Immigrant workers are scab workers?

[poster342002]

Got to agree with Blagsta - a) production has mainly moved, it hasn't been abolished - someone else, somewhere else is now doing the dirty work and b) they have to sell those products, if they don't whats the point of producing them? - that means people have to sell their labour ro be able to buy those products. Thats how this system works (or dosen't work..)

And yet the job cuts and layoffs in the UK continue and continue and continue. The logic of your argument clearly isn't getting through to the UK's capitalist - who seem quite content for UK workers to have no ready income to buy their products and services.

 

[dennisr]

In my lifetime, I've only seen setback after setback - so it's unsurprising that I'm a little short on optimism.

My attitudes stem from my experiences. That's dialectics for you.

My lifes been a bed of roses, mates

You are still a richer individual than, probably, 95% of the world's population - you have access to a computer - you are able to afford to feed yourself - you live on a lot more than a dollar a day - you havent watch ou own children die in your arms from easily preventable desise. Its all relative. Experiences should be informed imo - thats what i try to do in my own life

 

[Blagsta]

And yet the job cuts and layoffs in the UK continue and continue and continue. The logic of your argument clearly isn't getting through to the UK's capitalist - who seem quite content for UK workers to have no ready income to buy their products and services.

Except they don't. Unemployment is lower than it was in the 80's (even taking into account hidden unemployment, people on the sick etc).

But let's assume what you say is true - how do you envisage the economy and society operating? Robots?

 

[dennisr]

And yet the job cuts and layoffs in the UK continue and continue and continue. The logic of your argument clearly isn't getting through to the UK's capitalist - who seem quite content for UK workers to have no ready income to buy their products and services.

I do hear a lot of workers speak like yourself, members of my family, workmates - the sad thing is because you lot don't have the confidence to at least attempt to get off your knees you hold the rest of us down in your own misery. Thanks

I dont need the lecture on how hard it is - i live here to you, daft arse

 

[poster342002]

You are still a richer individual than, probably, 95% of the world's population - you have access to a computer - you are able to afford to feed yourself - you live on a lot more than a dollar a day. Its all relative. Experiences should be informed imo - thats what i try to do in my own life

Recoursing to poverty-relativism doesn't help matters, dennisr.

 

[poster342002]

Except they don't. Unemployment is lower than it was in the 80's (even taking into account hidden unemployment, people on the sick etc).

But let's assume what you say is true - how do you envisage the economy and society operating? Robots?

Frankly - I don't know. All I can do is make a judgemnt on what I see happening and where it will logically end up. And that scares the daylights out of me.

 

[dennisr]

Recoursing to poverty-relativism doesn't help matters, dennisr.

100 years ago you would have been relatively closer to the situation faced by the majority of the worlds population. So whats changed for us in this time, in this place? Change is constant (thats a real dialectic process)

'poverty-relativism' - feck of with your academic phrases

 

[poster342002]

I do hear a lot of workers speak like yourself, members of my family, workmates - the sad thing is because you lot don't have the confidence to at least attempt to get off your knees you hold the rest of us down in your own misery. Thanks

I dont need the lecture on how hard it is - i live here to you, daft arse

Thing is, denisr, I used to think like you too. I used to have the same arguments with people and came at it pretty much from from your side of the fence, as it were. And as time went on, I came to see more and more that it simply "wasn't happening" and that the rhetoric I was spouting bore little connection to reality.

I know when to stop flogging a dead horse and when to stop chasing a wild goose. Do you?

 

[greenman]

And yet the job cuts and layoffs in the UK continue and continue and continue. The logic of your argument clearly isn't getting through to the UK's capitalist - who seem quite content for UK workers to have no ready income to buy their products and services.

I don't think you are quite right there - although manufacturing continues to decline there has been no corresponding massive rise in mass unemployment as there was under Thatcher. For the majority incomes have risen - (Hence despite the social disruption and disatisfaction there is still social peace) though those at the bottom of the income scale have got poorer both relatively and absolutely. Why is this?

The reasons are varied - but amongst them are -
a/Massive consumer credit boom (which also helps keep 'social peace' amongst those at the bottom of the income scale)
b/ Continued expansion of service, retail and leisure sectors
c/Continued increase in public spending
d/Property values at continuing high level
e/Flood of cheap imports from China feeding a and b
f/Continued bonanza for financial services and finance capital as whole through position of City of London and currency manipulation helping to facilitate a, b, c and d.

How permanent this state of affairs is is another matter - not very I would say, talk about house built on sand......

Question is, what happens when the proverbial hits the fan?

 

[poster342002]

Unemployment is lower than it was in the 80's (even taking into account hidden unemployment, people on the sick etc).

Even if this is the case, the employment available is far, far less secure than what was around in the 80s.

 

[dennisr]

Frankly - I don't know. All I can do is make a judgemnt on what I see happening and where it will logically end up. And that scares the daylights out of me.

Dosn't this comment get to the nub of your doom and gloom though - fear.
I understand it - i know what its like to be fearful, just like you - it part of homelessness, being unemployed, being sacked - done that, all of it - it tends to colour all your experiences at the time

Your fear is holding you like a rabbit in someone's headlamps waiting to be run over though. The thing is I am not hanging around to get run over with you.

(feck I am sounding like one of those self-help manuals now... *hangs head in shame*)

 

[tbaldwin]

Thing is, denisr, I used to think like you too. I used to have the same arguments with people and came at it pretty much from from your side of the fence, as it were. And as time went on, I came to see more and more that it simply "wasn't happening" and that the rhetoric I was spouting bore little connection to reality.

I know when to stop flogging a dead horse and when to stop chasing a wild goose. Do you?

Good Post. Like you poster experience of flogging a dead horse made me re-examine some of my views.
The stupidity of a lot of left wing politics is that its so disconnected from most people's experiences and aspirations.

 

[dennisr]

I know when to stop flogging a dead horse and when to stop chasing a wild goose. Do you?

If you've stopped why are you still bothering with your comments? Or replying to me? Even when you are trying to prove your own disollusion to yourself it shows the sparck thats still there - get off you knees mate, you know it hurts staying down on them for too long

I'm not some wild-eyed teenager with a romantic view of the working classes and 'ethnics', i don't think its all rosy in the garden. But I am not going to behave like a cynical, defeated, alienated cunt either

 

[dennisr]

Even if this is the case, the employment available is far, far less secure than what was around in the 80s.

Yes, I agree with that

 

[greenman]

Even if this is the case, the employment available is far, far less secure than what was around in the 80s.

Seeing as much of it is in the public or corporate-run sectors, (and also Voluntary Sector beefed up by New Labour) again I would have to disagree - what you say is only true of some low paid service and manufacturing employment, it is not the whole picture, nor even the majority picture. Ask Baldwin about how secure workers feel in the public and voluntary sectors
On second thoughts, don't!

Edited to add - there is of course increasing insecurity in DWP and some Health workers, but that is a relatively recent phenomena not typical of the public sector as a whole, but like the interest rate rise, a sign of things to come.

 

[ViolentPanda]

It's reducing it's dependance on labour to the point whee it may as well have freed itself, though, isn't it? It's reducing dependancy to such a degree that it's not worth splitting hairs about.

No it isn't.

As long as you need food you'll have an agricultural sector where most non-arable crops can't be harvested entirely (and some not at all) by machine.
As long as you have machines you'll need people to make them, maintain them and operate them.

In fact as long as we're a consumption-based society to even half the degree we now are, then I can't see that your forecast can possibly be valid. Capital will always try to minimise its' costs, but some costs are unavoidable. Labour is one of those costs. There's only a finite amount Capital can "squeeze" costs or "sweat" labour before before negative gain is encountered.

 

[Blagsta]

Even if this is the case, the employment available is far, far less secure than what was around in the 80s.

True. However that is not the same thing as capitalism freeing itself from labour.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Even if this is the case, the employment available is far, far less secure than what was around in the 80s.

Just as the employment in the 80s was far less secure than employment in the 50s and 60s.

It's part and parcel of a shift from an industrially-based economy to a service-based economy. It may be disgusting, it may have harmful effects on the social body, but it is unavoidable given the choices made by those who govern when faced by the forces of Capital.

The only way we can possibly recapture what we've lost is to dismantle or adapt their system from the ground upwards, not just through labour organisation, but through w/c people drawing the conclusion that party politics as it currently stands is part of the problem, not part of a solution.

