The Question

Should the tax payers be providing loans and bailouts for companies that for all intents and purposes have failed?

The fact is that we live in a capitalist system and we should therefore abide by the rules of the game. Its shouldn't be a case of proclaiming the system as the obvious way forward when things are going well and then making excuses with words such as "unprecedented" and "extraordinary" when its shown to be the sham that it really is.

One big advantage of a capitalist method of production over a planned economy is that its fairly easy to tell if a product is being overproduced. The selling price falls and falls quickly and then company goes bye bye. Well correct me if I'm wrong but the sea of cars and flat screen T.V's in production yards all over the country (and the world!) are screaming "I'm being over produced and the world doesn't need me!". The onus has been placed on the consumer to buy buy buy! Surely it should be on the producers to make that which is required. That is what is supposed to be good about the capitalist system.

Maybe people are starting to realise the difference between what they need and what they want. My car is ten years old and is owned outright by me. Its done 96K and provided I look after it it will do another 96K. Why the hell would I want to buy a brand new car for £10K or more??!! Should I buy a new one so I can be the youngish to middle age suave professional with an attractive wife, two kids and a Labrador in the adverts? Should I buy one so I can be the young kid with all his mates + blond piece in the back arriving at the party?? Its all fucking nonsense. I know people with a beautiful house and car but have an empty fridge and are constantly juggling bills. So much for the lifestyle promised in the advert. They would never admit it but what would they give to "downsize" the house and get a banger of a car. I would imagine they would give up their house and car. Pity about the falling house prices and car depreciation. They are now stuck. Same story for hundreds of thousands in this country.

The reason that these goods were produced was because people could "afford" them via cheap credit. Now the credit is not available, people cant afford them. Further to that, people wanted them because they thought it would make them look more successful but, and more importantly, it made them FEEL successful. What they were buying was not a 42"flat screen but an idea, a lifestyle, a myth.

So what about a possible planned economy or at least a majority nationalised manufacturing industry. This is happening to a degree at the minute. "Loans" to car companies, bank bailouts and greater regulation.

It is possible for all those who want a job to have one. It all goes back to my earlier post (means of production) about men being paid the true value of their labour and also producing goods which society needs and not wants. True needs are absolute. One needs the goods/service or they don't. Wants can be generated, manipulated and abused.

The hard part is deciding what is a need and what is a want because in truth needs and wants are different for different people. An example of what I would call "true" needs are food and water. Death occurs without them. "Wants" are T.Vs, computers, designer sofa's etc. Arr but things like computers lead to the advancement of mankind you may say. Well it leads to the "advancement" of the minority of mankind and leaves the rest drinking disease ridden water and fighting for bags of rice thrown from UN trucks.

It must surely be dawning on our nation that for the last 25 years we have been taken for one ride after another following Thatchers disastrous "reforms". Deregulation in the money markets and the destruction of industry has made this country ripe for ruin.

Apparently we were supposed to lose the smokey dirty industries and become an exporter of financial services. How the hell can a country export financial services? Countries export goods. Things you can touch and use. The smug bastards sat at the top of their trees spewing nonsense about how their "wages" were justified by magical performance on the markets ad infinitum. Well now we can see just how "magical" they really were. They were magical in the true sense of the word, with sleight of hand and puff of smoke they were criminally defrauding banks, governments, individuals and anyone intoxicated enough to be blinded by the promise of easy money.

The current crisis could have even more devastating impacts on our society than even the Iron Bitch.

Another Reply From Councillor Waudby

Here it is copied and pasted exactly as I received it.

"if you want these answers come to the forums and I will give you the answers I am not up for 4 years if you were in my ward you would have known what I have been doing for the last 20 years sheila"

Here is my response.

"Thanks for the reply Sheila. I do live in the marfleet ward (parthian) and I have no idea what you have been doing for the last 20 years. Neither does anybody else that I know. This may explain why the turnout at your election victory was a meagre 17.8 percent.

I would have thought it would be easier for you to e-mail me the answers rather than discuss it at forum.

Anyway as you have promised to answer my questions I am more than happy to come to your 4th Friday meeting at Marfleet Village Hall or a Saturday at 430 holderness road if you could tell me when your next saturday attendance will be. No appointment necessary I presume.

Kind Regards."

I felt her response was at best haughty and at worst evasive. Her election was probably based on the old adage that East Hullers would vote for a monkey so long as it was wearing a red rosette.

