Benefit of the Economic Crisis?

[Stone1]

I currently am at chapter 10, just before the Michael Moore section. When reading "...likely to be that, by 2010, we'll have suffered at least one or two more attacks on the scale of 9-11 or greater and that the sub-bestial behaviour of Beslan will have become the norm." the thought arose that maybe the current financial and economic crisis might be a potential cure to the increasing fundamental tendencies in society.

Economies are crumbling around the world and the people notice that there are lots of down-to-earth problems around the globe that Religion and Neoliberals (or Neocons and the like) have no solution for or are, much more indeed, the cause of those problems. Of course, the more thoughtful have noticed before (ozone diminishing, global warming, mass extinction, growing hunger etc.) but the mass only react when they feel it in their purses (don't feel it in their purses, actually).

The upside is, as virtually every country on this planet is affected, there is no potential enemy around. No scapegoat to chase. The only ones who can be blamed are the leaders, the economic ones who brought us to where we are today with their greed and the political, who didn't implement reasonable restrictions to economy but instead, just loosened them in the neoliberal way. I think Britain is the leading example here in Europe, implementing the GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) first and selling railroads, energy, postal services and other vital infrastructure to private corporations. All of this has of course reached Austria, too, but with the usual tendency to be handled in the Austrian way, which is why we have another discussion about wether or not to close the post office in Hintertupfing and 299 other places at the moment, again. It's not gonna happen fast, I tell you. We Austrians are quite stubborn, and sticky to tradition. Of course we will implement what the EU tells us, but the way to that is by compromises which take years and decades to be made. By the way I'm quite glad that we were able to prevent the EU from forcing us to seed GMOs on our soil (I wouldn't like to eat that stuff before it is thouroughly tested).

I think that over the next few years, the focus will, or at least should, be on implementing economic boundaries that will ensure that another collapse like the one today is unlikely (preferably impossible) to happen again. Some brokers and managers will pay for all that, of course, with money and some will go to jail. But there is no reason for fighting. I hope that the overall effect will be that the wealth around the world will be distributed a bit more fair than today (poor countries have little to loose, except debts), lowering the social discrepancies we face today (think of people with an income of 1€).

What the situation on the MIFT front is, I don't know. Media coverage was pretty low here in Austria, but the latest event I remember was the bombing in India last December, which was tragic of course but clearly not on a scale like you suggested (9-11 like).

I keep my fingers crossed for the future.

[Stone1]

Latest rumor has it that this so-called crisis is just an excuse for getting rid of no-longer wanted employees/companies/debts etc. and everything will be starting to go back to normal in about 4 months time. At least so I've heard yesterday (might be a fantasy as well).
That wouldn't support my last statement, I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[HarryStottle]

Well no one can accuse you of a lack of optimism, that's for sure!

First, I concede you may be right, and godnose if I were a religious man, I'd be praying that you were. And, as I only last night, even the media are openly reporting the evidence of catastrophic incompetence in government, so if ever the scales were going to fall from our eyes, you'd think now was that time.

Unfortunately, if you are right, it will be a first. Not (I hope) the first time you are right, but the first time a major economic downturn has NOT been used as an excuse to scapegoat assorted sections of society and to shift the blame from the incompetence of the ruling elites to some hapless disenfranchised minority.

At the moment, my money's on history repeating itself. The ugly rise of "immigration" issues in many of the so called western democracies is the most worrying evidence. Nor do I see any reduction in the Authoritarian control compulsion. And I certainly don't yet see even the faintest spark of civil resistance. Indeed it is difficult to remember more "passive" times.

What has happened, for example, to the anti-globalisation movement who paralysed the summits for a short while prior to 9-11? You'd think, now that their predictions have been partially fulfilled they'd be shouting about it from the rooftops. Nada.

I fear that Naomi Wolf may have summed it up correctly with her description of "" in which she points out that the civil authorities have gradually bureaucratised mass protest out of "effective" existence and we've let them.

