The socialist politicization of Spanish public education that excludes all liberal information and the scant reading of Spaniards condemns us with a difficult remedy.
The Spanish have qualities, but we do not excel in tolerance. People do what we they been taught and very few are capable of rectifying inertias; security, intelligence and willingness are necessary to go against the tide. We are creatures of habit and imitation, and our close surroundings strongly impact. The influence of educational contents in citizens’ political position is evidenced in separatist indoctrination, but what we ignore is another influence because it is hidden. PSOE has governed 26 years since 1980 and has always controlled education. PP has prioritised an economy badly deteriorated by previous socialist governments. If we ask the Spanish if they know the universal Scot Adam Smith (AS; who I believe would be unknown even at universities), they would think it was a whisky brand. No-one knows the existence of what is not mentioned, and it is hard to learn what is not taught. In my school days, and not even as a university sciences student, was the essential AS quoted. Any reader of the Theory of Moral Sentiments or the Wealth of Nations would sympathise with liberal ideas and would be “vaccinated” against socialist fallacies. What a pity so many Spaniards miss out on so much wisdom. Without realising it, some private education institutions spread socialist ideology because AS’ liberal legacy is unknown. Prioritising the learning of French over English for too long, deficient language learning, Secondary Education teachers acting as ill-qualified civil servants, selected with no vocation guarantee and minimum knowledge and whose life-long work is never appraised, have hidden AS’ liberal legacy by ignoring it. We are told about the French Revolution, but nothing about English revolutions. The UK’s legacy has been completely vetoed from education. English pragmatism, the habit of demanding accountability, its boldness without complexes and its tolerance are all good for us. The educational marginalisation of AS’s thinking accounts for the Spanish being easy to deceive and clumsy at voting. AS’s ideas and moral are the basis of free society: if our prosperity is incompatible with that of the whole, we must yield, and with that of civilised capitalism: reforms must be cautiously made by paying attention to the popular consensus. Socialism knows that AS does away with its fallacies, and AS would never allow its teaching. So learn it yourselves and you will thankful you did. The socialist moral considers that people are selfish and virtue does not lie in individual freedom, but in the power of the State, which better knows what is worthwhile for citizens than citizens themselves. The industrial-manufacturing fabric disappears because discouraging production leads to poverty. AS’s Christian liberal and stoic moral trusts individuals, defends seeking own interests according to competition rules and results in the general benefit for being useful to others; an exchange of satisfied needs and utilities exists; it obliges us to work and serve society; it generates continuous innovation and shared prosperity. It is a win-win exchange. Socially, there is only one necessary virtue: justice. Individuals can live without benevolence, but not without justice. Treating everyone equally benefits the weakest. There are no losers and winners. The free market regulates prices that collect all relevant information. Prosperity is not suspected of exploitation. The State must minimally intervene. The aim is not to redistribute wealth, but generate it. Consuming is cooperating. These ideas are not taught in Spain because teachers ignore them, students learn impractical languages, gender ideology, indifference to one’s native land, to risk. Civil servants, unemployment, debt, poverty, taxes and corruption increase. The UK, the most liberal nation in the world, teaches AS’s legacy, its universities draw students from the entire planet, electoral rolls are neither closed nor blocked, powers are independent, the UK has half the politicians per capita and they resign with the slightest mistake, 20% lower GDP debt and 12% less unemployment than Spain, and the most powerful army of Europe. If Spanish youths learned AS, Spain would revive after a single generation.
Post published in Las Provincias