The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Responding to Chris Bowen on Labor's 'Socialist Objective' > Comments

Responding to Chris Bowen on Labor's 'Socialist Objective' : Comments

By Tristan Ewins, published 10/7/2015

In a recent Fabian Pamphlet ('What is Labor's Objective?) Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen makes his case against the existing Socialist Objective of the Australian Labor Party.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. All
Yarble-yarp.

Tristan, unless and until you understand the economic calculation argument, you are only demonstrating that you don't understand what you're talking about.

I've explained this to you before, so now you're only demonstrating that you don't care that what you say is untrue.

Anyone can write an article based on mindless slogans. All I have to do is say that what you propose would be unequal, discriminatory and exploitative, and you are hoist with your own petard.

Your claim that socialism is more physically productive than capitalism is just too stupid for words, as is your claim that it has to be forced at gunpoint onto people who benefit from it.

Actually *think* before writing an article, don't just yabble slogans.
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Friday, 10 July 2015 9:35:30 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JKJ I suggest you read 'Governomics' by Miriam Lyons and Ian McAuley. Therein they explain the role of government in stabilisation, distribution and allocation. Hence government intervention with fiscal and monetary policy - but also through the social wage and welfare. Allocation is also a rarely observed point - as it concerns countering the waste and corruption that arises with 'laissez faire'. Hence strategic socialisation re: natural monopolies and competitive government business enterprises etc.

The point is that capitalism fails and markets fail regardless of Ideology. Lyons and McAuley make it clear that its not necessarily just socialists who realise this. But these arguments are useful for socialists too.

But market failure goes deeper than most modern day social democrats realise. If you include distributive problems as a form of 'market failure' themselves.

I try and address these issues in the article - and it is much more than 'mere sloganeering.' PLS engage with the arguments. :-)
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Friday, 10 July 2015 10:29:22 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Thanks for the article Tristan. I enjoyed reading it.

I doubt the ALP left will defend the Socialist objective (which of course no Labor government has ever carried out anyway.)

The Left in the ALP is a poor shadow of what it used to be, as the debate it is having over accepting boat turn backs shows.

My own analysis of the ALP, as you would know, is that it has moved from being a capitlaist workers' party to a CAPITALIST workers' party on the road to being a Capitalist party.

Bowen's moves are part of that shift. My own view is that socialists should be in radical and revolutionary organisations like the small one I am a member of - Solidarity (http://www.solidarity.net.au/). There are other groups in Australia socialists could look at.

In part I think this is because there is no Parliamentary road to socialism. Rather there has to be a democratic road to socialism, namely workers setting up their own organs of political and economic governance to organsise production to satisfy human need.

We don't have to look back into history to find the failure time and time again of the project you are arguing for. Today, in my humble opinion, the idea of a mixed democratic economy has died on the shoals of austerity in Greece.

Democracy in the workplace challenges the rule of the boss and the extraction of surplus value from workers, the very exploitative essence of capitalism. Socialists should be about destroying that exploitaiton at the heart of capitalism, in other words capitalism itself, not accepting it.

I know that most socialists in the ALP today reject my approach, today. Events will determine who is correct. Again I look to Greece. The mobilised working class there, if that happens, has the potential to challenge austerity and with it the rule of capital. We shall see. I hope there is a time in the future when socialists in the ALP join with people like me and a mobilising Australian working class fighting tooth and nail for socialism.
Posted by Passy, Friday, 10 July 2015 11:30:14 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Some things just do not go out of date! Like integrity in public officials.

We the people are not numbers in some ledger and or slaves to an economy!

Extreme capitalism and its alter ego extreme socialism need to be replaced with cooperative capitalism!

Cooperative capitalism would have seen Qantas turned into an employee owned co-op?

And most essential service either turned into competing for market share duopolies or employee owned co-ops rather than privatized!

And a possible solution for Ford, Holden, Australian ship and sub building, finally forced to stand on their own hind legs compete in the real world. As opposed to simply jettisoning our remaining manufacturing base and with it any semble of defense self reliance!

Always providing their endevour is supported by the cheapest possible power!

Given it is the power bill that destroys energy dependant enterprise not comparable wages?

Good ideas should never ever be rejected because they come from the wrong side of politics!

Seriously, some politicians become engaged in the endless sport of bagging the other side to the point where they lose sight of why they got into politics in the first place, allegedly to make a difference?

The so called "socialist objective" is just not a dry economic argument about big brother; and or, we know best elitist control, it's about real people who could follow Greece in a heartbeat if textbook reading numbskulls get their hopelessly incompetent paws on the levers of the economy!

People should get a real job in the real economy before they try politics; but only if they genuinely care about real people and real outcomes.

Labor has had a few turns in office in recent years yet we still have the highest median house prices in the english speaking world, and yes that has made a difference just not a good one, ditto more than a thousand homeless!

God save us from economic theorists!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Friday, 10 July 2015 11:54:09 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The inflated property market actually suggests the usefulness of a big investment in public and social housing,. If done on a large-enough scale it could provide a correction by increasing supply. Invest perhaps $10 billion - perhaps much more. Whatever will do the job.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Friday, 10 July 2015 11:57:47 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The socialist label came from unions fighting for across the board wage rises, and that was seen to be socialist from employer and liberal pollatitions. So nothing has changed and no change needs to take place.
Posted by doog, Friday, 10 July 2015 1:47:56 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan Ewins,

Governments have long been moving out of the supply and management of public housing because it is a bottomless pit for which there are never enough tax dollars.

Even partnership with government is a certain recipe for cost and time over-run. Government cannot manage welfare housing because to be blunt, its clientele see the housing as all care and no responsibility. Very little care either.

What government is doing through the tenancy authorities is regulating the smaller investors who provide much of the welfare housing out of business.

Rental housing is far too high risk and too little return for larger investors, with rental tribunals who regard landlords as always wealthy and without needing any rights. Anyone who doubts that can check tribunal rulings on (say) damage to electronic items and to kitchen cupboards. Very short life items apparently. What about 'wear and tear' where carpets are concerned? :(

It would be very, very easy indeed for government to provoke a run of investment away from owning rental property. That wouldn't matter to foolish leftists who believe in State control. However their joy would be very short-lived at the immediate consequences of a retreat of investors, especially smaller investors. It would be nigh impossible to attract them back, because the tradition of 'investing'(sic) in rental hosuing is based on myths from the Fifties. The grandparents who divided bigger homes to make money from basic, practical, low-finish and low-appliance (ie low maintenance) flats are gone, as is the demand for them.

Regarding socialism, Labor Leader Shorten, a sly, cynical operator if there ever was one, has in been counselling Labor to drop the references to socialism, while maintaining the objective of International Socialism as the iceberg below. That would be in the tradition of the Fabians aka International Socialists aka 'Progressives', who describe themselves as the 'Wolves in Sheep's Clothing'.
Posted by onthebeach, Friday, 10 July 2015 2:10:46 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Public housing is totally immoral.

It is just another way of taking money from those who earned it, & giving it to the bludgers to spend at the pub or the bookies.
Posted by Hasbeen, Friday, 10 July 2015 4:34:45 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan

A few points for both you and Bowen. (1) The Objective is Clauses 2 and 3 together - that's where all the detail comes. (2) Do not equate "socialism" with Marxist "scientific socialism" - Labor is socialist in its pre-Marxist sense, the tradition perpetuated by Fabianism. (3) You cannot call distributive imbalance a market failure because that is how markets work.

My own response to Bowen was here http://www.challengemagazine.com.au/labor_s_values_and_objective

I've separately written for Rodney Cavalier's Southern Highlands Branch Newsletter on the economic narrative, markets, public enterprise and efficiency versus equity. Not (yet) online.

More recently I contributed my own thoughts on the Party's inability to deal with a genuine party discussion on our objective - the result being that Luke Foley is going to do Bowen's dirty work in trying to write a meaningless objective. See http://www.davidhavyatt.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/why-is-party-discussion-so-hard-for-alp.htm
Posted by David Havyatt, Friday, 10 July 2015 4:37:03 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
David, Thankyou for your comments.

I think it would be wrong to describe Labor's socialism as either 'purely Fabian' or "Purely Marxist'. Personally I prefer a mix. I believe in guiding policy gradually through government - through influencing politicians and other public figures through intellectual and cultural engagement - with the ultimate consequence of qualitative change. But I also agree with a great deal of Marxist analysis. And I was personally strongly influenced by Marxism before I joined the Fabian Society. As a Marxist - or perhaps today a Post-Marxist - I believe in class struggle and not just 'changing the world behind peoples' backs'. We have to take people with us through struggle as well. And many of the fundamentals of Marxist analysis and values continue to apply as well. Ameliorating the division of labour - empowering people to partake of culture, philosophy, science and art; Doing away with exploitation and the abuse of market power; dealing with the waste, unjust distribution and instability of capitalism... Extending democratic rights and institutions... All part of the Marxist traditions. (if you exclude Stalinism)

I'm going to read your article now too. Will post here again to let you know what I think. :)
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Friday, 10 July 2015 5:37:05 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Socialisation means different things to different people. There is the sense in which you say - 'making relations social' - which were observed by Marx as well. Its also useful to see socialisation as involving democratic ownership and control of enterprise, infrastructure, services - which can occur either through public ownership, or through co-operatives or mutualism; or through collective capital formation, co-determination etc. 'Socialisation' AS AN OBJECTIVE - has limited use for us unless it is connected with democratisation.

The problem arises with that term 'exploitaiton' - whether or not we accept a Marxist definition. I think both Marxist and non-Marxist definitions are legitimate in different ways.

You sound like you're better read on Labor Party history than I am. But as I argue I think recognition of the plural nature of the Labor Party is valid. And we have never been anything like a Marxist-dominated social democratic party after the way of the original social democratic parties of Europe. (though anarchism and humanist socialism were strong in Spain, France)

But neither has Labor been 'purely labourist'. We have been influenced by the European social democratic traditions so deeply marked by Marxism. We've always been "a melting pot" of democratic socialist and social democratic ideologies ; and probably influenced by Catholicist social-Centrism as well. Though its impossible to deny that more recently - since the 1980s - we've been 'emptying out' the practice and consciousness of democratic socialism. That makes us vulnerably to 'being swallowed up' by the dominant Ideological Liberalism.

You're right that there's a problem with Doug Cameron's inference the Objective shouldn't be viewed as an issue because it barely influences our discourse... With Marx I think we need to be open about our politics and our objectives. Again: we can't change society behind peoples' backs.

You're right that class consciousness is important; and its damaging for us that it is fading. Another reason why we need to contest the Ideology that "the bosses know best" and replace it with an agenda of economic democracy.

Still reading your article; Will add more later...
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Friday, 10 July 2015 6:13:06 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
TE: "The inflated property market actually suggests the usefulness of a big investment in public and social housing"

Tristan, the inflated property market actually confirms the destructiveness of an economy run by and for merchant banking speculators. This is hardly some new phenomenon.

