socialism part 2

I have been writing how the neoliberals have cleverly manipulated their propaganda to poison people's minds against concepts that threaten to limit their criminal accumulation of the world's wealth and to remove potential barriers to their legalised gangsterism. One of the ways they have achieved this is to equate many measures that civilised society has erected for the care of our fellow human beings with what they label as socialism. Thus, if they can successfully demonise the concept of socialism they will successfully destroy any impetus that seeks to redistribute wealth and opportunity and thus diminish their ability to amass obscene and unearned wealth. Examples I gave were universal tax funded health systems and nationalisation. There are many others. What I wish to stress is that such systems are popular with people who call themselves socialist, but are in reality simply common sense and issues of decency that denote a civilised society and not a monopoly feature of what people understand as socialism. In 2013 I had a book published called Human Rights in a Big Yellow Taxi. This is not an advert for the book, but I am going to reproduce some of what I said to illustrate what I mean, to try to get people to realise that just because you support an idea that is claimed to be socialist, does not mean that you are a socialist, or that the idea is therefore a bad one. I wrote

"Human rights are rights we have achieved by the fact of being human. They may be formalised by other humans in legal documents or constitutions, but they are not grants, or the gifts of enlightened rulers, nor are they bestowed by a deity and enshrined in religious writings. They stem from the obvious empirical fact that all human beings are born equal. All humans enter the world the same way and by the same method; there are no social distinctions, no rank nor privilege in the birth process. Once in the world, all human beings are in the same state of helplessness and totally dependent on other human beings for their survival. Without that support no human would last more than a few hours. That is an obvious and incontestable fact; it is almost the only fact that I would venture to call a truth"...... (As a result), "equal rights belong to everyone who has ever lived or ever will live. With rights come responsibilities, and our greatest responsibility is to recognise and respect the rights of each other. We develop, through experience, the capacity to formulate and understand general principles that enable us to live and flourish in a communal manner because we understand the social nature of human existence. Each of us possesses such rights simply by our existence as a human being, and we have a duty to recognise and respect the rights of all others because they exist on the same equal basis that we do. From this beginning, other rights follow, such as the right to freedom and liberty, because without freedom and liberty the concept of rights becomes meaningless. Life must be meaningful, because if it is meaningless then it has no purpose. If we respect the right to life, but refuse the rights of freedom and liberty, refuse to give that life any meaning, then life will speedily descend into mere existence. A slave doesn’t live; he or she simply exists – for the benefit of other people... Each of us has the human right to provide for ourselves, and to feed, clothe and shelter ourselves and our dependants. Should any human institution, such as a social class or a government, so order society as to prevent us exercising those rights, then they must make other provision. Political and civil rights are therefore a reflection and extension of our human rights, and, in the modern world, this has profound implications for welfare and the distribution of wealth.

Modern Britain is the result of a historical process that began with the Norman Conquest. Through this process we have reached an empirical reality whereby one per cent of the UK population own seventy per cent of the land. This development is also the reason for the class structure of the UK whereby much of that land is owned by the monarchy, the church and an aristocratic elite. If the system of ownership and control denies people access to land that can sustain them and provide for their food, and a legal system upholds the heredity basis of legalised theft, creating a modern economy entirely dependent on money where the vast majority rely on an employer for a money wage, and then significant sections of the population can’t find work and don’t have enough money to live on as determined by the norm for that society, which also progressively denies them a sufficient level of benefits that are the only other method whereby they can enjoy a basic standard of living, then significant numbers of people will acquire the money necessary to them by other means. That normally means that they will acquire it by methods that the dominant value system labels as criminal. Such people would be quite right to do so!

Why? Because, in a modern society like the UK, operating under a capitalist economic system that entrenches politically, legally, and socially, the rights of private property but refuses to admit that people have a right to employment, then the state must provide the unemployed with alternative funds to sustain a reasonable standard of living. The system of ownership has its genesis in military conquest and has been sustained by legalised theft and systematic fraud, which has evolved into so-called property rights. However, with rights come obligations, and, if your rights have been gained by denying your fellow human beings the fundamental means to sustain their life, then you are obliged to provide an alternative. As a result, if the capitalist class of property owners and employers cannot, or will not, provide sufficient means of employment and money wages to the population, then the state must do so, as it is this state that is upholding and supporting that economic system. Should both the employer class and the state fail to do so, then people have the right to take from that class and the state whatever they require to sustain their lives and their welfare, as long as by doing so they do not endanger anyone else’s life, and, if the ruling class and the state seek to prevent them by force, then they are perfectly entitled to reciprocate. In such a circumstance, government and the state are exceeding their authority, which is the protection and welfare of the people, and, if they proceed to wage war against the populace on behalf of a minority interest that is refusing people their fundamental rights, then they no longer have any authority and the people have the right to overthrow them, along with the elite class directing such war against the mass of the population."

The same could be argued for any country in the modern industrial world because these are universal principles and not unique to Britain. No-one, for example should ever be allowed to profit from water, there is simply no argument here. The privatisation of water is a gross obscenity and anyone who argues for such a measure is vile and should be disbarred from public office for ever. So, please do not fall into the trap set by the lowest elements in society and castigate measures for being socialist simply because they entail public spending and local/central government control. To repeat, the human individual is a collective being and the whole philosophical concept of the individual is both a lie and a fraud. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

 

  

socialism

I have been away for the past few days and that is why I said it would be a few days before I posted again. I also said I was going to discuss the general narrative that surrounds the concept of socialism because free market neoliberalism is not only establishing a monopoly in economic terms, but also with respect to language. Our language is being corrupted as the free marketeers attempt to establish new meanings to certain things through constant propaganda and repetition. One of those is what people understand as socialism. However there is an article in today's Guardian that tackles this question in a basic but intelligent way, and, as I do not wish to be accused of plagiarism I will desist from my planned post if you don't mind. What I am pleased about is that people are wakening up to such issues and that there is a hint that a general debate about such things may be emerging, which is good.

What I will say is that the dominance of the free market narrative in both Britain and the United States equates being called a socialist to being called a terrorist or a paedophile. The right want us to see the devil associated with the word socialism, and it must be admitted they are having a great deal of success. However, if I may raise a point for any friends who are reading this in the United States, to describe free health care at the point of use for example, as socialism, is simply intellectual barbarism and quite frankly stupid. It highlights how debased our politics have become. Free health care is simply a matter of common sense, common decency and a mark of humanity and civilisation. In Britain we pay a tax, called national insurance, in order that we can access free health care whenever it is required. So, whilst it is called free, it is not free, it is simply free at the point of use, because we have already paid for it and will continue to pay for it from our earnings. What the barbarians amongst us complain about is that we are, on average, a quite civilised people and we extend our health care freely to people in some instances, such as newly arrived immigrants. A Tory would of course prefer such people to die as they are an unnecessary cost and a burden to people for whom enough is never enough. However, I have never met any ordinary decent person who objects to this, nor have I ever met anyone who hoped that they would need its benefits. Everyone (Tories excepted) is happy to pay this tax whilst hoping that they will never need to access its benefits. They are happy just to know that if they do get ill they will get the best health treatment possible, not only for themselves, but for their children and all the other people they love and care for. This is a reflection of the social nature of the human being. The Bible tells us that we are all our brother's keepers, but all the good right-wing Christians in America are infuriated by the notion that their taxes are being used to help other people, and I have it on good authority that the Good Samaritan is in hiding because the American Christian community is going to have him shot. Americans believe it is your god given right to carry a gun but not to have your health treated unless you can pay for it. It is this attitude that the Tories have been fostering in this country for the past 40 years in their war against the unemployed, people on benefits and particularly the disabled. We must never underestimate the Tories loathing of the unfortunate who they see, not as human beings, but as a cost. In Scotland if you must receive medical treatment you get exactly the same treatment that you would get if you went through the system of private medicine. However we are still a class society that allows you to jump the queue if you go private, and that is the mark of the uncivilised and barbaric elements who still rule in this society where money is valued far above human life. That is the class system, the dehumanising free market model, but as hard as they try, the Tories are still unable to deny us our health care, even if it means that we may have to wait.  

Thus, in the unintelligent dominant narrative in both Britain and the United States, socialist is a bad word, a term of abuse, and socialists are not only bad people by definition, but also dangerous and unstable, and, if you even hint at embracing policies that can be identified by the gutter media as approximating to what they can gleefully label as socialist then you will be vilified and persecuted. What I wish you to consider is that what we are dealing with here are a set of mythical narratives that bear no relation to reality. The human being is a social being, a collective being whose individuality is only realised within a collective environment. I have repeated this point numerous times. As a result, social and collective solutions to many of our problems are not only necessary, they are essential. By that I mean they are an expression of the essence of the human being, they are natural. What is unnatural is the concept of the neoliberal individual.

Now I do not call myself a socialist because there are aspects of the political variant of socialism I disagree with, but on economic terms I support some of the measures that are assumed to be socialist, such as the nationalisation of key industries, and one of the purposes of this demonization of anything that can be labelled socialist is to make something like nationalisation so poisonous in the public's mind that they will automatically reject it without even considering it. However, if I may quote a Conservative Prime Minister, Harold MacMillan, he argued that
"The socialist remedy should be accepted in regard to industries and services where it is obvious that private enterprise has exhausted its social usefulness, or where the general welfare of the economy requires that certain basic industries and services need now to be conducted in the light of broader considerations than the profit motive provides".

So, even some Tories occasionally have bouts of sanity. For example, MacMillan considered that nationalisation of the railways was essential for the private sector's ability to transport its goods and personnel cheaply and efficiently, and coal, gas, and electricity were kept in the public sector to provide cheap energy for private industry and ensure that people could not profiteer from the energy sector thus pushing up prices and therefore industrial costs. Again I say, that isn't socialism, that's common sense. In addition, going by today's standards, the post-war Tories must be considered the most socialist government in our history as it was they who built 300,000 council houses per annum over the five year period of the government. So, nationalisation, council houses, how socialist can you get? This was also the government who committed to the maintenance of a welfare system that included free health care, universal and comprehensive education, a comprehensive and funded system of social security and whose Prime Minister believed that housing was a right. It was all such measures that Thatcher dedicated her life to destroy, because all such measures are costs and a barrier to amassing unlimited individual wealth. That is why Thatcher opposed them, not because they are socialist. I will say more on this, but trust that this has made you think and realise how you are being deceived by those who are supposedly looking after your interests. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat.

Extremes are becoming the norm

Tories and other sundry right-wing little Englanders persistently ask the Scots why they won't accept the 'settled will' of the people who voted by a majority to remain part of the United Kingdom. Similarly, people ask the same question of those of us who voted to remain within the EU, why we won't accept the verdict of the referendum, and label us remoaners. I cannot, and will never, pretend to speak for anyone else, but I will give a straight answer to why I will not accept those results, and the principal reason is that they were both the result of the most mendacious and heinous campaigns in my lifetime. Both the Scottish and EU referenda were a fraud and a catalogue of lies. I will not regurgitate what I have said before about those campaigns, but both were a disgrace to any civilised society and an affront to democracy.

Had both those campaigns been fought on facts, decency and genuine differences of opinion, then my opinion would have been different too. I am never afraid to be wrong. I have been wrong about most things all of my life and still harbour doubts about most of the things I believe in. I am never afraid to be beaten either. I was active in politics for over 25 years and have never been on the winning side in an election yet, and I stood for office about eight times, as well as helping other people. I am used to being wrong and losing. What I object to is being beaten by fraudsters and liars and having to live with the consequences of their lies and fraud. What is also unacceptable is that we are supposed to just accept the lies and 'get on with it.' It never fails to amaze me how so many people who voted for a lie and who now know that it was a lie, are quite content to accept the situation. What also deeply concerns me is that the UK is now governed by a parcel of lying rogues who have been exposed as being a parcel of lying rogues. We have Boris the Spider for example as our Foreign Secretary. This is a man who spent the entire EU referendum telling the British how he would earmark £350 million per week that would be saved if we left the EU for spending on the NHS and immediately after the result announcing that he didn't mean it. That was just one of the barefaced lies he and his cronies are guilty of. His job is now to try to convince foreign governments that he is trustworthy  and that the government he represents is honourable etc. I mean you genuinely could not make such a farce up, it is like a Wodehouse novel. That is modern British government, a fraud and a lie, and we are supposed to simply accept it and respect them.

For those of you from outside the UK, one of the telling arguments used during the Scottish referendum to defeat the Yes campaigns was that a vote to leave the UK would seriously jeopardise our membership of the EU. A majority of Scots voted No and now find that we are out of it anyway and that we were the victim of a serious fraud. We are now expected to respect the people who lied through their teeth to us and accept our subordination to their will. Yes we argued that a vote for independence was a once in a generation phenomenon, but that was on the basis that we would not be lied to and betrayed. It was on the basis that the unionists would be honest and dignified. One of the immediate effects was the revulsion in Scotland for the Labour Party who ran a simply foul campaign including targeting pensioners and telling them that if they voted Yes then their pensions would cease to be paid the following week. As you know they were thrashed at the following general election.

The great slogan of the EU leave campaign was to regain our country and take back control. I am witnessing a very similar mendacious campaign being run by the Trump people. Make America Great Again. OK, but how are you going to do that? What we have heard so far is similar to what we heard in Britain. You are going to target foreigners, you are going to demonise minorities. People in America are actually enthusiastically supporting a man who openly admits he will use torture, he says he loves waterboarding as an instrument of the state. He is going to build his wall etc. He is going to target the families of America's enemies and openly tells the Americans he is going to kill women and children. What we must ask is when he will start torturing Americans, and killing the families of Americans who he identifies as his enemies and a threat to 'his' America. As I mentioned before, I cannot get over how much he resembles Mussolini with his childish pout and self-satisfied demeanour. I fear for America as it is entering a very dark place, where the national sport seems to be shooting unarmed African Americans and an obvious psychopath seems likely to win the Presidency. Politics is approximating the scenarios last seen in the 1930's with Germans now openly fearing that they are witnessing the re-emergence of Nazism. In my next post I am going to discuss what people today call socialism to show how intellectually barbaric the national narrative is. That may not be for a few days, but, as MacArthur famously said, I shall return. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat 

We hold these truths to be self-evident

 I apologise at the start of this post for its length as it is approximating to an essay, but it arose because a friend asked me why I continually stress the centrality of free market ideology as the core problem facing the world when there are so many practical problems to be faced on a day to day basis, I mean, surely you must be more concerned with real problems than some abstract theoretical discussion of something that means nothing to the general public, she asked me. That is a fair question, but a very misguided one I answered. There is nothing theoretical nor abstract about the core assumptions of the ideology that dominates our decision-making processes, they have a direct impact on our everyday lives and any meaningful change in society must begin with a thorough exposition of the lies and deceit with which our political class entrenches its dominance whilst at the same time robbing us of our national wealth and our future, and, if it means nothing to the general public, then we must raise an awareness of how it actually should mean everything to them. That is my goal. The late John Maynard Keynes made the observation that

"A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind"

Before we can emancipate mankind from the gradual descent into the modern slavery that is our fate under a free market motivated elite set of criminals, we must emancipate our minds from their poisonous and destructive ideology. These people are literally destroying the world and there will be no future for anyone if they are not stopped. The most successful way to counter their madness is to expose their fundamental ideas for the lies that they are. As Nadia Murad, the young Yazidi activist, told the collection of international gangsters who supposedly represent us at the United Nations, "life was not created solely for you and your families".

Ideas are the most powerful things in the world. Regardless of how bizarre some ideas are, there is always someone who is looking for a justification for their behaviour (or for comfort), which is fine, as long as they do no damage to anyone else, and use that idea to excuse doing damage! Ideas can inspire people, and can motivate people to do the bravest, most bizarre, most magnificent and most evil acts. They form hypotheses and provide the basis for all ideologies which people then develop into programmes and belief systems. However, if you proceed from a false hypothesis and do not submit it to critical analysis, but proceed on the assumption that your hypothesis is correct, then you will reach false conclusions. If your false hypothesis forms the basis for a political, economic and social programme, and this then produces public policy, the result can be disastrous and deeply damaging to the social fabric of society. As I have persistently told you since I began this blog, most of the hypotheses that form the basis of the free market neoliberal ideology that has been the dominant ideology in the western world for the past 40 years are false, but worse than that, many of them are a lie, because the people promoting them know that they are not true. This ideology is profoundly anti-social and damaging to both the social fabric of British society and to the political system of democratic accountability. It has produced a political class who increasingly believe they have the right to rule and the right to impose their ideas and beliefs on the rest of society without question, a political class who are completely out of touch with, and care less about, the society whose governance they are charged with. The more that politicians tell us that there is no alternative to their policies, the more aggressive they become towards dissent and genuine protest, and the more willing to use the coercive power of the state to uphold their policies and protect themselves from challenge.
So many of our problems stem from the level of social regulation being imposed on a society that refuses to regulate on economic matters because it is in thrall to a particular economic model that has brought the nation to the brink of catastrophe. In other words modern British government, like many other western governments, is genuinely schizophrenic. It is neither rational nor sane. It functions under a dominant ideology that leads government to practice radical deregulation in certain sectors and ferocious regulation in others. This ideology argues for small government, hands off government, a minimal and deregulated state in major sectors and areas of activity, but when it spreads its corrupting tentacles throughout society and the effects of its resultant policies permeate society, its disciples then insist that they have a duty to intervene and interfere wherever and whenever they please in others in order to try to control the disruption and disaffection caused by their policies. Its most obvious manifestation is of course the continuous war against working people and their representative organisations, and the unceasing attacks on any form of industrial action. This of course has the effect of raising the profile and activity of the very state whose activities they wish to constrain. In other words, an economic policy based on a minimal non-interventionist state produces a highly interventionist state with ever increasing powers and a political class who are determined that no challenge to the economic model will be tolerated.

Democratic governance and the social and economic crisis facing the United Kingdom demands that political control is re-established over economic power. Economic power, particularly within the financial and media sectors of British society, has achieved a significant level of independence. This has been achieved because of the deliberate decision by the political class to abdicate their responsibilities towards the proper regulatory control of such activities and to collude in these activities. Unhindered and unrestrained, this economic power has (quite naturally and predictably) exerted its power in its own interests and directly influenced decision-making and public opinion. It has influenced the law and the political process by corruption and coercion in the form of bribery and threats that amount to blackmail, and public opinion through incessant propaganda and its ability to control the opinion forming process. It has therefore produced a significant number within the elite level of the political class who are obligated to such economic power brokers in ways that limits their freedom of action and decision-making. In other words, our political system has become corrupt and serves the interests, not of the people who elected them, but the people who reward them and often control them. What is different today is the manner in which our political class has entered into partnership with the economic class in order to defraud the public and transfer wealth and privilege to a particular elite grouping. 

If the roles and functions of the state are imposed from the centre without proper discussion or public consultation and without due regards to the real needs of the population. If that state then displays hostility towards and discriminates against particular groups, and the sovereign power refuses to be answerable or accountable to the ordinary people over whom they rule, or to their elected parliament. If they then quite deliberately remove centuries of hard won civil liberties thereby making justification and accountability meaningless terms, then the whole concept of liberty is rendered meaningless and the democratic state is destroyed from within. This is the lesson of democratic states throughout the 20th century. It is incremental totalitarianism, tyranny by stealth.

