Comments on: Thatcher’s handbag, the discursive articulation of financial commmon sense, and the meta-alienation of the masses

By: Administrator

Administrator — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 08:51:05 +0000

Mil

Thanks for looking forward not back. I keep meaning to pick your comments up as a post in themselves as I felt you hit the nail on the head about the need to work out what we want as well as what we don’t, and I felt my own lengthy post ended dam squid like in this respect. My post, when I get to it will try to address this alongside an analysis of what I refer to as ‘over-bureaucratisation’. All will become clear-ish.

By: Mil

Mil — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 11:20:50 +0000

I think what we really need to nail is what kind of government we want. Big government is inevitable. The challenges – climate change, terrorism, energy, water, food distribution, housing, universal education and health etc. – are simply too big to believe otherwise. But government must be at the mercy of its subjects, as must companies and money both. And when I say its subjects, I mean subjects in the grammatical sense of the word – operators rather than operated on. Once we understand that government, companies and money should be appendages and supporters at the service of the individual and – by extension – a wider society, everything else will flow from that.

As I have mentioned on previous occasions, we are all perishable goods. We all live finite lives. None of us deserve to live in the hope of jam tomorrow when yesterday is seen through rose-tinted spectacles and today is spun via promises for a future which none of us will ever live to see.

It is clearly nonsense that government should be run like a household economy. It is a simplification used by those who own the means of production to justify not sharing them more widely. In a consumer-driven society as transparent as the Internet could become, where information on purchasing and lifestyles could become far more widely available (is, indeed, already more widespread), there is an opportunity to turn money into the lever we all deserve to have control over. This opportunity exists if we are prepared to snatch it from the possible jaws of cyclical belief (that is to say, we get very hot under the collar about these matters in times of crisis but tend to sit back on our laurels when boom reasserts itself). There is also an urgent need to spread the idea that government should never again rely on private indebtedness to do its public business and duty. That idea needs to become firmly entrenched and implemented.

Whilst we continue to live with the widespread use of oligopolistic capitalism, big government’s responsibility must remain the acquisition of big debt – properly managed of course, but big nevertheless. It is only when these ground rules are changed will be able to progress otherwise – upwards and onwards to different ways of doing and seeing.

By: Mil

Mil — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 22:54:16 +0000

Help! Homework’s piling up – I already have a post by Dave I have to comment on. I was going to say that this blogging thing leaves no time for living. But what I really meant to say is that this living thing leaves very little time for blogging. I will respond this coming weekend I promise! Some fascinating ideas and articles here.

By: Administrator

Administrator — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 08:05:52 +0000

I forgot completely, Tom, that you led the Werner challenging on that occasion. I have edited the post to recognise that.

‘Werner is Silly’ would have been a much better post title, in retrospect. Perhaps later – there’ll be plenty of opportunity.

By: Miller 2.0

Miller 2.0 — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 02:08:25 +0000

Great, if lengthy post. Werner is silly.