America's unchristian Right

We know that the American conservative right is strongly imbued with Christianity. This is somewhat bizarre. The reason I suggest this is that many of its attitudes are decidedely unchristian. Did Christ not effectively argue that people should pool their economic and social risks by sharing property and agreeing to help those less fortunate than ourselves ? The parable of the Good Samaritan says we should not pass on the other side but should make a special effort to help the disadvantaged and the wretched even if they are culturally or ethnically different to ourselves. Christ affirmed the ancient Jewish tradition that the love of money disqualifies us from salvation. When the multitude, who had come to hear Jesus speak were starving, he told the disciples to feed them before they looked after themselves. How can such Christian values be so assiduously ignored by the American Right in their opposition to welfare, socialised health care, foreign aid and some redistribution of income ? It's a mystery to me.

More thoughts on the US electoral college

I have to claim some credit for calling the US election pretty well though I got the margin of Obama's electoral college victory wrong (assuming Obama wins Florida, that is - why is it always Florida ? Something seems to be rotten in the state). In particular it has indeed come to pass that a very close contest in terms of the popular vote looks like a decisive win for Obama as a result of the distortion of the electoral college. A further aspect does, however, seem to be emerging in this election. That is the increasing polarisation of different sectors of American society, rather than the normal analysis on a state-by-state basis. Women, ethnic minorities and the young are increasingly Democrat-leaning, while white males who are middle aged and elderly are opredominantly Republican. This is potentially dangerous as it can give rise to excessive pluralism and political pluralism is likely to make governing even more difficult than the traditional institutional system of checks and balances has suggested in the past. Before we casually jump on the idea that the USA might become kind of 'Weimar' country where excessive pluralism creates political paralysis and gives rise to right-wing, authoritarian extremism, we need to take care. While the USA remains a staunchly two party system there is a safety valve in place. Thus, when American society becomes dissatisfied with the way they are being governed (or 'over-governed' as many Repubocans might say), it can simply turn to the other party next time elections come round. Mid term elections in the US certainly play that role. In Weimar Germany there was no alternative except another ineffectual, short-term coalition. The point of all this is to say, perhaps, that, although America's two party system looks, at first sight, to be hopelessly (not least by the exigencies of party finance) corrupted and out of step with an increasingly pluralist society, further consideration may indicate that it can actually save America from internal social collapse. In so far as the electoral college underpins the two party system, perhaps it is supportable. With no electoral college in place third, fourth and more candidates might enter the field and enjoy some success. The college helps to keep out too many alternatives and the prospect of more deadlocked results.

Britain's electoral college

Writing on election day in the USA – before the result – I had been thinking about the electoral college, which is, to say the least, a strange arrangement by any standards and possibly unique. Well, not totally unique in view of what I have to say later in this piece. Political historians explain the electoral college in three main ways. One is purely historical and relates to the time, in the 1780s, when the states (there were thirteen of them then) still saw themselves as separate communities and therefore saw the college arrangement as a way of asserting their autonomy. Secondly it has been suggested that the enduring federal culture of the US is reflected in the college, i.e. states of lost much autonomy since 1787, but do still wish to be seen as individual contributors to the process of electing a federal president. Thirdly, it is said that the college system forces the candidates to visit the whole country in search of college votes. In this way they can all feel ‘included’. This third reason is spurious today because, with the increasingly polarised nature of US party politics, most states are ‘safe’ for one or the other candidate. As we are now seeing in the campaign, the candidates need not bother visiting many states (how much time has Obama spent in New York, for example ? – answer virtually none until the hurricane struck). In other words a re-election campaign could not bring the president to NYC but a hurricane could ). So there is a dissonance today between the reasons for the retention of the college and contemporary American politics. In fact, in such a close race, the absurdities of the college system are thrown into focus by the possibility of a ‘wrong-way-round’ result when the winner in the college actually gains less popular votes than the loser. This occurred when Bush ‘defeated’ Gore with a minority of the total vote (not to mention dodgy events in Florida) in 2000. Having said that, the college can be defended on these grounds : With the US almost inevitably producing a very close result in presidential elections – I mean close in terms of the popular vote – the deep schism in the political culture is highlighted. The electoral college, however, can produce a more decisive result that the popular vote, as happened to Obama himself in 2008. In that election Obama only beat McCain in the popular vote by 52.9%-45.7%, hardly a landslide, but won the college vote by 365-173. So we can easily forget the deep divisions in American society and believe instead that Obama was swept into power on a wave of optimism. This also, incidentally, creates impossibly high expectations for an incoming president. Former presidential candidate George McGovern died recently, reminding us of his humiliating defeat by Richard Nixon in 1972. In the college Nixon won every state bar one – Maryland – on a popular vote of 60% against 37%, still a big defeat but nothing like the college result. Over a third of the US voters in 1972 were willing to support McGovern’s ultra-liberal agenda. This fact was disguised by the hugely distorted college result. And again let’s remember Gore’s defeat in 2000 when he actually won on the popular vote. The perversity of the US electoral college possibly, therefore, changed the course of recent history, in view of events in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, before we in Britain become too smug over these truths about the US electoral college, we need to reflect upon the fact that Britain has its own version of the electoral college. It is called the House of Commons. Instead of 50 states we have 650 constituencies. Instead of states with different values in the college (depending on voting population), our members of the electoral college have an equal value of one vote each. No UK government since 1945 has won the popular vote (contrast that with many US presidential candidates who have done so). Furthermore, recent results have been ‘wrong-way-round’ in that more people vote against the incoming government than for it. For example the 1997 election was seen as a ‘landslide’ for Labour. In fact more people voted against Labour, for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, at 47.5%, than voted for Labour at 43.2%. Al Gore may have felt aggrieved (how well he took it !) in 2000, but his injustice was nothing when compared to British elections. So, if we see a perverse result tomorrow, possibly a dead heat, in the USA, we should think on before we are too critical of the Americans. For what it is worth I predict a close popular vote but a comfortable victory for Obama in the electoral college; let’s say he will be about 30 college votes ahead of Romney. We’ll see.

The socialism of American football

I am indebted to a nephew who made an interesting observation about the odd relationship betwen the 'American Dream' and the way in which Americans run pro football. One might think that free market ideology would dictate that the fortunes of the football franchises should be left to natural forces. The model suggests that the best will rise to the top, attract more resources and thus be able to retain their dominant position. In other words they should receive just rewards comensurate with the workrate and talent. Certainly this is what happens with European football where, in most leagues, only a handful of clubs have the resources to have any prospect of winning the title. In England there are perhaps six teams with such a prospect, in Spain it is two and in Scotland, since the demise of Glasgow rangers, it is only one, and in other countries only a handful each. But in America this is not allowed to happen through a system known as the draft. This works so that the clubs who do badly in one season, are given first pick of the best college players who become avaialable each Summer.In the folowing seasons they have the chance to climb back up the leagues, while the dominant clubs, who have to accept second-raters, drift down. In this way the chances of the teams are equalised through blatant market intervention. By now, you should be catching my drift. Theis manipulation to even out the chances of every club looks like a system of central planning in order artificially to create equality of opportunity. In other words, it sounds suspiciously like socialism. Strange.........

