Wednesday 2 October 2013

"Profits and tax cuts are not dirty words" according to David Cameron

This is the headline of a lead article from The Guardian today. It is in fact interesting to see such statements make it into headlines, as it suggests that there is a debate afoot as to the reality of the statement. If profits and tax cuts are not dirty words, why say anything? The very fact that the PM felt the need to say it is evidence of a fight back against public opinion by the ruling class. So I'd like to explore these words here for your consideration.

Let's be clear, when David Cameron states that 'tax cuts' are not dirty words in an act of defence against an opposing public position, we know he is not talking about tax cuts across the board but merely tax cuts for the rich. One of the Cameron government's first taxation acts was to cut the 50p rate on inheritance tax, which is a tax that only affects the rich. Why tax cuts for the rich? It's not as though they are facing any financial hardship is it? It is however the corporations of the rich that are lobbying our ministers and MPs on a daily basis, with campaign donations and offers of post-parliament 'consultancy' roles for MPs carefully tucked up their sleeves.

We should all take time to consider the meaning of the word profit. What is profit? What does it mean to profit? If I grow fruit on my land and exchange some for vegetables grown by my neighbour there is no profit. It is a mutually beneficial exchange for the purposes of our survival. It gets a little more complicated when we venture into the world of money, but the principle remains; in a fair and equitable exchange of goods or services there is no profit. Profit only arises when one party is exploiting one or more other parties, and on this 'principle' the ruling class has worked very hard to convince us all that it is fair and good, Cameron's own words being an explicit example. So who are the exploiters and the exploited? Well clearly ordinary folk are exploited by the rich, otherwise they wouldn't be rich! This isn't to say that the rich do no work. In fact they work very hard, exploiting us, because it is so profitable, but then should we really be calling this work? A con artist might have to go door to door for weeks before finding a suitably gullible enough victim with sufficient money to make his efforts worthwhile, but we don't call it 'work', nor should we of the activities of the rich. Furthermore the rewards to the rich are astonishingly disproportionate to their efforts.

The status quo is maintained of course by the fact that the wealth of rich gives them power, doorways into the process of government, and furthermore their domination of the media allows them to persuade the unsuspecting masses in their favour whilst keeping the truth as far from us as possible. If only folks had the time to look into the public record properly. The parliamentary record. The declassified record. Interestingly if we were all working to the principles of making a living rather than a profit, especially the rich, then there would be far greater financial equality. Perhaps more to the point though is that if we did away with the profit system and ditched all of the pointless junk produced in its name, we might all only have to work a 2 or 3 day week. Then there would be time on our hands to look into what the ruling class actually do. Catch 22. That's how they keep us intellectually and financially chained.

Thankfully ordinary folk exist in vastly greater numbers than their ruling classes, such that the mere act of talking about these things and propagating these ideas amongst ourselves leads to powerful people's movements that force the rich to act in our favour lest they risk revolution. Monsieur Guillotine's famous invention, used prolifically for shortening members of the French ruling class in the French revolution, really does play on their minds when we take to the streets.

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