Ruling class Ignorance

To say that greed is a good thing is a denial of the social nature of the human being. Greed necessarily implies selfishness, a refusal to consider the circumstances of other human beings. Human beings are indeed capable of selfishness, of great selfishness, but selfishness is destructive of human society and cohesion. As a result, human beings generally resist the selfish impulse as they intuitively understand that it is both damaging to the self, and to the social. The idea that selfishness is an important driver in economic activity is supposed to come from the writings of Adam Smith. The most successful academic economist is Paul Samuelson whose book, 'Economics' has sold millions and has been read by millions of students throughout the years. My edition is the 15th edition, published in 1995. I don't know how many editions have been published at this time, but even 15 is a very impressive pedigree. In my 15th edition, Samuelson writes

The orderliness of the market system was first recognised by Adam Smith….Smith proclaimed the principle of the invisible hand. This principle holds that, in selfishly pursuing only his or her personal good, every individual is led, as if by an invisible hand, to achieve the best good for all….Smith’s insight about the functioning of the market mechanism has inspired modern economists….

The problem here is that Smith said no such thing, what Smith said was that in pursuing our own interest every individual is led, as if by an invisible hand...etc. and, as I showed yesterday, Smith argues that it is in all of our interests that workers are well paid and enjoy good conditions of employment. In Book 4 ch 2 of the Wealth of Nations, Smith writes

By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain; and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.

Our own interest, our self-interest, is a quite different thing from selfishness, in other words, Samuelson got it wrong and was responsible for sending modern economic theory down a blind alley. He was not alone in this, but he was very influential. Samuelson did not do this deliberately as he is not a neoliberal, but what it suggests is that Samuelson did not actually read Smith and was only repeating what he himself was told when he was a student. As Smith continually stresses, our self-interest is often the promotion and the happiness of others, even when there is no immediate benefit for us. Indeed Smith condemns the attitudes displayed by the Boris Johnsons of the world as corrupt and used to sustain a divisive class system. In the 'Theory of Moral Sentiments' he writes

This disposition to admire—and almost to worship—the rich and the powerful, and to despise or at least neglect persons of poor and mean condition, is (on one hand) necessary to establish and maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, and (on the other) the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments. Moralists all down the centuries have complained that wealth and greatness are often given the respect and admiration that only wisdom and virtue should receive, and that poverty and weakness are quite wrongly treated with the contempt that should be reserved for vice and folly.

 

As I said yesterday, we should be very sceptical of the pronouncements of anyone who boasts an Eton and Oxbridge education, Smith himself certainly was. What the Boris Johnsons of the world deal in is propaganda, not academia, and in doing so display both their ignorance and their arrogance. I ask you to contemplate this person as a future Prime Minister. You have been warned.

 

Your Servant

Doktor Kommirat

Boris the Bampot

If any one person symbolises the bankruptcy of politics in modern Britain, of the tragedy that poses as leadership in this sorry country, it is the mayor of London Boris Johnson. I am inclined to label this man as an imbecile, but he is not as intelligent as that. Johnson is a product of the Eton, Oxbridge set who deeply believe that they are born to rule, and the genuinely scary part is that this creature is a real candidate for a future Prime Minister.

When Adam Smith went to Oxford he left after 6 months because he considered it totally useless and was convinced that the professorial clique that taught at it were incompetent. When Bertrand Russell attended Cambridge he wrote that the Cambridge dons served no useful purpose whatsoever, that he learned absolutely nothing from his teachers. Thus, we must not assume that attendance at the two most celebrated universities in the world means anything at all. For example, how can a buffoon like Johnson graduate from such an elite university? Well, you simply don't fail the offspring of the rich and great whom you rely on for finance and patronage, do you?

Johnson is credited with having studied the classics. which means that he would have no introduction to political economy. However, despite what is supposed to be the study of Mediterranean Roman and Greek history and philosophy, it is quite obvious that he was never introduced to the Sophist Thrasymachus, who tells us that justice is the interests of the strongest, in other words, that the law serves the elite and punishes the weak and the poor, although I suspect that if Johnson was to read that, he would argue that this was exactly as it should be in a well-ordered society. Johnson's latest foray into the wisdom of modern Britain is to declare that inequality is essential to fostering "the spirit of envy" and hailed greed as a "valuable spur to economic activity". Thus, for the Johnson's of the world, the fundamentals of economic growth and prosperity are founded on envy and greed. This is a brilliant metaphor for neoliberalism, and, as I have noted in recent posts, has no basis in economic theory, but is an essential element in the psychopathic philosophy of Objectivism as outlined by Ayn Rand.

Inequality is inevitable in human society as people all have different talents and attributes, but what Johnson is speaking of is economic inequality, an artificial as opposed to a natural inequality. So, let us look at what Adam Smith says is the valuable spur to economic activity in The Wealth of Nations Book 1 ch8.

