I RARELY read anything by Michael Fry because I concluded a long time ago that he simply does not understand most of the things he talks about and the thing he understands least is the concept of socialism.

I relented for his article of November 24, which simply reinforced my opinion (Race for vaccine shows capitalism is still best way to improve humanity, November 24).

For example he frequently praises what he terms the free market, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there has never been, nor can ever be, such a thing. Free markets don’t exist. He also fails to understand that socialism is neither an ideology nor a political construct.

Socialism is a methodology, the method some people, who may well be ideologically motivated, utilise in their quest for practical, workable, but above all humane, solutions to problems that are beyond the scope of private interests.

Socialism is the methodology whereby collective solutions are employed to solve problems, utilising the social sphere of society, or the power of the state, rather than the individualist market-driven approach that has so dominated our political economy for the past 40 years.

It can become an ideology if people demand that there is only one way of organising a political economy, but is not in essence an ideological construct.

By persistently applying his ideas to centralised political states, labelling them all under the catch-all “socialist”, he quite incorrectly identifies socialism as an ideological political construct identifying it with communism or states organised under the principles of Marxism/Leninism, completely ignoring the fact that socialism is quite compatible with capitalist market economies and liberal democracies.

One of the best examples of a socialist-driven economy was Britain during the Second World War, and a shining example of socialism in action is our NHS, which demonstrates beyond question that socialism can bring positive and demonstrable benefits, acceptable to all society, without raising the spectre of Stalinism or Marxist/Leninism as is so ignorantly argued in the US and by Tories like Mr Fry.

Indeed, it was the socialist methodology of Roosevelt’s New Deal that almost brought the USA a measure of civilisation, only to be squandered by ignorant free-market zealots.

The end product of all attempts to establish a free-market, neoliberal system will always be societies dominated by Thatchers, Trumps, and Johnsons, because free market political economy always necessitates monopoly whether economic or political.

You see for markets to be truly free, the rest of us must be made unfree.

There is no, nor ever has been, a dichotomy between the public and private spheres of society, they are not incompatible, and indeed, in an intelligent society, are complimentary.

Society needs the balm of collective enterprise to sooth the damage caused by the raw greed of the private sector. In addition, it is wrong to define the private sector in individualistic terms. Any society is interactive and interdependent and all private individuals live and work in a social environment; that is one of the fundamental lessons of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.

We are not obliged to choose between a market or a socialist political economy, and, in an independent Scotland I suspect that we will discover that the Scots become quite sophisticated in refining a successful blend of the two.

Peter Kerr
Kilmarnock

“AN independent Scotland will without doubt be a capitalist nation” says the good soul Michael Fry in The National. But what is a capitalist nation?

The UK-led business culture of market-driven capitalism is in deep crisis and close to collapse under a Conservative government. It is more than incredible to even consider that scenario but with further business lockdowns, commercial restrictions and wider Government interventions announced, the “Tory free market capitalism” is in a desperate condition.

To add to this apocalyptic scenario we are about to face six months of perfect storms: Covid-induced mass unemployment over Christmas, Brexit-created serious trading dislocations in January, and a backdrop of persistent global climate disasters.

Contemporary capitalism cannot cope. As we speak, the business community is pleading for public-sector intervention, taxpayer support and state-funded bail-outs. This is Corbynista socialism but with Boris-Conservatives in charge. Contradictions all around we see in this “Tory-capitalist UK .”

Thom Cross
Carluke