Generalism

The Meek June 17, 2010

Only yesterday I was branded a communist for the few notes I wrote on capitalism and the current weirdness of our western society. That didn’t concern me as much as the retweet on twitter that followed, calling me a communist sympathiser. Unfortunately I think the labels were more down to my ailing writing skills than my strong political leanings, but by the by.

I followed up on twitter, instead labelling myself a moralist, except of course I hate labels, so ended up a victim of my wonky writing yet again. The thing is, communist, socialist or moralist, whatever the nomenclature, the world is in a heck of a mess, arguably caused by too much greed and power in too few hands. I’m not alone in thinking this, and that’s a good thing. Because it means that, although those in privileged positions currently hold sway over change, the growing discontent with the way things are currently being done could mean an overrunning by force of numbers alone. Those at the top have little desire to head towards moralism themselves, no drivers, and to be honest, I wouldn’t either in their position. But I think things are changing, slowly but surely, and I hope for all our sakes that the meek inherit the earth before we all become just another environmental / financial / biological disaster statistic.

The end of western society is nigh June 15, 2010

Consider this sweet little circle during one of the worst economic situations the UK has ever faced.

To reduce the country’s deficit, some are suggesting the Conservative government’s cuts are likely putting over 725,000 public sector jobs in danger. Alongside this, the current unemployment figures are pushing 3 million, more than 10% of the workforce, and the number of available jobs, due to equivalent private sector retraction (as well as outsourcing, automation et al), is heading ever downwards, whilst population and immigration continue to rise.

So, focusing for the moment on the public sector workers, let’s say half of those 725,000 people get “reduced” amidst the coming cuts, what happens to those 300,000 or so people? Well, their first course of action is to sign on to benefits in order to at least bring some trifling amount of money in whilst looking for their next position. Which could be a long time coming. Which is rather unfortunate, because then they get caught up in David Cameron’s plans to significantly reduce welfare budgets in an attempt to force so-called “work-shy” people back into jobs, that as has just been noted, no longer exist.

Another neat little circle I like at the moment goes thus.

The banks gamble with our money, lose big and get a huge bailout in order to stay alive. From us. In losing big, and taking our money as compensation, for some, several times over, many of us are left unable to pay our bills or keep up with mortgage repayments. Because the banks have an issue with people that don’t pay their bills (don’t trip on the irony) they demand reimbursement, typically in the form of repossessions.

So putting this in perspective, the banks lose all their money, our money is handed over to save them, as a consequence of both actions we have no money or any means to get any money, which means we also lose our house, which they then sell to get even more of our money, and we are left with nothing. In that one sentence, I have lost count of how many times we are getting screwed.

I know there are good people out there, genuinely trying to right wrongs, fight good fights, all for us. But you know what? I’m starting to think that they should just stop. I’m starting to think that all of the fixing and mending and papering over is doing just one thing: maintaining the horribly messed-up status quo. It’s simply not fixing anything. The banks aren’t “fixed”; they’re run by humans, with greed in their blood. Jobs aren’t going to go up; population growth and mass-automation has that issue well in hand.

So what for the future?

So what indeed.