G20 demonstrations

[Alexikokopops]

I feel like I've regressed two years to economics lectures at Uni.

[Finnegan]

This could not work even in theory as there is no effective pricing mechanism. You are effectively putting the same value on all the items, so that each person's work/produce is equal, to be taken out of a communal pot. However, what if the farmer, who has to work 8 hours a day, values his work more highly than a TV maker who only has to work 4 hours a day to meet demand? The farmer will deem a pricing mismatch, possibly deciding to work less and ultimately supply less.

There is also the issue that this is based on the assumption of no scarcity of goods. This as we know is not true, so if the TV maker only has enough goods to make 10 TVs for his village of 30, how are these items rationed?

The assumptions this moneyless model is based on are flawed, thus even in theory, this falls flat.

You're arguing with the wrong person. I'm explaining what anarchy is not saying we should adopt it as our social system.

[breadandcheese]

Points taken on board

Ultimately, capitalism has many weaknesses, but there is no better system of running an economy The only areas that need tweeking are round the edges, with the need to provide a safety net for those who do badly, the need to provide opportunities for those who work hard to achieve, and the need to provide regulation so that monopoly and market abuse does not happen.

[Guest]

1 carrot is worth 2 Gordon Browns

That's a poor deal, I'd rather keep my carrot

[BoneDog]

you said it buddy

[Babylon]

Babylon and Finnegan you both make up shit about me that I aint even said! And even worse, you both think you're right. Dream on boys. I aint said anything that you two say I have. You are funny

Welcome to the world of banter...

I would hope that the tone of my posts gave it away that I wasn't exactly being serious.

As you say, some things go over peoples heads.... Whooooooosh.

[breadandcheese]

You're arguing with the wrong person. I'm explaining what anarchy is not saying we should adopt it as our social system.

You can keep your anarchy to yourself thank you very much. We don't want it round here.

[BoneDog]

We're both joking about you, though what I said about anarchism is true.

Yeah sorry if I got defensive and talked shit. It's one of my personality problems! Egged on by 30 hours of whisky/green

[Babylon]

Summary

• The hippies want more, without wanting to work for it.

• The "suits" won't give it them, until they have at least had a wash, shaved off their dreads and started producing some carrots to swap for computers and tv's.

[BoneDog]

Welcome to the world of banter...

I would hope that the tone of my posts gave it away that I wasn't exactly being serious.

As you say, some things go over peoples heads.... Whooooooosh.

Point taken! I apologize as above

I might learn one day

[Finnegan]

You can keep your anarchy to yourself thank you very much. We don't want it round here.

Sorry, sorry. I'll leave you to your heroes of capitalism.

[Babylon]

Summary

• The hippies want more, without wanting to work for it.

• The "suits" won't give it them, until they have at least had a wash, shaved off their dreads and started producing some carrots to swap for computers and tv's.

Maybe we could treat the hippies like sheep and shave their heads to make jumpers.

[Alexikokopops]

Maybe we could treat the hippies like sheep and shave their heads to make jumpers.

Harvesting hippies for our own good? I like your style.

[Shrenchel]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/0...police-kettling

The containment was backed up at the Bank, first with mounted police and then with police dogs. As people were eventually allowed to leave at about 8pm, they were funnelled out down a narrow exit with a police officer grabbing them by the arm as though they were under arrest, again regardless of age or demeanour.

One officer, asked why people were not allowed to leave under their own steam, replied: "They might fall over."

People were then asked for their name and address and required to have a photograph taken. They are not obliged to do so under the law, but those who refused were put back in the pen.

Land of the free mate.

[Webbo]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/0...police-kettling

The containment was backed up at the Bank, first with mounted police and then with police dogs. As people were eventually allowed to leave at about 8pm, they were funnelled out down a narrow exit with a police officer grabbing them by the arm as though they were under arrest, again regardless of age or demeanour.

One officer, asked why people were not allowed to leave under their own steam, replied: "They might fall over."

People were then asked for their name and address and required to have a photograph taken. They are not obliged to do so under the law, but those who refused were put back in the pen.

Land of the free mate.

Well if it's in the Guardian it must be true.

[Simi]

As far as I can see, this is just Millwall away on a bigger scale.

[James.]

Well if it's in the Guardian it must be true.

I know your comment is at least half tongue in cheek but what they're saying is true, I saw some of it first hand.

[Finnegan]

Well if it's in the Guardian it must be true.

oh lololol I see wot u did ther hahaha. u were cynical bcos its a left wing newspaper hahahah dats wel original

[Webbo]

oh lololol I see wot u did ther hahaha. u were cynical bcos its a left wing newspaper hahahah dats wel original

Cynical? Me?

[Daggers]

Aha - the inventor of the levitating curtain trick. "How does he make it stick out like that?" the proletariat asked.

It is now known that he used a false hand and furiously masturbated his giant cock to a massive erection.

[Finnegan]

Aha - the inventor of the levitating curtain trick. "How does he make it stick out like that?" the proletariat asked.

It is now known that he used a false hand and furiously masturbated his giant cock to a massive erection.

With a great, big, golden, pointed condom?

[breadandcheese]

Sorry, sorry. I'll leave you to your heroes of capitalism.

All Hail!

Now, time to start looking to the future and start sorting out my pension. Is that nice Bobby Maxwell still around?

[Thracian]

I know what you sayin but we would still be able to have the same things if there was no money. Everything we make and grow isn't here because of money. Say if we had no money, we could all still work for credits and you choose what you want to trade them in for. All the metals. plastics etc. would still be able to be produced as long as we all worked.

The reason money was invented was to make sure some people are kept above others. It doesn't cost anything to make or invent any technology, it just takes labour and brains.

Money doesn't create anything, human effort does. That's free when all is said and done

Very little is "free". If people don't use money - and money has existed for thousands of years - they use barter. My oldest and youngest sons regularly use barter even today, swopping one service for another.

Human effort is rarely "free" when related to others.

Not unusually, I'm with Jon the Hat. I don't think capitalism has failed at all but I do think it gets abused - and is allowed to be abused - by extremely greedy and self-serving people. Abuse which needs to be curtailed because it costs the system in credibility.

Starting with politicians who should set an example. Why ever politicians should effectively earn £200,000 with their extraordinary perks that are considered part of their salary, I don't know.

How the hell are MPs so special?

I can well understand someone being well paid if they've climbed the medical ladder to lead a team of brain surgeons. Or if they've embarked on a career as a scientist and finally headed up a department that invented a test for spina bifida.

I can also understand it when a guy runs a business that eventually means he's taking on responsibility for providing work and security for tens, hundreds or even thousands of people.

But politicians?

This government's don't even keep people in jobs despite the very name of their party suggesting it would be their first priority. The queue of unemployed is growing by the day.

And they even have their own agenda for who they want in jobs anyway and so do their biggest pals in the trades unions to their eternal shame seeing as they've presided over and even colluded in the shedding of workers they were supposed to represent.

Nor do politicians manage the economy on a sensible and sustainable basis. They waste enormous amounts of our money on ideas they've not thought through properly and which often have to be significantly changed or abandoned, including wars.

And they do all this and more against a background of corruption that sets such a disgraceful standard for everyone else that there's little wonder that some way "what's good enough for them is good enough for me..."

The windows of an RBS building might have been shattered. But I didn't hear anything about the windows of Parliament.

And I'm not surprised there are calls for a new workers party although judging by what's said here some of the ideas don't sound very practical and I really do think that some of these theorists ought to own businesses before dictating how they should work and how the hell you "guarantee" anything.

Even as a social service, a business has to work and be efficient and the requirements of the market place change, although they can also be manipulated.

http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/6812

Had a Conservative government presided over what Labour has been responsible for these last few years, London would probably have been a battleground yesterday. But it wasn't. It sounded half-hearted really.

Yes unemployment became high under Thatcher (British industry was overnmanned and uncompetitive) but the job losses today are equally commonplace and there's the added barb of all the anti-English manipulating that goes with them. Yet the riots were much more fearsome in Thatcher's day.

Why? Because the Communists, Marxists and other socialists find it hard to hate the Labour party because they've often made do with supporting it.

And it's so hard for protesters to bark loudly against the actions or consequences of a government that many of them will have voted for in the first place and whose representatives have plainly had their snouts in the trough as keenly as any capitalists.

Bottom line is that this country of ours needs a leader. One with experience and with principles he or she can stand by.

Principles that are compatible with mine.

[Thracian]

Land of the free mate.

Now there's a term you rarely here today!

[Bert]

I can't believe there's a 14 page thread on this bullshit.