Another lecture on Communism (and I promised I wouldn't ... )
Listening to: → Café Blue - The Style Council (1984). This banger came out 42(!) years ago this week. Aaaargggh, that's sooooo long ago and I am soooooo old. Kill me nowwwwurrrgh.
I'm not sure why, but there are local elections on in The Netherlands so this afternoon, during lunchbreak, I popped along to the community center and did my duty for King and country.
Not that it'll matter much - no one gives a shit about local elections (turnout was low, 28% at 3pm, and never more than 53% in previous local elections) and it's always the same crowd that get in anyway: right-wing free market zealots, the same ones running the country for the last thirty years or so and generally not making things any better.
It's a shame, because while I really do think that national governments are a waste of good oxygen, local elections are where the real changes can happen. In the past I've flirted with all-out Communism and have generally always voted either Socialist Party or GroenLinks (who themselves are descended from older Dutch Communist parties) I think my system of beliefs are rooted more in the thinking of R. H. Tawney.
→ R.H. Tawney was a British Christian socialist who believed that capitalism was morally rotten at its core — too focused on profit and not enough on human dignity or the common good. He argued that wealth and economic life should serve a social purpose, not just enrich the few, and he was a passionate advocate for greater equality, particularly through education. His big idea was simple: a just society is built on shared values and mutual responsibility, not the relentless pursuit of private gain.
That kind of thinking resonates more with me - a belief in a strong welfare state, dignity of work; a social support framework built around community, family and local institutions; a rejection of, or at least a sceptical attitude towards technocracy & hyper-liberalism; not aggressively progressive culturally, but not right-wing either, and, lastly, an emphasis on solidarity and belonging, not just redistribution.
There's no real political party in the Netherlands that covers all that - they all say they do to some degree but most don't really. Likewise, in the UK you don't have anything like this. Labour has long given up it's socialist working class roots for technocracy and management by experts. → Blue Labour probably comes closest but they're not a party, more a pressure group within the Labour Party.
The closest is probably CDA, but they're too right-wing; or ChristenUnie, who probably come closest to what I think, but I'm not sure what I feel about the Christian part of their thinking. Also, they're too small to make a dent, really, so a vote for them is probably a waste of time. Just like me voting SP and GroenLinks has been.
→ So fuck it, voted for them anyway.
Now, I know I promised I wouldn't deliver another lecture on communism but you got one anyway. Well, not quite communism - ethical socialism, probably closer. But still. Sorry. → Still working out some nicer topics to write about. I'll do better tomorrow.
In other news:
- Tennis this evening, should be good. Well, I'm not that good, I always feel I am letting the others in the lesson down. They come there to learn, and then there's this sweaty auld yin huffin' and puffin' his way across the baseline. I always feel I should apologise for ruining their evening.
- I managed to put off the technical interview with our Ops candidate until tomorrow as I just wasn't ready for it. Couldn't think of any questions, so got ChatGPT to make me a whole interview script, complete with questions, answers and red flags to look out for.
Right, that's yer lot. Time you went, yer dinner is probably getting cold.