Slow motion moral collapse

[Arturo Bassick]

Well listening to some arguments, it´s quite clear that they see all this is caused by a government has now been elected they disagree with, and therefore it´s clear that this new government is so unjust, people will now come out and riot, until they get the government they want. Kind of a self-righteous grandstanding. Whereas the truth is sometimes you need a government to make unpopular decisions, and tackle the misbehaviour.

Is that really what you are hearing? That it is some reaction to Government policy?
It is only the loonies who are saying that.

Most are saying that there is a general lack of responsibility and respect coupled with a sense of entitlement.

A few are noting that these attributes are not limited to the rioters. In different ways non dom tax avoiders, bankers taking huge bonuses and MPs helping themselves to public money are demonstrating exactly the same mentality they just have a more subtle method of looting.

The root of this would take a massive amount of time to argue. The argument also covers a great deal of other ills with the UK as a whole.
There is no quick fix and knee jerk reactionary policy may make things worse.

[BlasterBates]

But do you think that the leftist argument is that having another round of regulation on banks is going to make these gangs smaller? "Hey guys they´ve just increased the bonus tax by 5% lets call it a day"?

Wouldn´t that help reduce the disparity between wealthy and the poor, which is the "cause" of this?

[BlasterBates]

Is that really what you are hearing? That it is some reaction to Government policy?
It is only the loonies who are saying that.

Most are saying that there is a general lack of responsibility and respect coupled with a sense of entitlement.

A few are noting that these attributes are not limited to the rioters. In different ways non dom tax avoiders, bankers taking huge bonuses and MPs helping themselves to public money are demonstrating exactly the same mentality they just have a more subtle method of looting.

The root of this would take a massive amount of time to argue. The argument also covers a great deal of other ills with the UK as a whole.
There is no quick fix and knee jerk reactionary policy may make things worse.

You have a point there, though what I have noticed is that HMRC is clamping down where it can pretty hard actually, and have been doing for some time. A lot of high profile cases, you only have to look at the BN66 thread to see how hard they have come down on tax avoiders.

I´ve also noticed the spotlight being put, quite rightly, on to public servants, helping themselves to the public coffers. High profile GPs earning a fabulous amount for example, and not to forget the renewable scams, where landowners get handed huge sums of money for windmills generating no exlectricity.

[Old Greg]

Wouldn´t that help reduce the disparity between wealthy and the poor, which is the "cause" of this?

I was wondering if you thought that that was the argument being given, but I reckon now that you're being a bit cheeky - nothing wrong with that.

Personally... I don't like inequality, but I'm not convinced this is the major cause, although I think it may come into the mix. I think the causes are complex, and there may be no one major cause. While I don't know, the factor that jumps out at me is lack of opportunity and increasing youth unemployment. People will bear inequality, I think, if they see a way out of their situation.

This is a rather circuitous way round to this but there we are. If I were to talk to my Mum about this, she would no doubt say that they were incredibly poor in the '50s and that inequality was rife, but they never rioted, However, leaving school aged 15, she had plenty of opportunities to go into different lines of work. There really was virtually no unemployment. I happen to think that this is the difference between now and then. On the other hand, below is a list of differences between now and then (real or claimed as you will), so pick and choose whichever fit your world view:

- Youth unemployment
- Inter-generational long-term unemployment
- High rise housing estates
- Decline in trade union membership
- Mass immigration
- Racist policing
- Telly
- Celebrity culture
- Consumerism
- Gangs
- End of corporal punishment
- Breakdown in morality
- White kids adopting black street culture
- Single parent families
- Criminality pure and simple
- Cuts in public spending
- Not knowing who your neighbour is anymore
- Lack of respect for authority
- No national service
- Decline in church attendance
- Corruption in high places

[doodab]

You have to tackle both sides of the problem. Yes, gangs and violence need to be stopped but equally people need role models and for the last 20 years or more too many of our role models have been those who have made themselves rich by whatever means and regardless of their wider impact on society. You simply cannot expect young kids growing up to give much of a tulip about your opinion when they see the people who bought or ran the company their father worked for and made him redundant given knighthoods and earning millions, when lives and families and whole communities have been blighted by the consequences of globalisation and the whims of the free market while others have made billions.

Social iniquity leads inevitably to social breakdown. Redistribution of wealth via taxation and benefits is not the answer and never has been, but until we begin to work toward a more even distribution of wealth by encouraging work and ensuring it is reasonably well rewarded these problems will not go away. A liberalised labour market that hands power almost exclusively to employers, persuades people paid work isn't worth having and leaves more than a few of those who do work living close to poverty is no more socially just than communism or any other extreme system of social organisation founded in ideology rather than pragmatics.

To my mind it's the biasing of social structures and policy making in favour of the corporation rather than the individual human being, started by Thatcher (necessarily because things had gone to far the other way) and continued by new labour, that are the root cause of our current problems. We seem to have forgotten that the purpose of free market economic liberalism was to deliver benefits to the whole of mankind, not just a chosen few.

[Arturo Bassick]

You have to tackle both sides of the problem. [snip]

Are you me?

[xoggoth]

There is on the right, quiite rightly, a lot of criticism of the public sector, how they are not subject to the primitive but sane rules of the free market, allowing empire building with few sanctions. How they award themselves pensions, perks and job security paid for by those who cannot afford these things themselves.

On the other hand, if you always cave in to the big companies on tax and other issues for fear they will take business elsewhere, if you let them award huge bonuses at the expense of the taxpayer and investor, is it really so different?

Funny how socialism and global capitalism have so much in common, both denigrate the concept of nation and both end up ignoring the needs of ordinary people.

[xoggoth]

PS Doodab. Sorry to add comment to your reputation that it was goos stuff. Clearly I meant parrot not goos.

[Old Greg]

There is on the right, quiite rightly, a lot of criticism of the public sector, how they are not subject to the primitive but sane rules of the free market, allowing empire building with few sanctions. How they award themselves pensions, perks and job security paid for by those who cannot afford these things themselves.

On the other hand, if you always cave in to the big companies on tax and other issues for fear they will take business elsewhere, if you let them award huge bonuses at the expense of the taxpayer and investor, is it really so different?

Funny how socialism and global capitalism have so much in common, both denigrate the concept of nation and both end up ignoring the needs of ordinary people.

No, no, no. Socialism is the common people throwing off the shackles of nationhood, which is a concept whose main purpose is to create a false sense of national interest, thus occluding the reality of class interest. Keep up.

Orwell's 'England, your, England' published in the collection 'The Lion and the Unicorn' and written in 1940 (I think) has a good non-doctrinaire explanation of the socialist view on this.

[lukemg]

We just don't have the work for unskilled people in vast numbers to do like we used to and we can't just generate that work from nothing. It's all gone overseas or being done by foreign workers for NMW minus rent, food etc.
You need skills and education to be of any use and many have opted out of this as soon as they get to teenage years.
Best plan I have seen is an assessment at 14 and immediate transfer to a skills based education where appropriate, preferably taught alongside blokes who have been in the business. This needs to be done properly though and maybe given a range at first - construction, sparks, cars, plumbing, gas and then specialise from 15. You come out with something useful which gives you half a chance - 2 GCSE's in P.E. and drama ain't gonna do it bruv....