The Tories are sorting out the wealthy tax-avoidant

[LittleFrieda]

members of our society. Why on earth did Labour fail to act during their long term in office? Eh? Eh?

I can't believe people are complaining about George Osborne doing something about it.

Minimathsmouse The Chinese are well on their way to buying Burberry coats and BMW's - that is exactly what I am saying. Here is a news story which shows that they've bought 80,014 BMW's in the last year alone and that number is increasing all the time. The Chinese workers may not be able to afford high end consumer items yet but the increase in the wealth of the average factory worker (Note not including the huge number of peasants which China still has and which massively distort any GDP per capita figures) is heading in the right direction quite rapidly. Whether or not they adopt western brands or 'grow' their own high end brands remains to be seen.

I think you'll find the BMWs are not going to factory workers. China is currently working hard on finding ways to suppress demands for higher wages from factory workers who can't help noticing that some people are now driving about in BMWs. The wealth is certainly not being shared about. You could say, a State which stockpiles too much wealth is quite a big threat to its own people and the rest of the world.

I think Orwell wa brilliant and was probably as near to the truth as it gets. Orwell wa a leftie and was a great man.

What the hell, claig? Do you suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder?

Orwell was brilliant at pointing out the dangers of an all powerful state. If he was a leftie then, towards the end of his days at least, he was a small state leftie!

Isn't the fact that the chinese are now able to afford to buy BMW's and increase in wage demands a sign that actually trickle down economics have succeeded in 30 years to change China from a backwater isolated communist failed economy into the most rich and successful economy in the world? OK USA is still technically larger but then China practically owns the USA now anyway.

Maybe he was just anti- big power, whether wielded through a big state or big business. My problem with the current approach to shrinking the size of the state is that the slack always seems to be taken up by big business and that just makes the situation worse, not better.

????? Trickle down economics hasn't happened in China. The vast majority of people are poor peasants and poor factory workers. Those who send their children to English public schools and who can afford the BMWs are also not opposed to corruption and murder, it would seem.

It is the surplus value created out of the products made from cheap labour that allows wealthier Chinese to increase demand in higher value goods that we produce.

At the moment we have huge areas of the globe where we have unmet need for goods. This demand can not be met because the people can not afford to purchase the goods of their own labour. At the moment capitalist try and fail to meet the unmet need by driving down the cost of products through the supression of wages.

One way the capitalist tries to make money and meet unmet demand in new markets is to drive down the value of the commodity, as we see in china and with corporations basing manufacturing in areas of deregulated cheap labour. The amount of value in a commodity over and above the wages paid to the worker is surplus value, all of which is created by labor, but stolen by the owner of the means of production, the capitalist, as the source of profit.
At the moment it is this profit which allows rich chinese factory owners to purchase BMWs.

With capital striving for higher profits from the stolen surplus value, labor is in perpetual battle against capitals unrelenting drive to lower wages below a living wage. These wages are a monetary expression of the cost of labor power. Labor power is the worker, source of potential or actual labor power Thus the cost of labor power is the cost of maintaining a worker and his or her family, and capitalism as a system locks the worker onto a treadmill of poverty or the threat of poverty in order to meet the unmet need in commodities, or rather to meet or stimulate the demand.(from poorly paid people!!)

So if we as a nation continue to devalue our labour under capitalism in order to meet the unmet need of chinese workers , should they ever meet the threshold through which they can create demand in commodities!!!!! it becomes a race to the bottom. Where we all work for less, create less demand in the economy OR the capitalist strikes a deal for fair wages, which he can't. Which is why I believe the answer is not simply a matter of demanding higher wages.

"labour is a commodity, if the price is low, then the commodity is in great supply: the price of labour as a commodity must fall lower and lower. (Buret, op. cit.) This is made inevitable partly by the competition between capitalist and worker, partly by the competition amongst the workers Marx not just for work but for the very products of their labour!

Wages are not the problem the system by which the owners/wealthy create profit through exploiting the labour of others is the cause of the problem.

In other words, capitalism wouldn't work unless the majority of the people in the world lived in poverty, ready to be exploited.

rabbitstew Trickle down economics isn't a magic bullet which can remove poverty in an instant, however, in China's case, huge numbers of people have been lifted out of absolute poverty and the Chinese people are getting richer. This process is far from complete but the facts are undeniable - the average Chinese person is vastly wealthier today than their grandparents were under Mao. Future generations of Chinese people will be vastly wealthier than those of today. Similarly, our generation is far wealthier (on average for the hard of thinking) than those generations which went before us.

Finally, show me a poor factory worker in the UK who drives a new BMW - it doesn't mean that we, as a country, don't buy them.

Face it, North Korea has had around 60 years to perfect an alternative to capitalism, Cuba has had around 50 years to do the same. China tried Maoism and saw it was getting them nowhere, the Soviet Union went bust after 70 years or so - what is the alternative to capitalism? What else works in the real world - preferably without relying on a big pile of corpses somewhere along the way?

Yes RabbitStew, which is why the gap between the wealthy and the poor is growing.

Why do free marketeers keep talking about old failed communist states

Communism in the USSR wasn't working for two major reason, it wasn't socialist and it had to combat the economic war imposed by the west. The same can be said of china, although it remains to be seen whether china has really adopted a free society along with it's new claims to have a liberal economy. The west are too happy to publicise human rights abuses when they want to cripple a country through trade embargos but equally happy to forget the same abuses when a country can supply cheap commodities and labour to their corporations.

minimathsmouse Wrong, wrong and wrong again. If you want a unit of cheap labour to provide repetitive tasks you are better off with a robot. In essence, that is what China's economic boom is built on - the cost of Chinese labour is currently undercutting the cost of western robots. China can keep it's wages low because it is drawing in peasants (who to all intents and purposes have no economic value) from the countryside and setting them to work building widgets for the west (at the moment this provides low value). As time wears on, the cost of labour will rise (fewer peasants to call on) which will make it uneconomic to employ thousands of Chinese workers. At this point, the capitalist has a choice to make - they can relocate their factory to another low wage territory or they can replace their workers with robots (This is exactly what happened here in the west). As this process starts to happen, and it will be a gradual shift, the Chinese will start to build more and more high end goods and less and less mass produced crap. They will become the widget designers and technical innovators and join us in being a wealthy nation.

"Why do free marketeers keep talking about old failed communist states"

Because there hasn't been a succesful one. Likewise, these states are the only alternatives to capitalism - the fact that none of them have succeeded tells me enough thanks.

"Communism in the USSR wasn't working ... [because] it had to combat the economic war imposed by the west."

Why didn't it win the 'economic war imposed by the west' if it is a superior system?

If you want a unit of cheap labour to provide repetitive tasks you are better off with a robot bloody hell, sorry I can't, don't want or don't have the time to discuss the problem with this. It should be obvious for anyone to see that is actually part of the problem.

As it is, Mr Laissez-Faire, the love in is off

As time wears on, the cost of labour will rise (fewer peasants to call on) why? what are they doing with them ,eating them, working them to death on low wages, starving them? I mean using poor peasants because those in the know have a long term plan to create wealth, so in the meantime they can exploit the peasants.

I can't even begin to explain just how repugnant I find such opinion.

which will make it uneconomic to employ thousands of Chinese workers. At this point, the capitalist has a choice to make - they can relocate their factory to another low wage territory or they can replace their workers with robots (This is exactly what happened here in the west). As this process starts to happen, and it will be a gradual shift, the Chinese will start to build more and more high end goods and less and less mass produced crap. They will become the widget designers and technical innovators and join us in being a wealthy nation

And what of the rising unemployment? when we replace cheap labour with zero cost labour? so they become rich capitalists employing robots that have no needs for wages and do not consume and demand commodities. Who will the capitalist sell his commodities to, not the robot and not the impoverished worker or the unemployed worker.

Or he can do what he has always done look for new markets to exploit, ie health, education and welfare and he can move to where the labour is cheap. Well in the end if he seeks to make profit from education, wlefare and health he will find his cheap labour from the mass of starving, ill educated, unhealthy misserry he has created, but he won't find demand for his products.

MrPants, I think you are sorely mistaken if you think the Chinese will join us as a wealthy nation. They will replace us. Big difference. Capitalism can't support too many wealthy nations.

Of course, we could always compete by treating our citizens and the countryside around us like Chinese peasants and Chinese cities and countryside. After all, the masses would still be better off than they were in the times of Chairman Mao, or indeed under the times of Chinese Emperors, or indeed than they were in Victorian Times, or the Stone Ages. We might all be wading our way through toxic sludge, of course, as we have a little bit less space to play with than the Chinese, but hey, ho.

preferably without relying on a big pile of corpses somewhere along the way I can probably think of at least 50 events that have been fuelled by capitalist greed that resulted in such a pile up. MR Pants let me know if you want a list.

Ah the good old argument of the left. It's always someone else's fault and wasn't socialist enough.

So USSR failed because it wasn't socialist enough and because of the capitalist pigs in the west.

Seriously!?!?! And nothing to do with the fact that under socialism/communism the idea of aspiration is removed and without that people have no real desire or motivation to work.

My fiancee is from an ex communist state. So she has lived first hand under communism. I think she would be the first to tell you that take away competition and give everyone the same wage and very quickly you will find people can't be bothered to work. I mean why study for 10 years to be a doctor when you can get the same serving in a shop? Why work hard selling in a shop when you can't get the sack anyway.

Oh, honestly, niceguy2. You can accuse the Soviet Union of a lot, but not of having had a bone idle populace who couldn't be bothered to work. Nor could you look at the US or any other clearly capitalist country and claim that nobody within its borders is a lazy little shite.

By the way - how old is your fiancee, if she has a clear memory of living and working under communism?

"If you want a unit of cheap labour to provide repetitive tasks you are better off with a robot bloody hell, sorry I can't, don't want or don't have the time to discuss the problem with this. It should be obvious for anyone to see that is actually part of the problem."

You don't have to like it, but you can't deny it is happening. Back in 1959 the original Mini car needed a shift of around 10,000 men to run the production line. Today, the far more complex, better specced, and by just about any quantifiable factor you car to name 'better' modern mini requires 3,800 people to build more cars at a faster rate and all to a higher standard. The difference is robotics - the chance of seeing mass employers in this country again is zero.

"As time wears on, the cost of labour will rise (fewer peasants to call on) why? what are they doing with them ,eating them, working them to death on low wages, starving them?"

Not quite - they're employing them. Once a peasant leaves the land (to be replaced by a tractor or some other labour saving device) they are free to become factory workers.

"if you think the Chinese will join us as a wealthy nation. They will replace us."

No they won't. Firstly, economics isn't a zero sum game. If I win the lottery, you don't become any poorer for it. We can both be wealthy at the same time. There is no theory that states that 2/3 of the world have to live on $1.25 per day. Secondly, one could argue that China is in a smart position due to the one child program. As the population gets richer, so it will decline in overall numbers. Their GDP per capita will shoot up but their mass manufacturing will not be sustainable.

"preferably without relying on a big pile of corpses somewhere along the way I can probably think of at least 50 events that have been fuelled by capitalist greed that resulted in such a pile up."

If you can think of a small state (which abides by the rule of law) which resorts to mass murder I'm all ears.

It would appear my formatting went a bit awry...

Sorry.

The 2nd World War involved lots of mass murder and lots of states around the world, big and small, were involved in that.

ps if you win the lottery, anyone who bought a lottery ticket and didn't win became poorer for it. Lotteries aren't like the Bank of England - they don't print the money they give away.