Labour Party plots overthrow of capitalism

[Zak33]

LONDON (Reuters) - The British Labour Party’s would-be Chancellor, John McDonnell, has a message for the world: he is deadly serious about overthrowing capitalism and building a socialist society.....McDonnell, 67, who describes Karl Marx as one of his main influences

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-br...-idUKKCN1NS17X

He and Corbyn must have some amazing talks between them truly destined to work together those two.

[Mr_Jon]

Does this mean RAM prices will drop?

[Zak33]

Does this mean RAM prices will drop?

it means that Intel had the first mainstream 8 core, 16 thread cpu with the latest launch...

[TeePee]

I hope you've enjoyed your Conservative Government!

[Lanky123]

Maybe he's trying to goad the Tories into sufficient complacency that they'll go for another snap election.

[Corky34]

Hasn't he been going on about this for ages, how long ago was it when he chucked a little red book across the dispatch box?

IDK what he mean when he says "overthrowing capitalism and building a socialist society" and i don't even know who Karl Marx was other than some Russian bloke, however i do know what we currently have in the UK isn't working for everyone, there's a lot of left behinds and a lot of discontent with the way things currently are, overthrowing capitalism sounds pretty extreme even if it was achievable without enforcing draconian laws.

However there does seem to be more people who would like to see the basic infrastructure of the country (railways, energy and water companies, postal service, etc, etc) returned to the UK's public ownership, i was just going to say public ownership but by all accounts the public do own parts of it just the public from other countries. There's also still plenty of problems with our banking system even after the disaster they caused in 08, we've only really tinkered around the edges and whacked a sticking plaster on the problem.

Having said that saying you want to overthrow capitalism, build a socialist society, and that your main influence is Karl Marx instantly conjures up images of the soviet union and I'm not sure I'd enjoy living in the UKRP.

[Splash]

German, dude. Not Russian!

He's buried in Highgate Cemetery.

[Corky34]

Shows how much i know about him.

[cptwhite_uk]

Reading the article, it seems McDonnell thinks people voted for Brexit due to a sense of financial inequitily and lack of support from the state. While that might be true for a percentage of the vote, to lump all voters in the same general category is clearly an issue. A large percentage had issues with the changes to society that large scale immigration was having, rightly or wrongly. Some are just outright racist / insular in nature and others had concerns with the internal structure of the EU and how it was governed and the direction it was moving. Or most likely a mixture of all of these, and potentially other issues as well.

People are greedy and lazy as a general rule. Give and they will take, and demand more. I consider myself a socialist but we need to be tailor any changes to leave room so that people are motivated to strive and be productive.

[spacein_vader]

My own view is somewhere between the Tories and labour on this. On the whole I prefer a more free market economy (@ la Tories,) but I would prefer that vital national infrastructure (water, power, gas for sure, on the fence about trains,) is owned by the UK.

[Lanky123]

Well even if Labour were in government I doubt he'd get a majority in parliament for anything too hardcore. Even with a few relics from the Blair years being cast aside the Labour party is still a pretty broad church. I doubt he'd even get a majority of Labour MPs to go for much more than gradually bringing schools/railways back under government control and some tighter regulation of the banking sector.

[badass]

It's a common mistake to blame current problems on capitalism. We don't operate capitalism in this country. Just some kind of perverse inverted socialism where those in government are afraid of large companies (or damaging their bottom lines) yet at the same time punish the small businesses, freelancers, lowest earners and highest PAYE earners. All the while the "squeezed middle" get the best deal of the lot yet think they are hardest done by!

Capitalism was originally envisaged and implemented as a positive feedback system whereby useful output from a process, company or person is fed back into the system resulting in a continuous increase in productivity. I.e. achieving more with the same or less labour. Another principle is the reduction of inefficiencies through competition.

Completely ignoring the privatised services where competition is impossible such as railways and so on, even companies where true competition exists are pretty inefficient. However the least efficient of them are killed off periodically as they simply cannot survive when they cannot produce goods or services at a competitive price due to their lack of efficiency.

The problem with the public sector is that these bottom of the barrel organisations that are uselessly inefficient never get killed off. The dead wood is simply not removed. Hence why the NHS is still running off fax machines and paper calendars. You will still see probably as many pockets of amazing teams delivering an amazing service within the org within the public sector as the private sector, however the private sector is simply missing the bottom 10% of productivity, money and energy sucking wasters.

This is what the "nationalise everything" brigade do not understand. Often, the private sector can provide a better service and make a profit because it is generally more efficient. However many of our MP's are dogmatic about the public vs private sector debate on both sides. The public sector can do a better job as demonstrated when certain rail franchises got nationalised. However in general the service was worse when it was British rail. Cherry picking figures does not change that.

Some from the "nationalise everything" brigade like to point out how "great" the french rail system is for example. They clearly haven't talked to the french. They also conveniently forget that per passenger mile, french railways cost the passenger about the same as UK railways (30 p per passenger mile average). Sounds OK, right? Well they also get the same again in subsidy. i.e. french railways cost double per passenger mile what british railway journeys do.

