I've found that people are very quick to jump on the bandwagon when it comes to the expenses scandal. Including myself in this, I've realised that most people are terribly mis-informed. Today's Times (14/10) led with the story that MPs will appeal against the retrospective regulations put in place by the man leading the inquiry, Sir Thomas Legg. One of the MPs quoted in the article claimed that she had been asked to provide mortgage payment receipts from the period 04/05, the year before she had been elected. I completely agree that MPs should repay the needless spending of public money but when people like Julia Goldsworthy have to pay back money that they hadn't received then that really is too far.
Last night's ITV evening news said that the shadow cabinet has to collectively pay back £18,000 whereas the figures for the actual Cabinet are unknown but they are expected to be "much lower". Really? Does that not seem a little fishy? The actual Cabinet is going to be expected to pay LESS than the shadow Cabinet? I find that very hard to believe.
So the end of the world is nigh. Our young people cannot read and write and the Post Office strike will cripple this country. The teaching of basic numeracy and literacy skills is severely lacking in schools according to Tesco chief Sir Terry Leahy resulting in employers having to fill the gap in knowledge. Is it hardly surprising that this country is going down the pan? British students not wanting to learn and conversely, foreign students coming in with bright eyes and bushy tails just itching to get learning are keeping the educations figures at a normal level. It worries me when people cannot tell the difference between "there" and "their"!
On a lighter note, Glaswegian translators have been advertised for at a translation company. Terrific! Former Lord Provost of Glasgow Alex Mosson laughed at the advertisement claiming that on his travels worldwide no-one failed to understand him. Sorry Alex, couldn't quite understand you there could you repeat that....
The architect of welfare states is the legendary Otto von Bismarck and he is equally liable for having started it in Germany,of which the prototype was later adopted by the English.These are some of the dangers of a welfare state because the burden falls onto the shoulders of the tax payer.In countries where there are liberal parties in power,MP expenses are almost non-existant because you can hardly claim for anything.In South Africa,which is a bit of a moderate state they give you a house,a car and state security.Hence you can't claim for having watched pornography with your mistress, as some MPs do over here.I suppose the expenses scandal over here is highly flawed because,the audits only date back to about a decade ago.What about all the Thatcher years in Office,John Major?
ReplyDeleteAs for the postal strikes,i think we will blame it on Emile Zola for having written a fictious social ideology in Germinal - that's when revolutions propagated from.The postal service,as a national entity will always experience bargaining by the labour movements - the obvious reasons are poor working conditions,over worked and under paid.So i suppose if it was to be privatised,things would change but that would mean massive job cuts as well.
That's right about Bismark. The best thing to read on German bureaucracy is Max Weber - he's a genius and a brilliant writer and it is shame that we won't have time on HCJ to do German statism and nationalism as such. I suppose you can blame Emile Zola for the postal strike - but that's a bit of a stretch.
ReplyDeleteWe had to think very carefully which thinkers we could go big in HCJ - we left out Weber and went for Freud instead. In the arts we went for Joyce rather than Proust...
Although not required Weber is a fantastic read on the nature of bureaucracy and how that works. He is similar to Kafka as well - The Trial, etc.
MAX WEBER MAX WEBER
There's a lecture on Weber here. It looks OK. Is it any good.
I have quoted Weber once before - I previously used his definition of the the state that the state is 'the monopoly of legitimate violence'. He studied the German welfare state and analysed sources of political power and how that is routinized by bureaucracy. The think about Bureaucratic. Sadly we will all spend our lives in the developed world in the grip of one bureaucracy or another; or we will be killed by the clashing agendas of different bureaucracy such as the military-industrial complex of one state against the m-i-c of another.
ReplyDeleteAnother dark and more artistic vision of bureaucracy is Kafka. Also the Final Solution had an internal bureaucratic logic to it - "well we've booked the trains and built the ovens - so we had better use them or my department will look ineffient.
The bureaucratization of education is all around us (the triumph of the bean counters) and its disasterous consequences are all around us. Its a tick-box world, etc, etc - the amassing of dubious paper qualifications which are really only of any significance tobureaucrats - the training of bureaucrats who will reproduce themselves...
Max Weber is top man and if I were teaching just on the basis of my own indulgent interests we would do tons and tons on Weber.