Has Capitalism Met the Marxist Utopia?

seven-day-weekend

TheBlueHorse wrote: »

having a slight socialist leaning in a capitalist society is good - until the lefty gets too much power. then you get the loony left fringe dictating madness.

a pooled resource for health is good. however, should it be paying for out of work benefit scroungers to have sex changes? probably not. But the lefty will argue it is their right. their Human RIGHTS. This is when you start to run out of money.

I have a friend who works at a hostpital. Had some guy miss numerous appointments. Then when he finally turned up demanded an interpretor. Then refused to be treated by a female etc. Who knows what this guy has cost us all. The lefty will say he was right. He derserves a translator. He deserves a male doctor. NO. This is what costs unecessary money. What should happen is - he makes an appointment, turns up, learns to say what is wrong with him in English - and if he can't - then he (a) gets no further treatment or (b) goes privately and can pay for whatever he likes.

Lefties will be the ruination of the Western world.

Or he provides his own interpreter, like we did when my husband had an operation in Spain.

I don't think the NHS should provide interpreters either, nor boob jobs purely for cosmetic reasons, nor sex changes, nor more than one go at IVF , and none for someone who already has a child.

mumps

CLAPTON wrote: »

you mustn't confuse the lack of nurses and our unwillingness or inability to pay for them.

I am assuming the local hospitals recruiting nurses from abroad are paying them, or do you think they are coming her for the sheer joy of working in the UK?

I don't really see the connection with the NHS paying the tuition fees and bursaries for nurses (and other HCP) and the private hospitals recruiting them with no one reimbursing the NHS.

Loughton_Monkey

Cornucopia wrote: »

Right, and that phrase was the founding principle of the UK Welfare State.

I don't accept that the NHS is not a fundamentally Socialist organisation, at least in terms of its broad remit at its inception.

We can argue about if/whether/when it lost its way, but it's pretty clear what it was about when it started.

We are in danger of confusing politics with common sense. Things like the NHS are not B]at a fundamental level[/B political.

You can be a 100% 'capitalist' nation whereby entrepreneurs like Bill Gates start alone in their garden shed inventing an operating system, and eventually grow to be a £500 billion organisation with hundreds of thousands of paid employees...... But it doesn't take long to realise that we can't all own our own warships, can't all educate our own children, can't build a road outside the 15 metre frontage of our houses....

.... so we all contribute to a 'fund' to pay for defense, roads, common infrastructure, education, and health. That way (in theory) we get these things done more cheaply, more professionally, and everyone's a winner.

The politics starts to come when we divi up who pays what into this 'fund', which we call taxation. Given that Bill Gates is no more (or less) likely to become ill as the minimum wage cleaner in his lowliest factory, then surely they should be taxed the same £amount? Both are equally liable to be nuked by Russia, so again they should be taxed the same amount for Trident?

It appears to me that we follow Marxist principles instead. Each according to his means. So poor old Bill Gates has not only "done his bit" by providing incomes to 100,000 employees, now he has to pay £2billion in tax while his cleaner pays £20.

Now we overlay that with all sorts of other politics. The capitalist/right wing would, in the extreme, argue that anyone who doesn't work should not even get any NHS or education, but in reality we say OK, we will let him enjoy those benefits, but not have to contribute. The socialist/left wing element says the non-workers, or even lowly workers, don't have to pay any tax, but get 'free cash' in the form of child benefits, housing benefits...... I guess in theory, that's why we have democracy and elections, so that we vote freely to get the 'balance' more or less to our joint requirements.

The things that irks me the most, however, is the way we tolerate these 'funds' [the NHS, Defense, Education, Town Halls etc.] to be so badly mis-managed and riddled with waste and petty 'politics'. What I simply don't understand is that we tolerate all this waste, and make it worse by meddling and fiddling with the management of these [should be] 'fine' institutions. This is unnecessary politics. Why do we interfere with whether nurses should be trained here or India, or how much they should be paid or even how many of them there should be? We don't tell Bill Gates how many cleaners to employ or how much to pay them. He presumably does the optimum thing, which is why he is as efficient as he is.

padington

I'm sorry but the waste in private company's is outrageous at the best of times ( look at the lifestyle of the rich in LA) the only difference is private company's are usually employed to create financial profits whilst collectivist organisations are usually used to create social profits because self interest isn't very good at creating social capital and shared interest isn't very good at amasing financial profits.

The truth is you very rarely find individuals of a collectivist organisation going out and blowing tens of thousands of pounds on a bottle of wine or private jets or champaign or cocaine. Many people that work in voluntary organisations or organisations like the NHS often live very frugal lives.

This narrative that waste mainly exists in the public sphere is wrong. The banking system is a great example. Why should banks be allowed to hold the country to ransom, far worse than any trade union train driver ever did? Why do we allow the mantra that it's the train drivers taking the p!ss when it's quite clear, there is inefficiency and waste and outright cartel criminality plaguing the private sector ?

The old right wing mantra needs to be updated, people often can't be trusted, that is true and more so when they hold great power or great wealth.

If you make a successful company you did so partly because of the community that raised you. You owe them right from the beginning, not the other way around.

This might mean you are well within your right to ensure the collectivist parts to society function as best they should but it also means that such scrutiny needs also to be applied everywhere, however politically inexpedient that may be to do so.

Allowing unlimited profits for example in market places that don't have adequate competition is a great example of institutionally accepted waste within the private sector.