Servants, labourers, and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part, can never be regarded as any inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged....
The liberal reward of labour, as it encourages the propagation, so it increases the industry of the common people. The wages of labour are the encouragement of industry, which, like every other human quality, improves in proportion to the encouragement it receives. A plentiful subsistence increases the bodily strength of the labourer, and the comfortable hope of bettering his condition, and of ending his days, perhaps, in ease and plenty, animates him to exert that strength to the utmost. Where wages are high, accordingly, we shall always find the workmen more active, diligent, and expeditious, than where they are low Bk1 ch8

Thus, what we find in the father of modern economic theory is that it is not inequality that is necessary, but equity. Now, equity is not equality, it is fairness. Smith does not advocate minimum wages, but 'a plentiful subsistence.' It is high wages 'the liberal reward of labour' that will drive economic activity and growth, not the promotion of greed. This brings us to the subject of greed which I will deal with in another post as this one is getting to its maximum length. Britain is entering a dangerous phase in its history because it is being increasingly led by economic illiterates and quasi-fascists. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

The Myth of the Market

Following on from my post on the subject of free schools, what is clear to me is that the discipline of economics as we know it in this country is a fraud, and that economists do not actually know much about their own discipline. We are in the financial and economic crisis that we are in because of economists, and the economic models used by bankers and those in the financial system. What this tells me is that the models and assumptions that economists and financiers operate by are deeply flawed and in many ways simply wrong. So, how does this come about? Well, this is a huge topic that could well take a textbook to explain, but if I may offer some insights.

One of the great mantras of modern economics is that markets, when left to their own devices with no external interference are self-regulating. This is demonstrably wrong. As we continually witness in our modern world, any market, when left to its own devices will develop into a monopoly situation. For example, the rise of the supermarket has witnessed the death of high street suppliers in bakeries, fishmongers, butchers, greengrocers, drapers etc. All such activities now take place predominantly within supermarkets that are ruled by four multinational conglomerates and genuine competition and choice has been deliberately killed off. Now there is nothing inherently wrong with this as it is a result of technology as much as anything. What is wrong is that we are still being peddled the myth that we live in a market economy, when what we live in is a capitalist economy that has systematically destroyed markets and competition.

We are constantly still being peddled the lie that market self-regulation will flourish because of the stimulus of free dynamic competition, and if you believe that you must live on a different planet. Where is the competition in energy, retail distribution, fuel, transport, housing etc. etc.? It doesn't exist. What we are faced with in modern Britain is a choice between a few licensed gangsters. In fact I cannot think of one product or service in our society that offers genuine competition.

Constant propaganda has demonised the state and public services whilst promoting the benefits of a market system in health education, care etc. etc. that does not, and cannot exist. What is wrong is that just when we need a healthy active state, intervening and regulating such activities, we are governed by criminals who are removing such state activities in the cause of exploitation and profiteering. All of the great private companies being employed by the British State to provide us with the wondrous benefits of the private sector are all revealed as criminal organisations who are not only incompetent, but are defrauding the taxpayer of millions each day. ATOS, Serco, G4s are all exposed as fraudulent. There is an unanswerable case for the immediate nationalisation of energy and the railways for example. The recent sale of Royal Mail is a classic example of the type of activity Al Capone would have been proud of.

As I have alluded to previously, modern economics operates from some quite fundamental mistaken premises. For example the concept of Adam Smith's invisible hand is not at all what modern economists tell us that it is. The biggest selling economist in the world, Paul Samuelson, tells us that the invisible hand is perfect competition. That is simply wrong. Indeed, Samuelson goes on to tell us how perfect competition is an impossibility, so, if he is correct, and I agree that he is, then Adam Smith must have been an ignoramus, and I can assure you that Smith was anything but. Another myth is that Smith ever describes or uses the term selfishness with respect to the human being. Nor does he ever use the term laissez faire. I shall attempt to explain these in understandable terms to show you that our rulers simply do not know what they are talking about when they start to pontificate on 'markets.' In the meantime, the only light in sight is the prospect of independence for Scotland that will allow us to start to redress the balance and to hold some of these gangsters to account. It is your choice, but you have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Book Event

Christmas Event at Hillhead Library, byres rd

At 6 pm on Thursday 5th December (in the main hall, first floor)

Dress code: vagabond (i.e. anything you like)

Four local authors, one actor and one pianist = a little piano music and very brief recitals of the authors' works

Wine and food provided, informal atmosphere and any seating will not be in rows

Peter Kerr's Human Rights in a Big Yellow Taxi was published last September. It's a superb analysis of how our human rights are being eroded, and how they will be difficult to defend if we let this erosion go much further.
Chris Dolan's Redlegs was published last year, got excellent reviews and a French edition will be coming out in 2014. "It is an engrossing and compelling novel. The picture of island life is vivid, the characterisation of the principal personages convincing, the elaboration of the narrative moving. As in many really good novels, there are small scenes which stick in the memory, ..." - The Scotsman

Peter Gilmour's The Convalescent was also published last September and was reviewed in the Herald: "There's a refreshingly unromantic and level-headed tone to The Convalescent. Taking control of your life and becoming a healthier and stronger individual is always promoted in sunny, positive terms, but Gilmour highlights the uncertainty and anxiety that accompanies such a struggle, accentuating the shadows as well as the light."

