dilbert's thinking is lazy, contrarian, and barely even joined up.
the real target of his rants, deservedly so, are elites – who are the same as a class all over the world, whether it's harvard–yale or oxbridge or the good boarders of private schools in sydney and melbourne who skip on to the universities there. these pilgrimages to lives of plenty and power do not invalidate those institutions. it's a sideshow.
these people don't spend their time at university trying to become earnest scholars. your oxford toffs aren't all trying to get the double-starred first (or equivalent) and merit the entrance exam to all soul's college. they're spending their time networking, consolidating their elite networks, and trying to get elected as president of the oxford/cambridge union, a debating society practice run for the house of commons. the vast majority of their energies are devoted to extra-curriculars and 'getting on' to their real destination: power and prestige.
ironically, when i talk about the politics of reducing inequality/broadening access, levelling society's playing field, and thereby reducing the power of said elites to swan around the world treating it as their plaything or bauble ... dilbert endlessly speaks out against this. 'socialists always want to use other people's money'. 'hedge fund managers are people too'. well who is passing through these elite educations, the way paved for them with all the money and insider networking in the world, but for the sons and daughters of your sympathetic hedge fund managers?!
percentage of cabinet ministers in each respective government who went to elite fee-paying private schools. notice the clear conservative/labour trend.
and yet when i talk about increasing taxes on the rich, you make out i'm a socialist who wants to ruin society. here's an easy example of increased tax capture, for the public good: tax the top private schools, which perpetuate this system of entrenched privilege and are the real seedbeds of our political mediocrity, and which are tax-exempt and treated as charities, bizarrely. eton gets at least an 80% reduction on its business rates. the tax exemptions of this tiny list of schools make up the value of 6% of the entire state school budget alone.
but if i suggest taxing the rich who are running this country as their personal fiefdoms, dilbert wants to defend them. because he's a little self-man man, isn't he? oh yes.
dilbert, your politics are a hodgepodge mess, driven as much by your own vanity and petty resentments as anything else. projecting onto tweedy history professors because 1 in every 300 students they teach went to Eton and is on their way to the halls of power. but if i speak out about inequality and about directly targeting these breeding grounds of future incompetent and entitled tory ministers … socialism !!!!
Last edited by uziq (2022-10-27 05:00:16)