The Political Thread

[Steven Denton]

No there is nothing telling about my use of the word wealth, as I'm refering to your philosophy in general and not just money creation.

Even if I had used it in the previous convastion it would be a stretch to draw any kind implication.

[The Legendary Shark]

Are you of the opinion that more in-house regulation of the financial sector and meddling by self-serving politicians will lead to better outcomes?

No, my position is that we need better politicians, ones who are not slavishly dedicated to the neoliberal economic agenda of the last thirty years that's got us into this mess in the first place. I'm of the opinion that the investment banks need to be decoupled from the retail ones, so that the financial institutions can't use the general public and small businesses as a human shield against the repercussions of their investment arms' ruthless gaming of the financial system.

Where are we going to find these "better politicians" to build your utopia for you? We seem to have been looking for them for an awfully long time and not found many, if any at all, so far. And even if these better people can be found and voted into power, what happens four years later when the usual suspects return to change things back again? How long should we be prepared to wait for some messiah to show up? How will we recognise this person when he or she does turn up? I really don't think that waiting for somebody to come along and fix everything for us is going to work - it's never worked yet and I see no reason why it should suddenly start working now.

Yes, investment and retail banks probably should be decoupled, but who's going to do that and how will it be done? The bankers will fight tooth and nail to keep things as they are and they have all the power. All they need do is threaten to leave Britain and the politicians will cack themselves. If that doesn't work, they can seize the monetary system up overnight and terrify people into not thinking such foolish thoughts. The banks want control over every single transaction, they want a percentage of every trade and gift you make. This is why, backed by their government poodles, they're trying to get rid of cash altogether so that you have to pay to use their digital systems. It's got nothing to do with terrorism or crime - it's about controlling the marketplace and increasing profits and absolutely cannot be done without government collusion.

No there is nothing telling about my use of the word wealth, as I'm refering to your philosophy in general and not just money creation.

Even if I had used it in the previous convastion it would be a stretch to draw any kind implication.

Now I'm confused. Do definitions matter or not? Money creation and wealth creation are not the same thing. Have I been talking about one thing while you've been talking about the other? Which one do you want to talk about? Or would you like to talk about the role banks play, or should play, in wealth creation? I don't think it's much of a stretch at all to draw the implication that you misunderstand basic economics if you regard wealth and banking as the same thing.

I've been talking about money creation. Wealth creation is a whole 'nother conversation.

[Steven Denton]

Now I'm confused. Do definitions matter or not?

What I said was 'Even if I had used it in the previous convastion it would be a stretch to draw any kind implication.'

If you are having trouble with the use of a particular word by all means ask for clarification. basing assumptions on something you are unclear about without clarification will tell you nothing. In other words 'it would be a stretch to draw any kind implication.'

I'm genuinely unsure as to why I keep responding to you. I'm not trying to convince you of anything, I get nothing from your replies and in pretty sure no one else is reading any of this. I think I need help.

[The Legendary Shark]

Indeed. There seems to be little point in continuing with an argument that goes, "money is created from nothing," "no it isn't."

The word Pythonesque springs to mind.

[Leigh S]

in the 20th Century, we built a welfare state and the NHS.  We created a once proud public broadcasting organisation.  Would these things have spawned into existence naturally without a Government?

I understand and agree that the flood barrier of Government may have become corroded and weakened by contact with all that water of commerce, but if you think the answer is removing the flood barriers and letting the water spread and wash over us all so we can all learn to swim seems to where we part company LS!

[Modern Panther]

"Companies will regulate themselves to gain market share, because by regulating companies the mafia of government have only empowered them.  Consumers will make moral decisions even when those decisions damage them financially, since people are generally good.  Our healthcare and education system can run effectively on charitable donations from kind hearted millionaires.  Small councils will spontaneously spawn to deal with disagreements, despite have no regulatory authority or overarching rules. Money isn't real.  Doing away with government will cause the collapse of the evil financial institutions, which people seem to think are entirely good because they've been brainwashed, who use this fictional money to enslave us.  This is not a utopia, and I've never claimed it is."

"Or, we could elect some decent politicians..."

"Absurd!  Where on earth would we find such people to build this utopian vision of society?!"

[Jim_Campbell]

I love the idea that Shark thinks that completely restructuring the entire political and economic system of the whole world is a more realistic ideal than supporting a left wing politician and trying to get them elected.

[Professor Bear]

You don't understand, Jim: people won't vote for left wing politicians.

The BBC have found that its political editor - who recently used the BBC website to publish a love letter to Theresa May - deliberately edited footage of an interview with Jeremy Corbyn to make it appear that he was answering a question other than the one he had been asked: specifically, he was asked if he believed that police in the UK should operate on an indiscriminate Shoot To Kill basis, but the question was edited for broadcast to make it appear that his answer was in response to the question if police should be allowed to shoot at rampaging terrorists such as those who had (then-recently) attacked Paris.  The BBC have said there was "no evidence of any intent to deceive or distort."
Which is presumably why they've sent their own report back.

[The Legendary Shark]

in the 20th Century, we built a welfare state and the NHS.  We created a once proud public broadcasting organisation.  Would these things have spawned into existence naturally without a Government?

I understand and agree that the flood barrier of Government may have become corroded and weakened by contact with all that water of commerce, but if you think the answer is removing the flood barriers and letting the water spread and wash over us all so we can all learn to swim seems to where we part company LS!

Government also gave us industrialised warfare, concentration camps and a world full of nuclear weapons, amongst other things.

I don't deny that government has had a hand in some good things but it's also spawned a lot which we can do without. I really don't believe that places like Auschwitz and events like the nuking of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the genocide of Native Americans and the subjugation of homosexuals are the price we have to pay for the NHS, space exploration and the BBC - and I doubt anyone else does, either.

Nor do I think everything must be, or even can be, changed overnight. The process should take decades and go hand in hand with education and experimentation - as happens all the time anyway. The core of my argument is that government has too much power and that is wields this power mainly to maintain its own position. Governments are intrinsically violent, greedy and dishonest, no matter who leads them. This is all that needs to change. The only thing I want everyone to have is the right to say "no."

Yet this seems to be interpreted as the obligation to say no. The obligation to say no to progress, the NHS, education and the BBC. The right to say no somehow seems to translate as "let's throw away everything we've learned and built in the last 2,000 years and go back to living in mud huts," which is plainly ridiculous. I think this might be why so many people bring up this fallacy*, because it's easy to argue against instead of thinking about what the limits of one human being's power over another should be.

Maybe every "intelligent" species in the universe goes through a Government Phase as they evolve, and maybe only the dumbest ones do, or the smartest, who knows? Waiting for the perfect person to come along and fix everything for us is daft. Christians have been waiting for that very thing for two thousand years instead of taking responsibility for their own souls. Statists have been waiting for the perfect ruler for just as long, and even longer, instead of taking responsibility for their own freedoms and obligations.

If you (this is the royal you, not a specific individual) want to be ruled, if you want to be told what to do and how to act by people you detest, then go for it - that's your choice. But do you have the right to force other people, people you've never met and know nothing about, to bow alongside you? The biggest difference between us seems to be that I don't believe I have the right to tell you how to live or who to obey but you seem to think it's your duty to do so - even if you don't like or believe whomever it is you expect me to unquestioningly obey. Instead of addressing this kind of point, many people say, "I can't possibly accept this because it will lead to [insert preferred souped-up doomsday scenario here]."

I know that we can do better than we are doing and I think the removal of government's coercive, monopolistic powers is one of the biggest tasks we have to achieve.


*It's actually generally one of two logical fallacies; appeal to consequence and appeal to ridicule. Panth is particularly good at combining the two into an appeal to ridiculous consequences, which is why his posts are amusing and entertaining but ultimately devoid of any real argumentation.

[Modern Panther]

I'm sorry that you find me quoting you back to you, often using the same words, to be devoid of argument.

I believe that government exists, in principle, to protect the weak from the strong.  The issue with people being able to remove themselves from the authority of government is that the people who would choose to do that would in all likelihood be the strongest.  If they decide to take their abundant resources and go live in their metaphorically gated communities, writing their own rules to their own benefit, the rest of us suffer.  They will not regulate themselves and the market will not control them.

To demonize state authoritarianism while ignoring identical albeit contract-consecrated subservient arrangements in the large-scale corporations which control the world economy is fetishism at its worst.

I agree entirely that government, especially of the last few decades, has failed in its duties to protect ordinary people - usually because they have spent more time empowering the already powerful.  They have systematically removed the rules that keep us safe.

Recent events show us that removing yourself from the system, simply saying "this is not my government, they do not represent me nor have authority over me" doesn't improve the system but rather makes it entirely worse.  When the Labour party decided it didn't need to appeal to the working class any more, hundreds of thousands of people stopped voting, which lead to the rise of the far right and the uncaring and unrepresentative government we have now.  When both Democrats and Republicans stopped working for the American working class (who have been fooled into thinking they don't exist), we see the rise of Trump and his hateful ilk. 

Yes, government has done terrible things in our name.  We allowed them or stopped paying attention.  If the power structures were different - if unregulated corporations were the most powerful authority - I have no doubt that wars would continue to be waged under corporate logos rather than national flags.

Yes, you can quit your job, but you still need a job, and the company you work for will give you more "or else" demands in a week that the government will give you in a year.  More still without the legislated rights, delivered by governments answerable to their people, which protect us and make us stronger. 

[The Legendary Shark]

So, does all that mean you agree government is coercive, or not?

[Modern Panther]

Yes.

Government is coercive.  It coerces people into following laws like not speeding through residential areas or smoking in public places.  It coerces people into paying taxes to pay for health and education. 

Sometimes its coercion is dangerous.  It coerces people into war, it misuses our money and sticks its nose into our lives.

It comes to us every four years and tries to coerce us into voting for it.  And of we feel its gone too far, if we've been paying attention, we can change it. 

Oil companies coerce us too.  They work together to force up prices, coercing us to make them richer.  They insidiously integrate themselves into our government.  The corece us into war and humanitarian disasters.  They make their products indispensable.

But they not going to come to us at any point to ask our opinion.  I have to buy a vote, using money I don't have, and doing that only makes them richer.

[The Legendary Shark]

And what is your attitude towards coercion?

[Modern Panther]

That it is sometimes necessary for the greater good.  That those who use coersion for the greater good should be held to account, and that rules and established structures are required to ensure this.  Representative democracy isn't perfect, but it has brought us the most stable, healthiest and wealthiest society in history.

[The Legendary Shark]

I agree, broadly, with the first half of what you say. I think coercion can be justified in extreme situations, for example the enforced quarantining of persons infected with a deadly disease, but even then the coercion has to go hand in hand with humane treatment.

I don't agree with the second part at all. The 20th Century was probably the bloodiest, most war-torn and unequal period in all human history - though if we're not careful the 21st might turn out even worse.