Litter picking + Incarceration....the Conservative Way....

[teamsaint]

Another "affront" is that our society (and education system) is SO quick to write people off in so many areas at such ridiculously early ages.

Our society badly needs, if it is to properly flourish, to grow up and REALLY respect the skills , talents and potential of all of our people.

in an unspecified and random ranty kind of way.

And to develop Scottys point, it would help if hose who have to do unfulfilling, possibly lower skilled work, were valued more financially, and as importantly, were equipped with the skills to develop their talents outside of the workplace.

[amateur51]

Well, somebody has to do the low-skilled, low-paid work. Not everyone can attain high-skilled, high-paid work.

The injustice is not an education system which separates pupils according to natural intelligence and knowledge but the pay-rates for so-called 'low-skilled' work which is often the most essential work of all to keep us alive never mind anything else.

For example, where would any of us be without navvies building roads, factory workers manufacturing clothes, agricultural workers providing meat and vegetables, and then shop workers ultimately distributing these basic necessities of life?

It is an affront to both fairness and logic that such workers are so poorly paid whilst both billionaire capitalists and wealthy champagne socialists enjoy their over-rich pickings at the expense of essential workers.

Roll on the Centrist Revolution!

An elderly and much-loved friend of mine died recently aged 92 and for the last five years of her life she lived in a care home. She was clean, well-fed (indeed putting on weight) and the women who provided this care were all low-paid and from Black, Asian and other minority ethnic communities.

I want the people who will be wiping my bottom and clearing up my attempts to feed myself whenever the time comes, to be paid a decent living wage, respectful of the skills and talents and experience and patience and humanity that enable them to give me the tender loving care that I saw being given to my friend. Every time I visited her there were smiles and gales of laughter, shared stories,tea and biscuits, and huge warmth and compassion, and when my friend died they all wept. This is service beyond price but we should be prepared to pay a decent price for it.

[MrGongGong]

The injustice is not an education system which separates pupils according to natural intelligence and knowledge

It doesn't
It never did

[Richard Barrett]

It doesn't
It never did

... and if we're on to education and its purposes now: this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

is very much worth sitting through I think.

[jean]

I want the people who will be wiping my bottom and clearing up my attempts to feed myself whenever the time comes, to be paid a decent living wage, respectful of the skills and talents and experience and patience and humanity that enable them to give me the tender loving care that I saw being given to my friend.

So do I.

And if they can't spell particularly well, or do algebra, it doesn't matter, and they shouldn't be paid any less because of that.

[Richard Barrett]

I want the people who will be wiping my bottom and clearing up my attempts to feed myself whenever the time comes, to be paid a decent living wage, respectful of the skills and talents and experience and patience and humanity that enable them to give me the tender loving care that I saw being given to my friend. Every time I visited her there were smiles and gales of laughter, shared stories,tea and biscuits, and huge warmth and compassion, and when my friend died they all wept. This is service beyond price but we should be prepared to pay a decent price for it.

A highly eloquent point. It put me in mind of David Graeber's recent article "On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs", particularly these bits:

A world without teachers or stevedores would soon be in trouble, and even one without science-fiction writers or ska musicians would clearly be a lesser place. It's not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity chief executives, lobbyists, public relations researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish.

(...)

If someone had designed a work regime perfectly suited to maintaining the power of finance capital, it's hard to see how they could have done a better job. Real, productive workers are relentlessly squeezed and exploited. The remainder are divided between a terrorised stratum of the, universally reviled, unemployed and a larger stratum who are basically paid to do nothing, in positions designed to make them identify with the perspectives and sensibilities of the ruling class (managers, administrators, etc) - and particularly its financial avatars - but, at the same time, foster a simmering resentment against anyone whose work has clear and undeniable social value.

[MrGongGong]

... and if we're on to education and its purposes now: this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

is very much worth sitting through I think.

Indeed an old favourite and some great analysis

(as there also was in Dominic Murcott's rant this evening ! )

[Sydney Grew]

(In brief)I do believe that young people capable to work (which is most of them) should be looking for a job and means to support themselves. It is generally the best way for mind body and soul. . . .

No; this whole idea of "work" is fundamentally flawed. It is just another word for the domination of the weak by the strong. No one should be forced to "work." A society founded upon "work" is a primitive and evil society.

[amateur51]

A highly eloquent point. It put me in mind of David Graeber's recent article "On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs", particularly these bits:

A world without teachers or stevedores would soon be in trouble, and even one without science-fiction writers or ska musicians would clearly be a lesser place. It's not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity chief executives, lobbyists, public relations researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish.

(...)

If someone had designed a work regime perfectly suited to maintaining the power of finance capital, it's hard to see how they could have done a better job. Real, productive workers are relentlessly squeezed and exploited. The remainder are divided between a terrorised stratum of the, universally reviled, unemployed and a larger stratum who are basically paid to do nothing, in positions designed to make them identify with the perspectives and sensibilities of the ruling class (managers, administrators, etc) - and particularly its financial avatars - but, at the same time, foster a simmering resentment against anyone whose work has clear and undeniable social value.

There was some very pertinent and moving testimony from users of Pay-Day Loan sharks in Walthamstow on Today R4 this morning, leading up to a discussion about Alan Milburn's report, I believe. These people were not stupid or feckless, they were desperate albeit temporarily but they could all see that here lay temptation and then beyond that lay Trouble

[ahinton]

No; this whole idea of "work" is fundamentally flawed. It is just another word for the domination of the weak by the strong. No one should be forced to "work." A society founded upon "work" is a primitive and evil society.

Nonsense. The idea of "work" per se is not "flawed" at all, let alone "fundamentally"; the kind of force of economic necessity that drives some people to do the work that they do against their will is indeed regrettable, but a society in which no one does any work other than that which they actually want to is at best a dim distant rose-coloured Utopian prospect and at worst one in which the world would very rapidly come to a standstill. Your suggestion that a "society founded upon "work" is a primitive and evil society" implies your belief that all "work" is not only bad in and of itself but also contributes nothing beneficial to society and indeed has never done so; quite how and why you arrive at such a perverse conclusion is beyond me, which is more than can be said for its sheer absurdity.

[eighthobstruction]

No; this whole idea of "work" is fundamentally flawed. It is just another word for the domination of the weak by the strong. No one should be forced to "work." A society founded upon "work" is a primitive and evil society.

Ah but you seem to produce absurdity with no work at all....but putting flies in ointment must surely be some type of work....

[Sydney Grew]

. . . The idea of "work" per se is not "flawed" at all, let alone "fundamentally"; the kind of force of economic necessity that drives some people to do the work that they do against their will is indeed regrettable, but a society in which no one does any work other than that which they actually want to is at best a dim distant rose-coloured Utopian prospect and at worst one in which the world would very rapidly come to a standstill. Your suggestion that a "society founded upon "work" is a primitive and evil society" implies your belief that all "work" is not only bad in and of itself but also contributes nothing beneficial to society and indeed has never done so; quite how and why you arrive at such a perverse conclusion is beyond me, which is more than can be said for its sheer absurdity.

That whole argument could be repeated almost word for word and turned into a defence of "slavery." Now it is my turn to cry "nonsense"!

[Richard Barrett]

putting flies in ointment must surely be some type of work....

Manual labour I think.

However, if I may refer to the same Graeber article again:

In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century’s end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There’s every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen. Instead, technology has been marshaled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.

[eighthobstruction]

Yes indeed RB....a scar I think about a great deal....the other thing that does not get talked about sensibly or talked about enough is Sustainability....which would necessitate major social engineering (of a positive type I believe)....top to bottom - birth to death....

....though, any chance a clear view on whether making the unemployed work for their JSA would be a breach of Minimum Wage laws....and that they would be doing bonafide jobs which could have been created anyway....

[eighthobstruction]

News of Alan Milburns Child poverty / Mobility Report.....http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24553611