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About that failure of capitalism

The capitalist system that failed in 2008 does not work.

Err, yes.

Place is 3 times richer, in real terms, than it was in the year of my birth. Richer today than it’s ever been.

Some fucking failure.

 

 

35 thoughts on “About that failure of capitalism”

  1. Come on Tim, you might think the capitalist system did not work if in 2008 you had a comfortable lord-of-the-manor existence at the Old Orchard, Downham Market, wielded power and influence at the top of a major political party and had hopes of taking the ermine soon.

    Only to find, later, that an enforced move was required to the unimpressive end-terrace in Ely, all hopes of a warm place on the red leather benches had gone and you had to make a substantial settlement payment for a libel action to an arch-Tory.

  2. @BraveFart

    If I recall correctly, the payment had to be made to a charity of choice. I do hope it was to a top public school

  3. We probably agree that ‘capitalism’ did not fail in 2008. In fact the bond market freeze and the resulting bank failures were capitalism finally working properly and passing an accurate judgement on the preceding excesses of money and credit expansion and general ‘nationalisation by regulation’ of financial services brought in by the flawed policies of Blair Brown Balls (here) and Clinton and Co. (over there). I am ignoring the EU pro tem – as should everyone. The trouble is that the people in power now are infected with exactly the same delusions as the people in power then, and nothing has changed. It’s all going to go tits up again.

  4. Capitalism has failed so badly in the UK that outright Socialist parties gain fewer votes at elections than fundamentalist Christian ones.

  5. For more than 20 years have been hearing that capitalism has failed.
    So far those who say a different system is needed have failed to convince the voters here. Will just wait for them to do so.
    In the meantime Capitalism appears to be working quite nicely despite what some people believe.

  6. Dennis

    That is the most accurate comment I have seen anywhere – I think Lawrence from Guernsey has had his internet privileges revoked otherwise he would no doubt appear to chastise you…

  7. “The capitalist system that failed in 2008 does not work.”

    For pinkos and commies, ‘work’ in that sentence includes ‘achieving greater equality’ or something similar.

  8. I think we should accept Ritchie’s view that capitalism does not work and offer him the only genuine alternative, which is the one that my wife’s family were “offered”, at the point of several guns.

    Scores of peasants (workers in the family’s former factory) were moved in to occupy every room in their country mansion leaving their family with one room, all other facilities were thereafter shared. Peasants proceeded to trash said mansion, shit, piss and vomit on the floors, fight and sexually assault each other before the mansion was burned to the ground and all were left without anywhere to live. This was Russia, circa 1917/18.

    Now, what’s Murphy’s end terrace address again?

  9. BF
    With enough encouragement from the Corbynistas, the British underclass might well offer a similar performance.

  10. @Bravefart

    I was surprised when you got to the end of your tale about your wife’s family and said that it was in Russia.

    I was assuming Scotland

  11. John SQ

    Sadly, we would have that sort of scenario to look forward to post-independence.

    Happily, we don’t have a mansion.

  12. Sorry to be difficult here, but isn’t it markets rather than capitalism that has enabled prosperity. And that it’s the particular strain of capitalism that’s dominated – can accommodate markets (or can be accommodated by markets if you prefer) – that’s succeeded. It’d be possible to have markets without capitalism. And it’s certainly possible to have capitalism without markets – that’s what every capitalist yearns for & what stateists strive to achieve..

  13. Lizard

    VP may be able to give the skinny, but there clearly has been some sort of spousal rift. Only Mr Murphy is listed as owner of the Ely end-terrace, for example. And it seems the idyllic summer holiday that included Polish Nazi death camps and “arbeit mach frei” walkabouts in Germany where Mr M had several Hitlerian epiphanies with the boys did not include Mrs M.

  14. “Sorry to be difficult here, but isn’t it markets rather than capitalism that has enabled prosperity.”

    I’m sure he is unable to distinguish between the two.

  15. @ BraveFart
    What surprises me is that your wife’s ancestor got out of there alive. My sister compiled the extant “letters home” from our great-uncles in WWI including those from the younger (who spoke Russian) from Russia in 1919-20. The Red Army usually just murdered the capitalists and middle-class,

  16. It has failed so completely that even someone of his limited abilities has enough wealth to buy a large house, with cash, in an expensive English city.

  17. Martin
    September 16, 2016 at 2:14 pm

    So far those who say a different system is needed have failed to convince the voters here.

    We’re still waiting for those people to come up with a different system. So far the only options they can come up with are different forms of fascism.

    And every country that thinks capitalism has failed and tried ‘something different’ has gone immediately down the toilet.

  18. “The capitalist system that failed in 2008 does not work.”

    The capitalist system that means that you can write this and have it available anywhere in the world?

  19. Capitalism starts with the farmer planting seedcorn so that he gets a harvest next year. Abolish capitlism and revert to hunter-gatherer socities.
    Yeah – that’s what Pol Pot wanted

  20. … think Lawrence from Guernsey has had his internet privileges revoked otherwise he would no doubt appear to chastise you…

    I think he’s just busy. The drainpipes of Guernsey don’t clean themselves, you know.

  21. Bravefart

    I’ll see what I can find out. From recollection it might be schools related but that could be a smokescreeen. Given what he did to Christie Malry he would deserve the exposure I think….

  22. Bloke in North Dorset

    “What is left unsaid by Ritchie is that Capitalism’s true failure is the failure to put him in charge of everything.”

    And it’s true success is that it selected out the likes of Ritchie from being in charge of anything dangerous.

    PS Like BIS I assume we are talking free market capitalism.

  23. If capitalism is so super what made Britain come apart socially. Destroy free speech and all thew once valued customs.And turned London into a foreign land.
    In the USA the major cities are going bankrupt. And In Europe the fantasies of the overlords destroy what was once pleasant countries.
    What’s more China is now ascending. Must say something -if only reproduce.

  24. “what was once pleasant countries” ?!?

    Portugal was a fascist peasant society 50 years ago. 1960’s Naples or Sicily were not much chop. Franco’s Spain may float your boat, but didn’t for most Spaniards after a while. Greece has always been a political disaster. And then we had Soviet Eastern Europe.

    A few bits of the richest are worse, although there have always been bits of Germany or Sweden that were best avoided. Do you imagine a time when Britain did not have slums? That you don’t know the slum areas of 1970’s Germany doesn’t mean they didn’t have them.

    In general Europe is so much richer and nicer it bears no comparison.

  25. john malpas,

    “In the USA the major cities are going bankrupt. And In Europe the fantasies of the overlords destroy what was once pleasant countries.”

    The major cities are going bankrupt because government isn’t capitalist and doesn’t run like a business. The officers in charge get the same pensions when they leave, regardless of what state they left the place in.

    Imagine if the councillors in Bath that decided the Thermae Bath Spa was a good idea had their pensions invested in its return on investment. Do you think they’d have gone ahead with it?

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