The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #78659   Message #1424083
Posted By: Piers
01-Mar-05 - 01:53 PM
Thread Name: BS: Why do we need poverty?
Subject: RE: BS: Why do we need poverty?
Got this here.

'Since we say capitalism is based on the minority ownership of the means for producing wealth the official figures we're interested in are those for "marketable wealth less value of dwellings" (since people's homes are means of production).
The official figures [UK] . . . for 2002 are:
The top 1% owned 35%
The top 2-5% owned 27%
The top 6-10% owned 13%
The top 11-25% owned 13%
The top 26-50% owned 10%
The bottom 50% owned 2%

So, now the top 5% own getting on for twice as much as the rest of us put together.

. . .

Having said this, we socialists are not advocating a redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. That's not our programme at all (and doesn't and can't work anyway, given capitalism). What we are saying is that the means of wealth production should be owned in common by the whole community, ie shouldn't belong to anybody, but should simply be there to be used under democratic control to turn out what people need instead of as present to make a profit for the tiny minority who own and control then.'