Notes from the Panopticon

The World’s Toughest Kiwi

"If it would not look too much like showing off, I would tell the reader where New Zealand is.": Mark Twain 1835-1910

Last time I visited New Zealand, the film "The World's Fastest Indian" had just been released. Based on a true story and celebrating of a real life eccentric, it starred Anthony Hopkins as Burt Munroe, an elderly Kiwi from Invercargill. He lived alone in a small community where everyone was very close. His reputation was mixed: admiration for his mechanical skills; distaste for his gardening practices (he used to pee on his lemon tree).

I had been told that, if I wanted to understand New Zealand, all the clues I needed were in that film. The main character had a passion for motorbikes; he owned an old Indian (a brand more famous in its day than Harley Davidson is now) and constantly tinkered with it. He used imagination, improvisation, and above all very little money, to tune it up so it went very fast. He learnt of the speed trials for motorbikes on the salt flats of Utah and determined to prove that his was the world's fastest Indian. But he had to do it all on a tiny budget.

His three problems were the flakiness of his machine, his lack of money to fix problems, and his small town background. He did not understand procedures, or rules, or safety regulations. He was accustomed to a world where people made things up as they went along and everyone had a chance.

The two qualities which made it possible for him to break the barriers were his innate charm and his naïve refusal to accept that what seemed to him the obvious solution to any problem might be against the rules. He also possessed an indefatigable ingenuity; he allowed nothing to get in his way.

This story captures a quality that continues to live on in New Zealand. A friend, a nurse, told me about a patient who arrived at her hospital with a serious cut across most of his head. He was 78.

An enthusiastic hiker, he had gone on a three day tramp, alone in the wilderness. His wife was due to pick him up at the end of his trip. So she was surprised to receive a call asking her to pick him up a day early. He had been crossing a river using stepping stones when one of the rocks came loose and rolled away, throwing him into the water. He gashed his head on a rock and the water was so deep he had to swim, but he still had the strength to throw his sodden pack onto the bank and climb out after it.

He mopped up the blood on his head and made a dressing for the wound by ripping up a T shirt. He set about gathering wood and making a fire, despite the fact that much of the wood was green. He painstakingly dried the content of his backpack over the fire, including his mobile phone, and then set off to climb a steep hill to find a mobile phone signal. From there, he telephoned his wife but he still had to walk tens of kilometers to reach the road.

It was his wife who told him how badly he had injured his head. But instead of going straight to the hospital, he insisted on going home to take a shower. His next port of call was the Department of Conservation, where he reported the danger of the loose boulder. Only then did he agree to go to hospital. And when he arrived in the emergency department, he asked for some sutures so he could stitch his own head.

Tough bunch the Kiwis.

Picture credits:

http://www.indianmotorbikes.com/features/munro/munro.htm

www.blacksheeptouring.co.nz/

Learning lessons

Education is the transmission of civilization.~ William James Durant (1885–1981) and Ariel Durant, born Chaya Kaufman (1898 - 1981)

After the murder of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan dominated the news for a week or so but that has now faded. We were regaled with speculation about the danger to the world posed by an unstable, nuclear-armed, undemocratic state where fundamentalist Muslims find it easy to integrate into society. It was in Pakistan that the Taliban (which took over the government of Afghanistan and provided shelter to Al Qaeda) were originally able to organize and build a foundation. A recent analysis on television suggests that the Taliban are direct descendants of protestors who instigated the mutiny against British imperial rule and Christian missionary zeal in 19^th century India. But Pakistan is also seen as a major bulwark in the "War on Terror" and has been the recipient of $5bn in US aid since the attack on the twin towers.

Endemic corruption 

Now the excitement has died down, Pakistan has dropped out of media consciousness but its problems remain. And one of its greatest problems is education. Like the rest of public life in Pakistan, the education system is subject to endemic corruption. And this should trouble the rest of the world because education in Pakistan is being exploited by fundamentalists in their drive to recruit new followers.

When it was provided with American aid on a massive scale, Pakistan promised to devote some of the money to improving its education system. The World Bank has also allocated a separate $300mn specifically to support schools and colleges – but fearing that the money will disappear into a sink of corruption, it is reluctant to disburse the funds until proper control systems are put in place. These fears are justified. American officials supervising military aid suspect that invoices for supplies are inflated by as much as 30%, enabling millions of dollars to disappear. And in the education system, officials estimate that corruption taps 15% of intended expenditure.

Dangerous structures

Little has been done to improve education in Pakistan. In the Punjab, for example, there are 63,000 state schools, of which:

• 5,000 (8%) have been condemned as dangerous structures.
• 26,000 (41%) have no electricity.
• 16,000 (25%) have no toilets.

Many teachers see their jobs as sinecures and don't turn up to work, while local inspectors distrust the information provided by the ministry of education. Few schools have enough classrooms and some resort to teaching in the open air under trees (possibly safer than sitting in a classroom with cracks in the walls and an unstable roof). Often they have to cope with only one quarter of the desks required. Understandably, parents are reluctant to send their children to these underfunded and under-supervised institutions.

Vacuum filled

Two groups of educators have moved in to fill this vacuum: private schools and religious madrassas. It is the madrassas that have attracted most attention and generated hysteria in the press both inside and outside Pakistan. Some of them are run by fundamentalists, preach Jihad, and groom their students to be revolutionary fighters and suicide bombers

The media in Pakistan and across the world, supported by wild estimates made by Pakistani police, have exaggerated the scale of this problem. A more restrained study by the World Bank and Harvard University has estimated that the true numbers of children being educated in madrassas represents a little less that 1% of children in the 5-19 age group. These figures must be put into context:

• 33% of children are enrolled in state schools.
• a further 12% are enrolled in private schools.
• 87% of children enroll in primary education, but numbers fall sharply at secondary level.
• literacy rates are 63% for men and 36% for women, showing that the standard of education is poor (in comparison, the figures for India are 76% and 54%).

