Is this really what people want?

[mcmooncup]

I don't post much on the threads about benefits but here goes......I'm going to start.

I have a company that works in the Work Programme with long-term unemployed people. Over the last few weeks / month I have seen a dramatic shift in the provision of benefits.

Many many many many more people are being sanctioned (i.e. their benefits are being taken away from them) for missing an appointment, calling in sick for an appointment or not filling in forms correctly.

If you make a mistake with ANY of these 'obligations' under the Jobseekers allowance contract, you, from Monday, can have your benefits taken away for 3 months for the first offence, 6 months for the second and 3 years for the third.

So, I can recount a few stories for you:
Severely dyslexic man provides his job log sheet to the jobcentre and has filled out as much as he can. The jobcentre is not happy with this and sanctions him, probably for 3 months. His response....."I'm going to go homeless, I can't stand this anymore"

Man goes to an interview for a job instead of turning up for an appointment with his WP provider, called in to tell them this. Sanctioned for 2 weeks for not turning up for the appointment. Message was never passed on, and despite phone records showing he called, he was still sanctioned.

Man sanctioned for 6 months for missing an appointment because he was poorly. He is a single parent. He is thinking of suicide.

Is this really what people want?

Homelessness? Suicide?

Do people really think it motivates people to get a job? Because to believe that you have to believe that people like being on benefits, I guess?

What am I missing?

Claig it's also because these multinational food and drink companies have been very good at lobbying governments for the last couple of centuries (nothing new here).

And it's because this present government believes in as little regulation as possible.

Imo the only real democratic choice you get in life is to choose where to shop. The govt limits your choice by supporting multinationals that can then sell unhealthy food cheaply. These manufacturers are then directly responsible for some of the obesity and also for the resulting burden on the health service. (And don't get me started on alcohol and cigarettes). Then, as if they haven't done enough harm, they go abroad to avoid paying tax to help solve the problems they have created.

But the problem starts and ends with the government.

Heaven knowes that I hold no truck with conspiracy theories, but some suggest that there may be even more to it.

X posted. Good point about Olympics, Mini.

Agree Solo. The governmentr is in charge of regulation - of financial products and food and everything else. We need tough regulation - no more 'light touch' regulation - in all spheres that affect the public well-being.

We want a free market, but one in which the government sets the rules on behalf of the people.

Good points Solo, spot on. I read this a little while back, Let Them Eat Junk: How Capitalism Creates Hunger and Obesity www.amazon.co.uk/Let-Them-Eat-Junk-Capitalism/dp/0745328067

The cost to governments is huge in terms of public health, the profits realised by the multinationals isn't taxed here at a rate that will offset the costs, not to mention the environmental degradation with almost all food being grown and transported on petro chemicals. Our whole food system relies upon oil. Food security is going to become a huge issue and it will lead to civil unrest here just as it already is in other parts of the world.

Claig you can't have a free market with regulation, you can either have a free market or state capitalism (think stalin ) or we could opt for a third more equitable and humane system. Which the lobbying multi-nationals will not allow.

A free market is just like a fair, unfixed, unrigged game of football. The regulation is the rules of the game, set by the authorities. All teams can compete in the football tournament provided they abide by the rules of the game. It is possible to have a free market with regulation, you just need to set the parameters of the game.

'you can't have a free market with regulation'

This is a bit like saying tha tyou can't have a free people with the law. We are a free people within the law. We have to wear seatbelts, but we are still free within the law.

Quite simply, Xenia, the reason benefits have had increases while wages haven't is because benefits are classed as the minimum needed to live off.

If the cost if gas, electricity, water and food has all risen, then the previous amount of benefits will not cover that, because it was already the minimum needed to live off.

If your gas, electricity, water and food costs £68 a week, and your benefits are £68 a week, then you can just about cover those basic living expenses.

If your gas, electricity, water and food come to £71 a week, but you are still only getting £68 a week, you CAN'T cover those basic living expenses.

Surely that's just basic Mathematics, Xenia?!

I would have thought that somebody intelligent enough to pay as much tax as you keep complaining that you have to would be able to see that out of £68 a week you can't cover £71 of basic living expenses.

Where do you think they will cut that £3 a week from? Their Gas bill? Most can't afford to turn on their heating unless it is below zero outside. From their electricity bill? They still need to be able to turn on the lights when it is dark, or use their cooker or fridge freezer. From their water bill? They still need to wash themselves, their clothes, their dishes, their floors, they still need to be able to flush their chain. From their food budget? That £3 is a day's dinner. Are they meant to go without dinner for that day?

Sorry I disagree, consider regulated capitalism (which competes very well against the free market) and then consider Unions and the workers fight for better pay and conditions. Then consider supply and demand (shakes head because it's an oxymoron) Under one system the state requisitions profit which provides for welfare and the means to perpetuate state control. In the case of free markets the opposite happens, which is why our own democratic freedom can ONLY be excersised over lobbying shops/food corps etc. but not in any expectation that we shall continue to have free education or health.

