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Blame the Governmnet or blame yourself
[FONT=Arial]Dear Comrades[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial]I know that most of you (well at least those of you who keep giving me negative reps) don’t like me but I like you :-) I like you because I like people who think about stuff. In an attempt to understand why, I think about all manner of stuff and lots of the time I still don’t understand hence I sometimes drift back here with the occasional question in the hope that fellow thinkers might help me understand.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial]I (and I am sure you too) have been listening to the news reports and many experts giving their views on the current crisis in Euro land, specifically Greece and whether they should be bailed out or whatever. I was listening to a radio programme the other day which included various people including a Greek worker who was pressing the argument that it wasn’t his fault so why should he have to pay. I considered the question – was he to blame? In Europe, if you take Greece at one end of the spectrum and Germany at the other you have two countries totally different in terms of how they are managed and how well they prosper. Why is that, Greeks are as smart as Germans? I would suggest that it is down to how they are managed / governed and what is their culture (hardworking and frugal or lazy and wasteful). If that is the case then would you not agree with me that the Greek worker is to blame because he adopted that culture and he elected that government. Why do some peoples / societies / countries succeed and prosper and others fail?[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial]TIA[/FONT]
lolwhat
its pretty simple from what i understand greece was one of the "internal colonies" of the EU for the 90s and 00s therefore their economy, being extractive in nature, was a market for goods from richer countries in europe and being propped up with loans and etc. for development.
then the world economy took a dive and welp
i mean that's my take on it but i'm not an expert
Last edited by Franz Fanonipants; 3rd November 2011 at 21:26.
lawl lawl Yeah Yeah
how does one get negative reputation
The OP should be a reasonable hint.
translation:
"Individual Responsability Bourgeois Moralism Wrong Choices Blah Blah Blah"
[FONT="Courier New"] “We stand for organized terror - this should be frankly admitted. Terror is an absolute necessity during times of revolution. Our aim is to fight against the enemies of the Revolution and of the new order of life. ”
― Felix Dzerzhinsky [/FONT]
لا شيء يمكن وقف محاكم التفتيش للثورة
[FONT=Arial]Comrades don’t let me down. After I’ve said so many good things about you all (the collective) give me some reasoned arguments.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial]To spell it out - I am asking these questions:[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial](On the presumption that certain countries prosper / fail because of hoe they are governed)[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial]Is it the case that the workers deserve what they get because they elected them?[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial]And / or [/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial]The workers get the government they get because that is their culture?[/FONT]
"The workers get the government they get because that is their culture?"
What do you means by the government they get?
You don't get a government. It's forced on you, and you have no choice in deciding that.
Culture is determined by material conditions that are not in the worker's control, but that of the bourgeoisie. That is why Marx thought that the culture, familial arrangements, ect. would change after the proletariat took power. So, to answer your question it is not the workers fault, since their contribution was negligible.
Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand. ~ Karl Marx
formerly Triceramarx
No, it is not the case.
The 'workers' don't elect the government. Usually anywhere from 30% to 60% of the public actually votes, and if they do they really only have one option: capitalism.
Because the truth is that politicians are all capitalist politicians. They may differ on socio-political hot-button issues (like gay marriage, immigration, etc...) but if you look at their economic politics they are all the same for the most part.
Furthermore, there is no relationship between voting for someone and therefore deserving that that person does in office. You can vote for someone according to their election platform, and then be upset when they do something else. You don't 'deserve' what they did because you voted for them.
Finally, we don't even vote our government into and out of office. The US Electoral College actually votes candidates into office.
[FONT=Arial]And / or [/FONT]
I have no idea what this means. Workers don't 'get the government they get' for any reason other than the powers at be dictate what government is in place at any given time.
It doesn't have anything to do with 'culture' - it has everything to do with capital accumulation.
- August
If we have no business with the construction of the future or with organizing it for all time, there can still be no doubt about the task confronting us at present: the ruthless criticism of the existing order, ruthless in that it will shrink neither from its own discoveries, nor from conflict with the powers that be.
- Karl Marx
It isn't this. Did Germans go from economically dominant to economically depressed after WWI because their culture suddenly changed? Culture has nothing to do with it - especially a view of culture that seems to come from the crude national stereotypes of some stand-up comedy hack. If the national situations were reversed, newspaper editorials and politicians would use the same national stereotypes to explain-away the situation:
Originally Posted by Bizzaro Universe Edition of ForbesThe "fault" in general is the inherent instability of capitalism. Honest capitalists would call this "boom and bust" and Greece is in a bust period. All the capitalist economies compete with eachother but also have to have relations and won't do anything to risk the rule of the whole system for their own gain - not do this willfully or conscientiously anyway. The whole system has caused the crisis, the only thing the governments are doing is trying to figure out how to manage the fall for a soft landing and trying to minimize the damage to the system. Their plan right now is to try and push the costs onto the population and then regain profitability by pushing down wages across the board. This means getting rid of democratic checks like in Greece, getting rid of places for people to organize or defend themselves like attacks on basic union rights in the US so that they can minimize the public push-back.
The world capitalist system wants the people in general, specifically workers, to pay for this crisis and to save their system, so they blame the Greek workers so they can lower their wages, they also play the Greek workers off against taxpayers in other places in Europe when it is really neither their fault - it's the fault of the system that the politicians and media and so on are trying to save!
Last edited by Jimmie Higgins; 4th November 2011 at 00:35.
Is this not classic "blaming the victim?" Ya, those dirty workers were asking for it by feeling like they can't change the system
Save a species, have ginger babies!
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." ~Albert Einstein
Blaming culture is the pathetic last rersort of the market fundementalist. I mean this is just utter bullshit.
The reason Greece collapsed was becaue they had their government invest in very very risky instruments sold to them by goldman sachs, they did not borrow that much more than everyone else, they were just a small country with no central bank and they had a lot of their money in instruments that were sold as AAA but were actually garbage, and they also did'nt have an effective tax collectint system.
Blaming it on the concept that they don't work, or the welfare system is bullshit, then why did'nt Norway/Sweeden go down? Why did'nt France go down? France has a just as generous if not more welfare system and they work less.
Germany does well because of its mixed economy approach, its co-determination, and community control of industry.
Greece did massiave financial de-regulation before this btw.
Cultural factors have nothing to do with the matter. The Germans aren't working that much harder than the Greeks.
As you've noted, there's little difference in education. The Greek Personal Savings Rate wouldn't be a matter because the Greeks save more than the British and the Americans.
One would need to be a senseless moron to base a case on such a premise.
Furthermore, it wasn't long ago that Ireland was considered a global role model. Once known as the "Celtic Tiger," the Irish Economy boomed for two decades, giving the Irish people the highest living standards in Western Europe.
The same can be said for the Spanish Economy which had experienced a supercharged expansion between 1997 and 2007. Here again, did the Irish Miracle collapse because the Irish worker became lazy? Are the Spaniards lazier now than a few years ago?
I think you will see how senseless you're sounding on this matter.
What of Eastern Europe? Romania, which was considered the world's exemplification of successful tax reform (I.e. "Economic Growth and the Flat-Tax), experienced among the worst macroeconomic downturns since the Global Financial Crisis of 1997.
The Baltic Countries, taken as a whole, experienced a worse downturn than Spain. I think you need to reexamine the foundation of your questions and beliefs if you're truly looking for the answer.
I know - I haven't been on here as of late. It's disappointing to come back and see something as moronic as this.
I like everybody. I even like Libertarians. I judge an individual based on that individual's reason and not based on ideological differences.
With that said, can one go lower than this? This is worse than debating a Born Again Christian.
I mean, where the hell does one come up with the idea that one nation's workers are lazier than another nation's workers?
Where does one come up with the idea that a low savings rate (I.e. Frugality) is the reason behind the crisis? We (Americans) have had the industrialized world's lowest savings rate since Reagan was in the White House.
Its funny how Capitalists embrace the countries models when its booming and say "LOOK CAPITALISM IS AWESOME," then when it inevitably collapses (as socialists said it would), they just try and find some other eason "They're lazy ... too many siestas, too much welfare."
its the last desperate resort of a libertarian.
The "Seeker of Truth" has failed to respond.
