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Myths about Immigration #5 - "Immigrants depress natives' wages"

: barrycurtis; December 23rd, 21:46

The reason we don't have free movement of people in the UK is that immigration controls are supported by a powerful superstructure of myths about immigration. This is the fifth in a series of six questioning these myths. Here I am concerned with the forceful idea that migrants lower wages for the native population. This is an important topic because the logic goes that any increase in immigration that might follow the abolition of immigration controls would depress wages further, leading to a massive decline in our standard of living. I will attempt to show that in fact the opposite is true: there is no evidence that immigration has a negative impact of the wages of natives, and in fact unfettered movement would lead to an increase in people's incomes.

The effect of immigration on wages has been a hot topic for many years. But the most important studies on the reality of the situation - as opposed to simplistic prejudices - demonstrate there is no negative effect caused by immigration on the wages of natives. In 2003, the Home Office commissioned an independent report looking at this issue. The study examined numerous international surveys and conducted its own study in Britain. It found "The perception that immigrants depress the wages of existing workers does not find confirmation in the analysis of the data laid out in this report." (quoted here)

This conclusion is echoed by studies reported on the website of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU):

"In June 2007, the President's Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) issued a report on "Immigration's Economic Impact."...the Council concluded that "immigrants have an overall positive effect of the income of native-born American workers."...immigrants tend to complement natives, not substitute for them...

"Immigrants allow higher-skilled native workers to increase productivity and thus increase their incomes...young immigrant workers fill gaps in the low-skilled labor markets.

"...in a 1997 study, the National Research Council estimated the annual wage gain due to immigration to be $10 billion each year. In 2007 the CEA estimated the gain at over $30 billion per year."

However it's not all rosy since "the CEA acknowledges that an increase in immigrant workers is likely to have some negative impact on the wages of low-skilled native workers". This is because some immigrants might be able to do the job of a native low-skilled worker better and cheaper, thereby undermining his salary. But as a low-skilled native will already be on a low salary, and as there are limits as to how low the pay can go, the impact of immigration on this sector is small. Furthermore the positive impact of immigration on other sectors means that tax relief could be given to the low-skilled workers which would offset the small negative impact on the wage. The CEA concluded that reducing immigration "would be a poorly-targeted and inefficient way to assist low-wage Americans."

The ACLU finishes its report by observing that "California saw an increase in wages of natives by about four percent from 1990 to 2004 - a period of large influx of immigrants to the state - due to the complimentary skills of immigrant workers and an increase in the demand for tasks performed by native workers."

Meanwhile studies for the Institute of Public Policy Research have also found a lack of evidence that immigration negatively affects native's wages. And in a 1993 OECD publication, George B. Borjas wrote, "modern econometrics cannot find a single shred of evidence that immigrants have a major adverse impact on earnings". In fact it can be argued that an influx of refugees and migrants can cause boom conditions as the Cuban exiles have in Miami and the former Algerian white settlers have in the south of France.

So it seems that the widely-held view of immigrants depressing wages is untrue. This view was based on the idea that an increase in labour supply would necessarily lead to a cheapening of the commodity that is labour-power in the same way that the "iron law" of supply and demand affects the prices of all commodities. However, that this is not borne out by the evidence itself stands in need of some explanation. There are three influencing factors which I think account for why labour-power is not cheapened by immigration. These three influences are summarised by saying the free migration of labour increases the productivity of labour, which in turn, allows for wage rises, not decreases.

Firstly free migration allows jobs to be matched to those best suited to them in terms of the skills they have acquired. This means greater efficiency which in turn leads to greater productivity of labour.

Secondly free migration prevents closures in vital sections of the economy. For example, if an economy is growing and the population are becoming more skilled and talented, then lower-skilled areas of the economy are going to suffer from a labour shortage. Thus either these areas shut down in a country - their function subsequently becoming imported (and therefore more costly), or an influx of lower-skilled labour fills its shoes. Thus immigration prevents closure and outsourcing of vital sectors of the economy.

Thirdly when immigration is legal, the working population's bargaining power - which is more of an influence on wages than the mere number of people - is stronger (because everyone has the right to join unions and have legal protection from unscrupulousness/hyper-exploitation). This means the workers are more satisfied, and therefore they are more productive rather than being like a Homer Simpson "do it in a half-assed way" type.

Bearing in mind these points, it seems that those who would like to see higher wages for everyone ought to support open borders. As Hamilton and Whalley estimated in 1984 in the Journal of Development Economics, because migration of labour is potentially a means of increasing the productivity of labour, an international free market in labour and the abolition of all immigration controls would cause a doubling in world incomes (cited in Hayter, T. "Open Borders: The Case Against Immigration Controls", p.160).

Bring it on!

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Tags: aclu, immigration, wages

Myths about Immigration #4 - "Britain is overpopulated"

: barrycurtis; December 16th, 22:31

This is the fourth in my series questioning myths about immigration. The first three challenging "Britain is a soft touch", "British jobs for British workers", and "Immigrants are a burden to the economy" can be accessed here, here, and here. Now I am concerned with the pervasive myth that Britain is, or is becoming, overpopulated.

The view of Britain as overpopulated is held by the Optimum Population Trust - an influential group of pessimistic academics, right wing cranks like the British National Party, various House of Lords peers, green activists, and government leaders. The 'Balanced Migration' parliamentary group set up in 2008 believes in a one-in, one-out policy to stop Britain become more populous. Balanced Migration is chaired by Frank Field and Nicholas Soames, Labour and Tory respectively, and supported by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey of Clifton, and by the Muslim Labour peer, Lord Ahmed. But how believable is this idea?

The idea that Britain is overpopulated can seem plausible if you live in a tower block in the middle of a city. However not all of Britain is like this. In fact there are over 60 million acres in Britain - enough for one acre per person. If you are a member of a family of four, that means your household could have 4 acres. Furthermore only 8% of the land in Britain is actually settled. 46% is used in agriculture. This suggests the population could nearly double without pressing too hard on the boundaries of what is currently 'sustainable'.

Like all resources, land use is distributed by the market and enforced by the state rather than according to a conscious plan. Thus although there is enough land for each individual to have an acre, or half an acre if the population doubled, in fact a family of four is very lucky if it has one acre between them. Meanwhile the Duke of Buccleuch owns 270,900 acres. 69% of the UK's acreage is owned by 0.6% of the population. So what might initially appear as a lack of land per head, is really a social issue regarding how it is allocated. Britain is not overpopulated but it does have a social system that favours the few over the majority.

So if Britain is not overpopulated with regard to the amount of land available, what about with regard to public services? Might not public services all crumble if there was more pressure on them from an expanding population? Again, the problem is not too many people, but a political culture that lacks the vision to solve problems. If a public service such as a hospital or a railway appears to be overburdened, this is a political problem that could be solved by finding ways to increase capacity in each instance. To blame 'too many people' is to recast a political problem as a natural problem. This is a dangerous mistake because it prevents the search for humanistic alternatives to the political mistake and leads to draconian social policy against people - immigration controls are an example of this, healthcare rationing is another example.

Some might argue that Britain is overpopulated because we are reaching the end of 'finite resources'. But this too is an error. What becomes a resource depends very much on technological development - for most of human history, for example, uranium was useless. It was used 2,000 years ago to make glass more yellow, but that was it. Now the stuff can power whole cities. Coal was of prime importance 200 years ago but is now fading away in terms of importance to Britons. Oceans were once a barrier to man, but now can be mined for oil. In appropriate locations, the wind and the waves can be exploited for energy generation when in the past they were merely facts of life. Perhaps in a few hundred years, people will be mining the asteroid belt for new resources. And if nuclear fusion becomes a reality, the amount of energy anyone can use will become infinite, and therefore dirt cheap.

The notion that expanding populations use up all the resources and therefore indirectly kill themselves goes back to right-wing country parson Thomas Malthus (1766-1834). Today the argument is hysterically used by groups like the BNP to say Britain is dying under the weight of immigration, but in Malthus' time the argument was new. Malthus thought the increasing population (which he thought was attributable to the masses having too much sex) would become so large that there wouldn't be enough food to go around, and therefore people would starve, thus bringing the population size down again. But Malthus was refuted by history. What happened instead was that industrialised society created more and more food. The population could keep on expanding because humans were creative ingenious types, not mere devourers of resources.

In 1967, Malthus' basic argument was rehashed by Paul Ehrlich who wrote "The battle to feed all of humanity is over ... In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now." Ehrlich also thought there would be a generalised materials and goods famine by the mid 1980s. In fact food production outstripped household demand, as raw materials did industrial demand. The basic lesson we should learn from this is that Malthusians are always wrong because they never factor human ingenuity into their equations. And because economic migrants are often very enterprising people, it makes sense to abandon immigration controls in order that their talents might be used to benefit Britain's increasing population.

Arguing that there are too many people only comes to the fore in the context of an absence of a sense of common purpose. For example, at the Glastonbury music festival there is a highly concentrated population, just as there was on the 2003 anti-Iraq war marches. But the crowds add to the atmosphere because you're there for the same reason. Thus you don't think of Glastonbury or a big demo as 'overpopulated'. Individuals in society need to realise they have common goals if the myth of overpopulation is to wither away. And one such worthy goal could be to do battle with all the Malthusian arguments currently being thrown about.

To conclude, Britain is not overpopulated in any sense of the term. Birth rates in the UK and across Europe are in decline - there were 1,014,700 births in Britain in 1964, compared to 716,000 forty years later. Britain's population is ageing. We need more immigrants to help make Britain bigger and better. Open the borders now!

