Don,

oddly, I agree considerably about taking personal responsibility to a considerable degree.

Two observations about that.

Firstly, when i have brought up the idea of taking one's own responsibility, the usual response is for posters to flee the thread. And I can understand that because I know how resistant people are to taking their responsibility. Hence the persistance and commonness of expressions like 'what else could I do?'; 'I had no choice'; 'that's just the way I am'; 'it was fated'; 'it was bound to happen'; 'it was   inevitable'; 'i always do that, but i don't know why'.

Secondly, and on the other hand, with the points of mine that I still say have gone unanswered,I can't see where responsibility comes in. E.g. that Labour purchasing power is needed to buy the goods we produce and want or need; that there are fashions and must-haves in all fields; why the poor are so rampant in a very rich country (in a poor country i can see it); all those Russian and Chinese billionaires; the lack of relationship between consumption and satisfaction (do you know much about addiction in its many forms?; and so on.)

To say my points amount to 'blaming the system for our individual faults', is just false. E.g., it's not the fault of individuals in the Labour Force that wages can be kept under tight control, nor that wages need to be high enough to consume what's produced. Nor that shareholders demand growing profits.

And I'm not saying this is all about human stupidity - more about fitting into the society one finds oneself in, learning that questioning the bases of society is thought not a good idea, and lacking the responsibility you talk of to examine and question. Taking personal responsibility is as two-edged a sword as anything else.

Incidentally, for all the talk of regarding others as stupid, the assertion that we've had 750,000 minimum unemployed since the war because there's always a feckless rump of layabouts, is untrue (and not holding that part of the unemployed in the highest regard). I seem to remember (haven't checked ) that for quite a while in the 50s, unemployment was around 100,000, and th't had the figure gone above half a million, the government of the day would have had to resign.

So I must say, you (and Teri) are just not addressing the substantive problems. Merely seeking to dismiss them with vague gestures, light misdescription, and red herrings.

And I see no need to propose an alternative system. A close critical examination of what we already have seems to me important work to be done. What people make of any realisations about the flaws in our current ruling beliefs is their business. many have already seen some of what's wrong with what's on offer, and already sought alternatives.

I shall present the following again, as you haven't responded so far. I'm not blaming anything, and even suggesting that within the following is precisely personal responsibility manifested.

"If you all really think we don't know the importance of consuming to our society, and nobody has forced the point on us, tell us what you think the consequences would be if everyone no longer found mortgages, more clothes, cars, holidays, replacement kitchens, insurance, more food than for survival, drink, DIY, gardening stuff, the latest gadgets, if we no longer found them necessary for our happiness or satisfaction?"


Plenty of time for teri's test, but first things first.


   Ivor