UKC

Since Workingclasslass seems to think that the soviet ideal of ensuring that everyone was in work, even if it weas in a Labour camp, was a great idea when will we see socialists campaigning for the unemployed to be forced to work?

Ahem

On a more serious point, why don't we require people on the dole to 'put something back'?

In reply to KTT:

They should absolutely have to do some sort of community service.

In reply to KTT:


Because this might put paid workers out of work?

In reply to KTT: And a very merry Christmas to you. My mother would tell you to put your wooden spoon away!

On a more serious point, can't we go at least 48 hours without this nonsense, ah yes, here it is, just pull this thing going into the wall out.

-unplugged at last!-

In reply to KTT: Ktt....we see eye to eye on so many points....if only i could get you to like my staffy, then we would be best of friends. happy xmas, i look forward to your musings in the new year.
jimjimjim

In reply to KTT: They are trying to make some young and unemployed people to work full time stacking shelves for free for large supermarket chains who shall remain nameless as a 'voluntary' thing. In reality, they are told to do this or they dont get any help financially.
Instead of helping to line the pockets of large supermarket chains, they should be sent to charities such as shelter, the national trust, any charity shop, other places that rely on volunteers to survive.
and yes, you can get a lot from a charity, who will more than likely try and find what skills you have to put you to proper use rather than stacking shelves. They also offer training courses at a reduced fee or free for some if they are on benefits, which large chains dont

In reply to RockAngel:

Funnily enough Cameron scrapped a scheme that did just that.

I benefitted from the 'new deal' about 13 years ago, gave me some valuation experience that opened a lot of doors and my career really took off.

In reply to KTT:

>"On a more serious point"

Them dole scrongers are such lazy 'eckers, there would be a high rate of absconding. This could be alleviated by providing a secure facility in which the work could take place. Another issue would be additional child care costs, the obvious solution would be for any associated children to also be enrolled in the scheme - little hands can be good at fiddly work. Children born into a family of dole scrongers are not likely to amount to much anyway so I don't see much point in spending money trying to educate 'em.

On site accommodation would massively cut housing benefit costs.

Of course such a scheme couldn't be administerred by the public sector efficiently. It would need the skills of private enterprise to avoid just being a massive drain on the public purse. Richard Branson's Virgin group is the obvious public spirited organisation that could help get this thing going.

I can see armies of people armed with a toothbrushes keeping our trains and planes sparklingly clean. This is the better world I want to live in.

In reply to KTT:
as a free thinking pinko anarchist, with 10 years experience of helping the unemployed to find work in one capacity or another i happen to know that unemployment is a necessity under capitalism - Keynes and the commies kne
ast choose between the not-so-good and the utterly pants for their menial putting-cherries-on-top-of-cupcakes production tasks which are unsuitable for robots.
as to the other matter - people on long term unemployment get forced to do mandatory work placements these days, it's not pretty. certain employers have been abusing the regulations to effectively "hire" staff for no pay and due to the regulations, no end to to the "placements"; this is known in other countries as "slavery"... there is a school of thought which says that this particular scheme is the thin end of the wedge intended to get rid of the national minimum wage.

In reply to KTT: But you could only really make them work 10 hours a week with the minimum wage what it is, seems like an awful lot of money and bureaucracy for very little gain. Plus the vast majority of people on the dole are trying very hard to get work, they just don't get written about in certain papers so often.

Personally I think a much better solution would be to give everyone in the country the dole.

In reply to Dom Whillans:

A relative quoted a figure of what proportion need's to be out of work for capitalism to work (which I forget), and added with that in mind it's very unfair to keep squeezing benefits.

In reply to KTT: Don't you have a AA meeting to attend?

In reply to Timmd:

Sorry, I don't understand why people need to be unemployed for capitalism to work. Does anyone care to explain?
I'd have thought that people being employed and having money to spend on products and services is the fundamental requirement for capitalism to work.

In reply to teflonpete:

I am sure there is some sort of abstract constant related to keeping the cost of labour low, but no I don't understand either.

In reply to teflonpete:
it's a bit late in the day for this and i seem to have screwed up something in my last post, as i'd written much more... but this may go some way to explain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_rate#Cyclical_or_Keynesian_theory...

In reply to The New NickB:

There is a "natural rate" of unemployment mainly accounted for by people between jobs or unwilling to work for locational reasons etc but that is generally regarded as very low, may be a couple of % or so and not unique to capitalism.

Otherwise the broad thesis is that in a free market wages will adjust to keep people fully employed although in reality there are obviously huge distortions eg. wages not allowed to fall or being made to rise too fast etc.

In reply to KTT: I was out in Botswana recently and asked about the groups of people randomly sweeping the main roads in Gaberone. The answer was that they were on benefits and had to work for it. The fact that the work was pointless (sweeping dust from the edge of a road that just petered out into the scrub either side) wasn't the issue. The government just didn't want to give the message that money was being handed out for free or else everyone would try and claim it. Child care wasn't an issue, the women just worked with a baby sling on though I'm not sure how well this would work in winter here.

In reply to teflonpete:

I'd care to explain, yes. Hello again. But first, it's important to understand what capitalism is, and then it's important to understand that capitalism works even when people think it isn't working.

So, at the moment there is - apparently - a substantial minority who think that capitalism isn't working, or might, in some nebulous way that they never quite get round to explaining, have 'failed'. Well, here's where it's important to understand what capitalism is...

Capitalism is the dominant economic system that has spread, in the last five hundred years or so, across the entire globe. There is not a single country on this planet that is not capitalist in nature and there is not a single country that - irrespective of the claims of the loony left or the raving right - can be called anything but capitalist. Capitalism has - globally - supplanted feudalism. Just as feudalism supplanted previous economic forms.

Let's pin down a few characteristics of capitalism, then, so we know what we're talking about...

In a capitalist economy the means of production - by which I mean the factories, the mines, the offices, the mineral resources, etc, are owned by a minority of the population. The vast majority of the population own little else than their ability to work. Thus are they forced, by economic necessity, to sell their labour power to the minority. Work for cash is the deal. So the dispossessed majority work for wages and produce commodities for the minority. The minority - the employing or capitalist class - pay those who work for them - the working class - less than value of what they produce and thus realise a profit.

