Everything Is Broken

"Society is broken" says King Cameron; indeed, he deems it "sick" - a simplistic statement from a simpleton.

I presume from his recent banter on all things societal we're going to have to suffer, yet again, endless debates on bringing back National Service, the hangman, the guillotine, transportation, the Divine Right of Kings, public flogging, corporal punishment, the "short, sharp, shock", Borstals, the ducking stool and chinese burns.

No doubt notions of providing cops with guns (as if they don't carry them already), reimplementing the "Sus Laws" (as if they were ever removed), prohibiting public protest (as if they don't have laws to deal with them already) and banning strikes (as if they haven't tried their hardest to do so since Maggie wore the crown) will emerge.

The idea of people being able to voice an opinion, other than that of their lords and masters, will be frowned upon and the ills of society will be firmly blamed on the poor, the ill-educated, single-parent families, the unemployed, youth, absent fathers and immigrants. It will have nothing to do with corrupt and deceitful politicians, one-dimensional policy makers, thieving bankers, criminal media moguls, heavy-handed policing, consumer culture or lack of resources for communities suffering desperate poverty and swathing cuts to much-needed social and community services. Divide and conquer has been and will remain the mantra of the ruling elite.

Me? I'm just reading Max Weber, you should try him. He's very good: "The impulse to acquisition, pursuit of gain, of money, of the greatest possible amount of money, has in itself nothing to do with capitalism. This impulse exists and has existed among waiters, physicians, coachmen, artists, prostitutes, dishonest officials, soldiers, nobles, crusaders, gamblers, and beggars. One may say that it has been common to all sorts and conditions of men at all times and in all countries of the earth, wherever the objective possibility of it is or has been given. It should be taught in the kindergarten of cultural history that this naïve idea of capitalism must be given up once and for all." (Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism).