Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Why the lib-dems are shit

The farm collectivisation program resulted in repression to force through an economic reform. It's dumb to simply state that a planned economy will always result in tyranny, what I’m attempting to get across though is that once you establish the theory that you need a planned economy then it gives an administrative state organization a grounds for legitimately wielding power over the population. Once this power is given legitimacy then there is the potential for it to be misused on a mass scale to hideous affect.

Whilst the intentions to which this power are initially wielded start of well meaning in terms of redistributing wealth, it is all too easily corrupted. Once you start to examine the functioning of how bureaucracies operate such as Max Weber did then you realize that such power is not even wielded through the bad intention of individuals, but through the system of organization. Arbitrary rules and definitions are created to try and order and structure the means by which wealth is distributed.

State power is sadly wielded through a variety of means, it’s perfectly possible to adopt an economic liberal policy within a repressive state that deploys military, religious or fear against each people. The benefit of a liberal economic policy is not just that it frees people to trade freely amongst themselves to mutual benefit of enrichment, but also that it gives an incentive towards economically productive activity. Another major benefit is that it removes one possible justification and means of social control because goods and services are not provided by the state.

How is corporate power - wholly unaccountable to the public - better than state power, which at least offers a degree of accountability? In fact, I'll make it easier - how is it not much, much worse?
 
Did it? Can you prove this? I suspect it gave people's hard owned taxes and placed them in the hands of an artistic elite who dished out funding for their old university chums to undertake their latest project.

The irony of a thatcherite talking about putting money in the pockets of an elite...
 
That it would cost jobs is not an argument of itself. Scrapping the Nazi death machine would have 'cost jobs', that poor Fritz who pulled the gas chamber leaver. The point is rather are the jobs of use to people and could the money be used to undertake even more economically productive activity that provided more job or helped the poorest in society.

It's not a false dichotomy to look at spending and consider if it could be better spent on something else.
Fuck me, you really are economically illiterate.

Socialists don't favour dumping anyone on the unemployment statistics. In the rare cases where a job really isn't needed or wanted any more then it is incumbent on those with their hands on the levers of economic power to find alternatives. I haven't heard you come up with any. Are you still crossing your fingers and hoping that corporation tax cut will provide millions of new jobs as if by magic? Or do you not give a shit about people being unemployed?

It is a false dichotomy to force choosing between one area of public spending and another when there is plenty of money in the economy for both.

So anyway, the deficit is the fault of the British Film Council is it? Got any more daft examples?
 
Rich people pay the most taxes.

That is because rich people benefit the most from our economy. They don't create wealth; they take wealth from society, either directly in the form of money or through exploited labour. They do very well out of society, so I'll be fucked if I'll ever be grateful that they pay a fair whack of tax - that tax is just a fraction of the value they are taking from the pockets of the rest of us, and they rarely pay what they owe and then expect us to be grateful that they paid anything at all. Fuck the rich.
 
It is a false dichotomy to force choosing between one area of public spending and another when there is plenty of money in the economy for both.

I dont agree with that. Who was it who said that Socialism is all about priorities?.

Socialists IMV should be about arguing for well funded and well run public services but should not defend wasteful public spending or massive salaries for useless bosses.
Unlike proper tidy etc who claims to be a Socialist.....I would be very much in favour of some cuts in public spending. There is loads of incompetence and corruption in public spending and it needs to be addressed. The condems wont do it though. But there should be cuts in some bureacracy and pay for bosses.
 
I dont agree with that. Who was it who said that Socialism is all about priorities?.

Socialists IMV should be about arguing for well funded and well run public services but should not defend wasteful public spending or massive salaries for useless bosses.
Unlike proper tidy etc who claims to be a Socialist.....I would be very much in favour of some cuts in public spending. There is loads of incompetence and corruption in public spending and it needs to be addressed. The condems wont do it though. But there should be cuts in some bureacracy and pay for bosses.

Yes, this has been done to death on here time after time (mainly at your instigation).

If you think that spending is wrong or wasteful then by all means argue against it. But it is not a zero sum game where any extra spending in one area necessarily means cuts in another area.
 
Why do you persist with this myth that we need to make drastic cuts? We don't. This was a crisis of the capitalist class, wholly and completely, and the means with which to repay the deficit also lies with the capitalist class. If the UK just collected its taxes properly - not even introduce new taxes - the deficit could be repaid within a short period. But more to the point, cuts aren't necessary at all; it is simply the justification for planned neo-liberal reforms.

Quite why you far right loons have such a been in your bonnet about public funding, I don't know. Public sector performs better than private sector across the board, and furthermore provides better value for money; it also ensures such services are universal. Give me one, just one, example of a privatisation that has delivered.