Sometimes. Mostly. And that brings us on to the issue of unemployment...

Capitalism is an economic system that is based on the production of goods and services that are produced with one main objective and that is that they can be sold on a market with a view to realising a profit. Well and good so far, apart from the wage-slavery aspect.

The problem is that the capitalists are all competing against each other for their share of the market. In fact they have to do more than that. They have to attempt to dominate the market if not monopolise it completely. And to do this they have to continually wage war against their competitors, whether they be other individual capitalist organisations or, indeed, other nation-states.

It's really important to grasp the notion that when you have any number of capitalists flooding any given market with any particular commodity that you will eventually reach the stage of overproduction. Quite apart from the declining rate of profit on any given commodity, there comes a point when you really can't justify the production of any more phucking mobile fones that nobody wants to buy anymore and you have - as a capitalist - to start cutting back on production. And then start laying off workers...

Now, that's how capitalism works. Don't take my word for it anymore than you'd take the word of a politician or economist who claims to have come up with a way of escaping the continual boom/slump cycle that characterises the system. Find out for yourself.

The capitalist class would like it if they could guarantee a continual boom. But, as Marx pointed out, they are no more than functionaries of the social force of capital. The trade cycle is what causes unemployment, and you can't have capitalism without that trade cycle.

In reply to Chambers:

While the basic mechanics of capitalism are fairly well explained what you've said isn't entirely true. Capitalism is nothing to do with the means of production being owned by a minority or majority, it's about them being owned privately or by the state.

If the means of production were owned by 51% of the population and 49% sold their labour to that 51%, the means of production would be owned by the majority, and it would still be a capitalist system.

And that's without even mentioning shares, which means that, as a rule of thumb, anyone in the land can own a portion, no matter how small, of generally the largest companies, and either seek to sell the portion for profit, or make money from dividends.

In reply to Chambers:

Thanks for taking the time Chambers, but your post, other than telling me a load of stuff I already know, doesn't really answer my question.

Timmd posted the statement:

A relative quoted a figure of what proportion need's to be out of work for capitalism to work (which I forget), and added with that in mind it's very unfair to keep squeezing benefits.

I still don't understand what proportion 'needs' to be out of work to make capitalism work. Whilst I understand that generally, private companies would like to maximise profits by paying fewer staff, and paying them less, that doesn't equate to unemployment being a requirement of capitalism, more an undesirable by-product of boom and bust.

In reply to jackcarr:

I'm sure that you'll forgive me for taking issue with what appears to be a valid - albeit slightly pedantic - criticism of my position. Yes, I agree that you could have -theoretically - a manifestation of capitalism in which there was a far less disparate distribution of wealth. But you appear to have failed to grasp the crucial point that under capitalism wealth becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. I shouldn't need to dig out the figures to support this contention, but will happily do so should you want to argue that a situation such as the one that you posit is in any way sustainable.

I agree wholeheartedly with you, however, on the matter of the means of production under capitalsm being owned privately or by the state. The point being that whether they are owned by the state or by individuals they are emphatically not owned by the people who manipulate them to produce goods and services.

In reply to teflonpete: OK. Let me put it another way. In an economic system that has an inevitable cycle of boom and bust with, I should mention, extended periods of stagnation inbetween, why would you suppose that there would always be enough jobs to go round?

In reply to Chambers:

I don't suppose anything, certainly not that there would always be enough jobs to go round. It just seems that Dom and Tim were alluding to unemployment being part of a capitalist master plan, and I don't think it (unemployment) is intentional, I think it is a byproduct of supply and demand. I, for instance, work for at a factory owned by a capitalist. When that capitalist makes me redundant, it will be because there is no market for the product the factory makes. I will then go and get a job at a different factory that has a need for my skills, same as I did when I started working at this factory. There is no unemployment 'built in' to the system on purpose. If I, and my co-workers don't produce, the company fails. If I, and my co-workers in society don't work and have enough money to buy the services or products from the factory, the company fails. So where is the advantage in unemployment for a capitalist system?

In reply to Chambers:

No you don't need to dig out any figures because I have no doubt that we'd be on the same side in any sort of argument about capitalism.

Wealth is an ambiguous term though. Under capitalism there is nothing to stop you or I owning the means of production, whether it be by starting a business and employing people, or buying shares and owning a small percentage of an already existing and presumably profitable enterprise. Capitalism incentivises people to make something of themselves. There is no such incentive when the state plans the whole economy.

To be honest all these terms like "the workers" and "means of production" need to be phased out by anyone educated in the 20th century or later. They're stupid Marxist terms that have about as much relevance today as the flat Earth. Investment bankers don't own any means of production but if you're good at it you can walk away with millions a year, while an owner of a failing factory (as if we all still live in the Industrial Revolution, which socialists will have you believe) can employ hundreds of people and make nothing.

In reply to KTT:


This is the capitalist's dream, free (perhaps slave) labour.

Let's look at a simple scenario:

What would the unemployed/unskilled do?
most suggest something like gardening/street cleaning

That is all fine and dandy but then the gardener/street cleaner is made redundant. What do we do with an unemployed gardener/street cleaner?
You got it, gardening/street cleaning, these are his areas of expertise after all.

The none jobs created by forcing the unemployed to work for their benefit take work away from those already working in that field. What next, unemployed working in teaching, medicine, fire and ambulance services, eventually the whole public sector staffed by workers paid £65 per week.

Please nobody show this thread to David Caravan and his toffee nosed chums

In reply to 3leggeddog:

Get real, it could be volunteering unbagging stuff in a charity shop, driving minibuses for days out for sick kids, helping clean stuff at a dig.

Nobody is suggesting for one minute you'd take away jobs from people who get paid to do them so they can be given to people on the dole to do for free.

In reply to jackcarr: No, but it's harder distinguishing between 'real' jobs and 'voluntary' jobs than you imply. And anyway - aren't 'voluntary' jobs supposed to be just that? Also: IIRC there have been attempts to use unemployed to do real jobs, e.g. shelf stacking, so don't for a minute think that middle England would worry unduly about the niceities or ironies of making one set of workers redundant so others could be 'made to pay their way.'