          Allan Cameron's In Praise of the Garrulous was reissued in a new edition last September and was reviewed in the Guardian: "On the whole, there is so much here that is important ... and his humanity is so winning."

Stewart Ennis will be reading passages from all four books.       

          Silviya Mihaylova is a concert pianist and music teacher, and will provide some interesting music as a counterpoint.

Free Schools

I apologise for not posting for a few days, but I was engaged in other activities. Someone kindly told me how they liked my blog and asked me for my opinion on the policy of free schools, and I will address that if you will indulge me. However, when thinking about the subject of free schools, I thought how a topic like this goes to the heart of the deep seated problems that bedevil our nation. As a result, this will lead me on to what may be a series of posts on an on-going train of thought. Should anyone find this tedious or wishes me to take up other topics, then please tell me. Also, as I keep saying, if you feel I am talking rubbish then please contact me and tell me why. I genuinely welcome such input.

Free schools are another example of neoliberal free market thinking that have a superficial attraction but turn to dust with even a passing examination. The point about free schools is that they are not free, they are funded by the taxpayer and give guaranteed priority to the offspring of the people who run them. Thus, there is a big element of exclusivity about them. In true neoliberal fashion the free part of these schools is that they are free from local authority control. They are thus fundamentally undemocratic, as education is a local authority function and the neoliberals wish to completely bypass local authorities so that they can withdraw as much local authority finance as possible. They wish to take schools out of local authority control altogether as they did with further education colleges, and look at what they have become. They are run by neoliberal managers who remove all full time permanent staff and replace them with part-time, temporary staff on zero-hour contracts and remove as much education as possible and replace it with training that makes them a profit.

The point about free schools is that they are largely unregulated. Oh they are still subject to inspection and are obliged to offer a general curriculum, but they are free to employ unqualified and untrained teachers, set their own wage rates and conditions of service and teach a very ideological syllabus that, at times, resembles a form of brainwashing. In addition, they are selective. Anyone is theoretically free to attend a free school, but the school is equally free to refuse them.

The whole point of the matter is that you must never allow for a market in education. In any market there are winners and losers, and, if you don't have money then you cannot enter the market. This has nothing to do with equality as the neoliberal accuses, but is all about equity. A free market allows for privilege, for queue jumping, for exclusion. It allows the wealthy to make benefits at the expense of the less well off. Paradoxically, one of the earliest advocates of public education for all children, paid for out of general taxation, was Adam Smith, the so-called father of the free market, which of course he was no such thing.

Free schools are a manifestation of the free market neoliberal's hatred of the state, of their hatred of all things collective and their dedication to the concept of the individual consumer who must be free to make their own choices to spend their money as they see fit. The problem with the neoliberal concept of individualism is that not only does it not exist, but it cannot exist. If there is one thing that Adam Smith was definitive about it was the social nature of the human being, not their individualism. This is why I continually stress that the free market is a fraud because its fundamental assumptions are all wrong. I will expand on these themes if you allow.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Scotland after Independence, according to the economic geniuses in London.

The press and media have been salivating triumphantly all day today over the report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies that an Independent Scotland would have financial difficulties and would have to seriously increase tax revenues in order to make the books balance. This Institute has been trumpeted as being independent of political bias, but, as I have continually stressed in this blog, what does that prove, when all our political parties are committed to the same ideology?

The Institute of Fiscal Studies was founded by four men, a Conservative Party politician who was also a banker, a stockbroker, an investment trust manager and a tax consultant. In 2008, shortly after the banking crisis, this Institute's ideas for recovery included a plan to abolish corporation tax and replace it with a higher rate of VAT. Corporation tax is levied on company profits, so, these unbiased geniuses were advocating allowing companies to keep all of their profits, whilst raising VAT which impacts most heavily on the poorer sections of society. How does it do that? Because VAT is a tax on consumption, and poor people spend all of their income on consumption, they have to to stay alive and keep a roof over their heads. In 2008 corporation tax raised £52billion, thus, in order to compensate for that VAT would have needed to be increased from 17.5% to 28.3%. Thus, companies would have gained a nice increase in their income, whilst working people, the unemployed, the disabled etc. would have witnessed their expenditure rising by 10.8%

The Institute for Fiscal Studies may not be politically biased, but they most certainly are neoliberals to the core. Their analyses certainly start from the Thatcherite mantra that there is no alternative, and they therefore base all their calculations on the existing dominant economic ideology.  Further proof of that is that the same report argued that VAT should be extended to include food, children's clothes and books. Such changes will impact very heavily on the less well off, but affect the wealthy only marginally. Another report by the Institute recommends abolishing inheritance tax, whilst another advocates removing tax on interest on personal savings. So, how many of you out there pay corporation tax? How many spend the bulk of your income on consumption however? How many of you gain large sums from your bank on interest payments on your savings? How many of you have had to pay tax on an inheritance? But of course all of these recommendations are all unbiased and value free and it is a pure coincidence that they all benefit the wealthy and penalise the less well off.

You see, the findings of the Institute of Fiscal Studies are only relevant if, after independence, Scotland stays the same and does not seek alternatives methods of governance and economic prioritising. However, should Scotland ditch the dominant neoliberal poison and seek more equitable forms of policy-making, then the Institute's Report is about as much worth as a chocolate cigarette lighter. There are alternatives, there are other ways, the people who live and work in Scotland are an intelligent people and indeed are a more caring and humane people. After independence, the Scottish electorate may just be daft enough to vote for a Labour government, but they most certainly will never be daft enough to vote Tory or Lib Dem. However, even the Scottish Labour Party will surely understand that they will have to be different from the Westminster mafia. Whatever the case, do not fret about the findings of the Institute of Fiscal Studies, and please, do not take too much notice of what they say. As I continually warn you, the state of economics in this country is on a similar scale as its democracy, decidedly dodgy. We are ruled by political and economic illiterates!!!

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Can Westminster get any more useless?

The present state of British politics genuinely beggars belief and rational understanding. We are supposed to be a democratic society and we have a whole Parliamentary system that simply refuses to be held accountable or to give the electorate any form of respect or recognition. I remind you, all politicians, including the government, are put into office by us. They are not there because they are qualified, or because they are the best people for the job, they are there simply because they won an election. In office we pay their wages, their pensions, their expenses and provide their standard of living and that of their families. If it transpires that they are competent and/or honest, then that is entirely by chance.

The biggest decision any politician can make is the decision to commit the nation to war. This decision is therefore the most important area for which they must be held accountable and must justify to the people of the nation. The last government set up the Chilcot Enquiry to try to determine the justification for this country waging war against Iraq. This was set up because there is no doubt that the fundamental reasons given to the nation for going to war by the then government led by Tony Blair were a farrago of lies. In addition, under the government's duties in law, the war was illegal. As a result, we devastated a sovereign nation, killed hundreds of thousands of its citizens, brought terror onto our own streets and spent billions of pounds illegally and untruthfully. None of that is in dispute.

However, we now have the spectacle of an unelected civil servant, Sir Jeremy Heywood, who was, incidentally, Tony Blair's private secretary at the time of the Iraq war, refusing to release crucial documents to an enquiry set up by Parliament that may shed light on the reasons behind the biggest foreign policy disaster in the nation's history. The Chilcot Enquiry has been refused access to 25 notes sent from Blair to George Bush, plus 130 documents discussing the war and dozens of records of British Cabinet meetings by this man, on the grounds that Blair's negotiations with Bush were private. I mean, you simply could not make this stuff up. Who on earth does this Heywood think he is? He should be immediately arrested, placed in handcuffs, thrown in a cell and be forbidden to hold any form of public office for the rest of his life. So, why hasn't he? This situation defies rational understanding. There is no possible argument for considering that such discussions can be regarded as private. These people are elected, they don't fight the war once they have declared it, they get other people to fight it for them.They don't finance the war, we do. This is the most public decision any politician can take, and, incidentally, is coming from people who claim that they have a right to monitor every conversation, every text, every email that the population of this country make. As far as this government is concerned, you have no private life, and, they inherited such attitudes from Labour.

This is a genuine national scandal. Remember, Blair and his toadies didn't just wage illegal war, they have also indulged in widespread torture, large scale international kidnapping, and widespread criminality. That this situation has arisen tells you everything you want to know about modern British government and the overweening arrogance of the Westminster Parliament and its unelected civil officials. It also serves to highlight the utter uselessness of Westminster. Any decent MP with a scintilla of intelligence, or understanding of their roles and functions would be demanding this information immediately and would have called in the police to have Heywood arrested. The British people have no hope for any form of just and equitable society under present structural conditions. It requires a radical change, and all the evidence we have shows us that this just will not happen. It can happen for Scotland however, if the Scots just have the bottle to believe that they are intelligent enough to rule themselves. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

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Westminster is lost in a corruption of its own making

The senior United Nations official for freedom of expression, Frank La Rue,  has warned Britain that the way it is treating the press and particularly the Guardian over the Snowden files is unacceptable. Accusing the British government of doing serious damage to our reputation for press freedom, he stated that "I have been absolutely shocked about the way the Guardian has been treated, from the idea of prosecution to the fact that some members of parliament even called it treason, I think that is unacceptable in a democratic society."

