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Why do modern leftists have no knowledge of job creation?

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This is a ****ing train wreck.
Original post by crayz
I wouldn't call bombing civilians with drones or harvesting all phone and internet data from your citizens minor crimes. Countries need to stop messing about thinking they are some sort of world police.


I would not and did not call them minor crimes either. Please take note of the word and concept of "comparison", re-read my post, and try again.

By the way, drones are a superior method of warfare than soldiers.
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
Wrong again.

Even if that were the case he never advocates supporting totalitarians when the American state does and has when it suits American interests.


He only ever criticises totalitarians when the US is supporting them.
Most politicians have no idea about job creation, regardless of party.
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
I showed you a video with him defending himself in this regard before and you just dismissed it so I can't change your mind.


Well what he said in that video was egregious pessimism about the moral agency (or lack of, in his view) of the Taliban. To his mind it is no point trying to defeat totalitarians because in the process civilians get harmed.
Reply 85
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crayz
OP
Original post by felamaslen
I would not and did not call them minor crimes either. Please take note of the word and concept of "comparison", re-read my post, and try again.

By the way, drones are a superior method of warfare than soldiers.


Shouldn't be using drones or soldiers.
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
If you think the likes of Noam Chomsky are stupid you are an idiot.


Chomsky is a political idiot. No one denys his work on linguistics is good, but either get real policies and recommend alternatives that are not so clouded by abstract thought, or shut up about things you have no idea about.
Original post by I am not finite
Chomsky is a political idiot. No one denys his work on linguistics is good, but either get real policies and recommend alternatives that are not so clouded by abstract thought, or shut up about things you have no idea about.


So he shouldn't have studied and help bring to light the murder carried out by south american police states that were supported by american money?
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
So he shouldn't have studied and help bring to light the murder carried out by south american police states that were supported by american money?


Excellent strawman, you must have big things for you on the left.
Original post by Observatory
Conscription is just forcing someone to work for a below market wage.

So how about instead of forcing them with threat of violence - something generally regarded as immoral - we simply withdraw minimum wage, benefits, etc., and force by threat of starvation? To make the system fair to those who genuinely cannot find jobs, we introduce a state job guarantee scheme, whereby people may volunteer to dig holes and fill them in again in exchange for bare subsistence food and shelter.


You just described the "signing on" system of claiming benefits.

Threat of starvation, incidentally, means all wages are coercive. If everyone had a guaranteed citizen's income businesses would have to pay employees the true cost of their labour for the first time in human history.
Original post by scrotgrot
You just described the "signing on" system of claiming benefits.

Benefits provide a greater than subsistence income without requirement to dig holes or fill them in again.

Threat of starvation, incidentally, means all wages are coercive. If everyone had a guaranteed citizen's income businesses would have to pay employees the true cost of their labour for the first time in human history.

That would be true if there were a single monopoly employer.
Original post by Observatory
Benefits provide a greater than subsistence income without requirement to dig holes or fill them in again.


The Job Centre is not an employment agency. Very few jobseekers have ever got a job through the Job Centre. Therefore applying to jobs and presenting evidence is a form of make-work just like digging holes and filling them in again.

Benefits are not much greater than a subsistence income, and they are increasingly unreliable since they will make up reasons to sanction you and stop your benefits. Therefore the headline figure, low as it already is, is not the full story. Even without that, things like the council tax contribution and bedroom tax introduced under this government have pushed benefit recipients into debt. Benefits are increasingly below subsistence level.

That would be true if there were a single monopoly employer.


No, that doesn't compensate for it, because even in the freest market, there is a "market rate". Just because there is no collusion in the setting of wage levels doesn't mean there is no asymptotic wage level in the market. In that market rate the threat of starvation is clearly a component.
Original post by scrotgrot
The Job Centre is not an employment agency. Very few jobseekers have ever got a job through the Job Centre. Therefore applying to jobs and presenting evidence is a form of make-work just like digging holes and filling them in again.

That is true; being a Professional Unemployed is somewhat like having a very unproductive civil service job. However like other low level civil service work the onerousness of the job can be doubted.

Benefits are not much greater than a subsistence income, and they are increasingly unreliable since they will make up reasons to sanction you and stop your benefits. Therefore the headline figure, low as it already is, is not the full story. Even without that, things like the council tax contribution and bedroom tax introduced under this government have pushed benefit recipients into debt. Benefits are increasingly below subsistence level.

Someone who receives reduced benefits on account of having a spare room cannot possibly be on a subsistence income. I would regard subsistence as more akin, as the previous poster suggested, to the conditions in national service - a single mattress on a bunk in a communal barrack room.

No, that doesn't compensate for it, because even in the freest market, there is a "market rate". Just because there is no collusion in the setting of wage levels doesn't mean there is no asymptotic wage level in the market. In that market rate the threat of starvation is clearly a component.

Do you believe that the "true cost of labour" asymptotes to infinity? Otherwise this is no objection at all.
Reply 93
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Rakas21
21
Original post by felamaslen
What do you think would be more desirable though - complete privatisation, or complete nationalisation? It seems like the former would result in a myriad of different railway companies, wildly varying ticket prices and a generally unstable situation. But the second would result in a stagnant, piss-poor service.


Infrastructure (National Grid/Railtrack) should be in public ownership.

Operations (Your Virgin and EDF) should have a state entrant but also enforce competition. Limit each rail operator to 1 service per hour (one being a state operator running at a low profit margin) and let the people decide whether a 15 minute wait for a seat on a long, comfortable train with seat service is worth an extra 50p. With energy do the same and have a state entrant running a little above cost so that people have choice but the companies can't money grab. Competition will drive standards up.
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by I am not finite
Excellent strawman, you must have big things for you on the left.


No... I mean one does not have to have a manifesto written of an alternative system to complain about things one deems as immoral. Did Charles Dickens need to propose a way of society functioning without the existence of workhouses to write books on the horrors carried out in such places?
Original post by Observatory
That is true; being a Professional Unemployed is somewhat like having a very unproductive civil service job. However like other low level civil service work the onerousness of the job can be doubted.


Navigating the benefits system today, and being poor in general, is maybe the most difficult job on earth. I remember reading somewhere that claimants' knowledge of the benefit system was similar to a specialist lawyer professionally trained in that field.

Similarly, digging holes may be pointless, but it's back-breaking work. Productivity is not the same as difficulty.

Someone who receives reduced benefits on account of having a spare room cannot possibly be on a subsistence income. I would regard subsistence as more akin, as the previous poster suggested, to the conditions in national service - a single mattress on a bunk in a communal barrack room.


That would be the case if such rooms were available. However, due to the fact that most of the housing stock has been built with multiple occupancy in mind (couples and families), there are very, very few one-bedroom properties available - I saw a statistic reported earlier today of something like 17,000 people chasing 75 flats in one area. And those renting just single rooms are not eligible for housing benefit at all.

Do you believe that the "true cost of labour" asymptotes to infinity? Otherwise this is no objection at all.


No. We note that people who have worked themselves into a career which places their market value far above subsistence levels (essentially guaranteeing them enough to live on) still want to buy more and more consumer goods for many reasons. You can see why by looking at Maslow's hierarchy of needs; subsistence is just the bottom rung. Therefore, every person has a finite price he will sell his time for.

I believe that under this system even the most unpleasant jobs would still attract interest. At the other end it may well lead to people actually doing jobs they enjoy and which are rewarding in themselves, which will increase their productivity, quality of life, and also, rewarding jobs are often also those which contribute to the betterment of humankind.
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by crayz
Shouldn't be using drones or soldiers.


What do you suggest the civilised world uses then, to defeat the Taliban?
Reply 97
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crayz
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Original post by felamaslen
What do you suggest the civilised world uses then, to defeat the Taliban?


Nothing, they should leave the Taliban to their own devices. There is a difference between Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and we already beat Al-Qaeda which is and always has been a tiny organisation.
Original post by Rakas21
Infrastructure (National Grid/Railtrack) should be in public ownership.

Operations (Your Virgin and EDF) should have a state entrant but also enforce competition. Limit each rail operator to 1 service per hour (one being a state operator running at a low profit margin) and let the people decide whether a 15 minute wait for a seat on a long, comfortable train with seat service is worth an extra 50p. With energy do the same and have a state entrant running a little above cost so that people have choice but the companies can't money grab. Competition will drive standards up.


Interesting. I think I agree that the infrastructure should be in public ownership. I'm not usually a fan of public ownership, all things being equal, but in this case it makes sense.

What I suspect would happen with the services though, is that the state operator would become the "standard class" railway, while private operators cater to the luxury market and drive their prices right up. If this did occur, it would result in a stratification of the railway system based on what people are willing or able to pay, and that I would not be in favour of.
Original post by crayz
Nothing, they should leave the Taliban to their own devices. There is a difference between Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and we already beat Al-Qaeda which is and always has been a tiny organisation.


The Taliban need to be destroyed from the face of the Earth, for the same reason the NSDAP did, and for the same reason the USSR did. I'm sorry, but you are morally bankrupt (or simply do not know what they are) if you believe all efforts to defeat the Taliban should be abandoned on ideological grounds.

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