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What Now for the Democrats?

The 900lb gorilla has been vanquished. Those with any affinity for democracy or liberalism have every right to breathe a sigh of relief. Anthony Jones’ moving CNN report spoke volumes – the election of Biden is at the very least an indicator that common decency is still important in society.

But before we become too absorbed in a typically self-congratulatory liberal celebration, it is worth keeping an eye on the future. Washington gridlock aside, the spectre of 2024 is already looming large.

Defending office is an entirely different proposition to challenging for it. In 2020, it was sufficient for the Democrats to simply be the ‘Not Trump Party’. A positive policy vision was not required, and the party was able to paper over internal divisions for the cause of fighting The Donald. In four years’ time however, it will be the Democrats under the microscope, not Trump.

The next four years must therefore be dedicated to producing a coherent and inspiring political vision that the Democrats can take to the electorate. Right now, it seems like the party is light years away from this.

What Does Isaac Newton Think?

In general I am deeply suspicious of efforts to bring scientific laws into social studies. While adding the word ‘science’ to ‘political’ or ‘economic’ adds meretricious authority, it generally reduces these nuanced disciplines to contrived formulae and ‘laws’ which only detract from the subjects.

However, I am now going to break my own rule and bring a bit of Newton to the discussion around the Democratic Party’s future. Newton’s third law of motion states that each action will have an equal and opposite reaction, and the application of this law appears to be just as relevant in the political realm as its mechanical counterpart.

Trump is the archetype of this law’s political relevance. Trumpism is in equal measures controversial and inspirational, capable of evoking astonishing passion at both ends of the emotional spectrum. 2020 saw the record for ‘largest popular vote’ broken twice – once by Trump himself, and once by his rival Biden.

The Democrats need to learn from this when choosing their policy direction for 2024. Big ideas (which are almost by definition controversial) may inspire astonishing support, but they are also likely to be met with substantial resistance.

Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has set out the stall for a Democratic answer to Trumpism. She made the (valid) point that extraordinary levels of turnout will not be maintained through a return to the status quo. According to AOC, Black Lives Matter and Medicare need to be at the heart of the Democrats’ progressive programme for the future.

But Newton would argue that for every individual inspired, there will be an equivalent kickback from the Republican party. It should not be ignored that Republicans across the country used the ‘defund the police’ slogan as a rallying cry to get conservative-leaning neutrals to vote for a candidate who they otherwise did not entirely agree with.

It is this phenomenon which explains Trump’s superficially inexplicable support amongst Latino voters. Despite repeatedly associating Latinos with drugs, rape and crime, they proved to be a substantial boost to Trump’s electoral fortunes. A visceral fear of socialism, with the hangover from Cuba and Marxist insurgencies across Latin America still being acutely felt within these communities, allowed The Republicans to brand Biden a ‘socialist’. This motivated vast quantities of Latinos (amongst others) to vote against giving Biden the keys to the White House. It is difficult to predict the magnitude of resistance amongst these groups if the Democratic party were to lurch further to the left.

That being said, it remains the case that America’s showbiz politics may need more than inoffensive centrism to keep Biden in the White House. If Trump’s supporters remain vigilant over the next four years, then it is extremely unlikely that the status quo will be sufficient to garner the votes required to fend off Trump’s challenge.

The word ‘minefield’ springs to mind. This will prove to be the most difficult of balancing acts for the Democrats – attempting to tack to the left while avoiding offering The Republicans easy political targets. Seeking to unite Americans with Medicare, while avoiding the inflammatory rhetoric of Identity Politics, would serve Biden well for the coming years.

The Tory Party Has Lost its Way

I’m very much looking forward to the day we make contact with aliens. Once we get all of the boring stuff out of the way like ‘where have you come from’ and ‘what is the meaning of life’, we can finally ask the important question: What do you make of The Conservative Party?

From an extra-terrestrial perspective, with no political preconceptions, I suspect this modern iteration of the Tory party would seem to be driven by stubborn idealogues. The guiding ideology of the party is clear – cut public services, leave the European Union. Easy.

Yet such a summation of the party would leave traditional conservatives turning in their expensive graves. For the Burkes and Oakeshotts of this world, conservatism ought to be understood as pragmatism. No political project or personal conviction should supersede the authority of quiet and practical governance.

David Cameron, despite coming under the ‘Neoliberal’ heading of the conservative Venn diagram, understood this well. Look no further than the legalisation of gay marriage in 2013. To much of the established party, gay marriage constitutes a violation of the Church of England and family values. But Cameron understood that times were changing, and the party needed to be flexible to avoid becoming the dinosaur of Westminster. Pragmatic politics won the day.

So how has the party lost its way so dramatically over the last five years?

If you want to find a political bandwagon worth jumping on, I would suggest ‘feeding hungry children’. To openly come out against feeding hungry children is like voting for the mass extermination of puppies. Morality aside, its politically myopic. Sorry, moronic.

Any party of pragmatism would look at Marcus Rashford’s campaign and see an easy political win. Extending Free School Meals isn’t too expensive for a national government – let’s not forget that Chris Grayling handed over £13.8m to a ferry company that didn’t have any ferries – and is guaranteed to be almost universally popular. It’s also worth noting (from a cynical perspective) that Rashford’s campaign is an excellent bit of PR for a party so often accused of racism – supporting the work of a young popular black man is as close as you can get to a PR ‘no-brainer’.

