How do the "Have Nots" get on in life?

Is communism the way forward? Where did that come from Day 6? I don't think I have ever seen anyone suggest it.

When Jeremy Corbyn said "There is a new common sense emerging about how the country should be run, and that's what's needed to replace the broken model forged by Margaret Thatcher many years ago." I don't think anyone other than those on the far-right of economics thought he was talking about Communism.

There is free-market capitalism and mixed economy capitalism (or Social Democracy) and the free-marketers have shot themselves in the foot with their greed.

Free-market capitalism is not detached from all that goes on any more than a mixed economy; it sits along side the investments and the institutions that government controls just a mixed economy does. The Tories love to blame state ownership for the problems they had but it is well recognised that it was actually poor economic management that brought in the IMF, etc.

At the beginning of the Thatcher era some of the sales of state owned enterprises were done with a consensus of approval particularly as the state continued to control the NHS and pensions - areas which always seem to have had a majority in favour of state ownership. What did change was the role of the state in housebuilding - which has come back to bite us and the selling off of natural monopolies such as water, electricity, etc., again not popular with the majority it seems. It is clear that you did need state intervention in these at least to regulate them but regulation is a dirty word to the free-market economist.

The global recession and the crisis that went with it had a deep affect on the economy and showed up many of the cracks in free-market economics. It was, after all, just that form of economics which had caused the problems. The problem with the most recent times - all while the Tories and their free-market capitalism were being inflicted on us - is that we have not seen the normal growth that would come after a recession.

We now have household incomes that are barely above the level of 2008 and incomes which are below that of 2008 - something we have not seen before. The Bank of England has said this may have been the worst decade for earnings (comparatively) since the 1750s.

Things did look as if they might be getting better in 2015/16 but over the last year or so we have slightly gone into reverse again. Inflation has been rising and wages haven't been. Younger people have done really very, very badly where wealth, pensions, housing and earnings are concerned,relative to those of older people meaning that, for the very first time in many, many decades we are looking at children being worse of than their parents.

Through the 1950s, 60s and 70s we were the sick man of Europe - through the next 30 years, coinciding with our membership of the EU we did relatively well. Over the last 7 or 8 years we have been doing worse than the 60s and 70s and worse than it has been in most other countries since the recession.

Not unreasonable then, Day 6, to look at the type of capitalism that brought about the 2008 financial crisis and has kept us poor since.

(Ref: most of this thanks to a BBC programme I listened to the other day)

Surely saying that disparity is a fact of life is finding it acceptable, is it not?

It isn't a "fact of life" anyway. It's a result of how we have chosen to run society so even more unacceptable - in my view - to think we can do nothing about it, surely. It's a bit like saying, in the days of serfs and villains, that death by starving is a fact of life. It may have been under that system but we don't have quite the same problem now we have moved to a society that expects more equality than they did then.

This may be interesting to those who want to understand why some countries do not see free-market capitalism in the same way it has been seen by a powerful few in this country.

Viking Economics

This is just one paragraph:

The first is conceptual. As a result of these states having largely rejected the core assumptions of classical economics, profit is seen as a consequence of work and not as its goal. Banking is seen as a service and not as the focus of economic growth. Education is viewed as vital to personal growth, which just also happens to be the perfect countercyclical investment that secures long-term prosperity. And underpinning all this is an expectation that each person will work to contribute to the overall well-being of the society of which they are part: this is a perception of work as a participatory activity.

It seems to me well worth looking at countries where there are not so many 'have nots'

I read that last night, GracesGran. Extremely interesting, particularly putting the links in historical perspective, Norway having been annexed by both Sweden and Denmark at one time or another. You would think they would want to break away from the Scandinavian ideal, but they do not.
It's the idea of work and education being for the good of society, rather than the individual good.
Now if we could adopt the Norwegian system of going in with the EU, and then see how good their other systems are, we could be transformed as a country.

I've just ordered the book through Hive Bookshops. It's in paperback, too.

I think the thing that most impressed me Jen - although I was not surprised and it has been my cry about economics for many a long year is they do not see the word 'economy' to just represent profit. As you say - it is about people.

This is very much where I come from politically but I don't yet think we have such a party in this country although we are beginning to see some green shoots of social democracy.

Amazon has some reasonably priced second hand copies so I think I will have to buy a real book for the first time in ages as the Kindle copy is quite expensive by comparison. Like you, I am really interested to see how they came to such similar economic views while have such different relationships to the EU.

Talking about not having such a party in this country, did you see that at the Co-operative Party centenary at the weekend, Corbyn gave a speech and suggested that Uber become a co-operative, everyone working with and for each other, and organising themselves on co-operative lines. It sounded a good idea to me. Much better than working for Uber.

£10.85 from Hive, and you give a bit to your local bookshop, too, to keep it going.
It's postage free over £10.

It's all postage free, I've just discovered; no minimum spend.
That's good, although I do usually save up books so they send three together.

I am going to save a tree and not a bookshop it seems Jen - what a choice. I have decided to go with the Kindle copy simply so I have it with my current reading on the machine.

I heard Corbyn's speech and I really like the idea of the Cooperative party - very keen on the ideas they put forward and he is right, making some of the platform companies 'employees' into a co-operative seems a great idea.

We have also seen a small growth in housing co-operatives - I think that was a BBC radio programme rather than a article so no link unfortunately. Also, I have heard about a company that runs in Holland, I think it was, whose employees (nurse carers) work in co-operative type manner in small groups so a combined co-operative/capitalism setup working, as I understood it, in a very useful and successful way.

Almost all my neighbours claim benefits and are no worse off than me who's always worked full time. I'm not the smartest and don't have much education and live in an area of high unemployment and low paid insecure jobs. I've always tried and no wonder why. Working has never really benefitted me, and I've been bullied and taken advantage of while the people around me have all their time to themselves and only care about themselves. I rent and won't get a pension. Poverty is seen as shameful these days.

That is another sad consequence of what we are seeing - the poor people in low paid jobs who do not have the funds or opportunity to save or pay into any pension scheme. They are to an extent doomed to rely on benefits of some sort for the rest of their lives. £150 basic pension is far from enough if housing needs to be paid out of it - or a contribution made.
I do think that some education about all this should be given to older teenagers so the realise the implications of not having a pension etc.
People should not need to be worried sick about money etc all their lives - often it is not their fault but circumstances. Also being a bolshie teenager who knows best and will not work at qualifications is also a factor for some people till reality kicks in and they find themselves too old for courses etc!

That's true welshwife. I'm a civil servant who has a pension but they've cut it down and raised the pension age to 67. They'll continue to rise it as the Treasury's spent all the money so we'll never get it back. I joined to improve my prospects and have a pension. I've worked hard but am not very intelligent so didn't do well and would have loved to. I've looked into retraining but it costs too much. Talk about a catch 22!

and won't get a pension

Not sure what you are saying here Stay as you say you will get a Civil Service Pension. Do you mean you wont get a State Pension?

I understood State Pension age for women was reverting to 60/65(?)

I don't understand it MawBroon. If Stay has been working all those years she will get a state pension of some sort at some point and she says she has a Civil Service pension. It's a puzzle. I think we are missing some detail.

State pension age for me is now 67.5 ( so far) but I will be very surprised if that doesn't rise again.

my widowed sister has a huge civil service pension
Anyone with a huge civil service pension must have worked in a top job for the full 40 years - most female civil service pensioners get miniscule pensions as, in the 1960s and 1970s, many left to bring up families - their pension contributions were returned to them as a 'gratuity' and they had to start again when they returned to work (probably on a much lower grade than before too).

They also changed the Classic Civil Service Pension scheme some time ago and newer members will not get such a good deal and will have to work for longer.

The freezing of one pension scheme and transfer or starting on another is common in all the places that had such extremely good pensions these days Jalima. Sadly some people never had such good pensions but there was a short period where government employees pensions were setting the way for others. It didn't last very long sadly.

Jalima - my sister did get her gratuity when she left to have her first baby but she paid it back when she returned to work after 3 or 4 years ( I did the childminding of her 2 along with my own 2) and was reinstated into the pension scheme. Having started work as a CO at 17 she did almost complete 40 years and as she was rapidly promoted spent most of those years as an HEO.

Your comments illustrate my point that there is a lot of luck involved - being in the right place/job at the right time- in determining the financial outcome of your endeavours.

I completely agree with you about being in the right place/job st the right time and the luck involved Granny23 it also helps a bit if you are married or in a steady relationship with a partner with a good job.

I didn't know you could pay it back!

I think that is so true gillybob - how many of the people we read about who are having to go to foodbanks etc are mothers who have been left to cope on their own?

It is all too easy for our generation to ignore real poverty because younger folk spend what money they have in different ways.

We live in a nice house but we don't have smartphones and never buy takeaways.

Does that make us more virtuous or diserving than those youngsters with their gizmos and spendthrift habits? Probably not. We just have different priorities.