Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Donald Trump is a symptom not the cause of our current malaise

November 14, 2018Economics#Erasmus, Adam Smith, Boris Johnson, Burgundy, Charles the Bold, Donald Trump, free market economics, Keynesian Economics, Leibniz, Renaissance, social democracy, the Enlightenment, The Forty Years Warangrytunbridgewells

Authors such as Erasmus are little read today. Once his ‘Adages’ were the bedside reading for statesman. In this book he uses a series of Adages or popular saying as the source for coded attacks on the follies of the great and the wise of his time. In placing his criticisms in stories about the great men of classical Greece and Rome, he avoided offending the great and good of his day. He was even resorting to publishing the first edition of his book was not published under a pseudonym to avoid the wrath of the powerful. The princes and dukes of Renaissance Italy squandered the wealth of their states in a series of pointless wars. It was this folly which he highlighted time and time again in ‘The Adages’. He despaired of these men who saw the only good as being their personal glory, which they could only be achieved on the battlefield.

What these men lacked was an understanding of how the states they governed functioned to produce the wealth necessary for the well being of the people. Wealth for them was what they used to demonstrate and display their power. Perhaps the best example of such folly was the behaviour of Charles the Bold of Burgundy. His army of elite knights wore armour that appeared to be gold, probably from the gold plate on steel. They made a magnificent spectacle. However this arrogant prince and his armoured knights were destroyed in battle by the peasant pikemen of Switzerland. His now ruined and defenceless state was taken over by his astute neighbour Louis of France and who added it to his kingdom.

The horrors of war were certainly demonstrated in the ‘forty years’ war that devastated Germany in the 17th century. Unparalleled acts of barbarism occurred during this war. As usual the victims were the people who suffered from hunger and the deprivations inflicted on them by the soldiers of the various states that fighting this war. One of the states that suffered most was Saxony, yet it’s Duke and his court enjoyed the luxuries of courtly life untroubled by war. The only inconvenience they suffered was from having to relocate occasionally to avoid being victims of this war.

This horrific war was one of the factors that gave rise to the enlightenment ; philosophers believed that mankind had to be re-educated into a better way of living. If mankind was taught that a better way of life was possible, the bloody wars of the past would not reoccur. They believed that if reason was elevated into being the principle governing all human behaviour, the horrors of the past could be avoided. Leibniz a German philosopher stated that God created the best of all possible worlds and if people lived life according to the laws dictated by the rational God, the best possible of lives would be available to all. Although the enlightenment philosophers were accused of naivety, in that they failed to understand the cruelty inherent in human nature. They were in fact all to aware how easy human society could lapse into barbarism. They wanted to convince people and princes that a better life than that of the brute was possible.

The enlightenment gave rise to an academic industry that generation after generation turned out volumes on how to create a better society. One such philosopher was Adam Smith, who realising the importance of commerce and industry to the well being of the people produced ‘The Wealth of Nations’. While there has always scepticism about the influence philosophers and the teachers of the humanities had on the behaviour of politicians and people, there was a time when politicians deferred to academia. When I was young politicians believed that economists possessed a body of knowledge that if followed would maximise the well being of people. This is the now derided Keynesian economics. Similarly politicians sought the advice of other experts, the Plowden report that led to the transformation of education in the 1960’s was drafted by educational sociologists.

However the politicians can be said to have turned there back on what can be best termed the enlightenment project. A series of economic crises in the 1970s led politicians to believe that any attempt to manage the economy and society to maximise the well being of the people was doomed to failure. Academic economists did not possess the knowledge essential necessary for the management of the economy. Such a role was best left to the collective wisdom displayed by the free market.

Now the circle appeared to have turned, politicians no longer believe that an informed knowledge of the society and economy is necessary. Events for them have proved that it does not exist. Now our politicians behave like some latter day renaissance prince, seeing personal glory as the only ambition worthy of a politician. Managing the economy and society to maximise the well being of the people, is no longer the task of politicians. In Britain politicians regularly demonstrate an ignorance of the society and the economy. Boris Johnson when he said ‘bugger business’ is an exemplar of current political thinking. While Donald Trump is derided for his ignorance of the wider society and countries beyond the American shore, he is little different from leading U.K. politicians. They disguise their ignorance in politer phrasing of their words, they may even eager resort to what appear as learned comments, but their thinking comprises little more than a rote learning of what are deemed the political essentials needed for any politician. In the U.K. as in America ignorance no longer a barrier to high office.

Why it matters that politicians lie

April 16, 2018Economics, PoliticsAnglo-Saxon democracy, Athenian Democracy, Bank Debts, Congestion charge, Donald Trump, Fascism, Franklin Roosevelt, Global Warming, Huey Long, Jeremy Corbyn and Czechoslovakian spy, Liberal Democracy, Oswald Moseley, Right Wing Popularism, The Great Depression, US Congress vacillationangrytunbridgewells

Why are people so tolerant of lying politicians? It no longer seems to matter that politicians are exposed as liars, in fact some politicians have made a career out of being known as audacious liars. When one senior British politician is caught yet again in manufacturing falsehood, it is said that its only X behaving as X does. His lying makes him bit of a card. Nobody seems to mind that lies are increasingly becoming the common mode of the political dialogue. Politicians have always lied to protect their careers or to advance party interest; what has changed now is that the political lie is now seen as noblest of the political arts, being exposed as a compulsive liar no longer disqualifies a politician from the highest office, rather it is seen as a necessary qualification for high office. This terrible corruption of public behaviours is destroying the integrity of the political process. Democratic politics can only function if there is a certain degree of integrity, that is the political players must respect the rules of the game, when they show a contempt for these rules they discredit the whole system of governance.

There is a terrible warning from history that our politicians ignore at their peril. When in the fourth century BCE, Athenian democracy was threatened by the Persian kings, the whole population was united in resisting the invaders. Then when in the first century BCE the Romans invaded Greece, the population of Athens offered no resistance to the Romans when occupied their city. Once reason for this lack of resistance was that the political leaders of Athens had by their behaviours so discredited Athenian democracy that few felt it worth preserving. These politicians were masters in the art of fake news. They would use informers infiltrate their rival’s households and these informers would then claim to have evidence of salacious misbehaviour or wrong doing by their rivals. Personal vilification became the main mode of political debate, the practice of politics was largely reduced to the art of personal assassination. Although there is some difference in political practice today, politics tin its essentials increasingly resembles that of first century BCE Athens. Fake news, deception and dissembling are the most practiced of the political arts.

One obvious example of this practice is the attacks directed at the Leader of the Opposition. Whenever a government minister speaks of him, phrases such as a ‘friend of terrorists’ are always inserted into the conversation. Just as did the Athenian politicians ours practice the art of personal vilification. Not so long ago the government discovered a report by a former Czechoslovakian agent in which this agent claimed that the now leader of the opposition had sold state secrets to him. When these secrets had been supposedly sold to the agent, this leader was then an obscure backbench MP with no access to any state secrets. The fact that the story was totally implausible and easily discredited did not matter as it was an opportunity to smear the man. It’s political mud throwing it does not matter what is thrown as some will stick.

However the real problem of lying being elevated to the principle political art is that politicians never have the need to confront the truth. When evasiveness and dissembling characterise the art of politics, difficult and uncomfortable truths can be avoided. Particularly if confronting those truths would mean taking actions that would make the politician or government minister unpopular. Apart from a few dissidents, scientists are united in the view that the global climate is warming and this poses a serious threat to mankind. When for example the sea level rises as a consequence of global warming, many of the great cities of the world will become uninhabitable because of flooding. If the politicians took action to avert this impending catastrophe, it would be action that would make them unpopular with the voters. Averting this catastrophe is only possible if there is significant reduction in the production of the main green house gas carbon dioxide, this can only be achieved if there is a significant reduction in energy consumption. Such a reduction could only be achieved if the people, particularly those in the richest countries who use the most energy would accept a cut in their standard of living. Cutting energy means producing less of the goods and services that people desire. Making people poorer if only temporarily is a very unpopular policy option.

There is a good example of this dilemma in Britain’s recent political past. A city council in Scotland wanted to introduce a congestion charge to reduce the number of cars using its roads, as a means of reducing pollution in that city. Unfortunately it is common understanding amongst politicians that denying people the right to use their cars when and how they please is electoral suicide. Although this city council was controlled by the party in government, that government collaborated with the objectors to the scheme to prevent it being introduced.

Our political culture of lying and obfuscation provides a convenient escape clause for those politicians who don’t want to take unpopular action to halt climate change. There is an influential group of climate change deniers, funded and supported by the fossil fuel industries. Politicians can claim that the evidence for climate change is not yet conclusive, they can point to the research conducted by climate change deniers as proof of this. What matters least is this research is of little scientific validity, what matters most is that it exists. Claiming uncertainty as an excuse means that politicians can postpone or avoid taking those unpopular measures that are required to prevent global warming.

Perhaps it is the American Congress that provides one of the best examples of truth avoidance and evasion. There was from medical experts a demand that government to improve the nations health should persuade people to eat five portions of vegetables or fruit a day. Any such measure would mean that Congressmen would be going against the interests of the powerful processed food industry. As they would be promoting the same of fresh fruit and vegetables, which would have been at the expense of processed food. What Congress did instead was contrary to the recommendations of scientists, they decide that the tomato topping used on pizzas should be included as one of the five a day foods.

What the Athenian citizen witnessed in the First Century BCE, we are witnessing today. The slow decay of democracy. Democracy has always had its enemies, either foreign powers or powerful individuals and business corporations who hate the idea of being subject to the people. However just as with Athens the greatest threat comes from within the democratic system, that is from it’s leading practitioners. The practice of lying is corrosive of the human personality, such people no longer recognise or value truth. Truth is something quite alien to them. A list of all the ignored inconvenient truths about the threats to the health and viability is lengthy. When a senior official at the Bank of England said he could not understand how the Governor of the Bank of England could sleep at night, given the threat posed to the economy by the enormous debts of the banking system, he was ignored. All his concern rated was a short article in the little business columns of the newspapers.

When its leaders no longer value the norms and conventions that make democracy possible, its future is bleak. People who lie, cheat and are adept in all forms of malpractice, don’t make good guardians of our democratic system. A corrupt and dysfunctional Westminster or Washington no is incapable of serving the people. The people become disenchanted and see contemporary politicians as venal and corrupt. Such politicians have lost the respect of the people. Unfortunately the yearning of the people for good governance makes them susceptible to the charms of right wing populist leaders. Leaders who promise to clean up politics and make government once again the government of and for the people. In the 1930s when Washington and Westminster seemed helpless in the face of the Great Depression and did nothing to ameliorate the suffering of the people, right wing fascist leaders such as Huey Long in the USA and Oswald Moseley in the UK became immensely popular. If circumstances had been more favourable to each they could both have brought to an end the liberal democratic experiment. Whatever Donald Trump might be he is no Huey Long, American democracy will survive Donald Trump. The real threat lies in the future, when the continued failure of the American Congress and the British Parliament fail to deliver for the people will discredit Anglo Saxon democracy. Then the people will welcome a strong leader to deliver from the self serving and venal politicians that currently govern them. What will destroy democracy is the worms at the centre of the democratic apple that cause it to decay and become rotten.

What I am writing now would be familiar to the people of the U.K. and the USA, who in the 1930s despaired of there governments taking effective action to solve the problems caused by the Great Depression. Only when democratic leaders such as Franklin D. Roosevelt took measures to reinvigorate the democratic system to ensure that it delivered for the people, was it able to survive. However if Huey Long had no been killed in 1935 it is likely that he would have become President in 1936 and replaced Roosevelt. He as President would have brought an end to liberal democracy in the USA. Surveying the contemporary political scene it seems that there seems to be a paucity of Franklin Roosevelt’s who could save liberal democracy from itself.

Seeking Solace in Philosophy

February 4, 2018Economics, Philosophy#Erasmus, #socrates, Classical Greek Philosophy, Democritus, Donald Trump, free market economics, Market Theory, Narcissistic Politicians, Scepticism as a Philosophy, Seneca, Stoicismangrytunbridgewells

As an economist the quality that you most need is equanimity. Why, because as an economist you are all to aware of the follies of the politicians and the damage their policies can wreak on the economy and society. A concern heightened by my anxiety about the futures of my daughters and my expected grandchild. When a senior banker accused some of our leading politicians as being ‘clueless’ on the economy, I mouthed a silent ‘hear, hear’. What an economist needs is some defence mechanism that prevents them from being overwhelmed by pessimism. When one writer called economics the miserable science he was all too correct in his opinion.

Perhaps I should adopt the philosophy of Democritius, who dispelled this anxiety about the follies of mankind and in particular its leaders in laughter. However laughter is only a temporary source of relief and soon the feeling of pessimism returns. I find some solace in the classical Greek philosophy of scepticism. A philosophy which demonstrates that all which passes as human knowledge is fallacious. This is of some comfort when I realise that the ‘reforming’ policies of our latest group of reformist minded politicians are based on little more, that what can be described as a set of incoherent and wrong headed series of assumptions about human society. While I can get some pleasure from demolishing these policies in my mind, it does not help alleviate the blackness of mood.

Philosophy has always been a refuge for me. I can retreat to my philosophy books, which takes me to a world far removed from the pettiness of what passes for the public debate. Ever since I was introduced to him at university I have been entranced by the figure of Socrates. When Plato writes of about Socrates and one of his students going to the cool river bank to escape the hot sun in Athenian sun to find the a more congenial place for discussion, I feel that I could be there with them. Aristotle writes that the highest form of human activity is this, the contemplation of the great questions that have always puzzled and intrigued mankind. Students of philosophy such as myself enjoy the intellectual cut and thrust in the dialogue employed by the greatest of philosophers. What we understand is that there are no simple or easy answers to the great questions posed by the nature of human existence. While practising this very Western form of active contemplation, I can get so lost in the books that I’m reading so that I forget the world outside.

When devising his philosophy Plato would make use of the myth to make his reasoning comprehensible to his audience. Plato’s the cave is one very familiar myth, but there are others. One of my favourites is the myth of human creation in ‘The Timeaus’, he uses this myth to explain the fallibility of human understanding. Mankind he writes is fashioned by the demiurge (the divine craftsman) out of clay. If mankind is made out of some inferior substance to that of which the Gods are composed, they are therefore incapable of understanding or sharing superior knowledge possessed by the Gods. Compare this to the less interesting contemporary myth of the market, which dominates current policy making. It’s a myth that tells us little about the economy. The central tenet of market theory is that there is a price at which markets clear, that is there is a price at which supply equals demand. There has never been a market in which an equilibrium of supply and demand has been attained. In reality markets are inherently unstable, as supply and demand are constantly changing and are never equal. Consequently the myth of the market as a guide to policy making is unhelpful, although perhaps to call it useless is going too far. This is why I prefer philosophy to economics, the stories it tells are more interesting and more truthful.

Recently stoicism has begun to find favour. This is practical philosophy devised by the classical Greeks. Its purpose was to help its practitioners lead the good life. This practical philosophy teaches that the only things that one can control are the one’s own emotions and feelings. There is a story which demonstrates this. There was a stoic philosopher on a ship caught in a storm. He was the only person to remain calm during this storm. When asked why he was indifferent to the crisis, he said that the observed a pig on the ship. The pig seemed undisturbed by the storm, so he imitated the behaviour of the pig. There was nothing he could do to avert the possible impending disaster, so the only practical policy he could adopt was to remain calm, as his getting anxious would do nothing to avert the possible impending crisis. Those things in life that the individual cannot control they call the ‘indifferents’. There are many ‘indifferents’ that the individual cannot control, also some such as good health they can influence by adopting a sensible diet. Anxiety comes from worrying about these ‘indifferents’ over which the individual has little control.

Donald Trump and the alt. right are a threat to the way of life that enjoy. There ever willingness to resort to violence or to threaten its use, is a threat the the tolerant civilised lifestyle which I value. As is also his constant demeaning of various ethnic groups as the threatening other. As this is an indifferent over which I have little control, the person who suffers if I obsess about this is me. Constantly being anxious is damaging to the human personality. Being a good stoic I am concerned about the irrational and erratic behaviour of our leaders, but I am not going to be overwhelmed by my anxieties on that score. Also I can influence this particular indifference by becoming political active. I can become part of the resistance.

John Stuart Mill gives me solace when I read that freedom, is the freedom to think. Whatever the alt. right does it cannot control my thoughts. In doing this I do have an advantage in that I am retired and can devote my time to reading my philosophy books. Perusing one of Plato’s dialogues on Socrates I can lose myself in the world of the Classical Greek philosophy. Also I can counter the nasty xenophobia of the alt. right by going to my local coffee shop, and there I can immerse myself in the Italian culture. What can be more engrossing than a discussion of the merits of the various types of pasta, while enjoying a cup of Italian coffee. What I am trying to say is that for a stoic there is much I can focus on to enjoy in these unhappy times.

Stoicism offers an interesting historical parallel, Seneca one of the best known stoics lived in a Rome, whose ruler was the narcissistic Nero. Given the predominance of narcissistic leaders in the Anglo Saxon world, who mistake their personal well being and success as metaphor for that of society, one can see the value of reading Seneca. Despite being an advisor to one of the most capricious and unpredictable of Emperors, he not only survived in that role for many years while others perished, but he did for many years act as a restraining influence on Nero. During those years he lived a modest moral life in keeping with the tenets of stoicism. Although even he lost his life as Nero’s paranoia intensified. His ‘Letters’ and plays I believe should be required reading for staff in Donald Trump’s White House.

When I read Erasmus’s ‘Adages’ I am reminded that the curse of having leaders pursuing policies that are ruinous to their countries in order further their own personal ambition is nothing new. Renaissance Italy in which he lived was plagued by wars between the Princes and Dukes of the various city states, which might have brought fleeting glory to these men, but which were ruinous for there various city states and the Italian nation. Is there no more insightful into the psyche of politicians, than Erasmus’s adage that ‘war is sweet to those who have never tried it’? Despite the almost constant internecine warfare in Italy, Erasmus still managed to write and publish his criticisms of the crass behaviour of the ‘great’ men of Italy. Although, as with many writers living in authoritarian states to avoid persecution, his critiques of foolish and arrogant leaders were set in the past or given such ambiguous settings that no contemporary leader could consider themselves libelled.

Reading philosophy reminds me of the heights to which the human spirit can rise, in contrast to the gutters of the human spirit in which so many of our contemporary leaders reside. This is why I find solace in philosophy.

Fake Economics and the Great Shock Theory of Economics

April 26, 2017Economics, Neo-Liberal economics, PoliticsArgentina, Big Bang theory of economics, Brazil, Donald Trump, EU, Fake economics, Immigration, India, John Ford, Liberty Valance, Theresa May, Trade Missionsangrytunbridgewells

This is the age of fake news it is also the age of fake economics. One such is the Big Bang or Great Shock theory of economics. It is the policy preference for those politicians that have a disdain for the facts. They have an impatience with the world of fact or reality as it does not fit with their view of the world. In a very prescient film ‘Who Shot `Liberty Valance’ , John Ford has one memorable line in the film in which the news editor states that ‘when the facts become legend, print the legend’. This very much describes today’s politicians who have a preference for their ‘legend’ or story over reality. One consistent and common story is that by administering some great shock to the economy they will shake it out of its torpor and kick start a new dynamic economic era.

Believers in fake economics or the story predominate in the politics of the Anglo Saxon world whether its in the form of Donald Trump or Theresa May. The latter believes the necessary shock treatment that will revive the UK economy is the leaving of the EU. Once firms are deprived of their cosy relationships with the European market, they will be forced to find new markets outside Europe (or go out of business). The necessity of finding new markets for their products will inject a new dynamism into business, so transforming British businesses into world beaters. Businesses will now put a premium on those leaders who are doers and the influx of doers into the top levels of business will have this transformative effect. The proponents of this shock therapy do admit that some businesses will fail to adapt and have to close, but these failures will be more than made up for by the new enterprises that will replace the old failing businesses. However what the proponents of shock theory fail to admit is that the shock is as likely to kill as cure. Evidence from the past suggests whenever the government administers shock therapy to the UK economy it kills more than it cures.

The classic shock treatment occurred in 1981, when the government decided to introduce the reforms that are associated with Neo-Liberalism. The shock killed of 20% of UK manufacturing industry and unlike the theory suggests new businesses did not develop to replace them. One consequence is that the UK now has the largest trade deficit of any developed country (as a proportion of GDP). Good fortune has enabled the UK so far to escape the consequences of this folly, but that good fortune cannot last forever.

Much as in a John Ford movie legend has replaced fact. Politicians generally accept that despite the evidence to the contrary the 1980s were a success story. With such a complex institution as the economy it is always possible to find evidence for your own good story and even when there ar plenty of bad facts, as their existence can be conveniently ignored. Ignorance of the workings of the economy is so widespread amongst the political classes and the media that its easy to sell the fictitious ‘good story’.

One consistent story coming from the government is that British business can find new markets to replace those lost through leaving the EU. India is one of the most populous of Asian nations and it is home to one of the world’s fastest growing economies. This is claimed by government ministers to be one of the new markets British business can exploit.This year India has been the subject of two trade missions to India, one led by the Prime Minister and another by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. What India requires from the UK is an easing of restrictions of Indian migrants coming to Britain and until that is granted it will not consider a new trade deal. This government has made its priority restricting immigration into the UK and this means that all those trade missions have been in vain. Until Britain makes some concessions on immigration, India will not open up its markets to UK business.

Trade deals with other nations are also fraught with problems that make any negotiations fruitless. Brazil and Argentina are the two largest economies in South America and as such should be a potential markets for UK exports. However there is one issue that prevents a new trade deal being negotiated. These two countries both have a large beef industry and would love to export beef to the UK. However in these two countries the cattle diseases such as foot and mouth are endemic. If the UK accepted imports of beef from these countries it would possibly be importing disease into the country. Then the UK would lose its status as possessing a disease free cattle industry. British beef farmers would then be prohibited from exporting their beef to such as the disease free countries of the European Union. The powerful UK farmers union would prevent such a trade deal, particularly as the governing party is the party of the largest of agricultural landowners. Economic realities mean this is yet another potential market that is closed to UK exporters.

However for the practitioner of fake economics none of this matters. When one of the most significant purveyors of false economics said that the public were tired of experts, what he meant was that they were tired of hearing the difficult truth. They like their political leaders want believe the easy to fictions of fake economics. What fake economics does convey is the false story that the political leaders of this and other countries know what they are doing and that they are making those policy decisions that will be of benefit to the economy and the people. Nobody wants the truth which is that our political leaders have only the vaguest grasp of economic realities and that are doing the equivalent of shooting in the dark.

There is one other great advantage of fake economics. When the train wreck of the great shock inevitably materialises the politicians can claim that is not their fault. They have done their bit in that they have administered the correct medicine, the failure now is with the patient for not taking the medicine correctly. Business leaders and workers have failed to respond in the correct way, the failure lies with them, not with the government. When one of the major purposes of a policy is to transfer blame to some other party than the policy maker it is always going to be the wrong policy. Being unwilling to take responsibility for one’s actions suggests that at least sub consciously the policy maker knows that they are in the wrong.

Swamp creatures, entrerpreneurial economics and Donald Trump

February 23, 2017economic history, Economics, Philosophy, PoliticsAndrew Carnegie, Donald Trump, Homestead Strike 1892, IMF, Jimmy Hoffa, Maifa Bosses, Property developers, Robert Merton, Sociopaths, Sub cultures, Teamsters Union, Tony Schwartz, US Senate, Washington Swampsangrytunbridgewells

When Donald Trump spoke of draining the Washington swamp, he conjured a very different image up in my mind to the one he intended. I immediately thought of an old film that I had watched entitled ‘The Creature from the Swamp’. In this film the inhabitants of a small American town are terrorised by a creature from the swamp. This creature has been created from the interaction of the chemical discharges from the town’s factories with one of the embryonic reptilian creatures developing in the swamp. Needless to say after a number of deaths the creature is killed by the ‘all American Hero’ a man who was a feature of so many films of the fifties. I should have added that this film included the fainting helpless blonde who attracted the desire of the swamp creature and who had to be saved from the creature by the all American hero. If Donald Trump has seen this film he would have identified with the all American hero, instead of seeing the swamp creature as an all too realistic portrayal of himself.

