Spain's prospective reform on education and health

[Kipsala]

Anyone else as disgusted as me over the goverment's proposed reform?
The reform proposes a cut of 10,000 million euros in two of the biggest sectors in spain. Education and Health.
That's 7,000 million gone from education and 3,000 million gone from health.
Consequences of the education reform would be that further education: universities, and baccaleurate( years 12 and 13) would no longer be considered the 'basic education'- classed by the president of madrid tonight as from 6 to 16.
What does this mean? It means, ladies and gentlemen that the state is returning university priviledges and laboral oportunities exceeding a certain level to the elites and higher classes, as well as basically signing the death warrants of public schooling and supporting the incipent oligarchy that's only just starting to appear once again - meaning we are about to be plunged back into the 30's or thereabouts.
And, as is becoming the trend with the PP, they have not given explanations, to the senate and congress, the press, or the people.
opinions anyone?  

[Aerliniel]

I am quite disgusted by this reform, just as I have been by all the previous ones done by this new government (PP) and the last one (PSOE). The cuts on public education are unacceptable, as are all the other cuts on all the other areas proposed by the government. However, I don't see how this is a surprise. In fact, it is something that was to be expected from this party or PSOE due to the nature of this party and of the demands posed by the EU. Education is extremely important, thus why this is yet another disgusting reform. However I would like to point out that this doesn't mean a returning to privileges and support for the 'incepent' oligarchy. It is merely a continuation of the support that these have had in the last 100 years or more. Both of these have never dissapeared, not with the start of the democratic period after Franco's death or even during the second republic (and it is very clear how things were even before then). This will continue happening with any of the main two parties or more, parties that support the capitalists and the ruling classes. (I would like to point out that no real meaningful changes have been made to the education system since Franco's death).

The not giving explanations to anyone isn't something inherent to this party, but rather to the very nature of this spanish 'democracy'. It could be seen in the past 8 years of ruling of the 'socialist' party, and with the PP government of before and so on. This isn't something surprising, but rather to be expected (so expect even worse things in the next couple of months) due to the very nature of this system. In fact, something quite revealing about it is the fact that money is still being given by the 'atheist' state to the catholic church, and that this amount of money doubles that given to I+D (investigation and development).  

[Kipsala]

Aer, remember I havent lived in spain for years : yeah, Its a bloody suprise!
and since we both agree more or less- here's another question to consider (open to anyone)
As our government and politicians are quite obviously putting their own party ambitions before whats best for the country, and taking into account the disastrous state of the economy, what about the false dilemma/threat spread by the PP(Psoe might have done that too but I'm not aware of it) of the "necesity" of passing the Sh***ty reforms so that the EU will not intervene in the matter directly?, and since thats the case, would you not agree that perhaps foreign intervention in the economic running and reorganization of spanish markets (taking into account the recent plunge in stocks) might actually be better for the country as a whole? If, the country's economy were to be intervened by, say, the Germans as european 'leaders' economically, or sweden or norway- wouldn't they be more likely to simply "sort out" the situation, without letting party stance and political quarrels influence their decisions?
(gone off on a tangent I know- its an interesting question really) sauf the fact that spaniards nationalistic pride would be dashed...  

[Le Pere Duchesne]

Just to agree with Aer here, while the exact 'reforms' might be a surprise, in this period of political conservatism since 1991, and the period of economic decay since the mid 00's, and even more, the period since the financial collapse in 2007 and the wave of austerity over the last 4 or so years, the genial tendency shouldn't surprise most people. Unfortunately, most workers and young people have these ideas that the Socialist Party will do Nice Things, so of course they will be surprised that these sorts of reforms will happen.

The thing is, these reforms were not done because of party politics, just the opposite: they were made in order to ensure that the capitalist state has enough money to pay off the German, French, and English bankers, while taking advantage of the 'necessity' of these economic reforms to push through other reforms which don't help directly, but just lower wages, conditions, and rights of workers so that local and foreign capitalists can be more 'confident' in market situations (i.e., so they can pay less wages, safety costs, and so workers have less rights to strike against this, and in this way get more profits).

So in this way it would be worse if other countries 'reorganized the economy' because they would do so in the interests of capital, and not workers, but they wouldn't have the direct fear of the working class getting really pissed off, revolting, and cutting off their heads.

Think of it this way, how much money is in the economy right now? How much food does Spain produce? How much does Spanish industry produce? And how much of that goes to the politicians, the bankers, and the industrialists? And how much goes to the workers? Think of it as a giant pie, and the workers are getting a tiny slice.

Given how productive the Spanish economy actually is, given how many farms and factories there are, it would be easy to build more factories, more farms, employ all of the people at a decent wage, and actually produce enough ofr everyone to live a decent life worthy of a human being. The thing is, despite being possible, it would mean the mass of the people benefit, and any social surplus would go into hospitals, old age care, and education, those sorts of things. The surplus would not go to the capitalists, so why would they want it? Why would their politicians vote for it? Why would their newspapers and radio stations and tv programmes and websites promote it?  

[Aerliniel]

Kipsala, how would foreign intervention help the workers in any way? The current leaders of the countries that you mentioned are the capitalists 'governing' the EU and trying to please the bankers. Like Gracchvs just said, it wouldn't make any meaningful change since the people who would reorganise it would do it in the interests of capital and the ruling classes. Nothing would change, or have you forgotten the fact that the rulers of the countries that you have mention, for example Germany with Merkel, that are pushing for these reforms to be passed?  

[Kipsala]

Aerlinniel C Robleda

Nothing would change, or have you forgotten the fact that the rulers of the countries that you have mention, for example Germany with Merkel, that are pushing for these reforms to be passed?

Okay Aer, I can see your point...
but you dont know that, and I doubt Russia (china is but being intervened by the countriy that along with russia has been succesfully boycotting the Syrian resolution at the UN because of ideological conflicts with the rest of the signatory states, as well as a country with poor transparency laws and, lets admit it a bad record on human rights so far doesnt seem like such a hot option) is in a state to be able to intervene.... so really what options are there? On this line of debate: every alternative is probably going to be met with the same answer, so Aer give me your alternative then, what would you have them do?
and...Joachim Guack is leader of germany nowadays (you'll hate him)  

[Le Pere Duchesne]

The this: what alternative can we, as workers, students, unemployed, whatever we are... what alternative can we propose? The situation posed is this: Spain is a capitalist country, which owes a significant amount of money to banks and financial institutions in other countries. Anything we say will amount to a plan to somehow either pay back those banks, or maintain the economy and social order in Spain. Any alternative, therefore, is merely 'advice' on how to best run capitalism in the interests of the capitalists.

Why would we want to do that?

For us, this crisis shows that capitalism cannot work for the vast majority of people. This crisis serves as more evidence that we need to get rid, to abolish and overthrow capitalism.

You should check out two of my posts: What Is Capitalism? and A Fair Day's Wage for a Fair Day's Work.