Remember, as I've written here before, government is derivative of the people. A government is only as legitimate as its authority. If it loses that authority, which derives from the support of the people, then it loses all of its legitimacy. It no longer has any basis for governing. That is what is meant by such institutions being derivative. They derive their existence from the people and are ultimately answerable to the people who can, if they so wish, abolish or replace them. I have already noted that Britain claims to be a liberal democracy. One of the great expressions of liberal democracy is the American Declaration of Independence which begins by stating that;
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable 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, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”

I ask you to note that this document begins with a statement of self-evident truths, these truths being that governments are instituted amongst people, that their function is to secure the people’s rights, and that they derive their powers from the people’s consent. I also wish you to note that only power deriving from the consent of the governed is considered just. Any other exercise of power is unjust. Should any government become destructive of these ends, then the people have the right to alter or abolish it. The main duty of government is to secure our rights, and to give effect to our safety and happiness. This is one of the great statements of the derivative nature of government. Governments exercise great power, but that power derives from the consent of the governed according to the American Founding Fathers. This is one of the main challenges facing us today because too many people are consenting to the discrimination and exclusion of their fellow citizens by the ruling elites on both sides of the Atlantic. Both England and America are being enchanted by the ruling class scapegoat narrative that their problems are all the fault of 'the others' the immigrant, the Muslim, the disabled and the unemployed. I say England because this is not applicable to all of Britain as the Scots are still able to exercise a modicum of intelligence and civility towards such problems and are not yet as poisoned. I asked you in the last post, why do you think that Marx, Adam Smith, David Hume, John Stuart Mill etc. are not taught today in modern economics courses? The answer my friend is written in the wind, and in my opinion, the history of opinion delivers a damning verdict on the dominant ideas that rule in today's world. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat.

 

 

 

If you don't read Marx you are an ignoramus

I was watching Question Time on television and witnessed the Labour Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell get into a terrible state trying to squirm out of admitting that he had recently told an audience somewhere that he was a Marxist. I am indeed at a loss as to why, in today's modern society, admitting to being a Marxist is somewhere to the negative side of admitting to being a paedophile. Admitting to being a Marxist in today's world is a quite different thing to what it was in the 1960's or '70's when Marxism was quite falsely accused of being the ideology behind the excesses of the Soviet and Maoist regimes. I cannot conceive of any intelligent person today who has an interest in the social sciences and particularly politics and economics who would not consult Marx on a regular basis. I am not a Marxist in that sense, nor a communist, but have no hesitation in admitting that I frequently read Marx, a genius, and a writer who is essential if you wish to understand reality.

No-one familiar with Marx can deny the decisive destruction he delivers to the notion of the atomised individual and of how he forensically demonstrates the social nature of the human being. In common with Adam Smith he demonstrates the foundation that human labour provides for the value of production. It is a myth to say that economists have disproved the labour theory of value, all they have managed to do is to refine it, and in my opinion, not too convincingly. His theories of base and superstructure and alienation are to me almost unanswerable, and are demonstrated daily in our modern post-capitalist societies.

Another well discredited myth today is the Tory narrative that if you promote any form of state intervention and advocate public spending you are promoting socialism or communism. Couple that with the notion that socialism is an ideology of equality and you have the big lie. Marx never ever argued for equality. How any one can interpret from each according to his ability to each according to his needs as promoting equality is simply intellectual barbarism. This is speaking about equity, about fairness and a proper distribution of resources. I cannot think of any serious philosopher who promotes equality, except equality of opportunity. Adam Smith told us that all civilised societies must be founded on law and justice and that the prevalence of injustice must utterly destroy society, he told us that "few men have reflected upon the necessity of justice to the existence of society, how obvious soever that necessity may appear to be." I am one of those few, but towering above all of us in such reflection was Karl Marx whose indignation of such injustice produced a searing analysis of the causes of such injustice. Law and justice require an active and interventionist state; there can be no freedom for those who seek to implement injustice and to promote laws that encourage disorder and injustice. What I ask people to do is to reflect on the towering injustice that prevails in our Western societies, particularly Britain and the United States, in societies where the average CEO of a company earns 160 times that of the average worker in the same company and where a ruling class justifies £44 billion in bonuses where over a million people are daily relying on foodbanks. We have it on record from the students who attend our universities, that neither Smith nor Marx are taught on economics courses. You should all ask yourselves why, and then go read them for yourselves. You will be pleasantly surprised.

Any reasonable solution to the problems facing us today must begin by addressing the obscene inequalities we see today, especially in Britain. There must be a serious redistribution of resources and that can only happen from government led initiatives. There must be serious reform of taxation with the emphasis moving from indirect to direct. Justice demands that business and finance activities are curbed and regulated. You can call that socialism, communism or whatever you want, but I call it a programme for survival and social order. I call it justice and to make it work we will need to utilise the writings of both Smith and Marx because if you read neither Smith nor Marx you are in reality quite ignorant on the subject of economics, and I don't care what level of degree you hold from whatever university. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat  

Irrationality rules - KO.

I was having a cuppa in a supermarket the other day and was drawn to consider the blatant irrationality of our modern society when I saw two very attractive girls dressed in denim jeans that were all torn and had no knees as they had been deliberately cut and frayed by the manufacturer. From my perspective two very attractive people were choosing to make themselves less attractive, although I am sure they have the opposite perspective. I have never understood fashion, and cannot understand the trend for wearing clothing that I would automatically consign to the bin. Why would anyone consciously choose to spend good money on something that has been debased? I accept that I am probably missing something. I have mentioned before how I always marvel at people who will quite consciously spend time clearing a table in a supermarket café, or some other eating place, transferring the used plates etc.to a clean table because they want to sit at that particular table in preference to simply choosing the clean table in the first place. This is the first clue if you wish to understand the failure of free market economics. If you base your theories on false assumptions then you will reach false conclusions, and the false assumption that lies at the heart of modern economics is that the human being is a rational consumer. There is nothing rational about buying torn clothing. I am reminded of Thomas Carlyle who told us that if we teach a parrot the terms 'supply and demand' we will get an economist, and Albert Einstein who reminds us that the difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.

