I posted this tweet last night:
On Cameron's logic and in Osborne's rhetoric it's the fault of the staff of HMV, Jessops and Comet that they should now be facing benefit cuts.
We should hang our heads in shame at the failure of what we once called social security.
Now neoliberalism peddles fear through the encouragement of contempt when our duty is to care.
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You hit the nail right on the head, as usual, Richard. From strivers to skivers at the flick of an administrator’s pen. But then, what would the likes of Cameron, Osborne, Johnson, Clegg and many, many, more (and a fair few of those within Labour’s ranks) know about such events. Have any of them ever been unemployed? And even if they have there’s a bloody big difference between being unemployed when you’re already poor and unemployed when you’ve got money in the bank or others assets. This is the bit the toff’s and neo-Victorians wilfully forget.
Mind you, there was a very disturbing piece in The Guardian yesterday about the forthcoming changes to Council Tax that will mean several hundred thousand poor people who’ve never had to pay before paying various amounts of Council Tax from April. This on top of the incoming PIP and many more cuts (penalties for being poor, really) to come. You say we should hang our heads in shame at the demise of what we once called social security. I agree. If I’m not mistaken we are nearing a tipping point with this direction for social policy. And no Jubilee and Olympics to distract the masses (plebs) from reality this year. Perhaps we can expect another war, instead?
That’s the normal Tory distraction
I do hang my head in shame at having almost sleepwalked over the last 30 years into this situation. Of all the bad things our, my, carelessness might leave our children, the desolation this government is determined to inflict on those least able to bear it and what seems to me the almost inevitable breakdown in society that will follow is by far the worst.
They seem determined to demonise and then pauperise sections of society one by one, starting with weakest and moving on up the chain. Based on recent outpourings, It’s clear that pensioners will be the next target once the disabled and the unemployed have been ruined . When will those who fall for the demonising, by politicians and their friends in the media, of their supposed inferiors comprehend that most of them will be in the firing line sometime soon.
Maybe it’s a bit of a cliche right now but Bevan’s famous blast at the Tories feels like the most appropriate description of the privileged public schoolboys who pass themselves off as fit for government – vermin.
. Start with the
So what is the solution you’re advocating – Nationalize HMV? Once more evidence that you seem to lack any understanding of historical context from 1978 backwards.
I’m sympathetic to the problems being faced by the HMV employees having been a victim of redundancy due to a business collapsing into administration/ being taken over in the past. However,if you actually had read the Beveridge Report rather than bemoaning its alleged destruction, you would know that he would turn in his grave to see what the Welfare State has become. It was always intended as a short term relief, in a context when poverty was defined much differently than it seems to be today – he would not have approved of people being on welfare for 15 months and up, and nor would many of the 1945 to 1951 cabinet.
I’m very obviously advocating fair tax rules that provide a level playing field for all business
And of course Beveridge did not believe in people on benefits for 15 months – nor did Labour. We strived for full employment.
Now we don’t – but that’s not people’s fault. It is the deliberate neoliberal ploy of keeping people unemployed
But if the business isn’t viable then Full Employment is a pipedream that can only be maintained by in effect permanent subsidy. I agree there was a change in prioritisation after 1979 (which seems to be your cutoff point for the economic change to a NeoLiberal agenda) because inflation was seen as a greater evil, and that’s a paradigm which seems to have been adopted by both parties since then. I haven’t heard much from Miliband or Balls on the need for Full employment?
In terms of fair taxation, I assume you are referring to Amazon and its Luxembourg subisidary? it seems remiss to point out (again)that these companies are obeying the Letter of the Law (at least EU law), but nevertheless they are and until changes to that law are forthcoming, there isn’t much we can do about it (short of boycotting them, which I am assuming you do?)
You completely ignore the fact that tax a us gave HMV’s competitors a de facto stat subsidy
You are therefore the person arguing for subsidy, not me
I ask for fair competition
Odd how you right wingers s love state subsidy when it suits capital, but not labour
Mr Van Patten’s comments are a textbook summary of the neoliberal 2-stage strategy for assaulting the poor and vulnerable:
(1) promote an economic system and macroeconomic policy which produces mass unemployment;
(2) blame the unemployed victims, rather than the system, for this policy failure.
It really is divide and rule, and shame on anyone who falls for this rubbish.
Howard
You’re right
And said with more patience than I could muster
Thanks
Richard
Howard and Richard – thanks for this succinct riposte. If I may, I will add one further observation: when I was a member of the National Executive of the Christian Socialist Movement, and earlier when I was, inter alia, Political Education Office in my North London Constituency Labour Party, I caused some bemusement among my fellow Socialists by arguing that the “free market” is actually a Socialist instrument.
Why? Well, a true “free market” can only be so if it is a FAIR market = one in which there is true equality of bargaining power.
This can only happen when Government, national or local, or some regulator, intervenes to address the inequalities of bargaining power – something which the great “free market” guru Adam Smith well recognized (and rarely acknowledged by his so called “followers”), since he did not trust the business class to “play fair”, as this quote from the “Wealth of Nations” shows:
“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
Neo-liberal/”trickle down” economics, are just such a “conspiracy against the public”, but not on a mere local or temporary basis, but on an on-going, systemic and would-be permanent basis, and constitute a bluff that needs to be called NOW.
Your comment needed to go through a Spellchecker as the sense of it has been lost. You are claiming that legal tax planning is the equivalent of a state subsidy – that’s your argument? No wonder so many ‘Neoliberals’ have perished from these comment pages if that’s the best you can muster.
How is ‘fair competition’ defined in a multinational market? Who decides what ‘Fair Tax Rates’ are? You, and other unelected members of the Tax Justice Network? To whom are you accountable?
Tax avoidance is claiming a subsidy not intended by any parliament
That is exactly what I am saying
It is also true
Even David Cameron now says so
Only extremists seem to disagree
And you’re welcome to leave here at any time – I never invited you on
I’m pleased to see this is the forum for an honest debate but thanks for confirming my preconceptions (which in fairness you do make clear in the comment guidelines) – However, I’m confused, are you saying EU Law doesn’t come from an Elected legislature, or do you presume that only you can divine what the legislators actually intended?
I think you’ve now qualified as a troll
That’s your last time wasting comment here
[…] in avoiding tax. Not mentioned in mainstream broadcasts. Part of our problems might be that those HMV workers might be seen as shirkers, rather than deserving recipients of a social security system set up to help people in these […]