Why Socialism Failed I

Park Hill, Sheffield by Michael C Coldwell, 2016 

Key Questions for Socialists: Part I

Beyond Within-Capitalism Activism

Historical Introduction 

As a socialist all my adult life, and a committed and a still-producing Marxist theorist, and finally someone who has been actively involved in the Revolutionary Left for most of that time, I have some important criticisms of what comrades concentrate upon, while often ignoring other absolutely essential areas without which the successful conclusion of our efforts will be impossible.

In truth, the state of socialist priorities is, indeed, a consequence of acting within Capitalism, to win hearts and minds of the Working Class, for many things are considered to be unaddressable in that context - they are questions about what will have to be done both establishing a nascent Socialist State, and thereafter implementng its required structure.

Nevertheless, such questions cannot be left unaddressed. Not even a Revolution can switch Capitalism off, and at a atroke, institute Socialism as-a-readymade, well-understood alternative.

Indeed, originating from a Victorian slum, in Gorton, Manchester almost 80 years ago, I knew that you voted Labour from infancy, but what it then meant was the achievements in Nationalisation of the post-war Atlee-led government. And, the gains made seemed prodigious, and even the basis for a possible Socialist Society: but as history has shown, that was far from the actual case! All the wealth remained in the hands of the Owning Class, as did the Media of all kinds, and every possible hostile activity and undermining was brought into play, both within the country and from outside (due to the debts incurred in fighting the then recent War).

Manchester in the 1950s, Shirley Baker

And, in spite of significant gains by the actions of that Labour Government, who was it that was then charged with implementing it for the benefit of the people? Literally all the doctors involved had been, and were still, opposed to the project, and continued to treat Working Class patients as they had done in the past.

How about this!

My father, an ex-wartime fireman, died, aged 59, of a treatable illness, which was never diagnosed.  My maternal grandad died of pneumonia ONE DAY after being sent packing by his GP "as a malingerer". My mother, after two detached retinas, two years apart, was first made totally blind in one eye due to the failure of a new technique, and then lost the sight in the other due to exactly the same reason.

Now, the Tories lyingly blamed the NHS, as it indirectly infers now, at every possibile opportunity, for such tragedies, but it wasn't, and still isn't, true: it was the doctors who treated them, and their low opinion of their patients from the poor!

Oh, and by the way, I too have had very similar inadequate diagnoses and treatment, and have been chronically ill for almost 40 years, having to retire early after working with that disability for 14 years due to the results of a damaging operation.

Perhaps I digress, but my point is surely clear - Social Democracy is not enough! We got a committed Social Democratic government in 1945, but the economic power remained with the rich.

So, what are the implications for what we should do now?

The economic slump of 2008 did not only expose the inadequacies of Capitalism, but unleashed an almighty assault upon the Working Class to pay-the-bill, while, at the same time, attempting to remove every single gain remaining from the nationalisations and social programmes of the 1940s, and the achievements in living standards by the Working Class. 

Today, I watched a "debate" between Peter Taafe of the Socialist Party and Michael Crick, a clear enemy of our class - proved throughout his contributions, which were a continuation of his attacks upon that organisation in three previous books, AND, in this "debate"the usual lies repeated heatedly and often, AND in spite of his anti-Labour stance, displaying a clear union with those still-present in the Labour Party of today, who had expelled them in the past.

NOTE: If you're wondering, the writer of this article was also expelled from the Labour Party too, but in 1964, having transformed the campaign in my city, in our electoral efforts to achieve a Labour Government, in which we succeeded! Peter Taafe's expulsion came 20 years later, after major successes for his grouping in Liverpool. By the way, Crick was also involved in "exposing" that "criminal insertion" into the Labour Party then too.

As an aside to this you don't invite agents of the enemy class to a debate, ever!

So, what has to be done? Finally, we get around to my main purpose in writing this essay, "What are the Key Questions now imperative for the Revolutionary Left to address?"

The first is obvious, but strangely absent.

