J’ai entendu que plus que cinquante % des gens poursuivent l’éducation haute aujourd’hui. Ça c’est quelque chose de nouveau dans notre histoire. Mais pour quelle raison est-ce que nous le faisons? Et est-ce que c’est bien de le faire ou pas?
Hunter-gatherer societies live what we might define as rather unsophisticated lives, which could even be said to be “nasty, brutish and short” seen as murder rates are far higher within such communities. Yet those hunter-gatherer societies which exist today do not think of themselves as backwards, weak and unhappy. Take one tribe in the Amazon as an example. I won’t tell you the tribe’s name because I have no idea of how to spell it. But I can tell you a bit about them nonetheless.
They live in the middle of the Amazon. Each person works on average ten to twenty hours a week hunting/gathering and cooking food. The rest of the time they do whatever they want. They are fiercely proud to belong to their tribe, and although they have opportunities to learn Portuguese and enter Brazilian society they tend to think that the reverse should be a more likely story. They do not write or read. Their language has no numbers, and so they have never count. The language has far fewer words than ours. For example the word for skin, grass, cheek and a couple of other things is all the same. And yet scientific observers report that they smile and laugh far more than anyone in a “civilised society”. Indeed they often told the observer from whom I learnt all of this that if we could, then everyone would want to become a part of their tribe and live the way they do.
And they have some things to teach us as well: how to live sustainable lifestyles in keeping with nature; how to rebalance the equation between work and leisure; and also some more specific things. Their language includes a number of prefixes and suffixes, which inform you not only about what the information is that they have, but also where it came from. For instance imagine that you’re at a meeting and you say product X is worse than product Y. In English someone would have to ask you to elaborate. But in their tribal language you would have to structure the sentence so as to say where you got the information i.e. whether it was an opinion, found out from experience, inferred from something else etc.
So my question to you is basically this: is their life better? Or is ours? If you had the choice which would you choose and why?
You may have heard of the Clash of Civilisations between the West and the East. But what might have slipped you by is that there is far more evidence for a clash between people and business – a global clash, but one that will happen within rather than between countries. In recent years global growth has far outstripped GDP growth. Multinational corporations are gaining more and more power by the year. In fact it’s one of my many ideas for a novel; to implicitly parallel the growth of businesses and power of CEOs with the growth of Roman Legions and power of Generals like Caesar. You can probably guess where the novel would go if I ever get round to writing it. But where will reality go?
We don’t talk about a clash not because it’s not there, but because people are taking this lying down. In the latest budget the UK Coalition announced that it was slashing taxes for businesses, and saving money by taking away benefits for the poor. This is in the people’s interests it is claimed, as businesses bring jobs. But hold on, since the 1970s businesses have shifted from a ‘Retain and Reinvest’ model of corporate governance towards a ‘Downsize and Distribute’ one, which has meant much higher unemployment, declining real incomes, and a growing rich-poor divide. Only Germany that I can think of, insists on its businesses valuing employee wellbeing as well as profits
People are frustrated and feel under-valued all the way around the world. We can see this simply in the fact that the protestor was named 2011’s Times person of the year. And Occupy, the biggest protest movement worldwide, is not really protesting against governments so much as it is against businesses. Governments say they can’t do anything about it. But I say we must. It is not people we need to fight against. It is systems. And today we have made some pretty big systems, which actually fight against the wellbeing of the people!
What are your thoughts?
In almost every time of struggle, whether that struggle be economic, military, social or spiritual, human nature has shown a remarkable sense of ease in creating scapegoats to discriminate against.
It would not be very controversial to say that in the present crisis immigrants, religious minorities, gypsies, the homeless and the homebound are being discriminated against. But what about others who are overlooked?
For example what about those in the lower class we label “chavs”? What about the rich who we attack for their stranglehold on power? What about bankers, who most likely are the profession most labelled “wankers” in history? And what too about politicians?
If you have political experience on your CV today recruitment advisers tell you to take it off. It doesn’t matter if that’s in organising national campaigns, managing staff etc i.e. things relevant to the job being applied for. Groups who should be only too willing to talk to politicians hang up the phone on them. Employers refuse to give them interviews. And I’m not exaggerating here. A friend of mine was recently told quite specifically by a potential employer that he would never be given an interview while he held a position of political leadership, and no that wasn’t a job in the public sector. People respond with scorn when you say that you’re involved with politics. And the natural assumption is that politicians are, well… evil and corrupt.
What are your thoughts? Are we scapegoating those outside the obvious groups? If so who are we discriminating against? And if not why is it justifiable to treat people in a certain way simply because of their job or leisure time title?
This article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/21/whales-dolphins-legal-rights) reports on an increasingly popular argument that whales and dolphins are intelligent enough for us to grant them formalised rights, such as the right to life.
This raises several important and interesting points. It premises that human rights are based on intelligence. And it also suggests that some people are starting to group other species along with humans into an intelligent bracket. We can’t call these species Earthlings, since obviously that would also incorporate are rather less intelligent relatives as well. But is it time for us to stop thinking we’re special? Is it time for humans to recognise the rights of species other than themselves?
The number of bloggers has risen exponentially over the past two decades, and now for every Russian and Australian person in the world there is also a blogger. But what was once heralded as a way to decentralise the media and break the power control that big firms have is now back in the hands of those who already had the power and money.
So what’s the future of blogging? Will it go much bigger, and eventually become like an online CV for every person? Will it drop in size as people realise the true nature of the industry? Or will it become like any other area, where some people pursue it as a hobby, while some people dedicate more time and try to make it into a business venture?
Danny Dorling argues that “widespread inequality is an extremely recent thing for most of the world”. Richard Wilkinson, author of the Spirit Level, even went so far as to call this the “age of inequality” in a recent lecture. But we’re not talking just about wealth here. There are profound problems within our society, and they’re almost spiritual in nature. Part of this relates to what most probably first jumped into mind when you read the previous sentence: declining involvement in social groups such as churches, village activities and political parties, and a replacement with increased involvement in social activities intentionally devoid of any ethical affiliations, like sport for example. Some people liken this to the Roman Empire, whereby those who rush to football stadiums are compared with those who relished in watching others butchered in the gladiatorial arenas. But in actual fact there is a much bigger picture behind the scenes.
The evolution of Capitalism created a class war in the United Kingdom, in which aspiration and ambition are valued above all other goals. Tocqueville used to say that there was one thing that humanity strives for alongside happiness, and that that one thing was a combination of glory and honour. Glory and honour are socially constructed aims that were constantly pushed and promoted by those who could be compared to the media of today. Yet now it is achievement and aspiration which have come to dominate. And what it means is that politicians no longer talk about helping all classes. Instead they talk about helping people leave the working class, as if everyone in it is beneath the rest of society.
The new film about Margaret Thatcher is indicative of this recent social change like nothing else could be. The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee was recently asked to review the film. She said that she was expected to see the film as something wonderful for feminism, presenting a strong woman able to stand up to the world and beat whoever came in her way. Indeed Ms Toynbee said that the film was like this. But she also said that it was completely biased and un-historical. The film shows Thatcher in a heroic light, and yet as Toynbee said it shows nothing about the fact that child poverty jumped from 1 in 7 to 1 in 3. And neither did it show anything like this graph to indicate what could be criticised:
Now I’m Middle Class myself, and I don’t think that everything Thatcher did was bad. The last thing I want to do with this piece is attack anyone. But let’s look at the facts. The institutions of Working Class Britain, such as Trade Unions and council housing, were dismantled under her government. The industries of the Working Class, from manufacturing to mining, were torn apart. The communities were run down, and in many cases have still not received sufficient resources for regeneration. Even the values were attacked; values like solidarity and collective responsibility have been replaced by rugged individualism and expectations of individualistic aspirations rather than collectivist ones.
Today we have many, not only on the right but across the political spectrum, saying that as a result of changes since Thatcher the “aspirational working class” has gone on to become part of the expanded middle class, and what we have left in the working class are “chavs”. And as Owen James so excellently argued in “Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class” the working class is now being stigmatised, demonised and scapegoated as a result of middle class prejudices that have arisen from these changes. And the stigmatisation doesn’t end there either. It’s no coincidence that almost at the same time as Owen James’ book was published another was published under the title “Scapegoat: Why Are We Failing Disabled People?”
