Won't printing money just lead to hyperinflation, like it did in Weimar Germany? A more stable and sensible way of making the money supply more responsive to people's needs would be interest free mutual credit systems, maybe as community controlled co-operatives or something. (Here I go in a mutualist mood again)
See Chapter 12 of New Money for Healthy Communities by Thomas Greco. Or Mutual Banking by W B Greene.
This entire line of argumentation is a dead end. It presupposes the only way for public services to increase budgets for important services is to print more money. The truth is increasing taxes on the wealthy, rearranging budgeting priorities within the system and better management of already existing funds are all options as well.
Of course as workers that really isn't our problem is it? At the end of the day we are entitled to decent jobs for decent wages, if not total control of our work and the whole product of it because the government and their high level government bureacrats and politicians are parasites and we as workers are not. The demands put forward by the NBS campaign are quite modest and fall far short of what these workers are entitled to- which is total control over the conditions of their work. The same thing all workers are entitled to, if it throws the capitalist system into crisis perhaps the answer isn't to print more money but to trim some fat starting with unnecessary bosses and their hangers on.
increasing taxes on the wealthy
This is tantamount to sequestering property. Excellent plan, but one may as well vacuously sloganeer that “only revolution will provide the public services to which we are all entitled”.
rearranging budgeting priorities within the system and better management of already existing funds are all options as well.
Absolutely, no doubt David Cameron and George Osborne agree.
Of course as workers that really isn't our problem is it?
I’m not so sure...
The problem of the proletariat's historical capacity to achieve a classless society is not the problem of its capacity to physically overthrow the exploiters who are in power (of this there is no doubt); it is rather the problem of how to positively organize a collective, socialized management of production and power.
On the contrary to your sentiments, “the problem” lies in the working class passing the buck to their managerial superiors, handing them the responsibility for running society.
At the end of the day we are entitled to decent jobs for decent wages, if not total control of our work and the whole product of it because the government and their high level government bureacrats and politicians are parasites and we as workers are not.
Ha ha. Comedy gold. Where does this entitlement come from? Does the baby Jesus decree it because parasites are evil? If it’s a question of moral justice, then we’re as much parasites on the managerial deliberations and celebrated talents of sundry bourgeois as they are on our honest earthy graft.
The demands put forward by the NBS campaign are quite modest and fall far short of what these workers are entitled to- which is total control over the conditions of their work. The same thing all workers are entitled to, if it throws the capitalist system into crisis perhaps the answer isn't to print more money but to trim some fat starting with unnecessary bosses and their hangers on.
I’m creased up. It’s as if the demands being “quite modest” somehow enhances their legitimacy. For the love of Christ. What’s it all about, comrade? The humanitarian defence of the meek in the face of immoral managers who don’t understand their special rights of entitlement?
Castoriadis wrote:
The problem of the proletariat's historical capacity to achieve a classless society is not the problem of its capacity to physically overthrow the exploiters who are in power (of this there is no doubt); it is rather the problem of how to positively organize a collective, socialized management of production and power.On the contrary to your sentiments, “the problem” lies in the working class passing the buck to their managerial superiors, handing them the responsibility for running society.
I dount there are many supporters of self-management who would disagree with that, although management are pretty good at defending their interest whatever the working class want to do.
So you are saying that the problem is that the working class can't be bothered to take control of things? This might be partly true. Most of the working class don't really think taking over would be possible, I imagine. But even if they did, they'd still have the armed forces of the state to contend with. You're very good at saying that things are imaginary, but a gun in your face - that's real.
they'd still have the armed forces of the state to contend with
What, then, have they “taken over”? Nothing by the sounds of it.
You're very good at saying that things are imaginary, but a gun in your face - that's real.
The gun in your face, however, is imaginary.
I meant when (I should say "if") they attempt to take over, not when they have suceeded. You make it sound like all we'v got to do is stop being so lazy and relying on management, as if we'd never face any violent resistance if we followed your suggestion. I agree that the biggest problem is coming up with an effective way of running things that acheive the desired goals, but even then its no easy task.
New clashes between locals and riot police erupt in the south Corfu town of Lefkimi over the construction of open refuse dump.
Joe Jacobs was in 1936 a local Communist Party activist in London's East End. This is his account of his involvement in the famous defence of the East End against an attempted march by Mosley's fascists.
Both questions have the same answer. Sterling has to be kept scarce to kerb price rises in imported energy, consumer goods and in order to allow people to take their money abroad.
Ho ho. I haven’t the faintest. Public sector middle management are always whining about their lack of resources though, as if we could just print off the money they want with impunity.