How about french hospitals? Amazing service, success and survival rates compared to the disaster that is the NHS that the great british public think is so great. Their system is public-private and has been like that since before the NHS existed.

Perhaps what would make the most sense would be to level the playing field and allow government depts to bid against the private sector for national infrastructure contracts.

In fact, there is a theme here: Ignore the dogma and allow a mix of public and private to provide these services.

One final thing: Conflating capitalism with a lack of wealth redistribution is false. You can have a society that is both capitalist and socialist/redistributive. It's just that our tribal politics can't accept that there can be a happy medium in anything.

[Saracen]

Hasn't he been going on about this for ages, how long ago was it when he chucked a little red book across the dispatch box?

IDK what he mean when he says "overthrowing capitalism and building a socialist society" and i don't even know who Karl Marx was other than some Russian bloke, however i do know what we currently have in the UK isn't working for everyone, there's a lot of left behinds and a lot of discontent with the way things currently are, overthrowing capitalism sounds pretty extreme even if it was achievable without enforcing draconian laws.

However there does seem to be more people who would like to see the basic infrastructure of the country (railways, energy and water companies, postal service, etc, etc) returned to the UK's public ownership, i was just going to say public ownership but by all accounts the public do own parts of it just the public from other countries. There's also still plenty of problems with our banking system even after the disaster they caused in 08, we've only really tinkered around the edges and whacked a sticking plaster on the problem.

Having said that saying you want to overthrow capitalism, build a socialist society, and that your main influence is Karl Marx instantly conjures up images of the soviet union and I'm not sure I'd enjoy living in the UKRP.

It might surprise you, but other than Marx's nationality, despite having read that three times looking for where I might disagree, I failed.

I am, fundamentally, more inclined to a .... erm .... "regulated but broadly free market" philosophy BUT .... it is self-evident (IMHO) that going too far in either the direction of socislism or capitalism does not serve the best interests of the majority. It doesn't take a genius to work out that there are problems with our current society, but that certainly doesn't necessarily mean that the solution is a Corbyn/McDonnell interpretation of socialism.

Similarly, I am in favour of fundamental utilities (power, water, etc) being publicly owned (and no, not foreign publics, but effectively UK government, in trust, for the UK population. Getting them there could be tricky, though.

But public ownership is not a universal panacea for problems either. There was lots wrong with the industries, like rail, when they were publicly owned, starting with several decades of under-investment. Why? Because decisions on funding were made not by the needs and capabilities of the industry/service, but by the political needs of transient, here-today, gone-tomorrow politicians, resulting in a VERY sort-term view of both needs and consequences.

What would serve us best is some kind of hybrid, encouraging depoliticising decisions especially about investment) and encouraging long-term strategic planning. I don't believe politicians of either end of the spectrum, or even centrist, can do that because, well, they're politicians.

On the other hand, pure profit motive and especially short-term profit motives, leads to the mindset that resulted in the banking crisis. Too many "executives" took absurd risks with OUR future, knowing full well that by the time such risks were likely to come home to roost, THEY would have trousered millions, or tens of millions, in fat-cat salaries and ludicrous short-term bonuses.

Find some way of making those "bonuses" reflect long-term risk, including a negative 'bonus' if the 'gambles' don't pay off, and we might get a more responsible approach to risk.


So, Corbyn-esque socialism? Not for me. Current system? Ditto.

[Ttaskmaster]

IDK what he mean when he says "overthrowing capitalism and building a socialist society"

He means, "I want to be in power and screw the rest of you over".
He also means, "All men are equal, but some are more equal than others... namely those who vote for me!"...

However there does seem to be more people who would like to see the basic infrastructure of the country (railways, energy and water companies, postal service, etc, etc) returned to the UK's public ownership

Yep, and very few of them remember how bad things were when they were nationalised.
NOTHING got done.

Partly because:

There was lots wrong with the industries, like rail, when they were publicly owned, starting with several decades of under-investment. Why? Because decisions on funding were made not by the needs and capabilities of the industry/service, but by the political needs of transient, here-today, gone-tomorrow politicians, resulting in a VERY sort-term view of both needs and consequences.

But also, the decisions were made by regional boards comprising many members, who just couldn't agree on anything.
So all those roadworks you see, with us lot improving your asset networks and causing you commuting delays... Those would never have happened, and instead you'd be without water or power for several weeks.

I'm not sure I'd enjoy living in the UKRP.

UKSSR, nyet?

[ik9000]

I was going to post but Saracen's one ^ covers it nicely. Too far in either direction is a joke, we should have state-owned BUT NOT STATE MANAGED/RUN services, run for long-term stability. etc etc. Literally couldn't agree more.

[cptwhite_uk]

Thirded Saracen / ik9000's comments.