I have no doubt that Cameron would have slithered in and declared that extending Free School Meals was his idea all along.

Yet Johnson’s Tories seem hellbent on identifying as heartless Dickensian idealogues. Cutting costs is prioritised over feeding children. Preventing the statistically irrelevant chance of benefit fraud (a modern Tory obsession) is considered more important than preventing a political crisis.

For those who appreciate the value of symbolism, look no further than the whip being removed from Ken Clarke and Nicholas Soames last year for adopting caution in the face of fervent Brexiteering radicalism. Perhaps the modern Tory Grandees are Tim Martin and Ian ‘Beefy’ Botham.

It seems that the party has concluded that its idiosyncratic obsessions and modern ideological foundations are more important than pragmatism. This is surely the death of British conservatism.

Finance is our Secret Weapon against Climate Change

“It’s only the miracle of consumer capitalism that means you’re not lying in your own shit, dying at 43 with rotten teeth, and a little pill with a chicken on it is not going to change that. Now come on, fuck off”
Mark Corrigan

Mr Corrigan has a point. The invisible hand, despite its many detractors, has improved humanity’s lot no end. We in the West have become so comfortable that we spend our time worrying about the sexuality of daytime television hosts, or the latest surgery carried out on an identical perma-tan American.

But faced with the greatest crisis in human history, this magical hand seems to be conspicuously absent. As forests burn and sea levels rise, we invest $505bn p/a in oil and gas. As we learn about how humanity has wiped out 60% of animal populations since 1970, we continue to destroy 10 million hectares of forest land per year.

Humanity’s destruction of the natural world is, to put it simply, suicidal. Now more than ever, we need ‘the market’ to come and save us mere mortals. Why has capitalism proved to be so astonishingly impotent in our hour of need?

Money Talks

The unfortunate bottom line of the climate crisis is that resolving it is going to require cash. Lots of it. While the obvious solution to the crisis is to stop consuming so much crap, it appears that the cogs of consumerism cannot simply stop turning. So this leaves us praying for some kind of technological solution to save our (unsustainable) lifestyles.

Holding out for a shiny new bit of tech leaves us beholden to the long and arduous process of R&D. And if R&D were to have one universal law, it would surely be this: It’s Fucking Expensive.

Where is this kind of money going to come from? The only viable answer at the moment is venture capital. But the search for revolutionary technology is inevitably going to come with an extraordinary degree of risk and uncertainty. The regulatory landscape around new technology is forever changing, and there is no guarantee that any ‘solution’ is going to be effective.

Gaia’s panacea may also turn out to be bloody tricky to monetise.

All of this is enough to send shivers of fear down an investment banker’s spine. Financial directors are obligated to turn a profit, not save the world, and so substantial investment will only come from the private sector if the chance of a decent return is high. This involves minimal risk and a viable business plan.

BlackRock’s recent $118m investment in electric van group Arrival is an excellent example of this. While electric buses would certainly be a step in the right direction, it’s hardly the kind of ground-breaking change that is needed to stem the tide of entropy. But, from an investor’s perspective, it is a fairly reliable bit of tech with a solid business plan.

If only there were an organisation with access to vast amounts of cash, with a mandate to improve society rather than turn a profit.

Hold on, doesn’t the state fit that description? Didn’t the Bank of England just create £100bn out of thin air to support a bloated financial system? Isn’t the whole point of the government to protect people anyway?

Yes, yes, and yes. The state is the only institution capable of generating the funds required to tackle the climate crisis – only the state is able to absorb huge losses while focusing investment towards the most effective (rather than the most profitable) solutions.

But where will this money come from? The state can’t just create money, surely?

The answer to that is slightly more complicated. A little known fact about the British financial system is that private commercial banks have the power to literally create money out of thin air. Whenever they issue credit, they simply tap the numbers into an online ledger, and then this money becomes ‘real’ once it is spent and the debt is repaid.

We allow private banks to create money out of thin air every single day, all in the interest of turning a profit. Why would it be so radical for the state to do the same thing in the interest of saving the world?

Finance really is the secret weapon in the fight against climate change. Electric buses simply aren’t going to cut it – nation-states need to take responsibility and wield the power of finance with authority.

Stop Following the Science!

“We are following the science.”

This sounds reassuring, doesn’t it? An assurance that policy decisions are not being plucked from thin air (we promise!), but are rather the inevitable and definitive conclusion of empirical research. But dig a little deeper and any promises of impartial/apolitical policy fit somewhere on a spectrum ranging from pallidly quixotic to downright dishonest.

There are many reasons why Johnson’s Tories would want to hide behind the opaque pane of ‘science’. Firstly, and most obviously, it provides an easy escape route; an accountability ‘eject’ button, allowing the party to circumvent any criticism of their astonishingly inept handling of this crisis. Of course we would have liked to protect the self-employed, but we were simply following the science. Has our 10pm curfew caused more harm than good? We were simply following the science.

