Iraq: The Post Mortem

British troops are slowly leaving Iraq, and in the States the American Presidential election will offer voters a choice between a Republican probably offering a new strategy and a Democrat offering some kind of withdrawel. In both countries and throughout the West, the popularity of the war is lower now than it ever was before- a considerable acheivement given the divisive nature of the invasion in the first place. Much attention has therefore focused on the ideas and judgements that took the UK and United States into war in the first place. Amongst the major culprits the school of thought known as neo-conservatism has come in for the most resolute attack from all sides- from traditional conservatives angry that we attempted to impose a democracy on Iraq and from liberals angry about the abandonment of the due process of international law and international consensus as expressed in the United Nations.

In Commentary, the neo conservative thinker, Joshua Muravchik, offers a rousing and well written defence of the doctrine against all comers. He argues that neo-conservatism consists of four principles, which he defines as

(1) Our struggle is moral, against an evil enemy who revels in the destruction of innocents. Knowing this can help us assess our adversaries correctly and make appropriate strategic choices. Saying it convincingly will strengthen our side and weaken theirs. (2) The conflict is global, and outcomes in one theater will affect those in others. (3) While we should always prefer nonviolent methods, the use of force will continue to be part of the struggle. (4) The spread of democracy offers an important, peaceful way to weaken our foe and reduce the need for force.

He argues that these principles are equally applicable to the cold war, the context in which he suggests the doctrine as a foreign policy theory originated, and to the war on terror. He suggests that they victored in the Cold War- there are legitimate questions about whether they did or whether the Soviet Union collapsed out of its own domestic problems- but leave that aside and that they will victor in the war on terror. He suggests that the 'Iraq' case demonstrates a combination of a tactical misjudgement (particularly on the part of Donald Rumsfeld) and over exaggeration by the media of the downside to Iraq- a civil war is not equivalent to an unstable country for Mr Muravchik.

Some of those judgements are sound. I agree with him that there are dangers in assuming, as many conservatives do, that it would have been easy to impose a successor to Saddam- a strong man- in 2003. American force would still have been needed to back any such strong man up- especially had the Baathist army been unwilling to assist. The picture in Iraq is a dark shade of grey and not completely black. Other things that he says I think he is wrong on. The events in Libya during 2003, when the Libyan regime gave up the Weapons of Mass Destruction program that they were advancing on, they did it partly as a result of the kinds of astute diplomatic footwork that the neo-conservatives disdain. Similarly in Afghanistan, the stupendous victory in the war there was the product of tribal leaders changing sides at the right time, and even now as the BBC has reported there are people in government who have human rights atrocities on their hands and links to the Taliban.

Muravchik overestimates the ability to reshape a region through force. He also overestimates the role that force plays in a conflict against terrorism. He is right that terrorism is an unambiguous evil when prosecuted for Islamist ends but wrong to presume that military tactics will root it out. Furthermore linking say Hamas and Hezbollah to Osama Bin Laden is a mistake- the first two have ties to what is a national struggle against Israeli forces- the second is the leader of an existentialist struggle against moderate Islam and its Western allies. Hamas and Hezbollah are horrible organisations and both commit terrible atrocities but misunderstanding their nature doesn't help us explain what is happening in the Middle East- they have other motivations. Muravchik ridicules those who describe the terrorist threat as a policing matter- but in truth to a large extent that is what it is. Many of the terrorists come from the West or allies of ours in the Middle East and are affected by a more general malaise- what Olivier Roy calls an expression of globalised Islam. The solutions to the problem of terrorism are not obvious and Mr Muravchik risks being blinded by a particular interpretation of history into providing un-nuanced solutions.

Lastly Mr Muravchik mentions and does not dwell on another major weakness in neo-conservatism which is its obsession with the Middle East. Mr Muravchik argues that the neo-conservatives have spoken about other issues- if so they haven't spoken very loudly. There are crucial issues out there which neo-conservatism seems relatively quiet about- China and Russia are two major issues. But there are others. Neo-Conservatives should talk more about central Asia- they haven't, however it is noticable that the diagnosis of problems in the Middle East would lead to a pessimistic view of Central Asia. We can see the same conjunction of oil reserves, angry populations, dictatorships and strategical importance.

Mr Muravchik, despite his impressive prose, has less impressive arguments. Some of what he says is right- but much of us is too simplistic and needs nuance and more analysis. Neo-conservatism as an ideological school is fairly nebulous and difficult to define, Mr Muravchik's attempt to define and defend it is an interesting one but ultimately it is a failure.

The lives of Politicians

David Brooks wrote an interesting article this morning in the New York Times. Basically Brooks argues that most politicians are involved in a game which dehumanises them. They have to campaign constantly, that involves both being uncharitable to their opponents and egotistic. They have to reduce policy decisions to tribal political decisions and all these things are demanded of them by the electorate operating within a democratic system. Brooks is right in many ways. What is interesting about this though is the way that our system creates a lonely and often very sad elite of people, so consumed by battling to reach the top, that they barely have time to consider what they should do when they arrive there. He speaks of the fact that politicians don't have time to privately consider or reason about what they do. They don't have that time because they have to spend that time answering questions and dealing with a media that grows by the hour. The problem is that often good politics and good policy contradict each other: the one might be symbolised by a character like Alistair Campbell, an obsessive who finds in every passing headline the panic of a moment, the other by a James Maddison thinking in the very long term and looking into history to write the American constitution. Unfortunately modern politics develops more Campbells than Maddisons and that is simply the way it is.

