Labour Party plots overthrow of capitalism

[Ttaskmaster]

Sure it can happen under a multitude of different systems. But we have evidence that unrestrained capitalism does that in spades.

We have that with socialism too, mainly leading to poverty, misery and tyranny.

We have a duty either to try other things

But socialism discourages that exact sort of incentive.

Political correctness is what halted slavery and gave women and non-whites the vote, and is responsible for our society becoming a lot more liberal for everyone.

Nope. Other way around.
Those things are what gave political correctness its traction. PC is always playing catch-up, trying to keep up with the changes in society... It does not drive them.

Ayn Rand was roundly wrong on pretty much everything and I'm sorry I brought her up.

Just wanted to see what you were on about, and it read like the complete opposite of what you were saying...

If you want to discuss political theorists

Not really. I'm an engineering technician. I deal in operational manuals and how things actually work, rather than theorising about what might or might not - That's what the Engineers mess around with.

we can discuss Rousseau, Locke, Nietzsche, Nozick, Mill, Friedrich, Hayek, etc etc.

Or not.... I'd rather you used your own words to explain your own perspective, rather than repeat snippets of what other people thought might (in theory) be a potentially possible truth. If I want to know their thoughts, I'm sure they all have their own books... Otherwise you're just playing He Said, She Said with other people's money words, and it has no real meaning to me.

Something else that seems to work well is to localise decision making as much as possible. It seems that being closer to the results of one's decisions makes them higher quality decisions.

It can.... but in many cases, the makers of decisions on things are each funded from a budget held by someone else, who then has to make the decision on who gets what... If you gave those lower down their own smaller budgets, obviously with some level of oversight, it may work better... but I've a feeling we tried that once as well, back at the beginning of this whole privatisation mess.

Communism originally looked like a cure to all of the ills of capitalism in theory but in reality it fails to take into account human nature and that in any system there are those that will bend and corrupt the system to get what they want at the cost of everyone else.

Incidentally, I found this the other week - Might make for interesting reading:
http://www.aei.org/publication/why-s...-always-fails/

Done properly capitalism (i.e. not what's going on in the world right now) reduces the ability of these individuals to corrupt because their organisations become less efficient and get eliminated through competition.

There are shards of hope, with recent courts leveraging the largest fines in history on certain industry companies, far higher than anything their official regulators have to power to throw at them. However, the punishment needs to be harsher and something that will actually hurt the companies, rather than just one week's worth of profit.

That isn't to say that there are cases for reform today, but political correctness in the terms I have described is a negative activity in that in becoming obsessed with the trivial minutiae, hinders the progress of real reform/change. (IMHO of course!)

I'd agree with that, and even take it further by asserting that Political Correctness is enforcing reform, really no different in principle to the the Allgemeine SS. People don't follow PCness because they want to avoid upsetting anyone, they do it because otherwise they'll get stamped on and hounded out with screams of "RAAAAAAAACISSSSSSSSST!!!" by jackbooted stormtrooper snowflake cry-bullies who wouldn't know actual racism if it slapped them round the face.

[wazzickle]

Hmm, I'd dispute some of that - it waa really moral correctness that abolished slavery - actually William Wilberforce who as an MP came into contact with a group of existing anti-slavery 'activists' and as an evangelical Christian fely=t that slavery was a violation of his Christian and Moral values.

The black equality movement in America was championed and epitomised by a Baptist Minister, Martin Luther King.

Many of the Social reforms in this country were championed by those of religious conviction, Cadbury, Rowntree, The Lever Bothers who while being Capitalists, sought to improve the life of their employees in providing housing, and education for their workforce. Not an altogether altruistic move as they realised that a happy workforce who didn't have to worry about poor housing and living conditions, would be loyal and be more productive.

In that sense they were 'compassionate conservatives'.

Political Correctness in modern usage is more a derogatory term in the sense of taking reform to level of absurdness and is a somewhat joyless/humourless activity. That isn't to say that there are cases for reform today, but political correctness in the terms I have described is a negative activity in that in becoming obsessed with the trivial minutiae, hinders the progress of real reform/change. (IMHO of course!)

Well I'm not really bothered with whether it's derogatory or not. In many circles of the USA, 'liberal' is derogatory, but I wear that badge with pride, as I do with the term 'pacifist' where even Jeremy Corbyn sought to make clear he wasn't a pacifist.

I don't much like organised religion but it's not much of a surprise that modern political correctness is rooted in christianity. Political correctness should be morally correct. Maybe moral correctness would be a better term for it, but that might come across even more arrogant. Morality coming from something other than religion is a pretty new thing.

[wazzickle]

We have that with socialism too, mainly leading to poverty, misery and tyranny.


But socialism discourages that exact sort of incentive.


Nope. Other way around.
Those things are what gave political correctness its traction. PC is always playing catch-up, trying to keep up with the changes in society... It does not drive them.


Just wanted to see what you were on about, and it read like the complete opposite of what you were saying...


Not really. I'm an engineering technician. I deal in operational manuals and how things actually work, rather than theorising about what might or might not - That's what the Engineers mess around with.


Or not.... I'd rather you used your own words to explain your own perspective, rather than repeat snippets of what other people thought might (in theory) be a potentially possible truth. If I want to know their thoughts, I'm sure they all have their own books... Otherwise you're just playing He Said, She Said with other people's money words, and it has no real meaning to me.


It can.... but in many cases, the makers of decisions on things are each funded from a budget held by someone else, who then has to make the decision on who gets what... If you gave those lower down their own smaller budgets, obviously with some level of oversight, it may work better... but I've a feeling we tried that once as well, back at the beginning of this whole privatisation mess.


Incidentally, I found this the other week - Might make for interesting reading:
http://www.aei.org/publication/why-s...-always-fails/


There are shards of hope, with recent courts leveraging the largest fines in history on certain industry companies, far higher than anything their official regulators have to power to throw at them. However, the punishment needs to be harsher and something that will actually hurt the companies, rather than just one week's worth of profit.


I'd agree with that, and even take it further by asserting that Political Correctness is enforcing reform, really no different in principle to the the Allgemeine SS. People don't follow PCness because they want to avoid upsetting anyone, they do it because otherwise they'll get stamped on and hounded out with screams of "RAAAAAAAACISSSSSSSSST!!!" by jackbooted stormtrooper snowflake cry-bullies who wouldn't know actual racism if it slapped them round the face.

I don't get how you do those multiquote things. Anyway.

'We have that with capitalism too, mainly leading to poverty, misery and the illusion of freedom.' Fixed that for you. There's a very strong argument that capitalism is the biggest driver of misery and emotional as well as physical illness in the world. The poverty line is unarguably much, much better than it was 100 years ago, with less illness and better conditions in general, but the brain is not concerned with that, it's concerned with how everyone else is doing in comparison to us. Unrestrained capitalism ramps up inequality - to restrain it, or to go further and have a socialised version of capitalism would have a much fairer distribution of income, and lead to better mental health.

Socialism and capitalism are not mutually exclusive. You can have a safety net for unemployed, or even a Universal Basic Income (which has been shown to work very well and has bipartisan support in a lot of the places it's been tried) and healthcare for all and publicly owned assets and regulated economies and still have plenty of incentive for risk and hard work. Much of europe, for example. Germany has a much more socialist economy than ours and is far, far more successful than ours.

Again, I don't care what you call it, political correctness, or moral correctness, or progress, or whatever. The social and legal pressure not to be a dick to your fellow man. It's a good thing.

'I'd rather you used your own words to explain your own perspective, rather than repeat snippets of what other people thought might (in theory) be a potentially possible truth.' - pretty sure i've been doing that, no? Don't think I've invoked any particular thinkers to back my arguments up or referred to any of them, other than mistakenly doing so for Rand.

