Should we scrap the present benefits system?

Posted by on

The government of Finland is hoping to kick-start its stagnant economy by investing €20bn in a two-year trial, involving 100,000 people, for a system known as “universal basic income”, or UBI. Instead of the current complicated and bureaucratic system, fraught with rules, means tests and alleged opportunities to cheat the system, the government plans to simply hand out the same set weekly allowance to everyone in the programme. This enlightened idea would do away with the dreaded “welfare gap” but wouldn’t be so big as to provide a disincentive to find and keep a job.

Any job you accepted, from a short-term computing contract to taking a minimum wage job as a street cleaner, would give you extra money on top of your weekly government allowance. Big questions remain, of course – above all, whether the payment can be set in such as way as to make it both effective and affordable.

It’s hard to see how this would work without raising taxes, and those taxes would be collected from a shrinking number of people in work (because of increasing automation and robotisation). But it has the benefit both of simplicity and fairness. The semi-employed or unemployed would have sufficient money for (very) basic food and shelter, and would spend all of it because of the high marginal propensity to consume.

The Finnish government is a centre-right government, and Finland is accepting of social equality and relatively high taxation for the general good. As such the Finns tend to be good Epicureans, even if they are not aware of the fact. But suggest such an idea in the US or UK and resistance would be immediate. I personally love the idea and am very happy to pay taxes so that people worse off than I am have more pleasant lives. Unfortunately, this is not a view shared by the “robust individualists” who oppose tax wherever they find it (unless it benefits them personally, of course). It wouldn’t surprise me to discover that Prime Minister Teresa May supports “universal basic income”, but getting it off the ground would be a huge political problem for her. The United States? Probably best forget it.

One’s spirit lifted by the extraordinary

Posted by on

Last night my wife and I attended a packed Royal Albert Hall to hear Bach’s Mass in B Minor, performed by Les Arts Florissants, a group from France founded by William Christie, an American. This was a Promenade Concert, one performance in the longest annual music festival in the world, lasting two months every year.

You don’t have to be religious or be a believer to be uplifted by this glorious work of art that raises you from the realm of the ordinary and reminds you forcibly how very unimportant are the trifling irritations and problems one is confronted with day by day. One doesn’t need to have struggled mightily over musical counterpoint and four-part harmony to recognise how extraordinary was Bach, a genius and a true product of the Enlightenment. This major work is over 260 years old and is as fresh as ever it was, truly uplifting. I found I had tears in my eyes as I reflected on the debt we owe these rare men (and women) who contribute so much beauty and meaning to the world.

And then downstage came a counter-tenor, an Englishman called Tim Mead. I cannot remember ever having heard a more clear and faultless voice in my life. I was not alone. You could hear a pin drop. The applause at the end of the Mass was louder and longer than anything I have heard since Gustavo Dudamel conducted the Sistema orchestra from Venezuela in the same concert hall years ago.

We all need these moments of exaltation to remind us that our fellow human beings still pack huge auditoriums to hear beautiful music, or throng to galleries to enjoy great art. We must, all of us, make time to observe and enjoy the great creations of humanity. And if I seem a bit excited at six in the morning, then I am simply enjoying an Epicurean moment, recognising the positive artistic achievments of the human race that belong to us all. It’s such a pleasure to write about something so rewarding.

A brave battle to tell the truth

Posted by on

Khaled Diab of Al Jazeera comments as follows: “It’s not just the news that is depressing these days; so too is the state of the global media. Everywhere you look, the press is under assault from repressive regimes, terrorists and corporate interests. Freedom House’s latest report found global media freedom was at its lowest level in a dozen years: according to the Washington DC-based watchdog, just 13% of humanity enjoys access to a free press. Conditions are particularly bleak in the Middle East. Indeed, given the dangers facing reporters there, “it is almost a miracle that anyone would make journalism their career choice”. Yet the war on the press disguises a “paradoxical truth” – that, thanks to digital and social media, Arabs have never enjoyed freer access to information; and “never have the region’s journalists mounted such a constant, consistent and comprehensive assault on the state’s media dominance”. Investigative journalism sites such as Inkyfada in Tunisia and Mada Masr in Egypt have refused to be cowed; as has the award-winning Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, the brave citizen-journalist group reporting out of Islamic State-controlled Syria. Despite everything, the truth is getting out.  (Al Jazeera,Doha, Qatar, 13 May 2016).

I felt personally uncomfortable when Al Jazeera folded in the United States. It was a media outlet that not only broadcast news no one else carried, but it had a ring of truth about everything it did. I kick myself for not watching it and supporting it more often (advertisers were suspicious of its Arabic (horrors!) ownership, even though the staff were experienced Western reporters). The mainline American news channels, particularly Fox, cannot be relied upon, and are creatures of corporations and special interests. CNN International is slightly more inclined to offer the unvarnished truth compared with its domestic counterpart, but one still has to employ a healthy scepticism. I’m glad there are brave and honest journalists in the Middle East. But whatever happened to American journalism?

How the online media are misinforming us

Posted by on

Politicians exploit our willingness to remember something that appeals to us, regardless of whether it will eventually prove true or unfounded. PolitiFact.com, looked into 158 claims made by Trump since the start of his campaign and found that four out of five were at best “mostly false”. But by the time they have looked into a statement the said allegation has already spread like wildfire and is believed by millions. A prime example is the totally disproved allegation that President Obama was born in Kenya and is a moslem. One is tempted to laugh, but unfortunately many believe this total lie.

In his book “Lies Incorporated: The world of post-truth politics”, US radio host Ari Rabin-Havt talks of an industry of misinformation. He says that we bring much of it on ourselves. “When people are given a choice, they’re going to choose what’s comforting and easy for them,” he says. “They’re going to avoid information that challenges them and they therefore get stuck in echo chambers.”

About six in 10 US adults get their “news” primarily from social media, according to a recent Pew Research survey. Much of this “news” is a blend offact and opinion, which simply confirms already held political convictions. They rarely get to see anything that challenges their beliefs.

We are witnessing the dual effect of identity politics and the effect of the social media on society, causing a giant and growing rift that is very damaging. It is true that politically biased newspapers and radio stations have been with us for decades, but speed of spread of “information” now bears out the old adage that “lies spread everywhere while truth is still putting on its boots”.

What should Epicureans, interested in truth and the welfare of their country, do about all this? Epicurus told us to avoid politics altogether. My own suggestion is to ignore social media and see what Politifact has to say about current politics. It’s a quick read. For instance Trump claims “Inner-city crime is reaching record levels.” PolitiFact, on Tuesday, August 30th, 2016, commented: “A possible uptick doesn’t erase 25 years of decline”.

One in the eye for the corporatocracy!

Posted by on

Yesterday, NPR reported that Sigmar Gabriel, German vice chancellor and economy minister, had said publically (for the first time) that talks aimed at setting up a U.S.-European free trade zone under TTIP have run aground because of “intransigence on Washington’s part”.

“In my opinion the negotiations with the United States have de facto failed even though nobody is really admitting it,” he said Sigmar Gabriel, in an interview with the broadcaster ZDF on Sunday.

Negotiations have reportedly stalled because of the unexpected decision by Britain to leave the EU and because of growing public opposition to trade agreements on both sides of the Atlantic.

Gabriel said the U.S. and the EU “haven’t agreed on a single item out of 27 chapters being discussed, despite 14 rounds of talks”, and he said Washington was “angry” about a similar trade agreement struck between Canada and the EU. He said Europe “must not succumb to American demands.” (Extracted from the NPR website)

One has the impression that the US Administration thought TTIP would be a slam dunk, and that everyone would gratefully accept the self-interested proposals of American lobbyists, which have little to do with actual trade but a lot to do with cementing the corporatocracy in place for another generation. I doubt the implication of crass arrogance can be attributed to the Obama trade negotiators themselves; they are simply weak, doing the bidding of the people with the real power. If the latter get a slap in the face then this has to be an Epicurean outcome.