Off Topic Politics Thread
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While socialist/communist states like China, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, East Germany and the USSR are (or were) shining examples of restraint, honesty and decency?
?? I don't defend it at all. I have no problem with capitalism as the building block but I have every problem with the globalist cover. If globalism was what it is advertised as then great stuff but it isn't. It is just a cover for business and those with money to pay nothing and get everything while governments pander to it because they at the top are benefactors of the globalist era. They will feather their nests and they will get top jobs for life.
When have I ever said I defend globalism? I would have thought it was obvious from my posts I don't.
The problem we have is that all parties do support globalism because at the end of the day they all have their noses in that trough too.
I think we were talking about the UK. Making simple comparisons to countries where you've suggested are bad examples is a poor argument. The choice is - do you want to live in a liberal democracy, where the poorest and weakest are looked after so that they can have a decent life, or should we allow them to go to the wall, like we do increasingly?
I know what I'd rather have.
I have plenty of left leanings but I'm in no way a socialist.
I agree with welfare but think in general it is too generous. That is not to say that many are not struggling because the system just throws out a one cap suits all policy that leaves some with more than they need and others with less than they need.
Capitalism is fine however it has to be tempered. The problem we have is with globalism. If every country in the world is continually trying to lower their tax base with business taking full advantage then we are all doomed. tax takes will reduce, welfare will go up and you can;t borrow forever.
Whether you vote Labour, Tory, Democrat, Republican or any other western world party that is signed up to globalism then you are stuck with this model. It is the globalist cover that will eventually break the capitalist ideal in the western world and then we will be doomed to fanciful ideas of socialists.
If Corbyn and McDonnell are socialists then how can they defend globalism? Socialist defending an out of control version of capitalism?
You made a broader point about capitalism encouraging greed and corruption. As the UK has never been a fully socialist state it's pointless looking at our history and perfectly reasonable to test your statement by looking at socialist countries and their history of corruption. In reality the truth is the opposite of what you suggest. Socialism requires an authoritarian government, gives more power and control to those in power and you end up with incredibly corrupt, entirely unequal societies where the tiny elite prosper enormously and everyone else suffers.
As for the statement about the poor and the weak, that's such a vague principle nobody would disagree with it. The question is how you "look after" people and that's where the disagreements start. It's also worth pointing out that neither greed nor capitalism started with Margaret Thatcher.
liberal democracy? Are you a liberal or a socialist?
Liberalism demands freedom for the individual. Socialism demands freedom for the people. They are very different ideologies that counter each other on many points.
It seems contradictory to say "a liberal society where the poorest and weakest are looked after." That is a socialist society not a liberal society.
Oh it absolutely is a testament to post Thatcherite housing policy and it's impact on London specifically, & I'll explain why.
You have to put this issue in it's historical context (history cannot be ignored if you want to understand how we got to where we are now).
Between 1945 - 1979 there was a huge programme of housebuilding aimed specifically at providing clean, comfortable, affordable housing for ordinary working people.
Harold MacMillan's Conservative govt built more council housing than any other govt in British history. This was part of the post war social consensus that Margaret Thatcher broke with.
No one in those days spoke about "social housing", and council housing was not seen as a benefit or handout to the poor. Housing was seen as a basic human need, which local govt had a role in providing for all social classes.
Margeret Thatcher's housing bill paved the way for people to buy their homes from the council, but the really wicked thing was that councils were then specifically prevented from using the proceeds from those sales to build replacement homes.
Over the decades the anount of housing stock held by London councils has diminished to the extent that all that is now left is the least desirable properties into which the most needy - the desperate and the destitute are crammed.
Whole communities have been displaced. Working class people simply can't afford to live in London any more. Apart from the fortunate like me who bought property over 20 years ago, only the rich and the very poor can afford to stay in London.
When Boris Johnson began his disastrous mayoralty, he recognised this problem and said "there will be no social cleansing on my watch". These proved to be empty words. He went on to rubber stamp countless developments of luxury housing and keeled over every time the developers asked to be relieved of the burden of having to produce a proportion of properties for "affordable" rent.
What little affordable housing was built was made available for rent at 80% of market value. A definition of "affordable" that ruled out anyone with a normal job and certainly anyone - like nurses, teachers, firemen, coppers - who works in the public sector.
Throughout all this post Thatcher era, the free market, unfettered and unregulated, was supposed to provide for the needs of society as a whole. In London at least, it patently has not. Private landlords have built buy to-let empires on the back of working people's struggle to meet the most bssic needs. At least when my grandparents rented in the private sector, there were rent controls and tenants rights - all these things have been swept away.