However, what I have been trying to impress on you in this blog is that Britain can no longer claim to be a democratic society in the proper sense of the political concept of democracy. The Westminster Parliament is irredeemably corrupt and its members represent no-one but themselves and a narrow circle of business and financial interests. Our MPs have lost all sense of purpose. If you had to ask any MP what their role and function is in a democratic society they would not be able to tell you. What they would tell you is what their party told them to tell you. Thus, their role has been corrupted, their functions have been corrupted, they have lost all sense of individuality and have submerged their personal identity completely under their party identity. They have no sense of shame, no dignity and no self-respect. They lie constantly and, even after the expenses scandal, still continue to enrich themselves at the public's expense. If you watch Question Time or any decent news programme you will see for yourself that they are an utter disgrace and an embarrassment.

The reasons for this is their allegiance to the economic imperatives of neoliberal free market economics that will accept no restraints on its activities. Thus, in order to pursue the goals of neoliberalism, our MPs refuse to be accountable, to give honest answers to questions, to represent their constituents or take any notice of public opinion. As I wrote recently, privatisation has been a disaster but that is of no consequence to Westminster as they and their mates are making fortunes out of it. The decline of the health service is deliberate, and the slow slide to slavery of the working people of the country is also deliberate. Westminster has genuinely become a club whose members must share the goals and objectives of the club in order to become a member. That is why all parties have taken the selection of candidates out of the hands of local parties and control such selections from their central office. You must be 'one of us' to get into the Westminster club.

Why has David Cameron attended the Commonwealth Conference in Sri Lanka when other states have condemned it for its human rights? Because Britain is in no position to preach to anyone else about human rights, the harassment of journalists, the bugging of phones, torture, rendition, and all the other delights normally associated with tyrannies. We have a chance to escape this situation next September. If you vote to remain in the UK next year, then you must agree with the slow death of democracy, freedom and human rights we are witnessing at the hands of the Westminster Parliament, you have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

The British State will wither away

The following is the start of an article in today's Guardian.

The government is to forge a "leaner, more efficient state" on a permanent basis, David Cameron has said as he signalled he had no intention of resuming spending once the structural deficit has been eliminated, a clear change to claims made after the last general election .
In a change of tack from saying in 2010 that he was imposing cuts out of necessity, rather than from "some ideological zeal", the prime minister told the Lord Mayor's banquet that the government has shown in the last three years that better services can be delivered with lower spending.

This is a graphic example of the lie machine that is the Westminster Parliament. In addition, it also reveals that no amount of facts and data is allowed to spoil a good ideological view of the world when this man tells us that the last three years has shown that better services can be delivered with lower spending. In just the last month the news has been inundated with stories about the catastrophic state of our service sector, for example, health, education, energy, roads, rail, bus services, care services, children's services and on and on. If you read the papers and watch the news, you will be fully aware that I am not indulging in rhetoric, that services right across the country are in permanent crisis. That Cameron can make such a statement in public shows anyone with a shred of intelligence that he is totally out of touch, totally out of control and completely unfit for public office.

Cameron is here revealing the Tory hatred of the state. Of course we have a leaner more efficient state today and its efficiency is judged, by the Camerloonatics of the world, how fast it can cut benefits, wages, increase working hours and working weeks, how fat it can make managerial salaries and bonuses, how many workers it can make redundant, how much privatisation it can visit on our health and education systems etc. etc. On those standards, the British state is very efficient, and, as I've been telling you for some time now, all such policies are the priorities of the Westminster Parliament. As I've also been telling you, Labour and the Lib Dems are as much to blame, so do not be fooled for a moment that if you stay within the British state after next September, but vote for someone different that anything will change. Remember, Labour have already committed themselves to accepting the Tory cuts for at least three years if they win in 2015, and have promised to be even harder on the benefits system.

The commitment to forge a leaner state on a permanent basis means only one thing. There will be more privatisation of all state services such as health and education. The state will be pared down to a minimum and we will have private roads, private bridges, private libraries, private health and education, and the entire British nation will be sold of for profit to the private sector. This is no false warning, nor am I being alarmist. I have warned you repeatedly that the neoliberals of all parties are preparing the working people of this country for modern forms of slavery. You have been warned. Westminster has become a genuine threat to your health, welfare and your liberty and if that's what you vote for next September, then you will deserve all you get.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

You get what you vote for!

The Daily Telegraph on Friday 8th November 2013 carried a report that told us that the government is proposing measures to remove the legal protections that give a legal right to index linked final salary pensions for workers in the private sector. In other words, they will remove the right for a pension to move in accordance with inflation. The report noted that, in the course of a 15 year retirement, a person's pension could lose one-third of its value. In other words, once you retire, you will become increasingly impoverished. However, another two proposals are that employers will be given the right to delay a person's retirement in  order to save money, and that the government proposes to cancel survivors rights, in other words they will stop any payments to widows and widowers.

