As if West Wing had taught us nothing

[smokingboot]

So there I was, wondering why there was suddenly so much furore about Britain First and various shades of UKip/BNP/English Demoncrats. Maybe the right wing is rising, or maybe it's just louder froth at Euro election time. The government have found it useful - while people are squealing about pints and burkhas, Michael Gove's mob at the DoE have ever so quietly proposed the outsourcing of children's services to private companies:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/may/16/privatise-child-protection-services-department-for-education-proposes?CMP=twt_gu

Jesus. It is at this point we realise how much of the social contract has been lost/forgotten/ignored. The state does not exist primarily as a steady platform for economic growth, useful though that may be, necessary though that may be, it may not always be possible, and it is not the priority of any state. Nor does the state exist to sustain and justify our rich, they have already been sustained and justified, that's how they got to be rich. There are no self-made millionaires. They did not spring fully formed from Britannia's head; they were born through the efforts of others, and like everyone else, their first meal cost them nothing. The best and worst of them use services open to all, created often through centuries of exploitation and abuse; roads, bridges, houses. As people they have the right to be happy, as citizens they have been well looked after and the state requires payment from them simply because they are able to pay while still living very well.

A prime directive of the state must be the protection of its citizens, especially the vulnerable. It is our responsibility. A private company's primary responsibility is to make profits for its shareholders, and that always means cutting costs. This ethos is entirely at odds with a service that should not have money making anywhere near its agenda.

Never mind those union-jack-booted imbeciles on the far right. This government is dangerous because they are utterly venal. They have to go.

Comments

[matrixmann]

Actually, one is waiting for Britain breaking down. Because taking a look at the debt clock they realized in the inet, the survey says they're worse endepted than Greece.
Also, news you hear from the island, what they want to privatise and cut away or at least play with the idea to do both with, you think like it can be over any day.
It sounds that evil.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Not quite over any day ... no rations for now! :-) Gove and co kept the above proposal as quiet as they could, because the opinion of the people still matters. They can still be overturned, they still depend on votes. That is something.

My dark twin would tell you that I am precisely wrong - that the state does indeed exist primarily as a steady platform for economic growth because without that growth, the state can do nothing.

The trouble with our rulers is that they seems to be trying to return to the Victorian model, a time of economic pioneering and flourishing mercantile prowess - but at a cost that seldom gets mentioned, a huge underclass of poor who took anything they could because they had to. Empires are built on cheap labour. And there are other issues now that make these old ways of developing an economy obsolete and dangerous; fact is, there are not going to be enough jobs for everyone ever again, because there is a lot of work that no longer requires much human involvement. So the old idea of money in exchange for service/product is going to have to be re-thought, and no-one wants to do that, or even knows how!

[matrixmann]

Well, I think you get the meaning. Not be over any day, there is something to be coming after, but it's like it could be any day that some events happen or things get proclaimed which you think "What?! Say that again!", which wouldn't happen in a hundred years.
Let's say the breakdown of the Soviet Union is something else, but it is an example for when things happen which you didn't even dream of. At the time it happened it was something unprobable, something that was impossible to happen.
These days one may not imagine like the biggest of the world economies break down or fall apart because of their debts, because of their sell-outs to the private sector, because of their political entities working ineffectively and solely feathering their own nests.
But, something that remained from the historical breakdown (that which I mentioned) is: When there's lack of the most basic things, if you have trouble getting something that actually shouldn't be hard, if there's a struggle to sell goods - to local customers as well as to different regions throughout the world -, if there's a struggle in finding a purpose for production, as well as if there's so much demand that you can't even please your own citizens, this thing has hit its end.
It's only a matter of time how long you can still squeeze the lemon.

Hearing stories from around the world, it often remembers back to that.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

"One may not imagine... the biggest of the world economies break down or fall apart because of their debts, because of their sell-outs to the private sector, because of their political entities working ineffectively and solely feathering their own nests." Yes! Very much so. All of these are major issues, and no-one is dealing with them.

Our politicians should be wearing jackets stating their corporate sponsors! When the European Commission voted on banning neocotinoid pesticides (worries about bee populations dying) the UK representative voted against the ban - and afterwards, wrote an apologetic letter to Syngenta! When does a representative of national interests apologise to a private corporation?

Depending on who you are in Britain, life is easy; I bought some pretty clothes yesterday, and went to a party, bottle of bubbly in hand. Today we'll be working on our garden, our greatest worry is how to stop these slugs eating our flowers. But beyond the garden, more people rely on food banks, more sick people are being forced off benefits, more homeless people are pushed onto the streets...and as we see above, more of our most vulnerable people are placed in jeopardy. All in the name of saving money.

[matrixmann]

Well, the only ones who ever seriously wanted to do something about it, where leftists - but I don't mean social democrats or something like these, I mean those guys which go by the evil C-word in Western hemispheres, called Communists. At least they carried it on their flags.
But the problem always was, they were never let to power - as I would judge, even not when people voted for them. They did everything to keep them out of being able to change anything. The best examples for this should be what's happening in South America - for decades.
Let's say that is no hope for anything getting really getting better, but let someone handle it who wasn't allowed to handle it before. It can't get that worse than it already is.
If you leave it to those ones who had it in their hands for decades, it will end tragical anyway because they seriously have proven to be not able to handle it.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Well, Communism. It never seems to have been purely applied...Marx's domino effect just didn't happen,, and no ideology stays pure under constant attack. Communist states were pretty much placed under blockade or seige...or the originating ideal seems to have been corrupted pretty quickly by personal ambitions, weaknesses in the internal structure. Disastrous regimes like North Korea end up as prime examples. That's how bad it could get. That's why we have to defend Capitalism...or so they tell us.

But the truth is, the world is facing issues unlike any before, and Capitalism must evolve, it must give way or adapt to the world's changing needs. And of course, those who gain from capitalism don't want that to happen - what do they care about need? As to what we do now, I honestly have no idea.

[matrixmann]

Once said to someone "Capitalism works if it only had a few solid rules and everyone who crosses them receives some consequences" and he responded "Well, that would be communism."
Don't know if it's true, but - reconsidering the facts, there's been a lot of time that has passed between Marx and now. Also, the incarnations of his proclaims had been founded a long time ago. It was a different time, a different place, things wouldn't work anymore like they used to (then).
Rememnants of that time which are still alive (Cuba) and newly joins (several countries in South America) actually show the way as it would have to look like. (I wouldn't count North Korea as a country with a communistic state system, the better phrase for it was "dictatorship by old Asian tradtition. And I don't mean that as an insult, I mean that as a word for a cultural circle.)
Pure Communism as Marx proclaimed perhaps would only work in a small group which believes in the uprightness of the order and which behaves like that without any force. Or it would be something to carry out after war. When survivors need to stay together and rebuild up the essentials of a daily life.
If larger groups get involved, you need to give them freedom to move because not all that your system can give satisfies or suits the needs of everyone.
Well, as I said, some countries who still try this way of life seem to have gotten this point and they try to realize it as best as it's possible (besides all coup tries from the outside).
The only thing that seriously needs to settle in culture is that if you own a factory it's not all your property and you can do whatever you want. Your workers need to have a say in that too - because it affects their lives if you close down or sell it all out.
Let's say, if this is a way to make that common, give it a try.
If the course stays, it will go down anyway.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that communism/socialism/anarchy even can work well with small groups. The larger the group the harder it is, and the more open to abuse. Take bread for example. I would sooner have thousands of little bakers all selling their wares as they please, where they please, at whatever price they please - and I would expect common sense and their market to be their guides. There is something distinctly worrying about one group being in charge of distributing the country's bread. The group should rather, be spending their time making sure there is enough bread for everyone without destroying the point of the bakers effort.

Thing is, these systems are less theories and more like living entities. They must adapt or die, and our current system is resisting this truth. One myth that persists is that of perpetual progress - 'To infinity and beyond,' stuff. If more progress relies on more money, and more money comes from finite resources, then progress is finite. And then what?

The western economies will not try anything beyond what they know. Because if the whole system falls apart, the rich reckon the only form of safety is the money they have accrued. Ironic, that the system which is destroying us, is their only defence against the system destroying us!

[matrixmann]

The thing with the finite progress, I don't know if concepts of communism took that in meanwhile. That's something that remains left for me to criticize on them.
Communism in its original concept also calculates with "there will always be things which are needed", meaning there will always be a purpose for production, the needs of the citizens will never be fully silenced.
Indeed, talking about food or daily nessecary items, it will be this way. But, let's take furniture, let's take technology. Even if you make it to offer items in the same (or similar) frequency as it is these days, buy - take with you (not wait for ten years to be ready), anytime flats are full of stuff and you need to throw something way to put in a new item. Enough people go the way "nothing is broken, so I don't need something new" and then you have it.
Communistic concepts may find this to be a little unprobable since most countries which choose this path have to struggle with embargoes, with finding anyone at all who wants to trade with them and with synthetic floods of goods from foreign countries (which try to undermine their prices and production) - but, let there once be no system with tries to knock it out.
They're going to be faced with the same problem - the market is fed up and some industrial sectors are only needed in a very small amount.
I really don't know if they already took it in to their concept.