[ik9000]

Well I'm not really bothered with whether it's derogatory or not. In many circles of the USA, 'liberal' is derogatory, but I wear that badge with pride, as I do with the term 'pacifist' where even Jeremy Corbyn sought to make clear he wasn't a pacifist.

I don't much like organised religion but it's not much of a surprise that modern political correctness is rooted in christianity. Political correctness should be morally correct. Maybe moral correctness would be a better term for it, but that might come across even more arrogant. Morality coming from something other than religion is a pretty new thing.

Not sure I agree with you re political correctness being rooted in Christianity. I can show you several examples in the bible where Christ rails against the religious leaders for such behaviour, and IIRC condemns it quite strongly. Similarly elsewhere throughout the bible people are lambasted for petty rules and customs, going through pointless motions etc when completely neglecting what God cares about - justice, equality and looking after the poor and alien. As in actually looking after them not saying things to make it sound like you do.

Morality has to be defined by something. The problem with rooting morality in a human-made framework is that that framework constantly shifts with the zeitgeist and cannot therefore be absolute. And whose opinion trumps whose in such decisions? We all have an opinion - or are all opinions not to be counted equally? I'd much rather a God and a clear view of right and wrong because our maker knows best than a constant fudge of political whimsy and whoever can exert most influence.

Christ sums up morality in two short lines: Love your God with [your whole being], and love your neighbour as yourself. And the order of that matters - get the first bit wrong and people inevitably stuff up the second. Why? Because we need to understand the former to be able to do a proper job of the latter.

Edit: actually that last line would be more accurate as "Because we need to understand what God has done to enable the former to be enabled to do the latter."

[peterb]

I don't much like organised religion but it's not much of a surprise that modern political correctness is rooted in christianity.

That's not what I said.

I said that Christianity/moral values were the root of reform such as the abolition of slavery, NOT the phenomonen of political correctness, which a relatively modern "me to" activity that distracts from the real issues where reform is required

[wazzickle]

A rose by any other name!

[ik9000]

someone asked about multi quote. use the button to the right of reply with quote. select the posts you want then hit reply with quote and job done. to quote within a quote you need to hack it bit and use square bracket quote /quote toggles.

[ik9000]

if that didn't make sense go to a post where you've used a quote and go advanced edit to see the syntax. the bits in square brackets define the formatting, embedded stuff like images and quotes, font size and the like.

[Ttaskmaster]

I don't much like organised religion but it's not much of a surprise that modern political correctness is rooted in christianity.

Actually, it's cultural Marxism: https://www.theamericanconservative....l-correctness/

Political correctness should be morally correct.

In it's most basic form, it's about a preference. Nothing more... except that it's now used as a tool of aggression to oppress anyone who doesn't prefer the same thing as you, including those whose causes you're championing for them, whether they asked you to or not.
Case in point - The 'Native Americans', who various argue they are Native Americans, American Indians, Indians, Red Indians, Americans, or just don't care for labels. Only ONE of those terms is Politically Correct, and which one will be decided by some ranty campagining white guy.

There's no morals there.
If your name is Christopher, but you prefer to be called Chris, that's your choice. If the majority of Christophers prefer Chris, then society and culture will adapt. That is moral-based change.
But it's not correct (morally, politically or anything-else-ally) for you or anyone else to go round ENFORCING policy that every Christopher must therefore be called Chris, and jailing anyone who doesn't do this.

'We have that with capitalism too, mainly leading to poverty, misery and the illusion of freedom.' Fixed that for you.

Oh, yes, I see what you did there, Komrade. You just painted over it with your propaganda and for no other reason, it becomes the truth because you say so..... what absolute genius. You must be a great leader!!

Four legs good, two legs bad better!

Yes, some people will be miserable under capitalism, some will lose and some will be lower down on the pecking order, but that's no different to any other natural walk of life. The difference is that capitalism rewards those who pull themselves up, aspiring to be greater and working creatively and innovatively to rise above the gutter. You can improve your own life.
Socialism just makes sure everyone is equally miserable, stuck in their ruts and with nothing better than what you've got... but still with all the same abuses that Capitalism is open to... arguably more.

There's a very strong argument that capitalism is the biggest driver of misery and emotional as well as physical illness in the world.

Loud does not mean strong.
The argument also centres around countries that have had socialist-leaning cultures for a long while, and is not based around socialist economy compared to a capitalist one. Replacing capitalist ecnomy with socialist will not reform the culture and you're more likely to have a nationwide riot in response.

Unrestrained capitalism ramps up inequality - to restrain it, or to go further and have a socialised version of capitalism would have a much fairer distribution of income, and lead to better mental health.

Yeah, no-one's ever going to do that, though. The UK is a political battleground over which two parties fight for power. They don't care about you, they just want to be in charge and will promise you whatever gets your vote, before utterly ignoring it once they get in.

Socialism and capitalism are not mutually exclusive.

They are in Labour's book....

The social and legal pressure not to be a dick to your fellow man. It's a good thing.

It's an utterly pointless thing, unless you eliminate the cause of people behaving like that. Otherwise you just end up with lots of pent-up hatred, which inevitably explodes and makes a really nasty mess.

pretty sure i've been doing that, no? Don't think I've invoked any particular thinkers to back my arguments up or referred to any of them, other than mistakenly doing so for Rand.

Then why even mention them?

[badass]

Incidentally, I found this the other week - Might make for interesting reading:
http://www.aei.org/publication/why-s...-always-fails/

Interesting read - I've always believed that communism fails for those reasons, however there's a lot of falsely conflating socialism with a centrally planned economy. Admittedly that is one narrow example of socialism. However you can theoretically have a socialist mostly laissez faire economy. The only reason you don't is that socialists invariably get frustrated when their plans don't work and then can't resist forcing their will on "the people"

Perhaps instead of talking about socialism, the subject should include redistribution.

[matts-uk]

Oh, yes, I see what you did there, Komrade. You just painted over it with your propaganda and for no other reason, it becomes the truth because you say so..... what absolute genius. You must be a great leader!!

Four legs good, two legs bad better!

Sorry, I don't really have time to do much more than lurk but the irony of your selective quotes has become too much. Here are a couple quotes from Orwell's non fiction works.

George Orwell, Why I write
“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.”

George Orwell, Why I Joined the Independent Labour Party
“For perhaps ten years past I have had some grasp of the real nature of capitalist society. I have seen British imperialism at work in Burma, and I have seen something of the effects of poverty and unemployment in Britain…. One has got to be actively a Socialist, not merely sympathetic to Socialism, or one plays into the hands of our always active enemies.”

George Orwell was a militant socialist. So much so he fought for a Marxist militia in the Spanish Civil War [Homage to Catalonia]. Somehow I doubt we will ever see Corbyn and McDonell picking up a rifle to fight for the cause(!)

Animal farm was not a criticism of Communism or Socialism as such - The story criticises Stalin/Trotsky in particular and is a warning against totalitarianism in all it's forms. Indeed the quote, "Four legs good, two legs bad better." Alludes to the corruption of the socialist ideals that drove the Russian Revolution. Orwell considered the Stalinist regime, no better and probably worse than the Tsarist regime. Ultimately the death of Lenin allowed the political system to revert.

Your Ayn Rand quote does not mean what you think it does either.

Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness - The Nature of Government
"If physical force is to be barred from social relationships, men need an institution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules. This is the task of a government—of a proper government—its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government. A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control—i.e., under objectively defined laws."

"The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force."

Rambling diatribes in the Fountain Head and Atlas Shrugged reinforce and repeat the philosophy of minimalist government...Over and over and over again(!)

