It's a combination of both. I repeat, many in the UK have limited opportunity, on account of the context in which they are raised and live. A child raised by a middle class family in a relatively affluent environment has far greater opportunities for 'success' than a child raised on a sink estate within a family that struggles and often fails to get food on the table morning, noon and night. To deny that seems bizarre to me, a product of ideological mind-washing.
No Fault Evictions
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Phil Pascoe
Established Member
To deny that it happens largely because of human nature seems equally bizarre. People are not, have never been and will never be equal, no matter what opportunities.
I wouldn't deny that 'human nature' (whatever that is) plays its part but again, most of us manage to contain our impulses and urges to a reasonable degree,* being shaped by the society and culture we grow up in. And of course people are not all 'equal'; the point is to give decent opportunities to everyone.
*Obviously, we'd have to exclude the large numbers of 'successful' leaders and business people who have been shown to manifest psychopathic tendencies from this.
ey_tony
Established Member
I am not burdened down with entitlement unlike socialists like yourself who dream of some Utopian land where fairy tales are made.
Punishment doesn't come into it. It's just sensible re-distribution. If it didn't happen everybody would suffer including the mega rich. What goes around comes around.
Unfortunately they do, not deliberately of course but it's a consequence of wealth and power drifting ever upwards.
So you can't think of an example of a non-socialist, "neo liberal", de-regulated, low tax, free-market, utopian state?
The world doesn't work like that. I came from a very impoverished background in a North East mining village. I left school at the age of 14 years and 10 months. I could easily have followed the majority of those who lived in that area but chose instead to go out into the world and make a living for myself that didn't involve going down a mine.
My parents died young and I started with absolutely nothing and therefore I worked for everything I own and gained an Honours degree in science which I earned as a full time mature student.
Let others do the same if they want some of those things I worked hard to achieve. The world doesn't owe anyone a living, least of all those who put little or nothing into it.
Obviously if someone through circumstance beyond their control or physical or mental health issues are unable to fend for themselves then society has a duty to support those people through the safety net of benefits but benefits should be not be there to fund lifestyle choices.
From what I've seen of so called 'true socialists', the vast majority I've come across were employed in the public sector. It's a breeding ground for envy and entitlement to the fortunes of others.
You seem to be arguing against a fairy tale understanding of socialism, Tony.
Chris I was the latter child you refer to, it didn't stop me. Too many excuses for non achievement, in many cases too little effort. If you tell people that they stand no chance of success by dent of their upbringing, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
ey_tony
Established Member
Not at all Chris. I've never believed in fairy tales or in Utopia.
What can so called socialism actually do that common sense and reasoning can't?
Communism is literally socialism on steroids so now tell me which communist country is a good example?
It's like the followers of a religion who claim that in order to be a good person you have to follow their religion....what utter nonsense!
You don't need top follow any religion to be a decent and considerate person...the same applies to socialism....it's nothing more than an ideology much like religion.
I'm neither left nor right wing...I suppose I'm a capitalist but that doesn't prevent me from having empathy with those who like me started with nothing or have been less fortunate. We have a duty to support those people but not provide benefits as a substitute for those capable of supporting themselves.
Socialism doesn't have the monopoly of morals...on the contrary, taking away the fruits of one's hard work to give to those who don't deserve it is a morally bankrupt ideology.
AJB Temple
Finely figured
There are entrenched attitudes in society that are very hard to address. I left my (violent) Midlands home shortly after my 17th birthday and went to university where some "creativity" was required to get in and pay my way. It was far from easy. Time passed and I obtained professional qualifications etc and eventually become senior in businesses, created businesses and jobs. Rather than seeing this as a product of hard work, my entire working class family (factory and shop work) concluded that I had joined the "boss" classes, which they despised. They felt that such people get paid far more than they "the workers" do and that this was unfair. Many working class people carry with them an ingrained sense of injustice and entitlement and simply will not see it any other way. The labour party (I agree with some of its ideals) and socialism play into and foster such attitudes.
People who focus on selling their time by the hour, and who clock watch and demand their "rights" rarely are willing to take risk where they are willing to work for nothing in order to get a future reward - which is what entrepreneurs do. I realise that some people just get lucky or succeed through nepotism, but I am focussed on the creators not the spongers.
I do agree that some people are insanely rich and this needs to be addressed. However, politicians have sleepwalked into US (mainly) and other foreign companies harvesting our economy whilst paying minimal tax. River shop is an example that has helped destroy our high streets but has paid little tax as it is a foreign entity and can manipulate taxable profits easily. Starbucks, Meta, Google. Microsoft, Apple etc are all foreign harvesters. We need to accept some blame for our predicament as we have actively exported jobs to China and profits to America and all many of us do about it is moan. Starmer is a civil servant who has never run or grown any business, and Rayner has no business skills that I can see. Reeves has little economic or business education and seems proud of it. How can we possibly expect a good outcome when we the electors allow this yo-yo politics with both sides blaming each other?
People who focus on selling their time by the hour, and who clock watch and demand their "rights" rarely are willing to take risk where they are willing to work for nothing in order to get a future reward - which is what entrepreneurs do. I realise that some people just get lucky or succeed through nepotism, but I am focussed on the creators not the spongers.
I do agree that some people are insanely rich and this needs to be addressed. However, politicians have sleepwalked into US (mainly) and other foreign companies harvesting our economy whilst paying minimal tax. River shop is an example that has helped destroy our high streets but has paid little tax as it is a foreign entity and can manipulate taxable profits easily. Starbucks, Meta, Google. Microsoft, Apple etc are all foreign harvesters. We need to accept some blame for our predicament as we have actively exported jobs to China and profits to America and all many of us do about it is moan. Starmer is a civil servant who has never run or grown any business, and Rayner has no business skills that I can see. Reeves has little economic or business education and seems proud of it. How can we possibly expect a good outcome when we the electors allow this yo-yo politics with both sides blaming each other?
Jacob
New Luddism. Awake and resist!
Well done all round, not an uncommon story and in spite of your sour grapes you (and @NorthernSteve ) have undoubtedly benefitted from socialism every step of your way, from NHS, though education and other infrastructure supplied by the state for the benefit of all.
All paid for from taxation. All fought for by earlier generations, often at great personal cost. You are not another Robinson Crusoe!
It's not only about looking after the feckless ne'er-do-wells it's much more about NHS, welfare, education, housing, libraries, universities, art colleges..... endless list of positive, enlightened, state provision for the benefit of all, particularly offering opportunities to the disadvantaged.
Your sour grapes attitude is typical of the right as a whole, who tend to have a very miserable view of life.
Tories? Les Miserables so-and-sos!
I feel sorry for the joyless lot of them.
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AJB Temple
Finely figured
Your rationale Jacobs seems to suggest that there are three entities: the left, the right and the state. So when we say "state provision" it is just a set of choices made by the government of the day on how to allocate the taxes they demand from us. I doubt that it varies a great deal as politics doesn't really change the need for health care, refuse collection, libraries and so on. Generally the political swings only affect these necessities relatively marginally in terms of policy and funding. The real issue is that neither left nor right has the competence or vision to generate and manage a growth economy. They claim they do, but reality shows that not to be the case. Hence we play about removing winter fuel allowances and adding a bit of VAT to private school fees, but ignore the really big ticket tax avoidance and stripping profits overseas by river shop and others. It's akin to rearranging the deckchairs on the titanic. We need fundamental economic policy shift. UK needs to get industry regenerated, we need to get rid of dependence on foreign ownership of utilities, we need to develop export markets, we need to stop foreign entities generating huge turnover but next to no tax....and so on. These things are much harder to do. But they are the only things that will yield growth and prosperity.
Jacob
New Luddism. Awake and resist!
Not true.
We have been told over and over again that we can't afford these things and they have all been underfunded from a long way back, under the guise of "austerity". Starmer is doing the same and there's no reason to imagine that he is going to throw off caution and pull a socialist rabbit out of the hat at some point.
