Back to the factories?

[Spion]

Every person in the UK could own a car, but the question is where and when they choose to use it is really the issue..

There are about 30 million cars in the UK so the driving age population already does average about 1 each. And it's a fucking mess and congested and stinks isn't it? And people are obliged to travel much further than they ever used to to get to schools and work and public transport is really shit.

But that doesn't even address the mess the planet will be in if every driving age indian or chinese gets a car. It's unsustainable and undesirable, IMO

 

[Spion]

Well, whether you think it's desirable or not is irrelevant. There's millions of cars around simply because people want a car. You may think they've been brainwashed into wanting a car, but they are incredibly useful. Who are you to decide whether ownership of cars is desirable or not?

A human being who has an opinion.

Of course I think cars are useful, you numbskull. I have one. I like them. But that doesn't stop me thinking that the methods in which they are produced and owned and how they fit into society's transport systems is not deeply flawed.

 

[mk12]

So what is your solution to this "too many cars" potential crisis?

 

[Spion]

Well, whether you think it's desirable or not is irrelevant.

Now who's suggesting people shouldn't think for themselves? You're a weird one for sure. You seem to elevate not having an opinion to some grand virtue. In your view it seems someday the proles will collectively decide what's right. And in the meantime we mustn't say how we think society should be changed.

 

[danny la rouge]

Of course. But how do you go from this to thinking a post-capitalist society would not produce tvs, computers, 'crappy' tv shows...

I don't. I go from there to - if we decide we want plug-in air fresheners, how much time do we spend in producing them, and - more importantly - how much time do we spend in R&D, production, distribution of new varieties thereof. Not much, if any, I'll wager. And I say that without pre-judging community decision-making, or setting blueprints.

Newer, sleeker, wider, flatter TV models come under the same considerations. And so on.

 

[Spion]

So what is your solution to this "too many cars" potential crisis?

Read the thread. I've said what I think. YOu need to bring something to the discussion too. Apart from dim questions

 

[kyser_soze]

So having just slagged off capitalism for undermining people's crictical facilities, you then say you want to do the exact same thing.

Nope, haven't said that at all. Where do I say I want to degrade people's critical faculties?

I don't think in general people, just because they may not be educated, are just unthinking sheep taught to go out and buy the next thing the telly tells them to.

Not all of them are, some are extremely well educated and still go out and behave like unthinking sheep. Some people with next to no education resist the constant message of spend and consume with remarkable ease. The thing is, you're conflating the ability to critically assess what's being sold to you with why it's being sold to you - most people are completely capable of the former, but not many the latter, simply because they haven't been trained, or trained themselves, to do it.

Of course. But how do you go from this to thinking a post-capitalist society would not produce tvs, computers, 'crappy' tv shows...



Well, whether you think it's desirable or not is irrelevant. There's millions of cars around simply because people want a car. You may think they've been brainwashed into wanting a car, but they are incredibly useful. Who are you to decide whether ownership of cars is desirable or not?

I didn't say that computers wouldn't be produced, nor did I say that TVs wouldn't be produced - my original point was that most manufacturing jobs will go because at present most manufacturing jobs are within industries that manufacture consumer tat.

How did Kyser escape this mentality? How is he able to see through the capitalist lies, and no one else can (or at least, no one else who isn't educated)?

Wow, another strawman!! You two are amazingly good at raising them!!

Where have I claimed to have escaped from a consumerist mentality? I haven't, nor do I claim any special ability or education to see through it all. In fact, as DLR and several older posters will tell you, my years on Urban have seen me change from having more pro-cap ideas than you to where I am now, which is able to recognise my social programming for what it is, and being self aware enough to know when my buttons are being pressed and having given myself the choice as to whether I follow it or not as opposed to simply blindly ploughing on. I've just bought a 40" LCD and I'm getting a PS3 tomorrow night - I fucking LOVE consumerism, all I was trying to point out was that your basic concept of what socialism would be like - essentially a kind of consumerist collectivism - was fundamentally flawed.

 

[mk12]

I think the overwhelming majority of people know WHY they are being sold products. There's not many people who i've come across who don't realise that companies exist to make a profit.

a kind of consumerist collectivism

That sounds

 

[danny la rouge]

That sounds

Mutualist.

 

[kyser_soze]

I think the overwhelming majority of people know WHY they are being sold products. There's not many people who i've come across who don't realise that companies exist to make a profit.