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Tags: birth rates, immigration, overpopulation, reverend thomas malthus

Myths about Immigration #3 - "Immigrants are a burden to the economy"

: barrycurtis; December 9th, 21:18

This is the third in my series challenging perceptions about immigration. The first looked at the idea that "Britain is a soft touch" here, the second questioned the notion of "British jobs for British workers" here, and now I am concerned with the idea that immigrants are a burden to the economy.

The idea that immigrants are a burden to the economy relies on a view of people as essentially consumers - or recipients of welfare - rather than producers of wealth. It is true that the hundred thousand asylum seekers waiting to be processed in the UK who have not been detained or deported are on welfare benefits. But this is because they are not allowed to work for twelve months since their application for asylum was submitted. And even after this period, the Government has frustrated their attempts to find employment. If we simply had an open door policy rather than immigration controls, the cost of maintaining asylum seekers would tumble. Less would be on benefits, and the whole infrastructure dedicated to locking them up or keeping them out would no longer be necessary.

Welfare provision for asylum seekers is far from generous. They receive payment, which is one third less than basic income support. They get £39.34 per week, which is 30% below the poverty line. 85% of asylum seekers experience hunger, 95% cannot afford to buy clothes or shoes and 80% are not able to maintain good health. The cost for local authorities and central government in administering the scheme of depleted benefits for asylum seekers runs into the hundreds of millions, when it would be far cheaper to treat them as normal citizens and pay them the normal rate of benefits.

Economic migrants pay more in taxes than immigrants as a whole take out in the form of social security benefits. This is quite obvious if you think about it. For every asylum seeker who is paid just over £2,000 a year in benefits, there is more than one economic migrant who is paying more than this in taxes. As reported on the website for the American Civil Liberties Union, in the USA immigrants pay $80,000 more in taxes than they take out in welfare.

The notion that economic migrants are a burden on the economy betrays a lack of understanding of elementary economics. In fact, even leaving aside the taxes they pay, economic migrants contribute to economic growth simply by virtue of working, just as the entire working class do. When you are employed, the value your labour creates exceeds the cost of your wages by an average of 75%. This figure - the total surplus value created in Britain, that is value over and above the wage cost - is derived from subtracting the wage bill, assuming every worker earns an average of £20,000, from the annual Gross Value Added to the economy. In 2007 - the most recent year for which statistics are available - workers in Britain added a gross value of £1,281,078,157,093 to the economy whilst their wages - assuming a working population of 35 million and an average wage of £20,000 - was £700,000,000,000. This gives a profit for the capitalist class of £581,078,157,093. And immigrant labour accounts for a percentage of this figure. Each individual worker produced a value of over £16,602 for which they weren't paid. Therefore economic migrants are not a burden on the economy - they add to it, just as every worker does. And if we bear in mind that the whole of state expenditure is derived from taxing the £20,000 individual earnings, it becomes clear that the cost of welfare incurred by asylum seekers is taken from the working population as a whole - including that paid by economic migrants - it does not impinge on the figures from which economic growth is driven.

Furthermore, economic migrants do not cost the taxpayer as much as a native-born Briton. This is because they did not spend their childhood here - hence the cost of education is nullified - and they are likely to return to their country of origin after a few years - so there is no state pension to be paid. This ought to make immigrant labour highly sought after, but the siege mentality of those in power means they would rather discriminate against immigrants in order to divide the population rather than reap the benefits that immigration brings.

New Labour's Points-Based System (PBS) for immigrants also deliberately makes it harder for students under the guise of protecting our social services. As well as having to fill in longer forms and attach numerous pieces of documentation, applicants for student visas from non-EU countries must prove that they are able to cover their fees and hold additional savings of up to £7,200 (for a one-year Masters degree). Students who miss 10 'interactions' (lectures, seminars, tutorials, etc) or who 'behave suspiciously' must be reported to the UK Border Agency.

University staff have protested against the PBS because the fees paid by overseas students is vital to their revenue, and the PBS is acting as a deterrent to come here to study. And academics are worried that having to spy on their students will erode the relationship of trust that is vital to higher education. There are also restrictions on the amount of part-time work a student can do whilst over here, so employers also lose out on a source of profit-making, so no-one really benefits from these immigration controls. And because overseas students are being so poorly treated, it is likely they will not want to stay here when their course ends (which is what the Government want), meaning British society will lose out on the talents, skills, and ambition of an educated worker, albeit one from 'abroad'.

To conclude, there is no way in which immigrants are a burden to the economy. Asylum seekers only cost money because of the existence of expensive immigration controls, and economic migrants make up the cost anyway. The idea that immigrants are a burden to the economy is actually so bizarre, one wonders why it exists. Perhaps the existence of immigration controls is skewing our ability to see things in a clear light. After all if we really believe Britain has to be something of a fortress, then we're bound to entertain some peculiar notions about those on the outside.

Tags: aclu, cost of immigration, immigration, surplus value

Myths about Immigration #2 - "British jobs for British workers"

: barrycurtis; December 4th, 21:03

This is the second in my series questioning 'myths about immigration'. Today I am concerned with the notion that immigrants take jobs which deservedly belong to native Britons.

The slogan "British jobs for British workers" was first used frequently by the National Front in the 1970s. But at the 2008 New Labour conference, PM Gordon Brown took it as his own. Back in February, striking workers at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire also used the slogan and were duly congratulated by the Daily Star. Although all these uses of the slogan "British jobs for British workers" express different things - and it's probably only in the case of the National Front that it acquires vicious xenophobic connotations, that it is now part of mainstream discourse means it is worthy of interrogation.

My problem with the slogan is that it justifies immigration controls. For if British jobs should only be for British workers, then clearly controls are required to keep out economic migrants. In turn, the immigration controls create a strata of 'illegal workers'. And thanks to the policing of these immigration controls which is enthusiastically pursued by the UK Border Agency, the 'illegal workers' can be arrested and deported. There was news of this today in relation to almost 100 people working on projects associated with Britain's holding of the 2012 Olympics being arrested and possibly deported. Thus we can see that the powerful ideological sentiment of "British jobs for British workers" leads to a chain reaction of policy that causes definite human suffering. The question never seems to be posed: why should people be punished whose only 'crime' is to try to better themselves?

The idea that immigrants take jobs that are only justifiably for the British assumes that jobs are scarce in Fortress Britain. But this need not be the case. There are plenty of things that need doing in this country - we need 5 million extra homes for example - and these projects could gainfully employ many people. The problem is not the existence of people trying to get into the country, but official policy that refuses to invest in important infrastructure, manufacturing, and innovation for the future. Rather than adopt a siege mentality where the most important thing is to keep people out, it would be better to find productive things for them to do that could benefit everyone. And there is no evidence that immigration increases unemployment.

Furthermore, economic migrants only come to the UK because there is a demand for them from employers. If the labour market totally dried up, they would go elsewhere. No-one wants to migrate to a place where there is no work. So the idea of 'job scarcity' is really a trick designed to scare native Britons into despising Johnny Foreigner.

The current policy of having immigration controls is also very expensive. According to some recent estimates, the costs including deportation amounts to 7 billion euros. Obviously this money could be far better spent if it was invested in production that hired economic migrants.

There is also a question that needs raising: why does a native Briton have a higher right to a particular job simply by virtue of the place he was born? Surely an intelligent employer doesn't just read CVs and only make a judgment based on where the applicant was born. Things a decent employer considers above the location of your birth might include skills, ambition, work history, personality etc. The best person for the job might not always be a native Briton.

The right to work, like all rights, has to be universal to mean anything. This means everyone in Britain should have the same right to work. If you curtail the right to some people, you degrade it for everyone. You end up with an Animal Farm situation - "All animals are equal... but some are more equal than others".

The absurdity of "British jobs for British workers" becomes clear if you look at the logical consequence, a kind of ultra-parochialism where everyone must work in the town they were born. But if we actually had a situation of "London jobs for London workers", the city would collapse. People that weren't necessarily born in London keep London afloat. Mayor Boris Johnson was actually born in New York City, for example. Just as "London jobs for London workers" is absurd, "British jobs for British workers" ignores the fact that immigrants are vital for the economy to function. Many foreigners do low paid jobs in cleaning and catering that Britain's native population is refusing to do. Native Britons aspire to clean, well paid jobs. As a result, casual work on farms, and delivery jobs such as delivering pizzas is being left for foreigners to fill.

To conclude, "British jobs for British workers" is narrow-minded slogan. In order to overthrow the tyranny of narrow-mindedness, society must be armed with logic.

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Tags: british jobs for british workers, economic migrants, immigration

Myths about Immigration #1 - "Britain is a 'soft touch'"

: barrycurtis; November 26th, 21:48

This is the first in a series of blogs to be published over the next few weeks questioning commonly held assumptions with regard to immigration. The provisional outline for this series confronting 'myths about immigration' runs as follows: (1) "Britain is a soft touch" (2) "Immigrants take jobs away from native Britons" (3) "Immigrants are a drain on the welfare state" (4) "Britain is overpopulated" (5) "Immigrants lower wages for the rest of us" (6) "Immigration controls need tightening".

Ultimately this series will be arguing for an 'open door' approach to immigration, showing that the numbers coming to the UK are not strongly influenced by government policy on immigration controls. Nevertheless such controls cause immense suffering and cost more than the 'problem' they're trying to prevent.

Now to begin with the first myth: "Britain is a soft touch"...

