What Sort of Society?

What Sort of Society?

My late friend (and erstwhile school colleague) Howard Elcock published a book in 1982 with the title What Sort of Society? Economic and Social Policy in Modern Britain [1]. It was a collection of chapters contributed by himself and fellow members of the School of Government, at Newcastle Politechnic. It is an excellent title, framing  a question that every voter in the country should pose for themselves. A good first step towards improving our 'quality of life' would be to identify our objective; our ideal state.  

Plato thought it was obvious that the ideal society would be ruled by an an educated and enlightened aristocracy; but then he was himself an aristocrat. He probably thought also that 4 slaves per household were necessary for comfortable living.

Three of my four grandparents were Scottish and my first 9 years were spent in Edinburgh, during and after the Second World War. I think my ideal would be a united, one-class, population where only small differences in wealth exist, and where everyone shares common goals. I can see that this social unity arises naturally where there is a common enemy, be that the climate, or competitive neighbouring states.  Given the natural disparities in ability, a uniform society of this sort requires (of its citizens) strong discipline, guidance, and education. Such a model seems to have evolved in Scandinavia; and it might suit Scotland better than it would suit England. (I can also see that it might be a little dull.)

For island dwellers in a mild climate, such as we have in southern England, there seems to have evolved a paternalistic 'Merry England' social structure with an aproximately ten-to-one ratio of 'workers' to 'gentry' [2]. The 'gentry' owned most of the land, and employed the non-gentry or rented them land to farm. They also provided such charity as was needed. Until the 1832 Reform Bill only the (male) gentry had the vote.  This resembles Plato's ideal except that the slaves are waged, not owned. After a pandemic (such as the 'Black Death'), wages might rise dangerously for a period, but the high breeding rate of the workers restores an equilibrium. This system must have proved satisfactory for both high and low, as it was stable for a thousand years. 

The rôle of religion in this 'Merry England' model should not be underestimated. A two-fold rôle. The concept of an after-life encouraged charity from the well-off, and seemed to justify the patience of those born into the working class [3]. There might have been cynicism in the highest ranks of the clergy, but the average aristocrat seems to have been a sincere believer; witness Robert-the-Bruce (King of Scotland) who wanted his heart taken to the holy land after he died. (Perhaps the dwindling interest in religion correlates with the crumbling of conservative England.)

Two world wars, education, and the invention of machines have, between them, essentially eliminated the concept of 'servants';  and, progressively, the concept of  'manual workers' also. Only immigration provides us today with our health service, hospitality industry, bus and taxi drivers, and our summer fruit-pickers and vegetable harvesters. 

There may be lessons to be learned from the giant, ex-communist, one-party states of China and Russia. Unfortunately, I have too little knowedge of the means by which either Russia or China achives its stability. We see the figure-head Presidents (Xi or Putin). But what structures lie beneath: cabinets, civil servants, secret-police, army, courts and judges? How is power exercised, and stability achieved. It seems that a steadily improving standard of living will produce a contented citizenry. But how is that engineered?

We like to believe that our more democratic society is 'better', more 'grown-up'. We believe we are more free, and we cherish that freedom. But should we? And are we? Perhaps there is too much freedom? Freedom to exploit?  If I were to nominate a problem that needs fixing in the capitalist world, I would point to the widening gap between the very-rich and the rest of society as the main (fixable) problem. We seem to have evolved a system in which we voluntarily pour more and more money into the hands of frivolous playboys, who use it to shoot rockets to the moon.

☜☜☜☜☜ O ☞☞☞☞☞

Footnotes

[1] Elcock, Howard (ed.) "What Sort of Society? Economic and Social Policy in Modern Britain" (1982) Martin Robertson, Oxford.

