8ball
As seen on TikTok
The entire economy is a pyramid selling scheme.
Maybe some new ways of thinking about economics will start to evolve during this period. It needs something new, though, there will be no retreat to Maoism.
Capitalism has failed. So what is the alternative?
- Thread starter tbaldwin
- Start date
The entire economy is a pyramid selling scheme.
Maybe some new ways of thinking about economics will start to evolve during this period. It needs something new, though, there will be no retreat to Maoism.
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
Maybe a new system is required. But I've yet to hear of one that, in my opinion, matches the realities of humanity.
8ball
As seen on TikTok
Who in their right mind would want to go round cleaning up manky blood filled fat from a liposucktion clinic if they didn't have too? Who would want to go round picking up dog shit, cleaning vomit of the pavement and picking up needles and condoms from a park, day and day after day?
Who would honestly want to open a kebab shop and get abuse hurled at them by the thousands of people who can get uncontrollably pissed for free, and know they don't have to ge up for work the next day if they don't want to?
Society would grind to a halt. After people got over the fact they could walk into Curries and take 15 plasma screen TVs (and the fights that would break out) why would they bother going back to their shity job if they hated it?
The attitude of fuck it somebody else is doing it would take over.
I presume after half the country had got pissed and cleared shops out then the trouble would start. Once people realise stuff needed doing, there would be fights over who got the plum jobs, and then a good amount of people would probably only work a handful of hours a day.
I presume then some sort of "commity" would be required in order to forcepeople to do stuff...
No thanks.
TomPaine
doddles
Appreciates the good eggs
Socialism isn't the answer, but your example highlights the problems with capitalism. Presumably your point was that people need to be recompensed for doing shitty work. But capitalism doesn't recompense people based on how shitty their work is. Nor does it recompense them based on how smart/able/hard working they are. It recompenses them based on a combination of ability, luck (being born into the right family), and most importantly, greed. So people with a conscience will accept lower pay to do work that they think is important and worthwhile, whilst the greedy will go after maximum dollars. That's half the reason why fund managers and executives etc get paid enormous salaries and bonuses while nurses, school teachers and the like get paid not a fraction of executive salaries.
The other half of the reason is that people who work in basic essential services, such as nurses and teachers, have their pay heavily regulated, which needs to be done in order to keep the costs of the services down. Most people would agree that a successful society needs affordable health care and schools. The problem is that the fat cats get all the benefits of these cost- and salary-regulated services, but don't contribute in the same way themselves. In essence, they are parasites.
You can talk all you like about the benefits of capitalism, but as long as you want to maintain affordable basic services, then you have a two-tier system and you no longer have a level playing field. I can see three solutions to this:
i) de-regulate and privatise everything. Let nurses, teachers, schools and hospitals charge whatever the hell they like. We'd soon see a lot of teachers and nurses earning a lot more money. We'd also see unprecedented poverty, hardship, crime and a rapid deterioration of society as it became ever more split in two.
ii) put a cap on the maximum earnings (or an effective cap with taxation, or see iii below) of any individual as a percentage of the median salary for workers in regulated/government industry. Yeah - I know. That would cause lots of execs to relocate to other countries. Good riddance. Recent events have shown that they're not particularly great at their jobs, and there are enough people in the UK/Europe with a conscience who will happily do just as good a job for less compensation in a fairer society.
ii) allow public services/hospitals/schools to charge whatever they like to those working in private/unregulated industries where their salary is higher than the median-based cap in ii). Hey - you reap the benefits of an unregulated market? Then you're gonna have to pay the price. Your council tax bill, medical bills, car licence, kids' tuition fees are going to skyrocket, but why shouldn't they - you're currently a parasite on all the council workers, nurses, teachers, etc. who are keeping your life affordable by working for 1/100th of your salary or less.
I think the reality is that most people want a fairer society. They dont like or want people getting something for nothing, they dont like massive inequality,starvation or abuse of power..
Again and again the Left fuck up cos they just dont seem to understand that most people do want a fairer society.
Instead the Left is full of people saying idiotic things on issues like crime and immigration,which just serves to discredit the whole idea of socialism to people.
dennisr
the acceptable face
Ahh thats it 'the left' are to blame (and the immigrants get the usual throw in)
Not really what i said is it dennis.
But of course the Left are at least partly responsible for their own lack of success.
At a time when Capitalism is going tits up the far Left is probably at its weakest point for 50 years.