Anybody who likes to nestle under democracy’s political umbrella ought to be shuffling awkwardly in their seat by this point. Accountability is the bedrock of democracy – America’s current shitshow is largely attributable to hyper-partisan loyalty transcending accountability. Questioning your party is the new regicide, and so accountability (and democracy) grind to a halt. Accountability could well be the protagonist in democracy’s eschatology.

Back to Boris. Rather than peering across the pond with an acute sense of unease, Mr Johnson appears to be caught in wistful reverie. If only he could do whatever he wanted and get away with it. And then it hit him. Follow the science!

A one-size-fits-all solution to justify whatever was written on the back of the cabinet fag packet this week. This ticks all of Boris’ boxes – easy, convenient, someone else’s problem.

But one senses a slight shift in the volksgeist this week. The government’s patchwork system of tiered lockdowns has been met with considerable resistance, and people are starting to question whether all of this is worth it. As lockdown’s consequences become more acute, the policy process comes under increasing scrutiny. What does the government actually mean when it says it is ‘following the science’?

There are two ‘scientific’ bases on which these decisions are being made. The first type of model which we so often hear about are the singularly focused ‘R rate’ models. Such models are inherently parochial, and examine the impact different policies will have on controlling the spread of the virus. These findings are obviously important, but fail to take into account the kaleidoscopic epiphenomena of Covid restrictions.

The economic consequences of lockdown are clear for all to see, but this is really only the tip of the iceberg. As GP’s become overloaded, cancer diagnoses have tanked which has caused the respective deaths to go through the roof. Reports of domestic abuse have shot up, and a mental health crisis is looming. Narrow ‘R-rate’ models are clearly insufficient to dictate policy decisions.

“The idea that multifaceted policy decisions can be ‘scientific’ is absolute garbage”

So this brings us to the second type of model. An all-encompassing model which seeks to provide a holistic measure of the consequences of different Covid measures. Even if such a model were to exist (I am personally extremely dubious), its very nature would by definition have to be political.

Let us assume (for the sake of argument) that such a model exists and is accurate. The model, in all its omniscience, prognosticates that a ‘circuit-breaker’ lockdown would decrease the R rate by x%, but increase unemployment by y% and drag z more children under the poverty line. What do you do with such information? Numbers alone cannot tell you what to do – evaluating the relative pros and cons of these figures requires a political judgement. A human being has to decide whether poverty is a price worth paying to control the virus. The idea that multifaceted policy decisions can be ‘scientific’ is absolute garbage.

I am not using these 700 words to lambast lockdown. I am simply trying to point out that the idea of objective and scientific policy decisions is nonsense. This government needs to take ownership of its policies and acknowledge that their implementation is the consequence of human and political judgement, not mathematical diktat. Without this, there can be no scrutiny or accountability.

A Libertarian Case for UBI

We are currently in the middle of a crisis. A disease is spreading like wildfire across the globe, ravaging all those in its path. That disease is, of course, corporate clichés. The jewel in this hollow crown is that ‘crises are hidden opportunities.’ Charlatans the world over will be familiar with this sentiment – that there is no such thing as a crisis, only a chance for growth.

Hopefully there are still others like me who find such statements deeply, deeply irritating.

But perhaps, just this once, the charlatans have a point. Many have been calling for COVID-19 to be the catalyst for genuine social change – for the furlough scheme and our new sense of national obligation to spark an overhaul of our welfare systems. We now realise what governments are capable of, and as such the calls for a Universal Basic Income (UBI) have taken centre stage.

Introducing a UBI would clearly represent a paradigm shift in the realm of social policy.

The academic model of paradigm shifts which I am most familiar with is the Kuhn Cycle. Thomas Kuhn’s theory is that intellectual and social paradigms will experience some form of crisis, which leads to the eventual abandonment of the theory. In recent history, these crises have been entirely endogenous to the paradigm. Various iterations of capitalism and communism in the 20^th Century had their hamartia embedded deep in the fabric of the paradigm. Think of 2008, when unfettered capital flows led to a spectacular collapse of capital markets. Or September 1992, when the monetary consensus produced an unbridled monetary disaster.

The social changes arising from COVID-19 are therefore somewhat unique in the realm of modern paradigm shifts, as their catalyst is largely exogenous. Unless you believe COVID-19 was sent by God to curse our debauched society, it seems apparent that our structures of social governance have little to do with the emergence of a global killer.

This makes for interesting analysis, as the appetite for social change has not emerged organically as chinks in the paradigmatic armour start to emerge, but rather with explosive haste after an external shock. The question remains whether this political flame is burning a little too bright, destined to sacrifice longevity for short-term intensity. Skilled political operators such as Dominic Cummings understand that high passions tend to burn out if you are willing to weather the storm.

It is in light of this that I would like to offer my two cents to the discussion around a reformed COVID-Consensus. Discussions about introducing a Universal Basic Income should not be allowed to burn out, and I believe a UBI could be palatable to both sides of the political spectrum. I would therefore like to advance a libertarian case for UBI, in the hope that it might persuade some of those who are so far unconvinced.