Modern economics are based upon the theoretical assumptions that each individual who goes out to purchase any good, product or service exhibits a thorough knowledge of the market and makes rational consumption decisions on matters such as price, quality and alternatives. Market economics assumes a rational economic decision maker who is well-informed and who makes judgements on economic information before applying logical and reasonable conclusions about consumption. In other words, when I go shopping for anything in particular, I ensure that I know all of the shops and businesses who are offering the goods I am seeking, I am fully aware of the prices each seller is charging for such goods, I am aware of the different prices and quality of the different alternatives available for any particular good and I make my purchase after taking all of that information into account and reaching a rational conclusion as to what is in my best interest. In other words, as we are all rational consumers, no-one simply goes into a supermarket and purchases all of their weekly needs in that one shop unless they can get everything in that one shop that meets their rationally motivated conclusions as to price, quality, alternatives etc. However, if there are cheaper alternatives that satisfy our needs at a quality we desire in other stores, then we will purchase those particular commodities elsewhere and therefore our weekly shopping will be a series of transactions in different stores. What is important for this discussion is that those assumptions about human behaviour resulting from the rational nature of consumption patterns are built into the mathematical models that dominate modern economics.

I trust the reader, contemplating their own experience of shopping and consumption, may be prepared to agree with me that all of the above are actually ideal constructs that quite obviously bear little or no relation to reality, and that, at the very beginnings of an analysis of free market economics, it is obvious, even to someone who knows nothing about the discipline of economics, that such assumptions are quite divorced from the real world. For example, I have two nieces who each have around 200 pairs of shoes. I know many other people who have similar completely irrational consumption obsessions, indeed I display some of them myself; although not as extreme as my nieces (I have, at the time of writing, 25 hats, but can assure the reader that I have only one head). The irrational nature of the human becomes very dominant when they go shopping, and a whole industry called marketing has developed to exploit that very irrational behaviour. Marketing strategies do not produce irrationality; they only encourage it, because that is the default position of the human being, and one of the primary encouragements directly aimed at exploiting our irrational nature is advertising which excels at convincing us that we need something that we don’t actually want. People have the capacity for rationality and reason, but they do not start from that position. Everyone loves a bargain, but a bargain is not a bargain unless you actually need the thing you are buying, it is pleasant and satisfying to get a ‘bargain’ but to call it a bargain is an abuse of language unless you needed it in the first place, and, if I see a bargain in a hat, then I commit myself to the self-delusion that I ‘need’ it to justify that I simply want it, just as my nieces are totally convinced that they need every single pair of their shoes. As I said, I recognise such irrational behaviour in myself. However, it is taken for granted by economic theorists that the human economic actor is rational, understands the market and seeks to maximise utility (satisfaction). When economists call economic decision-making rational they mean that whenever people make such decisions they weigh the costs against the benefits, and, if the benefits outweigh the costs they will act positively and if the costs outweigh the benefits they will act negatively. However, if I was to apply rational decision-making to buying a new hat when I already have over two dozen but have only one head then it is inconceivable that I could ever conclude that the benefits will outweigh the costs. That however has never stopped me from buying a hat.

My rejection of the fundamental premise of free market economics with respect to the concept of the rational consumer, is just one of several objections I harbour towards the premises that underpin market economics, premises I consider to be false hypotheses. I also reject the modern economic interpretation of utility, the nature of the individual, the concept of diminishing marginal utility, and I have many issues with their various interpretations of the writings of Adam Smith. Should anyone be interested in my thoughts on such matters, I would be delighted to share them with you. Unless the foundations of free market economy are shown to be intellectually barren then our world will continue its slide into barbarism. You have been warned.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

The Free Market - The Ideology of Psychopaths

I completed a book in early 2015 about free market neoliberalism that no-one seems interested in publishing, and I'm sure none of you are interested in reading. My reason for telling you this is that in the book I discussed the disproportionate influence of psychopaths at the top of the organisational structures of modern society, including business and politics. One of the things I wrote back in 2014 was

"Neoliberal free market economics can only be implemented and administered by sociopaths, or people prepared to employ sociopathic behaviour and characteristics, people who have no concern for, nor empathy with, other people, unless those others are in like mind and in agreement with them. That is because such people never recognise that other people have rights, and regard their own self-serving behaviour as, not only permissible, but desirous for the wider social context. The behaviour, both economic and political, that led to the financial crash in 2008 was classic sociopathic, indeed as we will just see, some people regard it as psychotic. This behaviour displayed a complete selfishness and a total disregard for other people and the wider society. It was unrestrained recklessness and greed and displayed a complete disregard for what most people recognise as common decency. For the British elite, enough is never enough. The political and economic establishment regard it as their right to behave as they do."

Now, you are all aware that I have long considered both Mad Tony and the Camoron as sociopathic and probably psychotic, indeed I came to the conclusion that the Great Bliar was quite mad in 1998. Now, British governments, have been engaging in a series of ruinous wars since my psychotic friend entered Downing Street in 1997, and a House of Commons Report published yesterday delivered a damning verdict on the Camoron's attack on Libya. Todays' Guardian newspaper writes

 "David Cameron’s intervention in Libya was carried out with no proper intelligence analysis, drifted into an unannounced goal of regime change and shirked its moral responsibility to help reconstruct the country following the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, according to a scathing report by the foreign affairs select committee. The failures led to the country becoming a failed a state on the verge of all-out civil war, the report adds. The report, the product of a parliamentary equivalent of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war, closely echoes the criticisms widely made of Tony Blair’s intervention in Iraq, and may yet come to be as damaging to Cameron’s foreign policy legacy".

It was Albert Einstein who wrote that the definition of insanity is to keep repeating the same mistakes whilst expecting different outcomes, and, if you hold a psychopath like Mad Tony up as your role model, as the Camoron repeatedly told us he did, we should not be surprised that you produce the same disastrous results. I raise this matter because research has been published from a collaboration of forensic psychologists from Bond University in Queensland Australia and the University of San Diego that identifies that one in five corporate bosses are psychopaths, defined as displaying clinically significant psychopathic traits, in proportionate numbers to those found in prisons. Such people all display characteristics such as an inability to empathise, superficiality and insincerity. They make the perfect candidates for the Westminster pigsty. The research says that 'a type of “successful psychopath” who may be inclined to unethical or illegal practices has been allowed into the top ranks of companies because of the way firms hire' and I would argue that exactly the same thing happens in politics, particularly in the UK with the centre vetting all candidates in all of our major parties. This research has just been presented at the Australian Psychological Society’s annual congress in Melbourne. The congress was also told that “Being a psychopath might predispose someone to short-term success. They tend to be charming and flamboyant, which makes it easier to be successful in the short-run, although that may be purchased at expense of long-term failure.” and that while psychopaths account for only a minority of the workforce they could wreak havoc on organisations because "Their personality usually leads them to exploit every avenue open to them, whether it's in a criminal setting, or within organisations,"

I do not wish to appear insulting, but I was writing this stuff at least three years ago, and my point was one that our researchers appear to have overlooked, that the imperatives of free market economics require sociopaths and psychopaths to implement them because sensible people who have moments of rationality can see the logical outcomes of free market systems and refuse to accept them. Thus, even if you are not a natural sociopath, should you prostitute yourself and debase your intellect by accepting the call of free market socio/political and economic ideologies for your own personal advancement, you are impelled to adopt socio/psychotic personality traits and practices if you wish to be successful. You must forsake your humanity and your decency and apply yourself to the debasement of your fellow human beings and the destruction of social order, and if you seek political office you are required to adopt the characteristics of a gibbering bombastic charlatan, in other words you become like Mad Tony, The Camoron, Boris the Spider etc.