Indeed I think a major part of the problem we have today is that even most means of protesting at what is going on have either been made illegal or rendered impotent. And most people cannot be persuaded to break even the most draconian or illicit laws.

My fear is that, although this is true of the "silent majority", it is not true of a potentially violent minority and what we'll begin to see is the growth of homegrown terrorism from different parts of the political spectrum. I was, for example, pleasantly surprised not to see a serious assassination attempt against Obama, either from racists or the religious right who are convinced he's taking America straight to hell. And I won't be surprised if he is assassinated at some time during his term.

You say there are no obvious scapegoats, but have you seen how much virulent anti-islamic ordure has sprung up around the web? Or how many the anti-zionist sites there now are? And how the anti-zionism is naturally tying itself to traditional anti-semitism which is finding new strength from the greed induced collapse of the financial system?

What we'd expect, if there was a growing realisation amongst We The People that "Leadership" was the problem, not the solution, is a growth in support for anti-capitalists, for democrats and anarchists and so on. I just don't see it. What I see is a frightened submissive populace who believe that one more good leader is all we need to get us out of this mess and, at the moment, they hope and pray that Obama is that leader.

What they might do if and when he fails and turns out to have feet of clay, we can speculate, but I suspect that the current sheeplike passivity will only be broken, in the west at least, if large numbers start dying or falling into absolute poverty. I rather hope we can wake the buggers up before it gets to that stage.

As to , their self assessment must pretty favourable right now. They've reduced the major western powers to low level police states. They've forced the USA to spend over a Trillion dollars on Iraq. They've carved out a successful niche in the northwest provinces of Pakistan. Yes they've lost a few leaders to American Predators, but the inevitable "collateral" damage has recruited at least another 10 militants to their cause for every assassination. Which no doubt helps to explain why the Taliban influence is on the rise again in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

They've got independent self motivated cells all over western Europe, most heavily concentrated in the UK. Hezbollah is widely regarded as having been victorious by virtue of surviving the 2006 Israeli attack on Lebanon and they still retain a political presence in the Lebanese government.

The Israelis lost further major credibility and international support following their brutal pre-Obama clampdown on Gaza, and they still failed to crush a much weaker foe. MIFT have tendrils of activity all over North Africa and so on. Reports of dissension within their ranks would be a lot more credible if their so called critics weren't being held in prison.

All in all, I'd say they're currently winning the War on Terror because their activities still dominate our civil lives. They are the excuse for the continuing and escalating global Authoritarianism and, as I said above, I don't see much sign of serious resistance.

[Stone1]

I'm an optimist for sure, but only because I think that pessimism and despair lead to nothing.

I really think that quite a big part of We The People knows that our rulers are incompetent. As Peter Filzmaier, a renowned Austrian political analyst states, "The image of politicians is at the level of soccer-losers against the Faröer islands (an Austrian traumata) and weapondealers". The downside of that is that most people express their dissatisfaction in voting for far-right parties (FPÖ and BZÖ in Austria) who put the blame for everything that goes wrong on immigration or the European Union.
Although we suffered from the ÖVP-FPÖ (later BZÖ, the FPÖ splitted up because of inner conflicts in 2002) government, most people have a short-time memory on politics (or are just disinterested) and still think that those parties would do better than the major parties ÖVP and SPÖ.
Perhaps the current (completely incompetent) BZÖ government in Corinthia, which is leading the country into immense debts at high speed (basically selling money for votes) and was re-elected one and a half weeks ago (profiting from the death and now holy-like status of Jörg Haider), will take the illusion from the people there in some years time.

All in all, I have the feeling there is generally more willingness to go on strike and protest than, say, during the 80s and 90s. I may be wrong because I didn't take so much interest in such things then (being a pupil/student). I haven't read Wolf but I read parts of Robert Misik's "Genial Dagegen - Kritisches Denken von Marx bis Michael Moore" and, well, most protest seems impotent. But there are also examples of effective protest, mostly from NGOs like Greenpeace or attac, but they are scarce so far.