Libertarianism and Redistribution

From Van Parijs to Rutger Bregman, much has been made of the left’s association with UBI. But there is no reason why UBI should be the left’s intellectual property. Nixon once supported UBI, and it is also true that Milton Friedman advocated a Negative Income Tax (NIT) as a redistributive alternative to UBI.

Friedman’s justification for this was that libertarianism is rooted in freedom, and freedom is impinged upon by poverty. A starving man cannot be considered free, and a homeless woman does not enjoy equality of opportunity. Negative Income Tax would therefore serve to ‘top up’ the incomes of people who were earning below a threshold point, while those above the threshold would pay a normal (positive) level of tax to fund the programme. Such a policy is a clear example of redistribution, but was deemed a moral imperative by Friedman who saw extreme poverty as an issue which merited state intervention.

Redistributive policy is therefore not antithetical to libertarianism. Rather, any form of redistribution must satisfy some conditions to conform with libertarian ideas. We shall therefore outline a brief sketch of the key ideas of libertarianism, and then examine whether or not a UBI would satisfy these conditions.

“If NIT is acceptable to libertarianism, then UBI ought to be as well”

Freedom

So let us firstly ask the question of freedom – the lexical bedrock of libertarianism. As we have already established, Friedman was willing to throw his hat in the ring in favour of NIT. So you cannot rule out redistribution per se on the grounds of freedom. There must rather be something integral to the manner of redistribution that either satisfies or violates the principle of freedom.

The premise behind a libertarian notion of freedom is that all people are born equal. The only way to treat people equally is to maximise their freedom – allow all people to pursue their conception of the good life in a way that suits them. Liberty is, therefore, an alternative conception of equality. Rather than equality of outcome, a libertarian would strive for equality of treatment before the law, and equal status in society at birth – free from any kind of external intervention. To my mind, a UBI is far more successful in satisfying this criteria than an NIT.

NIT, as a qualified and graduating benefits system, appears far more to resemble the Marxist maxim of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ than a UBI does. Under UBI, all citizens are treated equally before the state and the law, with all people receiving the same state benefits irrespective of status or income. Rather than some people being taxed and some people receiving benefits (as is the case for an NIT), all individuals have the same relation to the state with a UBI.

It is also worth noting that one’s freedom to pursue ‘the good life’ is clearly qualified by financial constraints. Many actors, musicians, artists, even school teachers and nurses, are currently struggling to survive because of poor wages in a stagnant labour market. The libertarian dream seems to need some kind of state support to allow for genuine freedom. UBI would supplement the income of these people, such that starvation is not the cost of freedom.

Minimal State

Another libertarian critique of UBI would be that it enlarges the state to an unacceptable degree. If everybody is to receive a benefit from the state, then surely that would require a ballooning of the state’s infrastructure (and purse)?

Once again, this needn’t be the case. Davide Tondandi highlighted in his 2008 paper that UBI may have higher gross expenditure than an NIT, but the net cost of the two projects are likely to be the same. This is because under a UBI, all individuals pay tax while also receiving the benefit. The total size of the operation is therefore larger, but the net costs are likely to be the same.

Furthermore, the infrastructure required for a UBI programme would be substantially lower than the frankly ludicrous benefit systems that we currently have in place in the Western world. The bureaucratic labyrinth required for a means-tested benefit system is astonishing; wildly expensive, and entirely unnecessary. A fixed, unconditional payment to all citizens would streamline the state’s bureaucratic arm, thus shrinking the size of the state, cutting costs, and allowing people to receive benefits without having their privacy invaded by the state.

Personal Independence

A final criticism would be that UBI disincentivises work, encouraging laziness and dependence on the state. This is a powerful and important point. If all citizens were paid an unconditional income, the risk is a generation of ‘free-riders’. But it is worth noting that NIT has its own issues with disincentivising labour.

Under NIT, the link between labour and wages is weakened around the ‘threshold point’ where you move from a negative to a positive tax rate. Economic theory states that a person chooses the hours they work based on a personal trade-off between leisure and income. People will therefore increase their hours worked until the ‘marginal utility of labour’ (the extra happiness they get from earning a bit more) is equal to the ‘marginal cost labour’ (the happiness they lose by sacrificing an extra bit of leisure). At this point, their happiness is maximised.

However, as you approach the ‘threshold point’, the marginal utility of labour will decrease as your extra labour will not be proportionately increasing your income. The increase in your wages is offset by a decrease in state support. The link between labour and income is therefore broken, and people will not be adequately incentivised to work harder or increase their hours when they are below the threshold point.

NIT is therefore also guilty of producing unwanted side-effects (or ‘externalities’ to stick to the economics jargon) in the labour market. A UBI system would not experience the same issue, as increasing your working hours will always increase your income proportionately. If Friedman can tolerate the labour market effects of NIT, there’s no reason why the UBI effects should be beyond the pale.

So why is it so unpopular?

The main conclusion to be drawn from all this is that if NIT is acceptable to libertarianism, then UBI ought to be as well. If my analysis is to be accepted (a big if), then the question remains as to why UBI is still considered a fringe, Neo-Marxist idea. I believe the simple answer is language.

Words like ‘universal’ and ‘unconditional’ result in UBI being put in an intellectual box which it doesn’t need to be confined to. It is high time we opened our eyes to the immense potential of this idea, irrespective of our political affiliations.

Confidence is Playing a Fraudulent Role in the Economy. Here’s How.

Confidence can come in many forms. Whether it’s a Kanye West soliloquy, a Christopher Hitchens interview, or 19-year-old Erling Haaland swaggering into Borussia Dortmund’s Champion’s League team; we are constantly surrounded by outbursts of confidence.

But confidence is not just a topic for sports columns or the therapist’s sofa. Confidence is the lifeblood of finance capitalism, and its symbiotic relationship with political electoral cycles can make or break political parties. It is for this reason that light needs to be shed on its murky and ambiguous definition, so that we can fully understand the fraudulent role of ‘confidence’ in politics and economics.

It is a wonderful time to be in government when the general mood around the economy is one of confidence. If firms believe demand is going to spike in the near future then they can afford to invest in capital or increase the size of their labour force, as they can expect increased revenue in the near future to cover their investment. Confidence will therefore inspire firms to spend heavily, and often increase overall employment.

Confidence can therefore be seen to create a snowballing effect. If businesses believe the economy to be on the up, then they will increase investment and employment – the very things that cause GDP to grow.

An alternative interpretation of this mechanism would be that of a self-fulfilling prophecy, rather than a snowballing effect. It could be that our economic models (or the people utilising them) were miles wide of the mark, and the economy was actually due to stagnate. But, due to findings released by prestigious organisations and media outlets, the economic zeitgeist is bullish. This is sufficient to reverse the trend and bring the economy back on track.

The positive results of the investment have a further role to play in this narrative. Not only do they fulfil the prophecy of confidence, but they also reinforce the validity of the causal factors of said confidence. If event X caused people to believe the economy will grow, and this confidence then produced investment, which in turn caused growth, it is entirely conceivable that people will then come to associate event X with growth. While it may be the case that it was in fact our response to event X, rather than the event itself, this is largely insignificant – X will be validated as a precursor to growth and will thus inspire even greater confidence in the future.

It must also be recognised that ‘confidence’ in the economy is, by definition, amorphous and subjective. When firms speak about having confidence in the future, it is often referring to conditions which are considered to be broadly ‘pro-business’. Progressing in trade negotiations, cutting corporation taxes, or weakening regulation are but a few examples of policies which come under this category.

“Growth is caused by our response to event X, rather than the event itself”

But there is no objective criterion for what is good for business. Slashing regulation may seem appealing, but it can lay the groundwork for devastating financial collapses. Progressing in trade negotiations may appear valuable, but it could be the calm before the storm.

It must therefore be accepted that the causal factors for ‘confidence’ are, essentially, abstract. And if they are abstract, then suddenly there is a huge role to play for the institutions which set the Overton Window and dictate the national mood – the media.

Once the true nature of confidence is revealed, it can suddenly be seen that the media wield the power to make or break a political party’s economic credibility. If the media argues that a political party ought not to inspire confidence, then the mere prospect of their election can cause wild economic contractions, thus ‘validating’ the party’s status as being economically incompetent. It is no longer just the media asserting things – the proof is in the pudding. The self-fulfilling prophecy of confidence results in the media’s claims being backed by official economic forecasting and figures.

This effect has been in full force in the UK since the December general election. The CBI found that the manufacturing industry has been experiencing a confidence boost post-election, despite the fact that Johnson was potentially hurtling towards a no-deal Brexit. Even now, any specific terms of a deal are riven with uncertainty and exports are on a knife-edge. Yet, because of the Murdoch narrative of the Tories being ‘good for business’, and Johnson’s pledge to ‘Get Brexit Done’, confidence is booming.

Johnson therefore does not need any sound economic policies to experience an economic boom. All he needs is the media to create a mood of ‘confidence’, and the rest will click into place for him. Economic indicators will duly suggest his premiership has been a roaring success in the economic sphere.

Behind impressive, ‘impartial’ numbers such as GDP or net investment are fragile and impressionable individuals. ‘The market’ is not immune to the media’s claims – investors and CEOs are people like you and I, and the role of misplaced confidence cannot be ignored.

Have we learnt ANYTHING over the last decade?

Thankfully we have learnt some fashion lessons over the last decade

Does anyone remember 2010? How different things were back then. A time when Donald Trump was that random TV presenter who appeared on Home Alone once. A time when a coalition government in Britain felt like political chaos. A time of those weird neon buttoned t-shirts from Topman that everyone used to wear (what was that about?).

It was also a time when minimising paper waste was one of the core environmental issues in public discourse. I was at school in 2010, and I remember whole lessons being dedicated to the importance of using the recycling bin for waste paper, and not printing things off unnecessarily. Given that paper comes from trees, it was considered a vital step in the fight against deforestation to use as little paper as possible. This is entirely sensible.

This is a new decade though, and while we may have had the sense to see past those hideous t-shirts, our environmental rationale appears to have stalled. We now live in a time where McDonalds are lauded as environmental heroes for producing millions of paper straws, and Colgate are congratulated for issuing bamboo toothbrushes. Where on earth did we go so wrong?