It is self-evident that neoliberalism, both its economic and political variants, has failed, but we are either too lethargic or too browbeaten to challenge it in a meaningful way. We have just been informed that bonuses in the UK topped £44 billion pounds last year, even greater than at the height of the financial crisis, in other words, we have learned nothing and have done nothing to reverse the drivers of our misfortunes, therefore condemning ourselves to repeat history. Thus, whilst the elite reward themselves with fortunes for incompetence, the average British worker, who has not had a wage increase for the last six years, still votes for these psychopathic gangsters. You get the governments you deserve. Roll on Scottish independence, you have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

 

 

 

No wonder politicians are despised.

I have come to the preliminary conclusion that the new British Prime Minister Theresa May is a bit of a thicko and is already proving to be quite incompetent. She is another example of well schooled but not particularly well educated. Today the global charity Oxfam published a survey that highlights how the richest 1% of the British population, some 634,000 people, are now worth 20 times as much as the poorest fifth, some 13 million. This means that Britain is the most unequal country in the developed world. Since 1979 and Thatcher's success at the polls, successive governments, all committed to free market economics, have systematically destroyed a wealthy, cohesive and liberal society to produce inequality that is simply obscene, the destruction of the entire manufacturing base of the nation, the reduction of the British police to one of the most criminal organisations in the west, guilty of two of the most outrageous miscarriages of justice in British history, the destruction of a productive economy with Britain consistently dogged by a level of productivity that can only be described as abysmal, a low paid and even lower skilled workforce, a housing sector that is in permanent crisis, a public sector that has been decimated and is the victim of a systematic war against it from the pigsty, and the inevitable meltdown of the NHS. What was Prime Minister May's first policy decision in the face of all this crisis that she faces? She has announced that she is going to reintroduce grammar schools, which is a form of elite selection of school pupils at age eleven, that has been responsible for some of the worst aspects of the obscene inequalities that we suffer from in this increasingly loathsome nation. That gives us all the insight we need into the character and priorities that this new government represents. It is ideological insanity from the worst form of class warriors, and exposes their continuous and continuing hatred of ordinary working people. As the Bible tells us, By their fruits shall ye know them.

As an example of the honesty, the dignity and self-respect of the British politician we need look no further than the last Prime Minister. The Camoron promised us that if he lost the EU referendum he would 'stick around' to ensure that the British got the best deal possible from Europe; he resigned within six hours of the result being finalised. He then told us that he loved being the MP for his constituency of Witney and would continue in the job he loved as long as the people of Witney wanted him, he has resigned as an MP just two months after telling us that. His was the responsibility of the disaster of the EU referendum and he is ultimately responsible for the surge in hate crimes against foreign people in England since the referendum, as he unleashed and did nothing to counter, the hatred of foreigners and the extreme xenophobia of Nigel Farage, Boris the Spider and their crew of vile semi-fascists.

I told you in a recent post that civilisation is a fragile thing and I fear that both Britain and the United States are becoming increasingly uncivilised. I repeat without apology that this is a result of their adherence to an uncivilised ideological system of free market neoliberalism. All civilised activity, and this includes economic activity, must be founded on law and justice. Our political economy on both sides of the Atlantic are about as unlawful and unjust as they can be. There is no, nor can be, any form of morality or justification to be found in any system that not only allows, but encourages, the gross abuse of division and inequality, not only in terms of wealth, but in terms of inclusion that we find in either Britain or the USA. Again I repeat, that both these societies spend as much effort excluding large amounts of their own populations from meaningful participation in the society as they spend on any other activity. I am afraid that Britain will have to suffer a serious breakdown in economic, social and political terms before it filters through that the system is corrupt beyond repair. Until then we will continue to elect people like Theresa May and Boris the Spider. I can only hope that the Scots have the intelligence to waken up to the coming shambles and grab their liberation before its too late. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat.

In today's world a vow is a lie

I consulted my Collins Dictionary and Thesaurus 2000 which informs me that a vow is "a solemn or earnest pledge or promise binding the person  making it to perform a specified act or behave in a certain way". I raise this because that was the name that all Britain's top politicians, including the Prime Minister, gave to the document, which they all signed, presented to the Scottish people in the last week of the referendum in 2014. As you will all remember, the Prime Minister broke that vow within one hour of the result of the referendum being announced. Again I do not need to remind you, none of the conditions of the vow have been actioned.

I remind you of this because during the EU referendum the Leave campaign gave the gullible British public three guaranteed promises, that immigration would be controlled by an Australian type points system, that the £350million per week that would be saved by our withdrawal from the EU would go directly to the NHS and that Britain would no longer contribute to the EU budget. This week, the Prime Minister renaged on all of these guarantees. I repeatedly tell you of the character of British politicians, but I do not tell you this simply as an exercise in damning the Westminster pigsty. I tell you this because politics in this country is in serious crisis, and one of the biggest elements in this crisis is the appalling character of our political class. They are shameless and pathological liars, devoid of any kind of dignity or self-respect. It is simply impossible to believe a word that comes out of the mouth of any member of the pigsty represented by the three main parties and UKIP, Britain's indigenous fascists. All of our political parties employ spin doctors. A spin doctor is a professional liar, that is their job, to lie consistently and persistently and to coach their political masters in how to lie convincingly.

