The point though is that, in a technologically advanced society where everyone’s needs can be met abundantly, why should there be any risk at all to decent living-standards? Absent any world-wide catastrophe, we should all be able to live comfortably – e.g. a drought in Australia could be offset by excess production from other continents and vice versa.

With all that we have, and are capable of producing, why should anyone in the world face starvation? There is no rational reason that it happens today, except that some people believe they are entitled to a bigger share than others.

At the heart of it all is capitalist property-relations – the profit-system. Humans produce wealth socially i.e. many people combine to produce goods, or wealth. However, ownership of the means of production i.e. the tools, land, “capital” etc, is private – private property in the means of production. Although workers produce goods, they don’t own the product of their labour – the owners of the tools and the “capital’ own the goods produced by workers’ labour. The goods are then sold back to the workers who produced them for a higher price than they were paid to produce them – profit. Then, in a drive for better returns, capital moves all over the globe trying to find lower costs of production, casting previously “well-off” workers onto the scrap-heap, as we see happening in Australia today.

The results of this system are not just poverty and exploitation for workers, they are war and imperialism. Because capitalist markets must always expand – both their resource-base and markets, capitalist powers are always in competition for them, and it leads to wars e.g. WWI, WWII, and now the Middle East.

The only solution is to bring production under the democratic-control of workers – socialism. Workers will then decide, in a truly democratic way, what needs to be produced and done, and who gets what. Such things will be determined rationally on the basis of the need of all, not chaotically because of the greed of the few.

There is no merit in working for work sake. If a job requires too many hours then the cost of the job (or buisness) is higher than the returns. Many workers are losing money paying more for transport, childcare and housing than jobs return.Many workers are sacrificing their health , their families and their childrens future in order to subsidise a job. If an employer cant afford a worker then he should not employ one . If an employer needs a worker and cannot afford to provide proper conditions and wages and work life balance then that buisness costs more than its income and should close. Its not about socialism , communism and capitalism, share markets are a marxist construct , corporate rights are marxist , we live in a fusion of socialist and individualist principles, it is about human rights to live life and basic economic common sense. Like our energy consumption our economy is not sustainable. The current IR laws have been tested during the industrial revolution , they are tested in the under developed world and have failed miseably. The last Australia had such laws we suffered a series of depressions through the 19th and early 20th century. The health costs alone these ridiculous and corrupt laws will bring us to our economic knees as our population ages and the health of the following cohorts are destroyed. Social breakdown is already occuring because of current IR laws which too will burden Australia heavily. All at a time when Howards Climate change we had to have will soon wipe out two thirds of agriculture and is already plunging us into an energy defecit which will inflate goods and knock out the service and manufacturing sector.

Marx and Engels believed that capitalism is doomed to failure, because as people become more separated from the power of their labours, suffering increases. This lead to Marx's famous quote on religion:

"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sign of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

Doesn't this give a neat explanation to the rise of both Christian and Islamic fundamentalism and its importance in current world affairs?

The protestant work ethic certainly views humans as machines which is consistant with the belief of creation and intelligent design which both view humans as manufactured robots.

What you people overlook of course, is that workers, with their
1 trillion$ of super fund investments, are the new capital
providers! Check any share registry of large corporations,
super funds mostly dominate.

So who is screwing the system for all its worth? Well for
a start, chief honcho workers or management, who are simply
on top of the worker pile and nearest the piggy bank, will
feather their nests as best as possible. Next super fund
chief honcho workers, will push for more and more profits
from other corporations, so that their figures look good,
so that they get a pay rise.

Human nature once again prevails, people act out of
self interest, even if its workers screwing other workers,
for their own benefit. Thats why Marx and Engels failed,
they overlooked human nature.

Back to the drawing board for you lot of dreamers :)

Yabby, you have a good point about human nature. It sums up what I wanted to say to West about work for works sake. Obviously there is a point beyond which you can work too hard, but I think this varies between people, and especially their family situations. But the human condition requires that we do a certain amount of work, if for no other reason, than to keep us out of mischief. We are a race that is ultimately destructive with too much time on our hands. Keep a bunch of people busy just trying to survive, and they wont have the time nor energy for fighting. Particularly for those of you that believe in evolution, humans originated as hunter gathers. By the nature of this activity, if you are not constantly busy, you will starve or die of exposure etc.

For those of you that think the worker gets nothing but a kick in the face, try going into business for yourself. My husband runs his own business, and has just about had enough. He is in the process of trying to find a job working for someone else, where he gets a set pay every week, gets 4 weeks holidays a year, gets paid if he is sick, that he doesnt have to worry abut when he gets home at night, or be up to 10pm making business calls, when he's due up at 4.30am to start work. He has had a go at both sides of the coin, and definately sees life as an employee as better.