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Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 3:06 pm
by hubb
SCope13 wrote:m8son wrote:SCope13 wrote:m8son wrote:yh haha im half way through the trial atm
never read that one tbh, it good? Was reading a decent amount of him last year then I went to uni and reading for pleasure came to an end lol. But yeah i got a nice collection of his short stories and shit.
Yeah it's good, pretty frustrating but that's the point haa. Also i'm not looking forward to the ending cos he never finished it and stops half way through a sentence lol
lol yeah the fact that he never finished it is the main thing thats always put be off from reading it tbh. It worth it tho?
I see it as part of the appeal tbh, that despite it is unfinished it's still so applicable. It's imo a very hard earned truth (-the nature of bureaucracy) anyway, so it kind of shows the strenght of his word.
I'd recommend Adorno, Wittgenstein (
) or more recently Baudrillard (for example his stuff on 9/11).
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 3:25 pm
by Muncey
m8son wrote:yh haha im half way through the trial atm
Got this on my on my kindle waiting.. once I finish with Hume.
Lol someone on The Chase the other day had a question about Kafka I can't remember what it was, their answer was "Shrek". Classic.
hubb wrote:lWittgenstein (
)
I've got his biography to read, big arse book that. He was good friends with Piero Sraffa I think, who's a bit of a G
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 6:13 pm
by nowaysj
Muncey wrote:their answer was "Shrek". Classic.
Recycle that guy shooting himself in the head.
But I take it that was a tv show? If you're watching it, you're part of the problem
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 6:15 pm
by Muncey
Just a standard quiz show I occasionally have on as background noise. Bit of a guilty pleasure tbh, some cracking answers pop up.
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 12:44 am
by _ronzlo_
Internet billionaire Nick Hanauer warns of coming revolution
Nick Hanauer, internet entrepreneur,
has a message for his fellow "zillionaires": the revolution is coming.
Mr Hanauer, an early investor in internet retail giant Amazon, says like many of his fellow one-percenters, he owns his own yacht, multiple homes and private jet. He says he acquired all his wealth by seeing the potential of the internet and acting on it.
Now, he writes in Politico magazine, he sees a different kind of future, and the outlook for people like him is not a bright one:
If we don't do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn't eventually come out.
Do you think the US is special or different, he asks. You're wrong. No nation is immune, he says - just ask the Russian tsars or the French aristocracy.
Things are going to change, he says, and when they do it will happen quickly - but it doesn't have to be this way.
Mr Hanauer endorses what he calls "middle-out" economics. He advocates raising the minimum wage and endorses Seattle's recent move to raise the lowest hourly wage for an employee in the city jurisdiction to $15 (£8.80).
By paying Americans a "living wage", he writes, it will relieve some of the burden on the federal government to provide programs like food stamps, rent assistance and medical-care subsidies. That will help conservatives get their wish of trimming government spending.
He concludes that while the public is starting to view the capitalist system as broken, it can still work as long as it is regulated.
"It can be managed either to benefit the few in the near term or the many in the long term," he writes. "The work of democracies is to bend it to the latter."
Rick Newman of Yahoo Finance
thinks Mr Hanauer is getting a bit too worked up, however.
"The rich ought to chill out," he writes. "While the masses may envy their wealth, there's no evidence of a revolution brewing, or even a well-behaved civil disturbance."
He agrees that Mr Hanauer has identified some disturbing trends and that steps should be taken to address income inequality.
"It's nearly inevitable there will be government spending cuts and, yes, tax hikes, when the government's finances become unsustainable, which could take a decade or more," he says. "When it happens, the politicians in Washington will find ways to spread the pain around, and America will muddle through."
Pitchforks or muddling. It seems these are the choices.
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 1:37 am
by OGLemon
If by revolution he means a socialist revolution I think that the right conditions for the revolution are not totally in place. The proletariat of the U.S. don't have the unity to coordinate an effective revolution. Individualism is too strong here. I see the government either adopting social-democratic reforms or a movement toward a more conservative-libertarian society.
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 1:51 am
by Phigure
yeah i agree. the global capitalism we have in the world today is very much so a different beast from what was around during marx's day. i don't think that "classic" marxist socialist revolution has a chance to succeed in today's world, imo marx's approach needs to be adapted and reapplied to the modern form of the class struggle
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 1:53 am
by bABGzus
not a socialist revolution, it'll be a right wing christian conservative libertarian revolution, which is even more depressing
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 1:57 am
by Phigure
yeah thats more likely, i dont see people ever getting their shit together. the left in the US (and pretty much everywhere else too tbh) is pathetic, meanwhile the political center keeps shifting further and further to the right
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 2:14 am
by OGLemon
Phigure wrote:the left in the US (and pretty much everywhere else too tbh) is pathetic
this!! Most of them shout solidarity yet they argue about shit that happened almost a hundred years ago.
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 2:17 am
by BonerJams04
wysockisauce wrote:Who cares I'll be dead by then.
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 3:18 am
by mks
Reverb wrote:wysockisauce wrote:Who cares I'll be dead by then.
Pretty much the mindset of everyone who is fucking up the planet right now.
These types do not think about their children's children's children.
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 3:40 am
by test_recordings
I think a lot of the current problems can be solved by making the political system do what it professes it's supposed to, i.e. do what the majority want
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 5:40 am
by nowaysj
bABGzus wrote:not a socialist revolution, it'll be a right wing christian conservative libertarian revolution, which is even more depressing
I tell you the libertarians are so close. I don't think anyone on dsf is close to being aware of how close, or what that will mean to have an insurgency in their town or city.
On top of that, the number of unsupportable/unproductive people is only growing. Water is becoming more scarce (in some parts of our country).
It is close to coming apart.
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 12:20 pm
by ehbes
I'd be shocked if a major shake up didn't happen by the end of this decade. Either for better or for worse
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 12:59 pm
by OGLemon
The U.S. is on its way out in terms of being a superpower. China will most likely replace us.
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 8:31 pm
by Phigure
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 8:46 pm
by Muncey
OGLemon wrote:The U.S. is on its way out in terms of being a superpower. China will most likely replace us.
Possibly. Could be another Japan though, they were tipped to overtake the US then they had whats dubbed "Japans lost (double) decade" .. double cause they started to recover then the financial crisis hit. Lost decade is a bit misleading but they certainly aren't in the same league as the US anymore.
I haven't been keeping up with China but last I read they weren't even selling houses for gold anymore, was all done in silver because the housing market has crumbled to the point that houses aren't considered very liquid or profitable assets anymore. Depending how bad the housing problem gets it could stop them from overtaking the US.
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 8:57 pm
by Phigure
nowaysj wrote:bABGzus wrote:not a socialist revolution, it'll be a right wing christian conservative libertarian revolution, which is even more depressing
I tell you the libertarians are so close. I don't think anyone on dsf is close to being aware of how close, or what that will mean to have an insurgency in their town or city.
"libertarians" (in quotes cause most american libertarians say theyre for libertarianism but want to ban gay marriage, abortion, etc) are the last people i see ever mounting a revolution, back in may they got all excited about "operation american spring" and declared that MILLIONS WILL MARCH ON WASHINGTON AND OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT
like 50 people showed up. libertarians in the US are just a very vocal, but weak minority
everything points to a shift towards more and more right wing authoritarian government
Re: If we can't change our economic system, our number's up
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 9:51 pm
by nowaysj
Operation American Spring was a fake from the get go, if you think "libertarians" got excited about it, you are mistaken, or misled.
My use of the term is loose though, to incorporate a large portion of the spectrum of antifederal minded people.
The people I refer to are a minority, as you suggest, but that is in no way a limiting factor in their ability to derail (or greatly accelerate) the unfolding fascistic agenda here in the states.