At least concerning the energy shortage, progress seems inevitable: there's a report in "Bild der Wissenschaft", issue 3/2009, about how the worldwide power and energy demand can be satisfied putting up solar-thermic powerplants in deserts like the Sahara. There are plants up already in Spain and the american Mojave-desert. These decentralised plants seem to be a better answer to energy needs than the still-to-be-realized cold-fusion reactors.

Concerning Obama, I really hope that he won't become a second JFK, and before the election, I feared that the american people were not ready for a black president yet or if so, the election would be manipulated like the Bush-election in 2000. I was rather glad he made it, American democrats being the "less evil" compared to the republicans IMHO.

About Terrorism, sadly just today I heard of the renewed attacks in Ireland.

Concerning authoritarian control: at least Germany has now made a drawback with their infamous insecure election computers. I am curious whether quantum cryptography will really ensure safe digital communication in the near future.

[Stone1]

After re-reading this comment about four years after writing it, I find myself astonished that my predictions are seeming to have been mostly correct or are at least en route, as far as I can perceive.
I should apply for a future-research thinktank as an external advisor .

The next legislation period here in Austria will, from todays perspective and if there are no election-surprises, be the last for the grand coalition, the classical center left- and right parties. A few new parties have evolved, but what is more important is that we the people demand more participation in political decisions. There's a plan for a direct-democracy upgrade, although it will surely take up to another decade until the change in rule will really become noticeable.
On the other hand, I see nearly no chance that we will turn the other way and become a more leader-oriented country, even though there's an old man that goes campaigning with a 'Team Stronach' which is, in fact, a one-billionaire-man-show who has hired some political wannabes and just wants 'truth', 'transparency', and 'fairness', but his cast is a bunch of divas, and one could set up a countdown to implosion, I'd say it will be a question of months rather than years.

The right-wing parties have fucked it up big time (again), I won't go into detail, but their governmental brilliance in a federal state (where they suffered the biggest loss recorded in Austrian history at the spring elections) will cost the republic several billion €, how many exactly, the center-right finance minister will tell us after elections. If still in office, which I wouldn't bet much on. The far-right party changed their election goal from 'our chief will be chancellor' to 'let's defend the third place'.

The question of wealth imbalance is high on the agenda, not only in Austria, of course it's campaigning time, likewise in Germany, but the next governments will have trouble keeping a low-profile on that matter.
Reasonable financial-economic restrictions seems to be a tough one, and Britain is a little bit uncooperative (and snobby), but the European way to stabilize the economy, or I'd rather say the experiments to find a way, could work out fine. Of course, it will take some more years to be sure, but all in all, I continue to be optimistic.

Climate change has popped up in the middle of Austria with a long winter, a cold and wet spring with enormous floods, extreme heat and record temperatures (up to 40°C - in Austria!). Tourism cheers, farmers will demand compensations, and ventilators will soon be sold out. The climate-change-deniers will have a hard time, that' for sure, and the acceptance and application of renewable energy production will raise (even higher).

America is getting better slowly, but I've got very limited knowledge of oversea affairs. At least the Obama administration has not made it all worse. Only a few days ago I heard that they want so put a stop (or at least a limit) to the drone war soon. Yeah, a promise like closing down Guantanamo, I know, but at least they have good intentions (there's a saying in Austria: the opposite of well done is well intended ). And there seems to be at least a bit of re-thinking the whole war-on-drugs problem.

On the security issues, you are the expert, Harry, but no one ever pested me with anti-social behavior, if I discount the one who wanted to bestow me a book about some old prophet, and I use the net as it's intended to, as a source of information and a means of communication, not to report my whole life to the world (like those social-medialists), which isn't very interesting to any spies anyway.

[HarryStottle]

very good to hear from you again squire.

Also interesting opportunity to "take stock".

It's obvious that our perspectives are different. Your focus on local (Austrian and German) politics leads, I think, to dramatically different interpretations of the world to my own, where the focus is much more obviously UKUSA. You seem to perceive gradual improvement. I see dangerous decline.

Obama is the single biggest disappointment and most alarming revelation. His failure even to slow down the pace of growth of the Police State is hugely instructive about where power really lies in the American system, and it clearly doesn't lie in the White House. I am confident that he really is the intelligent liberal humanitarian he presented as during his initial victorious election campaign. Yet he's presided over some of the most draconian abuses of State power in history. This tells me that even Presidents who want to improve the world don't have the clout to do it. And what options, short of another civil war, does that leave the American people?

The economy is on life support. If it wasn't for the massive printing of money ("Quantitive Easing" as the current euphemism has it) Capitalism would be on it's knees. Instead, the future has been mortgaged and the next few generations of humanity will be expected to pay the debts we're now incurring. But they are going to have to deal with bigger problems than debt reduction.

Part of the reason America seems to be slowly recovering (economically, not socially) is the massive reduction in energy bills made possible by the discovery of vast quantities of shale gas being liberated by the controversial fracking techniques. Personally I have yet to be convinced that fracking itself is a serious problem, but I have no doubt at all about the costs of ignoring the carbon dioxide problems which arise from the "dash for gas", not just in America but around the world. Just as it was beginning to look like the world would take Climate Change alleviation seriously, along came cheap gas and alleviation has slipped way down the agenda.

So our debt ridden descendants are also going to find themselves in a generally hotter world, with reduced agricultural land for growing the food to feed the 9 or 10 billion humans we'll have by the middle of the century, and they'll probably have witnessed, by then, the first "water wars" as the potable fresh water supplies begin to dry up.

The increasing tensions that these and various other issues are causing governments to become even more authoritarian and trigger-happy. In America, there seem to dozens of examples every week. All these are stories from the last few weeks:

This because he called her "bitch". These . (and for a broader picture of the rising use of SWAT based terrorism in America). We read, with disbelief, the story about . And I've only on an utterly disgusting incident which typifies the brutal Police State America has now become as a direct consequence of this State driven "zero tolerance of dissent or resistance".

But while America is the most egregious example of the problem, it clearly exists and is growing around the world.

In my own country, in just the last few days, we've had stories like this armed police raid (no less than 18 of the bastards) on an innocent fairly typical middle class middle aged couple because a . We've had the police and medical authorities their own grandmother from hospital when she clearly wanted to go home (and is clearly better off at home). And in similar vein, we have the story of .

The pattern is clear. The Authoritarians have lost the plot. Big time. They have lost all notion of Proportionality and Common Sense. They now represent a far more serious threat to the average citizen than terrorists can even dream of. And that marks the biggest victory terrorism has ever achieved. They have manipulated governments into oppressing their own citizens. Job done.

Are we seeing resistance? Yes, but only in isolated pockets. The increasing tendency for workers to go on Strike, as you report in Europe, is matched by a similar increase in America, where, famously, the Walmart workers (who are forbidden to join a Trade Union) have been engaging in a series of "guerilla" actions (like ) but what is most notable, despite the significant publicity these actions have achieved, is the tiny numbers taking part.

Take the miniscule protest against the Zimmerman verdict, after he was found not guilty of murder despite killing Trayvon Martin for no better reason than being frightened by a black man wearing a hoodie. That should have led to the paralysis of major cities across America for weeks. It produced a .

The "99%" are doing nothing to achieve collective action against their abusers, not least because they cannot even agree on a) who is doing the abusing or b) what to do about it. So the abuse will continue and will only get worse.

I remember arguing, to my own union, back in the mid 80s, when Thatcherism was the enemy, that the only way to win the battle was to bring down the government with a general - or at least public sector - strike and that anything less was a waste of our time and limited resources. That remains true and just as widely ignored as it ever was.

In America, though, you have the added complication that 30% of the population are armed and about 10% seem to be gearing up for a real fight. That could become a major bloodbath. What effect that will have on authoritarians elsewhere remains to be seen...

[Stone1]

Well, I admit that I should reduce my tendency to ironise even serious matters, but I don't want to raise attention to myself by background listeners, and I agree to what you say for the angloamerican part of the world, and the imperialistic tendencies are annoying around the globe, and could get worse here in good old Europe with the planned free-trade agreement. I hope the EUnion negotiators are more skillful than our average politicians. The rivalries with China and Russia will amount up to yet some more interesting decades, in the sense of to old chinese curse.

I've been mind-pondering the authoritarian vs. we the people matter throughout this afternoon and came to the following conclusion (which might have only little to do with reality, but that's what philosophy is good for, ain't it?):

Western Central Europe, Germany and Italy and Austria, also what was left of the Habsburg (which was Austrian monarchy) occupied countries, have suffered a true dictatorship and a foregoing low-scale civil war (in the austrofascist phase), so the people in these countries have been to a certain degree, up to until now, immunised from dictatorship (in a strict sense). It was replaced by a basically 3-party system, where center-left controlled center-right from gaining all the power. Germany, which was immunized most thoroughly, got their (weak) Liberal party, while Austria, long-time seeing and presenting itself rather a victim than a culprit, got a nationalistic party: chaotic and self-centered, proving completely useless in ruling position, but trying to give hell to the rulers from the opposition bench.
We are on a critical stage now, the last survivors from WW2 dying out these days, but I see that slowly the common historical viewpoint of those times will normalise itself (by which I mean will become more realistic), but culture will conserve the memories and make us not forget them. What's important is, on that likewise for all other matters, that the educational system will finally improve. That's an austrian deficit that's been talked into bits over almost 3 decades and was started from the wrong end (the teacher's service law), but gradually we're getting somewhere. Soon. I hope
Young people get drilled nowadays, and there's little room for free pondering and thought, especially at the higher levels, aka bologna-process, into the wastebin with it! What's really messing around is the economic competetiveness instead of personal well-being. But the generation who are around their 30s now think different, I suppose. Acquiring more and more stuff you don't really need, eating and drinking just to grow fat, and giving all the old stuff to their offspring, in exchange for being transferred to a retirement center, that's missing the point.

Italy finally got rid of Berlusconiism these days, he's guilty after all. It will be another european insolvency case, but so what, just one more, and some rules are set after cypress, also some tax havens have been quarantined or closed down, let's see what happens until 2020. Austria had some first tax reflux from switzerland just recently, if our next finance minister isn't a total idiot, there should be some more to come. We've made ourself ridiculous by retreating from the UN-mandate at the Golan-heights as soon as our soldiers were under danger of coming under the fire of some hostile pebbles (don't know if there are any brickstones in the vicinity), even bullets could reach their bunker(I think the health risks for austrian soldiers are lower than those of the average austrian worker! Plus they have free protective clothing! Extra payment on weekends/night shifts and a danger allowance, but I'm degressing, sorry). Our dear Chancellor will put pressure on the EU nuclear-energy-lobby instead. Yeah for sure, it's easy to laugh at politicians . By the way, the public opinion of bankers is nearing the niveau of politicians, which is just below drug-dealers and somesuch. It's getting harder for the bad guys, but the justice system needs more resources. And less but better laws!

Angloamerica had a very different 20th century, that's why their dictatorship troubles seem (or really are) so grave nowadays. I hope there's still a chance to solve this without much bloodshed.

And let's not get tramped down by chinese worker-ants! (Disclaimer: the statement left of here contains irony! Do not read in case of allergy )

[Stone1]

[HarryStottle]

What I glean from the above is that you conjecture that the direct experience of fascist dictatorship suffered by the majority of European Countries (either as perpetrators or victims) has taught them how evil authoritarians can be and thus made it somewhat less likely they'll ever tolerate another dose.

I suspect that's true, though the effect might, as you suggest, wear off in a few generations.

Whereas, the UKUSA axis (including the English speaking rump of the British Empire (Canada, Australia and a few lesser examples) had a a much more positive War experience which has left them overconfident and unprepared to recognise tyranny even when it's kicking them in the bollocks.

