UK Politics Thread III: Thready McThreadface (+ Jo Cox)

[Imperializt Russia]

Well done, you've accidentally summed up neoliberalism.

Neoliberalism or not, there are only a limited number of spots for executives.

That's half my point. Neoliberalism, as it has morphed into a mutant monstrosity since the works of Hayek and Friedman and the ramblings of Rand - encourages people who hold these positions to believe it's all their own graft that got them there. And then engineer their children to take their place or fill similar roles.

[Imperializt Russia]

i mean, stalin and gorbachev worked their way up from the bottom, but we're not pretending that anyone could become supreme soviet if they just put in some elbow grease

Unless by elbow grease you mean "Nagant revolver grease".

[Geilinor]

Neoliberalism or not, there are only a limited number of spots for executives.

That's half my point. Neoliberalism, as it has morphed into a mutant monstrosity since the works of Hayek and Friedman and the ramblings of Rand - encourages people who hold these positions to believe it's all their own graft that got them there. And then engineer their children to take their place or fill similar roles.

People grooming their kids to take their places is nothing new.

[Valaran]

Well done, you've accidentally summed up neoliberalism.

Not quite what I was intending, but I'll take what I can get.

[Souseiseki]

There have been US Presidents, Prime Ministers, countless business people, if you just type it into Google, who have made it up from the bottom to the top, even decades ago. It is possible- that is the point of capitalism.

A few thousand individuals out of hundreds of millions.
Wow.

You say you're at school, how's your statistics?

Hu Jintao was born on 21 December 1942 in Taizhou, Jiangsu province. His branch of the family migrated from Jixi County, Anhui to Taizhou during his grandfather's generation. Though his father owned a small tea trading business in Taizhou, the family was relatively poor.

Zhao was born Zhao Xiuy, but changed his given name to "Ziyang" while attending middle school in Wuhan. He was the son of a wealthy landlord in Hua County, Henan, who was later murdered by Communist Party officials during a land reform movement in the early 1940s. Zhao joined the Communist Youth League in 1932, and became a full member of the Party in 1938.

Hu Yaobang was born into a poor peasant family, and received little formal education. As a child he never attended school, and he taught himself to read. Hu participated in his first rebellion when he was twelve, left his family to join the Chinese Communist Party when he was only fourteen, and became a full member of the Party in 1933.

Gorbachev was born on 2 March 1931 in Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, into a mixed Russian-Ukrainian famil of migrants from Voronezh and Chernigov Governorates. As a child, Gorbachev experienced the Soviet famine of 1932–1933. He recalled in a memoir that "In that terrible year [in 1933] nearly half the population of my native village, Privolnoye, starved to death, including two sisters and one brother of my father." His father was a combine harvester operator and World War II veteran, named Sergey Andreyevich Gorbachev. His mother, Maria Panteleyevna Gorbacheva (née Gopkalo), was a kolkhoz worker.

Chernenko was born to a poor family in the village of Bolshaya Tes (now in Novosyolovsky District, Krasnoyarsk Krai) on 24 September 1911. His father, Ustin Demidovich worked in copper and gold mines while his mother (of Jewish origin) took care of the farm work.

Andropov was born in Nagutskaya, Stavropol Region, Russian Empire, on 15 June 1914. He was the son of a railway official, Vladimir Konstantinovich Andropov, who was of a Don Cossack family and Yevgenia Karlovna Fleckenstein, the adopted daughter of a Moscow watchmaker, Karl Franzovich Fleckenstein, who was originally from Finland.

Brezhnev was born on 19 December 1906 in Kamenskoye (now Dniprodzerzhynsk in Ukraine), to metalworker Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev and his wife, Natalia Denisovna Mazalova.

Khrushchev was born on April 15, 1894, in Kalinovka, a village in what is now Russia's Kursk Oblast, near the present Ukrainian border. His parents, Sergei Khrushchev and Ksenia Khrushcheva, were poor peasants of Russian origin.

sorry but i got a bit carried away with this. look at all these people that made it from the bottom the top! sure, they had to join a political party, but let's be honest you're not going to become prime minister of the UK without working your way up one of the two main parties either.

[Lamadia]

I am not arguing that we shouldn't have regulations- we should have some regulations which protect basic rights, health & safety, but nothing more.
I am not suggesting that the top jobs in this country are not dominated by private-independent educated students. My father went to Eton, my mother went to a very similar school; the Prime Minister, the fmr. Mayor of London, the Chancellor of the Exchequer & countless others in that post have, too. That, however, links with a different issue; to project children from poorer backgrounds into such careers, we should build many, many more grammar schools for the skilled & the intelligent. This will make a free market truly free. The state has a job- to keep the free market free, which it can, and does, do. What we are seeing, especially with the EU, is that regulations & laws are going towards thwarting corporate success rather than making it easier for people to enter the top parts of these companies.

[Valaran]

The state has a job- to keep the free market free, which it can, and does, do.

It doesn't technically have any obligation to do so.

What we are seeing, especially with the EU, is that regulations & laws are going towards thwarting corporate success rather than making it easier for people to enter the top parts of these companies.

lol the EU isn't the cause of elitism in the UK.

[Souseiseki]

the state cannot keep the market free without a lot more regulation than basic rights i mean you are aware of this right

[Eastfield Lodge]

I am not arguing that we shouldn't have regulations- we should have some regulations which protect basic rights, health & safety, but nothing more.
I am not suggesting that the top jobs in this country are not dominated by private-independent educated students. My father went to Eton, my mother went to a very similar school; the Prime Minister, the fmr. Mayor of London, the Chancellor of the Exchequer & countless others in that post have, too. That, however, links with a different issue; to project children from poorer backgrounds into such careers, we should build many, many more grammar schools for the skilled & the intelligent. This will make a free market truly free. The state has a job- to keep the free market free, which it can, and does, do. What we are seeing, especially with the EU, is that regulations & laws are going towards thwarting corporate success rather than making it easier for people to enter the top parts of these companies.

Then you're not a full libertarian then.

But even then, having hundreds more private grammar schools only works is the fees they ask for are actually low enough to allow people from poor backgrounds entry.

[Lamadia]

I am not arguing that we shouldn't have regulations- we should have some regulations which protect basic rights, health & safety, but nothing more.
I am not suggesting that the top jobs in this country are not dominated by private-independent educated students. My father went to Eton, my mother went to a very similar school; the Prime Minister, the fmr. Mayor of London, the Chancellor of the Exchequer & countless others in that post have, too. That, however, links with a different issue; to project children from poorer backgrounds into such careers, we should build many, many more grammar schools for the skilled & the intelligent. This will make a free market truly free. The state has a job- to keep the free market free, which it can, and does, do. What we are seeing, especially with the EU, is that regulations & laws are going towards thwarting corporate success rather than making it easier for people to enter the top parts of these companies.

Then you're not a full libertarian then.

But even then, having hundreds more private grammar schools only works is the fees they ask for are actually low enough to allow people from poor backgrounds entry.

'I am not a full libertarian'?
What arrant nonsense. All I am proposing is what dozens of famous libertarians say; that the only duty of the state is to protect the freedom of its people, a part of which is the freedom to come together, to trade, to enjoy enterprise.

[Eastfield Lodge]

Then you're not a full libertarian then.

But even then, having hundreds more private grammar schools only works is the fees they ask for are actually low enough to allow people from poor backgrounds entry.

'I am not a full libertarian'?
What arrant nonsense. All I am proposing is what dozens of famous libertarians say; that the only duty of the state is to protect the freedom of its people, a part of which is the freedom to come together, to trade, to enjoy enterprise.

Really now? Government guaranteeing basic worker rights is still government intervention in the economy. Full blown libertarianism (of which there may not be many followers, I guess) wouldn't be for that.

[Souseiseki]

so if the top is very small and they require low-end workers to function... does that not mean that no matter how hard everyone works the system will always require a permanent underclass to function?

[Geilinor]

so if the top is very small and they require low-end workers to function... does that not mean that no matter how hard everyone works the system will always require a permanent underclass to function?

Everyone isn't going to make the same amount of money unless you go full communist and abolish money.

[Shrillland]

so if the top is very small and they require low-end workers to function... does that not mean that no matter how hard everyone works the system will always require a permanent underclass to function?

Everyone isn't going to make the same amount of money unless you go full communist and abolish money.

Pretty much this. There does need to be some difference between what the rich and poor make, but it doesn't have to necessarily be an enormous one.

[Hydesland]

so if the top is very small and they require low-end workers to function... does that not mean that no matter how hard everyone works the system will always require a permanent underclass to function?

Yeah all those ditch diggers, dustbin men, sewage workers etc..., they're only there to sustain those at the very top, society would have no need for them otherwise.

[Philjia]

so if the top is very small and they require low-end workers to function... does that not mean that no matter how hard everyone works the system will always require a permanent underclass to function?

Yeah all those ditch diggers, dustbin men, sewage workers etc..., they're only there to sustain those at the very top, society would have no need for them otherwise.

