It used to be 100% free. When the country had less money than it does today. Oh and the railways we publicly owned. And the post office. And significantly more of the NHS. And the gas and water. And the rest. All at the same time. With less money.
I would not call it “amazing”. And you’re completely delusional if you think that the existence of student loans makes university accessible. Many people can not afford living expenses to make it work without familial support, which I’m glad you had but it’s not what many people have. It’s privileged.
I don’t know what you have to do to be classed as middle class because it’s not an easier defined term. It’s also not a term really used by marxism. They use the term petite bourgeois if my understanding is correct. I guess you could call my parents that as they were landlords. But at the same time they had to work full time at a normal job and all houses were mortgaged. So you could also say they are the proletariat. This is why the marixst class model dosen’t actually hold up always in real life. Real life is too complex as people can be in multiple classes at once.
Lol landlords are petite-bourgeoisie, not proles. The petite-bourgeoisie are in between workers and the bourgeoisie in that they both exploit and do some work because they are not yet exploiting enough to completely cease function as a worker. They’re also the biggest parasites on the planet.
It’s also completely natural for some people to be paid more than others based on their labour. The Soviet Union had this exact policy for jobs that required more education or more physical work. That’s exactly how it should be outside of a post- scarcity society.
I don’t know where you’ve got the impression that I think everyone should be paid equally. In my personal opinion wages should be based on how necessary to society they are. Essential workers would be paid vastly more while the vast quantity of bullshit jobs(read theory) would be paid the bullshit rates they deserve.
It’s good that rent was that low in the Soviet Union but you also have more needs than housing. Food comes to mind where many people starved due to collectivisation efforts in the Soviet Union at the start. I understand they rectified this later but it is probable that the early stages of a socialist society will have problems like this.
The region was prone to famines every 10 years for a thousand years. The soviets ended that permanently. Unfortunately mistakes were made with not having a secondary level of oversight, they over-trusted the reported numbers of grain given by the kulaks who were hording it for profit and it caused a famine that could have been avoided and later was once secondary checks were implemented.
Things are likely to get worse in the beginning - not better.
Things will get worse before the revolution, not after it. Revolutions do not happen without a cause. Things get considerably better after them. What you’re missing is that things are getting worse NOW, they have been getting worse since 2008, they are continuing to get worse, there is absolutely nothing on the horizon that will make them better. Things are going to get worse. We will continue down this path until the conditions get bad enough for things to get very interesting. We are working to build renters union orgs up like Acorn that we believe will be fundamental to the future resistance as renters will outnumber homeowners in the near future, on top of the usual trade unionism, and the other stuff you simply can’t discuss online.
I can’t believe you actually think bullshit jobs are the fault of the workers. The whole point of bullshit jobs is that they are created by the inefficiencies of capitalism - not workers.
Ah I see what you’re getting at now. The point is to move the workforce from these roles to roles that are actually useful to society. As I mentioned before this is a process of development, not a magic button. It is not something that you necessarily have to do to existing workers, instead you apply it to future iterations of those roles and simply phase out the old ones.
If you know which jobs are bullshit then you don’t need to lower wages, you just eliminate the roles or at least stop hiring new people for them. None of this argument makes sense. I think you wanted to punish workers that did something you didn’t like and then got called out on it.
Also changing wages to encourage people into certain jobs is a capitalist economic technique. My idea of paying people for harder work (physical or intellectual work) is much closer to the socialist statement of “to each according to their labour”. Studying is a form of labour performed for free or even at cost to the person doing the labour. Higher wages for the educated are partially there to reflect this.
And you’re completely delusional if you think that the existence of student loans makes university accessible. Many people can not afford living expenses to make it work without familial support, which I’m glad you had but it’s not what many people have. It’s privileged.
That’s hilarious because I have literally seen people do it. You’re the one who’s delusional. I know people who get less support from their rich family than they would have gotten from the government had their family been poor. It’s actually a problem with sliding scale student loans based on family income. What happens when you’re family can’t be assed supporting you?
Essential workers would be paid vastly more while the vast quantity of bullshit jobs(read theory) would be paid the bullshit rates they deserve.
So you actually want more income quality than I do by the sounds of it. Yet you call my ideas far-right? You’re supposed to get rid of bullshit jobs entirely in a revolution. So that’s not even a consideration. Besides that I think paying people who are educated or do more physical work or more dangerous work is reasonable. Getting a degree is worse than free labour; you pay them to do work! That work is repaid later by higher wages. Even making University free wouldn’t be enough as you still are putting in labour during you’re time and university and not earning any money for that time.
I really don’t want you anywhere near the leadership of a revolution. I think you’ve managed to clarify for me why I dislike Marxist-Leninists. You don’t actually think about anybody outside of the poorest in society and have no grasp on real life.
So you actually want more income quality than I do by the sounds of it. Yet you call my ideas far-right? You’re supposed to get rid of bullshit jobs entirely in a revolution. So that’s not even a consideration.
This is not scientific, this is utopian. Creating socialism isn’t a magic button we press, it is a process of development. You don’t have the proletariat take over control of the state and then magically press a button that makes everything bad go away and reorganise the country along perfect socialist lines. A process of building the productive forces is necessary while fitting in with the global system to avoid isolation (like cuba, dprk, etc have been). They will get eventually eliminated but not immediately.
I really don’t want you anywhere near the leadership of a revolution. I think you’ve managed to clarify for me why I dislike Marxist-Leninists. You don’t actually think about anybody outside of the poorest in society and have no grasp on real life.
Because why? Because you don’t like being called out as the middle class utopian champagne socialist from a petite-bourgeois background that you are? As the larper that pretends to be socialist while consistently taking right wing anti-worker talking points? You’ve defended LOANS over providing free education for fuck’s sake. What exactly has been said here that makes you want me nowhere near anything? The fact that I oppose student loans, oppose poverty and oppose shit poverty wages that you’ve defended as being fine because “unskilled labour” ? Such horrific positions! Christ.
Everything you’re saying in argument with me is basically a tory talking point, which is entirely unsurprising for someone whose parents are landlord parasites. They’d be swimming to france post-revolution and saying the same shit about the new socialist briatin that the gusanos in florida currently say about Cuba.
Free education would be great. I am not saying I don’t want free education. All I actually did was challenge the notion that education is unattainable for the working class financially. Our student loan system in this country is much better than the system in the US which is downright predatory. Here even people from working class backgrounds can go to University provided they are smart enough. The vast majority of students loans in this country are never repaid in full or at all, it’s simply written off. Therefore it wouldn’t actually cost much more to give free tuition.
Something else you should probably understand is that almost all money is debt. Over 90% of it. The rich create a lot of their wealth this way. Student loans are another type of loan you can exploit to become richer in the long run. The difference is even poorer people can exploit this type of loan for their benefit rather than it being detrimental and predatory like payday loans or US student loans.
My parents don’t live in the UK anymore but I fully get what you are saying. They could indeed be called parasites and I have had a similar discussion with them about this. The thing you should probably understand though is they both came from poor single parent house holds where they struggled to afford proper food to eat (I remember my dad telling me about having blamonge on toast because they couldn’t afford anything else). Capitalism for all it’s flaws is a lot better in terms of social mobility than feudalism. Socialist models are actually worse in this department, though this need not be a bad thing if there is enough for everyone.
I don’t want anyone to have poverty wages. You on the other hand seem to want that when you talk about bullshit jobs and the people who work them. It’s not the people who work these jobs fault that those jobs exist. They go to work just like anybody else. I treat lesser skilled jobs better than you treat bullshit jobs, even though bullshit jobs aren’t the fault of people who work those jobs, wheras anybody can work to increase their skill level.
Edit: Also the middle class make up half or more of the working population according to some definitions. You’re saying that more than half workers shouldn’t be part of the socialist movement. Think about that before you answer.
Edit: Also the middle class make up half or more of the working population according to some definitions. You’re saying that more than half workers shouldn’t be part of the socialist movement. Think about that before you answer.
With the marxist definitions. Class is determined by your relationship to the mode of production, they are extremely specific because that is literally a requirement of doing anything scientific with them. A simple explanation is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/wiki/class/
I personally wrote the first iteration of that page when I was a moderator there.
