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.