Socialism stultifies

To its advocates, socialism aims to improve the lot of the less fortunate. To its critics, socialism is the politics of envy that, in reality, worsens the prospects of the less fortunate; its processes and outcomes include nepotism, control-freakery, deceit, bullying and unkindness. Exhibit A: Starmer Stalin. Exhibit B: history.

There are many well-meaning socialists around, but they can’t avoid getting sucked into condoning or enacting one of the above-mentioned insidious traits in the misguided belief that these are necessary to clip the wings of the privileged and give a leg up to everyone else. You’d think they’d learn.

Take VAT on private school fees, for example. Socialists argue (or they try to) that it’s wrong for the taxpayer to subsidise education for the rich. Those who have benefited from a private education or anyone who’s bright or worldy wise can calculate, without using fingers and toes, that people who pay school fees also pay for the state education that they’re not accessing. Further, even with the VAT, the privileged rich will continue to benefit from a superior education; it’s the kids from less-privileged households who will no longer get the jump-start they need. Granny-embalmer Starmer and Economist-not Reeves don’t care that some parents, who choose to pay for Latin lessons over lip-fillers, can’t afford the VAT and will have to find state schools for their kids, some with special needs who flourish better in the private sector and save the taxpayer a fortune. At least, they did. In addition, there will be fewer bursaries for kids from the lowest-income households. State schools will now struggle to cope with increased enrolment and costs, which will not be fully covered by the VAT raid. There’s more: many private schools use a different exam board, so those facing GCSEs or ‘A’-levels will be disadvantaged further and even more stressed. In other words, this socialist policy will be tangibly harmful to everyone except the rich and privileged. Way to go.

My theory? VAT on school fees is not about fleecing the rich or enriching the poor. It’s about controlling the education of as many kids as possible so Starmer Stalin’s Stasi State can fill as many impressionable minds as he can with anti-capitalism, anti-colonial cant and pro-Palestine propaganda.

There’s also been a lot of publicity about the inheritance tax changes for farmers. Pinocchio Reeves said only the wealthiest landowners will be affected. Pants on fire. It’ll be the smaller, poorer, family farms that will suffer. Farming minister Daniel Zeichner ended up with egg on both his faces when he backed up Reeves and said very few farms would be affected. If that’s the case, Zeichner, how much money will the policy actually raise for the Treasury? He then urged farmers to get financial advice. Does he know how little time and cash-for-advisers farmers have? Then he iced the cake with: "...every person's situation is different". That might be, but does Zeichner know in detail what all these different situations are so that he can crunch all the different numbers and calculate how much the IHT raid will actually raise? Thought not.

My theory? It’s not about raising cash for the NHS or rebalancing ‘wealth’ and land-ownership. It’s about facilitating domestic food shortages, making us more reliant on imports, particularly from the EU that, Starmer will argue, we’ll have to rejoin.

Socialism is about state control of everything, including the economy, food production and distribution, education, utility provision, transport. And thought. Controlled groupthink. One big national if not international echo chamber. That’s why socialists hate Twitter / X. It’s a platform for uncontrolled and uncontrollable thought and speculation, enabled by an American neoliberal they can’t touch.

DEI (which includes diversity of everything except thought) is a huge weapon for socialists. In many situations socialists seek to control what people can and cannot say under the guise of being kind. Ha! The kindness that socialists purport to advocate is nothing more than a smokescreen for unkindess towards those who disagree with them. They try and control who you can hire, work with, and socialise with in the name of tolerance and open-mindedness. Freedom of choice, even petty choices, is an anathema to socialists.

Socialists want to control everyone because they trust no one to have the ability or morals to do what is needed and right. They assume the worst and misconstrue as necessary on their short march to confirmation bias.

Another weapon Starmer has is the judiciary. They’re doing his bidding and jailing right-of-centre keyboard warriors more harshly than they do rapists, paedophiles and domestic abusers. Not surprising really. These actual crimes are as much about control and dominance as they are about the violent acts, and Starmer has more affinity with control and dominance than he has with opinions contrary to his own.

Socialists claim that capitalism and the private sector – i.e. corporate Britain – is greedy, corrupt and untrustworthy. Sounds more like this Government and the Civil Service to me. The difference between the two camps is that, to thrive, capitalism needs freedom and diversity of thought, freedom of expression, meritocracy, social mobility, social stability, safety and security, confidence and self-belief, all the things that socialism stultifies …

… along with kindness.