Where are the necessarily constant Marxist Economic Updates, such as Professor Richard Wolff supplies both weekly and monthly on 80 radio stations across America and on YouTube?

Don't you think they are necessary?

Chunkymark isn't really a Marxist, but he finds it absolutely essential to deliver a daily YouTube rant against the Capitalist establishment. And, he is right! 

For he's genuinely angry, and so should we be! Politics isn't measured argument: it is heart, anger and commitment, that strikes at the arrogance, greed and hatred of the enemy class - especially NOW! It is a rallying call for recruiting allies that will trust you, and when the time comes will remember.

And, where is the rest of Marxist Theory?

When I was a young Physics student, I joined the Communist Party after reading Lenin's Materialism and Empirio Criticism, as it correctly destroyed, philosophically, the Positivist position of physicists Henri Poincaré and Ernst Mach. Here was the answer to the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory I was being force-fed in my University course.

But, I was mistaken: it wasn't the place.

Indeed, the number-one-priority, intellectually, for Marxists to tackle in Science was this crucial philosophical question. And, in spite of seeking that theory wherever I thought it might be, I didn't succeed.

The switch by Marx from Idealism to Materialism was precisely to unify Philosophy with Science, and he demonstrated how to do it in the volumes of his work, Das Kapital. It took him the rest of his life to complete it, and he fully expected his followers to complete the same sort-of-undertaking on Science. The books on Science by his colleague Frederick Engels, along with his own Mathematical Manuscripts proved his intentions.

It is over a century since Lenin's book, where are the vital following works?

The question was rhetorical, for I know the answer: I have had to do it myself, and like Marx I had to work many decades part-time and the last 10 years full-time to complete it.

And, there are other important omissions,which I will outline in Part II...

The Fake "Prevent" Initiative

Yesterday (see below), I wrote about the Manchester Bombing in the City in which I was born and brought up, and about the responses literally across the board, commending a "we will not be intimidated" response. Literally everybody interviewed blatantly ignored the real causes in a constantly repeated hymn to so-called British Values and Intransigence.

How dare they include us in their guilt, and their way of coping with it! We didn't cause such an inhuman reaction: they did.

And, when it couldn't be avoided any longer, they finally got around to what was already being done, and could in future be done, to combat the rising tide of militant Islam, among Moslem youth. And, "everyone agreed" it was this Prevent Initiative, only more so, that would do it! What a proof of both blatant lying and implacable incompetence.

As if such a web of their lying words could gain-stay the real causes of such hate, namely intolerance, racism and even imperial invasions, as have been, and are still being carried out by the Western Capitalist Governments across the Middle East and North Africa.

And a whole range of people from Politicians, and Experts-on-Terror, to even "moderate Imams" were paraded out to support this mockery of a policy.

"Prevent!" - such a fake smokescreen merely covers up their real motives -they somehow want a quiet and quiescent Middle East, so they can get their valuable OIL cheaply and in peace.

The only valid policy, is for the Left to recruit moslem youth in large numbers into the anti-capitalist fight across the World.

Workers of all countries must unite against the war mongers and the murderers!

For Socialism and Freedom!

Manchester Bombing: Who is really to blame, and what is the solution?

I have to say I am disgusted with the reaction of the Prime Minister, other political leaders, many celebrities and literally all the media to the bombing in my home city! Bleeding-heart "sympathy" and rigorous seeking for the perpetrators can never be a solution.

After all, these people actually commit suicide to further what they believe in. What could have possibly pushed them into such a final crisis?

There is but one solution: You have to remove that cause. And, not a single contribution, in almost 40 hours of a positive avalanche of "comment", has even mentioned the clearly evident causes.

First Cause: there has been the crucial colonial conquests, interventions and even full-scale invasions in Moslem countries such as Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Algeria, Tunisia, Bahrain, Kuwait, and even Bosnia Herzegovina, should have made clear that a coherent, and aggressive agenda was being pursued by the West.

Second Cause: it is the major global area for the production of OIL! Colossal supplies of that vital substance still reside under many of those countries leading to resource wars.

Third Cause: global inequality, the regular recessions and failures of capitalism, and now the current-and-still-devastating 2008 event, is causing havoc in Western Capitalist Economies, and so scapegoats-are-required!

And, guess what - Moslems are easily recognised and are pouring into Europe to escape the current wars in their countries.

So, why are these causes not being addressed?

It is because the capitalists cannot change what they are doing. It is imperative for Capitalism-in-Crisis! Absolutely NONE of the supporters of Capitalism can do anything else.

But, the Enemies of Capitalism, and the leaders of Working People everywhere, the Socialists, and, only they, can act! We can give workers of all countries and creeds a much better commitment than that offered by the Extreme Islamists by instead welcoming everyone to:-

Both Live-and-Fight for the overthrow of the True Enemy, and for the establishment of countries that are both for the people, and ruled by the people.

Our success in such an historical imperative is the only way to remove those pernicious causes of terrorism.

George Galloway standing in my old home town (West Gorton)

Thoughts on Democracy

Services to and Control by the People

It is hard to disagree with the concept of the organisation of a Society for the benefit of its people – the idea of Service. Just as it is similarly obvious that such an organisation should be under the control of the populace – the concept of Democracy.

So, historically, it has been necessary for those in power to in some way subscribe to both of these principles (or at least pretend that they do).

Let us look, critically, at some significant examples.

The fabled properties of Democracy, both as the will of the people, and also their overall control, are, of course, total myths in current so-called “Democratic States”, and the evidence for these assertions can be found everywhere, and can show exactly whose wants and needs are serviced by this lauded system of rule. Of course, it must be where both wealth and power reside that has to be addressed, but, in a somewhat distorted way, for the nearest thing to what is desired is delivered, if only marginally, by Local Democracy, where known and accessible representatives do things that immediately affect people – that is in local or District Councils of various types. For, one aspect of these organisations did take things out of the control of the oligarchs, and it was in the services owned and run by these elected Local Authorities.

Of course, the composition of these Councils would represent the area, which elects it, and in affluent areas the local authority would see its task to serve that constituency, and its occupants. Whereas in a working class city, the majority would have very different priorities, and these would be, sometimes at least, evident in the actions of their elected Council.

But, that is Democracy, and a comparison of how such different Councils see their priorities is very interesting and informative, and always distorted by misleading comparisons such as in efficiency and expenditure priorities.

Clearly a prosperous area would not need to allocate large resources to support the poor, nor would they have any sympathy for those Councils that did. They would compare expenditures and condemn the “high-spending” Council that have large populations of people needing all kinds of essential support.

Now, it is precisely these kinds of criticisms that are used to discredit “Serving Councils” for the affluent take pride in “paying their own way”, while assuming that those who cannot are lazy or worthless, while, at the same time, lavishing vastly more on their own ill family members than could ever be spent on a poor patent by a social service.

So, let us look objectively at certain social services, which have shown great contributions to the good of the populace, and were and occasionally, still are supplied by Local Democratic Organisations. 

Public Transport

Let me start by giving an example from my own experience.

It also should be made clear that I am a working class person from the City of Manchester in England, and was born and brought up in a slum area called West Gorton. I am certain you would get a very different story from someone in Withington or the Stockbroker Belt in North West Cheshire, but their view is available everywhere, whereas the one I will give certainly isn’t.

Oh, and just in case the reader has already pigeonholed me... I finally retired some 20 years ago as a Professor in London University, so what I relate cannot be dismissed as sour grapes from a social failure (as is regularly slapped onto any criticism of society from the working class).

In the 1950s I used to go, every fortnight, to watch my favourite football team, Manchester United, and an average home gate of around 53,000 spectators was got to the ground from all parts of the enormous conurbation by Manchester Corporation Transport in a large fleet of special buses, which were organised like clockwork. In a very short time literally all of these were delivered to the ground, and then removed, just as efficiently, at the end of the match. It was both cheap and vastly more efficient than private cars could ever be, and being a Local Authority Service NO profit was involved. Each and every double-decker bus was packed, and the flexibility of tailor made routes (only used for this purpose) was unachievable by any other means. Indeed, such an effective and wide-ranging transport system was largely self-financing and economical for its users.

