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Why does society veer to the 'right'?


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Old 30-12-2016, 16:47
GreatGodPan
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Really? [1]By what measure? Are you saying that for most companies profit outweighs staff costs? Don't think that's been true anywhere I've worked


[2]
What means of production are being denied to the masses? You think we'd all be happily working at T'mill if it was just publicly owned?


I bought my means of production on amazon
1. A worker is employed purely to make profit for his/her employer. It is they that create the bosses' profit, and are generally paid the lowest that the employer can get away with, whilst being able to retain the staff with the necessary skills they need.

2, The means of production are not owned by the masses - it is the latter who are employed by the owners. If the MoP were owned by all we wouldn't have capitalism, would we?
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Old 30-12-2016, 16:53
Maxatoria
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1. A worker is employed purely to make profit for his/her employer. It is they that create the bosses' profit, and are generally paid the lowest that the employer can get away with, whilst being able to retain the staff with the necessary skills they need.

2, The means of production are not owned by the masses - it is the latter who are employed by the owners. If the MoP were owned by all we wouldn't have capitalism, would we?
Where would the motivation be to invent something better be in a wonderful pure socialist world of the people? if we have a tractor that can do the job why look for anything better.
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Old 30-12-2016, 16:57
GreatGodPan
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[1]There are mutual obligations between an employer and employee. - these are far more than you do work and get paid. (since all contracts are like that).



[2]Love the jargon - in practice however this means little and the average worker has no more benefit from those industries which are 'socially' (state) owned than they did when they were privately owned.



At one point it was the aristocracy that were the beneficiaries under the Feudal system - [3]then when the Agricultural Revolution it was the landed Gentry - the capitalists after the Industrial Revolution.

[4]We are now on the cusp of another revolution and this will broaden those who benefit from the system so that most if not all can benefit, it is just that most choose not to.
1. An employee has to work to live - many employers have the riches so they don't have to.

2. You still can't get your head round the fact that social ownership doesn't automatically mean state ownership, can you?

3. The beginnings of capitalism in this country started before that - an early manifestation was the civil war of the 17th century, which laid the foundations for its subsequent growth.

4. What is this "choice" you speak of? Is this your notion that all can be capitalists? They can't.
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Old 30-12-2016, 17:04
GreatGodPan
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Where would the motivation be to invent something better be in a wonderful pure socialist world of the people? if we have a tractor that can do the job why look for anything better.
I don't know what you mean by a "pure socialist world" - socialism is a transitory period between capitalism and communism.

As for motivation, why is the private profit motive the only driver of man's aspiration for betterment? It only produces what makes a profit - often in the short term, with built in obsolescence. The idea that man won't want to improve the lot of society just because a minority of people aren't making vast sums of money is absurd.

There's a hell of a lot of private tractor firms out there...............
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Old 30-12-2016, 17:04
paulschapman
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1. An employee has to work to live - many employers have the riches so they don't have to.
That may have been true when Marx wrote Das Kapital but most employers are not that cash rich.

2. You still can't get your head round the fact that social ownership doesn't automatically mean state ownership, can you?
I'm talking in practice, not in theory

4. What is this "choice" you speak of? Is this your notion that all can be capitalists? They can't.
What is stopping them (other than a lack of desire).

As I have said many times before - we are looking at a fundamental change in the way our economy is going to work - that is going to see a change in very many of the ways our current economy woks; including but not limited to tax, benefits, and employment practices.
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Old 30-12-2016, 17:33
platelet
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1. A worker is employed purely to make profit for his/her employer. It is they that create the bosses' profit, and are generally paid the lowest that the employer can get away with, whilst being able to retain the staff with the necessary skills they need.
Nope, I don't see how that relates to the employer benefiting the most

2, The means of production are not owned by the masses - it is the latter who are employed by the owners. If the MoP were owned by all we wouldn't have capitalism, would we?
Again - what means of production?
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Old 30-12-2016, 18:59
GreatGodPan
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That may have been true when Marx wrote Das Kapital but most employers are not that cash rich.


[1]
I'm talking in practice, not in theory




[2]What is stopping them (other than a lack of desire).

As I have said many times before - we are looking at a fundamental change in the way our economy is going to work - that is going to see a change in very many of the ways our current economy woks; including but not limited to tax, benefits, and employment practices.
1. What do you mean? As we have never attempted to have a socialist society in this country we wouldn't have undertaken all measures to socialise the ownership of the means of production, would we?

Nationalising a handful of major industries/infrastructure etc within a capitalist framework is not socialism.

2. Everybody can't become employers! Where are the people who are going to actually make the goods/harvest the crops/build the houses to come from?

And how can capitalism "fundamentally change" when it is dependent on the profit motive and employing the labour of others?
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Old 30-12-2016, 19:03
GreatGodPan
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[1]Nope, I don't see how that relates to the employer benefiting the most



Again -[2] what means of production?
1. Oh so what motivates a group of investors to set up a company then? Do you think they do it just to give some workers a job?

2. Sorry, are you saying you don't know what the means of production are?
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Old 30-12-2016, 19:05
CRM
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Society only veers to the right after it has veered too far to the left.
It's just a correction mechanism which works both ways and keeps us roughly on the centre path.
With all due respect, total BS.

You'll have to remind me when this country veered too far to the left in recent years.

Centre politics is right wing and has been for some time, enabled by a pretty much wholly complicit media.

I roll my eyes when I see idiots on this forum seeing being left wing or socialist as a bad thing.
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Old 30-12-2016, 19:16
platelet
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1. Oh so what motivates a group of investors to set up a company then? Do you think they do it just to give some workers a job?
You claimed "In most cases it is the employer who benefits the most from a worker's efforts." I was curious if you had any actual evidence that that was the case.

I've never denied the employers benefit - I'm just curious where you draw your stats from to conclude that they benefit more than their employees

2. Sorry, are you saying you don't know what the means of production are?
Afraid not, I have no idea what you are talking about, that's why I asked. The only references I can find to it seem entirely obsolete

Last edited by platelet : 30-12-2016 at 19:18. Reason: typo
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Old 30-12-2016, 19:22
CSJB
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With all due respect, total BS.

You'll have to remind me when this country veered too far to the left in recent years.

Centre politics is right wing and has been for some time, enabled by a pretty much wholly complicit media.

I roll my eyes when I see idiots on this forum seeing being left wing or socialist as a bad thing.
The centre ground by definition cannot be right wing, it's in the centre

Did you get your political knowledge from the same place as GGP, whereby everything is right wing, apart from the form of socialism that has only ever existed in the pages of das kapital ?
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Old 30-12-2016, 19:27
GreatGodPan
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You claimed "In most cases it is the employer who benefits the most from a worker's efforts." I was curious if you had any actual evidence that that was the case.

I've never denied the employers benefit - [1}I'm just curious where you draw your stats from to conclude that they benefit more than the employees


[2]
I have no idea what you are talking about, that's why I asked
1. Stats? Surely you aren't implying that the remuneration enjoyed by employers is on a par with that of the workers? Does Bill Gates earn a similar amount to a receptionist at one of his buildings?

Anyway, due to the surplus value that a worker's labour adds to the productive process an employee will always lose out.

2. You originally asked what means of production are being denied to the masses. In a capitalist system only the few can own the MoP - if all owned them it wouldn't be capitalism.

You then asked "What means of production", which threw me for a minute - hence my question asking you do you know what they are in the first place.

If you do, could you clarify the meaning behind your question please?
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Old 30-12-2016, 19:32
GreatGodPan
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The centre ground by definition cannot be right wing, it's in the centre

Did you get your political knowledge from the same place as GGP, whereby everything is right wing, apart from the form of socialism that has only ever existed in the pages of das kapital ?
Nonsense. If the UK was dominated by the BNP and UKIP where would this centre ground be then?

As for the comment about Marx, I haven't read him in any depth for about 45 years - and there are many interpretations of socialism.
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Old 30-12-2016, 19:43
GibsonSG
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A friend who is a Socialist (he works for and sells the Socialist Worker) has often given me that scenario as an argument. He maintains that our natural instinct is to share what we have and not be selfish.

I don't hold Socialism "up as the source of all evil". I believe that the majority of people believe in Democratic Socialism, it's just how much of it we're prepared to accept at any given time.

Socialism (or a form of it) will survive and evolve into the systems we use to organise society eventually, however, pretending it has all the answers is as folly as pretending that Capitalism has them too.

It does seem though that Capitalism provides the means to create the wealth necessary to be able to provide Socialism.
Interesting, I happen to agree as it happens. The sad fact of life is that socialism in it's pure form cannot exist.
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Old 30-12-2016, 19:59
CRM
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The centre ground by definition cannot be right wing, it's in the centre

Did you get your political knowledge from the same place as GGP, whereby everything is right wing, apart from the form of socialism that has only ever existed in the pages of das kapital ?
Your lack of awareness is stunning.
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Old 30-12-2016, 20:25
CSJB
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Nonsense. If the UK was dominated by the BNP and UKIP where would this centre ground be then?

As for the comment about Marx, I haven't read him in any depth for about 45 years - and there are many interpretations of socialism.
It would be where it's always been - at the centre, between left and right.
New labour moved towards the centre, the centre didn't move across towards labour.

Current political fads have no bearing on the centre ground, the BNP will always be far right (socially at least) and UKIP will always be right (unless they use their brains and move towards the centre).

Many different interpretations of socialism ?
Classic stuff
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Old 30-12-2016, 21:14
platelet
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1. Stats? Surely you aren't implying that the remuneration enjoyed by employers is on a par with that of the workers? Does Bill Gates earn a similar amount to a receptionist at one of his buildings?
My apologies I mis-read your post as workers rather than worker's. Yes it's of course normal that an employer will be earning more than an individual employee. Bill's wage bill of course was for substantially more than one receptionist (hence my erroneous argument)

2. You originally asked what means of production are being denied to the masses. In a capitalist system only the few can own the MoP - if all owned them it wouldn't be capitalism.

You then asked "What means of production", which threw me for a minute - hence my question asking you do you know what they are in the first place.

If you do, could you clarify the meaning behind your question please?
Still struggling to see what you are talking about with this one

I'll try it another way. If Bill's receptionist wants to start selling software how do you perceive they're being held back from doing so?
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Old 30-12-2016, 21:49
Maxatoria
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I don't know what you mean by a "pure socialist world" - socialism is a transitory period between capitalism and communism.

As for motivation, why is the private profit motive the only driver of man's aspiration for betterment? It only produces what makes a profit - often in the short term, with built in obsolescence. The idea that man won't want to improve the lot of society just because a minority of people aren't making vast sums of money is absurd.

There's a hell of a lot of private tractor firms out there...............
Mainly because getting a better tractor makes them money or they're just in the USSR/North Korea using knock offs....its easier to have a perfect state if you can just copy everyone elses development.

But why would I as a tractor driver bother to probably have to spend the effort to the central command of the system that if they made the gear leaver 2 inches higher it could improve production by 5% as they'd know someone in the higher echelons would nick it and get the credit.

and the word private with socialism thats surely like matter and anti-matter in theory as the production of the tractors would be done by the collective.
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Old 31-12-2016, 10:14
GreatGodPan
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It would be where it's always been - at the centre, between left and right.
New labour moved towards the centre, the centre didn't move across towards labour.

Current political fads have no bearing on the centre ground, the BNP will always be far right (socially at least) and UKIP will always be right (unless they use their brains and move towards the centre).

Many different interpretations of socialism ?
Classic stuf
f
Of course! How can you not know that? For starters there's Marxism-Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, syndicalism, libertarian socialism etc etc.

"Although there are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them,[13] social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms.[5][14][15]"
(Wiki)

Aren't you aware that socialists often spend more time vehemently arguing amongst themselves regarding the right path to follow rather than arguing with their enemies?

As for your version of the "centre" my point (which you don't seem to have grasped) is that if the whole political climate of a state moved to the right the "centre" would move too, wouldn't it? It wouldn't stay where it was before the shift!
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Old 31-12-2016, 10:21
GreatGodPan
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My apologies I mis-read your post as workers rather than worker's. Yes it's of course normal that an employer will be earning more than an individual employee. Bill's wage bill of course was for substantially more than one receptionist (hence my erroneous argument)


Still struggling to see what you are talking about with this one

I'll try it another way. If Bill's receptionist wants to start selling software how do you perceive they're being held back from doing so?
My point is not everyone can become a capitalist. The system is dependent on workers to produce goods and supply services to make the profit for those capitalists.

Would the receptionist build their own house, make their own clothes, grow their own food, maintain the roads etc etc? Where does the raw material come from for the receptionist's business ? Who makes their computer? And there would be no places like Amazon of course as there would be no workers available to them - they would all be off trying to be capitalists.

In short, it wouldn't work.
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Old 31-12-2016, 10:23
CSJB
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Of course! How can you not know that? For starters there's Marxism-Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, syndicalism, libertarian socialism etc etc.

"Although there are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them,[13] social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms.[5][14][15]"
(Wiki)

Aren't you aware that socialists often spend more time vehemently arguing amongst themselves regarding the right path to follow rather than arguing with their enemies?

As for your version of the "centre" my point (which you don't seem to have grasped) is that if the whole political climate of a state moved to the right the "centre" would move too, wouldn't it? It wouldn't stay where it was before the shift!
So, just to be clear, are you finally admitting that the tens of millions of deaths caused by Stalin and Mao were just a side effect of socialism ?

The whole political spectrum will never completely move to the right or the left, there will always be the small hardcore of extremists banging their drums of the left and right.
Just because popular opinion moves to the centre right or centre left means nothing.
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Old 31-12-2016, 10:35
GreatGodPan
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[1]So, just to be clear, are you finally admitting that the tens of millions of deaths caused by Stalin and Mao were just a side effect of socialism ?
[2]
The whole political spectrum will never completely move to the right or the left
, there will always be the small hardcore of extremists banging their drums of the left and right.
Just because popular opinion moves to the centre right or centre left means nothing.
1. Sorry, what do you mean, "side effect"? Stalin had his brand of socialism and Mao had his - neither of which I have ever subscribed to.

2. So what if the likes of Marine le Pen was elected as French president? Or the Dutch far Right become the major party? Are you saying the political centre would be in exacly the same place as it was before?
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Old 01-01-2017, 15:09
paulschapman
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My point is not everyone can become a capitalist. The system is dependent on workers to produce goods and supply services to make the profit for those capitalists.
Those things will still be required under any other system. The point I have often tried to make to you is that we are on the cusp of a disruptive change - much as we did during the agricultural and industrial revolutions.

In this particular case changes in technology and communications is such that many low level jobs are going to be replaced - and many business models will over turned (I can see the potentially large changes in the personal transport business - cars).

Because so many low skilled jobs are going to be replaced it is going to mean that these people are going to need to find income sources that are not based on benefits or working for other people. That means creating something - and if it requires a large amount of money there are things like Funding Circle, Patreon, Indigogo and Kickstarter.

Because as Simone Gertz says in this video - if something interests you - then it interests someone else - modern communications mean you can find those people - not only that but you can find those who can contribute there own skills to achieve what you want and you do not need a Venture Capitalist to do it. Low cost manufacturing is going to make that a lot easier.
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Old 01-01-2017, 16:05
GreatGodPan
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Those things will still be required under any other system. The point I have often tried to make to you is that we are on the cusp of a disruptive change - much as we did during the agricultural and industrial revolutions.

In this particular case changes in technology and communications is such that many low level jobs are going to be replaced - and many business models will over turned (I can see the potentially large changes in the personal transport business - cars).

Because so many low skilled jobs are going to be replaced it is going to mean that these people are going to need to find income sources that are not based on benefits or working for other people. That means creating something - and if it requires a large amount of money there are things like Funding Circle, Patreon, Indigogo and Kickstarter.

Because as Simone Gertz says in this video - if something interests you - then it interests someone else - modern communications mean you can find those people - not only that but you can find those who can contribute there own skills to achieve what you want and you do not need a Venture Capitalist to do it. Low cost manufacturing is going to make that a lot easier.
Yes, I know your views on the Brave New World that is about to dawn paul.

It puts me in mind of some progressives at the end of the 19th century, men like Wells, who thought much the same then.

It never happened and it won't happen now.

Technology will merely create new ways for capitalism to operate - labour intensive industries will still be there, like farming, house building, road building/repairing etc.

Happy New Year!
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Old 01-01-2017, 20:27
paulschapman
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Yes, I know your views on the Brave New World that is about to dawn paul.

It puts me in mind of some progressives at the end of the 19th century, men like Wells, who thought much the same then.
H. G. Wells was a socialist

It never happened and it won't happen now.
What we still live in Feudalism? If technology change broke down one system - there is no reason not to suspect it will not again.


Technology will merely create new ways for capitalism to operate - labour intensive industries will still be there, like farming, house building, road building/repairing etc.
In the last 250 years employment in Agriculture has gone from 99% of the population to 2%. Employment in manufacturing is somewhere around 10% having previously been the largest area of employment in this country.

BMWs latest factory has a record low number of people working.

Someone has already managed to 3d print a house! (See http://www.wired.co.uk/article/giant...-builds-houses).

Change is happening - but you will not see the a socialist society - it just plain does not work. Nor is there any reason to suspect that this mythical socialist society will suddenly change to some enlightened communist society. Socialism despite the claims of it's supporters has never managed to make countries equal - not Marxism, Maoism, Stalinism or any other ism version of it.
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