If you vote Tory I'm going to murder you.

[Trolldor]

I would like to vote for a party of rational pragmatists who have a sardonic appreciation of hominid failings but also a desire to optimise the chances of human and environmental survival.

Pity they don't exist...

You know, JimC, you could always start your own political party.
And because you're getting on in years, all you need to find is a young protege who can take over the reigns.

[Hermit]

The Communist Party of Australia dissolved years ago, and splinter parties advocating actual socialism are regarded as lunatics. At best their candidates can expect to have a couple of hundred votes cast their way in electorates that typically contain 20,000 voters.

Communist Party of Australia still exist...

The Communist Party of Australia was founded in 1920 and dissolved in 1991, grasshopper. You are probably talking about the Socialist Party of Australia (SPA), a splinter group (1971) of the CPA that changed its name in 1996. It twice fielded a single candidate (Michael Perth, Port Adelaide, 1996 and 2001) for a parliamentary seat (itself a weird thing to do for an allegedly revolutionary (in contrast to reformist) marxist organisation and attracted less than 1% of the vote each time. On a state level (e.g. Marrickville, NSW) the Socialist Alliance is doing just as badly, if not worse.

My point - unfortunately agreeing with Rumertron - is that the Australian electorate (like the British) is massively turning its back on any genuine alternative to the parties that vie for government on the grounds that they can manage the capitalist structure better than the other. What is yours?



Please, people, try and resist the urge to quote the relevant bits from the Life of Brian concerning the People's Liberation Front of Judea (or is it the Judean People's Liberation Front?) unless you really want to piss Redunderthebed off bigtime.

[Trolldor]

Reg: They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken
everything we had, and not just from us, from our fathers,
and from our fathers' fathers.
Loretta: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers.
Reg: Yeah.
Loretta: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers.
Reg: Yeah. All right, Stan. Don't labour the point. And what
have they ever given us in return?!
Xerxes: The aqueduct?
Reg: What?
Xerxes: The aqueduct.
Reg: Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that's true.
Yeah.
Commando 3: And the sanitation.
Loretta: Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city
used to be like?
Reg: Yeah. All right. I'll grant you the aqueduct and the
sanitation are two things that the Romans have done.
Matthias: And the roads.
Reg: Well, yeah. Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go
without saying, don't they? But apart from the sanitation,
the aqueduct, and the roads--
Commando: Irrigation.
Xerxes: Medicine.
Commandos: Huh? Heh? Huh...
Commando 2: Education.
Commandos: Ohh...
Reg: Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough.
Commando 1: And the wine.
Commandos: Oh, yes. Yeah...
Francis: Yeah. Yeah, that's something we'd really miss, Reg,
if the Romans left. Huh.
Commando: Public baths.
Loretta: And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now,
Reg.
Francis: Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let's
face it. They're the only ones who could in a place like this.
Commandos: Hehh, heh. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh.
Reg: But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education,
wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system,
and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Xerxes: Brought peace?
Reg: Oh, peace? Shut up

Capitalism is a financial, not a social system. It is very possible to have a socially equitable system of capitalism. Nobody's been arsed to try it though, too much effort.
The thing about capitalism is that it promotes competition, it encourages people and organisations to out-do their competitors by providing new or improved goods or services. The problem is that the pressure to succeed is far too great, if they fail they risk losing everything.

[redunderthebed]

The Communist Party of Australia dissolved years ago, and splinter parties advocating actual socialism are regarded as lunatics. At best their candidates can expect to have a couple of hundred votes cast their way in electorates that typically contain 20,000 voters.

Communist Party of Australia still exist...

The Communist Party of Australia was founded in 1920 and dissolved in 1991, grasshopper. You are probably talking about the Socialist Party of Australia (SPA), a splinter group (1971) of the CPA that changed its name in 1996. It twice fielded a single candidate (Michael Perth, Port Adelaide, 1996 and 2001) for a parliamentary seat (itself a weird thing to do for an allegedly revolutionary (in contrast to reformist) marxist organisation and attracted less than 1% of the vote each time. On a state level (e.g. Marrickville, NSW) the Socialist Alliance is doing just as badly, if not worse.

We are the communist party of Australia the successor of the old one not a splinter group.The old CPA dissolved and we always said once and if that happened we would continue the tradition of a communist party in Australia.

Also you need to adapt marxism to local conditions and we know that a violent revolution will not wash at all so we try to build in other ways. I have no problems nor do the vast majority of the party with running in elections its just coming up with the $ to do it properly.

