Royalty in Need

[TheMinsterman]

As am I, but we are talking about a family that is sitting on a combined fortune of nearly £60 billion, so really they need to fund it. Social housing is for me the biggest crisis this country faces, that money could have been better used there.

Sure, but as I said it's not like the Tories would divert the funds to anything like that anyway so it's not been "stolen" from anybody and if we actually bothered to chase tax dodging companies we could pay for buildings and social programmes.

 

[Aber gas]

Sure, but as I said it's not like the Tories would divert the funds to anything like that anyway so it's not been "stolen" from anybody and if we actually bothered to chase tax dodging companies we could pay for buildings and social programmes.

Whether or not the Tory government would divert these funds isn't really the point. It's ridiculous that public money is being used for the upkeep of a private home. Especially when you consider the personal wealth of the owner. I could see merit in taking the Royal palaces into public ownership and charging a market rent. The upkeep of the historical buildings would be assured and the treasury would see a return which could be spent on the NHS, tax cuts, whatevs.
Obviously I'm still opposed to the very idea of being ruled however nominally by a sovereign but this would be more agreeable than charging me for the privilege.

 

[johnnytodd]

If you really believe that I feel sorry for you.

how does someone with no money start a business?

 

[AFCB_Mark]

I've heard quite a few royalists saying this is too much for them.

I like my history and also generally support the Royal family, but yeah this is pretty poor and crass and it's certainly dented my good will towards them. At the very least could the cost not be split evenly between the public purse and the Royal's own wealth by way of mutual appreciation. Not dump the whole bloody bill on the tax payer, at a point when it's not exactly boom time for the country.

We're paying out for the Houses of Parliament (anything from 1bn - 6bn I've seen, amazingly) and Buckingham Palace to be repaired at the same time as well, when both have been falling down for decades. Both buildings haven't had any maintenance since they were worked on for WWII. Hard to blame the present government, as fun as that is for some, when this could have been planned and addressed by any of our governments over the last 20-30 years.

 

[The Jovial Forester]

I'd be less bothered if you felt the same urgency was applied to repairing crumbling schools, roads, sewers and flood defences. If pushed I'd be a republican but not so bothered about the royals I'd get rid if people like the pageant, but public money for what remains a private residence to all intents and purposes sticks in the craw.

 

[Liam_SWFC]

So you think we can live like communists Aber Gas? There has to be someone at the top and someone at the bottom, communism is completely flawed as is the idea that everyone can be on the same level.

 

[Aber gas]

So you think we can live like communists Aber Gas? There has to be someone at the top and someone at the bottom, communism is completely flawed as is the idea that everyone can be on the same level.

I don't accept your theory at all and yes I do believe in the workers seizing the means of production.
But as we are discussing class within a capitalist society I'll reply from that perspective.
Your original argument only makes sense if you are one of the people at the top of the class system. It would be completely understandable that you'd want to perpetuate an acceptance of the status quo. If you aren't then it's the worst kind of defeatist behaviour. The acceptance that you are born poor and will stay poor because " that's just how it is" doesn't get you a NHS, paid holidays, comprehensive education. These things were fought for and won collectively by demanding not accepting "your place" and hoping for some benevolent lord to pass you the leftovers from their table.
You mentioned earlier in the thread how you like the Royals because they remind of "Britishness" but class identity and struggle are every bit as "British" as a pampered, wasteful, anachronistic aristocratic family.

 

[johnnytodd]

Anyone thought about who owns the Palace.??..........LOLZ

 

[johnnytodd]

 

[Liam_SWFC]

I'm not saying accept your place I think that's a poor mentality there's no reason you can't work your way up, what I'm saying is that there will always be a class divide in society as not everyone has that winners mentality. Plus it's important we have people at the bottom as who else is going to mop piss up and litter pick the streets?

 

[johnnytodd]

I'd be less bothered if you felt the same urgency was applied to repairing crumbling schools, roads, sewers and flood defences. If pushed I'd be a republican but not so bothered about the royals I'd get rid if people like the pageant, but public money for what remains a private residence to all intents and purposes sticks in the craw.

