11 Mar 15
Originally posted by WajomaI'm was what was commonly referred to as 'London Labor' , the term meant two things , the first you were a member of a unified working collective , the second and probably more important , a concept that you were not going to be pushed around.
What's missing is the idea that no-one owes you a job.
The power of London Labor was epitomised by the print workers ,but really embodied by all the London trades , if the conditions and wages and control (as important as wages and conditions) of the work wasn't right ,business could shove it, nothing got done.
My brother was a great chippy , he worked on the restoration of the Nash buildings in Regents Park, a proper carpenter proud of his work. On one job after a few weeks work the building company director refused to pay , the work wasn't good enough , it was partitioning , my brother could have done it blind fold . They gave them a week to pay ,then went on to the site with club hammers and smashed every piece of work they had done. By then the partitions had been plastered and painted , weeks of work destroyed. Nothing happened , no police , no civil action , the director was weak as piss , my brother was London Labor.
What was really important about London Labor was that the strong stood by the weak , that we all knew that some of us through no fault of our own are not quite up to surviving the dog eat dog , capitalist world . Some are fragile , no ego, born with dispositions that can't handle the cold and cruel. Empathy with your fellow man , no one left behind , that was our philosophy.
" What's missing is the idea that no-one owes you a job", your the cold and the cruel.
11 Mar 15
I think our American neoliberal friends see the employer - employee relationship as one of absolute arbitrary authority. We see the relationship as contractual and reciprocal. It is bounded by both formal and informal (social) expectations that require active maintenance.
The same applies to their neoliberal politics, which masquerade as freedom but assign absolute, unaccountable power to the few and serfdom to the rest. They are fascists.
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11 Mar 15
Originally posted by normbenignYou do realise all those Discovery "documentaries" are fully scripted and usually faked, don't you? Hint: there's also no Amish Mafia.
I watch and enjoy the Discovery channel show, Alaska, The Last Frontier. There several generations of the Kilcher family live and homestead land in Alaska with very much a subsistence lifestyle, including hunting, fishing, cultivating, all without limitations or subsidies from government.
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11 Mar 15
Originally posted by QuarlWhy do neo-conservative libertarians always see other people's opinions as either completely agreeing with them or the diametrical opposite? Don't you understand that wisdom lies in moderation?
What I see is tired, already tried for a century, regurgitated Marxist drivel. Marx and Engels saw society as two classes, as you do. Proletariats (workers) and Capitalists who employ the Proletariat class. They felt since the Capitalists owned the means of production, if a struggle were manufactured between the two, this would transform society and gain gover ...[text shortened]... e) ownership of all production, central economic planning and rule by a central political party.
In your description, a society can only be completely capitalist, or "socialist" - a word which you misunderstand as "Marxist to the full extent". Note that even Marx didn't believe that this would happen any time soon, and few people since have believed that such complete application of his theories would work at all, but no, if I don't subscribe fully to your corporatist, money-free-for-all cockaigne, you see me as insisting that we go the whole Marxist hog and kill all enterprise.
Meanwhile, out here in the civilised world, we see that there is a middle way. And the USA, right now, is tilted rather too far from that middle towards the corporatist, non-human extreme.
11 Mar 15
Originally posted by finnegancheck this pout, the power of the open source community spirit.
I think our American neoliberal friends see the employer - employee relationship as one of absolute arbitrary authority. We see the relationship as contractual and reciprocal. It is bounded by both formal and informal (social) expectations that require active maintenance.
The same applies to their neoliberal politics, which masquerade as freedom but assign absolute, unaccountable power to the few and serfdom to the rest. They are fascists.
lichess.org
But did you know we made it to the second most popular chess website?
That's right. lichess is more popular than fide.com. We outperform many websites that have invested tons of money. And all that without raising a single cent, therefore without needing to earn a single cent!
How do we do it? With an awesome community! Yes, that's you. Because lichess is free and respects you, you become contributors. You write code, you design interfaces, you make mobile apps, you write translations, you moderate the site.
Together we're making it to the top, and we prove our point to the world: the best things in life are free.
Thank you all!
isnt that beautiful? a valid and working testimony to the altruistic spirit of the open source community! Peace be upon them forever and ever amen.
11 Mar 15
Originally posted by jimmacYou indeed are missing a lot. There are plenty of places to work besides retrieving shopping carts at Walmart. In fact inside the corporate structure at that same corporation are a host of other positions that pay better than average for the type of services rendered. Nobody can expect to improve, or even keep up without specific effort to improve their skill sets, and seek out better employment. The great majority do so.
For a lot of people there is nowhere else to work,or am I missing something here.
11 Mar 15
Originally posted by Shallow BlueI do recognize that the film crews at the very least shoot hundreds of hours of tape, and edit it liberally. Some of the shows are recycled the next year, telling much the same story with different video.
You do realise all those Discovery "documentaries" are fully scripted and usually faked, don't you? Hint: there's also no Amish Mafia.
That doesn't mitigate the fact that there are some people who live that lifestyle, and are fine with the differences between it and urban life in the lower 48.
11 Mar 15
Originally posted by normbenignAh the smug confidence of the meritocracy. You need to remember that Michael Young's famous 1958 book, "The Rise of the Meritocracy" was a satire - and he wrote about that more recently (in 2001 to be exact):
You indeed are missing a lot. There are plenty of places to work besides retrieving shopping carts at Walmart. In fact inside the corporate structure at that same corporation are a host of other positions that pay better than average for the type of services rendered. Nobody can expect to improve, or even keep up without specific effort to improve their skill sets, and seek out better employment. The great majority do so.
I have been sadly disappointed by my 1958 book, The Rise of the Meritocracy. I coined a word which has gone into general circulation, especially in the United States, and most recently found a prominent place in the speeches of Mr Blair.
The book was a satire meant to be a warning (which needless to say has not been heeded) against what might happen to Britain between 1958 and the imagined final revolt against the meritocracy in 2033.
Underpinning my argument was a non-controversial historical analysis of what had been happening to society for more than a century before 1958, and most emphatically since the 1870s, when schooling was made compulsory and competitive entry to the civil service became the rule.
Until that time status was generally ascribed by birth. But irrespective of people's birth, status has gradually become more achievable.
It is good sense to appoint individual people to jobs on their merit. It is the opposite when those who are judged to have merit of a particular kind harden into a new social class without room in it for others.
In the new social environment, the rich and the powerful have been doing mighty well for themselves. They have been freed from the old kinds of criticism from people who had to be listened to. This once helped keep them in check ....http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment
The business meritocracy is in vogue. If meritocrats believe, as more and more of them are encouraged to, that their advancement comes from their own merits, they can feel they deserve whatever they can get.
They can be insufferably smug, much more so than the people who knew they had achieved advancement not on their own merit but because they were, as somebody's son or daughter, the beneficiaries of nepotism. The newcomers can actually believe they have morality on their side.
So assured have the elite become that there is almost no block on the rewards they arrogate to themselves. The old restraints of the business world have been lifted and, as the book also predicted, all manner of new ways for people to feather their own nests have been invented and exploited.
Salaries and fees have shot up. Generous share option schemes have proliferated. Top bonuses and golden handshakes have multiplied.
As a result, general inequality has been becoming more grievous with every year that passes, ...
11 Mar 15
Originally posted by finneganI think you assign attitudes to others that you hold yourself, and that's known as projection. I don't know a single American who sees the employer/employee relationship as you describe it. Most of us see it as contractual and reciprocal, governed by market rules.
I think our American neoliberal friends see the employer - employee relationship as one of absolute arbitrary authority. We see the relationship as contractual and reciprocal. It is bounded by both formal and informal (social) expectations that require active maintenance.
The same applies to their neoliberal politics, which masquerade as freedom but assign absolute, unaccountable power to the few and serfdom to the rest. They are fascists.
You tend to see it as monitored and controlled by government and government expectations, all very arbitrary and coercive both of employee and employer. Your expectations are Fascist, or worse.
11 Mar 15
Originally posted by finneganThere are plenty of writings critical of meritocracy, most of them, even those pretending to represent scholarship, being satire or fantasy.
Ah the smug confidence of the meritocracy. You need to remember that Michael Young's famous 1958 book, "The Rise of the Meritocracy" was a satire - and he wrote about that more recently (in 2001 to be exact):I have been sadly disappointed by my 1958 book, The Rise of the Meritocracy. I coined a word which has gone into general circulation, especi ...[text shortened]... with every year that passes, ...http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment
I can agree with many of you assertions, but together they don't add up to replacing capitalism with fascism, to any greater extent than has already been done, in which the faults of fascism are attributed to capitalism, and the suggested fixes are always more fascism, government control or mixing government with business.
11 Mar 15
Originally posted by crikey63Stating that no-one owes you a job makes a person 'cruel' in your book?
I'm was what was commonly referred to as 'London Labor' , the term meant two things , the first you were a member of a unified working collective , the second and probably more important , a concept that you were not going to be pushed around.
The power of London Labor was epitomised by the print workers ,but really embodied by all the London trades , if ...[text shortened]... losophy.
" What's missing is the idea that no-one owes you a job", your the cold and the cruel.
Then you disagree with the statement?
Alright then why don't you tell us specifically who does owe you a job and don't try that old cop out 'society',
Which persons within society, specifically, owe you a job?
Of course no-one has suggested that the 'great chippy' should have money that is due to him withheld, that is an entirely different subject.
11 Mar 15
Originally posted by WajomaWhat's assbackwards, is the notion that the evil persons are those who provide work and paychecks, not enough of them or at high enough pay apparently. The persons making those accusations are doing exactly zero to create the jobs and pay they say are "deserved" and not given.
Stating that no-one owes you a job makes a person 'cruel' in your book?
Then you disagree with the statement?
Alright then why don't you tell us specifically who does owe you a job and don't try that old cop out 'society',
Which persons within society, specifically, owe you a job?
Of course no-one has suggested that the 'great chippy' should have money that is due to him withheld, that is an entirely different subject.
If they truly believed their rhetoric, they might try borrowing money to start an enterprise that would create those high paying jobs, based on their altruistic desires.
11 Mar 15
Originally posted by normbenignI respond to the attitudes expressed. If you wish to qualify them and insert more reasonable opinions in their place, that is fine by me.
I think you assign attitudes to others that you hold yourself, and that's known as projection. I don't know a single American who sees the employer/employee relationship as you describe it. Most of us see it as contractual and reciprocal, governed by market rules.
You tend to see it as monitored and controlled by government and government expectation ...[text shortened]... arbitrary and coercive both of employee and employer. Your expectations are Fascist, or worse.
Your understanding of Fascism and mine differ greatly. I suppose we need a definition to start with such as:
Fascism is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism[1][2] that came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. Influenced by national syndicalism, fascism originated in Italy during World War I, combining more typically right-wing positions with elements of left-wing politics,[3] in opposition to liberalism, Marxism, and traditional conservatism. Although fascism is often placed on the far-right within the traditional left–right spectrum, several academics have said that the description is inadequate.
Key indicators in my opinion are excessive nationalism and hatred of democracy, alongside an alliance of authoritarian government with the leaders and interests of big business. I agree there are (or have been) comparable attitudes in authoritarian communist states. In many ways, the authoritarian left and right seem to overlap, making the left-right labels unhelpful in some contexts and for example explaining the transition from communism in Russia to something very like Fascism there. But although they are comparable in some respects, Fascism is different to communism and it is unhelpful to confuse the two concepts. It is also inadequate to confuse the Fascist corporate state (or national syndicalism) with a socialist model - the concepts are radically different and diametrically opposed.
11 Mar 15
Originally posted by finneganThe only system which clearly differentiates itself from either communism or fascism is laissez faire capitalism and private property.
I respond to the attitudes expressed. If you wish to qualify them and insert more reasonable opinions in their place, that is fine by me.
Your understanding of Fascism and mine differ greatly. I suppose we need a definition to start with such as:
[quote]Fascism is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism[1][2] that came to prominence in early 20th-c ...[text shortened]... calism) with a socialist model - the concepts are radically different and diametrically opposed.
All forms of collectivism differ in the details, and so confuse the definitions and arguments. They all involve seeing the collective over the individual.
Democracy utilized in small doses can be good, but if allowed freedom can and probably will disenfranchise nearly half of the population. I agree entirely, on the overlap of the authoritarian left and right.
The only system that doesn't overlap is that of a narrowly limited government, protecting against aggression, and enforcing valid contracts. Is this a utopia? No, for as long as humans are in charge, there will be oversights intentional and accidental. No amount of authority or coercion can correct this.
12 Mar 15
Originally posted by whodeyWell put. I remember reading that old book "none dare call it conspiracy" and they claimed the Rockefellers and other wealthy robberbarons wanted the income tax because they would have tax shelters set up so they would not pay the new taxes. This is still going on today. Not only do some corporations pay no taxes, according to Bernie Sanders some get refunds.
This is because human nature is fundamentally flawed.
If socialism has taught us anything, it is that government can't run big business, let alone most of anything else. Government is the type of institution that can't get a web site up and running for a takeover of health care, and then passes regulations taking over the internet, all in one breath.
E ...[text shortened]... he corporate media feeds them.
It's a sick game really, but it helps to know how things work.
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/top-10-corporate-tax-avoiders
Now that the elites own the Federal Reserve System they create inflation which lowers the minimum wage without people noticing. The squeeze was so successful they had to subsidize the financial burden of parents that raise kids with the Earned Income Credit so parents don't go postal on their government and/or the FRS. Now it is mostly people without children who get squeezed more. Everyone is getting squeezed though. They just found ways to squeeze the people that could take a good squeezing the most. It is still cheaper than raising minimum wage with inflation.
It is not surprising the the gap between the rich and poor is as wide as it is.