Wealthily endowed madrassas

The development of the private sector is striking. Private schools now educate one third as many children as those educated in the state sector. The population values education and is willing to make sacrifices to give their children the schooling which the state fails to provide. Much has been said about madrassas (wealthily endowed by Saudi money) providing the only chance for the poorest Pakistani families. But private schools are cheap and all but the very poorest can afford them.

So is there nothing to worry about? Indeed no. There are dangers and they are serious ones. The WB/Harvard study showed that, while in most areas of Pakistan madrassas account for less than 1% of school enrolments, in the so-called tribal areas (where Pasto is the main language and there are strong links to Afghanistan) the percentage rises to over 7%. These are the areas the state finds most difficult to control and, if madrassas do have a malign influence, it is here that it would be easiest to foment and develop an anti-democratic movement.

Children brought up to hate Muslims

The survey also estimated that there are about 175,000 students enrolled in madrassas. If we make a guess that 5% of madrassas are run by fundamentalists, this still means that almost 9000 children are being brought up to hate Muslims who do not meet their own "high" standards.

The theory propagated by the extremists is this. The only acceptable law is Sharia law and this should be interpreted strictly (hence the enforcement of headscarves and the like for women … among much worse horrors). It is the duty of good Muslims to create a state which accepts and enforces Sharia. Government leaders who do not concur are the enemy. Those who conspire with the West are the enemy. Muslims who support these governments are the enemy.

In this way, the fundamentalist madrassas create a justification for killing other Muslims. The suicide bombers are given a target and a cause. It has, however, very little to do with the West; the majority of victims are much closer to home. But a flow of almost 9000 young men and women (possibly more – other estimates are higher and my guess of 5% of may be optimistic) is more than enough to recruit suicide bombers and build momentum for the movement.

Dodging and weaving

So let us return to Benazir Bhutto. She and her husband spent the years since she was ousted from power dodging and weaving to avoid convictions for corruption and embezzlement. Indeed, she was convicted of money laundering by a Swiss magistrate, while a British judge found grounds for a prosecution against her and/or her husband for purchasing an estate in the English home counties with the fruits of embezzlement.

Despite this track record, the West was keen to have Bhutto as a friend in Pakistan because of the fear that a nation with its own nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of someone worse. The US has provided huge amounts of cash, some of which has been used to buy delivery systems for these weapons of mass destruction, and has only recently begun to worry about whose finger might be on the button. Bhutto provided some hope of a friend to the West and she certainly looked the part, acting like a civilized politician, speaking excellent English, and sending her son to Oxford.

She had plenty of support in Pakistan (the first attempt on her life killed more than 130 people because her rally attracted so many supporters). But it is almost certain that she, like other political leaders in Pakistan, was a thief. Some of the money she stole, and the money that leaked away into the pockets of bureaucrats and politicians, was supposed to have been spent on education, on the rebuilding of dangerous schools, and on ensuring that teachers turned up to do their jobs.

The public in Pakistan wants education and many people are willing to pay for it. Some of them, however, send children to be taught hatred by cynical clerics who tell them that martyring themselves while killing the opponents of whichever fundamentalist branch of Islam they represent will earn them a place in paradise.

Yet more moral hazards

In any country there must be people who have to die. They are the sacrifices any nation has to make to achieve law and order.~ Idi Amin Dada (mid-1920-2003)

A reply to the latest comments by threeportdrift and Peter Horne (see previous post).

Economic and moral hazard

There is indeed an economic hazard: if the authorities allow a failing bank to go under, confidence in the banking system might collapse, leading to the kind of financial crisis that the world suffered after 1929. And this is the moral hazard: by seeking to avoid the economic hazard, the authorities create a different one; banks will not be so careful in the future, so there is a risk of further failures. They will not be constrained by the need to look after their future well-being because they will expect the authorities to do so. So there is a trade-off. The authorities, in the case of Northern Rock, chose to avoid the economic hazard and no doubt they will bring in a raft of regulations to try to minimise the moral hazard they have created. "Moral hazard" is, perhaps, a misnomer in this case because the real effect is a shift in the nature of self-interest which must be the core of any business motivation. The important thing is that the trade-off is recognised for what it is, and that the authorities make a clearly thought-out decision based on the balance of dangers.

Help the poor

You are quite right to point out that this is similar to an argument that can be – and often is – made against providing financial support to the poor. If you give money to the poor, they will be discouraged from seeking gainful employment, others will lose their incentive to work and more people will choose to live on welfare. This is indeed a "moral hazard".

You also point out that the motive for supporting the poor is an ethical one (we don't like to see others suffer), while the motive for supporting a failing bank is an economic one (a failing bank could precipitate the collapse of the financial system, leaving the economy and all its participants devastated and unable to recover).

You don't say whether you think that the ethical motive is worth risking the moral hazard – a scrounger's charter as right-wingers would say. I suspect that you do and, if you do, I agree with you. But I would be cautious about how the poor are defined and how they should be helped. Without going into detail, people who are poor because they are unable to work should be first in the queue and the method by which their incapacity is assessed should be simple and clear, and should not be humiliating. (I have long thought that complaints about means tests are misplaced since everyone who works has to fill in a tax form, which itself is a means test. But listening to the debate about incapacity payments, I realised that the complexity of the rules and the humiliation associated with the tests are the real problem)

Falling on hard times

I also believe that people who have fallen on hard times should be supported financially and helped to recover. And the nature of the support should be such that they are given a strong incentive to go back to work (the poverty trap is an iniquitous moral hazard that has to be removed). And so on...

