worryingly jolly batman

Sociology isn't taught by rich people?

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crying into my raspberry licorice here.

rant ranty rant. yup yup it is, but.

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Yea, I can get quite emotional on this subject too, but it usually makes me angry, not sad. Ah, traditional gender roles...

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It makes me angry that I get sad, does that count?

And: People, they are stoopid. Goddamnit.

Me, when I try to argue about this sort of stuff, my brain goes red and fuzzy, and I can't form a sentence. Thus I can't argue effectively at all, and I feel frustrated and pathetic. Which makes me angrier, and so it goes on...

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shoeless-girl.livejournal.com

Hayley? Word, mcwordy word.

Tui? I'm sorry you have stupids living with you :(

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they're alright normally. just every time they open their mouths about politics I just ---! and half the time her boy is just winding me up which PISSES me OFF and doesn't he get that it's RUDE and CRUEL. But obvioiusly not.

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I just get angry (Hugh made me cry! But not actually.) and frustrated and start shouting, which is useless because I am confident and I know my arguments but if I shout, nobody is listening. But the thing is, I can keep my voice down if my opposition has half a brain/has studied philosophy/etc. But this was just... nnngh.

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They're not really stupid, they've just absorbed the unemployed-bashing that seems to pervade this society on every level. And they doubtless know a few examples to back them up.

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yeah. they're actually quite bright, which makes it worse, because they can be more confident and they back themselves up - they can convince themselves they're right, whereas people who aren't confirmed in their own intelligence are normally ready to admit they're wrong...

... the above sounds really horrible. Um. I just mean sometimes bright people can be real assholes.

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whereas people who aren't confirmed in their own intelligence are normally ready to admit they're wrong...

Big steaming pile of BS, IMO! From my own experience of the world, I have come to the interim conclusion that people who have no clue what they're talking about are the most confident, stubborn sons-of-bitches you'll meet.

Which is not to say that I disagree that bright people can be real arseholes, but so can everyone. It's just that we, as bright people, choose to be around more bright people when we can, and so are exposed to their arsehattery more often.

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Haha, yeah, you may be right. The kinds of people - guys, mostly - I'm thinking of are the ones who have spent their whole lives being told by teachers and parents and friends how brilliant they are, normally born into wealthy families, who just cannot... argh, I hate them so much, even the ones who agree with me. Every now and then I get a moment of terror that I'm one, but then I think no, I question myself, I'm just loud.

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Stupid. Uncritical, a little ignorant, possibly very bright and good people in other areas, but on this point? Stupid.

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oh, no, I was angry. You made me cry!

In an intendedly humourous, no-actual-tears involved way. :P It was more whimpering. But there was actual raspberry licorice, always a plus IMO.

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I lose at humour.

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aw. *pats on head*

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Raspberry licorice FTW! :D

I'm glad Hugh didn't actually make you cry. ;)

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Me too, heh. :P

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disturbed-kiwi.livejournal.com

That Four Weeks holiday thing is insane. RE: most recent listener where we see that we are one of the most overworked countries around. Check the article and what it lists as expected holidays in some european places.

I am finding it really scary recently, there's heaps of 'God Helen is killing us' going around and I keep wanting to say What The F-?

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I know right. :-/ I just think it's too much of a good thing, people forget how good they have it right now.

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disturbed-kiwi.livejournal.com

Dylan Moran was talking about people he didn't like and some bastard yelled out something about "taking down Helen." At first he made simple guy in drag jokes but seemed to decide that he didn't like the way there was an air of appreciation greeting it so he switched to, if you don't like her don't expect him to do something about it because 'you voted for her'. The idea that it was something we had chosen actually seemed to go down well too, so I don't know what that really means...

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bad-mushroom.livejournal.com

Waugh. This stuff pisses me off so much too. At least you guys are somewhat liberal, though. Look at America, I have to live here.

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You have to? ;) No place is perfect, anyway.

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bad-mushroom.livejournal.com

I have to; I'm a minor and still live with my parents.

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Aw, honey. :-/ It's a hard time to be a liberal in America. There are so many of you, but also so many conservatives, and I really feel for you all. But every time a liberal leaves America it gets that bit more dangerous IMO, so I hope you all stick around awhile.

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bad-mushroom.livejournal.com

I hope so too...I hope I have the perserverence to do so after college, too XD.

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sixth-light.livejournal.com

These are people who don't work, right? Or they'd realise how important that stuff is for the poor bastards (i.e., us) on minimum wage.

Or maybe they just are that stupid. *shrugs*

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Not sure - Mark might work, I don't know. But they're both civil engineering students and I looked at them and I said, I don't know where you come from but I know where you're going and you're not going to be labourers and you're not going to clean toilets and you're not going to work in a shop that's open 365 days in a year, so how can you say what's right or wrong for workers? (And pretty sure neither of them exactly come from Morningside.) And he was all, but my dad only takes 3 weeks holiday (yeah, but your dad doesn't work in a shop) and she said, but it's hard for small businesses and I said, my dad runs a small business and votes labour so suck it, bitch! Except a little more tactfully.

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sixth-light.livejournal.com

My dad doesn't take a lot of holidays either. But there is a HUGE difference between being in charge of your own business and well-off, and knowing that you can take a holiday whenever it's convenient for you, and earning less than the average wage and having kids and having to ask for your annual leave months in advance and then sometimes not getting it because they need you to work over the school holidays anyway. Yeah, it can be tough for small businesses, but it's generally less tough than being a minimum wage slave. I somehow don't think my dad would swap his problems for the problems of someone working at the supermarket who gets four weeks guaranteed annual leave!

