Re: Is "Socialist" an insult now? : Thu May 24, 2012 12:38 pm  

^^

Re: London v Hull at Gillingham : Thu May 24, 2012 12:54 pm  

Mintball wrote:

And then Blair was determined to get rid of Clause 4 as quickly as possible.

Yet now there seems to be a growing belief – and more widespread than perhaps expected (see the Telegraph forums, for instance) – that privatisation of utilities was really bad for the ordinary Briton and should be reversed.

Thing is there was a few of us saying that at the time, no one listened.
I don't get any joy out of saying"I told you so".

[DaveO]

Re: Is "Socialist" an insult now? : Thu May 24, 2012 1:36 pm  

McLaren_Field wrote:

Its strange to think that in the village that my wife grew up in (and she doesn't have rose tinted specs by the way), her father rented their council house from it being a new build in the early sixties, built by a socialist local authority on a new estate under a socialist government intent on clearing away the older "slum" dwellings that stood there before to provide workers housing, sufficient bedrooms, inside toilets, that sort of thing, yes we're not talking the Victorian era here.

Her father had a trade, worked for the same employer for thirty years, her siblings all worked, there were recessions every ten years (there always are) but there were still jobs and careers with training opportunities in the manufacturing plants that had replaced the pits in the socialist controlled area - you even shopped in a supermarket with a socialist ethos, the Co-oP, and you socialised in an organisation owned and operated by its members - the CIU working mens clubs.

Manufacturing was not a dirty word, people were not ashamed to get their hands dirty or to earn a living wage for a 40 hour week with which to pay the rent, but food, clothe your family, put something aside for a holiday or xmas, and spend the rest on entertainment (sometimes not necessarily in that order), they never had any form of credit in her household, they even paid for their electricity up front with 50p in the meter and there was no shame at all in that - more importantly most people did not expect to be given anything, they expected to have to work for it even though there was a benefits system to catch them during hard times, I'm guessing that the phrase is "working class pride".


And this was the 1960s and 1970s, the years when socialism rebuilt this country's infrastructure and the people who now criticise the regime gained the most benefit from being raised in such an environment because now, as then, unless your parent bequeth you a very generous trust fund to protect you against every possible contingency and all of the crap that life will fling at you, then no-one can truly claim to be NOT socialist at all, we all belong to society, we should all contribute, and we will all benefit from a socially cohesive society - thats what socialism is.

This description is not unlike modern day Germany in many ways. There was a program on BBC about the Euro crisis and what struck me was not the big issues about why Greece is up the creak but how the German workforce and how German families have an ethos very much as you describe above. They aren't into buying stufff on credit. Home ownership is no the be all and end all. They can have jobs for life and so on, have an organised labour force so their country is far more socialist than ours is, yet is far more successful.

Re: Is "Socialist" an insult now? : Thu May 24, 2012 3:14 pm  

DaveO wrote:

This description is not unlike modern day Germany in many ways. There was a program on BBC about the Euro crisis and what struck me was not the big issues about why Greece is up the creak but how the German workforce and how German families have an ethos very much as you describe above. They aren't into buying stufff on credit. Home ownership is no the be all and end all. They can have jobs for life and so on, have an organised labour force so their country is far more socialist than ours is, yet is far more successful.

I've always thought an "inclusive" way of working is much better for the bosses as it is for the workers. It may have changed, but SNCF used to be at least part-owned by the workers which is why it was always more efficient than BR. If a company being successful benefits the workers, they'll be more inclined to work for the benefit of the company and everyone's a winner.

Quite what Beecroft thinks is bad about that is beyond me, unless he just wants it all for himself and is planning on a one man "spend your way out of recession" campaign

Re: Is "Socialist" an insult now? : Thu May 24, 2012 5:34 pm  

Ideology, pure and simple, I think, Chris. Get the state out of as much as possible and open it up for private profit. I suspect many of them don't give a toss about who they rip off or how they make that money.

Beecroft, for instance, is one of the owners of wonga.com, so he's little more than glorified loan shark. That's a company that charges interest of over 4,000% on some loans (Daily Mail January 2012).

Re: Is "Socialist" an insult now? : Thu May 24, 2012 6:00 pm  

Mintball wrote:

Beecroft, for instance, is one of the owners of wonga.com, so he's little more than glorified loan shark. That's a company that charges interest of over 4,000% on some loans (Daily Mail January 2012).

