Education is a process of unlearning!

An interview on BBC's Newsnight last night produced a pure gem of utter stupidity that accurately sums up all that is wrong with British government and the gullibility of the public who listen to such drivel and never question it. Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat who was Business Secretary throughout the five years of the past coalition government was asked by the interviewer Evan Davies "Have we embraced globalisation too vigorously?" Cable replied, "I don't think we have any choice." The broad subject under discussion was the collapse of the British steel industry, so I want you to seriously think about that. Here is an elected politician who has reached the very top of the political ladder effectively telling us that he hasn't a clue what politics is all about. In this he is simply repeating what all of this government is constantly telling us, that Britain is at the mercy of economic forces it cannot control and have no effective options.

This is completely unacceptable. Politics is the art of choosing between alternatives, and here Cable is admitting to the ridiculous, but sinister claim by Thatcher that there is no alternative. Now, I have been writing on this blog since I began that this is the foundation of totalitarianism. I have also been warning you that this is a ridiculous claim and that any politician who tells you that there are no alternatives is manifestly unfit for office. If there are no alternatives to the crisis facing the steel industry why was America successful in blocking the destruction of their industry by cheap Chinese steel, how was Germany able to do so as well etc. If there are no alternatives to globalisation how on earth did Communist China manage to rise to such prominence in the first place through their 'capitalism with Chinese characteristics' approach? The stupidity of the Vince Cable approach is so demonstrable that it beggars belief that he gets away with it. Indeed Davies did not even challenge him on it.   

It was Karl Popper who told us that true education is a process of unlearning. This is actually a very difficult thing to do, but can be very exhilarating when achieved successfully.  As we are all creatures of our environment we are the product of other people and most of what we hold dear we don't really know why we hold it dearly, it is just the way it has always been because we have been told that is the way it is, or should be, by people we both love and respect. But in times of deep moral and political crisis it is imperative that we attempt to see the real world, and not just the world as we want it to be. Britain is recognised as the most unjust society in the developed world and remember, it was Adam Smith, the man free marketeers and neoliberals claim as their spiritual guide who told us that "the prevalence of injustice must utterly destroy society" Britain is actively creating poverty as a matter of public policy, and actively removing all human rights as fast as they can for the purpose of completing the Thatcher project of destroying all traces of a welfare state whilst constantly repeating the brazen lie that there are no alternatives.

We first need to expose the dearly held myths that dominate British political and economic thinking. The first is that we live in a free market economy. At the risk of boring you, I repeat, a free market is a myth and an impossibility. It is not even desirable, even if it were possible. Also that we have an inherent right to private property in the form of land. The idea of people having the right to own land and deny its use or access to others is as stupid and as meaningless as saying you have the right to own water or air. We have to expose the quite ridiculous assertion that private initiative is always superior to, and preferable to, state initiative and that markets are both efficient and necessary

If you begin to challenge the dominant assumptions you very speedily come to realise that they are false. For example, as I have written here before, we are always told that our economic system is the model championed by Adam Smith and the classical economists. That is simply wrong. Smith may have argued for a preference for a market economy, but the notion of a free market is a modern concept championed by American neoliberals and popularised by Milton Friedman, a genuine charlatan. As this blog is getting long, I will continue this train of thought in others and I trust you will bear with me and find it interesting. We are being conned by fraudsters and liars, but more importantly we are being governed by criminals and intellectual clowns. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat