State Cola Factory Number One

 

A lesson in real socialism

I was amused to read in the Sunday Times about Jeremy Clarkson’s conversion to socialism. Amused, shocked and perplexed might be a better descriptor.

Our Jeremy is probably best known as a critic of government, any government and an undying opponent of any attempt to limit the individual’s choice as to how they wish to screw up their life.

This seemingly illogical conversion is all to do with his more publicised and perhaps better known conversion to the fraught life of an Oxfordshire gentleman farmer.

The bee in his bonnet this week is the continuing drama surrounding cladding on buildings - in the wake of the Grenville disaster. Clakson owns a flat in London and - guess what? It’s covered in cladding. Not the good stuff either. His insurers want to up his cost from £6 000 to £80 000 a year. Not surprisingly he’s about as happy as a badger sitting securely in a sett on his farm which sees the hose pipe snaking down bringing his demise.

What’s to be done? Take off the cladding? Cost £400 000. Bit of a non-starter.

Leave it to Jeremy to neatly sum up the predicament he (and many others) are in. “There’s a technical term for what we are. And, it’s fu**ed.

Fortunately, like most of his rants this one has a solution.

Jeremy proposes that “the government should start a state-run alternative for the thousands of people who are in the same boat as me.” But, what if the government says the risk is too great even for the government to step in and insure. (Yeah! Right - this is the government who has spent billions bailing out banks and buying shitty Covid-gear!)

Jeremy says in that event the government should pay to have the cladding removed.

There’s a pattern here in case you missed it.

Basically anyone but the owners of the affected flats should pay - says our Jeremy.

Were it not for the fact that Jeremy has a long record of moaning about the government getting involved in what is a private business - insurance companies, many reading his article might be taken in by the very real injustices he exposes. They may even support his plan for the government to do the nice thing and help him out.

Fat chance! These are the same guys who are currently baulking at paying a few quid to maintain Covid tests for the general public.

The whole thing smacks of socialism.

No other word in the English language is guaranteed to bring on a attack of apocalyptic proportions to Tory suburbia. The idea that socialism is to be used to solve problems, even problems brought down on the heads of unsuspecting citizens like Clarkson is just too awful to contemplate, otherwise implement.

Briefly socialism is: “a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.” Trust me, that’s what google says, so it must be right.

Sounds horrifying, doesn’t it? Even if Clarkson is in favour, it must be terrible.

When I taught Animal Farm to 15 year old’s, I always used cola as an example of how socialism might work in the real world

Now some people like Coca Cola, some like Pepsi Cola and some like other brands of Cola.

Each company making cola drinks owns the means of production, distribution, and exchange of their product.

Not only that, but each company spends in one year (even one week even) the amount equal to the total budget of a medium sized African nation trying to increase its market share by even the infinitesimal amount. This money does not improve their product, nor does it benefit the nation in any way (except for swelling the coffers of the advertising industry).

So, I postulated, why not simply form the state cola factory number one to pool the resources of Coca-Cola, Pepsi and others to make all the cola and use the previously wasted advertising budgets to fund new hospitals (state hospital number one), new schools (state school number one) and other worthy enterprises.

I know I will be accused of brain-washing young, easily impressed children, but, in my defence I can only say that all these newly recruited socialists, after reading Animal Farm and seeing how socialism might work in practice, were soon un-brainwashed. Indeed a plea that what we need is more public-spirited pigs fell on stony ground and deaf ears.

It is amazing to hear people, who ought to know better (like say Trumpie, or Bo-Jo) railing against socialism. They happily practise it whenever it suits their purposes.

"Neither Biden nor Trump are socialists in this robust sense. However, in common parlance, socialism has come to mean an expansive economic role for the government via federal spending on the one hand, and industry mandates and regulations on the other. By this definition, Cato Institute's Scott Lincicome tells me, both candidates are socialists, just different versions.

Neither has any compunctions about using massive deficit-spending to boost economic growth. Neither is averse to picking economic winners and losers by helping industries they favor and crippling those they don't via regulations and mandates. Trump, Lincicome notes, has been quite adept at using Uncle Sam to slam industries that hurt his America First agenda — and boost those that help it. Biden, meanwhile, is a typical Democrat who wants to use Big Government to tax rich companies and individuals and pursue a redistributive liberal agenda.

In an interview that aired on Wednesday, Former US President Donald Trump said Boris Johnson had become increasingly socialist, adding that he was "not sure that people are loving it." Mr Trump was mainly referring to Mr Johnson's environmental policies. This comes just a month after world leaders met in Glasgow as part of a last-ditch effort to keep the target of limiting global warming to 1.5C alive."

There are many more examples. Just open your eyes and look for them.

Most of us are living in what is best described as democratic-socialist countries and are governed in that way.

It’s only the pejorations of dodgy leaders that make is so tragic