"Growth" as a solution to life's problems is a popular delusion on the right. We've had growth from the year dot but the benefits are not necessarily distributed and there's no reason to think that they ever will be, even under Starmer. Rather it's a false promise of jam tomorrow, except for the already well off who have profited enormously from austerity.
But the big issue is Climate change and on the face of it constructive de-growth seems to be the way forwards. Either we choose how to do it ourselves or nature does it for us, whether we like it or not.
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Our economy relies on unemployment to a great extent, and has for many many years. The cost of labour is kept low - look what happened when workers left the UK after Brexit and the pandemic, people doing apparently menial work here were able to pick and choose jobs according to salary/ hourly rates. Many businesses have struggled badly on account of this if we're to believe the news. Unemployment is written-in to our economy.
Prior to capitalism's rise, there wasn't unemployment, now it's a given. Its means of production in many cases, alienates people from the work they do - you don't build a table, you stand all day passing timber through a milling machine and never do much else toward the production of the table. Soul-destroying work, people become cogs in machines. Work is seen as an old toad, something to get away from, a night getting pineappled in the pub, a cheap holiday to the sunshine for a week once a year. It's what people have come to work and live for. It's a very negative attitude toward work, and the ones who can get it (from the perspective of those who want to but can't get decent paid work) are the lucky ones. Others just give up and live off the state and presumably feel written off anyway.
Since you talk about communism, Marx was very clear that labour was a fundamental condition of human being, that work is an essential part of self-fulfilment, a thoroughly positive thing. Not the kind of fragmented work that's offered on 'production lines' (whatever form they take) to so many these days, but the kind of work that allows you to build a table from scratch, something that you can do well and take pride in. I'm lucky to have spent a fair bit of my working life feeling in control of what I do in work, responsible for the quality of what I did and the mistakes I made.
Since you talk about communism, it's worth noting that there's no place for unemployment in communism, and forces of socialism (not the same thing) are dedicated to decent work for all. It's a product of our type of economy and enormously wasteful.
ETA - the problem with common sense is that it's often a product of learned perspectives. Common sense says the sun sinks below the horizon each day.
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You need to define opportunities, there are still many opportunities if you are not looking at a good career and are happy working in retail, hospitality or a call centre but based on what industry there was back in the seventies then the opportunities for people leaving school are now way less. Yes you can get a job in McDonnalds or such but you cannot call this a rewarding career choice, we no longer have the companies like Marconi's or RHP that once took on large numbers of youngsters to train up to become skilled employees and offer a rewarding future.
Probably best left forgotten. Once Thatcher came along then people started to think reincarnation might be real as it looked like Hitler had returned to finish off what the luftwaffe had failed to do to british industry.
Is it not our constant striving to "grow the economy " that has got us into this climate mess in the first place. Change is essential for our survival but that will involve reducing the wealth of the few who seem to own everything. If everyone had a less materialistic lifestyle but were not in poverty and the maximum wealth any individual could have was capped so they then needed to give employee's shares in the company and invest more heavily to create more jobs then the country would start to work as one because working now offers a future. To achieve this would require political change so no one party runs the country, instead all parties are represented.
AJB Temple
Finely figured
I disagree spectric. At least in part. I've employed many people in a variety of industries. My observation is that many people leave initiative at the door when they come into work. You get highly motivated and active people who are easy to teach and encourage, and you get people who are lazy and feel entitled. And everything in between. It's just human nature. In much the same way we get a very wide distribution on the intelligence bell curve.
It seems to me counterproductive to stifle individual ambition and entrepeneurship via the tax policies of envy and levelling down, and better to find a way to encourage businesses to be more successful and prevent off-shores from stripping profit out of the UK into foreign tax regimes. I don't care if we have a few clever people who get very wealthy, as long as society as a whole also benefits. But what we have is a few clever people in america and china getting obscenely wealthy whilst our UK citizens don't benefit at all.
We need to target corporate wealth and worry less about personalities.
