OK, Adam Smith – you describe him as a compatriot of Hood, and then go on to discuss England and the English economy. Technically Scotland was not in the UK at the time you describe – medieval, because UK didn’t exist, and anyway UK is not England. Anyone who didn’t know Smith’s nationality would take away the impression that he was English from your presentation, I was simply redressing that. This is a minor quibble, which is why I didn’t dwell on it in my response.

You say your comparison of ‘misery’ was from a material point of view. My point of course is that misery is not an objective measure of material existence – it is a subjective judgement of quality of life. This can be measured in ways of course, but not by simply referring to the material, economic environment.

On education – well, in a given article I can only judge the presentation. If there is something significantly distinct regarding your treatment of the subject because of prior arguments you’ve made, well and good. The problem, as I see it (before checking out your other pieces, because I will) is that any effort to change education, training, etc, will always be downstream from the fundamental control of social resources. That includes the accepted norms, theories, science, histories, even stories reported in media. If all of the above is controlled by a tiny clique of self-feeding parasites, whose only aim is to maintain their advantage, you can absolutely guarantee that the only education and training permitted by them will be that which does not challenge their supremacy, in any way. And, surprise surprise, that is exactly what we see. Current global attempts to rein in free expression, on the internet, in mass media, in social media, here on steemit, are a living testament to this. Their monopoly on money/resources flows underlines it.
So that is my point. We have to get upstream – or, in another metaphor, to the root of the problem. That, indeed, is a redistribution of wealth issue – from the criminal oligarchy to the rest of humanity. Until that happens, everything else is moot. Now how this is done is of course another question.

Yes, I picked up that your beef was with socialist redistribution – and yes, it is invariably calamitous. One reason, I hazard, is because it is top-down and authoritarian, always – rather than ground-up and organic as a result of free interaction between sovereign individuals. So I totally agree with you here, and yes, your home country is a salutary lesson for us all. However, until the global oligarchy is wrenched from its perch, little ‘education’ is going to help redress the imbalances that currently exist – because the current controllers won’t let it. If they do let it, it leads right to their destruction, and they know it.

Happy to read your article friend, these are important subjects; I enjoyed your presentation and style, and will catch up with the pieces you linked to here. Db