Didn't the Left once want the WORKERS to get all the dosh? I'm old enough to remember when the British left really was dominated by Marxist thinking, however thinly or thickly that was covered by a layer of Fabianism or some other "socialism lite". I haven't forgotten that the old Clause 4 of the Labour Party constitution, for example, insists that workers "by hand or brain" really …
I agree. The author seems to ignore the Marxist policies of today, including; Right to buy, Help to buy, QE, Bank bail outs, Bank nationalisation. Don't forget the special privileges for 'Party' members like off-shore tax havens and second house subsidies. Amongst many, many others.
There 'aint much difference between Marxism and Crony Capitalism in practice.
@ BillDarblay
"The author seems to ignore the Marxist policies of today, including; Right to buy, Help to buy, QE, Bank bail outs, Bank nationalisation."
Where does the author avoid these? It isnt even the topic.
He does mention the left and their obvious incarnation of old labour which is not so obvious now. As for the policies you mention, we have a left leaning tory party in coalition with lib dems following a labour party that increased government spending, bloat and welfare.
One thing not noted is: where is the money coming from? And the answer is, mostly, from paying fans. Football is NOT a 'market' in a traditional sense because fans are 'captive' to their team and would not be paying to buy, for example, a replica shirt of a rival team. Nor is any fan going to change their support to another team playing more attractive football at lower ticket prices. So prices for the fan are kept artificially high*.
At the same time, none of the additional money in the game has led to better quality of football, because the threat of relegation means that teams shovel more and more money at established players to get immediate results, and very little of that money actually flows into player development, grass-roots coaching, youth facilities etc. It's almost all going towards the first teams, where the same pretty average players just get paid more and more.
In the basic economics of things, I have no problem with Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi, Aguero etc getting paid a quarter million a week or more, these are the players who the fans are paying to see. What really raises questions is seeing talentless relegation-fodder cloggers or unproven 18-year-olds being paid 5-figure-a-week sums.
*I am aware that it is the fans themselves keeping prices artificially high by their unswerving loyalty to a single club
"Football is NOT a 'market' in a traditional sense because fans are 'captive' to their team and would not be paying to buy, for example, a replica shirt of a rival team."
But you could not choose to go to football, not bother with it much, and not buy a replica team.
I'm not much of a fan, but I used to go and see Northampton Town play. then the terraces disappeared, prices went up, and I stopped enjoying it so much. I still keep an eye on what they're doing, but I'd rather spend my money going to the pictures or on a new PC game. An evening seeing Tosca is cheaper, and you get a bar at half-time.
Someone isn't paying attention. Also, it would seem American Football teams are centrist by his definition whereas Soccer Football teams are "extreme-left" and pretty much the entire rest of the economy is "extreme-right" - it's the extremes that don't work, not the left/right ideologies themselves.
"No Racism In Recent Football? Someone isn't paying attention."
Tim is saying that black players are paid the same as white ones, or at least the difference isn't statistically significant. He's not saying that some fans don't do stupid things.
I know that the knee-jerk reflex is faster than engaging the brain, but it isn't better.
is based on refuted propositions, wishful thinking and greed, stupidity and utter incompetence.
There is strong evidence that most of the 'problems' would-be governments campaign on, and presumably get elected to 'solve' are either non-problems or cannot be solved by central government intervention.
Basically, they are all a bunch of total Cnuts.
"Basically, they are all a bunch of total Cnuts."
You're wrong. King Cnut was specifically demonstrating that even he, the King, had limitations on his powers. Prospective governments trying to get elected will promise lower tides if they think it will them an extra vote. That makes them cunts, not Cnuts.
No, he's pretty much right. Marxism is a pile of sophomoric rubbish thought up by a man who sponged off his rich parents and only got jobs to show "solidarity" with the working classes. Marx, the affecter of poverty who spent most of his working life as a piss-poor "journalist", would fit right in at the Guardian. He's even got the racism disguised as paternalistic "concern" for the poor oppressed foreign sorts down pat.
Socialism is a different matter, though as a righty I'm reflexively against the idea anyway (which leads to lots of interesting debate with the swedish socialist I find myself married to). And before you argue that socialism and marxism are the same: They aren't.
Please be a bit careful with the socialist word. I know some funny Americans tend to call Sweden socialist. As all the Nordic countries, that is Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland are very very similar in what they expect their countries to be like. I suppose the same Americans should call Norway socialist too but I suppose they experience some sort of an brain-short there as Norway is one of the richest countries in the world and also a Nato country.
The word you are probably looking for is social democrat and to mix that with socialist is just bull. There is a Social democratic party in Sweden (no majority) and else where too. There are no Socialist countries in Europa.
In the Nordic countries the things that are considered important are, good and affordable education for everybody, good and affordable health care for everybody, a fair but progressive taxation, trade unions, gun control, for a short list.
Private schools are OK too like private hospitals provided the standard is acceptable. Non of the US rubbish where anything can call it self a university.
Affordable, like a hart transplant for about the same price as staying at the YMCA for the same number of days, or free.
Just common sense any Bushman would agree with.
Germans the French and the Dutch are very similar and I don't think you Brits are that different.
As soon as people start throwing around words like left/right/capitalist/socialist you know common sense went out the window.
Thing is, Lars, she calls herself a socialist - though in practice she's much more of the social democrat that is the norm in Sweden. In fact she out-capitalists me sometimes... :D
But she calls herself a socialist and she knows all the talking points. I'm not going to argue with her about that, not unless I want to have my half of the bed redistributed between the cats.
Point taken, Graham, can't blame you, some experience.
But it also shows how dangerous those one words are as they don't really explain anything or solve anything.
Transparency International has a list about the "amount" of corruption in different countries. Finland among other Nordic countries are the least corrupted countries according to them. But, surprise surprise when I had a look at comments by Finns about it, there was a lot of - "what the shit, of course there is lots of corruption".
And there is a funny logic in those comments, that is, if Finns don't face corruption in their daily life they would react in an other way if they had lived in some more corrupt country for some years and had faced corruption daily, then their reaction would be something like - "oh my god how nice it is to live in Finland".
Then again if you ask people in more corrupt countries about it you suddenly realize that they often don't even recognize it because it's just part of normal life.
Had your wife lived in a socialist country she would probably call herself an anti socialist.
The thing is that I am so damned fed up with worthless words.
To prove my icon I have been searching for the religious word to explain the following.
The pope and condoms. Well, one can assume, perhaps, that he does not need any, age, or by hand, or and lets go no deeper here. But he does know about condoms and Aids and all of that problem and with his 1.2 billion followers why does he not speak up. What is the theological word to explain this. Is he afraid of being assassinated, did god not speak to him or is he afraid of suddenly having nobody to speak to.
Common sense is not in that picture.
"Marxian", meaning using certain strands of Marx's analysis to illustrate certain subjects has a great deal of value. While he didn't actually use the word he was spot on about the dangers of monopsony purchasers of labour just as one example (and I used exactly that analysis when looking at the Valley wage restraint cartel).
"Marxist" as a detailed set of rules about how to run an economy or society. Well, we ran that experiment, we generally call it the 20th century. Given the outcome of that experiment I don't think "stupid" is really all that strong as a description.
> I think calling Marxism 'stupid' is incredibly arrogant and.... stupid.
True, but the real issue is the assumption that we live with a duality of choice, marxism/socialism/communism versus capitalism/free_market. While the discussion is mired in the convenience of an either/or scenario, it can't really enlighten us. It's hard to find information on alternatives to these apparent opposites, but distributism is the school of thought that seems to me to get closest to meeting the needs of the human condition, and therefore it offers a better critique of both capitalism and communism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism
So I would say the argument made in this piece is academically of minor interest but so narrowly defined as to be a mere straw man.
Not as bonkers as the amount the taxpayer forks out to keep Betty and her inbred parasitic, racist, xenophobic, paedophilic, fascist (and that's just Phil and Chaz!) family. Betty gets more than £1m A WEEK, fuck knows about the rest of the cunts.
Yes, I agree, Premier League wages ARE insane - but at least the taxpayer isn't paying 'em.
Vive La Révolution! Vive La République!
Not as bonkers as the amount the taxpayer forks out to keep Betty and her inbred parasitic, racist, xenophobic, paedophilic, fascist (and that's just Phil and Chaz!) family. Betty gets more than £1m A WEEK, fuck knows about the rest of the cunts.
Bollocks.
The Sovereign Grant (which replaced the old Civil List), paid by the taxpayer to cover the Queen's official duties was £33m for 2012-13, likely to be £40m next year. It;'s handed over in return for the income from the Crown Estate, at an agreed 15%. i.e. the Queen gets 15% of the profits from the Crown Estate to pay for her duties, the taxpayer gets the other 85%. That's a tidy profit for the treasury, even without considering all the intangible benefits that come in from tourism, etc.
On top of that we get a constitutional arrangement that guarantees far more stability than having just another career politician in charge, as an elected President. Can you really imagine the catastrophic consequences of a President Bliar?
"Not as bonkers as the amount the taxpayer forks out to keep Betty and her inbred parasitic, racist, xenophobic, paedophilic, fascist (and that's just Phil and Chaz!) family. Betty gets more than £1m A WEEK, fuck knows about the rest of the cunts.
Bollocks."
It's double bollocks when you remember this is an economics article, and you need to include opportunity cost, that is, the cost of an elected president in, say Germany for example for a similarly sized country with a titular head of state. Oh look, he costs about the same as Brenda.
Sorry to be contrary, but the royal family and all connected parties stole land and "treasure" over hundreds of years from *someone*, using threat of violence, and much much worse.
The concept of monarchy is quite simply a stain on humanity.
The American president acts like a king when congress doesn't stop him, but they *can* stop him. The reason they don't is due to the dysfunctional dependence on dogmatic policy.
I find it hard to hold those with no choice of their birth responsible, as it is inescapable for all humans.
But the concept of royalty needs to become a historical curiosity the same way as the "divine right" did.
The constitutional arrangement is a sham, because govts can stuff the upper house with their cronies. Oh, and then there's the parliament act, so parliament is supreme. So the royalty is just there to distract from the nastier secrets of the govt. Unless Charlies wants a peek at bills that affect his interests....Clever huh?
I respect your opinion that perhaps it is a stable arrangement.
I am not sure I like the message of overwhelming inequality it sends out...
P
'I am not sure I like the message of overwhelming inequality it sends out' - I'm not sure I like your patronising attitude and smug air of superiority; but unless I do something about it I'll have to take it.
So here it is, either quit bitching in front of a keyboard or get out and make changes happen. Don't be that person who spouts out how they would rule the world and then does nothing.
I suggets you trouble yourself to find out how the Monarchy is funded.
Then perhaps you would like to volunteer to have the same arrangement with the government.
Including the working hours and the removal of all your rights to free speach; freedom of association; right to privacy; right to a family life and perhaps most infuriating the right not to have assorted envious no hopers going on about how little of their OWN money they are allowed to keep
But then; a certain type of envy ridden coetirie have always perfered fiction to fact; especially when they run out of everyone else's money and actually have to use their own - though; being shameless; they normally bluster on and on and on and on.......... refusing point blank to use a single penny of their own ill gotten gains
"I suggets you trouble yourself to find out how the Monarchy is funded"
To be fair, if what another commenter explained above about 15% or revenue from Crown property is true, it still needs to be explained where the Crown property rights flow from? Crown estates / 'royal' property comes from the concept that the monarch, ruling by divine right, owned all the land except that which they graciously apportioned to their vassals.
In a republic, any 'Crown' property would be government property and 100% of the revenue from it would flow to the government*, and I doubt it would cost 15% of that to maintain a non-royal head of state. Of course it also needs to be factored in that having a queen is a revenue generator for Britain, as many tourists want to visit Buck Palace etc
*strictly, should be to 'the people' but we all know that for all the nice theories, in practice 'government' <> 'people'
Ok, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say you are simply ignorant, not something else.
'concept that the monarch, ruling by divine right, owned all the land except that which they graciously apportioned to their vassals.' - Went out with Charles I, English civil war; and was previously really hit hard in 1215.
'n a republic, any 'Crown' property would be government property and 100% of the revenue from it would flow to the government*' - Look around the world, see how republic's work (hint they don't). The reality is that it doesn't happen that way.
"tab/slot arrangements"? Haha ....
"And then we've got a columnist in The Observer, an arch lefty, arguing that this near fascist corporatism is better than that free market" Remember that this is from the same stable as The Guardian, which has shouted very loudly about other companies and their tax arrangements, while living in one itself - and which until recently was kept afloat by the used car market ... capitaism is bad except when we do it, all animals are equal but .. etc etc
As to the main point, and a previous comment about racism in football: yes, it is still there and that job remains unfinished, but it is better than it was. As a start, ""the football leagues are less racist than they used to be in the wages they pay" can be used to show that ignorance / fear / crass stupidity can actually have a cost. "Note that the same racist attitudes might still be there, but if you make it expensive enough for people to act on them then act on them, they won't." Oh, they are still there: but now, in the English leagues at least, it is newsworthy from time to time, rather than expected. There are also people who hate that people from Eastern Europe "come over here" and do jobs that they themselves are not prepared to do for that rate of pay: sadly, some politicians listen to them. Take away the ignorance - but more importantly, take away the audience - and some things correct themselves. It's worth a try.
The idea that MLB has an exemption from antitrust is laughable - it's bad enough that the TV companies in the UK effectively prevent new entrants to the market, but to actually have a court rule that the free market does apply in your industry? Now that's an achievement .....
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