[2]  Wikipedia suggests that less than 5% of the population had a vote before the 1832 Reform Act. Only the males had the vote, but their wives would share the status of 'Gentry', hence my suggestion that 10% of the population be 'gentry'. It would be interesting to know if something like the Norman Conquest was required to set up an elite class in the first place – to ensure a sensible initial distribution of capital, and a suitable legal system. The evidence is that some people force their way into the aristocracy by virtue of their ability and character-type (intelligent, competitive, robust/ruthless). Doubtless they will find their way to the top of whatever social system exists to order society.

[3] "As Sir Roger de Coverley is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps them in very good order, and will suffer nobody to sleep in church besides himself". Joseph Addison (1711) in The Spectator. 

Rise and Fall of Christianity

  The Rise and Fall of Christianity

I think there is some truth in claiming that the great success of Christianity, the feature that allowed it to become the world's 'biggest', most populous, religion, was by promising 'Life after Death'. (A feature it shares with Islam, the 'second biggest religion'.) The idea that something, (the soul or core or essence) could survive death seems to be basic to the human psyche and was well known in the Middle East long before Jesus.  It seems certain that the idea of bodily survival after death was not the message that Jesus was trying to teach. Indeed, he explicitly scoffed at it (Matthew, 22:23 ).  But the idea proved enormously popular and, over the centuries, the idea of bodily survival was grafted onto the teaching of Jesus, and has brought many hopeful converts to Christianity. 

Did the initial disciples of Jesus, by emphasising the empty tomb and the resurrection of Jesus, perpetrate a scam? Or were they honestly describing their experience? How can we ever know? But by 325 CE, when the bishops met at Nicaea, politics rather than theology or historical truth seem to have dominated the discussion. For the Nicene Creed quite explicitly promises the resurrection of the dead. And that formula became even more explicit in the next two centuries. [See below 'Several different Christian Creeds']

Does 'Christianity' (by which I mean, not the explicit teachings of Jesus, but the more-or-less unified teaching of the Christian bishops from 325 A.D. to the present day) deliver any sort of 'Life after Death'? Yes, if you are inspired by the belief. No, if you cannot so believe. We see that many could in the past, a number still can today, but many now cannot believe. 

By distinguishing between the teaching of Jesus and that of the Christian bishops I have effectively opened up the question -- was Jesus a Christian? I mean, could he have subscribed to the Nicene or any other 'Christian' creed on the question of Life after Death; does the explicitly quoted teaching of Jesus promise anything like that which Christian Bishops have promised in his name? Furthermore, we may ask whether the explicit teachings of Jesus (such as we have them) do better at delivering on their promises?

Jesus is reported to have said that "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." (Matth. 22:32).  He is also reported as saying that the idea of meeting up with your spouse after death shows a misconception of Heaven; "Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. " (Matth. 22:29 ).  Heaven is (he suggested) more like when a king prepares a wedding feast for his son, and repeatedly sends out invitations, but the invitees do not come (Matth. 22:2-6).   So he sends out invitations to all and any (Matth. 22: 9).  They come, but those that come to the party in the wrong frame of mind get nothing out of it. (Matth. 22: 12).

Was not Jesus saying something like: God is for the living, and Heaven is for the living, not for the dead. That we are invited to join him, in Heaven; so should we not attend? And if we accept the invitation, and go to the party, it surely behoves us to attend in the right frame of mind; count our blessings and feel glad to be there. 

I feel the same way. I feel that to love creation with all one's heart, and with all one's mind (Matth. 22:37), and to love and treat our neighbours as we treat ourself (Matth. 22:39), creates a better world, an acceptable world, a world in which to be glad, in which to be grateful, and for which to wear festive clothes.  Even if plenty problems remain. 

In that sense I find that the teachings of Jesus deliver. By contrast, the doctrinaire Christian churches are dying, precisely because they are still paying 'lip-service' to the creeds of the fourth to sixth centuries A.D. The doctrinally 'Christian' churches, built upon a lie, are slain by the self-same lie.

The part that dies and the part that lives on.

To get anywhere in discussing the question of Life-after-Death, it is essential to be quite clear about the concepts of material reality and ideal thought. Material things in the real world have mass, and can be observed simultaneously by several observers; ideas conceived in a human brain do not have mass and are experienced by only one brain.  (A similar thought in a different brain is a different thought.) But an idea can be written down, captured in words, and spoken to another brain.  (The term 'Spirit' is undefined; it is therefore ambiguous, and is therefore avoided here.) It is also essential to seek the truth, and embrace it. There is no room here for deliberate ambiguity and obfuscation. I would hate to offer a reward while hoping that someone might misunderstand me and accept, even if their mistaken hope gave them pleasure, or relief; yet I think that is the parlous position of many Christian and Muslim priests.  

Human life, as far as I understand it, requires a flow of oxygen to the heart, and to the brain; without that oxygen, life and thought are impossible. Life is incompatible with death, with the absence of oxygen, or indeed the absence of a body (heart, brain, etc.)

I attended a Quaker funeral at Whitley Bay Crematorium in 2008. One Quaker read a poem of Betty Walters about a leaf, containing the consoling idea that it, the leaf (but, similarly, the poet), might be reabsorbed back into 'God'. So I refrained from reading the poem by Francis Thompson that I had brought along which makes a similar but slightly different point – that birth implies death; and death implies birth; 

"....

Till skies be fugitives,

Till time, the hidden root of change, updries,

Are birth and death inseparable on earth.

For they are twain yet one, and Death is Birth."

Instead, I found myself developing a thought I had started earlier in the day – that there are two parts to a person: a part that dies and a part that does not. What we love about a person is not so much the physical reality; a kilogram of cardiac muscle, or mushy liver. That, of course, is the part that dies. What we love is the husband, father, grandfather, the bread-winner, the musician, the student, a smile, an anecdote; in fact more the idea of a person than the reality of a person. And that is the part that does not die, but lingers in the memories of the still-living. So, in effect, I have reached the conclusion that, to our emotions, a person (alive or dead) is more important as an 'idea' than as a 'thing'.

I am not able to believe in Life Everlasting 'in the flesh', so I get no comfort from the Christian promise. But I do find some value in the undeniable fact that ideas about the good points of bygone people linger in the minds of the living; and will linger for a generation in most cases, and for two or more millennia in outstanding cases. In thus lingering, these memories support us in our endeavour 'to find heaven on earth'. 

That much I do believe.

Several different Christian Creeds:

 (https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/43801/creeds.pdf )

[1] Nicene Creed, CE 325 ("We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come".)

[2] Apostle's creed, c. CE 500, Wikipedia ("I believe in .... the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.")

[3] Athanasian creed, c. CE 500, Wikipedia ("

41. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies;

42.  and shall give account of their own works.

43. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.

44. This is the catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved.")

Rhetoric

 In a Democracy we must study Rhetoric

    What if we really are in the 'End Days'? Not, perhaps, the dramatically choreographed 'End Days' of the the Book of Revelations, with the 'Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse', and the 'Beast'. But an end of the sustained steady rise in health, wealth, leisure, and size of the human population; an end of the 'Good Times'.   

    For such it has been all my 84 years of life. And, from what I have read, I could say the same for the whole of the twentieth century. Some lucky few saw a disappearance of comfort and privilege in the early part of the 20th century, but the majority of Europeans will have seen an enormous improvement (in health, social care, longer holidays, opportunities for education and travel.) I have been lucky all the days of my life, from the little bottles of free milk in my school-days, to the free education for seven years at the best universities in the country, to the free bus-travel in my retirement. My children enjoyed free education from age 5 to 19,  but had to pay (c. £6,000 - 9,790 per year) for university tuition. Where I had a means-tested grant to cover living expenses, my children had to get that from their parents.  I bought my first house at the age of twenty nine, selling it 2 years later for three times as much.

    But there are signs that this run of good luck is ending.  Our electorate and our 'news-media' have asked six successive governments to restore the steady increase in 'well-bing' that we enjoyed in the twentieth century (Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, Starmer). All have failed! It could be that we are lazy, or tired, or not motivated, or uncertain of the future.

    (I remember now being told by a Finnish doctor that is it not alcohol that an alcoholic craves, but a steady increase in blood-alcohol level.) 

    I think we need our leaders to make some new plans for us, create new goals.

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    In my teens I read Plato's shorter Socratic dialogues and was dazzled. I loved his routing of the Rhetoricians. But, for fairness, I found and bought a second-hand copy of Archbishop Whately's 'Elements of Rhetoric' (1828)[2] which argued that persuasive argumentation required good logic. However, at that age I sided with the idealistic Socrates rather than the pragmatic Whately, and regarded rhetoricians as deliberate deceivers. Socrates famously argued that rhetoric was a dishonourable substitute for philosophy, a prostitute science, studying and teaching the art of subverting the proper science of good government. 

    A few years ago an erudite and well-researched book[1] came into my hands which makes the argument that, in a democracy, the art of Rhetoric matters. From the Greece of Pericles  to the Rome of Cicero, (i.e. roughly from 450 BC to 50 BC)[3], the art of Rhetoric was regarded as an important area of study; crucial to the process of government and the administration of justice.  

    This book by Rob Goodman [1] argues that, in our tottering democracies, it is vital that we study and understand the importance of persuasion in modern politics. 

    Unfortunately, Goodman's book does not practice what it preaches; it reads like a Ph.D. thesis. He summarizes all the writings of Cicero, Burke, Macaulay, and Schmitt on the skills of the orator. But I have got nothing out of it. Nothing except the following single question.

    Take the four contemporary politicians: Trump, Farage, Biden and Starmer. Do we think that we, the public as a whole, are unduly swayed by the first two? 

REFERENCES    

[1] 'Words on Fire' (2022) Rob Goodman, Cambridge University Press.

[2] Richard Whately (1787–1863), an English academic and Archbishop of Dublin, authored the highly influential Elements of Rhetoric (1828). 

[3] Pericles (c. 495–429 BC) to Cicero (106 – 43 BC)

Keeping Cool

 Keeping Cool

    We, in the UK, have just lived through the three hottest June days ever, each day hotter than the day before. No doubt many people, like me, will have finally woken to the reality of 'Climate Change' and 'Global Warming'. Good!

    Of course we, in the UK, shall have to adapt step by step to meet these realities, learning from warmer countries. There is talk of fitting 'Air-Conditioning' in schools and old-people's homes, and that will doubtless be needed. But I hope we look also at passive means of keeping cool: external shutters, awnings, insulation, trees, work-schedules, siestas, and all the features that have for centuries made life tolerable in the tropics. In the longer term we could look at the design of houses and villages in countries where these temperatures have been familiar for centuries.  

    While admitting the needs of schools and old-peoples-homes, I am horrified at the thought of thousands of people rushing off to buy fans and portable cooling units without learning the protocols; for these things themselves all need power and generate more heat. (And more CO2, still!)

    For the next few years I think I shall be able to survive in comfort without air-conditioning. When a hot day is forecast, I go round the house tilting the blinds and curtains to block out direct sunlight.  As soon as the outside air-temperature rises above the inside air-temperature (usually about 24ºC), I go round the house shutting (or nearly shutting) all doors and windows, and I keep them shut until, in the evening, the cooling outside air feels pleasant. I then throw open the windows, French windows, and doors to cool the house during the night. (I would need to think of something else if the night-time temperature remained above 25º. Fortunately, that has not happened yet.) 