All of those are being stretched to the limit because off an open door immigration policy

but the door is being SHUT !!!!!!!!!!

 

[Stringy]

Counter-revolutionary.

 

[The Jovial Forester]

all of those a being stretched to the limit because off an open door immigration policy

but the door is being SHUT !!!!!!!!!!

It's fuck all to do with immigration Johnny, forty years plus of underinvestment and getting in private contractors because profits wins. Volume of immigration won't change either anyway, capital wants it so however we leave the EU flows of people will stay similar. I voted out but not because of immigration, it's a red herring, people moaning about symptoms not causes.

 

[johnnytodd]

It's fuck all to do with immigration Johnny, forty years plus of underinvestment and getting in private contractors because profits wins. Volume of immigration won't change either anyway, capital wants it so however we leave the EU flows of people will stay similar. I voted out but not because of immigration, it's a red herring, people moaning about symptoms not causes.

You tell that to the poor old OAP's who can't get a bed in the hospital or even a doctors appointment mate, i'm sure they will agree.

The population is too high and its getting bigger EVERY day.

 

[shane]

It's fuck all to do with immigration Johnny, forty years plus of underinvestment and getting in private contractors because profits wins. Volume of immigration won't change either anyway, capital wants it so however we leave the EU flows of people will stay similar. I voted out but not because of immigration, it's a red herring, people moaning about symptoms not causes.

Immigration is his new thing as he stopped getting bites in the Liverpool threads.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

It's not old and is architecturally/aesthetically undistinguished (to be charitable). If the case is being made on the grounds of heritage (scare quotes) then there are many, many better places to spend ~£400 milly.

Architectural/aesthetic merit is a pretty narrow lens to view historical value though. I mean, Buckingham Palace is as much as anything the seat of a empire that spanned a quarter of the globe. That renders it historically important imo.

Maybe we should turn it to a memorial/museum to colonial genocide.

 

[johnnytodd]

Immigration is his new thing as he stopped getting bites in the Liverpool threads.

only cos you won a few games, wont be long Shane.

 

[NorfolkWomble]

Open it up fully to tourism, it would pay its £350 million fee so quickly. There is no desperate need for them to live there when they have so many other homes.

 

[Red]

I'm not saying accept your place I think that's a poor mentality there's no reason you can't work your way up, what I'm saying is that there will always be a class divide in society as not everyone has that winners mentality. Plus it's important we have people at the bottom as who else is going to mop piss up and litter pick the streets?

That assumes that we live in a meritocracy...which we do not.

 

[Red]

how does someone with no money start a business?

Business start up loans.

 

[johnnytodd]

Business start up loans.

Provided by whom? Government ? who collect money from taxpayers who pay income tax from their jobs which were created by

YUPPIES LIKE ME !!!!!!!!

 

[Red]

Provided by whom? Government ? who collect money from taxpayers who pay income tax from their jobs which were created by

YUPPIES LIKE ME !!!!!!!!

I bet you're on work experience at Poundland in reality.

 

[Renegade]

I'm a big fan of the royal family purely because it's one of the few things that still makes this country feel British.

There always has to be a class system in society, the top create jobs for the poor.

What do the Royals create at the moment that couldn't be replaced by opening the Palace to the public? I don't see how they are contributing to the trickle down effect that you feel is essential for society. A class divide is inevitable in a capitalist society, but should you continue to keep around an anti-meritocratic symbol in a ceremonial role at the cost of the taxpayer? It sends a bad message about equality of opportunity and it also sends a positive message to the public about a backwards time of governance.

What does Britishness feel like and should the taxpayer subsidise this feeling? Why stop at the Royals? We could also subsidise British ale, Yorkshire pudding or pay Cliff Richard to start banging out hits again. It would provide nothing of substance to the economy, but it certainly would feel British again.

 

[Red]

Cliff Richard to start banging out hits again.

Steady on.

 

[Abertawe]

I thought my posts were a bit shit, fuck me Jonny T. Politicking forum is now more or less unreadable, cheers JT.

 

[Jockney]

We don't want the Royal Family, but we definitely don't want to be pursuing this fucking meritocracy myth either.