Then why are you trying to call out “champagne socialists”? There are parts of the working class that have more than enough money to buy champagne and generally live a comfortable (or even affluent) lifestyle. There are even people who have made millions through labor alone, more rich than the petty-burgeoise. You’ve talked yourself into a contradiction.
I’ve also literally made the arguement that you are now making about working class not being how much you earn. I had to do this when someone tried to claim that programmers and police officers are not working class cause they earn too much. The difference is I don’t go around accusing people who work full time of being “champagne socialists” whatever that term means.
I called you a champagne socialist for being obviously full of shit, spending your time doing anti-communism with this “tankie” bollocks instead of actually trying to make the world better in any meaningful way. Not because some workers are high earners.
All this shit does is amount to actively punching left. All punching left does is move the political dial rightwards.
It used to be 100% free. When the country had less money than it does today. Oh and the railways we publicly owned. And the post office. And significantly more of the NHS. And the gas and water. And the rest. All at the same time. With less money.
I would not call it “amazing”. And you’re completely delusional if you think that the existence of student loans makes university accessible. Many people can not afford living expenses to make it work without familial support, which I’m glad you had but it’s not what many people have. It’s privileged.
Lol landlords are petite-bourgeoisie, not proles. The petite-bourgeoisie are in between workers and the bourgeoisie in that they both exploit and do some work because they are not yet exploiting enough to completely cease function as a worker. They’re also the biggest parasites on the planet.
I don’t know where you’ve got the impression that I think everyone should be paid equally. In my personal opinion wages should be based on how necessary to society they are. Essential workers would be paid vastly more while the vast quantity of bullshit jobs(read theory) would be paid the bullshit rates they deserve.
The region was prone to famines every 10 years for a thousand years. The soviets ended that permanently. Unfortunately mistakes were made with not having a secondary level of oversight, they over-trusted the reported numbers of grain given by the kulaks who were hording it for profit and it caused a famine that could have been avoided and later was once secondary checks were implemented.
Things will get worse before the revolution, not after it. Revolutions do not happen without a cause. Things get considerably better after them. What you’re missing is that things are getting worse NOW, they have been getting worse since 2008, they are continuing to get worse, there is absolutely nothing on the horizon that will make them better. Things are going to get worse. We will continue down this path until the conditions get bad enough for things to get very interesting. We are working to build renters union orgs up like Acorn that we believe will be fundamental to the future resistance as renters will outnumber homeowners in the near future, on top of the usual trade unionism, and the other stuff you simply can’t discuss online.
I can’t believe you actually think bullshit jobs are the fault of the workers. The whole point of bullshit jobs is that they are created by the inefficiencies of capitalism - not workers.
At no point was that ever said.
So why do you want to punish the workers with lower wages if it’s not their fault?
Where did I say that? Please quote me.
Denial isn’t going to get you anywhere
Ah I see what you’re getting at now. The point is to move the workforce from these roles to roles that are actually useful to society. As I mentioned before this is a process of development, not a magic button. It is not something that you necessarily have to do to existing workers, instead you apply it to future iterations of those roles and simply phase out the old ones.
If you know which jobs are bullshit then you don’t need to lower wages, you just eliminate the roles or at least stop hiring new people for them. None of this argument makes sense. I think you wanted to punish workers that did something you didn’t like and then got called out on it.
Also changing wages to encourage people into certain jobs is a capitalist economic technique. My idea of paying people for harder work (physical or intellectual work) is much closer to the socialist statement of “to each according to their labour”. Studying is a form of labour performed for free or even at cost to the person doing the labour. Higher wages for the educated are partially there to reflect this.
That’s hilarious because I have literally seen people do it. You’re the one who’s delusional. I know people who get less support from their rich family than they would have gotten from the government had their family been poor. It’s actually a problem with sliding scale student loans based on family income. What happens when you’re family can’t be assed supporting you?
So you actually want more income quality than I do by the sounds of it. Yet you call my ideas far-right? You’re supposed to get rid of bullshit jobs entirely in a revolution. So that’s not even a consideration. Besides that I think paying people who are educated or do more physical work or more dangerous work is reasonable. Getting a degree is worse than free labour; you pay them to do work! That work is repaid later by higher wages. Even making University free wouldn’t be enough as you still are putting in labour during you’re time and university and not earning any money for that time.
