mean society is not cutthroat capitalist enough.
If a Guardian reader says it, they generally mean there's too many CCTV cameras.
If a Marxist says it, they generally mean that machines are getting so efficient and making labour so productive that an economy based on factories being privately owned is getting more and more unable to function, and that the only way to avoid everything going the way of the Roman Empire is for factories to be run democratically by the local community rather than dictatorially by the board of directors.
So, thoughts? How can we fix this without making it a free ride for the poor or punishing the rich for being successful?
All those power stations, telephone exchanges, water plants etc the Tories privatised? Take them back into public ownership. And go farther - take the biggest corporations into public ownership, too. Equally split up the burden of work that has to be done (this does not mean everyone works the same number of hours). Scrap all of the anti-union laws, and guarantee everybody a well-paid decent job.
why should i pay for schools when i dont have kids?
If you're so selfish that you resent paying in to society, bear in mind that if children don't get a decent education crime will rise and you will pay more in insurance and private security fees than you will save on your tax bill - and you will find it a lot more difficult (expensive) to obtain the services of skilled professionals. Public education saves you money.
Why should we pay your healthcare when we don't get sick?
Why should we pay for your fire and rescue services when our houses aren't burning down and we're not trapped in a crushed vehicle leaking petrol? Why should we pay for your police when we're not being assaulted? Why should we pay for your social services when we're not being abused by our fathers?
Ultimately, higher taxation will discourage people from bothering. I mean, whats the point in bettering myself if I'm flat out worse off jumping my salary from 27 to 28 grand a year, because of the epic hike in the tax I pay?
You misunderstand how tax bands work.
Suppose the £0-28K band is 10%, and the £28K+ band is 40%.
Going from £27K to £28K will not increase your tax rate to 40%. You will still pay 10% tax. If you earn £29K, then you would still pay 10% on £28K and 40% on the £1K above £28K - making you £600 better off, and giving schools more money to spend on training a future dentist whose parents have no disposable income.
you have control over child birth and once you have children you will then pay greater tax, this would have the added benefit of stopping chavs popping out kids because the more they have the money they get with little to no negative impact.
It's not their fault that wages have been driven so low and work security so tenuous that it is more economically rational to bear children and sign on than it is to work 16 hours at minimum wage with a single disagreement with a manager being enough to destroy your income.
As I never intend to have children why should I pay to support the schools when i will see no benefit from them? Same with play parks.
As mentioned before, you do see benefit from schools. Those kids playing in the public play area will be bored and throwing bricks at windows instead if you had your way. You are welcome to stand for office on a policy of starving innocent children to death to punish the actions of their parents - and then spend more taxpayers money on repressing food riots than you save by closing state schools; see how many people vote for that...
If it is cheaper to not have kids and live on the state how come there are people I know that have 3 kids a nice house a nice car a nice big telly and have never worked a day. Yet I have no kids work everyday (in a good job) and can just about afford to pay the bills and buy food?
That's because Thatcher used the police and army to crush the unions whilst strengthening the links between business and government to drive down the living standards of workers, and 'New' Labour continued where they left off. Stop blaming the poorest layers of society for the misery heaped upon you by the rich and powerful.
I don't think that can be true, the upper-class may inherit riches, but the middle classes have usually made it themselves, right?
Depends.
To pick hairs, the mint is the only thing that makes riches.
The wealth of a small shopkeeper might well have been in part made by the work of its owner, but it was also made by the people who work for the owner and give him all of the wealth they create in exchange for a wage worth a fraction of this.
Well, taxing people on their ability to earn would be a start.
Say you pay a fixed rate of 1p for every ten pounds you can earn, whether by dole, work or interest.
Suppose it takes £200 minimum to exist. Food, water, clothing, shelter, etc. If you earn £202, that's all of your disposable income taxed.
Tax needs to get higher the more you earn, because if you earn more you have a lot more disposable income.
Communism will never work. Socialism, yes, but not communism. In a communist system, regardless of skill or effort, everyone is judged by the standards of the lowest common denominator. You have a very naive understanding of humanity if you think communism will lead to world-wide happiness. People will not go for the jobs they love, they will go for the ones that are easiest. Why put in extra effort as a leading research scientist if you're going to get paid the same as a part-time farmhand?