The brutality and callousness of our Westminster political class knows no bounds and knows neither shame nor common decency. I have consistently warned you about the war Westminster is waging against ordinary working people, and war is not too strong a word to use in this context because they are quite literally trying to destroy people. The ideology they live by assumes that the only people who actually create wealth are the business and financial sectors of society, and that the rest of us are simply leeches who sponge off, and depend on, the important people. They cannot conceive that the value of all production comes from the labour of the people who produce it, and, that without working people all of their wealth would not exist. I have written about this before but if you will excuse me I will quote Adam Smith, the so-called father of free market economics at some length because what he says about this subject is in complete contrast to what modern economics tells us. The following is from Smith's The Wealth of Nations Book 1 Ch. 5 and is not from Karl Marx
 
The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities........ The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What every thing is really worth to the man who has acquired it and who wants to dispose of it, or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people. What is bought with money, or with goods, is purchased by labour, as much as what we acquire by the toil of our own body. That money, or those goods, indeed, save us this toil. They contain the value of a certain quantity of labour, which we exchange for what is supposed at the time to contain the value of an equal quantity. Labour was the first price, the original purchase money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; and its value, to those who possess it, and who want to exchange it for some new productions, is precisely equal to the quantity of labour which it can enable them to purchase or command….Labour alone, therefore, never varying in its own value, is alone the ultimate and real standard by which the value of all commodities can at all times and places be estimated and compared. It is their real price; money is their nominal price only……Labour, therefore, it appears evidently, is the only universal, as well as the only accurate, measure of value, or the only standard by which we can compare the values of different commodities, at all times, and at all places.

Thus, the real value of a house is equivalent to the sum total of the labour required to build it, from the labour that went into producing the bricks and wood for the structure right through to the final coat of paint to finish it. The actual cost of a house is speculation, licensed gangsterism. The real trick of the ruling elite in Britain is to convince us all that working people are actually worthless and that we should all bow down to the rich and wealthy, the real 'wealth creators' and they have actually managed to convince the working class itself. So, be thankful for the crumbs off your masters table because at the end of the day, if you accept this distorted sense of reality and subscribe to such an ideology then you deserve all you get. As I keep saying, you voted for it. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat    

Security and the Rule of Law

Labour's shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry was on Question Time last night and highlighted perfectly the crucial malaise that afflicts our country and our system of government. It goes to the heart of the corruption of the Westminster system. Should Labour win the next election, this person would then become the Attorney General, the highest legal officer in the land, and what she showed was that she has neither a clear understanding of politics, nor, most importantly, of the law. I have already warned in other posts that the political class in the UK are persistently telling us that we must be prepared to sacrifice our freedoms in the name of security. We must never be seduced by such arguments.

On Question Time Ms Thornberry made the statement that the principal function of government is to protect our security, and no-one on the panel or in the audience took her to task on this. Now, at first sight this may seem to be correct, but it is fundamentally garbage, and is of profound importance to the nature of government and the government's relationship to the rest of society. The principal function of any government is to uphold the law, and it is law that protects our security, not the police or the armed forces or politicians, because, in order that our security is comprehensively and properly protected, all those personnel must, in a system genuinely operating by the rule of law, be subject to the law on an equal basis to everyone else. However, if we accept the Thornberry position, which is of course the position of all the criminals within Westminster, then the security measures under discussion, that is, the right of government to intercept all our communications and invade all of our privacy under the imperatives of their so-called war on terror, requires us to negate our fundamental rights and freedoms and hand unlimited and unrestricted power to people who are manifestly unfit to be trusted with it. If Ms Thornberry genuinely believes what she said, then it demonstrates that she herself is manifestly unfit for public office. Indeed, the reason that we have a problem with our security in modern Britain is because our government, with the support of the Westminster Parliament, broke the law and engaged in illegal activities for which we are paying a terrible price.

It is the same in our domestic lives, we are insecure in our own homes because we now know that, not only our own government, but foreign governments, are invading our homes through our phones and computers and engaging in illegal activities against us. No politician anywhere or for any reason is justified in behaving in such a manner, and the tragedy for us, is that our politicians are protecting people who are not elected, have no authority and are simply mindless civil servants.

The great Athenian statesman Pericles tells us how
Where the law is subject to some other authority and has none of its own, the collapse of the state, in my view, is not far off; but if law is the master of the government and the government is its slave, then the situation is full of promise and men enjoy all the blessings that the gods shower on a state.