Last year, the net migration to the UK was 163,000 people. Of these, most are coming to Britain in search of work (economic migrants). Others are coming to study here. Others are fleeing persecution (asylum seekers). A lesser number are staying in order to marry a British citizen. Every year many thousands migrate to the UK and many thousands emigrate away from the UK. Last year the total amount of newcomers was 590,000 whilst those that left totalled 427,000. This gives us a figure for net migration to the UK of 163,000.

This figure seems high to some people, and they believe people come here because "Britain is a soft touch". By this, they mean we apparently let anyone in, give them housing and benefits, and generally let them undermine 'our way of life'.

However this is a misleading picture of the reality of the situation. In truth restrictions are only minimal with regard to economic migrants from EU countries. This is the case across the EU. If you are from a non-EU country, you have to demonstrate you have certain skills that are needed by the British economy. Recently the list of desired skills has narrowed, and employers are obliged to seek out native Britons to hire first before they cast the net out to include economic migrants. If you are from a non-EU country and are rich, then you can stay. But if you are poor and unskilled, you will have a difficult time convincing the authorities of your worthiness.

For the best part of the past two decades, the government has been designing policies to try and deter people from coming to the UK. The most recent device with regard to economic migrants wishing to settle is New Labour's points-based system for citizenship. (If the Tories get in next year, they will add to this a physical cap on numbers). Under the points-based criteria for citizenship, immigrants can earn points by joining an Establishment political party, doing voluntary work, and joining 'neighbourhood watch'. They lose points if they show an active disregard for 'British values' such as going on a heated anti-war demo, or questioning the 'British way of life'. Just as you earn Clubcard points at Tesco, now you can earn citizenship points by being docile, supporting all wars, and never mocking the Queen.

The citizenship test demands you are able to speak English, and answer questions such as 'according to British custom, where does Father Christmas come from?' and 'what should you do if you accidentally spill someone's pint in a pub?'

Unfortunately the problem with all this is that it involves an impoverished conception of citizenship. Rather than it meaning you are a free and equal member of a body politic with every right to steer it in a way you choose, New Labour's understanding of citizenship only involves obedience and conformity.

Because the rules on who is a worthy economic migrant are quite strict, many would-be immigrants try and claim asylum instead. However the processing of asylum claims is also very strict and if you are not a 'real' asylum seeker you will be labelled 'bogus' and deported. Thus some would-be immigrants try to enter the country illegally such as the case a couple of days ago where three immigrants jumped off a ferry bound for England in gale conditions. Sometimes illegal immigrants are found dead in the back of a lorry. Even if they make it safely inside the country, they can be targets for ruthless exploitation such as the 18 Chinese cockle pickers who died in 2004 when the tide came in. These are all examples of the desperate lengths people go to in order to live in Britain and they confirm that official policy does not make Britain a 'soft touch' for economic migrants.

With regard to coming here to study, PM Gordon Brown recently announced he wants to make it tougher to get a student visa, and restrict any part-time work you can do while you are here, thus making it even less appealing for would-be students. A Russian student quoted in a left-wing newspaper said "We say it's like jumping on the last carriage of the train - it's getting harder all the time." So Britain is not a 'soft touch' for students.

With regard to migrating to Britain in order to join your spouse, the Government makes this awkward. In 2007, they raised the age you can do this from 18 to 21. In addition to checks on whether your marriage is really 'genuine' not 'bogus' and the bureaucracy this entails, an application for indefinite leave to remain costs £800. So Britain is not a 'soft touch' for migrating spouses.

Finally is Britain a 'soft touch' for asylum seekers? Definitely not. There are three main ways the authorities deal with you if you are an asylum seeker: detention, destitution, and deportation. Many asylum seekers get locked up in prisons or concentrated in camps such as Campsfield House in Oxforshire. Here, some have risked life and limb trying to escape. Internees have been quoted as saying things like "I came here to escape persecution, but it's no different here". If you are let loose, you are not allowed to work for twelve months. And even after this time, the Government has attempted to block people's right to work in case after case. Asylum seekers also do not get the full amount of benefits that native Britons are entitled to. Instead they have to subsist on 70% of the value, paid in the form of vouchers that are only redeemable on food at the Co-op. The vouchers come in £5 denominations and you do not get change. Given that the Co-op can often be miles away from where you are staying (you don't get any option on where you live), this is grossly inconvenient. The situation is so bad that Comic Relief, without publicising its efforts for fear of a backlash from Middle England, has spent a proportion of the funds it raised to support destitute refugees within Britain. In 1997, the Red Cross started to distribute food parcels to asylum seekers in Britain, saying that without them they'd starve.

During the past five years some 77,000 people have been refused asylum from countries that the UK Foreign Office has described as "dangerous and unstable". What amounts to an astonishing 40 refugees a day are facing a closed door when they arrive in the country which until recently provided refuge to those escaping terror and persecution. There is widespread sectarian violence, lawlessness and violent insurgency in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraq. Yet destitute citizens fleeing the pandemonium are being denied safety and sanctuary, with as many as 13,131 Iraqi nationals having their applications for asylum turned down. Therefore Britain is not a 'soft touch' with regard to asylum seekers.

So to conclude, next time you hear the phrase "Britain is a soft touch" clumsily bandied about, take it with a pinch of salt. Better still, challenge it.

Tags: asylum seekers, economic migrants, immigration, soft touch, student visas

Paul McCartney's idea of "meatfree Mondays" has an Orwellian ring to it

: barrycurtis; November 18th, 3:27

Warning: this article may lead to an increase in thoughtcrime!

There is certainly a debate to be had regarding whether 'meatfree Mondays' as championed by Paul McCartney is the best way to safeguard the environment or whether it puts too much strain on human enjoyment in an epoch of recession. Questions raised might be whether the supposed reduction of cattle incurred by banning us eating meat on one day of the week is really worthwile since paddy fields for rice also emit methane, or whether the whole idea is coherent (why not ban meat every day if the problem is so severe?)

These issues might be dealt with in a future blog if the demand arises, but here I am concerned with the Orwellian status of the idea of 'meatfree'.

Firstly it is worth emphasising that 'meatfree' does not mean freedom to eat meat, it means we are free of meat. Just as pubs, clubs, restaurants, shopping malls, etc., are now 'smokefree', and there are calls to make fireworks displays 'noisefree', the term 'free' no longer implies a freedom to do something, but a ban on certain activities. We become 'free' of something, rather than are 'free' to do something.

In his 1984, George Orwell writes on "The Principles of Newspeak". It is worth quoting him at length:

"The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought - that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc - should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.

"The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as 'This dog is free from lice' or 'This field is free from weeds'. It could not be used in its old sense of 'politically free' or 'intellectually free' since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless". (p.237-8)

1984 is a terrible society to live in, and thank your deity we are not there yet. But Orwell's book doesn't seem to be taken as a caution against authoritarian government any more, but instead as an instruction manual as to how to create an obedient society where the whole concept of freedom is obliterated.

Of course people like Paul McCartney should be free to campaign on whatever grounds they want. But I wish they'd be more honest with their words. Instead of saying 'meatfree', they should say 'meat ban', for that is what it is.

Further on, Orwell writes, "...only a person thoroughly grounded in Ingsoc could appreciate the full force of the word oldthink, which was inextricably mixed up with the idea of wickedness and decadence" (p.241). This is how freedom is perceived today - as wicked people running riot over the vulnerable, and the archetypes of this message are the governments of Thatcher and Reagan during the 1980s where self-interest was held to run riot. But this is really a caricature of oldgovernment - in truth Thatcher and Reagan clamped down on freedom, whether it was the freedom to strike as in the case of the miners, the freedom to protest, as under successive Criminal Justice Acts, or free speech, as in the case of the broadcasting ban on Sinn Fein. They laid the groundwork for this new quasi-totalitarian situation, but just as Stalin's successor denounced his "22 crimes", today's elite draws strength from comparing itself to a caricature of its past.

For the meaning of real freedom to gain currency in today's society, we must start by criticising the multifarious attempts to curtail what remains of it, even if it's for something that is becoming unfashionable.　

Tags: 1984, meatfree mondays, orwell, vegetarianism

"Carbon footprint" calculating to be made compulsory, but you can wank 'till your heart's content

: barrycurtis; November 15th, 17:36

Two stories from the Telegraph caught my eye today. The first reveals that the UK Government wants to introduce an annual "carbon allowance" for all citizens with transgressors punished, the second is a Spanish initiative to teach the young how to wank properly.

These stories might seem totally disconnected, but they provide a snapshot of an Orwellian society that seeks to micromanage people's lives. By making the calculation of your carbon footprint a compulsory endeavour, the authorities are seeking to convert us into slavish conformists. And by instructing the youth in the "art" (?!) of masturbation, it shows you can't even find private relief without state intervention.

Some people might think that the new carbon allowance scheme where your consumption of fuel, flights, and electricity is monitored is a good idea. They might think that because the threat of climate change is so dramatic, measures like this are necessary even if they curtail liberty. But the dangers presented by climate change have been overegged. The temperature has only gone up 0.5 degrees since industrialisation, and will only rise by a further 2.5 degrees if everyone in the world lived an American lifestyle, before levelling out. The effects of this rise on human society will be so gradual that we can easily adapt, building new cities in safer areas, relocating, and better still, we'll have warmer weather to enjoy. When the temperature was at similar levels 5,000 years ago, it lead to human flourishing. The same can happen again. The UK will be like Provence, a place the middle class flock to for enjoyment. More wine can be produced and there will be less deaths from the cold, easily outflanking the alleged rise in heat-related deaths (which could be mitigated anyway by air conditioning).