That sounds

Thanks

What I mean by the 'why' is the wider structural reasons - not just so companies can make a profit, but why they need to make a profit - indeed, why privately owned companies need exist at all! Why do very few people question the basic notion that it's OK for someone to earn more than someone else regardless of the social value of that job (e.g. bankers vs teachers) - because we exist in a system that from the word go inculates instinctual acceptance of a specific model of hierarchy, in this case a class system based on relationship to the means of production (as a base level, this has changed over the last century). Other social systems have, in the past, inculated instinctual behaviours in relation to theism, or ancestor worship - where the reaction to it being criticised is 'Well, that must simply be wrong, it feels wrong' but they're unable to justify what's being said/done, or respond to the criticism, beyond that.

ALL social systems do this to a greater or lesser degree - socialism would do this too, probably more rigidly and dogmatically than cap does TBH, but it would also require people to learn a different kind of critical thinking, one that constantly questions what's being done in their name.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Car ownership (or any other consumption) doesn't happen in a vaccuum. If you're talking about what a post-capitalist society might look like for example, then a lot of other things could reasonably be expected to be quite different.

So for example, in a post-capitalist society that came about due to the collapse of the global economy, owning a car might be a very different proposition than it is today. Where are you going to buy the petrol for it?

 

[elbows]

The word sustainability has probably been overused so the true depth of its meaning get overlooked with surprising ease.

So, to state the obvious, if mass car ownership is unsustainable, then one day it will simply not be sustained.

That could be because people cant afford cars, or the fuel, or the tax.

Road transport is certainly not going to disappear completely overnight, and its not very likely that many will give up their cars willingly, or that government would use a crude mechanism such as making it illegal.

More likely we will see a gradual reduction, whose pace will be based on how fast the oil declines/price rises. We are unlikely to get a world-class public transport system that makes more people suddenly want to give up their cars, they will surely add public transport capacity, but capacity will probably struggle to keep up with demand for a long time, the trains are overcrowded already. A reduction in travel in general is therefore probably part of the balancing act in future, hence my earlier comments about the internet.

Meanwhile there are still consumerist opportunities for taking the edge off of the sudden horror of being thrust from the private space of the car, into public transport. People can ignore eachother by watching video on their mobile phones or ipods etc.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

It's going to be a very long time before 'everyone' in China can own a car. The vast majority of the country earn a pittance, and could never afford to buy a car. Cars in China cost more than they do in Britain.

 

[chainsaw cat]

Sharps factory in wales that used to make video recorders went over to manufacturing solar panels i don't know if that is still the case

Yes it is and they can't turn them out fast enough, 24/7 and all the overtime you can eat. Making a fortune and treating the staff fairly well.

 

[chainsaw cat]

Ah, so you think a socialist future would be one of social equality with rampant consumerism do you?

Yeah, go on, sounds good.

 

[ViolentPanda]

So for example, in a post-capitalist society that came about due to the collapse of the global economy, owning a car might be a very different proposition than it is today. Where are you going to buy the petrol for it?

Or any other type of fuel such as ethanol or "bio-diesel", for that matter. Although I suppose the ethanol might be obtainable at uncle Cleatus's moonshine shop.

 

[david dissadent]

Capitalism is but one tool in the box. It is a means of allocating capital to a project. Capitalism ran rampant because the voters allowed it too. Every election since 1979 has been an endorsement of liberal free markets and a repudiation of calls for better regulation (OK you could argue that 1997 wasnt). Take Texas, no major housing buble and nothing like the porblems currently found in Florida and California, why, vastly better regulation of the housing market.

Capitalism is no more evil than marxism is because of how it was implemented in the USSR. They are tools for managing an economy and distributing wealth. Here in the west capitalism has been by and large very good to a very large part of the population.

To get out of the current economic problems and to deal with resource depletion and enviromental problems will not take a single top down easy to implement wonder system. There is none, nor is there a little box in the treasury sitting on a shelf marked "Instant socialism, just add taxes". It will take a mix of the tools available to us and applied correctly.

Capitalism can mean a couple of bright energetic people who want to sell solar panels, getting investment from a bussiness angel to start up and going out selling solar panels. It can mean someone creating the design for a new fridge (say one that uses less energy and is able to run when at low power times to prevent over working the grid during peak) getting the desings manufactured by a large conglomerate or it can mean BAe selling jets to everyone and anyone with money and people in need of killing. The first two examples are the kind of thing we need to encourage but a fixed top down socialist system tends to be inherently conservative in allocation of funds and unwilling to take risks. Capitalism creates a system where risk is rewarded. It can be more flexible and dynamic.

But there is plenty space and need for socialism. Far more social housing, better public transport, new large scale energy projects that may require the state to build and take a bit of a loss.