Comments on: Is this as good as it gets?

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:39:59 +0000

One possible answer to the last paragraph may be that “You can’t vote the rascals out, because you never voted them in, in the first place”. The sequence of events of the last 30 years are that of capital pressure on governments locally, and internationally. I know this I’m hugarian. I have lost one country already. We can’t pressure such a vote to take place, because we don’t have capital that governments are competing to accomodate, like the multinational corps do. The politicians are in no stronger position than us.

If they decide to crack down with taxes on the rich, the rich in turn can threaten, or actually take their business to Aus, for instance, or worse, have the World Bank’s MIGA arm put mighty pressure on the NZ government. They clearly have a better hand of cards than the people.

One reasons why national solutions are off the table for us, the 90%, worldwide.

By: sean14

sean14 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:58:01 +0000

Closing down golf courses?

By: Rich

Rich — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:30:25 +0000

Wrong – I’m a high earner and I wouldn’t.

How come the many wealthy Swedes don’t “up and leave”?

Besides, if the many wealthy parasites left (having been made to pay an appropriate level of tax on their wealth before being allowed out), others would take over running their businesses.

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:44:29 +0000

Most New Zealanders have a reasonably comfortable standard of living, so they feel no need to question capitalism. Capitalism is preferred by the rich.

I predict that in a few hundred years when poverty hits a much larger proportion of our country there will be a greater movement towards a socialist economic system.

Look at what poor countries in South America (eg. Venezuela) are doing now, this is what will happen to us in a few hundred years.

It took us 1000 years to get out of the middle ages and it will take a similar amount of time for us to realise capitalism doesn’t work.

By: The Good Oil: Blast the Right at The Standard

The Good Oil: Blast the Right at The Standard — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:30:00 +0000

[...] Hattip: Harpoon [...]

By: Sam

Sam — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:19:22 +0000

I love it when people who have absolutely no idea what they are talking about carry on as if they do, attempting to command some sort of “daddy knows best” ideal of right wing dominance.

Read a book.

By: Ag

Ag — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:00:17 +0000

What’s wrong with the Scandinavians? They’ve had a higher standard of living than most other countries for years.

They must be doing something right.

By: Gosman

Gosman — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:13:23 +0000

I love it when you ask leftists to articulate their alternative to the ‘evils’ of Capitalism.

You tend to get the responses falling into two main camps.

The first is the social democratic managed capitalism group who think you can just keep the current system but somehow control it via strict controls and the welfare state. People who advocate this approach hold up the Scandanavian countries as the ideal.

The other group is those who think that the entire system is rotten and you need to replace it with something better. This something is the rather vague and utopian ideas of Socialism.

I actually have a bit of sympathy for those who fall in to the second camp. They are at least not hypocritical when they decry Capitalism. However the alternatives they propose are of course ‘pie in the sky’ stuff.

By: The myth of upward mobility at The Standard

The myth of upward mobility at The Standard — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:02:07 +0000

[...] we looked at what a vastly unfair and unequal system capitalism [...]

By: Jenny

Jenny — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:39:25 +0000

Apparently capitalism is also falling apart, but like communism I think it needs a little push to finish it off completely.

By: Harpoon

Harpoon — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:27:22 +0000

Thanks. It’s not mine, though; it’s Jack Clark’s — he’s a most excellent agorophobic lefty podcaster — subscribe at http://www.therationalradical.com/podcast.html

By: SHG

SHG — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:23:36 +0000

If such a tax system were implemented, all the high-earners left in NZ would up and leave.

Thus the govt of the day would have fewer tax dollars coming in, meaning that “free” this and “nationalised” that and “publicly funded” whatever would never happen.

By: SHG

SHG — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:21:10 +0000

No-one dismantled communism. It fell apart.

By: the sprout

the sprout — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:34:47 +0000

nicely put

By: Harpoon

Harpoon — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:30:13 +0000

” … is the reason that the capitalists have won and are still winning is that they are the most aggressive and greedy members of our society, while we are too weak and subservient to fight back?”

Folks, everything rightists do is done to achieve one of two things, ether
(a) move money from the rest of the population to the already rich, or
(b) distract the rest of the population from the fact that (a) is happening.