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So, if I understand your position correctly, you're arguing that the New Zealand state should increase the cost of labour within its borders, and, that this will improve standards of living within New Zealand.

Given that firms will move their operations offshore in response to this policy (as, in fact, they already are), is there any reason to think that increasing unemployment will improve standards of living?

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you're arguing that the New Zealand state should increase the cost of labour within its borders, and, that this will improve standards of living within New Zealand.

That is correct. It is my opinion that the minimum wage should reflect living costs. And with reference to your second "point" I will note that the minimum wage has increased, and unemployment has decreased, over the past several years.

Furthermore, the example countries, such as USA or post-Industrial Revolution Britain, which have chosen to minimise labour costs (and tax, and restrictions on business, and so forth) saw and are seeing a dramatic increase in poverty and in a very large underclass. I am more concerned with their living conditions than with the living conditions of the middle class and business owners.

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I will note that the minimum wage has increased, and unemployment has decreased, over the past several years.

Is this meant to show that firms will not move overseas in the face of increased labour costs (of which the minimum wage is only one component)? Or are you simply noting that capital has yet to flee in sufficient quantities to seriously affect employment? The former is inconsistent with the evidence, while the latter is no defence of your position.

(I don't mean to suggest that these are the only lines that you might take. It's quite possible that I am suffering from a failure of imagination in attempting to reconstruct the whole melody from just one note. If so, please accept my apologies.)

For the rest, I don't have any commitment to defending the policies of the national bourgeoisie in the United States or United Kingdom, or for that matter, in New Zealand. My criticism of your position comes from the internationalist left: what you are putting forward is an unrealistic solution (if it's any solution) to the problems faced by working class people, because it's insensitive to the global situation.
If the one country solution is to work, it has to be able to deal with the hard fact of the global labour market, the pitiless logic of the profit system, and the outlook of international finance. As far as I can tell, your response to these factors is non-existent. Forget the ability of production capital to move away - they haven't yet. Don't worry about the profit system - morality is what really matters. And the IMF? Well, I guess the retort will be something along the lines of, "How many divisions do they have?"

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Or are you simply noting that capital has yet to flee in sufficient quantities to seriously affect employment? [this] is no defence of your position.

Actually I think it's quite a reasonable defence. Since they have not yet fled, what reason is there to suggest that they will? - I will also note my opposition to entirely free trade and what is IMO a dramatically unfair globalisation. Which is what I think you're referring to when you talk about the global situation?

I'm not going to respond to your comments on the profit system because I don't take economics and I probably do not have a good understanding of it. But I will say that if you're asking me whether I think sustaining the abilities of businesses to make very large profits is less important than sustaining the abilities of the working class (and, on a global scale, the extremely poor) to be educated and to live well, then, er, yup.

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Since they have not yet fled, what reason is there to suggest that they will?

Actually, production capital is fleeing New Zealand (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU0704/S00396.htm). For the reason to think that this trend will continue, this (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU0704/S00410.htm) is indicative.

I will also note my opposition to entirely free trade and what is IMO a dramatically unfair globalisation. Which is what I think you're referring to when you talk about the global situation?

I don't understand what you think is unfair about globalisation. This process is a great leveller, bringing the conditions of the proletariat into a more uniform scheme internationally; it's actually progressive in so far as it proletarianises the middle classes of the developed world, and erodes the economic basis of reactionary nationalism. To put that more clearly, I believe that globalisation, even though it allows for the extraction of super-profits from the labour of the working class, also acts to swell their numbers and increase their consciousness, while weakening the bourgeois state that defends capitalism.

Still, let me grant "unfairness" for a moment. If this is reason for action, what sort of action does it inspire? From the sort of things you're saying, it seems that you just want to undo globalisation - but what would that involve? After all, the process is simply the sum of the actions of economic agents under conditions in which production capital is disaggregated and highly mobile.

Short of some kind of "great leap backwards", it's not possible to remove the technological underpinnings of globalisation; even if such a programme was desireable, I hardly think it's plausible. Alternatively, one might try to make production capital immobile through political means. That's not totally implausible, except that any state undertaking this action would be utterly unattractive for international investors. (In the worst case, the IMF would block access to credit, which is a deathblow for any bourgeois regime.)

Now, if you think that the way to go is to change the economic system, then I tend to agree - except that, without global capitalism, it's hard to what's wrong with globalisation! (If the means of production are owned collectively by the human race, then the disaggregation and mobility of capital simply grease the wheels of planned production.)

I'm not going to respond to your comments on the profit system because I don't take economics and I probably do not have a good understanding of it. But I will say that if you're asking me whether I think sustaining the abilities of businesses to make very large profits is less important than sustaining the abilities of the working class (and, on a global scale, the extremely poor) to be educated and to live well, then, er, yup.

That's not really what I'm saying.

I bring up the profit system because it is the central pillar of capitalism. It doesn't require a substantive understanding of bourgeois economics to see that firms will tend to seek to maximise their profits, and that this will tend to drive the cost of labour to the lowest possible level (i.e. the cost of replacement). Now, as should be quite clear from the above, I'm not defending this on any grounds: I'm simply saying that morality does not, and cannot, sway this sort of behaviour. Firms that pay wages above the cost of replacment are at a substantial disadvantage relative to their competitors, no matter how much praise they attract.

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