This makes a great deal of sense, is very easy to understand
www.marxism.org.uk/pack/economics.html marxist economics for numpties! or those not interested in a lot of jargon and dispels the myth that paid labour can provide demand, because if labour is paid at too higher rate, the capitalist will not invest. Forget supply and demand (the corner stone of most economic theory) , it is a side show not born out in actual facts. Unions fight for greater pay....without massive structural change, missing the point that greater pay alone may increase demand but not productivity. BUT you can have a government step in as the capitalist requisitioning profit, propping up investment/productivity (as in Keynes) and then acting as a font of all welfare, or you can have private profit making entities under free market economics which actually doesn't have your interests are heart. Either way a welfare need is created, under one system the need is met under the other it goes unmet.

In basic terms....state capitalism wins over free markets.....but ONLY because it is in competition to free markets! neither is humane or has the capacity to self sustain itself indefinately.One is a step in the right direction but still relies upon the nation state and competition and workers always being paid less than the rate of pay/hrs worked. EVEN if the state employed more people, it would have to pay them at less than the real value realised in what they produce.

In short, markets fail through interference, I agree with xenia but unregulated markets burn themselves out not just because of suply at demand but because a contradiction exists, whereby more demand equals less profit, less profit equals less investment, less investment equals less labour required etc,........less demand on so on. It simply will not sustain itself, which is why shrinking states, declining wages and growing welfare need shows us capitalism is in its final throes. Has been since it's inception State capitalism isn't in decline but when it is no longer pitted against the west it will also not sustain itself.

should have said @ claig sweetly, if you manage to read all that.

But we have regulated capitalism. We have a government that we elect that regulates. We know that some of our representatives are lobbied by companies and may earn money from them and some were even said to be "cabs for hire". That is what we must sort out, because these people are representatives of teh people, not representatives of teh corporations. We must strive to remove corruption from public life, because these people in theory represent us not business.

This is not a problem of capitalism or free markets but a problem of government and governance.

Unions are right to demand higher wages as are workers and everyone else. Whether they succeed in their demands is the result of free market labour negotiations.

Capitalism is not bad, it is corruption that is bad. Capitalism unleashes the human spirit and drives it on to excel in innovation which helps humanity. Apple Computer began in a garage and is now the most profitable company in the world and produces goods that are used by millions of people which help increase teh knowledge and lives of millions. The mega corporations were not able to stop Apple succeeding, it is they who have declined while Apple rose. Apple rose because they delivered goods that people wanted. They succeeded in a capitalist system that allows free rein to bright people who were ambitious and dedicated and who flourished in a free market.

Capiatlism offers incentive which inspires people to reach for the prize and to pluck the apple from the tree. It is meritocratic and and free market frees the human spirit.

Corruption is what we are against. It conspires against free markets and free peoples. We need governments to regulate against it and to be untainted by it.

Heaven knows that I categorically and absolutely hold no truck with conspiracy theories, but corruption is enabled by conspiracy, conspiracy against the public.

Go a little further, Claig. What causes corruption? Human nature? Opportunism? Greed? Competitiveness? Isn't that the same thing that pushes entrepreneurs to succeed?

So how to suppress those aspects of human nature that are detrimental to the common good, while allowing the creative forces to flourish?

Answers on a postcard, please.

Good point, Solo. They are two sides of teh same coin. But one is positive, the other negative. We create laws and regulations to curb and punish the negative sicnce teh negative harms other citizens.

'So how to suppress those aspects of human nature that are detrimental to the common good, while allowing the creative forces to flourish?'

The law.

Human nature, uber alles sadly shall prevail. Capitalism works best. In the book I have almost finished on North Korea the author who worked at the White House is now looking at what would happen at unification if it were to happen. At present the population as in Animal Farm etc think they have the best lives in the world, well fed, easy, lovely Government and that the West has a terrible time (no internet except a few people allowed a N Korea intranet access, one phone for 20 people). If you can keep people thinking this is the best thing ever then they are not competing against capitalism and those in South Korea ,. As soon as you allow comparisons with abroad you get the China situation - no human rights but suddenly allowing some people to get rich.

A communist country - China - now has a much much bigger difference between rich and poor than the US and UK do.

I suspect the lifestyle of the Korean leader and his family, the gourmet meals flown in and the like (which probably killed the last one early as he ate too much and too badly - Western lifestyles can kill) mean an even bigger difference between the very very few rich there and most people.

I don't hvae a problem with big differences as long as the poor are fed though. Life is not supposed to be fair.

The law of unintended consequences ...

Back a little further, Claig - who makes the law and who advises them?

The law for things that don't change, eg murder, is easy enough. But with our changing world, new technology etc we keep needing new laws, as the criminals (tax evaders) and those who help them(crooked accountants/bankers/politicians, etc) are always one step ahead.

It's obvious that the law alone can't deal with this. If it could, it would have.

I think it might be capitalism itself that is the problem, coupled with lack of democracy, lack of transparency etc.

