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Why, what?
Well people who break the law are jailed, or at least fined if they're caught, so I'm not sure what else you can do.
But many, many more people are in good circumstances because of the rich than are made poor. If we got rid of wealth we wouldn't get rid of poverty. Ok we may all be equal, but that because everyone would be getting poorer.
Well he is a republican (as in anti-monarchist) and by nature I have a dislike of them. But frankly I don't give a fuck about the rest of what he does, because despite the squeals of people he is no better or worse than many other people and his newspapers bring profit and pleasure to this country.
I'm not saying that it's bad to be rich... But the nature of Post-Fordist capitalism in the UK has further created conditions where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.
We live within a system of exploitation, it's something you can't escape. A few people have got better 'because of the rich'... In that our material wellbeing has increased, but are we relatively any better off?
If we got rid of 'wealth'... That would be hard to do, as how does one measure wealth, or poverty?
Are the poor getting poorer? There may be a widening gap, but the poor are still better off in absolute terms than they were
Er, yes we are. That seems indisputable if you compare our living conditions to those of our parents and grandparents
GVA? GDP? Spending power?
I guess it depends what you call poverty though. A mate of mine cannot afford central heating, but he has a lot more than say... A street kid in Nepal.
It all depends on how you define poverty.
To me, poverty is living in a shanty town and drinking polluted water out of a standpipe, then wiping your arse on a leaf.
Poverty is NOT having to go without a plasma tv, the latest trainers or an Xbox 360, nor is it having to get the bus because you can't afford a car.
So yes, there is a gap between the rich and poor in this country, but they're only poor when compared to people like Madonna.
There are people in the UK who can barely afford to put food on the table and give their kids fruit, people who cannot afford new clothes, or central heating.
We're also talking about different societies too... People have different needs, different measures of happiness, different spiritual, social and cultural requirements. Hence it could quite possibly be a fallacy to define poverty purely on economic terms?
But yeah, even 'the poor' in the UK are wealthy compared to 'the poor' in other places.
absolute poverty isn't increasing, but inequality is. These are two different things.
The best way to reduce inequality is to make everyone poorer...
The 1,000 richest people in Britain, for instance, own a combined wealth of £360bn. If you were to redistribute 90% of their wealth amongst everyone else, every single person in this country would be some £54,000 richer.
There- poverty completely eradicated at a stroke, 60 million people made much better off, and the 1,000 richest people in question would still have more money left in their accounts than anyone could possibly wish for.
And then watch the economy collapse. That isn't cash - does everyone get a scrap of a van Gogh (which is only worth that amount because people can afford to buy it). What about the price of shares falling? how does this actually motivate anyone then to work?
Again, depends on how you define poverty and human well being. Not to pull the thread on a tangent, but absolute poverty will be on the increase with climate change and it's already happening, where rains are failing or where floods are apparent.
And having less money does not mean less self-determination and less rights if people are in the same boat, so long as we have access to healthcare, welfare state, housing ect
A decline in commodities also does not have to mean a decline in happiness. There are several books, for example which link the changes in post-Fordism to crime, where certain groups of people have felt displaced, or a feeling of uncertainty (most notably Jock Young). Of course, there are other factors.
But speaking purely on monetary terms, more is better... But on social terms, is it really?
I remember a guy who did a lecture as part of a sustainable communities week and he was talking about measuring affluence not on monetary terms, but on happiness and human well being.
It may - though why a redistribution of incomes would reduce climate change is beyond me (given that capitalism seeks to reduce the amount of resources per unit and socialism doesn't it would seem that it would be the other way round
Well yes. All medieval peasants were in the same boat, but I bet they'd much rather have had DVDs and i-pods
I haven't read the books. But some crimes increase (eg burglary) because we now have more things worth stealing. Other such as highway robbery decrease due to technology. But overall the UK is much less a crime ridden place than Victoria times (which was an improvement on Georgian, which was an improvement on the 1300s).
yes, because money allows you to deal with the social ills. Having no money may mean we all have no houses and no money for medicine, but I fail to see how it's an improvement.
Good for him. I assume he's pretty well paid himself? But you need the money and the economy being in a condition to provide these things...
(Thouh maybe this is for another thread)
You're judging people by your own standards.
But personally, I would rather have healthcare than an iPod... Or time to spend with people I love so we're not working all over the place in flexible labour. I don't think you can compare peasants in the feudal times with a working class man.
Well crime patterns have changed according to the book.
Yes, we do have more to steal, but that does not account for increases in violent crime.
I was talking more on terms of commodities. I believe healthcare and welfare should come from the state.
However much he earns is irrelevent (he won't have charged a lot because we have very limited funding). I don't know how much he is paid... I think he works all over the world though.
Pot calling kettle 'You're black'
It's not an either/or
Great one of the benefits of modern capitalism is that you can do that. You want a job with flexible hours, not stressful - you can do that. You want a job earning you lots of money - go for that instead. You can't do both, but you can make that choice.
It's relevant in that your argument is that capitalism has made things worse and I'm pointing out that histroically we've never had it so good.
I agree
What increase?
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2005/is_n4_v27/ai_16108102
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1072-2502113,00.html
And where do you think that the money the state spends on this comes from? Given that civil servants don't spend our time wandering round picking money from trees it comes from taxation and that relies on people earning to be taxed on...
Nope, but its easy to say that money doesn't matter when you feel you have enough of it
you dont think its wrong just to take other peoples money?
You do realise that nobody actually owns money, don't you?
Give unto Caeasar what is Caesar's...
Is poverty not having enough money to put food on the table?
Is poverty not having enough money to adequately heat your home?
Is poverty having your electricity cut off because you can't afford the bill?
Is poverty not having enough money to buy clothes?
Because that's the reality for a lot of people who are on benefits, and who work in mininum wage employment.
I don't think making the very rich pay their share would cause the economy to collapse, but the Government likes to use the CBI's scaremongering as justification for letting the fat cat private equity bosses pay less tax than their cleaners.
Equally, I think a lot of people in top jobs would still do them even if they didn't receive the same remuneration; the job as challenge would be too tempting for them. Believing that they only care about the pay is far too cynical IMHO. I'd want to push myself as far as I could go because I'd be bored witless doing a menial job.
The best thing the Government can do is rescind the citizenship of anyone who offshores their income. If they send their money to the Cayman Islands then they can go and bloody well live there permanently.
If they did that, would there be a Government left ?
Now there is a thought.
Anyone who has dodgy schemes in place to avoid paying taxes while conducting operations in the UK is a (legal) thief and far more objectionable and costly to the country than those on the dole and benefit cheats.