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talkpoliticsOk, so I did martial arts when I was in my teens and twenties.
But apart from the techniques of combat, I also learned a little of the cultures of the East.
The Japanese have a concept called 'On' - no real English word is exactly equivalent, but consider ' Obligation' s a starting point. If someone gives you something, then you owe them. And this is mutually acknowledged in their culture.
Nobody wants to feel obliged to anyone else, unless they really have to. And if you do end up owing someone, you have to repay them.
Japanese companies will lay on healthcare for the workers, and all sorts of other fringe benefits. It does mean that the private healthcare that Japanese people get is met at little or no cost to the taxpayer - however, the average Japanese company does expect a lot of conformity, commitment and kow-towing in return.
In the Western world, it isn't unknown for a tied house to go with a job. It does mean that the worker does not have to worry so much about accommodation , but it also means that leaving the job is harder, because where are you going to live if you go looking for work?
One of the big pitfalls of State Run Economies, where the government is not just the cheif employer, but the only employer in town and indeed the whole nation , is that The State acquires a monopoly.
If you wanted to bury your grandmother in Soviet Russia, then the only undertaker in town would tell you that they could not fit you in - they were just too busy. A bottle of vodka , however, could be discreetly offered, and somehow, they would suddenly be able to fit you in. Everything had to be paid the official price, plus a bit extra to get it fixed.
And it used to be rather similar in Britain, once. Getting a phone installed would take months and cost you a couple of hundred pounds - I know people who had to wait and pay up. Nobody else apart from the GPO was allowed to and there was no way that those who were permitted to install phones could do it quicker or cheaper, they said.
And then the government ended the GPO monopoly on Phone lines. Ok, the GPO still put up the wires and the exchanges, but anyone with enough nous could connect a phone to the network and get your phone connected to the local exchange. And soon, it became possible to have a phone fitted in under a week - for free.
So, yes, I do believe in allowing entrepreneurs to operate, so long as they are regulated in the public interest.One of the things about a centralised government is that it can create a fair playing field, or give some people an unfair advantage. You need to have the training to fit gas appliances, but anyone could become qualified for CORGI registration. The Confederation Of Registered Gas Installers is no longer known by this cute little acronym , as I recall , but the same system applies.A mixed Economy and Social Democracy does not inevitably lead to the State taking oveer everything , going on the British experience.
It would be far better for governments to pass legislation insisting on the right to education for children and giving the right to parental leave to people of both genders, I think, rather than give subsidies to enable corporations to sell their goods at reduced prices on the world market.
Surely, the place to start is in schools. Teach kids how a bank works and how companies are run, how the political system developed and the role of the electorate in the process of government.It is challenging to allow children to think for themselves, but in the long run , it's the only way for society to progress.
But apart from the techniques of combat, I also learned a little of the cultures of the East.
The Japanese have a concept called 'On' - no real English word is exactly equivalent, but consider ' Obligation' s a starting point. If someone gives you something, then you owe them. And this is mutually acknowledged in their culture.
Nobody wants to feel obliged to anyone else, unless they really have to. And if you do end up owing someone, you have to repay them.
Japanese companies will lay on healthcare for the workers, and all sorts of other fringe benefits. It does mean that the private healthcare that Japanese people get is met at little or no cost to the taxpayer - however, the average Japanese company does expect a lot of conformity, commitment and kow-towing in return.
In the Western world, it isn't unknown for a tied house to go with a job. It does mean that the worker does not have to worry so much about accommodation , but it also means that leaving the job is harder, because where are you going to live if you go looking for work?
One of the big pitfalls of State Run Economies, where the government is not just the cheif employer, but the only employer in town and indeed the whole nation , is that The State acquires a monopoly.
If you wanted to bury your grandmother in Soviet Russia, then the only undertaker in town would tell you that they could not fit you in - they were just too busy. A bottle of vodka , however, could be discreetly offered, and somehow, they would suddenly be able to fit you in. Everything had to be paid the official price, plus a bit extra to get it fixed.
And it used to be rather similar in Britain, once. Getting a phone installed would take months and cost you a couple of hundred pounds - I know people who had to wait and pay up. Nobody else apart from the GPO was allowed to and there was no way that those who were permitted to install phones could do it quicker or cheaper, they said.
And then the government ended the GPO monopoly on Phone lines. Ok, the GPO still put up the wires and the exchanges, but anyone with enough nous could connect a phone to the network and get your phone connected to the local exchange. And soon, it became possible to have a phone fitted in under a week - for free.
So, yes, I do believe in allowing entrepreneurs to operate, so long as they are regulated in the public interest.One of the things about a centralised government is that it can create a fair playing field, or give some people an unfair advantage. You need to have the training to fit gas appliances, but anyone could become qualified for CORGI registration. The Confederation Of Registered Gas Installers is no longer known by this cute little acronym , as I recall , but the same system applies.A mixed Economy and Social Democracy does not inevitably lead to the State taking oveer everything , going on the British experience.
It would be far better for governments to pass legislation insisting on the right to education for children and giving the right to parental leave to people of both genders, I think, rather than give subsidies to enable corporations to sell their goods at reduced prices on the world market.
Surely, the place to start is in schools. Teach kids how a bank works and how companies are run, how the political system developed and the role of the electorate in the process of government.It is challenging to allow children to think for themselves, but in the long run , it's the only way for society to progress.
You are lucky...
Date: 6/7/11 00:30 (UTC)Re: You are lucky...
Date: 6/7/11 02:29 (UTC)Re: You are lucky...
Date: 6/7/11 07:41 (UTC)The problem is that votes count for little in Britain unless you live in a marginal constituency.
I think that you can ' make your way in life' if you have successful parents who will teach you how. Sadly, not every child is blessed with Judge Judy for a mum, or Richard Branson for a dad.
(no subject)
Date: 6/7/11 07:29 (UTC)Economic and political teaching was basic, particularly at the base-line level (which often just covered things like "define a political party" as an entire unit goal, from what I heard). I was in AP Government and Politics, and we learned a lot - and most of us, if we talked to anyone else, student or otherwise, were met with blank stares, and most past students of the class forgot it all, like everything else they learned that they don't directly use in college.
Economics teaching was mostly theoretical (supply and demand), and there was no banking or financial classes even available. The closest was one "Business Law" class, which most kids took because the curriculum was so basic the teacher only spent half the class-time teaching and the other half let the kids goof-off.
It's not just a matter of requiring these classes, but requiring them in such a way as to be useful to students.
(That said, most classes students are mandated to take will never be useful - unless you're going into a math-oriented field, you won't need much advanced algebra, which is a required course in my state; on the flip side, most people will need to know how to balance a check-book or cook a basic meal, but that class was recently decided as superfluous, because in parents are supposed to teach that to their kids, anyway...key word: supposed to, not do.)
(no subject)
Date: 6/7/11 07:40 (UTC)In the US, for example, the government-run monopoly of the internet was privatized by AT&T as a hand-off in order to open up the internet to the general public. So, especially when dealing with new technologies, having the Big Science combo of government/universities is highly beneficial for progress, although a lot of European industries remain state-run for one reason or another.
(no subject)
Date: 6/7/11 07:56 (UTC)Citation badly needed.
A Stare-run economy that runs *everything*, and the State running the GPO in the UK led to very little difference in performance- other than that you could not bribe your way through the UK system like you could in Russia.
I know, I lived here then.
As to your second paragraph, you talk about the government/ universities combo, and this being beneficial to progress.
I fail to see what prevents this in a mixed Economy or an economy where Government allows industry to privatise whatever it successfully can.
Go back and show me again how the Russian telephone system was 'very different' from its UK equivalent. To me, they were both inefficient as service providers, being slow and expensive, whereas private enterprise in this feild could connect phones faster and cheaper that the state run equivalent in both places.
Seems to me that you are just hand waving here. No cites, no figures, and a mere mention of Government collaboration with Universities.
It may interest you to know that in Japan, especially in electronics and robotics, an awful lot of R&D gets done on purely private money.
(no subject)
Date: 6/7/11 19:51 (UTC)Contrast this with Germany who told Edison that they would provide the infrastructure, their people would be trained to operate it, and basically made it so they were self-sufficient and managed to create a cheap, usable telephone system.
I don't need a citation contrasting a centrally-planned economy and the government owning something like the telephone company. It should be dead obvious, and if you think otherwise you have just trolling me because I refuse to believe anyone is that ignorant.
(no subject)
Date: 6/7/11 20:54 (UTC)maybe Edison had something to do with how the stuff got sold and how it was wired at the exchange , but the problem was they charged you 200 quid and there was nobody else who was allowed to do it for less.
So, when they opened up the market, these other guys came along, looked at the mess Edison had caused and said 'never mind , guv, we will do it for £150, and we will get the van round next week".
There followed a price war as some other dudes started up in business and they would do it for a flat £100 and gt it fixed in less than 3 days.
BT, in trying to keep up with Virgin Media , their main rivals , is now willing to fit the phone on the same day and do it for free - the money comes out of the calls charged to your number these days.
like I said, In Russia, the State ran ~everything~ as a monopoly; in Britain the government ran the phones. The similarity is that they were both monopolies and artificially created monopolies are not in the public interest.
unless you can put up a creditable cite that says different, you just lost the argument, buddy.
Go look at this.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4061613.stm
A former prime minister, Harold Macmillan, famously grumbled about "selling the family silver", and had the Labour Party been elected in 1987, they would have reversed the process.
Yet the privatised telecom industry seemed to deliver; prices came down, waiting lists for telephone vanished in the early 1980s and never reappeared, most faults were cleared quickly, and even public telephones began to work, once the industry regulator cracked his whip.
From the cited source.
(no subject)
Date: 6/7/11 21:01 (UTC)privatisation reduced the waiting times and the installation costs according to the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4061613.stm
(no subject)
Date: 6/7/11 14:30 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 6/7/11 21:10 (UTC)