I think the point was more that society will always have a lot people at the bottom and they shouldn't be excessively penalised for not being the very best society has to offer.

[Olivaero]

so if the top is very small and they require low-end workers to function... does that not mean that no matter how hard everyone works the system will always require a permanent underclass to function?

Yeah all those ditch diggers, dustbin men, sewage workers etc..., they're only there to sustain those at the very top, society would have no need for them otherwise.

How about the massive global poor? You know , the lower classes of China, Nigeria, Egypt. Could the current 0.1% live lives of such opulence if everyone in the entire world had the same standard of living the working class of the UK have?

[Dooom35796821595]

Yeah all those ditch diggers, dustbin men, sewage workers etc..., they're only there to sustain those at the very top, society would have no need for them otherwise.

How about the massive global poor? You know , the lower classes of China, Nigeria, Egypt. Could the current 0.1% live lives of such opulence if everyone in the entire world had the same standard of living the working class of the UK have?

Yes.

[Olivaero]

How about the massive global poor? You know , the lower classes of China, Nigeria, Egypt. Could the current 0.1% live lives of such opulence if everyone in the entire world had the same standard of living the working class of the UK have?

Yes.

I think you've just made some environmentalist some where cry.

[Dooom35796821595]

Yes.

I think you've just made some environmentalist some where cry.

Well they are more then welcome to live in poverty for the sake of the planet.

[Hydesland]

Yeah all those ditch diggers, dustbin men, sewage workers etc..., they're only there to sustain those at the very top, society would have no need for them otherwise.

How about the massive global poor? You know , the lower classes of China, Nigeria, Egypt. Could the current 0.1% live lives of such opulence if everyone in the entire world had the same standard of living the working class of the UK have?

Depends how Malthusian you are.

[Olivaero]

I think you've just made some environmentalist some where cry.

Well they are more then welcome to live in poverty for the sake of the planet.

Seriously you do realise something as simple as giving everyone just access to the same amount of food we are able to buy and the type of it so, the wide selection of meats, would increase the pressures of global warming, and in a way that can't be solved simply by buying electric cars. Incidentally speaking of cars your rolling out another couple of billion of them as well, I'm sure that wont put any type of strain on resources. Computers? thats a stepping up from our current global energy requirements by an order of magnitude as well as increasing the amount of rare earth metals we need to possible shortage levels. There are a whole host of problems attached to such a goal basically.

[Dooom35796821595]

Well they are more then welcome to live in poverty for the sake of the planet.

Seriously you do realise something as simple as giving everyone just access to the same amount of food we are able to buy and the type of it so, the wide selection of meats, would increase the pressures of global warming, and in a way that can't be solved simply by buying electric cars. Incidentally speaking of cars your rolling out another couple of billion of them as well, I'm sure that wont put any type of strain on resources. Computers? thats a stepping up from our current global energy requirements by an order of magnitude as well as increasing the amount of rare earth metals we need to possible shortage levels. There are a whole host of problems attached to such a goal basically.

It can also be done sustainably over decades. Artificial meat, car sharing and automated taxis, recycling REEs, since we aren't very good at recycling electronic waste. Sure there are problems, there always are. But they can be overcome.

[Olivaero]

Seriously you do realise something as simple as giving everyone just access to the same amount of food we are able to buy and the type of it so, the wide selection of meats, would increase the pressures of global warming, and in a way that can't be solved simply by buying electric cars. Incidentally speaking of cars your rolling out another couple of billion of them as well, I'm sure that wont put any type of strain on resources. Computers? thats a stepping up from our current global energy requirements by an order of magnitude as well as increasing the amount of rare earth metals we need to possible shortage levels. There are a whole host of problems attached to such a goal basically.

It can also be done sustainably over decades. Artificial meat, car sharing and automated taxis, recycling REEs, since we aren't very good at recycling electronic waste. Sure there are problems, there always are. But they can be overcome.

That's certainly a rosy way of looking at the world. I'm more of the opinion we'll start to fix these things when they effect us but still not give a shit about the 3rd world in 50 years.

[Imperializt Russia]

Then you're not a full libertarian then.

But even then, having hundreds more private grammar schools only works is the fees they ask for are actually low enough to allow people from poor backgrounds entry.

'I am not a full libertarian'?
What arrant nonsense. All I am proposing is what dozens of famous libertarians say; that the only duty of the state is to protect the freedom of its people, a part of which is the freedom to come together, to trade, to enjoy enterprise.

I'm not very free when my basic right to life is held hostage by people who profit off necessities without which I will literally die.

Am I?