Capitalism Isn't Working.

[ViolentPanda]

*Holds aloft blood-sucking leeches and a bunch of garlic.*

Are the leeches metaphorical or literal?

I ask because I'm rather enjoying the thought of you holding various business magnates aloft by the throat.

 

[Willy_Popel]

I was on Facebook the other day, and this lad told me that if you put onions out around your house, [so just cut them in half and place them around your room's], when the flues and stuff start knocking about, that method absorbs all the badness in the air, stopping you from getting flues etc. It was also claimed that this method helped people in the period of the bubonic plague, stopping people from catching the airborne disease, for the same reason.

Now whether this is true or false is not really important to me, it seems to me that the drug companies wouldn't be interested in doing such research anyway. Why? Because, if they were to do research and find out that that method worked well, people wouldn't buy their medicine's, people would just use the onion method.

The onion method could be a great boon to society, it could be an old wives tale, but if it were left to the drugs companies, we wouldn't know one way or the other. They wouldn't be interested in doing the research, because they couldn't make any money out of it.

Now translate this out across society, to all research and development. To looking at solutions for the environment. To looking at solutions for the economy. You can see that a system that puts profit before people, is holding society back from developing the solutions that could give humanity a future. You can see, capitalism isn't working.

Great post .. so obvious and simply true

Capitalism isn't working because capitalism is not what we are experiencing
Free trade, laissez faire etc is not the current system

If it were the banks would have gone bust and Jo Bloggs could have started a new one

What we have is a buncha thick freeloading caaaants pulling every ladder that exists behind em

You might call it communism if communism didn't have such a bad name tbf

imho

 

[butchersapron]

Oh, another libertarian. What we have is really-existing capitalism. The capitalism that developed out of the failures of the free markets you propose (and that never and could never have existed in the form you imagine).

 

[mentalchik]

As it is, people tolerate shit because they believe the only choice is between a diet of shit-and-potatoes or a diet of shit-and-rice.

As someone on here once said, it doesn't matter if you go with the blue sauce or the red sauce, it's still the same dog shit sandwich

 

[TremulousTetra]

'If only people weren't inculcated by "the-powers-that-be" with an attitude of parliamentary democracy being the only game in town' would be more apposite.
As it is, people tolerate shit because they believe the only choice is between a diet of shit-and-potatoes or a diet of shit-and-rice.

yeh, but you don't, do you? You have a higher level of political consciousness of what the cause of the problems are, and how class is THE problem.

[sos, not had time to answer you.]

 

[frogwoman]

Great post .. so obvious and simply true

Capitalism isn't working because capitalism is not what we are experiencing
Free trade, laissez faire etc is not the current system

If it were the banks would have gone bust and Jo Bloggs could have started a new one

What we have is a buncha thick freeloading caaaants pulling every ladder that exists behind em

You might call it communism if communism didn't have such a bad name tbf

imho

And i might call you an idiot.

 

[TremulousTetra]

Capitalism is working.That's all it is.

you misread I think;
"You can see that a system that puts profit before people, is holding society back from developing the solutions that could give humanity a future. You can see, capitalism isn't working."

 

[frogwoman]

It's working ... for the rich.

 

[Nylock]

Great post .. so obvious and simply true

Capitalism isn't working because capitalism is not what we are experiencing
Free trade, laissez faire etc is not the current system

If it were the banks would have gone bust and Jo Bloggs could have started a new one

What we have is a buncha thick freeloading caaaants pulling every ladder that exists behind em

You might call it communism if communism didn't have such a bad name tbf

imho

...and there was me thinking that i was politically illiterate compared to the P&P average...

 

[ska invita]

Apples are also said to be quite good for you. An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

i eat an apple every day and im still really susceptible to the flu, though it may be the way apples are treated in supermarkets thats killing the goodness out of them... capitalism grrrr

Im wondering how many onions it might take to make a flu firewall

 

[TremulousTetra]

It's working ... for the rich.

I know he mean't that, lol. but it's inane pedantry given the context was plainly stating that in providing for human being's, capitalism isn't working.

However, if we are going to be pedantic, it is far too simplistic imo to say capitalism IS working for the rich/ruling class. Which would the rich rather have, a 1930s style depression or a post-war style boom? The rich are alienated [in Marx's sense of the word, lacking control over] from their own system. hence the title 'The Economics of the Madhouse'.

 

[butchersapron]

I know he mean't that, lol. but it's inane pedantry given the context was plainly stating that in providing for human being's, capitalism isn't working.

I didn't mean that though. I meant that the absolute basis for the existence of capitalism is wage-labour, is working. It is by definition working.

 

[TremulousTetra]

I didn't mean that though. I meant that the absolute basis for the existence of capitalism is wage-labour, is working. It is by definition working.

lol, you should have said that then.

So what?

 

[butchersapron]

Nothing. It was just a a crap pun in passing. Crack on about the onions.

 

[TremulousTetra]

Nothing. It was a crap pun.

agreed!

 

[trevhagl]

Capitalism is working.That's all it is.

not here its not, i've sold hardly anything this week!

 

[ViolentPanda]

yeh, but you don't, do you? You have a higher level of political consciousness of what the cause of the problems are, and how class is THE problem.

[sos, not had time to answer you.]

My political consciousness is no higher than most. I've merely had my nose rubbed in the contradictions more often than many of my contemporaries.

Please don't project your Swappite vanguardist guilt onto me, you unseemly person.

 

[TremulousTetra]

My political consciousness is no higher than most. I've merely had my nose rubbed in the contradictions more often than many of my contemporaries.

so your interest/reading/activity in politics has given you no better political consciousness/awareness than those "inculcated by the powers that be"?

I disagree. You plainly have a political consciousness far beyond the vast majority of people I meet/know. In fact quite a few on U75 do. in fact what is so slap head obvious on here too many people, capitalism isn't working, isn't so obvious to the majority of people who have contributed to this thread in other forums. Many, including those who are much cleverer than you, quite understandably have no interest in politics. those do have an interest in politics, have a low level of consciousness of the classless alternatives. Your refusal to accept the obvious smacks more of dogma, or semantics, rather than the actuality.

Please don't project your Swappite vanguardist guilt onto me, you unseemly person.

lol, I too reject the SWP Vanguardism that exists in your head.

 

[junglevip]

Do you think there is a better example than the onion theory. I was thinking fluoride

 

[Fuchs66]

And i might call you an idiot.

and I may call you a cauliflower!

 

[Fuchs66]

but not necessarily mean it X

 

[ViolentPanda]

so your interest/reading/activity in politics has given you no better political consciousness/awareness than those "inculcated by the powers that be"?

It gives me no higher (your choice of words, not mine) political consciousness.

I disagree. You plainly have a political consciousness far beyond the vast majority of people I meet/know. In fact quite a few on U75 do. in fact what is so slap head obvious on here too many people, capitalism isn't working, isn't so obvious to the majority of people who have contributed to this thread in other forums. Many, including those who are much cleverer than you, quite understandably have no interest in politics. those do have an interest in politics, have a low level of consciousness of the classless alternatives. Your refusal to accept the obvious smacks more of dogma, or semantics, rather than the actuality.

You think that people aren't politically conscious, and of course your experience of politics will have reinforced the idea that people need guidance. The problem with that is it doesn't take into account one of the primary reasons besides apathy that people don't exercise their political consciousness - the belief that to do so outside of "regular channels" is futile and/or personally dangerous.
People may be perfectly politically conscious, but may be "disabled" by the fact that they have social obligations that preclude getting involved in anything other than the most anodyne politics. It's not for nothing that those who are first to protest are usually those with least to lose.

lol, I too reject the SWP Vanguardism that exists in your head.

I'm talking about the SWP vanguardism that exists as dogma, matey.

 

[GEN.Eccentric]

People may be perfectly politically conscious, but may be "disabled" by the fact that they have social obligations that preclude getting involved in anything other than the most anodyne politics. It's not for nothing that those who are first to protest are usually those with least to lose.

I would say it goes deeper than mere social obligations but what are the reasons for this? and how do we challange it? I mean why are 'social obligations' more important, surely it wasnt like this for the protestors at Peterloo for example, just ordinary working class people AFAIK, whats changed since then? Apart from the obvious (Thatcher etc.)

I have been bemused by this thread as I thought capitalism was working perfectly fine, complete with its crises and increasing disparity, Im not going to pretend to be as well read as some though so I always welcome people imparting their knowledge.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I would say it goes deeper than mere social obligations but what are the reasons for this? and how do we challange it? I mean why are 'social obligations' more important, surely it wasnt like this for the protestors at Peterloo for example, just ordinary working class people AFAIK, whats changed since then? Apart from the obvious (Thatcher etc.)

At the time of Peterloo there were the same social obligations in play as now - responsibility to family and to community. What has changed, besides the type of response to dissent, is that people have, under capitalism, come to believe that they have more to lose than their antecedents at Peterloo had. The destruction of the extended family as a support unit (for reasons of infrastructure as well as policy) removed support networks that the concept of a nuclear family could never replace, even in the most co-operative of communities. If you're faced with a choice between meeting your social obligations to your family (whether that be the immediate obligation of putting decent food on the table or the long-term obligations of child-rearing) and risking arrest (and possibly concomitant loss of employment) for protesting, some people will swallow the bitter pill and keep their heads down, some will protest regardless while hoping for the best, and some will be stooges.

I have been bemused by this thread as I thought capitalism was working perfectly fine, complete with its crises and increasing disparity, Im not going to pretend to be as well read as some though so I always welcome people imparting their knowledge.

Capitalism thrives on crisis, although perhaps not for the reasons that neo-liberal economists would attribute. However, crisis also provides capitalism with the possibility of devouring itself as the contradictions (those crises and disparities) become so forceful as to override what I suppose you could call the "instinct of self-preservation" that many politically-conscious people have.

 

[CyberRose]

Capitalism is working absolutely perfectly, the problem is it was never meant to be a benefit to us plebs

 

[TremulousTetra]

It gives me no higher (your choice of words, not mine) political consciousness.

LOL, hung up on a word, instead of the meaning.

Use whatever word you want, you have a greater awareness/consciousness. You have more awareness/consciousness. The meaning is the same impov.

Why?

so your interest/reading/activity in politics has given you no better political consciousness/awareness than those "inculcated by the powers that be"?

I disagree. You plainly have a political consciousness far beyond the vast majority of people I meet/know. In fact quite a few on U75 do. in fact what is so slap head obvious on here too many people, capitalism isn't working, isn't so obvious to the majority of people who have contributed to this thread in other forums. Many, including those who are much cleverer than you, quite understandably have no interest in politics. those do have an interest in politics, have a low level of consciousness of the classless alternatives. Your refusal to accept the obvious smacks more of dogma, or semantics, rather than the actuality.

You think that people aren't politically conscious,

no. I Don't believe that.

The problem with that is it doesn't take into account one of the primary reasons besides apathy that people don't exercise their political consciousness - the belief that to do so outside of "regular channels" is futile and/or personally dangerous.

seriously? You seriously believe the SWP are unaware of that problem? lol

People may be perfectly politically conscious, but may be "disabled" by the fact that they have social obligations that preclude getting involved in anything other than the most anodyne politics. It's not for nothing that those who are first to protest are usually those with least to lose.

lol, people like oo, er ME! Again no revelation. But my main point is this, what percentage of the population in the UK would you assess, just in your own opinion, are at the same political awareness/consciousness as you?

However you want to word it, in essence you are more politically astute about the problems we face in this society, than the vast majority are, are you not?

I'm talking about the SWP vanguardism that exists as dogma, matey.

no you're not. I've never met a member of the SWP who subscribes to the version of Vanguardism that you ascribe to them.

 

[TremulousTetra]

...and there was me thinking that i was politically illiterate compared to the P&P average...

here's someone else who clearly accepts the actuality, that some people like yourself violent panda are more politically astute than others, have a higher level of revolutionary consciousness and political consciousness.why do you deny the obvious VP?

PS. I don't mean any disrespect to you Nylock.

 

[butchersapron]

Pats him on the head

 

[audiotech]

Prompted by RMP3's thread, I've just re-read Chris Harman's 'Party and Class' and referring to Lenin, Harman makes this point: 'Lenin did not believe that the working class is incapable of coming to a "socialist theoretical consciousness", but rather that the level of consciousness is never uniform.'

I heard recently that this article was crucial in deciding the International Socialists (forerunner of the SWP) turn towards Leninism.

 

[TremulousTetra]

Prompted by RMP3's thread, I've just re-read Chris Harman's 'Party and Class' and referring to Lenin, Harman makes this point: 'Lenin did not believe that the working class is incapable of coming to a "socialist theoretical consciousness", but rather that the level of consciousness is never uniform.'

I heard recently that this article was crucial in deciding the International Socialists (forerunner of the SWP) turn towards Leninism.

oh, don't go quoting what the SWP actualy say. lol