    I see around me that many people are new to air-conditioning technology and need educating about the etiquette. Some places are ridiculously cold. Some people seem to think they can use their air-conditioner to cool down the whole town!  Mid-afternoon on the 24th June, I made my way from my dentist down to the bus terminus, choosing, for once, to walk through the air-conditioned shopping arcade rather than taking the fresh-air 'canal-side' route. I found that the automatic doors had been jacked open by the janitor staff. I expostulated to the first janitor I met. 
    "Which doors?", he asked.
    "Those out to the street!", I wooffed, for I still had a wad of gauze clenched between my teeth. "Why are they open?"

    "To let in the air", he replied, as though I was the dumb one. I gave up and walked on down the hall to the information desk, noticing that all the other doors to the outside were likewise open. Again an uncomprehending shrug. On the point of giving up, I turned back and tried a parting shot.
    "It is like leaving the fridge-door open! You pump all that heat out and it comes rushing back in!
    "I see what you mean", he conceded. (But weeks later the doors are still jacked open on hot days.)

    My grand-daughter told me that her school class room was set at 22ºC, which shocked me. I remember learning some decades ago that the authorities in California, faced with a shortage of electricity in summer, declared that no thermostat should be set lower that 78ºF (25.5ºC) if the house is occupied. (Or 85°F if the house is unoccupied.) I know that I can manage sedentary work perfectly well at 25ºC.

Classical vs Modern Monetary Theory

Classical vs Modern Monetary Theory

I am intrigued that both Classical Monetary Theory (CMT) and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) have a way of explaining how macroeconomics works, yet both think the other theory is wrong, while their own theory is right.  

I think it is generally agreed that it is bad to let a sovereign currency inflate, i.e. devalue. It is tantamount to stealing from anyone who holds cash in that currency. It is embarrassing and to be avoided. But deflation is also to be avoided. It seems there is an international consensus that a currency should inflate, but only by a steady 2% per annum. 

CMT believes that a thrifty, well run country should not run a deficit but should raise in taxation as much money as its government spends.  If there is a deficit, CMT believes that printing money, or simply writing it into existence, causes inflation –– at least, in the absence of growth in the economy.  For it believes that the value of a currency is a simple but inexorable function of the total quantity of 'Goods' divided by the total quantity of 'Money'.  The preferred CMT response to a deficit is to borrow on the international bond market. But the CMT economists warn that too much borrowing will 'spook' the markets and interest rates will go up. The country will find itself stretched over a barrel as more and more of our tax goes straight off to pay interest on our National Debt. Were inflation to occur, the Bank of England would raise interest rates, which inhibits the economy. That would curb spending by the poorer (indebted) citizens while cushioning (or even rewarding) the better-off lenders.

MMT believes that deficits are vital if the economy is to grow, as it is the only way that money (currency) can enter the private sector. MMT holds that taxes are not required to "pay for government", for there is no reason why the money cannot be created (by a sovereign government; provided that it does not cause inflation). If there is idle capacity in the economy, printing money should stimulate the economy. If the economy is at full employment and surplus money is still chasing goods and services there will be inflation. The MMT answer to inflation is to raise taxes (rather than interest rates). This takes money off those that have it (rather than those that do not have it). Taxes can have other beneficial effects besides reducing demand for goods; it can reduce inequality, and it can reduce e.g. smoking or carbon dioxide emission.

Where CMT thinks that the value of a currency is set by the ratio of the total quantity of 'Money' (defined narrowly, or broadly?) to the total quantity of 'Goods', it could be argued that prices are set much more locally, by people who know neither the total quantity of 'Money', nor of 'Goods'; prices even respond to 'expectations'. Look at the way BP's profits soared when the Iranians closed the Strait of Hormuz. Perhaps the biggest difference between the two theories is in the different ways in which they propose to handle inflation. Though both schools aim to reduce the local availability of money, the CMT school would raise interest rates, inhibiting business and penalising the indebted, while the MMT school would raise taxes. 