It is clear that in this country, the law is subject to some other authority, the authority of the security services and their demands that they operate unrestricted by legal considerations. On the economic front, the law is subject to the imperatives of the 'market' whatever that is? The law in Britain takes no action against a banker who steals millions of pounds, but gives 6 months in jail to someone who steals a bottle of water. As a result, our governments are perfectly happy to subvert the rule of law in pursuit of their own interests and the interests of America. Aristotle tells us in his 'Politics' that

It is more proper that law should govern than any one of the citizens: upon the same principle, if it is advantageous to place the supreme power in some particular persons, they should be appointed to be only guardians, and the servants of the laws.

Thus, our real security lies, not with the security services, not with the government, but in respect for, and obedience to, the rule of law. However, for modern British governments, security doesn't mean law, it means force and illegality if they consider it necessary. For the rest of society security means having confidence that we are secure from arbitrary interference from the forces of the state, from poverty, from hunger and from a fear of the future.

The principal source of insecurity in modern Britain is the direct result of our governmental system's obsession with security. However, we can never be secure if we are governed by criminals. If you or I break the law we are branded criminals and the same applies to our politicians, and they stand exposed as criminals, as kidnappers, as torturers. The American Declaration of Independence tells us that

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Thus, government is instituted to secure our fundamental rights, but how do they secure them? By security measures, or by law? Humans are social beings and are therefore regulatory beings and they secure our rights by regulation, the most common form being formal law. Other forms of securing our rights are norms and values, but, and this is the crucial point, the security forces must always operate within the established laws, norms and values. These regulations precede, and are the locus of, the authority of the security services. I could write much about this, and it has been difficult presenting it in this truncated manner, however, I trust it has been sufficient to explain the problem. Should anyone wish further explanation please ask and I will be happy to reply. Remember, one of the oldest warnings from history is 'quis custodiet ipsos custodies?'  -  'who watches the watchers?'

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Privatisation - the prototypical Westminster lie.

I've been pondering the latest saga over the closure of Portsmouth shipyard and the charge that it is a bribe to the Scots not to vote for Independence, and of course that's exactly what it is. However, I sincerely hope that the Scots don't fall for this extremely vulgar piece of political manoeuvring and vote against Independence on the premise that if you do you may lose some 2000 jobs when the Scottish Parliament could create 10 times that number at the stroke of a pen. Any decent government who sincerely wished to end unemployment could do so quite easily in little over a year. The Scots would likely be quite to prepared to accept such a policy, whereas the rest of the UK wouldn't and that is one of the reasons why we need Independence. I will happily explain this to anyone who asks me to.

The real lesson of this catastrophe however, is the disaster that is privatisation. I have been trying to think of a genuinely successful example of privatisation and cannot think of one. If anyone can enlighten me then please do not hesitate to reply.

The most popular privatisation was of course council housing, but that is a completely different thing from it being successful. It has of course been a complete disaster with our housing situation left in complete chaos. I showed in an earlier post how there are twice as many empty properties in England and Wales alone than there are homeless people. The catalogue of disastrous privatisation is well-known, rail, energy, water, buses, NHS111 and all the Labour inspired Private Finance Initiatives, with licensed gangsters in the shape of A4e, ATOS, G4s, Serco etc. robbing us blind for providing overpriced underperforming so-called services. In short, privatisation simply does not work and is another example of the fraud that is supposed to be the free market and the pathological lying of the Westminster governmental system that includes all three major parties.

It is simply unbelievable that anyone can tell you that we are better together with a straight face. It speaks volumes that the most prominent spokesman of the Better Together campaign is the former Chancellor Alistair Darling, a prominent member of the government who presided over the financial collapse and a man of genuinely monumental incompetence. A member of the worst government in British history, a government that was financially stupid, that took away whole sections of our fundamental rights, that waged illegal wars and brought terror onto our streets, that engaged in rendition and torture and whose activities in government mean that they are incapable of waging any genuine form of opposition to the present brutal and callous administration of elite public schoolboys who will complete the destruction of a once rich and vibrant nation, but a nation that is now characterised by greed, selfishness and hate. Hatred of the poor, the sick, the disabled, the disadvantaged, the Europeans, Muslims, indeed anyone who is not one of them. Is that what you want, to be allied with and supportive of people like that? You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

You want the market? You're welcome to it!

Welcome to the free market driven modern United Kingdom. Welcome to the depersonalisation and the dehumanisation of the sick and vulnerable, lives put at risk and people degraded in the endless pursuit of market driven priorities. We are regaled today in the news about the spectacle in the NHS whereby, hospitals are consistently lying, falsifying records and bullying their staff to alter and change patient records. It was Mid-Staffs recently, today its Colchester. I've already commented on how bullying is the normal management practice throughout the country and of how bullying is the response of the coward and the incompetent. In Colchester its a combination of both. You see, NHS trusts are governed by political appointments with very few people in management having any kind of medical experience. NHS management is primarily staffed by accountants and business studies people who are all dedicated to the dominant free market model of targets, profit, and of course, bonuses. About the only universal left in our universal care system is the universal dedication of these people to cut costs and patient care, boost income and cut staff, wages, and conditions.