You have a very naive understanding of communists if you think this describes what they advocate and do not think they might have given these issues some thought over the past few centuries. You also have a very naive understanding of economics and psychology if you think money is the only motivator.
And then there's the matter of the inevitable corruption of the administrative body, leading to Animal Farm syndrome.
ANY institution with an administrative body can become corrupt. The point is for the membership to retain control of their representatives and play an active role in economic planning - which was not an easy task for an illiterate peasantry used to living under absolutist monarchy in an undeveloped economy such as early 20th century Russia. You can't generalise from such a situation to an industrialised economy with a very high literacy rate and longstanding democratic tradition.
There's only so much the welfare state can achieve when government and business are deliberately trying to keep unemployment high and wages low. There is plenty of money for better facilities - it's being wasted on warmongering and propping up the profits of business (case study: my local hospital is being rebuilt. Cost of job = £300M; fee charged by construction firm = £1BN - over 200% rate of profit, with £700M that could be spent on medicine and nurses's wages being pocketed by greedy shareholders).
Is this what people mean when they say we are approaching communism?
Depends.
If a Telegraph reader says it, they generally mean society is not cutthroat capitalist enough.
If a Guardian reader says it, they generally mean there's too many CCTV cameras.
If a Marxist says it, they generally mean that machines are getting so efficient and making labour so productive that an economy based on factories being privately owned is getting more and more unable to function, and that the only way to avoid everything going the way of the Roman Empire is for factories to be run democratically by the local community rather than dictatorially by the board of directors.
So, thoughts? How can we fix this without making it a free ride for the poor or punishing the rich for being successful?
All those power stations, telephone exchanges, water plants etc the Tories privatised? Take them back into public ownership. And go farther - take the biggest corporations into public ownership, too. Equally split up the burden of work that has to be done (this does not mean everyone works the same number of hours). Scrap all of the anti-union laws, and guarantee everybody a well-paid decent job.
why should i pay for schools when i dont have kids?
If you're so selfish that you resent paying in to society, bear in mind that if children don't get a decent education crime will rise and you will pay more in insurance and private security fees than you will save on your tax bill - and you will find it a lot more difficult (expensive) to obtain the services of skilled professionals. Public education saves you money.
Why should we pay your healthcare when we don't get sick?
Why should we pay for your fire and rescue services when our houses aren't burning down and we're not trapped in a crushed vehicle leaking petrol? Why should we pay for your police when we're not being assaulted? Why should we pay for your social services when we're not being abused by our fathers?
Ultimately, higher taxation will discourage people from bothering. I mean, whats the point in bettering myself if I'm flat out worse off jumping my salary from 27 to 28 grand a year, because of the epic hike in the tax I pay?
You misunderstand how tax bands work.
Suppose the £0-28K band is 10%, and the £28K+ band is 40%.
Going from £27K to £28K will not increase your tax rate to 40%. You will still pay 10% tax. If you earn £29K, then you would still pay 10% on £28K and 40% on the £1K above £28K - making you £600 better off, and giving schools more money to spend on training a future dentist whose parents have no disposable income.
you have control over child birth and once you have children you will then pay greater tax, this would have the added benefit of stopping chavs popping out kids because the more they have the money they get with little to no negative impact.
It's not their fault that wages have been driven so low and work security so tenuous that it is more economically rational to bear children and sign on than it is to work 16 hours at minimum wage with a single disagreement with a manager being enough to destroy your income.
As I never intend to have children why should I pay to support the schools when i will see no benefit from them? Same with play parks.
As mentioned before, you do see benefit from schools. Those kids playing in the public play area will be bored and throwing bricks at windows instead if you had your way. You are welcome to stand for office on a policy of starving innocent children to death to punish the actions of their parents - and then spend more taxpayers money on repressing food riots than you save by closing state schools; see how many people vote for that...
