Thursday 27 February 2014
The 100 Year Old Buccaneer
The Daily Telegraph has recently launched a campaign to review and update the country's ISA regulations to try and improve on the current outdated, and rather creaky system. As someone with a more than passing knowledge of the intricacies and foibles of the ISA landscape, I largely agree with the aim. However, in passing, the Telegraph ISA champion has unfortunately dismissed a key question in the debate about moving away from pensions and towards ISAs. What do you do when people spend all their money in Vegas?
**
Governments like pensions because they "lock in" someone's savings, and, upon retirement, force the purchase of an annuity which then provides a rest-of-life income. Its a way of forcing responsibility on to a population that, on the whole, is pretty irresponsible when it comes to spending decisions.
The moves to update the ISA rules to make them appropriate vehicles for retirement saving are, in part, being resisted because of concerns by those in the Treasury about people spending their retirement pot early. While those running the Telegraph campaign dismiss this as unlikely, I feel it is almost inevitable.
To build a healthy retirement income you really need to be saving throughout your working life; a lesson I, and many in my generation, who anticipate the state pension being abolished due to cost issues long before we ever get to claim it, base much of our financial planning around. Saving is something you do month in, month out, and not just to pay for holidays, cars or 80" plasma TVs, but so that thirty years down the line we have sufficient capital to be self-supporting.
A move away from forced pension contributions at work and through lower taxes, would therefore be welcomed by those who would channel the unlocked funds into their own nest eggs, earning both interest and dividends during their working life, and then in time being able to use a combination of income and capital erosion to pay for their retirement. It would also be welcomed by those who could use the extra money to buy a fifty-first pair of shoes and a bottle of vodka red bull.
What's the downside then?
In a harsh, lassie-faire type world the answer may be 'very little'. The government abdicates the need to provide a pension, slashes taxation by a comparable amount, and provides tax breaks equivalent to the cost of running the present system. Individuals then have the choice to spend now and suffer later, or flatten their income over their lifetime, perhaps forfeit some of the highs now, in exchange for a more comfortable old age.
Sadly we do not live in such a responsible society, in our world many and more will simply spend all their income as they get it and then rely on government hand outs in old age. Any government which lets people die in the winters and on the streets because they spent all their money 30 years ago will quickly find itself vilified in the media and out of office, regardless of how self-inflicted the potential misfortunes are. A truly "open" system, such as the one presented by the Telegraph, where savers are free to make their own choices, with their money, and shoulder the consequences, seems remarkably unlikely.
In trying to resolve this issue my first thought was to advance some kind of National Pension Fund. The premise seemed reasonable, replace the ponzi scheme of the current system with a structured investment pot, and allow it too accumulate to the point where the interest and earnings can pay for pensions.
Pensions in the UK currently cost the government approximately £74billion, so to pay out this amount, plus reinvestment of around 2% to keep up with inflation, the National Fund would need capital of around £1,480 billion. (£1.4 trillion, or the equivalent of about 3 years total government spending). This assumes a rather generous return of 5% a year, at a more practical 3% the capital requirements soar to over £7 trillion. (In this instance you would need to reinvest 2% of your 3% to keep up with inflation, leaving only 1% to pay the pension costs). This of course also assumes you dump the triple lock which sees pensions rising at 2.5% even if inflation is lower.
While the first figure isn't entirely ludicrous (if you assumed you could accumulate funds for 35 years before you begin to pay out the Fund would need to gain around £42 billion a year in funding while it grew - possibly doable with significant reforms, debt reduction and cost cutting). The later - £7 trillion would be the work of generations to amass.
There are also political problems with a National Fund - who administers it, who gets the cheque book and how long would it before an enterprising chancellor decided the Fund had to lend to government at rock bottom gilt prices? And on a practical note how would you go about bringing this scheme into being? Even if today's taxpayers were moved over to a new accumulative scheme someone still has to pay for those who claim their pensions today.
..
A brief derailment is required here to lay to bed a re-occurring comment about the nature of state pensions and how they are financed, the below is a fact:
"If you are currently receiving state pension, you did not pay for it."
More precisely - I and all current taxpayers like me, are paying for it, every month, when we get our salary, minus income tax, national insurance and so on.
The tax contributions that you made through your working life went towards the current spending of the governments elected while you were in office. This included, albeit on a much smaller scale, pensions for the previous generation of taxpayers to yourselves. None of it, ever, in any way, went towards investments, savings or projects designed to provide a means of funding your pensions.
This is because the state pension system is a ponzi-scheme of the grandest proportions, and it only works as long as people at the bottom keep paying in faster than the people at the top take the money out.
..
An alternative seems to be to reduce the number of people claiming pensions. This then reduces the overall tax burden and may allow for some relaxation of the taxation of savings and investments, opening the door for those who want to save to do so, while still maintaining some level of safety net.
To put the numbers into perspective when the national pension was first launched at the beginning of the 1900s, the qualifying age was 70 (against an average life expectancy in the mid 50s). Most people never claimed state pension, they died too soon. And on top of that it was at a far lower level (equivalent to about £33 / week in today's money for a married couple). As such it wasn't an unreasonable assumption that pensions could be seen as a minor cost, spread across a wide base of tax payers.
Today's world however is very different; life expectancy is in the 80's, and in fact in some of the wealthiest parts of the country has topped 100. On top of that the pension itself has risen to as much as £110 / week per person - 6 and a half times the cost of the original pension, and paid for decades to whole swathes of the population (today there are about 10 million pensioners in the UK - or around 14% of the population. At the end of 1908 there were 600,000 pensioners out of a population of 38 million or 1.5% (Its also worth pointing that the Empire was still alive and well in this time, so those 600,000 pensioners were not just 1% of the 38 million British, but 0.1% of the Empire's 420 million people) ).
Combining these two factors (6.5x more cost, and 10x more people claiming) and you have a pension system costing, conservatively, 65 times more than its originator; a number that only climbs higher every year as the population ages and the political death trap of the pension-triple lock ensures no chancellor has a hope of reigning in this particular item of spending.
If the number of people claiming pensions were reduced back to nearer its original level, some of the balance would be restored, and with it the potential for a more generous savings and investment regime. The easiest way to do this is to extend the retirement age, and indeed this particular idea has been floated. The retirement age in the UK is due to increase to 68 over the next decade or so, potentially delivering a saving in the £100s of billions. Yet this is still too little, too late. To rebalance an economy back to 1% or less of the population claiming pensions would need a pension age of around 85 or even 90. (2.3% of the population is currently 85+, though only 0.8% has reached 90). Some (very) cursory maths suggests such a move would save the Exchequer as much as £69 billion per year. Given that the cost-to-government of ISA tax relief is flagged at around £2.2 billion per year such a windfall would be more than enough to super-charge the ISA system into a tax-free whole-of-life savings vehicle, suitable for average investors looking to accumulate a tax-free income to fund the mid-late period of their life between wishing to finish work in the mid-60s, and starting to receive a pension in the mid-80s.
