How to solve the loneliness crisis

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We’ve long been concerned with the loneliness crisis here on the Epicurus Blog. Loneliness is becoming more of a problem, and not just amongst the elderly. Despite the rise of social media (or perhaps because of it), we have fewer friends, and we aren’t as close to them. Ties between neighbours aren’t as strong as they once were. We often live far from our hometowns and families, to go to university or get a better paid job. Traditional social institutions like churches, trade unions, working men’s clubs and political parties have declined. This has resulted in a whole host of problems, such as drug abuse, alcoholism, increased rates of depression and other mental illnesses, and in extreme cases, suicide. More information can be found here: http://epicurus.today/the-age-of-loneliness-by-hgeorge-monbiot/.

However, it would be a mistake to view increasing rates of loneliness as an inevitable part of the modern world. I think there are many things that can be done to reduce it, without sacrificing economic growth or the freedom to migrate. It is not globalisation or capitalism per se that is causing loneliness, but the way our society has handled it.

Firstly, we need a rethink of what retirement should look like. Many people retire, only to find that they lose contact with their friends from work, and no longer have a strong social group. Instead of insisting people retire suddenly at a given age, why not make it more common to work part time or flexible hours during your late fifties and early sixties. That way, instead of being pushed into a sudden change of lifestyle, people would have the chance to build social ties outside of work while continuing their friendships with colleagues. Retirees should also aim to live as close to their families as possible, so they can help their children and see their grandchildren. There should be more voluntary activities and societies for retirees.

A significant contributor to loneliness, at least in the USA and the UK, is excessively long working hours. No employment contract should mandate working more than 40 hours a week, nor should it ever be compulsory to work Sundays, with the exception of the armed forces and emergency services. This wouldn’t have the impact on economic growth that may be assumed; Germany’s economy is very productive, and they work the fewest hours in Europe. This should be accompanied by a culture change towards a continental European-style aversion to shopping on Sundays. It may be a bit inconvenient, but we would all be better off. Spending time with friends and family is more important than the right to shop whenever you want.

There also need to be more activities for young people. Traditional centres of entertainment like nightclubs, pubs and live music venues have declined, sometimes precipitously, to the detriment of our economy and social fabric. The government should do more to promote the nighttime economy, by reducing business rates and taxes on alcohol bought at establishments- offset by higher taxes on supermarket alcohol. Restrictive licensing laws should be relaxed.  There also need to be more activities for young people who don’t like alcohol or sport. Universities fill this gap quite well with societies, but those who don’t go to university are often left in a social and cultural vacuum.  Making transport affordable for young people is also crucial in an era where we live increasingly further apart.

It’s worth noting how common loneliness is amongst young families. It’s very common for people to have children, only to find that their children take up so much of their time, their friendships suffer considerably. This may be one of the hardest instances of loneliness to solve, since children have to be looked after, and childcare is very expensive. Virtually all social groups for people with young children are geared exclusively towards women. So its going to be very difficult to improve social ties between young families as long as men are expected to be the breadwinners, while women do the bulk of raising children. I’m all in favour of a Nordic-style system of ultra-flexible maternity and paternity leave. But ultimately, our culture has to change, something which isn’t likely as long as our aversion to stay at home dads remains.

In this post, I’ve tried to be optimistic in my conception of a society that isn’t as atomised and individualistic as our own. And while I certainly believe we can do far more to address loneliness, the long term trends are only getting worse. Amongst ambitious young people at the top universities, there is a prioritisation of career success and being culturally globalised above maintaining good contact with existing friends. As a young man in Britain, I’ve lost a lot of friends due to people moving away and wanting a radically different life. For young people who don’t go to university, there is a lack of investment (both public and private) in activities for them. Getting a job and a relationship is seen as more important than making friends. An increasing awareness of mental health issues is encouraging. But British and American culture is incredibly materialistic and society incredibly divided. I believe the loneliness crisis is going to get a lot more severe.

 

This is how it’s done! True political spin!

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Judy Wallman Trump, a professional genealogy researcher in southern California, was doing some personal work on her own family tree. She discovered that President Donald Trump’s great, great uncle, Remus Trump, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889. Both Judy and President Trump share this common ancestor.

The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the gallows in Montana territory. On the back of the picture Judy obtained during her research is this inscription: “Remus Trump, horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged in 1889.”

So Judy recently e-mailed the President for information about their great, great uncle, Remus.

Believe it or not, President Trump’s staff sent back the following biographical sketch for her genealogy research:

“Remus Trump was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory. His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad. Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to government service, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad. In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honor when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed.”

What can one possibly add?

Free movement within the EU may not survive.

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The free movement of people is the EU’s “most incendiary issue”.   This “sacred principle” to which the Brussels ideologues remain devoted isn’t just a sticking point in Brexit negotiations, it’s a source of tension across the Union: currently, France violates its spirit by patrolling the Italian border to stop migrants slipping through. More than that, it’s played a key role in creating Europe’s mass migration problem. Movement of people from poor, chaotic countries to rich, stable ones has long been a fact of life – what’s new is “the miraculous invitation offered by a borderless Europe”. It sends a message to the world: “set foot on any Greek island, or on the southernmost rocky prominence of Italy”, and you can “make your way unhindered to the flourishing nations of Western Europe”. Underpinning it is a basic refusal to accept that member states have different needs: northern ones benefit from an influx of cheap labour, but many of the migrants are trapped in Italy, which has 40% youth unemployment. To save the EU, free movement will have to be restricted. The only question is how organised or chaotic that process is going to be.  (Janet Daley,The Sunday Telegraph).

Of course, the above is written by a journalist on a reliably right- wing  paper with a bias towards Brexit.   Nice remarks about the EU are not plentiful in the Telegraph.  However,  this is a very fraught subject.  What  she writes is valid, especially for stressed countries like Greece and Turkey, which have taken the brunt of migration from Syria.  But if Northern countries want cheap labour so badly, why are migrants trapped in Italy?  The reason is political, not economic – the resentment caused in Germany, Sweden etc by too many migrants applesring too quickly.

Could the EU survive without freedom of movement?  Why can’t you have a free trade area or a customs union and still restrict movement of labour?  The answer is that you could, but free movement of services, goods, capital and labour are sacrosanct in Brussels, which wants a level playing field in standards , work rules etc, but also yearns for political union from the Atlantic to the borders of Russia.   This sounds like an empire in all but name, and many people object to losing their national identity. Some sort of compromise probably needs to be negotiated if the EU isn’t going to succumb to right- wing political parties fed up with freedom of movement.

 

The cry of the super-rich

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 I Did it All Myself                     

 I did it all myself.

For sure, I did it all myself.

I never used networks or old college friends

On whom the success of so many depends.

I went out to work at the age of eighteen

Thin as a rake, but determined and lean,

And I laid rows of bricks and mixed tons of cement,

Made ten bucks a day for my food and my rent.

Twelve hours with no break did I labor on site,

And I did my book-learning by candle at night.

Then one day the boss man said, “Hey, come here, kid,

I’ve been watching you, boy, and I like what you did.

You’ve got brains, you work hard, but your problem is knowledge.”

So I chucked it and went to community college.

I learned my house building from sewer to gable,

And earned extra money by waiting on table.

 

Then I built up a  company, just as I’d planned,

Scouring the country, developing land.

I have been real successful, the business has grown,

And I’ve ten million bucks that I’ve made on my own.

I’d have made twice as much and could maybe relax

If it wasn’t for government, liberals and tax,

The planners, the lawyers, the dumb regulations,

Activist judges, red-tape strangulations;

The NIMBYS who get up a great caterwaul

When you build on a green field a new shopping mall.

It’s always the do-gooding, meddling few

Who complain at the loss of some trees or a view.

 

No, all the restrictions should now be relaxed

And government prohibitions be axed.

We don’t need these laws, they all need up-ending,

And let’s call a halt to all government spending.

Send bureaucrats off up to Mars in a rocket,

But stop pilfering profit from my hard-earned pocket.

Sack all pen-pushers, ignore stupid rules

Made for the work-shy and drawn up by fools.

The need for it’s gone, it is all over-blown.

After all, what I’ve done, I have done on my own.

………..Truth replies

Are you telling me your parents had nothing to do

With the bundle of talents and hang-ups that’s you?

Where is the mention of school on your part,

That taught you the culture and gave you a start?

You must owe a debt to some of your teachers,

Those lousily paid and unrecognized creatures.

Who established the college you studied at later?

It wasn’t the wages you earned as a waiter.

Who paid for the roads that we all take for granted?

Our whole infrastructure was not simply planted,

But grew from decades of investment, and sacks

Of public subventions you now spurn as “tax”.

What is the value you put upon peace,

Containment of crime and the role of police?

 

Who bought your houses, your suburban sprawls,

Your gas stations, offices, car parks and malls?

Why, government workers, contractors and such

And similar folk whom you now hate so much.

The fortune Five Hundred fattens and waxes

On recycled money from Federal taxes;

Directly or not, here’s a thought to astound:

You probably shared in this merry-go-round!

Who laid the ground rules that draw to this nation

Immigrants swelling a huge population,

All needing housing?  These guys you can thank

For increasing your profits and cash in your bank.

Have you had no advantage from new medication?

Half the research is paid from taxation.

Have you had no advantage from rules about drugs,

Or water we drink, free of threatening bugs?

I bet were you sick I would hear through your sobs

“Wish they’d get a grip and start doing their jobs.”

Scrap Social Security?  Wow, you are plucky,

But perhaps, just like you, everyone will get lucky,

The market might rise and its rise might not vary,

Believe that? Believe in the good Christmas Fairy!

 

Thank God for the people who faithfully strive

To frame equal rules which have let business thrive,

Where corruption is modest, the playing field fair

And the whole business culture’s not governed by fear.

You’d have a real reason to grumble and moan

If you had to do business in Sierra Leone.

 

No, none of us prosper alone, I would say.

A little humility goes a long way.

Robert Hanrott,       January 2006

The dynamics of American decline

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“In the decade before Donald Trump entered the Oval Office, there were already signs of a long-term trajectory of decline, even if the key figures in a Washington shrouded in imperial hubris preferred to ignore that reality. Not only has the new president’s maladroit diplomacy accelerated this trend, but it has illuminated it in striking way.

“Over the past half-century, the American share of the global economy has, for instance, fallen from 40% in 1960 to 22% in 2014 to just 15% in 2017 (as measured by the realistic index of purchasing power parity). Many experts now agree that China will surpass the U.S., in absolute terms, as the world’s number one economy within a decade.

“As its global economic dominance fades, its clandestine instruments of power have been visibly weakening as well. The NSA’s worldwide surveillance of a remarkable array of foreign leaders, as well as millions of the inhabitants of their countries, was once a relatively cost-effective instrument for the exercise of global power. Now, thanks in part to Edward Snowden’s revelations about the agency’s snooping and the anger of targeted allies, the political costs have risen sharply. Similarly, during the Cold War, the CIA manipulated dozens of major elections worldwide. Now, the situation has been reversed with Russia using its sophisticated cyberwarfare capabilities to interfere in the 2016 American presidential campaign — a clear sign of Washington’s waning global power.

“Most striking of all, Washington now faces the first sustained challenge to its geopolitical position in Eurasia. By opting to begin constructing a “new silk road,” a trillion-dollar infrastructure of railroads and oil pipelines across that vast continent, and preparing to build naval bases in the Arabian and South China seas, Beijing is mounting a sustained campaign to undercut Washington’s long dominance over Eurasia”. (excerpt from The World according to Trump, Or How to Build a Wall and Lose an Empire”. By Alfred W. McCoy

My comment:  It doesn’t nearly end there. The educational system is all awry.  The costs have sky-rocketed as universities have invested huge sums in …sports facilities and expensive sports staffing, and then put lousily-paid adjunct professors in front of paying students. The level of general knowledge is getting worse (history? dismal; you can’t run an empire if you know no history).  The medical system (I sound like a record) is only o.k if you are rich;  in fact life generally is great – as long as you are rich.  You now have a President who wants to halt immigration and build a useless wall if he can, without asking who is to do the painting and plumbing. The constant flashes of racism and shootings of black men by white police hide the fact that too many are indifferent to foreigners and have been taught to fear them, especially moslems.   The hi-tech industries of California seem to be staffed by Indians, as far as I can see.  Americans don’t have the skills? Visit MIT, as my wife and I did a while ago,  and you imagine you are in Hong Kong or Peking  (they have to have an off-campus establishment for secret work, where presumably the  Chinese are absent).

Even though as a teenager I and my school friends all knew the days of the British Empire were ending, the interesting thing debated in the Debate Society was what would come after the end of it.  But meanwhile the media was running daily, copious pieces about the Commonwealth and remaining dependencies.  People were engaged and interested.  The UK was an outward looking country.  Huge numbers of men and women had lived and served overseas  (my sister in India, myself in Cyprus, for instance).  Compare that with the United States, where the people with foreign experience are the military and a handful of foreign service officers and adventurous students.   What goes on in, say the Middle East remains of little interest to most people, except in the Washington bubble.   This is not healthy.