Your monetarist "cure" - more a placebo - by pumping more funny money actually suggests just why you cannot justify your claims to offer a genuine alternative. It would simply fuel more debt and speculation to a system controlled by private banks!

Tristan, check your history: FDR's government overcame the bankers' Depression, then managed to win World War 2 as the materially strongest power on Earth (the USSR was arguably the strongest in sheer sacrificial spirit). FDR's achievement was largely due to banning the speculators from the USA's commercial banking sector, while running mass infrastructure projects for the whole economy instead of the usual liberalist fashion of doling out payola schemes to financier bosses.

Fabianism is a fraud of fake "leftism"; it just betrays the people as its "wolf-in-sheep's clothing" symbol suggests.
Posted by mil.observer, Friday, 10 July 2015 9:16:12 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan

I am engaging with the arguments. It's you who's not.

You don't understand the first thing about economics, and neither does Passy. Your referring me to economic texts assumes you understand anything about economics, but you're showing from your article that you don't. You're contradicting yourself over and over and over and over and over again. Only a complete fool like you
a) wouldn't notice it, and
b) doesn't care when it's brought to your attention!

I've already explained why, and yet you don't understand, and don't care.

What you are advocating is unequal, discriminatory and oppressive. So even according to your own standard, you are wrong and making things worse.

Only *after* you have understood the economic calculation argument will you understand what you're talking about.

You don't understand it, do you? Just admit it. If you say you do understand it, what is it?

Since you are not interested in having a discussion, why do you keep writing these stupid articles? You contradict yourself, and when it's pointed out, you don't care that what you're saying doesn't make sense. You just keep repeating your yarble-yarp, as if you, of all people, knew better than everyone else in the world what their values should be. What a joke
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Saturday, 11 July 2015 2:58:40 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Passy, you have no interest in the truth, all you want to do is give the ruling class more power, and your ideology is just a mask for class interests.
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Saturday, 11 July 2015 3:04:20 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JKJ it's common for neo-liberals to suppose they have a monopoly of economic wisdom, and then wrap up their assumptions as 'science'. But the kind of arguments I'm making were common during the post-war period. (ie: ideas of market failure, and the need for an interventionist state and mixed economy to redress that) What's changed is academic fashion, and the (false) sense that the Left's traditional project was finished with the collapse of the USSR.

Also since the 1970 there was a move to restore profits ofter the Oil Shocks. The United States' drift leftward shows that is not true, though, that this leaves us with no choice but neo-liberalism. And the Scandinavians show that (even though their Social Democratic model is in slow retreat) it nonetheless remains workable. The problem is where right-wing economists try and wrap their prejudices up as science - when political economy is about VALUES and PRIORITIES as well.

I assume what you mean when you say I 'contradict myself' is that I reserve a place both for the market and for intervention and the public sector. But in fact market and state ARE complementary if organised properly.

There's no need to go to one extreme (command economy) or the other (neo-liberal, laissez faire). Natural public monopolies mean more efficient cost structures - including for capitalist enterprise. A fairer distribution of wealth means a more steady base of consumption. Government business enterprises can actually enhance competition given the right charter. And markets - while very useful, and promoting innovation in many fields - don't provide for ALL needs.

Finally this (OLO) is a pluralist forum and that's the way it should be. The problem with today's Conservatives is that (mostly) they don't really believe in pluralism; They tend to work to shut down debate and silence rivals. Abbott and co are authoritarians pure and simple.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Saturday, 11 July 2015 11:05:58 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Housing supply would increase if negative gearing were exclusively limited to brand new housing, for limited terms.

Which could be rendered free of the cascading GST or stamp duties, which the GST was supposed to eliminate!

State governments could help by freeing up privately held urban land supply, which should only remain rezoned for around 12 months to ensure it was developed rather than sat on as some sort of, the world owes us a living money for nothing land bank!

The overdue roll out of rapid rail would also assist, particularly if some of the resumed and then rezoned land was resold on the open market to in effect pay for the roll out!

Thus creating new satellite cities at appropriate station stops where passengers could embark or disembark thus creating a ready made market for the service.

These new cities should nonetheless be mostly self sufficient with their own CBD's and industrial estates. Which would prevent them becoming just dormitory suburbs onlyand thus adding to the current gridlock?

From where I sit the socialist objective/set in concrete mindsett, seems very much like the british disease and the subsequent pricing ourselves out of the market followed by the exodus of our manufacturing base!

If your lot understood economics as JKJ alleges none of this would have occurred nor the privatisation of our power stations which was all that made it economic to manufacture in this country once the tariff barriers tumbled down?

The resisted co-ops were the only free market private enterprise model that largely survived the Great Depression largely intact!

And only because they just can't grow too big to fail and remain the most efficient means of manufacture or processing.

Think Golden circle only remained viable until it ceased being a co-op!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Saturday, 11 July 2015 11:24:21 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
re: Co-ops - they can be more viable also because they don't need to worry about big payments to executives ; and depending on what kind of co-op and also make do paying lower dividends. But the real problem for Co-ops is when they start competing with transnationals in the biggest and most hotly contested markets. That's when co-ops need State Aid. To assist to in upgrading their operation to enjoy economies of scale where they can remain competitive with the big transnationals. Meanwhile rapid rail and regional consolidation are good ideas which require government action.

M.O: Interesting arguments re: speculation and F.D.R/the New Deal ; I've also argued (after Lyons and McAuley) that a more even distribution of wealth can help mitigate this ; as small investors can tend to be more conservative and avoid risky speculation. Even if a degree of risk-taking is necessary sometimes. I would also support "mass infrastructure" schemes on the scale of Snowy Hydro ;

Though re: the housing market I stick to my argument that a big investment in public housing would fix supply and bring prices down. Though it has to be combined with investment in infrastructure as well. Some people think this is unfair on because it effectively provides a subsidy for the poor. (who the Right think are 'underserving') But I adhere to Marx at least in the sense of his famous maxim 'from each according to ability, to each according to need' ; let alone questions of decency and compassion ; and the fact the benefits would flow on to hundreds of thousands of others..... (and btw I don't see how this approach is 'monetarist')

re: Fabianism ; yes I'm a member - and I see the Fabians as a crucial driver of ideas in the Labor Party. Though radical social democracy is the most significant influence on me. I identify with the legacy of the radical social democrats from the Second International...
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Saturday, 11 July 2015 12:17:06 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan, wow. That's a lot of words to avoid the fundamental issue of domination by private banks and their global debt regime. Then again, I suppose Engels himself was just another arrogant lazy speculating parasite too, so it figures that you'd observe a taboo on such a delicate subject.

But for those interested, the World now groans under a debt regime of off-the-books derivatives exposure totaling around USD 2 Quadrillion worth - all many multiples greater than World GDP, and all unpayable. This debt regime ensures that the private banks exist like far-gone Ice junkies - they can never get enough, and they push property bubbles, limitless privatization, money-laundering, organ-trafficking, wombs-for-hire surrogacy, whatever it takes to give the impression that the Corpse still breathes.

Meanwhile, the Fabians (like the Real Estate Institute) say it's just about 'Supply and Demand'!
Posted by mil.observer, Saturday, 11 July 2015 2:35:58 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
M.O; No doubt big finance capital operates in an undemocratic way ; and every major interest in the world is part of it ; because it is a medium of economic and hence political power. And also complementary to a global economy with transnational enterprises. The problem is what is the alternative? To start global finance is inevitable in a global capitalist economy. An autarky is not the answer either. Regardless of whether we like the system - we have to deal with the global economic reality.

In Australia nationalisation of the banks was deemed unconstitutional under Chifley. Still - it could be possible to have public sector banking and finance established again. I'm in favour of that.Problem is what's to prevent such an intervention being undermined from within? And the whole global system is not going to come undone as a consequence of that anyway. (a GFC style collapse is in no-one's interests also)

But I'm all in favour of state aid in support of mutualist and co-operative insurance and banking - to extend it as far as possible - and make it competitive against the private sector as well. Better to build up institutions in competition with the private sector and get an 'economic beach-head' than to bring the whole system crashing down over peoples' heads....
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Saturday, 11 July 2015 8:15:37 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
TE: "autarky...global finance is inevitable...deemed unconstitutional... an 'economic beach-head' than to bring the whole system crashing down over peoples' heads...GFC style collapse is in no-one's interests also"

The whole global system IS coming undone anyway because of its inherent stupidity and ideological and motivational foundation of private "self-interest". The combinations of warfare/terror and austerity shows that the only "solution" offered for the undoing is a consistent creep back to fascism.

Who's backing a "GFC"? Well, qui bono? Your system brought that crash about, hence my mention of derivatives. Check the processes around Bear Stearns and Lehman for a start, because your pastiche of dogma looks irrelevant by that very recent history.

And you avoid the debt issue entirely and you avoid entirely that debt bubble's derivatives scam.

So is that the Fabians' "Left" eh, in a nutshell? Going along to get along, don't rock the boat, just keep paddling away in the sinking ship with a different-colored oar (red perhaps, or just faded to pink)

And you counter an argument by claiming to know the results of an alternative system. And you do so by also implying historical precedent that never actually happened. Of course bank nationalization and state leadership gets opposed by private banking oligarchs; sometimes it tempts a coup, or gets national leaders murdered too. That's hardly an argument against it.

Bank nationalization won the War, then won the Peace in reconstruction with what's nicknamed The Marshall Plan, for example.

Whose side are you on ?

Your bosses' debt bubble is killing people off, and not just so obviously as these past few years in Greece - it's a regime of proxy hot and cold wars crippling and destroying civilization.
Posted by mil.observer, Sunday, 12 July 2015 7:23:49 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
In favour of State aid, subsidies or whatever is merely obfuscation of being in favour of an "IN crowd". Resources are moved to favoured children, always at a loss to the creators, but this injury is compounded by the insult of the spiraling cost of apparatchiks (nee bureaucrats) who "manage" it. The unintended consequence is poverty created by such massive waste; the Leftie glories of the "Iron Rice Bowl" and the CCCP being ultimate expressions.

The self reverential attitude of such apparatchiks can be seen in Sarah Sea-Patrol's "Ancien Régime" let them eat cake moment of "Tragedies happen, accidents happen"; on hearing of the deaths of hundreds due to actions she helped enact.
Posted by McCackie, Sunday, 12 July 2015 10:06:27 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
M.O; Yes you're right a largely planned economy won the war. There were great gains after the war. We always should have maintained a robust mixture of planning and markets, public and private.

But you accuse me of 'supporting the system'. Well that's just not fair. Long ago socialists posed the question as one of 'socialism or barbarism'. If we just let everything collapse we end up with barbarism if we cannot replace it with something better.

That said I don't agree with the public sector endlessly taking on the debts of private finance on the basis of 'too big to fail'. In that instance there should be nationalisations. And GFC showed we need intervention and regulation. But we cannot create a monopoly of nationalised banking in Australia because of the Constitution. What we can do is provide a beach-head for co-operative and public finance.

