On a general economic malaise

So once again, all the economic indicators around the world show that the economy is slowing down once more. Politicians' moods have switched from stimulus to spending contraction, unemployment keeps going up, and consumer spending keeps going down. Even the Bank of England had to admit that swingeing cuts to public sector spending have prolonged their forecast period of economic depression - and the risk of sliding from depression (a period in which growth is smaller than it used to be) back into a recession (actual economic shrinkage) looms ever-larger.

This post will examine some of the reasons we're in this hole, and a few ways of getting out of it.

Economic Wrong-headedness

The most basic problem is that Governments currently don't seem to understand the concept of public revenue.

For an individual, income is entirely dependent upon assets and employment - or state replacements for employment such as benefits. When the economy tanks, you have to spend less, or you lose your home, car and creature comforts. For a business, income is entirely dependent upon customers buying services or goods from you. If nobody is buying, then you have to trim costs - but there's a point at which costs cannot be lowered anymore - and if you hit that point and still can't sell anything, you go out of business. Both can get by for a while on credit, but after a while the debt will sink them - and credit is expensive when you are poor.

For governments the world over, this equation is somewhat different. Almost all income comes from individuals or businesses, in the form of taxation. If the people and businesses of your country are prospering, then so is the government. If the economy is tanking, so is tax revenue. However, unlike an individual, during hard times costs actually go up. Unemployment benefits, health-care for the suddenly poor (who probably have more health problems due to stress), and other welfare costs spiral upwards at exactly the time governments have the least revenue.
Additionally, there is only so much that a government can trim without damaging prospects for economic recovery. If you don't spend money maintaining basic infrastructure (roads, ports, utilities), then when the world economy picks up - your region is no longer as attractive a target for growth. If you don't spend money on education, then the next generation will be less employable - and subsequently a less attractive target for growth.
Also, unlike the general public, government debt is cheap - especially for large, well-established economies. Right now, a long-term Federal US bond for $20 billion would only cost about $25 billion over 20 years to pay off! Likewise, UK gilts are incredibly cheap right now. Government borrowing is at a very high level right now, but with repayment regimes like that, it's a very different kettle of fish to a credit card that leaps to 22.5% interest when you delay repayment.

Additionally, it's often less expensive to a government in the longer-term to not make someone redundant (directly or indirectly). When employed, they pay taxes. They buy goods (paying VAT/sales tax in the process) from business (who pay taxes). When unemployed, they receive government money to assist them, and can no longer buy as much stuff from businesses, cutting tax revenues all down the chain. Make enough people redundant, and the businesses who rely on them close (causing even more redundancies) - a downward economic spiral of decay.

Taxes

What's really peculiar is the idea that taxes should not rise when governments are out of cash. As an example, extending Bush Jnr.'s tax cuts for the well-off (affecting a mere 2% of the US population) cost the United States $700 billion. That's an enormous amount of money; you could pay off 5% of the total US national debt with that amount (and that's if you were stupid enough to use it as a lump-sum payment on a low-interest long-term debt plan). You could fund the entire stimulus package with it, making it entirely debt-neutral.

Part of the reason for this is that Congressmen want to be re-elected, and raising taxes is generally bad for one's re-election prospects. However, much of this is based around a false premise; since Reagan, it has been popular to cite a chart stating that economic productivity falls as taxes rise. Certainly, at extreme levels this is true - but there is no historical evidence that it is true overall. Indeed, Clinton's record growth period coincided with taxes significantly higher (on the well-off) than we have now - and yet, we aren't even close to Clinton's economic miracle. Does that mean the model is false? No; it simply means that if you take any one economic indicator in isolation and expect it to bring about the changes you desire - you are a blinkered shire-horse of an economist.

Dogma

Accompanying the anti-tax dogma, is an even more insidious dogma: that everything government does is bad, incompetent or inept. Sure, there are plenty of inept bureaucrats, and there is plenty of waste. However, the often-peddled tales of welfare recipients with limousines are the exception rather than the rule (studies show that welfare fraud is less than 1% of the welfare budget, while incorrect payments are only around 2-3%; private enterprises lose that much all the time - HP recently admitted to paying a lady $5k per week to greet people at the door to corporate events!). The reality is, while these tales are great ways to get attention, they mask a far more insidious hatred of government providing services to the bottom end of society - the people who really need them.

