the Savage Injustice of the Europeans

It is common today for philosophical, political, literary and intellectual figures to be denigrated, censured and misrepresented. Adam Smith is one of these people; a particular group of ideologues often misuse and claim blatant fallacies against him to prop up their own branch of market fanaticism.  Parallel examples can be used of people's ideas being disregarded and used for malicious practices to carry forth their demented savagery. With political figures, their fascism, credentials for international terrorism and so forth have been regarded as such and we read nothing much more than propaganda about them.  These political saints include Winston Churchill, John.F Kennedy Gandhi and Nelson Mandela.

It also happens with thinkers like Adam Smith but this is rather different. Smith was not engaged in international terrorism like Kennedy or mass murder like Churchill.  With him the opposite principles apply.  So far example he talks about "the savage injustice of the Europeans".  

"It is not by the importation of gold and silver, that the discovery of America has enriched Europe. ...The commodities of Europe were almost all new to America, and many of those of America were new to Europe. A new set of exchanges, therefore, began t o take place which had never been thought of before, and which should naturally have proved as advantageous to the new, as it certainly did to the old continent. The savage injustice of the Europeans rendered an event, which ought to have been beneficial to all, ruinous and destructive to several of those unfortunate countries."

Smith was very much a man of the 18th century.  He was born in 1723 and died in 1790.  When Smith talks about "the savage injustice of the Europeans", he is referring to something quite particular.  The British Raj (rule) did not begin until 1858 and ended in 1947 when Adam Smith was dead.  It is clear then he can not have been referring to the 1943 Bengali famine orchestrated by Churchill, where conservative estimates state seven million people died, nor was Smith referring to the Indian Mutiny of 1857, which according to the Indian historian, Amaresh Misra resulted in the murder of almost ten million Indians.  He was not speaking about the 1876-1878 famine, where over ten million people died. At least five million died in the 1896-97 famine, of which Smith was not referring,  as he was dead when all these horrors took place, all at the hands of the British Empire, it must be added.  

Adam Smith, when he talked about "the savage injustice of the Europeans" was referring to the 1769-72 famine in India  An excess of ten million people died in the most savage circumstances. Of course, it is clear he was referring to the British in what only can be described as a prolonged genocide.  But Smith, for all his compassion for humanity and an opponent of savagery, is the darling of right wing lunatics, why is this, one enquiring mind ought to ask.

A few myths should be dispelled about Adam Smith.  (1), he was not in favour of THE free market, rather, he was in favour of A free market bringing  total "equality", "liberty" and "freedom". (2) For Adam Smith, one key principle is that individuals ought to be free. (3) He did not believe in the division of labour, being subjected to such things, destroys people, says Smith, but free market fundamentalists would have you believe otherwise.  Smith, no doubt, would not be in favour of the free market. He believed in the opposite of this bedraggled capitalism.  (4) Interestingly enough he labelled "the national interest" a total fraud, saying it was a delusion. (5) It was Adam Smith who said "principal architects" in his country (England), he was Scottish but no matter, were "merchants and manufacturers" who went on to say they used the state for their own interests.

Today Smith would be regarded as a dissident of sorts. Today "merchants and manufacturers" are multi-national businesses. It is far more serious than that, as people should recognise, as they are now integrated into the core fascist values of the modern "democratic" state, this fascism comes under the guise of public services. i.e corporate fascism.  These so-called public services are being over-taken by profit-driven megalomaniacs, thus removing the "democratic" from communities and entire societies.  If Adam Smith was alive today he would be regarded by the so-called right wing factions as a "lefty-loony".

some thoughts on anarchism

If anybody goes back and looks at anarchism and the the issues they were concerned with, that has magically disappeared today. Emma Goldman, wrote about “victims” in prisons, you do not get that today and the question is not even raised even from people on the left, what ever that is meant to mean anymore, and that is scary.

The main concern I have with anarchism is people’s unwillingness to label themselves as such. Just consider the terror after the 1901 assassination of the American President. What followed was a terror campaign against anarchists, not just in the U.S but all over the world. Even Sartre said he would commit to the anarchism of the 1890s but not of the 1970s and one grasps his meaning.

I believe most freedoms have been vanquished and that, for me, at least, goes back to Thatcherism and Reaganism. The savagery of the free market is now treated as Darwinian evolution; a fact of life. It is not even questioned on narrow grounds.

I am an anarchist because what separates anarchism from other ideologies is like the lunatic in Gogol. Even mainstream anarchists don’t really write about it anymore; Chomsky is the best example. I think without anarchism or the mere mention of it we will all begin to lose our humanity, at least whats left of it in this decaying world.

Anarchism is the one ideology that is separate from all the others; it is the only one that does not worship state power.  Tell me, can anyone tell me where a serious anarchist press is?  There isn't one and if there was, Anarchism would be a meaningful movement once again but government have dispelled that nonsense called freedom yet continue to prattle on about it as if it was the greatest thing on the earth.  All our prejudices have take over our instincts and the consequences are humanity's retardation.

If Kafka would have lived longer he would have embraced anarchism, he was already beginning to, his favourite book too was one by Kropotkin.  Anarchism is prevalent through great literature: Beckett, Zola, Balzac, Gogol, Joyce, Steinbeck.  

If we are, as a community, a race, a civilisation, as humanitarians, are concerned about liberty, morality, freedom, we should start  to develop basic philosophical and moral principles.  Government, is, to quote Godwin, "the brute engine", that is correct but we must become active citizens and disregard the government, any government and smash this nonsensical idea about authority.  I think the start is to develop arts-based community groups and get people involved in film and literature and that way they will start to develop a sense of compassion, humility, and solidarity.  It is a slow step forward; it is a step forward nonetheless.  

The new colonialism

In 2013 John Wight, writing for the Huffington Post UK, says:

The assault on the unemployed by the government constitutes a hate crime. In fact, the cynical attempt to stigmatise, demonise, and dehumanise millions of people up and down the country, regardless of their personal or individual circumstances, surely ranks as one of the most vicious and brutal acts of any British government in living memory. It leaves us in no doubt that in 2013 the nation is being governed by a clutch of extreme right wing, rich, privileged, dangerous sociopaths, people who are completely out of touch with reality and whose conception of fairness is founded in Darwin's theory of natural selection.

It is no longer 2013, a general election has been and gone and much else besides has happened. When Mr. Wight was writing this, the Liberal Democrats were sharing power with Osborne and company. Extremists they are, the Tories that is, but now they have a majority, life will become unbearable for many. In the latest budget, which was largely praised by the liberal press, the Chancellor has exceeded all expectations. It was the young, the unemployed and the public sector that were savaged by the budget announcements. 

One must be honest in making remarks about the current state of affairs. The country, at present, is being run by sadistic, sociopathic, psychopathic, barbaric, brutal, savage, inhumane, disgusting creatures at Whitehall but one must also consider the following: if the Labour Party were elected instead of these brutes, little would change, in effect, the country is defunct, or just about. Why be so pessimistic, downbeat, one may ask. yes, and they would be right to ask such questions.

When you openly declare war on children, poor children specifically; the sick; the disabled; nurses and teachers; unions, who, after all, defend workers' rights; emigres; the unemployed; single mothers and others, and when everybody, apart from a few people, show apathy and indifference; that is a decaying society. It is a society without decency; without humility; without humanity. In the country, entire communities no longer exist as they should; it has turned into a neo-liberal fascist enterprise for big business and the annihilation and denial of even the basic services for people of all varieties. 

There has been a purge, of sorts, dissident opinion no longer exists, only criticism within the framework of the parliamentary system exists. Culturally, the country is a graveyard, as it is morally; intellectually; politically and the people that live here are dying with it. Owen Jones, the political commentator, and writer, wrote several years ago the Tories have created a system where everyone at the bottom are fighting each other. He is right. The public sector workers and people on low wages are venting their vitriol at the unemployed; the unemployed are doing the same against immigrants. At the same time, the people they should be angry at, the plutocrats, CEOs, rich people who pay a pittance of tax and who exploit their workers like Baron Wolfson; Philip Green and their ilk, are ravaging the country like wild beasts.

That is why this is not a rational society; people here are as free as, say those in North Korea; China or Saudi Arabia. They have been so indoctrinated and brainwashed by the media and the television system, they are unable to think anymore. They, instead, prefer to watch television; play video games; watch imperialist junk at the movies. People in Britain are not even free; and they do not even know it. People, in England, have no notion of what freedom is , and worse still, I do not think they even care. 

Ultimately it is year zero. Only work and death exist. The emphasis is on work, profits, big business and nothing else. People have become commodities; cogs in the machine and are unable to think anymore, because work has taken over their lives, because with the hideous hours they are working, without that, they would not be able to feed their children anymore. What is the solution, there is no solution. Until the population wake up from their lobotomization, nothing will change; in fact, it will change. The country will become more and more totalitarian and by that time the Kafkaesque nightmare will be inescapable.







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