I am, however, happy to play her game for now. I am interested to see if she will give answers to my questions or will try to fob me off.

UPDATE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I received this response 2 hours later.

"well you where wrong there my vote went up and we have only been looking after your area for about 2 years"

First things first. I am no English teacher and am known to make spelling and grammar errors. But the shocking English skills being displayed by Councillor Waudby and Councillor Petch are beyond the pale.

Here is my response.

"As you can see from this link http://www.hullcc.gov.uk/portal/page?_pageid=221,588255&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL the turnout was indeed 17.8 percent. Poor by any ones standards. These are official council figures from the HCC website.

Do you know which Saturday you will be available at 430 Holderness road to answer my questions as promised?

Kind regards

Rob D."

Update-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She still hasn't answered any of my questions but she may be about to. Anyway this is the latest that she sent.

I never break promises I said I would send them and I will but if you are realy interested you could go into the back issues of the daily mail around 1976 80 you will see what I did in the n u p e union A was in the press a lot fighting for the school meals"

My reply

"Please dont misunderstand me. I'm not trying to critisise you or undermine any of your accomplishments in anyway. I am only interested in your answers to the questions that I asked. The reason for this is that I feel that many of them are relevent to the the labour party and I want to know more about my local councillors.

Kind regards"

I felt that a conciliatory reply may induce the required answers. We shall see.

A reply from councillor Petch (The top photo on my question or 2 post)

I just recieved this reply from councillor Petch.

"Hello,

Thank you for your questions which you have e-mailed me.

Whilst you have asked for my help in ...(.who to choose to vote for in the next election,)...while I am very flattered that you have asked me,which is very commendable that you care so much

to put in so much time and effort to mail me on such a matter, however ,I am not sure if you aware that in fact I am not standing in the next election, it actually is Councillor Sean Chaytor,

also if I were I would have to follow the Labour Party Manifesto of which I'm bound by as a Labour Party member ,therefore, as you are enquiring specifically for "my thoughts" this would in

fact be as per the manifesto,as I represent the Labour Party.

Kind Regards,

Brenda Petch."

I have copied and pasted it exactly as I recieved it. It is poorly written and I find it very difficult to read (and I also suspect she is trying to be patronising) but I think it basically condenses to this. She is frightened to deviate from any party line and so states that her views and aims are the same as that of the party manifesto. An all too familiar position I feel. No wonder people don't vote.

I wonder if she even knows what clause IV is/was.

The standard of councillors (In my city anyway) needs to seriously improve. We need people with vision and the courage of their convictions.

We don't need people who have no imagination or who just tow the party line. We don't need people like Brenda Petch.

Anyway,this is my e-mailed reply to her.

"Thank you for your reply Councillor Petch.

It would appear from what you are saying that you don't actually represent those that voted for you. You do what the party tells you to. A disturbing and all too familiar position at all levels of politics. I am pleased that you won't be standing next time because this city needs less party lap dogs and more dynamic and intelligent councillors."

I'm sure she isn't bothered. Shes collected her "wages" over the years and off she goes.

A reply from Councillor Waudby

Here is a reply I recieved after pressing councillor Waudby on the questions I sent (A question or 2 post) last week. I would say that its a good enough reason for a delayed answer.

"My husband haas just died I will get back to you soon sheila".

Prescience

I talked about this issue only yesterday "A reply to KB".

Now the BBC are echoing exactly what I was saying about big pharma companies.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7754048.stm

Enjoy.

Imagine

Imagine if all work in the world was carried out by machines. The machines made other machines and other machines serviced and operated where necessary all machines. No Human being ever did anything which not could be considered leisure.

I will define a machine as something that only does work and has no conscious needs or wants of its own. A purely inanimate object.

How much would the product of the machines "labour" cost?

The answer must surely be nothing! You are not paying anybody for their labour time. No compensation is needed! The machines are machines. They do not care if they have money in the bank or not. If they did what would they do with it?

Assuming an entrepreneur or businessman or shareholders owned these machines then how do they make any money? They can't!! Money would not exist. Nobody is getting compensated for the time spent toiling away in a factory/office. Nobody gets paid and so nobody can spend money they haven't got. There is no value added to a product by humans and so nothing for the business owners to cream off from the hourly rate(as explained in the means of production post).

Great!

This seems like a good idea.

