[SeaGypsy]

I choose to read and use my own mind. I know the bible, the koran, mahayana, etc etc I have read all my life voraciously. I don't accept any dogma from any religion or church. I know when the brainwashing techniques are being implemented.
It's just my personal experience that there is something to be gained spiritually from surrender to something bigger than myself.

I think B.A.S. was way ahead of his time in the sense of promoting community self reliance along with free trade/ capitalism. In his day you didn't get anywhere in Australia if you didn't nominate a church and a position on communism.

[americandream]

Life is like the stages in one's growth to maturity and then old age and death. One learns as a child that fire is painfully risky. As adults we avoid repeating these childhood mistakes. Yet we continue with the learning process, forever seeking to improve the quality of our lives and learning other valuable lessons such as thrift and practical skills.

Similarly with religion. It served it's purpose in our infancy as a species. A time when we were barely removed from cannibalism and primitive, arbitrary social groupings. We are now moving from the middle age of large scale hierarchical groupings to something more sustainable and socialised, socio-economic maturity.

Religion has played its part and must be jettisoned if we are to successfully make that transition. That greater thing, out material world, requires us to rise above the selfish to the socialised. There's nothing metaphysical about this. It's a fact. It's an inevitable process. It, in all probabilty, will not occur in my lifetime or that of my children. But occur it shall barring a natural catastrophe.

On occasions, I often wonder whether there's any point in detailing the inevitable but then, it serves to deepen my own awareness of objective facts and tends to put my own views in perspective, I find. Assists me in avoiding falling prey to simplistic answers in other words, something we all do from time to time.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'I') choose to read and use my own mind. I know the bible, the koran, mahayana, etc etc I have read all my life voraciously. I don't accept any dogma from any religion or church. I know when the brainwashing techniques are being implemented.
It's just my personal experience that there is something to be gained spiritually from surrender to something bigger than myself.

I think B.A.S. was way ahead of his time in the sense of promoting community self reliance along with free trade/ capitalism. In his day you didn't get anywhere in Australia if you didn't nominate a church and a position on communism.

[SeaGypsy]

I think the tendency to pidgeon hole people according to stated religion is lazy in itself. Whether one follows any religion or none is less important than whether one is capable of independent thinking and action.
Sheeple are to be found in and out of religion; materialist sheeple are no less easily led than spiritual sheeple.

[americandream]

Religion sadly does not stand up to objective scrutiny. It fails consistently for being prone to default to self-serving paradigms and, as we find today, the gathering twin crises of resource and climate. Thats on the material level.

On the metaphysical level, I have yet to find evidence of any great purpose other than self-driven ones peddled by religions, ones invariably holding out the promise of some pleasure filled after life or dispensing special status alongside the deity or other supreme being.

I will grant you that buddhism holds some promise with its non-theistic, self limiting logic but it fails on the material scale regrettably. A healthy atheism with the sharp awareness that life is a brief material sojourn in sentience can be very useful in gleaning the undercurrents of the human experience, in my opinion. Armed with cold hard facts, I suspect humankind will be more amenable to clear rather than muddled and wishful thinking.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'I') think the tendency to pidgeon hole people according to stated religion is lazy in itself. Whether one follows any religion or none is less important than whether one is capable of independent thinking and action.
Sheeple are to be found in and out of religion; materialist sheeple are no less easily led than spiritual sheeple.

[SeaGypsy]

Cold hard fact: humans only understand the surface of things; generally speaking. Most believe whatever those above them in the heirarchy have told them to believe. This will not change because religion is wiped out.
Power and status will continue; along with inherent social control of the ignorant masses.
The way some athiests protest their beliefs as the only right ones, to be ignored at peril; is more of the same mind control practiced by religions.
Look at Russia and it's attempt at wiping out religion. As soon as the ban was lifted 94% of Russians became nominal Orthodox followers virtually overnight. Were they fools to try to wipe out religion; or folls to bring it back? Either way it didn't work.
China is still flip flopping on this subject; cults abound. Confucianism is booming, local versions of Buddism are re-emerging; Catholicism is growing faster than anywhere except Latin America.
The athiest submission that the death of religion is inevitable is wishfull thinking at this point in time.
To me it makes more sense to work with religions rather than against them. My experience tells me there are a lot of very bright people who have read the writing on the wall and become leaders in religions around the world.
The athiest assumption that all religious people are gullible fools does not ring true in most places in the world.