 

[Renegade]

We don't want the Royal Family, but we definitely don't want to be pursuing this fucking meritocracy myth either.

I don't think anyone has insinuated we currently live in one, but it's the ideal isn't it? Only mentioned the word because I'm sure Liam and JT are for meritocracy in principle. JT doesn't like his taxes going towards the upkeep of scrounging illegals because they don't give back to the system, but for some reason loves the Royal family.

 

[Jockney]

I don't think anyone has insinuated we currently live in one, but it's the ideal isn't it? Only mentioned the word because I'm sure Liam and JT are for meritocracy in principle. JT doesn't like his taxes going towards the upkeep of scrounging illegals because they don't give back to the system, but for some reason loves the Royal family.

Even by social liberals, the kind of people who stand to gain most from the viability of the concept, meritocracy was considered a joke until fairly recently in political history. I think we have to unpack what meritocracy means in real terms. Meritocracy is a pernicious and very new concept in mainstream political circles and it's something that has only entered into common-sense thinking as a key component of neo-liberalism: cultivation of the entrepreneurial subject, competency-based education, the recession of the public sector and the annihilation of the welfare state. It's all the stuff that ultimately leads to fascism or in one form or another (think techno-scientific biopolitical authoritarianism: whatever you wanna call it, a set of relations of power that exert complete control over our bodies). There are no Utopic versions of capitalism: you either accept that it is an intrinsically inequitable system, or you look for new alternatives.

[to pose a hypothetical: if we were to reset society back to zero (no ideological concepts of race, gender, sexuality; no class structures) and gave that population capitalism fresh out of the bag, how long do you think it would take that population to start making real again those concepts through that notion of meritocracy?]

 

[Renegade]

Even by social liberals, the kind of people who stand to gain most from the viability of the concept, meritocracy was considered a joke until fairly recently in political history. I think we have to unpack what meritocracy means in real terms. Meritocracy is a pernicious and very new concept in mainstream political circles and it's something that has only entered into common-sense thinking as a key component of neo-liberalism: cultivation of the entrepreneurial subject, competency-based education, the recession of the public sector and the annihilation of the welfare state. It's all the stuff that ultimately leads to fascism or in one form or another (think techno-scientific biopolitical authoritarianism: whatever you wanna call it, a set of relations of power that exert complete control over our bodies).

[to pose a hypothetical: if we were to reset society back to zero (no ideological concepts of race, gender, sexuality; no class structures) and gave that population capitalism fresh out of the bag, how long do you think it would take that population to start making real again those concepts through that notion of meritocracy?]

Ha, I thought you were implying that we don't live in a meritocracy because a large portion of our elected officials come from a privileged 'jobs for the boys' background. I didn't think you were talking about how society was organised, I was talking simply in the realm of our current capitalist system, using the (obviously very basic) definition of 'government selected based on their ability'. I do take your points though, I can see how a purely meritocratic society could lead to fascism and a constrained way of living in order to survive in the meritocratic system.

[Out of interest, what would you propose as our ideal means of organising society on day one? How does society evolve? Does it even need to as long as everything remains fair? If an improved standard of living is something we should strive for, should we not give the people who are best in a certain function that function in society? Do you believe in competition in society and if you do, will some of the pernicious traits of meritocracy seep into any society? Don't want to derail the thread, just genuinely curious. If you've written on any of this stuff before, apologies, I haven't been on consistently for years now. If you have a simple link to a philosopher whose ideas you find most convincing, that'd be nice either. Ta.]

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

[Out of interest, what would you propose as our ideal means of organising society on day one? How does society evolve? Does it even need to as long as everything remains fair? If an improved standard of living is something we should strive for, should we not give the people who are best in a certain function that function in society? Do you believe in competition in society and if you do, will some of the pernicious traits of meritocracy seep into any society? Don't want to derail the thread, just genuinely curious. If you've written on any of this stuff before, apologies, I haven't been on consistently for years now. If you have a simple link to a philosopher whose ideas you find most convincing, that'd be nice either. Ta.]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin