London's Burning

[DanaC]

@ UG:

So because a relatively small number of people went on a rampage for a few nights we should utterly change the way we as a country function, and have functined for some considerable time?

The reality is that we have been slowly creeping towards more American style solutions to social problems and this is the result: social dischord.

The recent austerity moves have added to an already mounting tension.

This isn't about benefits culture and handouts. At least, I don't think it is. They weren't all unemployed, or from unemployed families. Some of the people arrested have had respectable jobs. One of them was a teaching assistant.

But for those that are unemployed, cutting their already low benefits payments and making it harder to claim is not helpful when youth unemployment is riding at 20.3% in some places.

At the same time the paths to college and university are getting harder to follow with abolition of the EMA (£30 per week educational maintenance allowance, given to low income kids going to college from school, to assist in paying for travel and books) and the tripling of university fees (used to be capped at c. 3k per year, now most o fthe universities have taken up the opportunity to raise fees and are charging 9k per year).

Schools meanwhile have become more segregated than ever along income/class lines, and the movement to an Academy system in many areas has resulted in a massive increase in school exclusions, with difficult to reach pupils far more likely to be excluded than worked with, than used to be the case. Many schools/academies are now specialising, with some offering a more vocational bent and others a more academic, I'll leave it to you to guess which areas have leaned towards academic specialisms and which areas are channeling their youngsters into plumbing and plastering.

Society has never felt more economically divided. Kids are growing up in the most consumerist society Britain has ever known, with social worth more tagged than ever to branded goods and having exactly the right stuff. At the same time they're flooded with a mix of messages around entitlement. That has nothing to do with the welfare state being too generous. We had a welfare state when i was a kid, and we had an unequal society and all sorts of trouble. We had second generation entrenched unemployed and a massive underclass, but this sense of lifestyle entitlement is new.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by DanaC

@ UG:

So because a relatively small number of people went on a rampage for a few nights we should utterly change the way we as a country function, and have functined for some considerable time?

Exactly. The sooner, the better. It will bring this kind of thing to an end. And do it determinedly, permanently, and thoroughly. Among other things, this means for you personally to quit being a socialist. I know what you've got invested in this false god, but were I you I'd simply jettison the whole construct. The riots are precisely the Clockwork Orange result of socialistic thinking and policymaking, further aggravated with classist thinking, which plagues European society and I am not excluding the British. At least one British editorial has drawn this very point.

This is the end of the welfare state, in flames and broken glass. Good riddance, say I.

The Sun Never Sets . . .

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

This is the end of the welfare state, in flames and broken glass. Good riddance, say I.

That's funny. I was thinking the same thing about capitalism.

Nothing lasts forever - not even economic systems.

the second law of thermodynamics proves it.

Good riddance to capitalism!

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Brianna

That's funny. I was thinking the same thing about capitalism.

Nothing lasts forever - not even economic systems.

the second law of thermodynamics proves it.

Good riddance to capitalism!

No, the Second Law does not. That's because money is not heat, it is a method of keeping score.

Capitalism accords with what human beings naturally do in exchanges and deal-making, absent -- and this is crucial -- governmental interference in transactions. To eliminate capitalism, you must first eliminate human beings.

The Socialists, Communist and Fascist together, took a fair poke at that, and racked up 120M peacetime deaths. Not something remotely necessary from a capitalistic viewpoint -- or any other genuinely good or human viewpoint. Inherently necessary, in Socialism.

I grasp this. Brianna, had you the same understanding, you would not have written that shameful, Godawful post.

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

No, the Second Law does not. That's because money is not heat, it is a method of keeping score.

No, the second law is about entropy. Pay attention.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

To eliminate capitalism, you must first eliminate human beings.

I'm ok with that.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

The Socialists, Communist and Fascist together, took a fair poke at that, and racked up 120M peacetime deaths. Not something remotely necessary from a capitalistic viewpoint --

Capitalists have killed just as many people - only they do it more personally. Like via withholding goods and services to individuals.

a Capitalist will look you in the eye as they tell you you won't be getting that life saving surgery after all.

I stand by what I said. Capitalism will fail - just like every system fails sooner or later.

[SamIam]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

No, the Second Law does not. That's because money is not heat, it is a method of keeping score.

Yeah, but what about Maxwell's demon?

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I grasp this. Brianna, had you the same understanding, you would not have written that shameful, Godawful post.

Leaving out Maxwell's demon is such an egregious error that it leaves you little credibility to be correcting someone else. I suggest that the next time you feel a need to comment on any possible disturbance in London, you get your information straight from the source - Dana.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

To eliminate capitalism, you must first eliminate human beings.

He has now insulted the Ferengi. A stereotypical ultra-capitalist society only motivated by profit. They cannot exist without Huuumans?

UG is too terrestrial. He needs to spend more time out of this world.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by DanaC

The reality is that we have been slowly creeping towards more American style solutions to social problems and this is the result: social dischord.

Do you really believe this? It seems to me that the whole EU and the UK included has the lead in this path to forced reduction of a long term history of expensive social support. Look at Greece, France, Spain, when you peel back the onion of what they have been paying for with from their tax coffers it boggles the mind. No wonder so many are going broke. If there has ever been an argument against "more taxes" will give us more money to take care of the down trodden this should be it. Taxes in the UK are much higher than in the US (I think) and yet they still can't make it and support the systems in place which they have promised the people. Riots aside, you are right the problems are much deeper. I don't have the answers.