Oldham West and Royston by-election. Corbyn's big test.

[betterman]

maybe he does, maybe he doesnt, but we sure as hell know the Tories dont give a fig about helping the working class..........so nothing to lose really

 

I'm working class and their policies have made me better off.

 

---------- Post added 06-12-2015 at 07:35 ----------

 

Damn bloody right it is...

taking money from the poor, to give it to the rich, i dont make excuses for my hatred of the Tories..

i would rather see us all in the gutter, rather than just the poor in the gutter

 

You mean they take less of the rich and most of the workers which means they give less to the poor.

Nothing is taken from the poor but everying the poor have was taken from the rich and most of the UK's workers.

 

Your bold.

 

The problem is the poor will have starved to death long befor your ideas put the wealthy into the gutter.

Edited December 6, 2015 by betterman

[unbeliever]

This is all rather depressing.

 

I1L2T3 wants to argue about the definition is "Socialism". Again. This is after I showed him the OED definition on another thread. Call it what you want. We all know what policies we're talking about.

 

Anna B has managed to bring the environment into matters. Not sure how. I suppose it's the standard trick of getting socialist policies in by the back door by pretending that "science" demands them or were all doomed.

 

banjodeano has redefined the word "take". So a rich man who was giving £10000 a year to his poor neighbour, and who one year offers £9000 instead has "taken" from the poor. That's just a transparent abuse of language.

 

These Corbynesque ideas just cannot be defended with reason. They don't work. All cases made supporting such ideas are nonsensical or based on false premises.

 

The goal should be to improve the lot of our poor in absolute terms. Relative measures are a distraction. The Conservative way is to minimise taxes on the poor, to maximise the jobs available, and to force up their pay where possible.

Apart from anything else, there's a lot more dignity in being able to work and being able to live off the money you earn from that work.

 

 

If you implement policies which grow the economy, there are more jobs. If there are more jobs, there is more money to go around however it is distributed.

Perhaps most importantly with more jobs, there is more competition for workers which drives up wages. Who cares if a few very successful people make more money. The poor make more money as well. That's supposed to be the goal.

 

Whenever you take money which would otherwise be invested and use it for something other than investment you inhibit economic growth. Such spending includes "creating" jobs in the public sector which don't need doing. As a result, whenever you create 1 non-productive job in the public sector, you destroy more than 1 job in the private sector. Once you realise this, you become very careful about the state "creating" jobs, and you only want it to happen when the said job actually needs doing.

Seizing money from the rich and spending it on the poor is necessary. The economy can't grow as it should if the poor are not trained to do the jobs it creates. It can't grow if the health of the poor is not seen to. This is useful public spending. Handing money out to people who could be working is not useful. It may sometimes be necessary, but it is a sign that as a government you've messed up. Your poor are not trained, or you've mis-managed the economy so that there are not enough jobs available. A very good way of mis-managing the economy to create this bad situation is to waste money by "creating" public sector jobs that don't actually need doing.

Edited December 6, 2015 by unbeliever

[I1L2T3]

This is no argument to have unbeliever.

 

Oxford dictionaries, which has a one line definition you seem to take comfort from, has a blog post which clears up the usage of the term 'socialism' including the pejorative usage of the term

 

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/05/changing-meaning-of-socialist/

 

I'm a social democrat. That means I believe in capitalism. Hell I work for a very successful private enterprise and get paid well including decent bonuses when the company is doing particularly well. I believe that certain elements of capitalism need to be constrained but that doesn't make me a socialist, or even a watered-down socialist.

 

I think what I just described is the same for practically all of the centre-left in this country, and many centre-right including Conservative and Ukip supporters. It is the mainstream politics of the UK.

[unbeliever]

This is no argument to have unbeliever.

 

Oxford dictionaries, which has a one line definition you seem to take comfort from, has a blog post which clears up the usage of the term 'socialism' including the pejorative usage of the term

 

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/05/changing-meaning-of-socialist/

 

I'm a social democrat. That means I believe in capitalism. Hell I work for a very successful private enterprise and get paid well including decent bonuses when the company is doing particularly well. I believe that certain elements of capitalism need to be constrained but that doesn't make me a socialist, or even a watered-down socialist.

 

I think what I just described is the same for practically all of the centre-left in this country, and many centre-right including Conservative and Ukip supporters. It is the mainstream politics of the UK.

 

You think a blog post overrides the dictionary definition.

I don't.

 

Even the article you refer to makes it clear that they're referring to "technical" or as I have described it "traditional" socialism. You want to change the meaning back to what it meant originally. I can understand that. I'm just not willing to pretend that it's already happened.

[WiseOwl182]

Damn bloody right it is...

taking money from the poor, to give it to the rich, i dont make excuses for my hatred of the Tories..

i would rather see us all in the gutter, rather than just the poor in the gutter

 

 

 

What money are the Tories taking from the poor to give to the rich? The top 3,000 earners in the UK pay more tax than the bottom NINE MILLION combined. All poor people are net beneficiaries of government spending.

Edited December 6, 2015 by WiseOwl182

[unbeliever]

What money are the Tories taking from the poor to give to the rich? The top 3,000 earners in the UK pay more tax than the bottom NINE MILLION combined. All poor people are net benefactors of government spending.

 

I think you meant beneficiaries rather than benefactors. In which case I wholeheartedly agree.

[WiseOwl182]

I think you meant beneficiaries rather than benefactors. In which case I wholeheartedly agree.

 

Yes, have corrected now, really must be more careful when posting from my phone.

[I1L2T3]

You think a blog post overrides the dictionary definition.

I don't.

 

Even the article you refer to makes it clear that they're referring to "technical" or as I have described it "traditional" socialism. You want to change the meaning back to what it meant originally. I can understand that. I'm just not willing to pretend that it's already happened.

 

The blog post clarifies what the term means. I don't want to change anything because there is nothing to change.

 

This is starting to remind me of talking to my son when he was taking GCSE history. He too thought everything could be watered down to a 2 or 3 sentence description of a major event, or major historical trend.

[unbeliever]

The blog post clarifies what the term means. I don't want to change anything because there is nothing to change.

 

This is starting to remind me of talking to my son when he was taking GCSE history. He too thought everything could be watered down to a 2 or 3 sentence description of a major event, or major historical trend.

 

The key point is that the modern meaning of the term "socialist" includes "social democrat". There's no getting away from that. All this talk about the difference between a "technical" or "traditional" socialist and a social democrat is irrelevant.

 

If you want them to remove that statement from the dictionary, then I suggest you talk to them. In the mean time all "social democrats" fall within the general term "socialist".

I'm sorry that does not meet with your approval, but that's the way it is.

[I1L2T3]

The key point is that the modern meaning of the term "socialist" includes "social democrat". There's no getting away from that. All this talk about the difference between a "technical" or "traditional" socialist and a social democrat is irrelevant.

 

If you want them to remove that statement from the dictionary, then I suggest you talk to them. In the mean time all "social democrats" fall within the general term "socialist".

I'm sorry that does not meet with your approval, but that's the way it is.

 

Yes there is getting away from it because it's not correct. However much you want to think socialism and social democracy are the same thing they quite simply aren't. In the modern world they are totally separate. The only way you could make the argument kind of work is if you try and distil it down to a simplistic binary argument that posits that you are either on one side or the other of a political divide. But that would be idiocy.