Despite such calls, however, current economic policy continues to fuel class tensions. In China, senior officials have paid lip service to narrowing the income gap but in practice have dodged the reforms (fighting corruption, liberalizing the finance sector) that could make that happen.

Debt-burdened governments in Europe have slashed welfare programs even as joblessness has risen and growth sagged. In most cases, the solution chosen to repair capitalism has been more capitalism. Policymakers in Rome, Madrid and Athens are being pressured by bondholders to dismantle protection for workers and further deregulate domestic markets. Owen Jones, the British author of Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class, calls this “a class war from above.”

There are few to stand in the way. The emergence of a global labor market has defanged unions throughout the developed world. The political left, dragged rightward since the free-market onslaught of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, has not devised a credible alternative course. “Virtually all progressive or leftist parties contributed at some point to the rise and reach of financial markets, and rolling back of welfare systems in order to prove they were capable of reform,” Rancière notes. “I’d say the prospects of Labor or Socialists parties or governments anywhere significantly reconfiguring — much less turning over — current economic systems to be pretty faint.”

That leaves open a scary possibility: that Marx not only diagnosed capitalism’s flaws but also the outcome of those flaws. If policymakers don’t discover new methods of ensuring fair economic opportunity, the workers of the world may just unite. Marx may yet have his revenge.

Read more: http://business.time.com/2013/03/25/marxs-revenge-how-class-struggle-is-shaping-the-world/#ixzz2P9ZS246C
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Not so strangely, due to some "lucky" circumstances and some smart Labor policies, Australia has stopped most of the rot from the GFC... 
But every man, woman and their dogs are after Gillard's arse...

For example we have that other woman, Vanstone, frothing at the mouth that Gillard made great promises but cannot deliver anything but a deficit of 20 billion dollars in the May budget... I say who cares if it keeps more equality rolling?... Vanstone of course is a mouthpiece for Tony's ultra rightwingnut party. The Tony employment policies will be released soon, we've been told — in your dream I say.
And we have that other lying scribe, Gerard Henderson, telling us that Gillard downfall won't be about misogyny but about policies... Yes Gerard, the polcies of Gillard are far better for a dash at equality than the non-existent crap from Tony's book...
Unlike Vanstone who harps on like all her colleagues, at "Labor incompetence" (it's a repetitive mantra from the clowns of Turdville — the opposition — and a totally fallacious propostion), I can predict with certainty a Liberal (conservative) government would be whipping workers by slashing their rights, their penalty rates and removing "anti-unfair dismissal laws" from the lexicon — al in a new subtle package renamed the "right to work" or such, to disguise unjust, draconian reinvention of the ills in the capitalist system, already failed as "work Choices"...

The assault has started already. Business Associations want Canberra to cut the red tape to allow floggings, increase tax concession, decrease taxes, and give a free car with a set of steak knives to the manager — with the right to pay peanuts to the toiling oi poloi.
Business organisations want less red tape... Business want a green light to return to what was known in the days of Hornblower as slavery for workers and also encourage environmental vandalism with slash, burn and concrete whatever looks green, as long as there is a profit in it... And of course Mr Murdoch is in, on arm in arm... He now wants to be in on the Northern development of Troppo Tony... As well, he claims erroneously that Julia Gillard is racist... The pig. Sorry, pigs I did not mean to insult you...

May be, we should let it happen. Let the one per cent take over and pinch more of the cake...

We'd become so unhappy that we'd have something REAL to complain about... Well, no, not if I can stop it and if we can avoid it... because it's always traumatic and the cads would get away with it... We'd be subdued by the glitter of gamble and more mediatic porkies... We'd be made to dream about being part of the one per cent by a clever mass media... because that's what we aspire to... Money. Greed... Laurels... But we'll never get any of these, because the process demands you become ruthless and bastardic... and we're not... You dream about richness but you can not come to term with being a psycho for it... It feels wrong. 
So, DON'T VOTE FOR TONY ABBOTT and his nasty Clowns of Turdsville... They only represent the one per cent and will con you, the 99 per cent, to believe they are on your side... That has been their devious trick as sold through the complicit media, including Emperor Murdochus.
The theatre will be full of blood, your blood.... 
As Ross Gittins tells us, it's time to review our business relationships, not in a confronting way but in a more communal sense... This is not knew.
The primary emphasis of economics and business is on satisfying the wants of the individual. In this they give little priority to individuals' human relationships.
Is Christianity much different? Certainly, in the Evangelical version I grew up with, it too focuses on the individual. And you could be forgiven for wondering whether it pays much attention to relationships.