The swamp creature I believe provides a very useful analogy for the understanding the politics of our time (and the misguided economic policies of those politicians). There are I believe many cultural swamps within our culture that damage and distort the personalities of the people within them. Although it may appear an unfair comparison, I think there are two similar swamp cultures within our society that are particularly damaging. One is the criminal sub culture that produces the bosses of organised crime and the other that entrepreneurial subculture, usually focused around property development, that produces the new class of sociopath entrepreneurs.What both cultures produce is a people who lack empathy, who lack an understanding or appreciation of others. These creatures rise to the top through a career that involves the destruction of others. The sociopath crime boss or entrepreneur sees others either as an obstacle to their advancement which has to be overcome or as tools that can be used to advance their interests. What both swamp creatures lack is empathy as they cannot see others except as either having or not having a ‘use value’. They are incapable of recognising the humanity of the other, people for them as people don’t exist. Only by denying the humanity of the other can practise the cruelties and deceits which are the prerequisites of their success.

In a radio programme I heard how the Tony Schwartz the author of ‘Trump: the art of the Deal’ describe how he first came into contact with Donald Trump. He was a journalist working in New York and he was sent to investigate a redevelopment project for which Donald Trump was responsible. He discovered that Donald Trump had hired a firm who specialised in getting those with a legal right to remain in their home to move. (He could only redevelop an empty apartment block so he needed these people out.) They could make it undesirable for these tenants to remain by removing the lights from corridors or putting lifts out of action. What is significant about this story is how Donald Trump turns what could be a human obstacle into a tool for their own use? The journalist Tony Schwartz was so captivated by Donald Trump the man, that he agreed to write a book on Trump the deal maker. The book was a tremendous success and it made Donald Trump into a national and international celebrity. Such a favourable public image is essential for the sociopath hungry for power. The mythic status of being a deal maker turns the uglier aspects of the personality, the ruthless and abusive personal manner into something more positive. Donald Trump became the man who could get things done, which became the essence of his successful Presidency campaign.

Despite my reservations the sociopath can fulfil a useful function in society. It was Robert Merton who said that crime and organised crime fulfilled an invaluable role in society. They made available to people products or services that they otherwise could not get. Without organised crime the low income addict could not get their drugs and the city financial dealer their cocaine. Some accounts suggest that cocaine is the essential tool for maintaining that high level of frenzied intellectual activity which makes a successful trader. Similarly many of the great entrepreneurs of the past such as Andrew Carnegie America demonstrated the ruthless behaviours characteristic of a sociopath. He believed that steel worker union was hampering him in his efforts to trade union prevent him from make Carnegie steel into the largest and most efficient maker of steel in the USA. He decided that he would remove this obstacle which resulted in the notorious Homestead Strike of 1892. He employed the Pinkerton Detective Agency to break up the steel workers strike. Extreme acts of violence were committed against the trade unionists and by the trade unionists in their defence. Ultimately the ruthless boss triumphed. Other businessmen were not above using organised crime to deny the worker their rights in their endeavours to make their businesses more profitable. Jimmy Hoffa the boss of the Teamster’s Union decided to fight fire with fire and he allied himself with organised crime to use the employers weapons against them. He was so successful that many of the dockyards in the 20th century USA were in effect controlled by the Teamsters Union and their allies in the American mafia. Although I can condemn these men as monsters, they performed an essential role in driving the American economy forward.

While Donald Trump is but a pale imitation of the great entrepreneurs such as Andrew Carnegie. This particular monster is far more damaging to American society, as the damage he has done to the social fabric is not matched by any benefits accrued to the wider society. A steel mill is far more beneficial than a casino, for example the former requires skilled highly paid workers, the latter the reverse. The one single factor that makes the difference is that in 1890 although Andrew Carnegie was able to subvert the local legal system and manipulate it to his advantage, the larger national legal system remained largely uncorrupted. Andrew Carnegie was a monster but his monstrous activities were largely constrained within a manner that benefitted society. In contemporary America there are no longer the legal constraints limiting the damage that these people can inflict on society. Wolfgang Streeck describes American variously as a kleptocracy or oligarchy. It is a state in which the rich oligarchs can use their money to bend and twist the law to suit their purposes. Just recently the US senate passed a law guaranteeing the US banks unlimited and ‘no questions asked bailouts’ in the event of another financial crisis. The monsters are no longer constrained in their behaviours in a manner that ensure that there activities work largely to benefit to the wider American society.

In a successful and viable social system monsters such as Donald Trump would be constrained. He would have been the owner of a small chain of casinos and leisure centres, the legal system would have prevented his ‘walking away’ from his serial failures. Unfortunately in the current US the legal system has been rendered ineffective in regulating the bad behaviour of rich oligarchs, so there is now no limit on what these monsters can achieve. There is a similar change taking place in the UK. There is on disturbing example that proves this, when the EU was proposing to introduce legislation to make money laundering more difficult, the British government successfully lobbied against it. The City of London had argued that if the legislation was passed British banks would be at a disadvantage, as other countries would not observe the law, while the British government would operate it to their competitive disadvantage.This spurious argument worked and the UK is now called the world’s largest tax haven by the IMF.

Unfortunately for us all the creatures from the swamp are allowed to roam freely within our societies and wrecking damage to the host society to further their own self interests.

Flying Pig Economics

February 14, 2017Economics, irony, PoliticsDonald Trump, Flying Pigs, Free Trade deals with China and India, Free Trade Treaties, Indian Immigration, Keynes, Mexico, NAFTA, Post truth politics, PwC Brexit Report, Theresa May, USAangrytunbridgewells

Quite possibility in twenty years given advances in biochemistry and medical science, scientists will be able to breed a race of pigs with wings. In a similar vein PwC produced a report stating the Brexit could possibly be a resounding economic success. This is an exercise in which economic forecasters regularly indulge. This is an imaginative thought experiment in which they think of a world in which all the good possible events and changes that could possibly occur have occurred creating the most desirable of future outcomes. Even the great Keynes was capable of this wishful thinking. He said that due to advances in technology people would be able to have greatly increased leisure time, because the increased productivity of the new machines would require a much shorter working week. A prediction which this century has demonstrated to be fallacious

PwC should not be singled out for blame as ‘flying pig economics’ is regularly practised by politicians, usually when they wish to be elected or in the case of the UK win a referendum. The examples of this economic practice are too well known to require repeating.

Obviously the current master of ‘flying pig economics’ is Donald Trump. He has promised to restore prosperity to the people of the USA through a number of fantastical schemes. One is abandoning free trade treaties, which he claims have encouraged US firms to move their factories to low wage countries such as Mexico, causing unemployment in the US. While he is correct to state that American have lost their jobs due to American companies outsourcing their businesses to other countries, his solution to the problem is unreal. If he does withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement, of which Mexico is a beneficiary, he will wreak havoc on the US economy. Mexico is the USA’s second largest export market and its third largest trading partner. The sudden ending of free trade between the two countries would lead to a dramatic drop in trade between them probably throwing both into recession. He would through this action cause more jobs to be lost through increased unemployment than he would create through forcing US firms to relocate back to the USA. It is significant that all he has so far all he proposed as President is a US Mexican wall and not an ending to free trade. Perhaps realism as regards US Mexico trade has seeped into his consciousness.

Going back to the PwC story it is quite possible to construct a number of scenarios in which Britain gains from Brexit, however these scenarios are purely imaginary and require an abandoning of any sense of reality. The following three items will demonstrate the unreality of the report.

One target for the new trade deals is China, our government claims that freedom from EU controls means that we can arrange a new free trade deal, that will more than offset our trade losses from exiting the EU. Nobody in government seems to have a realistic understanding of the situation. China is far more interested in trade with Germany from whom it buys large numbers of machine tools, rather than the UK from whom it buys little. Our exports to Belgium, one of the smallest of EU states, exceeds in total the value of our exports to China.

The other large untapped market for British goods is India. Mrs May made a great show of visiting India to conduct a new trade deal. India would be very interested in a trade deal, but for one outstanding issue. The government there wants an ending to the restrictions on Indian immigration into the UK. Mrs May has made it very clear that the last thing she will countenance is increased immigration from India, making a new trade deal highly unlikely.

Then there is the USA and Donald Trump, he has said he is eager to have a new free trade agreement with the UK. However a new trade deal could prove to be problematic. Will the trade deal be of benefit to the USA or the UK? Donald Trump has already said that Brexit gives US banks a great opportunity to win trade from the City of London. One only has to think of some of the countries that have a free trade agreement with the US such as Puerto Rico and Haiti to realise that whatever deal is reached, the primary beneficiary will be the US.

