. Overall life is much, much better

But do you think we could be way ahead in terms of looking after our poor and needy, or is there always going to be disparity?

All these brains and technology and we still live in effectively an antiquated society, with the haves and have-nots. The standards may have improved but the game is the same.

We can always do better = otherwise there would be no progress. Society is by definition modern or contemporary not antiquated. How many penny farthings do you see at BPW?

No one has suggested it is as bad as it has been what they have said it is it is not as good as it could be and it is still vastly unequal

Are you venturing into post truth politics now THM or do you fancy arguing that its all fairly distributed and we have ended [ or frankly even tried] to end want and suffering?

t isn’t such a good narrative for a rant is it?

When presented with indisputable facts what one should do is play the man with “rant” claims
No one is ranting here I am not even sure we a re disagreeing that much

Essentially do you want the world to be a fiarer place yes or no?
Do you want to stop people dying form hunger
yes or no

How many centuries of capitalism that gave us slavery, dark satanic mines and food banks 😉 do you need before you reconsider ?

Rone – we do have clear and very contemporary evidence 😉 that we could do much better at educating people. But much better if all governments keep out that.

Society is by definition modern or contemporary not antiquated

depends where you look we still have an outdated view of how the world came into being- can I call a 2000 year old + account antiquated ?- and worshipping gods in some quarters

We can be both modern and antiquated depending on where you look

We can always do better

Agreed the real question is whether capitalism [or what we are doing now] is the vehicle to achieve this
Inequitable distribution of wealth and income is clearly a flawed way to achieve less of it and its clearly an intrinsic outcome of capitalism that there must be millions of losers for every winner

Its ends up in the hands of the few not the many

How many penny farthings do you see at BPW?

If your measure of how well consumerism has done is a measure of how far we’ve come then you have inadvertently justified how poor we’ve done as society.

(I am by no means excluded in this process of enjoying my toys but I also realise material gain doesn’t really fix an whole lot.)

If your measure of how well consumerism has done is a measure of how far we’ve come

sorry no idea what this means

then you have inadvertently justified how poor we’ve done as society.

are you still riding a 70s MTB by any chance?

I am just drinking a nice hot cup of ginger pubes tea. Twenty years ago it was PG or Tetley. Now the ginger pubes even makes into food parcels!

Your examples of progress are all based around products or material stuff rather than well-being.

As for 70s bike, see previous response.

do we have to go outside to have a crap with the scraps of paper to wipe our backsides

do we live longer

are we able to find out facts within a few seconds without having 20 copies of the encyclopaedia brittanica

do kids still suffer from polio

etc – the list is endless.

Given they also own 24% of the assets, and the constant barrage of statistics about how inequality has never been higher, I don’t see a problem with that at all…

“Statistics” come from campaign groups with an axe to grind. Rich are materially poorer in terms of real assets than they where 100 years ago. For example instead of owning a whole house in Belgravia now they have a small flat. Also these campaign groups gloss over the value of universal health care and welfare payments. They value a flat in London or a house in SE at today’s market value and then look at a renter in say NE and so look at the wealth disparity ?

If you asked a poor person today to go back and be poor 200, 100 or 50 years ago they would take their life today all day long.

I was going to post this in the Corbyn thread but our resident Comrade-in-chief has been praising Castro for his work on schools and the health service and glossing over the torture of opponents, Christians and homosexuals. This to be added to the economic catastrophe he oversaw in particular after Russia withdrew it’s support. Cubans who’s relatives have suffered at this hands have been celebrating his death in Miami. Communism in practice.

Red Ken has been putting his oar in too of course, a “beacon of light” – see notes on torture above

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-corbyn-fidel-castros-heroism-after-former-cuban-leaders-death_uk_58397d7ce4b0ddedcf5cfe9a?utm_hp_ref=uk

Ohhh, i’m bloody angry, the naked unashamed inequality in this country, tax breaks for the rich at the expense of the low waged and unwaged.
The crass ignorance of the “i’m ok, pull the ladder up” set
The “been there, but it doesn’t effect me now” complacency
The constant attacks and demonisation of the poor and unwaged by the UK mainstream media and political classes
The cronyism in politics
The wholesale destruction of rights, housing, welfare and healthcare hard won by our grand parents after the horrors of WW2.
I’m angry, but i dont let it consume my life 24/7 – until ignorance or complacency is displayed in regards to the state that this country is in, despite being the 5th or 6th strongest economy in the world
That tends to spark me up a bit

Just dipped into this thread.
Having some close personal experience with pip in my family and a friend with MS the system said to help them is doing totally the opposite.

It is shameful and immoral. It disgusts me.

Not trying to convince anyone. It’s just that reading the above comment and other similar ones reinstates my faith in humanity. There are others out there that see the hidden tragedy unfolding just as I and some others do.

That’s all I wanted to say.

Having some close personal experience with pip in my family … the system said to help them is doing totally the opposite.

It is shameful and immoral. It disgusts me.

Right there with you on that one.

CMD banging on about how they’ve reduced the number of benefits claimants, whilst neatly glossing over the point that they’ve done so by implementing a system inherently designed for people deserving of help to fail. ****.

All of the advances in society Thm mentions, were all won at the risk of offending him AGAIN, after the War.
Up until 1979 where we have seen reversal of these advances via Chicago School of Economics ideology. This ideology was used by the big 3 parties as rightly pointed out previously, even New Labour. But what we have seen since 2010 appears to be a last hurrah of dying Neoliberalists, raiding the piggybank as much as humanly possible in the limited time available. I don’t think in 2015 that Conservative couldn’t believe their luck in Labour being so unelectable after constantly climbing in to bed with Tory policy, attacks on unemployed or disabled, or just as bad, abstention. Rachel Reeves, Frank Field, Liam Byrne and above all, David Freud make me vomitous.

So can we be clear, up until Corbyn, the political establishment were different cheeks of the same arse.
Weather Corbyn can change this, and offer a real form of opposition remains to be seen

But what we have seen since 2010 appears to be a last hurrah of dying Neoliberalists, raiding the piggybank as much as humanly possible in the limited time available.

In what way has the piggy bank been raided? Ok, the BoE has been stealing money off savers but that is not the Tories fault. Can you explain?

I don’t think in 2015 that Conservative couldn’t believe their luck in Labour being so unelectable

True.

If you asked a poor person today to go back and be poor 200, 100 or 50 years ago they would take their life today all day long.

Totally irrelevant. We are talking about the situation today not 200 years ago.

Thm, the NHS firesale, royal mail sold under market value to crony mates and best men at weddings, outsourcing of government bodies to pic’s,-atos, Capita and so forth, Pfi, selling of public bought and owned royal bank of Scotland but only the profitable part of the bank, and again sold below market value, selling of profitable public owned railway infrastructure…

jambalaya – Member
Rich are materially poorer in terms of real assets than they where 100 years ago. For example instead of owning a whole house in Belgravia now they have a small flat

😆 brilliant

Do we really want to return to the condions that Robert Tressel waxed so lyrically about in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist?
Because for some sections of society it’s certainly looking that way

Sorry missed the firesale and RM share price pretty much where is started. Does your argument get better or should I just stop there?

Please can you provide an update of how this progressing?

I don’t have to. The things Jamba said were dependent on capitalism were sustained for decades under the soviet system and were not the cause of it’s collapse.

And this reductionist ‘poor people are better off today’ rubbish, the comparison to make is not against standards from the past, but against those who sit at the top of society today. The gap has grown massively in modern times to the detriment of not just the poor, but to society at large. There is perhaps a valid comparison to make between the poor here and those in other parts of the world, but again the difference between western poor people and developing world poor people is on a much lower scale than western poor vs western rich.

The gap has grown massively in modern times to the detriment of not just the poor, but to society at large

No it hasn’t, it’s narrowed but don’t let that stop you.

And this reductionist ‘poor people are better off today’ rubbish, the comparison to make is not against standards from the past, but against those who sit at the top of society today. The gap has grown massively in modern times to the detriment of not just the poor, but to society at large.

That’s nonsense. Nutrition, health-care, education (to name just a few) are closer today than they have ever been. Stop obsessing about shiny crap nobody actually needs and you might see how good everyone has it.

don’t let that stop you.

Doesn’t stop the other side talking bollox. Post-truth n all that. 😉

So the growing admissions to hospitals of malnutrition, and diseases associated with poverty are nothing to be concerned about, 5thelephant

Concening true, but whose to blame – worth asking a third time?

Blame? Frank Field, David Freud, Ian Duncan Smith would be a good starting point for that one.

The architects of welfare reform.
Who’d have thought if you dismantle welfare safety nets and sanction benefits income for up to 3 years, folk might not, y’know, not be able to eat nutritiously

Obesity is now a ‘disease’ of poverty. Wasn’t long ago you had to be wealthy to get it.

Just because you’re eating enough cheap sugar and carbohydrate laden shit to suffer obesity, it doesn’t follow you getting the correct nutrients in your diet.

So are we saying that the food industry is responsible for malnutrition AND obesity in the poorer spectrum of society?
Chalk up another one to blame on capitalism, eh THM

How about “quick to blame, slow to take responsibility” ism?

Who makes people buy sugary crap instead of drinking free water?

The advertising industry. Chalk 2 to blame capitalism

So are we saying that the food industry is responsible for malnutrition AND obesity in the poorer spectrum of society?

That’s the problem with living in a free society. You’re free to make bad choices. You no longer need to be rich to get gout.

Sugar addiction

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23719144

Good article here
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)30795-4/fulltext

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/sugar-has-similar-effect-on-brain-as-cocaine-a6980336.html

Undernutrition remains a serious health issue for women and children in several developing countries, as pointed out by George Davey Smith in his Comment on the report on BMI trends (April 2, p 1349).1 However the situation is not exclusively undernutrition for the poor and overnutrition for the better off. The burden of obesity shifts progressively from the wealthier to the poorer groups with rising country income.2
Additionally, undernutrition and obesity can exist concurrently. This double burden of malnutrition has been observed at country, household, and even individual level. The typical pattern is an overweight or obese mother with a nutritionally stunted child. Although poverty is associated with undernutrition among children, it can result in obesity among adults.3

The Tories aren’t just to blame for the rise in malnutrition, food bank dependency etc, they are also to blame for brexit ( Cameron you tit) that is going to hurt the poorest hardest, sweet 😉

Obesity is now a ‘disease’ of poverty. Wasn’t long ago you had to be wealthy to get it.

When I see bottles of Laurent Perrier scattered about the council housing block instead of Buckfast you may have made a good point.

Obesity is now a ‘disease’ of poverty. Wasn’t long ago you had to be wealthy to get it.

this is bollox to be honest. there is no link between social class and levels of obesity. The two groups least likely to be obese are poor men and rich women

Thing is… it’s much much cheaper to buy frozen processed food than it is to buy fresh produce..
I could get a bag of Turkey Twizzlers and some oven chips for the same price as a cauliflower and a head of broccoli..
In fact.. buying an oven ready lasagne would be half the price.. Setting up a cycle of sugar, msg and carbohydrate addiction at a young age for poor families desperate to feed their kids

It’s a cynical profit orientated system and it’s the poor that suffer most
Putting your fingers in your ears and singing lalalala just demonstrates what a useless **** you are in terms of fixing society’s ills

You no longer need to be rich to get gout.

FFS is that now the benchmark? I suppose we can also be thankful that working class proles can now afford to snort coke too?

It’s even cheaper to buy half as much frozen processed food.

That aint coke, that’s ephedrine and some kind of novocaine based anesthetic with a hefty price tag 😉