To paraphrase 10,000 words of Rand's self-indulgent, self-serving opinions. Rand believed the state should be as small as possible. That the only moral purpose of Government is to protect the wealthy elite and police the less affluent masses they prey on - The direction Osbourne and Cameron were taking the UK.

Rand's works are the biggest case of 'butt hurt' in modern history - She was a little rich kid, who's parent’s wealth was appropriated by the Bolshevik state. Seething at the loss of her inherited privilege Rand fled to the U.S and became a New York socialite, financed by a succession of influential capitalists all too willing to join her cult of "objectivism" and worship at the alter of selfishness. Essentially Rand specialised in telling the wealthy what they wanted to hear. By wrapping parasitic injustice in pseudo-science Rand rendered greed as not only virtuous but a wholly righteous pursuit.

Rand was ultimately hoisted by her own petard. To maintain her celebrity in her later years she became increasingly contradictory. The heavy smoking eventually caught up and she was forced to give up work and became dependant on public welfare, before dying in relative obscurity. One wonders what price her nurse could charge were care services auctioned directly by those who provide them, rather than controlled by a contracting company via layers of middle-management.

Rand's epitaph should read, "THERE WERE NO CARE WORKERS IN GAITS GULCH."

Yes, some people will be miserable under capitalism, some will lose and some will be lower down on the pecking order, but that's no different to any other natural walk of life.

The subtext here is...Just as long as it is other people suffering the misfortune, not me.

The difference is that capitalism rewards those who pull themselves up, aspiring to be greater and working creatively and innovatively to rise above the gutter.

You appear to be in denial of the fact the global banking crisis (2007) ever happened. Please take off your blinkers and look at what is actually occurring. The much maligned (1973) Winter of Discontent was the height of working class social mobility in Britain and it has been downhill from there. The likely hood of children born to the UK working population having a better life than their parents is lower today than at any time since Victoria was on the throne.

[peterb]

The likely hood of children born to the UK working population having a better life than their parents is lower today than at any time since Victoria was on the throne.

That is a very sweeping statement - what do you mean by a 'better life'? I certainly didn't socialise to the extent my children do when I was their age. My mortgage interest rates were at 12-15% and inflation was running at a similar rate, eroding the value of any savings I had.

[spacein_vader]

That is a very sweeping statement - what do you mean by a 'better life'? I certainly didn't socialise to the extent my children do when I was their age. My mortgage interest rates were at 12-15% and inflation was running at a similar rate, eroding the value of any savings I had.

Whereas these days the interest rate is lower than inflation so any savings are actually worth less over time and they can't get a mortgage in the first place.

[peterb]

Whereas these days the interest rate is lower than inflation so any savings are actually worth less over time and they can't get a mortgage in the first place.

It was then.

[wazzickle]

Sorry, I don't really have time to do much more than lurk but the irony of your selective quotes has become too much. Here are a couple quotes from Orwell's non fiction works.

George Orwell, Why I write
“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.”

George Orwell, Why I Joined the Independent Labour Party
“For perhaps ten years past I have had some grasp of the real nature of capitalist society. I have seen British imperialism at work in Burma, and I have seen something of the effects of poverty and unemployment in Britain…. One has got to be actively a Socialist, not merely sympathetic to Socialism, or one plays into the hands of our always active enemies.”

George Orwell was a militant socialist. So much so he fought for a Marxist militia in the Spanish Civil War [Homage to Catalonia]. Somehow I doubt we will ever see Corbyn and McDonell picking up a rifle to fight for the cause(!)

Animal farm was not a criticism of Communism or Socialism as such - The story criticises Stalin/Trotsky in particular and is a warning against totalitarianism in all it's forms. Indeed the quote, "Four legs good, two legs bad better." Alludes to the corruption of the socialist ideals that drove the Russian Revolution. Orwell considered the Stalinist regime, no better and probably worse than the Tsarist regime. Ultimately the death of Lenin allowed the political system to revert.

Your Ayn Rand quote does not mean what you think it does either.

Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness - The Nature of Government
"If physical force is to be barred from social relationships, men need an institution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules. This is the task of a government—of a proper government—its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government. A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control—i.e., under objectively defined laws."

"The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force."

Rambling diatribes in the Fountain Head and Atlas Shrugged reinforce and repeat the philosophy of minimalist government...Over and over and over again(!)

To paraphrase 10,000 words of Rand's self-indulgent, self-serving opinions. Rand believed the state should be as small as possible. That the only moral purpose of Government is to protect the wealthy elite and police the less affluent masses they prey on - The direction Osbourne and Cameron were taking the UK.

Rand's works are the biggest case of 'butt hurt' in modern history - She was a little rich kid, who's parent’s wealth was appropriated by the Bolshevik state. Seething at the loss of her inherited privilege Rand fled to the U.S and became a New York socialite, financed by a succession of influential capitalists all too willing to join her cult of "objectivism" and worship at the alter of selfishness. Essentially Rand specialised in telling the wealthy what they wanted to hear. By wrapping parasitic injustice in pseudo-science Rand rendered greed as not only virtuous but a wholly righteous pursuit.

Rand was ultimately hoisted by her own petard. To maintain her celebrity in her later years she became increasingly contradictory. The heavy smoking eventually caught up and she was forced to give up work and became dependant on public welfare, before dying in relative obscurity. One wonders what price her nurse could charge were care services auctioned directly by those who provide them, rather than controlled by a contracting company via layers of middle-management.

Rand's epitaph should read, "THERE WERE NO CARE WORKERS IN GAITS GULCH."

The subtext here is...Just as long as it is other people suffering the misfortune, not me.


You appear to be in denial of the fact the global banking crisis (2007) ever happened. Please take off your blinkers and look at what is actually occurring. The much maligned (1973) Winter of Discontent was the height of working class social mobility in Britain and it has been downhill from there. The likely hood of children born to the UK working population having a better life than their parents is lower today than at any time since Victoria was on the throne.

Please post more!

[Galant]

Coming to this late but it just blows my mind that anyone today can court any sort of communism or communist ideology. I understand the motive to want to avoid the centralisation of wealth around the few, and the idea that the majority are oppressed, but communism, or even strong socialism, doesn't change that. If anything it worsens it, because it simply relocates the wealth to centralise it elsewhere - in the hands of an ever more powerful government elite - who then become the oppressors holding all the cards.

Ultimately this is a problem buried in the human heart - greed/selfishness - and so there's no true solution outside of changing the human heart. The best societies can do is provide a work-around and try to mitigate the issue. A specific flaw of communist/socialist ideology prevents it from providing that work-around well, namely, the focus on groups/class warfare rather than the individual; the individual matters less, even becomes expendable, in place of the group identity. You can't build a successful or fair society that way. It's simply impossible.

There's a huge parallel here with democracy. The reason democracy is, as is often cited, "the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time", is because it attempts to account for individual greed by keeping power away from any particular elite - "The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so [corrupt] that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters." (C S Lewis).

Along the same lines, one can reject communism, or big government in general, because we see no people fit to be 'masters'.

Capitalism does give an opportunity for people to hoard wealth, however, in a robust democracy where individual rights, liberties and responsibilities are elevated, it also allows open competition (as open as it can be), and uses the concept of the growth of wealth (in the general sense) in order to help better society. It's simply not good for individuals seeking their own wealth, to be in a suffering/poor community - there needs to be opportunity and growth in a general sense, in order for everyone - top to bottom - to benefit.

After that, it's about trying to keep it as clean as possible. And the more individuals and communities get involved, the more that wealth can be leveraged for various programs or methods to take care of the vulnerable or weak in society.

It's not perfect. No system will be. But it can exist in conjunction with sound societal principles, and that matters. Communism can't, and it's been proven that it only makes societies poorer, not richer - to such an extent that I can safely call it a disgusting ideology.