As to climate change, I think that is just someone who has realised they are on weal ground, trying to divert attention to something else. As regards growth we can have a static position, recession or growth. No one seems happy with a static position - which is why labour were elected perhaps, very few would vote for recession and that leaves is with growth. Globally though it is illusory. What we need to recognise is that our policies for the last 30 years at least have transferred industry and jobs to China and India (among others) and permitted our retail industry to become river shop, and much of our financial sector to be shifted into the EU. How anyone could put positive spin on this strategy is beyond me.
It seems to me counterproductive to stifle individual ambition and entrepeneurship via the tax policies of envy and levelling down, and better to find a way to encourage businesses to be more successful and prevent off-shores from stripping profit out of the UK into foreign tax regimes. I don't care if we have a few clever people who get very wealthy, as long as society as a whole also benefits. But what we have is a few clever people in america and china getting obscenely wealthy whilst our UK citizens don't benefit at all.
We need to target corporate wealth and worry less about personalities.
As to climate change, I think that is just someone who has realised they are on weal ground, trying to divert attention to something else. As regards growth we can have a static position, recession or growth. No one seems happy with a static position - which is why labour were elected perhaps, very few would vote for recession and that leaves is with growth. Globally though it is illusory. What we need to recognise is that our policies for the last 30 years at least have transferred industry and jobs to China and India (among others) and permitted our retail industry to become river shop, and much of our financial sector to be shifted into the EU. How anyone could put positive spin on this strategy is beyond me.
ey_tony
Established Member
Sour grapes attitude? You mean just because I believe in making the most of and taking responsibility for one's life and not feeling entitled to everything being handed to me without working for it which seems to be the philosophy of the socialist, that makes me suffering from sour grapes?...absolute nonsense.Well done all round, not an uncommon story and in spite of your sour grapes you (and @NorthernSteve ) have undoubtedly benefitted from socialism every step of your way, from NHS, though education and other infrastructure supplied by the state for the benefit of all.
All paid for from taxation. All fought for by earlier generations, often at great personal cost. You are not another Robinson Crusoe!
It's not only about looking after the feckless ne'er-do-wells it's much more about NHS, welfare, education, housing, libraries, universities, art colleges..... endless list of positive, enlightened, state provision for the benefit of all, particularly offering opportunities to the disadvantaged.
Your sour grapes attitude is typical of the right as a whole, who tend to have a very miserable view of life.
Tories? Les Miserables so-and-sos!
The sour grapes attitude is that of the socialist who is envious of other's success.
On the contrary I am very happy for what little I have achieved. I have contributed to the rest of society throughout my working life by paying my taxes just as my later father and grandfather before him did so I have nothing to feel remotely sour about. ..but then again I don't have an ounce of envy in me.
I don't remotely care or resent how successful someone else has been...I'm only concerned that I have done my best.
I believe in helping those who are unable for various reasons can't help themselves but to be honest, if someone is too lazy or can't be bothered to get off their backsides and improve their own quality of life then that isn't my problem...it's their problem so let them deal with it.
Most of the successful business people I know have all started life very much like I did. I worked 6 and 7 day weeks, up to 12 hours a day for nearly 40 years. I rarely had holidays so I have very little sympathy for those who expect the state to give them everything.
Meritocracy is the way forward it feeds aspiration. Socialism defeats it!
Tony, why not go and do some reading about what socialism is instead of repeating these daft caricatures? I think you make some reasonable points but it's let down terribly by your misrepresentation of socialism.
Jacob
New Luddism. Awake and resist!
No it is not
Maybe you don't realise it but every one of your posts sounds bitter, resentful, angry, miserable.
Sounds like a miserable way to earn a living. I can see why this would make you resentful. Do you regard a normal 40 hour week plus holidays as pure laziness?
"Meritocracy" is one of the feeble excuses of the well off for hanging on to their wealth. A regularly trotted out little cliche. Who assesses the merit - just the bank manager?
Socialism facilitates success and always has, from birth - health and welfare, education, training, and so on. Massive public spending on all sorts of amenities and support for individuals and business at every level.
No doubt you've been helped along the way too, even if you don't realise it.
Anyway - give us an example of this non-socialist utopia you keep fantasising about.
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Phil Pascoe
Established Member
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Billy_wizz
Established Member
I wonder what proportion of that is earned in the UK?
