h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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On an Asian rich list?

OK, let's rephrase things for your benefit.

There's a new rich list out that indicates that there are a greater number of people achieving a higher degree of wealth in the UK than ever before. The majority of these are self-made and non-university educated. The change in the demographics has come about under consistent right of centre Government since 1979. Prior to 1979, under alternating socialist & centrist Governments, the Rich List was dominated by inherited wealth. Aristocracy has been replaced with meritocracy.

There is a basic dichotomy at the heart of our current Government though. With regard to the economy, it is firmly non-interventionist in a typical right wing fashion. In every other aspect however it espouses state intervention in the life of the individual to a degree only previously seen in the USSR. State Institutions are corrupt, incompetent and shackled by PC attitudes. A social policy of mass immigration and multiculturalism has been, by the Government's own admission, a resounding failure.

So, on the day when we see that the Capitalist part of Government policy has made more ordinary people wealthier than ever before, why do we persist with the Socialist policies that are failing?

Of course, there is the aposite view I mentioned earlier that the Rich List merely reflects the Government's policy of offering tax breaks to the mega-rich to encourage them to live in Britain

Because there are more measures of success than wealth? Because the wealthier you get, the poorer someone else gets?

I agree with the theory of the way capitalism leads to a meritocracy. It seems to make sense. I know it rarely works in practise, but few things do so I'll live with that. But in recent years the gap between rich and poor in this country has got larger and larger. Now, I consider inequality a great measure of a country's development. In many ways the UK is a less developed country than it was.

The gap is a measure I'll agree, but I don't think it's a given that generating wealth automatically deprives others.

A point I've made before is that this Govt does lamentably little to help people back to work. Even the Tories had a multitude of job creation and training programmes that worked for many people.

The standard of education under constant state interference has slid at an alarming rate. Hundreds of thousands of properly educated Polish immigrants are undercutting British workers. That may sound like it's good for capitalism, but it's an ephemeral base for long-term growth bringing in it's wake potential social problems.

The gap may be getting wider, but that wouldn't really matter if the base level was also rising. Unfortunately, mass immigration depresses the low-waged opportunities.

"The gap may be getting wider, but that wouldn't really matter if the base level was also rising."

I'm not so sure about that. I mean, income poverty is a relative concept. Prices of goods are the same for everyone (in essence, anyway). More rich people with drive prices up, meaning the poor, though they are slowly getting wealthier, will be able to afford less.

This is semi-related at best, but I thought I'd put it in as an example of capitalist principles which lead to greater *social* as well as monetary inquality. The idea with school league tables was to name and shame the worst schools, thus encouraging them to sort themselves out or risk losing their pupils. A pseudo-capitalist principle. But what happened was that rich families saw which schools were the best and flooded into those areas, driving house prices up and pricing poorer people out of the market. Thus poor children get a worse education. Thus we have state schools which might as well be public schools.

But, if rich people flood into an area for a school either they have to build a new house or buy one off a poorer person. The former doesn't affect poorer people and the latter enriches them.

The league tables are a red herring. Discerning parents could always find which schools were good anyway with very little effort.

IMO, where things have gone wrong is that government ignore the fact that jobs create wealth for everybody. By neglecting job creation, encouraging a benefit culture and destroying education an entire generation has been disenfranchised.

But then the cynic in me says if you educate people to be stupid, you can tell them anything and be believed. How on earth can you build a sustainable economy based upon a transient workforce?

Oooh, where to begin?

I take it it was this report you read, SWL?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6571269.stm

First off, using the rich list to say that capitalism works is just BS, imo. It just shows that the top 1% of the top 1% are getting richer. Nothing else. The fact that so many are foreign merely says that the UK (well, London) is a great place to live if you have shitloads of money. Partly because we're a stable democracy etc, partly because billionaires don't pay tax on earnings outside the UK.

In the global market place, there are fortunes to be made which dwarf the inherited wealth of times past. Although, I don't imagine inherited wealth has gone away; it isn't just at the *top* of the list any more.

I find one thing interesting: David Beckham is worth £112m, despite being a fairly limited footballer (at the *very* top level). This is because he chooses to be a marketing icon, as opposed to Scholes, Keane etc. But will his life be more comfortable as a result? No. Those others will have £10-20m or so, more than enough to idle in luxury for life if they want. So what's the point of gaining the extra dosh when it really doesn't have any material effect on your life?

This indicates to me that being *that* wealthy is just a matter of desire. It doesn't bring any extra benefit to your life (after the first £100m etc), so it's just a combination of a pissing contest and the enjoyment of doing business, neither of which are greatly laudable.
And wealth certainly has no relation to hard work.

I think the usual indicators (GDP, life expectancy and so on) are ever so slightly better indicators of whether capitalism works than a rich-list. So, what's your real point, SWL>



And if capitalism works so well, why are there billions living in poverty? Are they all lazy?

The GDP indicator will show capitalism works. If you use *proper* measures of development, ie. life expectancy, inequality, education, you will find just being a capitalist country means nothing.

Pedro - I agree with you wholeheartedly. Especially on the David Beckham thing.

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Poverty is directly linked to idleness though.

Of course, you may be myopically viewing "hard work" as shovelling sh!t all day - defining work as manual labour. I'm sure that comes as a surprise to office workers.

My point is that capitalism provides the individual with opportunity which hard work and a bit of nouse can turn into wealth. The alternative as espoused by the social policies of the current government is to encourage people to do nothing and stand in line with a begging bowl.

"My point is that capitalism provides the individual with opportunity which hard work and a bit of nouse can turn into wealth."

I would agree with that in some ways. But only if you work in the right field. What I would (perhaps unfairly) call a 'useless' field. Farming - provides food. Wage - terrible. And yet it's hard work. But very, very necessary. The office worker isn't quite as important to humanity, in my opinion. Sorry if that offends.

Actually, if I continue with my faming train of thought: agriculture has for a long time been so much more than manual labour. It requires real business acumen for success, real skill and real knowledge to get the most out of the land. It is not unskilled labour. It's highly skilled work with a good dash of 'office work' thrown in. And yet the wage is appalling.

As iaconian says, GDP etc *do* show that capitalism works. Rich list don't.

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That's just plain wrong. A good fraction of humanity lives in poverty, and it has eff-all to do with idleness. I'd imagine a good portion of the poor are in badly paid jobs.


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I'd vaguely agree with this . Although to save or invest you need disposable income, which tends to be lacking among poor people. Does this mean that capitalism *generates* inequality?

<< The alternative as espoused by the social policies of the current government is to encourage people to do nothing and stand in line with a begging bowl. >>

That's more like it, that's rubbish that is!
Welfare benefits are crap compared to the likes of France and Germany. This govt has changed benefits largely towards the poorly paid. In effect this is a subsidy to business which let them pay crap wages to many of their workers (ie, remember the Goldman Sachs cleaners who went on strike to get paid £7 an hour while £16bn was paid out in bonuses?).

Why do you think so many poor, uneducated, unskilled immigrants and "asylum seekers" head for Britain Pedro? 1,500,000 in 2 years? (Nearly one a minute). They pass through umpteen countries en route in violation of the UN asylum guidelines. Do you think they're all desperate to work all the hours God sends picking cabbages for minimum wage minus "costs" and live 10 to a room in a portakabin at the side of a field? Or is it because, (as an Afghan said two days ago in Calais on the BBC evening news), they get money for doing nothing, free healthcare, free education? Britain has become a magnet for the feckless.

How many times have we heard (and I've got direct experience) of jobseekers turning down jobs because they are better off on benefits?

I think some immigrants come to Britain because they see it as a 'land of opportunity' - a very capitalist ideal, that. They see our close link the America. It's just that we are easier to get to. Although I don't deny some people will come just to fleece off the system.

Why do you think so many poor, uneducated, unskilled immigrants and "asylum seekers" head for Britain Pedro?

Because they want a better life, and they think their life will be better here. Being more particular than that would just be guesswork (for me anyway). I wouldn't imagine most of them come to live on benefits, most people emigrate to escape poverty, not to embrace it.

And it would be interesting to know how many immigrants start off with shitty jobs when they arrive, but progress towards better jobs & housing over time.

As for being better off on benefits, that's a question of incentives. Maybe the wages are too low?

I've met many immigrants who think that way. They get a chance to better themselves here that they don't get at home. I've no problem with anyone coming here to work & better themselves. Good for them say I. But equally, the notion that they're all going to stay long-term is fanciful delusion. I've heard it said that they're here to make a nest egg before returning home with the wherewithall to improve their lot. In a way, quite similar to Brit workers working in the Middle East for a few years.

Also, and this is where capitalism can be rapacious, as workers move here they leave skills shortages behind them which in turn raises wages and thus slows and even reverses the economic migration.

Simul post Pedro

I hope it's clear I'm not knocking immigrants, but mass immigration.

Wages too low or benefits too high? Swings and roundabouts. Benefits, like minimum wages reflect the cost of living. As you raise wages, prices rise and therefore so do benefits.

And for those that dispute the link between poverty and unemployment:

From a plethora of sites, including Hansard, TUC, Census, Office of Statistics etc.

1976 Unemployment 1379000 - No. below poverty line 6000000

1990 Unemployment (unadjusted) 3200000 - No. below PL 11500000

2001 Unemployment (unadjusted) 3350000 - No. below PL 12500000

2007 Unemployment (unadjusted) 3100000 - No. below PL 12000000

Plot that on a graph

The UK has probably the toughest immigration regulations in Europe. We have far smaller immigrant populations than comparable countries like France or Germany. Although of course those are also closer to where the immigrants are coming from.

Also, I would be very wary of relying on immigrants going home. Its been a common government fantasy for decades that 'guest workers' would be on their way home shortly should the growth years end. Its also been common for the workers themselves to intend to go home eventually. And you know what, mostly they don't. This is why the best bet is to have the controls at point of entry and grant proper citizenship to those who you're going to allow in.

Wellfare is essential. Our current market works on the assumption of a significant pool of unemployed people. This allows businesses to fire and replace people.

Who questioned any link between unemployment and poverty? I questioned the link between idleness and poverty, and even then it was on a global scale rather than in the UK.

And before I get the spreadsheets out, correlation doesn't equal cause, does it?