A similar outcome could be obtained by reducing the value of the pension from its current level of £100-odd per week back to its initial level of around £30 / week. While not as dramatic this could still potential save nearly 60% of the cost of pensions, or £44 billion per year. Again more than enough to fund a radical overhaul of personal savings.
Unfortunately both of these options, while working on a purely financial level, suffer from the same problem as the Telegraph's more general calls for a wider, more powerful, savings vehicle - what do you do with the people who don't save? If the pension age rises to 85 what does the state do with all the 65-80 year old's who are going to struggle to find employment, and didn't accumulate capital (for whatever reason)?
This leads on to a more general point about the extent to which the government should support people. I, genuinely, don't think we should have people starving on the streets or dying of the cold in their houses because they can't afford heating. On the other hand, just because I would willingly reach into my pocket to fund a warm room and three basic meals a day, doesn't mean I think you should be able to enjoy the benefits of consumerism (whether that be TV's, computers, smart-phones, cars or anything else) at the expense of others having to forfeit those same benefits due to the burden of taxation.
My proposal on this issue is therefore one that has been hinted at elsewhere, but never explicitly stated - we should move to a non-cash welfare system. Welfare of all kinds (unemployment benefit, low income benefits, pensions) should all be in the form of services and goods not cash. If you really don't have the funds to put clothes on your back and food on your plate, the state will, after all your assets have been used up, provide you with a warm room, three meals a day, and basic amenities, in the fashion of a retirement home (though more basic since this is state funded). This applies regardless of your demographic, if your 20 and can't afford rent and food then fine, again I don't begrudge you a roof over your head, soup on your plate and access to the kind of basic training which should enable anyone to get entry level jobs (or at least make up for the debacle of your education system to some extent).
This isn't the time or place to expand on this system in its entirety, however I will make a few final points in passing -
Firstly, even if the cost is not incomparable to the modern system it provides an incentive to save. If you want to live in your own house, have nice things and travel to interesting places in your retirement you have to save for them. The state will step in to stop death, and that's about it.
Secondly, it means work will always pay. In cash terms money comes from working (or investing), if you don't work you don't have money, full stop. You can't go down the pub, you can't bet on the grand national, you can't smoke, drink, play bingo or anything else.
Thirdly, this is not a charity, and the state does not have a requirement to support those who don't play ball. Any kind of state-funded accommodation has the potential to descend into ghetto-ism and petty crime, this must be rigorously and forcibly resisted. While I may feel some sympathy for the plight of those who find themselves homeless, friendless and penniless through poor (but legal) choices, or plain bad luck, I have no sympathy with those who try to bend the rules or take liabilities while existing on the state's support. In a very real way you are under the collective roof of every taxpayer and supporter of the British state, and as the saying goes "my roof, my rules".
Happy Trails,
/Z
Saturday 22 February 2014
The Chicken / Sunset Exchange Rate
I did mention previously that I would do a part 2 to the previous post regarding Scot's Independence, looking at the viability of an independent state in the north. This has not been forgotten, but may take slightly more digging to find all the relevant figures (not helped by the Government not producing regional budgets). This particular piece is also tangentially relevant to the independence debate. So, with European elections pending and the spectacle of Msrs Clegg and Farage about to do metaphorical battle, the issue once again needs to be addressed: how many chickens is a pretty sunset worth?
**
Clearly I am not actually about to launch into the logic and equations required to equate fowl and orbital phenomena (though for those interested the answer is 60), instead the point is to illustrate the difficulty, or perhaps impossibility of comparing things that come in wildly different units or contexts. It's easy to say which of two objects if more expensive, or which of 2 films if longer, because the unit of comparison is consistent (GBP and Minutes respectively). Likewise it can sometimes be possible to equate two things a third object to produce a comparison (in the example about the figure of 60 is based on the GBP cost of a chicken and the cost of renting a chalet on the Isle of Skye - apparently the best place to watch a sunset in the world). But what do you do when the two just aren't comparable at all?
The particular issue at hand is the pro's and con's of EU membership.
The pro-EU camp then to lean towards arguments around the economic situation Britain would find itself in were it to leave, compared with retaining membership. Whether or not you agree with the figures provided, or the arguments advanced, the debate itself seems to make sense - if we (as a nation) lose money by being outside the EU then we should stay inside.
The problem is that the anti-EU camp has a second road of attack, and one that the (largely pro-EU) media do their best to downplay - that of sovereignty, national identity, and shared culture (for the sake of ease through the rest of this piece, I'm going to refer to this as the "cultural" route). The point many (myself included) make is that even if we will suffer economically from being outside the EU (a point I don't concede), it is still preferable to be sovereign. As the say goes, better a poor free man than a rich slave. This therefore raises the inevitable question: How many jobs, or what % of GDP, is being a sovereign nation worth?
Unfortunately I can see no way of answering this question - the two concepts exist in such different contexts as to be incomparable. Instead the two have to be considered independently, leading to a few possible outcomes if you wished to rationally compare the inside/outside scenarios:
Firstly you may consider that on both the economic and cultural strands one of the two options is preferable, thereby becoming a clear winner. This is the "better in every way" style of outcome, there is no trade off, no advantage parred with a disadvantage. In a sense if one of two options is superior in all relevant aspects it is the "correct" choice, and all others can be dropped.
Secondly, and far more likely, you get a scenario of one option is superior in one regard, and weaker in another. (The whole idea of economics is to understand this kind of choice, where different options present different advantages and disadvantages). In fact this is the scenario that occurs in virtually every interaction we ever undertake; do you prefer the tasty £4 sandwich or the acceptable £2 sandwich, do you prefer a three door or a five door car; do you want a safe, low return investment, or a risky, high return one.
How do we resolve this issue in real life then (i.e. outside of politics)? Usually by considering which of the various strands is the most important, and which of the various aspects are "must haves" and which are "nice to haves."
If money is the most important thing then the £3 sandwich beats the £5, the cheaper car beats the nicer car, and so on. If pleasure in the experience is more important than you get luxury sandwiches and sports cars. Just to reiterate its not that one is "better," in the sense of having an absolute advantage, rather you have chosen to rank the advantages of the preferred option as more important than its disadvantages.
We can, in fact, apply exactly the same logic to the matter of EU membership - do "we" (national We now), care more about the economic impacts of EU membership, or the political/cultural implications?
If we choose the economic thread as the dominant one then the matter becomes purely academic. Undertake some serious, detailed, independent, research into the most likely scenarios for a Britain inside, or outside the EU, and pick the option with the best prospects for growth in the UK economy. If the results are close (i.e. more akin to the safe low return investment or the risky high return one) have a referendum to see if the people think the potential risk is worth the potential pay off.
Likewise if we have a predominately cultural concern, lets have that same level of research into the impacts on British life in the case of an in or out scenario. To what extent will our Parliament lose its powers? To what extent will British votes and influence in various international bodies be subsumed into an EU voting block? What is the genuine, unbiased research into the impacts of significant immigration into a largely homogenous community? What are the likely changes in population make up, size and skill set, and what impacts will this have?
As above again if a clear winner emerges, all good, and the economic costs can be disregarded, and if the case is close put it to a national vote.
Why will this not happen? Simple - the current situation gives both camps a counter-argument to whatever the other side is pushing. Either group can give an economic answer to a cultural point and vice versa. This suits everyone in the political world, and guarantees the answer will never get resolved.
Would it be possible to resolve with less politicians and more realists in charge? - Maybe.
If we look at the two strands it is clear that a research consensus could never be reached on the cultural front because you have ranking systems (or 2 sources of authority in ethics speak). Those who style themselves Europeans would see the breakdown of national identities and boundaries and the creation of a new homogenous European cultural group as a positive. An enlightened move onto the next stage of civilization, just as the nation state was the successor to the feudal barony. On the other hand nationalists will say exactly the same thing is bad, a loss of history, place and identity into the grey gloop of institutionalized bureaucracies.
On the other hand it should be possible to deliver an answer with regard to the economic strand. Generally the measures of economic success only go in one direction; more wealth is good. A higher GDP/capita is better than a lower one, a higher growth rate is preferable to a lower one and so on. Hence if one of the options in the EU debate could be shown to deliver an absolutely superior economic output (i.e. higher GDP, higher GDP/capita and a higher growth rate), then this strand can be definitively "closed." Its possible you will get a multi-strand situation again, i.e. a higher GDP but lower GDP/capita, in which case you have to put the main debate on hold and have a sub-debate on which metrics are deemed the most important. However, this point aside it still seems more probable an economic argument could be resolved in a way the cultural one can not.
So, having got an economic answer, what comes next?
This is actually the easy part, if a vote shows that people find the economic arguments more important then the cultural ones then your research provides the final answer. If people say the cultural issues are more important than the economic factors can be set aside as a "known known" and issue addressed via a vote purely on cultural grounds.
I doubt we will ever have an electorate that is well enough informed, or a voting system sufficiently response to have this kind of "decision tree" voting structure. Therefore I feel we will just have the same argument repeated ad nauseum until the election. In essence; how many UK jobs is an independent seat in the WTO worth?
//
I'd like to end with a completely unrelated note about Darwinism, and the extent to which it is misunderstood. The phrase "survival of the fittest" should, in common parlance, probably be rendered "growth of the most suitable". Fittest in this context is not about speed, strength, intelligence, ability to earn wealth and so on. It is about fitting into your environment - the creature or population most "suitable" to its environment will thrive and reproduce faster than those less suited. As far as I'm aware there is no evidence that this process can go into reverse.
The exact example I found today was about wolves and dogs. Yes wolves are faster, stronger, better hunters and so on. But dogs are more suitable to a world dominated by humans. Thus, the dog is more "suitable" or "fitter" to their environment then the wolf. It is not "reverse" Darwinism that lead to dogs being less physically capable than wolves, it was real Darwinism leading to an adaption to a new environment .
This is also a point worth barring in mind next time you see any of the studies about changing intelligence in various populations. One study I found (and which was widely reported) concluded the average Victorian was 14 IQ points above today's average.
//
Happy Trails.
/Z
**
Clearly I am not actually about to launch into the logic and equations required to equate fowl and orbital phenomena (though for those interested the answer is 60), instead the point is to illustrate the difficulty, or perhaps impossibility of comparing things that come in wildly different units or contexts. It's easy to say which of two objects if more expensive, or which of 2 films if longer, because the unit of comparison is consistent (GBP and Minutes respectively). Likewise it can sometimes be possible to equate two things a third object to produce a comparison (in the example about the figure of 60 is based on the GBP cost of a chicken and the cost of renting a chalet on the Isle of Skye - apparently the best place to watch a sunset in the world). But what do you do when the two just aren't comparable at all?
The particular issue at hand is the pro's and con's of EU membership.
The pro-EU camp then to lean towards arguments around the economic situation Britain would find itself in were it to leave, compared with retaining membership. Whether or not you agree with the figures provided, or the arguments advanced, the debate itself seems to make sense - if we (as a nation) lose money by being outside the EU then we should stay inside.
The problem is that the anti-EU camp has a second road of attack, and one that the (largely pro-EU) media do their best to downplay - that of sovereignty, national identity, and shared culture (for the sake of ease through the rest of this piece, I'm going to refer to this as the "cultural" route). The point many (myself included) make is that even if we will suffer economically from being outside the EU (a point I don't concede), it is still preferable to be sovereign. As the say goes, better a poor free man than a rich slave. This therefore raises the inevitable question: How many jobs, or what % of GDP, is being a sovereign nation worth?
Unfortunately I can see no way of answering this question - the two concepts exist in such different contexts as to be incomparable. Instead the two have to be considered independently, leading to a few possible outcomes if you wished to rationally compare the inside/outside scenarios:
Firstly you may consider that on both the economic and cultural strands one of the two options is preferable, thereby becoming a clear winner. This is the "better in every way" style of outcome, there is no trade off, no advantage parred with a disadvantage. In a sense if one of two options is superior in all relevant aspects it is the "correct" choice, and all others can be dropped.
Secondly, and far more likely, you get a scenario of one option is superior in one regard, and weaker in another. (The whole idea of economics is to understand this kind of choice, where different options present different advantages and disadvantages). In fact this is the scenario that occurs in virtually every interaction we ever undertake; do you prefer the tasty £4 sandwich or the acceptable £2 sandwich, do you prefer a three door or a five door car; do you want a safe, low return investment, or a risky, high return one.
How do we resolve this issue in real life then (i.e. outside of politics)? Usually by considering which of the various strands is the most important, and which of the various aspects are "must haves" and which are "nice to haves."
If money is the most important thing then the £3 sandwich beats the £5, the cheaper car beats the nicer car, and so on. If pleasure in the experience is more important than you get luxury sandwiches and sports cars. Just to reiterate its not that one is "better," in the sense of having an absolute advantage, rather you have chosen to rank the advantages of the preferred option as more important than its disadvantages.
We can, in fact, apply exactly the same logic to the matter of EU membership - do "we" (national We now), care more about the economic impacts of EU membership, or the political/cultural implications?
If we choose the economic thread as the dominant one then the matter becomes purely academic. Undertake some serious, detailed, independent, research into the most likely scenarios for a Britain inside, or outside the EU, and pick the option with the best prospects for growth in the UK economy. If the results are close (i.e. more akin to the safe low return investment or the risky high return one) have a referendum to see if the people think the potential risk is worth the potential pay off.
Likewise if we have a predominately cultural concern, lets have that same level of research into the impacts on British life in the case of an in or out scenario. To what extent will our Parliament lose its powers? To what extent will British votes and influence in various international bodies be subsumed into an EU voting block? What is the genuine, unbiased research into the impacts of significant immigration into a largely homogenous community? What are the likely changes in population make up, size and skill set, and what impacts will this have?
As above again if a clear winner emerges, all good, and the economic costs can be disregarded, and if the case is close put it to a national vote.
Why will this not happen? Simple - the current situation gives both camps a counter-argument to whatever the other side is pushing. Either group can give an economic answer to a cultural point and vice versa. This suits everyone in the political world, and guarantees the answer will never get resolved.
Would it be possible to resolve with less politicians and more realists in charge? - Maybe.
If we look at the two strands it is clear that a research consensus could never be reached on the cultural front because you have ranking systems (or 2 sources of authority in ethics speak). Those who style themselves Europeans would see the breakdown of national identities and boundaries and the creation of a new homogenous European cultural group as a positive. An enlightened move onto the next stage of civilization, just as the nation state was the successor to the feudal barony. On the other hand nationalists will say exactly the same thing is bad, a loss of history, place and identity into the grey gloop of institutionalized bureaucracies.
On the other hand it should be possible to deliver an answer with regard to the economic strand. Generally the measures of economic success only go in one direction; more wealth is good. A higher GDP/capita is better than a lower one, a higher growth rate is preferable to a lower one and so on. Hence if one of the options in the EU debate could be shown to deliver an absolutely superior economic output (i.e. higher GDP, higher GDP/capita and a higher growth rate), then this strand can be definitively "closed." Its possible you will get a multi-strand situation again, i.e. a higher GDP but lower GDP/capita, in which case you have to put the main debate on hold and have a sub-debate on which metrics are deemed the most important. However, this point aside it still seems more probable an economic argument could be resolved in a way the cultural one can not.
So, having got an economic answer, what comes next?
This is actually the easy part, if a vote shows that people find the economic arguments more important then the cultural ones then your research provides the final answer. If people say the cultural issues are more important than the economic factors can be set aside as a "known known" and issue addressed via a vote purely on cultural grounds.
I doubt we will ever have an electorate that is well enough informed, or a voting system sufficiently response to have this kind of "decision tree" voting structure. Therefore I feel we will just have the same argument repeated ad nauseum until the election. In essence; how many UK jobs is an independent seat in the WTO worth?
//
I'd like to end with a completely unrelated note about Darwinism, and the extent to which it is misunderstood. The phrase "survival of the fittest" should, in common parlance, probably be rendered "growth of the most suitable". Fittest in this context is not about speed, strength, intelligence, ability to earn wealth and so on. It is about fitting into your environment - the creature or population most "suitable" to its environment will thrive and reproduce faster than those less suited. As far as I'm aware there is no evidence that this process can go into reverse.
The exact example I found today was about wolves and dogs. Yes wolves are faster, stronger, better hunters and so on. But dogs are more suitable to a world dominated by humans. Thus, the dog is more "suitable" or "fitter" to their environment then the wolf. It is not "reverse" Darwinism that lead to dogs being less physically capable than wolves, it was real Darwinism leading to an adaption to a new environment .
This is also a point worth barring in mind next time you see any of the studies about changing intelligence in various populations. One study I found (and which was widely reported) concluded the average Victorian was 14 IQ points above today's average.
//
Happy Trails.
/Z
Thursday 20 February 2014
Freedom?!
So in a scant few months the Union of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland may come crashing down, ending 300 years of successful partnership (albeit with the usual neighborly bickering from time to time). Is this right? Is it proper? Why is it happening now? What will happen should this event come about? And perhaps most importantly... can we invade if it does?
**
I should begin by pointing out I am a shining example of practical double-think when it comes to the issue of Scottish independence. One the one hand I am with Mr Denny Crane in considering the idea that part of my country could just break away as both treason and heresy. On the other hand I'm of the view that if you don't want to be part of the group then the sooner you leave the better. As with many things (education, gaming groups or anything else), if you don't want to take part, fine, leave. Just don't hang around and whinge while incurring costs to everyone and yourself.
Thus in the interests of this not descending (more than necessary) into a string of rants on the topic of nationalist heresy, I'm going to focus more on my expectations for probable outcomes of the referendum and some of the conceptual and political challenges they face.
From current situations it seems there are four possible outcomes in September; a minor yes vote or a minor no vote on a small turnout (55% either way, maybe 50% turnout), or a strong no vote on a minor or moderate turn out (65%+ on a 55%+ turnout). I'd be willing to expressly rule-out a strong "yes" vote - all the main polls conducted so far show a roughly 2-1 slant in favor of retaining the Union in representative and sensibly sized samples. The challenge for the "Yes" camp is to mobilize a biased enough voting population to overcome the underlying splits, and to make full use of the likelihood that those in favor of a split are more likely to be engaged and enthusiastic (and therefore more likely to vote). It is in furtherance of this agenda that the voting age has been lowered to 16, and any Scots living outside Scotland have been removed from the electoral role. The former group (young people; no real economic awareness, limited, or no, experience of the job market, and easier to bribe with things like university tuition fees) are generally more pro-independence, while the latter (older, probably worked and lived in a variety of roles and regions etc) are generally more pro-union.
In turn then;
Cry "Freedom!"
-A minor yes on a small turnout
This is possibly the worst outcome for almost all concerned. Contrary to media image the SNP do not necessarily want an independent Scotland- it opens the door on months (years) of messy negotiations, transfers responsibilities for all the ills in Scotland from Westminster to Holyrood, and robs them of the main plank of their political agenda (the Scotland / England tension). Instead the true objective here is some form of "Devo-Max" where the Scottish Parliament gains the powers to raise tax in Scotland and set things such as welfare levels, but continues to receive additional financial support from the rest of the UK, and Westminster picks up the bill for foreign and defense policy. Independence is simply a ploy to push for this increase in power for the Scottish politicians .It will be a bitter blow to those who consider themselves British (and will therefore be saddened to see nearly a tenth of our country break away), and will no doubt be exceptional difficult for those with businesses, jobs, and families which will now exist in a foreign country.