Many of thos eloans to people who have become desparate through not having a job. So his "no-fault" sacking proposal may not have been so daft after all, well in his case anyway

Re: Is "Socialist" an insult now? : Thu May 24, 2012 6:33 pm  

Chris28 wrote:

I've always thought an "inclusive" way of working is much better for the bosses as it is for the workers. It may have changed, but SNCF used to be at least part-owned by the workers which is why it was always more efficient than BR. If a company being successful benefits the workers, they'll be more inclined to work for the benefit of the company and everyone's a winner.

Quite what Beecroft thinks is bad about that is beyond me, unless he just wants it all for himself and is planning on a one man "spend your way out of recession" campaign

The major problem with introducing mutualisation to national industries, certainly in the mannet the conservatives do it, is no covenants are enshrined to maintain mutuality beyond a relatively short (<10 years) time frame. So what tends to happen is the employees buy into the business and as it grows they then look to turn it public as soon as they can and realise the return on their "investment". If publicly owned entities are mutualised, then it should be on the JLP model with absolutely no option to float the organisation at any time in the future

Re: Is "Socialist" an insult now? : Sat May 26, 2012 1:05 pm  

The BBC's statistics programme "More or Less" have examined the Beecroft "report" http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hxtmp Unlike most reports to government it contains no annexe, or references, or back-up evidence, what it amounts to is a series of assertions by a Tory party donor. It is only 15 pages long! Tim Harford discusses it on the programme and "more or less" proves that if the country followed Mr Beecroft's recommendations we'd probably as a nation be worse off not better off.

The BBC's statistics programme "More or Less" have examined the Beecroft "report" http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hxtmp Unlike most reports to government it contains no annexe, or references, or back-up evidence, what it amounts to is a series of assertions by a Tory party donor. It is only 15 pages long! Tim Harford discusses it on the programme and "more or less" proves that if the country followed Mr Beecroft's recommendations we'd probably as a nation be worse off not better off.

[Kosh]

Re: Is "Socialist" an insult now? : Sat May 26, 2012 2:28 pm  

DaveO wrote:

This description is not unlike modern day Germany in many ways. There was a program on BBC about the Euro crisis and what struck me was not the big issues about why Greece is up the creak but how the German workforce and how German families have an ethos very much as you describe above. They aren't into buying stufff on credit. Home ownership is no the be all and end all. They can have jobs for life and so on, have an organised labour force so their country is far more socialist than ours is, yet is far more successful.

Not sure if it's still the case, but back in the Eighties even the managers in most large German companies belonged to a union and they were utterly bewildered by the antagonistic relationship between management and workers in many UK companies.

Re: Is "Socialist" an insult now? : Sat May 26, 2012 2:33 pm  

major hound wrote: The BBC's statistics programme "More or Less" have examined the Beecroft "report" http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hxtmp Unlike most reports to government it contains no annexe, or references, or back-up evidence, what it amounts to is a series of assertions by a Tory party donor. It is only 15 pages long! Tim Harford discusses it on the programme and "more or less" proves that if the country followed Mr Beecroft's recommendations we'd probably as a nation be worse off not better off. I know it's been mentioned elsewhere (by Cod'ead, if memory serves), but the main reason that Vauxhall were seriously considering closing the plant on Merseyside was precisely because it's already easier in the UK to get rid of workers, of jobs and move a company elsewhere than it is anywhere else in western Europe. But then, I don't think that sort of logic has much to with this, frankly. All it is is an ideological hatred of the state – ergo any regulation that impinges upon a small number of people making ever increasing money for themselves. I suspect that's really what bemuses people a tad – the difficulty of believing that these people really don't care one iota about anything else.

major hound wrote: The BBC's statistics programme "More or Less" have examined the Beecroft "report" http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hxtmp Unlike most reports to government it contains no annexe, or references, or back-up evidence, what it amounts to is a series of assertions by a Tory party donor. It is only 15 pages long! Tim Harford discusses it on the programme and "more or less" proves that if the country followed Mr Beecroft's recommendations we'd probably as a nation be worse off not better off. I know it's been mentioned elsewhere (by Cod'ead, if memory serves), but the main reason that Vauxhall were seriously considering closing the plant on Merseyside was precisely because it's already easier in the UK to get rid of workers, of jobs and move a company elsewhere than it is anywhere else in western Europe. But then, I don't think that sort of logic has much to with this, frankly. All it is is an ideological hatred of the state – ergo any regulation that impinges upon a small number of people making ever increasing money for themselves. I suspect that's really what bemuses people a tad – the difficulty of believing that these people really don't care one iota about anything else.