What can be said is that the PwC report was made for the highest of motives that is designed to win favour with the government and future business for the company. The ‘flying pig economics’ of both Donald Trump and that of Theresa May is far more disturbing. Obviously they both believe that there policies are right and only if there is catastrophic change in their country’s economies are they likely to rethink their policies. The question has to be asked are they both naive or stupid (although one hesitates to use such abusive terms)? I think the answer is no, they both demonstrated intelligence to win power. I think they are fantasists who confuse the world of their imaginings with reality. History demonstrates that when a powerful authoritarian ruler gets to impose their fantasies of the world the people suffer. Although Donald Trump and Theresa May are not to be compared with Pol Pot, Chairman Mao and Stalin they are at the other end of the same spectrum. People won’t die in their thousands but thousands will be poorer because politics has given Donald Trump and Theresa May the opportunity to impose there fantasies on the real world.

I realise what I call ‘flying pig economics’ is usually referred to by commentators as post truth politics. While they may both indulge in post truth politics, it is unfair to call them post truth politicians as usually they believe that they are stating simple plain and obvious truths and it’s only the misguided metropolitan elites that refuse to recognise the truthfulness of their statements.

A Letter to Donald

February 11, 2017Economics, irony, Philosophy, PoliticsApple, Birther Controversy, Cultures, Donald Trump, Ed Sullivan, Ellen DeGeneres, Ethnicity, Greek Philosophy, Heterosexuality, Impeachment, Islam, John Rawls, Liberal Democracy, London, Modernity, New York, Oprah Winfrey, President Clinton, President Obama, Rumi, St.Francis of Assisi, Theresa May, US Congress, US Presidentangrytunbridgewells

Dear Donald

This short letter is my attempt to try to come to try to answer the question who is the real Donald, why does he behave as he does and why are you such a threat to the continued existence of liberal democracy. It is my attempt to come to terms with the phenomenon that is Donald Trump. If you met me you would notice a distinct difference in our manner. I am a man who values modesty in conversation and behaviour. In short I am one of those Englishmen who overuses the world sorry, so I guess you can see why I find your behaviours so hard to understand. Not only that but I am also a liberal so we are so different in manner and our politics.

Although your personality is one steeped in anger, I think your anger comes from a fear of modernity. The world that you knew as a child, the America of the white heterosexual males is now being challenged, Now instead of the television presenter is less likely to be an Ed Sullivan, than a lesbian woman such as Ellen DeGeneres or a woman of colour such Oprah Winfrey. This is becoming an increasingly unfamiliar world to you in which you are not sure of your place in it. Formerly you would have been lauded for being a billionaire and having a much younger and beautiful wife, now many doubt the value of your achievements. This must be confusing to you, their must be times when it seems that you are adrift in a hostile world. One reaction only is possible for you to this fearful world and that is anger, an anger which is so often caricatured by others as a snarl.

Unlike you I welcome the ‘differenceness’ of modernity, something I first encountered in a trip to Scandinavia in 1966. A difference demonstrated in the design of there housing and the beauty of their cities and towns, a beauty lacking in Britain. Other and later trips to Europe instilled in me an enthusiasm for the different. In 1970 I went to France where I had my first taste of French coffee, it was love at first taste. Until then coffee was instant coffee, either Nescafe or Maxwell House. A harsh tasting drink that you drank to keep you alert and buzzing. This French coffee tasted nice, it had flavour you enjoyed, coffee drinking now became an unalloyed pleasure. Getting to know other cultures and taking from them what I enjoyed has enriched my life.

New York as with London where I taught has become an increasingly cultural melting pot with an increasing diverse ethnic mix of peoples. While the integration of new ethnic groups could present problems of which as a teacher I was well aware. They also brought their cultures with them. Some saw these cultures as alien and a threat to the host society. Yet these cultures embodied a whole new range of cultural experiences that enriched the host culture. One such obvious enrichment was the West Indian carnival in Notting Hill. A diverse open society is a creative society and London at present is the leading cultural centre in Europe. The constant making and remaking of London culture that is the consequence of having to adapt and absorb new cultures is a source of the creativity that makes London a leading culture centre. However with Brexit the open and welcoming culture of London will be lost as new ethnic groups and their cultures are increasingly excluded from Britain. What is likely to replace it is a cultural resistant to change and closed to new ideas? In fact many of our new right politicians would welcome this, a London that increasingly resembled one of those dull provincial towns or cities that characterised Britain in the 1950s.

Although you regard Muslims as that most alien of the other, my experience of them is entirely different. I have encountered them as students and friends. Coming into contact with them made me realise that there was another exciting culture and life to get to know. I have read the poetry of the Sufi master Rumi. No doubt you are familiar with the life of St. Francis of Assisi, but what you don’t know is that this greatest of Christian saints regarded Rumi as a spiritual master. This intermingling of European and Islamic culture has been of benefit to both societies throughout the millennia. The classics of Greek philosophy might have been lost if they had not been preserved in the translations of the Arab philosophers. Unlike you when coming into contact with a new culture, my reaction is not to reject it as something alien and foreign; instead I want to explore it, to learn from it. I have a friend who as you do rejects muslim culture as being alien and benighted, yet even he enjoys the poetry of Omar Khayyam.

What is frightening about your anger and that of your fellow believers of the right is that you have the power to turn back those aspects of modernity that you despise? This is why you want to make abortion illegal. If women no longer have control of their bodies, they will be unable to live independent lives and will be forced back into the box of domesticity. Similarly there are the new Jim Crow laws of the South, which make it difficult for Americans of colour to vote. These laws reduce the presence in the political arena of people of colour, a change which is ensuring that the white dominance of the South is continuing. Another alien group is put back into its box, but this time it is the box is one of servitude. Although this turning back is but a temporary measure, history shows that regimes such as yours can successfully hold back the tide of history for many years.

What worries me is your destructive attitude towards those institutions that make civilised life possible. Liberals such as myself think that John Rawls political thinking provided the essential template for making of a successful political system. He wanted to answer the question to which all liberals want a solution. How do you construct a political system that gives voice and sanction to people of different and often incompatible views in a manner which avoids the worst of the destructive and divisive effects of political conflict? Societies can be torn apart by warring factions as demonstrated so well in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. There the two rival factions, the Capulets and the Montague’s constantly threaten the peace of Verona with their constant feuding.

To this problem John Rawls had an interesting answer. His answer was that the constitution makers should indulge in an act of collective forgetting. When devising a constitution they should strive to forget their own beliefs and prejudices and try to exclude them from there thinking. Then they should focus on the building of a belief and bias free constitution. The emphasis should be on functionality not belief. One such example is the American constitution of 1787. The political system they devised was not free from fault, but until recently it had functioned effectively by containing political conflict within a system that delivered effective governance. Now unfortunately the new right that is the Republican party has set out to destroy that system that worked so well for two hundred years. The behaviour that you displayed towards former President Obama is demonstrative of the destructive behaviours of the new right. One of the main voices accusing Obama of being ineligible for office was yours. This nasty ‘birther’ campaign was a child of your making and did nothing other than to bring discredit American politics.

There are two requirements for a good political system. The first is how the winners treat the losers. The winners must accept the reality of the rotation of power, that is that the losers might be the winners next time around. They must accept the threat of the loss of power with good grace. While it is legitimate for politicians to seek to retain power, it is not legitimate when they use means which can only be described as illegitimate. American political history of the recent past has been little more than the attempts by the Republicans to change the political system in such a way as to permanently exclude the Democrats from power. Using the conservative Supreme Court to open elections to undue influence by the rich and powerful business corporations is one. These so called ‘super PAC’s (political action committees) are free to spend as much money as they want to influence an election. The same court has permitted the gerrymandering of the electoral process to exclude potential Democrat voters in the South. When the winner refuses to acknowledge the right to dissent and opposition, the tenor of politics changes it becomes more shrill and intolerant. Politics is conducted in the language of a Fox News presenter or the ‘shock jock’.

What has been lost from contemporary politics is the civility of manner? In the early twentieth century the members of the various political parties in Britain would be at each others throats in the Chamber, but they were able to distinguish politics from the person. These same men would then meet at various country houses for weekend parties at which there was no trace of animosity. This courtesy no longer exists in contemporary politics and you are the exemplar of the new rude and brutal politics. Without the practice of courtesy politics becomes degraded into being an unpleasant fight in a bear pit. When intolerance towards the other is the practice of each party democratic politics becomes impossible. The ‘give and take’ that made democratic politics possible in the past has ceased to exist. The obstructive behaviour of the Republicans toward President Obama which culminated in the threat to shut down government is an example of the new destructive politics. Similarly the behaviour of the Republicans toward former President Clinton demonstrates most effectively the breakdown of the American political system. Shutting down government for a month by refusing funding and impeaching the President over an affair with an intern was the nadir of American politics. All the worst practices of Republican politics have culminated in you. The destructiveness of your political reign is likely to exceed in destructiveness the damage inflicted on American society by the actions of Senator McCarthy. HIs witch hunts inflicted irreparable damage to the lives of individuals, you threaten to inflict irreparable damage to the fabric of American society.