However, what is missing in the NHS is any form of a market. I mean, how can you have a market in health, how can you put a price on health? How on earth can any civilised person even contemplate pricing health and setting targets that place some conditions in priority positions over others? What this accomplishes is that the medical profession specialise in the big price returns such as heart and cancer and relegate other conditions that can be very distressing if not life threatening to a lower priority. They are not to be blamed for this as this is the priority of the trust who employ them and tell them that they must make a profit and show value for money. For a market to exist their must be competition and customers, and for competition to be meaningful there has to be multiple suppliers. I mean this situation is absurd and would be farcical were it not so serious. A patient isn't a customer, no-one goes to hospital to buy cancer or a heart transplant, but that is exactly the position market and target driven health care has put GPs in, as they have to literally buy such treatment as cheaply as they can from whoever is prepared to provide it. This means that hospitals have an incentive to specialise in such treatments which results in the neglect of many others. That is why there have been so many closures of accident and emergency departments as they cannot be subject to targets as their service is almost completely arbitrary, unless of course they decide that they will have to start causing accidents in order to meet their targets.

I tell you again, the market model is a fraud. There is no market in health, it has been invented and doesn't exist in reality. As I said, for competition to exist their must be multiple suppliers and what is happening in the NHS is the opposite, centralisation under a few trusts and some private providers who don't have any medical staff of their own, but poach them from the NHS. How on earth the people of this country have been conned into accepting this massive exercise in fraud and mendacity is quite astonishing. Fortunately the Scottish people have not been as widely exposed to this fraud as the rest of the UK and that is why the majority of these scandals are all in England and Wales. Britain is an extremely sick society, callous, uncaring and selfish. They express outrage over such occurrences as in Mid-Staffs and Colchester, but the reality is that they voted for it. They just didn't think it would happen to them. Remember that next September. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Our politicians aren't really scum are they?

I was sitting with my wife in our local supermarket café this morning having our Sunday cuppa and there was a couple sitting at the table next to us. They looked like a couple who had just reached pension age and the lady was reading a Sunday newspaper, whose headline was on the subject of how MPs are claiming an average of £6,000 per annum in expenses for energy costs in their second homes. I know this because the lady drew her partner's attention to it and then made the comment that "do you know this, our politicians today are simply scum." I wanted to shake this lady's hand.

As readers of this blog will know, I want people to think carefully about the dominant ideology in this country, and I want them to see if they can agree with me that it is profoundly sick. Britain is a sick society that blames the victims of governmental crimes and agrees with the perpetrators. For example, the government has taken the fire-fighters to task and condemned their fight to protect their terms and conditions and gullible Joe Public nods his head sagely. Why? Because fire-fighters are waged workers, and waged workers should be grateful for whatever their masters give them and stop whingeing and complaining. I do not use the word masters lightly, because that is how we are supposed to view them. They are our betters and we should know our place.

I listened to the pensions minister on the radio and his case was based on the fact that, should a fire-fighter serve a full term of service and retire at 55 he/she would receive a pension of £19,000 which, when he/she qualified for their state pension would take them up to £25.000 per annum and this was not fair. He argued that this was far more than a worker could receive on a private sector pension and so therefore the fire service would have to work till at least aged 60 to balance the public with the private. I want anyone out there with even a scintilla of intelligence to consider that position. In this person's opinion, it is not that private pensions are too low, but that public pensions are too high, and if there is to be any equity, it has to be downwards. This is from a government that granted the man who destroyed the Royal Bank of Scotland and was one of the architects of the financial crisis a pension of over £900,000 a year, and who just rewarded themselves with an 11% rise in their salary. Now, MPs are public sector workers, but under this government the public sector are entering their fourth year of a wage freeze, during which time food has risen by an average of 46%.

On another full frontal attack on working people, the press and the government have been in full war mode about the workers at Grangemouth protesting outside of a manager's home. Now, these workers weren't rioting, but it was Martin Luther King who told us that rioting is the language of the unheard and these workers were protesting about how this management had simply refused to negotiate, or listen to the union case and had conducted themselves by issuing ultimatums. I also trust that you noticed that the Labour Party was fully behind the management and completely hostile to the workers. If you are unheard, or simply ignored, what are you supposed to do?

In modern Britain workers are condemned when they withdraw their labour, regardless of the circumstances or the justice of their cause. Workers are condemned for having a decent wage, for having a pension, for having decent terms and conditions for having holidays, overtime pay or any form of benefit over and above the basic minimum required to keep them alive. Employers are considered to have the right to do whatever they want, whenever they want and no worker dare complain or challenge those assumptions. This has the full support of all Westminster parties and politicians. This is what you are voting for if you vote that we are better together in the coming Independence referendum. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat