Censorship and indoctrination diminish the possibilities for emancipatory change
Prem Sikka is an Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex and the University of Sheffield, a Labour member of the House of Lords, and Contributing Editor at Left Foot Forward.
The right-wing coups sweeping though the UK, USA and much of Europe are diminishing possibilities of emancipatory change by subtle forms of censorship and indoctrination. Books and scientific journals are being censored to reshape people’s subjectivities and produce a docile population. People are concerned about inequalities, poverty, crumbling infrastructure, loss of social rights and rising power of corporations and wealthy elites. But governments want to make people foot-soldiers of capitalism and corporations, and entice them with possibility of riches through speculation on stock markets. None of this can deliver prosperity, happiness or social stability.
New censorships
The US President Donald Trump has ordered Pentagon-run schools to suspend books “related to gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology topics”. This builds upon a history of banning school books that the authorities find challenging. Researchers publishing papers in peer-reviewed medical and science journals have been ordered to retract banned terms from research already accepted for publication or in the process of being revised. Those refusing risk ending their scientific careers. The President has blocked Associated Press reporters from the Oval Office briefings.
The UK isn’t an oasis of freedom either. Rather than welcoming education which enables understanding of society, ministers attack media and cultural studies degrees as they encourage critique of contemporary power structures. Books are removed from university libraries because of the grim depiction of everyday realities. There is a history of banning books by authors such as JK Rowling, James Joyce and George Orwell. In 2022, the government ordered schools in England not to use material from groups that believe that capitalism should end. So, what chances that books about the suffragettes, working class history, and the American and French revolutions, or by writers such as Charles Dickens, Mahatma Gandhi, VS Naipaul, HG Wells and Virginia Woolf would be used to stimulate discussions about social justice, inequality, power and democracy? Such literature can demystify power and show that people’s life chances are not governed by some invisible hand of fate. Rather their social condition is governed by institutions of politics, which can be changed.
The state-sponsored censorship is at odds with the need to develop education systems that encourage critical thinking and enable people to analyse the world to secure emancipatory change. Yet increasingly education is associated with the maintenance of status-quo. Those offering alternative worldviews face the prospect of being ostracised, silenced and exiled as the western world races to an inglorious past. Greek philosopher Socrates was sentenced to death for encouraging the young to think critically. Galileo was persecuted by the Catholic Church Galileo advancing the heliocentric model of the universe. Nazi Germany burnt thousands of books that it disapproved of.
Mirage of Riches
Governments are subservient to corporations and the ultra-rich. Rather than addressing the causes of social injustice, governments distract people with promises of riches and security, not through decent wages, healthcare, education and pensions but by serving capitalism and becoming speculators on stock markets.
Share ownership does not spare anyone from the ravages of capitalism. They will still face wage freezes; eroding living standards; rocketing bills for energy, food, water and other essentials, and can be hired and fired just like any employee.
Since the early 1980s, governments have privatised publicly-owned services such as telecommunications and gas. They handed discounted shares to the general public, in the belief that this would encourage share ownership. However, this has not been the case. Today, only around 10.8% of the UK quote company shares are directly held by UK-resident individuals. This is despite numerous tax incentives, such as taxing capital gains and dividends at lower rates than wages.
Undeterred, neoliberals want the state to encourage people to buy/sell shares. In February 2025, a Minister said: “The Government want to see more people taking part in capital markets and benefitting from the long-term financial security that investing can provide”. There is merit in promoting financial literacy, but urging people to speculate on the stock market casino is something entirely different. Governments are not dispelling any of the myths of share ownership.
Due to inequitable distribution of income and wealth, share ownership is beyond the reach of most people. One recent survey suggested that 34% of adults had either no savings or had less than £1,000. Another reported that 66% of adults have average savings of less than £10,000, and there are huge gender differences. Buying and selling shares isn’t a priority for most people, and there are safer investments.
To manage risks of investment, people need to hold diversified portfolios. That is difficult when resources are limited. Some may secure a measure of diversification through Stocks and Share ISAs or unit trusts but governments want to encourage direct share ownership. Financial institutions are able to extract information from company executives over lunch-table meetings, but individual investors have no power to extract or analyse information even when it is publicly available.
Governments create the image that wider share ownership will lead to more investment in the economy. That isn’t necessarily so. Most of the shares and bonds traded on stock markets are not new. Individual A buys shares/bonds from B, money is exchanged between A and B, not-a-penny goes to the company for investment in productive assets.
Contrary to the myths, shareholders do not own companies. They acquire some controlling rights but do not own the company or its assets. Directors of the company are not required obey directions given by the shareholders as individuals, and are not agents appointed by and bound to serve the shareholders as their principals. Their duty is to the company. Shareholders cannot force directors to follow a particular business strategy, disinvest or pay dividends. Their vote on remuneration is usually not binding.
Due to uncertainties, shareholders are focused on short-term returns. In the US, the average share holding duration is around 22 seconds. In the era of automated trading, can the UK be far behind? Consideration of the long-term is inevitably downgraded. Faced with share price volatility and investor pressures, companies are paying larger proportions of earnings in dividends. A Bank of England economist noted that in 1970, major UK companies paid out about £10 of each £100 of profits in dividends. By 2015 the amount was between £60 and £70, often accompanied by a squeeze on labour and investment. Water companies in England are a classic example. They have paid vast amount in dividends by borrowing money, and are now teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. No shareholder objected to vast pay-outs or dumping of sewage in rivers.
The stock market is a casino but it isn’t necessarily a source of new finance. In 2023, companies raised £953.7m by issuing new shares. This rose to £3.4bn in 2024. In 2024, UK-listed companies retuned £86.5bn in dividends to shareholders, and FTSE100 companies alone returned another £56.9bn in share buybacks. The stock market functions as a cash extraction machine. The net result is that companies rely upon retained earnings and debt to finance long-term investment in productive assets. The UK has been bottom of the G7 league for investment in 24 out of last 30 years, and is ranked 28th among 31 OECD countries.
Shareholders have the benefit of limited liability, which confers unlimited liability on others. For example, at Carillion, directors appeased shareholders by paying high dividends, mainly financed by borrowing. The company collapsed with £7bn of liabilities, including a £2.6bn pension liability. Thousands of employees lost some of their pension rights. Thousands of small businesses lost money due to them and became bankrupt. Social irresponsibility is an integral part of share ownership. Companies can pay dividends by flooding rivers with sewage, encouraging smoking and causing health hazards with processed foods, but shareholders do not bear any personal responsibility for the resulting consequences.
There is a strong case for reforming capitalism, share ownership; shareholder-centric model of corporate governance and rights and obligations of stakeholders, but that is not on the government’s agenda.
The western world is moving into a new age of propaganda. Governments rarely address causes of social injustice but manage public concerns by creating new folk-devils and moral panics. They promote the claim that gender orientations, diversity and equality are somehow damaging society rather than inequalities and the power of corporations and wealthy elites. Censorship is enacted, books are banned, and research is obstructed to discipline people, create fear and force compliance. People who struggle to make ends meet are urged to become speculators, and foot-soldiers of capitalism. This promotes a kid of individualism which has little or no regard for collective welfare of society.
Image credit: Gage Skidmore – Creative Commons
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