To actually love Russell Brand after his performance on Newsnight tonight..?

[Scarletohello]

My God I only caught it by chance and I literally couldn't believe what he was saying to Paxman. He was calling for a revolution in society, for wealth to be distributed and he was so articulate and passionate about it. NO ONE is saying this stuff although there is so much anger in British society about how inequitable society has become but everyone has become so demoralised about it ( or blaming immigrants, asylum seekers etc)

I hope you guys get a chance to see it and tell me what you think of it, I am in shock right now.

( also pissed off about AF being banned too...)

SoniaGluck

You do know that the left believes the BBC to be right wing, don't you?

Yes, they do. Which is interesting, but doesn't mean the BBC is 'in the centre'. I think both are wrong. The BBC has its own ideology and it isn't left or right. But it carries more traits of Fabian socialism than it does of free market liberalism.

What I really would genuinely like to know is - this low tax, deregulated, strictly market-led economy that some posters are advocating in opposition to the 'nasty' socialism that Brand argues for - what would it actually look like?

I really don't know. I don't think there's a 'perfect' ideal, because once you start saying 'The world should be this way' then you very quickly discover it can't be because people get in the way, and then you start shooting the people who are in the way in order to make the perfect world and the structure you create becomes more important than the people in it. And I think that's where free market liberals and socialists differ, because free market liberals say "This is how people are and so the system should let people be people" and socialists say "This is how people should be and the system will force them to be this way". Which is what makes socialism nasty.

Hayek argued that free markets can only be free with government intervention. He stated that a 'free' market meant not one where everyone could do what they wanted (which quickly leads to monopoly and abuse) but one where barriers to entry were low, so it was easy for a competitor to start up. I agree with him and I think that so much of the problems we see in industries are where governments intervene in a manner which raises barriers to entry.

Flatpack your argumemts are eloquent.

However they ignore the over riding fact that our planet is fucked under the current politics of capitalism.

middleclassdystopia

Flatpack your argumemts are eloquent.

However they ignore the over riding fact that our planet is fucked under the current politics of capitalism.

The planet is not 'fucked'. Don't be so dramatic.

Socialist command economies don't maintain the environment better. They do it worse. Have you seen what the Soviets did to the Danube? The pollution? Have you seen their smelting plants and the low environmental standards which allowed them to leach pollutants in to the groundwater? How about in China? Have you see the environmental damage caused by acid leaching for rare earths to fund the West's obsession with wind farms?

For heaven's sake Flatpack still spouting the same old.
Ed Milliband is not the equivalent of the old Soviet Russia, or China. Neither do they (China and Russia) represent socialism.

The planet ain't fucked
But economic systems are complex and possibly inherently problematic!

Interesting thread and interview!

Three people on this thread have said that the threat to the environment isn't real / is 'old hat' / an elite or elitist argument / is 'dramatic.' Why is that? Isn't it primarily a scientific issue and then a political one? I.e. if respected scientists are proving beyond reasonable doubt that climate change really is happening, then this is not an issue for one political party or ideology to espouse but a reality that will affect our grandchildren and their grandchildren regardless of how we vote? How do you get away from that; deny the science?

All these stars flying into Britain on airplanes to tell us about global warrming and the destruction of the planet.

Clearly their planes run on Unicorns breath and fairy farts.

I didn't mention Socialism. I merely mentioned a possible major pitfall to Capitalism.

Do any research into carbon emmissions and climate change and science shows that we are reaching 'tipping point' with regards to saving the planet. It can be done, but privatised energy companies who are profit driven are not going to help matters.

Though I agree that nature competes for resources, there does seem to be a sort of madness at the upper end of the capitalist hierarchy.

I recommend McGilchrist's The Master and his Emissary for an interesting read about how the west has become left hemisphere thinkers. It may lead to our own destruction.

George Monbiot also discusses extreme wealth and the idea that amount is abstract. It's just being at the top of the pile that counts
I recommend

'Isn't it primarily a scientific issue and then a political one?'

No, it is the other way around. Look up the elitist 'Club of Rome' and their 1972 commissioned 'Limits to Growth' report, which influenced many of today's green movements, and then look up the United Nations Agenda 21 programme.

'How do you get away from that; deny the science?'

Dr Piers Corbyn vs spokesman for something called 'Campaign Against Climate Change' who is not a scientist.

I don't think there's a 'perfect' ideal, because once you start saying 'The world should be this way' then you very quickly discover it can't be because people get in the way, and then you start shooting the people who are in the way in order to make the perfect world and the structure you create becomes more important than the people in it.

Which, I would argue, is very near to where we are now. People don't seem to be very important to the current government. And I don't think that eliminating the people who oppose you is a trait peculiar to socialist régimes.

What I would really like to know, I think, is how far do we go with deregulation and allowing market forces to decide the way we organise society. Do we abolish the NHS altogether, for example, rather than just selling off bits of it?

What do we do about the elderly, the disabled? Does this model suggest we take out insurance for every conceivable eventuality?

Hayek argued that free markets can only be free with government intervention. But surely, in that case, there is no such thing as a 'free market'? And how do you lower barriers sufficiently? By abolishing hard won employee safety measures for example?

Middleclass, that's optimistic. I've talked to environmental scientists whose prognoses are much gloomier. I'd need to be convinced that they are wrong!

Thanks Claig, I'll look those up. Of course, there are scientists who campaign against climate change too!

Also sorry to triple post but Claig, can you tell me what your critique is of the Club of Rome?

"What I would really like to know, I think, is how far do we go with deregulation and allowing market forces to decide the way we organise society. Do we abolish the NHS altogether, for example, rather than just selling off bits of it?

What do we do about the elderly, the disabled? Does this model suggest we take out insurance for every conceivable eventuality?"

We have to have a balance. We should fully fund care for the elderly and hospital care from the public purse out of taxation.

However, there is no need to fund the BBC out of taxation. We shouldn't have to pay their severance payments from the taxes of hardworking people. We need to cut back on taxpayer funded subsidies to rich landowners who earn millions by erecting windfarms and we need to cut taxpayer subsidies in other areas so that we have enough taxpayer money to provide excellent healthcare, policing etc

'The Club of Rome is a global think tank that deals with a variety of international political issues. Founded in 1968 at Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, Italy, the CoR describes itself as "a group of world citizens, sharing a common concern for the future of humanity." It consists of current and former Heads of State, UN bureaucrats, high-level politicians and government officials, diplomats, scientists, economists, and business leaders from around the globe.'

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome

You have clowns like Russell Brand speaking about elites and the 1% and then believing policies which often stem from that 1% and their political class of puppets.

Next Brand will probably tell us that the 1% and their puppets love us and want to save the world for us, just like Big Brother said he love the people in Orwell's 1984.

I think Brand is naive and doesn't really know what is behind some of the ideas that he discusses and the New Statesman has given him a guest editorship. The left like them naive because then they spout the spiel and if they are celebs the elitist left think that they will fool the public and make them vote against their own interests.

The 1% have political objectives but they dress them up as "saving the world" and "saving the planet" for us, and people like Brand swallow the line that the "planet is being destroyed" without really understanding who originally promoted and pushed those ideas and why.

In 1984, Orwell's character Winston rightly said that "hope lies with the proles". He was right because it is obvious that hope does not lie with the 1%, their puppets and the people who have swallowed their lies.

claig You do seem to have a bee in your bonnet about the BBC. Almost all your replies mention it.

What about the huge amounts paid to directors / executives in other organisations?

I happily pay the licence fee. The BBC makes the kind of programmes that I want to watch and Radio 4 is worth the LF, all by itself. I watch very little on commercial channels because: i) the programmes are, in the main, dire and ii) the advert breaks are getting longer and more frequent.

Other countries have a licence fee (e.g. France) and very inferior programming IME.

But the 'public purse' is actually our money - it is a compulsary insurance scheme with rates based on ability to pay.
The issue with the NHS and privitisation should be split into 2 areas: who pays and who provides?
Why do people object to private providers - who include, all dentists, all gp's, all opticians, all pharmacies, all drug companies, all equipment suppliers, all hospital builders, pretty much everything other than nurses and hospital doctors, so pretty much private anyway.
In terms of funding, agree we should fund out of the govt insurance scheme, but disagree with free at the point of use, because anything delivered in this manner is overused and wasted.
See how people's habits change when they move to a water meter - no worse off, but use less water.

Yes, I point out to those who do not realise it that the BBC is the major opinion forming institution in our nation and is funded from the money of the hardworking people, and I believe that it is biased to one sector of the political spectrum and is used to influence the public and sway them to that sector, which is why I believe that they give publicity to clowns like Brand who says "I am against the Daily Mail" and who is anti-Tory etc.

"What about the huge amounts paid to directors / executives in other organisations?"

I am against misuse and waste of the hardworking public's money in all sectors be that in the Civil Service or for NHS Trust bosses or in publcly funded political think tanks or for contributing to the pay of some charity bosses, and in the expenses and salary increases of MPs. I take the BBC as an example of over-generous pay due to the scandals in severance pay and pensions that we all became aware of in recent news stories.

A prize (toothy) pillock.

As someone said up thread, he sounds like an A level sociology student. Embarrassing.

"I just want to save the planet" "I want to give the poor money" "I want to tax big companies"

So how is that going to work...errr...I don't know do I? Prat.

Many people have been fooled by the mediaof the 1% in to disliking UKIP, for example.

But UKIP is in fact the party of the proles, and that is why the Establishment, the 1%, the elite and all the other parties are against them.

All the major 3 parties agree with the Club of Rome and Russell Bland that "the planet is being destroyed".

The only party that does not agree with the 1% on what they call 'catastrophic climate change' is the party of the proles, UKIP, and the Paper of the People, the Daily Mail, also does not swallow the story of the 1%, unlike the BBC and their 1% on stratospheric salaries paid for from the public purse.

The proles are made to pay on penalty of imprisonment if they don't pay for the Licence Fee that is used by the 1% to feed them propaganda. And the top 1% then earn huge severance fees and million pound pension pots paid for by the proles.

Even Stalin didn't have the nerve to pull that one off.

So Claig, is your objection to the Club of Rome its comparatively few members, or do you object on the grounds of the members' seniority in their professional fields?

I'm slightly as it seems to me that a very small number of people always do the 'heavy lifting' thinking that will define the parameters of thought for the rest of us. Think about philosophy, which sets out the parameters of so many areas of thought and life; the number of really influential philosophers since the Enlightenment has been way under 1% of the world's population, yet it's accepted that since Kant, the world looks different, whether you know it or not, whether you've heard of Kant or not. Or take Einstein - the parameters changed with his insights. I'm not sure that I see a problem with that, as long as the rest of us are free to question / disagree if we are able to understand the issues well enough (I certainly wouldn't take Einstein on!)

The word 'elite' can lead to a very knee-jerk 'ooh those terrible people' response. But was Einstein elitist? Or Kant? Or any thinker who has had a huge influence on the world? Are all academics elitist IYO? (Or just the really successful ones?)

As far as I'm concerned the real issue is to do with access to positions of influence - i.e. the type of social mobility that means that a bright thinker from a poorer family is nurtured and given the opportunities to excel and take her rightful place in something like the Club of Rome / a government think-tank on policy etc. So IMO we should be talking about class and education and how we try to create a society in which all can potentially do his or her best to contribute.

Which might be saying the same thing as you are, I don't know, as I'm not sure how you define 'elite.' I'm saying this as a state school educated person who was the first in my family to go to university, ended up at Oxbridge and now have a collection of degrees and professional titles / qualifications. My dearest hope is that anyone could potentially, if she wanted to and was willing to work hard enough, say the same. Sadly, my impression is that it'd be much harder to do all this now than 20 years ago when I was bashing out my A levels.

I'm still not convinced that just because the Club of Rome is a small group of highly qualified people means that their theses are necessarily wrong, though...

And the 1% promote celebs to spin the proles with the message of the 1%.

Why celebs? Because the 1% think that the proles are so stupid that they will believe the 1%'s message if a celeb says it, particulrly if the celeb can claim to have "come from the streets" which is where the proles come from and go to school unlike the 1% who go to public school.

"So Claig, is your objection to the Club of Rome its comparatively few members, or do you object on the grounds of the members' seniority in their professional fields?

I'm slightly confused as it seems to me that a very small number of people always do the 'heavy lifting' thinking that will define the parameters of thought for the rest of us."

You see, I prefer democracy where the proles have their say, where we get our way. I don't like self-elected elites and spinners to fool the public and con them and to achieve their political objectives without free and open voting by the public. I believe in local democracy and referenda where the proles can have their voices heard, which is what UKIP also believe.

I don't take my political views from celebs, even if they claim to have "come from the streets", and I don't want the 1% to patronise the 99% by putting clowns on serious news programmes to spout nonsense.