Problem. Some people always want more than others. Its more than just the material wealth. It's the status and power, they need it for some reason.

Therefore in my alternate reality the "Wealthy" people would be those that controlled the machines and the "working class" not with money but with guns.

Maybe capitalism isn't so bad?

Bonus points if you can name that game.

A reply to KB

The people being greedy point is a good one Kev.

I think your viewing the problem from a capitalist slant which is understandable.

Q .Why do we need more advanced machinery?

A. To make the product cheaper to produce and increase profit.

Q. If we paid all our workers (In a co-operative set up as mentioned in my post) a reasonable wage or simply returned to them the value they add to the product then why do we need to increase profit? There are no shareholders to keep happy, only ourselves.

The R&D question is one of necessity. New innovations would come about from a social perspective rather than a commercial one.

As an example think about your T.V. Over the years the picture has got better, the style has become more appealing the screen has got flatter, new storage devices for recordings have appeared etc etc. The advances would be quite astonishing
to people only 10 years ago. The R&D that goes into these projects exists because the company wants to sell you an item that you are going to throw away in 5 years in order to buy the next one.

Yeah well all that's good stuff you might say.

Well its a shame that the advancements in consumer electricals cannot be matched by advances in cures for cancers, heart disease etc etc.

Ask any man who is going to die tomorrow if he'd swap all of that stylish Sony crap for a cure to his illness.

Yet cancer research, and other disease research relies largely on charity!

The kind of commercial (Big Pharma companies) research that goes into drugs at the minute produces drugs that are very expensive and come with effectiveness studies which have had their figures scuffed in favour of drug effectiveness.

The expense can come from the time taken to bring a drug to market because of lengthy trials which rightly need to be carried out.

Therefore companies are not going to try for the really hard solutions which may become the cure for everything because of the risk of failure and wasted investment. Easier to go for the safe drug which is likely to pass trials.

Also when these drugs are invented they have a 10 year patent. This makes the drugs ridiculously expensive and forces NHS patients to go without. A drugs company I recently worked for were persuing a legal case in india to try and stop them making generics (The same drug manufactured by someone else usually sold for a fraction of the cost of the original). So people die when the drug exists to save them. All in the name of profit.

You may say that the company deserves maximum return for bringing the drug to market. I say that people deserve to live instead of being held to ransom

A planned economy could make a conscious choice to pursue these things at the cost of consumerist garbage. If push came to shove people would bin their i-pod nanos in a milli second in favour of a cure to their illness. Their free market sympathies would be flushed down their designer bog.

A question or 2

I have decided to ask my local labour councilors a couple of questions via E-mail. Well actually I have sent them via e-mail to 2 of them because the other one has no e-mail address listed. Perhaps he hopes people can't be bothered to write to his home address. He thinks wrong. The questions are dropping onto his welcome mat via snail mail any time soon.

Here are the questions.

You are a member of a labour council and are our councillor and so we would like you to tell us what your thoughts are regarding these points.

1. What is your stance on the abolition of clause IV?

2. What is your stance on the notion of a society in which equal opportunity is a reality and what are you doing to help make it a reality?

3. What is your feeling about the idea of nationalisation of British Industry?

4. How do you feel about trade union membership and what do you feel the benefits of a trade union are?



5. Is the minimum wage enough?

6. How do you think the gap between rich and poor can be narrowed and what policies do you support to make this happen?

7. Are you a full time councillor or do you have another job with an income? What is your wage as a councillor and how do you manage to give all the time that is required to be a councillor if you have another job.

8. Your address is listed on the council website as Foredyke Nursery, Wawne Road, Sutton, Kingston upon Hull, HU7 5YS. Why don't you live in your constituency area?

9. The council website says you entered council in 1988. Is this an unbroken stint or have you been a councillor since 1988?

10. Why do you feel you are the right person to act on my behalf in council?



Obviously one or two of the questions were modified for each different councillor.
There are many more I would have liked to ask but I cynically believe that they probably won't answer many if any of the ones I have sent anyway.

Their answers will of course be posted just as soon as I recieve them.

The Means of Production.

After some discussion (on the previous post's comments page) with KB I decided to wikipedia class to see what it had to say.

I am pleased to see that it broadly reflected what I had to say with regard to the definition of class. KB raised many pertinent points which I believe are exactly the type of question the man on the street would ask when the problem of class is posed.

