The essential MSM Monitor captured the above astonishing claim yesterday.
This claim is nonsense. Communism requires the abolition of private property, elimination of the profit motive, central planning of the whole economy including actual ownership of the supermarkets. Swinney is merely telling the massively profitable supermarket chains to absorb some of the costs.
In Imperial Rome, a slave based market economy, it often capped food prices.1
Medieval England, a feudal system identified by Karl Marx as utterly different from his ideas, often regulated bread and grain prices.2
During World War II, all of the allies, including the US and the UK, had extensive price controls.3
After World War II, Italy and France had food price control. 4
More recently, India one of the most unequal countries on the planet has long had ‘minimum support prices’ on staples.5
Finally, in the most unequal, least ‘communist’ country of all, the USA, some cities and states have had short-term ‘grocery caps.’6
Why would media and some politicians refer to food price caps in a cost of living crisis as ‘communism’
Remember this from 2018 as the BBC joined with the other media in the demonisation of Jeremy Corbyn to enable the emergence of the right-wing Labour leadership, their senior staff are more comfortable with.
As in the above on Corbyn, describing the SNP’s essential food price caps as ‘communist’, is an attempt to ‘rally the base‘ of voters who will react simply to it, accept the simple labelling and whose values tend to characterise the poor as undeserving.
Where might Labour and the BBC have got the idea from?
In October 2023, Sir Mark Spencer accused the SNP suggestion that the Conservative government should bring in caps on the price of staples as ‘advocating communism’ and portraying them as radical leftists.6 The Daily Record and Murdo Fraser echoed the same argument.7
Sources:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_on_Maximum_Prices
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assize_of_Bread_and_Ale
- https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/compliance-with-price-controls-in-the-united-states-and-the-united-kingdom-during-world-war-ii/6E898B3CBAB6A75F55D1D184A4DBBCEF
- https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w3852/w3852.pdf
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_support_price_(India)
- https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-10-19/debates/73907D10-EC4E-4B7D-9D14-BA406948AD3E/FoodAffordabilityAndInflation
- https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-proposal-staple-food-price-31227883
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I amused myself by composing an email to ITV, not that I expect it to do any good but it made me feel better. If you don’t mind, I’ll share it because I doubt anyone at ITV will actually read it. 😉
To whom it may concern:
Peter Smith stated that ‘government fixing the price of food in shops is something we have known over the last century better as communism.’
First, if Peter Smith actually believes that capping prices is ‘communism’, I strongly urge you to hire a better-educated news correspondent. In communism, the state would own the supermarkets. I direct Mr. Smith and the news editor to the nearest dictionary.
Second, a price cap and price fixing are not the same thing. Price fixing sets all prices at the same level, thus eliminating competition, while a price cap merely prevents price gouging while still allowing price competition below the cap. Again, I direct Mr. Smith and the news editor to the nearest dictionary.
Third, this comment gives the appearance of a politically biased attack. I have not heard Mr. Smith call the UK energy price cap communism. Oddly enough, he is not calling the Labour government’s £2 bus fare cap in England communism or the capped transport fees in Labor-run London. But an SNP-proposed cap on groceries (which will cost consumers nothing) is communism? Or maybe it is merely ITV showing which political party it supports.
So take your pick. Which should I ascribe to Mr. Smith and ITV? Political bias or stupidity?
This showed neither Mr. Smith nor ITV in a good light, especially immediately before an election. I strongly recommend you do better. Both the SNP and John Swinney, whom Mr Smith implied was a communist, are owed apologies, but sadly I do not expect they will receive them.
Sincerely,
J. R. Tomlin
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Ha ha ha – calling John Swinney a “communist” is the height of flattery in Scotland. It will boost his ratings among the urban masses starved of bread and land. What a brilliant tactic.
Dyed-in-the-wool Tories were never going to vote SNP anyway.
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