Anti-Capitalist Sentiment (with some morality)

[OngBonga]

The closure of 19 schools in Edinburgh because of jerry-building under the Blue and Red Tories’ Private Finance Initiative, throws a stark light on the impact of the neo-con age on ordinary people.

The Private Finance Initiative was always a scam. It was yet another way to divert money from ordinary tax-payers to the super rich. Instead of schools and hospitals being built and paid for by the taxpayer, they were built and paid for by the bankers, hedge fund managers and other “financial services” sharks, giving state guaranteed returns averaging 7% from the taxpayer, when we now have negative interest rates. It is such a massive scam that every man, woman and child in the UK owes £3,000 to PFI financiers. Like so many far right Tory ideas, its most fervent practitioners were Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.

The “advantage” to government was the accounting trick of a reduction in state capital spending. The other “advantage” was that the private sector was supposed to have more “efficient” methods, due to the profit motive. So somebody in a local authority organising the building of a school from the desire to do the best for the children of their community, was less “efficient” than a hedge fund manager doing it to make the maximum cash. The result? Jerry-building.

I do not want to spend the rest of my life paying capitalist bloodsuckers through my savings. All PFI built infrastructure should be nationalised – without compensation. In doing so the taxpayer will be reclaiming assets to the value of only 10% of the money given to UK bankers in bailouts. Clawing back 10% of the cash we gave the bankers would be a damn good thing. If it caused the odd bank to crash, that is long overdue. Ordinary people’s deposits up to £75,000 are protected anyway. Those with more have it in Panama, the Caymans or the BVI, apparently.

Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, turned activist/whistleblower.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archi...-nationalised/

I post this here for your reading pleasure because it kinda shits on the idea that capitalist interests, ie protfit, is a more effective incentive than the overall benefit of scoiety.

When this many schools close in a British city because of the standard of buildings that were made barely over a decade ago, it's a big fucking deal. This is disrupting the education of a lot of children in a major city at a critical time... some have exams next month. Closing these schools would not be a decision taken lightly.

This is what happenes when critical infrastructure is built by capitalists. Money becomes more important than people.

[wufwugy]

Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, turned activist/whistleblower.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archi...-nationalised/

I post this here for your reading pleasure because it kinda shits on the idea that capitalist interests, ie protfit, is a more effective incentive than the overall benefit of scoiety.

When this many schools close in a British city because of the standard of buildings that were made barely over a decade ago, it's a big fucking deal. This is disrupting the education of a lot of children in a major city at a critical time... some have exams next month. Closing these schools would not be a decision taken lightly.

This is what happenes when critical infrastructure is built by capitalists. Money becomes more important than people.

His blog post is skimp on the details, so I can't address them.

But I can respond to this:

I post this here for your reading pleasure because it kinda shits on the idea that capitalist interests, ie protfit, is a more effective incentive than the overall benefit of scoiety.

The net of history, data, and theory overwhelmingly shits on the idea that the desire for societal benefit is a better driver of actual benefit than self-interest.

A way for you to understand this in your personal life could be as follows: who do you think is better at making decisions that affect you: you or a bunch of legislators in Arkansas?

Another way to understand this is about the things you have that you like: your food, your clothes, your internet, your home, etc., are all things that were created through the self-interest profit method. Additionally, there is a wealth of data on societies that did away with self-interest, and they all (without exception) did not develop the wonderful things you enjoy today and actually lost much of what they already had.