Im confused about the bit about the mail readers, i dont think it is justified to say 'the marxists hate us', obviously there is a general concern about the level of right wing propaganda that spouts from that particular media source. Effectively evident in the number of readers who re-spout their views unquestioningly for them, without consideration of the numerous times they have outright lied to serve their political course. I do on occasion turn to the daily mail website to get a general overview of what is going on out there, so i guess technically i am a 'daily mail reader'. The reason i raised the point in quite a light hearted way earlier was because the views were so identical (even down to use of the term 'the loony left') that it proves the point that people will accept what they read and not form their own opinions. So, no, Marxists dont hate daily mail readers, socialism and communism is for the benefit of the masses and the extinction of the elite, so from a marxist perspective all socialist would wish to do is educate the readers (who actually believe what they read in the media) on where they are being constantly conned and frauded.
I agree it is problematic to calculate the value of labour. I won't try and explain Marx's value of labour theory as it is extremely complex, i dont understand it myself (yet) having not read das capital, however, i will say that that is irrelvant in some sense to the argument i was making. In capitalism the workers HAVE to be paid LESS than the real value of their work in order to create profit. For example, in the time taken for a man to screw the legs on 100 chairs for minmum wage for someone else, theoretically they could have created a few of their own chairs and kept the profit for themselves, instead of only recieving a time wage. The CEO's and bosses (core) recieve that profit instead (despite someone else a significant proportion of the labour) because they OWN the means of production. That is a fundamentally unfair system, never mind the economic liabilites of such a set up!
Ill tell you now inequality most certainly has risen and is still rising. I really just can't understand where you would have got those facts from to dispute that?? :s Daily Mail. It is hard to measure and gauge so i will link you to few decent sites with the relevant statistics to back up this claim. Certainly in the last three decades in the UK the gap between the rich and the poor has grown enourmously. Capitalism by its very nature tolerates huge inequality. Evident in that countries that are dominantly neo-liberal in there approach to marker regulation (such as American) being the worst in terms of inequality and more socio-democratic countries having lower levels.
www.oecd.org/social/soc/dividedwestandwhyinequalitykeepsrising.htm
cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/cp260.pdf
www.jrf.org.uk/publications/poverty-inequality-employment-structure
Have a trawl them at your leisure to learn about the true nature of income inequality in the UK. The inequality that you have alluded is about opportinites and social mobility, which is different, yet still as vastly unequal as ever (except perhaps feudal times if you were refering to that, so yes i suppose you could say it has risen but if you look at the rate it is simply not good enough! According to the independent 54% of conservative MPs went to private schools. When you realise that only about 7.5-8% of the general pop were privately educated i think you realise that we have a problem with oppurtunity inequality in this country! So as not to be biast with my left wing media, ill post a link to everyones favourite DM baiscally saying the same thing ;)
Im confused about the bit about the mail readers, i dont think it is justified to say 'the marxists hate us', obviously there is a general concern about the level of right wing propaganda that spouts from that particular media source. Effectively evident in the number of readers who re-spout their views unquestioningly for them, without consideration of the numerous times they have outright lied to serve their political course. I do on occasion turn to the daily mail website to get a general overview of what is going on out there, so i guess technically i am a 'daily mail reader'. The reason i raised the point in quite a light hearted way earlier was because the views were so identical (even down to use of the term 'the loony left') that it proves the point that people will accept what they read and not form their own opinions. So, no, Marxists dont hate daily mail readers, socialism and communism is for the benefit of the masses and the extinction of the elite, so from a marxist perspective all socialist would wish to do is educate the readers (who actually believe what they read in the media) on where they are being constantly conned and frauded.
I agree it is problematic to calculate the value of labour. I won't try and explain Marx's value of labour theory as it is extremely complex, i dont understand it myself (yet) having not read das capital, however, i will say that that is irrelvant in some sense to the argument i was making. In capitalism the workers HAVE to be paid LESS than the real value of their work in order to create profit. For example, in the time taken for a man to screw the legs on 100 chairs for minmum wage for someone else, theoretically they could have created a few of their own chairs and kept the profit for themselves, instead of only recieving a time wage. The CEO's and bosses (core) recieve that profit instead (despite someone else a significant proportion of the labour) because they OWN the means of production. That is a fundamentally unfair system, never mind the economic liabilites of such a set up!
Ill tell you now inequality most certainly has risen and is still rising. I really just can't understand where you would have got those facts from to dispute that?? :s Daily Mail. It is hard to measure and gauge so i will link you to few decent sites with the relevant statistics to back up this claim. Certainly in the last three decades in the UK the gap between the rich and the poor has grown enourmously. Capitalism by its very nature tolerates huge inequality. Evident in that countries that are dominantly neo-liberal in there approach to marker regulation (such as American) being the worst in terms of inequality and more socio-democratic countries having lower levels.
www.oecd.org/social/soc/dividedwestandwhyinequalitykeepsrising.htm
cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/cp260.pdf
www.jrf.org.uk/publications/poverty-inequality-employment-structure
Have a trawl them at your leisure to learn about the true nature of income inequality in the UK. The inequality that you have alluded is about opportinites and social mobility, which is different, yet still as vastly unequal as ever (except perhaps feudal times if you were reffering to that?? so yes i suppose at a pinch you could say it has risen but look at the flipping rate!) According to the independent 54% of conservative MPs went to private schools. When you realise that only about 7.5-8% of the general pop were privately educated i think you realise that we have a problem with opportunity inequality in this country! So as not to be biast with my left wing media, ill post a link to everyones favourite DM basically saying the same thing ;)
Im confused about the bit about the mail readers, i dont think it is justified to say 'the marxists hate us', obviously there is a general concern about the level of right wing propaganda that spouts from that particular media source. Effectively evident in the number of readers who re-spout their views unquestioningly for them, without consideration of the numerous times they have outright lied to serve their political course. I do on occasion turn to the daily mail website to get a general overview of what is going on out there, so i guess technically i am a 'daily mail reader'. The reason i raised the point in quite a light hearted way earlier was because the views were so identical (even down to use of the term 'the loony left') that it proves the point that people will accept what they read and not form their own opinions. So, no, Marxists dont hate daily mail readers, socialism and communism is for the benefit of the masses and the extinction of the elite, so from a marxist perspective all socialist would wish to do is educate the readers (who actually believe what they read in the media) on where they are being constantly conned and frauded.
I agree it is problematic to calculate the value of labour. I won't try and explain Marx's value of labour theory as it is extremely complex, i dont understand it myself (yet) having not read das capital, however, i will say that that is irrelvant in some sense to the argument i was making. In capitalism the workers HAVE to be paid LESS than the real value of their work in order to create profit. For example, in the time taken for a man to screw the legs on 100 chairs for minmum wage for someone else, theoretically they could have created a few of their own chairs and kept the profit for themselves, instead of only recieving a time wage. The CEO's and bosses (core) recieve that profit instead (despite someone else a significant proportion of the labour) because they OWN the means of production. That is a fundamentally unfair system, never mind the economic liabilites of such a set up!
Ill tell you now inequality most certainly has risen and is still rising. I really just can't understand where you would have got those facts from to dispute that?? :s Daily Mail. It is hard to measure and gauge so i will link you to few decent sites with the relevant statistics to back up this claim. Certainly in the last three decades in the UK the gap between the rich and the poor has grown enourmously. Capitalism by its very nature tolerates huge inequality. Evident in that countries that are dominantly neo-liberal in there approach to marker regulation (such as American) being the worst in terms of inequality and more socio-democratic countries having lower levels.
www.oecd.org/social/soc/dividedwestandwhyinequalitykeepsrising.htm
cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/cp260.pdf
www.jrf.org.uk/publications/poverty-inequality-employment-structure
Have a trawl them at your leisure to learn about the true nature of income inequality in the UK. The inequality that you have alluded is about opportinites and social mobility, which is different, yet still as vastly unequal as ever (except perhaps feudal times if you were refering to that, so yes i suppose you could say it has risen but if you look at the rate it is simply not good enough! According to the independent 54% of conservative MPs went to private schools. When you realise that only about 7.5-8% of the general pop were privately educated i think you realise that we have a problem with oppurtunity inequality in this country! So as not to be biast with my left wing media, ill post a link to everyones favourite DM baiscally saying the same thing ;)
