Social disorder - what do you think?

[Robert_S]

The most damning thing I heard in ages was that the three most unequal societies were formerly all banana republics. Now the top three consists of USA, Nicaragua and UK. That should terrify all of us.

Ever since that time we all took too much acid and elected Bonzo the chimp, we've been a banana republic.

[Clinton Huxley]

The most damning thing I heard in ages was that the three most unequal societies were formerly all banana republics. Now the top three consists of USA, Nicaragua and UK. That should terrify all of us.

That from The Spirit Level? I think it's Portugal, rather than Nicaragua and it's the three most unequal societies in the developed world, not globally...

End pedant mode.

[Tigger]

I think we've had an easy ride with credit handed out like smarties, and now it's the swing of the pendulum in the other direction. Nature always finds a balance. Similar rules apply to economics. Suck it up and enjoy the ride.

Why the fucking hell do people continue to believe this shite? Credit had to be easy because wages have been stagnant since the 1970s. People have not gone in to debt to buy extravagant luxuries. They have done it so they can eat. It's THE massive propaganda coup of the banks that they have convinced people whom they have strangled financially that they have been the irresponsible ones.

Edit, you might all want to read up on the conditions that inspired the French Revolution. If we didn't have debt then those people who have borrowed would be in a very similar situation to the peasants in France. Civil wars have begun this way. You can't pummel the working classes endlessly. Eventually something very nasty is going to happen.

They believe it because it's often true. I rent out properties at the lower end of the market and I see the way a lot - and I mean a lot - of folk operate. People go into debt to buy plasma TVs and three piece suites, which they prioritise over things like paying their bills and food. They'll spend the rent that the government in its wisdom sends to them to pass on to the landlord (in an attempt to "empower them"), and bemoan their lot when they are "forced" to take out loans at 300% interest (ok, 282%) having spent what they allowed to drift through their fingers on total shite. This is not everyone by any means, but a fucking lot, and not just in my handful of properties, obviously.

[Meekychuppet]

I think we've had an easy ride with credit handed out like smarties, and now it's the swing of the pendulum in the other direction. Nature always finds a balance. Similar rules apply to economics. Suck it up and enjoy the ride.

Why the fucking hell do people continue to believe this shite? Credit had to be easy because wages have been stagnant since the 1970s. People have not gone in to debt to buy extravagant luxuries. They have done it so they can eat. It's THE massive propaganda coup of the banks that they have convinced people whom they have strangled financially that they have been the irresponsible ones.

Edit, you might all want to read up on the conditions that inspired the French Revolution. If we didn't have debt then those people who have borrowed would be in a very similar situation to the peasants in France. Civil wars have begun this way. You can't pummel the working classes endlessly. Eventually something very nasty is going to happen.

They believe it because it's often true. I rent out properties at the lower end of the market and I see the way a lot - and I mean a lot - of folk operate. People go into debt to buy plasma TVs and three piece suites, which they prioritise over things like paying their bills and food. They'll spend the rent that the government in its wisdom sends to them to pass on to the landlord (in an attempt to "empower them"), and bemoan their lot when they are "forced" to take out loans at 300% interest (ok, 282%) having spent what they allowed to drift through their fingers on total shite. This is not everyone by any means, but a fucking lot, and not just in my handful of properties, obviously.

I smell something a little ripe here. How do you know their priorities?

In any case, it's not really much of an answer to what I said. No-one denies that there are spendthrifts and brainless spenders but that in no way negates the fact that stagnant wages set against sky-rocketing living costs is a trend that has grown and grown since the 1970s. We've arrived at the point where labour is so devalued that it does not support families. This is further compounded by the fact that the highest paid in society now are people who produce or make precisely bugger all. Bankers are rewarded enormously for shuffling money around. It's easy to blame the poor as they are powerless. The paradigm of self-sufficiency and home ownership is now so far from many that I don't blame them for asserting power by buying what they want. I don't think its a good thing, nor am I defending it, but it's the psychology of a human being who is helpless and used as a tool by a parasitic ruling class as human collateral. That is a trick as old as the hills. It was used to great effect in world wars and it's now used to great effect to sustain the rich few and their dominance. Blaming poverty on the poor is akin to blaming sickness on the sick. It's societies problem but we've washed our hands of it.

[Hermit]

Blaming poverty on the poor is akin to blaming sickness on the sick.

So true, but so what? The "unwashed masses" have never managed to free themselves from the yoke their masters - be they aristocratic or capitalist robber barons - have entangled them with. Previous social revolutions were intellectually underpinned and physically led by dissenters from within the ruling strata. The early ones were nobles, the later ones middle class. None of the events that resulted in the Magna Carta, The Renaissance, The Enlightenment, the English Civil Wars, the revolutions of 1848/9, the ructions of the late 1960s were initiated or prosecuted by "The Common Man". I can't think of a single communist of significance that has not come from a bourgeois background. Neither St Simon, Feyerabend, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Luxemburg, Liebknecht, Zedong, Castro, Guevara, the leaders of the Bader-Meinhoff goup or the Red Brigade were of working class origin. The proletariat has never been able to have its voice heard in its own right because it is largely incapable of articulating a coherent chain of thought, and the few individuals who do manage, lack organisational skills and access to the infrastructure that are necessary to make some sort of difference to their existence. Unionism looked promising at one stage, but now that movement is being poo pooed even by the majority of those who most need it.

[Cunt]

We've arrived at the point where labour is so devalued that it does not support families.

Working with some of the labourers of my area, I couldn't agree more.

The government here has contracted out all the real work (meaning things which can be done with tools and no university degree) and the only full-time employees they keep are the kind that 'work' on a computer.

Going to the Territorial website to look for casual positions yields this:
http://www.hr.gov.nt.ca/employment/casual/default.htm

Does anyone see any work there which can be done with a shovel or broom?

It's frustrating, but those who clean and maintain the government building where people are regularly paid 30 dollars an hour to sit and play solitaire are getting 12 bucks an hour. It wouldn't be so bad if their bosses weren't billing them out at double that...

[Chinaski]

Something is going to happen unless something radical changes. The student population is especially up in arms about the spending cuts, and I would love to see and be part of another left-wing uprising. Bring back the RAF, sans the killing.

[Meekychuppet]

Blaming poverty on the poor is akin to blaming sickness on the sick.

So true, but so what? The "unwashed masses" have never managed to free themselves from the yoke their masters - be they aristocratic or capitalist robber barons - have entangled them with. Previous social revolutions were intellectually underpinned and physically led by dissenters from within the ruling strata. The early ones were nobles, the later ones middle class. None of the events that resulted in the Magna Carta, The Renaissance, The Enlightenment, the English Civil Wars, the revolutions of 1848/9, the ructions of the late 1960s were initiated or prosecuted by "The Common Man". I can't think of a single communist of significance that has not come from a bourgeois background. Neither St Simon, Feyerabend, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Luxemburg, Liebknecht, Zedong, Castro, Guevara, the leaders of the Bader-Meinhoff goup or the Red Brigade were of working class origin. The proletariat has never been able to have its voice heard in its own right because it is largely incapable of articulating a coherent chain of thought, and the few individuals who do manage, lack organisational skills and access to the infrastructure that are necessary to make some sort of difference to their existence. Unionism looked promising at one stage, but now that movement is being poo pooed even by the majority of those who most need it.

I have to say that this made me chuckle as it sounds very Monty Python. Aide from that it is class stereotyping.

[Robert_S]

Blaming poverty on the poor is akin to blaming sickness on the sick.

So true, but so what? The "unwashed masses" have never managed to free themselves from the yoke their masters - be they aristocratic or capitalist robber barons - have entangled them with. Previous social revolutions were intellectually underpinned and physically led by dissenters from within the ruling strata. The early ones were nobles, the later ones middle class. None of the events that resulted in the Magna Carta, The Renaissance, The Enlightenment, the English Civil Wars, the revolutions of 1848/9, the ructions of the late 1960s were initiated or prosecuted by "The Common Man". I can't think of a single communist of significance that has not come from a bourgeois background. Neither St Simon, Feyerabend, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Luxemburg, Liebknecht, Zedong, Castro, Guevara, the leaders of the Bader-Meinhoff goup or the Red Brigade were of working class origin. The proletariat has never been able to have its voice heard in its own right because it is largely incapable of articulating a coherent chain of thought, and the few individuals who do manage, lack organisational skills and access to the infrastructure that are necessary to make some sort of difference to their existence. Unionism looked promising at one stage, but now that movement is being poo pooed even by the majority of those who most need it.

I have to say that this made me chuckle as it sounds very Monty Python. Aide from that it is class stereotyping.

A counterexample off the top of my head.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Harris_Jones

[GreyICE]

There is however, a fucking lot of a point that the revolutionaries who champion the 'people' rarely come from the background of the 'people.'

[JimC]

Blaming poverty on the poor is akin to blaming sickness on the sick.

So true, but so what? The "unwashed masses" have never managed to free themselves from the yoke their masters - be they aristocratic or capitalist robber barons - have entangled them with. Previous social revolutions were intellectually underpinned and physically led by dissenters from within the ruling strata. The early ones were nobles, the later ones middle class. None of the events that resulted in the Magna Carta, The Renaissance, The Enlightenment, the English Civil Wars, the revolutions of 1848/9, the ructions of the late 1960s were initiated or prosecuted by "The Common Man". I can't think of a single communist of significance that has not come from a bourgeois background. Neither St Simon, Feyerabend, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Luxemburg, Liebknecht, Zedong, Castro, Guevara, the leaders of the Bader-Meinhoff goup or the Red Brigade were of working class origin. The proletariat has never been able to have its voice heard in its own right because it is largely incapable of articulating a coherent chain of thought, and the few individuals who do manage, lack organisational skills and access to the infrastructure that are necessary to make some sort of difference to their existence. Unionism looked promising at one stage, but now that movement is being poo pooed even by the majority of those who most need it.

I think you are devaluing the power of the union movement. Their success is not to be measured by some idealistic transformation of societies, but that they can at least act as a barrier to the complete subjugation of working people by greedy bosses. Imagine Australian society without the (admittedly partial) protection given to workers by their unions...

Go union!

[Hermit]

Unionism looked promising at one stage, but now that movement is being poo pooed even by the majority of those who most need it.

I think you are devaluing the power of the union movement.

You misunderstood what I was saying, because I was being too brief. I have been an enthusiastic and appreciative member of the Transport Workers Union for decades, and I fully support this adage: United we bargain, divided we beg. In light of this, please read the relevant bit again, paying particular attention to the underlined words.

[Meekychuppet]

Check it out, two old guys fighting.

[JimC]

Unionism looked promising at one stage, but now that movement is being poo pooed even by the majority of those who most need it.

I think you are devaluing the power of the union movement.

You misunderstood what I was saying, because I was being too brief. I have been an enthusiastic and appreciative member of the Transport Workers Union for decades, and I fully support this adage: United we bargain, divided we beg. In light of this, please read the relevant bit again, paying particular attention to the underlined words.

I take your point that unionism, for a number of reasons, is not being adopted fully by the most vulnerable to exploitation. Part of the reason is a concerted demonisation of the union movement by sections of the media, something that I suspect you know only too well...

However, my point remains; with all its failings, it remains a vital bulwark against exploitation...

[JimC]

Check it out, two old guys fighting.

Two wise and experienced hominids having a rational discussion about meaningful issues...

Not really your cup of tea, I suppose...