Our society is deeply indoctrinated in capitalism

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1. Capitalism is bad until you look at the alternative.
   While not perfect millions have been moved out of poverty and given hope by this system
   It is in the hands of the people to improve and make fairer.

   1. If millions have been moved out of poverty, why is poverty growing in this country? These two things cannot be true at the same time, so one of these things must be false. And the stats produced in this country seem to show that poverty is growing in this country.

      1. Depends if you are considering absolute poverty or relative poverty.

         1. A lot of people feel quite satisfied with themselves even if their relatives are living in poverty, and think it’s their fault if they haven’t got sorted. And that’s their absolute last word.

      2. Trevor is talking about generalities. Yes, millions have seen their living conditions improved under capitalism. Third World living conditions lifted. Trickle down to the masses. The millions. But at the same time its very uneven, wherever one looks. Under capitalism some become very, very wealthy; others enable that wealth and skim the cream off the top; others are born into a world where inherited social capital enables them to play the system well; for others its a constant struggle to get ahead, as the saying goes, arguably because they simply don’t earn enough in the job market and/or have large families they cannot easily support; and for those at the very bottom of the system, well, it ain’t too good either. Of course that too is a a generalization. And let’s be frank, what’s changed since the 18th Century? From the middle ages? Same same but different? Except there’s a voice somewhere saying its all a hellava lot better for a good many, not only wealthy folk with capital.

         Without capitalism where would we be? Living with its precursor mercantile capitalism? Slavery? Still with feudalism – but at least with our own means of production – but praying there’s not a production failure due to inclement weather conditions, a potato blight, or some overlord who is taking it all to fight off enemies. State Socialism? Communism? A hybrid system of some kind?

         Perhaps what JM is getting at is that Capitalism (big C) – or is that a certain kind of Capitalism – has now become the default economic logic, globally, preceded over by the metaphors we now live by.

   2. So what are the alternatives you are talking about here Trevor, I am curious to know?

2. ‘Capitalism is bad until you look at the alternative.’
   Yes let us look at socialism as practised in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, The Netherlands and other countries that provide free health and affordable housing. This is paid for a system of taxation that means the burden is carried fairly.
   Let us look at Welfare State Socialism as practised in New Zealand and introduced by Labour governments that believed in ‘State Socialism’.
   Even under its reduced remnant today it means an elderly person with, for example, cancer receives free treatment at a public hospital( that this service is not now completely adequate or timely is actually the fault of capitalists in government who refuse a fair taxation system).
   Under orthodox capitalism such a person could receive charitable aid, or pay for medical treatment until funds run out or just die.
   Anyone who thinks I exaggerate should revisit the period when Jenny Shipley was Minister of Health and Ruth Richardson was Minister of Finance.
   1993′ Shipley was named minister of health; in this position she oversaw a number of reforms, including a requirement that hospitals and clinics earn a profit and several measures intended to lower the country’s abortion rate.’ Encyclopedia Britannica.
   Only medical professionals and their ethics prevented people with serious illnesses from being abandoned and left to die.

   However, if the coalition is re-elected we may yet see this done in the name of capitalism(something for you to look forward to Trevor)

   Likewise under orthodox capitalism A man who lost his job, had a sick wife and a family to support would be offered the choice of workhouse charity(where families were often separated) starvation or turning to crime. ‘ No Good deed goes unpunished’. New Zealand today is full of Paula Bennetts, John Keys, Trevors who were ,and still are, supported not by capitalism but socialism and remain hypocrites to the end.
   RESTORE STATE SOCIALISM IN AOTEAROA! DESTROY CAPITALISM!

   1. Good heavens.

   2. Good analysis. State socialism would be my like. If it means I am one of those having to pay more tax, then I will. This whole promotion of private hospitals is a nonsense, everybody knows if something goes wrong with an operation the patient is moved into the public holidays. No one with a heart attack goes to a private hospital! I wish it were like the NHS that does not allow doctors etc to work in part of both private and public.

3. “many on the left are indoctrinated as well”. Yes, although the contemporary left’s preferred ideology is “white man, bad”.

4. Yes, it’s true that those countries redistribute wealth — but that wealth has to be created first. You cannot redistribute what you do not produce. Wealth comes from making goods and services, whether through manufacturing, agriculture, natural resources, or other high-value industries.

   Norway funds its generous welfare state largely through oil and gas revenues. New Zealand, by contrast, actively baulks at exploiting its own oil and gas resources, having effectively shut down new exploration. Historically, NZ built it built its prosperity on massive agricultural exports to the UK, which is why it ranked among the richest countries in the world by the 1950s.

   Regardless of whether an economy is labelled “capitalist” or “socialist”, it must be productive if it is to sustain living standards. As Elon Musk puts it, you have to make stuff to get stuff. The real issue is not ideology, but whether a society has the institutions and incentives needed to actually produce wealth — and only then decide how to distribute it.

   1. Well said. Scandinavia has never been “socialist” – they have a mixed economy with a vigorous productive sector (making high-value goods), and high taxes to fund strong public services.

   2. If NZ has lots of oil and gas it would have been found by now. The issue is that too many businesses rely on high margins instead of high productivity to survive so we have a high cost low productivity economy as a result. The clowns at Fonterra decided that adding value was too hard and took a quick profit instead although you can be sure that they will eventually lose from it as bulk milk prices eventually collapse.

   3. What useful necessary thing does Eion Musk make? Whatever it is let’s all make it and get rich like him. Because getting rich is what we were born to do and the highest achievement we can manage, money is the magic beans, and that’s the answer to lif, eh! All the pondering and soul-searching and reaching to the heights of achievement of the accumulating centuries, using the superior intellect we have comes down to getting money and climbing up on other people’s bodies?

5. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, The Netherlands…. All capitalist counties lol. Jeez some brain dead among us. They just happen to have higher taxes (not that much higher) and a better funded social safety net. Helps they have less intergeneration dropkicks of course.

   1. Why do some of these countries have fewer intergeneration dropkicks. As someone who is deeply opposed to the concept of prisons then I looked at what the Nordic countries do with their prisoners. Everyone has to work for a trade certificate, everyone has to have drug counselling, mental counselling. Prisons are an extraordinary waste of money and people. People are plonked there for idiotic ‘crimes’. We need 1 prison for the whole country, or small prisons in every centre. These would cater for the murderers, rapists and some others who will never be cured of their urges e.g. paedophiles. Long term some of these people would live in self contained flats on a prison compound, looking after themselves and leading relatively normal lives without being able to carry out their urges. We have a totally uninformed view of paedophiles. I assume that people who are attracted to abusing children in this way have a brain wiring issue. A bit like an addiction I expect.

      Then we have the oxymoron of the military who train in hate theory so that wherever you are sent to shoot others you by then believe that they are evil. Not hard for governments and their state controlled arms to get all this across.

      Imagine all of these people post getting support for a trade and counselling etc. instead of 2 years lock up cleaning our rivers picking up litter and many other things. Prisons have little to do with rehabilitation, respect, kindness etc.

      Thanks Stephen, excellent post.

      1. I agree that prisons should only be used for public safety – rapists, paedophiles, violent offenders, murderers, drug traffickers, and perhaps our worst white collar criminals.

         Petty thieves and burglars who are not violent should not be imprisoned but made to do community service. Violent criminals, and I mean people who beat up people unprovoked should ALWAYS be imprisoned. People who randomly attack women unprovoked should be in prison a huge length of time. People who get in a scrap – that is a different thing, it should be community service.

         1. Simple really when you look quickly at crime and punishment. And women who get attacked, unprovoked. How do we deal with the problem when the woman is provoking?

            If we really care we will help each person from childhood to extend themselves and find their own gifts, and as adults help them to use their gifts for their own or state, community benefit and be paid to the extent they can live adequately and have their own place to feel secure in. That would cut a lot of smaller law breaking and leave the field for the rich and grasping.

            1. You are talking of an ideal. Compared to most countries in the world people in NZ are already extremely wealthy. Regardless the wealth of a country or how well people are looked after, statistically there will always be psychos, and rapists and murderers and paedophiles. Society needs protection from them.

         2. In monetary terms white colour criminals are the worst and yet little money is poured into ensuring that they are made to pay for all their frauds which cost this country millions. Personally I would like to see them cleaning our rivers and painting pensioners cottage.

   2. And they exploit their natural oil and gas resources (Norway), and make and sell shitloads of stuff. Only then can you have a decent social safety net. And some of that wealth of course comes from imperial exploitation – legacy wealth and advantage.

      That is why developing countries are desperate to, well, develop. That is the priority. Without development you simply cannot magic a first world public health system where a single dose of cancer drug is 10 or 20 years the earnings of an average person.

      Development and building and making stuff, a thriving economy, is the prerequisite to a ‘better funded social safety net’. Places like Singapore understood this well, they poured everything into developing their economy, while at the same time excellent social policies have meant the vast majority of their people are properly housed, with excellent medical care.

      1. That is why developing countries are desperate to, well, develop
         Not sure about that, if developing is allowing the US to come in and steal your resources. What countries has the US done this too and continues to do?
         Many many many – the bullies of the world.

         I think Singapore relies on lots of cheap labour – this is a problem that we have also.

6. Much of your article is based on a call-to-an-expert: “John Maynard Keynes thought government expenditure should be about 70 or 80% of GDP”.

   I cannot find the quote anywhere, and a search of the interweb suggests that he did not prescribe government spending as a percentage of GDP. Instead, the government should have a counter-cyclical spending policy: surpluses in good times and deficits in bad. Politicians seem to forget about the surplus part……or horror, horror -austerity.

7. Isms that is what we are indoctrinated in.   Not nation-managing practicalities drawing in all citizens who get the chance to be reliable decision makers after studying on the requirements and gaining knowledge of drains, arts, hamlets (small self-sufficient suburbs with work and amenities close at hand to housing with some green areas for fun and nature), transport, advanced study opportunities and close halls of learning, meeting rooms – perhaps added to free libraries, repair shops, trade and practical training courses buildings,  etc etc    Not large buildings fanciful shaped, costing millions that we won’t have in these days and reciting smartly the old adage – Build the whatever and the people will come’.  Stuff that, the people involved may do a great job, but they don’t have to wait to be paid themselves, and perhaps the people can’t afford the prices required to pay for using the thing.   

   Kiwis have been pretentious since the start I think.   What we did ourselves was always disdained.   Now, embrace our weirdness, enjoy it and those who don’t like our home-made are just tossers.   Give them the finger, mentally of course. Start with the requirements and make people work at being a citizen and having a vote.   Humans are too tricky at getting into places of some power, doesn’t have to be much, and then they start pulling a fast one on those who seem a bit dim.  Admit it that’s how we often are, not us personally of course.  

   Building a society of knowledgable, strong-minded and amiable people would make NZAO a great place to live and anything we didn’t have we could manage without by working together, or find a way to get one.  Please note that at the present time, the aim seems to be to stop people from being capable, and to make it hard to know the facts – the algorithm will work out the cost of sending your parcel if you enter the h,l,d, and weight.   That is what I found when I wanted actual charges  and size limits so I could work it out myself.  It’s a common thing, citizen groups are discouraged from caring about some service, volunteering, in favour of contracting work out to some overseas franchise etc. Retired people on a honorarium would enjoy having a small say and involvement. Perhaps the machine and bike fans could do more conserving, planting, instead of ruining hills making them unstable with tracks.

8. Jesus H christ did anyone read the article? He says we should decide what to do by learning from the past, facing real problems and imbalances, and not lose ourselves in ideological directions or pipe dreams of any kind as if there is no alternative. You know, keep it real, stay awake, don’t disappear up our own buttholes. Therefore, a mixed economy to suit our conditions. How hard is that? The rest of you argue “yes but if we can’t fuck everyone over right now we must go back to an earlier stage of fuckwittery!” READ THE ARTICLE

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