Capitalism, The Best Solution to Poverty

[laklak]

I want mo' money.

[Svartalf]

everybody wants more money.

[Scot Dutchy]

That is the problem. I want enough money.

[JimC]

Brian Peacock wrote:

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?

Many, if not all of those aspirations could be achieved by people voting in a pragmatic, well run centre left party. In fact, in many working democracies, most of them are either achieved (like abortion rights) or at least a work in progress (relieving poverty of the disabled and the working poor has a long way to go, I agree...). Sure, in the US conservative forces are trying to push back against gender and sexual orientation progress, but I think (or hope) that it is Canute like...

It's the restriction of the power of money over politics that is important, IMO, because it lets conservative forces, in the media and elsewhere, blanket the airwaves and print with scare-mongering about evil cultural marxists... Corporations and the 1% exert excessive power over the narrative of politics in far too many countries.

I also feel strongly that a strong union movement and a free press with good investigative journalists are vital - both are weakened in too many places around the world...

But again, we may have to differ on another central point to me, caution over some left policies, particularly those which enlarge state control beyond what is reasonable...

[Brian Peacock]

I used to think the same, but that's really only tinkering at the edges. I'm with Chomsky: A nation based on freedom today is just another place to go shopping.

[JimC]

I used to think the same, but that's really only tinkering at the edges. I'm with Chomsky: A nation based on freedom today is just another place to go shopping.

The critical point is, what, realistically, is the alternative to "tinkering at the edges"? One of the political principles I endorse is pragmatic realism; what can we actually hope to achieve in the present circumstances, which will be a true improvement without the chaos of revolution...

Now that process needs a dose of idealism as well, to push the boundaries, perhaps more strongly than old buggers like me can envisage. But when I hear green warriors demanding the immediate shut-down of all coal-fired power stations, I want to tell them that politics truly is the art of the possible...

[rainbow]

I want mo' money.

[Woodbutcher]

I got enough money. And the government keeps sending more every month. Sheesh! Also, I have to go to the hospital later 'cause a cat bite that I got Sunday is infected.

[Brian Peacock]

Damn you Capitalism!!

[Brian Peacock]

I used to think the same, but that's really only tinkering at the edges. I'm with Chomsky: A nation based on freedom today is just another place to go shopping.

The critical point is, what, realistically, is the alternative to "tinkering at the edges"? One of the political principles I endorse is pragmatic realism; what can we actually hope to achieve in the present circumstances, which will be a true improvement without the chaos of revolution...

Now that process needs a dose of idealism as well, to push the boundaries, perhaps more strongly than old buggers like me can envisage. But when I hear green warriors demanding the immediate shut-down of all coal-fired power stations, I want to tell them that politics truly is the art of the possible...

For me a necessary contingency for pragmatic realism is to assume Capitalism as a given - it has led to us trying find solutions to the problems of Capitalism, and particular neo-liberalism's fetishisation of Capital markets, within the context of Capitalism. For example, it is entirely possible to replace all coal-fired power production in 5 years. All it requires is political will and massive amounts of investment. However, that is impossible within a Capitalist context where energy production, infrastructure, and delivery are private concerns, embedded within layers of local, regional, and international energy markets, and where the primary obligations of such concerns are to their shareholders. When you say that one must be realistic about such idea, what I hear is you saying that these are unrealistic ideas because Capital will never let it happen - therefore the best we can hope for is a bit of tinkering at the edges that may, just may, ameliorate some of the more dire consequences.

We need to change our fundamental conceptions, and a way to start that process is to offer a sceptical challenge to the assumption of Capitalism as a given, presented in the form of a question: do you think people should work for the economy, or should the economy work for people, and which of these two best reflects the experience of the majority in society?

Questions like this help to create context for idea like Universal Basic Services, where the state, on behalf of everyone, ensures that the things that everybody needs ('everybody' includes everybody from the top of the pile to those at the bottom), such as water, energy, healthcare, social care, education, housing, clothing, food) are secured for and available to all.

[JimC]

The move away from coal-fired power to renewable energy is happening in any case. In Australia, conservative politicians are entwined with the old guard of the coal industry and are fighting to preserve it, but in fact a majority of the business community, and virtually all technocrats see the change as inevitable, and want the government to facilitate it. Renewable energy is attractive to financial markets, and, with economy of scale, will become increasingly so.

As for the rest of the argument, I think that the alternative to capitalism is state control of the means of production. Now I am in favour of state ownership of much of the necessary infrastructure; railways, ports, health care, water supply, energy distribution etc. However, state control beyond these basics has a poor track record. So, essentially I suppose I have the traditional centre-left position of having free enterprise mixed with strong, progressive social policies, and that capital needs significant restraint, partly via government policies, partly by strong unions, but particularly by well planned, pragmatic public/private partnerships.

I simply cannot see a realistic possibility of any society completely divesting itself from the capitalist model without chaotic, violent revolution.

[Brian Peacock]

Are there any parties in Oz suggesting that utilities and transport are taken back into public ownership? In the UK there's the Greens and other than the remnants of the old fringe groups like the Revolutionary Communists or the Socialist Workers Party etc, and thats about it. How do you get these ideas in front of people against the context of Capitalism and neo-liberal economics? Every time society makes a gain in one area Capital sneaks more ground elsewhere. If you truly wan that soft-Left Centrist society I think you're going to have to negotiate from a position quite some way to the Left of where you want to end up or else that centre ground is going to end up being dragged onto the laps of the Right.

We've learned from history that as the palaces of the few get more and more elaborate and the conditions of the many get more and more precarious then sharpening the guillotines starts to look like a better and better idea. I don't want to live in a society where the lampposts are used for anything other than street lighting, but while the Right have effective control over the language and agenda of the political discourse then that seems to be the way we're heading. I guess that in the end, as Marx suggested, ordinary people won't have to work for revolution: the failure of Capitalism will bring about revolution automatically. The thing is, the planet might be fried by then.

[Rum]

Can they drip feed the masses ‘just enough’ to distract them from sharpening the guillotines and watching Love Island instead? They seem to for now..

[Scot Dutchy]

If you go down the PR route it happens automatically. Coalitions are always based on the centre. Compromise always does that. No party is ever powerful enough to impose its will. Even the grand coalitions of the 90's (the Purple coalitions under Wim Kok) were centrist as this was the only common ground they had but it was a brilliant time here. Wim Kok was started out as leader of the trade union congress here and believed strongly in the compromise (polder) model of negotiations. A strong socialist but formed a coalition with the very right wing at the time VVD.
The experience moved the VVD to the centre where it is today under Rutte. The left has also withered with the liberal (British definition) parties taking over. In that group is the Dutch labour party the PvdA. The biggest party in the Tweede Kamer is still the PVV. Like Trump it has about 30% of the electorate (every country seems to have a residue of 30% idiots). Never in power as no one will work with them. Rutte burnt his fingers in his first cabinet with them.
A two party system is always bad for extremes and the country.

[rainbow]

Can they drip feed the masses ‘just enough’ to distract them from sharpening the guillotines and watching Love Island instead? They seem to for now..

...or they could vaccinate children, put fluoride in the water, chemtrails, thought rays and glyphosate in the brecky cereal.