[POAlex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'D')o you believe in inspired Prophets of the current day?

[americandream]

Change in any system only comes at the fringe. The sort of transition I am contemplating here (which is why I clearly stated that it will be a while in coming), will be a compulsion and beyond choice. Hierarchical accumulation is a function of surplus as are beliefs that can be acommodated by the material system. The cold hard fact of material limits will be remarkable in its transformation of human kind. They always are and tend to define contemporary sacred cows, over and over all through our brief history on this planet.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'C')old hard fact: humans only understand the surface of things; generally speaking. Most believe whatever those above them in the heirarchy have told them to believe. This will not change because religion is wiped out.
Power and status will continue; along with inherent social control of the ignorant masses.
The way some athiests protest their beliefs as the only right ones, to be ignored at peril; is more of the same mind control practiced by religions.
Look at Russia and it's attempt at wiping out religion. As soon as the ban was lifted 94% of Russians became nominal Orthodox followers virtually overnight. Were they fools to try to wipe out religion; or folls to bring it back? Either way it didn't work.
China is still flip flopping on this subject; cults abound. Confucianism is booming, local versions of Buddism are re-emerging; Catholicism is growing faster than anywhere except Latin America.
The athiest submission that the death of religion is inevitable is wishfull thinking at this point in time.
To me it makes more sense to work with religions rather than against them. My experience tells me there are a lot of very bright people who have read the writing on the wall and become leaders in religions around the world.
The athiest assumption that all religious people are gullible fools does not ring true in most places in the world.

[SeaGypsy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('POAlex', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'D')o you believe in inspired Prophets of the current day?

[SeaGypsy]

I work with Aboriginal Australians and know a fair bit about their history and culture. They lived in small nomadic hunter gatherer groups for at least 60,000 years in Australia. Survival was THE imperative this whole time, there was very little surplus at any time or place.
Yet they still had their spiritual ways; known these days as 'Dreamtime'; there was no atheism in Aboriginal society.

[americandream]

Global civilisation (and it is in the process of emerging) will leave an indelible mark. One of its casualties will be religion and the other nationalism. How do I elaborate this process?

Ummm. OK.

We are reaching a point in the globalisation of capitalism where religion is proving to be an obstacle to the full realisation of unblemished profit making as is nationalism. The global elites have no further use for narrow paradigms. It stands in the way of the harnessing of the potential in places such as China, India, the Arab led muslim world and of course, Africa with its vast land and commodity potential. For example, when one thinks of Africa, one thinks of backwardness. The capitalist in contrast only sees potential...land for energy generation, commodities yet to be extracted, vast markets yet to be tapped. He sees an as yet non-market saturated planet.

An example of what we with our post colonial mindset would term bizarre is Wall Streets celebration of the Chinese communist revolution. The bizarre wil increasingly become main stream as mainstream increasingly becomes the outdated.

The man of the future will be beyond anything we can conceive of. It is he who will be the agent for change, not us.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'I') work with Aboriginal Australians and know a fair bit about their history and culture. They lived in small nomadic hunter gatherer groups for at least 60,000 years in Australia. Survival was THE imperative this whole time, there was very little surplus at any time or place.
Yet they still had their spiritual ways; known these days as 'Dreamtime'; there was no atheism in Aboriginal society.

[SeaGypsy]

Humans are strongly attracted to: Totems/ superstition/ structure/ order/ protection/ safety/ conformity/ symbolism/ worship of power.
These traits do not disappear in a religionless society; they may even be magnified due to the lack of dogma.
The suggestion that globalism is a fait accompli ignores the consequences of peak oil/ peak resources generally.
I suspect that nationalism will weaken, but for the opposite reason to globalism; resource depletion will increase regionalism within countries.
Nations will struggle internally to suppress internal regional disputes over such fundamental resources as water.
Whatever the local version of God is; will grow in strength.
Most likely the work being done by oil at present wil have to be offset by hard manual labour; to an extent which can't be predetermined due to current scientific exponential growth.

[americandream]

The point I am consequently making in response to your thread is best summed up in these prescient comments of Marx:

"The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors", and has left no other nexus between people than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment". It has drowned out the most heavenly ecstacies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom -- Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers.

The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation into a mere money relation.

The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigor in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to show what man's activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former exoduses of nations and crusades.

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind.

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.

The bourgeoisie has, through its exploitation of the world market, given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of reactionaries, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image."