(oh and i've met michael perth nice guy. )

Yes socialist alliance (long hijacked by the democratic socialist party) suck.

[Hermit]

The Communist Party of Australia dissolved years ago, and splinter parties advocating actual socialism are regarded as lunatics. At best their candidates can expect to have a couple of hundred votes cast their way in electorates that typically contain 20,000 voters.

Communist Party of Australia still exist...

The Communist Party of Australia was founded in 1920 and dissolved in 1991, grasshopper. You are probably talking about the Socialist Party of Australia (SPA), a splinter group (1971) of the CPA that changed its name in 1996. It twice fielded a single candidate (Michael Perth, Port Adelaide, 1996 and 2001) for a parliamentary seat (itself a weird thing to do for an allegedly revolutionary (in contrast to reformist) marxist organisation and attracted less than 1% of the vote each time. On a state level (e.g. Marrickville, NSW) the Socialist Alliance is doing just as badly, if not worse.

We are the communist party of Australia the successor of the old one not a splinter group.The old CPA dissolved and we always said once and if that happened we would continue the tradition of a communist party in Australia.

Also you need to adapt marxism to local conditions and we know that a violent revolution will not wash at all so we try to build in other ways. I have no problems nor do the vast majority of the party with running in elections its just coming up with the $ to do it properly.

(oh and i've met michael perth nice guy. )

Yes socialist alliance (long hijacked by the democratic socialist party) suck.

So, again: My point was to agree with Rumertron. What was yours?

Come on, man. I'm trying to give you a leg up here.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Capitalism is a financial, not a social system. It is very possible to have a socially equitable system of capitalism. Nobody's been arsed to try it though, too much effort.
The thing about capitalism is that it promotes competition, it encourages people and organisations to out-do their competitors by providing new or improved goods or services. The problem is that the pressure to succeed is far too great, if they fail they risk losing everything.

The problem comes when the corporations are allowed to get so large that they can exert political power themselves. Capitalism works fine while there is genuine competition - in that case, companies need to innovate and offer value to the consumer in order to compete. However, once things get huge and multinational, cartels, political pressure groups, built-in obsolescence, price-fixing and wasteful practices become the norm.

But what can you do about a company that has a turnover larger than the GNP of most countries?

[Trolldor]

That problem is the absence of regulation. You allow companies to become large without controlling how far their reach spreads, or how they grow, and you deserve all that comes your way - including the inevitable melt down.

The problem comes when the corporations are allowed to get so large that they can exert political power themselves.

No corporation can exert power simply by virtue of size. It's the Government's own corruption which allows it, a refusal to safeguard their system and to ensure that none of its members are able to be influenced by 'special interest groups.'
Corporations only utilise what's available to them, that's all they care about. They don't want power, they just use it because they have it, and the consumer is more than happy to let them.
Corporations are never at fault, it is only Policy Makers and the consumers which feed them. A corporation will not exert a power its customer base does not want it to exert, or which Government has forbade it to, because a corporation is an emotionless shell which seeks only to make money.
People need to start taking responsibility for themselves and stop blaming 'the system'. They're the ones who feed it and work for it.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

That problem is the absence of regulation. You allow companies to become large without controlling how far their reach spreads, or how they grow, and you deserve all that comes your way - including the inevitable melt down.

The problem comes when the corporations are allowed to get so large that they can exert political power themselves.

No corporation can exert power simply by virtue of size. It's the Government's own corruption which allows it, a refusal to safeguard their system and to ensure that none of its members are able to be influenced by 'special interest groups.'
Corporations only utilise what's available to them, that's all they care about. They don't want power, they just use it because they have it, and the consumer is more than happy to let them.
Corporations are never at fault, it is only Policy Makers and the consumers which feed them. A corporation will not exert a power its customer base does not want it to exert, or which Government has forbade it to, because a corporation is an emotionless shell which seeks only to make money.
People need to start taking responsibility for themselves and stop blaming 'the system'. They're the ones who feed it and work for it.

Rupert Murdoch doesn't want to exert power? Really? I mean really?

[Horwood Beer-Master]

... Labor's platform of social change had metamorphosed to claiming that it can run capitalism better and in a more rationally (that is in a more laissez faire style)...

Since when was laissez faire the more rational face of capitalism!

...My mother hates Tony Blair and Gordon Brown so much you have no idea.. I think she would have Hitler round for afternoon tea before either of those tosspots

Unfortunately, I fear there are many in this country who would sooner vote for Hitler as well. The media have so skewed people's opinions that they've lost all sense of proportion.

You know when I look at all this "tea party" nonsense that's happening in America, I wonder how easily, in our current climate, this brand of insane, toxic, hysterical, conspiratorial politics could be exported to this country. Unfortunately I think it stands a better chance of taking root here if the Tories get in, since they're so very keen on sucking-up to Murdoch at all costs, and changing all the laws on how the media is regulated in his favour. How long do you think it could take for Sky News to morph into Fox News?

...You only have to look at the way any country which moves 'properly' to the left (Venezuela for example - not that I am defending it ) is demonised by our press, our politicians etc to see how much we are in the grip of the prevailing system...

That's kinda what I meant. There's no practical reason why capitalist thinking remains so dominant, the problem is entirely peoples attitudes. People believe in capitalism because people believe in capitalism. It is the status quo because it is the status quo.

It will take a fundamental zeitgeist shift to break into this closed circle

...Marxism used to predict that revolution was inevitable...

I always think it's a mistake when people, regardless of their political principles, cross that line between pointing out the flaws in the system and what is too be done about them, to making definite predictions about what will happen.
The truth is that when it comes to human behaviour nothing is inevitable.

I somehow feel these two quotes from Babylon 5 seem appropriate after that last point.

"Maybe somebody should've labelled the future "some assembly required"" - Michael Garibaldi in the episode "Hunter, Prey"

"...we have to create the future, or others would do it for us" - Susan Ivanova in the episode "Sleeping in Light"

...Capitalism is a financial, not a social system...

How on earth do you separate the two things? The prevailing economic system will always have an impact on peoples lives, and this impact is not limited the issue of how much income they have, it affects peoples sense of self-worth, the nature of their aspirations, what they value in life, in short - it affects every part of identity and culture, root and branch.

...It is very possible to have a socially equitable system of capitalism...

A what? Sounds like a vegetarian lion!

If you mean "it is very possible to have a system in which people receive a fair slice of the collective cake relative to what they have contributed, and in which their is a significant role for some kind of a 'free market'", then yes, you are possibly correct. But whatever that system would look like, I don't think it would look like anything I would personally recognise as 'capitalism', and I doubt many others would either.

That's not to stop you calling it capitalism if you like, but I'd see that as just playing with words myself.

The fact that as things currently stand, people at the bottom of the pay scale are receiving too little relative to what they contribute, whilst people at the other end of are the pay scale are being absolutely, grotesquely, mindbogglingly, monumentally overrewarded for their efforts out of any reasonably sane proportion, is not just some strange modern aberration of capitalism, it's part of the essential nature of the beast

[The Red Fox]

...My mother hates Tony Blair and Gordon Brown so much you have no idea.. I think she would have Hitler round for afternoon tea before either of those tosspots

Unfortunately, I fear there are many in this country who would sooner vote for Hitler as well. The media have so skewed people's opinions that they've lost all sense of proportion.

You know when I look at all this "tea party" nonsense that's happening in America, I wonder how easily, in our current climate, this brand of insane, toxic, hysterical, conspiratorial politics could be exported to this country. Unfortunately I think it stands a better chance of taking root here if the Tories get in, since they're so very keen on sucking-up to Murdoch at all costs, and changing all the laws on how the media is regulated in his favour. How long do you think it could take for Sky News to morph into Fox News?

That tea party nonsense could never take off here, people are far too indolent to actually go outside and vocally protest against the government. That's too much effort. Why bother when there's a Fray Bentos pie in the oven and reality on TV?

Sky News turning into Fox? It's most of the way there. It already resembles an episode from Brass Eye. I take that back, Sky News is Brass Eye.

[Hermit]

... Labor's platform of social change had metamorphosed to claiming that it can run capitalism better and in a more rationally (that is in a more laissez faire style)...

Since when was laissez faire the more rational face of capitalism!

Sorry. I forgot to surround "rational" with quote marks.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

...My mother hates Tony Blair and Gordon Brown so much you have no idea.. I think she would have Hitler round for afternoon tea before either of those tosspots

Unfortunately, I fear there are many in this country who would sooner vote for Hitler as well. The media have so skewed people's opinions that they've lost all sense of proportion.

