The non-response to Covid that has surprised many was actually how society was already operating in most…

The non-response to Covid that has surprised many was actually how society was already operating in most areas, after decades of market-based economic politics. Education a great example. Australia’s education outcomes have been in free fall. /1 https://t.co/3jMgQrSd9P

For this entire century, in fact. The education policies of the 1990s were the major driver. And what were those policies? The libertarian economic market-based (N=1) politics that we’re seeing now with Covid. John Howard’s policies, originally. Aspirational American-Dream…/2 https://t.co/cJF51IWZ3C

…politics, grafted onto Australia. The AFR is still cheering it on. Where you replace a collective focus, a ‘commonwealth’ (it’s in our name), with individual aspiration. If you have a go, you’ll get a go, that sort of stuff. /3 https://t.co/SqCazeVQVQ

Ever since John Howard the focus in education hasn’t been on outcomes, that’s not a N=1 concern. It’s been to destroy the State option, the public system. For N=1 politics, there is always only ever one policy, to destroy the State. The public. They don’t pretend otherwise. /4 https://t.co/3oJWTcjMI8

While our education system has crashed and burned, with nearly all government assistance being to find creative accounting ways to shovel public money into private schooling, in true N=1 fashion the response to the obvious decline in performance has been to blame? Teachers. /5

The quality of teachers. Not the systemic dismantling of the comprehensive education system, but individuals. It is N=1 politics, after all, individuals are their only true reality. But also curriculum, too much wokey stuff, to be replaced with the…/6 https://t.co/4mcDGTmxcs

…only collective-flavoured thing in the N=1 cupboard. Jingoism, flag-waving patriotism and ‘traditional values’. The 3 Rs. The reason education is collapsing isn’t the fact the government actually planned to do that, o no. It’s that these Leftie teachers are sub-standard…/7

…and non-aspirational. We’ve seen the same in health care, where billions of public dollars every year are spent trying to force people to adopt private health care. All of this has been going on for the entire century, and before. /8 https://t.co/l07KB6g77H

If you’re wondering why there is no public health action for Covid, there’s your answer. There’s been decades of determined strategy to remove public-everything. Across all walks of life. We notice it now more acutely in an emergency, but the change is longstanding. /9

N=1 politics has known about this decline in collective performance. It doesn’t care. It strongly believes most kids whose performance has dropped shouldn’t be aspiring to anything better. Despite its claim to aspiration, that always ONLY means the…/10 https://t.co/Iy9HGY1p8p

…top layer of society. It’s spin designed to explain their much greater wealth. They worked harder, they aspired. But they have no intention of ever sharing that layer with the unwashed. They allowed 40,000 sackings in universities during Covid. /11 https://t.co/IRl6gg38Pj

Pay attention to what they do. They did that because they actually think far too many people are at university. That’s a place for their layer of society, not for everybody else. Those other people should be in trades. This is age-old feudalism. /12

And that’s what we’re seeing right now, with Covid. People are being allowed to die, because under feudal politics they always have been allowed to. We all sat here allowing it to happen in the ‘developing’ world our entire lifetimes, and much before. And look at the global…/13

…vaccination numbers. Rich countries have decide the pandemic is over, with barely 60% of the world properly vaccinated. ‘Twas ever thus. Now this same feudal ‘let the peasants die’ attitude has entered our own societies too though. I’ve Tweeted about why. /14 https://t.co/ItHdzP6Of5

When you substitute economies for societies, the absence of public health action in developing countries is what we should expect in developed nations too. They’re all part of the same ‘market’, of individuals. The apparent exceptionalism of do-nothing-against-Covid was…/15

…a long time coming. We just weren’t paying enough attention, using personal debt to hide the dismantling of our commonwealth, of the entire public sphere. Covid is making it more visible, that’s all. /ends