[Khellendros]

The poll average is something like an 8 or 9 point gap now, which is still impressively down from around 15 the previous week (itself down from about 22 the week before that). It's unlikely that the gap will continue disappearing at such a fast rate, so building in that it slows down, Labour should have a lead in the polls round about late July/August. Unfortunately the election is in a week and a half

[Illuyankas]

Interested in what happens to the polls after May's no-show. I'm still expecting a Tory win but this is closer than I ever imagined.

[Werthead]

That was a good tactical move by Corbyn. I think people have tended to forget that it's not for nothing he's won his seat in eight successive general elections, so when it comes to campaigning he's a seasoned warhorse.

I think he's going to run out of time, but the success he's achieved in the polls, his profile and reputation seem to be quite impressive. If it all gets rolled back on election day and the Tories do pull out a 100-150 seat majority I think he'll have to go, but if it's only a marginal majority his position seems pretty secure.

[worry]

https://twitter.com/...873355691880448
"never ever ever forget what happens to people under austerity"

[Messremb]

Insulin will keep at room temperature for around a month. Type 1 diabetics, like me, get free prescriptions for everything, all the time. That wasn't the result of no electricity ruining medicine.

[Illuyankas]

A later quote from the article; "On the day he died he had £3.44 to his name and six tea bags, a tin of soup and an out-of-date can of sardines in his kitchen cupboards." Sounds like a dietary complication. Can you see where it says he was type 1? Or if type 2 diabetes are also exempt from having to pay prescriptions after being sanctioned?

[Messremb]

Insulin so free prescriptions Illy.

Ketonacidosis is the result of not having insulin in your system for a long period ergo he wasn't taking it. Every diabetic is aware of the results of not taking it. Regardless of food availability he should still have taken background. No reason not to consult GP or local hospital if an issue arises either.

Yeah so starving, don't bullshit that he had no medicine because of no money. For whatever reason he chose to not take insulin. Mental health? Other reasons? Yes. No insulin available, no.

Edit: the article bullshitting, not Illy.

This post has been edited by Messremb: 02 June 2017 - 12:20 AM

[worry]

I wonder if mental health is affected by slowly starving to death and spiraling into despair.

[Silencer]

Haven't read the full article, but from the excerpt worry posted I didn't read it as "he lost his benefit and couldn't afford the medicine", but rather, he lost his benefit and couldn't afford food or to keep the fridge running - is it possible that due to lack of food, his supply from prior to the loss of benefit ran out/died from lack of refrigeration (for example, just because he had his benefit cut off three weeks prior to death doesn't mean his power was on immediately before that either, if money was super tight - it could have been out for a month total), and he was too hungry and tired to *get* to the free insulin?

That was more or less what I assumed was the case from worry's snippet - just on a shorter timeline because I wasn't sure of the exact shelf life of insulin outside a fridge.

[worry]

The snippet (which is from the Twitter post, not my creation, can't take credit) is the article's intro paragraph and -- while I don't doubt Messremb knows what he's talking about in terms of med expiration -- is a quickie summary of one specific fallout of institutional failure and I don't think should be considered the exhaustive story of Clapson's death. Like it's obviously "boiled down" info. Still, the basic facts are there: he was out of work, an austerity policy cut him out for one mistake, he was starving, and he definitely died of ketoacidosis as far as the coroner was concerned. Conjecture on what variations he might have made in his behavior are beside the point (like what do they add up to? He might have stayed alive a few weeks longer and starved to death instead of succumbing that day to diabetes complications?). Preventing his misery is what was vital, and what is the mark of a well-functioning society, not merely preventing his death.

[EmperorMagus]

worry, on 02 June 2017 - 02:48 AM, said:

The snippet (which is from the Twitter post, not my creation, can't take credit) is the article's intro paragraph and -- while I don't doubt Messremb knows what he's talking about in terms of med expiration -- is a quickie summary of one specific fallout of institutional failure and I don't think should be considered the exhaustive story of Clapson's death. Like it's obviously "boiled down" info. Still, the basic facts are there: he was out of work, an austerity policy cut him out for one mistake, he was starving, and he definitely died of ketoacidosis as far as the coroner was concerned. Conjecture on what variations he might have made in his behavior are beside the point (like what do they add up to? He might have stayed alive a few weeks longer and starved to death instead of succumbing that day to diabetes complications?). Preventing his misery is what was vital, and what is the mark of a well-functioning society, not merely preventing his death.

