Russell Brand

[Mich the Tester]

I think the desire for more money is fairly universal.

Yep, but right now in southern Africa, there are people who are moving from 1 dollar a day to 2 dollars or even 5 dollars a day; the transformation in their lifestyles and quality of life is immense. Once the family farm expands to include a market stall that can finance a van to service a few different marketplaces, they can send one or two kids to school, they can buy a beer aftr work (witnessed by the profits of breweries in southern Africa), they can go out for a meal together from time to time. Once they achieve that, they feel rich, even if they're living in a tiny ramshackle house and driving a bashed up old Toyota; their kids might then have the ambition to make it big, but the parents just want a slightly more secure income, a safer place to live and often don't really care about 'more money'; more security is what they want.

[doodab]

No not everyone can do it - that's the whole point! You cannot engineer society so that everyone is successful because not everyone has the attributes required.

I'm not suggesting that you should "engineer society so that everyone is successful". I am suggesting that a society that allows a very few people to succeed massively and a few more succeed a little bit while most people remain relatively poor regardless of how hard they try needs to consider whether that society as a whole is succeeding or failing. Perhaps society needs to consider what is rewarded and how it's rewarded, so that it can make better use of the attributes that people do have, rather than structuring itself in such a way as to make success due solely to hard work marginally less likely than a lottery win.

[doodab]

That is actually a really good idea - unfortunately you still haven't defined a 'living wage' which is what you said people would have to have (and it would vary according to their circumstances) in order not to have to rely on benefits.

You haven't defined "success" either, but you keep using the term. Lets relate the two, and say success is having an income as great, or greater than, that which you need to live, and call that amount a living wage.

[DodgyAgent]

I'm not suggesting that you should "engineer society so that everyone is successful". I am suggesting that a society that allows a very few people to succeed massively and a few more succeed a little bit while most people remain relatively poor regardless of how hard they try needs to consider whether that society as a whole is succeeding or failing. Perhaps society needs to consider what is rewarded and how it's rewarded, so that it can make better use of the attributes that people do have, rather than structuring itself in such a way as to make success due to hard work and aspiration marginally less likely than a lottery win.

"Allow !!??" typical leftie "controlling" mentality.

"I say you rich people you are only "allowed" to stray away from our state controlled nirvana"

What we should be doing is encouraging more people to follow not "allow". People remain relatively poor because they are trapped by the disfunctional institutions of the state.

[MyUserName]

You haven't defined "success" either, but you keep using the term. Lets relate the two, and say success is having an income as great, or greater than, that which you need to live, and call that amount a living wage.

By need to live do you mean just enough food, shelter and water to survive? If not, how much more?

[DodgyAgent]

You haven't defined "success" either, but you keep using the term. Lets relate the two, and say success is having an income as great, or greater than, that which you need to live, and call that amount a living wage.

And which tree will the "living wage" be coming from?

[russell]

Yep, but right now in southern Africa, there are people who are moving from 1 dollar a day to 2 dollars or even 5 dollars a day; the transformation in their lifestyles and quality of life is immense. Once the family farm expands to include a market stall that can finance a van to service a few different marketplaces, they can send one or two kids to school, they can buy a beer aftr work (witnessed by the profits of breweries in southern Africa), they can go out for a meal together from time to time. Once they achieve that, they feel rich, even if they're living in a tiny ramshackle house and driving a bashed up old Toyota; their kids might then have the ambition to make it big, but the parents just want a slightly more secure income, a safer place to live and often don't really care about 'more money'; more security is what they want.

My point was to make a simple example of how luck, in this case to where you are born, has a a significant part in becoming successful. Anyone who thinks about it for more than a few seconds will come to the same conclusion. i.e. your father dies just before a audition that would have given you a big break in movies, so you miss it and end up becoming a male prostitute then die of aids.

[doodab]

"Allow !!??" typical leftie "controlling" mentality.

Oh do **** off with your prejudiced interpretation of every word in the dictionary.

What we should be doing is encouraging more people to follow not "allow". People remain relatively poor because they are trapped by the disfunctional institutions of the state.

Which of our capitalist nirvana's disfunctional institutions do you think is most responsible for the trapping?

[DodgyAgent]

Yep, but right now in southern Africa, there are people who are moving from 1 dollar a day to 2 dollars or even 5 dollars a day; the transformation in their lifestyles and quality of life is immense. Once the family farm expands to include a market stall that can finance a van to service a few different marketplaces, they can send one or two kids to school, they can buy a beer aftr work (witnessed by the profits of breweries in southern Africa), they can go out for a meal together from time to time. Once they achieve that, they feel rich, even if they're living in a tiny ramshackle house and driving a bashed up old Toyota SASGuru is in Africa??; their kids might then have the ambition to make it big, but the parents just want a slightly more secure income, a safer place to live and often don't really care about 'more money'; more security is what they want.

Just asking like

[DodgyAgent]

Oh do **** off with your prejudiced interpretation of every word in the dictionary.



Which of our capitalist nirvana's disfunctional institutions do you think is most responsible for the trapping?

1. education
2. welfare
3. priviliged left wing pric*s with an axe to grind

Not necessarily in that order