I really don’t want you anywhere near the leadership of a revolution. I think you’ve managed to clarify for me why I dislike Marxist-Leninists. You don’t actually think about anybody outside of the poorest in society and have no grasp on real life.
This is not scientific, this is utopian. Creating socialism isn’t a magic button we press, it is a process of development. You don’t have the proletariat take over control of the state and then magically press a button that makes everything bad go away and reorganise the country along perfect socialist lines. A process of building the productive forces is necessary while fitting in with the global system to avoid isolation (like cuba, dprk, etc have been). They will get eventually eliminated but not immediately.
Because why? Because you don’t like being called out as the middle class utopian champagne socialist from a petite-bourgeois background that you are? As the larper that pretends to be socialist while consistently taking right wing anti-worker talking points? You’ve defended LOANS over providing free education for fuck’s sake. What exactly has been said here that makes you want me nowhere near anything? The fact that I oppose student loans, oppose poverty and oppose shit poverty wages that you’ve defended as being fine because “unskilled labour” ? Such horrific positions! Christ.
Everything you’re saying in argument with me is basically a tory talking point, which is entirely unsurprising for someone whose parents are landlord parasites. They’d be swimming to france post-revolution and saying the same shit about the new socialist briatin that the gusanos in florida currently say about Cuba.
Free education would be great. I am not saying I don’t want free education. All I actually did was challenge the notion that education is unattainable for the working class financially. Our student loan system in this country is much better than the system in the US which is downright predatory. Here even people from working class backgrounds can go to University provided they are smart enough. The vast majority of students loans in this country are never repaid in full or at all, it’s simply written off. Therefore it wouldn’t actually cost much more to give free tuition.
Something else you should probably understand is that almost all money is debt. Over 90% of it. The rich create a lot of their wealth this way. Student loans are another type of loan you can exploit to become richer in the long run. The difference is even poorer people can exploit this type of loan for their benefit rather than it being detrimental and predatory like payday loans or US student loans.
My parents don’t live in the UK anymore but I fully get what you are saying. They could indeed be called parasites and I have had a similar discussion with them about this. The thing you should probably understand though is they both came from poor single parent house holds where they struggled to afford proper food to eat (I remember my dad telling me about having blamonge on toast because they couldn’t afford anything else). Capitalism for all it’s flaws is a lot better in terms of social mobility than feudalism. Socialist models are actually worse in this department, though this need not be a bad thing if there is enough for everyone.
I don’t want anyone to have poverty wages. You on the other hand seem to want that when you talk about bullshit jobs and the people who work them. It’s not the people who work these jobs fault that those jobs exist. They go to work just like anybody else. I treat lesser skilled jobs better than you treat bullshit jobs, even though bullshit jobs aren’t the fault of people who work those jobs, wheras anybody can work to increase their skill level.
Edit: Also the middle class make up half or more of the working population according to some definitions. You’re saying that more than half workers shouldn’t be part of the socialist movement. Think about that before you answer.
Liberal definitions.
How do you define if then?
With the marxist definitions. Class is determined by your relationship to the mode of production, they are extremely specific because that is literally a requirement of doing anything scientific with them. A simple explanation is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/wiki/class/
I personally wrote the first iteration of that page when I was a moderator there.
Then why are you trying to call out “champagne socialists”? There are parts of the working class that have more than enough money to buy champagne and generally live a comfortable (or even affluent) lifestyle. There are even people who have made millions through labor alone, more rich than the petty-burgeoise. You’ve talked yourself into a contradiction.
I’ve also literally made the arguement that you are now making about working class not being how much you earn. I had to do this when someone tried to claim that programmers and police officers are not working class cause they earn too much. The difference is I don’t go around accusing people who work full time of being “champagne socialists” whatever that term means.
I called you a champagne socialist for being obviously full of shit, spending your time doing anti-communism with this “tankie” bollocks instead of actually trying to make the world better in any meaningful way. Not because some workers are high earners.
All this shit does is amount to actively punching left. All punching left does is move the political dial rightwards.