If you read my post above, the problem is that may not be possible.

Try thing and posting with your brain cell instead of your backside. It'll make an interesting change.

Thing?

Its possible alright. The means are still there, it's the desire that probably isn't.

Didn't we have this thread last week? =white and the week before, ad infinitum

Although I'm impressed with Dally's attempt at equating bankers greed with Marxism, that's pretty good even by his standards.

Explain the difference then.

How about you explain the similarity.

I did do.

Anyway, back to Marxism being back. As I said, it never went away. Another illustration is that Marxists wanted to control the "commanding heights of the economy" (I believe a phrase attributed to Lenin). The UK Labour party of the '50s / '60s saw this as controlling production of coal, steel, the railways, etc. The irony is that with the collapse of those industries, the state has taken over a much greater share of employment and GDP than was represented by those industries - by virtue of its control of health, education, pensions and now even major banks. One could argue that we have reached the socialist nirvana that the founding fathers of the Labour party aspired to.

Then you can point to the specific Marxist texts that propose that "directors" act "as though they were running workers co-operatives by paying out disproportionate levels of remuneration to their colleagues rather than to shareholders and / or leaving working capital in the businesses (which could have prevented nationalistation, the formalised acknlowledgement of their socialism)."

You will obviously also be able to point to "workers co-operatives" that have shareholders other than the workers.



No. "One" wouldn't argue any such nonsense.

Unless "one" was a total idiot.

Come on then Mintball, although you claim not to be a socialist at times you do, judging by your posts, seem to be seduced by socialist philosophy. So, how would you you ideally like to see the UK's political and economic life re-enginerered to fit your image of what's right and proper. Do you then see that vision as sustainable and how do you see it affecting the lives of the average citizen - for good, for ill or no real difference?

You have claimed something – now back it up instead of trying to dodge by changing the subject.

What EVIDENCE do you have for your assertions?

Well I thought I gave pretty good evidence - it is fact that the state controls a huge chunk of the UK economy. It is a fact that the state controlled industries are unionised. It is a fact that the country is in decline, arguably due to the inefficiency of state planning of economic activity.

So, come on then - do you have a vision or like most other wannabee socialists you just like to snipe about everything but cannot ever suggest anything, let alone construct anything?

You gave no evidence whatsoever.

What is the textural basis for your claims about Marxism?

What workers' cooperative has shareholders other than the workers?

These are specific questions raised by your claims. Now stop trying to deflect the conversation and answer these.

banks and unions


all state planning of of economic activity is inefficient






you made my lunch-time

Stop being daft. I said they were acting as though they were running such an enterprise, not that they were running one. So, as you say, stop deflecting and in your case trivialising and answer the straightforward questions I have asked. I don't expect you to. It would be a first.

I read what you posted.

Now kindly provide the textural evidence that that is a Marxist way of behaving.

And the evidence of workers' cooperatives that have shareholders other than the workers.

Then, instead of coming up with utterly contradictory comments about my political ethos – 'you say you're not a socialist', followed by 'wannabe socialist' – while you clearly remember me posting about my ethos on here previously, how about posting your own, which you have never done. Indeed, you blather on about 'solutions', but you're famous here yourself for never offering anything but a line in Chicken Licken hysteria.

Paddle faster . . . I think I heard banjos

Indeed, you are wrong. I did write here, as I believe tb will recall, that I was what you might term "Old" Labour.

You are George Dallyway and I claim my £5

Never mind duelling, I think I can hear a bleedin' orchestra of them.

I think my most masochistic tendencies come to the fore when Dally and certain others are around.

That, and being like a dog with a bloody bone.

But [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/18767817they can't help it[/url

Are you aware of political differences between Marxism and Leninism, or are you quite happy to just lump it all in that sack you call 'Labour'?

I think we can pretty much say, along with your assertion that bankers using their businesses as their own piggy banks is the same as workers co-operatives sharing the fruit of their procuce AMONGST THEMSELVES, that any opinion you have on this subject can now be safely ignored as the ramblings of someone with only the vaguest understanding of left wing political thought.


(Capitals used to emphasise the difference between co-operatives and shareholders. In case you still haven't grasped it, the workers in a co-operative produce whatever they produce, sell whatever they produce and split the profits equally amongst them, and shareholders just gamble on how good the production of the workers will be without actually lifting a finger to do any work themselves.
I think that covers it for you, I'm sorry I couldn't find any more single syllable words to simplify it even further for you)

^

Lenin was in favour of violence against anybody and everybody who stood in his way. The most nonsensical whitewashing of history is the suggestion that somehow Stalin was the terrible oddball of Russian revolutionaries, and Lenin some kind of peace loving representative of all that was good and a great ideological thinker.