Not like the rest at all ?

[ahinton]

I'm pretty sure no one at GCHQ will be tracking my postings on this board

"Cheltenham symphonies" weren't usually serial in their day, were they?(!)...

though I was pretty certain that I was on at least one blacklist as a consequence of being so "out" about my politics where I worked until 1993 and was active in the trade union; but whenever I think about the fraternal relations that were being built up between dissidents across the East-West divide, including scientists and jazz musicians, I still feel something of a sense of responsibility and culpability for the drift that took place and for bottling out on the excuse of family circumstances when it seemed impossible to get a mental handle on what was going wrong.

But what could you - or any other individual - have done about this?

There was a wealth of overlooked theory rich in possibilities in the so-called New Left of the late 1950s and 1960s - I'm thinking of the insights of Marxian aesthetics as understood and enriched by people such as John Berger; the socialist feminism of Sheila Rowbotham and the lady still running Red Pepper* whose name currently escapes me; E.P. Thompson's examination of the utopian socialist tradition in English history and his role in the re-awakened CND of the early 1980s, to name just a few awaiting re-examination, which was partly what the Occupy movement was about, 2 years ago. And there are still a few articulate advocates for a liiving Marxism, deep analysts like David Harvey.

*Hilary Wainwright, of course.

Sure, but feminism is not the exclusive province of "the left" - nor was CND; I supported CND but, as you've probably noticed, I am not "of the left".

Yes, there are "a few articulate advocates for a living Marxism" - and they don't get a whole lot more articulate than Harvey - but it doesn't seem to me to be mere complacency, mental laziness or self-seeking that continues to persuade the majority against joining forces with them.

[MrGongGong]

And todays instalment

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10828481/British-Asian-Ukip-youth-leader-quits-racist-and-terrifying-Ukip.html

[ahinton]

And todays instalment

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...ying-Ukip.html

I heard about this on this morning's R4 Today programme; I cannot say that I'm surprised...

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes, there are "a few articulate advocates for a living Marxism" - and they don't get a whole lot more articulate than Harvey - but it doesn't seem to me to be mere complacency, mental laziness or self-seeking that continues to persuade the majority against joining forces with them.

That's due to your faith in the capitalist way of doing things, but growing evidence, now virtually a daily diet, is to the contrary.

[ahinton]

That's due to your faith in the capitalist way of doing things, but growing evidence, now virtually a daily diet, is to the contrary.

To the extent that the growth of such contrary evidence might be true, I am pretty convinced that it relates principally to the fact that all too much of the "capitalist way of doing things" has become so badly corrupted that the best of capitalist practice as evidenced from its history (to which you and others have indeed attested) is getting subsumed under a wilfully developing culture of greed, self-interest and worse which are nevertheless not inherent and essential components of capitalist practice; such "faith" in "the capitalist way of doing things" as you ascribe to me is not at all in such corruptions, misrepresentations and the rest but only in what it is capble of enabling for the social good.

[Flosshilde]

But when communism was 'so badly corrupted' according to its critics it was 'put to sleep' by those champions of justice & the free market, Reagan & Thatcher. So perhaps it's time that the form of capitalism they gave birth to was put to sleep too, rather than its present day champions saying that it's just suffering from a minor glitch & more of the same will sort things out?

I would argue that greed & self-interest are inherent in capitalism - how else would it work?

[Serial_Apologist]

But when communism was 'so badly corrupted' according to its critics it was 'put to sleep' by those champions of justice & the free market, Reagan & Thatcher. So perhaps it's time that the form of capitalism they gave birth to was put to sleep too, rather than its present day champions saying that it's just suffering from a minor glitch & more of the same will sort things out?

I would argue that greed & self-interest are inherent in capitalism - how else would it work?

My understanding as well, Floss.

[ahinton]

But when communism was 'so badly corrupted' according to its critics it was 'put to sleep' by those champions of justice & the free market, Reagan & Thatcher. So perhaps it's time that the form of capitalism they gave birth to was put to sleep too, rather than its present day champions saying that it's just suffering from a minor glitch & more of the same will sort things out?