Taking advantage

To summarise, I believe that, when acting to solve a particular economic or ethical problem, the benefits should be weighed against the dangers of moral hazard. There is an unintended, but often predictable, danger that people adapt their behaviour to take advantage of the open hand of the state. And in framing its benevolence, there is always a risk that the state can find itself with a large and never-ending obligation.

Respect for the law

Now to your second point about loss of respect for the law. This goes to the heart of my point about moral hazard. The reason this issue is so important is that the law must earn respect, it should not be taken for granted. It is wrong that governments, like those of Robert Mugabe get away with grave misdeeds just because they are in charge of making the laws. It is iniquitous that a monster like Idi Amin was allowed to live out his life in comfortable exile just because he was a former leader of state. And in a different league, it is wrong that the British government should hide behind the doctrine of Crown immunity.

When I drafted my reply to your first comments, I tried to set out a list of necessary conditions for any law to be based on a firm foundation. It was too tough a task for a short note so I gave up. (It did, however, bear some relation to the list of criteria which Peter Horne cited.)Perhaps I should have persisted.

Bringing law into disrepute

My first criterion is that laws should not discriminate against any significant minority of the population. And I think all the examples that you cite are cases where efforts were made, not only to discriminate against minorities, but also against majorities. So the laws that so troubled Ghandi and the other notable civil rights protestors you mention would have fallen at the first hurdle. Your examples illustrate my point; they do not undermine it. If a government tries to do something by passing laws which brings the law into disrepute, it runs the risk of undermining respect for the law and opens the door to legitimate protest. This, as we saw in Northern Ireland, can lead to serious and fatal civil unrest.

Euthanasia

Other areas where there is "civil disobedience" on a lesser scale include the laws against euthanasia. The objection to these laws is widespread. Institutions which practice it are tolerated but any individual who participates in the act risks prosecution and incarceration. But this depends on the whim of the authorities, not a happy situation in an open society.

Sailing close to the wind

I do not agree with your last point about the effects on moral standards of moral turpitude of some of those in the public eye and those who feel they can circumvent the law. People will question their moral compass. It is human nature to sail close to the wind, but a complex and poorly-enforced legal structure has the paradoxical effect of creating a race between law-makers and the rest of us to find or to plug the loopholes in the law. A simple legal structure which reflects a morality which most of the population accepts will result in a decent and law-abiding society.

Law and religion

As for the escape to religion and fundamentalism, I believe that the horrors of Sharia law, the burning of heretics, the unofficial imprisonment of young women in the Magdalen Laundries of Ireland, and the social mayhem created by missionaries in the nineteenth century all speak for themselves. Legal structures based on religious conviction have repeatedly shown themselves to be fatally flawed. The fact that there is now an upsurge in evangelical movements is itself a demonstration of the way in which society is losing moral cohesion. And this, I believe, stems from governments legislating without giving full consideration to the moral hazards which their laws will generate.

Peter Horne and Leslie Stephen

In reply to Peter Horne's comment, I would agree that all human action has an impact on others, but the degree to which it affects others can vary considerably.

I agree that moral issues should be considered when deciding whether to curtail the liberty of individuals. It is the complexity of deciding what is worth doing, and whether the law is an appropriate mechanism for achieving any given aim, which makes me think we should err on the side of caution. My object has been to draw attention to the way the flood of laws introduced by the present government has made us all a little bit nastier. And that includes government ministers, political parties, civil servants and other administrators who, instead of focusing on serving society, duck and dive to gain advantage. One human quality that has vanished because of this over-administration is compassion. Automatic penalties without the intervention of a human being are becoming the norm.

Authority and autonomy

Swinging the emphasis in defining what laws are acceptable, from preventing harm to others towards which restraints are injurious, makes – to my mind – little difference. The point is that, in both cases, there is an authority which claims to know best what is good for others. And I deny that this is ever true (except for children or persons who are seriously lacking in mental or moral capacity). The key to good law lies in the three tests you mention, in research to discover what measures will be effective, and in open discussion and debate. With the vast number of laws that have recently been passed, it has obviously been impossible to carry out this process. And we are all paying the price.

More moral hazards: a reply to threeportdrift’s comment

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. ~ John Stuart Mill (1806 –1873)

From the start I hoped that this blog would provide a forum for discussion. It is hard thinking in a vacuum and I am grateful to threeportdrift for making a number of very interesting points. (see original article and threeportdrift's comment)

What I mean by moral hazard

It seems I failed to make clear exactly what I
meant by moral hazard so I'll have another go. The moral hazard faced when failing banks are bailed out is that the fear of failure is dented and therefore other banks will behave irresponsibly in the future because they believe that they too will be rescued if they gamble and lose.

The parallel in law-making is that, if laws are made and widely ignored, or if they are poorly or unevenly enforced, then respect for the law is eroded. A society without respect for the law is in danger of losing moral cohesion. This is the hazard it faces. It is parallel to the financial moral hazard: if people see others getting away with irresponsible behaviour, they will tend to abandon their own moral compass and behave less responsibly too. It also happens when there are too many laws which citizens find silly, unfair or unacceptable, or which they do not understand. In all these cases, there is a danger that society will lose faith in the institutions which uphold justice.

That is the simple part of the argument. The harder part is deciding when it is reasonable and realistic for society to enact laws to persuade people to pull in the same moral direction, and when it is justified for parts of the population to stand up against laws that are unfair or unjust. And it is here that threeportdrift seeks to take issue with the examples I used to make my point.

Loss of moral faith

My fear is this. The huge number of laws introduced by the Labour government, and its inconsistency in enforcing its policies, are indeed giving rise to a loss of moral faith.

Threeportdrift's last point ("ordinary oiks get off time and time again with warnings even whilst their behaviour gets more and more destructive"), far from undermining my point, actually supports it. I see it like this. The "oiks" see the Kate Mosses, the Elton Johns and the Jackie Smiths of this world getting away with breaking the law and think to themselves "why should I bother?" The reason they should bother is that they don't have the financial and social resources to slip through the legal net. So they get caught – in numbers that the legal system finds difficult to cope with. And so the justice system has a problem which it handles by reducing prosecutions for minor offences. This, in turn, reinforces the idea that the law is there to be ignored. And small crimes turn to bigger ones. (more here)

But let us not forget that being let off with a warning leaves an indelible stain. It makes it hard to reintegrate into society and, in particular, to make a legal living. So an underclass is generated that does not fully integrate into society. Organised crime is the main beneficiary, with society providing them with a work force made up of young men and women with no hope and with nothing to lose. (more here)

We must also remember that the Jackie Smiths and Kate Mosses and Elton Johns provide(d) these gangs with a market for their products, just as the celebrities of the day provided the Mafia with a market for illegal booze when the US government introduced prohibition.

Picking and choosing

Drug laws, I believe, generate the largest and most easily identifiable moral hazard. But respect for the law and the government is also eroded in other ways. If people feel able to pick and choose which laws to obey (speed limits outside schools good; roadworks on the M4 in the early morning bad) is exactly the kind of moral hazard that I am concerned about. It would be much better for the government to bring in fewer laws, to think harder about their implications, and to do its best to ensure that all parts of society are have an incentive to pull together and respect the law.

Epidemic hazard

A final point. Society's contempt for the government and its institutions also shows itself outside the area of the law. When a rogue scientist (completely spuriously) claimed that the MMR vaccine (more here) was the cause of autism and some types of bowel disease in young children, the government was unable to convince the public – in particular the parents of young children – that there was no danger. The government was paying the price for failing to maintain the trust of society, the effect of perceived lies and double-talk, as well as frustration at government efforts to micro-manage people's lives. So when an opportunity arose to make a protest, the population voted with its feet. The result was a catastrophic collapse in the number of children protected against measles, mumps and rubella, and a population vulnerable to an epidemic. Lies and obfuscation also carry a moral hazard.

I believe the government should treat us as citizens, not as subjects. The task is not easy because it must reconcile different needs and expectations in its policies and law-making. But its watchword should be "less is more" (see JS Mill quotation at the top of the page). Fewer laws mean fewer risks of moral hazard. And above all, everyone – and that includes the government and its ministers – should be treated equally.

Thank you, threeportdrift , for giving me the opportunity to clarify my thinking. I hope that I have made my point better now. I am always keen to hear from readers.

Picture credits:

www.badscience.net/?p=457

http://sobnation.wordpress.com/

Moral Hazards

The first sign of corruption in a society is that the end justifies the means. ~ Georges Bernanos (1888-1949)

Between a rock and a hard place

The term "moral hazard" has been around for a long time. It popped into consciousness most recently when Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, invoked it to explain why it is not always a good idea for the government to bail out a bank – specifically Northern Rock.

It's like this. People are grown-ups who navigate through the world by taking risks, some of which work out and some of which don't. This is especially true of the banking business. If the risks taken don't work out and the bank finds itself up s*** creek without a paddle, there will be a nasty fall out. Ordinary people with money in the bank will get hurt. If the government bails out the bank using tax payers' money, then the next bank will be less careful, believing that – if the worst comes to the worst – the government will pile in to save it. Risky business practice will become the norm and we shall all go to hell in a hand-basket.

But a big problem remains. We, the poor bank customers, do not have the resources or the understanding to know whether a bank is acting prudently or not. And we would not be given the information on which to base a decision even if we asked for it. So we have to rely on government regulatory systems to check things out for us. Hence the dilemma when government watchfulness fails.

Law of unintended consequences plus

There are many other moral hazards we need to worry about, most of them relating to government activity. It's a bit like the law of unintended consequences but, in the case of moral hazard, the dangers created are evident at the start. The hazard is created by the wilful folly of decision makers.

Loans for honours

Let's start with a topical one. Donations to political parties. For the benefit of readers outside the UK, the Labour government has twice been caught flouting the rules on accepting political donations. The first time, they broke the spirit but not the letter by accepting loans instead of gifts and offered to repay the lenders with honours. The second time, the jury is still out. The claims and counter claims about who did what and who knew what when are the typical spats that go on between politicians when they have broken the rules and been caught out. "I didn't know and didn't mean it" is a feeble response which would not be accepted as a defence in court. Yet that is exactly what we are getting from the politicians who frame our laws.

Why should politicians get away with breaking the law while expecting the rest of us to obey it? Perhaps it's because they have power and the rest of us don't. And it's probably why David Blunkett (former Home Secretary) seemed so indignant when he was caught using public money to pay for his girlfriend's train tickets. The moral hazard here is that respect for law is eroded when the powerful show a blatant disregard for it (if, that is, they think they can get away with it).

Drug culture

And then there is legislation against drugs. Celebrities do not even try to hide the fact that they break the law – and those same celebrities are feted by the political clique and even by royalty. The moral hazard here is obvious. On the one hand, ordinary oiks caught with drugs receive, at the very least, a criminal record and a good chance of going to prison. Their life chances are often ruined, while the rich and famous continue to smoke and snort with impunity.

Politicians bemoan the decline in respect for law and order; they berate an ill-disciplined youth for its failure to behave responsibly. But how can you persuade disadvantaged young people to respect the law when, at the same time, the politicians who frame the laws (and their celebrity friends) fail to do so? You see what I mean by moral hazard.

Slush funds

Which brings me to laws that are unenforceable. The war on drugs is costly both in financial resources and in wasted lives. The demand for drugs cannot be stemmed. Organized crime finds it has a lucrative business and a good percentage of the population is happy to ignore the law. What is it about governments around the world that they cannot break the habit of banging their heads against this particular brick wall? They know they are not going to win (just as the US failed to stop alcohol consumption in the 1920s). Instead they have created a moral hazard. Lakes of illegal money are used to corrupt politicians and officials and, in some states of the world, to subvert entire governments.

Criminal records for all

Moral hazard also comes from the efficient enforcement of regulations that are routinely ignored. Such a high proportion of drivers have been convicted of speeding that many of them accept the status of convicted criminals as normal, not something of which they should feel ashamed. This situation should not be accepted with equanimity and at least the government minister who was caught driving while using a mobile phone was convicted and fined. But he still attempted to mitigate his crime by claiming that he was dealing with important affairs of state at the time.

The hazard here also undermines respect for the law. Unless criminals represent only a small minority of the population, then criminality becomes normal, fear of punishment loses its sting, and punishments become harsher to enforce the law. We end up in a situation where you might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. If I am fined for putting my bins out on the wrong day, why should I leave it at that? I might as well do some fly tipping as well. Not a big deal in comparison with the other examples, but corrosive all the same.

Less is more

According to the Liberal Democrats, "Since 1997 this government has passed 365 acts of Parliament and more than 32,000 statutory instruments." This has introduced well over 3000 new criminal offences. When the government was caught out in the loans-for-honours fiasco, it responded by introducing yet more legislation and has now tangled itself up in that.

The most horrific part of the unfolding saga is not the facts of the case, but a statement by Wendy Alexander (leader of the Scottish Labour Party) in which she rejects any suggestion of "intentional wrongdoing". Her statement clearly shows that an important politician no longer feels bound to obey the law. "I did not mean to do it" may be a mitigating factor – but it is definitely not a defence.

So the government itself has fallen victim to the barrage of moral hazards which it created.

Slippery slope

Mervyn King thought long and hard before the rescue of Northern Rock was put in place. One assumes that an assessment was made and he accepted that the failure of the bank would pose a greater danger than the moral hazard created by the rescue package. Would that the government made more decisions in this way. If only it would think harder before creating so many new laws.

And there is little evidence that society is improving as a result of all this legislation. Prisons are overcrowded and convicted criminals are released early to make room for new ones. Middle-class criminals discuss the hazards of life with 9 points on their driving licences (next strike and the licence is gone), petty thugs wear ASBOs* as a badge of honour, and government ministers wriggle when they are caught on hooks of their own making. The investigation of a major corruption case is abandoned when a dodgy ally threatens to take its business elsewhere. A self-confessed drug user sings at the funeral of the Princess Diana in front of a congregation that included past, present and future prime ministers, the assembled royal family and a world-wide television audience.

The legal structure has started to creak. Respect for the law is flying out of the window at all levels of society – including the political classes. There is ever-present danger of the endemic corruption which dominates so much of the world. In the map below, the darker the red, the more corrupt the nation. Frightening isn't it?

• An ASBO is an Anti-social Behavior Order. It can be requested by the police, or a local authority and is imposed by a judge without a trial. The person on whom it is imposed is restricted from acting in certain ways or being in certain places. Violation of the ASBO can result in a prison sentence. So it acts as a method of punishing an individual without needing to prove that they have committed any crime other than violating the ASBO.

Christian Right

Rough old week means I have not been able to finish either one of a couple of articles I have on the go. However, a new and good friend has opened my eyes to exactly how grim the Christian Right in the US can be. I need to do more research to fully understand what this misguided movement is doing to America and to the world. A while ago, I came across this Matt Davies cartoon which captures the essence of their creed.

I hope to be back in business next week if nothing else happens and the Christmas season doesn't overwhelm me.

South Pacific and the terrorist threat

"At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when He brought some people into being" ~ Friedrich Otto Hertz 1878-1964

Last week I went to a lively, enjoyable and well-played amateur performance of South Pacific. When Lt. Cable was asked to marry his Polynesian girlfriend, Liat, he replied that he could not. And when my wife quietly asked why not, I whispered the N word in her ear.

Later Lt. Cable launched into what must be one of the shortest songs in the American musical. I had completely forgotten it.

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

Let us not forget that the legacy of this attitude lives on in the land which boasts in its founding documents that all men are created equal and have a right to the pursuit of happiness. Rodgers and Hammerstein felt so strongly about the message of this song that they were willing to risk the entire show when faced with opposition (including a law introduced in Georgia outlawing entertainment containing "an underlying philosophy inspired by Moscow.")

Despite the progress made by the Civil Rights Movement, the chances of a black man going to prison are still massively higher than the chances of a white man doing so. According to Bureau of Justice statistics, by the end of 2005 there were 3,145 black male prison inmates per 100,000 blacks in the United States compared to 471 white male inmates per 100,000 whites. And according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Philadelphia, the chances of a black man being executed are 38% higher than for a white man. Clearly, the lesson has been very carefully taught; forty or fifty years of efforts to eradicate this teaching have barely scratched the surface.

Last week I also heard a programme on the BBC World Service about the origins of the Jihad. It included the following extract from a text book for thirteen-year-old boys currently in use in Saudi schools:

There should be total enmity between believers and polytheists. Believers are not allowed to love polytheists or support them, even if they are close to them. Religiously sanctioned love is only allowed towards Muslims. As for the polytheist he should be hated for his unbelief even if he is close to you.

Polytheists include Sufis and Shiites, whom the Wahabis (the dominant clerical group of Saudi Arabia) accuse of idolatry.

It is frightening to think what effect this teaching is having on young Muslims. It is frightening to think what effect it had on previous generations, many of whom are now engaged in "charitable" programmes to fund Muslim schools across the world. It is important to make a distinction between ordinary Muslims and Muslim fundamentalists, but if this is the kind of material that is being offered in general education in an important Muslim state, we should be very worried indeed.

After all the Nazis succeeded in turning much of the German population into a group willing to tolerate mass murder of the disabled, the gypsies, homosexuals, and notoriously, the Jews and others that they considered to be inferior races.

They invoked what they called "Holy Hate"

Now there is war! The Jews forced us into a struggle for life and death ... It has also forced us to give up the "politeness" that in reality is a weakness ... We as a people will survive this war only if we eliminate weakness and "politeness" and respond to the Jews with an equal hatred ... If we do not oppose the Jews with the entire energy of our people, we are lost... Our holy hate will bring us victory and save all of mankind.

Bigotry is everywhere. It is only by recognizing it and rejecting it in our own sphere of influence that we can succeed in fighting it in countries and communities where it is threatening to become mainstream. The teaching of hatred is a danger to the world and must be resisted at all costs.

The Curse of Oil (A really simple explanation of the Middle East Crisis~Part 5)

 

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. ~ David Brin quotes (1950- )

 

The curse

I'll begin this article with an analogy. Imagine an enormous family (the whole Middle East region). The old patriarch has a huge fortune which he leaves to only some of his many sons. Each son has a family of his own.

To two of his sons with large families, the patriarch leaves large fortunes (Iran and Iraq). To three of his sons with very small families, he also leaves large fortunes (the Gulf States). To one son who has a smallish family, he leaves almost half of his wealth (Saudi Arabia). A few other sons get smaller bequests (e.g. Libya and Algeria).

To the son with the largest family (Pakistan). he leaves nothing. Other sons with big families are also left out of his will (Egypt and Turkey).

Imagine the ill-feeling in that family.

Now imagine this. The son who has been left the largest bequest has an inner circle in his family which is favoured over the rest. Not only that, but he and his inner circle bully members of the outer circle and irritate others by arbitrarily distributing largess.

Imagine the resentment now. Imagine the bad blood, the intrigue and hatred, the cabals forming and breaking up. And when resentful members of the family try to kick back, they are labelled as "black sheep" and go off to lick their wounds and foment resentment among ill-treated members of other families.

Meanwhile, members of the inner circle are making foreign friends and exchanging their wealth for boy's toys and luxury goods. They do little to hide their extravagant lifestyles. They enlist their foreign friends to help defend themselves from their resentful families and to offer advice about how to keep the more troublesome members of the family in check.

Above all, the rich family members – while paying lip-service to the religious and moral strictures and traditions of their fathers – ignore them completely. So it is easy for the "black sheep" to use what they see as the call of family tradition to mobilise resentful young men amongst the poor and deprived members of the extended family. And from this base, they inflict indiscriminate misery on the rest of the family ("if you're not with us you're against us"). The greatest degree of suffering is born, not by the wealthy who protect themselves, but by the poor and unprotected, while some spite is reserved for the foreign friends of the rich – who take attacks particularly hard because they cannot understand how or why it is their fault.

Now you have an idea of what is happening in the Middle East.

The history – the fall of the Ottoman Empire

Much of the Middle East was under the control of the Ottoman Empire after it was captured by the Turks in the 16th century. During the 19th century, the Ottomans effectively bankrupted their empire and it fell under the financial control of European powers, who were quick to annex what the Turks could no longer defend. Local rulers in the Middle East attempted to modernise and import Western models of government, but they largely failed, bankrupting their nascent states which fell into the colonising hands of various Western powers. This also gave rise to a tradition of professional armies – a bane of the region ever since.

These rulers were often encouraged by Western Powers with an eye to the main chance. An attempt at the beginning of the 20th century to re-establish Ottoman rule through a Turkish-German alliance in the First Word War failed. The Arabs allied themselves with the British and French against the Ottomans, in the hope that this help would lead to independence. Instead, Britain and France merely divided the oil-rich region between themselves. And the British agreed to provide the Zionist movement with a homeland in Palestine.

The history – Western colonisation

So the region was carved up between various complicit allies of the (effectively) colonising powers. And in drawing up the borders, little attention was paid to ethnic and religious groupings.

Large-scale oil discoveries began in 1908 in Iran and in 1938 in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. Their rulers became immensely rich. They used the wealth to consolidate their power, with the help of Western allies who used them as a bulwark against potentially less compliant regimes. This bred resentment which emerged in a variety of local conflicts, independence movements, and – eventually – the establishment of one of the most frightening terrorist movements that world has ever known.

Free money, corruption and envy

The gush of free money has generated greed, corruption and envy. The fact that the majority of terrorists who carried out the atrocities of 9/11 were Saudi citizens is not an accident. Saudi Arabia has most of the oil. Its rulers are the greediest in the region, and this greed had generated most of the envy and resentment. There have been crueller regimes in the Middle East but Saudi rulers do their best in this area too; their efforts to contain all opposition are ferocious.

Social failure

Throughout the Middle East, there is poverty, misery and discontent – and its autocratic rulers do little to improve the well-being of their populations. And this is as true of the oil-rich states as of the oil-poor countries. Hossein Askari in his book Middle East Oil Exporters – What happened to Economic Development? compared the social and economic performance of three groups of countries:

• MEOE: 6 Middle East oil exporters (Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE)
• MEnOE: 5 Middle East non-oil-exporters (Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Syria and Tunisia)
• CompC: 4 other countries in the process of development (Chile, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea) – these were included as a comparison and chosen because they started from a similar point on the development scale.

Using independent research, Askari demonstrates that:

• MEOE with small populations have achieved improvements in living standards (measured by mortality, reproductive health, inequality, health provision, education and welfare standards).
• However, MEOE with large populations – Iran and Iraq – have done no better than the MEnOE countries.
• No Middle Eastern country has performed nearly as well as the CompC.

To give an example. In 2002, infant mortality:

• In Iran and Saudi Arabia was about the same as in MEnOE.
• In Iraq, it was significantly worse than the average of the low income countries of the world.
• In Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE, it is close to the average of the high-income countries of the world (although they did not do as well as the CompC).

Economic failure

MEOE have also failed to achieve success in economic growth. Despite huge inflows of cash from their oil exports, the money has not been re-invested to provide a continuing stable economic future for their populations as the oil is depleted.

The figures are a devastating indictment of policy and governance. Most MEOE achieved less than half the economic growth of the MEnOE, who themselves were unable to match the growth of CompC.

Unemployment

Unemployment rates in the region are very high, reflecting under-investment and poor development in non-oil activities. The spike in oil revenues following the price increases in 1973-4 generated a spike in population growth. This increase in population is now looking for jobs and, without economic growth, unemployment has soared to levels of 10% or more. This affects MEnOE just as much as the other countries, while and unemployment rates throughout the Middle East are significantly higher than in the CompC. The figures would be even worse if women were not discouraged from entering the labour force.

Where has the money gone?

So the big question is: where has the money gone? A very large part of it has been spent on defence. Defence is a euphemism for weapons and soldiers. Weapons and soldiers in the hands of the dictators and potentates of the Middle East are nothing more than boys' toys.

Boys' toys

A look at the numbers is startling. In 1999, Saudi Arabia spent over 50% of its oil revenue on military expenditure. For Iran, the figure was over 40%. And there have been years when almost all the countries spent more than 100% of oil revenues on defence.

The numbers of soldiers per head of population is high compared with the rest of the world.

But it is the huge sums spent on equipment that is truly staggering. Saudi Arabia is the largest spender of all. Over $21 bn per year is spent on the Saudi military (which translates into more than $112,000 per soldier per year).

Figures for 1999 are at the low end of the spending range, while Iraq has been constrained by sanctions. But with the huge accumulations of hardware, it is not surprising that the boys were unable to resist the temptation to take out their toys and play with them.

The cost of these games is devastating. In 1991, after its annexation by Iraq and the war that followed, Kuwait was left with a bill for reparations equivalent to half its oil revenue from 1975 to 2000 – a period of 25 years. This was just one of a succession of conflicts in the region, each of which carried a staggering cost in lives and money. And this is in addition to simmering civil disputes and the corrosive activities of terrorist factions.

Culture of corruption

Finally, the oil has supported a culture of corruption. In addition to many rulers regarding their states as their private property, officials and politicians take commissions to facilitate contracts of all kinds: building, oil investment and exports, the purchase of military hardware, services and so on.

Chickens come home to roost

The West is not an innocent party. First it set up a structure that was prone to conflict. Then it supported leaders, only to condemn them later when their agendas no longer fitted with Western strategies (notably Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden). It remains keen to balance its oil purchases with arms sales. And it is not averse to condoning corruption (e.g. BAE systems).

All this is happening at the highest level. Meanwhile at a lower level, children of the destitute and unemployed are being groomed in extremist madrasas and terrorist camps to fight the corrupt rulers who sully the Muslim faith. Their organisers are anxious for an opportunity to become the new rulers and to grab a slice of the cake. They are using young disillusioned Muslims throughout the world as pawns in their fight for power.

Oil has been a curse for the ordinary people of the Middle East, a curse which is infecting vulnerable Muslims around the world. And so when today's Western politicians complain that the West is an innocent party in the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, they are, at the least, being disingenuous.

The information in the article is based on

And data from WMEAT (World military and arms transfers)

The interpretations are my own.

 

 

Bully boys

"I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strangely, I am ungrateful to these teachers" ~ Kahlil Gibran (1883 – 1931)

The news that a 19-year-old girl from the largely Shia town of Qatif has been sentenced, by a Saudi court, to 200 lashes and six months in prison, after she and a male friend were raped by a gang of seven men, adds poignancy and relevance to this article. Both victims were originally sentenced to 90 lashes for “illegal mingling”, for riding in a car together without a chaperone. The girl’s lawyer was banned from the courtroom and his licence withdrawn when he appealed against the original sentence.

The rapists were originally sentenced to terms ranging from 10 months to 5 years, sentences which were also increased on appeal. The two cases, the illegal mingling and the rapes, were tried at the same time and in the same court.

Let me first establish my credentials. I am straight. I am attracted by women, not by men. I have homosexual friends of both sexes. I have been propositioned by men and turned them down because what was on offer was not to my taste.

So what is it that homosexuals do which is not to my taste? They are people who are just like the rest of us but who are attracted to the bodies of others of the same sex. They get pleasure from indulging in activities that are parallel to the ones I like to indulge in with my wife. My preference is to do these things with a woman, not with a man.

For homosexuals, the practices they enjoy with willing partners were illegal in this country until very recently. They remain illegal in many countries. And everywhere homosexuals are discriminated against merely because of what they like to do with each other.

Let's not beat about the bush. Let's be clear about what discrimination is. It is bullying pure and simple. It is picking on individuals who don't fit into the norm. It is picking on the kid in the playground because he wears glasses. But what is special about some forms of bullying is that they are:

• ignored by those whose job it is to maintain law and order (e.g. disproportionate numbers of black people in prisons and mental institutions)
• tolerated (e.g. churches exempted from female equality legislation)
• officially sanctioned (e.g. laws against homosexual acts)

All pretty obvious stuff, so why go through it again? It is because the laws against homosexuality – which were brutally enforced until so recently – were as wrong then as they are now. (It is likely that the brilliant Alan Turing, who did much to win World War II by deciphering enemy codes, was hounded to death by an unrelenting police force.)

Laws which stop people doing what they want to do – unless of course they hurt others – are wrong. So how was legislation against homosexuals justified? And how are the prejudices which still lead to discrimination (e.g. restricted employment in the church and armed forces) justified? The justifications fall into 4 groups:

• Religious
• Unnatural
• Unsocial
• Disgust

Religious objections

Religious objections continue to be the most effective. They come from powerful institutions which influence the framing and interpretation of laws. They also enjoy a peculiar exemption from normal debate because people's religious beliefs are treated as sacrosanct (no pun intended). In Britain for example, churches continue to discriminate against homosexuals – as they do against women – with impunity. Their justification is in scripture and in the beliefs and feelings of their adherents.

What is it about sexual preference that makes it so difficult for churches to accept? They are happy to ignore or sidestep a vast array of other scriptural strictures ("thou shalt not kill" leaps to mind), while homosexual behaviour leads to deep discomfort, and even to schism. At the same time, it is an open secret that homosexuality has dug its roots deep into the workforce and hierarchy of many churches, resulting in little harm to their operations.

The harm that does result is caused by the moral hazard inherent in covering up activities that are officially outlawed. This leads to corruption and institutional paralysis in the face of evidence of abuse. It is the same moral hazard caused by the celibacy of Catholic priests and nuns which, notoriously, has led to child abuse scandals across the world and the payment of millions in hush money. And some church institutions in which systematic abuse took place survived almost to the present day (e.g. the Magdalene laundries in Ireland).

Churches would be cleaner and healthier places if they accepted that most homosexuals, like most straight people, are decent, honorable and caring members of the community. Their sexual preferences hurt no one and, as individuals, they have much to offer to the community. Acceptance would make it easier to police the bad apples (straight as well as gay).

Nature in all its glory

The claim that homosexual acts are unnatural can be attacked from three directions:

• First, what is wrong with unnatural? The list of unnatural things that are part of everyday life is endless. Births by Caesarian section, wearing clothes, flying in airplanes, circumcision, enforced monogamy, baptism, inoculation, pain relief… Why single out homosexuality as unacceptable because it is unnatural?
• Second, who says it is unnatural? The fact that so many people in so many places and times have been willing to indulge in acts which carry the severest penalties suggests that their impulses are common, powerful and natural. Any field with farm animals reveals that homosexual activity goes on among all kinds of animals, not just among humans.
• Third, what's so good about natural? Dying of malaria is natural.

The "unnatural" lobby sometimes argues that homosexual relationships are, by definition, barren. But that is not an excuse for legislating against them or discriminating against them. Priests and nuns are required to be celibate by their calling. Infertile couples of all kinds have sex and, outside of Ceausescu's Romania, no-one is forced to have children. The argument is spurious.

Moral turpitude

Does homosexuality disrupt society? I'll give two examples to explore this hypothesis:

• Imagine a man propositioned by a woman but not tempted because he is homosexual. His tastes are frowned upon by society, so he enters into a relationship with this woman for whom he has no desire. This unhappy relationship could easily become socially disruptive; finding a man to make him happy would be more likely to result in harmony.
• Now imagine a woman reaching marriageable age at the end of World War I when there was a shortage of men. For companionship, she chooses to live with another woman and discovers that she is not averse to sexual experimentation with her companion. When this relationship becomes known, they are shunned by society. That shunning is socially disruptive. Not their loving act.

People's sexual preferences are part of who they are. I would not be happy in a homosexual relationship and I do not expect a homosexual to be happy in a straight one.

Finally, the argument that homosexuals might corrupt our children. This argument is spurious too. A homosexual would only corrupt a child sexually if he or she was a paedophile (and there are almost certainly more heterosexual than homosexual paedophiles).

And homosexuals who want to adopt, or otherwise organize themselves to bring up children, are just as likely to be as good parents – or bad parents – as straight couples.

" It's disgusting and should be banned."

I was careful to say at the outset that, when propositioned by men, I declined because it was not to my taste. I did not find it distasteful or disgusting. I just did not want to do it. There are a whole range of things I like to eat that my wife dislikes because of the taste or texture and she is not slow in saying so. I sometimes feel hurt when she says that the custard or sticky drinks that I enjoy are disgusting because it spoils my appetite. Disgusting is a nasty word for something you dislike. It is used deliberately in the context of homosexuality in order to raise the emotional temperature. To justify the bullying.

Truly disgusting acts are those where someone is made to suffer, like locking up homosexuals or executing them (as happens in Iran).

Legalised bullying

None of the justifications for legislating or discriminating against homosexuals carry any weight. So why was legalized bullying against a minority tolerated for so long? It is because there is an impulse in many people that makes them feel justified in telling others how to live their lives. And even to call for their prejudices to be turned into laws.

The controlling impulse of those who claim moral superiority and those who think they know best is a powerful force. No longer able to discriminate against homosexuals, the "do it my way" brigade are picking on other groups: smokers; fat people; drug takers; immigrants; asylum seekers; Polish plumbers; women who want abortions; just women (in many countries and communities, especially Islamic ones); terminally ill people who want to end their lives (and friends and relatives who, distressed by their suffering, want to help them); non-violent drinkers; adolescents; children; parents…

There is an unrelenting desire to bully non-conformists and minorities. Homosexuals have proved very recently that minority groups no longer have to accept all that is thrown at them. So let us all learn a lesson from them and not give in to those who want to push us around.

It would be even better if we curbed the urge to tell other people how to live their lives. Providing information is good. Giving a helping hand when asked is good. Offering unsolicited advice is bearable. Forcing people who don't hurt others to conform is unacceptable. This I find disgusting.

Bjorn Lomborg Interviewed by Jim Puplava - The global warming debate

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple." ~Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Jim Puplava has kindly agreed to let me post his interview with Bjorn Lomborg. Jim's Financial Sense Website  provides a wealth of interviews and reports on a range of subjects of interest to the investor. I strongly recommend it.

This interview provides an insight the work that went into Bjorn's book Cool It which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago. The book is essential reading for anyone who is interested in understanding and joining in the global warming debate.