If it is cheaper to not have kids and live on the state how come there are people I know that have 3 kids a nice house a nice car a nice big telly and have never worked a day. Yet I have no kids work everyday (in a good job) and can just about afford to pay the bills and buy food?
That's because Thatcher used the police and army to crush the unions whilst strengthening the links between business and government to drive down the living standards of workers, and 'New' Labour continued where they left off. Stop blaming the poorest layers of society for the misery heaped upon you by the rich and powerful.
I don't think that can be true, the upper-class may inherit riches, but the middle classes have usually made it themselves, right?
Depends.
To pick hairs, the mint is the only thing that makes riches.
The wealth of a small shopkeeper might well have been in part made by the work of its owner, but it was also made by the people who work for the owner and give him all of the wealth they create in exchange for a wage worth a fraction of this.
Well, taxing people on their ability to earn would be a start.
Say you pay a fixed rate of 1p for every ten pounds you can earn, whether by dole, work or interest.
Suppose it takes £200 minimum to exist. Food, water, clothing, shelter, etc. If you earn £202, that's all of your disposable income taxed.
Tax needs to get higher the more you earn, because if you earn more you have a lot more disposable income.
Communism will never work. Socialism, yes, but not communism. In a communist system, regardless of skill or effort, everyone is judged by the standards of the lowest common denominator. You have a very naive understanding of humanity if you think communism will lead to world-wide happiness. People will not go for the jobs they love, they will go for the ones that are easiest. Why put in extra effort as a leading research scientist if you're going to get paid the same as a part-time farmhand?
You have a very naive understanding of communists if you think this describes what they advocate and do not think they might have given these issues some thought over the past few centuries. You also have a very naive understanding of economics and psychology if you think money is the only motivator.
And then there's the matter of the inevitable corruption of the administrative body, leading to Animal Farm syndrome.
ANY institution with an administrative body can become corrupt. The point is for the membership to retain control of their representatives and play an active role in economic planning - which was not an easy task for an illiterate peasantry used to living under absolutist monarchy in an undeveloped economy such as early 20th century Russia. You can't generalise from such a situation to an industrialised economy with a very high literacy rate and longstanding democratic tradition.
No it wont because there wont be a state pension by the time I need one, and even if there is I have paid in to a private one since I was 20.Capt_Jack_Doicy post=18.71136.716871 said:
Also the kids will still be educated and the play parks built as the burden will fall to the parents, not on to me with no kids. Im not against there being free education I just dont see why I should have to pay extra to fund it when I dont use it.
Sure I think communism is better than what we have, but to be honest anarchy would probably be better than our current system where the leader of our country was elected by 24% of the population.
Hard work and effort however aren't equivalent to monetary reward, many of the more menial jobs are quite hard and not good for social standing but pay the least despite being quite necessary(you don't need CEOs, you do need however need food.). Not that I'm endorsing communism, cause it won't work but working harder != more money.cianer post=18.71136.715094 said:
Eliminating most class issues has one simple solution : eliminate the family and by extension the benefits it provides to the children of the upper class.
Having all children raised by the state has following benefits.
-Kids cannot benefit from having a wealthy family, this includes better education as well as inheritance. The upper class will truly have earned it.
-Good bye racism, kids are raised in multiracial environment and not taught to favor a group of people generally of a single race.(you multiracial families, you've probably fixed this issue on your own, good for you guys. most of still have monoracial families.)
-Many people don't want to have kids because it's quite a chore to raise them(not a good enough reason to not have kids, imagine if your parents decided that instead of having you.) this removes such a problem.
-People will have no incentive to hoard wealth, as they can't pass it on to there spawn.
Not that this will -ever- happen, humans will become commies long before they abandon the family.
To the above, you also want to consider that despite health cover, in the UK most of your health care comes from the NHS. You don't get private GPs. And your pension will be funded by those still working, its not funded by the money you put it now, that funds people currently drawing their pensions.
That's an interesting idea which I've seen before, one massive problem with it though, it must have been thought up by a man. Its perfectly logical but its wholly unnatural. Human nature can be debated, but the bonds between parents and children are pretty much undisputed.WhitemageofDOOM post=18.71136.717859 said:
I'll take issue with these points in order:lindsay40k post=18.71136.715531 said:
1. Do you now, or have you ever, lived in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? Have you ever had to deal with any publically owned institution? Inneficiency, waste, and incompetence are endemic in almost every one of them, as they were back before they were privatised.