I don't have a bee in my bonnet about all public funding, there are problems with some markets failing and natural monopolies occurring. Although many problems occur when you have state introduce monopolies as with say rail track.

Private industry is directly accountable to its customers and share-holders, unlike state bureaucracies that can only be influenced through elected members that have no real power over their departments.
 
I dont agree with that. Who was it who said that Socialism is all about priorities?.

Socialists IMV should be about arguing for well funded and well run public services but should not defend wasteful public spending or massive salaries for useless bosses.
Unlike proper tidy etc who claims to be a Socialist.....I would be very much in favour of some cuts in public spending. There is loads of incompetence and corruption in public spending and it needs to be addressed. The condems wont do it though. But there should be cuts in some bureacracy and pay for bosses.

I must have missed that thread where Proper Tidy argued for high wages for useless bosses.
 
I don't have a bee in my bonnet about all public funding, there are problems with some markets failing and natural monopolies occurring. Although many problems occur when you have state introduce monopolies as with say rail track.

Private industry is directly accountable to its customers and share-holders, unlike state bureaucracies that can only be influenced through elected members that have no real power over their departments.

Where is the example of one single privatisation that has delivered?

I'd rather essential services were administered by a body that is ultimately answerable to the electorate than to a cabal of shareholders, thanks.
 
Yes, this has been done to death on here time after time (mainly at your instigation).

If you think that spending is wrong or wasteful then by all means argue against it. But it is not a zero sum game where any extra spending in one area necessarily means cuts in another area.

I agree it's not a zero sum game, as a Liberal Democrat I would attempt to see wasteful spending cut and redirected. I don't have faith the coalition will acheive this due to the dominance of Tory control within it.
 
Where is the example of one single privatisation that has delivered?

I'd rather essential services were administered by a body that is ultimately answerable to the electorate than to a cabal of shareholders, thanks.

Farming is much better now it's not undertaken by a Feudal Lord deploying peasents to work his land. That is an example of a succesfull privatisation.
 
Did the privatisation of BT improve the service in your opinion?

It's much cheaper now, you often get free weekend or evening calls. I can remember when it was just BT having a phone bill of £140 a quarter, now you could get an inclusive calls package for £20-£30 and have unlimited calls for £90 a quarter.
 
BT still have a virtual monopoly on landlines.

Yes sadly they still control much of the infrastructure which is why it takes a long time to get a phone-line setup as you have to go through BT open reach. They are also developing a monopoly on fibre optic broadband in my area. This is the historic artefact of their previous monopoly.
 
Private industry is directly accountable to its customers and share-holders,

Of course this is really only a half truth, the reality in many cases is that any wealth the company may have is moved rapidly into private bank accounts, a good example being our friendly bank managers.

Look at how what was left of Rover was raped and pillaged by a handful of exceedingly greedy cunts.
 
Yes sadly they still control much of the infrastructure which is why it takes a long time to get a phone-line setup as you have to go through BT open reach. They are also developing a monopoly on fibre optic broadband in my area. This is the historic artefact of their previous monopoly.

How on earth do you propose introducing competition? Let other companies build their own networks? What a waste!
 
Farming is much better now it's not undertaken by a Feudal Lord deploying peasents to work his land. That is an example of a succesfull privatisation.

Piss off you dick, that isn't an example of privatisation.

'Capitalism - better than serfdom'. You twat.
 
It's much cheaper now, you often get free weekend or evening calls. I can remember when it was just BT having a phone bill of £140 a quarter, now you could get an inclusive calls package for £20-£30 and have unlimited calls for £90 a quarter.

But surely that is down to improved technology?
 
It's much cheaper now, you often get free weekend or evening calls. I can remember when it was just BT having a phone bill of £140 a quarter, now you could get an inclusive calls package for £20-£30 and have unlimited calls for £90 a quarter.

Mobiles are the reason for that not privatising, however instead of concentrating on the one partial success shall we name all the disasters:

Rail
Gas
Electric
Water
BA
BAA
NOMS

etc etc

Oh look out for future fuck ups Royal Mail and NHS.
 
How on earth do you propose introducing competition? Let other companies build their own networks? What a waste!

Not a waste the Cable and Broadcasting Act and the Telecommunications Act, were enacted in 1984 and enabled the establishment of the Cable TV network which now used for telephony and internet.
 
Not a waste the Cable and Broadcasting Act and the Telecommunications Act, were enacted in 1984 and enabled the establishment of the Cable TV network which now used for telephony and internet.

You're flapping. Give us one example of a succesful privatisation? Preferably not where you have to go back to feudalism.
 
Back
Top Bottom