[SeaGypsy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Berdyaev

In "Slavery and Freedom" Berdyaev went into a lot of detail on the struggle for power between the bourgousie and proletariat classes.

“Humility is not the annihilation of the human will, but rather its enlightening and free submission to truth”; “Socialism is the ultimate truth and the ultimate justice of the bourgeoisie” (a paradox!);

He is worth a read:

Berdyaev speaks about this in the heat of polemics, trying to exalt spirit, which is constantly being degraded by both materialism and by religious thought. And he in his paradoxical polemics reaches to suchlike an expression: “For us the path is not only Golgotha, but also Olympus”. Certainly, at the first glance by a reader it would seem strange what this has in common. But he wanted to point out, that the beauty of the world, the beauty of the flesh has value for God (even if it be embodied in pagan Olympus), since that it likewise is a form of creativity.


http://www.alexandermen.com/On_Nikolai_Berdyaev


The first collection of his articles was entitled, “From the Point of View of Eternity”, or “Sub Specie Aeternitatis”. He puts forth the question about the importance of spiritual culture, about the importance of human worth. This for him was not a conditional perhaps and maybe, these human aspects of worth flow forth from the utmost upreaches of the spiritual nature of the human “I”, of the person. Berdyaev afterwards called himself a personalist. He felt, that within the person spirit expresses one of the chief properties. Not in the mob, not in the sum total, but -- in the person. It is person that accomplishes the greatness of man, which is manifest of his nature. In the mob, when people lose control of themselves, they fling themselves backwards.

(I was introduced to Berdyaev's work by Thomas Handley; who I mentioned earier in this thread.

[americandream]

I suspect that quest for what we view as the essence of being, which after all is a quite reasonable contemplation given our sense of self, is a difficult one buffeted as it is by a vast array of opinions and views on what constitutes the most desirable state.

I'm more inclined to view the individual condition as a function of the collective. In the wholeness of the group is where I suspect we will find the fulfilment of the individual. The two are intrinsicly linked. But they are also subject to the wider laws of society and economy, subject as these are in turn, to time. And that to me is an objective process with definite contours.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'h')ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Berdyaev

In "Slavery and Freedom" Berdyaev went into a lot of detail on the struggle for power between the bourgousie and proletariat classes.

“Humility is not the annihilation of the human will, but rather its enlightening and free submission to truth”; “Socialism is the ultimate truth and the ultimate justice of the bourgeoisie” (a paradox!);

He is worth a read:

Berdyaev speaks about this in the heat of polemics, trying to exalt spirit, which is constantly being degraded by both materialism and by religious thought. And he in his paradoxical polemics reaches to suchlike an expression: “For us the path is not only Golgotha, but also Olympus”. Certainly, at the first glance by a reader it would seem strange what this has in common. But he wanted to point out, that the beauty of the world, the beauty of the flesh has value for God (even if it be embodied in pagan Olympus), since that it likewise is a form of creativity.


http://www.alexandermen.com/On_Nikolai_Berdyaev


The first collection of his articles was entitled, “From the Point of View of Eternity”, or “Sub Specie Aeternitatis”. He puts forth the question about the importance of spiritual culture, about the importance of human worth. This for him was not a conditional perhaps and maybe, these human aspects of worth flow forth from the utmost upreaches of the spiritual nature of the human “I”, of the person. Berdyaev afterwards called himself a personalist. He felt, that within the person spirit expresses one of the chief properties. Not in the mob, not in the sum total, but -- in the person. It is person that accomplishes the greatness of man, which is manifest of his nature. In the mob, when people lose control of themselves, they fling themselves backwards.

(I was introduced to Berdyaev's work by Thomas Handley; who I mentioned earier in this thread.

[SeaGypsy]

Nietzsche often referred to the common people who participated in mass movements and shared a common mass psychology as "the rabble", or "the herd." He allegedly valued individualism above all else, although this has been considered by many philosophers to be an oversimplification, as Nietzsche criticized the concept of the subject and of atomism (that is, the existence of an atomic subject at the foundation of everything, found for example in social contract theories). He considered the individual subject as a complex of instincts and wills-to-power, just as any other organization.

Nietzsche argued that two types of morality existed: a master morality that springs actively from the 'noble man', and a slave morality that develops reactively within the weak man. These two moralities do not present simple inversions of one another; they form two different value systems: master morality fits actions into a scale of 'good' or 'bad' whereas slave morality fits actions into a scale of 'good' or 'evil'. Notably he disdained both, though the first clearly less than the second.