I cannot speak for the United States or any other nation, but it is glaringly obvious that Donald Trump lies as a matter of habit and if he is not in possession of a fact will simply invent one regardless of how extreme or impossible. He is possibly going to be the next President of the USA. This is a matter of great concern. All supposedly democratic nations are founded on trust, but particularly Britain in the absence of a written constitution. In addition, the management of any enterprise will determine the culture and the behaviour of the organisation by their own conduct and behaviour. As a result if the British and American people see that it is standard practice to lie and deceive, particularly if such lies and deceptions are successful and go unpunished, then they will copy such behaviour. If the leadership of any organisation refuse to be constrained by the moral codes and practices of the organisation then they will signal approval of such behaviour and the people down the line will refuse to abide by codes and practices that they rightly see as being hypocritically imposed. This is how the Westminster pigsty is destroying the fundamental culture of the British people, the norms, values and moral structures, and how behaviour is becoming increasingly anarchic and amoral.

Outside of the pigsty, the biggest culprits are the press and media. The British tabloid press routinely and daily, encourage and inflame hate and prejudice. They lie shamelessly. No-one in the British establishment ever seeks to uphold honesty, truth, decency or dignity, and this is another legacy of the Blessed Margaret. Thatcher is directly responsible for the destruction of our value system and for the contempt that the pigsty holds for ordinary people and their welfare. She set the parameters for political and public conduct in the modern era and introduced the blatant class warfare that has resulted in the inequalities and divisions we see all around us. Because of Thatcher and her partner in crime Reagan, we now have the 1% who own more wealth than the other 99, and the tragedy is that their supporters and devotees still justify this obscenity. The gullible British seem to be quite content with such a situation, but, as the rest of the world are signalling, this situation cannot continue to last much longer. If we are to avoid the war of all against all, then our political system will have to be challenged and reformed as a matter of urgency. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Beware the well-schooled but ignorant

A friend tasked me over a cup of tea to expand on the concept I have raised about how many people may be well-schooled but are not very well educated. The first and most obvious point is that whilst schooling, at all levels, is an important part of an education, it is not in itself an education, which is a lifelong process. What schooling taught me was the methodology of how to educate myself. Karl Popper tells us that education is a process of unlearning and that was my experience as I had to unlearn many things, often things that were deeply embedded in me due to my socialisation. My schooling taught me the basic tools and strategies of how to both unlearn and relearn. A university degree does not make you an authority on any subject, all it does is introduce you to that subject and it is then up to you whether you develop your knowledge and expertise or sit content with the limited understanding that you were introduced to. 

Take the British elite, people like Mad Tony, David Cameron, George Osborne, Boris the Spider etc. who were so central to British politics over the past few decades and who have managed to bring Britain to the brink of bankruptcy and divided it to the point that the United Kingdom may not last much longer. Such people are not particularly educated as they are people whose schooling was exclusive, who lived and learned in an all-white, all-male, all-middle to upper class environment and were raised and nurtured in a world so divorced from the world that the rest of us inhabit in that we are in effect two separate nations. Their daily lives are an extension of that world, a world that deliberately excludes non-whites, non-males, non-middle and upper class, and so they have no experience of the real world, and, what is worse, have no intention of ever gaining such experience. They are in charge of the nation's public transport which they never use, they are in charge of the NHS which they never use, they are in charge of the nation's public education which they despise and don't understand. They were schooled in a completely different way from most of British society and therefore have a socialisation process that cannot relate to the majority of the British people and that provides them with a towering sense of entitlement, that the privileges they enjoy from their lifestyle are theirs by right, particularly the right to be considered as our natural rulers. They then spend the rest of their lives in a similar environment where they are cushioned and protected from the kind of everyday pressures and experiences that the rest of us deal with on a daily basis. Importantly, they never meet other people, ordinary people, different people from different backgrounds and cultures, unless such people are of the same privileged background as themselves. They are uninterested in other people, in other cultures, classes, experiences and so they build a cultural environment for themselves that excludes the undesirables, the people who are different from themselves, the others. This manifests itself in their political acts when they finally gain power, their hatred of Europe, of immigrants, of the Scots, the Irish etc. It is most noticeable in their social policies, their hatred of working people, of the unemployed, the disabled etc. These people who we falsely attribute the accolade of educated are in fact the know-nothings, well-schooled but uneducated. They have none of the experience that marks the educated person, they have none of the curiosity, the passion for enquiry, the desire to learn of difference and diversity that marks the educated mind. They are actually quite sad.

I spent my life in education and it never ceased to amaze me how many people go to university and think that when they graduate they have learned their subject. I realised that when I graduated I was only beginning to learn, that what I didn't know was so vast that it made me realise how ignorant I was and I entered education with trepidation due to the knowledge of the depth of my ignorance and of a fear of being found out. University was only the beginning of my education, it was not the end. Most of my colleagues in education never ever bothered to develop their learning and so didn't even really begin to master the subject they were supposedly educated in. I actually worked with graduates who are supposedly educated but didn't even vote, who if they did vote normally voted Conservative. As John Stuart Mill told us, not every Conservative is a stupid person, but most stupid people are Conservatives. We put our trust in the well-schooled at our peril. One of the educated people I enjoyed reading was the most famous criminal lawyer in American history, Clarence Darrow. Clarence Darrow had no legal training, and no formal qualifications, but he was one of the most legally educated people you would be fortunate to meet. He would not get the chance to practise in today's world of elitist exclusivity, a world that mistakes schooling with education and talent. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat 

We now have a free market in ethics

I have just been watching a current affairs programme that was asking a panel of what we love to refer to as experts, whether it was ethical for doctors to go on strike. What I found interesting was that none of the expert opponents of the doctor's case for strike action were themselves from the medical profession or had ever worked in ordinary jobs where they would meet with the working terms and conditions of service that ordinary working people must work under. The two most prominent opponents of the doctors were both journalists from right-wing Tory supporting newspapers who never fail to exhibit a visceral hatred of working people and of any form of industrial action that may make their cosy existence just that little bit more inconvenient than they consider it should be. It is programmes like this that never fail to remind me just how selfish the dominant free market ideology has made the British people and how we are no longer entitled to call ourselves a civilised nation.

I think I have written here before how I watched the most senior British television news commentators on the two most prominent British current affairs programmes, Channel Four News, and Newsnight, ask teachers representatives if there was ever any justification for teachers going on strike. Forgive me if I am repeating myself, but the same question applies to doctors. This is an age-old trick employed by the media where of course the blatant implication of such a question is that there is never any justification and the onus is now on the teacher or the doctor to prove that there is. It is now considered as morally wrong to have your life disrupted in any way, regardless of the circumstances. I was just sorry that they had never asked me.