It is also dangerous dogma, in that not helping people when they need it - now - inevitably leads to an increase in crime, an increase in permanent under-employment (as people give up and leave the workforce for good), and a more difficult economic recovery.

History

It helps to understand this malaise in terms of history (an admittedly unpopular viewpoint!).

Prior to the early 18th Century, there really wasn't an industrialized world. Agrarian economies were quite simple: you grew enough crops to sustain yourself and sold a small surplus, which didn't have to be very large since there were very few service industries to sustain. Agricultural work was very labor intensive, since very few machines existed to assist with the process - so employment was assured, at least for part of the year. Charities (in particular Churches) were able to pick up the slack and help the hard-cases.

Industrialization changed that forever. Agriculture became increasingly automated, causing massive unemployment. Industries appeared, and labor increasingly switched to cities. Despite this, the plight of the poor became worse and worse - people starved to death, were incarcerated in poor-houses, the Dickensian nightmare was real. It wasn't until the financial collapse of the 1920s/30s that real action was taken - and only then after a horrible death toll.

The safety-net (still opposed by Libertarians) appeared, following the most basic of humanitarian premises: let those who can, help those who cannot. Bad times hit everyone at some point, and society functions better if we try to help those at the bottom get back on their feet. Admittedly, it took the war-time economy of World War II to fix the US economy and industrial base, but between that extraordinary stimulus and a system designed to train workers and help the worst-off, life became much better.

Now, we're standing on a precipice. Much of the safety net has been worn thin, and is being continually eroded. The economy is a mess, and already the nation is going backwards. So I leave you with a basic question: do we want to invest in a future, accepting that some of us may have to pay a little more to achieve it - or do we want to let 2% of the population get richer while the rest of us rapidly approach squalor?

New Labour needs New Pragmatism

So, England has its first coalition government in a very long time (and the first hung Parliament since John Major's final days). The ConLib (or ConDem, which might be a more accurate phrase) coalition's axe is shining in the morning sun of the new government, ready to fall on just about every aspect of the country's policy. Until that axe falls, the majority of voters remain blissfully unaware of the imminent bloodshed. The budgetary echoes of Thatcher's first term are clear: riding high on popularity, while the center-left press point to impending doom; and just like Thatcher's first term, it wasn't until the effects of Howe's 1981 budget hit that people started to see the real effects of a 4% (compared with Osbourne's 25% target) cuts.

In 1981, I was 6. I only dimly remember parts of it; schools suddenly couldn't provide milk at lunch, riots, rumbling discontent from teachers, police and civil servants, criticisms that the United Kingdom's armed forces were no longer capable of doing very much at all, and ruminations on industrial action. My parents (both teachers, and active in Labour) were seeing the brunt of it, and more than anything I remember the sense of resentment at the dismembering of a lot of the institutions they had fought so hard to create. I also distinctly remember seeing homeless people sleeping in London for the first time; it didn't take long for them to go from an occasional sighting (selling hot chestnuts) to cardboard cities around Waterloo station. I also remember the after-effects well; waiting lists lasting months or years in the NHS, jumble sales at school to try and pay for books, homeless Miners sleeping on our couch, rioting. I remember our local policeman gradually descending from a friendly local bobby to a shell-shocked, terrified man after he was drafted to fight miners and rioters. I remember the despair amongst my friends "up north" as they realized that there was no chance of them finding work after school, and still remaining in their beloved Northern cities.

In the past decade, I've watched much of the Midlands transform into an impressive place (especially Birmingham), unemployment decline (especially in northern England), and the NHS return to being an enviable institution.

Now, I'm 34 and living in the USA. As Osbourne's axe falls (and I wait for a similar axe here, as the US catches the austerity bug), I read about 60,000 policeman being made redundant, hospitals expecting to close, replacement school buildings (and repairs) being cancelled, University closures, and welfare-to-work programs (one of the few unemployment benefits that's been shown to genuinely work) closing. It's an uncomfortable deja vu.
Yes, spending does have to come down - but does it really have to fall like this? Cutting a million jobs certainly isn't going to help an economy barely showing growth right now, and the need to stimulate growth with low interest rates risks inflation should the economy begin to move again. On top of that, the UK government's debt is cheap right now. Many of the gilts are owned by UK institutions (or the Government itself; I'm never quite sure how that one works), the rest are on very long-term repayment schedules. Debt repayments really aren't that bad right now, and the massive cuts just announced really won't reduce the total debt very much (just as in the 1980s, the debt came down when the economy resumed growth, leading to rising income - not when Government spending cuts came into force).
(As an aside, the redundancy package cost of laying off so many civil servants will be enormous - it's a tremendously expensive way to "save" money. All of the civil servants who don't find work will also be eligible for benefits - another significant cost. Everyone who loses a private-sector job because their public-sector customers are no longer around will also cost benefits, and no longer pay taxes. It's barely a win at all.)

England needs a credible, pragmatic opposition with both a heart and a keen mind. Yes, by all means trim fat wherever it is found. Yes, some of that will be painful - albeit not 60,000 police made redundant painful. But no, spending cuts don't have to take the form of a relentless, ideologically motivated attack on Government spending. Keep the programs that help people get back to work - they work, and employed people pay taxes rather than costing benefits. Keep investing in the future - an educated, skilled, healthy workforce is essential to a healthy longer-term future. Stop spending money invading other countries (Iraq, Afghanistan), purchasing expensive floating targets (super-carriers), building jet planes designed for the previous generation of conflict (Euro-fighter), and don't re-purchase missiles you'd never use anyway in the hopes of deterring someone - whomever they may be (Trident).

The problem is, just like the 1980s, after a defeat a party needs time to become a credible alternative again. Labour, as it stands, is not up to the task. Veering to the left probably won't help (see Michael Foot), although many left-wing principles are worth defending. Labour needs to get its act together with a new leader, and fast. Unlike the 1980s, ConLib does not have a large majority - and could crumble when the axe hits and voters see how bad things are becoming. If it weren't for the Falklands, Labour would have won in 1983 - despite Michael Foot's best efforts. Let's not make the same mistake again, and head firmly back to the center-left ground, offer a principled opposition platform of sensible debt reduction, growth and social justice. Labour needs a charismatic leader with vision, one ready to pounce when ConLib risks crumbling when Osbourne's axe falls.

The 1980s were bad enough the first time around - let's not do that again.

Apples, Oranges, Intelligent Design and Evolution

Today's sermon at Woodcrest really bothered me. The title, “In the beginning... god created” should have been sufficient to tell me that this one wasn't going to sit well with me, but I hoped that it would refrain from many of the more dogmatic approaches that typically render any debate between Naturalism and Theism pointless (apples and oranges rarely compare well, when in reality they are both fine fruit and can coexist nicely in a regular diet). Unfortunately, it didn't – choosing instead to reinforce a lot of the stereotypes that have ruined the debate for so many.

I'm going to allow myself the same liberties expressed my Mr. Van Waarde in his sermon, and ignore issues such as literal interpretation of Genesis, Young Earth theory, and similar specifics of dogma. They are interesting, but like Mr. Van Waarde, I'd like to focus on the more general lines drawn between the two camps.

My first disagreement with today's sermon came at the beginning, when it was expressed that differing world views cannot coexist, and a general rejection of the post-modern ideal of tolerance. Differing world views can and do coexist, every day. Not only that, but they have to, or we will live in a backwards-looking Imperial war-zone! Take a trip through London, and you'll find Churches (of many different denominations), Mosques (likewise, of different denominations), Hindu temples, Buddhist centers, and even atheist reading rooms. Sometimes, you'll even find them on the same street (Brick Lane being an obvious example). Are these colliding world-views not coexisting in the real world? With a few notable exceptions (such as the Rushdie-inspired bombing of Collets – condemned by religious leaders of all faiths), they coexist every day. People go about their business, mingle on the streets, and are quite happy to not kill one another over differences of faith. If one looks for places in which tolerance is not the norm, one finds such lovely places as Srebrenica, Rwanda, Jerusalem and lately Baghdad (which in its hay-day was a melting pot of the world). Is this the type of world we should be promoting? Or should we, as Mr. Van Waarde stated was impossible, tolerate our neighbors' views? (In my mind, there is little doubt that Jesus would advocate tolerance!)

The church then played a clip from Ben Stiller's film, Expelled. Stiller is touring a Nazi death-camp, and the tour-guide is carefully describing what happened where, and sticking to facts. It's clear that her job is to give the facts, and let the tourists draw their own moral conclusions. I've been on similar tours, and it is considerably harder-hitting to hear a deadpan “70 people died here each day” than to listen to a rant containing the words “evil” and “monstrous” repeated so frequently that you begin to wonder if there's a hidden agenda behind the tour. The guide carefully dodged Stiller's attempt to give the dissection doctor an out by being insane, focusing on him being well aware of what he did (leading tourists towards “evil” on their own, rather than insanity excuses). Then he hit her with a surprise question, “if you could say anything to the doctor, what would you say?” She was clearly unprepared for the question, and dodged it by saying that it wasn't her place to answer that question. The scene cuts, and the pastor highlights “it wasn't my place” as an example of what is wrong with post-modern thinking. In my view, the tour-guide was absolutely correct in her answer: on a tour of a death camp, it isn't her place to improvise a rant. Much of the point of the tour is to let the tourist draw their own conclusions – and only the most twisted of tourist would have anything nice to say to the doctor! This is an example of straw-man allegory at its worst; it takes a diplomatic answer, and turns its careful reticence into an attack on tolerance – when that wasn't even the question! I challenge anyone to go to the Auschwitz museum, and leave with the opinion that the museum is doing anything but condemning the holocaust. Conversely, had the Nazis been a little more tolerant, the wouldn't have executed Jews – just as tolerant crusaders would not have filled mass graves with Muslims. It's a self-defeating argument: stating that tolerating competing world views is wrong is exactly the same as condoning mistreatment of those with whom you disagree, albeit on a smaller scale (historically, though, it's usually been the start of a slippery slope into genocide).

The sermon then moved to describing Naturalism and Theism. The basic description of Naturalism was actually quite reasonable. Mr. Van Waarde described epistemology, methodological naturalism. Theories are proposed (and to count as a theory, it has to provide supporting evidence, hypotheses that can be disproved, and suggest predictions on what that theorem's effect on the universe would be, were it true), discussed, and either refined or discarded as evidence is found to support or refute it. It's an ongoing process; at no point do we say “alright then, these are the Laws of Physics” and regard them as an immutable doctrine – rather, we keep looking for better answers, with the hope of eventually closing in on some universal truths. This was moderately well explained, although it would have benefited from some examples.
The sermon emphasized the word random, again and again. “How could something as complex and beautiful as the world happen randomly?” The funny thing there is that for an infinite universe, you might as well ask “how could something as complex and beautiful not happen randomly?” ; you would get the same answer. When the size of space-time is effectively infinite, there is a probability of almost 1 that anything will in fact happen somewhere. In the absence of a God lighting up the sky with a verifiable proof of His existence, there is no empirical method that can state with certainty that the chain of events is or isn't random. Apples and oranges.

Theism, according to the sermon, is the statement that while naturalism can describe what happened, theism can describe why. The injection of divine purpose into reality. This, again, I don't have a problem with. In fact, if the sermon had summarized the viewpoint that science describes what we can provably interact with, and theology/philosophy (and many other disciplines) seek to add meaning to it, I could have agreed with the whole sermon. However, the sermon moved on to far weaker ground by claiming that science regards philosophy/theology as a “lesser” discipline, since it isn't bound by provable/disprovable claims grounded in reality. Some scientists doubtless feel this way, just like some philosophers would argue that truth is such an ephemeral concept that the scientific method can't really show you anything useful at all. Extreme views like those are nonsensical, and a brief glance at any reputable University will show you that social sciences, hard sciences, philosophical disciplines, anthropology and various theologies co-exist and are studied next to one another quite happily (indeed, many great advances occur when masters of disparate disciplines work together).

Mr. Van Waarde then moved onto very weak ground by claiming that a hard, fact-based Universe could not contain morality. Unfortunately, every discipline from philosophy to anthropology to political science would disagree with this statement. A first question to ask is “does the world exhibit morality?” Outside of humans, the natural world is coldly brutal. Creatures kill and eat each other (some have even been seen to kill without eating, apparently purely for the joy of killing). Creatures die in accidents, natural disasters, and of changing climate. This is even acknowledged in Christian theology, with the fallen world. Conversely, pack- and tribal-oriented creatures display a certain “morality”, sometimes putting their group above themselves in terms of survival. This has been widely discussed by evolutionary biologists and anthropologists. Philosophers such as Aristotle and Kant have both demonstrated how self-interest can require a moral code, and the adoption of such a code can be beneficial entirely from self-interest. Christianity, or it's precursor Judaism (with a somewhat different moral code provided by the same God), holds no monopoly on the cold, hard logic of behaviors that enhance the survival rates of one's pack/tribe. In other words, once again the sermon relied upon a straw-man argument. The necessity of morality in organized social structures can be explained with or without God. The creation of a Universe in which morality is a necessity can be seen as the guiding hand of God – or as a natural development. Once again, the absence of empirical evidence of God saying “prairie dog packs shall feature a scout who risks his life with an alarm call for the good of the pack” neither proves or disproves God's role – and science merely states (after observation) that prairie dogs act that way, and offers speculation on the physical advantages of doing so (offering hypotheses that can be examined with long-term study, and predictions that may be applied to other social creatures). More apples and oranges.

Finally, the sermon moved on to Stiller's now-infamous ambushing of Richard Dawkins. Dawkins was asked about intelligent design (he claims he was tricked into giving the interview), and stated that it was possible that a superior intelligence in the past had setup the creation we see – but don't, and can't know for sure. More importantly, as he was being rudely cut off by Mr. Stiller, he pointed to the root issue of causality: that intelligence would have had to come from somewhere. He didn't say there was or wasn't an intelligence at work, simply that we don't (and possibly can't) know that based on empirical evidence. The pastor, of course, seized on his mentioning of a creator intelligence to say that even Mr. Dawkins thinks that it's possible that there's an order behind the apparently random creation. That may be true; indeed, I tend to think that it's well within the capabilities of an omniscient deity to say “bang” and start the Universe with a random seed that would eventually lead to the Universe He wants. It also misses the point: where did God come from? Can his presence be postulated in a scientific theory (focusing only on what we can measure, like all good science), and left open to specific provable/disprovable claims? No – God cannot be measured (and repeated attempts to shout “God, if you exist, strike me down at 9am!” haven't proven overly helpful). That's why “faith” is ephemeral, a philosophical subject (an apple) – and the apparent expansion and cooling of the Universe from a single point in space-time is scientific (an orange); it provides specific claims, and as we study more of the Universe we can match specific claims with observable reality.

The ultimate question here is about the teaching of Intelligent Design, Creationism in general, and Evolution in school curricula. Most scientists I know have no problem with the teaching of Intelligent Design – but in philosophy, not in science. It is not a scientific theory, and presenting it as one is doing a disservice to both the scientific method and to social studies. Evolution can be examined and possibly refuted as evidence arises, and has closely matched a great deal of the evidence we have uncovered (and been modified when evidence does not line up). For intelligent design to be taught in a science class, it would have to contain disprovable hypotheses, and specific predictions (also disprovable with real, measurable empirical data). It does not contain these elements, so it isn't science. That's quite ok, though – philosophy is a very well respected discipline (it's not an accident that the “Ph” in Ph.D is short for Philosophy!), and is the perfect home for theories as to why the empirical world developed the way it did.
Instead of arguing for biology lessons to include non-scientific theories, perhaps it would be a better argument that all schools should teach philosophy and comparative religion? After all, Mr. Van Waarde did say that in this post-modern world kids want to be presented with options so that they can select a world-view. What better way to assist them in this than to present thousands of years of thought, dedicated to just this kind of question – rather than modifying a discipline focused entirely on repeatable experimentation in the empirical world.

In conclusion, this is ultimately a futile debate. The most fervent adherents to each “side” firmly adhere to Mr. Van Waarde's theory that disparate world views can never be reconciled – and as such, they are unlikely to ever achieve such reconciliation. It cannot be empirically proven or dis-proven that the creation of the Universe was purely random, or was guided by the invisible hand of a benign creator. Rather, the educated, moderate, population of a blissfully post-modern world can accept that empirical evidence shows that a given chain of events happened – and happily relate that to their knowledge of philosophy to conclude for themselves whether there is, is not, or even might be, a God – and which of the many faiths they should listen to.
Christianity has always been at its strongest when it recognizes that science is just another way to honor God, by studying what's here now, and the physical steps required to get here – while the Church deals with the spiritual world, and the well-being of its flock. Lets not repeat the Galileo incident, over and over again. There's plenty of room down here for all viewpoints.