One major contribution to a person's class status which I have overlooked (Which is strange, as I am always lecturing my work mates about surplus value and commodity exchange values) is their relationship toward the means of production.

A person who owns the means of production controls all of the profit and decides how to use that profit. Usually they decide to use it to pay themselves nice fat wage slips. They decide what to pay the workers and how to invest.

In effect the owner of the means of production owns the producers (workers). This goes some way to explaining some of behaviours I describe in the "Technical hierarchical superiority does not in any way infer a social hierarchical equivalence" post.

The question is :- Why do the owners of the means of production get paid such vastly different sums to those whose labour is used to actually produce?

What if the workers owned the means of production? Why does it have to be owned by a few individuals in the corporation or by the shareholders? Think about it.

Where do these owners actually get the profit from in order to pay their own wages/dividends?? I'm glad you asked.

We will use a Liquid pharmaceutical product as an example.

First we must consider why the bourgeoisie, (to borrow a term) need to employee anybody in the first place. After all these employees are just an annoying cost that the employer constantly plots to get rid of (As we are constantly told). The answer of course is that in order to make anything we require people. Machines on their own are not enough. Machines break down. Machines need to be operated etc etc.

Now, the workers during their interaction with the machines are imparting value to that product. They must be. They take raw materials and turn them into a finished product. The product is something that people want to buy. The finished product is sold for more than the sum of the parts (This includes transport costs and labour costs etc). In other words it's sold for more than it cost to make. The raw materials don't just float into reactors or test themselves to comply with FDA, or bottle themselves and then drive themselves to the supermarket. From where does this extra value arise? Where does the cost of any product ultimately originate?

It comes from labour time. Employees are paid for their time. Labour is required to make the product, to test it, to bottle it, to deliver it. The quicker or more efficiently this can be done then the lower the labour costs (It takes less labour time). To put it simply a factory that turns out 2000 bottles an hour can sell these bottles at half the price of a factory that turns out 1000 bottles an hour when all other things are equal (labour costs, raw materials etc).

But and here is the BIG BUT.

The more efficient factory doesn't sell its product at half the price (it may sell at a reduced price for a while to force the other out of business), it pockets the difference and makes even more money.

Where does this increased efficiency come from? You can talk about stock control, cash flow manipulation, more energy efficient machines etc. until you are blue in the face. It comes from getting the workforce to add more value to the product by taking on more and more tasks, finding quicker and better (better for who?) ways to make a high quality product (Think Kaizen, lean, six sigma, kanban, self managed teams etc).

So here we are. Value is added to any product by the labourer. The faster the labourer can add value to a product the more cheaply it can be made and the greater the profit margins. Increased profit margins are great news for the Bourgeoisie and Petty Bourgeoisie. They get a nice bonus, much increased pay etc etc.

So what is profit when related to the worker?

A worker adding value to a process adds £20 of value to a product/products every hour. However, and this is the trick, the worker gets paid £10 an hour. The owners of the means of production pocket the other £10 of value. They make £10 profit per hour per worker. They do nothing but sit there and watch the money meter tick round.




A problem arises. The more efficiently a product can be made, the cheaper it becomes. If competitors are trying to beat each other then they can use price to undercut each other. But the shareholders still want their dividends and the city wants to see growth. Lower prices mean lower returns. Costs must be cut to maintain/grow the profits. Obviously job cuts are looked at as well as other cuts (departmental stationary budget etc). If a company is already running on a skeleton crew then this is difficult. One way is to reduce the amount paid to the worker or new workers that replace others through natural wastage through retirement etc. This way the difference between the value that the worker adds to the product (Still £20 hr but is now paid £8 hr) and the "cut" that the Burgiouse takes increases. Of course the product is cheaper in the shops and so returns less money but the lower wage more than covers this.

One way companies do cut wages is to employ temp staff on lower hourly rates or by employing foreigners who will work for less. This is even better for the top hats because they can get rid of temps at the flick of a hand. This means they can frighten them into accepting poor conditions and poor wages. The cut increases still further!!!

An insidious way to scrape even more profit from the workers is by getting free labour from them. That's right, by making workers work breaks or lunch that they are not paid for. The worker is adding that self same value to the process but is getting nothing !!!! in return. The cut increases even more!!. No wonder the board members of a certain phama company have grins tattooed to their faces.


What does the man who actually creates this value and increased profit actually get?

