*Workers don't own companies through super funds. The funds do.*

Passy, its not my fault if you don't understand the system :)

Super funds administer those funds on behalf of the owners, which
are the workers. If you don't like your super fund, you are free to
take your money and go elsewhere, no different to money that you
have in a bank account.

*Workers don't control the companies their super funds have shares in. Bosses do.*

There are in fact many industry funds, where trade unions have a huge
say in how they are run, on behalf of workers. If you have a quibble
about how your super fund invests its money, you are free to ring them
up and tell them why, free to remove your money and go to a fund
of your liking, or even free to form your own super fund, if you comply with all the laws involved.

*The financial crisis means that workers retirement plans are in disarray as the share market strips billions of dollars of wealth from older workers approaching retirement*

Those same workers were not complaining when companies made record
profits and their super funds were growing at 20% a year. You have
to take the good with the bad. Over time, unless your money is in
a dud fund, you are still doing ok. I bought plenty of shares
10 years ago, that are now still worth 3 times as much as then,
so have clearly been profitable. Super funds would be no different
to little old me, doing my own thing. In fact, they should be doing
even better then me.

*750,00 Americans have lost their jobs since January*

Perhaps they should stop and wonder why they voted for dummies
like Bush and Cheney. Do not confuse the basics of capitalism with
dud politicians. Americans are now getting what they voted for,
so are paying a price for that. I told them that 8 years ago,
but sadly they took no notice :)

I know full well how super funds operate Yabby.

I disagree that workers control the companies through their funds or union reps.I have as much control over my investments and the decisions my fund makes as I as a worker have in my workplace. None.

As the financial crisis spreads into world wide recession and possibly depression, worekrs are victims of playing the game without yet understanding the need for a completely new game with new rules. However the basic instincts of class are coming through in the US, with the discussion and debate about the bailout being in class terms, ie Wall St versus Main St.

The crisis in the US financial markets is not due to Bush being a dud (which he is.)

It is due to systemic problems in capitalism, in the very way it is organised. The competitive drive coupled with the fact labour produces the wealth of society leads to a tendency for the rate of profit to fall. This can be offset by productivity increases, lengthening the working day (but that has limits) cutting wages and conditions, crises which destroy the value of capital and allow the survivors to pick up the remains at prices below real value, war, which physically destroys capital but most of these alternatives are code for human (ie working class) misery. As Lenin said, capitalism can survive any crisis if the working class is prepared to accept the costs. (Or words to that effect.)

You say: take the good with the bad. Why are there good times and then bad times? And viewed from the perspective of most of humanity, there are no good times.

BN, as a former teacher of banking law many years ago, I am trying to think how to formulate an answer to your question. I assume you mean retail banking, not investment banking for example. But I do want to go further than just a simple pro-capitalist analysis, and look at the reality of what is occurring (or at least the reality from my viewpoint.)

*I have as much
control over my investments and the decisions my fund makes as I as a worker have in my workplace.
None.*

That is only because your personal share in say BHP, is miniscule. Other workers
clearly don’t agree with you, for as a group, they largely own major companies.
Super funds act as their representatives at AGMs. If the majority
of workers were unhappy enough to try and do something about things, they could,
for they are the ultimate owners and dominant shareholders. Profits go back to them,
the workers.

*The crisis in the US financial markets is not due to Bush being a dud *

Of course it is. For if the correct regulations would have been in place, which is
what politicians are meant to do on behalf of the public, the crisis would not have
happened.

*The competitive drive
coupled with the fact labour produces the wealth of society leads to a tendency for the rate of profit to fall.*

Which leads to higher efficiency, cutting out waste, which leads to higher productivity, with gains in standard of living and a better deal for consumers,
which means workers.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Workers in the West are doing
better then ever before, are richer then ever before and those in developing countries
have rising standards of living. You have offered no alternative that can do the
same, apart from a bit of ideology that is outdated by 100 years of change in
the real world.

*Why are there good times and then bad times?*

Because people are fallible and make mistakes. If they are in positions of power
and make large mistakes, lots of people pay a heavy price. Americans were sucked
in and voted for Bush/Cheney not once, but twice. Now not only Americans are
paying a price for that, the world is. That is the problem with democracy, its not
perfect, but it’s the best system that we have. Russians for instance, paid a heavy
price when they voted for Yeltsin, ignoring a much smarter guy like-Gorbachev

BN

A quick response - off to watch 4 Corners on tax havens. I didn't make the final cut for it unfortunately.

