Capitalism, The Best Solution to Poverty

[Brian Peacock]

Yes. And they ‘own’ the language too of course.

The problem of course with the alternative - I.e. a movement whose goal it is to truly overthrow the existing system, is the amount of sheer mayhem, death and destruction that it would entail. The revolutions in Russia and China (not the societies Marx predicted would revolt of course - he reckoned on the UK!)..resulted in countless millions of deaths, not just in the revolutions themselves, but the chaos that followed and the attempts at utterly restructuring themselves. In today’s complex interconnected world the results would be unthinkable.

Which means tinkering at the edges is now the only game in town, unless real power decides the game is up, which they aren’t likely to until they are truly cornered.

The 'trick' I think is to convince those who control the political, economic and social environment, along with the language in which it is framed, to cede the majority of their power back to the rest of us in order to avoid the kind of violent chaos you mention, and which history has taught us makes life pretty shitty for everybody for quite a while. In other words we (the 'Have-Nots' as lak puts it) need to offer the 1%ers etc a chance to negotiate the conditions of their surrender, or in making them play their part in a just transition as I like to call it.

[laklak]

We're not Have-Nots. Might not be Haves, at least of the 1% variety, but compared to probably 80% of the rest of the world we're sure as hell Have Way More Than Enoughs.

[Brian Peacock]

Indeed. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't put our own house in order.

[JimC]

Brian Peacock wrote:

So where does the so-called Centrist sit in this characterisation? Where is the middle ground between a Politics that seeks to represent the public interest in the broadest possible way and a Politics which seeks to restrict or limit the distribution of power along the lines of identity?

I think that a centrist position is totally compatible with your broad idea of having a functioning democracy, where no group of people has excessive power to control the political direction, and where no group is without such power. For example, part of my centrist position (actually centre left, even if Hermit disagrees...) is that we should eliminate the ability of money to buy power. Electioneering should be publicly funded only, with a cap on spending and basically about informing the public in unemotional ways the policies of the parties.

Centrist thought, as Rum alluded to earlier, is also strongly influenced by caution over the nature of change; the left can too easily move to a position in which state power is steadily increased, and individual freedoms curtailed excessively, even if through the best of intentions...

[Brian Peacock]

It seems to me Jim that you, like many I suspect, call yourself a Centrist because you find the idea of saying you're a Lefty - or of being identified as a Lefty - a bit, well, a bit toxic. Would that be a fair thing to say?

You often point out that some on the Left can be a bit strident or demanding, downright unreasonable or just bonkers-batshit-trouser-leg-beach-ball, and you sometimes say the same things about some on the right. In fact, you often give the impression that the Left and the Right are basically banging very similar drums, but by what I know of your political leanings - pro-diversity, inclusive, socially and economically progressive etc - I'd say yor were basically a Lefty in all but name.

But with reference to my previous post, I'd still say that this Centrist notion that the Left and the Right are basically banging very similar drums doesn't really admit any serious scrutiny. To stretch the metaphor (a little too far), they may both be banging drums and making a lot of noise, but the songs they're are singing are completely different. The Left and the Right are advocating and asking for very different things. The Centrist is asking for everybody not to be too demanding or rash.

As I noted, I think we can characterise the Left as embodying a challenge to those who seek to use power to serve their own interests rather than the broader public interest - a challenge to the power of the already powerful if you like. If you are one of the powerful then, the Left say, you can easily give that up - stop hoarding power for yourself and come and join us in sharing it about more equitably among the disempowered poor, working poor, the just-about-managing, LGBT community, asylum-seekers, refuges, and immigrants, the sick and disabled, female, Black etc, and all the other identities whose interests aren't really being represented. However, if you are a member of one of those marginalised or minority groups what are the powerful likely to say to you? I mean, what are the Right saying to you if you just want to eradicate student debt or have a universal healthcare system free at the point of use let alone anything as radical a redistributing power more equitably across the population as a whole?

I think you made a very interesting and valid point about the Centrists natural inclination to be cautious about change and the concern over nature of change. that's definitely something to be mindful of, and it's why I personally think that those with a monopoly on power should be encouraged to play their part in a negotiated a just transition. Simply storming the gates with the modern equivalent of buring torches and farming implements is not only dangerous and messy but it leads to pithing communities at odds with each other. But I'll also note that in support of this caution you only raised the spectre of the rampant Left and of the undesirability of the Left accruing excessive quantities of state powers and curtailing individual freedoms in the process.

To that I'd like to say (and what I'm about to say isn't Whataboutism, but an idea): But what about the Right?

Across the Western World - or the Global North as I believe we're encouraged to call it these days - the Right are in control and have been for a while. In other words, the Right already have all the power. Marginalised and minority groups are becoming increasingly marginalised and minoritised (that's not a real word, but you know what I mean) not least because those we'd have referred to as ordinary working people not so long ago are noticing how powerless they are while the Right directs their gaze and their ire towards the people further down the pecking order so that it doesn't wander further up. Public money is being syphoned ever-more efficiently into private hands while the burden of private debt is being shifted back onto the public purse; household debt is running out of control again while the Uber-isation of the labour market has been swept in wholesale and basically unopposed, plunging many into insecure work for subsistance wages; the child poverty graphs are starting to point in the wrong direction; young people are being saddled with enormous debts on the fake promise of a better job and yet still find themselves doing two or three jobs to afford ever steepening rents - with no possibility now of ever owning a home of their own; health outcomes have stalled and in some nations are starting to slide backwards, as are longevity and child mortality figures; the environment is threatening to either drown up or cook us like a Frey Bentos Meat Pie, or both, while billionaire energy barons pay millions to make sure that formulating a remedy let alone implementing it is nearly impossible - and the same can be said of the financial sector, or agriculture, or the pharmaceutical industries etc. The Right have done all this and the Left haven't had a look in. And yet the Centrists wan't to strike a note of caution about how we must be careful about changing things because they might go a bit tits up - as if things weren't completely tits up already!!

Politically speaking, the only reason the Centrists exist is because they offer the Right a handy buffer between the Left's ideas about a more equitable distribution of power and the Right's idea that the Left can just go fuck themselves. To this end it's the Right who have cultivated (in both senses) not only the idea that there exist some middle ground that embodies the status quo but that this middle ground necessarily opposes the apparent excesses of an unchecked Left. This is exactly what Rum was speaking to when he said that the powerful control the language as well as the material conditions of others.

Now I'm not a young man, not by any means. I've been around the block a few times. I've been knocked down, and I got up again - a few times. I've even been out for the count a few times too - but I cam round and struggled to my feet again. I've worked in several areas that have caused me to mix with people from the very top to the bottom of the social strata. To be honest, on an individual level there very little difference between the two extremes - just that one lot have nicer shoes and better haircuts. The ideas I'm trying to articulate are not the youthful enthusiasms of an idealist yet to encounter the so-called realities of life that usually crack that nut of idealism into pragmatism, or cynicism, or a bleak and futile desperation salved only by intoxication and the prospect that sometimes you can have an orgasm with somebody else in the room. The ideas I'm trying to articulate even unreasonable (in both senses) let alone dangerous.

Sure, I'm a Lefty, but I'm not a "Polish those jackboots and form a firing squad" kind of Lefty by any means - in fact, if the bloody revolution ever came then as a pacifist vegetarian with an aversion to authoritarianism I'd probably find myself up against the wall with the industrialist, estate agents, and social-media algorithm designers.

I do think change is possible though.

I think change is possible because the Right have already shown that it can be done. The Right have already imagined a future and done their best to bring it about. It's a shitty vision of the future admittedly, by they went for it anyway and boy has it turned out great for them - mostly. Given the Right's terrible example I think it's possible for things to change for the better - it's only about imagining how things could be better and then thinking about way to make we might make that happen. There really is no reason to let the World Economic Forum in Davos to keep setting all our agendas for us. I'm a Possiblist, as Hans Rosling used to say, and that's got to be better than ignoring how everything is starting to smell like shit or throwing one's hands up and saying, "That's just how things are." - surely?