And what's annoying is that under a proper resource management system - aka a system not responding to market forces but to actual needs - none of these problems would exist. It's the freaking horror of free markets, really, that to keep inflation under control some people will have to be jobless even if they want jobs, and that under the system those people are ostracized for the joblessness.

There is this dissonance in our world philosophy I cannot understand at all. I'll even include a meme and a simplified flowchart to explain it:

 Jobs.jpg (25.23K)
Number of downloads: 0


 57fb4de5ef7546b38ec65b96ff529ff5.jpg (147.04K)
Number of downloads: 0


ffs, we even have computes to do all the administrating for us at this point. As long as there are people able and willing to work, joblessness and scarcity shouldn't exist in the same society.

[Andorion]

EM, what you are saying is that work needs to be controlled by the workers for the common good. In other words the proletariat need to control the means of production. In other words, socialism.

The problem with socialism is what we have seen in every last socialist country - who governs? How are they chosen? To whom are they accountable? What are the checks on their power?

This is the old issue.

Add to this another one - the culture of consumption that has been internalised by the West. We need to be rewarded, we need to splurge, we need conspicuous consumption - and all of this is linked to profit-driven market model. I am not convinced that a socialist model would succeed as the worker inevitably becomes alienated from his labour.

[Silencer]

Andorion, on 02 June 2017 - 03:44 AM, said:

EM, what you are saying is that work needs to be controlled by the workers for the common good. In other words the proletariat need to control the means of production. In other words, socialism.

The problem with socialism is what we have seen in every last socialist country - who governs? How are they chosen? To whom are they accountable? What are the checks on their power?

This is the old issue.

Add to this another one - the culture of consumption that has been internalised by the West. We need to be rewarded, we need to splurge, we need conspicuous consumption - and all of this is linked to profit-driven market model. I am not convinced that a socialist model would succeed as the worker inevitably becomes alienated from his labour.

Easier, then, to just regulate corporations into capping their profits relative to their staffing situation. Or just straight up 100% tax on income above a certain level, with a reduction of that tax to 50% if the unemployment level is 0%. >.>

[worry]

Andorion, on 02 June 2017 - 03:44 AM, said:

The problem with socialism is what we have seen in every last socialist country - who governs? How are they chosen? To whom are they accountable? What are the checks on their power?

Do those questions not need answers under capitalism? Have their answers been satisfactory? None of these systems are natural, none of them are god-given, none of them are unmodifiable. Orthodoxy with any of them is pointless. They serve humans, not the other way around.

[EmperorMagus]

Andorion, on 02 June 2017 - 03:44 AM, said:

EM, what you are saying is that work needs to be controlled by the workers for the common good. In other words the proletariat need to control the means of production. In other words, socialism.

The problem with socialism is what we have seen in every last socialist country - who governs? How are they chosen? To whom are they accountable? What are the checks on their power?

This is the old issue.

Add to this another one - the culture of consumption that has been internalised by the West. We need to be rewarded, we need to splurge, we need conspicuous consumption - and all of this is linked to profit-driven market model. I am not convinced that a socialist model would succeed as the worker inevitably becomes alienated from his labour.

Do you remember the Political Theory class I mentioned taking a few months ago? I talked about reading Hobbes and Plato in the reading thread and we discussed a few things. Well, I wrote a ten page essay on Marxism in the course of that class, because the philosophy made so much sense.

I think the issues with corruption and accountability can be easily solved if only there was the will to solve them. For once, there is no reason why a first-world country with the proper institutions and police forces (e.g. Canada) would not be able to keep corruption out of a democratic government with communist policies. I've seen the general state of both first world and third world countries, and the corruption that exists in Iran has nothing to do with our ruling system and everything to do with our societal norms. In Iran, people think it's smart to disobey the laws you don't want to disobey. My mother - a highly educated city girl - used to berate my father because he didn't take 'under-the-table' money from his patients before agreeing to do the surgeries which were theoretically free (my father worked in a public hospital). She thought he was being stupid for not doing as literally every other person in the country was doing ...

You can't say communism didn't work in USSR therefore it wouldn't work in Norway. The countries that had communist revolutions were fucked before the revolution and slightly less fucked after it. I'm not a die hard marxist against everything bourgeoisie, but I do believe Marx's economic philosophy makes a lot more sense than capitalism ever did.