The principal difference is that communist economics has nothing going for it in terms of a creditable legacy whereas capitalist economics does have; in any case, anyone who believes that Reagan and Thatcher alone put communism and its econimcs strutures to sleep with no assistance from anyone else must ascribe to them powers over countries over which neither had legal jurisdiction tthat it would be hard to argue that they could realistically exercise.

I would argue that greed & self-interest are inherent in capitalism - how else would it work?

It has at times in the past worked without those phenomena at the helm directing all operations - but, more importantly, how would you envisage any alternative economic system being wholly and sustainably resistant to infection, if not complete control, by those whose principal priorities are greed and self-interest as long as there were speculators around who were motivated by greed and self-interest? People like that don't just devour capitalism; they devour all kinds of economic system, because and to the extent that they can.

[Serial_Apologist]

The principal difference is that communist economics has nothing going for it in terms of a creditable legacy whereas capitalist economics does have; in any case, anyone who believes that Reagan and Thatcher alone put communism and its econimcs strutures to sleep with no assistance from anyone else must ascribe to them powers over countries over which neither had legal jurisdiction tthat it would be hard to argue that they could realistically exercise.

I disagree.

Firstly, one has to remember that it was the centrally planned structure of the Soviet Union economy, with its absence of the private ownership obstructiveness which proved such a problem at the time in British preparedness, that enabled production essentials to be switched at an instant from consumer goods to armaments. Imagine today how much more quickly and efficiently such a change could be effected without Stalinist bureaucratic centralist impediments with the help of today's means of communication.

Secondly the creditable economic legacy stands as represented by Marxist economicists such as Ernest Mandel, whose "Marxist Economic Theory" is still worth a read for those with residual suspicions of Marxists' "teological designs", and successors today such as David Harvey.

Thirdly, what many in colloqial memories still retell as the most contented and securest period of their lives in Britain, the period between 1945 and 1975 which left its exemplary mark on Scandinavian politics and economics, represented a watered down version of what Marxists had advocated, greater social equality and inclusiveness as a consequence of public ownership - the fact of the latter functioning to underpin the private sector where the latter had failed in no way diminishing the public sector's role but on the contrary supportive of those arguing for its extension.

Finally one should not overlook the part played by Marxism in three areas of life coming immediately to mind: firstly (in answer to your opening criticism) in providing a theory for the production of wealth; secondly in providing a near-watertight methodology for understanding history beyond the Goveian notion of successions of events with dates attached for memorising, from hunter-gatherer to monopoly capitalism; thirdly for doing the same thing for the new discipline of sociology.

It has at times in the past worked without those phenomena at the helm directing all operations - but, more importantly, how would you envisage any alternative economic system being wholly and sustainably resistant to infection, if not complete control, by those whose principal priorities are greed and self-interest as long as there were speculators around who were motivated by greed and self-interest? People like that don't just devour capitalism; they devour all kinds of economic system, because and to the extent that they can.

In a word, vigilance.

All your arguments have been based solely on how the capitalist system generates and oversees the distribution of wealth.

[ahinton]

All your arguments have been based solely on how the capitalist system generates and oversees the distribution of wealth.

How would you foresee such a system being dispensed with and replaced (and with what?) as distinct from repaired?

[Serial_Apologist]

How would you foresee such a system being dispensed with and replaced (and with what?) as distinct from repaired?

Initially election of a government on a socialist pro-environmental conservation platform by the conventional means of the universal franchise as presently constituted, (one can discuss first-past-the-post or some system of proportional representation nearer the time). But consideration of the how and in-what-situation devolves onto the prior readiness for change of a sufficiently large and practicably weighty proportion of a population to initiate then legitimise parliamentary measures through supportive direct action, action leading to legislative feedback, etc etc. While we're talking ideal circumstances here - namely that neither this nor the question of EU membership can be considered in vacuo - foresight and readiness being pre-essentials if the developing suituation is to be handled without resort to force, others will argue that any route to parliamentary ligitimisation of change will be too slow to keep pace with necessary on-street/institutional grass-root transformations borne out of necessity by thugs or sections of the armed state intent on maintaining the pre-existing status quo.

Strategically, leaving aside given social inequalities, patterns of consumption can nevertheless be relied on to an extent to show which sectors of commodity and services production should be prioritised for nationalisation, thus overcoming the problem of the Attlee government's nationalisation of unprofitable infrastructurally indispensable sectors with their concomitant drain on state resources and compensation costs; but this would begin with nationwise discussions at community and workplace gatherings and delegates to councils and parliament which, of themselves, would create the preconditions for the different kind of mentality earlier sniffed at by aeolium, forgetting how much we on the whole differ in attitudes and behaviours from those of earlier ages, including the then-presumed "experts". With determining the hows and the whys out of the way some method other than money might be an agreed method of determining spending - from on defense, by way of natural resource exploitation vs recycling, repair and maintenance and R&D expenditure to ranges and quantities of products. Oner might envisage abolition of money in favour of more efficiently trackable means of control with inbuilt triggerable anti-corruption firewalls. In the end, production for need instead of for competitive profitability doesn not need money to decide what, when, how much and for how long. One might argue money being accepted as customary practice, which should not be to difficult to protect in this day and age of established currencies being used for purposes of gambling because - predicated on hours-based use values - such a currency would count for nothing set against the global banking/stock market collossus, being restricted to mediating and accounting for economic movements as based on use values, but I'm sure people far cleverer than I are coming up with better alternatives!

[ahinton]

Initially election of a government on a socialist pro-environmental conservation platform by the conventional means of the universal franchise as presently constituted, (one can discuss first-past-the-post or some system of proportional representation nearer the time). But consideration of the how and in-what-situation devolves onto the prior readiness for change of a sufficiently large and practicably weighty proportion of a population to initiate then legitimise parliamentary measures through supportive direct action, action leading to legislative feedback, etc etc. While we're talking ideal circumstances here - namely that neither this nor the question of EU membership can be considered in vacuo - foresight and readiness being pre-essentials if the developing suituation is to be handled without resort to force, others will argue that any route to parliamentary ligitimisation of change will be too slow to keep pace with necessary on-street/institutional grass-root transformations borne out of necessity by thugs or sections of the armed state intent on maintaining the pre-existing status quo.

Strategically, leaving aside given social inequalities, patterns of consumption can nevertheless be relied on to an extent to show which sectors of commodity and services production should be prioritised for nationalisation, thus overcoming the problem of the Attlee government's nationalisation of unprofitable infrastructurally indispensable sectors with their concomitant drain on state resources and compensation costs; but this would begin with nationwise discussions at community and workplace gatherings and delegates to councils and parliament which, of themselves, would create the preconditions for the different kind of mentality earlier sniffed at by aeolium, forgetting how much we on the whole differ in attitudes and behaviours from those of earlier ages, including the then-presumed "experts". With determining the hows and the whys out of the way some method other than money might be an agreed method of determining spending - from on defense, by way of natural resource exploitation vs recycling, repair and maintenance and R&D expenditure to ranges and quantities of products. Oner might envisage abolition of money in favour of more efficiently trackable means of control with inbuilt triggerable anti-corruption firewalls. In the end, production for need instead of for competitive profitability doesn not need money to decide what, when, how much and for how long. One might argue money being accepted as customary practice, which should not be to difficult to protect in this day and age of established currencies being used for purposes of gambling because - predicated on hours-based use values - such a currency would count for nothing set against the global banking/stock market collossus, being restricted to mediating and accounting for economic movements as based on use values, but I'm sure people far cleverer than I are coming up with better alternatives!

That's certainly an interesting and well considered answer, to which the following thoughts occur.

I don't see why a "pro-environmental conservation platform" would necessarily have to be a socialist one (not that you are suggesting that it would - I just thought that this might be worth pointing out).

Leaving that aside, however, if you want to achieve your desired goals by means of some kind of democratic election of a socialist government, you would surely have first to create the possibility of a socialist-government-in-waiting - i.e. a socialist opposition - the very lack of which seems to me not only to have become endemic but is also damaging for Britain's poltical life to the extent that no governmental situation without a strong and vocal opposition is likely to be healthy; in the absence of such a public desire to move towards socialism (that is to say True Labour as distinct from New Labour, Blue Labour et al), its hard to envisage how such an opposition party could be formed, let alone elected.