If the government did want to do something about the nation's carbon footprint, they could start by rolling out a new generation of nuclear power stations and investing in fusion technology. Nuclear produces far less carbon, and it's in the sphere of power generation that the bulk of carbon emissions are created. In addition, there is the area of geoengineering worth investigating. By stocking the oceans with special plants and coating trees with a substance that increases their absorption of carbon, the problem of excess carbon in the atmosphere is mitigated. Environmentalists laugh this off as "science fiction" but the Royal Society says it is possible. Perhaps environmentalists should be less selective over which bits of "the science" they worship.

These are ways the government could tackle the problem of climate change if it is so intent on doing so without moralising to the public and introducing draconian Orwellian laws. It would be a mark of a civilized government rather than one that has turned against its own population.

However if environmentalism wins the day, you can still relieve yourself by wanking. This obsession and promotion of wanking by the authorities - and it's not just in Spain - is symptomatic of the atomised society in which we live. The authorities don't want us to form meaningful relationships with other people. Even if you do have sex, you're supposed to do it "safely" and treble-check it is consensual, thus removing the spontaneity and passion from the event. But now it seems even masturbation has to be the subject of official guidance. From now on you'll have to wank with a Government advice booklet in your other hand. The authorities don't see wanking in a negative light like the old Christian morality did. Now they approve of it precisely because it is a solitary act of no consequence and no risk. The celebration of wanking is the glitzy flipside of the turn away from the meaningful relationships people form in a society that is free.

I've long suspected that the elites are wankers - today's news seems to be the proof!

Tags: authoritarianism, carbon footprint, liberty, wanking

Film Review - Saw VI

: barrycurtis; November 9th, 22:42

Saw VI is a great film that has reinvigorated the franchise after a shaky period. The plot sees justice wreaked out against a healthcare insurance boss who put profit before people's needs, coinciding with Barack Obama's healthcare reforms. Now Jigsaw is a crusader for social justice, I expect the seventh installment to focus around people who have been polluting the environment. There could be some inventive traps using poisonous gas and toxic waste as justice is meted out against an ubercapitalist.

This sixth installment is a slight change of direction since previous sequels have all dealt with Jigsaw's peculiar style of justice being exacted on drug-addicted or criminal individuals. Now it is members of an unethical corporation that get the horror treatment.

For those that don't know, Jigsaw's brand of justice involves capturing someone and putting them in a life or death trap. They have to do something horrible to themselves to avoid dying, such as sawing off a limb or cutting out their eye to find a key. Insodoing, Jigsaw argues they will be reborn with a new appreciation for life (which they had previously squandered). And so Jigsaw sees himself as a redeeming figure rather than as a serial killer that you normally get with horror films. This twist - that Jigsaw is ideologically driven - undoubtedly has contributed to why the Saw series is now the highest earning horror franchise ever. It's a kind of thinking man's gorefest unlike traditional horror films, involving twists in the plot that you don't see coming and lots of tension as the timers on the games tick down.

Saw shares with other recent horror films a high level of gore, but the excitement of seeing which new traps will be devised, and the fact that Jigsaw is a thinking man's psychopath keep people coming back for more. But the series is widely acknowledged to have suffered when it has overcomplicated the plot and explained away gaping holes in future installments with implausible flashbacks.

Given that Jigsaw sees himself as a redeemer for people whom the audience agree are bad, the audience doesn't really know whose side it is on. Do you actually want the individual to escape the trap, and do you want to see Jigsaw and his aides get their comeuppance? I feel that the producers of the series are on the side of Jigsaw given that he always seems to win and his victims are portrayed as stupid or immoral. Although Jigsaw himself dies at the end of Saw 3, his legacy and philosophy live on through his accomplice Detective Hoffman.

I think the audience's mixed sympathies touches on confusions about justice in society. The police and the courts are largely perceived as weak and inept, so a Jigsaw figure can appear as a crusader for justice, a kind of postmodern twisted Superman. But we should also realise that the man is a psycho who pursues his peculiar form of justice arbitrarily and cruelly. His form of redemption is based on the idea that if someone has a close-to-death experience, they will emerge as a better person more appreciative of life. But this logic doesn't follow as one of the victims in Saw VI exclaims after having to amputate her arm - "What am I supposed to have learnt from losing my arm?" the female loan shark shouts.

In fact this idea that an encounter with death leads one to a more authentic life goes back to Nazi philosopher Martin Heidegger. In his Being and Time, Heidegger argued that it is only once someone has fully understood that their time on earth is finite that they can go on to live an authentic meaningful life. But the idea is flawed. Recognising that one day you will die does nothing to improve or authenticate life. That depends on the struggles you make, the attachments you form, the freedom you enjoy and the level of material wealth you acquire. Someone who is wasting their life is not doing so because they don't realise that one day they will die, but because of complex social or psychological factors that are thwarting the development of their potential. Heidegger and Jigsaw are mistaken in thinking that any redemption can come from the contemplation of death - in fact only suffering comes from this which is actually what their twisted minds want.

Sorry if this appears to have strayed off topic - I am simply trying to explain the popularity of the Saw series by relating it to the ideological context in which the audience is viewing it. Whilst it is OK to view Jigsaw's legacy as cool in the cinemas, when similar ideas appear in reality they ought to be criticised.

Tags: martin heidegger, saw vi

Fireworks and Pets - Are 'Ban the Bang!' a killjoy campaign?

: barrycurtis; November 6th, 21:34

Should fireworks be banned on the basis they distress pets?

If not banned, then should a compromise be reached whereby fireworks become less noisy and ground-based?

What regulations should cover public and private displays?

What does it mean to say that an animal is 'distressed'?

What is more important: lowering animal distress, or human freedom?

And should the responsibility for mitigating animal distress lie with individual pet owners or wider society?

These issues and more are discussed in my article published in a popular internet magazine on November 5th. Although I wasn't paid for this article, the prestige is good. You can read it here. Enjoy!

Tags: animal distress, anthropomorphism, ban the bang, fireworks, pets

Why a drunk student who urinated on a war memorial should not be locked up

: barrycurtis; November 4th, 22:29

A nineteen year old student at Sheffield Hallam University has been told by a judge he faces jail after urinating on a war memorial in the city in October. Laing was charged with "outraging public decency". Caught on CCTV, the pictures first appeared on the Daily Mail website. Since then the media has rounded on Philip Laing, the Express calling the "lout" a "Drunken Disgrace To Our War Heroes"whilst the Guardian says he has been the subject of vitriolic criticism and mentions a Facebook page that calls Laing "Scum of the Earth", presumably for readers that want to join the witchhunt. There is also a YouTube video for those that like their condemnation hi-tech.

However should Laing really be jailed for this offence? It must be insisted upon that Laing was as drunk as you can possibly get. He was not making a political statement about the war dead, despite the hysteria whipped up by the papers. He was simply a typical drunken student having fun and unfortunately crossing the line. The following day, Laing said he could not even remember what he had done. Upon sobering up, Laing issued an apology, but this was still not enough for the witchhunters. The university has been swamped with angry calls and there is a campaign to get him kicked out over this one event. And not content with merely targetting one individual, the judge has said the company who organised the drinking binge should also be in the dock whilst many other articles have blamed the student culture of drinking too much. But if you can't get drunk as a student, when can you?

Laing made a silly mistake - we should forgive and forget. But the nationwide campaign against him is destructive to him. In court, Tim Hughes, in mitigation, said, "If there was ever a case where a young man has learnt an extremely hard lesson, this is it. This has been an awful and salutary lesson for him. He is terrified." Anyone would think Laing had killed someone instead of merely urinating in the wrong place. The fact that he is now terrified shows this anti-yob culture as the greater threat to civility than anything Laing did.

The threat of jail should only be used for serious offences where harm has been done to a person or his property and are a threat to society. It should not be used to terrify students into conformity.

The fact that the media have run with this story, and the judge's harsh treatment, shows that Laing isn't just suffering for what he has done, he is being made an example of. And that means this case is really about sending a message to the wider public about what is and what is not acceptable. The message is that you have to at all times mind your manners, follow the script laid down from on high, to conform at all times. There is no let off, no time such as studentdom when you can live comparatively freely. This case is all about laying down a code of behaviour we all must follow, it has nothing to do with any damage done to a war memorial. After all, it's not as if he graffitied "Fascist" or "Hands off Iran" on the memorial under conditions of cold sobriety. No, it was simply a drunken mistake, now taken as a morality tale, for which Laing may pay the price of the loss of his liberty.

It's the courts and the media that ought to sober up, and offer a public apology for the way they've handled this case.

Tags: binge drinking, conformity, crime and punishment, philip laing, students

Well done Jenson Button, but Formula One needs to fight its environmentalist critics

: barrycurtis; November 2nd, 23:41

It seems highly unlikely, for now at least, that motor racing will be banned for green reasons. But the facts that lots of money is involved and hundreds of millions of people enjoy it are fading as the primary reasons for the lack of a ban, instead F1 is advertising its green credentials in order to continue to exist. But some environmentalists don't believe it. George Monbiot insists F1 should go, arguing, "There is a direct relationship between an engine's performance and the amount of greenhouse gases it produces: the faster the car, the quicker it cooks the planet." Monbiot wants to see a 90% cut in carbon emissions by 2030 and thinks sport should play its part. Instead of fast cars, Monbiot wants to get us excited by frisbees. Another environmentalist writer says, "Motorsport is the most wasteful, harmful pointless leisure pursuit on the planet" before echoing Monbiot's line that "The faster the car, the faster it destroys the Earth - simple".

