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.

It's in the communist party manifesto. Can't remember how its worded but suffice to say the BofE already existed when it was written. The fed, world bank and IMF are not in anyway what Marx intended though.

claig-

I've read some Marx, but not enough, really. I'm not sure what he had to say on the banks.

What holds the "small state" together if it has no particular interest in the fates of its citizens? And if it does have any interest in the people within it, then the healthcare, education, police force, legal system, help for the sick and vulnerable etc, required are actually a big cost, not a small one. You just seem to want to sweep bits of it under the carpet, rather than admit to the reality that a small state is just a state that allows rampant poverty and ill health for the majority, which is no kind of freedom, but freedom and wealth for the most cutthroat minority.

I like this and thought it should be said again.

I know I'm alone with this one but I don't think new labour failed - in education I saw first hand what good things happened. We're a much better society to have more of our populace university educated. Lots to do still but a start in the right direction. Shame they didn't legislate the banks.

Doesn't the communist manifesto says that they want a central bank to be established. The conspiracy theorists say that the communists are in fact puppets of the system.

How much do the trade unions talk about who prints the money? Does anyone discuss if the US government owns the Fed or not?

All we seem to hear about is 'capitalists' and the exploitation of labour by owners of capital.

If you want to understand Marx this is a great place to start.

davidharvey.org/2008/06/marxs-capital-class-01/

Marx believed that at the heart of the problem was the exploitation of the worker and private property rights and exchange of commodities for money.

In very basic terms capitalism relies on the contradictions that it creates to both cause crisis but also to renew itself. This is seen in labour value, even in good times we have what Marx referred to as a surplus labour army. This allows capitalist to suppress wages in several ways. Even in times of demand capital still creates a surplus, either of labour or commodities. Because of the ownership of private property (capital, means of production not houses!) workers do not have the means to purchase the commodities. This is a global problem, look at African countries and indonesia, can they afford what they produce for western markets?

www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ you should find everything you need to know about Marx & "money"

Thanks, minimathsmouse

Just searched for bank in the content list of teh Marx link, and teh word bank does not appear.

Apparently, there was a conspiracy type theory quote said to belong to Marx circulating, which mentioned the deliberate policy of getting the masses into debt, but experts can find nothing to indicate that Marx said it.

latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2009/02/karl-marx-hoax.html

"Businesses borrow money in the hope / expectation of making a profit (surplus) in the future and paying the debt off. Governments, like the UKs, borrow year on year with no expectation of paying off the debt but gambling that economic growth and inflation will be high enough to keep borrowing indefinitely."

I wonder how many big businesses operate entirely debt free???? Any at all? And what are shareholders, if not a type of creditor?

If a country never dies and will always have some type of income, does it ever need to entirely pay off all its debt?

And why is a national health service a drain on resources, but private health care a huge source of profit? Isn't that just a skewed point of view?

Apparently, there was a conspiracy type theory quote said to belong to Marx circulating, which mentioned the deliberate policy of getting the masses into debt, but experts can find nothing to indicate that Marx said it.

I'm not sure if Marx said it, and it's not a conspiracy as such, but the reason people get in to debt is because of the contradiction of Capitalist mode of production:

The Capitalist wants the difference between the amount paid to workers for their labour, and the cost of the product sold back to workers to be maximised. Put more simply: business will obviously try to push down labour costs, but sell their products at the highest price possible.

The contradiction here is that in order to the business to stay in business, it needs to sell its products. The problem is, if workers don't earn enough money to buy the very products they make themselves, which are then taken away from them, and then sold back to them, then Capitalists can't make any profit.

I noted on another thread I just started that this is partially what caused the most recent economic bubble. Wages have been stagnating or falling for the vast majority of people who work for about three decades now. In order to keep the machinery going, they have to make cheap and easy credit available to the masses, so that they could keep on consuming.

That's why credit was so easily available, and dodgy credit was re-packaged and re-sold so as to hide risks. Credit agencies were actual private profit making companies themselves, so they were hired on the basis of giving good ratings to dodgy credit.

So bad credit was bought. Credit agencies rated the debt as good, since they had a strong incentive to do so, and so the debt was then sold on as 'good' debt.

Eventually, there was so much bad debt in the system, but nobody knew what was good debt or bad debt, and the whole house of cards collapsed.

What I don't understand about the Marxist analyses is that they seem to think it is about capitalists making money and they think that the crises and cycles are just about ways that the capitalist can keep the money rolling in.

But I think Orwell had it right when he saw that the elite were playing tricks to hold the people down. It's not just about money because there are such things as crooks, swindlers, mafia and cheats. There are companies like Enron and people like Bernie Madoff.