What I believe disqualifies you from high office in a democratic society is your lack of civility. This is incivility derives in a part from your fear of and anger at modernity, as a relatively inarticulate man it is second nature to express your anger in abusive language and in uncivil behaviour. It is not the belief in reasoned argument that is practice which enables democracy to thrive. All to often recorded parliamentary debates in England and those in the Senate or Congress fail to demonstrate reason. Civility was one of the factors that influenced the construction of the House of Commons after it was destroyed by German bombs. It was deliberately made too small to accommodate 600 MPs comfortably, it small size was intended to ensure that debates would tend to brevity because of the discomfort of being too long in the Commons. This with the regular emptying of the Chamber for numerous votes would be a tension releasing mechanism, so preventing that build up of tension that would lead to outbreaks of bad temper and behaviour, evidenced in other parliaments. Unfortunately British politics all too often copies the worst of American practice and incivility is now becoming the dominant mode of British politics. By civility I mean the civilised behaviour that makes debate and political dialogue possible, not the abuse and demeaning of one’s opponents which is now the common practice of British politics. When Theresa May came to the US it was not just to make a trade deal but to meet a like minded politician, a man who is the master of incivility. Why I want you to go is not just because you threaten the existence of liberal democracy in the US, but because you give encouragement to those many European politicians that also want an end to liberal democracy. Manners are said to make a man, manners are needed to make a President.

The Great Lie and the Rise of Trump and the alt.right

January 22, 2017economic history, Economics, PoliticsAlt. Right, Donald Trump, Immigration, milton friedman, Nigel Farage, Pontius Pilate, private rental sector, social democracy, The Great Depression, Theresa May, Vietnam Warangrytunbridgewells

Economists have to shoulder their share of the blame for the dawning of the age of Trump, May and Farage. Their responsibility lies with the creation of the ‘Great Lie’ which led to the economic and social change which caused the current economic malaise. Governments longer seem to be in control, they seem powerless to arrest the decline in living standards. We now have government that operates on the Pontius Pilate principle, it shares the people’s pain, but it is powerless to anything to alleviate their suffering. In such circumstances when government claims to be helpless in the face of the current crisis, it is hardly surprising that those who claim to have a solution, no matter how wrong headed that solution are now gaining power.

The ‘Great Lie’ is the one propagated by economists that they have discovered the economic model that if adopted will resolve all the economic and social problems that beset society, that is the free market. A great lie can be easily identified, it is when economists claim that they have the answer to all society’s problems. Usually such optimistic solutions are called utopian, but economists have greater credibility and there claims are never subject to such scepticism. Economists never seem to accept that the economy as a human creation is as flawed as its makers, mankind. They will never admit that there proposed model for change is but an experiment that may contain as many or more flaws than the system it is replacing. It is hard to explain why the free market model was so widely accepted, when the very failures of such a system had led to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Until the 1970s it had been accepted that the unfettered free market system was subject to extremes of volatility, whose worst manifestation were the periods of economic depression. Times whne unemploynent was high and people were impoverished. Overnight economists seemed to forget all the negatives of a free market economy and all began to speak from the same hymn sheet, the free market one. The deciding factor seemed to be the unending slow growth and high inflation crisis of the 1970s. A crisis whose origin lay in politics not economics, yet this fact was ignored by politicians desperate a for a solution to the current crisis. (For this particular economist the origins of the crisis were in the excessive demand for raw materials that the Americans required to fight the Vietnam war, which pushed up prices for steel to astronomic levels.)

Economics is pervaded by dishonesty, an unconscious dishonesty but dishonesty never-the-less.The free market or monetary economists never admitted that there would be any downsides to their free market model. Humility was the one quality lacking among these economists. They could make valid and reasoned criticisms of practice of social democratic economics, but were completely blind to the failures of free market economics. When such dishonesty is prevalent among government policy advisors, it should be no surpise that the dishonest claim made by the alt. right with its claim that immigration is the cause of all the problems is an acceptable a truth as the one that the free market works,when it it obvious to many that it does not.

What these new economists failed to admit was that in creating a free market economy that the people would be exposed to the negative effects of adverse changes in the market. There would be many more losers in the free market. One such example comes from Sunderland, one of the areas that voted in large numbers to leave the EU. One of the main employers is the Swan Hunter shipyard, which built merchant ships. In the 1970s it was failing to win orders because it could not compete with more modern shipyards in the Far East. The government realised that if it invested in re-equipping the yard with the latest in ship building technology, it could compete with other major shipyards. This would create many new jobs in an area of high unemployment. In 1979 a Neo-Liberal government came to power who thought any government intervention in the economy was wrong and they withdrew their support for the shipyard. All the new shipbuilding technology was sold to a rival shipyard in South Korea. Swan Hunter survives as a manufacturer of warships and equipment for the North Sea oil industry. However the people of Sunderland seem never to have forgotten the government’s betrayal of them and this year they could demonstrate their hostility by voting to leave the EU, against the advice of the government.

While the economists cannot be held responsible for the decisions of the government, they were the cheerleaders for the changes in economic policy making. One of the greatest of these new economists Milton Friedman supported the government of Pinochet when it tortured and killed its opponents, claiming that Chilean society would be better off without these people. A variation on the saying that you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs, except that in this case the eggs are people.

One chilling example of the eggs being broken is housing policy. Increasing numbers of people, particularly the young are being forced into the private rental market. There they suffer from the twin problems of exorbitantly high rents and insecurity of tenure. When it has been suggested that the solution is to give private tenants security of tenure and to introduce rent controls, the social democratic party in this country has always rejected it as an unworkable solution. They claim that the introduction of such controls would reduce the number of properties for rent and so be against the long term interests of the private tenant. In reality a policy that did both things and which included measures to prevent a reduction in the number of rental properties could be devised. Yet this party clings to the Pontius Pilate principle of politics, vicariously sharing the pain of the private tenant while saying that bad as the situation is there is nothing they can do to improve the lot of the private tenant. When such is the official policy of this party it is no surprise that it is threatened with losing constituencies to the party of the alt. right that claims to have an answer.

There is little doubt that the adoption of free market economics has created an increasing number of losers in society and it is these losers that are looking to the alternatives for a solution. The only solution to the woes of society appear to be those offered by the xenophobic right; as all the other political parties seem to adopt the same message which is that things may appear to be bad now, but they would be much worse if the government tried an alternative policy.

One solution to the current malaise is for politicians to accept responsibility for their actions, instead of looking for unreal solutions from the world of economics. While it was the unregulated financial markets that caused the crash of 2008/9 the slow recovery has been due to the governments adoption of an austerity policy. If the governments of the West had learnt anything from the 1930s it should be that adopting those economic policies to tackle non existent problems, they should take action to ameliorate the negative effects of the crash. Austerity programmes designed to do little more than cut government debt and increase and prolong the agonies of 2008/9. What is required is imaginative solutions to the crisis, usually not available from economists who are stuck with ‘Big Lie’, that the market will solve the current crisis if left to itself,when it quite obviously won’t.

A REPLY FROM AN ECONOMIST TO THE ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM OF DONALD TRUMP AND MICHAEL GOVE

November 9, 2016economic history, Economics, Philosophy, Politics, United KingdomAdam Smith, Anne Pettifor, Anti-intellectualism, Aristotle, Ayn Rand, Brexit, Donald Trump, Financial House of Cards, First World Debt Crisis, Friedrich Hayek, Gordon Brown, Keynes, Long term economic decline, Michael Gove, Neo-Liberalism, Teresa May, The speculative economyangrytunbridgewells

(There were many errors in my first draft, it was written in anger and published without a thorough checking for error.)

Contention

Economists don’t always have the right answers, they can be wrong at times, but their answers to problems are better than those of ill-informed politicians and journalists. There are plenty of never-never land politicians selling an unreal picture of the world to the electorate. There are many fewer such economists because there work would have undergone informed scrutiny by their peers and much that is dubious would have been discarded. The overwhelming majority of economists believe that Brexit will inflict significant economic damage on the economy, while a significant number of politicians and most journalist believe the reverse (who are lacking any evidence apart from their misguided optimism in the rightness of their beliefs).

Confession of interest

I am one of those experts that Michael Gove spoke abouto he said people are fed up with and who they should be ignored by the people when making decisions about the future, such as how to vote in the EU referendum. I am one of those people who following Aristotle’s advice have dedicated the best part of their life to study. What Michael Gove is trashing is the value of learning, I cannot accept that my years of study have been wasted. How can such small minded person go against centuries of a tradition that values learning? He is a graduate of an elite university but he seems to dismiss the value of what he learnt there. I can say to Michael Gove that when teaching in a tough secondary school I never demeaned myself to pretending that I lacked learning. What young people can identify is the phoney, the teacher that pretends to be like them. Michael Gove’s attempt to pretend to be one of the people is as phoney as my colleagues who adopted a fake working class accents and mimicked the words and manners the young in an attempt to win their favour. Behaviour as phoney as that of the Dad who to tries to impress by claiming a knowledge of and love for garage music and rap.

The dangers of contempt for learning

If Michael Gove’s lead is followed as experts such as myself as regarded as just another self interested individual with an agenda to promote, a lot is lost. Economists such as myself are in possession of or can access a body of knowledge about the economy not available to others. Acquiring and understanding the store of economic knowledge takes years and to be honest a life time of study, because the subject is always changing and developing. What Michael Gove is saying is that my learning is of no consequence. I cannot accept that the anti intellectualism of todays politicians will stand future scrutiny. Without wishing to be too unkind Michael is an insignificant figure compared to Adam Smith, Ricardo, Keynes, Hayek, Polanyi and Robinson. With time his anti intellectual populism will be a but a minor blip in the progress of humankind. In studying economics I developed a critical faculty which makes it possible to make reasoned judgements about government policy, rather than relying up prejudice and common sense on which to found my judgements. Paraphrasing a much greater thinker than myself who used this phrase in the context of religious belief, those who don’t believe in God are likely to believe in anything; similarly those who don’t believe the truths of economics are likely to believe any nonsense about the economy.

One such nonsense is the current belief that there is a real knowledge of the world, which is only possessed by men of business, who deal every day with the complexities of the real world, as opposed to the unreal world of academia. One such person held to possess this knowledge is Donald Trump, the next President of the United States. I would question the breadth of his knowledge, he is a real estate developer. Yet one who has failed in several business ventures and has only been saved from bankruptcy by the protection afforded by US law to such people. If you wished to buy and develop a property you would go to a real estate agent or property developer, but one with a better track record than Donald Trump. Apart from his deal making in which he has a very mixed record I cannot see how Donald Trump has a better understanding of the world than me. As a teacher I would be criticised for living and working in an unreal world, which is a silly phrase as the school is as real as the boardroom. One other silly untruth is that teachers lack the toughness to cope with the real world, all I can say is that these people who say that have little understanding of the difficulties of teaching a group of adolescents. One of the most telling examples of the falsity of this stance is a video on Youtube, where Michael Gove is addressing a group of teenagers. They show complete disdain for his lecture and indulge in all the behaviours of disaffection typical of teenagers. What I am saying is that my experience as teacher of economics is as valid as Donald Trumps as a property developer, although if I’m honest I think mine is the superior knowledge of the world.

When politicians deny the truths of learning they became prey to the teaching of messianic and charismatic charlatans such as the novelist – Ayn Rand author of ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ whose followers include Sajid Javid and all politicians of the Neo-Liberal persuasion. Her book paean to billionaires who she believes are the heroic figures that make our civilisation great. The central figure of the book John Galt a man of independent means who is puzzled as to why billionaires keep disappearing from society. He is taken to a mysterious canyon remote from Washington, where the billionaires are hiding, seeking sanctuary from a rapacious Washington. These billionaires are fed up with being oppressed by a government that so taxes and regulates them, that they are denied their role as the creative driving force of society, a rapacious government has reduced them to impotence. It does not realise that without their enterprise, society would fall into stasis and decline. When these billionaires go on strike society collapses and thousands of the useless poor die as a poor and weak government is forced to withdraw the income on which they depend for their survival. Eventually a discredited government is forced to welcome back the billionaires on their terms and these billionaires put society back on its feet and society develops and prospers. Many politicians of the new right are followers of Ayn Rand and her influence can be seen on government welfare policy. The Ayn Rands in government believe in a policy of brutalising the poor to the extent that they are forced to work at any price for anybody. It’s a cure for the wasteful culture of dependence, to such as ‘Sajid Javid’ homeless and misery is a just punishment for the useless poor. When governments ignore the truth tellers they are prey to the charlatans and other paddlers of fantasies and falsehoods.

Economists do possess a knowledge of the economy which is invaluable for the effective running of government. One such economist is Anne Pettifor who is constantly ignored by governments because she tells them truths they don’t want to hear. Economists such as her can be compared to the Old Testament prophets who were constantly ignored by the rulers of Israel.

Anne Pettifor -is the author of ‘The First World Debt Crisis’. While most politicians are aware that economic growth is driven by consumer spending and debt, such as the popular car leasing system, they have little awareness of the dangers of this policy. The growth of consumer debt is so large that it has created a credit or debt mountain of unsustainable proportions – UK bank debt in 2009 – 586% of GDP it falling to around 400% of GDP in 2009 (Dominic Raab), but has since risen. Even Germany has similar problems the collective debts of its banks are over 300% of GDP (much of the money lent to Greece was recycled back to the German banks who had made too many ill-judged loans to the Greeks, so as to prevent them experiencing a liquidity crisis).The UK vies continually with Japan for the title of most indebted country of the industrial developed world.

David Cameron was right that Britain was maxed out on its credit card, he was just wrong about which credit card.

Rather than tackle the problem the government spends billions on quantitative easing to provide the cash to keep the banks afloat. At the height of the financial crisis in 2008/9 Gordon Brown was willing to spend a sum equivalent to the almost the total national income to keep the banks afloat. The official policy is to kick the problem can down the road leaving it to a future government to tackle the problem.

Why do governments fail to tackle this problem? They fear the electorate reaction, if they brought the credit boom to an end. Loans of various kinds account for a significant proportion of people’s spending and to reduce lending would in effect to reduce people’s incomes in that they would be unable to spend as much as previously on various consumer goods. What they are most scared of is cutting spending in the housing market which would lead to a fall in house prices. The belief amongst politicians is that falling house prices equal lost election.

The best informed of politicians know that the risk is that the whole financial house of cards will come tumbling down in a crash as bad as that of 1929, yet they prefer the risk of a future catastrophic crash to taking action now.

The right and wrong of economics

Although I can as an economist make more accurate predictions about the future than any politician there are limitations to the usefulness of my predictions. I cannot say exactly when a predicted event will occur or how great will be its impact on the economy. The economy is a dynamic social institution that is constantly changing and changes can maximise or minimise the impact of the predicted event.

Last year The Observer published one of my letters in I which predicted an economic downturn in 2017. I made my prediction on the basis that all free and largely unregulated markets are liable to exuberant booms that always end in a crash. Past history shows that such crashes occur every nine years, that is 1990, 1999 and 2008/9.

This contention is supported by the economist Hayek. What he stated was that there is a period when the benefits of innovation are exhausted and economic growth falls and the economy falls into recession. This has happened to the UK as the benefits from the mass production of consumer goods begin to tail off. Since the mid 1980s there has been too many car manufacturers in Europe, making cars that were needed. The consequence was retrenchment in the car industry and in Britain the disappearance of the native car industry. When industry fails to deliver alternative sources of income need to be found. In the UK, USA and Western Europe that has been the development of the speculative industry, increases in income no longer come from employment but from the increase in the value of assets, such as houses. A speculative economy is particular prone to booms and busts, as there become periods when it is generally believed that prices have peaked and they can only go down. These downs are quite spectacular and cause widespread distress.

However although I can predict with confidence that a downturn will occur, there are a number of proviso’s that I must make about prediction:

There is no iron law that states a downturn will occur every nine years, but evidence from the past shows that this is likely, it is events that may change the date of the crash.

Brexit – if Teresa May calls an early election the uncertainty generated by that can bring the date of the crash forward to whatever she makes that announcement.

Events may occur that halt the downward trend – if the government panics at the thought of there being held responsible for the negative effects of Brexit and states that it will do whatever deal is is necessary to ensure that Britain remains in the single market, this could result in a boost to business confidence with businesses now rushing to make the investments that they had postponed due to the uncertainties of Brexit. This rush to investment will lead to a temporary boost to the economy that will delay the economic downturn. However it will only postpone the crash.

Conclusion – Economists are not infallible but they are closer to infallibility that most politicians. What economists possess that politicians do not is an understanding of the workings of the economy.

Why are our leaders so stupid?

April 26, 2016christianity, economic history, Economics, irony, Philosophy, politics, religion, Uncategorized#austerity, #classical greece, #economics, #Isis, #St.Augustine, #UKIP, Avveroes, Bonhoeffer, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Columbus, Derren Brown, Donald Trump, expansionary fiscal contraction, George Osborne, Muslim Fundamentalism, Protestant Evangelical Preachers, Rumi, St Francis, Tea Party, Walter Benjaminangrytunbridgewells

What puzzles me is why are people such as Donald Trump and Boris Johnson so popular. The first advocates the policies of a clown and the second pretends to be a clown to achieve political success.

When I was at school in the 1950s I remember being told about Columbus’s voyage to America. The Headmistress told us that it was a particularly daring adventure, as people at the time believed the world was flat and thought that Columbus was in danger of falling off the edge of the world. The truth was very different as I discovered later. Columbus was an experienced sailor who knew about the fishing grounds off North America that European sailors visited each year that the Atlantic Ocean was bounded by a large landmass to the West. Also it was known at this time that the earth was round. The classical Greeks had realised that the earth was round because they knew there was a horizon, beyond which the eye could not see, therefore the earth surface must be curved.If was the geographer Eratosthenes (276BC to 195/4 BC) who calculated with an incredible degree of accuracy the earth’s circumference. It is highly unlikely that Columbus was unaware of that the earth was round. My teacher was typical of those of the time that believed that people of the past had a childlike understanding of the world, whereas in fact the opposite was true.

We assume today that our knowledge and understanding is superior to that of the past. Yet our politicians constantly disapprove this notion. In the USA Donald Trump is likely to become the Republican Party’s candidate for the Presidency and Boris Johnson possible future Conservative Party leader What both these leading politicians have in common is an anti-intellectualism, both of them in their campaigns seek to appeal to most primeval of voters instincts. Trump blames the Mexicans for crime and wants to erect a wall to keep them out, and Johnson believes that Obama’s part Kenyan ancestry makes him anti British, because of the injustices the British inflicted on Kenyans during the days of Empire. To say that both these politicians are intelligent men who are just using anti immigrant and anti foreigner feeling to win support and that they don’t really believe what they are saying does these two men a disservice, they believe what they are saying. They are both populists who believe in simple solutions to difficult and complex problems, both of them personify the anti-intellectualism which is dominant in the our society. The political dialogue in both countries is dominated by the anti-intellectualism of those such as the Tea Party whose policies are moving closer to the mainstream in both countries. UKIP a party that gets much media coverage seems to be campaigning for things such as ending the smoking ban in pubs. Sam Goldwyn once said a movie never lost money for underestimating the intelligence of the average cinema goer, now in politics the belief is that no politician ever fails for underestimating the intelligence of the average voter. There is a change in society that has made stupid politics the dominant strand. Possibility it is linked to Walter Benjamin’s insight (when writing about the cinema) that contemporary media leaves little time or scope for reflection, as the media image is all involving leaving no opportunity for distancing necessary for reflecting on the projected image.

If I was to compare contemporary England with medieval England, I would say that the former is technically sophisticated but intellectually unsophisticated. This is not to say that there are not a community of intellectuals whose thinking is far superior to that of those of the medieval era, but these people are excluded from the public debate, which is dominated by the advocates of stupid politics. Obviously Trump and Johnson are not stupid men, they just find a politics of idiocy the most effective means of self promotion. What is most disturbing is that these men intend to pursue the policies they advocate, without regard to the damage caused to society through the introduction of their simplistic policies.

As an economist I can see the dangers of practising stupid politics. Britain has endured years of austerity because the government believes in a nonsense called ‘expansionary fiscal contraction’, that is cutting government expenditure will increase growth. Despite this policy having no economic credibility the opposition’s chief economics spokesman, a man who had a top class degree in economics from Oxbridge immediately signed up to the policy. Knowing it was fallacious economics made no difference, he did not want to appear out of step in with all the others who were practising stupid politics. Bonhoeffer said that the success of the Nazi’s was due to fact that good people did not speak up, similarly stupid politics is prevailing because the intelligent do not speak up. In England it is the noise and abuse made by the practitioners of stupid politics that scares of the intelligent when we most need them.

Intelligent women for example are put of entering the English Parliament because of the sexist behaviour in the bear pit that is the House of Commons. When female opposition MPs speak, male MPs on the government benches often make crude sexual gestures with their hands and shout sexist abuse. Also any show of intelligence is likely to get a politician pilloried in the tabloid press as a geek, as happened to the last leader of the opposition. Anti-intellectualism is rife in the English political culture and it’s preventing intelligent government.

What really provoked me into writing this article was a tweet by the illusionist Derren Brown, in which he referenced a You Tube in which two evangelical preachers explain why it is necessary for them to own private executive jets. One says it is so he can get some quiet time in which to talk to God, as he would be unable to do that on a flight with other passengers who would disturb him. Christ when he wanted a quiet place for meditation found a quiet spot in a garden or in the countryside, surely these two men could have done the same. These two men are Christian literalists they believe that the bible is the word of God and that all should to obey the word of God as explained in the bible. These two Christian literalists are following a practice condemned as being wrong as far back s the early Middle Ages. St. Augustine in his book on Christian teaching explained that the bible should not be taken literally, the word of the bible required explanation by the Christian teacher. Following St. Augustine’s advice all medieval bibles contained commentaries on the page side by side with the biblical text. These commentaries were there for the preacher to help him explain the text to the people. What these evangelical preachers are doing is practising a type of Christianity that even the least educated of medieval priests would have recognised as wrong. If these men had been medieval clerics they would have been relegated to some obscure rural parish where they could have done little harm. Yet these men are seen as representative of true Christian belief, religion seems to mirror the practice of stupid politics.

This simplistic religious view of the world that divides the world up into good and bad guys is very influential. George Bush’s crusade against the evil of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq is representative of good versus bad guy politics. Isis and other Islamic fundamentalist groups embody the same good bad guy philosophy. A philosophy that justifies the cruel treatment of all unbelievers whether they be Christian, Yazidi or Shia Muslim, as they are already condemned by God for rejecting the true religion and as such are wordless people. One of the main targets for Islamic fundamentalists are the Sufi Muslims who practice a more sophisticated and humane religion. The simplistic belief of the fundamentalists contrasts unfavourably with the sophisticated Islam of the medieval period as demonstrated in the poetry of the Rumi (1207-73) or the philosophy of Averroes (1126-1198). Christian thinkers owed much to these men, Francis of Assisi’s thinking was greatly influenced by the poetry of Rumi. Depressingly anti-intellectualism is not only a feature of Western politics but also in the politics of much of the Muslim world.

There are many sophisticated and intelligent clerics today but they do not get a hearing in today, because their speech is too subtle and nuanced for a world that wants simple truths. Rowan Williams the very intellectual former Archbishop of Canterbury was pilloried in the press as a bearded weirdy. They were not interested in the message from an educated Christian, for them Christianity is that of the simple minded fundamentalists.

There is no doubt that the public appetite is for stupid thinking, there is a wanting for people offering a few simple homespun truths that they claim will solve the world’s ills. Does not the constant diet of super hero films coming out of Hollywood demonstrate that something is very wrong in our culture? Hollywood appears to have opted out of making adult films, as it has correctly judged that the audience for its films want simple child like stories. The only hope is that the world particularly the Western world will tire of simple childlike stories and politics. When politicians such as Donald Trump and Boris Johnson get chance to put into practice their childlike policy solutions and those policies prove to be a resounding failure, the pendulum will surely swing in favour of a more grown up politics.

An Unusual Economist

After the crash of financial 2008/9, it was obvious that the current model of economic analysis was broken. I want to develop a new approach to economic analysis.