Banks take deposits and act as paying and receiving gents. They lend to business and home buyers (int eh main). Lending to business was their initial role. In Australia 50% of loans are covered b deposits, 25% by other short term loans and the other 25% by long term loans. So they create money too.

The following comes from Socialist Worker in the UK from 27 Nov 2007. The writer argues:

Financial markets and financial institutions play a very specific role under capitalism. They help coordinate the system, moving capital to wherever it can make the greatest profit.

An individual capitalist may not be able to see where the best profits can be made, anywhere in the world, but the financial markets, collectively, can do this, taking money and redistributing it according to the returns it can make.

Theoretically, financial markets make capitalism work “better” – they will hunt the places where highest profits can be made, and so (theoretically) boost profits throughout the system.

However, the financial system carries two great risks. First, it can misjudge real profits and simply indulge in speculation, with financial markets talking themselves into a frenzy of ever increasing share prices, based on not much more than the whims of traders. These are called “bubbles” and the consequences, when they burst, can be dramatic.

Second, the speed and flexibility with which the financial system can find profits may also turn it against capitalism as a whole, rapidly transmitting a crisis in a single economy into others. This is known as “contagion” – the crisis in one region spreading very rapidly to others.

JP again. So banks merely re-distribute the surplus value (or part of it) workers create. They do not add to that surplus.

The RBA might today cut by 1 percent. The markets are factoring a one per cent cut in by the end of the year anyway so why not do it now?

None of the actions address the real issue - the stagnant rate of profit.

To do that the ruling class will, in light of their economic crisis, attack workers' wages, conditions and jobs savagely. The solution is to abolish the profit system and the instability and destruction inherent in it and replace it with a democratically planned economy run by workers - socialism.

The first step is for unions to defend wages, conditions and jobs. Given the failure of the union leadership to do this over the last twenty five years, unless the rank and file organise independently of the ACTU and other discredited leaders, then we could all going down with the ship of capitalism.

Yabby, you say:

"The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Workers in the West are doing better then ever before, are richer then ever before and those in developing countries have rising standards of living. You have offered no alternative that can do the same, apart from a bit of ideology that is outdated by 100 years of change in the real world."

Actaully between 1975 and 1995 real wages in the US stagnated and for the last four or five years have fallen. (Cutting wages or holding them stable has been one of the strategies of the US ruling class to address the poor profit rate.)

In Australia the wages share of national income is now at its lowest in over 40 years. Remember, this happened during an unprecedented boom. What is likely to happen to wages now that the Australian economy could possibly go into recession?

The food price increases of the last year have wiped out all the gains made over the the lat thirty years in bringing the developing and under-developed world out of poverty.

As the global capitalist economy free falls into recession or perhaps even depression, maybe the ideas of Marx are still relevant.

Passy “It is of course a myth since society is inextricably intertwined. Without the whole structure of society, provided and sustained by the activity for example of millions of workers in Australia day in and day out, there could be no "individuality".”

Society was “inextricably intertwined” as you put it along time before the notions of socialism were considered.

The difference between a free, libertarian society and one under the yoke of government conformity (socialism) is the

“inextricable intertwining” is a natural occurrence brought about because people seek to exchange goods and services etc.

That inextricable intertwining can be achieved privately, without the intercession of governments or bureaucrats or any other form of meddling by those obsessed with running other peoples lives (instead of running their own).

In days gone past the village miller was one of the first examples of the “division of labour”.

The “inextricable intertwining” is merely a manifestation of greater division of labour and remains something which does not demand nor require government intercession at any level.

As for “individuality” of workers, I engage personally, in a form of trade which is very unique and which separate businesses seek my services to supply, on contract lasting from 3 to 9 months at a time. Not many others successfully do what I do.

Therefore, I am prepared to offer myself as an individual who is, humbly, unique, to counter and deny your claim of “no individuality”.

“As the global capitalist economy free falls into recession or perhaps even depression, maybe the ideas of Marx are still relevant.”

Not in a fit, the only thing about a Marxist society,

it cannot “recede” any further than where it starts, from the stagnation and mediocrity of a system with
no incentive,
no reward,
no excellence,
no passion and
no point,

only wall to wall mediocrity

We are born to “live”, “love” and “make choices”

Marx never aspired to that level of human experience, he stopped at merely “existing"