The Politics Thread

[Lord Kangana]

The fact that the only person to have a serious crack at a new political model was a bearded pauper living in a hovel without enough money to feed his kids suggests vested interest is here to stay.

Anybody else with enough power to effect change has merely tweaked the system to their own (and their supporters) benefit.

Or as my mate (an economics and history master) once said to me "Anyone who believes unreservedly in free market economics earning less than a multiple 6 figure salary doesn't understand what they are supporting, and probably wants committing". And he's much less left wing than me.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Obsession with relative wealth/income etc. seems to me to be class jealousy most of the time.

That's a fairly simplistic view Mummy.

Here's another one: the ability to dismiss concerns over wealth inequality seems to me to be quite some privilege.

[Worthy4England]

Obsession with relative wealth/income etc. seems to me to be class jealousy most of the time.

That's a fairly simplistic view Mummy.

Here's another one: the ability to dismiss concerns over wealth inequality seems to me to be quite some privilege.

Yes indeed. I'm still trying to work out this link between money/income and class or Class. I know plenty of rich folks that have no class or Class, and quite a few more who have class/Class and no money? I'm confused...

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

See I disagree. Its the gap that matters. Otherwise we're all buying things with monopoly money.

The 'absolute terms' that I refer to is a measure of what standard of living people can afford.

For me, the gap is pretty unimportant compared to a consideration of what the people at the bottom have in absolute terms.

Obsession with relative wealth/income etc. seems to me to be class jealousy most of the time.

That's a fairly simplistic view Mummy. I'm not sure of the linkage between earnings and class anyhow? At what level of earnings do you become "middle class" and at what level of earning do you become "upper class"?

Remove the word 'class' if you want. I use the word in its more general sense rather than in the British idea of social standing, which I agree is only loosely connected to income.

But then the question is what do you define as a "standard of living" surely you can only take the current average and how far away the poorest members of the population are from that average.

Otherwise any other comparison is meaningless.

"Look i know your family of 5 is in a one bed flat with no heating and dripping walls but just think you're better off in absolute terms than your cave dwelling predecessors".

I disagree - I think it's possible and desirable to come up an idea of what poverty is in the world today without a mathematical formula that compares everyone to everyone else. Do we all get poorer if the top one percent of society suddenly gets a lot richer? I just don't think so.

The 'world today' part of that is more to do with technology etc than it is average earnings - we can have a decent stab at working out what is required for a basic level of human dignity without producing the calculators and earnings figures, can't we?

I just think looking at things from a 'relative' point of view is rather looking through the wrong end of the telescope.... I am sorry if that makes me seem detached from social problems via my privileged upbringing.

[Worthy4England]

Do we all get poorer if the top one percent of society suddenly gets a lot richer? I just don't think so.

See it gets a bit trickey here too.

Lets say as an example, I do a large deal whereby I offshore a few hundred UK jobs.

I get distinctly richer, because it's a large deal.

Some people in India, Kuala Lumpur, probably get someway richer as I need more of them, but in this area, richer is all a bit relative

Some hundreds of people in the UK become poorer by quite some margin as they're out of work.

Net effect - My bonus plus additional pay to overseas workers < loss of salary to UK workers....

Some will find new work, some will remain on benefit for a while, affecting the UK tax payer, so looked at like that, my gain = everyone elses loss

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Well yes, of course you can invent an example like that.


But let's imagine a hypothetical huge gift to the hundred richest people in the country.

What some of you are saying is that event alone makes everyone else worse off, because you want to calculate things in relative terms.

[Worthy4England]

That's not an invented example

[Lord Kangana]

Please explain the massive tax breaks that are given to the mega rich in a way that'll make me understand, and I'll promise to vote Tory at the next election, Mummy.

Inequality is inherrent in the system, trickle down economics is supposedly about everyone having the ability to have shiny things, only some of ours will be more shiny than others. Its designed to retain a gap, thats the whole point of it.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

And there's nothing wrong with inequality.

Striving to get nearer top of the tree is a natural and healthy thing.

And I agree that if things don't trickle down to the bottom in such a way that everyone has a decent standard of living, there should be intervention to sort that out.



No Worthy, I know your example isn't invented as such, but it wasn't really relevant to the point I was making about relative wealth, ceteris paribus.

[Worthy4England]

Hmmm I was responding to the bit about does anyone get less wealthy if the top X% get richer...

And more often than you might give credit for, yes they do. Some traders will have made wedges out of derivatives, lots of people will go bankrupt because of the mess they left behind...

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Hmmm I was responding to the bit about does anyone get less wealthy if the top X% get richer...

And more often than you might give credit for, yes they do. Some traders will have made wedges out of derivatives, lots of people will go bankrupt because of the mess they left behind...

No, you still misunderstand.

I understand your insistence that it is often the case that when somebody makes money, somebody lower down the scheme of things suffers.

But that's not what people are saying, and isn't what I am arguing against.

The argument is, apparently, that we should measure poverty as, something like, everyone who is living on under half of average income or whatever.

So if the top X% get richer without any knock-on detrimental effects whatsoever to anybody else in the UK (a situation I tried to illustrate with some hypothetical external 'gift'), some are saying that that in itself means that more people should be counted in the poverty figures the next day, because "it's all relative".

[Lord Kangana]

I would suggest a walk outside your front door to see the evidence of real as opposed to hypothetical gaps in wealth.

The fact we have homelss people, OAP's who can't afford to avoid dying in the winter for want of a few quid, people who will work to the day they die kids who are malnourished in a modern western democracy in the year 2008............the list goes on and on. I hate to get all emotive on you, but I'd be ashamed to hold your views.

[BWFC_Insane]

I would suggest a walk outside your front door to see the evidence of real as opposed to hypothetical gaps in wealth.

The fact we have homelss people, OAP's who can't afford to avoid dying in the winter for want of a few quid, people who will work to the day they die kids who are malnourished in a modern western democracy in the year 2008............the list goes on and on. I hate to get all emotive on you, but I'd be ashamed to hold your views.

Once again LK, well said.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

I would suggest a walk outside your front door to see the evidence of real as opposed to hypothetical gaps in wealth.

The fact we have homelss people, OAP's who can't afford to avoid dying in the winter for want of a few quid, people who will work to the day they die kids who are malnourished in a modern western democracy in the year 2008............the list goes on and on. I hate to get all emotive on you, but I'd be ashamed to hold your views.

Those are the very examples of people living below an acceptable standard of living, in absolute terms.

The gap between people at the top and the bottom is embarrassingly irrelevant when people can't feed themselves and keep themselves warm.

[Lord Kangana]

But its entirely the point when the system is designed to more serve those at the top than the bottom.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

How many of your luxuries do you give up so that others less fortunate than you can be better off, LK?


Same goes for you, Mr Insane.

And anyone else who would care to sneer at me as being some heartless privileged bastard who hasn't got a clue what the real world is like.

[Worthy4England]

Yeah, I got the bit about the wider thing. I think less than 60% of median household income for a particular year is the indicator used across the EU...

[Lord Kangana]

What good would it do in a system that wouldn't redistribute it?I play to the whistle, because those are the cards that are dealt. It doesn't mean I have to agree with it.


And I think thats a poor response, because I don't recall any builder start a house with the feckin roof. If you want to turn it round, I want higher taxation, proportional representation, compulsory voting, universal healthcare based on need not want. Name me a mainstream political party who would do that? And ask yourself why. Its not because people don't want it, check the relative voting figures since Thatcher disenfranchised half the country.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Then just distribute it as you yourself see fit, LK.

[Lord Kangana]

Thats called charity, and is a laughable response.