Nationalisation of greater or lesser degrees of serevice and goods production industries has long been a fundamental tenet of socialist thinking, but you seem to recognise that not all such operations are equally amenable to successful nationalistion. You mention community and workplace gatherings for discussion of such issues before changes be put forward to be turned into policy, but to what extent would the employed workforce be prepared to involve itself in this - and what of the unemployed, self-employed, retired and all other people entitled to vote and have their say? I've long felt unconfortable about the very notion of "public ownership". "Public services", yes - i.e. services funded by the taxpayer for the benefit of society at large - but "ownership"? Although I am entitled to use services provided by government, I do not at all feel that I therefore "own" any of them or a share in any of them. The NHS gives and I take (if I need to), but I cannot bring myself to believe tht this gives me the right to think of it as a shareholder or other ind of part-owner.

Another factor here is the question of the location of the owner of organisations that provide goods and services; nationalised ones are "owned" and managed within the country concerned whereas private ones can be owned anywhere. This also raises the question of the extent to which nationalised organisations involve themselves in import and export trading; should it be more of either or less of either than is the case with private goods and services suppliers? Perhaps more importantly of all, the question must be asked as to whether state run organisations can operate more efficiently than privately run ones; the all have to operate as businesses because that's what they are and they all have customers in the sense of people who partake of the goods and services that they supply. I may be no great fan of nationalisation but if any nationalised industry can demonstrate in practice that it can be run better than any private organisation has historically run it, then everyone would presumably be better off it it were nationalised.

The possible abolition of money would be a monumantal issue that could never get off the ground unless everey country signed up to it and a suitable altenative could be globally agreed as a replacement - but even that would not guarantee removal or even reduction of corrupt practice, because as long as everything retains some kind of value, even if no longer monetary and however it may otherwise be calculated and expressed, the opportunities for speculators, both private and governmental, will remain.

I also do not see an inherent and irremovable conflict of interest between "production for need" and "production for competitive profitability"; such a conflict can arise, of course, but it doesn't necessarily have to do so because the two are not necessarily by nature fundamentally incompatible. "Profit" is always a bad word for some, but how would providers of goods and services survive, develop and improve without it? I'm referring here to profit that largely gets reinvested, of course, not that of the "fat cat" variety, but profit it still is, even when made by state run organisations; I see nothing wrong in principle with the idea of, say, NHS selling certain of its products and services abroad - or to private organisations within UK - if it can make a healthy proft by so doing and then invest it in the improvement, expansion and development of its services.

You're certainly on to something - and the one thing on which we can and do agree is that many aspects of the status quo just aren't fit for purpose - but quite what can be done, by whom, on whose authority and with whose endorsement I would have, like yourself, to leave to those far more clever than I am!

[Serial_Apologist]

That's certainly an interesting and well considered answer, to which the following thoughts occur.

I don't see why a "pro-environmental conservation platform" would necessarily have to be a socialist one (not that you are suggesting that it would - I just thought that this might be worth pointing out).

It would be nice if jean were to join us on this subject! I'm wary of putting words in her mouth, but my guess would be that she would rightly point to so-called socialist and communist regimes which have treated the environment worse, if anything, than Western capitalist ones.

It's worth pausing to remember that, notwithstanding the young Marx's recognition of nature as that without which humans could have no material existence, and upon whose transformation all value and co-existential values flowed, Marxism inherited many Christian attitudes by way of its socialist forbears, one of which being notions of humankind's superiority over the rest of the natural order, and thereby its assumed right to treat thereof in any way deemed propitious to human interests. But as a self-declared science, Marxism would be consistency-bound to acknowledge subsequent scientific discoveries placing humankind in common and in interdependent relationship with the network of relationships governing the self-balancing principles indispensable to its maintenance - and of course ours. This either restores or introduces a, for want of a better metaphor, "spiritual" dimension potentially re-galvanising for some improved kind of Marxist tradition, though I can't think of many people within its "auspices" apart posslbly from George Monbiot who express themselves from such a viewpoint, though the Dalai Lama has said some surprisingly interesting things!

