news and comment
politics uk

site map
C O L O U R K E 'Y

The mess left by socialism is very complex. At present, the collection and redistribution of wealth to those apparently in need is just a money go round.

All tax comes out of production, whether that of a company or its employees. A company makes profit, and then the government/mafia creams off a percentage. This is tax. Thus, the company must pay a lower wage, a wage that is further diluted by taxing the employee's wage as well.

The government then supplements what the employee receives by providing 'benefits'. These are paid out of the tax taken from the employers and employees. (Another portion of the tax goes in paying the government minions who collect and redistribute the tax.)

First action required: stop the merry go round by removing the 'benefits' and forcing companies to pay the tax more directly, that is by paying higher wages. But that is only one step..

Second. We are now moving steadily much closer to 'full' employment. At that point, the markets can sort out the wage levels, it is dangerous to mess with the market mechanism.

Third. Without incentives, why would people work? A major dogmatic error of socialism has been to remove the incentives that motivate 'work'.

Fourth. Meanwhile, the value of the pound is steadily being eroded by inflation.

Fifth. Socialism generates a mass of parasites who live off 'the system', and another lot that try to micromanage the lives of others in order to justify their own jobs. That is another drag on real economies. It also generates an underclass of dependents, which in turn generates 'social' 'work' expansion. This makes still more drag on the productive community.

The Scandinavian countries reckon they had got away with their socialist schemes because those countries were already wealthy, but even more so because their societies had 'social capital' - that is, people were responsible and disinclined to cheat. I think that also applies to the UK.

Socialism disincentivises, and thus discourages 'good' behaviour. Thus the system of motivating individual betterment gradually break down. This has occurred in Sweden, where the government is now being forced to roll back the nonsense. (See a cautionary tale - incentives change cultures.)

Socialism is far more deleterious than most people grasp or understand.

related material
Citizenship curriculum
Citizen’s wage
Franchise by examination, education and intelligence
Socialist religions
Herds and the individual - sociology, the ephemeral nature of groups

	Scandinavian Unexceptionalism: Culture, Markets and the Failure of Third-Way Socialism (Readings in Political Economy) by Nima Sanandaji
	Institute of Economic Affairs, 2015, pbk ISBN-10: 025536704X ISBN-13: 978-0255367042 [amazon.com] {advert} £10.00 [amazon.co.uk] {advert}

advertising
disclaimer

advertising
disclaimer

advertising
disclaimer

labour rag daily mirror changes tune to follow 'new' labour new line

As long as they remain socialists and dedicated to that cult, it is inevitable that 'New' Labour will leave behind chaos and catastrophe. That is deep in the nature of the creed.

It is essential to realise that religious extremists never ever question their religion. Their religion is held as an act of faith and cannot ever possibly be considered in error. Therefore, questioning it , including by apologising for past errors, would be ridiculous and a waste of time. Or even apostasy.

Socialism is a fundamentalist religion, it is not a political party or a point of view. It is a unquestionable revealed truth

Independence is not a socialist value - clearing up the New Labour mess.

"You live in Britain, not a Third World country. So when the council has a three-bed house in a fortnight and a 2-bed flat while you wait, be bloody grateful you're not trekking across Eritrea foraging for food while your children are shot at by Al Shabaab."

"Get real
A) Sell the £500 SLR camera on eBay.
B) Sell one of the cars.
C) Stop shopping at Waitrose.

"There are 2,343 job vacancies at your local JobCentre, including "caretaker, warehouseman, cleaners and gardeners". None require exams or pay brilliantly but they do at least pay.

"Lee was in a job I presume was low-skilled and low-paid. Had he stayed in that job for life he could never have properly afforded the six children he fathered. He should not, therefore, have fathered them in the first place.

"Children are not a surprise. They are not delivered, out of the blue, by a vindictive stork."

Before the general election, the Mirror would have been whining about the mean and heartless Conservatives.

Read the whole item.

related material
Herds and the individual - sociology, the ephemeral nature of groups
Fabian Socialists misunderstand Darwinism
Socialism and education - theory and reality
Socialism and warm feelings

Citizen’s wage
Franchise by examination, education and intelligence

now the snp want scotland back, together with their independence of mind

The following extract is from a speech protesting against the Liberals who moved towards the Socialists. Hence the misuse of 'Liberal' to this very day, to mean Socialist.

These new Liberals were called 'State Liberals'.

The Socialists welcomed them, but complained that the Liberals were telling the public too plainly what they intended, while the Socialists wanted to hide the intentions.

Beatrice Webb (a founder Fabian) advised that any time anyone pointed out the real agenda, that notion was to be stamped out by vehement denials.

Rosebery, 1908
"It is by self-reliance, humanly speaking, by the independence which has been the motive and impelling force of our race, that the Scots have thriven in India and in Canada, in Australia and New Zealand, and even in England, where at different times they were banned. As things are we in Scotland do not take much or even ask much from the State, but the State invites us every day to lean upon it. I seem hear the wheedling and alluring whisper, "Sound you may be; we bid you be a cripple. Do you see? Be blind. Do you hear? Be deaf. Do you walk? Be not venturesome; here is a crutch for one arm. When you get accustomed to it you will soon want another, the sooner the better." The strongest man, if encouraged, may soon accustom himself to the methods of an invalid; he may train himself to totter or to be fed with a spoon. The ancient sculptors represent Hercules leaning on his club; our modern Hercules would have his club elongated and duplicated and resting under his arms. (Laughter.) The lesson of our Scottish teaching was "Level up"; the cry of modern civilization is "Level down; let the Government have a finger in every pie," probing, propping, disturbing. ("Hear, hear," and laughter.) Every day the area for initiative is being narrowed, every day the standing ground for self-reliance is being undermined, every day the public infringes, with the best intentions, no doubt, on the individual. The nation is being taken into custody by the State. Perhaps the current cannot now be stemmed; agitation or protest may be alike unavailing; the world rolls on, it may be part of its destiny, a necessary phase in its long evolution, a stage in its blind, toilsome progress to an invisiblegoal. I neither affirm nor deny. All in the long run is doubtless for the best; but, speaking as a Scotsman to Scotsmen, I plead for our historical character, for the maintenance of those sterling national qualities which have meant so much to Scotland in the past."

end note

1. Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, 1st Earl of Midlothian, KG, PC (7 May 1847 – 21 May 1929)

"we did not spend too much", "hollande has it right" - ed miliband

2012
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-18966541
"Labour leader Ed Miliband has declared the political "tide is turning" against the economics of austerity, after a meeting in Paris with French President Francois Hollande.

"He said he and Mr Hollande agreed that Europe needed a "different way forward" to deal with the debt crisis..

"Mr Miliband added that unemployment among young people was too high."
[Quoted from bbc.com]

Meanwhile, Yorkshire creates more jobs that the whole of France,
and
we're still trying to catch up with ‘New’ Labour's PFI debts.

Ed Miliband likes François Hollande, but what do the French think of their President?

13 April 2015
"An Opinionway poll for LCI television showed Hollande had a 21 percent approval rating, down 4 percentage points from a month earlier, mirroring French citizens' concern over the ailing economy and rising unemployment."
(Quoted from globaltimes.cn]

November 2014
"...Only 14% of people surveyed by Ifop, a leading market researche company, said that they would vote for Hollande if the presidentiale elections were held this week, compared to 29% for Le Pen."
[Quoted from newsweek.com]

[Hollande received a boost from the Charlie Hebdo jihadi murders in February 2015, which is now fading away again.]

Why isn't Miliband down on 14% or lower?

related material
the economics zone
For Socialism and Peace: the Labour Party's Programme of Action, 1934
Herds and the individual - sociology, the ephemeral nature of groups
ends and means and the individual
Socialism and warm feelings

the uk election choice: mummy state or daddy state

The truth that dare not speak its name.

The more houses the Conservatives build (house building is already advancing faster than the last 20 years), the greater will be the downward pressure on house prices.

The middle classes rely on house prices for much of their wealth and income.
The big civil service unions that fund Labour are already being 'promised' high wages for their votes.
Building houses is against the interests of the middle classes and their unions.

Open the doors to backward east European nations, house prices rise in the absence of building.

Offer those struggling, more 'benefits', and they become dependants. Of course, those benefits have to be taken from those that work.
More work means more independence.

Conservatives seek to get more people independent through work.
Socialists seek to get more people dependent through any method they can find, as they dream of a monolithic centrally controlled state/dictatorship.

The followers, the incompetent and the lazy like dependence. They want the State to be their mummy.

Independent souls, the workers, want to run their own lives. They want daddy to tell their siblings to grow-up, to stand on their own feet. They don't want weaklings around them who keep touching them for a 'loan', which they know full well will never actually be paid back.
They want their brothers and sisters to grow into adulthood.

There is a choice - the Mummy State, or the Daddy State, or even a balance between the two.

Socialists will never offer or provide a balance, let alone an independent state. That goes totally against their cult religion/dogma. They will even try to get the workers to build houses for them, which they will then take into their own control, hiding this under euphemisms like 'social housing. Why work for the State if you can't get ahead?

What you see in society is the direct result of how people think and how they see the world. It is not some inscrutable accident.

So get socialism, get laziness - what's the point?

Get socialism, get dishonesty - the State steals from you at every opportunity, why be honest?

Why work for a State that takes ever more of your freedoms? And so the 'black' economy emerges: as the only way to survive becomes to trade outside the purview of the State.

Thus, the agents of the State become despised. The police are not trusted and the politicians are not trusted. The rule of law steadily breaks down.

related material
Socialism and warm feelings
For Socialism and Peace: the Labour Party's Programme of Action, 1934
Herds and the individual - sociology, the ephemeral nature of groups
ends and means and the individual
power, ownership and freedom

email email_abelard [at] abelard.org

© abelard, 2015, 30 april
all rights reserved

variable words
prints as increasing A4 pages (on my printer and set-up)