I say "almost" all concerned because there is one group that benefits from a Scottish breakaway - the Conservative party. With the Conservatives all but wiped out in Scotland, and Labour holding a number of seats, simply removing the Scottish MPs presents an opportunity for the Conservatives to counteract the bias in constituency boundaries by effectively eliminating 40-50 Labour MPs. The cynical may wonder to what extend this consideration has played on the minds of senior conservative ministers and party mandarins, maybe the splitting of the country would, for them, be seen as a political coup rather than damning indictment of failed governance.
There are also significant democratic issues with this outcome. A 55% yes vote on a 50% turn out means only 27.5% of the population actively voting to dissolve the Union, amongst them potentially a high proportion of 16-17 year olds, whose opinions will have generational consequences in terms of diplomacy, politics, macro-economics, foreign policy and military affairs. While we may assume that apathy with general elections is a consequence of many people not caring for any of the main parties and thereby accepting any outcome as equally awful, it requires a certain sangfroid to consider that 75% of the Scottish population don't care whether they are an independent country or part of the UK. IF this is indeed the case the question should (but won't) be raised as to why people are so uncaring, and if they are why it is being portrayed as such a huge political issue in Scotland.
Sorry I didn't hear you
- A minor No on a small turnout
This is possibly shaping up to be the most likely outcome, a 55 / 45 type outcome in favor of retaining the Union ("No"), on a relatively low turnout (around 50% again). While this has slightly less democratic issues than the yes vote - effectively your maintaining the status quo so a low level of support suggests most people don't care enough to vote for change though the issue of why people don't care is still reasonable.
The biggest problem with this is the question of what happens now. The independence-campaigners will come up with an excuse as to why the result isn't binding and begin calling for a repeat referendum. A no vote with anything less than a shattering majority does nothing to resolve the issues, and potentially gives the SNP another route to making noise (by claiming the referendum was won by threats, bullying or outright cheating). There is also the potential controversy around whether a Westminister government with only a few months to run before a general election will want to cede significant new powers to Holyrood, even with the Union intact, as has been mooted.
In effect a minor-No simply resets us back to a where we were when the referendum was first suggested, and we can go through the whole rigmarole again.
No changes here
- A strong no on a small turnout
In practice this has virtually no differences to the minor no on a small turnout. If the polls are to be believed we may see anything up to a 65/35 split without the outcome being unexpected. However, as with the point above there is nothing to stop the whole cycle being repeated. A strong no will do nothing to dismay the SNP (who are already running fine with the polls 2-1 against independence), and if anything this just gives them slightly more leverage to bully Westminster into handing over more power - "See," they will say, "we want to stay British, but in payment we want more local power."
I would not all be surprised to see this type of result portrayed as a "Vote for Devo-Max" by the SNP, regardless of the fact that that wasn't the question asked. The fact that maybe people want to stay in the Union and have Scotland and England run with similar policies will be ignored, and instead the narrative will be that people don't want to break the union, so they must want more power in Holyrood (see point above about this, conveniently, being the SNPs desired outcome).
United we stand
-Strong no on a high turnout
Almost certainly not going to happen, but included here on a off chance it does. The polls do not support the idea that a high turnout will return a Yes vote. As the size of the voting population goes up, so to does the tendency for the result to reflect the majority views of the populace, which are, in this case, largely against a 'hard' split from the UK.
What will happen with this result then?
My feeling here is a similar spin war to that mentioned above, where the SNP will paint a picture of a call for more powers to be moved from Westminster to Scotland. The only difference is potentially a stronger bargaining hand for Westminster. With a strong vote in favour of the Union on a high turnout (preferably enough to be a solid majority of the total voter population), the SNP have far less leverage to force another referendum, and thus less bargaining power overall.
Most likely the whole issue will be dropped (in the same way as voting reform following the referendum on that issue), and we will continue on as if it had never happened in the first place.
I'll maybe try and pull together something regarding the finances of an independent Scotland, and its political possibilities, though the only point it seems worth mentioning on this at present is that the White Paper produce by Salmond some time ago has increasingly been shown to be full of lies, statistics and huge assumptions. Therefore the logical assumption is that, having reviewed the matter, the SNP analysts concluded the truth was bad for them, and they would need to present an amended version of reality. That maybe says it all.
Happy Trails
/Z
**
I should begin by pointing out I am a shining example of practical double-think when it comes to the issue of Scottish independence. One the one hand I am with Mr Denny Crane in considering the idea that part of my country could just break away as both treason and heresy. On the other hand I'm of the view that if you don't want to be part of the group then the sooner you leave the better. As with many things (education, gaming groups or anything else), if you don't want to take part, fine, leave. Just don't hang around and whinge while incurring costs to everyone and yourself.
Thus in the interests of this not descending (more than necessary) into a string of rants on the topic of nationalist heresy, I'm going to focus more on my expectations for probable outcomes of the referendum and some of the conceptual and political challenges they face.
From current situations it seems there are four possible outcomes in September; a minor yes vote or a minor no vote on a small turnout (55% either way, maybe 50% turnout), or a strong no vote on a minor or moderate turn out (65%+ on a 55%+ turnout). I'd be willing to expressly rule-out a strong "yes" vote - all the main polls conducted so far show a roughly 2-1 slant in favor of retaining the Union in representative and sensibly sized samples. The challenge for the "Yes" camp is to mobilize a biased enough voting population to overcome the underlying splits, and to make full use of the likelihood that those in favor of a split are more likely to be engaged and enthusiastic (and therefore more likely to vote). It is in furtherance of this agenda that the voting age has been lowered to 16, and any Scots living outside Scotland have been removed from the electoral role. The former group (young people; no real economic awareness, limited, or no, experience of the job market, and easier to bribe with things like university tuition fees) are generally more pro-independence, while the latter (older, probably worked and lived in a variety of roles and regions etc) are generally more pro-union.
In turn then;
Cry "Freedom!"
-A minor yes on a small turnout
This is possibly the worst outcome for almost all concerned. Contrary to media image the SNP do not necessarily want an independent Scotland- it opens the door on months (years) of messy negotiations, transfers responsibilities for all the ills in Scotland from Westminster to Holyrood, and robs them of the main plank of their political agenda (the Scotland / England tension). Instead the true objective here is some form of "Devo-Max" where the Scottish Parliament gains the powers to raise tax in Scotland and set things such as welfare levels, but continues to receive additional financial support from the rest of the UK, and Westminster picks up the bill for foreign and defense policy. Independence is simply a ploy to push for this increase in power for the Scottish politicians .It will be a bitter blow to those who consider themselves British (and will therefore be saddened to see nearly a tenth of our country break away), and will no doubt be exceptional difficult for those with businesses, jobs, and families which will now exist in a foreign country.
I say "almost" all concerned because there is one group that benefits from a Scottish breakaway - the Conservative party. With the Conservatives all but wiped out in Scotland, and Labour holding a number of seats, simply removing the Scottish MPs presents an opportunity for the Conservatives to counteract the bias in constituency boundaries by effectively eliminating 40-50 Labour MPs. The cynical may wonder to what extend this consideration has played on the minds of senior conservative ministers and party mandarins, maybe the splitting of the country would, for them, be seen as a political coup rather than damning indictment of failed governance.
There are also significant democratic issues with this outcome. A 55% yes vote on a 50% turn out means only 27.5% of the population actively voting to dissolve the Union, amongst them potentially a high proportion of 16-17 year olds, whose opinions will have generational consequences in terms of diplomacy, politics, macro-economics, foreign policy and military affairs. While we may assume that apathy with general elections is a consequence of many people not caring for any of the main parties and thereby accepting any outcome as equally awful, it requires a certain sangfroid to consider that 75% of the Scottish population don't care whether they are an independent country or part of the UK. IF this is indeed the case the question should (but won't) be raised as to why people are so uncaring, and if they are why it is being portrayed as such a huge political issue in Scotland.
Sorry I didn't hear you
- A minor No on a small turnout
This is possibly shaping up to be the most likely outcome, a 55 / 45 type outcome in favor of retaining the Union ("No"), on a relatively low turnout (around 50% again). While this has slightly less democratic issues than the yes vote - effectively your maintaining the status quo so a low level of support suggests most people don't care enough to vote for change though the issue of why people don't care is still reasonable.
The biggest problem with this is the question of what happens now. The independence-campaigners will come up with an excuse as to why the result isn't binding and begin calling for a repeat referendum. A no vote with anything less than a shattering majority does nothing to resolve the issues, and potentially gives the SNP another route to making noise (by claiming the referendum was won by threats, bullying or outright cheating). There is also the potential controversy around whether a Westminister government with only a few months to run before a general election will want to cede significant new powers to Holyrood, even with the Union intact, as has been mooted.
In effect a minor-No simply resets us back to a where we were when the referendum was first suggested, and we can go through the whole rigmarole again.
No changes here
- A strong no on a small turnout
In practice this has virtually no differences to the minor no on a small turnout. If the polls are to be believed we may see anything up to a 65/35 split without the outcome being unexpected. However, as with the point above there is nothing to stop the whole cycle being repeated. A strong no will do nothing to dismay the SNP (who are already running fine with the polls 2-1 against independence), and if anything this just gives them slightly more leverage to bully Westminster into handing over more power - "See," they will say, "we want to stay British, but in payment we want more local power."
I would not all be surprised to see this type of result portrayed as a "Vote for Devo-Max" by the SNP, regardless of the fact that that wasn't the question asked. The fact that maybe people want to stay in the Union and have Scotland and England run with similar policies will be ignored, and instead the narrative will be that people don't want to break the union, so they must want more power in Holyrood (see point above about this, conveniently, being the SNPs desired outcome).
United we stand
-Strong no on a high turnout
Almost certainly not going to happen, but included here on a off chance it does. The polls do not support the idea that a high turnout will return a Yes vote. As the size of the voting population goes up, so to does the tendency for the result to reflect the majority views of the populace, which are, in this case, largely against a 'hard' split from the UK.
What will happen with this result then?
My feeling here is a similar spin war to that mentioned above, where the SNP will paint a picture of a call for more powers to be moved from Westminster to Scotland. The only difference is potentially a stronger bargaining hand for Westminster. With a strong vote in favour of the Union on a high turnout (preferably enough to be a solid majority of the total voter population), the SNP have far less leverage to force another referendum, and thus less bargaining power overall.
Most likely the whole issue will be dropped (in the same way as voting reform following the referendum on that issue), and we will continue on as if it had never happened in the first place.
I'll maybe try and pull together something regarding the finances of an independent Scotland, and its political possibilities, though the only point it seems worth mentioning on this at present is that the White Paper produce by Salmond some time ago has increasingly been shown to be full of lies, statistics and huge assumptions. Therefore the logical assumption is that, having reviewed the matter, the SNP analysts concluded the truth was bad for them, and they would need to present an amended version of reality. That maybe says it all.
Happy Trails
/Z
Monday 10 February 2014
Coke or Pepsi?
Its been a far while since I put virtual pen to metaphysical paper. Partly because the various news stories and political meanderings of the last few months have not delivered anything in the way of new insights or considerations, partly because once one falls out of the habit of capturing and recording thoughts it is difficult to get back on the horse.
That said, I did formalize a thought which has been bouncing round for a while now, and may sustain a longer discussion - the effective use of Branding in the modern world.
**
Branding in its commercial sense is the association of positive ideas with a particular brand or make. Once you've established the idea that your trainers are better, your coke tastier, your mortgages cheaper or your bikes speedier, then a huge premium can be charge for what are, objectively, comparable (or even inferior) goods.
The major brands of the world are worth billions on their own, Apple, the world's most powerful brand according to Forbes, is worth $100 billion. In effect you would wipe this amount off Apple's share price if everyone forgot the past and just looked at the facts as they stand today.
And branding has jumped from the commercial and advertising world to the political world. It has become axiomatic that you no longer need to respond to someone's arguments if they can instead brand them a Nazi. This is such a clearly observed phenomenon that is has even been the source of a behavioral law; Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies, which states that if you let an internet discussion on any topic run for long enough, someone is going to get called (or at least compared to) a Nazi. The political gains to this approach are clear - rather than engaging with the facts of a matter, or the arguments laid out, you need simply directly, and personally, assault the person with whom you are debated. Once you have successfully hung your pejorative label of choice around their shoulders you can then simply dismiss their arguments. After all, how could anything suggested by such a person be worth considering?
From this I feel there are at least three examples of this behaviour which bear consideration in our current climate;
1.) The Climate Deniers
Contrary to the ever more grandiose claims of various (extremely biased) institutions and individuals, the ""science"" on climate change has not been categorically settled (or more precisely in this context; AGW or Anthropomorphic Global Warming). Climate science does not abide by the most basic of scientific principles; that a testable and disprovable hypothesis must be established, and then should data show your predictions to be in error, your hypothesis is wrong. Instead climate change institutions continue to pronounce ever more certainty in their theories, while simultaneously failing to deliver predictions borne out by data.
While I do not want to derail into an extended debate around the political and financial pressure brought to bear in the interests of the 'green' agenda, I do wish to make the point that there is not consensus in the scientific community around the causes and extent of climate change, in the same way that, for example, the scientific community came to accept the existence of the Higgs Boson after the recent experiments at CERN.
