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socialism, sociology, supporting documents described

socialism and education

theory and reality

with reviews by Utopianist authors Heinlein, Wells, Morris; and belloc on distributionism

Introdution - socialism & sociology
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Socialism and education - theory and reality is one of a number of documents analysing dysfunctional social, or group, behaviour in modern society. This document will show exactly how Socialists destroy education. With reviews by Utopianist authors Heinlein, Wells, Morris.
on sociology on socialism 'social' economics supporting resources
and background documents
For more on sociology and socialism:

Introdution - socialism & sociology
sociology - the structure of analysing belief systems

Labour Party pamphlets:

New translation, the Magna Carta

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


advertising disclaimer

Politics is about power, it is not about economics
Socialism tries to take all power away from the people, and towards the governing centre

Index

summarising this document
how socialism produces ignorant psychopaths ('science')
confusing politics, theories and manipulation - Douglas and Keynes
utopianists : Heinlein, Wells, Morris
belloc on distributionism
bibliography
related further reading

summarising this document

The religion of Socialism dematerialises everything.

  1. How socialism produces ignorant psychopaths ('science') - Education becomes theory as reality fades.

  2. Confusing politics, theories and manipulation: Douglas and Keynes - Money becomes ephemeral, used as a tool for power but with no reliable value.

  3. Utopianists : Heinlein, Wells, Morris - a religion of make-believe substituted for pragmatic analysis of the real world.

At least this religion could well be called the opium of the people; or, as Raymond Aron termed it, "The opium of the intellectuals".

 

how socialism produces ignorant psychopaths ('science')

"The results are quite clear: Parents who "overvalue" children during this developmental stage, telling them they are superior to others and entitled to special treatment, are more likely to produce narcissistic children -- who can grow up to become narcissistic adults, unless something is done about it."

There is plenty of evidence that 'self-esteem' does not lead to improved performance, but strangely enough, hard work does correlate well with performance.

The establishment are not going to find themselves lacking, let alone guilty. They are 'professionals'. Teachers find it much easier to praise than to criticise children who are making errors. While the violent suppression in schools of the past brings its own damage, intemperate praise becomes a dependency drug and encourages people to go on repeating their past errors. Emotional moderation is a sane route.

It is difficult to teach such emotional moderation in modern confused and alienated societies. Here is a suggested starting point, The Heart of parenting by John Gottman. Other useful background reading can be found at abelard's's recommended reading list.

Socialism (sometimes termed 'wishful-thinking') is a truly dreadful disease!

A smartly-educated young person told me how, as part of their school's extracurricular activities they did 'good works' in a neighbouring poorer borough. One such was taking a coach-load of grubby youngsters to Whipsnade Zoo. On the journey, there came the following interaction:

"Miss, wot's those things there?", pointing to some cows in a field.
"They're cows, you know, where milk comes from."
"Nah it dun't, mulk comes in bot'les."

The young person concerned was much taken aback.

Children do not learn about society out of books of theory, they learn by interacting with a wide range of people. They do not learn by being impressed with pretences that everyone will be nice and friendly and honest. They do not learn by tales of Father Christmas, or tales of talking rats and well-dressed mice.

Most people lie, and many will bully and steal. Children themselves will be liable to hit out. If children are taught nonsense and to believe in some emotional utopia, they will become victims of their delusions and other people's opportunism. The young need to be raised to realism as well as idealism. That is not learned from books on geological theory, or even where milk comes from, nor is it learnt without real practice in the real world.

The removal of religious control and culture has left a grave vacuum at the centre of modern education. That vacuum is not replaced by the dishonest and evasive nonsense that is socialism.

confusing politics, theories and manipulation - douglas and keynes

This linked article is some treacle worth wading through.

Both Keynes and Douglas were trying to increase production through the money illusion, that is through playing on psychological weaknesses.

J. M. Keynes's idea was putting money into circulation, into the hands of the masses, to increase their purchasing power, by means of the banks and government. With greater practical sense than Douglas, Keynes proposed using the power of governments and the supervising expertise of banks, while government used (and uses) redistribution and social engineering incentives.

C.H. Douglas promoted a form of citizen's wage, that he called "social credits", wanting to make money available directly. This is likely to produce inflation rather than production, and is a method known to Bernanke and Friedman as helicopter money. Douglas's method, despite all the justifications, becomes a source of inflation, whereas Keynes (when not being satirical) seeks to match the new money with government-produced wealth such as, for instance, houses.

If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory) there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but as there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.
[General Theory, bk. 3]

It is vital to understand the difference between politics and economics (accounting). As you will see, Keynes is trying to maintain government control, whereas Douglas is trying to put the control into the hands of citizens using a rather clumsy method.

Politics is about power it can be used as aggrandisement, madness, or to produce a more civilised society.

I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.
[J.M. Keynes, Letter to Duncan Grant, 15 December 1917]

As you will notice, Keynes is not naive, but just far more sophisticated as an economist.

In the modern world, banks, like tax collectors, are agents of government. In the era of Douglas and Keynes, banks had far more independence.

The real (legitimate) owners of increases in money are the producers of goods - governments (and/or banks in earlier regimes) usurp that role (at great profit).

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Socialists think rigidly. They follow rules and are good at passing exams. Ed Balls has a fair theoretical understanding of Keynes's theories, but is far more inclined to use it to centralise State power. On the other hand, David Cameron's tutor said Cameron was clearly the best student he had ever come across. Cameron clearly understood the meaning of the theory, rather just than being limited to ticking boxes and giving conventional parrot responses.

 

utopianists : heinlein, wells, morris

I've recently read five Utopian novels by writers whose minds were confused with socialist dogmas.

Each of these books all tend to amount to "this is the way the world will be if only I were in charge, and everyone would be nice". Only Heinlein shows much practicality. Both H.G. Wells and William Morris were deeply enmeshed in Fabian socialism. Wells's book is the more interesting because he is more intelligent. Wells, who described himself as a fascist, and Morris both played around at the edges of eugenics without quite saying how they would get rid of their unter menschen.

All three of these authors, as with most socialist theorists, are from middle-class backgrounds. Wells had been closer to the reality of working-class poverty than both the others. Neither Wells nor Morris grasped that it was the dark satanic mills of the Victorian world that was raising the population from grinding poverty, not crazy theories born out of socialist culture.

Heinlein is the most interesting of these. His book, For Us, the Living: A Comedy of Customs was written in 1939 when he was thirty-one. Believe it or not, in those far off days, Heinlein was actively working for socialist parties. Of course, Heinlein later caught on to the problems with socialism. By 1959, he would say, "I've simply changed from a soft-headed radical to a hard-headed radical, a pragmatic libertarian."

For Us, the Living was only published after Heinlein's death. He wrote it primarily as a vehicle for popularising the (unsound) ideas of Major Douglas. Douglas called his system "social credit", and many social credit parties were formed around the world, even gaining some power in Canada. He also presents Korzybski's ideas as a form of psychoanalysis. Heinlein was also interested in rocketry during its early days. Heinlein also wrote Beyond this horizon (1942) to develop further his views on Douglas. In Beyond this horizon, He refers to "social credit" in terms of "the social dividend" (see also Citizen's wage).

The book has amusing side roads. It is set in 2086 and science is struggling to reach the moon, while videos are still projected strips of film, and fast air transport is by rocket planes with ne'er a hint of jet engines.

abelard's recommendation: three GoldenYaks - there is some special interest in his development as a writer. three GoldenYak (tm) award

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H.G. Wells wrote A Modern Utopia in 1905, when he was thirty-nine. His book has several chapters of tedious verbiage, thus only chapters 9 and 10 are worth reading.

abelard's recommendation: two GoldenYaks - for chapters 9 and 10. A highly intelligent writer, but very wordy. three GoldenYak (tm) award

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H.G. Wells wrote The world set free in 1914, at the age of forty-eight. In this book, you can see the standard patterns of Wells' Utopia: essentially a huge mass of humanity is killed off, while an elitist world dictatorship comes into power.

There are amusements to be had here as well. Wells has been frequently referred to as a great futurist. In The world set free is the notion of nuclear bombs that Wells picked up from Frank Soddy (see The world made new: Frederick Soddy). But here the book is set in 1953 and beyond, where the nuclear bombs are tossed over the side of aeroplanes that seem not to have advanced since 1914, and where the co-aeronaut bites on a fuse to set the bomb [perhaps he means grenade!] working - shades of musketry on the Indian frontier or in the American Wild West. Meanwhile, air conflict is resolved by "sharp shooters" sitting in the back seat, or thereabouts. The bombs keep exploding, apparently for years, so making the hated cities uninhabitable in Wells' ideal world.

Oh, and the King of England becomes the benevolent world dictator!

abelard's recommendation: three GoldenYaks - for mild, cynical amusement. three GoldenYak (tm) award

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A comment by the editor of Pivot of Civilisation:
"Despite Wells' deceptive names, his new civilisation had to be very authoritarian. If births were left unregulated, the economic success of the New Civilisation would create increasing numbers (Malthus; see also Peoplequake) of inferior people (Darwin). in what follows, Wells slid lightly over what he knew the New Civilisation really meant: a world dictatorship, the systematic elimination of 'inferiors', and the silencing of dissent." [p.179, Pivot of Civilisation, a historical perspective, editor: Michael W. Perry]

Socialism is riddled by Wells' manner of pseudo-science, sometimes called scientism.

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William Morris wrote News from nowhere in 1890, when he was fifty-six. His book is pretty well trash. Morris, son of a stockbroker, had the socialism bug real bad. The capitalists are masters and the workers are slaves, the slaves have revolted and now everything in the garden is wonderful. In his utopia, everyone is fit and strong, most of them are young, and most of those are lightly-clad females flitting inconsequentially across a bucolic landscape. Everyone is well-fed and most seem to be noble artisans. The factories and production system have disappeared, while all the buildings Morris does not like have been torn down and replaced by vaguely beautiful structures. Where the teeming millions are housed and how they are fed seems rather to escape the author.

abelard's recommendation: trash.

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All three of these male utopianists dwell rather excessively upon nubile, available females.

Of the three writers, Wells and Heinlein are well educated autodidacts, whereas an aging and embittered Morris makes more of a down-market Barbara Cartland effort.

belloc on distributionism

A review of The Servile State by Hilaire Belloc
In this book from just 100 years ago, Hilaire Belloc discusses a problem still propounded by socialists today, that the rich are getting richer while the middle class and poor are not. But Belloc was doing this with 100 years less experience.

Even then, Belloc knew that confiscating business by politicians would lead to an even worse state of wage slavery. However, he did recognise that 'peasants' would prefer a slave state because then they wouldn't have to think. That is, they would happily trade freedom for security.

Belloc also knew that the slave state was socially damaging, so he wanted property more widely distributed. This was termed Distributism at the time. His main concern was the ever increasing centralisation of power brought about by concentrated wealth.

What I found particularly fascinating is that, after the later State confiscation of much wealth by ideologues like Clement Attlee, property is now being spread once more through privatisation. This was an objective the writer thought to be very difficult to achieve in 1912/13. Belloc thought, because of the difficulties, that the concentration of wealth among a small number of families (the state of capitalism at that time) would be more likely tackled by government control than by wider ownership.

The book is rather disorganised and therefore difficult to read, but it is historically important as it draws on rerum novarum before the full horrors of state socialism were apparent.

Hilaire Belloc [1870 - 1953] was a Catholic Anglo-French writer, who took British citizenship in 1902. He wrote over 200 books and was known as the man who wrote a library. Belloc was a Liberal M.P. between 1906 and 1910. He is famous for his children's poems in the manner of Victorian cautionary tales such as those of Struwwelpeter.

Struwwelpeter - coverThe Chief Defect of Henry King
Was chewing little bits of String.
At last he swallowed some which tied
Itself in ugly Knots inside.

Physicians of the Utmost Fame
Were called at once; but when they came
They answered, as they took their Fees,
"There is no Cure for this Disease.

"Henry will very soon be dead."
His Parents stood about his Bed
Lamenting his Untimely Death,
When Henry, with his Latest Breath,

Cried, "Oh, my Friends, be warned by me,
That Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch, and Tea
Are all the Human Frame requires . . ."
With that, the Wretched Child expires.

 

bibliography

House of cards
by Robyn M. Dawes

There is a short review by abelard here.
image credit: amazon.co.uk

Free Press (Simon & Schuster), 1996, pbk

ISBN-10: 0684830914
ISBN-13: 978-0684830919

$16.06 [amazon.com] {advert}
£16.99 [amazon.co.uk] {advert}

Kindle edition
Source ISBN: 0684830914
Free Press, 2009
2104 KB
ASIN: B003JBI31A
$16.95 [amazon.com] {advert}


The Heart of Parenting: How to raise an emotionally intelligent child
by John Gottman, with Joan Declare

How to train children to handle their emotions and relationships. Not bad, not marvellous.
The heart of parenting by John Gottman

Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1997, pbk
ISBN-10: 0747533121
ISBN-13: 978-0747533122

amazon.com
amazon.co.uk

 

For Us, the Living: A Comedy of Customs
by Robert Heinlein,
written in 1939

For Us, the Living: A Comedy of Custom by Robert Heinlein

Pocket Books, reprint, pbk, 2004
ISBN-10: 0743491548
ISBN-13: 978-0743491549

$7.72 [amazon.com] {advert}
amazon.co.uk

Kindle edition
Source ISBN: 0743491548
Scribner, 2003
450KB
ASIN: B000FC0X9Q
$8.11 [amazon.com] {advert}


Beyond this horizon
by Robert Heinlein, written in 1942
Beyond this horizon by Robert Heinlein

 CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, pbk, 2017

ISBN-10: 1543233945
ISBN-13: 978-1543233940

$8.60 [amazon.com] {advert}
£6.52 [amazon.co.uk] {advert}

Kindle edition
Source ISBN:1543233945
CreateSpace, 2017
526 KB
ASIN:  B071XSS8XW

$3.18 [amazon.com] {advert}
£2.58 [amazon.co.uk] {advert}


A Modern Utopia
by H.G. Wells,
written in 1905
A Modern Utopia by H.G. Wells

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, pbk, 2014
ISBN-10: 1500747270
ISBN-13: 978-1500747275

$10.99 [amazon.com] {advert}
£7.14 [amazon.co.uk] {advert}

Kindle edition
Penguin, 2012
556 KB
ASIN: B00MK8AS2U
$4.99 [amazon.com] {advert}

The world set free
by H.G. Wells, written in 1914
The world set free by H.G. Wells

HGW Classics, pbk, 2011
ISBN-10: 1434430278
ISBN-13: 978-1434430274

$7.12 [amazon.com] {advert}

Kindle edition
publisher unknown
26961 KB
ASIN: B004774MR
$6.99 [amazon.com] {advert}


The world made new: Frederick Soddy, science, politics, and environment
by Linda Merricks

The world made new: Frederick Soddy by H.G. Wells

OUP Oxford, hbk, 1996

ISBN-10: 0198559348
ISBN-13: 978-0198559344

$110.00 [amazon.com] {advert}
£28.87 [amazon.co.uk] {advert}

 

News from nowhere
by William Morris
, written in 1890
News from nowhere by William Morris

Dover Publications, pbk, 2011
ISBN-10: 0486434273
ISBN-13: 978-0486434278

$9.97 [amazon.com] {advert}
£10.49 [amazon.co.uk] {advert}

Kindle edition
Dover Publications, 2012
1093 KB
ASIN: B00A736BLM
$8.10 [amazon.com] {advert}
£2.00 [amazon.co.uk] {advert}

The Servile State by Hilaire Belloc
Servile State by Hilaire Belloc

hbk, T.N. Foulis, 1912

archive.org has downloadable copies in several formats

Modern reprints are widely available.
amazon.co.uk

Kindle edition

Ignatius Press, 2010
197 KB
ASIN: B003APYOVS
$7.18 [amazon.com] {advert}
£4.67 [amazon.co.uk] {advert}

There is a review of The Servile State just above.

General Theory

(The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes:
Vol.7: the ‘General Theory’ of Employment, Interest and Money)

First published 1936

Prometheus Books, pbk, 1997

ISBN-10: 1573921394
£11.00 [amazon.co.uk] {advert} /
$11.20 [amazon.com] {advert}

Related further reading
on socialism


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© abelard, 2015, 21 March

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the address for this document is https://www.abelard.org/socialism/socialism_and_education.php

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