Of course it's not just about money, it's about power. Money buys you power and influence and you show how powerful you are by controlling the money supply and deciding how and when and on whom to spend your money.

Money is a side issue. Big Brother was not interested in money. Big Brother was no capitalist. Big Brother Loved You. Big Brother had a Ministry of Love. Big Brother would most probably have wanted to "save the planet" for you. Big Brother would have told you he would provide care for you, that he was like a philanthropist and wanted to help the "many not the few". Big Brother would have had a leader for you, someone like the communist "Uncle Joe".

Big Brother was about control and keeping people down. Big Brother was about perpetual austerity.
Big Brother was not a free market capitalist.

There was nothing free about Big Brother, he was not laissez-faire, Big Brother was your nanny state, he was so against your freedom, his spin doctors told you "Freedom is Slavery". Big Brother Loved You, he was so progressive, he even had a Ministry of Love.

rabbitstew ?What holds the "small state" together if it has no particular interest in the fates of its citizens? And if it does have any interest in the people within it, then the healthcare, education, police force, legal system, help for the sick and vulnerable etc, required are actually a big cost, not a small one. You just seem to want to sweep bits of it under the carpet, rather than admit to the reality that a small state is just a state that allows rampant poverty and ill health for the majority, which is no kind of freedom, but freedom and wealth for the most cutthroat minority.?

How is the coagulation of the state dependent upon interference in the fates of its subjects? Do you mean that the state is the nation and the nation is the state? If so, I really do beg to differ. You are also assuming that ?healthcare, education, police force, legal system, help for the sick and vulnerable? can only be supplied through the state. I can certainly agree that the legal system should be independent ? but it should also be independent from the state ? likewise the police force in all probability need to remain a state run agency, however, I see no reason why the other items you suggest are best served by being state run. The best schools and hospitals are already in the private sector, the best help for the sick and vulnerable often comes from within the family ? by all means acknowledge this fact, value it and use the state to fund it comprehensively, but there is no need to automatically assume the state to be the best provider, even less to use this as proof that the state gives a shit about the individual.

In turn, this leads to the obvious flaw in the statist argument. If a service is of genuine value the private sector will pick it up and probably run it more efficiently. The money saved in tax becomes available to spend within the private sector and competition breeds further efficiencies. This is not the recipe to create rampant poverty or ill health for the majority.

minimathsmouse & ttosca The problem with Marx is that he never really hit the nail on the head of what money actually was for most people. Money is just deferred labour ? a piece of paper or coin to represent work you?ve done. For a critique of pricing goods look no further than Adam Smith.

You mention about Africans and Chinese not being able to afford the goods they produce but this misses the point. WE are able to purchase their goods and are doing so at an astonishing rate. This is making China exceptionally rich. The increase in wealth that Britain achieved between the years 1650 and 1950 has been matched in China in just thirty years. China is well on its way to richness and soon they?ll be purchasing their own products. They are able to take advantage of starting from a low starting point ? years of Mao economics leave their toll ? and they are able to jump the hurdles that took Britain, and the west, donkey?s years and lots of investment to overcome. China will never need a canal system building, or have to rely on steam engines in the same way that Britain did during its industrial revolution. This will happen to Africa in turn.

rabbitstew ?Of course it's not just about money, it's about power. Money buys you power and influence and you show how powerful you are by controlling the money supply and deciding how and when and on whom to spend your money.?

That is as clear an argument against the big state as you are ever likely to read!

Money is a side issue. Big Brother was not interested in money. Big Brother was no capitalist. Big Brother Loved You. Big Brother had a Ministry of Love. Big Brother would most probably have wanted to "save the planet" for you. Big Brother would have told you he would provide care for you, that he was like a philanthropist and wanted to help the "many not the few". Big Brother would have had a leader for you, someone like the communist "Uncle Joe

The conspiracy theorists on the right believe that the people who own the gold reserves are big brother. They have tried to sell anti-semitism and right wing propaganda by saying it's a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. You are right very few people on the left have worried about the fact that the money supply is controlled by a few uber wealthy families/individuals. But Orwel was both a leftie and a very astute man. There is no doubt what so ever that most of the world money supply is in the hands of a few The right have tried to perpetuate the idea that these people are trying to enforce socialism onto the masses.

Conspiracy theorists are not united. There are all sorts of different theories. I am not sure what David Icke believes, but it is possibly something to do with reptilian lizards from outer space. Lots of theories are complete and utter nonsense.

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.

