[Closed] 'We're all in this together yeah?'

Inkster. Its really hard to know where to start.

"the left" is not a single coherent group. A tiny fraction of it supported Soviet russia. IIRC this actually cased a split in the hard left after the invasion of Hungary. Those that supported Stalin where as far away from the reins of power as they are today - they were a tiny sect on the far left edges. Not even as popular as the Socialist workers party are today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Great_Britain

So yes - I totally disagree that "many on the left were enthralled by Stalin" A section of the hard left perhaps, Never a part of mainstream labour thinking, nowhere near any power. the communist parties in their various forms had more influence between the wars see "Red Clydesiders" for how the establishment of the day used miltary force to put them down

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Clydeside

some of these strands of left wing thinking were incorporated into the wider labour movement along with the trade unions. Those on the hard left that Supported Stalin were never a part of "the Labour party"

A commmand economy is one where the government decided what should be made and the labour party post war always ran a mixed economy of regulated markets some aspects of a planned economy ( not the same thing as a command economy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_economy as well as some nationalised industries where the benfit to the population and strategic importance of these industries made it desirable - ie where there were natural monopolies such as rail, power or, water.

The post war labour governments were always social Democratic in action.

yes they did try to plan things - simply because it worked. Unemployment was low, housing shortages eliminated, growth was good and the aim was to improve the lot of the people of this country. this was achieved despite paying a huge debt to america left over from the war.
Council housing - led to the working people of this country having decent living accommodation - and was cheaper to build than any other sway of building housing and gave the workers decent secure affordable housing for the first time in the history of this country.

In the immedate post war economy actually ore planning and more state control might have meant that we invested in our industries - we didn't which allowed Germany and Japan who had to as their manufaturing had been destroyed thus they overtook us in terms of manufacturing. Instead the owners of manufacturing industry in the UK took profits instead of inventing leading to the decline of manufacturing in the 60s and 70s. Lady Docker and the gold plated rolls royce. The loss of an empire we could drain for profit also hastened the decline but lack of investment was the key

I think some of your confusion comes from the 70s -Not the post war period. Early 70s the oil price rises destroyed the economy and the labour governments nationalised failing industries and then failed to invest and innovate in those industries. They actually intervened too late Along with weak management this led to the whole concept of nationalised industries becoming discredited and led to Thatchers "revolution" which of course was an economic disaster paid for by the north sea oil money. Norway used their oil money to pay people to build infrastructure and to create wealth for all. The tories used it to pay people not to work. A total waste

Unfettered capitalism leads to growth in inequality and concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the richest. this is why despite being one of the richest counties in the world we have people dying of starvation and begging on the streets. something that is a much less of non existent thing in most of Europe who continued with the social democratic / technocratic style of governments we had post war, It is an utter disgrace that e have a huge number of impoverished people in a country so rich. This is what happens when you "let things happen more organically, where people have more agency in ‘designing’ their own futures." Its fine for the rich and the middle classes do OK - at the expense of the working class who become impoverished, powerless and stuck

thats a very basic few pointers on the post war economy

The NHS needs massive investment and not PFI funded bollocks.

Remind me, who was it who was particularly keen on PPFI?

tj again,

Great reply and I mean that. It's the kind of dialogue I was hoping for this thread, even though I don't agree with everything you said. Certainly I'm with you regarding the 50"s, my point was specifically about the period 1946-1950.

Difference of opinion is not confusion however, I never mentioned the 70"s so I can't understand how you've conflated that with what I was saying about the immediate post war period. I'm old enough to remember the 70's! I'll refrain from calling you confused though.

Direct question for you: Focusing explicitly on the immediate post war period, why, if things are as you say, did labour lose the 1951 election?

I'm definitely not a socialist, even though my voting record is Labour 6 times, Lib Dems 2 times. Where you say unfettered capitalism, I say Corporate Socialism. [I call the tories the Corporate Socialist Party]

For the most part I've been self employed and always worked in the creative industries. Either as a photographer / film maker or an independent nightclub promoter / dj. Whilst I support workers rights and union representation, the unions have done than nothing for me. I don't expect them to. As a creative I believe in competition and complete creative freedom.

In the late 80's, I wanted to try my hand at film and TV work. You couldn't get a job unless you were a member of equity, only you couldn't become a member unless you already worked in that field. It was a catch 22 situation. the best way to get a job or become a union member was to be either related to someone in the industry and have 'contacts'. bugger that I thought.

Now to the music industry. The musicians union was actively opposing electronic music. 'Keep music Live' was their mantra, emblazoned on stickers that you'd see on every bloody guitar case and amplifier. TOTP was a great example of their corruption, If a record had any string arrangements on it, the union used to force bands to employ a bunch of old farts with union membership to play both on the pre recorded session and the TV performance. Jobs for the boys, dictating how and with whom' artists were to perform.

When I went into club promotion in the 90's. I was thankful that Thatcher the witch had liberalised the industry, previously the unions had a grip on the events industry, again having a say in what you could do and who you had to employ. As a creative I don't want anybody getting up in my shit. As a creative I embrace chaos, randomness, volatility and disorder. For me these things are the mothers of invention. Maybe you can see how those experiences shaped my mindset. I have no interest in how things should be, only what they can be.

I love art, especially it's extremes and inequalities. I can stand the socialised, do good, virtue singling, everyones a winner arts council type bollocks. I prefer the rogues and the villains. I have no ideology and no morality when it comes to art [though I am quite ethical.]

Now to Corporate Socialism. A nonsense phrase as you and quite a few others here have suggested. I had a think about it and gave the term a google [wanted to be correct with my terminology as I'd been pulled up on it]. The first link I came up with was this, from a crackpot conspiracy theory website called the Financial Times or something?

https://www.ft.com/content/69b197d6-08a2-4e0e-bf38-c976353e7e20

I'll check the links you posted, [much appreciated] have a gander at this one. You won't be disappointed. I was, I thought I'd invented a new phrase but it seems it's been around for quite some time!

So you prefer your lowly worker to be exploited?

Th again,

The reason I started this thread was to address the fallacy embodied in the phrase 'We're all in this together'

It's a phrase designed to temporarily pull the wool over people's eyes, blackmailing us whilst governments dosh out billions and billions of pounds to multi millionaires and billionaires.

You seem to be fine with this, prepared to give the actions of corrupted governments a pass. You'd rather accuse me of seeking to exploit the 'lowly workers' as you put it. Your doing exactly what the government wants us to do, turn on each other while they get on with stripping the cupboard bare.

The crime of the century is happening right before our eyes and we're only 2 decades in. My conscience is clear, I've given work to many people, paid them fairly and helped to support many people in their careers. I did it all off my own back and had to take many personal risks in doing so, having to make difficult decisions that probably cost me financially when instead I chose to do the right thing. Stelios has just ripped the country for 174 million and yet I'm the problem.

I'd call you a Corbynista but he was probably too right wing for you, maybe your a fan of millionaire Len McClusky. I'm not, he's as bad as Stelios, epitomise what you despise and all that.

I used what's happening with Easy Jet as an example of what's happening on a grand scale right now and for the most part the only response I've had is people sticking up for him, how he's protecting jobs when in fact we're protecting him. Let him and other big businesses and corporations that had had their fingers in the cookie jar go bust. They will be replaced by new, better companies.

The problem were facing is just like that we had with the banks, where they became too big to fail so we had to bail them out. They used their profits to buy up other banks so as to reduce competition, creating monopolies that held the world to ransom. The same thing is happening now only on a much larger scale because it involves more than just the banks.

I feel that attitudes like yours will help to keep right wing governments in power indefinitely. You're more interested in being right than getting it right. We now have a new Labour leadership and the hard left are more interested in trying to wrest power from the red tories (as they put it) than the real Tories, (Corporate Socialist Party)

Socialists to the left, Corporate Socialists to the right, stuck in the middle with you. Because for all our differences, we're both stuck in the middle of this dreadfull situation. The effects of the corporate bail outs will kill more people and cause more misery than the virus itself and we're letting them get away with it by conforming to the idea that we're all in this together whilst banging pots and pans in the street.