The Age of Deception

The disgracing of Jimmy Savile and Lance Armstrong has brought back to mind a recurrent theme in modern life. I don’t think it is overstating it to call the current era an ‘Age of Deception’. We now commonly see sporting personalities who cheat on the pitch and the track as well as in their tax returns, tabloid journalists who conceal opinion behind their deceptive versions of truth, banks and utility companies who cheat their customers directly, or indirectly through impenetrable terms and conditions, unreadable small print or simple lies and profiteering by exploiting market power. Cheap airlines extract money from us by making booking so complex we find ourselves paying charges we did not know were there; there are TV programmes where all is not as it seems (remember the phone-in scandals of a few days ago). Tax cheats now seem to be everywhere. And I have not yet mentioned politicians. This is a depressing picture. However, fans of Hegelian philosophy and its derivatives will believe that every thesis spawns its own negation. In this case, we can say we also live in an age of open information through the internet and the burgeoning media. These have emerged from corporate power because they have been seen as opportunities to extract vast profits from our growing consumerism. A common feature of all the deceptions identified here is that they have been rumbled in one way or another. The optimistic aspect of the age of deception is that, sooner or later, they do come to light. When a footballer dives or feigns a non – existent injury his misdemeanour is seen by millions, replayed over and over in slow motion, disseminated on U Tube etc. Regulators, inefficient and slow though they may be, do eventually seem to dig out the truth – witness the recent Libor scandal and several investigations of cartelisation by the Office of Fair Trading. Abused children become adults and eventually find the courage to reveal the identity of their tormenters. So the age of deception is confronted by its own negation, the age of information. How will this play out ? What is the ultimate synthesis of this dialectic ? Optimistically it may result in a new age of transparency and honest dealing. Pessimistically, the deceivers will ultimately take control of the media of communication, creating a kind of Orwellian dystopia. The main cause for optimism is that information is currently in the hands of the masses. History tells us, however, that this is no guarantee of ultimate victory.

Is Clegg a fool or a knave ?

So Nick Clegg has told us that he is not a knave but a fool, a fool for having made a promise he could not keep. The sad thing is, whether he is a fool or a knave we all want our politicians to be neither. To make matters worse, Dr Cable has told us the promise was a collectice decision, so the Liberal Democrat leadership[ is a collection of fools. Mmmmmmm. http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Colleges/Government---Politics.aspx?mRef=CNM01.

The olympic Spirit

e have now had a few weeks to reflect upon what happened during the Olympics – including the torch processions – and the Paralympics. Something undoubtedly happened and it was largely unexpected. So what was it and what are its implications ? There was clearly an upsurge of patriotism and it was noticeable that many members of so-called minority groups happily joined in the outburst of such patriotism. Two implications arise from this. First that we are becoming a more integrated society. One suspected this would happen in regard to ethnic diversity, but it was striking also how geographically united the nation was. The idea of the torch progress had a lot to do with this. The fear that this was ‘London-centric’ was, ultimately, unfounded. The Olympics and Paralympics threw up countless role models, but the most significant were undoubtedly sportspeople of colour and the disabled. Again the impact of these is very plain to see and also predictable. But less predictable was the manner in which the concept of ‘Britishness’ has been claimed by all groups in society, not just the shire-dwellers. This will prove to create cultural change, no doubt, and it is probably good news for those who have a vested interest in sport, but I wondered whether it goes further than that. My thesis here is to suggest it should inform us about the ‘Big Society’ agenda and the future of our national institutions which are coming under threat from both localism and privatisation. The first thing to say, I suppose is that this has demonstrated that it is possible in Britain to organise and deliver a major public sector project, efficiently, effectively and impressively. But, more importantly, I think the Olympics and Paralympics demonstrated something about civic attitudes to major public sector, national, undertakings. In other words it is not true, as Big Society thinking suggests, that we can only connect emotionally with local community enterprises. The British people do have a strong affinity with national, public sector enterprises. It runs to the NHS, the BBC, higher education institutions, the police and our welfare state in general. Those politicians who chant the mantra, ‘local good, national bad’ and ‘public sector bad, private sector good’, need to consider this demonstration of a strong national civic culture. Turning to the volunteer army, I am reminded of the great eighteenth century conservative thinker Edmund Burke’s conception of the ‘little platoons’ of local activists who ‘do good’ in their communities for no reward. Well, yes, he and Tocqueville forty years later were right to see these as fundamental to a healthy democracy and society in general. But the gamesmakers were a national army. They may have worked at separate venues and with different sports, but they undoubtedly came to see themselves and be seen as a national institution. And, of course, they were a variety of regions, age brackets, ethnic origins and states of able- bodiedness or disability, ` So the Olympics and Paralympics demonstrated not just a change on societal attitudes to sport and patriotism, but also an appetite for the potential of national and the state-sponsored undertakings. Politicians – attack them at your peril !