I know it's all doom and gloom but what can be done about it?

Rotor

Ah - the old ' true socialism has never been tried' line.
You seem very confident it will work considering it has never been tried. I think it has been tried and fails each time because of human nature. Most people won't work at there very best level if they personally see little or no benefit from it, especially when they see others getting the same rewards for doing far less.
It brings about equality of poverty not equality of wealth

SussexSocialist

Rotor wrote: »

Ah - the old ' true socialism has never been tried' line.
You seem very confident it will work considering it has never been tried. I think it has been tried and fails each time because of human nature. Most people won't work at there very best level if they personally see little or no benefit from it, especially when they see others getting the same rewards for doing far less.
It brings about equality of poverty not equality of wealth

No line, only fact - it hasn't been tried.

Can you please tell me what then, brings 'equality of wealth' as it would answer me and the OP in one.....?

Rotor

Nothing - people are paid according to the price the market puts on their labours, and the welfare state is there to prevent true deprivation ( rather than relative deprivation)

Reactor_2

SussexSocialist,

If socialism was that great, someone would be doing it now, but the reason why we don't is because of our nature: we need incentives and a hierarchy. The basic problem is this: you don't want to pay for my children to go to school as much as I don't want to pay for yours. Our self-interest is our biggest motivator and decider, so if we were all to revert to socialism now, those who are wealthy would lose and those who are poor will win. The poor of course would want this and the rich will not.

I don't want to sound too elitist here but the rich also tend to be smart, but where I differ with most people's opinion is that these people were born naturally talented rather than created through nurture, and that nature is a bigger decider than nurture. Quite simply you either have it or you don't. There's nothing wrong with people trying to make their lives better, but the side of the coin that never gets mentioned is that there will be limitations and risks.

Unfortunately, the majority of the world has been overly confident in their ability and living for today on borrowed money and hoping tomorrow they will have the solution to pay for it, with the illusion that it isn't their money, so they can walk away from the situation when it turns bad. They aren't so smart when they are confronted with reality and have to suffer, so they blame the banks for making it easy for them to borrow money! This the same argument as saying I've got a family to feed and mortgage to pay! In both cases you had a choice: you didn't have to take out the loan that was beyond your means, but you did, and you didn't have to have children and buy a house, but you did! A title of a book best describes this: 'A Colossal Failure of Common Sense'.

I can imagine a lot of people saying it's their right, but what they are forgetting is that right comes at a cost, which they don't want to pay, so it's an issue of public morals, defined by people's nature. This tougher environment will teach everyone a lesson and hopefully the discipline will weed out the weak and make the rest of society better. There is only one fair discipline and that is market discipline.

C_Mababejive

Am i the only one who says..dont reign in your expenditure and save more...get more debt !

Honestly,,if you have been one of those people who have saved..well ..you've lost out. You may have denied yourself so much ,thinking you were doing the right and prudent thing,whilst all around you your friends and neighbours were having a good old time. They have bigger,better houses,cars,clothes,holidays etc..mostly financed by debt.

Your wages..? Well dont look on it as real time money. Look at it as leverage for debt. you have a wage and therefore your credit is good so use it. Go out there and enjoy life on credit. Just make sure it doesnt get out of hand.

Seriously..if its good for Greece,several other euro countries,the US of A and the UK...its good enough for you.

Get some debt.

Whats the worst that can happen if it all goes wrong..? They take your car back or you get made bankrupt? big deal.

However,if you save,,whats the worse that goes worng? Well you dont enjoy life as much,you live a life of denial. You save lots of oblong bits of paper with a pic of the queen on them and then one day someone says..actually,thats all they are,bits of paper,,hahahahahaha

John_Pierpoint

Reactor wrote: »

SussexSocialist,

If socialism was that great, someone would be doing it now, but the reason why we don't is because of our nature: we need incentives and a hierarchy. The basic problem is this: you don't want to pay for my children to go to school as much as I don't want to pay for yours. Our self-interest is our biggest motivator and decider, so if we were all to revert to socialism now, those who are wealthy would lose and those who are poor will win. The poor of course would want this and the rich will not.

I don't want to sound too elitist here but the rich also tend to be smart, but where I differ with most people's opinion is that these people were born naturally talented rather than created through nurture, and that nature is a bigger decider than nurture. Quite simply you either have it or you don't. There's nothing wrong with people trying to make their lives better, but the side of the coin that never gets mentioned is that there will be limitations and risks.

Unfortunately, the majority of the world has been overly confident in their ability and living for today on borrowed money and hoping tomorrow they will have the solution to pay for it, with the illusion that it isn't their money, so they can walk away from the situation when it turns bad. They aren't so smart when they are confronted with reality and have to suffer, so they blame the banks for making it easy for them to borrow money! This the same argument as saying I've got a family to feed and mortgage to pay! In both cases you had a choice: you didn't have to take out the loan that was beyond your means, but you did, and you didn't have to have children and buy a house, but you did! A title of a book best describes this: 'A Colossal Failure of Common Sense'.

I can imagine a lot of people saying it's their right, but what they are forgetting is that right comes at a cost, which they don't want to pay, so it's an issue of public morals, defined by people's nature. This tougher environment will teach everyone a lesson and hopefully the discipline will weed out the weak and make the rest of society better. There is only one fair discipline and that is market discipline.

It does not matter how rich you are, you still have only one vote.

The politicians have bamboozled the electorate into a situation where half (approx) of the nation's wealth is passed through the government spending machine, doubled from a quarter (approx) in the 1960's (and back then the government did have a go at producing something like say electricity and coal). Now what useful work is being done with this taxed and deficit borrowed wealth: Education, Health, Keeping the queen's peace..........?

This government machine requires a currency called "votes" to keep it working away, bribing the sheeple with their own money.

This system was taken to its eventual conclusion in places like Eastern Europe and South America - go back 80 - 100 years and you will find countries with wealth per head in the top 10. Well known names like Czechoslovakia & Argentina.

Any resemblance between such places and a pair an off shore island with a rising population plus depleted coal and oil reserves, is of course completely fanciful.

JimmyTheWig

DervProf wrote: »

Erm, I think you should be saving up a safety net when times are good, and not racking up too much debt.

Saving up a safety net when times are hard :rotfl:

My point was that people who can afford to now would be wise to save money in case they can't in the coming months. I.e. people whose jobs / hours haven't been cut could be saving now in case they are cut in the future.

But that won't help the economy and so doesn't answer the OP's question.

The_White_Horse

the real problem is the public sector. too large. too inefficient.

i am all for capitalism, but there is no point in having a market where none exists. for example trains. I can only use my local line. I can't decide to use another - unless i move. Therefore, it is pointless. The Govt should be running the trains cheaply and efficiently. Not wasting money on gay inclusion officers and bovine divesity carers.

there was a placard at the rally at the weekend to "save" the nhs. it said "not one cut ever". and there lies the problem. these people are idiots.

europe is dead because of its huge public sectors.

lisyloo

Do we really need to do anything or will this blow over?

Well I don't fit into the armageddon camp, nor do I think things will just return to normal.
What can sensible people do?

1) Solar panels/cavity wall insulation/loft insulation etc. would be worth investigating especially if you qualify for a grant (we are well-off and live in a big nice house but still qualified for a grant).
2) Review your portfolio and make sure it's in-line with your goals. I don't recommend reducing stock and shares monthly sums as I think it's good to buy when low.
3) Review your insurance situation - death, sickness, redundancy etc.
4) Consider putting more into your pension or whatever retirement plan you have.
5) Adjust your expectations to working longer, pension costing more and getting less out.
6) Spend some and enojoy yourself while you are healthy - who knows what's around the corner.
7) Consider studying for a second career in your evenings if your career is insecure. Research and investigate your options.

dtsazza

(Warning: large post ahead. If you're not interested in the philosophical debate around socialism, skip it.)

SussexSocialist wrote: »

You seem very confident it will work considering it has never been tried. I think it has been tried and fails each time because of human nature

No line, only fact - it hasn't been tried.

Well, based on the article you linked:

What_is_Socialism? wrote:

In socialism, everybody would have free access to the goods and services designed to directly meet their needs and there need be no system of payment for the work that each individual contributes to producing them. All work would be on a voluntary basis.

Under that kind of system, I would probably voluntarily do no work, while demanding many fine meals, clothes, houses, gardens, nightclub visits, chauffeurs, etc. And I don't think it's a stretch to assume that 90%+ of people would do the same.

And OK, in practice I probably would end up doing some elements of work once the novelty wore off, because I'm not that selfish. But in a world where there was absolutely no personal consequences whether I worked hard or daydreamed, or even turned up at all, I suspect my productivity would be atrocious.

I remain convinced that getting out what you put in is essential if people are ever to do anything worthwhile. Asides from the fact that the picture you paint is blatantly unfair; the non-workers are getting all their needs tended to by the workers, for free. Forget "wage-slavery", that's just pure slavery.

What_is_Capitalism? wrote:

It is also possible (at least in theory) to have a free market economy that is not capitalist. Such a 'market economy' would involve farmers, artisans and shopkeepers each producing a particular product that they would exchange via the medium of money. There would be no profit-making and no class division—just independent producers exchanging goods for their mutual benefit.

That sounds entirely like the current capitalist system to me. Someone produces a good/service for which they are paid money. They use that money to buy other goods and services that they want. Whether they make "profit" or not is just an accounting fillip on whether you consider their labour to be a sunk cost or not (and I assure you, a farmer won't sell his vegetables for less than the cost of the fertiliser, so fundamentally there is profit involved as payment for the labour and knowhow.)

Plus there's still capital involved - the musician wouldn't be as productive without a capital investment in his instrument, or the farmer without a capital investment in fields to grow his crops/graze his animals.

"Make something and sell/exchange it" sounds like the essence of capitalism to me.

Can you please tell me what then, brings 'equality of wealth' as it would answer me and the OP in one.....?

Equality of wealth comes, ceteris paribus, from equality of output. All money/goods acquired come from other people, who give them to you on the basis of goods/services that you have to give to them. Those people who can produce more of what people want (or the same amount of something that people want more) will acquire wealth more quickly.

The underlying issue is perhaps one of the nature of today's connected, globalised world. Previously, markets were a lot more limited, and no matter how good a blacksmith you were, you had a finite number of potential customers and potential services you could realistically provide to them. However, with multiple billion internet users, products that scale up can result in huge amounts of money. If you can get even a single penny from every user, you'll have seven-figure revenues overnight.

What this means is that someone who has a good idea, and/or produces something that people value stand to make a lot of money - simply because what might have entertained a thousand people a couple of hundred years ago, can now entertain millions. And consequently that person will be making a thousand times more money from his efforts.

I consider this a good thing, as it means that consumers get access to more goods and services, of higher quality, for cheaper. It's also more democratic in that someone who creates e.g. a good computer game can reach a viable audience directly, without having to go through distributors. But it definitely accentuates the distinction (and inequality of wealth) between those who generate real value (in the sense of something that people are willing to pay [extra] for), and those who don't offer much beyond basic physical labour.

The description of capitalism in the linked article makes it sound like there are two options: own a factory, or work in a factory. I realise that there have to be simplifications, but I think this misses the real point. You earn money based on the value that your "work" (be it formal or otherwise) adds to products/services - and ultimately to other people's lives. If you want to earn more money, you need to do something you're good at, something that people are ultimately happy to pay for - which typically means something skilled, above and beyond raw physical labour. Ultimately it boils down to either doing something that individuals are prepared to pay more for (because they value it more), or by doing something where more people benefit from your services per unit of effort.


I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this, because I like and admire the goals of socialism but whichever way I try to look at it, the "fair society" keeps falling down ironically because it isn't fair (in terms of rewards for actions). To paraphrase Churchill, market capitalism seems to be the worst economic system apart from all the others.