to think wanting to overthrow capitalism is not an extreme political stance

[chomalungma]

New school guidance issued last week for education.

www.gov.uk/guidance/plan-your-relationships-sex-and-health-curriculum#choosing-resources

Issued last Thursday, the guidance reads: “Schools should not under any circumstances use resources produced by organisations that take extreme political stances on matters.
“Examples of extreme political stances include, but are not limited to: a publicly stated desire to abolish or overthrow democracy, capitalism, or to end free and fair elections, opposition to the right of freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of assembly or freedom of religion and conscience

There are alternatives to capitalism. People may not like them, I don't necessarily agree with them - but I don't think it's an extreme political stance to take.

Yet the Government think it is.

Are people who think that there alternatives to capitalism taking an extreme political stance?

*comment economies like the USSR suffered shortages and there was horrendous cronyism which led to terrible inequality and lack of opportunities for many. I have family who lived there and it was impossible to get ahead without knowing the right people.

Wow that could never happen here hmm*

With all respect, SheWrangles a temporary lack of loo roll is nothing like the shortages in they had.

Imagine waiting for hours for something, anything. Imagine shops empty, not just some shelves but the whole shop, for weeks.

Imagine trying to buy a bra and they only come in one size, because that’s what the plan says.

Imagine having the bribe the doctor every time just to be seen and paying the nurses so you won’t be let lying in your excrement for hours.

When it comes to Russia, bribes, cronyism and corruption are still exceptionally handy if you want to get ahead.

You could say Russia is both an appalling advert for communism/socialism and an appalling advert for capitalism.

Again, try buying the right size bra when you are a 14 year old litter picker in a dump in capitalist Nairobi.

@Alez

It's interesting how people are talking about non-capitalist states as all dictatorships that overthrew previous leaders. That's not true - Salvador Allende was elected president of Chile. He was overthrown by a group supported by the CIA and the US in a coup....one of the reasons there hasn't been more elected non-capitalist leaders is most likely internal workings behind the scenes by the US.

Ah that’s it. It’s because socialism is never given a chance, because CIA is working against socialist regimes. The biggest myth the socialists peddle out after the one about ‘but but but look At Scandinavian socialism’ when Scandinavian countries are definitively capitalist.

Or, indeed, not dying from a preventable disease as a toddler because vaccines aren’t available where you live.

Scandinavian countries are definitively capitalist, but there would be less confusion about this if right wing politicians would cease pretending that all suggestions made by the left are socialist and incompatible with capitalism when they patently aren’t.

Why Nairobi? You were talking if something that can happen here. Don’t move the goalposts.

Also, try to have protection from your union or anything like ACAS.

The union, the state and planning committee are on one side, and that’s not the the one of the worker.

In the so called workers state the workers have no protection whatsoever.

You could say Russia is both an appalling advert for communism/socialism and an appalling advert for capitalism

That’s an interesting point.

I agree OP.

I’m not saying:

• capitalism is bad
• capitalism should be abolished
• capitalism has no merit
• communism is preferable to capitalism
• that in order to learn about history or anything else, children necessarily need materials produced by organisations who wish to abolish capitalism

However it is concerning and disquieting that this new rule functions to enshrine capitalism as the only acceptable economic system. It quietly places it beyond reproach in quite a fundamental way.

It is not extremist to consider future alternatives to capitalism or to believe capitalism can be improved upon with alternatives.

It is also not extremist to believe capitalism is the best system and that abolishing capitalism would be a bad idea.

However it is worrying to label any dissent from that view ‘extremist’.

@CayrolBaaaskin just what period are you comparing to, to declare we have more employment rights than ever? Or perhaps specific rights? It is a mishmash.

What I am thinking of is the fact that zero hour contracts have become a normal way of running retail and similar service industries. You can have no fixed hours a week, no fixed shifts, but have to be fully available 24/7. Each shift refusal for any reason is held very much against you. Holiday pay and sick pay is limited, and can be cancelled. There is also the fact that you can be dismissed from any job for any reason at any time within the first two years, no comeback, no reasons. There are fewer breaks; it used to be, even in retail, that you worked 4 hours to get a break of 20 mins, 6 hours for 30 mins and 8 hours for an hour, and no one would have dreamed of making anyone work over lunch time without a break. You now work 6 hours without breaks. Pay in real terms is much much lower than it was. You can be asked to work for an hour unpaid each day - technically this might be illegal, I’m not sure, but these workers don’t have access to any mechanisms to stop it. These are the things that matter to workers, speaking as one of the low-level supervisors.

Why Nairobi? Because I'm pointing out that while we here on mumsnet are mostly nicely insulated against the pointy end of capitalism, others are not so fortunate. Shortages are an inherent feature of capitalism. The guy who engineered a massive price hike for a vital medicine in the USA single-handedly organised a shortage.

Even where you are given fixed shifts, they can be reduced or taken away in the middle with no warning. It’s difficult when you have to arrange -and pay for - childcare.

And @Southwestten, sorry it wasn’t very comprehensible- I meant those of us under 50 will never see the same benefits that the current retired population has. Actually those over 50 are complaining of reduced rights too.

This guidance reflects an existing law (in the Education Act 1996) against ‘political indoctrination’ in schools. This law is a good thing. None of us should want schools that politically indoctrinate pupils (and if you do want this, North Korea is waiting to offer you a home).

It’s one thing to discuss the works of, say, Marx and Engels with older pupils. But this should be done in the context of critical analysis and discussion and consideration of alternative views - and these alternative views should also be subjected to critical analysis and discussion. This can be really stimulating & enjoyable & I’m in favour of it- but it is very different from presenting one view as correct.

Obviously this wouldn’t be appropriate for younger pupils who don’t have the cognitive resources to evaluate arguments about say the rule of law or the theory of trickle down capitalism.

The guidance is inept and not legally accurate because the test is whether indoctrination is taking place, not whether a view is extreme or not. The nature of the view is irrelevant for the purpose of the law against political indoctrination. The law actually prohibits indoctrination in favour of capitalism as well....or indeed about any political theory ....but the guidance is silent about that as far as I know. It’s what happens when guidance is written by people who haven’t bothered to read the actual law.

Thanks @Gladysthesphinx that is interesting

Ah that’s it. It’s because socialism is never given a chance, because CIA is working against socialist regimes. The biggest myth the socialists peddle out after the one about ‘but but but look At Scandinavian socialism’ when Scandinavian countries are definitively capitalist.

Two things:

1. it is beyond a shadow of a doubt that the CIA were involved in the deposing of Allende and installation of Pinochet. They have also been clearly involved in interfering with politics in other central and South American countries. This isn't a myth and of they can do it there, why not elsewhere?

2. Scandinavian countries are social democracies that have state control over significant sectors. Describing them as definitively capitalist or socialist is wrong as they are neither.

An example is the Norwegian state oil company Equinor (formerly statoil), state owned and uses excess oil revenues to fund a sovereign wealth fund that invests in Scandinavian business meaning partial state ownership across a large number of sectors. The revenues from these investments are then used to support social welfare (such as pensions) in Norway. A state owned energy company using its funds to support social welfare doesn't sound very capitalist to me.

Pushing for a "social democracy" would seem a better electoral bet.

But it's not as stirring in the barricades.

" on the barricades" forgive fat fingers.

Is wanting to overthrow it an extreme political act?

Yes, it means an abolishment of private property. This cannot happen without violence.

You know what they did to landlords in China, right? Executed them. Not good.

try buying the right size bra when you are a 14 year old litter picker in a dump in capitalist Nairobi

Alternative is what? 14-year-old working on a subsistence farm barely enough food to feed a family much less make a living. Either way wouldn’t have a ‘right-size bra’. Funny how when there’s a choice to stay in the countryside on a farm and the opportunity to go to a city and make extra money, most choose the latter.

The guy who engineered a massive price hike for a vital medicine in the USA single-handedly organised a shortage

He’s in jail you know

He was roundly abused too. Just like Adam Smith would be expecting.

comment economies like the USSR suffered shortages and there was horrendous cronyism which led to terrible inequality and lack of opportunities for many. I have family who lived there and it was impossible to get ahead without knowing the right people.

Wow that could never happen here hmm

This is your comment, Rugs. Here, as on a website based in the UK used mostly by UK users means here, not Nairobi.

You seen to be completely unaware of life under communism/socialism. The workers have no rights. The Worker, as the whole class of workers is completely different from you as worker, who is only seen as a spanner in the state's cogs.

The guy who engineered a massive price hike for a vital medicine in the USA single-handedly organised a shortage.

Even if that happens the market will correct itself. A few examples of market rigging are nothing, the whole market is rigged in communism/socialism.

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

Would you like to live in a country with capitalism in its purest form?

What is capitalism in its purest form?

It's not what we have here. the tread is about here and now.

But I'm not happy to live in a socialist/comminist county. I have spent time what used to be the DDR and the USSR, and I've heard and seen the stories of shortages, hunger and state intimidation and crumbling health care. There is no protection for the individual worker, at all, No ACAS, no Employment Tribunals. Nothing.

Is this something you would to have?

Is this something you would to have

No
And nor would I like to live in a society where it's all free market and the State does very little.

I do think we can do 'better' than we have now. I have been to countries where there is little support from the State for people who fall by the way side. These are capitalist countries - but if you need State support, there is very little. There is massive inequalities and real poverty.

I remember being approached by some street children who wanted the bones off my chicken wings that I had finished. This in a capitalist country. But one that has very little support for people who fall by the wayside.