But now, after 60 years of “progress” no such system exists. The bus companies are privately owned, and work to a very different imperative, instead of being an efficient and economic service, they now must make a profit as well – without which they simply wouldn’t exist.

NOTE: Imagine how different hospitals would be if they too had to make a profit!

For example the evident virtues for both passengers and transport workers of the old Driver and Conductor arrangement have finally been completely dispensed with after privatisation was finally established as the universal method of provision. Such things as helping old people and mothers with children, on and off the bus were, to say the least, “not conducive to making profit”, so they were dispensed with. And the advantages for speed of service made possible by the collection of fares while on the move, has been replaced by the driver doing all that himself at every single stop and for every passenger, which, it has to be admitted, did wonders for the profit margins now available to the new owners.

Indeed, for a very long while, a significant part of the transport systems were entirely electrically driven in either Trams or Trolley buses, with vastly superior environmental effects than occur with present systems.

The care and maintenance of all these vehicles was undertaken by Council owned and run facilities – again a service with no profit involved. Both my uncle and my brother-in-law worked as bodybuilding specialists in one of the main garages, and were highly trained and well paid, having had apprenticeships, along with Tech-College linked courses. I worked for 10 years in such a College, and the quality of the lecturers and instructors, as well as the qualified engineers that they produced were second to none (I know this because I employed such people as technicians and they were a valuable contribution to the department).

NOTE: By the way, these Colleges were also a service, run by the Council, and, of course, non-profit making.

Funnily enough, all sorts of other, seemingly unconnected things declined too. For example the Public Service Vehicle licence (PSV), which all public service vehicle drivers had to gain before they were allowed to drive such vehicles, were then clearly superior to what they are now. I wonder why?

Also behind the scenes in Public Transport mechanics, with similar rigorous training, kept the engines and safety systems up to scratch, while a large army of cleaners kept both the insides and outsides of the vehicles at an acceptable standard.

I’ll leave the reader to consider what has happened to all these aspects too, and for the very same reasons!

Whatever criticisms there were of Public Transport, there is also little doubt that the imperatives involved were for Service rather than Profit, and usually the workers unions were given much better access and facilities than are ever provided in most private companies.

Even local and national regulation was vastly more efficient, for one visit of an inspection team to the enormous garage where my relatives worked could cover far more and far better, than could be achieved in innumerable visits to multiple small transport companies, and their sub-contracted support firms too, as is the case now. Finally, the economies of scale also made the large publically owned organisations superior to tiny shoestring alternative: there would be the right kit and an appropriate range of trained operatives, from those with years of experience down to apprentices constantly monitored and instructed in best practice.

All this is indeed a taster of Socialised Services, better 60 years ago than they are now!

Yet, the directing of these services was NOT directly in the hands of the populace, or of their elected representatives in Local Government.

The people did not elect the managers of these vast undertakings. They could vote off their known, local and available councillors, and could change the councillors in office at regular elections. But, such a system wasn’t naively bottom-up controlled and run. It required specialists to do that. But, nevertheless, if truly democratic control was in place, the electorate could act at the ballot box. The job of elected councillors was to establish the Service Ethos in their employees, from bottom to top. And even way back in my youth, there was ample evidence that this was achieved in many such organisations. To judge appropriately you merely have to compare then with now.

Do you really think that modern transport firms are run with the service approach? They wouldn’t last long today!

This brief visit to the past was not meant to define some Golden Age. It was never that. But, it showed here and there how Services should be run and most important of all BY WHOM!

Education

Now, Public Transport may not be considered the most important area that involves services to the people, and I would agree.

In a long career in Education, with posts at every level from Junior Schools to Universities, I can speak authorativly about these services, as by far the most important.

Now, it is in schools and colleges of all kinds that Local Democracy has a major role. And, once again, the differences between how this totally non profit making and countrywide service is delivered, and how it contrasts with organisations dedicated primarily and predominantly with the production of profits for those who have no other necessary qualification or general knowledge, but can extract profit, and hence do have the money to invest, is remarkable.

Once again, the quality involved in how such a service as Education was delivered to the Community, is vastly better than in any profit-making concern.

Indeed, there are no bonuses for teachers, and none desired, or expected. The calibre of those who choose such a demanding and worthwhile career is uniformly superior to any other organisation, if your criteria are to do with what is delivered to the community served, and for what reasons.

And, for some considerable time, now, whenever they got into power, the Tories, would make yet another assault upon State Education, while, of course, sending their own children to private, fee-paying schools, where they would receive, primarily, the appropriate social connections and command training for their future ruling roles in society.

For, the mass of the population are, in their eyes, only educated in such ways, and to such levels, to service the current economic system, Capitalism, and its essential role of producing ever-larger profits. Unless what was done in such institutions was limited to such ends, such places would only foster discontent with the Natural Order.

Such totally unproductive educational content must be actively swept away, to produce the ideally prepared workers for this, “the only possible system”.

Indeed, it had been coming to their notice that in certain areas pupils were being educated in such a way that they would have happy and fulfilling lives, and that could certainly only “lead them astray”1

What is clear to these traditional rulers, is that educational institutions must be, primarily, to fit all their products to the needs and wants of their future employers, and concentrate all learning upon only what they will need in their assigned-for roles in society. Education that encouraged them in any other prospective futures was both unkind to them, and destructive to an ordered and healthy economic future for Society. Crucially, thinking for themselves and being creative, artistic or maybe politically active would be well beyond the Pale.

And, we must see all their changes in Educational Policy in this light.

Even the current attacks upon Birmingham Council, under the guise of attacking Moslem extremists, is basically yet another attempt to wrest this jewel of real Social Service out of the hands of Local Democracy, and into the hands of people who agree with their pro-capitalist policies. 

Indeed, in a recent news programme on TV the ministers in Parliament, and even the newscasters, themselves, steadfastly refused to either ask, or answer, the Key Questions, and, in fact, purposely misled ordinary people as to both what was actually going on in 21 Birmingham Schools, who was responsible for them, and what their own agendas were for Education in particular, and Local Democracy, in general.

Clearly, Education should never be in the hands of those who don’t really care about anything but making a profit, and should demonstrate the most democratically controlled service of all!

Democracy: Services to and Control by the People

It is hard to disagree with the concept of the organisation of a Society for the benefit of its people – The Idea of Service. Just as it is similarly obvious that such an organisation be under the control of the populace – The Concept of Democracy. So, historically, it has been necessary for those in power to in some way subscribe to both of these principles (or at least pretend that they do).

Let us look, critically, at some significant examples.

The fabled properties of Democracy, both as the will of the people, and also their overall control, are, of course, total myths in current so-called “Democratic States”, and the evidence for these assertions can be found everywhere, and can show exactly whose wants and needs are serviced by this lauded system of rule. Of course, it must be where both wealth and power reside that has to be addressed, but, in a somewhat distorted way, for the nearest thing to what is desired is delivered, if only marginally, by Local Democracy, where known and accessible representatives do things that immediately affect people – that is in local or District Councils of various types.

For, one aspect of these organisations did take things out of the control of the oligarchs, and it was in the services owned and run by these elected Local Authorities. Of course, the composition of these Councils would represent the area, which elects it, and in affluent areas the local authority would see its task to serve that constituency, and its occupants. Whereas in a working class city, the majority would have very different priorities, and these would be, sometimes at least, evident in the actions of their elected Council.

But, that is Democracy, and a comparison of how such different Councils see their priorities is very interesting and informative, and always distorted by misleading comparisons such as in efficiency and expenditure priorities. Clearly a prosperous area would not need to allocate large resources to support the poor, nor would they have any sympathy for those Councils that did. They would compare expenditures and condemn the “high-spending” Council that have large populations of people needing all kinds of essential support.

Now, it is precisely these kinds of criticism, that are used to discredit “Serving Councils” for the affluent take pride in “paying their own way”, while assuming that those who cannot are lazy or worthless, while, at the same time, lavishing vastly more on their own ill family members than could ever be spent on a poor patient by a social service.

So, let us look objectively at certain social services, which have shown great contributions to the good of the populace, and were and occasionally, still are supplied by Local Democratic Organisations.

Public Transport

Let me start by giving an example from my own experience.

It also should be made clear that I am a working class person from the City of Manchester in England, and was born and brought up in a slum area called West Gorton. I am certain you would get a very different story from someone in Withington or the Stockbroker Belt in North West Cheshire, but their view is available everywhere, whereas the one I will give certainly isn’t.

Oh, and just in case the reader has already pigeonholed me. I finally retired some 20 years ago as a Professor in London University, so what I relate cannot be dismissed as sour grapes from a failure in our society (as is regularly slapped onto any working class critics).

In the 1950s I used to go, every fortnight, to watch my favourite football team, Manchester United, and an average home gate of around 53,000 spectators was got to the ground from all parts of the enormous conurbation by Manchester Corporation Transport in a large fleet of special buses, which were organised like clockwork. In a very short time literally all of these were delivered to the ground, and then removed, just as efficiently, at the end of the match. It was both cheap and vastly more efficient than private cars could ever be, and being a Local Authority Service NO profit was involved. Each and every double-decker bus was packed, and the flexibility of tailor made routes (only used for this purpose) was unachievable by any other means.

Indeed, such an effective and wide-ranging transport system was largely self-financing and economical for its users.

But now, after 60 years of “progress”, no such system exists. The bus companies are now privately owned, and work to a very different imperative, instead of being an efficient and economic service, they now must make a profit – without which they simply wouldn’t exist.

NOTE: Imagine how different hospitals would be if they too had to make a profit!

For example the evident virtues for both passengers and transport workers of the old Driver and Conductor arrangement have finally been completely dispensed with after privatisation was finally established as the universal method of provision. Such things as helping old people and mothers with children, on and off the bus were, to say the least, “not conducive to making profit”, so they were dispensed with. And the advantages for speed of service made possible by the collection of fares while on the move, has been replaced by the driver doing all that himself at every single stop and for every passenger, which, it has to be admitted, did wonders for the profit margins now available to the new owners.

Indeed, for a very long while, a significant part of the transport systems were entirely electrically driven in either Trams or Trolley buses, with vastly superior environmental effects than occur with present systems.

The care and maintenance of all these vehicles was undertaken by Council owned and run facilities – again a service with no profit involved. Both my uncle and my brother-in-law worked as bodybuilding specialists in one of the main garages, and were highly trained and well paid, having had apprenticeships, along with Tech-College linked courses. I worked for 10 years in such a College, and the quality of the lecturers and instructors, as well as the qualified engineers that they produced were second to none (I know this because I employed such people as technicians and they were a valuable contribution to the department).

NOTE: By the way, these Colleges were also a service, run by the Council, and, of course, non-profit making.

Funnily enough, all sorts of other, seemingly unconnected things declined too. For example the Public Service Vehicle license (PSV), which all public service vehicle drivers had to gain before they were allowed to drive such vehicles, were then clearly superior to what they are now. I wonder why?

Also behind the scenes in Public Transport mechanics, with similar rigorous training, kept the engines and safety systems up to scratch, while a large army of cleaners kept both the insides and outsides of the vehicles at an acceptable standard.

I’ll leave the reader to consider what has happened to all these aspects too, and for the very same reasons!

Whatever criticisms there were of Public Transport, there is also little doubt that the imperatives involved were for Service rather than Profit, and usually the workers unions were given much better access and facilities than are ever provided in most private companies.

Even local and national regulation was vastly more efficient, for one visit of an inspection team to the enormous garage where my relatives worked could cover far more and far better, than could be achieved in innumerable visits to multiple small transport companies, and their sub-contracted support firms too, as is the case now. Finally, the economies of scale also made the large publicly owned organisations superior to tiny shoestring alternative: there would be the right kit and an appropriate range of trained operatives, from those with years of experience down to apprentices constantly monitored and instructed in best practice.

All this is indeed a taster of Socialised Services, much better 60 years ago than they are now!

Yet, the directing of these services was NOT directly in the hands of the populace, or of their elected representatives in Local Government. The people did not elect the managers of these vast undertakings. They could vote off their known, local and available councillors, and could change the councillors in office at regular elections. But, such a system wasn’t naively bottom-up controlled and run. It required specialists to do that. But, nevertheless, if truly democratic control was in place, the electorate could act at the ballot box. The job of elected councillors was to establish the Service Ethos in their employees, from bottom to top. And even way back in my youth, there was ample evidence that this was achieved in many such organisations. To judge appropriately you merely have to compare then with now.

Do you really think that modern transport firms are run with the service approach? They wouldn’t last long today!

This brief visit to the past was not meant to define a Golden Age. It was never that. But, it showed here and there how Services should be run and most important of all BY WHOM!

Education

 Now, Public Transport may not be considered the most important area that involves services to the people, and I would agree.

In a long career in Education, with posts at every level from Junior Schools to Universities, I can speak authoritatively about these services, as by far the most important.

Now, it is in schools and colleges of all kinds that Local Democracy has a major role. And, once again, the differences between how this totally non profit making and countrywide service is delivered, and how it contrasts with organisations dedicated primarily and predominantly with the production of profits for those who have no other necessary qualification or general knowledge, but can extract profit, and hence do have the money to invest, is remarkable.

Once again, the quality involved in how such a service as Education was delivered to the Community, is vastly better than in any profit-making concern.

Indeed, there are no bonuses for teachers, and none desired, or expected. The calibre of those who choose such a demanding and worthwhile career is uniformly superior to any other organisation, if your criteria are to do with what is delivered to the community served, and for what reasons.

And, for some considerable time, now, whenever they got into power, the Tories, would make yet another assault upon State Education, while, of course, sending their own children to private, fee-paying schools, where they would receive, primarily, the appropriate social connections and command training for their future ruling roles in society.

For, the mass of the population are, in their eyes, only educated in such ways, and to such levels, to service the current economic system, Capitalism, and its essential role of producing ever-larger profits. For, unless what was done in such institutions was limited to such ends, such places would only foster discontent with the "Natural Order". Such totally unproductive educational content must be actively swept away, to produce the ideally prepared workers for this, “the only possible system”.

Indeed, it had been coming to their notice that in certain areas pupils were being educated in such a way that they would have happy and fulfilling lives, and that could certainly only “lead them astray”!
What is clear to these traditional rulers, is that educational institutions must be, primarily, to fit all their products to the needs and wants of their future employers, and concentrate all learning upon only what they will need in their assigned-for roles in society. Education that encouraged them in any other prospective futures was both unkind to them, and destructive to an ordered and healthy economic future for Society. Crucially, thinking for themselves and being creative, artistic or maybe politically active would be well beyond the Pale.

And, we must see all their changes in Educational Policy in this light.

Even the current attacks upon Birmingham Council, under the guise of attacking Moslem extremists, is basically yet another attempt to wrest this jewel of real Social Service out of the hands of Local Democracy, and into the hands of people who agree with their pro-capitalist policies.

Indeed, in a recent news programme on TV (June 2014), the ministers in Parliament, and even the newscasters, themselves, steadfastly refused to either ask, or answer, the Key Questions, and, in fact, purposely misled ordinary people as to both what was actually going on in 21 Birmingham Schools, who was responsible for them, and what their own agendas were for Education in particular, and Local Democracy, in general.

Clearly, Education should never be in the hands of those who don’t really care about anything but making a profit, and should demonstrate the most democratically controlled service of all!