The South and Central America Revolutionary Bodega

[beagle]

It's funny you should say that. Despite our government's assurance that educational grades and standards are superb it appears it's now industry's job to teach people to read, write and do sums..

One can only assume these people had the misfortune to have been educated under the Tories .

Actually I reckon there's a lot to be said to bringing back apprenticeships. The problem was always that a company would pay a fortune to train someone who would then promptly defect to a rival or set up on their own.  Good for the economy, but not for the company doing the good deed.
Maybe a system where everyone gets a set amount from the state which they can spend on either vocational or academic training in one go or throughout their life is the answer.

[goat starer]

Bradford probably has a significant proportion of new immigrants, whose status has always taken time to rise to the national average .

to be accurate it is largely indigenous estates AND largely ethnic minority inner city areas that create these figures. They are not limited to Bradford and certainly have nothing to do with recent immigrants as the same stats apply to areas with little or no immigration (indeed many immigrant groups lift the education and wealth stats considerably). This is a class issue that affects a wide range of people. The government stats speak for themselves. There is a poor underclass that are failed by society.

As I said I do not agree with Marx that the revolution is inevitable but i do like to think that our relatively mature society can move to a more equitable model of governance and wealth distribution because the gaps shown by the NRU stats create social unrest. I may be a revolutionary but I am not advocating revolution by violent means. Lasting revolutions are invariably peaceful.

[Sibling Chatty]

I may be a Marxist but I do not believe that the Marxist inevitability view is correct. I do however believe that he is correct in asserting that until you have a sufficiently developed economy and level of education there is no way we can move to more egalitarian model of distribution of resources.

So, one could infer that if a nation wished to perpetuate or increase an inequitable distribution of resources (and therby protect bourgeois capitalism), that nation would be well-served to a) avoid economic stability and b) ensure that low-income persons have a difficult time obtaining a good-quality education.  But of course no nation would purposefully do this to their people in order to protect a few fat cats, eh?

My government resembles that remark...

[beagle]

There is a poor underclass that are failed by society.

We're probably closer to agreement on that part than on anything else I suspect; though we may disagree on the causes and remedy. Here's one possible cause.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I may be a Marxist but I do not believe that the Marxist inevitability view is correct. I do however believe that he is correct in asserting that until you have a sufficiently developed economy and level of education there is no way we can move to more egalitarian model of distribution of resources.

So, one could infer that if a nation wished to perpetuate or increase an inequitable distribution of resources (and therby protect bourgeois capitalism), that nation would be well-served to a) avoid economic stability and b) ensure that low-income persons have a difficult time obtaining a good-quality education.  But of course no nation would purposefully do this to their people in order to protect a few fat cats, eh?

My government resembles that remark...

I was going to say that and somehow having an official percentage of poor around 50% (with western standards it would be upwards 70%) I think I'm a bit more entitled to it .
---
Being from South America I am not as optimistic about the left there. The levels of corruptions are too high, impunity is rampant, the economies are small, and the *recomendations* that come from Washington -be it from the White House or the IMF/World Bank - are pretty much followed almost to the letter.

The only person that doesn't fit that last point is Chávez and his star will shine only while oil revenues are high.

I am sad to say that -to my knowledge- the left in is only a moniker to get the votes of the poor.

[Griffin NoName]

Das Kapital shows a very different Marx and the CM should be read with an understanding that it paid for a cash strapped Marx to subsist!

People never learn from history. There's a parallel here between an item called the Open Letter and a book published last march which some of you may remember.

Thatcher was not worse than Stalin - there. I have said it. I feal dirty but honest.

I believe we just don't have the figures on Thatcher. I nearly killed myself rushing to turn off the TV every time she came on. Just the sound of her voice would have me cowering under my bed for weeks. How many people may have died under similar circumstances we shall never know.

Harold Macmillan said "We're all middle class now".

That certainly wasn't true when he said it and I don't see it as true now. And not only just reading Goat's stats.

The only thing that has changed is mobility from one social class to another, the numbers of sub-divisions of classes, and the introduction of new classes. In my view there are at least double the number of classes now as in the fifties and the subtleties that define them are even more extensive. And the scary thing is, how easy it would be to categorise them.

Added to which the old A1,,,,C5 system still operates. There is the ready made official designation - and can you sign someone's passport photo?

Re poverty. It's widely prevelent in London too. And as recent research showed, the perecentage below the proverty line is misleading if you don't factor in how far below the poverty line the vast majority sit.

Beagle, many people would feel like your grandparents but I think it's a false, or only relevant to the individual cases, notion. I think it depends what the comparisons are made on. The lower middle class who couldn't afford central heating (like in my childhood) would certainly (and do) consider themselves better off as they now can afford it. But the lower-lower middle class wouldn't have been worrying about not having central heating.... etc

[goat starer]

We're probably closer to agreement on that part than on anything else I suspect; though we may disagree on the causes and remedy. Here's one possible cause.

I am sure we would agree on lots of stuff. You seem like a resonable person! The 'cause' you show above certainly exacerbates a bad situation but it is not a cause as the cause in that case would have to be whatever made people poor in the first place. It may help keep them there but it cant by definition be the root.

