In a blog post this morning I called for politics based on care, community, cooperation, coordination, and conviviality.
In response, a commentator has suggested to me that we need to rid ourselves of the curses of competition, cheapness and convenience.
We are looking for a C change.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Looks like the C’s you want are control, coercion and communism.
Tell me how you reached that conclusion? What is your evidence from what I wrote?
we must act collectively
Quite a communistic assertion.
The action has to be collective
The action is to be compelled must
Let us just think of occasions when we act collectively…..
For example when we are part of a family, school, company, partnership, organisation, church….
How the heck is working together evidence of communist intent?
Your claim is utterly bizarre
Well, I got that from reading your article.
You want more government control and less choice.
We do often work collectively, but your words are typical of those espousing communist/authoritarian regimes. Individual choice and freedom are secondary to your collectivism.
Compulsion, coercion, control, communism. Those are the words you are really looking for.
Working collectively does not prescribe the means no control of the collective endeavour and both private and state sectors have roles
Nothing I said implied anything you say
You might really need help to deal with your inability to read, let alone comprehend
@Partly Colin : “we must act collectively
Quite a communistic assertion.”
So anything that requires acting collectively is “communistic” ?
So that includes, for example, every football team – but I’d suggest that they are far more likely to be capitalistic rather than communist enterprises.
Reminds me of of those capitalists that rant on about freedom, when all the freedoms we had are being eroded, even our human rights, in reality the only freedom capitalists offer, is the freedom to starve.
They’re talking about libertarian freedom, in other words, the freedom to do whatever they hell they like without anyone being able to stop them, irrespective of the harms or deprivation of liberty to others that their behaviour may inflict on others.
I have to say to all those who espouse the concept of the free market that their ideas fit neatly into the man made construct of a free market idealism. Unfortunately for them when dealing with an issue that is controlled by the forces of nature their simplistic remedies are worthless.
I would implore them to stop the rhetoric of implying that sensible solutions to natural threats are based on communistic ideals and wake up to the fact that the fantasy of the market is not an instant solution in the case of Covid.
That really is quite a bizarre comment, suggesting that your blog entry relates to Communism.
However, the comment does demonstrate the extremities to which many people in this country have moved to the Far Right.
I suppose the next step would be to claim that any country with an army must be Communist, as they have a collective ideal for defence.
I really do wonder what has happened to the Right’s sense of humanity and instinctive human empathy for each other.
It is, of course, plumbing the depths of intellectual vacuity to use the three syllable c word like the single syllable expletive, but that is what you do if you wish to avoid serious debate in favour of personal abuse. I would advise those contemplating the use of the four syllable version, communism, to begin with the Wikipedia definition, which seems simple, even simplistic up to a point, but has the immediate merit of disclosing the uncomfortable fact that it has absolutely nothing whatever to do with Richard Murphy ‘s views, since he could not be clearer that public and private sector must both be part of the solutions that we discuss here.
The fear behind the trolling is understandable in a way. Neo liberal economics has enjoyed an almost absolute hegemony for at least forty years and much of its ideology is simply viewed by many as a series of FACTUAL statements. The list is fairly obvious: the housewife’s purse analogy, the burden of the national debt, we can only spend taxpayers’ money, etc ad infinitum. All this is debunked by the ruthless logic of MMT and that is profoundly disturbing, as it leads to a greatly enhanced role for the state and acceptance that markets only work properly if they are regulated in a transparent and accountable way. The other natural corollary is the need to challenge elites, since their wealth is built on a subsidiary role for the state and lack of regulation, transparency and accountability. If you have never confronted these issues before, your only point of reference is your misty notions of repressive states that have or had the label, “communist”. So, obviously everyone causing your discomfort is a communist at heart and, even if you don’t believe that, the tactic has two great merits. Firstly, you can avoid the discussion and, secondly, labelling the enemy red has always worked well in the past, so why change a winning formulation?
Anyway, the troll isn’t interested, but those fearful of your subversive intent can at least check out Wikipedia.
As the Soviets and Chinese discovered competition is a natural part of being social apes. The question is the degree, you cannot eliminate it.
Convenience is there for the time poor (like me). The lazy and feckless use it too. Since finally gaining employment and becoming time poor my use of convenience has gone up with my ability to pay for it.
Cheapness means the poor no longer have to eat humble pie. They can roast a chicken or a piece of pork with crackling. We need to be careful here.
Of course….individuals words cannot address all aspects of complexity
Agreed. Have been thinking this for a while now. If COVID has taught us anything it’s the most important people in our society are those that feed us and those that look after us. Everything else is window dressing.
At the moment we seem to have an economic model based on conflict, capital, corpulence, confusion and corruption. Instead we need one built on compassion and care.
Too bad we are ruled by a bunch of Cs that only care about their own worthless carcasses!
I would like to see less market economy and more living together
The state has a role to play which we can control loosely by democratic
Means. Russia is trying to ‘democratise’ communism, which may be possible and make government of the people by the people for the people a reality.
Do you ho9nestly think Russia is communist?
And if so, what does that mean?
when we cooperate together and avoid harming and protect the weak that is a community. When the government constrains us by force that is not a society it’s a prison of mind and body. Russia is a kleptocratic dictatorship. With our voting system we scarcely qualify as a democracy . Only PR is fair. Check out Denmark
Well, speaking of C words and the state of affairs, I feel this work by Jarvis Cocker is a fitting piece of music.
https://youtu.be/MCvYUaQXnE8
Well I enjoyed it
Some may not