I care not a jot about whether others consider me a success or not. I care about me. Sounds selfish I know, but that's the way it is. I've used 'money' as a basic illustration of reward, but it is only a means to an end. Money means I can enjoy more of life. I'm actually cash-poor, although I have planned ahead I spend most of what I get fairly quickly, enjoying my hobbies.
I don't see why those interested in the arts cannot do so in the same way I enjoy my hobbies: work for a living and then in their spare time indulge their passions for music, visual art etc. If you can't make a living from it you shouldn't expect others to fund it.
At the end of the day it comes back to the same basic idea: if you want it, work for it. Do not expect others to provide.
Well that's exactly my point. Money has become more than a means to an end (ie surviving) it has become something that some desire so much that they are blinkered to seeing anything else but the current way of doing things.
Money is also linked to power, so you have the situation where highly ambitious people use one to achieve the other (it works either way around!).
Having more money meaning that you can enjoy life more is actually at the root of what I'm saying. You are correct, generally speaking, that this is how things are now. All I am saying is let's have a look to see if this is actually the best way for our species to continue its development in the future with increasing populations, decreasing natural resources, and the ability to capitalism to exploit both resources and people.
I don't have all the answers, and I don't pretend to. I just want to questioning the assumption that what we have now is the best we can have, despite its obvious negatives. Maybe I'm just being idealistic. They do say that inside every cynic ther eis an idealist fighting to ge tout, and I'm definitely a cynic!
This also illustrates the weaknesses of a Socialist system, as it tends towards standardisation of provision, which is entirely contrary to the spirit of creativity. And anyone who has listened to the turgid outputs of avowedly "Socialist Composers" must realise there is something fundamentally wrong
Perhaps the ideal is - horror - a mixed approach. Which is very much what we have in this country, which most appreciate and are quite happy with. But happiness and compromise seem to have fallen out of the political vocabulary.
I agree with much you have said. But I think that while every system is bound to have inherent weakness, the level of that can be manipulated by the type of Socialism and the way that things are set. By that I mean if you look at the works of socialist composers (I'm not familiar with this area, though) it might be that the work produced is highly influenced by the manner in which it was commissioned, or by some other factors.
Quite.
The UK needs the socialist element to temper the worst excesses of capitalism. If we didn't have that we'd be the same as the USA - no thanks.
I agree with you completely there, and I'm glad that capitalism is temepred by some socialist values and principles, but I wonder if we can go even further?
But this is surely a different discussion from whether Socialism is good/bad and whether Capitalism is good/bad? Under a Capitalist system the Banks would have stood and died on their own two feet (in this case most likely they'd have collapsed). Instead the Government interfered (for whatever reason, I'm sure we all have our own opinions) and prevented nature taking its course. If anything that's surely more Socialist?
I'm unclear on how this is a condemnation of Capitalism?
To me, it's more a condemnation of the mixed economy approach w e have tried to achieve. We don't really have the balance right. The banks should certainly have either been allowed to fall (true capitalism) which would have had serious consequences for millions of people worldwide, or they should simply be controlled by the people (socialism).
If the bank had failed then the consequences would, in time, have been corrected by capitalism, but not without huge damage in the meantime.
I think that rather than making markets work for us, we have become slaves to them and the money go round that accompanies them. It's impossible to eliminate boom and bust, because that is how capitalism essentially works.
I'll be honest, though, and say that I have no idea what would have happened if the financial crash had led to socialism being introduced in the form of 'people's banks', or even if it would have been possible at that point in time.