The private sector themselves may not be wrong if there were no rules disallowing such activity but the people who always concentrate the blaim to be laid elsewhere are.

Cornucopia

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

We are in danger of confusing politics with common sense...

I'm afraid I disagree. Not least because Bill Gates didn't invent squat, software wise. DOS was based on CP/M, and Windows was based on a development by Xerox. He, like a lot of successful entrepreneurs, happened to be in the right place at the right time, and realised the potential of something that others had overlooked. In the case of the PC, it is arguably something that would have been inevitable without Gates. I am not certain that extreme wealth is justified in those circumstances, and I am glad that Gates is committed to giving much of it away to worthy causes.

More generally, I don't accept that extreme wealth is intrinsically fair. I don't see why one person should have access to lots of food, gold, cars, whatever, while others have virtually nothing. most "things" are based to an extent on natural resources, which really should belong equally to all of us.

I don't see those trappings of wealth equating to happiness, though, which is another dimension to this.

Clearly there has to be a compromise position, which is where most developed countries find themselves. On the one hand, they are a platform for capitalism and the development of private wealth. On the other, they provide for people who cannot provide for themselves. One could argue that this is the very epitome of civilised society.

I disagree with your observations about taxation. Taxation is fair when it is based on ability to pay - when it is progressive. And TBH, if someone has $100M, and you take half of it, they are still extremely wealthy.

One of the problems of extreme wealth is not just the potential monopolisation of resources, but also undue influence in politics, in the law, in the lives of employees, etc. Again, I think a healthy society has to act to put in protections for those things, such that a person's worth is not simply defined by their wealth, but that their very existence is supported by basic Human Rights.

CLAPTON

padington wrote: »

I'm sorry but the waste in private company's is outrageous at the best of times ( look at the lifestyle of the rich in LA) the only difference is private company's are usually employed to create financial profits whilst collectivist organisations are usually used to create social profits because self interest isn't very good at creating social capital and shared interest isn't very good at amasing financial profits.

The truth is you very rarely find individuals of a collectivist organisation going out and blowing tens of thousands of pounds on a bottle of wine or private jets or champaign or cocaine. Many people that work in voluntary organisations or organisations like the NHS often live very frugal lives.

This narrative that waste mainly exists in the public sphere is wrong. The banking system is a great example. Why should banks be allowed to hold the country to ransom, far worse than any trade union train driver ever did? Why do we allow the mantra that it's the train drivers taking the p!ss when it's quite clear, there is inefficiency and waste and outright cartel criminality plaguing the private sector ?

The old right wing mantra needs to be updated, people often can't be trusted, that is true and more so when they hold great power or great wealth.

If you make a successful company you did so partly because of the community that raised you. You owe them right from the beginning, not the other way around.

This might mean you are well within your right to ensure the collectivist parts to society function as best they should but it also means that such scrutiny needs also to be applied everywhere, however politically inexpedient that may be to do so.

Allowing unlimited profits for example in market places that don't have adequate competition is a great example of institutionally accepted waste within the private sector.

The private sector themselves may not be wrong if there were no rules disallowing such activity but the people who always concentrate the blaim to be laid elsewhere are.

I see that the head of the Anchor Trust (housing for the elderly) only earns £420,000

Conrad

Cornucopia wrote: »

More generally, I don't accept that extreme wealth is intrinsically fair. I don't see why one person should have access to lots of food, gold, cars, whatever, while others have virtually nothing.

I agree, but it's very tiresome that people tend to focus in on capitalists, which is shorthand for Bankers and business leaders, and yet they never focus on the rich people they happen to see as good eggs such as Helen Mirren or Billy Connely. This duality and hippochrisy is where the left undermines its case.


Throwing rotten apples at bankers is so lame, why not throw them at Russell Brand and Stephen Fry, Brian Cox and Tony Benn and other very rich people hoarding a massive overshare, that hide behind caring / sharing narratives?

Conrad

padington wrote: »

The truth is you very rarely find individuals of a collectivist organisation going out and blowing tens of thousands of pounds on a bottle of wine or private jets or champaign or cocaine.

Many of the chattering liberal elite in London are employed on extreme incomes in the public sector, be it the BEEB or high up in education or charity and you so often find as couples they are both sucking huge incomes and pensions out of public 'service'. True locusts imo that ought not to work in public service. Don't be fooled by their Charlie & Lola / Primrose Hill / pious liberal narrative, they are wealth and influence hoarders alright.


Met a bunch of these dreadful faux socialists in a trendy fish n chip caf! on Burton Bradstock beach, Dorset. They are like drones, they all talk and look the same.


http://www.hivebeachcafe.co.uk/index.php/the-menu/

'The Hive Beach Caf! provides a cosmopolitan style menu'


(wouldn't you just know it, a Dorset fish n chippy fit for the Rollo & Ellouise faux socialist Highgate Hill set)

padington

CLAPTON wrote: »

I see that the head of the Anchor Trust (housing for the elderly) only earns £420,000

He wouldn't if wasn't for the right wingers always arguing for a 'free' market and knocking the idea of pushing globally for things like a maximum wage.

Check your own hypocrisy Conrad.

Conrad

padington wrote: »

Check your own hypocrisy Conrad.

The difference is I don't go around framing myself as a Saint unlike my 2 lefty mates that are every bit as hoarding and self interested as any Banker but mask this behind the usual Saintly diatribe.


I prefer an honest Banker, they don't hide their true selves unlike the army of wealthy lefties.