Would that be about right? If so, I concur.

Though I have to observe that the tendency to tolerate tyranny seems significantly higher in the USA than any of the others. There are deep rooted social psychoses in the United States, which make it quite impossible for the opposing factions to have anything resembling an intelligent discussion. How can you reach any kind of rational and jointly acceptable compromise over the issue of, say, the content of a biology text book, when one side are committed Darwinists and the other committed Creationists? It's simply not possible.

And if your society is split between those two camps, which American society very obviously is, it means there are going to be very few serious issues on which any rational consensus can form. This is a recipe for civil conflict on a massive scale. The only other place in the world where I think we may have similar tensions is Turkey, where there is a similar split between the Islamists and the Secularists. But what the Turks don't have is the additional pressure building from the sundry American sub-classes who constitute huge "minorities" - like the Hispanic community (50 million plus and growing) or the deeply oppressed Afro Americans (38 Million). Add their prejudices to the melting pot and then stir in a couple of hundred million guns and it's difficult to even imagine a peaceful resolution...

Oh, and on your final question about addressing you as "squire" that's a difficult one to explain. It's a medieval reference. I'm sure you do have equivalents of what a squire used to be in your own history. If you ever had "knights", a squire was their chief aide. They would prepare them for battle, collect the rent from their tenants and stuff like that. Today it's used as a mock salute, a term of endearment...

[Stone1]

Yes, that was what I was trying to say.

Your analysis of the situation in the United States sounds convincing to me, but it's just hard to accept that a 'modern western' society can be so thoroughly splitted into two main factions. Ever so often the US correspondent in my local newspaper and political magazines (there's only one serious weekly political print publication in our small country, called 'profil') write about the ability of the US people to 'stand together' in times of crisis (which mainly their government brings on them), but if they can't even reach some basic rational consensus as you explain, they should really learn some lessions in austrian compromise manufactoring. I admit that many of these are foul compromises, but at least we don't run around like armed desperados or defend our homes with a shotgun. Exceptions like an 80-year old pensioneer who accidently injured a police officer at his door prove the rule.

There are tendencies towards private 'neighborhood watches' in certain areas where burglary rates rise (especially in the eastern part and along the main traffic lines), that's a consequence of the EU open-border-policy, but it's not a big problem, just gets very exaggerated in the boulevard media. We won't change our very strict private arms law because of that anytime soon. Instead we should shut down that infamous Glock producers with their bestselling Austrian export article. Fuck those sick weapon manufacturers! Mensdorff-Pouilly: to jail with him! (sorry I was just getting mad - but Austria is at the moment in a process of enforcing the law on corruptioneers, and the harvest has just begun. I'm always full of joy when someone was proven guilty, like today Mr. Gernot Rumpold (along with some others): 3 years, no parole. The verdict is not legally recognized yet, but hey: )

Again, it's the economy that will be our main concern in the near future. Austrian banks have invested large amounts in the former eastern-block countries and there's much to be done in those countries, infrastructure to build and industry to be revived. And there's always the risk of payment default.

[HarryStottle]

I'll probably post a longer reply to your last but one immediate response I want to put on record, if only to remind myself to expand on it later, is this:

I've been convinced - ever since I watched Michael Moore's "Columbine" - that Gun Ownership (gun control or it's absence) is NOT the problem. Switzerland proves that.

The problem is the psychological nature of American competitiveness, their delusion of entitlement and their ruthless conviction that their ends justify virtually any means. Putting guns in the hands of people who think like that - either individually as citizens, or nationally as the global superpower - that is the REAL problem.

[Stone1]

I guess you're right on that although I wouldn't like less strict arms laws anyway. There are enough hunting accidents already. And I wouldn't want to meet an armed, drunk person at nighttime downtown, be it an American or Austrian. People with such a mindset are around everywhere, though the concentration may be higher in the US. But I get your meaning.

I also wanted to write something about Switzerland, but I just saved the start of the post as a draft and never continued on it, maybe I'll find time to do so tonight.

[Stone1]

I wanted to add to this thread some time ago, but there's always pressing matters IRL that come first, so here goes with a delay of about a month:

Some days ago I heard about a citizen initiative in Switzerland (being the only country in the world that has a government close to a real democracy already) called '1:12', by the young socialists.
See here for details:

Yes I know it's in German, Harry, but this topic already has 3800 views so I reckon there are some people interested out there whose language skills are better than yours .

Basically they want that the highest salary in an enterprise must not be higher then 12 times the value of the lowest.
Yeah I already hear you, Harry, screaming in awe that the state has no right to limit the freedom you are so obsessed with.

On the other hand, you yourself say (e.g. in one of your wordpress blog entries, I think it was a video illustrating the global (or was it just the U.S.?) income gap), that the ever growing income gap between the poor and the rich is one of the main problems today (again).

If this initiative passes the democratic process (and there's already a forceful counter-initiative underway), one of the richest countries in the world could become a beacon of a new agenda, like 'Enough is Enough' or 'Do you really need a third Porsche/Villa/Yacht' and how do you justify that as long as there's still a child starving to death every 10 seconds?' (latest UN statistic - oh, just found out that the official UN-statistics are behind a paywall, I have info this from my newspaper).

As long as there's laws for the rich, like you pointed out here: , why not also make laws that have at least the potential to support the poor?
And yes, I'm aware that this is not very well thought out by the young socialists, because of still feasible tax evasion possibilites. But many people in Switzerland are just fed up with having super-rich neighbours all around, building their residences, buying up land and all these things.

What do you think about it?

I want to invite any possible lurkers to come out and aswer too, we don't bite .

[HarryStottle]

Irritating.

I claim to have proposed the single most revolutionary motion ever submitted to a Trade Union conference. It was my first ever speech to my own union conference back in the late 70s.

It's exceptionally irritating because
a) I haven't been able to find a record of the motion since I started looking for it again about ten years ago and
b) it deals precisely with the issue raised in the prospective Swiss Initiative. In fact it makes that one look rather tame.

Oh, and, en passant, in response to your pop at my language skills; mea culpa, but don't forget, we're British so we don't have to learn other peoples' languages, they all learn ours. We just have to shout more clearly from time to time. (More seriously, google translate does a pretty good job nowadays)

Because I haven't been able to trace the exact motion I'll try to reconstruct it.

I began by referring to the conditioning that persuades the working classes that their dignity is dependent on being a wage slave and pointed out that the example of the ruling classes demonstrates that there are much more rewarding ways to spend our time, without loss of dignity, than working for a pittance for other people. I regretted the fact that working class rhetoricians continued to encourage this "dignity of labour" meme (though I wouldn't have used the word "meme" at the time).

I suggested that the more appropriate target of our underclass ambitions should be enshrining rights of access to what I called (even then) the "Survival Resources" which I believe I listed as
1 Housing (including the infrastructure for sanitation, energy etc)
2 Health Care (information, prevention, treatment)
3 Nutrition (food and water)
4 Education (including free press and free speech)
5 Transport (freedom of movement)

Then I argued that, in pursuit of these universal rights, a fairer means of distributing wealth was required and that, in part, this could be achieved by setting limits on wage differentials. I proposed that no individual could reasonably be considered to be more than 5 times as valuable as any other and that this should be reflected in our wage related legislation such that a minimum wage should be set at 80% of the national average wage and a limit of 4 times the national average should be set as the maximum.

That, I think, was the gist of it.

I have to confess that, as you might have expected, the impact of my proposal was zero. I belong/ed to no factions, had (at that time) no significant experience in the world of labor politics and had no supporters. The motion was timetabled as the very last motion of that years annual conference and nobody knew me from Adam. The body of the speech and content of the motion sailed straight over most people's heads and even the few who understood what I was talking about thought it was "pie in the sky". Conference didn't even afford the motion the dignity of a vote on the issue. Someone moved "next business" and they all voted for that and moved on to the closing rituals. This was in front of about 2,000 delegates and observers. A humbling and educational experience.

35 years later, my views haven't changed much. Pragmatically, I've moved closer to the proposed Swiss ratio and would now argue in favour of 10:1 rather than 5:1 (Implying a max of 8 times the average wage if the min is set at 80%) and I do recognise a distinction between the worker and the entrepeneur (having been self employed for the past 25 years myself) and accept the "reward for risk" argument.

Although my own business acumen has barely maintained the roof over my own head and certainly not yet stretched to my becoming an employer, I certainly recognise the much greater risks run by the entrepeneur (especially those involved in their first ventures) and provided those entrepeneurs don't pay less than 80% of the average wage and no more than 10 times that, I have no problem with how much wealth they acquire in the process.

I don't subscribe to the Marxist "" which suggests that if an entrepeneur organises the capital that makes it possible for workers to add value to resources in order to create commodities, the resultant increase in market value is entirely due to the input of the workers. That is economic illiteracy. The skill, vision, organisational and marketing skills required to co-ordinate all the components required to produce the final product are much more significant than the labor element on its own. That's bleedin obvious to anyone who's tried it.

The extent to which I agree with Marx is that the superior skills of the entrepeneur do not justify exploitation of the workers. But the concept of exploitation rests on the notion of a "fair day's pay for a fair day's work" and what constitutes "fair" is very difficult to resolve. However, the shortcut is the national average wage. Not because it, in any sense, "defines" fairness but because it is the net result of all the competing forces which influence wage levels. In this sense, I'm sympathetic to Ludwig Von Mises solution to the "" where he recognises that you cannot legislate a value (like the command economies tried to do) and that the market provides the only rational way to compute an economic value.

Market economics fails in different ways (Big Pharma and the American Health Care system being the most obvious examples) and so we've kluged (cludged, kludged?) together a tangle of compromises with the market setting some of the value, regulation and industrial relations setting another part of it and mass psychology making the final contribution. The net result is an average wage, which if not necessarily "fair" is as "fair" as we're likely to get for the time being.

I think what I'm most wary of is the puerile "jealousy" motivation which we see in some alleged "socialists" and suggests that nobody could possibly have earned their wealth. That is dangerous and naive. The other side of that coin is the attitude of some of the wealthy who imagine that the poor must "deserve" their poverty. Equally dangerous and naive.

I have no problem with someone owning a Rolls Royce or Lamborghini, provided it is not at the expense of someone at the other end of the economic scale being unable to get to wherever they need to go to work for a living or buy a loaf of bread. I have no problem with someone having private medical care in the plushest of hospitals provided it is not at the expense of thousands of children dying of malaria in Africa because treating them is unprofitable.

That's what I think!

However, as a proponent of genuine democracy, I certainly would not countenance imposing such a regime on an unwilling and hostile minority. (which is what the Swiss Initiative may result in) The really difficult task is persuading those who currently benefit more than their "fair share" from the status quo that the long term interests of the species is best served by their voluntary participation and informed consent to the much fairer distribution scheme I advocate.

[Stone1]

I see our views on that matter are on even ground (presuming that's the correct figure of speech).

I guess the word cludged/kluged/whatever doesn't exist officially yet, but I get your meaning. Perhaps one could say 'timbered together'. The current rate of approval/refusal seems to be around 50:50 and the referendum will be conducted in November. I'll report on how matters continue, we get fair news coverage from Switzerland here, being neighbours.

A side note, I met two Swiss people at the Louvre, immediately identified them by their language, greeted them (perhaps a bit too jovially), and they immediately responded and walked away. Very close-to-themselves people, those.

BTW, did you have time to enjoy the 8min scifi film I posted in the ET category yet?

Post scriptum: At least you seem to have put your free synapse capacity resulting from not learning foreign languages to a good use, Harry