National Coalition against the Welfare Reform Bill launches..
- Thread starter treelover
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jiggajagga
Judge_Mental
Is 'Zion' a non de plume for Tony Blair?
Hi Demosthenes,
The fact that an efficient amount of labor has been hired to perform the amount of work of which a society was previously capable, does not mean that there will be no work left for the rest. If that were so, then the agricultural revolution, in reducing the percentage of people who worked on the land from 95% to less than 1%, would have created at least 94% unemployment that would still exist today. In reality, technological advances and new businesses have the capacity to soak up the "leftover" workers, and we have seen that happen time and again for three hundred years in both the US and the UK.
There is always some friction. Some workers find it hard to get other jobs because no-one is hiring people with their skills, in which case they need help to retrain. My focus is: how can we get such people working again so that as many people as possible can rise out of the poverty they're in? Your focus appears to be: let's give all these people stipends and let them rot on them for as long as they want! It is not "fair that they should be provided for for as long as they wish to be", because nothing unfair has been done to them: they've simply lost their job, which has happened to me at least four times over the years. I have only once had to lay somebody off, and that was because we didn't have the money to pay them. I don't consider that they had any right to the job, and they were truthfully not very good at it. We paid unemployment insurance for them while they were in the job, so they received payments for six months after being laid off.
I can easily believe that benefits are administered with a great deal of bureaucracy and inefficiency. That's usually the case, and generally speaking incompetence is twenty times as common as outright malevolence. To me, the incompetence of governmental agencies is an argument both for doing things via nonprofits - we are considerably less bureaucratic - and for having an absolute focus on getting people to a position where they're no longer having to go cap in hand to a bureaucrat who doesn't care two shakes about whether they live or die.
I guess that in the broadest sense what I don't get is the idea that you or other benefit recipients have some right to the money. If a democratically elected government has said that it will provide cash payments to certain groups of people, and you fall within one of those groups, then that's great for you while it lasts; but governments change their minds all the time, and relying on these things is like leaning for support on a blade of grass. IMO.
The fact that an efficient amount of labor has been hired to perform the amount of work of which a society was previously capable, does not mean that there will be no work left for the rest. If that were so, then the agricultural revolution, in reducing the percentage of people who worked on the land from 95% to less than 1%, would have created at least 94% unemployment that would still exist today. In reality, technological advances and new businesses have the capacity to soak up the "leftover" workers, and we have seen that happen time and again for three hundred years in both the US and the UK.
There is always some friction. Some workers find it hard to get other jobs because no-one is hiring people with their skills, in which case they need help to retrain. My focus is: how can we get such people working again so that as many people as possible can rise out of the poverty they're in? Your focus appears to be: let's give all these people stipends and let them rot on them for as long as they want! It is not "fair that they should be provided for for as long as they wish to be", because nothing unfair has been done to them: they've simply lost their job, which has happened to me at least four times over the years. I have only once had to lay somebody off, and that was because we didn't have the money to pay them. I don't consider that they had any right to the job, and they were truthfully not very good at it. We paid unemployment insurance for them while they were in the job, so they received payments for six months after being laid off.
I can easily believe that benefits are administered with a great deal of bureaucracy and inefficiency. That's usually the case, and generally speaking incompetence is twenty times as common as outright malevolence. To me, the incompetence of governmental agencies is an argument both for doing things via nonprofits - we are considerably less bureaucratic - and for having an absolute focus on getting people to a position where they're no longer having to go cap in hand to a bureaucrat who doesn't care two shakes about whether they live or die.
I guess that in the broadest sense what I don't get is the idea that you or other benefit recipients have some right to the money. If a democratically elected government has said that it will provide cash payments to certain groups of people, and you fall within one of those groups, then that's great for you while it lasts; but governments change their minds all the time, and relying on these things is like leaning for support on a blade of grass. IMO.
When people were forced off the land, by the enclosures act, the landowners created a vast pool of landless labour to exploit, which fuelled th industrial revolution. The industrial revolution caused a lot of "progress" but didn't improve many people's lives, in fact for most people, it made them a whole lot more miserable as being pooor in the countryside is potentially all right, while being poor in an industrial city is hell.
Then as the industrial revolution gave way to the technological revolution and the computer revolution, more and more people have been made redundant, and made more and more landless labour to exploit, and contrary to what you say, actually there does come a point where there's no more work available, which is why there's now about five or six million in this country claiming income support. In fact, if you look at it objectively, and consider most of the jobs that people do in this country, almost none of them are actually necessary, if you consider how things might be done in a sane society where we didn't create unnecessary work because we're hypnotised by the idea that everyone needs to work. We actually manufacture unnecessary work to replace the jobs that have been lost, in order to keep money being pumped round in order to keep the landlords paid, and that's pretty much the basis of our economy.
The only reason people put up with it in the past, is because they could see that actually it does make sense to make things more efficient, because they can see that as you automatise more and more things, it ought to be possible for everyone to benefit from this, and for us as a people to move from a society where everyone works all the time, to one where we all do as little work as possible. (From the point of view of saving the environment this makes a lot of sense, as the less pointless work people do, the less they need to get in their cars and drive through rushhour trafficjams,) The problem is, that every labour-saving technological breakthrough has never benefited people in general, but only the owners of the industry, or very occasionally the inventor(s).
If you look at it objectively, we now have the necessary technology to provide everything everyone needs for a minimum of work, and the world could be great. The problem is that our political and socioeconomic system has not remotely kept pace with our technological development. The reason for that is that some people, (the landlords?) want to hold onto their privileges, enjoy having slaves, and have conned everyone into trying to become a landlord along with them by appealing to the worst in human nature, - the desire to look down on other people, and the satisfaction in doing so.
Then as the industrial revolution gave way to the technological revolution and the computer revolution, more and more people have been made redundant, and made more and more landless labour to exploit, and contrary to what you say, actually there does come a point where there's no more work available, which is why there's now about five or six million in this country claiming income support. In fact, if you look at it objectively, and consider most of the jobs that people do in this country, almost none of them are actually necessary, if you consider how things might be done in a sane society where we didn't create unnecessary work because we're hypnotised by the idea that everyone needs to work. We actually manufacture unnecessary work to replace the jobs that have been lost, in order to keep money being pumped round in order to keep the landlords paid, and that's pretty much the basis of our economy.
The only reason people put up with it in the past, is because they could see that actually it does make sense to make things more efficient, because they can see that as you automatise more and more things, it ought to be possible for everyone to benefit from this, and for us as a people to move from a society where everyone works all the time, to one where we all do as little work as possible. (From the point of view of saving the environment this makes a lot of sense, as the less pointless work people do, the less they need to get in their cars and drive through rushhour trafficjams,) The problem is, that every labour-saving technological breakthrough has never benefited people in general, but only the owners of the industry, or very occasionally the inventor(s).
If you look at it objectively, we now have the necessary technology to provide everything everyone needs for a minimum of work, and the world could be great. The problem is that our political and socioeconomic system has not remotely kept pace with our technological development. The reason for that is that some people, (the landlords?) want to hold onto their privileges, enjoy having slaves, and have conned everyone into trying to become a landlord along with them by appealing to the worst in human nature, - the desire to look down on other people, and the satisfaction in doing so.
jiggajagga
Judge_Mental
Super post Demo!
Well said.
Well said.
Tell you what Demosthenes,
You go and live the simple pre-industrial life, hoeing your strips as a peasant farmer. The rest of us who actually enjoy doing something different with our lives can continue to live in the post-industrial-revolution world. You know perfectly well that the unemployment rate has not continually risen, so your argument is mendacious.
if you look at it objectively, and consider most of the jobs that people do in this country, almost none of them are actually necessary
Well done on insulting the work done by most people in this country. I have a far different perspective. Even though I have chosen to work for much less money for a job I consider to be socially beneficial, other people might derive greater happiness and greater professional satisfaction from trading foreign exchange or working in a shop. It's not for me to tell them that they are wrong, and I find your attitude towards them very patronizing. Who are you to make judgements about whether their work is worthless?
The plain fact is that, relative to the start of the industrial revolution, people in Britain from the richest to the poorest are better clothed, better fed, better housed and healthier. Enclosures caused short-term suffering, but they also ensured a more efficient production of food that has meant that Britain has not experienced famine since the mid-1600s.
If you don't want to do the work that is the price of participating in these social benefits, then, as I say, be my guest and enjoy your tepee. What the modern world doesn't allow you to do is to have your cake and eat it: to live off the capitalistic labor of others and the wealth that produces, while denouncing the capitalistic system and all its works. You may consider it slavery, but you do have a choice: you just don't have the choice to get paid capitalistic money for doing nothing that anyone values enough to pay you a wage for.
I do a lot of work with landlords and tenants, because a lot of my nonprofit's focus is on housing issues. Most ways, we find that only a small minority of landlords are out to exploit their tenants, and only a small minority of tenants are out to skank some free housing. The majority of landlords are trying to cover their own mortgages and to provide a reasonably decent and livable environment for their tenants, but are often not well educated about the proper laws and procedures for dealing with tenants.
You go and live the simple pre-industrial life, hoeing your strips as a peasant farmer. The rest of us who actually enjoy doing something different with our lives can continue to live in the post-industrial-revolution world. You know perfectly well that the unemployment rate has not continually risen, so your argument is mendacious.
if you look at it objectively, and consider most of the jobs that people do in this country, almost none of them are actually necessary
Well done on insulting the work done by most people in this country. I have a far different perspective. Even though I have chosen to work for much less money for a job I consider to be socially beneficial, other people might derive greater happiness and greater professional satisfaction from trading foreign exchange or working in a shop. It's not for me to tell them that they are wrong, and I find your attitude towards them very patronizing. Who are you to make judgements about whether their work is worthless?
The plain fact is that, relative to the start of the industrial revolution, people in Britain from the richest to the poorest are better clothed, better fed, better housed and healthier. Enclosures caused short-term suffering, but they also ensured a more efficient production of food that has meant that Britain has not experienced famine since the mid-1600s.
If you don't want to do the work that is the price of participating in these social benefits, then, as I say, be my guest and enjoy your tepee. What the modern world doesn't allow you to do is to have your cake and eat it: to live off the capitalistic labor of others and the wealth that produces, while denouncing the capitalistic system and all its works. You may consider it slavery, but you do have a choice: you just don't have the choice to get paid capitalistic money for doing nothing that anyone values enough to pay you a wage for.
I do a lot of work with landlords and tenants, because a lot of my nonprofit's focus is on housing issues. Most ways, we find that only a small minority of landlords are out to exploit their tenants, and only a small minority of tenants are out to skank some free housing. The majority of landlords are trying to cover their own mortgages and to provide a reasonably decent and livable environment for their tenants, but are often not well educated about the proper laws and procedures for dealing with tenants.
jiggajagga
Judge_Mental
All I can say to you about work Zion is this; The man who coined the phrase " Hard work never hurt anybody" was talking a load of guff and more than likely never did a days hard graft in his life!
My father worked hard in all his life in the mines and it killed him.
With your hands together in prayer attitudes I can bet your favourite book as a child was Oliver Twist?
You'd just love the workhouse for all the feckless working class scum wouldn't you? Come on, own up to it now?
My father worked hard in all his life in the mines and it killed him.
With your hands together in prayer attitudes I can bet your favourite book as a child was Oliver Twist?
You'd just love the workhouse for all the feckless working class scum wouldn't you? Come on, own up to it now?
zion said:
In Britain there are now roughly 1 million people claiming jobseeker's allowance, roughly five million people claiming income support for various reasons and a whole lot more people who live off private incomes. All these people are unemployed. I think actually the unemployment rate has been rising for a while.
zion said:
I'm someone who can imagine a sane and good society, compare it to this one, and see that relative to my vision of a sane and good society, most of the work that people do in this country is pointless, apart from that it keeps the money being pumped round and keeps the landlords paid.
So?zion said:
The plain fact is that since the start of the industrial revolution, all over the world, humanity has been treated with less and less dignity.
zion said:
I know, this is the problem. Because capitalistic money only values activities that are valuable within capitalism, ie. only values activities that help someone make more money. - which has nothing to do with whether the activities are intrinsically valuable. As far as the teepee is concerned. Buy me some land to put the teepee on- and the canvas and poles, and I think it would be an improvement on my present circumstances. But it is a straw man, capitalists have already fucked the world well enough so that kind of lifestyle isn't possible, even if I was brought up to know how to live it, which I wasn't.
zion said:
This last paragraph shows clearly how your thinking makes no sense to me. All landlords exploit their tenants, simply by virtue of being landlords. Why describe it as skanking free housing? Why shouldn't housing be free?
Somewhere else you commented on how in america many people believe that the bible is literal truth, and base their politics on this, how is that the republican evangelicals can get so uppity about the abomination of a man lying with a man, but pay no attention to prohibition of lending money at interest, or to the words, - the earth and everything in it belongs to God. - ?
Demosthenes,
Your "sane and good society" appears, from your post, to be "lots of stuff for free for me" - free land for your tepee, free housing, and plenty of money in exchange for no work. What do you think creates the money? Who will pay for it if not, ultimately, the people doing capitalist jobs?
I am happy to use a generally accepted measure of unemployment, such as the OECD definition, in order to avoid confusion.
So? The plain fact is that since the start of the industrial revolution, all over the world, humanity has been treated with less and less dignity.