Immigration is just one issue where middle class liberalism has been allowed to dominate what the left says.
dennisr
the acceptable face
yes, it is about what you said - its the usual repeat it enough times and it may therefore become true.
only in your mind mate
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
Balders, for the umpteenth time; THERE IS NO MONOTHOUGHT 'LEFT'; there is as much divergence of opinion in progressive and revolutionary politics as anywhere else, and all of your sublittlejohnesque rantettes won't alter that fact.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Immigration?
Depends how you define progressive and revolutionary politics surely.
Personally i think that Capitalism belongs in the dustbin of history along with all those turgid far left groupings who thought that Socialism was about clever people (eg them) telling not so clever people what to do.
The free market is going to be seen by more and more people as failing. There will be more and more people who want to hear something positive coming from the left. The same old far left top down approach is not going to work.
doddles
Appreciates the good eggs
I agree. I think that a market-based social democracy, as practiced by a number of European countries, can be a workable system, but there are limits. Such a system cannot compete in a totally unregulated global market, which will always favour the countries that minimise protections for the poorer sections of society. i.e. in the law of the jungle, the toughest and most ruthless will generally prevail without regard to fairness. So if we want fairness, we need some form of regulation.
That's partly the reason why individual European social democracies couldn't keep up with the anglo free market model, at least in the shorter term. The fact that Europe is now suffering along with the anglo countries has more to do with the way they lost confidence in their own model and succumbed to the temptation of greater de-regulation. Still, with a common currency and better cohesion between European nations, I think the European social democracy model can weather the ups and downs of the anglo free market and prove a better deal in the long run.
Another major part of the problem is that the indices we use to rate success in an economic and political system are lousy. "Economic growth", "inflation", "unemployment" - these are at best incredibly crude measures of a population's health and wellbeing. They have been provided by a bunch of economists with their own perspective on what's important (not to mention their own vested interests), and for some reason we have meekly accepted them as gold standards. We need to define measures that more accurately reflect the day to day life of the population and that reflect those things that we want to maximise and those that we want to minimise. It's not hard to do this, and many such indices already exist. We just need to start using them to guide policy.
Either Socialism, or Euronationalism had the potential to be that alternative. As to who does depends a lot on their nationwide organsiation, electoral efforts and quality and extent of their propoganda, to put that alternative over, and to put enough blue water between that alternative and the mainstream parties who offer more of the same
Nigel
For A Degenerates' Workers State
Its a nice image but I doubt that it is going to happen.
Most legislation past is to aid business prosper, usually at the expense of the, "little man"
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
It's also not fraud.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
No, the derivatives market. It wasn't fraudulent. You talk about 'Those guilty of fraud should be arrested and tried under a court of law.'...where's the fraud?
I am aware that the derivatives market isn't fraud, and I didn't single out that area of the markets in my above post. I was referring to the whole mess in general in the banking sector at the moment. Where fraud can be proven to have taken place it should be prosecuted.
I recently watched a documentary that was showing how some of the sub prime mortages (in the US) where created in a fraudulent manner essentially.
Getting handicapped people with the mental age of 8 to sign re-mortgaging deals was something particularly disgusting.
TomPaine
I recently watched a documentary that was showing how some of the sub prime mortages (in the US) where created in a fraudulent manner essentially.
Getting handicapped people with the mental age of 8 to sign re-mortgaging deals was something particularly disgusting.
TomPaine
dennisr
the acceptable face
plenty of lefts have been getting on with the practical task of organising workers - national and immigrant - to ensure rights and wages. Major battles have been fought - some even won but it has allpassed the likes of baldwin by.
8ball - don't fall for the same old spurious crap from baldwin - he has two problems - a) the 'failure' of some fantasy 'left' and b) the immigrants lowering our wages and superficially latches these two issues to every issue he can thereby derailing every thread he can. Some people have gone over these same tedious 'issues' with him for well over a year but he still comes up with the same old crap. Its like some form of autism.
Ask him what the alternative is and he may give you an abstract list to go with his abstract theories.
The state both at US, UK and other countries has come in to aid capitalism in a very big way. Commentators say this is the biggest crisis/recesion in the last 70 years.
In the UK some on the left say there shouldbe full scale nationalisation of the banks, with more controls, take back the Bank of England into state control.
Whateever your politics and view of the state, it looks clear to me that state intervention has to happen. Unless the crisis goes deeper. Some lefties may want this to happen.
However, the real issue is if the state can save the bankers, what about child poverty, housing, education, health utilities like gas, electricity, water? If we can save incompetent, greedy and scumbags like the banking sector, why not elsewhere? Capitalism may survive but the demands and protests now should be the alternative society that we would like to see and with our controls. Otherwise it is as usual the workers who will have to take the brunt of the recession and attacks on their living standards. Optimistically some opposition and movement may come out of this crisis. Something more than the usual left (which is in dissaray) - these are historic times and we need to get involved.
In the UK some on the left say there shouldbe full scale nationalisation of the banks, with more controls, take back the Bank of England into state control.
Whateever your politics and view of the state, it looks clear to me that state intervention has to happen. Unless the crisis goes deeper. Some lefties may want this to happen.
However, the real issue is if the state can save the bankers, what about child poverty, housing, education, health utilities like gas, electricity, water? If we can save incompetent, greedy and scumbags like the banking sector, why not elsewhere? Capitalism may survive but the demands and protests now should be the alternative society that we would like to see and with our controls. Otherwise it is as usual the workers who will have to take the brunt of the recession and attacks on their living standards. Optimistically some opposition and movement may come out of this crisis. Something more than the usual left (which is in dissaray) - these are historic times and we need to get involved.
I basically think balders is more or less right about immigration and the left, though i don't really buy his argument that we're stealiing the skilled workforce from other countries.
I just think it's hard enough for the people to get united enough to have a political voice in their favour without continually being turned against each other by there always being someone new who's willing to work for less.
And I think that since the left won't pragmatically decide to oppose immigration temporarily, the biggest opposition to the mainstream parties is likely to end up being the BNP.
I just think it's hard enough for the people to get united enough to have a political voice in their favour without continually being turned against each other by there always being someone new who's willing to work for less.
And I think that since the left won't pragmatically decide to oppose immigration temporarily, the biggest opposition to the mainstream parties is likely to end up being the BNP.
The free market fundamentalists generally seem to be in full retreat: Ruth Lea, late of Lehman Brothers and the very right wing Institute Of Directors has just been on Q/T claiming she has always been in favour of regulated markets!. While in the US Bush and Pulson are considering nationalising part of the US banking system, the libertarian in the RW Cato institute could only harangue from afar...
But as others have said , there is no real left to take up the opportunities that must now be present.The other thing is the policy of mass migration: a key plank of the neo-liberal economy and which must also now be up for reconsideration, strangely the far left is silent on that element of the crisis, again sadly the left has no answers.
Any contract involving a promise of future payment is inherently risky, as you can't squeeze blood out of a stone.
It's funny, quite a few years back I actually thought there was a window of opportunity for this civilisation to deliberately wake up and move into a society where we take advantage of our technology so that we all work as little as possible.
It seems ridiculous now that I could ever have thought that people might actually have realised that we had it made, and had no real problems except in our heads, and decide to change things. But there was optimism there... It just seems like everyone who had it thought that optimism would turn into change by magic.
Taht's the funny thing about this world. Yes there's problems but mainly not real ones, -- just in people's heads, or in the extensions of the problems they've envisaged in their heads and responded to with legal systems.
Was there ever any hope for this civilisation? I thought somehow, if Britain could be persuaded to vote for something different, maybe the whole world might ahve followed suit. But we seem to be firmly stuck,.. now printing money to prop up the indefensible, for fear of something even worse.
It's funny, quite a few years back I actually thought there was a window of opportunity for this civilisation to deliberately wake up and move into a society where we take advantage of our technology so that we all work as little as possible.
It seems ridiculous now that I could ever have thought that people might actually have realised that we had it made, and had no real problems except in our heads, and decide to change things. But there was optimism there... It just seems like everyone who had it thought that optimism would turn into change by magic.
Taht's the funny thing about this world. Yes there's problems but mainly not real ones, -- just in people's heads, or in the extensions of the problems they've envisaged in their heads and responded to with legal systems.
Was there ever any hope for this civilisation? I thought somehow, if Britain could be persuaded to vote for something different, maybe the whole world might ahve followed suit. But we seem to be firmly stuck,.. now printing money to prop up the indefensible, for fear of something even worse.
dennisr
the acceptable face
.. balders equally predictable echo
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
This doesn't make any sense.
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