The poor pay more for all sorts of stuff. I can pay bills at once so do not get charged interest on installments, I can afford most things without taking a loan, when I do take a loan my credit history allows me to take out a mainstream internet loan at 5 - 6% APR interest rather than the 177% charged by Provident Financial on doorstep lending.

This is capitalism in action. high risk lending requires higher interest rates but credit unions show that this is typically 30% APR. Provident charges 177% because it can because the 'free' market is free only for people to screw every last drop out of one another.

[beagle]

The 'cause' you show above certainly exacerbates a bad situation but it is not a cause as the cause in that case would have to be whatever made people poor in the first place. It may help keep them there but it cant by definition be the root.

Ah, but at each generation there is a chance for the children to lift themselves out of poverty. If the lesson they pick up from the way their parents are treated is "try harder, get kicked in the teeth for it", then it's a bit of a demotivator. So they are both brought up in a poor environment,and inculcated with a negative work ethic. So for that generation it may well be a root cause of future problems.

That certainly wasn't true when he said it and I don't see it as true now. And not only just reading Goat's stats.

Ah well, there are bound to be classes in the sense of different categories into which to place people, according to interests and income. However classes in the traditional sense of a caste in which you live your whole life, and cannot (rather than don't want to) change, are a thing of the past IMHO. Although we could discuss whether things like tuition fees mean we have gone into reverse on the social mobility front.

As the link I posted earlier shows, the rise of a huge property owning class, and the lowering of barriers to individuals running their own businesses has allowed many "working class" people to achieve incomes well in excess of the traditional "middle class" professions. So class based on knowing which knife to use at dinner may persist, but the correlation of class and money has broken down. And good riddance, IMHO.

[Griffin NoName]

.....the lowering of barriers to individuals running their own businesses has allowed many "working class" people to achieve incomes well in excess of the traditional "middle class" professions.

Indeed. It is the old "middle class" which has sunk 

I believe I have been arguing the micro case where you are at the macro class debate.

So class based on knowing which knife to use at dinner may persist, but the correlation of class and money has broken down. And good riddance, IMHO.

IMHO2. But. Those poor upper class people who ran out of money to keep the roof on their stately home but could sniff out a nouveau riche at twenty paces might disagree. It's all in the breeding of course.

[beagle]

Communist.

One of my favorite things to do to right-wing Evangelico-fundamentalist Christians is to point out that the financial/sociopolitical structure of the Early Christiann Church was communistic in style.

Drives 'em straight up the wall.

Apparently St Paul was a dangerous anarchist. He said "There is no authority except God".

(How has Beagle suddenly acquired this almost Swatoplukian erudition you ask yourselves. Easy, Melvyn Bragg's "In Our Time" on Radio 4 this week was about anarchy).

Not sure how S.P. squared it with the "Render unto Caesar" stuff, seeing as the emperors of the time didn't even pretend to be (this) God's representatives on Earth. By the way, looks like they've found St Paul, or at least most of him.

[goat starer]

I am impressed by your new found knowledge. Whilst in our time may be an exemplary sourse of erudition it remains the most self serving, ego massaging Bragg vehicle on Radio 4. There is only one good Bragg and he is called Billy!

I remain fairly unconvinced by the 'class has broken down' argument. Class has always been mobile over historical timescales and the class structure that politicians of left and right are so delighted to see the end of is fairly recent (late 18th century at the earliest and irrevocably tied to the industrial revolution).

The reason I have no problem calling myself a Marxist is that Marx in my view correctly identified the historical process by which new class systems emerge to replace old class systems - largly by revolutionary means (magna carta, the reformation, the industrial revolution). Major changes in technology and knowledge historically  precipitate significant change in the class structure - lending power to new groups at the expense of others - and Marx identified that there was a general tendancy for this to result in more egalitarian states. He extrapolated from this that the ultimate destination was true egalitarianim (and believed this to be a good thing).

Where I diverge from Marx is that I do not believe this process to be inevitable but I do believe a massive narrowing of the gap between rich and poor, powerless and powerful, is not just desirable but necessary if human beings are to have a reasonable chance of making a future on this planet. I say this for social and environmental reasons.

What the thatcher years did to my mind was create a new revolution which, as before, created a new class of bourgeois nouveau riche but which simultaneously created a class of dangerously disengaged people who have no chance of taking advantage of the 'opportunities' opresented by Market capitalism.

I have recently been working on a government initiative vcalled the Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI) which aims to encourage entrepreneurialim in the most deprived communities and the research behind this clearly shows that existing support to start businesses in inaccessible, opaque and actively discrininates against the very poor.

The idea that all members of the working class can now be socially mobile and that this has broken down barriers is belied by the facts that the gap between the bottom 20% and top 20% has grown significantly under both Thatcher and Blair accross health, education, environment, employment and income and crime.

We are seeing the creation of a new class system of havea and have nots rather than the abolition of class.

[Griffin NoName]

Goat

Have you seen the Secret Millionaire on Channel 4 (Wednesdays)?

It makes me squirm. And it also makes me wonder how the majority of people respond to it.

[goat starer]

I rarely feel violent towards anybody but the one episode of the secret millionaire I saw made me want to start hanging capitalists from lamp-posts. It reminded me of a piece of work I did recently (not by choice) which involved a certain company who charge 177% interest on doorstep loans and one of the most deprived estates in Britain. Sure the company in question gave around £150,000 in money, time and equipment to the estate but at the end of the day it left a bad taste in the mouth of patronising, self serving, moral bankrutpcy. Watching the dignity of the local volunteers compared to the corporate 'social responsibility' of a bunch of legal loan sharks was enlightening.

Of course the people who this secret millionaire toe rag gives his money to are grateful - anyone who has worked in fundraising will know that any unrestricted funding is nigh on impossible to get hold of - but that does not alter the fact that these groups should not be relying on hand outs from publicity seeking silver spoon idiots who make their fortune by fleecing the hard earned money out of people and then feel like they should 'put something back'.

Essentially this is my job. I get businesses to engage in community programmes and support Neighbourhood renewal initiatives. I even told them at interview that I was a marxist who thought all business should be banned and the still gave me the job. What I see are some very comitted individuals and one or two businesses that really take their core responsibilities seriously surrounded by a moral desert.

This chap shows what real entrepreneurialism is and it is nothing to do with profit and shareholders. It is about human spirit. Since this article was written the group he is involved with have met the 1st phase costs (£100,000) and have a viable plan to raise a further £350,000 that only requires planning permission to be guaranteed. I have helped him for 3 years but he has been going a lot longer than that and has never once asked what he is going to get out of it. A lesson to anyone who thinks money makes the world go round I believe.

[Sibling Chatty]

Apparently St Paul was a dangerous anarchist. He said "There is no authority except God".

(How has Beagle suddenly acquired this almost Swatoplukian erudition you ask yourselves. Easy, Melvyn Bragg's "In Our Time" on Radio 4 this week was about anarchy).

Not sure how S.P. squared it with the "Render unto Caesar" stuff, seeing as the emperors of the time didn't even pretend to be (this) God's representatives on Earth. By the way, looks like they've found St Paul, or at least most of him.

St. Paul was a bit of a bully, actually. Not an original Apostle, not an extremely early adherent, but chose to become The World's Leading Authority, as declared by himself, even though he was honest enough to say (most of the time) in the Epistles where he was talking for himself, and where for God/Jesus.

I have a LOT of problems with Paul... A bit pushy, to say the least.

[goat starer]

What a great place to pop in a bit of Eddie Izzard (If you dont own some them BUY some (gratuitous plug for transvestite British comedy. please remember there are retailers other than Amazon)! This is merely a taster....

And St. Paul, he wrote letters, didn't he? "St. Paul's Letter to the Corinthians." Always writing to the Corinthians. "St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians – Chapter 1 – Verses 1 to 53. Dear Corinthians, as  you can tell from my preamble, it's gonna be quite a long letter. Here we go: Don't do bad things, only do good things. Always treat your neighbour like someone who lives near to you. Never put a sock in a toaster. Never put jam on a magnet. Never throw your Granny in a bag. Never suck all the juice out of a vampire. Never lean over on Tuesday..." (takes drag on joint) "Lots of other things, but I gotta go and have a Mars bar now. Love, Paul (Saint)." (laughs) Is that how he wrote his name? "Paul (Saint). B.A. honours." Yeah, so he wrote this – "All right, that's the end of the letter..." (mimes folding the letter, putting it into an envelope and licking it close) "The Corinthians...

...Corinth." (mimes sending the letter out like a paper plane)

They must've been real fworded off over in Corinth, don't you think? The postman going,

"Come on, one of you Corinthians, gotta take this letter."

"Oh, fword off! That's from old moaner St. Paul, isn't it? No... I don't want it, I don't want it!"

"You gotta take it. Come on, I gotta have a signature for it."

"Oh, fword off! It says "the CorinthianS," plural. Ask someone else. Oh, give it here. What does it say...? 'Don't do this, don't do that... Never put a sock in a toaster? Jam on a magnet...' Ooh, he's lost his brain, ain't he? Whose idea was it to be a pen-pal with St. Paul anyway? That fwording backfired, didn't it? He's supposed to stop doing it at about 15, he's been doing it for years... Come on, Corinthians, come on, general meeting. We're gonna write a letter back to him, stop all this rubbish."

"The Corinthians' Letter Back to St. Paul - Chapter 1- Verses 1 to a million. More letters to follow. Tuesday 28th of something. Dear Paul (Saint, apparently), FWORD OFF! Just fu- who are you? Why do you keep sending these letters? You arrogant b*****d, you send a letter to an entire city! What do you want us to do, put these up on a board or something? Just fword off! You're coming on like Alistair Cooke, for fwords sake! 'Never put a sock in a toaster,' what's all that about? You daft git! Love and kisses, the Corinthians. Kiss, kiss – Steve the Corinthian, Fred the Corinthian, George the Corinthian..." (mimes folding letter and sealing it in an envelope) "There we go – St. Paul... Outside Corinth" (sends letter as paper plane)