Quote Of The Day #95

“The Tories in England long imagined that they were enthusiastic about monarchy, the church, and the beauties of the old English Constitution, until the day of danger wrung from them the confession that they are enthusiastic only about ground rent.”

This may well turn into an unhinged rant. Be warned.

As I have said before on this blog, I am not a Marxist as such although I do have some sympathy for Marxist historical analysis and I like some Marxist historians. But there is no getting away from the fact that just about every country that has been ruled by people who claim to follow Marx’s ideas has degenerated into nightmarish tyranny.

Where I do agree with Marxism is with the central place it gives to economics – both in writing about the past and when thinking about politics. I am rather old-fashioned in that I believe the way the economy is run is a lot more important than which toilet people use.

This quote was written by Karl Marx in 1852 but it still applies today. And not just to the Conservatives but to the entire ruling class in the West, regardless of whether they claim to be ‘left-wing.’ In fact, the entire Establishment is economically right-wing and most modern ‘radical’ groups are nothing of the kind but are simply the stormtroopers of neoliberalism – see Picture of the Day #61.

‘Rent’ in the context of the quote does not mean the money you pay for your flat or to hire a car. An economic rent is the extra payment a factor of production receives over and above the transfer earnings required to induce the factor to supply its services. In simple terms, it is an overpayment for work or goods. An example might be that corrupt reptile Sepp Blatter paying himself two million quid a year for an administrative job that at most would attract a salary of £60,000 or a tv presenter getting paid £500,000 for reading an autocue.

The entire economic system has been distorted to the advantage of the ruling class and to reflect the values of that caste. Nothing else can explain the fact that an NHS nurse earns £24,907-£30,615 but a ‘diversity officer’ in that organisation is paid £75,000 or that a barrister gets £89,400 or 202% above the average UK wage of £29,600.

‘Twas ever thus, I hear you cry. But the sheer scale of the difference in pay and wealth has gone beyond obscene. There is no saving the current economic system and it must be ended. It is often said that people become more conservative as they get older. This is not happening to me. The scum who rule us have radicalised me (to use the phrase so beloved of identity racists). I have gone beyond Mao and am heading in Pol Pot territory at the moment!

Tell me you don’t smile at the thought of Bezos, Markle, Windsor or any of the other overpaid bastards who pollute our planet being forced to do backbreaking labour at the point of a gun.