But here Schluter begs to differ. He says all of Christianity is a relational story. It starts with humankind created in God's image, but then the relationship is ruptured in the Garden of Eden. Finally, God comes to earth as a baby and ends up dying on a cross with the expressed purpose of restoring the broken relationship with humankind.
What does God require of us? Jesus summarised it: all the law and the prophets depend on two commandments - love God with all your heart, and love your neighbour as you love yourself. What could be more relational than that?
Schluter says life can be viewed from many perspectives: financial, environmental, individual, material. But ''as Christians, we need to see all of reality through a relational lens if we are to look at the world as God sees it''.
All of life is ultimately about relationships. For example, he says, ''every financial transaction is an expression of an underlying relationship between nations, organisations or individuals''.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/time-ripe-to-rethink-relationships-20130331-2h1ae.html#ixzz2PHUE3pVv


Twenty years ago, Gus explained his own way to happiness:

Happiness is a dynamic complex emotion which derives from our acknowledgement of successful activities and reactivities. It is generated as we experience some accidental encounters, random events, sought-after results and cultural participation—all of which involve basic animal contentment. Although success at work and monetary gains can help generate happiness, it is usually the perceived quality of our attitude in our relationships, including the one with our self, which capitalise our successes into greater long-lasting happiness.

For the human species, life has developed way beyond mere survival. We have generated many social identities, as groups and sub-groups, using many concepts and tools in which we believe, including languages, religions, cultural traditions, technologies, sciences, money, arts and many more. These are stylistic interpretations of life. 
    It is through style rather than survival that we have modified natural reactivity into activity. Human stylistic interpretations are adaptive extensions of our complex memory in reaction to the environment. We make a stylistic choice when faced with several solutions presenting equal satisfactory result.  
    This is why stylistic interpretations do differ between groups of people and also why they can conflict within one single group. In short our ability to make an active stylistic choice is the most important part of human evolution. Yet choices can be influenced by many reactive factors, some relevant some not. This why we have to learn how to make the best active choices, and recognise the value of some reactive choices in certain situations.
        Like our other stylistic interpretations, happiness is a strong stylistic enhanced emotion, towards sublimation, of animal contentment, which in itself is the resultant of successful survival. This is why, as humans, there are many ways in which we can discover, feel or express happiness. 
         Not-surprisingly, many points of views about happiness have been expressed in contradictory, obscure and comparative manners... For example in some religious beliefs, while it is not a sin to be happy, pain and suffering are better rewarded, in a glorified after-life, than contentment. This has led to strange behaviours such as self-flagellation, auto-mutilation and martyrdom. Contrary to natural reactive balances of pain and pleasure, these beliefs encourage suffering, and distance us from care in our natural environment. 

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/8011#comment-10267

This was not new then either... We know that relationships are the key to happiness, in the sense that our relationship with our self, with others and with the environment need to be in harmony and complementing each others.
This balance is a very hard task to manage for any politician and so far few have managed to make only minimal damage. People like John Howard were boots and all in your arse philosophers... So is Tony Abbott, with more polish on his boots. 
In the times of Karl Marx, the environment had little frontage, though in some country, the "prettiness" of space was a must... as well as a grandiosity for pompous royals. In Rousseau's time, with the concept of the "noble savage", there was a bit more green on the horizon... Presently, our human activities are killing the planet. The wake up call has been sounded but we are deaf and blind... mostly because we're after greed — before relationships... but when we mix "relationships and greed, we often end up with a Ponzi scheme... Where the last one in is a mug...
When such financial scheme collapses, all the evidence points to a collapse of relationships as well... In fact, when one looks at the deficit of the countries of the world, one can see a gigantic Ponzi scheme, helped along by derivatives... No one wants to be the last mug, so we hop in on the treadmill, and the economies collapse... Someone has opened the parcel in the game "pass the parcel..."

Caesarius Murdochus lives in your trousers, listening in to your secrets, manufacturing your wants and selling space advertising to the elite troops who will come in the the middle of the day or the night, break down your feeble doors and barge in — robbing you while leaving you a tinge of hope, that  has an effigy of Caesarius Murdochus on it... The vicious circle is compete... And we the good people have been divided... Marx is out of reach again...