Money Makes The World Go Round... Backwards

[hmmm_tea]

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

Comments

[feanelwa]

Yes! I agree well said. I am still looking for any way in which it can be fixed though. The whole system of vested interests looks bound up tight from here.

[hmmm_tea]

The whole system would need to be changed, but getting that through is never going to happen, so we're all doomed and going to drown when the sea level rises *cheery thought of the day*

[feanelwa]

But then the vested interest of the super-rich is going to be in killing the rest of us. On the other hand, we know how to make food out of potatoes and pigs, and they know how to make imaginary money out of other imaginary money.

[hmmm_tea]

Possibly

I somehow think Marx may have had a few valid points, even if Lenin et al had to go a spoil it all through their own corruption.

[passage]

Any system which depends on humans not being in any way corrupt is useless for this world.

[hmmm_tea]

Like capitalism does you mean?

Capitalism: not as black as it's painted

[passage]

In theory at least the supply demand approach to wages has a number of very good effects

Re: Capitalism: not as black as it's painted

[hmmm_tea]

Everything is part of capitalism in this country, it's what our whole system of government is based on.

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.

Re: Capitalism: not as black as it's painted

[passage]

We obviously have very different definitions of capitalism, which is going to stop our discussions making progress.

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.

Re: Capitalism: not as black as it's painted

[hmmm_tea]

The majority of our society is based around markets, even state controlled public service work on a principle of markets.

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.