[JimC]

Brian Peacock wrote:

Marginalised and minority groups are becoming increasingly marginalised and minoritised (that's not a real word, but you know what I mean) not least because those we'd have referred to as ordinary working people not so long ago are noticing how powerless they are while the Right directs their gaze and their ire towards the people further down the pecking order so that it doesn't wander further up.

I think in writing this that you have been unduly influenced by recent trends to push back (e.g.. by Trumpists) against the very real gains that have been made over the last 30 years or so in terms of recognition of minority groups. Go back half a century, conservative groupings would never dream that the future held legal gay marriages, for example, and they would have been horrified at the prospect. We really have made important progress in some aspects of social justice...

I agree that there are still huge strides to be made, particularly in the areas of environmental responsibility, and the general conditions of working class people everywhere. I take your point about the nativity of any centrist thought that simply equates the left and right as being problematic in the same way. Centrist (or centre left) thought should be always looking for ways to change those structures in society which are unfair, and to recognise that such change will be opposed by powerful interest groups. My point earlier about decoupling elections in democracies from the power of money is part of that process. But I still think it is very important to be cautious about the potential reduction in liberty that history shows frequently emerging from leftist ideology...

[Scot Dutchy]

This where PR comes in. It is the only way everyone can have representatives in parliament. No one party can dominate and everything is based on compromise as opposed to conflict which is the standard state of two party politics. No ideology can impose itself on the whole. The worst state of existence is the two party system as it is open to all sorts of corruption. A coalition is to a point self regulating as it is said here "everyone can look in your kitchen". Also with PR there is no left-centre-right. Every party is itself.
What has been said here is typical of an adversarial form of government and society. It runs through the whole of society. From social, employment and even in medical areas of society. Take away the conflict and re-introduce compromise and discussion. It is the only way forward but not revolution.

[JimC]

I agree that some form of proportional representation has to be part of the mix.

[Scot Dutchy]

It is the only system that works and has been proven to work.

[JimC]

The political position one adopts is of course affected by many things, one being your personal circumstances. I fully admit that my life has been rather privileged - a stable home life, moderately wealthy professional parents, a good school and a good university education. I've never been in poverty, I've always had a job, and, even retired, both of us have good superannuation packages, with Bron well remunerated by her part-time tutoring on top of that. We own our own home, both our sons have university education and are employed, and basically we can afford good health care and the odd holiday.

I well know that the reality for many others is quite different. Many working Australians are actually living in poverty, with worse outcomes in terms of health care, exposure to violence and crime, and a range of other problems. From all that I've read, the bottom strata of, for example, US society is worse off still.

I want things to change, but my ability to seriously affect such change is limited.

[rainbow]

We're not Have-Nots. Might not be Haves, at least of the 1% variety, but compared to probably 80% of the rest of the world we're sure as hell Have Way More Than Enoughs.

It is a very interesting question. What is enough?
There are subsistence farmers in Africa, and Untouchables in India that seem to be content with almost nothing. There are kids in the West who consider not being able to drive a new car at the age of 16 to be underprivileged.

What motivates the billionaire to make the next billion?

[pErvinalia]

It seems to me Jim that you, like many I suspect, call yourself a Centrist because you find the idea of saying you're a Lefty - or of being identified as a Lefty - a bit, well, a bit toxic. Would that be a fair thing to say?

You often point out that some on the Left can be a bit strident or demanding, downright unreasonable or just bonkers-batshit-trouser-leg-beach-ball,

You'll be the first swinging from the lampposts..

[Alan B]

I agree that some form of proportional representation has to be part of the mix.

With mandatory registration and mandatory voting WITH a box on the voting paper to register an abstention if one so wishes. This would highlight any attempt to 'adjust' (dumping of ballot boxes, etc.) the votes in the favour of one candidate or another - the total votes cast must equal the total registered voters (in theory, at least).

Also, phase-out electronic voting - it's very difficult to 'hack' a piece of paper...

[Scot Dutchy]

Here because you have to register your place of residence you are automatically registered to vote.
We tried electronic voting but it was thrown out.

[Brian Peacock]

Brian Peacock wrote:

Marginalised and minority groups are becoming increasingly marginalised and minoritised (that's not a real word, but you know what I mean) not least because those we'd have referred to as ordinary working people not so long ago are noticing how powerless they are while the Right directs their gaze and their ire towards the people further down the pecking order so that it doesn't wander further up.

I think in writing this that you have been unduly influenced by recent trends to push back (e.g.. by Trumpists) against the very real gains that have been made over the last 30 years or so in terms of recognition of minority groups. Go back half a century, conservative groupings would never dream that the future held legal gay marriages, for example, and they would have been horrified at the prospect. We really have made important progress in some aspects of social justice...

I agree that there are still huge strides to be made, particularly in the areas of environmental responsibility, and the general conditions of working class people everywhere. I take your point about the nativity of any centrist thought that simply equates the left and right as being problematic in the same way. Centrist (or centre left) thought should be always looking for ways to change those structures in society which are unfair, and to recognise that such change will be opposed by powerful interest groups. My point earlier about decoupling elections in democracies from the power of money is part of that process. But I still think it is very important to be cautious about the potential reduction in liberty that history shows frequently emerging from leftist ideology...

You know I wasn't having a pop at you don't you? I was just using your Centrism as a way to suggest that the Centrists apparently reasonable concerns about the possibility of Lefty politics destroying freedom and liberty ignores who is proffering and profiting from those messages while flying in the face of the fact that the same ideology has been incrementally dismantling freedom, liberty, rights, fairness etc by commodifying them. But to you post...

I absolutely accept that since the 1960s society has made great strides in the areas of legal rights and civil equalities for many minority groups. I'm not ignoring that, but I am talking about what I see as trend which started around the time of the 2007/8 financial collapse. Yes, I'm concerned about the fact that there's racist, sexist bigot in the White House, but I'm more concerned by the fact that ardent capitalists are systematically asset-stripping societies and the environment without qualms and without much in the way of political or regulatory opposition. So the fact that in the recent post we have made great strides socially does not mean that a bit of rollback on those things is acceptable now, or even a price societies have to pay now in order to have better things in the future.

I would also ask Centrists to examine how rhetoric and language is being applied to issues like disability, refugees, gender, and even left-leaning ideas that were once commonly accepted across the board like universal healthcare or free education or public sector housing. I would also ask Centrists to consider the deliberate rolling back of employment rights and the tilting of power in favour of the employer, the language around labour disputes, and changes to the labour market in which insecure low-waged jobs without benefits are playing an increasingly significant part.

Yes, we had made great strides socially, but we're running backwards at the moment.

And again, I'd ask you Jim is why you seem so eager to cite caution when it comes to implementing ideas which essentially seek to secure the kinds of freedoms and liberties we would have taken for granted not so long ago? It's not like anyone is actually proposing a bloody revolution, but if Captial continues to suck all the juice out of democracy and things continue to deteriorate as a result -- which they will -- then in ot very much time a bloody revolution will start seeming like a better and better idea.

Now is the time to be bold - and by that I mean now's the time for Centrists to get off the fence and decide what kind of future they want for their kids and grandkids, because the next generations are not going to have is as good or as fair as those of us currently in our prime (you and I mate) did.

Why can we not de-commodify health and social care services, education, or public transport? Why should there be twice the number of vacant properties as people without homes? Why should any child have to go hungry ever? Why must disabled person have to choose between eating, paying rent, or putting their heating/air-con on? Why must women give up reproductive control of their bodies to the state? Why should we treat non-gender-binary less fairly or be allowed to discriminate against LGTB people for religious reasons? Why shouldn't we offer assistance to foreign nationals without a secure place in the world? Why shouldn't we restrict the influence of money in politics? Why shouldn't we reform our electoral systems, or fund political parties from the public purse, or re-write our constitutional settlements?

The answer to those questions isn't really "cost" because we all know that if we really value something and think its worthwhile then we'll pay for it - it becomes literally a price worth paying. The reason we don't see any of this happening is because a lot of us think it's unachievable, or undesirable, or unrealistic, or that it goes against our values, or that it undermines our already highly meritocratic society, or that it's a danger to society or antithetical to freedom and liberty, or anything else that can be thrown up to convince us that this is just the way thing are and the way things have to continue to be.