The BBC has long pandered to the idea that Capitalism is finished and that a great new idea must replace it, a great leap forward in the way mankind provides the necessities, and luxuries, of life for itself. It’s complete rubbish of course, Capitalism, like Democracy, maybe the worst form of running our affairs, except for all the others. It does need reining in naturally but it has lifted so many billions of people out of poverty and hard laborious lives that for all its ills it is still the only true way of life that provides material benefits and the essential freedoms necessary for a civilised society such as individualism and choice in how we conduct our own lives…and of course the essential ability to have a say in and influence on how a society is run.
The BBC would like to see the end of Capitalism but what would it replace it with? You don’t hear much about that, which could be a problem. More of a problem is that nearly all other systems are run by dictators at the point of a gun and necessitate the use of force to run ‘smoothly’, or at least give the impression of running smoothly as all information to the contrary gets suppressed.
You just have to look at the petty class-war nastiness we get from the Left already to know how full blown Corbynism would play out. People pay for the state education system regardless of whether they use it or not, and the richer you are the more you will pay towards it. If you send your children to private school you are making the state system less crowded and are ensuring that each pupil in that system gets more money per head and yet Labour want to take away the charitable status of private schools. Similarly we now hear that Labour wants to make hospitals provide free parking, as they should, but to do it by taxing private health care more. As with schools the Rich pay for the NHS regardless of whether they use it or not, and they pay far more than somebody on a low income. Again by not using the NHS they free up resources for NHS patients that would otherwise be spread more thinly. And yet Labour wants to punish those who use private health care. Moronic dogmatic ideology, they should encourage people to take out private health care and education so that those in the state system get more resources and attention per pupil or patient.
You may have received your tax summary for the year recently which tells you how your tax contributed to public spending.
Income tax and National Insurance are not the biggest source of income for government, surprisingly maybe, indirect taxes, such as VAT or the fuel levy, are. In effect, whatever you earn, hardly any of it goes into your own pocket at the end of the day. But here’s the most important point…all that Government income comes from Businesses, Capitalism, one way or another. So again, how does the BBC propose to replace that system of funding and provision for all necessary government spending to feed, school, house, clothe, care for, defend and entertain the masses? An allotment with a goat and a couple of chickens out the back just won’t cut it. Maybe if you have a magic money tree….didn’t end well for Adam and Eve did it? Keep away from the trees and snakeoil salesmen like Corbyn.
Government spending is huge and most, around 70%, goes on what might all be lumped together under the title of welfare…the top four items being Benefits, Health, Pensions and Education. The next highest cost is national debt interest, that’s just the interest on the debt not paying off the debt itself. It is higher than defence and public order and safety. More than housing, more than on business and industry, more than on transport. And yet Labour and the BBC keep telling us we must rack up more and more debt…which accrues more and more interest payments. Labour says this is good…borrow to take industries like Rail, Water and Power out of private hands and stop profits going to the banks…hmmm…and who do they borrow the money off, and who gets all those interest payments? The Banks. Labour’s policy is all smoke and mirrors, lies. Shame the BBC doesn’t point that out.
No such thing as a free lunch or indeed a free renationalised rail service.
The BBC’s position on Business is of course a complete farce so muddled and contradictory is it. On the one hand they roundly oppose what they call consumerism, on the other they constantly criticise government for not increasing productivity and not making Britain a more successful place business-wise. I would like to know how they define consumerism…how much is too much…and which jobs and industries would they like to shut down? Which products and how many, should people buy?…..sounds dangerously close to Communism where the government decides all that.
Maybe the BBC has a five year plan. Or an orchard.