Also not all debts are to the ultra-rich. For instance some Greek debt is to other European governments who represent their people. The problem is that austerity is counter-productive. It drives economies into the ground, destroying their ability to sustainably repay debts - and support the world economy through consumption - over the long term. We should be striving for a full employment economy but what the austerity has done in Greece is create a generation of young unemployed with consequences which could reverberate for decades.

I'd also agree with have a big problem with private debt and our ability to sustain the economy over the long term. This has artificially supported consumption for a long time. Better to create efficiencies through a part-socialist economy which reduces waste, instability and cost-structures.

But there's resistance and its difficult to achieve. For example - When we do things like reducing the working week, tax has to go up to maintain existing welfare and services. And people have to live with less consumption power. Even if we redistribute progressively as well.

The question is how to maintain demand and output once we stop surviving on credit. I'd love to hear your ideas.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Sunday, 12 July 2015 11:36:10 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
TM: True, I wasn't “fair”, but I only assessed your affiliation, hence I say “your system” because you're only offering reform at its edges and not, as I advocate, getting some Roundup into its root structure in order that the State survives and thrives. So I'm simply identifying where your loyalties fall once the IMF, BIS etc., read their riot acts and embargo threats to dissenters like the people of Greece, governments of Russia, Indonesia, and various other dissidents, all which those private financier clubs are inclined to do, especially nowadays.

So I'm saying you're wrong and not reading the map of historical and governance options available. I don't blame you, because the merchant bankers' propaganda machine indeed presents us with no such information or dissenting view.

A good example of the above was when Mal Fraser sent a letter to the Financial System Inquiry demanding separation of speculative merchant banking from normal and necessary commercial banking. The speculators' press had to misrepresent Fraser as though he only urged the “ring fencing” nonsense as pushed by window dressers in Wall Street and London since the 2008 Sh1tSt0rm. The people were not even allowed to see such crucial dissent from an ex-PM!

Also, I don't complain that you're being unfair by implying that my “solution” would bring Barbarism, etc. I allege instead that you're simply presuming something that is not the case ie you're wrong on facts. For example, the debt burden on EU states to which you refer all goes back to the same private sources, just like that stupid deal a few years ago when Swan and Hockey pumped a cool couple of billion into toxic RMBS derivatives without so much as an Andrew Robb miracle-sneeze of debate.

Such mechanisms as myself and Fraser advocate are not new: they're classic FDR. But instead, we're denied that modern historical fact and even fed rubbish alleging that FDR's New Deal, Pecora Commission, Glass-Steagall and infrastructure projects all somehow made the Depression worse, as if it was only fascist aggression and criminality which gave FDR the chance to save civilization!
Posted by mil.observer, Sunday, 12 July 2015 5:50:43 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan

Why don't you care that what you are saying is full of self-contradictions? How can you accuse others of thinking they have a monopoly of economic wisdom when you advocate forcing your economic views on others? If that's not a pretended monopoly of economic wisdom, what is?

You haven't answered what the economic calculation argument is, because you don't know. This fact invalidates everything you're saying. The fact you choose to ignore it is no excuse. Your ideology is just a mask for supporting the ruling class to exploit the productive class.

Will your proposed schemes be voluntary, or not? If not, then you support increased inequality and oppression, not less. The fact you refuse to understand this is not excuse. You should care that what you're saying is untrue, not just ignore it.
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Sunday, 12 July 2015 11:38:12 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan

To the extent you support private enterprise you support the exploitation of the workers, because according to you, that's your reasoning for nationalisation, remember?

According to you, profit is intrinsically exploitative, so therefore you support the exploitation of the workers. How can you be so dumb as to not see your own self-contradictions?

You don't even agree with your own economic theory. In fact you don't you don't even understand your own economic theory. Then you've got the gall to talk down to people about how you know better than everyone else in the world.
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Sunday, 12 July 2015 11:44:40 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Gawd, what a lot of wordy waffle !
If this is the Labour Party in discussion no wonder they spend like drunken sailors.
Posted by Bazz, Monday, 13 July 2015 4:23:22 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JKJ - I'm not being contradictory - just nuanced. I don't like exploitation. And I prefer co-operative to private enterprise where a surplus is extracted. But I recognise that a return on investment for small investors who defer consumption - can be argued as just - even if there are conflicting principles at work. Large investors who inherit millions, however, are different. And the wrongness of surplus extraction under those circumstances is less ambiguous.

Also I try to 'live in the real world'. It is not hypocrisy to recognise the reality of a global capitalist economy. It is not hypocrisy to deal with 'the art of the possible', and to reject the self-destructive path of autarky.

Hence I try to deal with the kind of 'good society' I actually believe is possible for now. For the long term I aspire to more; and I don't drop my criticisms of capitalism. But I don't expect to see 'the end of capitalism' in my life-time. I do expect the problems with capitalism to lead to either 'an increasing bad society' with increasing inequality, instability and waste. Or on the other hand, I expect the alternative is possible of a 'hybrid economy' which cushions people and industry from the problems associated with capitalism.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Monday, 13 July 2015 4:35:50 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
You are contradicting yourself to the extent you advocate and support capitalism while believing that it is fundamentally exploitative and oppressive and abusive and unjust.

So stop denying it.

Now. Why don't you care that you're contradicting yourself?

If you are being "nuanced" rather than self-contradicting, what is the objective criterion by which you decide when to favour voluntary versus coerced social relations?
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Tuesday, 14 July 2015 10:24:12 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JKJ - For many people social relations are always enforced. Workers are forced to accept wage labour when the alternative is grinding poverty, maybe even homelessness. And work-for-the-dole is also coercive for the same relations.

As for socialism - the Soviet Model was highly coercive. As I understand it you could be forced by the State (in a different way) into a job. Also there was little opportunity to form your own needs structures via market-mediated consumption.