Before anyone issues a lecture on the dangers of plastic, I certainly recognise that a paper straw is preferable to a plastic straw. But the idea that mass-producing straws out of a limited resource is the way to solve the climate crisis is absolutely bonkers. Why is nobody screaming that we don’t need bloody straws in the first place? Homo Sapiens survived for millennia without small tubes to drink our liquids through. I’m sure we would do just fine if they disappeared again.

“Why is nobody screaming that we don’t need bloody straws in the first place?”

The example of switching from plastic to paper straws neatly highlights how divorced our current mentality is from the consequences of our consumption habits. We still see environmental catastrophe as a problem we can ‘buy our way out of’; one of an infinite list of issues which can only be solved by buying more stuff. In a way this is hardly surprising, given that consumption has been drilled into our heads since at least the 70s. Unfit? Buy supplements. Unpopular? Buy clothes. Unhappy? Buy a holiday. Our culture of consumption was only ever going to have one solution for climate degradation – buy, buy, buy.

The unfortunate reality is, however, that this culture of consumption is exactly what has caused the climate crisis, and therefore cannot possibly be used to solve it. Our desire for more meat, more buildings and more ‘stuff’ has led to earth’s delicate web of biodiversity being thrown completely out of whack. The amazon is burning so we can eat more steak. The ice caps are melting so we can use more electricity. And the oceans are dying so we can wrap everything in plastic. There is only one viable solution to this crisis – stop consuming so much stuff.

‘Environmentally friendly’ products are a sinister Trojan Horse, convincing us to relax and consume more, turning a blind eye to the astonishing and irreparable damage we are causing. Yes, biodegradable wrapping over vegetables is better than a normal plastic wrap. But nobody needs wrapped vegetables. We need to radically rethink our current ideas about how much stuff we need and how often things need replacing. Reuse for as long as possible, mend where possible, and only buy when absolutely necessary. These need to be our axioms of consumption if we are to make any progress in the fight against climate change.

Hopefully we will reach a point soon where the mere idea of a straw, irrespective of material used, is as ridiculous as those Topman t-shirts. If not, then God help us all…

It’s Time to Abandon the Left vs Right Divide

Brexiteer. Corbynista. Thatcherite. Labels are common in politics today. Traditionally they have served the purpose of allowing us to compare different politicians or political movements, while broadly defining ourselves in relation to them. But are the terms we use still of value? Perhaps more pertinently – are they actually distorting our democracy to the point of harm?

Our obsession with labels exists down to the factional level, with the latest example being the Labour leadership election. Candidates are scrambling to align (or disentangle) themselves with the labels of Corbynism or Blairism, although some candidates, including Sir Kier Starmer, have been quick to adjudge that they are not appropriately categorised by either label. Blairism carries the burden of Iraq, while Corbynism’s cross is electoral cataclysm. Any attempt to associate individual candidates with previous leaders of the party is crass and unhelpful.

If labels are incapable of recognising nuance within a political movement, then how can they possibly be appropriate on a more macro level? As you continue to zoom further out from party factions, the ultimate labels that define our politics are whether someone is considered ‘left’ or ‘right’ wing. A superficial definition of the left would be a more collective approach to politics – higher taxes and welfare, while a similarly crass definition of the right would be a market-orientated individual approach – lower taxes, smaller state. Even these definitions are, however, fraught with difficulty and inconsistency. Anybody who thinks this is innocuous ought to think again.

The USA

To aid the discussion, I will separate the analysis of these terms between the USA and the UK, although it would certainly be an interesting topic to compare the relative definitions between these two countries. The United States has always prided itself on its ‘moderate’ politics – it avoided both fascism and socialism in the 20^th Century, and any distinction between left and right in America is therefore considered to be a matter of degrees: minor adjustments within the centre of the political spectrum. Broadly speaking, however, the American right focuses on social conservatism alongside pro-market, small state economic policy. The American left, by contrast, is more socially liberal and generally supports higher taxes and state spending.

This all sounds sensible. It is largely what we have come to expect from American politics, and it seems to make sense. But once you ask the ever-important question of ‘why?’ the system starts to fall apart. Why should it be the case that support for a smaller state is intellectually coupled with pro-life morality? Why would supporting higher taxes on the wealthy imply advocation of positive discrimination? There is absolutely no reason why economic opinions should reflect on social opinions – other than the fact we are told these go together. The crass labels which we are surrounded by every day put us in intellectual boxes and nudge us towards groups and opinions which we may not have autonomously associated with. This effect is exacerbated in the modern era with online ‘echo chambers’ which further reinforce an abstract coalition of economic and social beliefs.

But the damage caused does not end there. The labels we are ascribed carry certain value judgements which further shape our perspectives on other individuals. Right-wing economics carries a degree of hard-headed legitimacy – the implication being that a smaller state will reduce deficits and stabilise the economy (the economic truth behind the ‘small state’ is questionable, and I will discuss this another time). American history shows us, however, that right-wing politicians are notoriously poor at keeping balanced budgets when held in comparison to their ‘left-wing’ compatriots. Ronald Reagan accrued an additional $1.4tn to the budgetary deficit during his premiership – a deficit which was only wiped out under the Democratic leadership of Bill Clinton. Donald Trump’s tax cuts have cost the state billions – the deficit has increased substantially under Republican stewardship when compared to Obama’s government. But by labelling Trump as ‘right-wing’, he is afforded some economic credibility purely by virtue of the label. Any Democrat, or self-proclaimed ‘lefty’, attempting to operate with Trump’s deficit would be hounded out of government by the press (and most likely by the public as well). However, due to the false associations of the label he operates under, Trump is granted immunity.

The same is true for Democrats carrying a degree of ‘moral authority’ due to associations with a more communitarian brand of politics. Obama was certainly the recipient of favourable treatment on this basis. While his domestic economic agenda can be considered progressive, this associative moral virtue certainly did not extend to his foreign policy. Obama launched airstrikes or military raids in seven different countries, and is the first President to have been at war for the entirety of a two-term tenure. Obama is, however, the recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize. It is clearly impossible to accurately judge Obama’s reputation had he been flying the Republican flag, but it is likely that his association with left-wing morality provided Obama a degree of leeway with foreign policy violence that would not be afforded to, say, Donald Trump. For both Trump and Obama therefore, the ideological boxes we put them in have serious implications for their accountability.

The UK

The UK has a stronger socialist tradition than the United States, and so it could be argued that historically the labels of ‘left’ and ‘right’ are more appropriate for British politics. Tensions within these definitions have been bubbling away for some time however, just waiting for a spark to bring them bubbling over. And that spark came in dramatic style – in the form of Brexit.

The fundamental tension at the heart of the British left/right divide is the role of liberalism in the political spectrum. Different aspects of liberalism have been cherry-picked by the Labour and Conservative party in an ad-hoc manner, producing an entirely incoherent and muddled distinction between the political traditions.

Neo-liberalism is a word that is often associated with the British Conservative party, and it is a word that is often misunderstood. An academic definition of neo-liberalism is the fusion of classical liberal economics (minimal state, free markets, free trade) with social conservatism (family values, Christian ethics, tradition). Free markets and free trade, however, operate alongside a third freedom. Free movement of people. People, according to liberal economics, are understood as a labour commodity and therefore ought to be able to travel freely across borders to maximise efficiency. “But I thought the right were opposed to immigration?”. Herein lies the tension.

The two major parties, while being traditionally ideologically opposed along left vs right lines, are both internally split over the question of immigration. But this issue is far greater than just immigration – it is a broader question of support for globalisation. This is the issue that is mobilising politicians in our recent parliaments: the formation of Change UK, the Brexit Party and Johnson’s premiership all indicate that the question of globalisation has superseded questions of taxation and government spending. Anna Soubry found that her politics was more aptly aligned with Chris Leslie than Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Corbyn can personally testify that trying to unite the Labour party around the question of globalisation is an impossible task.

For very different reasons to the USA, then, the inadequate labels of left and right are causing existential damage to the British political system. Organising the Labour party along these lines has produced quite astonishing rifts which left the party incapable of scrutinising the government. Johnson’s Brexiteering premiership isolated the most distinguished and established members of not only his party, but the entire parliament. It is becoming increasingly clear that organising parliament along left/right lines is about as useful as splitting the house based on their view of Marmite. For British politics to function in a healthy and coherent manner, we need to rethink the established party lines along more relevant and topical boundaries.

We are entering a new decade. How will we be viewed come the new Century?

When I was at school, I often wondered how I would have behaved in the different periods of history I was learning about. Had I been born in Germany a century previously, would I have joined the Schutzstaffel, or resisted the Nazi regime? What about being born in 19^th Century America; would I have fought for the slaves’ freedom, or accepted the system I was born in?

How would this picture change if all of my friends joined the Nazi party, or if my family owned slaves? How would I behave then?

I believe that these thoughts are very common, and it is easy to think that if we were to simply have had the chance, we would have fought alongside Hans Scholl and Sojourner Truth. With our 21^st Century mindset, the crimes committed by the Nazis and the slave-owners are so clearly abhorrent that many of us believe we would have been compelled to act, even if it meant risking our lives.

If this is the case, that the vast majority of people are fundamentally decent and would resist these gross violations of nature, then how do we explain the Nazis, or the slave trade, or Pol Pot’s government? When peering through the lens of history, this can be a very difficult question to understand and it is no surprise that Nazi Germany is by far the most discussed topic in literature in modern history. But in examining the crimes of the past and contemplating how we would have behaved, we are ignoring a vital point that helps us to understand this issue. It is easy to comment on how we would have changed the crimes of the past, but what are we doing to change the crimes of today?

“What will our descendants think of us in the year 2220?”

I believe that one of the key explanators for this puzzle is that evil is far easier to recognise in retrospect. When you exist within a system of slavery, you are surrounded by it and it is such a quotidian feature of contemporary life, it can be extremely difficult to recognise and challenge it. It requires a truly introspective person to take a step back and examine their life and society with a critical eye, evaluating not just the behaviour of others but their own behaviour as well. Now that slavery has been abolished, it appears obvious that it was a vile abuse of power and a disgraceful blot against the integrity of the human race. But very few people at the time saw it as such.

The important question from this is – how will our society be viewed in history? Are we going to fall into the same trap of believing that the way we live our lives is just and moral, or do we have the bravery to question some of the most fundamental parts of our lives, and truly consider whether we are stumbling through another of humanity’s worst crimes? What will our descendants think of us in the year 2220?