Leaving that aside, however, if you want to achieve your desired goals by means of some kind of democratic election of a socialist government, you would surely have first to create the possibility of a socialist-government-in-waiting - i.e. a socialist opposition - the very lack of which seems to me not only to have become endemic but is also damaging for Britain's poltical life to the extent that no governmental situation without a strong and vocal opposition is likely to be healthy; in the absence of such a public desire to move towards socialism (that is to say True Labour as distinct from New Labour, Blue Labour et al), its hard to envisage how such an opposition party could be formed, let alone elected.

The history of politics is the history of splits and re-formations; all somebody with enough charisma and articulacy has to do is put forward a minimalist programme of the sort I suggested above on a similar basis and it would I believe attract many on the left and Green movements desperately seeking that alternative.

Nationalisation of greater or lesser degrees of serevice and goods production industries has long been a fundamental tenet of socialist thinking, but you seem to recognise that not all such operations are equally amenable to successful nationalistion. You mention community and workplace gatherings for discussion of such issues before changes be put forward to be turned into policy, but to what extent would the employed workforce be prepared to involve itself in this

Would appealing to their self-interest be a good start? -

and what of the unemployed, self-employed, retired and all other people entitled to vote and have their say? I've long felt unconfortable about the very notion of "public ownership". "Public services", yes - i.e. services funded by the taxpayer for the benefit of society at large - but "ownership"? Although I am entitled to use services provided by government, I do not at all feel that I therefore "own" any of them or a share in any of them. The NHS gives and I take (if I need to), but I cannot bring myself to believe tht this gives me the right to think of it as a shareholder or other ind of part-owner.

I agree that the "soviet"-type structures of accountability I've been pursuing would, by giving overweening power of numbers and physical strength to those collectively organised, under-represent e.g. housewives and the self-employed - this being one reason behind my advocacy of universal franchise being maintained in modified form since it's from that position that cross-sectoral interests can be best acknowledged and represented. As to ownership and sense thereof, I cede to the old leftist cliche, "What isn't owned can't be controlled".

Another factor here is the question of the location of the owner of organisations that provide goods and services; nationalised ones are "owned" and managed within the country concerned whereas private ones can be owned anywhere. This also raises the question of the extent to which nationalised organisations involve themselves in import and export trading; should it be more of either or less of either than is the case with private goods and services suppliers? Perhaps more importantly of all, the question must be asked as to whether state run organisations can operate more efficiently than privately run ones; the all have to operate as businesses because that's what they are and they all have customers in the sense of people who partake of the goods and services that they supply. I may be no great fan of nationalisation but if any nationalised industry can demonstrate in practice that it can be run better than any private organisation has historically run it, then everyone would presumably be better off it it were nationalised.

Well the railways and the mines were - initially, at any rate! But what you have to ask yourself is, what in the final analysis (if not well before that) is it that determines "efficiency", if not the capitalist's ability to operate where resources are cheapest and most compliant? This is not to say socialised enterprises could ignore issues of efficiency altogether - producers would have to acknowledge much greater accountability brought about by the ending of the division between producer and consumer and alienation from the fruits of his or her product - just to acknowledge what efficiency is based on.

The possible abolition of money would be a monumantal issue that could never get off the ground unless everey country signed up to it and a suitable altenative could be globally agreed as a replacement - but even that would not guarantee removal or even reduction of corrupt practice, because as long as everything retains some kind of value, even if no longer monetary and however it may otherwise be calculated and expressed, the opportunities for speculators, both private and governmental, will remain.

Yes but people change..... The odd thing is that, speaking for my own untidiness, they can become much more concerned with safeguarding collective provision than their own domain. I think your assessment is based on too jaundiced a view of human nature.

I also do not see an inherent and irremovable conflict of interest between "production for need" and "production for competitive profitability"; such a conflict can arise, of course, but it doesn't necessarily have to do so because the two are not necessarily by nature fundamentally incompatible. "Profit" is always a bad word for some, but how would providers of goods and services survive, develop and improve without it? I'm referring here to profit that largely gets reinvested, of course, not that of the "fat cat" variety, but profit it still is, even when made by state run organisations; I see nothing wrong in principle with the idea of, say, NHS selling certain of its products and services abroad - or to private organisations within UK - if it can make a healthy proft by so doing and then invest it in the improvement, expansion and development of its services.

Storing up for a rainy day marked a qualitative step forward when humans invented agriculture; I happen to think "surplus" is a better word than profit, with its associations of self-aggrandisement at the expense of others.

[ahinton]

It would be nice if jean were to join us on this subject! I'm wary of putting words in her mouth, but my guess would be that she would rightly point to so-called socialist and communist regimes which have treated the environment worse, if anything, than Western capitalist ones.

It's worth pausing to remember that, notwithstanding the young Marx's recognition of nature as that without which humans could have no material existence, and upon whose transformation all value and co-existential values flowed, Marxism inherited many Christian attitudes by way of its socialist forbears, one of which being notions of humankind's superiority over the rest of the natural order, and thereby its assumed right to treat thereof in any way deemed propitious to human interests. But as a self-declared science, Marxism would be consistency-bound to acknowledge subsequent scientific discoveries placing humankind in common and in interdependent relationship with the network of relationships governing the self-balancing principles indispensable to its maintenance - and of course ours. This either restores or introduces a, for want of a better metaphor, "spiritual" dimension potentially re-galvanising for some improved kind of Marxist tradition, though I can't think of many people within its "auspices" apart posslbly from George Monbiot who express themselves from such a viewpoint, though the Dalai Lama has said some surprisingly interesting things!

The problem with the myth of human superiority is that it is humans who have made and continue to make discoveries that can (but sadly don't always) benefit humankind as a whole and, sometimes, the more arrogant end of this has blinded some people to appropriate realistion that much of this kind of work is dependent upon working with nature and not against it or ignoring it.

The history of politics is the history of splits and re-formations; all somebody with enough charisma and articulacy has to do is put forward a minimalist programme of the sort I suggested above on a similar basis and it would I believe attract many on the left and Green movements desperately seeking that alternative.

The first part of this is indeed true (although it could also be argued to reveal the inherent instability of politics), but I think that it would need rather more than just that; vasts swathes of people have become jaded about political activity and the widespread and deeply ingrained distrust in politicans of all kinds would be hard to shake.

Would appealing to their self-interest be a good start?

Persuading enough people to turn up at all and then listen and think would be a good start! - but, as Elliott Carter and many others have pointed out, people aren't being encouraged to listen, concentrate and think these days as much as was once the case.

I agree that the "soviet"-type structures of accountability I've been pursuing would, by giving overweening power of numbers and physical strength to those collectively organised, under-represent e.g. housewives and the self-employed - this being one reason behind my advocacy of universal franchise being maintained in modified form since it's from that position that cross-sectoral interests can be best acknowledged and represented. As to ownership and sense thereof, I cede to the old leftist cliche, "What isn't owned can't be controlled".

Fair comment in your first sentence. As to your second, I was not seeking to advocate the abolition of "ownership" but just pointing out that nationalised industries are "owned" by the state that operates them - i.e. the government - not by the citizens that may or may not have elected it. If I attend an NHS GP or hospital, I am a customer, not an "owner" (or at least that's how I feel); the government owns the business and it supplies goods and services to those who require them.

Well the railways and the mines were - initially, at any rate! But what you have to ask yourself is, what in the final analysis (if not well before that) is it that determines "efficiency", if not the capitalist's ability to operate where resources are cheapest and most compliant? This is not to say socialised enterprises could ignore issues of efficiency altogether - producers would have to acknowledge much greater accountability brought about by the ending of the division between producer and consumer and alienation from the fruits of his or her product - just to acknowledge what efficiency is based on.

It's a question of where to draw the line. The problem is that any business, state owned / run or otherwise, needs to avoid unnecessary squandering of operating resources, funds for procurement of products and services that it needs in order to operate and the rest, otherwise it will not function as "efficiently" as it otherwise could. I don't see that the problem that you outline here can be resolved without the business putting itself at risk, but I fear that some who might disagree may do so from the perspective of a false assumption that state enterprises have some bottomless pit of resources on which to depend just because they're taxpayer-funded; the poorer the economic situation at any time, the lower the tax take and therefore the less income from taxpayers on which the business depends - this is just one reason why state enterprises selling their wares (not all of them, of course!) commercially for profit can help their funding when Treasury coffers are being filled more slowly in bad times. I seem to recall that, at one time, British Gas, when a nationalised industry, was being held up as a model of efficiency and profitability, so yes, that kind of outcome is by no means impossible.