For environmentalists, human pleasure is irrelevant - it is "pointless". All that counts is the impact we are having on the Earth, and it must be drastically reduced.

However whilst it is true that fast driving uses more fuel than slow driving, it does not follow that this leads to greater ecological destruction. New biofuels do not have the same carbon emissions as old fasioned petrol, and F1 has served as a catalyst for the development of these and other low carbon fuels. Furthermore F1 has served as a catalyst for innovation in the sphere of engine efficiency which means you can drive faster for longer whilst using less fuel. Monbiot doesn't like biofuels though because he thinks the land used to grow them would be better used for food production, thus lowering food prices. But actually the amount of land used in biofuel production is tiny compared to the amount of land given over to conservation (the size of China in the past decade). And further developments in technology would be able to provide for higher yields from less land, and so progress is still important. It is not the existence of biofuels that is pushing up food prices but environmentalism itself.

Technological development created by F1 has also led to its deployment in the cars we all use, so it could be argued that its continued existence is better for the environment than a ban. And given that the season only consists of roughly 20 races of roughly 20 cars, it would seem quite insignificant in the scheme of things.

That F1 is actually quite environmentally friendly is the way it justifies itself nowadays under the interrogatory spotlight of environmentalism. F1 boss Max Moseley - son of Oswald Mosley, former leader of the British Union of Fascists - has released an Environmentally Sustainable Motor Sport Policy which, according to one critic, will "cost millions, eliminate jobs and do nothing to improve the "entertainment" as they call it." It seems that nowadays things cannot be justified on their own terms, or in relation to human pleasure. Humans are out of fashion, only the environment is "in". But this obsession with environmentalism is undermining other important principles such as liberty and progress. And ironically it is these latter principles that are the best way of safeguarding the environment: liberty makes people creative and dynamic, whilst progress creates new technologies that are less destructive to the environment. Ultimately though Formula One should be defended on the grounds of the excitement it provides. Watching those cool shiny cars whizz round a beautiful circuit such as the floodlit Singaporean Grand Prix pulling off daredevil manoeuvures or crashing in the thrill of the chase is a good thing. Environmentalism by contrast leads to a life of boredom and monotony. Just how much fun can you really have with a frisbee?

Finally an appendix on the innovations that have come out of a free Formula One. Electronic systems have led to safer road vehicles, ABS, traction control, passive safety belts, and many more systems designed to improve road vehicle safety have been spawned directly from F1 technology, thus making our road vehicles safer to vehicle drivers and pedestrians alike in the event of a crash. We now have vehicles which are safer to everyone when the unfortunate incidents happen.

Composites are used for F1 cars, again these have led the way in manufacturing and optimising such technologies, these have transferred into every sphere of life ranging from specialised hospital equipment, through to space technology, marine technology, and many other areas.

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) this is the study of aerodynamics and engineering technologies, it improves aerodynamics of racing cars, but has led to improved efficiencies in ship and boat designs, and even through to the designs of the aircraft of tomorrow. Boeing, Airbus, Lockheed Martin, and many more civil and military aircraft designers use this technology to improve aircraft efficiency, giving larger fuel savings for the same payload capacity, or larger payloads for the same fuel consumption.

F1 has led to the design of more simplistic necessities for vehicles, the basic tyres and tyre technologied developed by F1 have ted to the now common low resistance tyres fitted to road cars. They have also contributed to the new compounds for many tyres used on vehicles, trucks, plant and machinery, and even aircraft; giving improved fuel efficiency, durability, and far longer life.

Ergo, keep racing!

Tags: bans, carbon footprint, environmentalism, formula one, jenson button, liberty, progress

Question Time with Nick Griffin was not an open debate, it was a Stalinist-style show trial

: barrycurtis; October 24th, 2:36

I stand by 90% of my previous blog which argued that it's easy to beat a racist in an argument and therefore free speech is essential. However in the cold light of day and particularly having read a fantastic piece on spiked, I wish to revise my conclusion that the Question Time debate featuring Nick Griffin was a good day for free speech. Whilst it was better that he was heard at all than not heard, the form the debate took was actually against the spirit of open political inquiry and in fact resembled a Stalinist-style show trial. Having re-watched the QT debate, this is now clear to me.

Question Time is normally a very boring political programme. Elites, detached from the rest of society, argue without much passion over various forms of number crunching. There is little in the way of ideological contest - the assumptions are taken for granted - it's just a case of whose best at managing the affairs of Britain at any given moment. This boringness is why only 2 million people normally tune in. With the spectre of the BNP, however, the public were for once engaged - the viewing figures rocketed to 8 million. But what they saw will probably leave them disappointed.

Firstly Nick Griffin was introduced to massive booing. Whilst it's good that a fascist right-winger is generally disliked, in a debate on national TV meant to be about "impartiality" and "fairness", the booing immediately signalled that Griffin would not be given fair crack of the whip. And as it went on, Griffin was routinely heckled and interrupted. If I didn't despise him so much already, I might have felt sorry for the guy as he was clearly a fish out of water. The main panellists who, as most weeks, share the same ideology and therefore reduce the debate to one of managerialism, were often the ones doing the interrupting. This is because Griffin is different - it isn't just the fact that he's a racist, for if you dig a little deeper, you'll find that Winston Churchill - who was unanimously praised - also held some racist views. What members of the panel such as Jack Straw and Chris Huhne really hated was that someone would come on with the audacity of a different ideology, a different way of interpreting facts. Whilst Griffin's chosen mode of thought is admittedly lacklustre, politicians appearing on Question Time ought to show some respect to differing beliefs. Yes, criticise them when they come up. But to constantly flag them up in a context of universal demonisation? - that's not intelligent debate, it's the work of which Joe Stalin would be proud.

Secondly the format of the programme was noticeably different. Usually on Question Time, there's a series of questions about the main items in the news, and panellists give their opinions on it. But with the BNP presence this format was abandoned in favour of interrogating Griffin on pronouncements he's made in the past, whether it was about Holocaust denial or his dream of an all-white Britain. Griffin was asked "Do you still believe x" where 'x' stands for something the ruling ideology embodied in QT finds UNACCEPTABLE. Given that Griffin wanted to do well on the mono-debate, he had to abandon most of what he has said in the past and try to get some PC respectability back. This led him to be accused of being a "wolf in sheep's clothing". Perhaps he is, but what sort of free speech is it that forces someone to alter what they want to say just to avoid being hung there on the spot. Griffin was converted into a hate-figure right from the start. Even when there was a question about something else - the only one, mind - it quickly changed into an interrogation of Griffin's views on homosexuality, about which an audience member said they found Griffin equally repulsive - to rapturous applause. If Griffin was able to answer main questions about the news, we could have had a proper debate, but so often it was David Dimbleby quoting from a scare-sheet in order to invalidate Griffin before he'd opened his mouth.

The QT debate was not a coup for free speech, but a coup for the ruling elite. Whilst their popularity was plummeting over the recession, the expenses scandal, and the seeming war-without-end in Afghanistan, here was an occasion they could unite to define themselves against the evil BNP, and pick up some rare applause. After all, we all hate New Labour, but they're probably better than the BNP.

As we head towards the next election, surely we have to say the choice should not be between the identicals in NewLabourToryLibDem vs. the BNP. That is effectively a rigged election. It's about time we started demanding more from our rulers - and this could begin with them treating us with respect rather than viewing us as all Nazis-in-the-wings (see previous blog), and members of the politburo being held to account over everything they do - including their underlying assumptions - on a reinvigorated Question Time. To conclude, I don't feel sorry for Nick Griffin, I feel sorry for the way politics has gone in this country.

Tags: bnp, free speech, nick griffin, question time, stalinist show trial

Nick Griffin was easily defeated on Question Time, so what was all the fuss about?

: barrycurtis; October 22nd, 23:49

The BNP's Nick Griffin was easily defeated on Question Time, so what was all the fuss about? Griffin couldn't defend his previous position that the Holocaust was a myth and he couldn't defend his dream of an all-white Britain. His arguments on immigration looked absurd and he only held water to the extent that he parrotted the New Labour line against "bogus" asylum seekers. It wasn't just the rest of the panel who were successful against him, members of the audience ripped him to shreds. This scenario was actually entirely predictable. Anyone with half a brain knew Griffin was a small-minded bigot who lacks the weight of evidence on any issue. It was always clear to intelligent people that Griffin was bound to lose the debate. The majority are cleverer than he is and so would not pander to the racist tactic of relying on the idea of shared prejudice and emotion. It has now been revealed that it is quite easy to beat a racist in an argument which raises the issue of what the fuss was all about.

This whole controversy is based upon a low opinion of the public that is prevalent today, a low opinion that is held right across the political spectrum. Conservatives have always distrusted the power of reason preferring to rely on tradition, but Labour and those to the left also now share this belief blaming the gullible masses for repeatedly voting Thatcher and therefore creating everything that's wrong in the world today, (in reality, of course, it was the failure of the left to provide a credible alternative that was the problem). Environmentalists also don't like the public because they have too much of a carbon footprint and are wrecking the planet. So what we have is a situation where large chunks of political thought are orientated against the public. In these conditions the fear of the masses lurching to fascism is very high. The masses are heavily distrusted and seen as easily deceived. And so the possibility of giving the BNP a platform to speak is widely loathed because it is feared that the gullible masses will be easily swayed. But as has been shown tonight, the view is erroneous, and the hysterical aspects of the controversy could have been averted were we all aware of this.