You know when I look at all this "tea party" nonsense that's happening in America, I wonder how easily, in our current climate, this brand of insane, toxic, hysterical, conspiratorial politics could be exported to this country. Unfortunately I think it stands a better chance of taking root here if the Tories get in, since they're so very keen on sucking-up to Murdoch at all costs, and changing all the laws on how the media is regulated in his favour. How long do you think it could take for Sky News to morph into Fox News?

That tea party nonsense could never take off here, people are far too indolent to actually go outside and vocally protest against the government. That's too much effort. Why bother when there's a Fray Bentos pie in the oven and reality on TV?...

I fear you may be misjudging certain sections of the British population.
Think about the kind of person who makes an effort to come out and hurl abuse (and objects) at, and bang on the side of, police vans leaving court carrying high-profile murder/child abuse suspects. The kind of person who phones up shows like The Wright Stuff during political discussions to voice an opinion which they seem very-very sure-minded on, but which they have a very hard time coherently expressing (or to put that another way, they don't really know what their view actually is, but they sure know they're right! (and they sure want to publicly rant about it)). The kind of person who reads the Daily Express. The kind of person who watches loose women. The kind of person who, though they have personally never really been churchgoers or anything, nevertheless felt their heart warmed by the news that 'brave' Jade Goody had her little kiddies baptised before she pegged-it, and who may, when discussing immigration, throw-in some glib unthinking remark about Britain being 'a Christian nation'. The kind of person who's so sure that global warming is some conspiracy to justify tax raises, that they don't feel the need to do anything so inconvenient as actually (even vaguely) understanding the issue.
The kind of person, in other words, who has just enough awareness to realise others look down on them, but not enough to truly comprehend why.

I think that sort of person could very easily fall into the clutches of some British version of Glenn Beck, someone who'll allow them to think they understand politics, and who'll feed them cheap catch-phrases they can then use themselves, and which will allow them to feel they are smarter and better informed than they really are.


The only disadvantage such a movement over here will have compared to in the States, is that we lack the same tradition of town-hall meetings that gave the 'tea party' movement some focus, but that by no means guarantees such a movement couldn't get off the ground here. We mustn't get complacent.

[Trolldor]

That problem is the absence of regulation. You allow companies to become large without controlling how far their reach spreads, or how they grow, and you deserve all that comes your way - including the inevitable melt down.

The problem comes when the corporations are allowed to get so large that they can exert political power themselves.

No corporation can exert power simply by virtue of size. It's the Government's own corruption which allows it, a refusal to safeguard their system and to ensure that none of its members are able to be influenced by 'special interest groups.'
Corporations only utilise what's available to them, that's all they care about. They don't want power, they just use it because they have it, and the consumer is more than happy to let them.
Corporations are never at fault, it is only Policy Makers and the consumers which feed them. A corporation will not exert a power its customer base does not want it to exert, or which Government has forbade it to, because a corporation is an emotionless shell which seeks only to make money.
People need to start taking responsibility for themselves and stop blaming 'the system'. They're the ones who feed it and work for it.

Rupert Murdoch doesn't want to exert power? Really? I mean really?

It's available to him, why not? If it weren't would he bother going after it? And would he be able to go after it, even if it were available, if nobody wanted him to? He's just one man, alone. He can't possibly achieve influence or wealth without a willing populous.

Horwood:
Captialism is to do with money, with individuals working for themselves, reaping the rewards of their actions but without sacrificing the rest of society, without ignoring the needs of the labor force which allow it to function. Just like Socialism and Communism, Capitalism today is warped to represent the ideas of someone else, and not its own.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

...Horwood:
Captialism is to do with money, with individuals working for themselves, reaping the rewards of their actions but without sacrificing the rest of society, without ignoring the needs of the labor force which allow it to function. Just like Socialism and Communism, Capitalism today is warped to represent the ideas of someone else, and not its own.

This sounds to me a bit like the religious moderates who claim that fundamentalists have 'twisted' the original ideology, when in fact it's the other way around.
Concern for the rest of society and for the needs of the labour force, is something that capitalist systems had been forced to relent on, and make provisions for those the system had failed to serve, only under pressure from the growing influence of socialism (much as biblical literalism gave way only under pressure from scientific discoveries). It's the same with regulation of the markets (such as it is), this is something that capitalism has (very grudgingly) accepted only under external pressure.

Go back to the nineteenth century to see how well the labour force was treated then.

[Trolldor]

Funnily enough, it was the church that made it a sin for an individual to make money 'above his station'.