Yes but people change..... I think your assessment is based on too jaundiced a view of human nature.

Maybe - but people change in all manner of directions and, apart from the lack of encouragement to listen, concentrate and think that I mentioned, many of them are probably more difficult to persuade of new ways of doing things if they don't feel that they have enough energy and motivation to figure out which ways are best and which not.

Storing up for a rainy day marked a qualitative step forward when humans invented agriculture; I happen to think "surplus" is a better word than profit, with its associations of self-aggrandisement at the expense of others.

Yes, I agree with that, in that it takes the fat-cattiness out of the meaning; well said!

[Serial_Apologist]

I'll restrict my replies if I may to where I disagree with your last post, most of which I agree with.

vasts swathes of people have become jaded about political activity and the widespread and deeply ingrained distrust in politicans of all kinds would be hard to shake.

Yes but they're still on the lookout for alternatives, and don't really want to let those to blame off the hook - hence the current popularity of the Kippers!

Fair comment in your first sentence. As to your second, I was not seeking to advocate the abolition of "ownership" but just pointing out that nationalised industries are "owned" by the state that operates them - i.e. the government - not by the citizens that may or may not have elected it. If I attend an NHS GP or hospital, I am a customer, not an "owner" (or at least that's how I feel); the government owns the business and it supplies goods and services to those who require them.

Well, one of the stong points in the early publicity for the nationalised industry was "It's your industry now!" Common ownership - whatever has been made of it subsequently.

It's a question of where to draw the line. The problem is that any business, state owned / run or otherwise, needs to avoid unnecessary squandering of operating resources, funds for procurement of products and services that it needs in order to operate and the rest, otherwise it will not function as "efficiently" as it otherwise could. I don't see that the problem that you outline here can be resolved without the business putting itself at risk, but I fear that some who might disagree may do so from the perspective of a false assumption that state enterprises have some bottomless pit of resources on which to depend just because they're taxpayer-funded; the poorer the economic situation at any time, the lower the tax take and therefore the less income from taxpayers on which the business depends - this is just one reason why state enterprises selling their wares (not all of them, of course!) commercially for profit can help their funding when Treasury coffers are being filled more slowly in bad times. I seem to recall that, at one time, British Gas, when a nationalised industry, was being held up as a model of efficiency and profitability, so yes, that kind of outcome is by no means impossible.

Economic ups and downs are an intrinsic part of capitalism. Like someone with bipolar disorder one part of itself charges around then runs out of steam. Its anarchic character leads to periodic surpluses the market can't absorb, wasting productive facilities and labour until it sorts itself out, before the next time comes along. Even disregarding the multiple duplications of boards of directors etc, what a waste! One of the purposes of planning, Keynes's idea, was to offset this fluctuational tendency by training up and giving the unemployed sufficient benefits to be able to carry on buying product they couldn't otherwise afford, thus keeping some others employed making things, but by the Reagan/Thatcher era many in ruling circles remembered the purpose of the pool of unemployed as serving to discipline workforces into feeling fortunate to have work, especially as they were now being taught the highest virtue of existence as being home ownership. But the real point of planning would be regulation and deployment of resources.

but people change in all manner of directions and, apart from the lack of encouragement to listen, concentrate and think that I mentioned, many of them are probably more difficult to persuade of new ways of doing things if they don't feel that they have enough energy and motivation to figure out which ways are best and which not.

Shagged out by being pulled this way and that, mentally emotionally and physically, but the topsy-turvy system we live under, perhaps you mean! A planned system would use technology to reduce working times the way that was proselytised in the 60s, though anyone could see it would instead be used to rationalise, downsize and thereby increase unit productivity.

Yes, I agree with that, in that it takes the fat-cattiness out of the meaning; well said!

Times have changed since anyone kept an eye on the likes of me, and I'm quite sure "they" are too busy chasing up Islamic extremists to be bothered by any radical potential deducible from such writings these days - that's the sad thing!