Money Makes The World Go Round... Backwards
So, on the news this morning they were discussing the publication of the BBC expenses and salary information. Not seen any big rants on how much these people are being paid getting and how much "tax-payers money" they are spending, but it has got me thinking (well, ok this is more an amalgamation of lots of thoughts that have been running through
( Read more... )
1. If we don't have enough of X then the wages for X rise, so more people become an X, and vital jobs get done. Without coercion. See plumbers.
2. Unpleasant but necessary jobs get done because wages are raised until people are prepared to do it. This is a powerful force against your touted class enforcing.
There are places where the system breaks down, for example entertainment where uniqueness means competition doesn't work properly any more (I consider sport a form of entertainment. Except rugby obviously, which is a form of torture).
There has been something wrong with the city over the last few years, in it's execution, but not in it's purpose. The purpose of the city is to provide good governance to our companies, which are not really ruled by the good of the fictional entities you imagine, but by the good of shareholders, that is, the good of people with pensions. Most of capitalism is the relentless pursuit of people being able to retire without poverty.
I'm not convinced that food production, education and nursing are systematically underpaid. Teachers certainly aren't! Interestingly two of the three on that list aren't part of capitalism in this country, so I'm not very sure what it would prove even if they are under paid as you claim.
Reply
There isn't an equal provision of healthcare or education regardless of wealth. Partially because of the option to get better service if you are willing to pay for it and partially because we're generally unhappy to tax those that are better off to fund a reasonable service for those less well off.
Farmers are massively unpaid as the food market is pretty much controlled by a handful of large organisations (the supermarkets), who have so much control they can pretty much declare how much they want to pay for something like milk no matter what the production costs are.
Teaching is highly skilled occupation (or at least it certainly should be) and involves long hours (especially with the levels of bureaucracy imposed on it at the moment) and so should be one of the most highly paid jobs. Yet it doesn't get anything near other skilled industries like IT or banking for example.
Similarly for nursing.
Reply
I think capitalism is an economic system, not a political system, and that you can have democratic capitalist states and totalitarian capitalist states. I prefer the former.
I think our system of government isn't capitalist because people are elected to government, they don't buy it.
I think the state sector isn't capitalist because it has no capital raising, shareholders, profit, or any of the other things I associate with capitalism.
Of course socialism is a philosophy with a wider net, and if you wanted to raise an opponent to it you might want it to be rather bigger than my capitalism, to have a political and social set of objectives as well as economic. I guess that's the angle you've come from.
Reply
The education system for example is moving more towards a principle of schools selling themselves to pupils (and their parents). The currency is people rather than money in that case, but the principle is the same and it does effect the amount of money the school gains as a result.
Reply
Leave a comment