Do you think your country has a "class structure"? What do you think about it?

Sounds like you're advocating Maoist land reform and Obama is invited to the party!

 

Not exactly the pt I'm making...

Places turn Communist because the Establishment fights away from Capitalism. And they try and palm people off with feudalism, pretending its a merit based Capitalism.

Buffett is a *balanced* Capitalist. And he's an anti-Feudalist. Like me.

If someone tried to turn my country Communist, I'd disappear somewhere else with my money, because I've always focussed on balanced Capitalism.

 

What am I missing here?

Who are the wise village elders who are going to decide how much of what you bequeath your daughter she actually deserves?

 

the jeffersons and the bunkers..

 

A brain, little Lord Fauntleroy ?

What I'm saying is that we're told (in England, and increasingly more so in the US) that it is Capitalism. But if something operates on class bullshit, it becomes feudalism or croney capitalism. Which is an antithesis of Capitalism.

And by balanced I mean you cant reduce everything to profit and loss.
Otherwise, I'd have a spreadsheet where I could evaluate murdering people and bribing cops etc.
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On inheritance. Well you're currently paying the vast majority of your income to the govt in direct and indirect tax. Whack on an inheritance tax and income tax drops massively. Its rewarding workers and talent, rather than freeloaders, which seems fair. And I'm not grudging people a normal inheritance. Just the Paris Halfwit Hilton lifestyle thats trust fund tax free. And people who have a large inheritance.

Its about drawing lines. We do it all the time. Every time we vote, for instance. Its nothing to do with village elders.

There's no benefit in people without brains being at the top of the capital management. Feudalism doesnt work
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My kids? Well as I said, I'm of the same view as Warren Buffett and quite a few others. Let em work for a living, let em create something worthwhile. Rather than taking a load of drugs, living off a trust fund, and conning the public into voting for another Bush/Cameron.

Buffett has the right idea. Making society shun trust fund layabouts, attach a stigma to it, rather than kiss their arses.

I said to my own parents "I dont want an inheritance from you".
(Altho I have considered killing them once or twice, in years gone by : ) )

 

How do I feel about it? I say eat the rich!

 

You really have to distinguish between whether you country has a class structure and whether it is 'conscious' about it. Britain, of course, is the paradigmatic class conscious society, as opposed to the US, which is nominally 'classless', though it might be the single most un-egalitarian country in the Western world. Typically, 'class' doesn't say all that much about people's 'actual' socio-economic situation, and is more of a marker of ideological self-identification - and these two, the 'actual' socio-economic situation and ideological self-identification, can be radically in conflict with one another. This is readily apparent in the US, where rational egotism would seem to preclude the possibility of a Republican Party getting much more than 1% of the votes - because, rationally, unless you're in the top income bracket, a vote for the GOP is a vote AGAINST your financial self-interests. But that, of course, is not how all those God-fearing, corn-fed, and distressingly often dirt-poor southern folk see it. As far as the Heartland's concerned, they're part of the same spiritual family as Donald Trump, bound by shared conservative 'values'. It's easy to dismiss them as your typical clueless American imbeciles - and God knows American imbeciles are a political force to be reckoned with - but this setup is actually characteristic of all societies where reactionary politics prevail. Sorry to have to make this comparison, but this was wherein Hitler's genius lay: his ability to appeal to the lower and lower middle classes on an ideologically 'socialist' ticket (against big business, international 'Jewish' capital) while at the same time securing the backing of the upper and upper middle classes on an 'actually' conservative/reactionary agenda (dismantling unions, democratic structures in general, advancing German corporatism, etc.). You even see this where I live: the Netherlands typically tends to see itself as egelatarian and classless, and to a certain extent it is, at least when comprared with the US or UK. But though religion plays far less of a role in determining the symbolic, ideological group identifications here than in the US, we've seen a similar 'conservative' backlash these last years. While the economic crisis persists and people are beginning to feel the sting of austerity measures, the truly perplexing thing is that the 'actually' progressive Left (i.e. not the power-hungry neoliberal 'social democrats' in government with the conservatives now) has been wholly incapable of leveraging any of the mass moral outrage against neoliberal capitalism's 'excesses'. Rather, those who have politically benefited most from the economic meltdown of 2008 are also its prime architects: the neoliberal VVD and its ultra-right offshoot, Geert Wilders' 'Freedom Party'. Both have been able to position and present themselves as the sole political representatives of 'the hard working Dutchman' - the term is used so much that, if you didn't know any better, you'd be forgiven to think THEY were the Socialist party - but this is pure ideology: their primary dedication to finance and offshore capital, regressive taxation, etc. preclude the Dutch Right from ever 'actually' serving Dutch working class interests.

So yeah, I'd say Dutch society, though 99% of Dutch people will insist otherwise, definitely has a class structure - but because it is largely unconscious, or rather, because there exists a great disparity between the working mass' imaginary, symbolic, ideological class-affiliation and their 'actual' social economic position, the 'real' political economic tensions and antagonisms between the 'actual' classes find little, or distorted expression in mainstream political discourse. This in itself is a bit of a Dutch tradition, where all too explicit class confrontations a la the French, or all-out class warfare (however one-sided) a la the US as a way of settling real class conflicts, have tended to be avoided, in favor of collective bargaining (the 'Poldermodel'). The problem is, I think, that the forces raging beneath the surface of Dutch technocratic harmony are too strong and too real to be kept under wraps indefinitely, just like the current economic downturn won't magically disappear, merely by staving off a hard look at its 'actual' root causes. But at the rate things are going, I'd say there's a far greater chance of the Euro-zone going belly up, disintegrating and the different Euro countries each lapsing into their own form of fascism, than of the working masses suddenly becoming aware of their 'actual' social economic class situation, and adjusting their political decisions accordingly - i.e. towards a form of socialist democracy.

Sorry about this extremely immodest post, but I'm really 'into' this particular subject now, having recently stumbled upon a book called The Mass Psychology of Fascism by Wilhelm Reich. However you might feel about some of the guy's 'other' theories (orgone energy and whatnot), this early inquiry into the mass structure underlying Hitler's rise to power is, in a word, mind-blowing - and just as relevant for understanding the role that ideological obstinacy plays in getting the working masses to act against their 'actual' interests today, more than ever. This is explosive, 'red pill' stuff - read it and see how deep the rabbit hole really goes.

 

Definitely.

My country is filled with ghettos, where people live in stark poverty (we often refer to them as First Nations Reserves), and we have a pretty clear class structure. I really should go into details further, so I'll post more details later.:bobby:

 

Social engineering through taxation. It's been done to death. It's not like the rich could find offshore tax havens or anything. As we know, Prohibition ended alcohol consumption.

Do it! Vote your heart out!

Hey, if you can do it more power to you. I'm not into winning hearts and minds. Prostitution has never ended even by banning it, much less with attaching stigma to it.

I'd say, you are the one missing one. Lil' ghetto boy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUKo3QUzn9Y"]Lil' Ghetto Boy Music Video - Dr. Dre feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg & Nate Dogg - Official Death Row Upload - YouTube

 

We have tons of ghettos here as well, and the government buys houses, cinderblock up the windows, and hold on to the FOREVER, and never do shit with them

All they can think to do is gentrify, gentrify, gentrify...raise the rent in neighborhoods they want to be 'nice' so that only people that have money can live there...and if you don't have money you gotta live in the shitty..better come up with some money!

 

I seem to hear and read that word every other day at least now. like about Brooklyn..all the time.

anyways yea...

 

There are discriminatory issues in all employment. Some are warranted and some are not. The laws in place do help, compared to when they did not exist but they still have enough loop holes to exploit if that is what someone wants to do.

In Canada there are some issues but there are countries that obviously have far more discriminatory histories.

All prospective candidates should have equal opportunity to present their CV and all relevant information in order to obtain employment. Then it is a process of elimination and one or more candidates is hired.

If they feel that there has been discrimination they have the right to file a complaint and it will be reviewed by a panel. The panel if there is questionable information will contact the employer who then has to justify why that candidate was not chosen. If they are shown to have been discriminatory the panel can not only levy fines but can also legally ask for restitution or employment offers or both.

While it is not a perfect system it is the only one that is there.

Discrimination can be very difficult to ascertain with certainty because it can be done very subtly. Not only when hiring but also in general. If someone wishes to abuse the system then it can be done. The chances are if it is being done they will have token minorities on staff and only interview those who do not fall into that group.

It is a complex issue in that if the person from "Lakeside and lists rowing and polo as his hobbies, and has an English "lord" as his father?" gets the position then the person "from poor parents+ just happened to like boxing and snooker, rather than polo?" can then from their view state they were not hired for those reasons.

If the opposite is done the lakeside is going to feel that they were passed over in order to fill the spot with a political hire.

I removed the better qualified for a reason. If one has more qualifications that are specific to the position they are generally considered as favourable. So to me that would be a given when searching for a candidate and rarely do you interview based upon anything else. So it would generally be a level playing field going into it.

 

I would say the US has many class divisions, just maybe not as defined as England. I grew up in an urban diverse area and it existed, moved to the southeast and it was even more apparent in certain respects. As I've said for the past 10 years about where I live, who you know has a greater bearing on your life than what you know.

 

Great post.

All that I have to add is -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38kDET8K5hE"]Wu-Tang Clan feat. Cappadonna - Little Ghetto Boys - YouTube

 

Criminals are the real heros.