Socialism. A terrible and popular stone age creed.

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It is a continuing shock to me that every time socialism is shown to be destructive a new generation of socialists emerge like the worst sort of zombie apocalypse. It seems we're programmed to like this ideology - it's our stone age sensibility that makes us support a creed that serves mostly to take us back to that stone age:

According to Professors John Tooby and Leda Cosmides of the University of California, Santa Barbara, human minds evolved in the so-called “Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness” between 1.6 million and 10,000 years ago. “The key to understanding how the modern mind works,” Cosmides writes, “is to realize that its circuits were not designed to solve the day-to-day problems of a modern [humans] – they were designed to solve the day-to-day problems of our hunter-gatherer ancestors.”

With the result that:

...humans are, by nature, envious, resentful and unable to comprehend, let alone appreciate, a sophisticated economic system that has evolved in spite of, not because of, our best efforts.

We're wired to think the economy is a zero-sum game, a thing of 'them' and 'us' and we resent hierarchy as well as being envious of those who have more, are stronger or seem more powerful. This is the core emotional content of socialism and explains why so many reject - despite the evidence of its success - the idea that self-interest drives innovation, invention and growth in a world unlimited in the scope of its creativity.

Socialism is a terrible ideology founded in envy and too often resulting in the very opposite of what its adherents profess to want. Yet so long as our brains respond with envy, resentment and incomprehension there will be socialists. Part of me feels we should be training these negative reactions out of people - but that would be brainwashing so probably not the best of ideas!

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UK Uncut - it's really about envy not tax

 "He went as purple with jealousy as a purple stick of purple rhubarb! (Noel Langley, in 'The Land of Green Ginger')"

It seems that UK Uncut's attack on Fortnum & Mason has revealed the truth behind the organisation's campaigns:

We are not all in this together – the government, big business such as ABF, banking sector and the wealthy who shop here are in it together and are choosing to make everyone else pay the price for the banks greed and wreckless (sic) gambling.

As one blogger has pointed out, Fortnum's owner is a private trust itself owned by one of the world's biggest charitable foundations, Garfield Weston. And, more to the point, there's no apparent evidence of any tax dodging:

Now this is definitely not what UK Uncut should be about; going after the wealthy just because they choose to shop somewhere that is expensive?

Again, as a reminder, ABF, Fortnum & Mason and Wittington Investments are all ultimately owned by the Garfield Weston Foundation, the 14th largest charitable foundation in the world.

So when you put this together, you’ve got a lack of verifiable sources on tax avoidance, a store targeted simply because it is owned by a group that has a majority shareholding in another group that might be dodging tax, and ultimately everything is all under the control of a charitable foundation.

It does seem that UK Uncut targeted Fortnum & Mason simply because rich people shop there - simple, straightforward, green-eyed envy. And I thought they were such nice folk!

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Assisted places at good schools? Hoc age!

The usual supporters of an education state monopoly are having a hissy fit at Bromley Council considering supporting parents of children in private schools who lose their jobs. You would have thought that the council was forcing children to beg barefoot in the streets to hear some of the comments. Sadly, Bromley have backed down from the proposal - perhaps because of the fuss but officially because of other priorities in education.

However, the episode reminds me of a conversation with a private school headmaster on this very subject. His school is one of the fifty best schools in the country, has an admirable record of supporting talented children through bursaries and in partnerships with local primary schools. The headmaster's proposal was this:

The local education authority pays exactly what it would pay in AWPU (age-weighted pupil unit) funding and the school would top up to its fee level using bursaries. The places would be reserved to bright children from deprived areas and the school would provide additional, personal and family support.

I think this is the direction we should be going in education - away from the failing state monolith and towards a more free, more varied and more responsive mixed economy in education. And, we can put this in place today without any change to legislation or regulation!

As one top private grammar school's motto would have it (presaging a well-known sports shoe brand) - HOC AGE!