"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. "
--Friedrich Nietzsche

[americandream]

I'm not quite sure whether you are conflating Marxist notions of dialectic economy with Nietzchean notions of truth, objectivity and the sovereign being, but, here goes.

I think, for me anyway, that it goes without saying that what may appear to be a truth at one stage in human development may well appeart to be an utter absurdity at another. I will go further and add, I'm not entirely sure that we are ever capable of truly independent thought whatever that beast may be and I suspect that contemporary notions of individuality, truth and the sovereign being say more for the nature of the contemporary bourgeoisie order than it actually does for some ideal benchmark condition.

Having said that, it still remains my view that a society in equilibrium, for whatever reason, will also be distinguishable by equilibrium (absence of alienation) within its separate parts.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'N')ietzsche often referred to the common people who participated in mass movements and shared a common mass psychology as "the rabble", or "the herd." He allegedly valued individualism above all else, although this has been considered by many philosophers to be an oversimplification, as Nietzsche criticized the concept of the subject and of atomism (that is, the existence of an atomic subject at the foundation of everything, found for example in social contract theories). He considered the individual subject as a complex of instincts and wills-to-power, just as any other organization.

Nietzsche argued that two types of morality existed: a master morality that springs actively from the 'noble man', and a slave morality that develops reactively within the weak man. These two moralities do not present simple inversions of one another; they form two different value systems: master morality fits actions into a scale of 'good' or 'bad' whereas slave morality fits actions into a scale of 'good' or 'evil'. Notably he disdained both, though the first clearly less than the second.

"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. "
--Friedrich Nietzsche

[SeaGypsy]

Now that we have a few definitions in place; I would like to go back to my original proposition and elaborate.

It seems to me that the bourgoisie are now a majority in 1st world countries. This class has some qualities in common: culture of entitlement/ expectation of a return on capital/ sense of superiority over the proletariat/ disdain for rulers/ dislike of any form of manual labor/ striving to 'keep up with the Jones's'. None of this has changed since the industrial revolution; but numbers of bourgoisie have exploded both in total and as a proportion of the whole.

While there is any economy to speak of, the appeal of bourgoise lifestyle will not fade; least of all for those who have tasted it's comforts.
In countries like India and China this portion of the population is relatively tiny. By western standards 90% of these people are 'wage slaves' with no real chance of gaining enough capital to seriously strive for bourgoise trappings. The problem for the west is that the struggling proletariat of China/ India are not about to overtake the west in terms of spending power but in skill base. This overtaking will result in more movement of capital into these markets; leaving more and more 'ex-bourgoisie' in the west. This situation will not recover. The fundamentals are no longer there.
Times have changed and the change is building momentum not turning back.

So my question is/ Can the current bourgoisie generation in the west accept the fact of a proletarian future? No investments for the vast majority of people, basicly a hand to mouth existence with almost no chance of anything different. If this is going to be the direction things will keep going; would people rather work as slaves in the factory farms of the future or struggle to find some kind of rural Utopia? Or would they rather fight to the death to hold onto that which cannot exist (perpetual economic growth along with the growth of the bourgoisie class)?

The discussion with AmericanDream is more a sideshow than direct analysis of this key question. It is a fact that secularism has risen in parallel to the Bourgoisie. The fact that the bourgoisie lifestyle is perishing for millions right now indicates that the proletariat position of nominal religiousity will rise not fall. I don't think that's particularly significant though and it doesn't answer the questions I am posing in this thread.

[americandream]

I think that we need to be very specific as to the nature of who the bourgeoisie are and their revolutionary role as contemplated by Marx. These are the drivers for the increasingly global market that is the precursor for revolutionary upheaval.

Are they in fact the group you appear to contemplate or are they specifically limited to capital capable of driving the globalising forces of accumulation, forces necessarily a function of a global free market. Do they account for the emergence of the G20 and the sight of Wall Street's regaling of Communist China's Long March.

In other words, are they limited to regions and nations or do they dance to a truly international beat. Consider these issues and then contemplate these forces, and the changes that must necessarily spring from the developments they will generate on our planet.

edit: I will concede the growth of a variety of blow-off valves such as religion and mysticism as the forces of global capital steer the market place to maximum efficiency....but that is more of an interim measure as the delicate balancing act of transitioning to pure unfettered capital flows (with the use of socialised subsidies) is underway and expectations are reconfigured both East and West.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'N')ow that we have a few definitions in place; I would like to go back to my original proposition and elaborate.