Oh, cry me a river. I consider it an intrinsic part of human dignity to have enough to eat, to have a safe and decent place to live, to have enough clothes to wear. What kind of "dignity" do you think a peasant hoeing strips had? Was he not much more in slavery than the average wage worker now, who at the very least has a choice of jobs?
capitalistic money only values activities that are valuable within capitalism, ie. only values activities that help someone make more money. - which has nothing to do with whether the activities are intrinsically valuable.
OK, they're not valuable as far as you're concerned - you've made that clear. And capitalism doesn't force you to adopt that standard of value. If you want to make the case to people that more resources should be invested in things that the private market does not value enough to pay for, then make that case and let's see how many people you convince. But if your pitch is, "hey, give me some free stuff so I can live a life of alleged agrarian ease", then I think you'll have some trouble getting people to pay for it.
All landlords exploit their tenants, simply by virtue of being landlords.
OK, then abolish landlords and make a whole heap of people homeless...and that will help the poor how? Listen, the most abusive landlord in this town, bar none, is the local housing authority. Just because your landlord is the government doesn't insulate anyone from exploitation.
how is that the republican evangelicals can get so uppity about the abomination of a man lying with a man, but pay no attention to prohibition of lending money at interest
Because a fully literal reading of all the Bible requires such a level of doublethink that people have to edit.
Your "sane and good society" appears, from your post, to be "lots of stuff for free for me" - free land for your tepee, free housing, and plenty of money in exchange for no work. What do you think creates the money? Who will pay for it if not, ultimately, the people doing capitalist jobs?
I am happy to use a generally accepted measure of unemployment, such as the OECD definition, in order to avoid confusion.
So? The plain fact is that since the start of the industrial revolution, all over the world, humanity has been treated with less and less dignity.
Oh, cry me a river. I consider it an intrinsic part of human dignity to have enough to eat, to have a safe and decent place to live, to have enough clothes to wear. What kind of "dignity" do you think a peasant hoeing strips had? Was he not much more in slavery than the average wage worker now, who at the very least has a choice of jobs?
capitalistic money only values activities that are valuable within capitalism, ie. only values activities that help someone make more money. - which has nothing to do with whether the activities are intrinsically valuable.
OK, they're not valuable as far as you're concerned - you've made that clear. And capitalism doesn't force you to adopt that standard of value. If you want to make the case to people that more resources should be invested in things that the private market does not value enough to pay for, then make that case and let's see how many people you convince. But if your pitch is, "hey, give me some free stuff so I can live a life of alleged agrarian ease", then I think you'll have some trouble getting people to pay for it.
All landlords exploit their tenants, simply by virtue of being landlords.
OK, then abolish landlords and make a whole heap of people homeless...and that will help the poor how? Listen, the most abusive landlord in this town, bar none, is the local housing authority. Just because your landlord is the government doesn't insulate anyone from exploitation.
how is that the republican evangelicals can get so uppity about the abomination of a man lying with a man, but pay no attention to prohibition of lending money at interest
Because a fully literal reading of all the Bible requires such a level of doublethink that people have to edit.
Treelover,
Are you a God-botherer?
What kind of a question is that? Does that mean "am I a Christian", or what?
I generally think of myself as being Christian, and I do attend church irregularly. However, I don't think of the Bible as a sacred text or of Jesus as the only way to heaven. I think that people find their way to God in their own way, and that it's not my business to presume to know what works and what doesn't; I just try to do what I think to be right. I don't tend to pray much.
How about you? Are you a worshipper of Satan and all his little wizards?
Are you a God-botherer?
What kind of a question is that? Does that mean "am I a Christian", or what?
I generally think of myself as being Christian, and I do attend church irregularly. However, I don't think of the Bible as a sacred text or of Jesus as the only way to heaven. I think that people find their way to God in their own way, and that it's not my business to presume to know what works and what doesn't; I just try to do what I think to be right. I don't tend to pray much.
How about you? Are you a worshipper of Satan and all his little wizards?
zion said:
Well I don't really see how you work that out about my vision of a sane society, you just imagined it, it's nothin I said. it's not just me I want free land and housing for... It's for everyone.
The thing is that land doesn't cost anything, because it's already there and the houses that have been built - they don't cost anything either, because they've already been built. The only question is how to pay for new houses to be built, and in this country, given the number of empties, and the number of houses that are second or third homes there's no shortage. So the answer to your first question, is no-one needs to pay for free housing or land, it's already free, it always was, until some lying landlord claimed he owned a place he didn't live, and used a criminal legal system to enforce his bogus claims.
"Plenty of money in exchange for no work." Well I get the impression that money is created by banks printing it. Certainly there's a lot more money in the world these days than there was 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 500 years ago, and the extra money wasn't created by people doing work. Extra wealth was created by people working, but strangely enough that extra wealth went into the accounts of those who were already staggeringly wealthy, because within our current system, money attracts money. I don't remember the exact figures but it's something like half the wealth in the world is owned by the richest 108 people. If the country can afford to spend 30 billion pounds a year on "defence" which definitely never benefits anyone, why couldn't they equally well spend the money on paying people to do nothing? You seem to have failed to have noticed that money isn't intrinsically valuable, and real wealth is created by activities that create wealth, - not by the army- lawyers, accountants - sandwich shops, police, estate agents or really any part of the so-called service industries.
As far as the OECD definition is concerned, I don't know what it is. My definition of an unemployed person is someone who isn't employed. I think that's a reasonable definition, - what do your reckon, and by that definition, considering the numbers of people who live on private incomes and don't work, the number of people on income support, jobseeker's allowance, and the numbers of those who've been cut off, and survive however they can, definitely the number of unemployed has been rising for a long time. For the government to try and cut off welfare in these circumstances, is insanity, or cruelty, or both, - they should be increasing welfare payments, - it would be good for the economy. If you have some bogus way of measuring the number of unemployed people and it tells you it's constant or falling, well what a surprise.. it's a bogus way of measuring it. Our government says that the number of unemployed people is the number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance. But in fact it cuts people off from jobseeker's allowance if they don't get a job after a while, so they're no longer unemployed? And then the government claims credit for having cut unemployment. It's incredible.
zion said:
While I wouldn't want to claim that being an agrarian peasant freehold farmer is the greatest life ever, I do think that the satisfaction of making your own living off the land is probably a lot more than the satisfaction of being a cog in a capitalist machine.
Certainly peasant labourers who didn't own their own land and had to work someone else's were as much slaves as people are now. But in some ways I think his slavery was not so bad as the slavery of someone in an industrial factory, and because it was small scale, the were usually treated with more dignity than people with nothing are in the big cities.
Although we haven't had famine in England for ages, believe it or not, people do go hungry because of lack of money.. and although there's no shortage of housing, there's a lot of homeless people, who can't even make a home for themselves by putting up a tent, without the tent being stolen by law enforcement. And a lot of them died on the streets last winter, and a lot more will die on the streets this winter.
Your post didn't say much on the whole. I don't think you were very imaginative about the question I put to you about republican evangelicals, though I do get the impression you do at least admit my point. I could say a lot more about that, but I reckon I've gone on long enough. I don't see that you've said anything to refute my original answers to why people should consider permanent welfare to be a right if they don't want to work. In fact I'd go further, I reckon the government should give people the option of opting out of the rat races and should set up eco villages with the necessary resources to grow their own food all over the country for people who reckon modern life is rubbish. But the government doesn't seem to be terribly imaginative. Why is that?
Lord, Demosthenes, I don't know where to begin.
land doesn't cost anything
Doesn't matter. Land is something to which people attach value. If you abolish the market in land, people will trade favours or other goods for it, but they will not stop attaching value to it. If money is not used to allocate land because you and yours consider it unfair, then how would it get allocated? - who decides? - and if it's you and yours, what right have you to do that? Money, as you say, has no intrinsic value, which means that no value is created by printing more of it, and that in essence it provides a medium of exchange through which willing buyers and willing sellers make trades to gain things that bring them utility. If people prefer to buy a sandwich at a sandwich shop rather than bringing up a pig, slaughtering it, buying a cow, milking it, making the milk into a cheese, growing a lettuce, taking a leaf of it, growing some grain, grinding it into flour, making a fire, baking the bread, and making the whole into a ham and cheese sandwich, then I for one think they're very rational, and I wonder who you are to declare that a useless service.
I reckon the government should give people the option of opting out of the rat races and should set up eco villages with the necessary resources to grow their own food
OK. Convince a majority of voters that they should do that and it will get done. If you can't, then I guess you'll have to find another way to have your eco-villages.
The OECD definition is as follows: "Unemployment estimates are based on labour force surveys which cover only private households and exclude all people living in institutions. The OECD standardised unemployment rates give seasonally adjusted numbers of unemployed persons as a percentage of the civilian labour force." Their definition is used internationally, and shows that recently unemployment in the UK has risen (to about 6%) and unemployment in the US has fallen (to under 5%).
I do think that the satisfaction of making your own living off the land is probably a lot more than the satisfaction of being a cog in a capitalist machine.
Bully for you. Then do it. You're free to do so. What you can't expect is help in spurning the capitalist machine from the capitalist machine, or a mass movement of people who want to join you. You may think it would be a great life, but your own private version of "The Good Life" is not for everybody.
There were some people who thought like you do, that the agrarian life was a virtuous one. They decided to force everyone to adhere to their vision, emptied out the cities, killed the intellectuals who didn't want to do agricultural work, and sent everyone to work in the fields. They were called the Khmer Rouge, and their reign of terror in Cambodia in the late 1970s caused the deaths of 20% of the population in four years.
I think his slavery was not so bad as the slavery of someone in an industrial factory
Then why did massive numbers of peasants decide to leave the land and take jobs in factories? They weren't forcibly relocated, you know. The money was a LOT better.
believe it or not, people do go hungry because of lack of money.
I know that they do. Food and pretty much every necessary of life is way more expensive in Britain than in the US, and I sympathize. I went hungry myself often growing up in the UK, and I work to remedy homelessness myself. But your solution, if adopted by everyone, would bring back starvation on a massive scale, and has done everywhere that it's been tried.
I don't think you were very imaginative about the question I put to you about republican evangelicals, though I do get the impression you do at least admit my point.
I was bored by it because I've heard the point made so many times before, but I am happy to go into more detail. I have spent a lot of time studying the Christian conservative movement in the US, and I think I have some insight into their thinking.
The Bible, and all other major sacred texts, contain contradictions enough to fill books all by themselves. This is only to be expected, because none of them were composed at one time by one person who fully thought through the implications of what they were writing for societies in all times and all places. This means that the position that the Bible, or any other sacred text, is literally true and/or the inerrant word of God runs into serious logical problems. These are by no means confined to questions about wealth in society, but extend out to the whole sphere of human behavior. Enormous amounts of ink have been expended to create out of the Bible more consistent and systematic conceptions about humans, God, the sacred text and the world and the relationship between the four. For those who hold all or parts of the Bible as being the inerrant word of God, these more consistent and systematic conceptions can be grouped (this is a simplification) into Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and Jewish conceptions. Each of these more systematic conceptions has a different way of papering over the cracks.
Most - though not all - Christian conservatives in the United States come out of the Protestant tradition. The Protestant tradition regarding the Bible tends to identify certain parts of it as being the holy word of God, and other parts as still being the holy word of God but no longer being in force in the current situation. So, for example, most Protestants are comfortable with not adhering to the dietary restrictions in the Old Testament because they consider them to have been superseded by a vision of St. Peter's described in the New Testament.
When it comes to the New Testament's teachings, American Christian conservatives do tend in practice to prioritize its teachings on sexuality over its teachings on poverty, but rationalize this by making considerable donations to Christian charities that preach Christianity hand in hand with relieving poverty. They do pretty consistently oppose charity as provided by government as a form of idolatry. The Bible never envisions the situation of a government that has the ability to address poverty or set up a welfare state, so when it talks about poverty (and indeed a host of other issues that are now often addressed by governments) it talks about private solutions to it. I have met very charitable Christian conservatives, and also some for whom all that matters is the End of Days.
land doesn't cost anything
Doesn't matter. Land is something to which people attach value. If you abolish the market in land, people will trade favours or other goods for it, but they will not stop attaching value to it. If money is not used to allocate land because you and yours consider it unfair, then how would it get allocated? - who decides? - and if it's you and yours, what right have you to do that? Money, as you say, has no intrinsic value, which means that no value is created by printing more of it, and that in essence it provides a medium of exchange through which willing buyers and willing sellers make trades to gain things that bring them utility. If people prefer to buy a sandwich at a sandwich shop rather than bringing up a pig, slaughtering it, buying a cow, milking it, making the milk into a cheese, growing a lettuce, taking a leaf of it, growing some grain, grinding it into flour, making a fire, baking the bread, and making the whole into a ham and cheese sandwich, then I for one think they're very rational, and I wonder who you are to declare that a useless service.
I reckon the government should give people the option of opting out of the rat races and should set up eco villages with the necessary resources to grow their own food
OK. Convince a majority of voters that they should do that and it will get done. If you can't, then I guess you'll have to find another way to have your eco-villages.
The OECD definition is as follows: "Unemployment estimates are based on labour force surveys which cover only private households and exclude all people living in institutions. The OECD standardised unemployment rates give seasonally adjusted numbers of unemployed persons as a percentage of the civilian labour force." Their definition is used internationally, and shows that recently unemployment in the UK has risen (to about 6%) and unemployment in the US has fallen (to under 5%).
I do think that the satisfaction of making your own living off the land is probably a lot more than the satisfaction of being a cog in a capitalist machine.
Bully for you. Then do it. You're free to do so. What you can't expect is help in spurning the capitalist machine from the capitalist machine, or a mass movement of people who want to join you. You may think it would be a great life, but your own private version of "The Good Life" is not for everybody.
There were some people who thought like you do, that the agrarian life was a virtuous one. They decided to force everyone to adhere to their vision, emptied out the cities, killed the intellectuals who didn't want to do agricultural work, and sent everyone to work in the fields. They were called the Khmer Rouge, and their reign of terror in Cambodia in the late 1970s caused the deaths of 20% of the population in four years.
I think his slavery was not so bad as the slavery of someone in an industrial factory
Then why did massive numbers of peasants decide to leave the land and take jobs in factories? They weren't forcibly relocated, you know. The money was a LOT better.
believe it or not, people do go hungry because of lack of money.
I know that they do. Food and pretty much every necessary of life is way more expensive in Britain than in the US, and I sympathize. I went hungry myself often growing up in the UK, and I work to remedy homelessness myself. But your solution, if adopted by everyone, would bring back starvation on a massive scale, and has done everywhere that it's been tried.
I don't think you were very imaginative about the question I put to you about republican evangelicals, though I do get the impression you do at least admit my point.
I was bored by it because I've heard the point made so many times before, but I am happy to go into more detail. I have spent a lot of time studying the Christian conservative movement in the US, and I think I have some insight into their thinking.
The Bible, and all other major sacred texts, contain contradictions enough to fill books all by themselves. This is only to be expected, because none of them were composed at one time by one person who fully thought through the implications of what they were writing for societies in all times and all places. This means that the position that the Bible, or any other sacred text, is literally true and/or the inerrant word of God runs into serious logical problems. These are by no means confined to questions about wealth in society, but extend out to the whole sphere of human behavior. Enormous amounts of ink have been expended to create out of the Bible more consistent and systematic conceptions about humans, God, the sacred text and the world and the relationship between the four. For those who hold all or parts of the Bible as being the inerrant word of God, these more consistent and systematic conceptions can be grouped (this is a simplification) into Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and Jewish conceptions. Each of these more systematic conceptions has a different way of papering over the cracks.
Most - though not all - Christian conservatives in the United States come out of the Protestant tradition. The Protestant tradition regarding the Bible tends to identify certain parts of it as being the holy word of God, and other parts as still being the holy word of God but no longer being in force in the current situation. So, for example, most Protestants are comfortable with not adhering to the dietary restrictions in the Old Testament because they consider them to have been superseded by a vision of St. Peter's described in the New Testament.
When it comes to the New Testament's teachings, American Christian conservatives do tend in practice to prioritize its teachings on sexuality over its teachings on poverty, but rationalize this by making considerable donations to Christian charities that preach Christianity hand in hand with relieving poverty. They do pretty consistently oppose charity as provided by government as a form of idolatry. The Bible never envisions the situation of a government that has the ability to address poverty or set up a welfare state, so when it talks about poverty (and indeed a host of other issues that are now often addressed by governments) it talks about private solutions to it. I have met very charitable Christian conservatives, and also some for whom all that matters is the End of Days.
jiggajagga
Judge_Mental
Zion Vs Demosthenes
USA Vs UK
Worlds apart.
Here's hoping never the twain shall meet.
If we in the UK become like Americans we are well and truly fucked!
We have to stop the drip, drip, drip of Americanism before its too late.
USA Vs UK
Worlds apart.
Here's hoping never the twain shall meet.
If we in the UK become like Americans we are well and truly fucked!
We have to stop the drip, drip, drip of Americanism before its too late.
Hi Jiggajagga,
What does "Americanism" mean to you, and why would it fuck you?
I know that for my parents (both British, like me), "Americanism" connoted vulgarity, arrogance and invincible stupidity. I agree too that those would be bad things for people in the UK - it's just that I've found relatively little of them among the people I've met in the US.
What does "Americanism" mean to you, and why would it fuck you?
I know that for my parents (both British, like me), "Americanism" connoted vulgarity, arrogance and invincible stupidity. I agree too that those would be bad things for people in the UK - it's just that I've found relatively little of them among the people I've met in the US.
jiggajagga
Judge_Mental
Americanism = selfishness, self, greed, corruption, self pity, "I'm alright Jack, fuck you", money is God, me, I, I love the dollar, hedonism, etc, etc,
Need I go on Zion?
Need I go on Zion?
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
Don't start bickering eh? There's quite an interesting conversation going on here.
I find much of what zion writes to be cogent but i also agree with the sentiment of demosthenes - the reality of the welfare state is that it has become another business.
Large charities are run, and act, as big business, their accountability no longer to some idealistic vision or mission related to relief of the poor but more to the CEO's salary as they develop links with central government, and begin to become involved in welfare-to-work programmes which treat people like tins of beans, essentially.
Private business, such as insurance companies, health companies, city lawyers firms, all set up social enterprises or not-for-profit offshoots that tout for business in the market of job creation and health rehabilitation.
The DWP and government are busy tendering contracts for job creation and employment rehabiltation as fast as they can set up consultancies to take advantage of the situation (and if you think welfare is bad, you should see the health service).
Consumerism has won the day so every one wants to shop more, do less, relax more (i.e. drink/eat/tv/ps2/couch/car/tinternet/moby/drink/eat/die), think less, and then we also live an unsustainable lifestyle that promotes sports clothes'n'junk food unconciously as the new yin'n'yang (and indolence as a key part of community life). You either work like a dog or feel like you're missing out.
The main reason why so many people are classed as poor (or "in relative poverty" more accurately) in the UK is because the income and earnings of the people in the top deciles continues to rise proportionately faster than for those at the lower deciles (decile is an income bracket). And poor people pay more in tax than rich people, its a fact.
Many people on long term sick and with disabilities want to work - however, the reason they often can't isn't due to apathy but instead systemic barriers, such as low wages, discrimination, lack of job security, exploitation, lack of unions, extra costs, expensive childcare, the list goes on and on.
I am quite disturbed by many of the developments in the Welfare Reform Bill, particularly to do with the conditionality i.e. you must act this way or else no money, and the inevitable stress it will cause to those who fall foul of the more punitive aspects for "no good cause". It feels a lot like an attempt at social conditioning, and whilst there may be positive aspects buried within the principles, I am more worried about some of the overriding and less obvious outcomes for some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
I find much of what zion writes to be cogent but i also agree with the sentiment of demosthenes - the reality of the welfare state is that it has become another business.
Large charities are run, and act, as big business, their accountability no longer to some idealistic vision or mission related to relief of the poor but more to the CEO's salary as they develop links with central government, and begin to become involved in welfare-to-work programmes which treat people like tins of beans, essentially.
Private business, such as insurance companies, health companies, city lawyers firms, all set up social enterprises or not-for-profit offshoots that tout for business in the market of job creation and health rehabilitation.
The DWP and government are busy tendering contracts for job creation and employment rehabiltation as fast as they can set up consultancies to take advantage of the situation (and if you think welfare is bad, you should see the health service).
Consumerism has won the day so every one wants to shop more, do less, relax more (i.e. drink/eat/tv/ps2/couch/car/tinternet/moby/drink/eat/die), think less, and then we also live an unsustainable lifestyle that promotes sports clothes'n'junk food unconciously as the new yin'n'yang (and indolence as a key part of community life). You either work like a dog or feel like you're missing out.
The main reason why so many people are classed as poor (or "in relative poverty" more accurately) in the UK is because the income and earnings of the people in the top deciles continues to rise proportionately faster than for those at the lower deciles (decile is an income bracket). And poor people pay more in tax than rich people, its a fact.
Many people on long term sick and with disabilities want to work - however, the reason they often can't isn't due to apathy but instead systemic barriers, such as low wages, discrimination, lack of job security, exploitation, lack of unions, extra costs, expensive childcare, the list goes on and on.
I am quite disturbed by many of the developments in the Welfare Reform Bill, particularly to do with the conditionality i.e. you must act this way or else no money, and the inevitable stress it will cause to those who fall foul of the more punitive aspects for "no good cause". It feels a lot like an attempt at social conditioning, and whilst there may be positive aspects buried within the principles, I am more worried about some of the overriding and less obvious outcomes for some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
zion said:
All the same, it is free, it's already there, it doesn't cost anything.
I don't see what the problem would be with a system where people are considered to own the place they live in. The problems are created by people claiming they own places they don't live in, and charging other people money to live there.
Regarding printing money. You pretty much have to accept that governments the world over have been printing money for quite a while, and rationalising it by claiming that they increase the money supply in response to their estimates about the amount of real wealth in the world.
Usually though, they put the money they create into the system through banks and corporations. All I'm recommending is that instead of doing that, they put it into the system by giving it directly to people, which, as far as I'm concerned seems a whole lot more intelligent than spending it on all the worthless things they actually do spend it on.
And given that we have created this terrifying economic efficiency, and the world's economy is growing continually, well we should match this by creating more money, - so why not give it to people who don't work?
Your problem is, you appear to be incapable of thinking outside the box created for you by the world we live in, though of course that could just be your style. Typically you accept the OECD figures on unemployment, but if you looked at it with your own eyes, 1 million on jsa, 5 million on income support, - already a lot more than 10% of the labour force of the UK are unemployed, and that's leaving aside those who live on private incomes.
Paulie tandoori,. without wishing to be rude, I don't see how you manage to work out that my view is the welfare state has become another business, or maybe I've misunderstood you there, and you were saying that's what you think, after saying you have some sympathy with my sentiment.
If it were a business, at least it wouldn't make all the deliberate cockups they make; At least they'd answer the phones.
My view is that our socioeconomic system is desperately fucked, is destroying the ecosystem, and depends on the slavery of millions of people in other countries who can't vote in our elections. If we could find a way of using our "democracy" to change it smoothly, life could be great, if we don't, then we'll be lucky if the seas rise and wipe out our civilsation, because the alternative is perpetual slavery for most of the world. The reason it ended up on this thread, is because the idea that people are not entitled to welfare and need to be put back to work is typical of a world where political discourse hasn't caught up with reality.
Far from needing to do more work, we need to do less work, the less work we do, the better. The idea that unemployement is bad is itself a byproduct of the capitalist mantra, -growth is good-, which has gradually led us to the brink of the precipice where we destroy ecosystem we depend on. We need to find a system in which people continue to get fed and housed regardless of whether the economy is growing.
FFS, our system is so insane that most things that get made are designed to break after a few years, so that people have to buy a new one, And that's good for the economy.
And it can't be fixed by tinkering with it, any more than you'd cure cancer with paracetamol when you need really strong drugs. it needs a total change of agenda, an acknowledgement from world leaders that our system is fucked and our values absurd and wrong.
How this is to happen I don't know. Probably it isn't to happen, but in the mean time, could people at least stop lying about it.
I mean, honestly, i- in the guardian today I read Alan Johnson,
I quote "The great achievement of new labour has been to move the centre ground in politics to the left..." and then goes on to say, and now the tories are starting to imitate us.
How can they print such lies. ?
Plenty to write about here.
Jiggajagga,
I am not saying that if you wished you could adduce evidence to support your definition of Americanism. In every country, there are people who are selfish, hedonistic, greedy and corrupt, and so in every country there will be evidence to find.
What I would like to advance to you is matters of fact that might suggest to you that the picture you have of Americanism is oversimplified.
On the matter of selfishness, the best evidence I can present is evidence of altruism with money and with time. Americans, on a per capita basis and as a percentage of their income, give hugely more to charity than British people do. A far higher percentage of Americans (about one-third) engage in volunteer activities in their community. If these things were not true, my nonprofit could not exist, because it depends for its continued existence on donations of time and money from people across the income spectrum.
On the matter of hedonism and materialism, the best evidence I can present is evidence of concern for spiritual things that bring no material benefit. Americans are a very religious people - 90% of them believe in God and 50% of them attend church regularly. As I have discussed previously on this board, Republican success at garnering the votes of the poor have a lot to do with poor people's concern about abortion and homosexuality. It doesn't matter, for the sake of my point, whether you agree with their moral stands; I only have to demonstrate that they do often take moral stands even when it damages their bank accounts.
On corruption, America, according to international measures, has a higher level of corruption than the UK, but a much lower level of corruption than most countries in the world. This means that, while they can serve as an example of corruption from your perspective, much more solid examples are available, like Russia.
On whether the average American cares about anything other than himself, I can only say that I have observed Americans to be very intensely concerned about their families and very willing to make personal sacrifices for their sake. They are also considerably more courteous in public than the average British person - I continually have to remember that they don't think it acceptable to swear or drink in public, and sometimes it feels a little 1950s.
On the whole, I think it would be hard for you to maintain your perspective on Americanism if you were to come here, assuming that you haven't been. But I find it instructive to see how venomous your feelings are, and I wonder about where they have come from if you have not personally been here - the media? the experiences of friends?
Paulie Tandoori,
I can't really speak as to how large charities are run in the UK, or to the practice of private businesses setting up nonprofit offshoots, which is not familiar to me. My charity is community-based and counts here as a small charity, because its budget is less than $1m per year. It is natural that charities as they grow incorporate some management practices from big business, but that does not automatically mean that they lose focus on their mission. The American Red Cross, one of the biggest charities here, does an awful lot of good work.
On consumerism, when I come home from work I certainly want to relax: sometimes I go out, sometimes I watch TV, sometimes play a computer game. I view these things as helping me to unwind from my day, and enabling me to do my work well. I don't eat particularly well, and I think that the time taken up by work makes it hard to maintain one's physical health: I have to continually fight with my own instincts to work harder, cut a break and go home rather than doing that little bit more.
Neither do I want to discount the role of racial and class discrimination in making it harder for people to find jobs. Ex-offenders also have a real hard time finding a job to suit their skills.
I am sure that you know more about the Welfare Reform Bill than I do. I do think that governments can legitimately set conditions on the receipt of welfare, but there's a whole continuum of how that is done. I speculate that whether it helps or hurts depends on the implementation.
Demosthenes,
I don't see what the problem would be with a system where people are considered to own the place they live in.
Well, for a start it would expropriate all the people and all the companies that own any place other than their home/headquarters. These people, who own more than one property, are not generally criminals who deserve to be stolen from. Whether they received their money through work or inheritance (though obviously I would prefer them to receive it through work), they have not done anything to merit expropriation in this way, and the tenants have not done anything to merit owning the property where they live. Let's think through the consequences for a second, imagining that you can simply ordain for this to happen. You announce that on a date certain, properties will be handed over to the people living in them. The immediate, logical result will be that every marginally rational landlord will throw their tenants out, resulting in massive homelessness. Even if somehow you prevented this, what's to stop the new property owners then trading the properties they do own, if not with money than with other things?
You pretty much have to accept that governments the world over have been printing money for quite a while, [and] put the money they create into the system through banks and corporations.
I disagree with corporate welfare for the same reasons as I dislike permanent welfare on a personal level.
Typically you accept the OECD figures on unemployment
The great advantage of the OECD figures is that they provide an internationally comparable measure created by professionals. You speculate about it, but you haven't seriously considered or investigated how to measure unemployment - considered, for example, how to count people in institutions or seasonal workers or anything else. You simply assert that the OECD figures don't fit your personal conception. Fair enough, but don't ask me to substitute your impressionistic measure for their professional and internationally comparable one.
The idea that unemployement is bad is itself a byproduct of the capitalist mantra, -growth is good-, which has gradually led us to the brink of the precipice where we destroy ecosystem we depend on.
I remember the British Green Party arguing in the late 80s/early 90s that what we needed was a zero-growth economy. Then, hey presto, when we got one, people hated it so much that they lost a lot of support.
our system is so insane that most things that get made are designed to break after a few years
Depends on how much you pay as a first cost. As they say, "I'm not rich enough to buy cheap goods".
Jiggajagga,
I am not saying that if you wished you could adduce evidence to support your definition of Americanism. In every country, there are people who are selfish, hedonistic, greedy and corrupt, and so in every country there will be evidence to find.
What I would like to advance to you is matters of fact that might suggest to you that the picture you have of Americanism is oversimplified.
On the matter of selfishness, the best evidence I can present is evidence of altruism with money and with time. Americans, on a per capita basis and as a percentage of their income, give hugely more to charity than British people do. A far higher percentage of Americans (about one-third) engage in volunteer activities in their community. If these things were not true, my nonprofit could not exist, because it depends for its continued existence on donations of time and money from people across the income spectrum.
On the matter of hedonism and materialism, the best evidence I can present is evidence of concern for spiritual things that bring no material benefit. Americans are a very religious people - 90% of them believe in God and 50% of them attend church regularly. As I have discussed previously on this board, Republican success at garnering the votes of the poor have a lot to do with poor people's concern about abortion and homosexuality. It doesn't matter, for the sake of my point, whether you agree with their moral stands; I only have to demonstrate that they do often take moral stands even when it damages their bank accounts.
On corruption, America, according to international measures, has a higher level of corruption than the UK, but a much lower level of corruption than most countries in the world. This means that, while they can serve as an example of corruption from your perspective, much more solid examples are available, like Russia.
On whether the average American cares about anything other than himself, I can only say that I have observed Americans to be very intensely concerned about their families and very willing to make personal sacrifices for their sake. They are also considerably more courteous in public than the average British person - I continually have to remember that they don't think it acceptable to swear or drink in public, and sometimes it feels a little 1950s.
On the whole, I think it would be hard for you to maintain your perspective on Americanism if you were to come here, assuming that you haven't been. But I find it instructive to see how venomous your feelings are, and I wonder about where they have come from if you have not personally been here - the media? the experiences of friends?
Paulie Tandoori,
I can't really speak as to how large charities are run in the UK, or to the practice of private businesses setting up nonprofit offshoots, which is not familiar to me. My charity is community-based and counts here as a small charity, because its budget is less than $1m per year. It is natural that charities as they grow incorporate some management practices from big business, but that does not automatically mean that they lose focus on their mission. The American Red Cross, one of the biggest charities here, does an awful lot of good work.
On consumerism, when I come home from work I certainly want to relax: sometimes I go out, sometimes I watch TV, sometimes play a computer game. I view these things as helping me to unwind from my day, and enabling me to do my work well. I don't eat particularly well, and I think that the time taken up by work makes it hard to maintain one's physical health: I have to continually fight with my own instincts to work harder, cut a break and go home rather than doing that little bit more.
Neither do I want to discount the role of racial and class discrimination in making it harder for people to find jobs. Ex-offenders also have a real hard time finding a job to suit their skills.
I am sure that you know more about the Welfare Reform Bill than I do. I do think that governments can legitimately set conditions on the receipt of welfare, but there's a whole continuum of how that is done. I speculate that whether it helps or hurts depends on the implementation.
Demosthenes,
I don't see what the problem would be with a system where people are considered to own the place they live in.
Well, for a start it would expropriate all the people and all the companies that own any place other than their home/headquarters. These people, who own more than one property, are not generally criminals who deserve to be stolen from. Whether they received their money through work or inheritance (though obviously I would prefer them to receive it through work), they have not done anything to merit expropriation in this way, and the tenants have not done anything to merit owning the property where they live. Let's think through the consequences for a second, imagining that you can simply ordain for this to happen. You announce that on a date certain, properties will be handed over to the people living in them. The immediate, logical result will be that every marginally rational landlord will throw their tenants out, resulting in massive homelessness. Even if somehow you prevented this, what's to stop the new property owners then trading the properties they do own, if not with money than with other things?
You pretty much have to accept that governments the world over have been printing money for quite a while, [and] put the money they create into the system through banks and corporations.
I disagree with corporate welfare for the same reasons as I dislike permanent welfare on a personal level.
Typically you accept the OECD figures on unemployment
The great advantage of the OECD figures is that they provide an internationally comparable measure created by professionals. You speculate about it, but you haven't seriously considered or investigated how to measure unemployment - considered, for example, how to count people in institutions or seasonal workers or anything else. You simply assert that the OECD figures don't fit your personal conception. Fair enough, but don't ask me to substitute your impressionistic measure for their professional and internationally comparable one.
The idea that unemployement is bad is itself a byproduct of the capitalist mantra, -growth is good-, which has gradually led us to the brink of the precipice where we destroy ecosystem we depend on.
I remember the British Green Party arguing in the late 80s/early 90s that what we needed was a zero-growth economy. Then, hey presto, when we got one, people hated it so much that they lost a lot of support.
our system is so insane that most things that get made are designed to break after a few years
Depends on how much you pay as a first cost. As they say, "I'm not rich enough to buy cheap goods".
There's no way in the world that it's desirable for charity to step into the role of the welfare state here. Charity giving is inconstant and partisan, charities themselves are undemocratic and immune to criticism in a way that welfare provision organised directly by the government of the day isn't. Charity provision in this country (and elsewhere) has often been just a front to smuggle private interests into the provision of basic services, with the result that ultimately welfare decisions end up being made not by those who are affected by them but by the same business elites that make all the other damn decisions. Charity in this country also disproportionately comes from people who can least afford it - and at quite high levels according to the recent Power Enquiry - certainly equivalent to the figues zion quotes for the US.
None of the stuff being suggested would in any way constitute a move forward for the UK, in fact on the contrary it would be a move backward to the system that we had here in the 19th century, a system that unfortunately for the poor in the US still persists across the pond. The current administration here even seems to favour a modern equivalent of workhouses, to go with the private provision of welfare services where there's a profit to be made, and the rest left to the dubious largesse of big business window-dressing and private donations. This amounts to nothing more than winding the clock back a hundred years on the relationship between citizen, capital and state in the UK.
None of the stuff being suggested would in any way constitute a move forward for the UK, in fact on the contrary it would be a move backward to the system that we had here in the 19th century, a system that unfortunately for the poor in the US still persists across the pond. The current administration here even seems to favour a modern equivalent of workhouses, to go with the private provision of welfare services where there's a profit to be made, and the rest left to the dubious largesse of big business window-dressing and private donations. This amounts to nothing more than winding the clock back a hundred years on the relationship between citizen, capital and state in the UK.
jiggajagga
Judge_Mental
Lets face it, when all's said and done, the government of the UK is attempting to reduce welfare for a number of reasons, none of which is the mental health aspect or the 'work sets you free' ideology (Wasn't that a sign over Auschwitz btw?)
Reasons mainly are
1) they need lots and lots of extra money to fight all the wars they started and all the wars to come;
and;
2) they are taking it off the poor and ill and disabled because its easy to do and they can not fight back.
so;
3 ) If you are well, rich and able, don't worry....it can never happen to you can it?
Reasons mainly are
1) they need lots and lots of extra money to fight all the wars they started and all the wars to come;
and;
2) they are taking it off the poor and ill and disabled because its easy to do and they can not fight back.
so;
3 ) If you are well, rich and able, don't worry....it can never happen to you can it?
Hi Fruitloop,
There are a number of contentions you make in your post about charities, and I agree that a lot of care is needed.
Charity giving is inconstant
True, but it depends much more largely on the effectiveness of the fundraising conducted by the nonprofit than on the broader state of the economy. Just as businesses are slightly more likely to fold in downturns, so are charities, but it tends to be the ones that are more poorly run that do fold.
Charity giving is partisan
And government is not partisan??? But more seriously, any charity that deals with the poor is going to attract more donations from liberal and left-wing people than from conservative and right-wing people. That doesn't make what it's doing illegitimate, provided that it does not use its money for partisan purposes. So, for example, the law prevents me from using any resources of my charity to promote or damage the candidacies of anybody for public office, so we don't. Charities that do are liable to having their charitable status revoked (as happened with the Christian Coalition).
Charities themselves are undemocratic
This depends on how they're set up. All charities I know of are required to have a membership and an annual meeting at which the board is elected. One-third of our board have to be residents of the low-income communities we help or low-income themselves or both. This helps to ensure that what we do is not a project of the elites.
Charity in this country [is] certainly equivalent to the figues zion quotes for the US
I didn't give any figures: I just said that it was higher than in the UK. LEt's look at the facts.
The most recent figures I can find show total charitable giving by US individuals of $187.92 billion in 2004. UK charitable giving in 2003 (the most recent figures I can find) was 7.1 billion pounds, or $13.5 billion. Referring to census estimates of populations in the two countries in the respective years, the US population was 292m and the UK population was 59.5m. Translating into dollars, this means that charitable giving was $643 per head of population in the US in 2004 and $227 per head of population in the UK in 2003.
Land obviosly has value but comes without a cost
Land costs money to maintain year-on-year, but I'm not sure what your point is here.
Jiggajagga,
I don't pretend to any special expertise of what the UK government is trying to do or why. I'm relying on this thread for my information. You may well be right about their reasons: I simply don't know.
There are a number of contentions you make in your post about charities, and I agree that a lot of care is needed.
Charity giving is inconstant
True, but it depends much more largely on the effectiveness of the fundraising conducted by the nonprofit than on the broader state of the economy. Just as businesses are slightly more likely to fold in downturns, so are charities, but it tends to be the ones that are more poorly run that do fold.
Charity giving is partisan
And government is not partisan??? But more seriously, any charity that deals with the poor is going to attract more donations from liberal and left-wing people than from conservative and right-wing people. That doesn't make what it's doing illegitimate, provided that it does not use its money for partisan purposes. So, for example, the law prevents me from using any resources of my charity to promote or damage the candidacies of anybody for public office, so we don't. Charities that do are liable to having their charitable status revoked (as happened with the Christian Coalition).
Charities themselves are undemocratic
This depends on how they're set up. All charities I know of are required to have a membership and an annual meeting at which the board is elected. One-third of our board have to be residents of the low-income communities we help or low-income themselves or both. This helps to ensure that what we do is not a project of the elites.
Charity in this country [is] certainly equivalent to the figues zion quotes for the US
I didn't give any figures: I just said that it was higher than in the UK. LEt's look at the facts.
The most recent figures I can find show total charitable giving by US individuals of $187.92 billion in 2004. UK charitable giving in 2003 (the most recent figures I can find) was 7.1 billion pounds, or $13.5 billion. Referring to census estimates of populations in the two countries in the respective years, the US population was 292m and the UK population was 59.5m. Translating into dollars, this means that charitable giving was $643 per head of population in the US in 2004 and $227 per head of population in the UK in 2003.
Land obviosly has value but comes without a cost
Land costs money to maintain year-on-year, but I'm not sure what your point is here.
Jiggajagga,
I don't pretend to any special expertise of what the UK government is trying to do or why. I'm relying on this thread for my information. You may well be right about their reasons: I simply don't know.
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