Thursday 4 December 2014

How can you solve society's problems when you don't recognise society?

An article in today's Independent is called, "George Osborne is on a mission but I still don't know what it is". If you can give credit to the Tories for anything it is for consistency of purpose and for achieving their longterm goals. Osborne's mission is the same as Thatcher's and it is to bring about what sociologists call 'the weightless state'. Never underestimate the right-wing objective of transferring ownership of all public sector services and functions to the private sector and submit them to the imperatives of profit-making and market forces. However, Osborne's mission in the long-term is doomed to failure because the free market ideology that drives it is flawed and is based on a whole series of false hypotheses. The most fundamental of these is the neoliberal concept of human nature. The Thatcherite mantra that there is no such thing as society is simply wrong and is the result of this flawed notion of the nature of the human being.

The free market human being is an atomised aggressive individual. The free market economic being is rational with clear moral objectives. This being is also self-interested but in the free market universe self-interest is interpreted as selfishness. All of these concepts are wrong. Thus Osborne's mission is founded on a whole raft of false hypotheses and, if you base your programme on a false hypothesis then your outcomes will be wrong as well. That is the fundamental reason why none of the Westminster parties have a clue not only what caused the financial crisis, but how to remedy it. They are all locked into an ideological staitjacket from which they have no idea how to escape. If you deny the existence of society and think only in terms of individuals and families then you are denying yourself an understanding of the human reality. Social problems demand social solutions, you cannot solve a social problem with a series of policy options that are designed for individuals.

However, all of this is giving credit to the Tories and Labour for wanting to solve our social problems, but that is not the case. The truth is not that the Tories do not believe in society, it is that they have abandoned it. They deny society because their aim is not the greater social good, but the enrichment and benefit of a small section of society, the rest of society will have to get by as well as they can on what is left over. It is very difficult for the British people to come to terms with the actual aims and goals of the British elite. They cannot grasp the extent of their criminality as they find it difficult to believe that they would actually do such things, that they would actually use the system of government in such a despicable manner. It is not that the Westminster elite don't care about the poor and the disabled etc.it is that they hate them with a passion. They hold the poor and disadvantaged in utter contempt . The poor and disadvantaged are a cost, and in the free market universe costs are a constraint on profit and must be eliminated as much as possible. An example of their thinking is with reference to unemployment.

Free market economic theory argues that market forces operate in such a way that they establish what is known as ‘equilibrium’ in the economy. Equilibrium is balance, and it happens because, according to our free market economic geniuses, in a free competitive market system, the market efficiently establishes a harmonious relationship between the competing interests of individuals engaged in freely trading with one another. One area in which this will occur is in the labour market because, it is claimed, the free enterprise economic system will automatically establish equilibrium in a situation where there is no ‘voluntary’ unemployment. If there is any unemployment it will by necessity be temporary because unemployment will produce an excess of labour that will then result in a fall in the price of labour, ie. wages. As a result of the concept of marginal utility, the fall in wage rates will then create more employment, thus resolving the temporary problem of unemployment. However, the result of this theoretical construct is that any long-term unemployment in the economy must be, by definition voluntary, because the market has inbuilt mechanisms that automatically cure any structural forms of unemployment. Therefore, long-term unemployment is not real unemployment, it is voluntary and therefore artificial, and the result of lazy people who simply do not want to work; they volunteer to be unemployed, the skivers and shirkers, the benefit scroungers of British government mythology. Thus, society cannot be responsible for unemployment as there is no such thing as society, the market cannot be responsible for unemployment as it will cure it by itself if left alone, so, the responsibility for unemployment lies with individuals who simply don’t want to work, and trades unions who interfere with wages and the free workings of the labour market. As a result, both those groups will need to be subjected to the disciplines of the market and must not be rewarded for their selfish and anti-social behaviour. Now, I wonder who we are always listening to talking like that? This is of course simply garbage. This is what you voted for in September if you voted No. I trust you are comforted. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

No comments:

Post a Comment