All revolutions need a broad base of support in order for them to succeed Frenchie, which then subsequently turns in upon itself. The English Revolution was no different. The Diggers and the Levellers were both in the vanguard of Cromwell's army yet were later suppressed by that very same army. Both revolutions were Bourgoise ones ie. led by the rising middle classes which needed a revolutionary elite - which subsequently turned on the plebs once in power. To take over a whole state probably needs this elite, just as it needs the support of millions who had dreams but were frustrated by unfulfilled expectations. This is why my frame of reference is not the nation state. Despite all of this the English, French and Russian revolutions all had a positive effect on World history.
I can understand the dislike of people having hundreds of times as much as another person. We have this in our society partly due to historical accident - someone's great great great etc fought for William the Conqueror etc. Partly due to the fact that someone started an enterprise that earned them a fortune. I am not sure many people would design a society with such extremes of wealth as we have. Getting rid of it is of course an entirely more difficult problem. Essentially the only way would be to have high death duties on extreme wealth - and then lowering the threshold of punitive inheritance tax until the inequality came down to levels we would accept. Personally I could accept this but cannot see it happening. I am less opposed to letting the market pay people what they can get. I agree that entertainers (and that term needs applying loosely) earn stupid amounts - but if you have reasonably progressive taxation then you can mitigate this while still allowing people to sell their skills. Ultimately if you earn a lot because you can, you pay high taxes as a result and you cannot leave a ridiculous fortune to your heirs then you still have a society as we recognise it but use the extra taxation to pay for health, education and social welfare so that nobody needs sleep on a park bench or visit a food bank. Any other system involves somebody sitting up on high and dictating that a doctor can be paid x and a road sweeper y. That system will never work. In short I believe in a capitalist society but one which works against excesses and has regulation of standards etc. I see nothing wrong in ownership - given that you will have paid taxes and cannot "leave" it all to heirs. I also believe that people like Cadbury and Rowntree were a force for good in building large companies and not only being good to employees but to the community too. Unless you have bankers and financiers and accountants then you will never get the resources marshalled to create the industries that most people need. If anyone doubts the importance of good bankers and proper financial regulation they only have to look back to 2008 to see what happens when the regulation failed and we end with 10 years of cutting back.
I think you have said something Art very close to what I did earlier, but in greater detail. As is often said, the devil is in the detail.
To be honest Frenchie we are talking about middle ground here - perhaps a bit left for some and a bit right for others but it is only people with very strong views at one end of the spectrum or the other who will violently disagree. For all his Kropotkinist views Cologne too expresses a desire for a kind society but likes to shock us with phrases like "anarcho-communist"
Are you duly shocked Arturo I must admit that the term 'Anarcho Communist' does have a certain ring to it. Unfortunately the two terms have become tainted through the course of time - by people throwing bombs, on the one hand, and by Gulags on the other. If you remember the anarchism of Tolstoy or Gandhi and the Communism of the early Christians then it takes on a different hue. So many people think that Communism started with Marx - both the word and the dream are older by a long way and refer to communal ownership, long before expressions like 'Means of Production', or dictatorship of the proletariat. My problem is that there is no cause for which I am prepared to inflict suffering on others - so the way of Che Guevarra is not my way. As I said in another post, the environment is the most important issue. A fish in a river is not interested whether the factory which polluted his river was part of a global chain, or was owned by the workers. If we can ever get back to the stage where Bumble Bees are returning in great numbers to unpoisoned wild meadows, then I will be happy with that.
I think it is still possible to distinguish between Communism and communism as clearly as you can between Conservatisim and conservatism. One of the problems with modern society is in the race to get "better" material goods we took our eyes off so many other important things. Personally I think the wheel even now is turning. Many people are now looking to a quality of life above and beyond possessions. I believe the best route for society is to embrace modern technology but to both control it and regulate it. You will always get throw-backs like Trump but so many more people even in western society now recognise that the planet needs proper stewardship. In my little patch I try to create a haven for bumble bees, butterflies and newts.
I do not feel safe with the idea that we will find a technical solution to slowing down climate change Arturo. The idea of 'alternative' or 'environmentally friendly' technology is an illusion, and a dangerous use of words - we should be calling it technology which is slightly less harmfull. It reinforces the idea that we can solve problems which were created by technology, with further technology, and so it becomes a vicious circle. It strengthens the idea that we can go on producing, and consuming, as normal just with different technology. I cannot accept such a techno fix solution to environmental protection. The problem is that we produce more and more gadgets to win us time, but what do we do with that time ? We have produced a society based on growth - which means always having to convince people to buy things which they actually don't need, which can only work if you keep the masses as stupid as possible. I am not saying that I reject all technology - but I have the idea that it is not necessary for everyone in our small hamlet to have the latest tool for this, or that, if we can learn how to share these things.
You cannot put the genie back into the bottle though Even you are hooked on your web communications. You cannot believe other people will either voluntarily give up what they have nor refuse to go for the next device that comes on the market. That is just pie in the sky hope. So failing that you have to make the best of what you can. You develop wind, wave, solar etc and start to reduce damage done. We have said before there is one real problem with the planet Earth. It is not the people themselves, nor advanced technology. It is the fact that there are nearly 8 billion of them. You will not have a solution to that problem any more than you would of getting people voluntarily to go without things they love.
Could not agree more on the point "I think the wheel is turning"..I rarely buy new possessions and only do so when something I have is broken beyond repair. I usually pick up the old cast off mobile phones from my kids but even they are not now "upgrading" as soon as Apple bring out their latest model - so I am about 4 models behind, but it works fine for what I use it for...a phone! I much prefer to spend my money on experiences rather than things. I have a large celebration party in a few months and on the invites I have asked that rather then buy me "stuff" that they will struggle to think of the day before, they make a donation to one of the charities that I support - I will have collection boxes at the party. So they don't have to struggle to think of something to buy an old git and the charities will benefit.
The need to buy more is very often compensation for the lack of satisfaction or happiness in other aspects of our lives Arturo. Maybe this is where the emphasis should come in - don't criticize, offer something better. We need community, we need love, mutual respect - and, above all, people are never happier than when they are doing something creative - and everybody has creativity in something. We need to learn how to access talents in the community - to relearn the idea that everyone has something to offer. Some types of expenditure can be regulated - meat and dairy products for example. When I was a kid we ate meat on a Sunday - it was a treat. Now we expect it every day of the week, and for a cheap price. In earlier days butter was a luxury, not now. Maybe we need to allow food prices to rise again, as in earlier days, in order to cut spending power in other areas. In the first half of the 20th Cent. people were spending 30-40% of their income on groceries, now it is around 10% on average (I'm obviously leaving those dependent on food banks out of this equation). There was a time when families would cook for 3-4 days in advance. As for population control I have no solution - because every possible solution is distastefull, apart from better education. Yet some countries in the Western World have sinking populations, so maybe it would be good to ask how and why ? Instead of that economists are telling us that Germany, Italy and Japan are heading for disaster because of it.
Agree completely. People who decry consumerism assume we are all fooled by nasty advertisers and the like into buying what we do not want. People are cleverer than that - advertising does work - but more than that it has to appeal to what people want. More and more people look for an experience rather than cheap goods.
Meat eating is on the decline in the UK Köln, it was widely reported in the news yesterday. As a child in the 60's and 70's we ate meat most days with a joint of Sunday and poorer cuts during the week i.e. offal, belly of pork etc. With fish on Friday or Saturday lunch - and we were a working class family on a estate in Hemel. We now usually only eat meat at week-ends and I get that from a local butcher that usually only sells meat from the UK and not factory reared - so we have swapped quantity for quality.
A bit simplistic but not altogether wrong. Eating is another thing we do to compensate. I disagree with you again on telling us "everyone has ....." - no they don't They really don't. I, for one, do not have a creative bone in my body. Most of us are very ordinary -that is not bad but just means "common" - the same as others. Creativity like skill or intelligence is something that some possess and others do not. If you want to be banal then yes I have created a dinner (by using a cookbook). But real creativity is a talent and we do not all have a talent as you claim we do. Everyone does have something to offer of course - even if it is simple work. It may be that not everyone discovers the talent they do have and good education is needed to find it. So we all have to settle for a diet that is imposed upon us? In a free market economy food prices will find their level and people can then choose how and what they spend on food. We never eat ready meals but cook fresh ingredients. It is probably cheaper - and certainly better - but it involves time - which we have in abundance. I doubt your final sentence. But economists are correct that falling populations bring particular problems in a world used to increases. One of my dissertations at Uni was on the economics of a falling population ( I was green before it became fashionable). The literature I could find was sparse as it was not held to be realistic. Greens should be advocating population control and until they do I will have nothing to do with the Green movement as they are deliberately ignoring the only solution to their world crisis. However unpopular it is a worldwide policy of one child per couple, with concerted economic activity to cope with the ageing population that results would lead to a population reduced to about 1 billion in 3 generations. At that point the world would be able to live in harmony.
What good would it do the English Green Party to be advocating Worldwide policies which they will never be able to implement ? If it helps Arturo - I am in the German Green Party and I would safely say that one of the best things you can do for the environment is not to have children - but what's the point in saying that in a country which is losing population ? My suspicion is that many people have too many children in countries like Indonesia as a form of security against old age in a country which knows little of social welfare/pensions etc. The state isn't there so if you have lots of kids they will look after you in old age - or so the logic goes. Work for a World in which everybody has a social state to fall back on in time of need - rather than falling back on their church/mosque, or overlarge family, then you may be half way there. Of course it would help if the World's main religions did not try to out breed the others.
The population issue isn't just a question of overall numbers. I think it's likely that a community with more of a balance between young, young adult, middle aged and old will fare better than one with a very high proportion found in a single age band. Some sort of balance between those who are dependent and those who work must be more likely to provide enough resources for all. Sudden population booms are always going to move through the wider population and raise issues for future planning. That said, I've no idea how such a balance could be achieved...not by a sudden universal limit on births I imagine.
I have been reminded of how we used to eat back in the late 1940s and 50s when rationing was still in force. Sunday roast, Monday reheated roast, Tuesday the remains were minced and turned into a pie of some type. Wednesday something with eggs as most kept a few chickens, which when they stopped laying became the Sunday roast. Thursday some sausages, Friday some fish, Saturday probably eggs again. Today we do very much as many families do here, buy little meat, it is usually expensive, but eat plenty of vegetables, especially when the ones I have grown are available. This suggests that eating habits can be controlled to some extent by price, but there are still those who are happy to spend £45 on a shoulder of lamb. We have seen the rise of the cheap food stores such as Aldi and Lidl, and they have many who use them. Economic forces there, as last time I looked at their vegetables they wouldn't have gone in my saucepan. Some would say here in a developed country economic well being is a way to control population growth, but in a less developed society that probably doesn't work. Maybe internet and TV for the world would take away the time for other pleasures.
I do not talk about English, German or any other Green Party. Greens as a whole can be just as international as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Amnesty. The Green movement has to realise the difference between tinkering and solving problems. As I said in an earlier post though: "You will not have a solution to that problem any more than you would of getting people voluntarily to go without things they love". Even so - if something is right and you believe in it you need to advocate it else it can never be accepted. If internationally we are prepared to tackle climate change and encourage other countries to green up even though they might not want to then why can nobody face the truth on population?
I accept that an age balanced society will fare better. However the population issue really is 99% about numbers. 8 billion people is just too many for the good of the Earth. If we had to live with a managed reduction of population that took us down to 1 billion before the end of this century then the age- balance would be a short term problem. The alternative as I see it is increased pressure on people and resources until nuclear war caused by starvation and famine solves the problem in an unacceptable way.
Most people I'm sure would agree fewer people on Earth ought in theory to reduce pressure on limited resources, though the degree of pressure will vary from region to region and country to country unless we find better ways of distributing the resources themselves or the money to pay for them. A global managed reduction of population would probably, like most global agreements, be stronger on paper than in practice with many claiming special circumstances which might be historical, cultural or economic. It would certainly be testing to both get agreement for it and to find ways of ensuring/encouraging all parties to abide by it. That's not to say the attempt shouldn't be made!
I do agree with you. This is just one of the little foibles I have had since coming across a chap called Gordon Rattray Taylor in my relative youth. I know it is a pipe dream. If the world's population were 1 billion you might, just might be able to have a series of governments that were able to look after everyone - there would be no pressure on space or resources and the quality of life itself would benefit. Who wants material goods when you are sitting here looking out of my window at the sun setting over a golden sea? People get so angry at others and their politics when really we all want the same thing - a nice life for everyone.