 

[ViolentPanda]

If you've stopped why are you still bothering with your comments? Or replying to me? Even when you are trying to prove your own disollusion to yourself it shows the sparck thats still there - get off you knees mate, you know it hurts staying down on them for too long

I'm not some wild-eyed teenager with a romantic view of the working classes and 'ethnics', i don't think its all rosy in the garden. But I am not going to behave like a cynical, defeated, alienated cunt either

Same here. I'd rather die on my feet, facing "the enemy", than die on my knees or turn my coat.

 

[tbaldwin]

The only way we can possibly recapture what we've lost is to dismantle or adapt their system from the ground upwards, not just through labour organisation, but through w/c people drawing the conclusion that party politics as it currently stands is part of the problem, not part of a solution.

So VP what is your idea on what the solution is? It would be good to have a thread on here on that...
Make a change from immigration threads..........

 

[ViolentPanda]

So VP what is your idea on what the solution is? It would be good to have a thread on here on that...
Make a change from immigration threads..........

Except that you find an excuse to introduce your hobby-horse into any thread, whether immigration is relevant to it or not, don't you?

 

[belboid]

Make a change from immigration threads..........

oh the irony!

stil lawaiting your answers to my previous questions - including, notably, what immigration controls you actually want (an answer on dennis' thread would of course be fine)

 

[tbaldwin]

oh the irony!

stil lawaiting your answers to my previous questions - including, notably, what immigration controls you actually want (an answer on dennis' thread would of course be fine)

Erm belboid quite the intrepid investigator....Maybe you should read dennis's thread?????

 

[tbaldwin]

Except that you find an excuse to introduce your hobby-horse into any thread, whether immigration is relevant to it or not, don't you?

So you dont want a thread on your ideas for a solution.....Suprising......

 

[poster342002]

The only way we can possibly recapture what we've lost is to dismantle or adapt their system from the ground upwards

Yeah - except that (as usual) I'd be doing it on my own. NOBODY ever backs you up. That's another lesson I've learned from over 10 yearsworth of bitter experience. It coems back to the "wildebeast" comparison I made yesterday; you stick your neck out and everyone else just goes quiet or denounces you as a troublemaker - in the hope that appeasing the jackal will earn them some brownie points.

 

[ViolentPanda]

So you dont want a thread on your ideas for a solution.....Suprising......

Yet again I find myself having to say "don't misrepresent me".

I know it's a habit of yours, but it gets boring really quickly.

 

[tbaldwin]

Yet again I find myself having to say "don't misrepresent me".

I know it's a habit of yours, but it gets boring really quickly.

So your going to start up a thread or not?

 

[treelover]

But that is the worrying point,l there isn't an effective left which could help empower/shield/defend/ people when the shit hits the fan. Poverty, inequality is not or has been on the lefts agenda for many years( just look at the disgraceful lack of support for disabled groups fighting welfare cuts) instead its just anti-BNP demos and 'asylum seekers welcome here'! Of course, spontaneous groups, non aligned activists/trade unionists/community campaigners may appear though the turmoil, so i would hope....


btw, what are the economic journals saying about possible crashes?

How permanent this state of affairs is is another matter - not very I would say, talk about house built on sand......

Question is, what happens when the proverbial hits the fan?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Yeah - except that (as usual) I'd be doing it on my own. NOBODY ever backs you up. That's another lesson I've learned from over 10 yearsworth of bitter experience. It coems back to the "wildebeast" comparison I made yesterday; you stick your neck out and everyone else just goes quiet or denounces you as a troublemaker - in the hope that appeasing the jackal will earn them some brownie points.

And your point is?

I'm in my mid-forties. I've been involved in politics (sometimes "mainstream"", sometimes "fringe") since I was at secondary school. So what if people are scared? So what if you're the only person on their feet rather than their knees? At least you're trying to DO SOMETHING, at least you're not just letting "them" get away with playing "their" games.
I'm a troublemaker and I'm proud of it. There's no honour in rolling over on your back and submitting. there's plenty of honour in fighting for what you believe is right.

 

[ViolentPanda]

So your going to start up a thread or not?

I'm considering it.

Unlike you I don't just think "ooh, I'm on Urban. I know, I'll post up yet another[/I] pointless thread just to wind people up".