Toynbee - Plan C for public sector workers

A._Badger

ruggedtoast wrote: »

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.

Twaddle., Every time some new wild-eyed lunatic comes along and proclaims the dawn of a socialist revolution, and every time its bloody history is pointed out, we hear the same old lie 'but it's never been tried before'. Yes it has. And almost every time it has ended in misery, poverty and repression.

Walking away from the scene of the crime, trying to pretend it was someone else wot done it, simply won't wash.

ruggedtoast

FTBFun wrote: »

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

Just google it, Search for Bretton Woods neoliberalism.

The important thing is that neoliberalism, which underpins globalisation, our financial markets, our laws and our monetary system is an ideology; not a pragmatic evolution of capitalism based on mathematics.

It was cooked up after the 2nd world war to ensure that wealthy American financiers kept getting wealthier.

Ideologies should be questioned. It is revealing how many foaming at the mouth internet warriors will criticise socialism as a failed ideology without any acceptance that their own neoliberal ideology be similarly scrutinised.

macaque_2

ruggedtoast wrote: »

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/10/public-sector-workers-plan-c
I like that idea.

I'll leave you to work out what I am getting at.

More than 9,000 public sector employees are earning a higher wage than the prime minister, who has previously questioned pay levels in top jobs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11319918

A._Badger

flimsier wrote: »

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.

If you define capitalism in the narrow sense of mercantilism, perhaps (though since the 17th C would be a closer guess and you are wrong about 'bloody revolution' in either case). In a more informal sense, 2,000 BC seems a more reliable estimate.

Before that, who knows?

flimsier

OK, well if you expand the definition of capitalism to one that no-one uses, and include a definition that includes the whole of history as you know it including prior to money... then you've proved only your premise. Well done. a = a.

You don't think that the feudal order was overthrown and that the old rulers clinged on? You don't think revolutions, including the English one, were bloody? OK then.

Andy_L

A._Badger wrote: »

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.

So China being the almost exclusive source of rare earth metals essentail to the semi-conductor industry isn't a resource limit then?

Generali

Andy_L wrote: »

So China being the almost exclusive source of rare earth metals essentail to the semi-conductor industry isn't a resource limit then?

You presuppose that:

1. Rare earth metals won't be discovered elsewhere
2. Rare earth metals will continue to be needed

If you went back to the late C19th then a limit on high speed transportation (ie faster than a horse could gallop) would be the amount of coal in the ground. That's not so long ago, only just out of living memory.

flimsier

He doesn't presuppose either of those. He's pointing out a resource limit, which it plainly is. Those factors could supercede this limit or get round them, but they're still limits. The case I'm making is that competition for resources which are finite puts increasing pressure on capitalists. This is what Smith himself said - it's not a Marxist analysis. The pressure is what causes innovation (which is the dynamism of capitalism and causes some of the things that you point out) that also causes it to spread and seek out further markets. But there's still limited resources (as I said before, to all intents and purposes unless one wants to start a philosophical discussion about the possibilities out of this world).

FTBFun

Just thought I'd point out that at the last election, "Socialist Alternative" gained a massive 0 councillors. All the above isn't going to happen without democratic approval I'm afraid.

flimsier

FTBFun wrote: »

Just thought I'd point out that at the last election, "Socialist Alternative" gained a massive 0 councillors. All the above isn't going to happen without democratic approval I'm afraid.

All what above?