Delusional nonsense from the Observer.
For a generation, the economic consensus has been that, for capitalism to deliver the growth and living standards that make it legitimate, state activity has to be as minimal as possible, leaving business and finance to spearhead economic dynamism themselves. But the programme has not worked. The deregulated financial system, left to itself, created a first-order financial crisis, and now western economies are stricken with an enormous overhang of private debt.
How can something we have not had, not have worked?
Well this bit confused me from the off…for capitalism to deliver the growth and living standards…… cos isn’t that, like, ummm, Communism or sumfin ? š
Because they’re liars who’ll say and do absolutely anything they have to, to get power.
For them, the means don’t matter, only the end.
How can something we have not had, not have worked?
Be thankful that the country has not been handed over in its entirety to the business owning classes. We are screwed enough as it is. The irony in all of this is that those free marketeers demanding a “small state” really do not want a small state. They want, and they need, a rather large security state in order to keep a lid on the social disorder that their policies cause.
“Be thankful that the country has not been handed over in its entirety to the business owning classes.”
A business owner can only succeed by providing people with what they want. But politicians have no such worries: they lie, they steal, they murder, they’re utterly corrupt, and anything and everything they control is second-rate at best.
Violent monopolies do not produce optimum results.
“They want, and they need, a rather large security state in order to keep a lid on the social disorder that their policies cause.”
A free market doesn’t have “policies”, that’s the entire idea behind them.
And it’s the state’s deliberate creation of an entitlement culture, and an underclass reliant on handouts that causes problems.
The free market was solving poverty until the lying, stealing, murderous, corrupt, political filth realised it was more useful to keep the poor around for propaganda and to have a class of people entirely reliant on them.
And you can see that’s exactly what we’ve got.
“A business owner can only succeed by providing people with what they want.”
A business owner can also succeed by finding some crap nobody wants and then convincing the masses what they do want it. Business will merrily spend millions on advertising precisely for this purpose.
Take a look at the soft drinks industry if you don’t believe me: at a practical level, the list of ingredients on the side of almost any can of fizzy, coloured sugar-water is pretty much the same as any other, with only the choice of proportions and food colouring making each on ‘different’.
But here’s the thing: politics is *also* a business. It has all the same hallmarks: offering crap nobody wants and spending millions on marketing to make us want it. They know full well who the piper is, and it’s not the voter, because the voter can be convinced to vote for whomever they’re bloody well told using ā you guessed it āĀ *advertising*. Politicians may call it “campaigning”, but it really is just a synonym for “paying Saatch + Saatchi to convince the masses to buy our ‘product’.”
Whatever you call that product, however you market it, however you try to convince the masses that it’s what they want, and that they shouldn’t buy the rival’s equally bullshit offerings, the end result is what we see in Parliament today: a bunch of glorified sugar-water businesses whose ‘products’ differ only in logo and choice of food colourings.
The tiny, tiny few who really do care about doing The Right Thingā¢ are completely outnumbered by the “career politicians” who are in it to get rich quick.
Politics *is* a business. It always was.
“And thatās where advertising comes in.”
I work in the advertising industry as a freelance copywriter (the guy who writes the adverts).
So I’m fully aware that business *can* create a want. But I’m also fully aware that most businesses in the UK are small ones (typically less than ten employees) and don’t have a marketing budget that even begins to approach the level needed to create a want.
And even if a business did have a multi-million pound marketing budget, there is zero guarantee they’ll succeed. Far more products fail and quietly disappear than become successes, even those launched by household names.
If people don’t want something, they won’t buy it, the most advertising can do is get them to try it.
“Politics *is* a business now.”
No, politics is gun-to-the-head, business is voluntary transactions.
To say it is a business is insulting to business owners.
No, politics is gun-to-the-head, business is voluntary transactions
There is no such thing as an entirely voluntary transaction. We are all coerced by circumstances. What you neglect to say is that the business owning class has its own supporters in government that will enact laws for its benefit, whether it be laws severely restricting the rights of workers to organise themselves into trades unions, criminalising workers who go on strike or reducing regulations on business.
The irony for libertarians is that they call for society to be liberalised for the benefit of business but history teaches us that when that happens the law and order function of the state always increases massively.
“What you neglect to say is that the business owning class has its own supporters in government that will enact laws for its benefit”
I can’t cover every single point in a blog comment. And you’re right, except big business usually campaigns for regulation in order to strangle competition. But it’s an argument for no government, not more (or better).
“The irony for libertarians is that they call for society to be liberalised for the benefit of business but history teaches us that when that happens the law and order function of the state always increases massively.”
Libertarians call for society to be free for the benefit of everyone. Everywhere government extends its power to things get worse; where it, very, very seldomly removes it, things get better.
Really? That bike I bought last November involved a decision on my part, a lttle discussion about price, a test ride and an exchange. No coercion at all.
Anyway, apologies for the lack of involvment here, I’ve been unwell and am going back to bed. Normal service will resume when I’m feeling better.
Get well soon LR :bunch of grapes:
I’m recovering. I’m not quite firing on all four – there’s a slight misfire, but I’m getting there.
A business owner can only succeed by providing people with what they want
Naive nonsense.
A free market doesnāt have āpoliciesā, thatās the entire idea behind them
Well it has an ideology and has supporters in government that have policies that will help it sustain and promote that ideology. And it is a fact whereever we look in the world that as free market ideology advances so does disorder increase and so does the state enlarge to deal with that disorder, whether it be Thatcher of the 1980s, Pinochet of the 1970s or Reagan of the 1980s.
And itās the stateās deliberate creation of an entitlement culture, and an underclass reliant on handouts that causes problems
Conspiracy gibberish noted. You shouldn’t believe everything the Daily Mail tells you. In fact, according to the Office of National Statistics a mere 5,000 people have been on JSA for more than five years. The issue we have, that even Longrider could tell you were you able to abandon your libertarian prejudices, is under employment. Millions of people on zero hours contracts that are paid so little they cannot sustain themselves. I suspect that people work a damned sight harder than you do, sonny.
“Naive nonsense.”
Almost as naive as believing a small group of elites with a monopoly on violence is the best way to run things.
“Well it has an ideology and has supporters in government that have policies that will help it sustain and promote that ideology.”
A very simple ideology – let people trade freely. That’s it. Nothing like the complex distortions of the truth, advocates of “do what you’re told, or else” have to use.
“And it is a fact whereever we look in the world that as free market ideology advances…”
Complete bullshit, we can look at all these “social” problems, and see that every single one of them is caused by government interference.
“The issue we have, that even Longrider could tell you were you able to abandon your libertarian prejudices, is under employment.”
And what causes unemployment? Government regulation.
“You shouldnāt believe everything the Daily Mail tells you… I suspect that people work a damned sight harder than you do, sonny.”
It must be fantastic to be a righteous crusader up on the moral high ground. Being able to completely ignore reality while cheer-leading for more failure must feel good. But then, if you’re standing on the corpses of those the state has murdered because it knows best*, you’ll be too high up to see the real world.
*250 million in the 20th century alone (not including war) according to in-depth research by R.J. Rummel.
And maybe *you* shouldn’t believe everything the government, BBC, and Guardian tells you. But I guess when you believe we should be subservient to our masters, the truth is an irrelevance.
Almost as naive as believing a small group of elites with a monopoly on violence is the best way to run things
And you seriously think that such elites will go away if you make government smaller. Of course they won’t. They will simply be privatised. You should read about the wars of incorporation in the US. When government retreats, then well organised and financed private interests will assert themselves with violence and become a quasi form of government. This happens today in exactly those parts of the world where central government is weak. In parts of central American, particularly.
I never said the elite (such as those from Oxford :lol:) would disappear. But that it is better to have them in competition than in a monopoly.
The violence in central America is a direct result of world-wide government drug policies. You don’t see legit businesses engaged in war against each other.
Because, as with every other area it infests, government either makes a problem worse, or manages to create new ones.
Forgot to mention:
I looked into the “war of incorporation” when you mentioned it before. And, naturally enough, found government was the cause through its supporting of some landowners over others. To the point where it deployed soldiers to butcher business rivals.
“As a rule, capitalism is blamed for the undesired effects of a policy directed at its elimination.” Ludwig von Mises, 1940.
I never said the elite (such as those from Oxford š ) would disappear. But that it is better to have them in competition than in a monopoly
Read some history and not just screeds written by libertarians. When government retreats, or does not exist in the first place, the the political and power vacuum is filled by someone else. And that someone else is typically rich and powerful individuals who promote their interests.
The violence in central America is a direct result of world-wide government drug policies
Rubbish. Political violence in central America predates the war on drugs by many decades. What you have in many of these countries are powerful and rich oligarchies that derived their wealth from colonial days. Thanks to weak central government, these people have been able to impose their own law and order on the country.
The problem with libertarianism is that it is the unwitting tool of corporatism and tyranny. Whatever you say about wanting to make the world “free for everyone”, in practice what your beliefs do is empower the rich to dictate to everyone else. Communists said that they wanted peace and the brotherhood of man but they delivered tyranny and so would libertarianism were it ever implemented.
“I suspect that people work a damned sight harder than you do, sonny.”
Damn it, your pathetic, snide little comment’s got itself stuck in my head so I’m going to have to answer it.
Did these people work harder when I’d do a paper round before school?
When I’d get bullied at school because my parents couldn’t afford the latest fashion for me, while also being bullied for being “posh” because I’d been brought up to be polite and respectful. Bullied to the point I’d skip school as much as possible because it became a nightmare for. Were these people working harder than me then? Or were they either doing the bullying or standing by and letting it happen?
When I got my first proper job at sixteen and I was cleaning shit-caked toilets in exchange for a bit of spending money, where these people working harder then?
When I worked my way through university, still cleaning toilets at the weekend (this time for the Co-Op), now also labouring on building sites, and teaching a martial arts class (if nothing else, being bullied’s made me a hard man in both mind and body), were these people working harder then?
When I was in an entry level, soul-crushing retail job at Jessops (and you know what, I was still cleaning the fucking toilets), at the same time I was labouring on my week days off, while I was educating myself on copywriting and marketing in my free time in the evenings losing my social life in the process, were these people working harder then?
Or do you just mean now I’m sitting at a desk all day and I’ve got the easy life, now these people are working harder than me?
Except, of course, that’s just brain-dead bullshit, the type of non-thinking zombie mindset encouraged by your mates in government.
Your simpleton thinking, giving everyone their own neat little label according to your own prejudices, envy, and hatred simply has no relation to real people in the real world.
Your simpleton thinking, giving everyone their own neat little label according to your own prejudices, envy, and hatred simply has no relation to real people in the real world
The only person here labelling people is you. You condemn millions of people as the “underclass”, without have the first fucking clue what it means to be on a zero hours contract, where pay is uncertain and you have to claim benefits because otherwise you simply could not sustain yourself.
I am not envious of you at all. I am paid close to a 6 figure sum. Because I am clever and got a first class degree in mathematics from Oxford and have 25+ years of experience in my field. But I would not despise or condemn those who have not had my advantages or luck, and it is luck to be born with reasonable smarts and into a stable family. That makes me better than snot nosed self-righteous twats like you.
“That makes me better than snot nosed self-righteous twats like you.”
Showing your true colours now, eh?
I’m done with you.
Iām done with you
Good.