The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #167690   Message #4061260
Posted By: Jim Carroll
25-Jun-20 - 02:33 AM
Thread Name: BS: UK thread, Politics and political
Subject: RE: BS: UK thread, Politics and political
"It's not capitalism per se"
I don't agree
Capitalism is a system based on fostering and encouraging a natural greed that is instinctive in most but is suppressed as people mature
A child will instinctively take what it wants rather than share it, until it is taught differently - capitalism is designed to over-ride that teaching
Opposing capitalism is described, by those who support it as "the politics of envy" - a phrase regularly used on programmes like 'Question Time'

Handy summing up here

Michael White Wed 29 Aug 2012
Nick Clegg … just jealous of the rich?
As Tory MPs go, mild Bernard Jenkin wouldn't claim to be an original phrase-maker. So when confronted with Nick Clegg's call for a wealth tax at breakfast time on Wednesday, Jenkin couldn't manage a snappier retort than to accuse the deputy prime minister of "the politics of envy".
The envious idea of chopping the heads off tall poppies can be traced to Herodotus, though the ancient Greek pundit wrote about decapitating tall stalks of wheat. Poppies, wheat, investment bankers, Richard Branson – the idea is much the same.
Nowadays the charge, revived by an American called Doug Bandow in the 90s, is levelled against the left and invariably deployed by the right. It's not hard to see why. For every bloodthirsty Robespierre there must be a million gentle citizens who regard tax-evading millionaires as ripe for the politics of fairness over those of greed.
So when George Osborne cuts the 50p tax rate to 45p (only the poor need cuts to incentivise them) and faces "millionaire's budget" jibes, he accuses his critics of TPOE. When Barack Obama denounces unfunded Republican tax cuts for the rich (a hard charge to deny), he and his "socialist cronies" are tarred with TPOE.
That sounds more admirable than saying that outsourcing American jobs, rigging the City's Libor network, or flogging worthless securities to pension funds deserves vast pay and perks. If talent, hard work, innovation and risk (with one's own money too) were the only road to uber-wealth, there would be less of a growing 99% to 1% problem.
Let's not take Jenkin's word on TPOE. Let's ask Warren Buffett, a man who made billions investing against the free-market herd. Sure there's class warfare, he says. "It's my class, the rich class, that's making war – and we're winning."


Thatcher spent her career attempting to respectableise greed and, to a degree, she succeed
The 'honours system' in Britain is now loaded towards rewarding the greedy (aka "the successful")
Netnyahu and his wife are openly crooks, and they are getting way with their dishonesty, Theresa may and Johnson have openly used taxpayers money to remain in power - Johnson gave a businesswoman a Government grant to get his leg over.
Trump's corrupt companies have cheated, connived and gone bust with the worst of them.... these are world leaders; the most powerful people on the planet
'The Decline and Fall of the Capitalist System' -s a book begging to be written
Jim