I hope that my posts are never tedious or boring and I sincerely hope that if any of you find them so you will not hesitate to tell me. I say this because I have concluded that I should explain what I mean when I say that the fundamentals that underpin free market economic theory are wrong and fraudulent, and I will seek to explain what I mean in a series of posts. As a post cannot be too big they will necessarily be summaries of my thoughts on free market concepts. I trust they will not be tedious, but if you feel they are please tell me and I will cease. I will necessarily be selective but I hope to explain my objections to the concepts that underpin the free market fraud by looking at
a) Thatcher's claim that there is no such thing as society
b) the free market concept of the individual
c) the philosophical thrust of free market theory that arises from the philosophy known as Objectivism
d) the perverted free market concept of morality
e) the false concepts of utility and rationality
f) the perversion of Adam Smith's concept of an invisible hand
I have touched on such topics before in my posts, but will seek to explain them as succinctly and as efficiently as possible in the limited space available. Please be patient if I repeat some things I have said earlier as that may be unavoidable.
That Thatcher's claim that there is no such thing as society is so evidently wrong and indeed stupid, I still marvel that I have to explain this to people. But it is important to understand not only why it is self-evident nonsense, but why she said it in the first place. Her statement was the opening shot in a war she intended to wage against a society she hated and was determined to destroy, a society that, however imperfectly, tried to cater for all its members and took issues such as poverty and inequality seriously. Thatcher was the consummate class warrior who only served the class sector of society she approved of, she was completely disinterested in those people she herself described as 'not one of us' and was consumed with hatred for working people in general, but particularly those who were employed in the public sector. Her statement that there is no such thing as society, was made in an interview with the Woman’s Own journalist Douglas Keay on 23rd September 1987 in 10 Downing Street. In that interview, and in subsequent statements, she claimed that there was no such thing as society, only individuals, families, neighbours and voluntary associations.
Coming from a professional politician whose entire working life was spent in a public sector whose entire income and existence is dependent on the wider society within which it exists and whose income and life conditions were dependent on that same public sector, such sentiments are quite astonishing, but coming from a Prime Minister they are alarming, as they have had profound consequences that have resonated throughout the United Kingdom and have formed the foundation of the crisis that the nation finds itself in when this is being written some 30 years later. Thatcher’s philosophical approach has been translated into public policy for over 30 years and is the ideology that produced the alienation of its people from its politicians and the financial crisis that the UK is still suffering from. It is the source of the poverty the obscene inequalities and the numerous crises I posted about yesterday.The Thatcher thesis is based on three fundamental denials of social reality; a denial that the human being is essentially a social being; a denial that the institutions and structures that operate throughout our society and regulate our interactive relationships are a meaningful part of that society; and a denial that the general population accept them as such. Thatcher is arguing that people are essentially atomised individuals whose only social reality is within a family structure and who do not relate to social institutions and structures which they see as something rather abstract and distanced from their real everyday experience. She is arguing that people’s social experience does not extend beyond the families and neighbourly relationships that create types of voluntary associations. This is necessary if you propose attacking and discrediting our social structures and institutions and convincing people that they are dispensable and can be substituted by other arrangements that will perform their functions better and more efficiently. If they can be portrayed as somehow sitting outside of society and unrelated to everybody’s daily life, then they are indeed dispensable. The whole of the Thatcher project was based on destroying Britain’s public sector, promoting the neoliberal agenda of privatisation and contracting out the services and functions of the major institutions that compose society such as health, education and welfare. By attacking, discrediting them, and denying their integral social centrality you can then justify their removal as a public service and utilise their necessary functions for profit. Her project involved a transfer of wealth and power upwards to a voracious and immoral elite and reducing the standard of living of working people as far as possible in order to enhance that same elite with levels of wealth that could never be justified or spent. It was however, a total denial of social reality.
I ask you to think, if there is no such thing as society, in what category does the government she was head of fit, is it a family, a voluntary association or what? What is the Conservative Party? What are the police, the armed forces etc. if they are not definable social institutions that characterise the nature of the society they emanate from? This is a massive topic and I have only given you a flavour of it, but trust it is enough to see that Thatcher was not only wrong, she was a thorough scoundrel and a truly dangerous politician. Importantly however, as a foundation for economic and social policy-making it is sinister and disastrous. I will look at the concept of the individual next as it is intimately related to this imbecilic ideology. You have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
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