Toynbee - Plan C for public sector workers

ILW

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Poverty is hard wired into capitalism. Relying on a fractional reserve closed system based around compound debt, makes it virtually mathematically impossible for the majority of participants to acquire much, while the minority gorges itself.

It is a sham. Money equals nothing but labour or the promise of labour. Property is theft, both can be withdrawn by the people. Change is coming.

Again I ask, what is your definition of poor?

A._Badger

Some really poor work here. We have a neo-Marxist (whatever he claims) deputy headteacher (there's a shock) propagating the 'finite resources' myth (clue: 30 years ago there was no mobile phone industry, nobody mines mobile telephones. Growth is not dependent on resources) while still we have poor old toastie telling us that if we all join hands and wish hard enough everything will change. This time it will work, it really, really will!

Give it up. Socialism has been tried. It has failed - even when essayed by the dedicated bodies-no-object psychotics like Mao and Pol Pot.

Capitalism is flawed because, like a mediaeval city, it evolved, twisting and turning and organic, following the pattern of human nature. The alternative might seem attractive to the theorist but the alternative looks like Milton Keynes or Harlow. It is inhuman and it is dysfunctional.

Until you can change mankind (and by heavens the Marxists tried!) capitalism is what we have to work with.

flimsier

A._Badger wrote: »

Until you can change mankind (and by heavens the Marxists tried!) capitalism is what we have to work with.

More than 99.8% of the time mankind has existed (assuming the 195,000 years some claim) it has been under a different system to capitalism. Capitalism has existed for 300-400 years in the first capitalist societies, and obviously less than 100 in some. It was born in bloody revolution; it didn't evolve from some natural state.

Andy_L

A._Badger wrote: »

Some really poor work here. We have a neo-Marxist (whatever he claims) deputy headteacher (there's a shock) propagating the 'finite resources' myth (clue: 30 years ago there was no mobile phone industry, nobody mines mobile telephones. Growth is not dependent on resources)

Where do the raw materials come from to make mobile phones? Space pixie dust or out of the ground?

ILW

Andy_L wrote: »

Where do the raw materials come from to make mobile phones? Space pixie dust or out of the ground?

Most of the revenue from Mobile phones and similar is from charging for exchange and transmission of call and data etc, which uses very little raw materials.

flimsier

Andy_L wrote: »

Where do the raw materials come from to make mobile phones? Space pixie dust or out of the ground?

Well quite; and while I'm sympathetic to the idea that efficiency creates growth, land is finite (to all intents and purposes) - I actually agree with Adam Smith on this.

Old_Slaphead

Andy_L wrote: »

Where do the raw materials come from to make mobile phones? Space pixie dust or out of the ground?

Space pixie dust, of course - as does everything else.

I suppose that this is finite (assuming that the universe is finite) but then again, who knows ???

ruggedtoast

A._Badger wrote: »

Some really poor work here. We have a neo-Marxist (whatever he claims) deputy headteacher (there's a shock) propagating the 'finite resources' myth (clue: 30 years ago there was no mobile phone industry, nobody mines mobile telephones. Growth is not dependent on resources) while still we have poor old toastie telling us that if we all join hands and wish hard enough everything will change. This time it will work, it really, really will!

Give it up. Socialism has been tried. It has failed - even when essayed by the dedicated bodies-no-object psychotics like Mao and Pol Pot.

Capitalism is flawed because, like a mediaeval city, it evolved, twisting and turning and organic, following the pattern of human nature. The alternative might seem attractive to the theorist but the alternative looks like Milton Keynes or Harlow. It is inhuman and it is dysfunctional.

Until you can change mankind (and by heavens the Marxists tried!) capitalism is what we have to work with.

Poppycock. Socialism has not been properly tried anywhere. In any case I am not necessarily espousing a retreat from capitalism, I am denouncing neo-liberalism.

You are hopelessly confused as to the differences.

Hopelessly.

FTBFun

Can you actually give a proper definition of neo-liberalism this time?

A._Badger

Andy_L wrote: »

Where do the raw materials come from to make mobile phones? Space pixie dust or out of the ground?

The industry is based not on a few bits of plastic (which, in any case, frequently supplant far more resource hungry technology - like post, or driving 100 miles to meet someone) but on new technology. The prime resource it uses is the human mind.

The 'limited resources' line is just rehashed Malthusianism. Possible acceptable from an 18th century perspective but just a shade outpaced by events, since then.