Trying to maximise employment can't be done on the cheap, or with simple soundbite-type solutions. What's needed is decent training, (not the cr*p stuff that both Tories and Labour introduced that was designed more to massage the unemployment statistics than give marketable skills), and proper relocation grants to enable as a well as encourage people to move for work.

Funnily enough both of those were in place when I was unemployed under the first Thatcher regime, (e.g. the TOPS scheme - 20 week intensive full time training) and both helped me get on my feet after struggling to get established after university. And IIRC I received something like £1500 relocation assistance, which was pretty handy seeing as my first salary was £4K pa. I think I've paid that back a few times over.

In reply to teflonpete:
So where is the advantage in unemployment for a capitalist system?

I agree with you when you suggest that unemployment is not deliberate, and that it would be in the best interests of capitalists for there to be a constant level of full employment in many ways. (Although the threat of unempoyment is always a useful stick to beat workers with.) All I'm saying is that, given the trade cycle that is an integral part of the system, it's simply ot possible.

In reply to KTT:
Capitalism works when you have capital. The more you have, the better it works.

I could be an investment banker, I can throw a dice and gamble with other people's money & stash the loot offshore. Or I could do something useful to society. Shovelling money about benefits few people, smoke & mirrors.....

Charity work, yes. People could live adequately on ' mimimumwage' if they had, ooo, free healthcare and cheap housing.

Unemployment could be solved at a stroke by making a maximum working week....

In reply to thin bob:
Actually it's crucial to any society, even a Statist one. Fairly obviously money and resources have to be allocated to the appropriate places.And yes, I know, it wasn't exactly done well....



You might want to think a bit more about that one.

In reply to jackcarr:

That remains to be seen!

The majority of people do not have the wherewithal to attain such positions. That's purely because some 5% of the population own roughly 80% of marketable wealth. The majority of small businesses go bust within two years, and the value of shares owned by members of the working class is tiny. It's all very well suggesting that capitalism has the potential to be a benign, property-owning democracy in theory, but the actual practice of it concentrates wealth in fewer and fewer hands year-on-year.



Capitalism incentivises people to make something of themselves. There is no such incentive when the state plans the whole economy.

I disagree, mostly. Yes, capitalism encourages people to want to own more - although in and of itself that's not necessarily a positive thing - but at the same time it denies most people the opportunity to do so. If what you said was true we would see a reduction in the disparity between rich and poor. And that's simply not the case. The argument about private capitalists versus state ownership is an old one. Sometimes state-capitalism is beneficial for the capitalist class as a whole, mostly it's not. The matter has little effect on the question of unemployment.




Again, we disagree, here. Marx's analysis of capitalism is still the best explanation that we have of the way in which the profit system functions. And it is mistaken to suppose that anything has really changed since the 1800s. Oh, the development of technology has far exceeded anything that Marx imagined, sure, but the relations of production that he described are still the same.


Investment bankers don't own any means of production but if you're good at it you can walk away with millions a year, while an owner of a failing factory (as if we all still live in the Industrial Revolution, which socialists will have you believe) can employ hundreds of people and make nothing.

I don't know which 'socialists' you've been talking to, but that's not the point. The point is that, as Marx predicted, capitalism has become a global system, and whilst there has been an unprecedented rise in standards of living in developed nations, all of the misery and exploitation that underpins capitalism still exists elsewhere. That's what makes Marx still relevant.

In reply to teflonpete:
just to clarify (as i was a bit tipsy the other night), i don't see unemployment as some part of a masterplan; just as an inevitability within the way things work. which is why there will always need to be bods like me helping others to find work. understanding a little about the causes of structural and cyclical unemployment (including keynesian and marxist interpretations) allows me to do my job better, but economics wrecks my head at the best of times!

In reply to KTT: 10/10 excellent troll, well done

In reply to Chambers:

All of them. All of them would have you believe that we all still live in the 1860's and that we all either work the fields or spin cotton in factories, whilst a handful of wealthy industrialists in top hats work us to the bone and they're the only ones with access to the railways. Services make up almost 80% of the economy now, so the majority of people sit at desks all day and work in offices.

Misery and exploitation in non-developed countries has nothing to do with capitalism, which empowers people by definition. In most places, Africa especially, its rampant corruption, and the fact that they threw their toys out of the pram when they wanted independence rather than allowing a proper transition by allowing us to put good governance institutions in place. Africa is the richest continent in terms of natural resources, and the poorest in economic terms.

Asian and South American countries are finally cottoning on to the idea that the free market and non-protectionist trade is a good idea and that's where all the fastest growing economies are.

And people do have the wherewithal to make money, but lots of people are lazy and blame the 1% (or whatever buzzword was in the red tops that week) rather than themselves. It's a meaningless statistic that the majority of small businesses go bust. The OPPORTUNITY was there, and that's my point. I have no idea what the rate of private share ownership is in Britain, as figures on the internet seem to be all over the place (1 in 6 families in 2010 from the ONS seems to be the best bet) but again, the opportunity is there for people to make money by using (or should that be exploiting?) the capitalist system to make money.

You'll never see me saying that capitalism is a perfect system, but it's far and away the best economic system conceived, and it has drastically improved the living standards of hundreds of millions of people since the Industrial Revolution. You may well say it concentrates power and wealth in the hands of less people, but I'd rather see it in the hands of individuals than it concentrated in the hands of the state.

In reply to KTT:

I thought that socialists just want everyone to be paid more for doing less.

In reply to jackcarr:

It is, of course, impossible to defend capitalism without making wild and spurious claims about its nature. Claims that fly in the face of reality and lead you to make statements like the fact that the majority of small businesses go bust within two years is a meaningless statistic. And then going on to assert that their having had the opportunity to fail was at least a good thing. Theis irrational defence of the system also requires you to ignore reality: It is a fact that year-on-year, wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. That alone is enough to dismiss your claims that capitalism can work in the interests of the majority. It's demonstrably not true.

But we can go further: You have, if you are going to maintain your position, to wear blinkers that allow you to see developed capitalist nations - whose priviliged position, incidentally, was achieved by and large from the subjugation and exploitation of huge swathes of undeveloped countries - as isolated cases of best practice capitalism. This is not a valid perspective. Capitalism is a global system, and to argue that it has improved the living standards of hundred of millions of people since the industrial revolution is to completely miss the point. At the same time it has directly caused an enormous population explosion and produced a situation where some two-thirds of the planet's population do not get enough to eat.

You suggest that you would rather see wealth "in the hands of individuals than it concentrated in the hands of the state" as though those two forms of capitalism were the only possibilities. I reject both as being incapable of meeting human needs, and advocate the common ownership of wealth.

In reply to TimR:

Nope, socialists advocate the abolition of the wages system in its entirety. Workingclasslass is a defender of state capitalism.

In reply to Chambers:

It is a completely meaningless statistic, that says absolutely nothing about capitalism. I imagine most businesses fail (if they even do, some 2 minute research has indicated that your assertion may well be just plain wrong) because most people don't know what they're doing. That says more about the individual than the system.

It is also a fact that year on year, living standards, life expectancy and other such indicators go up and up, in developed free market economies at least, so how can you even say capitalism doesn't work in the interest of the majority? It may work for the minority on more levels, but to say it doesn't work for the majority at all is an absolute fallacy.

So it's now capitalisms fault that it has made huge medical advances in the last century, which is what has actually caused a population explosion? I wonder what would happen if all those mean capitalist countries didn't give money to the world food programme?

The common ownership of wealth will never work, simply because some people don't deserve it as much as others.

In reply to Chambers:
I am afraid partly incorrect. Plenty of other states (Russia for example, but also a large amount of tribal groups in Africa for example) have subjugated/exploited others and yet none of them have developed the same level of wellbeing/lige expectancy for their citizens so I am afraid that there are other reasons why capitalism works better at providing for its citizens than other systems.

In reply to Chambers: Capitalism has been around since the time of the ancient middle eastern cultures, as has been pointed out on this subject before.

Foreign exchange / merchant banking for about 600-700 years including about 500 years the equivilant of some modern financial instruments (if my recollection of a radio prog about Venice is correct).

So we have about 3000 years of 'success' for capitalism and <100 years of failure for socialism.

In reply to Dom Whillans:

No worries Dom, economics rarely swoops low enough to skim the top of mine! ;0)

In reply to jackcarr:

Yes, damn those stupid Africans, what on Earth were they thinking, wanting their own countries back. Whatever next?

In reply to jackcarr:

A meaningless statistic in your opinion. And there is, I suspect, a good reason for that. It'll be because it doesn't quite mesh with your assertion that we could all be wealthy capitalists if only we weren't lazy or if we only knew what we were doing. You defenders of capitalism have quite a number of delusions that you need to overcome, and you have a great deal of explaining to do. In fact, all of your work is still ahead of you. It'll take more than 2 minutes googling, as well!

Are you really suggesting that the only reason that 5% of the population own 80% of marketable wealth is because that 5% work harder and know what they're doing? Is the fact that 15% of the population of the USA is reliant on food stamps to get by a reflection of their inherent laziness or plain not knowing what they are doing? Wealth becomes concentrated in fewer hands because of the skills and talents of the wealthy? You really do need to do some research, I think.



Emphatically not the case. People in the twenty-first century are working longer hours for less pay in real terms than they were thirty years ago. The gap between rich and poor has increased dramatically. In the UK hundreds of people will die this winter because they can't afford to heat their homes. The number of unemployed people is rising, as is the number of homeless families. The life-expectancy of someone near the bottom of capitalism's heirarchy is over twenty years lower than that of those at the top. And you want to talk about fallacies?


Wrong again. It is the spread of capitalism that has caused the population explosion, not advances in medical science, which starving, dispossessed people in third world countries tend not to have access to anyway. You need to look at the growth of population alongside the expansion of capitalism. Again, do some research.

In reply to orejas:

I don't think it's me that's incorrect. I think that you are failing to grasp that Russia was a capitalist nation throughout most of the twentieth century.

In reply to KTT:


'Pointing something out' does not make it so. In any event, it's not relevant. Capitalism did not exist as the dominant economic system during the period that you mention. Capitalism supplanted feudal social relations - which had been the previous dominant economic system much later.

As I mentioned above, Russia and other so-called socialist states were, in fact, nothing of the sort. What you are talking about is the failure of state-capitalism.

In reply to Chambers:

Ugh, this is going nowhere. You refuse to accept the fact widely acknowledged by basically everyone that living standards, at least in the West, have increased massively since the Industrial Revolution. And I refuse to be bombarded by unsourced statistics.

Propose me an alternative model that has the ability to improve the lives of hundreds of millions whilst being more "fair" that would actually work in the real world. Because so far the best things anti-capitalists have come up with is setting up camps outside stock exchanges.

In reply to Chambers:

State capitalist, State socialist. Take your pick.It failed either way and market capitalism embedded in democratic institutions did infinitely better.

In reply to Postmanpat:
Agreed. But that's never been the argument.

In reply to jackcarr:

How these utopians wriggle! I've never denied that capitalism has resulted in dramatic rises in living standards for some. And I've hardly bombarded you with statistics. (You said at the outset that I had no need, since you were sure we'd agree about capitalism. How wrong you were.!) You have yet to come up with a single justification for an economic system that causes wars, massive poverty, global hunger and continual insecurity for practically everyone. In fact, your argument thus far consists of nothing but 'this is the best we've done so far!'

Do not sort me with those who associate themselves with the reformist nonsense peddled as the anti-capitalist movement. I am not an anti-capitalist. I am opposed to capitalism. And whilst I'm all to pleased to talk about the alternative to capitalism, that is not the subject in hand. You were defending capitalism, and you still have a lot of work to do!

In reply to Chambers:
You have yet to come up with a single justification for an economic system that causes wars, massive poverty, global hunger and continual insecurity for practically everyone. In fact, your argument thus far consists of nothing but 'this is the best we've done so far!'

That's literally the most batty thing I've ever read. I thought you seemed to have at least a moderately good understanding of its mechanics at first, but you actually have no idea what you're talking about.

In reply to jackcarr: And I was hoping that you would engage in rational debate but it turns out that you can only translate your misunderstanding of my position into me not knowing what I'm talking about rather than you not understanding what I'm talking about.

In reply to KTT:

No it was REAL qualified jobs pal and not some cheap untrained menial labor!

Siiiimply haaaaving a wonderful Christmas time ..

Siiiimply haaaaving a wonderful Christmas time ..

In reply to Chambers:
Please. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 1917-1990 give or take. I am sure Kruschev thought he was a capitalist! If you do not like the idea that most Socialist or Communist attempts do not end up leading to a Utopian Socialist/Communist you cannot just rename them capitalist.

In reply to RockAngel: This is how I think the current work prgramme should be structured! Cameron is unfortunately a stinking tory and prefers to help out big businesses rather than the charities which his so called "big society" will be relying on. Shockingly shortsighted in my mind!

In reply to Chambers: Balls, capitalism was the dominant or perhaps only economic system until Marx & Engles came along with socialism.

Do you think there was no trade in the dark ages, apparently there was a thriving trade in counterfeit swords to the vikings (so we had trade mark infringement long before the dodgy IPhones from China), metals, slaves, spices and other things of value were traded acorss continents long before the East India Company.

Your ignorance about the CCCP and 'state capitalism' is also astonishing.

Capitalism relies on individual property rights and the freedom of trade; two things that were rather notable for their absence in most of the soviet era. Try googling collective farms + starvation.

All capitalism exists within a framework of rules, whether that's in China, in the modern UK or in feudal Europe; that doesn't change the fact that there's a group of people with property rights that exploit those rights (and at times other people).

The notion of being unemployed is not necessarily core to the system of capitalism, if there was a shortage of people for the demand then the pull factor would bring in migrants or the low skilled low value stuff would be outsourced.

The notion of 100% employment is key to socialism as it allows the state to take control over your individual liberty much as it takes control over your property rights.

That's why the socialists want full employment; it's not because they want to bring wealth and happiness to the masses just that they want to be in control.

Now go back to arguing with Nick Clegg.

In reply to workingclasslass: Yes, I'm sure the physisit adapted without difficulty to his new life as a salt mining engineer.

You really are an apologist for forced labour, starvation and torture aren't you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag

In reply to KTT:

No and never have and never will be.

Thank you please.

In reply to orejas:

Well, I'm not too sure what Khruschev thought of himself, but there is no doubt that he was a disgusting social parasite who never advocated te kind of society that Marx advocated. And you can't trust labels, you see. The Labour Party in the UK is a case in point: they have always, since their inception in 1906, been an avowedly capitalist party, despite claims to the contrary.

In any event, Lenin and the Bolsheviks were very clear when they seized power in 1917 that thier aim was to establish state-capitalism. Now, unlike the loony lefties who will attempt to justify the horrors of what happened in Eastern Europe, I have no need for such idiocy: the movement to which I belong has been pointing out that the Russian revolution was a capitalist revolution since it happened.

In reply to KTT:

Here's a little exercise for you that might do something to ease your ignorance and breathtaking arrogance: Have a look through the archives of the only socialist party in the UK at www.worldsocialism. org and find one article that suggests that socialists want full employment. You might also enjoy being educated by our pamphlet on what actually happened in Russia at http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/russia-1917-1967-socialist-ana... . It always helps to understand an opponent's position before attacking blindly like you just did. That yellow stuff on your face? That's egg, that is.

In reply to Chambers: I'm sure world sociliasm as un biased and as well informed as the UKIP archives.

In reply to KTT: What a foolish thng to say. Of course it's not unbiased. Why would a series of articles that are produced with the purpose of expounding the case for socialism be unbiased? As for being well-informed, yes, most definitely. And nowhere will you find anything that supports your claim that socialists want full employment, because that is ot what socialists advocate. If you weren't so ill-informed you'd know that.

In reply to KTT:

Education and indoctrination are two different things. You said he might enjoying being "educated" by a pamphlet.

In reply to KTT:


Wouldn't it be great for the people claiming as they can't find jobs to earn there money through road sweeping and city maintenance i.e cleaning parks, helping remove graffiti, sweeping roads etc.
I'm pi&&ed off at my next door neightbour received "incapacity benefits" because she is "disabled" yet she is able to go on holiday 3 times a year with this so called "disability" and all she has to do is sit there claiming off ordinary folk!

Gone well off track but I hope you see my point

In reply to Chambers: It isn't well informed, it is written in a dense and obscure lefty academic style with the facts changed to fit the theory and stuffed with reductionist absurdities.

This sort of thing is a relevant to a sensible debate as 'men are form mars' is to the practice of a clinical psychiartist.

In reply to Chambers: I've just been reading that web site and it's the sort of crap that I expected, simply devoid of any worth.

You try to set definitions and then argue that other people are wrong because they don't agree with your definition even though your definition is contrary to what we all see in the world around us.

For example

http://www.worldsocialism.org/articles/what_is_capitalism.php

Capitalism only came into existence when Marx described it is like saying there was no sex before playboy.

To be blunt you're not worth debaitng with.

In reply to KTT: One of the great things about being a socialist is that you don't have to expose people as fools. They do it for themselves. Where do we say that capitalism didn't exist before Marx described it? Oh yeah. We don't. And we don't try to set definitions at all.

So you don't think I'm worth 'debaiting' with? It's not like you have the option, is it? You lack the basic skills.

In reply to jackcarr:

Quite right. You've been indoctrinated - which is why you can't see beyond the profit system - and you need to be educated so that you can.

In reply to Chambers:

I haven't been remotely indoctrinated at all, I've made my opinions based on historical and economic fact, and a knowledge of how the real world actually works, which no socialist seems to have in my experience.

I find it quite laughable that you call me indoctrinated and you're the one citing a source whose goal is to spread socialism as fact.

In reply to Chambers: This 'profit system' of which you speak - would you care to describe how you believe it works? Just so we can understand the alternatives.

In reply to jackcarr:

Are you suggesting that you didn't go to school? Now, it seems to me that one of the side-effects of the kind of indoctrination that is administered as a matter of course to anyone who grows up within capitalism is that they believe that they have freedoms that they don't actually have. Thus they are unable to recognise their indoctrination for what it is.

You talk about the 'real world' and claim to have a knowledge of how it works. And yet you speak of capitalism as an economic system that is capable of satisfying people's needs if only they'd get up off their fat, lazy arses and work harder. You claim that an economic system that generates war and, as a by-product, the nastiest, most destructive weapons of mass destruction imaginable, has provided us with the best society we've ever had. An economic system that produces unthinking imbeciles who want nothing more than to consume more and more regardless of the consequences to themselves and the planet. No rational, thinking person could defend the mess that capitalism makes, it seems to me.

And yet you do. Hmmm...you remind me of the countless millions who died defending the capitalist revolution in Russia...you wouldn't want to argue that they hadn't been indoctrinated, would you?



The goal of the World Socialist Movement is the replacement of capitalism with a classless, stateless, moneyless society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. Socialism doesn't exist. Never has. Yet. Never been tried. Yet. How could we spread socialism as 'fact'? Our analysis of capitalism is accurate and our case is vindicated by the history of the last hundred years. We've been consistently correct, both in our condemnation of our left-wing opponents and our right-wing opponents. Socialism as fact? Nah. That's a category error. Global capitalism could be described as a 'fact' in that it exists. Socialism doesn't. Yet.

In reply to Chambers:

I think you fantasize about filling Hitchins rather large shoes. The flowery prose is quite entertaining, I guess the new face of Socialist worker has to appear to offer something better than a leather aproned worker standing in front of 20 industrial chimneys billowing out smoke...moving with the times...tick.

I wish you good luck, but I suspect you will be as marginal next year as you are today, although the conditions for attracting new followers through division and class war are better than they have been in your living memory I suspect. Just as the ECB and FED have their printers on stand by, I suspect your stocking up on red ink and rubber fist stamps for a printing frenzy of your own

it's difficult to predict which marginals the public will go for when the SHTF. Right wing or left wing?

In reply to Chambers: You need to read your own material comrade.

'What is Capitalism? The word capitalism is now quite commonly used to describe the social system in which we now live. It is also often assumed that it has existed, if not forever, then for most of human history. In fact, capitalism is a relatively new social system.1' The footnote is a citation of Marx.

I could go on but you'd only say that I lack the dialectical skills to properly understand the material.

Now perhaps you can perhaps expain how the mesopotamians trading wasn't capitalist before moving onto the greeks, romans, norse and so on.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Certainly, Mr. Exile Ward. It's really very simple...

Me and my mates - about five per cent of the population - own all of the factories, the offices, the mines, all of the mineral resources and all of the means of distribution.

You and your mates - dispossessed peasants that you are - outnumber us greatly, but hey! Doesn't matter. We've got the wealth and we've got the power. That's the golden rule of capitalism, you see? We've got the gold so we make the rules! And the rules say that you've got to work for us or we don't give you any money to spend on buying some of our wealth. (Hah! All of which you produced in the first place, suckers!) You can try and take it by force, but we've already bought off some of your buddies and put them in silly uniforms that give them the power to throw you in a cell if you break our rules. Clever, eh? But it gets even cleverer...

So, we've got the wealth and you haven't. But we're good guys really, and we want to help you out. Why don't you come and work in our factories and offices, or maybe drive some trucks and trains for us? That'll be exciting, won't it? Except that you'll have to do it for eight hours a day, five days a week until you're too old to do it anymore. But that's ok. We'll pay you enough to raise families, so by the time you're thrown on the scrap-heap you'll have raised the next generation of wage-slaves for us to exploit. Oh, but wait! We didn't explain the wage-slavery bit, did we?

It's not really in our best interests to be honest about this, and we've built schools and universities that we'll let your lot study in for the sole purpose of conditioning your thinking so that you never really understand what's going on. Few of you ever see through it and we're confident it'll stay that way - so let's be honest here.

You come and work for us and spend most of your waking lives producing commodities that we sell on the market at a profit. How do we realise a profit I hear you ask? Simple. We pay you less than the value of what you produce. That's it. It's really that simple. You get enough cash to reproduce your labour-power, but not so much that you have any choice about coming back to work for us next week, and we go laughing all the way to the bank. And it makes us so fabulously wealthy that we've even got enough to provide you with loads of stuff that makes you think you're better off than people elsewhere. Oh yes. We manufactured your loyalty to us. And we're so good at that that you'll even go and fight our wars for us. Good little wage-slaves!

* * *

So there you go, Mr. Exile Ward. That's pretty much how it works. You can thank Karl Marx for that analysis of the exploitative nature of capitalism, although I may have paraphrased him. (Karl wasn't as funny as the other Marx brothers!) I look forward to your criticisms.

In reply to Chambers:

Mate, you need to stop reading that crap. It's made you paranoid and delusional. You're sounding more and more like a raving conspiracy theorist with every post.

In reply to Chambers:

So it's all a conspiracy by "them" to oppress "us".

And I assume that those of "us" who become "them" are recruited into their unholy cabal.

Do we have to be lizards first or are we taken over by lizards if we're successful?

In reply to jackcarr:

It's made me think about materialism though, his post just above about capitalism.

We might get to retire sooner if we didn't spend our lives buying 'stuff', or get to do more with our time here.

In reply to KTT:

I actually wrote quite a bit of it. And I'm not anyone's 'comrade'! Least of all yours!


Quite so. It refers to 'The Communist Manifesto' which is a great historical document that explains the development of human society in terms of the materialist conception of history. It demonstrates precisely how - and why - capitalism became the dominant economic system after feudalism. At no point does it suggest that capitalism only began to exist once Marx and Engels had analysed it. How the hell do you analyse something before it exists? If we're going to debate - and I do distinctly remember you saying that I wasn't worth debating, so why the sudden change? - you need to concede this. We in the wsm do not contend that there was no capitalism prior to Marx. You got it wrong!



Nope. Not the kind of thing I'd be likely to say, even when chatting up your girlfriend!

Perhaps you can perhaps stop saying perhaps so much, perhaps? I'm not saying that some Mesopotamian mofos weren't engaged in a capitalist mode of production. Look, have a read of The Communist Manifesto and we'll take it from there, eh? Then we can have a proper, informed debate. If you'd like me to read something written by a defender of capitalism that you happen to like I'd be happy to do so. Though I've read widely in economics. But I'm always open to new arguments.

In reply to jackcarr:

Aha! That's exactly what they want you to think!

No, you're wrong. I'm a scientific rationalist and I've tested our ideas for more than three decades. Let's have a serious debate, here? Or let's stop pretending we're having one and just rip the piss out of each other like climbers used to.

In reply to Timmd:

Socialism will actually be much more exciting than early retirement.

In reply to Chambers:

A scientist proposes a theory and then tests it and if it doesn't stand up to testing it's rejected as flawed. So please provide the results of your thirty years of testing so we can have a serious debate.

How did you get to give up personal possession of property to the collective, how was that property used, what happened when it needed fixing or was no longer of use etc etc

Bring it on.

In reply to Chambers: Yes as many found when Beria and Comrade Duch cam calling.

In reply to off-duty:

Look, there are no shape-shifting lizards from the ninth dimension involved. Surplus value is a scientific fact.

In reply to Chambers: I'll see if I can find my copy.

In reply to Chambers:

Haha, testing for 30 years? Are you the dear leader of some Island in the South Pacific or something? I bet you're the only one who's allowed the internet aren't you?

In reply to KTT: Damin, I can't find it.

In reply to Chambers: What's your conception of surplus value? (since you don't do definitions we'll have to go for the ideal / description)

In reply to KTT:

I agree with your first sentence. No argument there. Your second sentence is blather. You want me to write down every way in which the case for socialism has been vindicated by my experiences within global capitalism over the last thirty years? I've got enough books to write already, thanks!

I didn't. Socialists don't advocate any such nonsense. Go and have a read so you know what you're attacking. Lemons! They're such bastards! And to prove the illegitimacy of lemons I'd like you consider this pomegranate...



Not until you're ready.

In reply to jackcarr:

Jack, man, you should be on a stage. Somewhere.

In reply to Chambers: Marx was a clever bloke and with many deep insights. But his understanding of history had a fundamental, typically Germanic flaw - he believed that there was an inevitable progress about it. In fact, he saw himself as documenting what was going to happen anyway, rather than formenting it.

How would we know that his theory was true? Praxis - the inevitable progression to the next stage of human development.

It was as bonkers in its way as the Hegelianism he believed he had replaced, and the fact that no such progression has been observed in the last 150 years pretty much nails it as a theory, although as I say, much of his work remains heuristically useful. As a guide to practical politics - fighting fascism in WWII, getting things done, lifting the developing world out of poverty, stuff like that - it's been demonstrably less than useless.

In reply to Chambers: So you think that the only explanation of human social development is the communist manifesto, bloody hell that's going to upset a lot of social anthropologists.

Your website says quite clearly that 'capitalism is a realtively new social system' as I have pointed out the Sumerians and the peoples of what is now Iraq and the surrounding areas had a society based on trade (and of course agriculture) about 5000 years ago.

http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/trade/home_set.html

So the statement of your website is simply wrong.

As for proposing some reading, that seems pointless. When the facts change I chagne my mind, what do you do when the facts change? You shift definitions and introduce theories that explain away the facts that you don't like.

In reply to Chambers:
You want me to write down every way in which the case for socialism has been vindicated by my experiences within global capitalism over the last thirty years?

Er, that's not testing. That's like saying putting ketchup on your chips for the last 30 years has ruined them, so you're going to assume putting dog shit on them instead will make them nicer. Except the whole world knows dog shit is dog shit. And most of the world knows socialism is too.

In reply to Chambers: So you've done all this testing and it proves your theory but you won't show us because a. we might not understand or b. you're too busy.

That's got to be the wesakest end to sa story since 'and I woke up and it was all a dream'.

In reply to Chambers:

Leaving lizards to one side it just appears to be politics of envy.
Obviously if you exist in a capitalist society then having a large amount of money (from whatever means) is going to give you a better standard of life.

The socialist ideal appears to rely on man having an inherent selfless nature and not covet his neighbours possessions/wife/job.

At least capitalist societies have a clear set of rules to "success" unlike socialism where the process of becoming leader or deciding on the exact distribution of wealth/property/employment are never really spelled out.

But that's only the view of someone that wears a uniform to oppress the workers and maintain the status quo

In reply to off-duty: I was out with some of our sub contractors (ex cops) and they were telling me that it used to be standard friday night fun to drive around a sh*t part of town till you saw a likely looking car and then follow it for a few minutes in the hope it would speed off and you could chase it. Their stories sounded plausible but is this something you've ever heard of?

In reply to Rob Exile Ward: I like a man who can say 'heuristically useful' and appear to know what he means. But not in a gay way, I hope you'll understand. I'm going to answer the first meaningful criticism of my position with alacrity. But not just yet. Stuff to do. Though I'm interested in why you think WWII was a war against fascism. Housework and thinking to do. Back soon.

In reply to Chambers: Got it! I knew I'd seen you before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ9myHhpS9s&feature=related

In reply to off-duty: In a bit. For the reasons mentioned above.

In reply to Chambers: Come on, admit it you've bottled it, you've got nothing to say so you're off to find something to cut & paste.

In reply to Chambers:

I'm a scientific rationalist and I've tested our ideas for more than three decades...

...You want me to write down every way in which the case for socialism has been vindicated by my experiences within global capitalism over the last thirty years?,

So you've spent the last 30 years, testing and proving a new system, that is by far superior to any current ones. A system that you are obviously very passionate about. Yet you didn't record any data. Doesn't sound very scientific to me.

In reply to KTT:

No, my friend. It is not so and the more that you wish it to be so the less it is so! I've been to the shop. (No more snow on the mountains in Gwynedd, I might mention!) I'm coming back soon to demolish your ludicrous pronouncements. How come you only climb HVS by the way? And what have you done on grit? Huh? :0

In reply to MJ:


Reload your gun and shoot yourself in the other foot and stop extrapolating.

In reply to Chambers: You've been to the shop, that bastion of capitalist exploitation, I hope you explained his errors on the notion of property and left without paying.

In reply to KTT:

I lol'd.

In reply to Chambers:

If it's all the same, I think i'll just try saving more and being less materialistic.

()

In reply to Timmd: They really need to tighten up the benefits system hard. Britain is broken and needs fixed! Make them pay back all the benefits received plus some interest when the unemployed get into work. Better still, scrap the benefits system. Make them do some sort of community service instead, in return give them food but no cash. That way the system doesnt get abused.

In reply to jackcarr:

So did I! You guys amuse me. Now, if you'll excuse me for a moment, I'm busy making socialist feta and spinach canneloni for the woman I love who's currently attending to the perceived needs of her daughter who's recently been put in a bed in Ysbetty Gwynedd! There's healthy!

In reply to Chambers:

That wasn't a sarcastic ''If it's all the same'' by the way.

Damn this forum-paranoia...

I suspect it will take many years to repair the damage done by the crazyness of the 'Nu-Labour' regime. The government need to start on the benefits scroungers bleeding the treasury dry.

In reply to KTT:

Vouchers are definitely the way forward. Food, fuel and clothes. That way they won't spunk it all on booze fags and 42" televisions.

In reply to jackcarr: Agreed matey. They should get as much work out of them as they can too.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:
I benefited from a similar scheme about 20 years ago. Got dole money plus an extra tenner and my rent paid to go on an intensive IT course. One year course, 9-5, Mon - Fri, no free periods (lectures and lab work all day every day), and no holidays except bank holidays. Must have cost the taxpayer a bob or two. But it got me a much better paid job and I'm sure that over the long term the tax payer has seen a profit - partly from my ever increasing income tax, and partly from my greatly increased spending.

Shelf stacking for dole merchants is a Tory wet dream. They'll want to be called 'massa' next and sit on the porch with a mint julep, counting the cotton bales going past.

Training is a much more productive idea. It ranks a bit low on the 'getting a stiffy from the idea of having slaves' front, but economically it's a better option. By the way, 'economically' is where decisions like that should be made. Not in your pants.

(Last para not aimed at you, Rob. Just a general comment).

In reply to Tony Naylor: Well you very well might not like us Conservatives but it was your Tony Blair who created the problem by allowing anyone who wanted to just claim a fortune in benefits just to secure the plebian vote.

In reply to Cathcart_Alpinist:
I'm (broadly) anti-Tory, so Tony Blair is somehow 'mine'. Or I am, perhaps, 'left wing'. Let me guess - you're about 15, right?

In reply to Tony Naylor:

IQ?

You need to excuse him, he's a virgin to ukc and probably forums in general, new pc for xmas, previous posts were done by his man servant.

In reply to The Big Man:
Yep, or - rather embarrassingly - I've just been taken for a sucker by a troll. The word 'plebian' should have given it away.

<hangs head in shame>

In reply to KTT:

In fairness it was all Blair's fault, who somehow managed to create an inverted tax system, whereby instead of you working and paying tax, you could get the government to pay you not to work.

In reply to jackcarr:

Exactly. I wonder why? Probability is he decided on ending the means testing of benefits in order to curry favour with the underclasses/working classes and so having those peoples votes. There really needs to be strict means testing in place, or is that too much of a 'Tory' view for you? We need to end the benefits lifestyle constructed by 'new' Labour. Opening the floodgates to anyone netting a fortune in handouts unchallenged.

In reply to Cathcart_Alpinist: Blair also cranked up the amount of the benefits payable so that the avergae scrote was pocketing more cash than most working people. It is an insult to decent people and a disgustingly immoral way of securing votes.

In reply to Cathcart_Alpinist: I, as with many, many others am a working man doing a 40-50 hour a week job (depending on workload), and to support your claim, a couple of years back I researched how much benefit my family and I would get if both my wife and I were on the "dole".

The totals astounded me and left me feeling a tad cheated. Considering all the free deals, such as, paid rent (although granted we would have had to pay around £5 from our prospective dole money), council tax, free school meals costing a family of three around £33 a week, milk tokens, dental work, Tax credits, child benefit, etc.

Therefore, although we would be still struggling (cash wise) with credit cards, loans, food, and energy the actual cash value of being in the benefits system overall exceeded both our wages and tax credit payment by around £11 a week.

Now considering I am also in a position of responsibility and accountability in my present job, I asked the question of, where was the incentive of the ordinary working man with a family to even begin to work if he was:

a) out of work already
b) had a family with three children or more under his care

other than having the knowledge that he is in no way a sponger and has the satisfaction that everything he owns has been worked for and paid by the sweat of his brow.

The answer to that question still eludes me to this day.

In reply to dionhughes: Well you get child benefit anyway (I quite enjoy the £135 a month appearing in our bank account for no other reason than we've produced two offspring) and I don't really see how you get tax credits if you're not working - and if your income is low enough that you're really within 40 quid a month of being on benefits are you sure that as a two working parent household you're claiming what you're entitled to?

In reply to andy: Yup, and you did get Child Tax Credits on the benefits system, which was different to Working Tax Credit at the time. Throwing in all the extras, dental fees, prescriptions, rent payments, Council Tax, Travel Allowances to and from interviews, it all added up.

In reply to Cathcart_Alpinist:

If your views weren't so ill-informed, rabid and hate-filled, they might be classed as rather sweet.

Here's a bit of perspective:

Tony Blair (vile though he is, for a variety of reasons) did not invent the welfare state.

The 'working classes' are not an amorphous pile of dimwits who sit around saying, "I got a job and wurk hard, so I want more money for people on dole and stuff and betting shops and yeah all like that and 42-inch plasma TV".

People have been scamming the benefit system under Labour and Tory govts forever. It's a big system. It's scammable. Big systems are.

And, dude - it still sounds like you're 15.

(And it still feels like I'm being trolled, but dammit I'm enjoying it!)

In reply to Tony Naylor: There needs to be some sort of means testing for benefits. We cant go on with the Labour system of opening the floodgates and allowing anyone to claim benefits. Thats money that the country wont get back, which is why I advocate making thesse people pay back the benefits they pocketed, once they are in work. Failing that, as I say, some sort of community service work should be mandatory. It would teach these people not to scam cash from a country in crisis. We need to sort-out broken Britain at once.

In reply to Cathcart_Alpinist: the current situation is a big problem. about 8 years ago a mate of mine who is a single father widow with a 10 year old son decided he needed to go back to work to boost his self esteem. with the various benefits and free rent etc he needed a job paying £220 a week just to break even. He only managed to get a job paying that much by working on the side cash in hand for a couple of years until he had proven worth it and the company took him on full time. afte10 years out of work raising his son (mum died a few weeks after birth) no one was willing to give him a job.