If I can build a ship or a car for home consumption does it
matter that the ship costs more because the local cost of labour is
higher so long as the wages paid are recycled locally into buying other
local purchases, which stimulates the local economy
which invigorates the local population.
Investment in such a consortium is labelled Socialism and is designed, through a planned economy to benefit the population as a whole not just a segment of it.
Unfortunately what we have inherited is the concept where 'private
enterprise', with their shareholders calling the shots. A group of
wealthy people already segregated from society and the local population,
who care little for that society and are only
interested in maximising their return on capital. Not unnaturally it's called Capitalism.
Wealth means power. Not only the power to seek out cheap labour in Asia but the power to manipulate our minds to accept their view of the way a productive economy works.
Of course what is rarely asked is, productive for who. With the media and the news-papers in the hands of the wealthy we are never going to get a definitive answer as to who benefits.
Society is divided up into layers like sediment in a geological
dig. The top 1% have already disappeared off over the horizon and live
in unimaginable opulence somewhere where the sun always shines. The
next layers, upper, upper middle and middle economically
defined segments all have "skin in the game" and therefore are happy to
see the status quo continue irrespective that the lower down the
geological dig you are the more exposed you are to subsidence.
The interesting sectors are the skilled and semi skilled sectors
where with government connivance there is the occasional optimistic
olive branch held out that they too can join the party so long as they
accept the conformity of the rules. That whilst
your jobs are threatened with extinction because we have chosen to move
them offshore you can re-train for a less skilled job, no minimum hours
contract with lower pay and no guarantee of employment protection but what the hell with credit you can 'pretend'
to be somebody.
And then there are the unloved, unwashed, "untouchables" who have
been cast outside the stockade to fend for themselves. We can and do
offer them the sop of 'welfare' but in doing so we take care to
repeatedly stigmatise them for not having the gumption
to become like us. We ignore that dependency breeds dependency and that
disillusion breeds more dissolution. The impact of living in an
economic ghetto is to largely to remove the last vestiges of self confidence and pride in who we think we are.
These people with little influence or or power and a voting system
which has scarcely any incentive to reflect the needs of these millions
of the people, is it any wonder that as the State institutions, for
which we were once proud, are being wilfully
destroyed by the Tory party.
The ideological allure of capitalism, with the emphasise on "winners" and of continually disparaging losers has
meant that people cannot countenance themselves as anything other than
acquisitive gainers. Sadly this misses the point, not only of failing
to evaluate the actual person, content in what they have attained,
emotionally and materially but which also reflects the "true you" without the never ending goading to do better.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you
If you can trust when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting to
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies
Or being hated don't give way to hating
And yet don't look too good or talk too wise.
If you can dream and not make dreams your master
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same
If you can bear to hear the truths you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools
Or watch the thing you gave your life to, broken
And stoop and build em up with worn out tools
If you can make a heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch and toss
And lose and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after you are gone
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says, Hold on.
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you
If all men count with you but none too much
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of distance run
Yours is the earth and everything that's in it
And what is more, you'll be a man my son.
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