Indeed even those within the mainstream parties recognise that there are problems, just not the depth that they go to. For example Ed Miliband talked some time ago about “predatory capitalism”, and this week Cameron talked of a new “moral capitalism”. Unfortunately what connects these two ideas is a lack of depth, and a lack of action. These two parties and people are both guilty of jumping on the benefit fraud bandwagon to score political points. If we want real change in this country then we must vote for big reforms, such as those talked about by the Democratic Reform Party, like a new party system where parties can more easily rise and fall, a series of compassionate reforms designed to tackle social ills such as homelessness and modern slavery, and a series of democratic reforms designed to empower the people and decentralise power.
Are we talking of a possible World War 3? Are we talking about global warming? Or are we talking the Great Recession (my name for the current economic turmoil)? Each one is a huge security risk, and I’d love to hear your personal views. But as for mine, the first two are long term concerns, whereas the latter has multiple concerns that in my view have even greater need of immediate action. Below, I’ve listed my thoughts about some of what I feel to be the biggest concerns:
Iran
The oil prices are going up; there’s been a recent threat to close the Straits of Hormuz, which would push up oil prices even further; there looks to be no more chance of coming to an agreement on what we all suspect to be Iran’s nuclear weapons development; relations with Israel are no better; and those with the power to back up existing sanctions on Iran are massively over-extended. So Iran seems to be a concern on many levels.
The Eurozone Debt Crisis
So many people cite this as a problem that it’s hardly worth mentioning it anymore. But it is nonetheless a significant problem area, and perhaps the world’s biggest. If Greece pulls out of the Eurozone it’s not the end of the world. Even if the Eurozone ceases to be there could still be hope for the world economy. But Greece is almost certain to default if current trends are continued, and the markets have known this for a long time, which is precisely the problem. Governments and politicians are not responding to economic changes fast enough, or even acknowledging basic economic lessons until weeks or even months after everyone else seems to have done. So yes the Eurozone Debt Crisis is an enormous security risk to the world. But it makes my top list largely because it’s so simple a problem. It is a basic economic fact that fiscal and monetary policy need to be balanced. So we knew years before this crisis came along that one day the Eurozone would have to choose to either split up, or embark upon closer fiscal integration. The fact that so few politicians are strong enough to stand up and admit this basic fact is frightening indeed!
Chinese Property Crash
Continued high levels of growth in China has been one of the main supports for the troubled world economy. Remove that support and who knows what kind of turmoil awaits us.
A professor of political science from Beijing University thinks that within a couple of years property holders in Beijing could be on their knees begging people to buy their properties. He recently said that in the “last couple of years people cried wolf, but this time it’s real.” Prices in Beijing and Shanghai are already on the slide. And China is already adding the equivalent of the entire housing stock of Spain every year. This is unsustainable, considering that the pace of urbanisation looks likely to slow in coming years. In fact the professor quoted above, can’t actually afford a house in Beijing. If professors can’t then who can?
Of course to a very large degree this is a policy induced slowdown in response to China’s economy overheating. Within China there are a lot of people who want to buy property; they just want to make sure that they’re buying when prices are going up, and not down. So in part this threat to the Chinese property market is a short term cyclical one. If the government acts to support the property market, and decides to remove restrictions on property transactions, such as the amount of deposit that needs to be put down and the number of properties you can buy, then there seems to be reason to believe that the property market will continue along its recent growth trends.
However, China’s economic concerns are the world’s economic concerns, and as far as this one goes it’s a big one. You may think that China is far away, and maybe that you’re not employed in the property sector. But if you are thinking that then think again. Construction directly amounts to around 10% of the Chinese economy. If you then add all the secondary industries like building materials and services we’re in fact looking at closer to 25-30% of the economy. Imagine what a big slump in this big a part of the world’s number 2 economy would do for your confidence levels if you were an investor. Declining confidence levels would probably have the biggest impact around the world economy. But more directly, think of all the industries related to property. There are hundreds right? And many of these are situated outside of China, or support other businesses outside of China. Next imagine all the companies linked to these hundreds, and then those linked into them. We live in a globalised world, which means that whatever happens to one country’s economy will have an influence on every other economy. So even if your job’s secured, this would affect you.
Security Concerns in the Pacific
In addition to the potential for a Chinese property market crash there is a great deal of concern stemming from the Pacific region. Simply from China there is a fundamental, growing gap between rural and urban regions, less investment opportunities than there once seemed to be, huge levels of over-investment from the state (for example the 2008 Olympics area is now already in a state of disrepair), and knowledge that in the not too distant future China’s one child policy will be creating extreme demographic pressures.
In North Korea, so little is known about the new leader (Kim Jong Un) that we all have to be on our toes with regards to Asia’s trouble maker.
And the opposition candidate (from the Democratic Progressive Party) in Taiwan’s upcoming Presidential election is far less pro-China than the incumbent, meaning that we could see a much more tense relation between Taiwan and China in the coming years.
All of this grants reason to believe that the US’s recent decision to name the Pacific region as an increased risk was not the act of a regional “trouble maker” as an officially sanctioned statement from one of China’s top generals said. However this kind of language, and these kinds of events that are open for different interpretations, are commonplace between China and the US. So we should also be looking at possible future tensions over territorial zones such as the South China Sea (through which $5 trillion in trade sails annually).
Indeed, China’s military capabilities and deployment is growing daily. And the new US defence policy will be expanding US military presence in Asia too (though shrink the overall size of the force worldwide). Australia’s Washington Correspondent even had to reassure listeners that “it’s not a containment strategy”.
All these factors are reasons for concern by investors. And yet I’ve barely scratched the surface. But hopefully it’s food for thought. What do you think about the world’s biggest security threat(s) today?
The air was crisp and the sun had set long before. I could feel the road beneath my feet as it jarred my knees. And with every step I ran further into the country. My breath pooled in the air in front of me as I reflected on the day’s events. As an eighteen year old living in university and suffering from a mild dose of melancholy, I was in no mood to return home the same way I’d just run.
Eventually I did decide to return. But it was cold and there were no street lights, so I had little idea of where I was. Foolishly, I decided to cut across to the coast and work my way back that way. I didn’t realise how far I’d come, and with the cliffs to my left, and sea to my right, I thought home was just around the corner. Alas, it was not.
The sea came in fast, and a storm picked up. I couldn’t turn around. By the time my senses kicked in and I realised what I’d done I’d gone too far. The only way I could go was forwards, and I had to simply hope for the best.
I was forced into a run, and then eventually to swim. But each time I passed a new turn in the cliffs I saw a new stretch of water ahead. Amazingly, I was still managing to pity myself. But I had at least realised my predicament. I remember thinking ‘I could die here… tonight.’ But still, there was little I could do at that point. Returning would have been too far.
So I kept going, until the waves were so fierce that I was being smashed against the rocks with every wave. And it was then that I arrived at a new set of rocks. They lay directly ahead of me. Sharp and jagged teeth jutted out of the ocean bed. My eyes widened in fright. I didn’t want to risk being thrown against them. And beyond them was a new expanse of water yet again. I began to lose hope.
But I couldn’t lose hope. There was too much I had yet to do in life. So I turned to climbing the cliffs. At first it was easy and I wondered why I hadn’t tried it before. But as I reached the top it began to level off. And as it did so there were no more handholds.
Buffeted by the wind and the rain, and with blood dripping down each of my hands I shouted at the top of my lungs “HELP!!” But out there, with the roar of the wind and waves carrying my voice away, my efforts were folly.
The rocks on which I was hanging suddenly came loose under my weight. I felt myself falling back as if in slow motion. There was no time to climb back down; only to jump.
With all my might I leapt up, trying to grasp something onto which I could trust my weight. I was fifty feet in the air, and all I was able to grasp was soil… which came loose in my hands. Thus I fell towards the rocks below.
Looking back on this experience I can’t help but compare it to where politicians stand today: at the top of a cliff with nowhere to go, and no one to help them. Under successive governments over the past few decades, and particularly since Thatcher, the UK government has been centralising power in the hands of those few who stand nearest to the top of the cliff. And all the while the winds have been picking up. For people have been growing more and more disillusioned by politics.
Even as far back as 1986 Members of Cabinet were walking out, complaining about the demise of collective Cabinet Government. And Blair continued the trend. It has worsened relations between central and local government, created a schism between different regions, hurt accountability, and focussed such power at the top that jobs have simply had to be ignored. Worse yet this centralisation has occurred across many states around the world. Just as governments copied each other in piling up their debts, so too did they copy each other in undermining democracy, and making government more conservative.
I was lucky with my experience. When I fell, I fell on the other side of those jagged rocks. So despite losing a shoe and my glasses, I was able to swim on to safety. But our governments may not be so lucky. And so instead of prevaricating and postponing the inevitable, it is time that this trend of centralisation is reversed now with a series of democratic reforms.
Those standing at the top of the political hierarchy today are in the dark. They’re lonely, their hair is fast going grey, and the systems they head are in serious need of democratic reform. What lies before them without this reform is all too likely to be a fifty foot drop and a stormy sea to embrace them. Even if they can get away as I did, the state of the economy today means that being hospitalised again won’t go down well!
In other words centralisation is the antithesis of democracy. And what’s more, the assumption that it is somehow more efficient than a decentralised system is misguided. Centralising tasks that initially belonged to two people into the hands of one is bound to result in prioritisation, and perhaps even neglect. Centralisation in government, by furthering the divide between state and people, results in extreme prioritisation.
The UK has responded to this extreme prioritisation with an explosion in the number of single issue parties and independent candidates. It’s believed that if this centralised way of doing things is the only way then the only solution must be to fragment. But that’s simply not true. There are three options: keep the system as it is; encourage fragmentation; or decentralise and enact democratic reforms.
A certain degree of fragmentation could work, but only if the entire political and electoral system was geared towards this. Many large democracies, such as India, the US and the UK use ‘First Past The Post’ electoral systems, in which fragmented parties effectively stand for the exclusion of those people who don’t have an interest in their ‘issue’. If person X was elected in constituency Y specifically in order to represent those 20% of people who care about issue Z, then who would represent the other 80%? Thus to allow single issue parties to exist, while not harming democracy in any way, decentralisation and democratic reform must be practised.
We have a party system in the UK, because it’s recognised that you need lots of people working together at the national level (more independence at the local level would be preferable) in order to get things done. But on the same principle we should also recognise that there is a limit to what any one person can achieve by themselves. Simply put, if you focus too much power in the hands of the executive then they will start to miss things, even if they don’t mean to. This is why I term what we have at present ‘extreme prioritisation’. It’s creating a system in which the executive is climbing further and further up the cliff-face, and giving themselves much further to fall. The clear alternative is democratic reform, which is far more decentralised, far more inclusive, and thus far more effective.
Peace as a goal is an ideal which will not be contested by any government or nation, not even the most belligerent. Aung San Suu Kyi
Do you agree?
On the face of it it sounds like everyone will agree. But I don’t, at least not entirely. At present no government explicitly contests the principle. But society today is undergoing vast changes. Aung San Suu Kyi is a politician; and yet she is the heroine of our times. Whereas the ‘greats’ of history such as Alexander the Great would today be known as bloodthirsty tyrants. So although today there may be no government that contests the ideal of peace as a goal, people like Genghis Khan most certainly would have.
Genghis Khan viewed humanity as animalistic and predatory. He believed that people can be divided into either wolves or sheep. Being a sheep was being peaceful and civilised, and lacking in physical prowess. As you can guess Genghis didn’t much care for these kinds of people. But the wolf, which he saw himself as, was warlike, constantly moving around, never succumbing to the temptations of civilised luxuries, and never aiming for peace.
What are your thoughts on this matter? Is there an argument against peace? And could that argument be used still today? Or is it out-dated in a world where everyone cites a desire for peace?
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