Socialism

[Newchodge]

Equality of opportunity is one of the current soundbites. Sounds right in principle, but it is unachievable. The old Jesuit saying - give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man - has been shown by a lot of research to be wrong. A child's future opportunities are pretty much set by the time they are 2 years old. There are, obviously, always exceptions, but they fall into the George Clooney, Usaun Bolt class. For the average person the kind of opportunity they get is dependent on their childhood circumstances. A child who starts school barely able to communicate, unable to use the toilet or use a knife and fork is already at a disadvantage compared with the child in the same class who, because of their home environment can read, write and count when they start school. That disadvantage is very hard to overcome.

 

[Mr D]

Equality of opportunity is one of the current soundbites. Sounds right in principle, but it is unachievable. The old Jesuit saying - give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man - has been shown by a lot of research to be wrong. A child's future opportunities are pretty much set by the time they are 2 years old. There are, obviously, always exceptions, but they fall into the George Clooney, Usaun Bolt class. For the average person the kind of opportunity they get is dependent on their childhood circumstances. A child who starts school barely able to communicate, unable to use the toilet or use a knife and fork is already at a disadvantage compared with the child in the same class who, because of their home environment can read, write and count when they start school. That disadvantage is very hard to overcome.

Unachievable?
So not a fan of state education then? Not a fan of benefits system? Not a fan of recruitment methods?

Yes home environment does make a difference, as does parental interaction and how much the parents push. As we know some leave the education entirely to the school and some do get involved.

You may have had future opportunities set by age 2, there are others of us who didn't have things set by that age. Set later, much later.
Possibly not even all set 40 odd years later.

 

[Clinton]

A child who starts school barely able to communicate, unable to use the toilet or use a knife and fork is already at a disadvantage...

Yes, and that is something we need to accept. Some parents are better than other parents.

You cannot even that out without some form of state control of children from the day of birth to ensure each is given exactly the same environment and resources.

Even then you'd fail as that doesn't compensate for variation in individual intelligence and attributes. You'd have to disadvantage the smart, ambitious and hard working ones in some way to bring them down to the same level as the others.

In fact, that is something state schools already do without having a formal mandate to do it - they average kids down because that's the only way you can deal with the insane system of bundling kids together and teaching them based on their date of manufacture rather than their individual abilities. That's why my wife and I home educated our children, we didn't want them "averaged down"! (Yeah, @Jeff FV I know about streaming,. However, that's just a pathetic attempt to compensate for the original, dumb idea of bundling based on age rather than apptitude.)

When men aren't born equal, any attempt to ensure they die equal is doomed to failure.
- Clinton, 2018

Equality of opportunity may be the soundbite but that ain't achievable either - aiming for equality in anything is where we are going wrong. We can't get equality, all we can get is a bit of ironing out of life's injustices. We shouldn't aim for more than a tiny bit.

And, ideally, it'll be society that does the ironing out, not government, because there's nothing so bad that a government can't screw up further.

Life ain't fair, get used to it. (And give up supporting the silly political party that wants to make life fair for everyone! )

 

[Gordon - Commercial Finance]

Just because we think equality of opportunity isn't 100% achievable doesn't mean we should just give up and not bother trying.
Equality of outcome, which culture is currently trying to achieve, is dangerous and unfair...and yet people push for that with every fibre of their being.

 

[Cobby]

I disagree. Inequality is natural. We are not all born with equal skills, talents, looks, abilities. We are not all brought up in exactly the same environment with exactly the same life advantages / disadvantages. We are not born into families that are financially on par with each other.

So why pick on the latter (finances) and try to even things out while ignoring all the others? My disadvantage is that I don't have George Clooney's looks. Nor Ed Sheeran's musical abilities. I can't run like Usain Bolt. These hold me back and prevent me attracting the best mates or winning medals and getting a lot of respect for being the fastest man on Earth. So I dig myself out of homelessness (true!), use what natural skills I do have, work hard and buy a little property and build a little pension ... and suddenly life's been too fair to me and I need to distribute some of that wealth?

Targeting wealth, and wanting to redistribute it, is simply a manifestation of envy. We need to ensure people at the bottom have a chance to improve themselves and build their own wealth, not help them redistribute what others have worked hard to achieve, IMHO.

And this religious belief where the only contributing factor to your success is your own hard work. That if you haven't achieved any success then it's because you just didn't work hard enough. That everyone has the same opportunities. That's the privilege we keep running into in this thread. The idea that you achieved it without any assistance from the society around you, and therefore you owe no debt toward it.

 

[Cobby]

Yes, and that is something we need to accept. Some parents are better than other parents.

You cannot even that out without some form of state control of children from the day of birth to ensure each is given exactly the same environment and resources.

Even then you'd fail as that doesn't compensate for variation in individual intelligence and attributes. You'd have to disadvantage the smart, ambitious and hard working ones in some way to bring them down to the same level as the others.

And I bet I can guess which category you see yourself in.

Structural reform of education as a long term equalizer is an excellent way forward, but the privileged will only ever talk about how it removes their privilege and advantages.

 

[Mr D]

And this religious belief where the only contributing factor to your success is your own hard work. That if you haven't achieved any success then it's because you just didn't work hard enough. That everyone has the same opportunities. That's the privilege we keep running into in this thread. The idea that you achieved it without any assistance from the society around you, and therefore you owe no debt toward it.

What particular assistance did the society around you give?

Who has suggested no debt towards society?

 

[Mr D]

And I bet I can guess which category you see yourself in.

Structural reform of education as a long term equalizer is an excellent way forward, but the privileged will only ever talk about how it removes their privilege and advantages.

LOL - you haven't come across the benefits of homeschooling then.
Reform of education to improve things for millions should not have any negative impact on privilege and advantage others have.

 

[Gordon - Commercial Finance]

SO has anyone changed their mind or their position yet?

Doubt it. This could go on forever...no one will ever change their position so we're really wasting our time now. Once it goes past 10 pages it has really had its day.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

This won't go anywhere until everyone uses the same terminology. Money, income and wealth are not interchangeable concepts.

 

[Mr D]

This won't go anywhere until everyone uses the same terminology. Money, income and wealth are not interchangeable concepts.

Have to agree with you on that.

 

[sirearl]

The single largest cause of inequality is inheritance.

 

[Mr D]

The single largest cause of inequality is inheritance.

The fact that people can decide where their assets / money goes when they die is the single largest cause of inequality?

With people living overall longer its quite possible these days for someone to be some years past state retirement age before inheriting from their parents. And of course the state takes a part of all but small estates.

 

[Noah]

SO has anyone changed their mind or their position yet?

Doubt it. This could go on forever...no one will ever change their position so we're really wasting our time now. Once it goes past 10 pages it has really had its day.

I don't think one should look to "changing your mind" as a measure of progress; real life solutions are all about compromise, nuance, and perspective, and so discussions like this can help refresh or modify one's own opinions.

We are lectured about the dangers of Internet echo chambers and group-think, so it is very refreshing and, I hope, constructive for some, to read a disparate range of opinions across a group that otherwise has little in common.

Having said that : yes, at 10+ pages it might be running out of steam.

 

[Noah]

Just because we think equality of opportunity isn't 100% achievable doesn't mean we should just give up and not bother trying.

Indeed.

I may have missed a reference earlier, but I am surprised that there has been no suggestion that much of the evident problems with today's capitalist societies arise from the degree of inequality - that degree is measurably greater than it has been since the mid-C20th.

Nobody reasonably argues that inequality can be eliminated, but there is plentiful evidence that a high degree of inequality is damaging to the whole of society.

 

[Noah]

My disadvantage is that I don't have George Clooney's looks. Nor Ed Sheeran's musical abilities. I can't run like Usain Bolt. These hold me back and prevent me attracting the best mates or winning medals and getting a lot of respect for being the fastest man on Earth.

That's disingenuous. You're not THE most succesful businessman on the planet either (if you'll forgive the assumption), but that hasn't prevented you from being A successful businessman (if others will allow the presumption).

And you could have had Ed Sheeran's music abilities anyway, but you've probably grown out of them by now.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

much of the evident problems with today's capitalist societies arise from the degree of inequality

It has always been such.

The French and Russian revolutions were examples. Syria, Yemen, Central America are modern examples.

Brexit is a classic when about 20 millionaire/billionaires decided to put their money behind telling the public what they wanted.

 

[Clinton]

LOL - you haven't come across the benefits of homeschooling then...

Sorry to be pedantic, but it's the US that has homeschooling. We in the UK are a smarter lot and realise that education is entirely possible without "school". So in the UK people generally don't "homeschool" children, they home educate them or, to use the official term, they opt for Elective Home Education.

Some home educators do indeed run education like it's done in a school with fixed hours, a National Curriculum and all the other crap. Others who deregister their children from school deschool their children first to get the kids away from the awful industrialised mass education mindset.

The "Home education" term covers homeschooling, free range education, unschooling and a whole host of other approaches taken by families.

 

[Newchodge]

The fact that people can decide where their assets / money goes when they die is the single largest cause of inequality?

With people living overall longer its quite possible these days for someone to be some years past state retirement age before inheriting from their parents. And of course the state takes a part of all but small estates.

No. More like this. A multi billionaire whose estate carried virtually no inheritance tax. Leaving his heir with more money than any family could spend in 10 life times. https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/duke-westminster-estate-death-duty-13752696

 

[Mr D]

It has always been such.

The French and Russian revolutions were examples. Syria, Yemen, Central America are modern examples.

Brexit is a classic when about 20 millionaire/billionaires decided to put their money behind telling the public what they wanted.

Wow, those 20 were very effective then. And all without leaving a trace. Very handy method in its own right.
Why did you do what they wanted?

 

[Mr D]

No. More like this. A multi billionaire whose estate carried virtually no inheritance tax. Leaving his heir with more money than any family could spend in 10 life times. https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/duke-westminster-estate-death-duty-13752696

I think you will find that's a trust.
Have a look at the taxation on such a trust. If governments don't want people setting up trusts to protect assets then government would not have specifically allowed them.

You are just envious that someone used existing legally allowed methods of protecting inheritance. Something the party you support has failed to do away with the multiple times they were in government - is this something the public would accept your party doing with its costs?

 

[quikshop]

Brexit is a classic when about 20 millionaire/billionaires decided to put their money behind telling the public what they wanted.

You'll find that the few thousand millionaire/billionaires from across the globalist community also put their money behind telling the public what they wanted... and continue to do so.

No. More like this. A multi billionaire whose estate carried virtually no inheritance tax. Leaving his heir with more money than any family could spend in 10 life times. https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/duke-westminster-estate-death-duty-13752696

I agree, the system has evolved to inhibit social mobility and protect those with wealth... because the system is written by those with wealth.

It's quite awful when you take a step back and look at it in the whole... poverty porn on TV and highly publicised "clamp downs" on cash-in-hand jobs demonise the lowest earners in society, while global corporations get sweetheart tax deals and the wealthy continue to use "legal" means to disguise wealth and avoid paying national taxes.

 

[Mr D]

You'll find that the few thousand millionaire/billionaires from across the globalist community also put their money behind telling the public what they wanted... and continue to do so.

So these people are either extremely bad at it or do it with such subtlety that only the weak minded are listening to them.

 

[quikshop]

So these people are either extremely bad at it or do it with such subtlety that only the weak minded are listening to them.

It's an interesting point of discussion and one probably left for the Brexit thread, but it does appear that the Davos class mindset and echo chamber "user groups" are so out of kilter with the majority of non-super wealthy that their chosen strategy of unrelenting fear-mongering has not worked as well on the British populous as it did in France, Holland, Ireland et al.

Or... it did work but the original UK separatist movement was substantially bigger than they anticipated? Tough to know, either way its true to say those with have always sought to influence those without.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Unions used to fight for a small (relatively) set of members in a specialised area, so you had Boilermakers in one union, office staff in another and so on, during the 70's they began merging so that with greater size the unions could pay themselves higher wages and the number of unions got smaller. resulting in today's massive unions who don't really care about fred bloggs problem anymore but find it far better to work to get a left wing government into power at all costs

You never hear them complain about massive wages paid to a few as they themselves are getting the same silly money wages

The lack of discipline at home and education along with the lack of policing has brought up the worst younger generation that has no respect for anything , many don't even understand the word respect, and feel nothing is worth fighting for anymore so just give in.

Revolutions have started in other countries with far less reason and i fear one may start in this country, not from Brexit but from the un-equality of the greedy rich taking the Mr and Mrs average and below as mugs, never has the size of the difference in standards been so great with so many with there snouts in the trough's

Happy new year to all

 

[Mr D]

The lack of discipline at home and education along with the lack of policing has brought up the worst younger generation that has no respect for anything , many don't even understand the word respect, and feel nothing is worth fighting for anymore so just give in.

Revolutions have started in other countries with far less reason and i fear one may start in this country, not from Brexit but from the un-equality of the greedy rich taking the Mr and Mrs average and below as mugs, never has the size of the difference in standards been so great with so many with there snouts in the trough's

Happy new year to all

Parents get the children they want?

 

[Cobby]

SO has anyone changed their mind or their position yet?

Doubt it. This could go on forever...no one will ever change their position so we're really wasting our time now. Once it goes past 10 pages it has really had its day.

Honestly, the biggest problem with this discussion isn't about changing minds it's just getting people to understand the discussion they're having. People hold opinions about this topic and, as has been said, they will use the terms interchangeably to support their political ideology (i.e. starting at an opinion and working backwards to justify it), rather than considering the pros and cons of different aspects based on their respective merits. It's a much more prevalent behaviour in the privileged who, ironically, tend to be better educated.

I find threads like this useful because you get to see all the different colours of flimsy excuse as to why the ultra-wealthy deserve to be and remain so, while also seeing all the variations of socialism that people invent just so they can argue against it.

 

[Cobby]

The lack of discipline at home and education along with the lack of policing has brought up the worst younger generation that has no respect for anything , many don't even understand the word respect, and feel nothing is worth fighting for anymore so just give in.

This topic is worth a thread on its own, but this little snippet is a pretty common complaint; "kids today have no 'respect'!" It's an incredibly lazy argument and a symptom of a lack of insight into the challenges faced by today's youth and their approach to overcoming them.

Hint: It's part of the reason why youth tend to favour socialist policies.

 

[NickGrogan]

it's religion(s) that's one of the biggest problems in the world today!

Good grief. One point in your post with which I agree!

Where as Socialism is the one true faith and if we all followed it, we'd be happy?

 

[NickGrogan]

↑
much of the evident problems with today's capitalist societies arise from the degree of inequality
It has always been such.

"The French and Russian revolutions were examples. Syria, Yemen, Central America are modern examples."

None of these were caused by inequality, so what are they examples of?

 

[NickGrogan]

I'll got further - we need to have some level of inequality in society!

Totally agree, inequality is good, numerous groups and society in general has benefited from inequality for thousands of years and still does today.

This is why some minority groups campaign against equal opportunity.

 

[Gordon - Commercial Finance]

Totally agree, inequality is good, numerous groups and society in general has benefited from inequality for thousands of years and still does today.

Or put another way (which may be more palatable to some), hierarchies are good, numerous groups and society in general has benefited from hierarchically structured society for thousands of years and still does today.

People are different. Genders are different. Backgrounds are different. Therefore we have "inequalities"

 

[Mr D]

Or put another way (which may be more palatable to some), hierarchies are good, numerous groups and society in general has benefited from hierarchically structured society for thousands of years and still does today.

People are different. Genders are different. Backgrounds are different. Therefore we have "inequalities"

Some 'inequalities' are created by people themselves by their own actions.
For instance how we end up with fewer of a group in senior roles, how we end up with multiple people in an organisation on lower pay than others in the organisation in the same job and so on.

 

[NickGrogan]

Or put another way (which may be more palatable to some), hierarchies are good, numerous groups and society in general has benefited from hierarchically structured society for thousands of years and still does today.

People are different. Genders are different. Backgrounds are different. Therefore we have "inequalities"

Quakers were banned from holding public office, banned from attending many universities, banned for many jobs, banned from practising their faith - I think most people would agree this is inequality, not hierarchy.

At the same time Quakers founded banks and financial institutions, including Barclays, Lloyds, and Friends Provident; manufacturing companies, including shoe retailer C. & J. Clark and the big three British confectionery makers Cadbury, Rowntree and Fry; and philanthropic efforts, including abolition of slavery(80 years before it because mainstream), prison reform, and social justice projects.

Their workers were treated not as mere cogs in a machine, but as characters to be developed (and souls to be saved). Rowntree’s was one of the first companies to have dedicated ‘welfare officers’ – what today we’d call human resources managers – whose job was to look after the well-being and moral character of the young and typically-unmarried male and female workers. There was also a medical officer, regular medical and dental examinations, and company public health campaigns

Things that we all take for granted and benefit from now, 100's of years later.

Would they have been so influential if they had not been subject to inequality?

 

[cmorales]

All I can say, Ideology was created for controlling the mind of each people and wealth.