It seems to me that the bourgoisie are now a majority in 1st world countries. This class has some qualities in common: culture of entitlement/ expectation of a return on capital/ sense of superiority over the proletariat/ disdain for rulers/ dislike of any form of manual labor/ striving to 'keep up with the Jones's'. None of this has changed since the industrial revolution; but numbers of bourgoisie have exploded both in total and as a proportion of the whole.

While there is any economy to speak of, the appeal of bourgoise lifestyle will not fade; least of all for those who have tasted it's comforts.
In countries like India and China this portion of the population is relatively tiny. By western standards 90% of these people are 'wage slaves' with no real chance of gaining enough capital to seriously strive for bourgoise trappings. The problem for the west is that the struggling proletariat of China/ India are not about to overtake the west in terms of spending power but in skill base. This overtaking will result in more movement of capital into these markets; leaving more and more 'ex-bourgoisie' in the west. This situation will not recover. The fundamentals are no longer there.
Times have changed and the change is building momentum not turning back.

So my question is/ Can the current bourgoisie generation in the west accept the fact of a proletarian future? No investments for the vast majority of people, basicly a hand to mouth existence with almost no chance of anything different. If this is going to be the direction things will keep going; would people rather work as slaves in the factory farms of the future or struggle to find some kind of rural Utopia? Or would they rather fight to the death to hold onto that which cannot exist (perpetual economic growth along with the growth of the bourgoisie class)?

The discussion with AmericanDream is more a sideshow than direct analysis of this key question. It is a fact that secularism has risen in parallel to the Bourgoisie. The fact that the bourgoisie lifestyle is perishing for millions right now indicates that the proletariat position of nominal religiousity will rise not fall. I don't think that's particularly significant though and it doesn't answer the questions I am posing in this thread.

[SeaGypsy]

The word is complex in meaning that's to be sure, and I may have oversimplified it to some extent.

http://www.answers.com/topic/bourgeoisie

As opposed to the simple:

http://www.answers.com/topic/proletariat

My principle argument is that the rise of the 'petty bourgeoisie' (spelling corrected) has overtaken carrying capacity by far. As the myth of perpetual growth is bunk; so is the rise of the Modern Petty Bourgeoisie.
The fact that the entire class is being split now is paradoxicly a case of the snake eating it's own tail. With global investment, with all current real growth being in Asia, the bourgeoisie now have no choice but to invest in Asia to see capital expansion. The more this happens the more disenfranchised ex investor class there will be. It's a game of snakes and ladders with plenty of snakes and China and India with all the ladders.

Street bums rarely come from the proletariat; much more often from the overspill of the bourgeoisie. I think the hanging on 'til grim death to get a job that pays like the last one; will make bums out of a lot of the current middle classes.

[americandream]

You're beginning to get the picture. Every transitional state has been distinguished by failing carrying capacity. Western capitalism was preceded by the failed carrying capacity of European feudalism (land). Contemporary globalisation is being fuelled by similar loss of capacity in the new hosts in Asia, Latin America and eventually Africa amongst some of the other things I discussed elsewhere.

Finally, the whole planet will confront the final catastrophe, failed planetary carrying capacity which then triggers the next transition. Of course, natural events can alter this picture and climate is an elephant in the room.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'T')he word is complex in meaning that's to be sure, and I may have oversimplified it to some extent.

http://www.answers.com/topic/bourgeoisie

As opposed to the simple:

http://www.answers.com/topic/proletariat

My principle argument is that the rise of the 'petty bourgeoisie' (spelling corrected) has overtaken carrying capacity by far. As the myth of perpetual growth is bunk; so is the rise of the Modern Petty Bourgeoisie.
The fact that the entire class is being split now is paradoxicly a case of the snake eating it's own tail. With global investment, with all current real growth being in Asia, the bourgeoisie now have no choice but to invest in Asia to see capital expansion. The more this happens the more disenfranchised ex investor class there will be. It's a game of snakes and ladders with plenty of snakes and China and India with all the ladders.

Street bums rarely come from the proletariat; much more often from the overspill of the bourgeoisie. I think the hanging on 'til grim death to get a job that pays like the last one; will make bums out of a lot of the current middle classes.