He gets an end of year performance review. This is dressed up as a way to reward those that are doing a good job. What actually happens is that those who contribute to increased efficiency get a inflationary pay rise (Or no pay rise at all really because its in line with inflation) while the owners of the means of production get increased profits and nicely inflated wages.

It is not militant to demand your breaks if your not paid for them.

It is not wrong to work to contract. What is the point of a contract otherwise?

Unions are not a menace or outdated romantic idea.

All the rights you have at work today were fought for by people like you, for people like you.

To answer the question I posed earlier :- What if the workers owned the means of production?

The answer is of course that there is no cut to be taken by the Top Hats. Therefore all the value added to a product left over as profit is the workers to pocket and take home.

Many people fall into the trap of thinking that the tophats create wealth and they poo poo wealth redistribution.

Well now you can see they are wrong.

The working class lethargy

Democracy is supposed to be a system in which the majority benefit. A party which aligns itself with the needs and aspirations of the majority of the people in a country get in power and carry out their manifesto promises.

Right?

Wrong!

The majority of people in this country are working class. There is however, no real working class party. Labour joined the ranks of the middle class long ago and the rich have prospered under them. The problem is one of activism and expression of voting power.

Not enough of the working class's vote and get involved. Why would labour edge left and lose the vote of the centre right and right who do turn out. So the question becomes: Why don't the working class's vote?

The answer seems pretty simple. All parties (and politicians) are the same and none of them represent the working class.

Actually the problem lies with the working class themselves. The problem is one of identity and self recognition. Class cannot be defined easily. The boundries are blurred and the transition from one to another is graduated. Working class has become a dirty phrase. It has become the byword for the unsuccessful, the chav, the non owner occupied, the uneducated and paridoxically the unemployed!!! This attitude is prevelant among the middle class's, in a way it is understandable that they may think like this. What is not acceptable however, is the fact that a lot of the working class's themselves also believe this.

My rough definition of the working class is this:

A standard of education that is between GCSE and HND.
An occupation of unskilled, semi-skilled or skilled status.
A wage earning capacity that does not really change from 30 upwards (inflation accepted).
Generally a wage which is around the average uk wage or lower. Some may earn higher (or much higher) due to shift work, particular conditions and/or demand for a paticular skill. Money is by no means a defining characteristic on its own.
A decency and morality which escapes the unfettered ambitions of the middle and upper class's.


An unduely large proportion of the working class define themsleves as middle class or align themselves with the meretricious Tory "hard working" people policies.

Lets be clear. The Tory party member would rather step on a homeless persons face rather than walk around him. The Tory member would rather pull his big toe nail out with pliers than see his taxes go toward the unemployed (or the state pension for that matter).

So why do people that I work with (I am working class and so are those I work with) talk about voting for Cameron.

In the last 10 years people have had it relatively good. They have used cheap credit to buy consumer goods. This keeps the bank workers earning bonuses by giving big loans out, which keeps retail staff in jobs by selling fridges , kitchens etc, and makes the consumer feel middleclass by inflating the "value" of their house which enables them to buy the entry level BMW by securing it against the "value" of their home.So the working class consumer actually believes himself to be middleclass and therefor assumes Conservative party values.

Wake up. Owning a 4 bed semi bought within the last 6 years does not make one a Tory. The ipod, flat screen TV or DVD recorder does not.

Trade Unions are a must. Some of the idiots in charge of them at the minute need to "Retire" but these unions are, or should be, the true voice of the working class.

There is nothing admirable about working 60 hour weeks or doing extra hours for free in an atempt to further ones own career. People have lost jobs fighting for these basic rights. The one standout thing labour have introduced is the min. wage. It;s a start but not enough. The conservatives consistantly opposed this. That tells you something about their "working class should work untill they are dead" mentality.

More to come.

Technical heirarchal superiority does not in any way infer a social heirarchal equivalence.

Technical hierarchical superiority does not in any way infer a social hierarchical equivalence.

What does this mean?

Well I wrote it and Im not really sure myself!

Here is what I think I mean :

Everybody is part of a technical hierarchy while they are at work. Your boss has a boss, who in turn has a boss etc etc. Even the CEO and Chairman is accountable to somebody (Shareholders) and as we all know, if the PM is making a meal of it (or if the Daily Mail is telling everyone that he/she is) then we vote them out.

The basis of this hierarchy, is generally defined by competence as defined by experience and qualifications. There are some exceptions to this rule whereby people are promoted because they are friends with the boss or have family ties.

Now, nobody can really argue with the scenario that, if a line manager asks you to do something, then within certain confines (health and safety, morality, competence etc) you are compelled to carry out his/her wishes. Any reasonable person can see this.

BUT and this is a big but, you are not compelled to accept rudeness, general bad manners, patronising comments and general socially inferred superiority. Many of you will probably think that you would not and do not accept this anyway. I ask you to think again. At some point nearly everybody will have been subjected to this type of behaviour and most people will have accepted it.

The question is WHY?

Some line managers will ASK you to do something. The more intelligent among you will realise that in fact they are telling you to do something and this is the correct way to do it providing the recipient understands this and acts accordingly. Please and thank you are a must. This can be spoken or inferred through body language gesture.

Others will TELL you either through aggressive posturing and body language or through other oversive tactics. This must not be allowed or accepted. Some rationalise their acceptance by telling themselves that they are keeping their job or protecting their pay rise etc etc. Nonsense. You must never allow anybody to talk to you in a superior way just because they hold a position which is considered "above" you at work.

Thats not to say you should tell your boss to get fucked when he/she tries it on. Simply pull themtothe side and explain that they are full of shit and if they keep it up then HR would be interested to know about it. Watch them pretend not to care while sweating fucking buckets he he.

The point is to know that however much it feels like it you do not have to do what you are told, only that which you are asked.

We are all equal. It is only attitude that separates us.

As a friend of mine once said....Fuck em.

The Class System

I watched a programs over two parts aired on the BBC recently. It was called Prescott and the class system.

My only real knowledge of prescott before this program was that he was my MP and that he smacked some farmer type bloke that threw an egg in hs face in 2001.

I was surprised to learn that he was just as incensed at the inequality of this country as I am.

As we all know and accept (for reasons unknown to me) money and parental status is the difference between "success" and mediocrity.

Take two people. Both start with the same intelligence and behavioural tendencies. One obtains a PhD at 30 and the other is packing cucumbers at 30. Which one started with parents with a reasonable amount of money and lived on a nice owner occupied housing estate and which one started off with parents on benefits and lived on a council estate?

The answer to this is fairly obvious. I say fairly obvious because with exceptional drive the working class kid with unambitious parents can make it good. 99.9% of the time the doctor is the one on the owner occupied housing estate. Some would say that because of the success of some working class kids this proves that Britain is upwardly mobile. Nonsense.

With exceptional drive and ambition the middle class kid can become Prime Minister. With exceptional drive and ambition the working class kid can become middle class!!! Surely we can all see the nonsense that is going on here.

The talent that is wasted in this country through social ignorance is a tragedy.

The only way to right this is to fund state education properly. Reverse the charity status of private schools and use the tax collected to improve state schools. Lower class sizes, 1 to 1 text books and teaching according to the highest ability instead of the lowest is the answer. We also need to get rid of the teachers that came from lower middle class families and can'tdo anything but teach because they haven't got the brains. They just want the money.

More to Follow....

Tax doesn't have to be taxing (well not if you are rich anyway)

Official estimates put benefit fraud at around 600-800 million pounds a year.
Quite a figure one would have to agree.

However consider this.

A TUC commissioned report published earlier this year found that around 35 billion pounds (yes I said 35 BILLION!!) was lost to the treasury through tax avoidance and evasion. Now lets be clear.

Avoidance is not illegal. It's tax that the treasury would like to collect and intends to collect. But the big companies and wealthy individuals pay lawyers lots of money to use legal loopholes and complex money transactions to avoid the tax. Although not illegal, its clearly not in the spirit of the tax laws.

Evasion is just what it says on the tin and is illegal. Evasion accounts for around 10 billion pounds of the 35 billion.

So the big question(s) is(are) :- Why the daily attacks against benefit claimants in all the trash rags like The Daily Mail, The Express and The Sun? Where is the mention of the tax evaders? Is it possible that the groups that own these public opinion creating juggernauts have vested interests? If so then what are these interests? Do the pseudo middle class sheep enjoy bashing benefit fraudsters because it re-inforces their own ill conceived opinion (re-inforced by the trash rags), that the fraudsters are a natural extension of the working class who are too lazy to get "decent" jobs. The working class are to be looked down upon and booted as often as possible.



It is all to easy for the middle aged, middle class man to turn to page 2 of the Daily Mail, sip his wine and start talking about how he created his own luck and the scum off the nearby council estate should be bombed. As he is doing this his thoughts turn to the fact that his carpet is getting a bit worn and he's paid his accidental damage insurance for nearly a full year without claiming (last time it was the T.V, next door had got one of them flat screens so water "accidentally" got poured down the back of the old one), surely its time to spill some wine over it and claim for a new carpet, after all it's a victimless crime.

There we have part of the answer. These papers do have a vested interest because if they did not print the sanctimonious hypocritical shite then the sanctimonious middle class hypocrites would not buy it. They need to be reassured and patted on the head. "Well done chaps you've made it".

If we weigh up the lost tax revenue against benefit fraud then its obvious we should be concentrating on the tax evading criminal class's.




Could it be that there is something slightly smug and clever about hiding your cash from the tax man? Does the middle class criminal justify it to him/herself by saying "I worked for it, I'll be damned if its going to be spent on a drug rehabilitation program for people that should really be shot". Woe betide the group of youths with nothing to do who make noise a few decibels above that of a self made man shredding his incriminating invoices.

"They need to be taught a lesson, how dare they stand on my street corner" he says as he downs another glass of wine (that's only 3 bottles this week but he's got a stressful job and isn't really an alcoholic).

When one considers the history of the Daily Mail it isn't all that surprising that the self righteous middle class hold some of the views and carry out some of the "victimless" crimes that they do.



In the 30's the Daily Mail's owner was a friend of both Hitler and Mussolini (spelling??). The papers owner hoped that Hitler would become known as "Adolf the Great" in Britain and supported the invasion of western Czechoslovakia. The paper supported appeasement. It supported Oswald Moseley and the blackshirts.

The paper only changed its stance when threatened with closure by the British government.

n 2001 at the 27th G8 Summit held in Genoa, Italy; 93 peaceful anti-globalisation protesters were brutally beaten by the Italian police, falsely imprisoned and made to chant fascist slogans. Posing as a British Embassy official, a woman from the Daily Mail took pictures of some of the prisoners including journalist Mark Covell. The next day the Daily Mail ran a front page story including an entirely false report describing Covell as having helped mastermind the riots. It took 4 years for the newspaper to apologise and pay Covell damages for invasion of privacy.

The Daily Mail is quite rightly known as the Daily Heil. A stain on the memory of all those who fought and died in the second world war. Yet look through the window of a private housing estate and there he is, yep you guessed it, the middle class sheep is wearing his poppy while turning to page 4 which has the obligatory details of a family of 9 living in 2 adjoining council houses that have been knocked together(he's just read the other obligatory bit about how many "decent" British families are leaving the country).

Unfortunately middle class Britain has lost the ability to think for itself (if it ever could). It is up to all of the rest of us to tell them exactly how full of shit they are.

It is up to you to rescue them from madness.

Surplus value.

Why is it that so many people in this country work for nothing? That is to say for free. You may think I am talking about voluntary workers. No I am talking about the millions of people who work through their lunch breaks, start early and finish late and take work home with them.

There is a myth out there that this type of behaviour is what is called working hard.
The correct word for this is exploitation. Often the people that are being exploited are willing participants. This is because they do not understand what is happening to them and why. They are adding value to the process/job/shareholder etc without being paid for it. The company benefits economically but the worker does not.

Unfortunately there are also the people out there that work for free because they are afraid of losing their job or getting an even lower pay rise than they were expecting. The fact is that a lot of jobs give the rise at the rate of inflation or less. What we are actually talking about then are pay cuts not pay rises.

So why are so many people in favour of capitalism? After all this is the animal that snarls and claws at the ordinary worker. The burgeoise holds the leash but he occasionally loosens it so the animal can come within striking distance. This keeps everbody nicely in check.

Because people dare not face the beast and look it directly in the eye they prefer to make up a host of excuses as to why they allow themselves to be exploited. They choose to focus on the small number of false benefits but not on all of the very real downfalls.

I would suspect that many of those with thousands of pounds worth of savings in the bank would eulogize capitalsim and talk of indivdual responsibility over wine and cheese at dinner parties. These are the same people who are now flocking to put their savings in nationalised banks.

I can't think of many things as anti capitalist as a nationalised bank.