Second, the US has always tried to destabilize any government with vaguely communist policies that looks like it may have the slightest level of success. Just because Cuba's economy can't stand crippling sanctions by the world's largest economy doesn't mean communism is by itself unworkable.

Third, I have nothing against consumer products. Once the basic needs of everyone is met, the remaining resource of the society can be directed towards providing the highest gratification to the largest number of people (with reasonable limits, no gladiators).

I'm naive enough to believe communism CAN work, but not naive enough to believe it will ever happen in this world.

[EmperorMagus]

Silencer, on 02 June 2017 - 03:48 AM, said:

Andorion, on 02 June 2017 - 03:44 AM, said:

EM, what you are saying is that work needs to be controlled by the workers for the common good. In other words the proletariat need to control the means of production. In other words, socialism.

The problem with socialism is what we have seen in every last socialist country - who governs? How are they chosen? To whom are they accountable? What are the checks on their power?

This is the old issue.

Add to this another one - the culture of consumption that has been internalised by the West. We need to be rewarded, we need to splurge, we need conspicuous consumption - and all of this is linked to profit-driven market model. I am not convinced that a socialist model would succeed as the worker inevitably becomes alienated from his labour.

Easier, then, to just regulate corporations into capping their profits relative to their staffing situation. Or just straight up 100% tax on income above a certain level, with a reduction of that tax to 50% if the unemployment level is 0%. >.>

The problem with this in a the current world is the issue of brain and capital drain. I'm not convinced it wouldn't work to solve a lot of societal problems, but what it does is against the principles of the basic worldview it wished to perpetuate. You can't legislate to fuck the capitalists in a capitalist society.

[Andorion]

worry, on 02 June 2017 - 03:52 AM, said:

Andorion, on 02 June 2017 - 03:44 AM, said:

The problem with socialism is what we have seen in every last socialist country - who governs? How are they chosen? To whom are they accountable? What are the checks on their power?

Do those questions not need answers under capitalism? Have their answers been satisfactory? None of these systems are natural, none of them are god-given, none of them are unmodifiable. Orthodoxy with any of them is pointless. They serve humans, not the other way around.

Absolutely. But the problem is changing from one system where these problems exist to another system where these problems also exist and have been proven to be pretty catastrophic.

Marxism is an excellent diagnosis of the failures of capitalism, but it does not provide a good cure.

[Andorion]

EmperorMagus, on 02 June 2017 - 04:09 AM, said:

Silencer, on 02 June 2017 - 03:48 AM, said:

Andorion, on 02 June 2017 - 03:44 AM, said:

EM, what you are saying is that work needs to be controlled by the workers for the common good. In other words the proletariat need to control the means of production. In other words, socialism.

The problem with socialism is what we have seen in every last socialist country - who governs? How are they chosen? To whom are they accountable? What are the checks on their power?

This is the old issue.

Add to this another one - the culture of consumption that has been internalised by the West. We need to be rewarded, we need to splurge, we need conspicuous consumption - and all of this is linked to profit-driven market model. I am not convinced that a socialist model would succeed as the worker inevitably becomes alienated from his labour.

Easier, then, to just regulate corporations into capping their profits relative to their staffing situation. Or just straight up 100% tax on income above a certain level, with a reduction of that tax to 50% if the unemployment level is 0%. >.>

The problem with this in a the current world is the issue of brain and capital drain. I'm not convinced it wouldn't work to solve a lot of societal problems, but what it does is against the principles of the basic worldview it wished to perpetuate. You can't legislate to fuck the capitalists in a capitalist society.

Exactly. Any state with such a punitive tax system would see large scale capital flight.

[worry]

America's top marginal rate in its economic golden age, the 1950s, was 90+%.

[EmperorMagus]

worry, on 02 June 2017 - 04:32 AM, said:

America's top marginal rate in its economic golden age, the 1950s, was 90+%.

But where would the corporations flee to in the 1950s?

South America? Nah, the US was toppling governments left and right with no care for stability.

Europe? Nah, people in Europe were too busy rebuilding to have have enough unemployed to make a move possible.

China? Mao ...

Africa? Anti-colonial movements were already destabilizing countries.

As far as today's world is concerned, 1950s economy was alien economy.