tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6722474464197237668.post2666934813187194523..comments2023-07-23T16:06:16.018+01:00Comments on Citizen Barnet - trade union news and socialist propaganda from Barnet: Head in the 'clouds', boot on the employer's footCitizen Barnethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10539991855658960354noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6722474464197237668.post-29739531413504643172011-10-26T13:45:10.865+01:002011-10-26T13:45:10.865+01:00David Duff, the West Country's answer to Arfur...David Duff, the West Country's answer to Arfur Daley? Oh, please - let it be true ...<br /><br />Yes, you can be sure that after i returned from your blog, I had a good scrub down with carbolic soap and dried off with a copy of Das Kapital.Mrs Angryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00586223909475832791noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6722474464197237668.post-45106282990318341572011-10-24T16:54:46.690+01:002011-10-24T16:54:46.690+01:00Well it worked for Henry Ford:
"As owner of ...Well it worked for Henry Ford:<br /><br />"<i>As owner of the Ford Motor Company, he became one of the richest and best-known people in the world. He is credited with "Fordism": mass production of inexpensive goods coupled with <b>high wages for workers</b>.</i>"<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_FordDavid Duffhttp://duffandnonsense.typepad.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6722474464197237668.post-48014411287038918842011-10-24T13:16:54.200+01:002011-10-24T13:16:54.200+01:00Ooops, that link should be this one:
http://rwer....Ooops, that link should be this one:<br /><br />http://rwer.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/citigroup-attempts-to-disappear-its-plutonomy-report-2/between-the-lineshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15523250378946750149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6722474464197237668.post-66023260070651098292011-10-24T13:15:08.426+01:002011-10-24T13:15:08.426+01:00"An individual boss will tend to force wages ..."An individual boss will tend to force wages down to subsistence - which I think even you might object to - although even they have to accept that they can't actually starve their workers.<br /><br />But other bosses will not want wages to go too far down in general or workers won't be able to afford to buy their products."<br /><br />Well, this is where they are in a real bind, aren't they.<br /><br />On the one hand they'd like to run the world as a plutonomy with a tiny number of people owning almost everything and the rest of us having virtually nothing.<br /><br />On the other hand ...<br /><br />... it doesn't work!<br /><br />It didn't work in the 1920s to 30s Gilded Age, and it doesn't work now. All that happens is a massive demand crisis and the economy seizes up.<br /><br />http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6722474464197237668&postID=2666934813187194523between-the-lineshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15523250378946750149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6722474464197237668.post-13399439092032578722011-10-24T13:05:46.220+01:002011-10-24T13:05:46.220+01:00You are a subject because you live in a monarchy.
...You are a subject because you live in a monarchy.<br /><br />Wages are decided by employers who have to weigh the considerable costs of employing people today against any gain they might make from employing someone. Or to put it another way, will an employee add value/profit to the business. If the answer's 'no' then that's that!<br /><br />You ask what my occupation was and I usually answer that question by saying that I was a jack of all trades and master of bugger all! However, for the last few years of my working life I was a proud member of that distinguished and honourable Brotherhood, the second-hand car trade . . . sorry, I didn't quite catch that! Oh, and I never employed anyone.<br /><br />Mrs 'A', I trust you were wearing your full Nuclear-Biological-Chemical warfare suit when you set foot in the wasteground that is Duff & Nonsense, otherwise you might have caught something!David Duffhttp://duffandnonsense.typepad.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6722474464197237668.post-1928999281853286632011-10-24T12:25:20.487+01:002011-10-24T12:25:20.487+01:00well said, Citizen Barnet ... I note that Mr Duff,...well said, Citizen Barnet ... I note that Mr Duff, at the end of his own latest post, readily admits: "what a meandering load of old twaddle that was" ... there you goMrs Angryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00586223909475832791noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6722474464197237668.post-41455025457494286532011-10-24T11:22:28.943+01:002011-10-24T11:22:28.943+01:00Hello, DD,
I don't understand your remarks ab...Hello, DD,<br /><br />I don't understand your remarks about citizens/subjects. If they are cutting, it's passed me by, which is probably for the best.<br /><br />On the other matter, I wonder what do you do for a living? Would you vouchsafe us that information? It might help us to argue on a more equal footing, since you know what I do.<br /><br />You seem to think that throwing some kind of Blairite slur - sense of entitlement - at me settles something. But it really doesn't tell us anything!<br /><br />In your worldview I am entitled, I presume, to go and try to get a higher-paying job (or are you some sort of feudalist who resents freedom of labour?). So the sort of moral distaste you feel towards someone who wants higher pay in one case and not the other doesn't seem to me to make sense.<br /><br />I can't see why, rather than looking for a higher paid job, one should not trying to stay in the job that doesn't pay enough and argue with the boss about how much s/he should pay for you. And I don't think that has much to do with 'entitlement', or 'fairness', or any such thing but simply on two parties contesting to divide wealth.<br /><br />Rates of pay tend to be conditioned mainly by two things:<br />- the cost of living<br />- the balance of class forces<br /><br />An individual boss will tend to force wages down to subsistence - which I think even you might object to - although even they have to accept that they can't actually starve their workers.<br /><br />But other bosses will not want wages to go too far down in general or workers won't be able to afford to buy their products.<br /><br />There are also all sorts of cultural and social factors that come into play to keep pay from going too low. For example, ideas about how great the gap between rich and poor should be (how equal a society is); ideas about what a decent society looks like, with not too many beggars littering the streets, to state this argument at its more extreme.<br /><br />The balance of class forces, ie, how strong workers are versus bosses, will help to determine how far bosses can push pay down. When bosses are strong relative to workers - as, in general, they are now - pay will fall. As it is doing.<br /><br />(Of course, there is, actually, a sense in which 'entitlement' absolutely does obtain and that is that we have a minimum wage. It is illegal to pay workers less than that. Any worker is 'entitled' at least to that.)Citizen Barnethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10539991855658960354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6722474464197237668.post-6433693292032864592011-10-23T23:55:15.865+01:002011-10-23T23:55:15.865+01:00What Vicky, you are alleged not to be a Citizen.
...What Vicky, you are alleged not to be a Citizen.<br /><br />Better stay out of the Subjects Advice Bureau then !Mr Mustardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12522242686839965655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6722474464197237668.post-1713393524603383242011-10-23T21:58:15.598+01:002011-10-23T21:58:15.598+01:00If you do not like the sentiments expressed in Cit...If you do not like the sentiments expressed in Citizen Barnet's blog, Duff, why not feck off and go and find something more suited to your antediluvian world view?<br />Just a thought.Mrs Angryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00586223909475832791noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6722474464197237668.post-85504822552225326162011-10-23T18:49:13.174+01:002011-10-23T18:49:13.174+01:00I know how you missed me so I followed you over he...I know how you missed me so I followed you over here to your new place.<br /><br />First of all, you are a subject not a citizen, and it's no good moaning about it, that's just the way things are.<br /><br />Second, there is an <i>implication</i> in what you write concerning the dreadful, tear-inducing plight of free-lance hacks that somehow you are <i>entitled</i> to good conditions in the job you choose to do. Of course, the fact is that you are not entitled to anything! And if you really don't like the terms and conditions then go and do something else.David Duffhttp://duffandnonsense.typepad.com/noreply@blogger.com