This distinction is used for a reason - the existence of the Higgs particle was not a political matter, and was therefore resolved in the way most scientific matters are - through discussions, experimentation and repeated, independent, interpretation of data. It is interesting to compare this to the way climate debates are handled.
The pro-climate lobby has successfully branded those who oppose them as "deniers" a term, which, however accurate in a grammatical sense, has very clear pejorative overtones. It implies that those who refuse to agree with the "consensus" (second bit of branding - make out that every but some fringe loonies agree with you) are dangerously short sighted or even willfully refusing to accept the clear truth. In the same way that there were those who denied the world was round or that deny the Holocaust took place, climate change "deniers" are painted as wrong by their very nature, with virtually no publicity or response given to the points they make.
Contrast this situation with one in which the branding is reversed and we have climate scientists and climate zealots (or alarmists as the term has slowly begun to seep in). Next time you read an article about global warming replace all instances of "denier" with "scientist" and preference anyone speaking up in favor of the AGW narrative as a "climate alarmist". Even relatively benign articles can be significantly altered through such branding.
2.) Welfare Entitlement
There has been a consistent attempt over the last sixty years to normalize the act of receiving state benefits. Why this is is open to debate. The cynical (me included) will say that if you wish to build a client state of those dependent on state handouts you have to first make it socially acceptable to take those handouts. Those of a more liberal bent may say that its necessary to ensure that the most vulnerable are able to receive support without becoming an underclass and being permanently locked out of society. The more extreme brand of socialists may even say that the successful have no right to their wealth, and so redistributing it should be applauded. Wherever you sit on this scale of explanatory tribalism, the fact remains that the language around welfare has changed, and with this new branding has come a different view on similar practices.
Welfare support was once called "National Assistance" for which you had to apply, and be judged worthy. It was just what it said - help provided by the country as a whole, to support those in situations deemed not necessarily of their own devising, but for which the majority of people would probably agree a helping hand may be in order. The wording is important here "Assistance" is clearly something extra not the whole of it. Assistance helps you do something you could do anyway a little bit easier, or make something impossible merely difficult. By the same extension when you applied for National Assistance you were, sometimes literally, going cap in hand to the representatives of your society and asking for help. It was humbling, it may even have been a embarrassing for those with a stubborn or proud streak. It was something done because you had no alternative.
Today we have Benefit Entitlements - although the system is broadly the same - the state provides financial support to those in various situations (unemployment etc etc), the terminology is completely different. Entitlement is a remarkably powerful term, in the private sector or normal day-to-day living the only things we can claim "entitlement" to are debts - things we are owed under law and which have, for whatever reason, been withheld. As citizens we are entitled to vote for our representatives and to be treated equally under the law - rights which a great many men have fought and died for over the centuries since the English first began to replace limits on a King's God-given entitlement to rule. Yet today we talk of entitlements not as the implementation of divine will, or as the foundations of our democratic system, today, we talk of entitlements to have money handed out to you for not wanting to work, money taken from others through taxation.
Tell someone they are entitled to something and you set a remarkably different expectation compared to telling someone they can apply to your for assistance. Yet that is exactly how successive governments have branded welfare payments. As such it is remarkably difficult to suggest even limiting the growth in welfare before a howling cry is sent up - after all you are suggesting taking away people's entitlements under god and law. How would the current welfare debate be shaping up if we still called it "National Assistance?" or even "Taxpayer Funded Assistance?" (My personal choice of nomenclature). It would certainly make it easier for a minister to stand up in the House and state "We are looking for ways to reduce the costs of Taxpayer Funded Assistance" rather than the daunting task now before him (or her!) "This government will reduce people's welfare entitlements."
3.) Communists and Fascists
This one is a little more generic than the two above, but it bears thinking about. As I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, Nazism (and fascism in general) are so engrained in our national psyche as purveyors of evil that we almost instinctively accept the premise that those with radical right wing beliefs must also be homicidal (or genocidal) maniacs intent on global domination. Yet we have no such horror when confronted with the extremes of the Left. Why?
Branding is again the answer here, Marxism has been portrayed in the liberal West as the older and maybe a little eccentric cousin of socialism. Largely harmless, and the kind of thing you expect from university ethics professors or bumbling house of lords representatives. By branding Marxism (and extreme left wing views in general) as the abode of the eccentric academic they have been accepted in the main in a way that their right wing mirrors could never be.
Yes there is the matter of WW2, in which, for various geopolitical reasons, the communists were on our side, and fought against the fascists. Objectively however the communist regimes in Russia, China, Cambodia and so on have inflicted death and economic misery on a scale at least as great of that as the fascists, and in the name of ideologies no more compatible with small c conservative, liberal capitalism then the regimes of Germany or Italy.
As could be done with either of the examples above I'd challenge anyone to read an article in which some is referred to as a communist (or Marxist) and replace those terms with fascist or even Nazi. How much of a difference does that make to the article, even when the content hasn't actually changed at all?
So... closing thoughts?
Most people don't want the facts, they don't even want the executive summary. Stereotypes emerge because we like the little colored boxes you can drop people, things and concepts into, because they make the world easy. Thought, decision making, and understand consequences isn't required if you can just read the label and know the answer - Liberals? Good, Deniers? Bad, Healthy - Good, Fat - Bad, and so on.
I doubt there is much that can be done to change this, the human condition is to mired in an eternal battle of "us" vs "them" for facts to ever come tribalism and its conceptual cousin Branding, but at least if people start being aware of the impact , maybe the odd person will actually make a decision based on the facts , rather than the insulting label applied to the speaker.
Happy Trails
/Z
That said, I did formalize a thought which has been bouncing round for a while now, and may sustain a longer discussion - the effective use of Branding in the modern world.
**
Branding in its commercial sense is the association of positive ideas with a particular brand or make. Once you've established the idea that your trainers are better, your coke tastier, your mortgages cheaper or your bikes speedier, then a huge premium can be charge for what are, objectively, comparable (or even inferior) goods.
The major brands of the world are worth billions on their own, Apple, the world's most powerful brand according to Forbes, is worth $100 billion. In effect you would wipe this amount off Apple's share price if everyone forgot the past and just looked at the facts as they stand today.
And branding has jumped from the commercial and advertising world to the political world. It has become axiomatic that you no longer need to respond to someone's arguments if they can instead brand them a Nazi. This is such a clearly observed phenomenon that is has even been the source of a behavioral law; Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies, which states that if you let an internet discussion on any topic run for long enough, someone is going to get called (or at least compared to) a Nazi. The political gains to this approach are clear - rather than engaging with the facts of a matter, or the arguments laid out, you need simply directly, and personally, assault the person with whom you are debated. Once you have successfully hung your pejorative label of choice around their shoulders you can then simply dismiss their arguments. After all, how could anything suggested by such a person be worth considering?
From this I feel there are at least three examples of this behaviour which bear consideration in our current climate;
1.) The Climate Deniers
Contrary to the ever more grandiose claims of various (extremely biased) institutions and individuals, the ""science"" on climate change has not been categorically settled (or more precisely in this context; AGW or Anthropomorphic Global Warming). Climate science does not abide by the most basic of scientific principles; that a testable and disprovable hypothesis must be established, and then should data show your predictions to be in error, your hypothesis is wrong. Instead climate change institutions continue to pronounce ever more certainty in their theories, while simultaneously failing to deliver predictions borne out by data.
While I do not want to derail into an extended debate around the political and financial pressure brought to bear in the interests of the 'green' agenda, I do wish to make the point that there is not consensus in the scientific community around the causes and extent of climate change, in the same way that, for example, the scientific community came to accept the existence of the Higgs Boson after the recent experiments at CERN.
This distinction is used for a reason - the existence of the Higgs particle was not a political matter, and was therefore resolved in the way most scientific matters are - through discussions, experimentation and repeated, independent, interpretation of data. It is interesting to compare this to the way climate debates are handled.
The pro-climate lobby has successfully branded those who oppose them as "deniers" a term, which, however accurate in a grammatical sense, has very clear pejorative overtones. It implies that those who refuse to agree with the "consensus" (second bit of branding - make out that every but some fringe loonies agree with you) are dangerously short sighted or even willfully refusing to accept the clear truth. In the same way that there were those who denied the world was round or that deny the Holocaust took place, climate change "deniers" are painted as wrong by their very nature, with virtually no publicity or response given to the points they make.
Contrast this situation with one in which the branding is reversed and we have climate scientists and climate zealots (or alarmists as the term has slowly begun to seep in). Next time you read an article about global warming replace all instances of "denier" with "scientist" and preference anyone speaking up in favor of the AGW narrative as a "climate alarmist". Even relatively benign articles can be significantly altered through such branding.
2.) Welfare Entitlement
There has been a consistent attempt over the last sixty years to normalize the act of receiving state benefits. Why this is is open to debate. The cynical (me included) will say that if you wish to build a client state of those dependent on state handouts you have to first make it socially acceptable to take those handouts. Those of a more liberal bent may say that its necessary to ensure that the most vulnerable are able to receive support without becoming an underclass and being permanently locked out of society. The more extreme brand of socialists may even say that the successful have no right to their wealth, and so redistributing it should be applauded. Wherever you sit on this scale of explanatory tribalism, the fact remains that the language around welfare has changed, and with this new branding has come a different view on similar practices.
Welfare support was once called "National Assistance" for which you had to apply, and be judged worthy. It was just what it said - help provided by the country as a whole, to support those in situations deemed not necessarily of their own devising, but for which the majority of people would probably agree a helping hand may be in order. The wording is important here "Assistance" is clearly something extra not the whole of it. Assistance helps you do something you could do anyway a little bit easier, or make something impossible merely difficult. By the same extension when you applied for National Assistance you were, sometimes literally, going cap in hand to the representatives of your society and asking for help. It was humbling, it may even have been a embarrassing for those with a stubborn or proud streak. It was something done because you had no alternative.
Today we have Benefit Entitlements - although the system is broadly the same - the state provides financial support to those in various situations (unemployment etc etc), the terminology is completely different. Entitlement is a remarkably powerful term, in the private sector or normal day-to-day living the only things we can claim "entitlement" to are debts - things we are owed under law and which have, for whatever reason, been withheld. As citizens we are entitled to vote for our representatives and to be treated equally under the law - rights which a great many men have fought and died for over the centuries since the English first began to replace limits on a King's God-given entitlement to rule. Yet today we talk of entitlements not as the implementation of divine will, or as the foundations of our democratic system, today, we talk of entitlements to have money handed out to you for not wanting to work, money taken from others through taxation.
Tell someone they are entitled to something and you set a remarkably different expectation compared to telling someone they can apply to your for assistance. Yet that is exactly how successive governments have branded welfare payments. As such it is remarkably difficult to suggest even limiting the growth in welfare before a howling cry is sent up - after all you are suggesting taking away people's entitlements under god and law. How would the current welfare debate be shaping up if we still called it "National Assistance?" or even "Taxpayer Funded Assistance?" (My personal choice of nomenclature). It would certainly make it easier for a minister to stand up in the House and state "We are looking for ways to reduce the costs of Taxpayer Funded Assistance" rather than the daunting task now before him (or her!) "This government will reduce people's welfare entitlements."
3.) Communists and Fascists
This one is a little more generic than the two above, but it bears thinking about. As I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, Nazism (and fascism in general) are so engrained in our national psyche as purveyors of evil that we almost instinctively accept the premise that those with radical right wing beliefs must also be homicidal (or genocidal) maniacs intent on global domination. Yet we have no such horror when confronted with the extremes of the Left. Why?
Branding is again the answer here, Marxism has been portrayed in the liberal West as the older and maybe a little eccentric cousin of socialism. Largely harmless, and the kind of thing you expect from university ethics professors or bumbling house of lords representatives. By branding Marxism (and extreme left wing views in general) as the abode of the eccentric academic they have been accepted in the main in a way that their right wing mirrors could never be.
Yes there is the matter of WW2, in which, for various geopolitical reasons, the communists were on our side, and fought against the fascists. Objectively however the communist regimes in Russia, China, Cambodia and so on have inflicted death and economic misery on a scale at least as great of that as the fascists, and in the name of ideologies no more compatible with small c conservative, liberal capitalism then the regimes of Germany or Italy.
As could be done with either of the examples above I'd challenge anyone to read an article in which some is referred to as a communist (or Marxist) and replace those terms with fascist or even Nazi. How much of a difference does that make to the article, even when the content hasn't actually changed at all?
So... closing thoughts?
Most people don't want the facts, they don't even want the executive summary. Stereotypes emerge because we like the little colored boxes you can drop people, things and concepts into, because they make the world easy. Thought, decision making, and understand consequences isn't required if you can just read the label and know the answer - Liberals? Good, Deniers? Bad, Healthy - Good, Fat - Bad, and so on.
I doubt there is much that can be done to change this, the human condition is to mired in an eternal battle of "us" vs "them" for facts to ever come tribalism and its conceptual cousin Branding, but at least if people start being aware of the impact , maybe the odd person will actually make a decision based on the facts , rather than the insulting label applied to the speaker.
Happy Trails
/Z
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