A good article. You can extend it in a couple of directions.
Firstly the desire for Utopia is partly a nominal place where nothing unplanned can happen and easy to rule - and as a prerequisite all the grasshoppers are dead or converted to ants. One size *shall* fit all.
Secondly the assertive government still has a worm of doubt about their ability to rule (reality sucks) so there is a craven willingness to have a web of international organisations and treaties to spread the authority and lend certainty. There are still plenty of people in governments who wish that Brexit had never happened and it was a close call that the global medical authority of the WHO was derailed. After all to those who value the collective one size *shall* fit all. It makes planning so much easier when you reduce the variables.
At least the much-misunderstood Canute knew he could not control the tides, however much his courtiers flattered him to the contrary. Our lords and masters seem to have unlearned that humility. I often wonder whether the belief that we can and should control the climate isn’t the ultimate hubris.
It is notable that when Aesop wrote his fables - drawn from oral tradition - Europe was pre-modern, with government that did not need to justify itself. It is no coincidence that the ending has changed to be congruent with a modern governing modality. I strongly suspect one could look at printed copies of the Ant and the Grasshopper over the last 150 or so years and map the changes to the growth of government. Probably a PhD in there for someone to map pre-modern tales and their change over time with government.
My first thought was George Orwell: 'Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.' The state exists for one reason only and it is to control us and a majority now only survive because of the welfare state, which ultimately will fail. I recently read a book by John Howard "The nature of evil: centuries of parasitic philosophy", perhaps not for everybody but he concludes that we should be governed by laws and not people. I cannot see that ever happening. If the west fails it will just rise from the ashes and repeat the same mistakes.
The reliance of modern governments on models and statistics to predict the future puts me on mind of a monarch of the olden days who put his stock in haruspicy.
There’s a good book on the problem, Escape from Model Land, by Erica Thompson, a mathematician and data scientist at LSE. And as the Book of Daniel tells us, before (and after) haruspicy, was the interpretation of dreams. Rulers’ dreams could be very dangerous indeed.
Thanks for the recommendation. There is another excellent and much more nuts and bolts one by Jim Manzi, called 'Uncontrolled'. Dispels a lot of myths.
Should, but it wouldn't help much: for a course in philosophy of science to be useful, a capacity for independent thought is implied. And that is evidently in very short supply.
How much do you agree that we are living in a ‘sibling society’?
It reminded me that idea, with your description of deliberate learned helplessness.
One thing that does make me laugh is the idea that this obsession with the future is just another form of Prediction. Yes, it’s on spreadsheets, but it may as well just be tea leaves, chicken entrails or astrology.
It’s just pretending and magical thinking (through the will of the State we can speak things into existence!!!).
That's exactly right - it's definitely a feature of the 'sibling society' and I should actually have joined the dots there myself.
The magical thinking is most on display in the idea we can have a green industrial revolution just because governments declare that we can. As though industrial revolutions just happen because somebody presses a button.
I like the Ant- Grasshopper analogy - reminded me instantly of Storm Helene, the floods in the Appalachian Mountains and the government agency FEMA refusing to help.
Oops ... Unlike the £A, this is not a flow, it's a stock, no "per unit time" here. Not distinguishing flows from stocks has its effects. Because government (as you once pointed out to me), follows Foucault, and is obsessed with flows. This has a lot to do with why western tax systems are so complicated. Tax is a deduction from the GDP (a flow,) which we calculate by adding four other flows - the incomes which accrue to (or generated by) the four so-called factors of production; labour, land, capital and risk-taking. Respectively, these are wages, rent, interest and profit. Only four. So why the need for a slew of many different taxes, in a confusing tax system that (as you say) discourages saving?
Let's go for broke. We need only four taxes to tax the four flows. And we can reduce the four to two. Labour income is a pure flow, but the other three are all returns to an assets. Right now we tax them as flows But the three could instead be taxed on capital value, thus we can slim down to just two taxes: one tax for income from employment, and another based on ownership of assets.
Who doesn't want a simple and coherent relationship between the people and the state? I think I know.
Despite - as ever - admiring your material, I am concerned that you repeat your view that our state of affairs will end "only through crisis". One can imagine worse. it could deepen, and a final crisis is a possible outcome, but unfortunately not a necessary one. I was glad you talked about saving, and I assume you meant the acquisition of assets by persons. You are correct that current UK taxes are not helpful. I would, however, suggest that this is not the root of problem. What you save is a flow, deducted from your wages, which is another flow, or left over when you have spent that month. All these are flows, which we describe as £ per unit of time. So you save £A, and top up your savings account which was £B, to £(B+A). Tis is
A final crisis is a possible outcome. Let me put things another way - a crisis is coming. This I consider a near certainty. Provided we make it through, there will be a correction. That we may not make it through is a non-negligible possibility.
Reading the title, I thought you were referencing the 1970s series 'Kung Fu', with David Carradine as 'Grasshopper', the martial arts student to the blind Master. A benign tale celebrating excellence, skill, dedication, selflessness, wisdom, and what Buddhists term 'right relationship' between those in a hierarchy, ie based on mutual respect and compassion. Alas no. Back to reality.
According to the link, The Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy was a wheeze of the Johnson Conservative Government. What Governments tend to forget when planning our futures is that their own terms of office can be suddenly truncated and their grandiose plans for us consigned to the junk heap (which I hope fervently is what will happen to this scheme).
I had hoped you were going to pick apart the Strategy in this piece, David, only because I'm so involved in the campaign to stop the LTNs in Bristol! If you have anymore to say about this particular aspect of government overreach I'd love to hear it! The residents of East Bristol have suddenly woken up now that the first scheme is being implemented in their area and they're up in arms about it!
Not my bailiwick really I’m afraid - it’s something that people are, sadly, going to have to educate themselves and campaign hard against in their local areas exactly as you’re doing. The idea that the State gets to dictate how you choose to move around should be anathema in a free society.
A good article. You can extend it in a couple of directions.
Firstly the desire for Utopia is partly a nominal place where nothing unplanned can happen and easy to rule - and as a prerequisite all the grasshoppers are dead or converted to ants. One size *shall* fit all.
Secondly the assertive government still has a worm of doubt about their ability to rule (reality sucks) so there is a craven willingness to have a web of international organisations and treaties to spread the authority and lend certainty. There are still plenty of people in governments who wish that Brexit had never happened and it was a close call that the global medical authority of the WHO was derailed. After all to those who value the collective one size *shall* fit all. It makes planning so much easier when you reduce the variables.
Very left brain, as the saying now goes.
At least the much-misunderstood Canute knew he could not control the tides, however much his courtiers flattered him to the contrary. Our lords and masters seem to have unlearned that humility. I often wonder whether the belief that we can and should control the climate isn’t the ultimate hubris.
Wow, I’ve never heard that theory concerning “climate change” but now I’ll never get it out of my head.
That’s it. On par with the Tower of Babel. Always knew this particular hysteria would not end well.
It is notable that when Aesop wrote his fables - drawn from oral tradition - Europe was pre-modern, with government that did not need to justify itself. It is no coincidence that the ending has changed to be congruent with a modern governing modality. I strongly suspect one could look at printed copies of the Ant and the Grasshopper over the last 150 or so years and map the changes to the growth of government. Probably a PhD in there for someone to map pre-modern tales and their change over time with government.
Great idea. Love the thought.
My first thought was George Orwell: 'Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.' The state exists for one reason only and it is to control us and a majority now only survive because of the welfare state, which ultimately will fail. I recently read a book by John Howard "The nature of evil: centuries of parasitic philosophy", perhaps not for everybody but he concludes that we should be governed by laws and not people. I cannot see that ever happening. If the west fails it will just rise from the ashes and repeat the same mistakes.
The reliance of modern governments on models and statistics to predict the future puts me on mind of a monarch of the olden days who put his stock in haruspicy.
There’s a good book on the problem, Escape from Model Land, by Erica Thompson, a mathematician and data scientist at LSE. And as the Book of Daniel tells us, before (and after) haruspicy, was the interpretation of dreams. Rulers’ dreams could be very dangerous indeed.
Thanks for the recommendation. There is another excellent and much more nuts and bolts one by Jim Manzi, called 'Uncontrolled'. Dispels a lot of myths.
Totally agree. Anyone entering Parliament first needs to be given a crash course in the philosophy of science.
Should, but it wouldn't help much: for a course in philosophy of science to be useful, a capacity for independent thought is implied. And that is evidently in very short supply.
I really enjoyed reading this!
How much do you agree that we are living in a ‘sibling society’?
It reminded me that idea, with your description of deliberate learned helplessness.
One thing that does make me laugh is the idea that this obsession with the future is just another form of Prediction. Yes, it’s on spreadsheets, but it may as well just be tea leaves, chicken entrails or astrology.
It’s just pretending and magical thinking (through the will of the State we can speak things into existence!!!).
That's exactly right - it's definitely a feature of the 'sibling society' and I should actually have joined the dots there myself.
The magical thinking is most on display in the idea we can have a green industrial revolution just because governments declare that we can. As though industrial revolutions just happen because somebody presses a button.
I like the Ant- Grasshopper analogy - reminded me instantly of Storm Helene, the floods in the Appalachian Mountains and the government agency FEMA refusing to help.
Yes. That’s what you get for bejng Republican voters, grasshoppers.
I enjoyed your article very much. The only part for me that I don't agree with is the CO2 emissions on health.
Thanks!
Much enjoyed your piece David. Spot on.
Another example of the Govt destroying the savings habit by perennially moving the goalposts of, of course, private pensions.
Once the DB private pension system was healthily solvent and the rightful pride of our financial industry.
Then came Gordon Brown and a succession of Blairite Chancellors of both Labour and Tory persuasion.
Oops ... Unlike the £A, this is not a flow, it's a stock, no "per unit time" here. Not distinguishing flows from stocks has its effects. Because government (as you once pointed out to me), follows Foucault, and is obsessed with flows. This has a lot to do with why western tax systems are so complicated. Tax is a deduction from the GDP (a flow,) which we calculate by adding four other flows - the incomes which accrue to (or generated by) the four so-called factors of production; labour, land, capital and risk-taking. Respectively, these are wages, rent, interest and profit. Only four. So why the need for a slew of many different taxes, in a confusing tax system that (as you say) discourages saving?
Let's go for broke. We need only four taxes to tax the four flows. And we can reduce the four to two. Labour income is a pure flow, but the other three are all returns to an assets. Right now we tax them as flows But the three could instead be taxed on capital value, thus we can slim down to just two taxes: one tax for income from employment, and another based on ownership of assets.
Who doesn't want a simple and coherent relationship between the people and the state? I think I know.
Part of the beauty of the complexity of taxation is that it keeps the population guessing.
Ha! You said it.
Despite - as ever - admiring your material, I am concerned that you repeat your view that our state of affairs will end "only through crisis". One can imagine worse. it could deepen, and a final crisis is a possible outcome, but unfortunately not a necessary one. I was glad you talked about saving, and I assume you meant the acquisition of assets by persons. You are correct that current UK taxes are not helpful. I would, however, suggest that this is not the root of problem. What you save is a flow, deducted from your wages, which is another flow, or left over when you have spent that month. All these are flows, which we describe as £ per unit of time. So you save £A, and top up your savings account which was £B, to £(B+A). Tis is
A final crisis is a possible outcome. Let me put things another way - a crisis is coming. This I consider a near certainty. Provided we make it through, there will be a correction. That we may not make it through is a non-negligible possibility.
Some of those ants are even crazier:
'The state doesn't make mistakes.'
Robert Habeck, Germany's current minister for energy and the economy.
Reading the title, I thought you were referencing the 1970s series 'Kung Fu', with David Carradine as 'Grasshopper', the martial arts student to the blind Master. A benign tale celebrating excellence, skill, dedication, selflessness, wisdom, and what Buddhists term 'right relationship' between those in a hierarchy, ie based on mutual respect and compassion. Alas no. Back to reality.
I was referring to that in a tongue in cheek way! Maybe too obliquely.
According to the link, The Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy was a wheeze of the Johnson Conservative Government. What Governments tend to forget when planning our futures is that their own terms of office can be suddenly truncated and their grandiose plans for us consigned to the junk heap (which I hope fervently is what will happen to this scheme).
Yes, although it's funny how these things tend to last from government to government....
I had hoped you were going to pick apart the Strategy in this piece, David, only because I'm so involved in the campaign to stop the LTNs in Bristol! If you have anymore to say about this particular aspect of government overreach I'd love to hear it! The residents of East Bristol have suddenly woken up now that the first scheme is being implemented in their area and they're up in arms about it!
Not my bailiwick really I’m afraid - it’s something that people are, sadly, going to have to educate themselves and campaign hard against in their local areas exactly as you’re doing. The idea that the State gets to dictate how you choose to move around should be anathema in a free society.