MrPants - your argument about lowering tax and then having more money to spend in the private sector makes limited sense. Either the State ensures a high standard of healthcare for all or it doesn't. If the private sector controls the supply, that just means the State has to pay the private sector to provide healthcare for those who can't afford the private fees, it doesn't mean it can sit back and stop worrying about it - unless, as I said earlier, you are happy to let a lot of people go without a decent standard of healthcare, as they are in the US. So people still have to pay tax to cover the healthcare of those who can't afford to pay for insurance or at source when in need, it's just that the State has no control whatsoever over the cost or quality of the service, because it has no control over the providers. And if we go down the line of only covering the costs of healthcare for those who can't afford it, then we either complicate everything by trying to work out who can or can't afford it and how much they can afford and when the state should step in to help, or create a monstrously unfair system in which the basic service that comes for free is a travesty of "care" (as per the US).

As for education, the private schools near me charge upwards of £20,000 a year per child for their education. At that price, you would hope to receive more than you actually need to do well in life, as it is one hell of a lot more money per year than is spent on a state education. Let private providers into the state sector and they won't offer what a £20,000 a year private school offers, because they won't be spending that much money as it is not remotely cost effective to spend that much money on every child. And I'm sorry, but I don't think on a shoestring they will provide a universally better service to the State than is currently provided, just because they are used to educating children in the private sector. There are plenty of cheaper private schools which offer a far worse education and far less value for money than plenty of state schools. And countries which don't have a flourishing private education sector tend to have a state education sector that is doing far better than ours.

As for money buying you power being an argument against the big state, I think it is a good argument against an undemocratic state. I think this country is becoming very undemocratic - there is nothing to vote for any more, as all the parties toe the line of big business. That's where a misguided small state mentality gets you - private providers who tell the state what to do behind the scenes, with virtually no public accountability. And as the State tries to cut back on providing services to its citizens, it nevertheless seems to be making more and more efforts to spy on our activities, so we have Big Brother watching us more and more, but with less and less attention to even pretending to care for us - whatever size the state, it will always want to keep us under control (which you obviously agree with, since you want a good police force, provided by the State).

Before the NHS and state education, we didn't have universal healthcare or universal education. I fail to see, therefore, why we no longer need the State to be involved in ensuring good healthcare and education standards for all, given that without state involvement, provision is not universal - and it has to be able to fund that, however it is provided, so I really don't see why privatising everything and then paying private providers saves huge amounts of money: in fact, private providers have an excellent track record of ripping off the taxpayer when they get involved in provision of services funded by the State. Largely because the big private providers who get their noses in the state trough view the state as a massive, toothless cash cow.

Very good post, rabbitstew.

The state is for the 'many not the few' and that is why it is so great. It ensures standards and protects everybody.

Can you imagine a private NASA or private prisons or private police force or private armies. There are things that the state can do best. I think teh state should own the infrastructure - the water, the railways etc. - because they are for the national good. But there are other things that private enterprise can do best, and the state doesn't need to do everything. I don't think there is a need for a nanny state that stifles freedom and free enterprise.

I think it would have been better if the state had provided job training rather than A4E.

For me the state should be as small as it needs to be....to provide the basic services we require. And in that list I do include education and basic healthcare for all. I say basic because clearly there are cosmetic stuff which often is not needed and done for well...cosmetic reasons.

I've lived in countries where there is no universal education or healthcare and I do not want to see that in the UK.

But I also believe the state does not need to be as big as it is now to be able to deliver those services.

Lastly the government needs to spend the money it raises from us wisely. Clearly the last lot didn't and it's always easy to throw money at problems. Not so easy to save it.

China is well on its way to richness and soon they?ll be purchasing their own products. They are able to take advantage of starting from a low starting point What utter nonsense. Next you'll tell us that workers in china are well on their way to purchasing high end burberry coats and BMWs. The fact remains that workers can not afford to purchase the goods of their labour because capitalism creates a surplus. This surplus value is used to pay various others from shareholders to the CEO, the bank interest on loans and landlords, bribes, taxes and to create surplus capital.

"Capitalist production is not merely the production of commodities, it is essentially the production of surplus-value. The labourer produces, not for himself, but for capital. It no longer suffices, therefore, that he should simply produce. He must produce surplus-value. That labourer alone is productive, who produces surplus-value for the capitalist, and thus works for the self-expansion of capital"

We now have a situation where (capital) wealth is held by the few. This wealth could be reinvested to take up the surplus labour, instead we have a situation where we can not bring the two together. Why? not because man has met all his needs for commodities (look at the third world) but because the capitalist can not meet the demand without creating capital and the worker can afford the products of his own labour.