Employment Bank

Employment Bank    

     I am encouraged to hear that Alan Milburn is looking into ways to get teenagers into work [1]. It certainly sounds ridiculous to spend 25 times more money on keeping teenagers at home and idle, than on schemes to educate and employ them [2]. But such schemes, though laudable, would themselves be a waste of money if there were, ultimately, no suitable jobs. 

     I do hope that Alan Milburn and the government will consider the ideas of 

a "Job Bank" and "Employment Guarantee".  These ideas are straight out of the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) course-work manual, and may be peremptorily and prematurely dismissed as heterodoxy by conventional economists, or dismissed as too socialistic, by politicians (who will know their electorates but may not understand economics). 

     As I understand it, the idea is that the government should shoulder the ultimate responsibility of finding worthwhile employment for its citizens, and not leave it entirely to Adam Smith's 'invisible hand', or the ingenuity of the citizen. And we (society as a whole) should shoulder the duty for our own benefit, as we similarly provide a modicum of education, and healthcare; simply because we do not want to live amongst un-employed, un-educated and un-healthy people.

     (Higher education, and some medical interventions come into a different category; they might have to remain the privilege of 'the few' that can afford and justify the expense.)

     I was impressed, as a teenager, at some Victorian building work in (I think) Oban (Argyll & Bute); some local landlord paid for the building of a wall, which has enhanced the town in a small way for more than a century. The scheme worked even without the involvement of government and civil-service. 

     The jobs offered by the "Job bank" need not be competitive, nor even 'value for money', because money, according to the MMT, is not a limiting factor; but the work should be worthwhile, involve a useful skill, and should confer worth on the worker, and thence self-worth. 

     Why the government? Well, if the government cannot think up such jobs, how can we expect sixteen-year-olds to think of such. 

     Furthermore, if it works in the Netherlands [3] why not here? We do not need to 'Reform The Benefit System', as that would take a generation, and another 1,000 civil servants. We just need to set up a "Job bank"; and re-route the dole-queue to their door.

References

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/23/uk-young-people-workplace-anxiety-alan-milburn

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crrpx4p1z71o;

[3] https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/39210798/taxpayers-spend-more-on-benefits-than-jobs/

Guns or Benefits

 Warfare versus Welfare

        We are a disparate bunch, the British. Never mind that some people were born abroad. Even the 14th Lord Home, and the 14th Mr. Wilson had very different childhoods and expectations; though one succeeded the other as Prime Minister in 1964. 

    It is clear that many different priorities must co-exist in the country, even in the house of commons, even on one side of the house.  Thus, George Islay MacNeill Robertson, Baron Robertson of Port Ellen (who served as secretary general of NATO (1999 to 2003)), though a member of the Labour party, believes that our present government should spend more on re-arming the country and less on unemployment benefits. Other members of the same Labour party may feel that the two-child benefit-cap is cruel and inhumane; though our stance on 'benefits' as a whole is about average for OEDC [1].

    An idea came to me, thinking back nostalgically to my very early youth, to the days of National Saving Stamps (1916 - 1978) and War Loans (1914, & 1917). Perhaps we could be encouraged (or told) to pay 10% (or 20%) of our tax bill in the form of buying stamps, and offered the choice of either Welfare Stamps or Defence Stamps. Or even Arts Council stamps, or Public Library stamps. 

    And then, as I prepared to share this idea with you, I found that Sir Ed. Davy had already floated the idea of Defence Bonds on 25 Jan 2026 [2]. And the chancellor Rachel Reeves joined in on 19th April.[3] Excellent. I shall give the idea my little boost to help it on its way. 

References

[1]  Christopher Adam, İrem Güçeri, (2025) "The state of welfare and the future of the welfare state in Britain", Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Volume 41, Issue 1, Spring 2025, Pages 2–11, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxrep/graf015

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq5y7edg169o

[3] https://britbrief.co.uk/politics/westminster/reeves-eyes-war-bonds-to-fund-defence-avoid-benefit-cuts.html