You see, this is a powerful example of moral relativism and how our affective interests will cause us to act like imbeciles! In April 2011 all schools in the UK closed for a Royal wedding. No talk of disruption here, this was a celebration. So, closing a school for a royal wedding is good and to be welcomed, but closing it in the defence of people’s livelihoods and those same children’s standard of living is bad. A very close friend of mine had an important hospital appointment cancelled because of the aforementioned Royal wedding. His appointment was to discuss his diagnosis with cancer. The appointment was then delayed for four months, in other words, his cancer treatment was not only delayed for four months but his whole life was disrupted and suffered from the stress he and his family were living under by being placed in a medical and psychological limbo because of a royal wedding. However, he was expected to understand that this was not disruptive; it was a celebration for which he should have been patriotically grateful, and, if the delay in treating his cancer had caused him to die, then he could die happy in the knowledge that his death was in the service of his country and its magnificent royal family.

 Now, had his appointment been disrupted by industrial action by the medical staff (or even worse, by the ancillary staff, because after all they are genuine working class) that would have been an unpardonable crime. That is an example of the moral sickness that prevails in modern Britain and the utter garbage I had to listen to this morning that made me switch off after ten minutes. Almost all schools in the UK are utilised as polling stations for elections. As a result, schools are regularly closed for local, parliamentary and European elections. That of course is not disruption either, disruption only occurs when teachers close the school for selfish reasons such as attempting to protect their jobs, which is not a justifiable activity. As far as Britain’s ruling class and its political and chattering classes are concerned, a royal wedding or an election is obviously justifiable disruption in both schools and hospitals; protecting your interests and the long term interests of your profession is obviously not. This anti-strike position is the coarsest form of moral blackmail, but based on very dodgy morals. As David Hume showed, it is morality based on feeling, on emotion rather than reason, which as Sigmund Freud tells us, causes us to act like imbeciles. We feel that as one of the participants in the issue is an adult (the teacher) then it is morally wrong to involve the other participant (the pupil) because that participant is a child, or in the doctor's case, one of them is ill and the other responsible for effecting treatment and/or a cure. Any rational look at the problem may well show that the action by the adult or the doctor may be in the child’s and the patient's best interest in both the short and the long term, but that is never addressed because our affective interests take control of our thinking and rationality goes out the window. We must ask the question, if the commentator was correct and it is morally and socially indefensible for teachers and doctors to go on strike, what are the teachers and doctors to do? Are they simply to accept whatever employers and the government wish to do to them and lay foundations of terms and conditions of work that the child and future generations of patients will eventually inherit should it enter the teaching or medical profession? What about the children of the families affected by such attacks on their living standards, and with reference to medicine, for the future of our health services as well as the conditions of employment for doctors? Finally, what about the morality of a ruling elite who will utilise children and patients as weapons in their never ending pursuit of their own wealth and interests? This is what is meant by a free market, if you have an ethical problem simply redefine it on your own terms and propagandise it through your control of the media until it becomes the accepted wisdom and damn the consequences. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Nothing much has changed since 1776

I have been pondering the type and quality of politician that are prominent in today's world and it is quite alarming. There are fewer and fewer people in powerful positions that command any kind of respect or convey a sense of confidence. For example, I have been watching the news coming out of the Philippines with a mixture of disbelief and alarm. Their new president, Rodrigo Duterte, rejoicing in the sobriquet Duterte Harry, has given anyone who feels free to do so, the permission to kill drug addicts, drug dealers and the head of drug gangs. If anyone is found to have killed a drug addict etc. he has promised them immunity from prosecution. I am reminded of a nation in the not so distant past who gave immunity to anyone who killed Jewish people simply because they were Jews. This is the kind of situation I try to emphasise when I speak about the nature and role of government and the state. Here we have the president of an important nation simply cancelling the whole concept of the rule of law and the presumption of innocence and is apparently doing so with the support of the majority of the population. There are already wholesale executions in the Philippines without the tiresome business of due process. This recalls the words of Pastor Niemoller who wrote that "First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.....etc." Once he has gotten rid of the drug dealers and addicts, who will be next? You see once you allow death squads loose with no restraints, it is very difficult to get them to stop.

I have just watched Donald Trump announcing that he is going to build an impenetrable and beautiful wall right across America's southern border, and that, although they don't know it, the Mexicans are going to pay for it. Now, first, there is no such thing as an impenetrable wall, next, there is no such thing as a beautiful wall, and next, how does he plan to get the Mexicans to pay for it? He is also going to deport 2 million people in his first day in office, that is what he said, not me. How on earth do people like that ever come to national prominence in any country, never mind in a country like America that is supposedly educated and civilised? I said some weeks ago, that I am beginning to suspect that he may just win in November. If he does, then America is going to become very interesting because the last time any national leader spoke like Mr Trump, that nation ended up invading the Soviet Union, and, rather than deport 2 million people, simply gassed them.

In the United Kingdom we are witnessing the government preparing to exit the European Union and they still have not a clue what they are going to do, or how they are going to replace the institutional and structural arrangements. The British are cursed with some of the most hapless and incompetent politicians on the planet who have stoked the same kind of racist rhetoric and immigration hating sentiments that Mr Trump is doing and brought division, hate crimes and xenophobia onto the streets of this country in a way I would never have believed could have happened. I say again, I am ashamed to be British and now refer to myself as Scots in all literature and official forms. The British government have managed to reduce the medical profession, the epitome of the British public school culture and bourgeois value system, to striking and other forms of industrial action, again things I would never have believed possible. These are the same people who fulminate against the miners, railway workers etc when they go on strike and who pen indignant letters to the Telegraph and the Daily Mail under such pseudonyms as 'disgusted of Chipping Norton' but who are now seeking the support of ordinary working people against a government who are simply incompetent bullies who wish to destroy the NHS as a precursor to privatising it. This is their well-tested blueprint, in order to destroy the mining industry, the steel industry and the railways so that they could be privatised, they had to wage war against the workforce and destroy their unity and organisation. The doctors still have not guessed what the government is up to, but it is as plain as day to me, and, in the end, the gullible British public will turn on the doctors just as they turned on the working class and the doctors will lose.

Civilisation and order are very fragile things. Civilisation is clearly breaking down in the Philippines, is becoming very shaky in the United States and is under threat from an uncivilised set of Tory gangsters in this sorry country amusingly known as the United Kingdom. This is the inevitable result for all nations who persevere with the debased and uncivilised ideology of free market neoliberalism. Unless this loathsome ideology is overcome and defeated we are headed for the war of all against all. I remind you of the words of Adam Smith, published in 1776, "All for ourselves and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind." There are indeed no people more vile than the masters of mankind in our own time, but they rule by an ideology that is just as vile as their characters and is the root cause of the hatred and disunity we see all around us. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat