This is worth watching, broadcast earlier this month:
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Good presentation – and from the BBC too! The thing is, though, there’s no shortage of well-articulated solutions. They’re all over the Internet and routinely being discussed at forums across the western world. The problem is how to remove the corrupt & immoral power structures that currently prevail. As stated many times here, the Neo-liberals are currently winning their ‘argument’ with the support of the MSM, finance from mega-corporations, the democratic deficit (eg. FPTP & Electoral College voting systms), junk-economic theory taught in universities, etc. etc.
Personally, I can’t see a peaceful transition from neo-fascist plutocracies to non-market driven democracies that devolve power & wealth to the 90%. Hence, the shift to the right will continue for as long as those in power think they can get away with it. However, like a Ponzi scheme, it will eventually collapse. Unfortunately the collateral damage to society could be devastating.
Yes. Agreed.
But we MUST find a way through to these solutions with as little damage as possible or their is only a bleak future in prospect. There are two problems we must solve; climate change and inequality. We must solve climate change for our society to have a future but we must solve inequality in order to have a society worth saving.
I agree with the proposal of a universal basic income but this was brought up on a discussion on the Guardian politics podcast (via an audience question)
On the podcast all the participants were against the idea.
Rachel Reeves answered with a long diatribe stating that people only find worth via work totally dismissing the idea of community work & Vince Cable stated that to be any good it would be un-affordable, incidentally he also said that on the subject of zero hours contracts that although they were harmful for many there were a few for whom the worked fine so couldn’t be ruled out.
It was all rather depressing really
Richard
Thank you so much for this – really cheered me up.
The Protestant work ethic carries a lot of people with it. Yet JK Rowling is honest about her writing on the dole (in those days she wasn’t required to devote her every waking hour to job seeking). So whilst she is certainly exceptioanl in terms of her success who knew that then? She didn’t.
It is true that people will always want to do things but I see no evidence as to whether this needs to be capitalist ‘gainful employment’ or deducing the world from a dewdrop.
Self worth via work may actually depend on the work (clearly, some have none in the existing system). So if we have the choice it will be much better for all of us.
David
(Sir) Vince Cable is a busted flush. He had no real strategy at BIS, no New Deal, no plan to fund major infrastructure projects or even housing. I heard him talk at a business event in Yorkshire, fawning to the fat cats and even saying that it was OK to cut jobs in BIS to be efficient.
Utterly, irresponsibly, out of his depth, squandering a major opportunity to curtail the impact of austerity. So, of course, he would endorse zero hours contracts. Not a Lib Dem but a neo-liberal. Shun him.