Common themes in the crimes of history

Without having an understanding of common themes in the atrocities of the past, it can be difficult to recognise the atrocities of the present. We are lucky enough to live in a time with unrivalled access to history, both modern and ancient, and as such we can recognise some recurring trends in the darker side of humanity. This is by no means an exhaustive or exclusive list, but it provides a framework through which we can evaluate our society.

The first, and arguably most important, commonality in the crimes of humanity is the exploitation of power structures; often artificially created by the powerful to exploit the ‘other’. Whether this is the little-known Papua New Guinean slave trade perpetrated by white Australians, the confinement of women to domestic servitude, or the Stalinist Gulags filled with political enemies, power structures are abused by those at the top at the expense of the vulnerable. While these examples provide some evidence of the lines upon which power structures can be drawn, there are a plethora of other structures that exist – many of which are barely visible to the naked eye.

The second feature, which is used to justify these power structures, is the forced grouping together of specific groups at the expense of their individuality. Native Americans were considered homogeneous and inferior by the colonial invaders, and it does not take a great deal of imagination to picture how this could extend to an inter-species form of grouping and stratifying. Just as the colonists had little regard for the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas, we would be fools to imagine galactic colonists being more tolerant. While this article is not going to discuss this issue any further (I am by no means qualified to discuss intergalactic morality), it is important to note that this artificial grouping of individuals is not necessarily confined to inter-human relations.

Finally, tying these two points together, the groups that are subordinated in power structures are systemically abused and exploited for private gain. They are reduced to a mere commodity (think African men being auctioned off to the highest bidder) and are thus stripped of the dignity of even being considered a living creature. Their desire for life, to avoid pain and to experience pleasure, is ignored in the pursuit of profit or convenience. For those of you who find this a chilling thought, you are having the correct response.

So what about today?

Now to the big question – is this relevant to modern Western society? I’m sure many of you may be slightly bemused at this point. The slaves have been emancipated, women are (legally) equal to men, and liberal democracy has been established across the Western world. We have fought all the battles left to fight, surely?

But once again we are failing to take a step outside of the structures we exist within. After utilising power structures to exploit humanity en-masse throughout history, we continue the exploitation through another sphere – animal agriculture.

For many people reading this, I’m sure the first response will be to scoff and announce indignantly that animals don’t count. Our focus should be on the wellbeing of human beings, not the animals. Just as our focus should be on the white man, not the black man. Or men, not women.

Humans may be the most intelligent species in the world, but we are by no means the only ones to feel pain, the only ones to feel love, or the only ones to seek life. Anybody with a dog can testify that other species are capable of a wide range of emotional states, including loneliness, fear and pain. And it would be foolish to think that this is only the case for dogs, or other domesticated animals.

When a cow gives birth to a calf, she releases the hormone oxytocin; the very same hormone released in human females when they give birth to a baby. Except in a dairy farm, once the cow has given birth (due to being forcibly impregnated to make her lactate), this baby is then ripped from her so that humans can drink the milk that has been chemically designed to raise her calf. Once she has finished lactating, she is then put through the entire ordeal again so that we can drink cow’s milk instead of oat milk in our coffee. This process continues until she eventually collapses from exhaustion after 5 years (cows in the wild can live to 20 years), when she is then taken to a slaughter-house and butchered so that we can eat her flesh. This is the reality of life for the 264 million dairy cows alive today.

The second objection which people will doubtless be raising is that the vile scenes of torture and abuse aren’t widespread – they are confined to a tiny minority of farms, usually in foreign countries, which are not representative of farming in the UK or in ‘civil’ Western countries. This is, sadly, a fallacy. According to section S6.1 of the RSPCA’s guide to humane slaughter of pigs, murder by ‘inert gasses’ or ‘exposure to carbon dioxide until death ensues, followed by bleeding’ is acceptable practice. These are literally gas chambers, set up for the systemic massacre of a species right here in the UK. I’m sure I do not need to make the historical parallels explicit.

The human race has put itself at the top of a power structure, with every other species on earth subordinate to us. We have stripped them of their individuality, and are exploiting them in a grotesque manner so that we can eat our way to diabetes because their flesh tastes nice. There is no dietary need for meat (the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the biggest society of dieticians in the world, confirmed that a vegan diet is appropriate for all stages of life), and thus the abuse of animals can only be viewed as gross exploitation for selfish, private gain.

It can be extremely challenging to recognise our own flaws, and even harder to do something about it. This is why the crimes that we now recognise throughout history were allowed to continue – the vast majority of people simply did not realise the consequences of their every-day behaviour. In the words of Hannah Arendt, this ‘banality of evil’ is often the primary driver of horrific crimes. Evil does not necessarily require vicious dictators or murdering psychopaths, but rather normal people being blind to the true consequences of their actions. So for everyone who believes they would have stood up to the Nazis, fought against slavery and marched alongside the Pankhursts – this is the fight of our generation. We need to stop exploiting animals for their milk, flesh, and skin. This is the crime that is occurring beneath our eyes, and this is our chance to do something about it.