This brings us to where we are today. Working people have absolutely zero chance of getting a decent place to live in London. They are getting driven further and further out to the home counties and beyond, & are then forced to commute in on the most overcrowded and expensive rail network in Europe.
The only housing left on the council's books is the very least desirable - neglected, in a poor state of repair, sub standard and overcrowded. It can only be allocated to the most desperate, as councils struggle to fulfil there statutory duty to the homeless and destitute. A far cry from the "homes fit for heroes" policies of the post war era.
I have friends and family who are long term council tenants in central London - mostly in the conservative borough of Westminster - Dame Shirley Porter's old borough, remember her? Still wanted to answer corruption charges over her handling of the sale of council houses for purposes of electoral gerrymandering. They all say the same thing - that the Tory council wants people like them out of Westminster, & that every effort is being made to sell their blocks to private landlords.
The only reason blocks like Grenfell Tower remain in council hands at all - indirectly, because they are now managed by private trusts - is because flats in those sort of buildings are impossible to get mortgages on. Even so, some flats are in private hands, & such is the desperate state of the housing situation in London that they are for rent at around £1600 pcm.
Thst burnt out block absolutely is Thatcher's legacy. It is the perfect symbol of the capital's desperate housing crisis thatvhas come about as the direct result of the change of direction in housing provision her govt engineered.
The UK was effectively a Social Democracy between 1945-1979..this included 18 years of conservative rule, but a "one nation" inclusive conservatism that recognised the duty we each have to each other, regardless of wealth or station. This, despite it's problems, was a golden era in our country's history.
J
It doesn't work as well on larger scales though because the trust isn't there which is why socialism requires rules and control.
It's why I go for socialism at local levels and more liberal for higher levels of government such as the EU which is pretty much right wing.
I think of tribal society as being the best example of society with both social and liberal ideals. Where resources are pooled and everyone is looked after and there's a great deal of freedom. I believe It's also the type of society that humans were designed to live in.
It doesn't work as well on larger scales though because the trust isn't there which is why socialism requires rules and control.
It's why I go for socialism at local levels and more liberal for higher levels of government such as the EU which is pretty much right wing.
What you are describing is globalism. Nothing that politicians can do about it even if they want to. The fact that this globalist model has advanced since the Thatcher Reagan era is by the by because they were only in control of 2 countries of the western world and this model has advanced across the whole of the western world.
Everywhere there is money to be made in property prices are zooming up. Look at Spain's troubles for examples that it isn't just a UK/US/German/French problem.
I agree with all you say above and it was a bad move to stop councils from being able to replace from the proceeds however this is not a UK problem just as recessions are not UK specific problems. The globalist model is what is preventing (not that they want to prevent) politicians from being able to address problems because politicians are no longer in charge. They are merely facilitators for the globalists these days.
As for the Boris argument. All councillors say the same. I have described many times that across the country planning agreements for affordable quotas are ignored and in many cases infrastructure agreements that are agreed as conditions are also ignored. Vast developments that are only agreed on the premise of new schools, shops, facilities alongside percentages of cheap housing end up being mass developments of "luxury" or "executive" homes and the facilities and infrastructure just never appears.
Like Corbyn's policy of building a million homes over 5 years. It is a great policy however be under no illusion that it won;t turn into a cash cow for the already rich built by the big boys despite tendering higher than local or smaller builders and affordable will not equate to anybody's affordable.
There is always this insistence on simple correlations of time and place and who was in power. Policy takes time to work and it also takes time to show failings.
It wasn't Thatcher and Reagan that started globalism. They were just the leaders of 2 nations when it all started and we all know that it is the big money in the Western World that shapes policy these days. Whether they be good policies or bad it will be those that can profit from it that end up dictating the policy. They don't even hide behind governments anymore. They meet up publically at Davos and decide what the world should do each year.
And again you bring up the "Tory council" in your Westminster example to say this is a Tory problem. Social cleansing has happened all over London in Labour and Tory boroughs and it did not start in 2010. All desirable areas have suffered from the greedy profiteering portfolio landlords. It is not a Tory problem. It is across the board and was equally facilitated by Blair and Brown who championed it to the hilt.
Well said Archers. A high Tory friend with a Cambridge economics background said at the time these polices were the most divisive in current political history. There was a time I could have bought in London, Hackney specifically when my now 30 something year old daughter started uni. The then Mrs. Jab was to worried to use the equity in the family house at that time. Son and daughter both now on liveaboard boats mostly East London on the Lee and Stort rivers an admirably alternative and, as far as possible, off grid lifestyle. Boating would be one of our options should we consider a return to England from the Netherlands.
I ask again, Imps. What do you mean by globalism? You keep waving the term about but you have made no attempt to define it.
The world is a smaller place now than it has ever been, and we are interconnected globally in ways previous generations could never have imagined. Is that what you mean? There's no turning the clock back to some imaginary Merry England - people have been trying to do that since Geoffrey Chaucer's day and it remains now as it was then, an illusion for reactionaeies who fear the modern world. Do you fear the modern world Imps? Is that why you vote conservative?
The world is a smaller place now than it has ever been, and we are interconnected globally in ways previous generations could never have imagined. Is that what you mean? There's no turning the clock back to some imaginary Merry England - people have been trying to do that since Geoffrey Chaucer's day and it remains now as it was then, an illusion for reactionaeies who fear the modern world. Do you fear the modern world Imps? Is that why you vote conservative?
Globalism is the world "haves" dictating policy of nation states to suit the "haves." IT is however sold as a freedom for people. It is just a positive name for out of control Laissez Faire economics that has nothing to do with people's rights and everything to do with "dog eat dog."
It is the economic model of Libertarians and these days seems to have been adopted by anyone that calls themselves liberal, libertarian or social democrat without them seeming to understand what Libertarianism or Liberalism actually is.
Hence why we have a set of the developed world's population championing Libertarianism and Liberalism yet complaining about economic inequality and de-regulation.
People these days interpret Liberal to just be nice things like people's rights without ever understanding the very economic model they are fighting IS the Libertarian model (being passed off as the Liberal model) and their beliefs are not liberal at all. They are a mix of Liberal values and Socialist values which tend to counter each other. They are asking to have the best of liberalism (treating people equally) while utilising a socialist model on economics and the 2 will not mix. You cannot have a socialist economic model which is controlled not free and call yourself a liberal because that is not a free market.
You can see this in the EU where it is a controlled market running on liberal sales point. It is not a free market. It is a membership club. It is not free, it charges you the right to have free trade but only with those they tell you that you can trade with and on what terms. That is not a free market because for one you are paying for the privilege in the first place and after that you are only allowed to trade freely with those that the controllers of this "free market" let you trade with.
Globalists are those that control all the money in the world and make sure that they can keep it in their hands. Corbyn might talk about a race to the bottom but that is what we are already in with no signs of it ending because the western world is signed up to this model where each country continually reduces charges on those with money to compete. The only winner there are the Globalists not me or you and at some point in the future every country in the Western World is going to be maxed out as they are cornered by the globalists into reducing the take over and over again.
We will end up paying more tax and NI a long time before the Globalists end up paying their share because they will just continually stick 2 fingers up or pay nominal amounts to make things look better.
The state is already paying the wages they should in the form of tax credits and this will just continue on and on with more pressure being put on the state to pay more and charge less.
This is systemwide and doesn';t matter who is in charge. Do you think Macron will not see vast demonstrations in France once they realise what they have voted in there?
I was looking on Zoopla at a houseboat near Hammersmith recently - £80,000 plus moorings. I'm guessing you could get a much cheaper boat than that, and the moorings on the Lea are probably a lot cheaper than on the Thames. It's what I would do now if I was young, it would be a great adventure, but is this really what we've come to, people living on boats through necessity? My mum still remembers the bargees coming past her home in Camden near the lock (right where the latest fire was), and how they all lived and worked on their boats because there was nothing else economically viable for them.
Or the shorter version
Globalist = greedy bastards that will say anything to protect their money, while pretending to care about people.
None of what you describe is inevitable Imps - Corbyn's Labour party offers a credible alternative direction for Britain.
But global problems require global solutions, & international co-operation is the only way to address issues like widening inequality, global warming, species extinction, famine and drought. That's why Brexit is imo such a tragic bloody minded act of self destruction, & why the retreat into nationalism - here, in the US, in France - can only end in disaster.
I agree about Macron btw. His success simply reflects the failure of establishment politics in France, but like Trump, he offers no solutions, only rhetoric.
For me, globalism can be defined as simply as: acquiring resources you don't have. Whether that be through tax, trade, war. And pretty much anything counts, money, materials, people, or concepts such as cooperation or power.
It enables progress, we would never been able to create complicated machinery without it and its whats taken us from caves using hand made tools to building rockets to get into space. without it we would still be living in tribes and dieing of infection. but it also means there is inequality as people end up with more than others.
In reality its just a lable though and people just put their own definition to it like most things these days to suit their agenda.
It enables progress, we would never been able to create complicated machinery without it and its whats taken us from caves using hand made tools to building rockets to get into space. without it we would still be living in tribes and dieing of infection. but it also means there is inequality as people end up with more than others.
In reality its just a lable though and people just put their own definition to it like most things these days to suit their agenda.