2. As the living standards of workers are higher now than ever before by almost every measure, I find this difficult to swallow. The point he's making, that you have ignored, is that it is fundamentally unfair for his hard work to subsidise the laziness of someone else, which I believe is the very core of Marx's ideology.
I'll sidetrack here to say something about Thatcher and the Unions. I grew up in a "red" area with a hard core of Labour and socialist men who have voted labour since the party was formed. My father and my uncle both voted for Thatcher, the only conservative they ever voted for, as did many in our area. Why? The unions were killing them and their families. Don't make the mistake of thinking unions aren't as fundamentally selfish as anyone else. They exist to improve the lot of their members, not everyone else.
3. It may be that the people who work for the small shopkeeper work for less than he does, but it might also transpire that they have worked considerably less hard to make that business a success. For example, the man who takes out the bins for him is an essential cog, but simply has not contributed as much as the man chasing investors, cutting deals with suppliers, making stockin decisions doing the accounting or what not.
4. They have indeed put a lot of thought into these problems, and the fundamental failure of every Communist system thus far indicates that an answer hasn't been forthcoming.
5. And it still isn't easy if you don't know a lot about economics, and most people do not. When even the finest economic minds can't predict which way the wind will blow, it seems it would be difficult for my father, an intelligent man, to make any meaningful contribution. And the strongest democratic traditions in the world clearly haven't saved us from the series of governmental travesties of the last few years, so I sorely doubt they'll be any more helpful under a Communist state.
Huge class divide in this country and always has been. Simple enough reason why, no revolution. From 1688 onwards, the oligarchy has always bent before it broke. Sometimes only just (Great Reform Act), other times often willingly (Secret Ballot Act). Yet, unlike other aristocracies, it was more than willing to accomidate new members, just so long as they were willing to play the game.
Basically, it was the pragmatism that allowed it survive whilst its continental cousins went under. WWI wasn't too kind to it however. An entire generation was wiped out in the trenches (thousands of young officers were there, always first over the top and so the first to die), thus leaving the governing class bereft of young talent. The twenties and thirties saw Britain stagnate, stumble into war, and so bankrupt itself.
The Socialists that came to power in 1945 were as strong politically as any party has been befoe or since. Perhaps then was the best chance to create a classless British society. Yet despite some good reforms (NHS etc) they failed at the key moment. The oil crisis combined with the corruption of the Unions allowed the aristocracy back in. That was 1979. Six years later, the Unions were crushed decisively and have yet to recover.
Now we see Britian as divided as any time prior to World War One. Everything depends upon who your parents are, where you were born, where you were brought up, what school you go to, what your parent's attitude towards education is.
How do you change it? Darn good question. The people who changed things first time round (The Fabians, the Unions, the Labour Movement) are all now bloated, corrupt, and toothless. Either that or have descended into obsessive paternal authoritarianism. It was, to be honest a very slow and painful process, pitted with a series of key events that were beyond anyones control. WWI, WWII, and the Great Depression all played their part in their own particular way. WWI shattered the Edwardian Iydle. The Great Depression showed the inherent weaknesses of an unregulated capitalist economy. Finally WWII showed what was possible when people worked together and were willing to make sacrifices. It was a great leveller, and most importantly it showed the people, fresh out of the Great Depression, that full employment was possible.
Again, how do you solve Britain's social ills? Try telling people to stop being snobbish and greedy. Even when they have been told, day in, day out, that these are good things. This country truly has a very long way to go.
Basically, it was the pragmatism that allowed it survive whilst its continental cousins went under. WWI wasn't too kind to it however. An entire generation was wiped out in the trenches (thousands of young officers were there, always first over the top and so the first to die), thus leaving the governing class bereft of young talent. The twenties and thirties saw Britain stagnate, stumble into war, and so bankrupt itself.
The Socialists that came to power in 1945 were as strong politically as any party has been befoe or since. Perhaps then was the best chance to create a classless British society. Yet despite some good reforms (NHS etc) they failed at the key moment. The oil crisis combined with the corruption of the Unions allowed the aristocracy back in. That was 1979. Six years later, the Unions were crushed decisively and have yet to recover.
Now we see Britian as divided as any time prior to World War One. Everything depends upon who your parents are, where you were born, where you were brought up, what school you go to, what your parent's attitude towards education is.
How do you change it? Darn good question. The people who changed things first time round (The Fabians, the Unions, the Labour Movement) are all now bloated, corrupt, and toothless. Either that or have descended into obsessive paternal authoritarianism. It was, to be honest a very slow and painful process, pitted with a series of key events that were beyond anyones control. WWI, WWII, and the Great Depression all played their part in their own particular way. WWI shattered the Edwardian Iydle. The Great Depression showed the inherent weaknesses of an unregulated capitalist economy. Finally WWII showed what was possible when people worked together and were willing to make sacrifices. It was a great leveller, and most importantly it showed the people, fresh out of the Great Depression, that full employment was possible.
Again, how do you solve Britain's social ills? Try telling people to stop being snobbish and greedy. Even when they have been told, day in, day out, that these are good things. This country truly has a very long way to go.
Hence it will never happen. It's logical, but it defies human nature.number2301 post=18.71136.717907 said:
We defy or alter every other law of nature, cept those. Quite infuriating really.
Personally i don't believe in taxing people a high percentage dependent on wage, becasue at the end of the day many of them are working hard and have earned the money, not everyone who is rich is a lazy CEO (not saying all are mind), some people work their balls off. Also I believe in a pay if used basis. I.e. pay for healthcare when you need it (I think the USA does this not sure, feedback required). Hell some people might go through live hardly ever using the doctors. We also need to be focusing more on getting people of benefits and back into the workforce to fix our currently economic climate.. that and all the other million and one things thats wrong at the moment. Hell just at a longshot it may even be an idea to make England, Scotland, Wales and N Ireland Independent Soveriegn States again.
Do you now, or have you ever, lived in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
I am a UK citizen and have been for all of my 27 years.
Have you ever had to deal with any publically owned institution? Inneficiency, waste, and incompetence are endemic in almost every one of them, as they were back before they were privatised.
Firstly, if an institution has been privatised it cannot be publicly owned.
Secondly, I have given an example of a public institution that is haemmorrhaging funds - to the private sector. The single biggest drain on the public sector is the superprofits made by its private sector suppliers; in second place is the massive pay unaccountable politicians and civil servants award themselves.
I regard bring public servants to account, paying them an average worker's wage and eradicating the drain that private profit places on the public purse as being a far better solution to the imperfect situation than privatising everything (and just hoping it doesn't all go the way of Northern Rock). Look at the state of the infrastructure - water and power firms are laughing all the way to the bank.
As the living standards of workers are higher now than ever before by almost every measure
Recent studies have claimed that the all-time highest quality of life for UK citizens was in the 1970s. The sum total of wealth in the UK has certainly grown since then; an overwhelmingly disproportionate amount of this is going to the rich - wages raises rarely significantly exceed inflation, whilst boardroom pay rises four times as fast. The super-rich have a message for those short-sighted workers who voted for Thatcher: "thanks, dumbass!".
The point he's making, that you have ignored, is that it is fundamentally unfair for his hard work to subsidise the laziness of someone else, which I believe is the very core of Marx's ideology.
Being unemployed is not laziness if there are not enough jobs. Thatcher deliberately increased unemployment to over 3 million - a figure which has been maintained - and slashed corporate and super-rich taxes, shifting the tax burden onto the higher paid and middle class.
The point he's ignoring, that I'm making, is that the amount of UK GDP that is visibly consumed by those not in work is dwarfed by the amount consumed behind closed doors in tax havens and boardrooms by unelected capitalists who never lift a finger. (Many of them own newspapers, which turn a blind eye to capitalist greed and scream blue murder at the welfare state.)
If you believe that Marx's ideology was centred around blaming the poorest for wages being low whilst ignoring rampant capitalist greed, then you clearly have never read what he had to say.
The unions were killing (working class Thatcher supporters) and their families.
Qualify this statement. Were these people scabs? Were they self-employed (no doubt totally reliant on the wages of miners trickling down to them and wondering why they lost so much trade after the Thatcher regime declared martial law to crush the unions)? Or what?
Don't make the mistake of thinking unions aren't as fundamentally selfish as anyone else. They exist to improve the lot of their members, not everyone else.
You're right, when workers organise they are under no obligation to help scabs. But they have - by campaigning for a minimum wage, free education, public health care, public pensions, welfare, peace, etc.
You're welcome!
It may be that the people who work for the small shopkeeper work for less than he does, but it might also transpire that they have worked considerably less hard to make that business a success. For example, the man who takes out the bins for him is an essential cog, but simply has not contributed as much as the man chasing investors, cutting deals with suppliers, making stockin decisions doing the accounting or what not.
And then along comes a supermarket which destroys the small business. And the shopkeeper blames the unions and foreigners.
They have indeed put a lot of thought into these problems, and the fundamental failure of every Communist system thus far indicates that an answer hasn't been forthcoming.
The fundamental failure of your analysis of communism is that you assume that every government which calls itself communist is representative of everybody who calls themselves a communist. There is nothing in Marx's writings to suggest he would support the regimes of Stalin, Mao, etc.
And it still isn't easy if you don't know a lot about economics, and most people do not.
Schools run by pro-capitalist politicians have failed to make the working class well-informed enough to make major economic decisions, therefore the working class should not be allowed to participate in economic decision-making? Where else should we apply this maxim? This 'dumb people should not be allowed to vote' philosophy can only lead to an absolutist regime which denies education opportunites.
When even the finest economic minds can't predict which way the wind will blow, it seems it would be difficult for my father, an intelligent man, to make any meaningful contribution.
It's certainly true that pro-capitalist economists have repeatedly been proven to be useless. Anti-capitalist economists are getting pretty sick of saying 'we told you so'. Economies will behave a lot more predictably when share & currency trading and war mongering are abolished.
And the strongest democratic traditions in the world clearly haven't saved us from the series of governmental travesties of the last few years, so I sorely doubt they'll be any more helpful under a Communist state.
If you take the media into public ownership so authoritarian racists like Rupert Murdock aren't spewing scaremongering antidemocratic propaganda, so-called anti-terror laws will have a far harder time getting erosions of civil liberties through.
I am a UK citizen and have been for all of my 27 years.
Have you ever had to deal with any publically owned institution? Inneficiency, waste, and incompetence are endemic in almost every one of them, as they were back before they were privatised.
Firstly, if an institution has been privatised it cannot be publicly owned.
Secondly, I have given an example of a public institution that is haemmorrhaging funds - to the private sector. The single biggest drain on the public sector is the superprofits made by its private sector suppliers; in second place is the massive pay unaccountable politicians and civil servants award themselves.
I regard bring public servants to account, paying them an average worker's wage and eradicating the drain that private profit places on the public purse as being a far better solution to the imperfect situation than privatising everything (and just hoping it doesn't all go the way of Northern Rock). Look at the state of the infrastructure - water and power firms are laughing all the way to the bank.
As the living standards of workers are higher now than ever before by almost every measure
Recent studies have claimed that the all-time highest quality of life for UK citizens was in the 1970s. The sum total of wealth in the UK has certainly grown since then; an overwhelmingly disproportionate amount of this is going to the rich - wages raises rarely significantly exceed inflation, whilst boardroom pay rises four times as fast. The super-rich have a message for those short-sighted workers who voted for Thatcher: "thanks, dumbass!".
The point he's making, that you have ignored, is that it is fundamentally unfair for his hard work to subsidise the laziness of someone else, which I believe is the very core of Marx's ideology.
Being unemployed is not laziness if there are not enough jobs. Thatcher deliberately increased unemployment to over 3 million - a figure which has been maintained - and slashed corporate and super-rich taxes, shifting the tax burden onto the higher paid and middle class.
The point he's ignoring, that I'm making, is that the amount of UK GDP that is visibly consumed by those not in work is dwarfed by the amount consumed behind closed doors in tax havens and boardrooms by unelected capitalists who never lift a finger. (Many of them own newspapers, which turn a blind eye to capitalist greed and scream blue murder at the welfare state.)
If you believe that Marx's ideology was centred around blaming the poorest for wages being low whilst ignoring rampant capitalist greed, then you clearly have never read what he had to say.
The unions were killing (working class Thatcher supporters) and their families.
Qualify this statement. Were these people scabs? Were they self-employed (no doubt totally reliant on the wages of miners trickling down to them and wondering why they lost so much trade after the Thatcher regime declared martial law to crush the unions)? Or what?
Don't make the mistake of thinking unions aren't as fundamentally selfish as anyone else. They exist to improve the lot of their members, not everyone else.
You're right, when workers organise they are under no obligation to help scabs. But they have - by campaigning for a minimum wage, free education, public health care, public pensions, welfare, peace, etc.
You're welcome!
It may be that the people who work for the small shopkeeper work for less than he does, but it might also transpire that they have worked considerably less hard to make that business a success. For example, the man who takes out the bins for him is an essential cog, but simply has not contributed as much as the man chasing investors, cutting deals with suppliers, making stockin decisions doing the accounting or what not.
And then along comes a supermarket which destroys the small business. And the shopkeeper blames the unions and foreigners.
They have indeed put a lot of thought into these problems, and the fundamental failure of every Communist system thus far indicates that an answer hasn't been forthcoming.
The fundamental failure of your analysis of communism is that you assume that every government which calls itself communist is representative of everybody who calls themselves a communist. There is nothing in Marx's writings to suggest he would support the regimes of Stalin, Mao, etc.
And it still isn't easy if you don't know a lot about economics, and most people do not.
Schools run by pro-capitalist politicians have failed to make the working class well-informed enough to make major economic decisions, therefore the working class should not be allowed to participate in economic decision-making? Where else should we apply this maxim? This 'dumb people should not be allowed to vote' philosophy can only lead to an absolutist regime which denies education opportunites.
When even the finest economic minds can't predict which way the wind will blow, it seems it would be difficult for my father, an intelligent man, to make any meaningful contribution.
It's certainly true that pro-capitalist economists have repeatedly been proven to be useless. Anti-capitalist economists are getting pretty sick of saying 'we told you so'. Economies will behave a lot more predictably when share & currency trading and war mongering are abolished.
And the strongest democratic traditions in the world clearly haven't saved us from the series of governmental travesties of the last few years, so I sorely doubt they'll be any more helpful under a Communist state.
If you take the media into public ownership so authoritarian racists like Rupert Murdock aren't spewing scaremongering antidemocratic propaganda, so-called anti-terror laws will have a far harder time getting erosions of civil liberties through.
A child from a rich family will be able to get a decent education because their parents are paying for it, the teachers will make sure the student passes, if they fail at school they always have money to fall back on or get a job in the family.
A child from a poor family won't get a decent education, their education environment will be a lot worse, by the time they are 16 they will probably leave school with mediocre or worse Gcse's and start work straight away.
The solution is simple, the quality of education needs to improve in all public schools, you don't just throw money at it, you teach properly, I don't understand why some children are leaving primary school unable to read and English papers aren't graded on spelling.
A child from a poor family won't get a decent education, their education environment will be a lot worse, by the time they are 16 they will probably leave school with mediocre or worse Gcse's and start work straight away.
The solution is simple, the quality of education needs to improve in all public schools, you don't just throw money at it, you teach properly, I don't understand why some children are leaving primary school unable to read and English papers aren't graded on spelling.
Are you from Scotland yourself? Thatcher crippled Scotland by testing out Poll Tax on us... I don't believe it would be a good idea to bring it back at all... Thatcher was terrible... I still cant stand the toriesscarbunny post=18.71136.714757 said:
. And yeah the class divide isn't good :/ There's no real way to stop it though... without going further left wing... which may not be a bad thing actually.