Unite Against Fascism claim that every time the BNP appear, racist attacks go up. For UAF, giving the BNP airtime confers legitimacy and respectability on all this. But this view is absurd. Racist attacks are not seen as legitimate or respectable by the majority of society - they are illegal and universally condemned. The few people that carry them out are violent anyway - the role played by the BNP is merely the straw that broke the camel's back, not the determining factor. And we have to remember that only 1% of the electorate is racist - this is a tiny portion. 99% of the electorate are not racist.

Worse, the UAF argument assumes a monkey-say-monkey-do view of the general population. They think we will be hypnotised by the BNP and do whatever they say as if we don't all have independent minds. UAF claim Britain today is much like pre-Nazi Germany. But there is no widespread anti-Semitism or racism more broadly. Even under the debilitating conditions of recession and widespread disenchantment with corrupt MPs, the public are not showing signs of lurching to the right. Clearly we are not automatons who respond to problems in the same way in every historical period. UAF should get some perspective.

To conclude, tonight's Question Time has shown free speech in a positive light. I'm especially glad there was no therapeutic action line to call after the programme if "you've been affected by the issues". We are far better off for having free speech than not. But maintaining this right will take increasing amounts of work as the anti-public vultures circle.

Tags: bnp, free speech, nick griffin, question time, uaf

How much alcohol is it really safe to drink? The truth is in here

: barrycurtis; October 12th, 21:20

Patient: If I give up alcohol will I live longer?

Doctor: No, it will just seem that way.

We are confronted with a seeming paradox. On the one hand the government and medical authorities have been vociferously promoting "sensible" and "responsible" drinking for the past ten years. Meanwhile cases of diseases associated with heavy drinking such as liver cirrhosis have gone up in the same period. There was a 41% increase in the number of deaths from alcoholic liver disease between 1999 and 2005 whilst deaths from other diseases are falling year on year.

This paradox can be explained by two factors: 1) in this period, disillusionment with the political system and the total collapse in the perception of alternatives have rocketed. This gives rise to a sense of despair leading some people to turn to the bottle. 2) The more the government says don't do something, the more a fraction of the population will do it. This is the spirit of rebellion common to all generations.

If these two factors are correct, it seems that the more the authorities try to tackle 'binge drinking', the more adverse effect it will have. The way the problem ought to be dealt with is through the resocialisation of alcohol, i.e. bringing it back into ordinary life and discussing it sensibly. Alcohol is not a problem for the majority of people but the way the government approach it creates new problems.

According to statistics, over a quarter of the population regularly "binge drink". However scratch the surface and a different picture emerges. Binge drinking is defined as consuming more than 4 units of alcohol in a day (for a man, 3 for a woman). But given this definition, if you drink two pints of beer, you are a binge drinker. Clearly something is wrong with the calculation. It also seems to depend on where you do the drinking. In the UK, a "unit" of alcohol equates to 8 grams of ethanol whilst in Ireland, Austria, Poland and Spain, one unit is 10g. In Denmark, France, Italy or South Africa it is 12g, in Portugal and the US it is 14g, and a Japanese unit contains 19.75g. So whilst many countries advise the same upper limit of 21 units per week for men and 14 for women, this can mean different amounts of drink.

There is also a problem with the quantification of units. In 1979 the Royal College of Psychiatrists first indicated that a weekly consumption of more than 56 units of alcohol was the 'absolute upper limit'. In 1984 the Health Education Council suggested that weekly levels of between 21 and 36 units for men, and 14 and 24 units for women, would be 'unlikely to cause damage'. Then in the late 1980s a new consensus emerged setting the upper limits at 21 for men and 14 for women which has been the basis of most guidelines ever since. However these figures were arrived at arbitrarily, guessed at by working out a 'safe level' that was significantly lower than what heavy drinkers with diseases said they'd had. But a couple of points need bearing in mind: 1) the heavy drinkers with diseases were drinking heavily regularly over a long period of time. This does not parallel someone who say has 4 pints in a night, twice a week, even though mathematically he's exceeding his daily ration. It is wrong to compare the two individuals - one is obviously doing significant harm to himself whereas the other is merely enjoying himself. The latter should not be treated as a 'percentage' of the former, entailing a lower percentage of risk. The two individuals are not comparable. 2) The studies were based on personal testimony of how much the heavy drinkers had. But everyone knows they were likely to lie rather than confess to stupidity, thereby skewing the statistics on what is safe downwards.

Furthermore the figures used by the authoritative Royal College of Physicians in 1987 were "plucked out of thin air". According to Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal and member of the college's working party on alcohol, "the epidemiologist on the committee's line was that 'We don't really have any decent data whatsoever. It's impossible to say what's safe and what isn't'...the feeling was that we ought to come up with something. So those limits were really plucked out of the air. They weren't really based on any firm evidence at all. It was a sort of intelligent guess by a committee." Yet this "intelligent guess" is now taken as incontrovertible fact and is used as the scientific backing for the government's multimillion pound campaign against binge drinking.

Furthermore in the years since the 1987 "study", a host of new epidemiology has seen evidence to the contrary. In 2000, the World Health Organisation's International Guide for Monitoring Alcohol Consumption and Related Harm set out drinking ranges that qualified people as being at low, medium or high-risk of alcohol-related harm. For men, less than 35 weekly units was low-risk, 36-52.5 was medium risk and above 53 was high risk. Women were roughly half these figures. Meanwhile back in 1993, a study of 12,000 middle-aged male doctors led by Sir Richard Doll (the man who discovered the smoking-lung cancer link 40 years prior) found that the lowest mortality rates - lower even than teetotallers - were among those drinking between 20 and 30 units of alcohol each week. The level of drinking that produced the same risk of death as that faced by a teetotaller was 63 units a week, or a bottle of wine each day. In 1995 another study of 13,000 men and women found that drinking 50 units a week cut the risk of premature death by half.

However whilst it's important to reveal the evidence, one's case for drinking should not depend entirely on arguments about health. There's more to life than mere existence and so the case for drinking what you want should depend on how much you enjoy it. Just because a minority drink excessive amounts that cause adverse effects should not mean the right is curtailed for the rest of us. Drinking alcohol in its wonderful diversity of forms is a highly pleasurable activity which, in general, ought to have nothing to do with health. Unfortunately the obsession with "counting the units" and "knowing your limits" rather spoils the experience. Ironically the obsession with health turns a source of pleasure into a source of anxiety. If we add to the unit-counting phenomenon other social phenomena such as calculating your carbon footprint, counting your calories, or making sure you get your 5-a-day fruit and veg, it might seem that the elite are trying to turn us all into a bunch of worry-worts. If they had their way, we wouldn't even be able to drown our sorrows.

Finally it needs to be stated that the nation's health is not really the government's number one priority. In truth, the authorities use the fear of binge drinking as a tool of social control. The police now routinely round up the drinkers in the street on a Friday night, and we let this coercion go uncriticised because we think it's good for these people's health. Meanwhile General Practicioners are converted into agents of the state by government regulations that make them "advise patients to restrict their drinking to within the recommended daily levels". What this represents is the state creeping into your home, trying to control what you do behind closed doors. And it's not good for the doctor/patient relationship either as patients lie to evade official censure, and subsequently doctors mistrust them.

To conclude, we need to stop this obsession with counting units, and get back some common sense. When the government identify a quarter of the population as a problem, it is clear they're not interested in tackling a real problem but trying to find avenues and ways to control them. A quarter of the population aren't problem drinkers - they only appear so because the methodology is flawed, deliberately. Yes, a small minority do drink too much and will die prematurely, but targetting the whole of society in a campaign to reduce everyone's drinking is not the best way to tackle the problem and it creates unnecessary trouble. It's time the health zealots knew their limits.

Tags: alcohol, binge drinking, social control

As Tories rant away in their parallel universe, Bazza Online asks 'Are we all mentally ill now?'

: barrycurtis; October 6th, 3:47

"'Mental illness' is merely a reaction to intolerable social conditions." - C. Hill - The World Turned Upside Down, The Island of Great Bedlam

In my previous blog, I looked at the Tories' welfare reform proposals and observed they will only cause resentment. This is because the Tories want incapacity claimants to take yet more tests - they already have to endure a stream of these so the only point of this can be that the Tories want to harass people further, including the genuinely sick or disabled. I noted that the Tories were right however to bring the discussion of incapacity into the limelight, and the more I think about it, perhaps the problem of why so many people are on this benefit (2.5 million, they claim) can be turned into an opportunity. If we are thoughtful and ambitious, we can tackle the root cause of the problem which means to address the situation where so many people see themselves as mentally ill (mental problems account for the vast rise in incapacity cases since 1981).

It's not just the 2.5 million incapacity claimants that experience mad levels of anxiety or depression. Many workplaces have followed the universities in setting up counselling, in addition to the multifarious independent or government funded helplines. Rising campaigns claim that at least one in four people will experience serious mental health problems in their lifetimes. This is reflected in popular culture where there seem to be endless songs with the word 'crazy' somewhere in it. It seems we are in the era of the mentally ill individual. How has this come to pass?

Firstly it is worth stressing that there is no overall rise in cases of serious mental illness. The amount of people who need to be sectioned is no greater in percentage terms than it was a decade ago. Of course some psychiatrists are perhaps too quick to section when humane alternatives could be found (which does rather conflate the statistics). The rise in self-perception of mental problems is therefore a social phenomenon, unconnected with neurological facts.

Secondly we should add to the discussion other recent social phenomena in order to get a clearer picture of what is going on. The increase in people genuinely seeing themselves as nut jobs reveals that they experience the world through the lens of vulnerability. It is this underlying sense of vulnerability that has increased over the past couple of decades, not a change in human biology. Other expressions of this increased sense of vulnerability include the way natural disasters are seen to confound man, even though we're better than ever at dealing with them. Meanwhile the media is full of stories about risk and danger whether it's swine flu, sexually transmitted diseases, or the so-called impending apocalypse from global warming. I don't blame the media - they just want to sell stories - the point we have to ask is why people buy them. That can only be because the message resonates with them, i.e. it resonates with their sense of vulnerability.

The big glaring paradox of the whole thing is evident if you ask the question - "why now?" For in recent decades, human life expectancy has gone up. We live longer healthier lives in greater material comfort than our forebears. If anything the sense of vulnerability ought to have gone down, not up. It seems that whilst the alienation imposed on us by nature has decreased as a consequence of progress, the other form - alienation from society - has increased. And the great catalyst for this was the policies of the Thatcher government in the 1980s.

Thatcher's whole leadership was predicated on the menacing notion of "who governs Britain?" She described coal miners as the "enemy within" and went on the onslaught against working class organisations that seemed to her to have too much power. Thatcher aimed to liberate the individual entrepreneur by smashing collective organisations, but it didn't work. In destroying people's social solidarities, it weakened the individual rather than emboldened him. This is because strong individuals are not natural enemies of strong collectivities - rather the two go together hand in hand. It is when you have a strong collective that strong individuals are developed. Confident individuals did not emerge from Thatcher's actions, only defeated vulnerable ones. This is why, as I noted in my previous blog, the highest rates of incapacity claimants are from former coal mining areas.

Of course it would be wrong to give Thatcher all the credit for the current situation where many people see themselves as mentally ill. Under New Labour, the state has reorganised itself to deal with people on a one-to-one basis rather than confront them as a class, and this is the essence of government funded therapy. New Labour has nurtured and cultivated the vulnerable individual to the point where previously hard-assed workers now see themselves as slightly kooky. They worry that the recession will increase mental illness and so therapeutic services are tagged on to the work of job centres.

Cameron might want to "Get Britain Working" again but because he is too stupid to understand the root causes of the problem and his predecessor's role in creating it, and if he continues with New Labour ideas like vetting anyone who comes within a mile of a child, the social fragmentation that drives people to experience mental ill-health will continue, and therefore, if anything, there will be more people on incapacity benefit than before, only they'll have even worse lives than the current batch because of austere cuts and continual hounding by the state.

We should be clear - we are in a terrible situation. If people are seeing themselves as a little loopy, it means they cannot enjoy life to the fullest extent. The situation has to be addressed. I think all of us should take a critical stand against all causes of social fragmentation. Insodoing new social solidarities will form which, in turn, will elevate the vulnerable individual into a confident one who can develop their potential to a greater degree. But don't expect any such project from the backward thinkers in the three main parties.

Tags: cameron, incapacity benefit, mental illness, social fragmentation, thatcher, vetting

Tories' "welfare reform" is immoral - it won't tackle the budget deficit in the best way

: barrycurtis; October 5th, 4:19

If David Cameron had his way, we'd all be cycling to power machines that carry foie gras to his fat face.

But Cameron's Tories are right to highlight the problem that there are currently 2.26 million people claiming some form of incapacity benefit. After all, in a potentially working population of 35 million, are one in twelve really too ill to work? A large chunk of incapacity benefits claimants describe themselves as too anxious to work, another large chunk too depressed. What has to be ascertained is whether these categories really are disabling. We all feel anxious in many situations, whether it's the first date, going on a plane, or even workplace stress. We also get depressed frequently, whether it's about the news or the general boredom of family life in a life of unfulfilled potential. What the incapacity system ought to discriminate against is precisely this day-to-day level of feeling, and pay people who are beyond this, people who experience anxiety or depression as a major disabling feature of their lives.

By experiencing anxiety or depression as a disabling feature of their lives, I mean people who experience panic attacks frequently whenever they leave the house, or who are so manically depressed they might slit their wrists if they don't get what they want. If we filtered down the number of claimants along these lines (or similar lines, as approved by a group of psychiatric specialists), we might address the fact that the cost of incapacity benefit is a real drain in an age when we need to cut the massive budget deficit. In short, I am saying there is a distinction to be made between genuine claimants, and those who use illness as an excuse.

In April 1981, 463,000 men of working age were receiving incapacity benefit, but this figure has risen year on year to today's figure of over 2 million. This increase has not occurred due to a rise in the levels of real illness, but is rather pursued by claimants who cannot find a decent job and would therefore rather sell their souls on the incapacity system. Of course, these individuals are not solely to blame. Increasingly governments have sought to redefine the unemployed as sick and in need of therapy - i.e. so their bad social circumstances are not blamed on failures of society but on internal problems inside their own heads. Yes, a big portion of incapacity benefit claimants really are too ill to work, but the giant figure of the total arouses suspicion. In the 1980s and 90s, there was a massive take-up of incapacity benefit and an exceptional incidence of sickness-related claimants in South Wales, Merseyside, Manchester, South Yorkshire, North East England and Clydeside - areas where there had been a loss of coalmining jobs and a rise in economic inactivity. Perhaps being treated as the 'enemy within' by Thatcher, and being let down by their trade unions and the left led these people to be redefined as unwell rather than unemployed. If Cameron and the Tories want to address the problem of incapacity, perhaps they could start by relating to these people as equal human beings, and using their power to create decent jobs for them.

But this seems unlikely. David Cameron is only interested in trying to balance the books - i.e. cutting the budget deficit - and will use this as a stick to beat the unemployed into crap Mac Jobs. Unfortunately in his fervour for doing this, and egged on by this week's Tory conference, he will cut benefits to the genuinely disabled and the genuinely mentally ill - he doesn't care, he just wants to balance the books.

Perhaps if the incapacity system was reorientated to identifying the genuinely ill, and if decent jobs were made available to the rest, then the budget deficit could be realistically addressed. But perhaps more importantly, it might be wise to refocus the debate on cutting the deficit to those who can afford it. Currently one in four of Britain's biggest companies do not pay any corporation tax, using offshore banking. According to some analysts, this costs Britain £100 billion. Meanwhile, of the 54 billionaires living in Britain, only £14.7 million was paid in tax - a rate of 0.1% which most of us would envy. There are many areas of government expenditure which could also be slashed such as the £14 billion spent since 2001 on the useless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We could also abolish the monarchy, abolish ID cards, and abolish private management consultants in the NHS. According to some reports, spending on NHS privatisation schemes is £20 billion (over a third of the total health budget).

The Tories would of course never agree to cutting things that benefit the rich, that's why I won't vote for them. But the essential point I want to make is this: it's easy to make "tough choices" against soft targets, but if you want to make this country a place worth living in, start getting some human values, Cameron.

Tags: cameron, incapacity benefit, welfare reform

Alcohol minimum pricing is an assault on all our liberties - confessions of a Binge Drinker

: barrycurtis; September 28th, 14:59

What connects the Scottish executive to penguins? They can take their bills and shove them up their arse.

The recent unveiling of proposals to charge a mimimum price per unit of alcohol in drinks has found backing in an academic report. The aim of the Scottish government's legislation is to curb the culture of "binge drinking" which is held to cause crime and cost the Scottish economy £2bn in health. However the bill has a far wider reach than this in terms of what is at stake with regard to liberty. It is a pure authoritarian measure and the reasons given for it are only excuses. And the academic report overlooks some important criticisms.

Crime is already rightly punishable - including being drunk and disorderly - so there is no need for early intervention. In fact the idea of punishing drinkers for the crimes of the few is reminiscent of the situation in the film Minority Report where the initiative of 'pre-crime' targets people before they have even committed a crime. In Minority Report, the authorities are blessed with the talents of 'pre-cognitives' who know for sure a crime will be committed. But the Scottish executive do not have access to such talented individuals - their belief that targetting the very act of drinking will cut crime is really a misguided prejudice. And as for health, well alcohol is already taxed at a high level, particularly in pubs, and this more than covers for the expense incurred in treating the ill.

There is also a misguided view that the main reason people drink a lot is because it is cheap. If you think about it, it is absurd. Do people binge on potatoes because they are cheap? Or do we prefer eating lots of rice because it is cheap? No. The reason some people drink heavily has nothing to do with its price but because they view their lives as unfulfilled and find consolation in the bottle. This is particularly the case in Scotland if we are to believe comedian Frankie Boyle about what a shithole the place is. Raising the price and insodoing treating the populace as idiots, if anything, will heighten the alienation experienced in Scottish society. And if anything, it will increase crime as the impoverished alcoholics turn to burglary in order to afford a bottle of Frosty Jacks.

The reasons given for the bill are excuses. So why are they really doing this?

This bill is the latest in a long list of bills concerned with what has been dubbed "the politics of behaviour". From the increasingly worldwide ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces and the promise of further incursions to Boris Johnson's ban on boozing on the London underground, this bill is part of the state's attempt to micromanage everyday behaviour and invade the realm of personal liberty. The frequently heard accusation of "state nannying" is on the right lines - but perhaps we should get a little more precise and refer to it as "state parenting". It is parenting because the assumption is that the populace are naughty children that need to be taught how to behave and punished for misbehaviour (even when no Old Crime has been committed). It is about the state's view of the model citizen and using state power against those who transgress the narrow boundaries of what is considered acceptable behaviour. The politics of behaviour cuts across the old party divisions of right and left - it is the way the elite in their broadest sense govern us today.　

Writing in the nineteenth century against the temperance movements of his time, the great liberal John Stuart Mill wrote of the public, "Their choice of pleasures, and their mode of expending their income, after satisfying their legal and moral obligations to the State and to individuals, are their own concern, and must rest with their own judgment." In other words how much we drink is our own concern and no-one else's, especially not the state's. Heavy drinkers are responsible for their own lives - but under the politics of behaviour, the state - which remember views us all as naughty children - overrides personal autonomy and assumes responsibility for the individual. This is why the whole debate in parliamentary circles is about what drinking costs "Scottish society" or the "Scottish economy". These are symptoms of an elite discourse that no longer recognises individual rights.

This is the real reason I hate this legislation. It doesn't only target heavy drinkers - after all if the elite were so concerned about our health then they might do more to treat people with self-inflicted illnesses - it targets all of us. This legislation is at core a reworking of the relationship between the individual and the government. If passed it means the individual really will be reduced to the status of naughty child in the eyes of government. Once entrenched, we can expect many more interventions along these lines. It's enough to turn you to drink.

Tags: alcohol, binge drinking, john stuart mill, liberty, minimum pricing, scottish government

Is online poker just for geeks?

: barrycurtis; September 23rd, 1:38

The website spiked is hosting a debate about online poker. I think in particular they're interested in the sociology of the growing phenomenon. I have sent them my tuppence worth...

As one who plays a bit of offline poker, I find the zoology of the whole online phenomenon fascinating. I would like to put forward a few points I think are worth discussing.

Firstly I don't think people play for the money. The stakes are usually very small, the chances of winning are, at best, one in six, and you could earn more working than you'll get in return for a game that lasts at least a couple of hours.

Secondly I don't think people play to express their skill. The game is actually notable for its lack of skill compared with most other popular games or sports. All you do is assess your hand then have a stab at getting the most chips out of it you can either through bluffing or deducing you have "the nuts". Given that everyone else is doing the same thing, the best hands will tend to win overall, and therefore the game is reducible to luck. If you do eventually win the game, you don't think "wow, I'm so skillful" - the reward is monetary rather than an elevated sense of self.

This then raises the question of why people do play. I think the whole thing is about image. It's cool to play poker, you imagine you're like James Bond. The advertising reflects this - you are a poker star, not just a geek in a room with a laptop. The experience of playing involves periods of aggression and deviousness as you seek to maximise your chips - this is more involved than the experience of pretending to be superhuman in a computer game.

However one has to ask whether you really are a cool dude simply by playing online poker. In fact because you are anonymous, and because luck overrides skill, and because there is no real sense of achievement unlike competing in Old Sport, you are not a cool dude, you are being deceived by the fake image.

I would also add that the game reflects social atomisation. Unlike the offline version, you never meet the other players in the online realm. It is not a team game like Old Sport. You know nothing of the other players, heck, you don't even get to see their hands all the time. It's a private world where all you know is your own hand. The game encourages you not to see other players' hands because if you call all the time, you'll surely lose. You have to fold more often than not, only poking your head into the social aspect now and then. In fact there's no popular game that's less social, or less gameslike than online poker.

Another attraction of the game, another aspect of the image, is that it's edgy. It feels like you're doing something about which society does not approve - after all, it's gambling. However polite society doesn't mind poker. It stops you binge drinking or breaking curfew - it's harmless. Under the premiership of Gordon Brown, poker playing was even liberalised in pubs (for very small stakes, of course). Furthermore rich people like you playing. Poker websites make money from holding your stakes and winnings in the bank for a period, just as the banks make money from this act. Poker is not rebellious any more, it's more rebellious to smoke a cigarette.

Without wishing to disrespect any online players, one has to conclude that the phenomenon is a sad indictment of a society that is so overregulated, even mundane activities seem exciting, an atomised society that consistently fails to elevate people's talents above clicking a mouse to say 'fold', 'call', 'raise', or 'all in'. Well, I'm all out.

They sometimes say the Emperor has no clothes on - yes, I'm calling online poker's bluff.

Tags: online poker, poker

Should there be a right to be racist in your private life?

: barrycurtis; September 17th, 14:44

Should the BNP be forced to accept non-whites in their membership, against the wishes of the party? The state-funded Equality and Human Rights Commission thinks so, and threatened a legal case against the BNP. Under pressure and fearing bankruptcy, the BNP has since changed its constitution to allow non-whites in, not that they're exactly queuing at the door to join an organisation that wants them out of the country. This case raises important issues about freedom of association and exactly where the realm of equality should exist.

The best article I have read on the subject comes from Brendan O'Neill, editor of the libertarian netzine Spiked. For O'Neill, the state should not have the power to determine who people associate with in the private sphere - it should be up to them. The state is really using the concept of 'equality' as a means of micromanaging people's lives, opening them up to official scrutiny when really it should butt out. For O'Neill, the important thing is to recognise the distinction between the private and public spheres. The public sphere is generally recognised to comprise all public institutions such as educational bodies, health services etc. It also has to include the realm of work, because although production takes place in private companies in competition with one another, they should still be deemed to be public because they need to be regulated in accordance with social expectation. Thus we expect a certain standard of health and safety, acceptable levels of pay, and a ban on discrimination in the workplace. Providing these aspects of regulation are kept sensible, this is not really a problem for in an unequal society, state regulation is necessary to protect people's rights. Discrimination in the public sphere is intolerable because it denies an individual their full humanity and opportunity to flourish.

By contrast, the private sphere includes the realm of the individual, the family, and private groups the individual may want to belong to. These most definitely should not be subject to anti-discrimination policies because that undermines the freedom of the individual, and denies him his humanity by undermining his right to make choices. Thus an important principle we can deduce from this is that of 'freedom of association': people should be free to choose their friends and associates, including political associates, and this means they have the right to exclude others not of their choosing. This means Catholic groups can exclude non-Catholics from certain groups, or homosexuals can exclude heterosexuals from their campaigns; it also means the BNP or any other far right organisation can exclude non-whites from their membership. It might seem abhorrent, and everyone else has the right to criticise and organise against them, but in doing so, the principle of free association ought not be compromised. Unfortunately the Government is eager to push through a new Equality Bill which will make it illegal for private sphere groups to discriminate on the grounds of ethnicity, and this case of the BNP can be seen as a precursor to that. But it's really an attack on private sphere freedoms that's going on here and has nothing to do with the struggle for real equality which should be a public sphere matter. Note this does not mean that racists should be free to go around beating up non-whites - that would fall foul of other laws - merely that they should have the right to associate with who they choose and have freedom of thought.

I forwarded the Spiked article to the Bazza Online Thinking Circle, a kind of testing ground I sometimes use before blogging. I received a particularly hysterical response from a left-leaning friend who mistakenly thought it would justify discrimination in the public sphere, bringing back the era where employers could discriminate on the grounds of race, and there were signs up everywhere saying "No blacks or Irish". For my friend, whose initials are ironically PC, there is no meaningful distinction between the public and private spheres, it all blends into one. But if this is the case, PC, you can justify any intrusion into people's lives such as CCTV in their homes, or the further development of the concept of thoughtcrime. Clearly the private sphere must mean something, else we wouldn't be uncomfortable at such suggestions. What is needed is further debate on the issue, and leaders who instead of viewing us all as racists who need to be reined in, showed us some respect.

Tags: bnp, equality and human rights commission, equality bill, free speech, freedom of association, freedom of thought, racism, thoughtcrime

Geoengineering: debating the solutions to climate change with the Weekly Worker

: barrycurtis; September 12th, 15:29

A report published this month by the Royal Society under the title Geoengineering the climate, has met with a mixed reception. The report considers various schemes to combat climate change by using technology to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and managing the amount of heat we get from the sun. The Royal Society themselves consider these to be real possibilities in the battle against climate change, and I agree. Unfortunately some environmentalists just think it's wacky sci-fi and we should instead all modify our behaviour by consuming less and therefore emit less greenhouse gas. Now the left wing Weekly Worker has waded into the debate and has depressingly come out on the side of environmentalists. I have written a response that should appeal to the Weekly Worker's readership - you can see their original article at this location.

Here we go:

I disagree with Jim Moody's dismissal of geoengineering as a solution to climate change. Moody's motivation is actually an anti-Marxist pessimism that dismisses human solutions to manmade problems. Hence he writes, "What we know is that human experimentation on the planet's ecology and weather system is very likely to backfire". How do we know this? Surely this is just pure unmitigated prejudice against human endeavour.

An alternative view which might be called 'technological cornucopianism' was held by Leon Trotsky. In his Literature and Revolution (1924), Trotsky says, "The present distribution of mountains and rivers, of fields, of meadows, of steppes, of forests, and of seashores, cannot be considered final. Man has already made changes in the map of nature that are not few nor insignificant. But they are mere pupils' practice in comparison with what is coming. Faith merely promises to move mountains; but technology, which takes nothing 'on faith', is actually able to cut down mountains and move them. Up to now this was done for industrial purposes (mines) or for railways (tunnels); in the future this will be done on an immeasurable larger scale, according to a general industrial and artistic plan. Man will occupy himself with re-registering mountains and rivers, and will earnestly and repeatedly make improvements in nature. In the end, he will have rebuilt the earth, if not in his own image, at least according to his own taste."

Climate change wasn't thought of as a problem in Trotsky's day, but the spirit expressed here tells us that if Trotsky were alive today, he'd be pro-geoengineering. Anything's better than the campaign to reduce carbon emissions, and cut our CO2 footprint, which won't lead to social change, only to a demoralised and impoverished humanity.

Yours etc.

Barry Curtis

Tags: geoengineering, leon trotsky

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