But again: some deal of coercion is inevitable - especially where 'majority rule' is often the substance of democracy.

If social insurance in health, aged care etc provides social security for vulnerable people - and better value for money - but is 'coercive' in the sense we pay for it through tax - I think that is a fair trade-off. The alternative is a different form of coercion but coercion nonetheless. (dependence on the capitalist market for non-negotiable needs - where peoples' very lives are at stake)

Its funny though that you talk of coercion when Conservatives use coercion (state power) to repress workers' rights to organise and withdraw their labour.

But to conclude - majority rule means coercion. Sometimes we should govern by consensus ; or at least pluralist consultation. But usually SOMEONE will be left unhappy with the situation.

But back to the issue of 'contradiction'; I believe that markets do some things well - and the state does some things well too. I am critical of exploitation- but also recognise the issue is more morally 'opaque' when it comes to small investors. I also recognise that we're dealing with 'the art of the possible' and for the foreseeable future there's no way out of capitalism. That's just dealing with facts.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Tuesday, 14 July 2015 10:37:51 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
So you can't tell the difference between rape and making love, robbery and gift-giving, getting things from other people by threatening to attack them, and getting them by an agreed exchange? Because, according to you, social relations are always coerced?

Yes? That's what you're saying, isn't it?

"But usually SOMEONE will be left unhappy with the situation."

So you agree with the Idi Amin theory of government. There is no principle of right. There is only grabbing, based on threats, and you see nothing wrong with that?

Well we've established that you stand for violent aggression, and that you can't understand the difference between attacking people, and agreeing with them. So this totally invalidates your entire political ideology.

You are still contradicting yourself. You support the exploitation of the workers to the extent you support the private ownership of capital. When I asked you how you justify the existence of private capital, you have no answer, but just to say *sometimes* it's good and *sometimes* it's bad.

But what I'm asking you is, how do you know whether someone should be imprisoned for the economic crime of engaging in productive activity that your socialist utopia depends on?

How do you know whether, in any given case, the relation of employment is exploitative or not? Answer the question. According to you, it's always exploitative, right? If not, then who don't those same beneficial characteristics justify the private capitalism that you want to cage people for? If you can't identify any objective criterion, then admit it, stop trying to squirm out of it.

According to you, people should be physically punished for being free and for making the lives of the poor and the workers much better off. What physical punishment should that be? Cage and raped? Tasered? Shot? How should they be punished, do you think?

You're contradicting yourself literally every sentence. Why don't you are that you are contradicting yourself, not even you agree with what you're saying, and it doesn't make sense?

Have you ever employed anyone Tristan?
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Wednesday, 15 July 2015 3:57:29 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JKJ;

a) You seem to be equating Swedish social democracy with 'Idi Amin' - that suggests to begin with that you have no sense of proportion.

b) You don't seem to understand there are conflicting senses of what is right ; and sometimes morality is not clear-cut. I support returns on small investment because there we are dealing with people of very limited means who are making a sacrifice by deferring consumption and making an investment. They are investing capital earned through genuine hard work - and IN PROPORTION to that hard work. One more time: That same argument does not apply to the truly wealthy.

c) I never mentioned 'imprisoning' or 'caging' anyone. These kind of suggestions and accusations are blatantly LUDICROUS. You're better off to ask those kind of questions to Tony Abbott...

The arguments are not that complex ; If you don't understand what I'm really trying to say now you probably never well.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Wednesday, 15 July 2015 10:50:57 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan

You yourself have just admitted that you can't see or understand any difference between coercing someone into something, and proceeding with their agreement.

You've just finished telling us that there is in principle no way of knowing whether there's anything wrong or bad with physically attacking someone in order to take their property without their consent, or coercing them to provide services they don't want to provide.

According to your theory, there is *in principle* no way to know whether armed robbery, rape, or slavery are bad. They might be or they might not be. According to you, it depends.

1. If a majority vote for it, that justifies it; if not, then democratic socialism has no justification.
2. It depends on Tristan Ewin's assessment of the relative deprivation of the person benefitting from the aggression. Correct?

Can you see that, if there was a scale from 1 to 100, with 100 being what is morally wrong, oppressive, exploitative, anti-social, confused and stupid, what you've said is right up there at 100? What could be more morally stupid than confusing aggressive physical attack with peaceful social co-operation, and vice versa?

So when I confront you with what you've just said, you hurry to deny that law and policy are enforced. But this is mere foolery. No branch of the State - legislature, executive or judiciary - agrees with your claim that compliance with law is voluntary, and neither do you.

People who don't agree with your policy suggestions are to be forced into obedience, aren't they? That's your whole purpose, else your suggestions would be voluntary, and it would be capitalism, which you despise.

Please answer these questions:
1. are the policies you propose to be voluntary? Or not?
2. what do you understand is the significance of the economic calculation argument to your article?
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Wednesday, 15 July 2015 6:26:38 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Yes of course JKJ - everyone who isn't at the extreme end of libertarianism is a Stalinist or a Fascist. All tax is coercive and hence totalitarian. By this reckoning every significant party in the country is totalitarian. Indeed - the vast majority of parties all over the world is such. And by your reckoning all government should be voluntary. So anyone in the country should be free to just 'drop out' and pay no tax. Don't know who will pay for the roads, rail, police, hospitals, schools. But 'that's not your problem' is it?

Society and economy would collapse. But at least there would be "no coercion".

And no - I don't believe in those proposition - I am simply presenting the argument to show that your position is ludicrous.

For the record I consider myself to be a liberal democratic socialist. I am openly critical of socialist authoritarianism. But you don't seem to be able to realise the difference between paying taxes or being thrown in the Gulag.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Wednesday, 15 July 2015 8:06:06 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
What a refreshing thread. Actual issues explored in depth and a minimum of mere pissing contests. The author’s interventions in the thread have helped maintain that quality (without exhibiting the sensible ideology that fits my own blind prejudice). I have two broad comments which are dots with no attempt to join them.

1. Those who planned the Russian Revolution failed to take into account something that Marx also failed to take into account – a class which is neither proletarian nor bourgeois and which grew to engulf the USSR, China and all the Communist satellites – the Central Political Bureaucracy. A guide to the nature and evolution of thus vile class from people at the sharp end of it can be found at https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isj/1967/no028/kuron.htm . The same class in non-Communist society is the managerialist class including the securocrats. As an aside, the final paragraph of that article also describes the anti-science effect of the CAGW religion.

2. To be free of the contradictions canvassed in this thread, we must first consider the nature and source of wealth. Wealth consists simply of goods and services. It is created only by the hands-on creation of goods and services drawing on the bounty of nature. Capital is accumulated wealth, created by hands-on labour as noted in the preceding sentence which on investment into production is unpacked into appropriate goods and services. Those who invest capital do NOT create wealth, they merely ALLOCATE it, depending on the cheapest workforce, most deprived social and environmental welfare and most supine governments they can find and buy, in their increasingly globalised search to maximise the wealth they can pocket while personally creating diddly squat.

People concerned about the shape of society need to take all this into account in promoting social development which is sustainable, community-controlled, productively progressive and efficient. What to call it? Try “socialism”. Or “wheelbarrow” for that matter.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Thursday, 16 July 2015 8:58:53 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"I am openly critical of socialist authoritarianism."

No you're not, you're openly advocating it. Your entire ideology depends on forcing people to obey you, and the idea that the state has a right to unlimited power.

When confronted with this fact, you admit that you can't understand the difference between what is right and wrong, and that you don't believe in any limits on state power. You accept that robbery or rape or slavery might be okay, depending on a majority vote, it's not "clear-cut", you really can't say. This means you're operating at the moral and emotional level of an infant, and you need to grow up.

So then, faced with this, you pretend that you don't understand that the enforcement of something means it's going to be enforced. You try to pretend that all you advocate will be voluntary, even while ridiculing the idea. So you know you're talking self-contradictory nonsense, and for some reason think it's okay.

We have established by your agreement, that you are in favour of inequality, oppression and exploitation, and that you are in favour of the ruling class exploiting the working class and the vulnerable.

So that's why I asked you, why do you bother writing these articles when you openly admit that you are talking gibberish?

Tristan, you need to be quiet, go away, learn to *think*, learn to stop blindly worshipping state authority which is all your article is, and learn to stop squarking stupid slogans that ASSUME that we can have a perfect society by forcing people to obey your opinions.

You don't know better than everyone else, what their values should be, you fool.
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Saturday, 18 July 2015 8:18:05 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
EmperorJulian

In case you haven't noticed, you can't defend socialism without immediately contradicting yourself, and trying to squirm out of the fact that it depends on forcing the weak and vulnerable to submit to and obey the powerful.

Socialists are in favour of inequality, oppression and exploitation, not against it. That's why Tristan can't bring himself to actually explain what limits on the power of the ruling class he actually believes in. He believes in an unlimited power of the ruling class to exploit and expropriate its victims, and openly admits and advocates it. When I asked him how he would know what economic activity should not be a criminal offence punishable with imprisonment, he can't answer!

By the way, the value of something isn't congealed labour you fool. Why do you bother writing this gabble-yarp?

Why don't you socialists care that what you're saying is untrue? Why do you assume everyone else is as stupid or dishonest as you are?
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Saturday, 18 July 2015 8:28:47 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JKJ So now paying your taxes is in the same boat as rape?

What was 'not clear cut' is the question of exploitation versus return investment for small investors. That's all I meant there.

I accept there is a level of coercion. Without this there would be no roads, schools or hospitals. How would you provide for these things if we did away with tax because it is 'coercive'?

As for 'the ruling class', that would be the capitalist class. And no I'm not in favour of exploitation of workers by that class. But I can see that capitalism has changed to the point where the seeds of a new (socialist) society are not necessarily still present within the old society as clearly as before. That said - I choose the best approximation to 'the good society' that I can get given the current social and economic dynamics and balance of class forces. Again: much politics is about 'the art of the possible'.

If you don't like that pls tell me what your ideal society would look like and how you think you would get there.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Saturday, 18 July 2015 9:50:51 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
BTW you're quite right on most that you say, Emperor Julian. SO thankyou for your comments. Its edifying that there are some people here who actually agree with me on some important points. :)

Though I think small investors are different. The capital they invest is gained through their labours - in a limited quantity. And when they invest it they have to defer or forsake consumption. That probably warrants a return. But at the same time technically it involves an expropriation of a surplus.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Saturday, 18 July 2015 9:54:26 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan

So far you have not made any attempt to engage with the issues under discussion.

I started this discussion by pointing out that you are contradicting yourself, and you denied it. But now you have just admitted - after multiple failed attempts at evasion - that you are contradicting yourself.

On the one hand you want to fashion yourself as concerned about social justice, but on the other hand you stand for NOTHING BUT a small elite ruling class having the unequal privilege of forcing the weak, the vulnerable and the marginalised to obey and submit to the expropriation of their labour value.

The ruling class are those who make the rules and back them up with force, not people who don't make the rules, don't enforce them, and are entirely subject to the former class, so stop talking nonsense.

Given that it was so easy for me to point out, with your agreement, that not even you agree with the foundations of your own political ideology it will be very easy for me to prove that not even you agree with your own economics. I have already done so. I asked you on what *principle* (not arbitrary opinion or facile expedient) state power should be limited and people should be free. And you have no answer because you *don't believe* in either.

It is premature to ask me about better alternatives, while ever you can't bring yourself to admit you're advocating what you don't even agree with.

So admit it. You stand for a small elite of the most powerful having the legal privilege - inequality - of using force and threats against peaceable subjects - oppression - specifically so they can extract their labour value against their will - expropriation - so the ruling class can live at their expense.

Either admit it, or renounce the foundations of your ideology that depend on it.

"The truth will set you free". THEN we will be in a position to discussion why voluntary relations are superior, both ethically and pragmatically.
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Saturday, 18 July 2015 11:25:40 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JKJ if you think the 'political class' in Australia is the 'ruling class' you're kidding yourself. At the end of the day all politicians capitulate to 'the markets'. ie: the big corporation and finance capital.

Now you could say that taxation is another form of expropriation. Ok - it is at some level. But there is a difference. Much tax goes in the form of 'collective consumption' and 'social insurance'. So workers are mostly better off for having paid their taxes. On the other hand when capitalists expropriate surplus value it goes to profits, dividends etc - where the workers don't get that value back in any form... (except indirectly re: corporate tax) On the other hand when workers collectively consume - or partake of social insurance, services and infrastructure - they are getting a lot in return for their taxes depending on the government's priorities...

Also you talk of 'the vulnerable and the marginalised'. But if you really cared then surely you could see that the most vulnerable stand to gain from social insurance, social services, welfare etc. If you want to talk about what hurts the vulnerable - think about labour market deregulation, attacks on welfare, Abbott getting rid of superannuation subsidies for the poor, and privatisations which lead to consumers being fleeced. (both Labor and Liberals do it)

Finally yes state power should be limited. But you take that principle so far as to make it unworkable. I am a liberal when it comes to civil rights and liberties. I am a socialist and a democrat when it comes to the economy. And BTW having a repressive state apparatus ENFORCING property relations and exploitation through violence really is no better than a robust welfare state supported by taxes. That's the weakness in your argument. IN the society we actually live in capitalists have most power - and that is enforced through violence. 'Smaller govt' re: the public sector does not have to mean a 'non-interventionist' or 'non-violent' state. See: Pinochet for example.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Saturday, 18 July 2015 11:57:49 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
So you agree that you're in favour of exploitation and violence, at the same time as you deny that it's exploitation and violence, at the same time as you equivocate and contradict yourself on literally every single tenet you put forward.

I rest my case. You're talking crap and you know you are.

So why do you keep writing these stupid articles when not even you agree with what you're saying and you don't care that you're wrong?
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Saturday, 18 July 2015 1:14:56 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JKJ You just can't seem to grasp a nuanced argument.

All state power rests in the final instance on violence. What Lenin called the 'special bodies of armed men'. So In the end so much rides on who controls the state, and what they use it for.

Now you may think it is a paradox: but at the same time the state has multiple functions. It polices private property and the processes of capitalist exploitation. At the same time it has a more valid role in preserving the peace at least so much as that comprises our civilised treatment of each other. eg: Murder is a crime, and if you are caught committing such a crime then you will be held to account.

The communist notion is that eventually we can all live in peace with each other without the need for a state at all. Anarchists believe the same - but don't believe in a transitional phase of 'socialism'. (this time accepting the Marxist definition)

So - if you do not believe in the state under any circumstances - does that make you a communist or an anarchist? Or are you a right-wing libertarian who can't grasp the fact that 'exceptionalism' when it comes to policing private property can result in just as much violence, repression and injustice as the 'traditional authoritarians'? (Stalinism, Fascism)

That is - when it comes to the crunch the right-libertarian state will still try to smash picket lines; will still protect the 'property rights' of billionaires; and will imprison or fine the poor and exploited if they try and interfere with the property rights of the privileged.

I'm assuming you're a right-wing libertarian.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Saturday, 18 July 2015 1:36:19 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan differentiates between small and large investment, and within that dichotomy is both an important difference and a similarity.

The similarity is easy: I invest a week's pension on something already up and running which I think will bring me a return. Such as promising shares on the stock market. Or a greengrocer's shop which has fallen on hard times and offers a financial return. Mere allocation of wealth while creating nothing.

The difference is when I am working in a job, or pursuing a hobby, and get an idea which I believe can be useful in people's lives and marketable. "I" is "we" if we're a group or network. So we scrape together the wherewithal to develop it and eventually market it. The developmenent including the accumulation of the capital to fund it is personal and hands-on. If it requires materials and labour, we buy the materials with our set-aside capital and bring in the labour providers as shareholders in our enterprise, to take home not wages but dividends shared on the basis of their labour contribution. It brings us all lots of boodle. We've earned it.

In a wheelbarrow society capital is still required to start and run productive enterprises. It does not all need to be allocated by officials of the state but some needs to be(e.g. a rail network, or a brick factory or a mine). The state and its enterprises should be run on thoroughly democratic lines.

Clever schemes for running society on the basis for example of analysis of wealth still hsve to be brought into being, in the teeth of opposition by Mr Greed. That will happen not just because of persuasive cleverness but as a result of class war. That's a challenge that will have to be met(most likely piecemeal) and persisted with or we'll all go the way of Greece. Or worse.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Saturday, 18 July 2015 1:51:12 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy