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In America, and in the UK, the 1980’s heralded an era that produced two gods and a goddess of monetarism. Right-wing Republicans and Tories have worshiped them ever since. The political leaderships of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher spanned the decade, just at the time Milton Friedman was espousing his theories of monetarism. Indeed, he served on Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board throughout that president’s time in office.

Both Reagan and Thatcher were bewitched by Friedman. The idea of allowing markets to control themselves with little or no interference from government seemed almost frighteningly practical and modern, after years of Keynesian economics dating back to the 1930’s.

John Maynard Keynes was a British economist of whom Bertrand Russell once wrote:

“Keynes’s intellect was the sharpest and clearest that I have ever known. When I argued with him, I felt that I took my life in my hands, and I seldom emerged without feeling something of a fool. I was sometimes inclined to feel that so much cleverness must be incompatible with depth, but I do not think this feeling was justified.”

“One morning I met him hurrying across the Great Court of Trinity. I asked him what the hurry was and he said he wanted to borrow his brother-in-law’s motorcycle to go to London. ‘Why don’t you go by train’, I said. ‘Because there isn’t time’, he replied. I did not know what his business might be, but within a few days the bank rate, which panic mongers had put up to ten per cent, was reduced to five per cent. This was his doing.””^[1]

Russell declared him the “most intelligent man” he had ever known.

Friedman persuaded Reagan and Thatcher that Keynes’s ideas were outmoded. Both leaders fell under his spell, rapidly concluding that every problem could be solved by the markets, through economic innovation, provided they were left to their own devices, with no interference from government.

It was this ideal that caused George W Bush to falter so famously over admitting the existence of global warming. If he’d accepted the evidence, he’d have been forced to act. Bush expected the markets to swing into action and create their own emission caps based on fresh, profitable technologies designed to save the earth.

It never happened. Short term market greed trumped any idea of private investment in planet-saving enterprises, for close to a decade.

Ordinary folks may be surprised of late, when listening to economic discourse, to realize just how many booms and recessions the western world has suffered over the last twenty-five years. While western economies cannot be considered stable prior to Reagan, (his predecessor, Carter, had presided over a period of stagflation) it’s obvious with hindsight that Freidman’s policies utterly failed to provide a stable economy advantageous to any but the very wealthy.

Keynes advocated heavy investment by government during periods of recession. Friedman believed government should keep its fingers out the markets and allow them to stabilize themselves. The financial crisis presently threatening the economic world has sent governments scurrying back to Keynesian policies, with huge injections of cash into the system, in a desperate attempt to stabilize the markets and avoid the threat of a recession looming across the globe.

If any lessons are to learned from this latest, and possibly greatest, financial catastrophe, it is that Thatcher, Reagan, and Friedman were absolutely wrong. Markets require regulation; it has to come from government. Politicians, and their advisors, must be prepared to assume responsibility for the fiscal system and control it, rather than use it to simply line their own pockets.

This, in turn, means it is the duty of the people to ensure those they elect are capable of shouldering that responsibility without recourse to corrupt practices. The demand for more transparent government must be strong. Without pressure from the people, government will never change.

John Maynard Keynes died in 1946. If he’s out there somewhere, watching the events of 2008 unfold, he will undoubtedly be smiling to himself.

^{[1] “The Grantchester Group”, The Orchard Tea Garden}

Filed under: Economic errors

You may notice a new icon on the Sparrow Chat posts, just below the title. It says simply ‘Listen Now’, and is an audio file of the post allowing users to hear, rather than read, the relevant article.

This ‘plug-in’ was discovered while visiting the blog of Lodro Rigdzin at “augmented illusions”. Lodro recently commented on the Sparrow Chat article, “Daniel James – R.I.P.”, and his blog is interesting, and worth a visit.

It behooves us all to seek out ways to make our online work more accessible to the handicapped. Thanks to Odiogo, who own the software that creates the audio files, Sparrow Chat is now more accessible to those with impaired sight, who may find it easier to listen, rather than to read.

As well as providing an audiostream, the files are also available for download as a podcast. The service is free. Readers may like to consider offering it on their own blogs.

Filed under: One small step for a blog

The name Daniel James will not be known to many on this side of the Atlantic, or, indeed in his home country of the UK. Nevertheless, in his own way Daniel James represents the perfect example of a victim. He’s the victim of a social system that has become endemic in the western world; a system of control, of manipulation, that renders the ordinary person a slave to the dictates of those who would impose their will on others, while utilizing a different set of laws to regulate their own, wealth-ridden, lives.

Daniel James is dead. He died, of his own free will, in a Swiss clinic. Daniel James chose assisted suicide in Switzerland, because his home country – like much of the western world, including America (with the exception of Oregon) – denied him the right to die with dignity, after an accident during a rugby match left him paralyzed from the neck down, the result of a badly crushed spine.^[1]

Daniel James was twenty-three. Being of sound mind, he decided his body had become a prison. He wished to end his life. He tried several times to kill himself, without success. Eventually, he achieved his wish by traveling to Switzerland.

His parents, distraught and in need of comfort at the loss of their son, are being harassed by police demanding statements, with a view to possible prosecution, because they may, in some way, have committed an offense if they helped their son achieve his wish. Such “help” includes purchasing his air ticket, driving him to the airport, daring to accompany him on the plane.

HOW DARE THEY? Who do they think they are? Do these inhumane creatures who dare to legislate such monstrous laws think they have the divine right to harass and torture individuals already overcome with the grief of bereavement? Do the God Almighty Lords and Ladies of English aristocracy, the toffee-nosed, high-falluting, US senators of Congress, truly believe they alone hold the right to decide if an individual may, or may not, consider his life too unbearable to endure?

Frankly, my contempt for these autocrats knows no bounds. My greatest joy would be to urinate on them from the top of a very high building. They are, to coin a phrase, sanctimonious bastards.

My heart goes out to the parents of Daniel James. Let the law do its worst, for the law is an ass.

Blackmail is the lowest of crimes, yet the law cavorts with blackmail when it twists the arm of people like Daniel James, by threatening their relatives and friends if they dare to defy “They Who Must Be Obeyed”.

It’s a fact that the older one grows, the less one knows. When we’re young we think we have all the answers. As we grow older, we realize we don’t even understand the questions. There’s one fact I have learned, however, in my sixty two years on this planet: it’s that those who hold the power to make the rules, are not worthy of our respect. The rules are always for their benefit, never ours.

Daniel James – may he rest in peace. And may his parents take comfort that at last he’s found it.

^{[1] “Parents speak on assisted suicide” BBC, October 17th 2008}

Filed under: The hypocrites