I think we have far too many laws. Often an existing law is perfectly able to deal with things and yet even more laws are brought in. Our laws from 1267 (1267 I think being the earliest still in force) are on here www.legislation.gov.uk/ )

Read the Marxism stuff and don't agree with it. I get the feeling that it is a trick (just like the elite green trick) to take us back to a feudal system of an elite (nomenklatura or nobles) and the proletariat (the serfs). The Marxists' main enemy is the bourgeois (the middle-class); they want to eliminate the middle-class (the strivers who have escaped poverty) so that the elite (nomenklatura) face no opposition to their rule over the proletariat.

'Most food and other necessities were made by the serfs themselves. Workers today cannot grow their own food or make most of their own clothes. They are forced to work for the boss to make ends meet.'

Capitalism freed the serfs from the land, freed them from a subsistence level existence dependent on the weather and storms and hurricanes and droughts that might lead to starvation. It freed them up to partake in enterprise and gain riches that rivalled theose of the land-owning nobles. A working class lad like Alan Sugar rose to become a millionaire and sits in the House of Lords, where before only the hereditary land-owning nobility would have sat.

'Workers create the wealth'

The bricklayer was not equivalent to the architect who designed St paul's Cathedral. The bricklayer was paid for his services but the value was not equal to the work carried out by the architect. The wealth that they created was not equal.

Steve Jobs was paid more than an Apple receptionist because he created more wealth.

The Marxists seem to think that investors and capitalists have an easy time. They invest their capital in businesses, but this investment is not risk-free. The companies can fail, the management may be corrupt and they can and do lose their money.

There is no free lunch in capitalism, unlike for the socialist apparatchiks paid for out of the public purse.

The nobles, the elites and the nomenklatura dislike capitalism because it allows ordinary oiks and hoi polloi to do better than them, because it is a meritocracy and not a heritocracy.

They have created many movements and organisations to squeeze the middle class (their main enemy) and prevent the progress of the population.

They want us back as serfs under austerity with rising fuel and energy prices drowning our prosperity. They want a green new world with low trade, zero and negative growth to keep the people down. They don't like growth, which is why they don't like capitalism.

Xenia came from a mining family and now she owns an island. The nobles must be fuming. They will have to step up their green plans to keep the public down. But, of course, they will fail because humanity is on the rise, the nobles can't hold onto the prize, because the public doesn't believe their anti-capitalist lies,

'It's obvious that the law alone can't deal with this. If it could, it would have.
I think it might be capitalism itself that is the problem, coupled with lack of democracy, lack of transparency etc.'

We need open and transparent government with full disclosure of lobbyists and thinktanks etc. We need a better democracy with referenda and proportional representation so that the will of teh people can be heard. We won't get it overnight, Rome wasn't built in a day, but one day many years hence, it will surely come. They can't keep the people down forever, lies will be exposed and corruption revealed. There is a better future over the horizon, we may not achieve it in a lifetime, but can we get there - "Yes we can!"

I hope so, Claig. Not sure what Marxism has to do with it though, or have I missed something?

There must be many ways to run the world, not just capitalist or communist. Both of these systems are wide open to abuse, as has been shown.

We need some new ideas here. It is possible to exist without money in an exchange economy, for example - though that's one of the oldest types of system.

But if we are to stick with what we've got, ie just the two models, then we have to do something about human nature (religion?); and failing that, we need stringent laws and the political will to apply them.

'There must be many ways to run the world, not just capitalist or communist.'

The best way that humanity has found is democracy. We don't have a perfect democracy, but it will undoubtedly improve over teh coming centuries. That is the whole history of human progress and equal rights. It can't be turned back.

We don't want elites who think they are superior to us or think we are "plebs", just because they went to public schools and Oxbridge. We don't want people who think they know what is best for us and don't listen to what the people have to say.

We need a representative government of the people that carries out the people's will and regulates for the good of the public.

We are not there yet, but every scandal brings us one step closer.

The Marxists seem to think that investors and capitalists have an easy time. They invest their capital in businesses, but this investment is not risk-free. The companies can fail, the management may be corrupt and they can and do lose their money

Investors and capitalist are having a dreadfully difficult time knowing what to do with the capital absorption problem, capitalism can only sustain itself on 3% aggregate growth. There is now a massive problem knowing what to invest in. You can't invest in goods and services to meet the needs of the proletariat because they can not afford to pay for the goods and services. So here you have demand and no supply. No supply because their is no actual demand when it can not be paid for. Demand is not the same as actual need but is dictated by capital itself. (see something strange there)
This is why so much is now being privatised and why government expenditure will in time rise whilst welfare need grows but is increasingly unmet. The capitalist will only invest to make a return, that return of 3% is the difference btw public and private ownership. And that profit will come out of OUR TAXES and also OUT of OUR POCKETS in the difference between labour hours and rate of PROFIT.

Can companies fail? only smaller ones that have less strategic significance, the states have bailed out the car companies, these companies must now realise a profit so ford is closing it's transit factory here because labour is cheaper in Turkey. Is that a positive development. Banks are not left to fail, the elite (who are the capitalist class Claig) will not allow capitalism to fail, even when in the final analysis it will fail them too.