Thatcher deid

[Tubbs]

Using charity hand outs to accomodate your last few months and the state paying for your funeral - free marketeering or scrounging.

[Ivo den Bieman]

I'd start with the people rather than some abstract political theory, which a tiny subset of the over-educated middle class thinks is a good idea, and imposes on everyone else. That was the problem with twentieth century Bolshevism, and why rather than the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' withering away, instead it entrenched itself, and only withered away with glasnost / perestroika and with the deaths of a self-selecting gerontocracy in the late eighties.

Unfortunately the system which Thatcher helped to create- an extremist version of monetarism, and a business-obsessed Friedmanite vision of the world, covered with the fairly scabby figleaf of the Union Jack, has made such a people-centred vision nigh on impossible to achieve, thirty years on. State ownership has been supplanted by private oligopolies in key industries, or made redundant by the deliberate shutting down of whole industries (coal being the most painful example. Scargill really was a useful idiot for Thatcher and MacGregor in his utterly disastrous handling of the strike in 84 / 85).

The system of neo liberal capitalism is now a global phenomenon and Thatcher was one of the most powerful booster rockets that got it airborne in the eighties. Said booster rocket was fuelled by the destruction of the political power and standing of the working classes and the division and emasculation of working class communities. Thatcher's ideas are everywhere today in Central and Eastern Europe, in the former Communist countries; a foaming-at-the-mouth dash to privatise everything, and concentrate wealth in the hands of a tiny corrupt elite, at the expense of everybody else. In other words, the same formula is playing itself out.

If you are an ordinary person ball-deep in debt in the middle of the worst recession in living memory- finding it steadily more difficult month by month to pay your mortgage, car, utilities, shopping bills, etc, the last thing you are going to do is think about how life and the system could be made better so you have an easier time of it. What you might do is look nostalgically back to the easier times of the nineties and pre- October '08 noughties, and wish that you'd put a bit more aside and not taken so much advantage of such abundantly cheap credit.

Meanwhile, at a time where what used to be called the 'Left' should be strongest, it is fragmented, weak, divided and impotent. It has been replaced symbolically by a protest movement (Occupy etc.) which although making a big splash in the media has achieved next to nothing in terms of real political concessions or gains. This is partly because of pisspoor and naive leadership, incoherent and sometimes conflicting strategy, and a lack of credibility outside of the activist / protest bubble. At the time of the biggest financial heist in human history- bank debt being passed on to ordinary taxpayers to clear up whilst the financial sector puts on a public show of contrition and carries on as normal in private- very little has been said or done, other than in Iceland. The 'Left' are a total irrelevance. Since the fall of the USSR twentieth century revolutionary alternatives as formed in an age which believed in Utopian narrative shave been dead. That so many of the remaining 'Left' seem happy to keep peddling dead ideologies tells you all you need to know about them.

I get the sense that a majority people hate the way that the UK is going. However, the vast majority have far too much to lose by rocking the boat, and have no interest in defaulting on the multiple obligations they have to finance companies. The solution then is to complain a lot, withdraw from the utter sham of present day electoral politics, by cynicism and a refusal to vote, keep the head down and pray like f**k that the job is held onto, and that somehow the present storm can be ridden out. If of course the 'present storm' ever ends, which it shows no sign of doing. Thatcher's surviving chums and descendants will be quite happy to continue making money from the crisis for as long as they can, as it is at the core of the Thatcherite creed; me and mine, and f**k everybody else.

It is likely that we may never undo the damage she did not only to this country, but also the damage that the ideas she happy-clapped have done, in the wider world.

[KeeperDee]

I'd start with the people rather than some abstract political theory, which a tiny subset of the over-educated middle class thinks is a good idea, and imposes on everyone else. That was the problem with twentieth century Bolshevism, and why rather than the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' withering away, instead it entrenched itself, and only withered away with glasnost / perestroika and with the deaths of a self-selecting gerontocracy in the late eighties.

Unfortunately the system which Thatcher helped to create- an extremist version of monetarism, and a business-obsessed Friedmanite vision of the world, covered with the fairly scabby figleaf of the Union Jack, has made such a people-centred vision nigh on impossible to achieve, thirty years on. State ownership has been supplanted by private oligopolies in key industries, or made redundant by the deliberate shutting down of whole industries (coal being the most painful example. Scargill really was a useful idiot for Thatcher and MacGregor in his utterly disastrous handling of the strike in 84 / 85).

The system of neo liberal capitalism is now a global phenomenon and Thatcher was one of the most powerful booster rockets that got it airborne in the eighties. Said booster rocket was fuelled by the destruction of the political power and standing of the working classes and the division and emasculation of working class communities. Thatcher's ideas are everywhere today in Central and Eastern Europe, in the former Communist countries; a foaming-at-the-mouth dash to privatise everything, and concentrate wealth in the hands of a tiny corrupt elite, at the expense of everybody else. In other words, the same formula is playing itself out.

If you are an ordinary person ball-deep in debt in the middle of the worst recession in living memory- finding it steadily more difficult month by month to pay your mortgage, car, utilities, shopping bills, etc, the last thing you are going to do is think about how life and the system could be made better so you have an easier time of it. What you might do is look nostalgically back to the easier times of the nineties and pre- October '08 noughties, and wish that you'd put a bit more aside and not taken so much advantage of such abundantly cheap credit.

Meanwhile, at a time where what used to be called the 'Left' should be strongest, it is fragmented, weak, divided and impotent. It has been replaced symbolically by a protest movement (Occupy etc.) which although making a big splash in the media has achieved next to nothing in terms of real political concessions or gains. This is partly because of pisspoor and naive leadership, incoherent and sometimes conflicting strategy, and a lack of credibility outside of the activist / protest bubble. At the time of the biggest financial heist in human history- bank debt being passed on to ordinary taxpayers to clear up whilst the financial sector puts on a public show of contrition and carries on as normal in private- very little has been said or done, other than in Iceland. The 'Left' are a total irrelevance. Since the fall of the USSR twentieth century revolutionary alternatives as formed in an age which believed in Utopian narrative shave been dead. That so many of the remaining 'Left' seem happy to keep peddling dead ideologies tells you all you need to know about them.

I get the sense that a majority people hate the way that the UK is going. However, the vast majority have far too much to lose by rocking the boat, and have no interest in defaulting on the multiple obligations they have to finance companies. The solution then is to complain a lot, withdraw from the utter sham of present day electoral politics, by cynicism and a refusal to vote, keep the head down and pray like f**k that the job is held onto, and that somehow the present storm can be ridden out. If of course the 'present storm' ever ends, which it shows no sign of doing. Thatcher's surviving chums and descendants will be quite happy to continue making money from the crisis for as long as they can, as it is at the core of the Thatcherite creed; me and mine, and f**k everybody else.

It is likely that we may never undo the damage she did not only to this country, but also the damage that the ideas she happy-clapped have done, in the wider world.

Cracking post.

[invergowrie arab]

you dont have to want a return to a trade and barter economy to want to see a fairer distriution of wealth and renationalisation of certain industries.

Yes my example of not using roads and schools is ridiculous and it is to highlight the ridiculousness of having a go at 'lefties' for using capitalist shops. where should socialists buy their champagne from if not capitalist companies? Who knows maybe they all get their champagne from the Co-Op or John Lewis.

[KeeperDee]

Is there anything stopping the world from being cleared of debt and everything just starting again?

[invergowrie arab]

Now, THAT, is verge of tears material....

They two are hardly comparable. Try to work and not pay taxes in some form or other.... we might as well use the services we pay for. Lefties, however, could quite conceivably choose to buck the system knit their own clothes etc etc. Instead, they all seem rather nattily dressed, least the ones at university were

Why should i knit my own clothes?

i dont have any problem with people making money and capitalism. What i do have a problem with is rampant free market capitalism that exploits workers and natural resources.

[Scorge]

Is there anything stopping the world from being cleared of debt and everything just starting again?

North and South Korea might just make that happen soon, careful what you wish for.

100% agree with Ivo's post.

[KeeperDee]

Reynard types?

Obviously I don't know him all that well.

Just it seems that if all the debt was just written off it would solve a lot of problems. Because in actual reality money has no real value, just the human mind has attached value to it.

[invergowrie arab]

Is there anything stopping the world from being cleared of debt and everything just starting again?

To what end?

[KeeperDee]

To what end?

Flush the entire economic system, reset all of the economies in the world and just start again.

Mind, we would probably accumulate all the debt in a ten year period again anyway..

http://www.cognitivepolicyworks.com/blog/2012/12/19/what-if-all-the-worlds-debt-just-went-away/

This is a very good read about the concept of a debt flush.

Edited April 10, 2013 by SweeperDee

[Drooper]

Is there anything stopping the world from being cleared of debt and everything just starting again?

As with all new initiatives, I believe this would require a pilot project, and I am willing to put myself out there (for the greater good, of course) and volunteer for this.

My accountant will be in touch.

[invergowrie arab]

In theory you certainly could but Iif the people who control the resources tomorrow are the same people who control the resources today we will back to square 1 before too long. Resources are very real and have real value.

[KeeperDee]

In theory you certainly could but Iif the people who control the resources tomorrow are the same people who control the resources today we will back to square 1 before too long. Resources are very real and have real value.

And therein lies the problem; people are greedy, greedy b*****ds.

[Paulo Sergio]

We could do with her now unfortunately.

My only real criticism of her, is that she didn't push more economically and she didnt roll back the state enough.

Apart from that, she was the best Prime Minister I'm ever likely to see.

BTW, what the f**k was that shite in George Square the other night? A bunch of plook faced little wasters and their bearded tit lecturers celebrating her death by using champagne bought from evil capatalist companies? They made fools of themselves as usual.

It only took three days, but at least you're not taking it too badly.

[the jambo-rocker]

'Her legacies still live on today all around the world is a paraphased sentence that I keep seeing crop up more often than I'm comfortable with.

Yes, tell me more about how her ideals templated onto one of the biggest ever clusterfucks in human history that was fuelled by private financial sector greed, and now a purgatory state deemed a 'recovery' from the oh so resented public sector, that has taken a ridiculous beating in order to marginally sustain it.

[invergowrie arab]

And therein lies the problem; people are greedy, greedy b*****ds.

Lets assume for arguments sake your statement is true for everyone . Surely thats an argument for putting in controls on the free market and economic liberalism - not an argument to positively encourage such a situation.

[Reynard]

It only took three days, but at least you're not taking it too badly.

I took her leaving power a lot worse. But this was before you were born so you wouldn't know.

Edited April 10, 2013 by Reynard

[doulikefish]

It only took three days, but at least you're not taking it too badly.

I took her leaving power a lot worse. But this was before you were born so you wouldn't know.

I remember the old witch blubbering it was fantastic

[Hedgecutter]

Flush the entire economic system, reset all of the economies in the world and just start again.

Mind, we would probably accumulate all the debt in a ten year period again anyway..

http://www.cognitivepolicyworks.com/blog/2012/12/19/what-if-all-the-worlds-debt-just-went-away/

This is a very good read about the concept of a debt flush.

What about my dickish workmate who owes everyone a round sometime (you know the type)? Will he be getting let off? If so, to hell with ending world poverty, I want my pint.

[Reynard]

Is there anything stopping the world from being cleared of debt and everything just starting again?

Who is the debt payable to? Will China take a haircut for the likes of the USA without getting their pound of flesh? Unlikely I'd say.