Don't trust your statistics!

Matt Wardman has published an interesting article, for anyone who runs a blog, about statistics here, depending on the statistics program he used he saw a varience of about 100% in how many unique views it recorded. This is probably only of interest to bloggers but it reinforces a suspicion I've always had about statistics and what they record- I definitely noticed a change when I switched from blogpatrol (because it always went down) to sitemeter. I don't think that change was to do with the numbers changing but with the recording mechanism.

A Bill to stop Politicians lying

Politicians lie. This is bad. We should make it illegal. That would stop politicians lying. And then everyone would see that there is a truth, a good policy, which is only obscured by lies and spin and we could follow that policy. That seems to be the logic behind a new BBC documentary which advocates passing a bill to stop politicians lying. Unity at Ministry of Truth rightly blasts the non comprehension of the constitution involved in asserting that the people are sovereign when they aren't, the monarch is sovereign. But there is something deeper which is wrong here- because there is a real problem with what constitutes a lie, what constitutes spin and what constitutes the best interest of the people.

Lets take the recent debate about inheritance tax. The ideological thrust for this has come from the Tories so I'm going to concentrate on them. David Cameron and George Osbourne maintain that an inheritance tax would benefit everyone, it is a tax cut they say for the people of Britain. Actually it would effect a slice of the people of Britain. But the Conservatives aren't lying, they believe that any tax cut for the top group of the population is a tax cut for us all because at some point we might be rich and also for reasons that wealth spills down. The Left would disagree- its a tax cut for the rich and the opinion that its not is a lie. James Higham will then come back and accuse the left of deceit to stay in power. The point is that actually noone is lying, this is a real difference of opinion.

You can see this in other controversies as well. Lying is often a reflex when you don't understand the point that the other side is making. There are genuine cases where people lie. For example Jonathan Aitken is a definite crook. There is also spin. But here again the problem is that the sin is difficult to spot. Lets take an example the invasion of Iraq. I have no doubt that Mr Blair beleived wholeheartedly that the weapons of mass destruction lay in Iraq, two inquiries have proved that fact beyond doubt. I also have no doubt that the evidence behind the invasion was presented as more certain than it was, often though that was partly because these guys actually misinterpreted the evidence, partly it was because their process of government didn't weed information or design information presentation well. There wasn't in my view a conscious lie- and it would be difficult to prove that there was. There was a case for invasion- and over a million people knew enough about that case to say it was wrong and march through the streets of London in opposition. There were factual claims which turned out to be wrong- but they weren't intentional lies, both the intelligence was wrong, for the first time intelligence overestimated Saddam's capability (in the past we had always underestimated the capability) and the process by which that intelligence came to the Prime Minister was wrong.

Lying is too simplistic an explanation for political conduct. I'm afraid that the sources of political dispute and political mistakes lie much deeper. They are about the ways that our politicians, and yes us because we elect them, have made mistakes in the way that we view the world. When Golda Meir denied that there were Palestinians, she actually beleived that. She was terribly wrong but she wasn't lying, no more than a child who can't see that 2 and 2 make 4 is lying. Most often when people are talking about lying they are either trying to excuse themselves from their own opinions, or they are doing something else. Failing to understand that anyone intelligent might hold another opinion, they cry out that a politician has lied. Isaiah Berlin warned against monism- nobody listened- its time to take his warning to heart and try and take people seriously when they say what they beleive instead of just chucking accusations of lying around.

Shouting lie, is a comforting feeling, politics I'm afraid is not a comforting subject.

What do we mean by Wealth?

You may have noticed an argument about inheritance tax going on on this blog, there were a couple of comments on a post of mine, and a couple over at Mr Sinclair's. I think some of the regulars might have got involved as well. Anyway Matt has kindly responded to my post over at his place and raised several interesting points. Today though I want to focus on one point that he raises which is about social mobility and really is about what the word 'wealth' means in a capitalist society like the one that we live in. This issue, about what the concept of social mobility means, lies right at the heart of modern politics and it is essential to keep in mind when thinking about economic issues.

There is a problem with the way that our society defines the word wealth. Wealth can be an absolute concept- for example it is clearly sensible to say that someone who has a three course meal every day is more wealthy than someone who can't afford to eat. There is a clear sense in the argument that especially when defining destitution, adequate wealth to survive should be understood as a basket of goods but to define wealth solely in absolute terms misses another important use of the concept. Lets take an example, by the mere fact of owning a computer I am incredibly wealthy, I can project my pontifications to the world. However just because I own a computer doesn't mean that I feel rich, the BBC reported three years ago that in 2002 half of the households in the UK owned computers. Owning a computer makes me absolutely very wealthy (in that I can do communicate across the globe with anyone I choose) but I don't feel that absolute wealth, rather I feel a more modest sense of relative wealth to my own society.

Its worth thinking about wealth in terms of other words that are similar. I'd use the word fast. When I say of someone that they are a fast runner, I am actually using a term that has both absolute and relative components. A fast runner might say run a mile in 4 minutes. Absolutely if he took his entire life to move a mile he would be very slow and very confined in his surroundings. But also if everyone else can run a mile in 2 minutes, then what sense does it make to say that the man who runs it in 4 is fast. In truth the word fast has both an absolute component and a relative component. There is an absolute sense in which a human being is slow- ie taking 73 years to run a mile- but most judgements about how fast a human being can run are relative judgements. Nowadays Roger Bannister's four minute mile would be slow for an athlete- but at the time it was a world record.

Lets come back for a moment to wealth, if wealth has both absolute and relative components, does it matter that we understand both of them. In my view it does. It matters a lot that we understand the importance of absolute wealth. The most equal society on earth is the one in which everyone is starving to death! Everyone would in that society be relatively wealthy, compared to each other they are all equal, but it would be absurd to say that they are wealthy. To structure our entire society around equality, might end up making everyone equal in poverty. However to dismiss relative wealth is equally silly. It is to insist that the kid who can only run a 6 minute mile, as opposed to his mates who run a five minute mile, is fast because he can still run. It doesn't really help him when he is stuck a minute behind! To put that in economic terms, somebody is poor if they can't afford certain things which the rest of us can afford- and Matt in his basket of goods understands that point- poverty is intrinsically relative and so is wealth. And those concepts are more relative the further we get away from the situation of absolute poverty.

Lets come back to the concept of social mobility. Matt says that the idea that social mobility means that some must go up and some must go down is 'pretty silly' and obviously on one level he is right. If I get richer, that doesn't neccessarily mean that you get poorer- in absolute terms what I earn is irrelevant in assessing what you earn. But wait a minute, that is not entirely true if we leave the realm of numbers for a moment. What I earn is then very relevant to what you earn. If my stately home is the only one in the country, then I am the richest person around, but if everyone owns one or if more and more people own one my comparative status diminishes and hence in a sense my wealth diminishes, despite the fact that I may be earning more than I was before. Hence if some people go up the social scale, others come down because they are less well off compared to the rest of society than they were. Hence social mobility has to go both ways. That is true whether people are losing money or whether society is becoming more equal. It is the differentials that matter- the rich are those who are wealthier than the rest of society. Social mobility means people from the bottom join the rich, therefore the rich must get larger as a class which means that the differential between them and the mean person shrinks or rich people must become part of the mass below them- hence social mobility has to go both ways.

Social mobility involves people's wealth diminishing as well as increasing because ultimately social status is a relative concept. Part of social status is wealth and I think we can show that wealth itself is a concept that has two meanings: there is an absolute sense of wealth, but there is also a relative sense of wealth. The problem both on the left and the right of politics often consists in saying that a concept is only this or only that, the problem is that people try and fix language into arbitrary definitions without realising that concepts overlap and often contain different but related meanings. Its a good debating tool- its not good politics. Social mobility does involve people falling as well as rising- and you can't conclude otherwise as soon as you look at the logic involved.

Conkers

The Today Program just went mad. They had a whole item on Conker Championships- whether keeping a Conker for a year, maturing it in vinegar and other nefarious tricks harden up your conker to win a Championship. As someone who played conkers as a kid (for those who have no idea what I'm talking about the rules are here and an explanation of the game is here). I was about to write a post on relative and absolute poverty- but as the world has gone mad I thought that this blog should join it.

The Nobel Peace Prize

Al Gore, the former US Vice President and Presidential nominee from the Democrats, has received the Nobel Peace Prize. Mr Gore is obviously a distinguished public servant for the United States and as American interests often coincide with the interests of the rest of us, for the world. His campaign on Global Warming is one with whose broad outlines I sympathise. But to award him the Peace Prize seems to go too far to me. Global warming could cause conflict, but Mr Gore has not stopped global warming nor moderated it, he has made a film about it which raised awareness of it. Mr Gore has not actually achieved anything politically at all yet, beyond creating a constituency. I don't underrate that acheivement but it should not be the subject of the Nobel. I'm not sure to be honest who this should be awarded to but I don't think it should be awarded just as a demonstration that someone has started a campaign. It should be awarded for achievement not aspiration.

Inheritance Tax Again

I have already argued, a little down the page, that cutting inheritance tax is unwise. It appears the Chancellor disagrees with me. Well I don't merely think that what he has done is bad policy- it is but that's a question for another thread- it is also bad politics. I've summarised the reasons why in this article at Bits of News, the key passages are these though...

The worst thing though about Mr Darling's new announcement though wasn't the bad policy- most governments have many bad policies. It is awful politics though. Mr Darling and his friend, the Prime Minister, Mr Brown are both on the backfoot. They have yielded the leadership of the debate to the conservative party. Mr Brown was humiliated at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, assaulted by his opposite number Mr Cameron. One Tory MP asked Mr Brown whether his imitation of Tory policy was flattery for the Conservative party or a belated attempt at salvation for his political soul. Quips flew across the chamber and the dour Scot in the centre looked unamused by the affair.

He doesn't have anyone to blame though but himself. After-all Mr Brown could have followed his predecessor Mr Blair's strategy. Mr Blair as soon as the Conservatives announced a policy, would describe it as the next thing to National Socialism. Every MP and minister would go around the country repeating the exact form of words in the same way and pressure groups would be invited to write reports substantiating the charge. Then once the Conservatives had been humiliated, bashed into submission, Mr Blair would walk off with their policy if he thought it was a good election winning (sorry sensible and prudential) policy. He perfected the art, and Mr Brown had to do nothing else but follow the template. But he didn't. The Prime Minister panicked- he decided to follow the winds and grab the policy before the Tories had lost the advantage of first proposing it, now he merely looks stupid.

These events undermine two of Mr Brown's key strengths on coming into office. He has a reputation for being a gloomy, boring calculator of a man. However he also has the reputation of being a serious thinker with good ideas about policy and being consistent and determined. He has the reputation of being an adult as opposed to Mr Cameron's adolescent. Well the events of the last week have seen the adolescent start proposing policies that the adult has taken up. Mr Brown's seriousness has taken a blow, if this is a good idea shouldn't he have come up with it by himself. Mr Brown has been shown up as inconsistent as well- attacking a policy minutes before adopting it.

Even if you support abolishing inheritance tax, now was not the time for Labour to do it. They should have denounced the Tories and then waited to grab the policy later. Just like Tony Blair always used to do- how many Labour supporters are wishing that the new man had just a hint of the nous that the old guy used to display in intellectual theft. At least when he did it he wasn't caught red handed, the day after the Tories had bought the policy!

The Ultimate Insider

Russell Baker reviews Robert Novak's autobiography at the New York Review of Books this week. Novak is a character who has always fascinated me as a particular kind of reporter and political animal. Novak has specialised for years in picking up the titbits of Washington conversation, hearing the pebbles roll at the top of the mountain which may cause an avalanche further down. What interests me more than the idea of Novak the reporter, and I admit he is almost certainly a very good one, is Novak the caricature.

His recent biography is entitled Prince of Darkness. Novak has been caricatured ruthlessly by many over the years, for Jon Steward he is a member of the undead for example. He is loathed and hated by people who think that he is darkness personified. He himself talks about himself as a political force, a master of the black arts of politics. According to Baker, Novak in this biography sketches out a role as the Machiavelli of Conservatism, backing his sources with judicious discretion and even more judicious leaking.

And yet in possibly the greatest drama of his career, Novak emerges not as a prince of darkness but as a dupe. He has always been a partisan conservative and there is no doubt that Novak opposes almost all Liberal causes. However he was against the Iraq war, for which the National Review blasted him. In 2003 he was given by Richard Armitage, the under secretary of state, the name of Valerie Plame the CIA agent. Novak published it, having had it confirmed by Karl Rove. He thought it minor. It was not and it blew up into a massive investigation, the results of which led to a White House official Lewis Libby doing jail time for the obstruction of justice.

What emerges from this though isn't that Novak knows what he is doing but that he was used. Possibly he wasn't even used, possibly there was just an administrative cock-up in the Bush administration- indeed quite what connection Armitage a leading sceptic over Iraq had to the neo-cons who are supposed to have engineered Plame's outing has never been explained. But the central issue is that Novak was played for a fool, and its not the first time it has happened either. Presidents Johnson and Nixon fed him with false information at times which he believed to be true and published in his column, sending the press off on wild goose chases. He did it inadvertantly.

The real lesson of Robert Novak's career is that actually, despite his sinister demeanour, nobody can live up to being the Machiavelli of the right or left. You can't hold all the strings in your hands and more often than not we are all groping in the dark, unaware of the wider meaning our actions may have. Robert Novak who was condemned for opposing the Iraq war, may end his career with the reputation of having been part of a conspiracy to support it. The Prince of Darkness may end his career with a very un-Luciferian reputation not for evil but for folly!

A lesson to us all in not assuming our own omnipotence!

A Grope from the Grave

Matt Sinclair wants us to abolish inheritance tax- at least that is how I read this article. Inheritance tax is let us be clear a tax which only functions above a certain freshhold, it is notable that as the Conservative Lord Sheikh made clear the numbers of people affected by the tax has declined over the last seventy years:

In 1938-39, 153,000 estates were subject to inheritance tax. By 1968-69, that figure had almost halved to 81,000. By 2006-07 it has declined to 35,000 estates, though I accept that in recent years there has been some rise as a result of the house price boom. This is not a tax that is becoming increasingly onerous; it is one that is affecting fewer and fewer people over the long term. We heard in the debate last week that the Treasury predicts that it will continue to be the case that 94 per cent of estates do not pay inheritance tax.

Its worth remembering that the numbers of people actually paying this tax has fallen and according to the Treasury will continue to fall. This is not an onerous tax stopping inheritance (it doesn't do that anyway as it only takes 40% of money inherited above the freshhold) it is a tax which redistributes from the very wealthy to the less well off.

Taxing the inheritance of the wealthy is vital. Ultimately if you do not tax this, you end up with the groping hands of the wealthy in previous generations pushing their decendents upwards as opposed to anyone else's descendents. You perpetuate an aristocracy. That afterall was the reason that inheritance tax was rightly introduced- to enable people at the bottom of the pile to rise to the top. Large capital transfers can ultimately allow people to leapfrog others- using that capital to invest in setting up companies where others don't have a similar opportunity. It perpetuates an aristocracy of property. Matt's eloquent defence of the value of parental love misses the fact that what he is really defending is the perpetuation of oligarchy and aristocracy.

Lets go further. One of the justifications of capitalism is that it isn't aristocratic- despite accusations from its detractors- capitalism does enable the poorest in the land to rise to become the richest through their own talents and hard work. Well inheritance tax is a classic means which enables that to happen, because it reduces (though it does not eliminate) the advantage that the wealthy have in the game of life. In a time when inequality is rising and social mobility falling, is it really right that we abolish one of the taxes which actually helps social mobility and creates equality.

Perhaps Matt thinks it is- and he thinks it is because he thinks that it is wrong to tax a virtue- well again I think he is wrong- hard work is a virtue and income tax takes 40% of people's income above a freshhold and more people are taxed via income tax than inheritance tax, would Matt abolish income tax. He might- but it would be imprudent to do so if we are going to continue to fund services for the poor as well as the rich. Inheritance tax helps the government financially very little, but it does reduce inequality and gives a more level playing field between the children of the rich and those of the poor.

Nobody is talking about abolishing inheritance and there are ways that the tax might be better structured. Reform is possible. But abolition is totally unjustified. It would help in the creation of an aristocracy of privilege and yes it would make the poor strangers in the lands of their fathers- handicapped by the fact that they unlike the rich were not granted assets gratis by their parents. Ultimately Matt's argument is an argument for privilege, and George Osbourne's announcement at the Conservative Party Conference suggests that the Conservatives are a party of class interest alone and not for the national interest.

In 1909, making a speech on the Liberal budget Winston Churchill, then Home Secretary told his audience that'unless property is associated in the minds of the great mass of the people with ideas of justice and of reason' respect for it might fall. Churchill argued that

The best way to make private property secure and respected is to bring the processes by which it is gained into harmony with the general interests of the public. When and where property is associated with the idea of reward for services rendered, with the idea of recompense for high gifts and special aptitudes displayed or for faithful labour done, then property will be honoured. When it is associated with processes which are beneficial, or which at the worst are not actually injurious to the commonwealth, then property will be unmolested; but when it is associated with ideas of wrong and of unfairness, with processes of restriction and monopoly, and other forms of injury to the community, then I think that you will find that property will be assailed and will be endangered.

The future Conservative Prime Minister was clear, property should be associated with 'services rendered', 'recompense for high gifts and special aptitudes or faithful labour done' and not be 'injurious' to the commonwealth. By all these tests massive inheritances fail- they do not reward labour, they are injurious to the commonwealth by perpetuating inequality from generation unto generation.

Inheritance tax may have bad externalities- and reforming it is a possibility to make it less bureacratic and close loopholes- but its principle is right. It is one of the few taxes that doesn't tax hard work, but taxes privilege and unearned income. Rightly it exists, rightly it should continue to exist. Benificence from parents to children is a good but it produces a bad externality- increased inequality- and it is the duty of the commonwealth to reduce that as far as it can. We should not make the children of the poor more disadvantaged than they are already by abolishing this tax, we should not make them strangers in the lands of their fathers merely because of the incapacity of their ancestors to earn money.

It should not be for us to cement aristocracy, it should be for us to allow talent to prosper and thrive. Inheritance tax should stay!

Ian McEwan On Chesil Beach

On Chesil Beach is a novel of missed opportunities, of tragedies reached because of youth and failure to speak out. It is a tragedy of a moment where a call wasn't made, where communication failed, where naivety led to crisis. Its about the wedding night of two young people. Edward a recently graduated student from the University of London who studied history and hopes to write it and Florence a beautiful musician who plays in a quartet and loves her music but has spent her life in the cloistered surroundings of all female company. They met in a pub in Oxford and fell in love walking through fields and talking idly in the summer after they had both graduated. They come to their wedding night, both of them facing their first love alone for the first time in a sexual context and filled with expectation of how good or bad it will be. McEwan is excellent at conveying particularly Florence's nervousness about the act, her fear of Edward's roughness and the way he squashes her as they lie together, her disgust at his semen.

This is a novel filled with uncomfortableness. It happens in 1962, before according to Philip Larkin sexual intercourse began. Taking place in a hotel on the beechfront, just after the wedding, with the accompaniment of the most awful British cuisine imaginable, an atmosphere of mundane tawdriness dresses what should be the most romantic encounter of their lives. They adjourn to their bedroom for the 'act' and hear the radio downstairs playing the news to men, taciturnly listening. Both Florence and Edward come from families, who are unconventional, he has a mad mother, she has an academic mother- but in both their families the mother and father don't communicate themselves. Edward's family is insecure socially, Florence's is effortlessly superior. Edward wants to prove himself somehow, Florence wants to cultivate her music.

The period is less crucial to this than the critics presume. People of my generation who are in their twenties now still feel a great deal of anxiety about sex, not everything is easy. Albert Camus once suggested that inside there is always unhappiness and insecurity, I can't remember his exact phrase but he was right to capture that essential hesitation in the human condition. Perhaps though what is intrinsic to the period is the ignorance of both characters about sex on their wedding night- today people tend to marry later. There are some wonderfully comic vignettes- Edward cannot undo the back of Florence's dress. There are also moments of miscommunication which are filled with a tragic potential energy. One such for example is Florence's arousal as Edward brushes her against a stray pubic hair- he doesn't continue to massage her thigh and thus a moment of connection is lost, a moment when she is reassured enough to have confidence that she will enjoy what is to come.

That moment though is filled with something else. McEwan takes us inside the heads of both his characters. Both Florence and Edward have things they could and should say to each other. Both of them have moments where they are driven less by desire than by the situation to say things which hurt and don't help. Both of them find it difficult to articulate their desires. Florence can't say to Edward that she is fearful and finds the initial sexual contact repulsive rather than attractive. Edward is too busy wanting to be a man to want to be a husband. In that bedroom are all sorts of anxieties and problems with English society in the sixties. From the banality of the cuisine to the ubiquity of desires for masculine affirmation, from the ignorance about sex to issues about class, we can see the scene on Chesil Beach as a microcosm of English society in 1962.

McEwan plays with these strands deftly and also demonstrates how this moment, this fumbling failure is crucial for both of the characters. He reminds us how important our choice of partner in life is and thus how important it is when we lose a partner who suits us. Edward finishes the book as a fashionable failure, having done everything in his life apart from think. If anything could have given him purpose and determination, it would have been marriage to Florence. She would have awakened his talent and turned it to more use than becoming a fop about town. We are presented with Edward's nostalgia in his sixties, his realisation that in later life he has failed to be more than superficially successful and he dates it all back to this moment. Of course age has its delusions as well as youth: and it is the image of Florence the pure that he keeps in his mind refusing to go and see her concerts at the Wigmore hall. For her too, though we see less, we know that there is regret.

Regret is the ultimate emotion that this novel provokes. There is a sense of might have been here which is impossible to capture in a review. McEwan has done it again though, blending the comic and the tragic together. Showing us how even a gesture is vital in the ballet of love and how finding yourself in the wrong position when the music, unexpectedly stops, can be disastrous.

Crossposted at Bits of News.

Britblog Carnival No 138

Ah well the Britblog has rolled back over here from a superb carnival at Philobiblon. Its going to be difficult to acheive anything similar to that wonderful carnival.

Perhaps the most important part of a good carnival is working out what a good blog is. Well a recent effort was made by Iain Dale, and Unity isn't happy with Dale's definition. Ian is worried by the appearance of partisanship in the blogosphere and the way we could lose trust. Never Trust a Hippy suggests why, writing a wonderful post separating political blogging from blogging about politics. Chris Dillow exemplifies exactly the type of political blogger that Never Trust a Hippy is talking about, as this post on inheritance tax, democracy and equality demonstrates. James Hamilton provides another analytical masterclass, with his history of innovation in football. Thinking of use of media- the thunder dragon deserves some kind of acknowledgement for his photoshop of Brown the Chicken and on the subject of having fun at the expense of our courageous PM, just take a look at this video from Nick Barlow!

Analytical bloggers though are only one half of the blogosphere- there are also the gossip bloggers. Iain Dale is off the mark first in this category with this video reminding Tom Watson of a promise he made a year ago. To be fair to Mr Watson he did pay the money he bet to a charity- and there is someone out there doing well out of a blogosphere punch up- now there is a shock! On more serious matters, there is the continuing Usmanov saga. Arsenal News Review suggests that Usmanov has been bribing journalists with trips to Moscow- Tim Ireland has more. Justin has more news of the way that Usmanov is manipulating the libel laws. On a related note, Unity's series on where we all stand with relation to libel law continues. The blogging world always gets riled by threats to free speech, just take a look for example at Stroppy blog who has got all stroppy about government surveillance of unions.

But the world isn't all Usmanov- there have been a couple of political events happening in various seaside resorts recently. This week was the Tory turn. And you'll find a servicable account of what went on from Steve Green who was in the hall, the City Unslicker wasn't but analyses the Tory economic policies. The most eye catching bit of the conference was the pledge on inheritance tax, for Matt Sinclair its better late than never, he argues using the film memento that inheritance tax strikes right at any concept of human kindness. The Tory Diary at Conservative Home finds low tax is the latest fashion accessory, but Don Paskini isn't so sure- he sees it as a tax cut for millionaires. In other political news, Lenin isn't too happy at Lenin's tomb with the occupation of Afghanistan and Dave Cole wonders is the US constitution too federalist. Gene at Harry's Place draws our attention to the common forms that anti-semitism takes whether from rightwing nuts in New Hampshire or Hamas, Jobeda isn't too impressed that the BBC had a program about the political merits of Shariah Law either.

And you'd think the world was all about politics if this was all that I left you- but far from it- there is much else going on. The Early Modern Whale reminds us that coffee was reputed to cure the plague, Ben Goldacre doesn't beleive in South Africans with magic quantum boxes and Professor David Colquhoun isn't too impressed by herbal medicine either. Matt Murrell started a comment thread about guilt and innocence here and on a related note, Crushed by Ingsoc has been thinking about the fashions and music of the nineteen eighties- oh and if that didn't make you feel queesy, then try this where Anne of the Inky Circle talks about what she has in common with cockroaches.

On a completely different line, Richard Brunton isn't happy that BAFTA wouldn't nominate any foreign language films for the Oscars. You can always learn new things about the UK, apparantly Birmingham has a bull ring, honest, here is a picture. All my Vinyl reviews an obscure album by the Animal Collective. On Stage lighting has an interesting post about how to get into stage lighting. Oh and should you feel like writing in a newspaper or anywhere else, be aware of the rules that the internet nomad has drawn up. The singing Librarion though is on his way thinking about parts he would love to take on in the future. Staying on the performance theme, Benjamin Yeoh reccomends you go and see a play in Ancient Greek- Medea is on at the Arts Theatre in Cambridge, one to see if you are around. Continuing with history, Vino has a nice post on the effects of Protestantism on European history- the Political Umpire also tackles a very broad historical theme, looking at the white slave trade in the 18th Century. Oh and anyone interested in more blogging should take a look at the latest roundup from the Blogpower group.

Anyway I hope there is enough there to keep people interested- keep the entries coming into britblogATgmailDOTcom.

Profile in Courage or not

Well the news has come through, Gordon Brown has postponed the election we were apparantly going to have. It seems that Mr Brown feels that he can't win- surveys and polls conducted in marginals over the weekend have convinced him of that. But lets be frank, there is in my opinion massive damage to Mr Brown's reputation. For a start, throughout his career Mr Brown has shown a talent for hesitating and not plunging the knife in- he could have stood for the Labour leadership in 1992, in 1994 and could have unseated Mr Blair as well at various points, but he never did. He backed off at every possible opportunity. Well he has backed off again.

The other problem is that Mr Brown now has to govern. That shouldn't be a problem. But at the moment the economic situation is benign, public services are ok etc. Were the economic situation to get worse then Mr Brown would lose in the polls. Furthermore public service expenditure is going to slow by all projections which means there won't be much improvement across the next couple of years, again for Mr Brown that won't be good in the polls. Mr Brown seems to me to be relying on something turning up- but I can't see that at the moment, the economy and the country are in places where what turns up will be good for him. Apart that is from the inevitable two issues- terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which are quite unpredictable in their impact. Politics as Harold Macmillan said is about 'events, dear boy, events': there will be lots of events before an election in 2009 which may occur against the backdrop of a recession.

Mr Brown has advertised his own preference to have an election now, he has backed out because he thought he might lose. By taking his troops right to the brink of battle and then skulking away, the Prime Minister has displayed a very public loss of nerve. A public loss of nerve that isn't exactly going to endear him to the population at large or indeed to his own party, used to the adroit handling of Mr Blair who when it came to this kind of thing was viciously clinical.

Obviously Mr Brown can dig himself out of this, but this decision is unwise and caps a bad week for the new Prime Minister.

Gingerbread men doing the Haka

As its the Rugby world cup, and given my All Black genes, this was too good not to post it to this blog- for those illiterates from across the oceans its the traditional Maori dance the Haka which the All Blacks (New Zealand's rugby team) do before every Rugby game- but with a difference its performed by Gingerbread men!

Hat tip to Mr Cole for discovering it.

Control: A Biopic of Ian Curtis

Control is a film about the lead singer in one of the greatest bands that Britain has ever produced, Joy Division.They stand as one of the better bands between the Beatles and later bands like Nirvana. They also were crucial to the development of the music scene in Manchester, a scene which later produced bands like the Stone Roses and of course Oasis. Their reputation is founded on their two albums, Closer and Unknown Pleasures, on numerous live nights in the clubs of the North West and on singles released in the early eighties. And much of their reputation comes down to the haunting voice and disturbing lyrics of their singer song-writer, Ian Curtis. Their career as a band was so short, because Curtis committed suicide aged only 23 in 1980. The band reformed as New Order without him and went in different directions, but one wonders what would have happened had Curtis had more years to explore musically.

Control documents Curtis's life, from being a teenager in Macclesfield during the early seventies to the first successes with Joy Division, through his young marriage to Debbie Curtis and his affair with the Belgian embassy worker (and part time journalist) Annik Honore, and right up till his eventual suicide. Throughout the movie runs the music, it opens with love will tear us apart one of Joy Division's great songs. This is a film where every sentence is uttered to the backdrop of a guitar chord, where you see and smell the inside of the northern clubs in which Joy Division came to prominence- particularly of course the Factory, managed by Tony Wilson.

If Curtis's life is the subject, then the north west of England in the seventies is the backdrop against which we see that subject. It is the fourth most important character in the story: the other members of Joy Division, their manager Rob Gretton, Tony Wilson and the rest are all shown as the Mancunian context in which Curtis lived. He lived in a society filled with a kind of grim humour- sarcasm and insult abounds. The audience of film critics at the screening I went to found the first half of the film filled with jokes. There are some wonderful moments of humour. Corbijn has captured the peculiar inarticulateness of English life- where gesture becomes infused with all kinds of meaning. Like Atonement, the recent Joe Wright film of Ian McEwan's novel, this is a film about English privacy and the humour and distress which results from it.

For Curtis's life is still veiled in mystery. So quiet did he keep his concerns- he suffered from epilepsy without any of his bandmates knowing until he had a fit right in front of them. He seems in the film to be almost incapable of saying what he means. At times he stands still and silent, exasperating by never explaining what he means. Sam Riley plays Curtis incredibly well. He captures the reticence and the charisma which existed together. Curtis expressed himself through his music- and in notebooks crowded with jottings about songs and poems to be sung, even in one case a notebook with novel scrawled on the title page. Curtis died though not because of privacy. The society that he lived in was one where privacy was valued more than anything else and not all committed suicide. Quite why he died, remains in real life a mystery to most. In the film though an explanation of sorts is given. Curtis was trapped in a marriage conducted far too early in his life. Samantha Morton plays the part of Debbie Curtis brilliantly. The strongest character in the film, Debbie seems at the beginning to be the very definition of a wet blanket. She agrees to everything that Curtis says- whether its getting married or having a kid. But there is something truly resilient about Debbie, at the end of the film you know that she, unlike him, is a survivor, she can endure. Debbie grows far more than Ian in the film, far more than him she appreciates the ordinary things of life and far more than him is connected to them.

Curtis was, by the film's account, an appalling husband. He was unable to repay Debbie. Locked in his own world of creativity, he refused at times to even answer her when she knocked on the door of his room, refused even to climb the stairs to go to bed with her. He is so self focused, that at one point he even asks her whether she wants to sleep with other men. There are enough indications in the film to demonstrate that Curtis by the end found that he was dependent on Debbie but not attracted to her. Rather everything romantic in his nature went out to his Belgian girlfriend Annik. Annik is in this film played as a beautiful and intelligent fantasy for Curtis. Their relationship was never entirely real- but there is no question that Annik attracted him. She is presented at first as a vision off the centre of the camera and in many ways that is what she remains.

Alongside this there is Curtis's worsening epilepsy. Curtis the film implies suffered from degenerating epilepsy. He was frightened of holding his own baby in case he might have a fit and collapse. The drugs he took to help him destabilised his mind and contributed to his inability to cope, to his suicide. We see how towards the end Curtis was unable to appear on stage. He suffered fits whilst playing his music. The music became quite disturbing- listen to a song like 'She's losing control' about a girl who had an epileptic fit in front of him at the employment agency in which he worked and you can hear it. Curtis was also losing control of his own life: right up until very late he worked at the employment exchange in Manchester but was increasingly unable to work there, finding it difficult to stay awake on the job because of the cocktail of drugs that he was taking and the insomnia they induced.

Corbijn manages to capture that for you on screen. The black and white cinematography starts off being a picture of the grim streets of the north west, bereft at the time that Curtis grew up of excitement for him. But by the end the black and white screen mirrors in its unreality the pain of Curtis's existence. The way that his life itself was spinning out of reality. The way that he thought that there was no escape from his illness, from his marriage and his affair (where he wanted two women, one for dependence, one for love) and was tempted by the romantic possibility of killing himself. The film ends in a cacophony of song and story, as Curtis commits suicide offstage.

The camera pans away from Curtis at the end, we don't see the suicide, rather we see its consequences. The film ends on a wrenching scream, the screams of those left behind to work out the meaning of this tragic death.

Control comes out in the UK on 5th October, review crossposted from Bits of News.

Website Fun

Two mates of mine run an advertising agency called Nonsense- anyway they're just setting up a website and want people to vote on various different designs (bit of a gimmick). The designs are all cool- so it might be worth your while just to go and have a look and vote. The website is over here and well worth a look for all interested in internet design.

Boris

James has just reminded me that Boris Johnson is running for Mayor of London with this post of effusive praise. Having read what James said, I think its time for something else to have an airing, because James didn't comment on how good Johnson was as a footballer. Whether you like football or not, just take a look at Boris's approach to tackling...

Its a wonder he isn't playing for England!

My Influences

Dave Cole has asked me to write about the five people who have most influenced my politics during my lifetime. That's not as easy a question as it seems. I have decided to leave out personal influences- partly because it would be hard to decide between individuals, partly because I don't want people to be associated without their permission with my views and partly just because it might get too pious. I have been influenced by tons of people through my life- my father and mother, uncle, brother, several of my friends (who know who they are), teachers both at school, at Oxford and Cambridge and even bloggers have influenced the way I think. But for this exercise I want to concentrate particularly on people I have never met. This is not a list of the most intelligent people I have ever read, but of the people who influenced my intellectual growth most and many of the insights I drew from them may well be inaccurate understandings of their work.

Anyway here is the list for interest's sake:

1. Edward Gibbon

I read Gibbon's Decline and Fall for the first time when I was 15, I return to it all the time. He nourished my development as a historian. Gibbon had this stunning perception of the world as a whole- his history is vast. It is 3,000 pages long in my edition, it covers over a thousand years of history (from c. 180AD to 1453AD) and it describes the fall of the West Roman Empire, the fall of the East Roman Empire, the emergeance of the Western European state system, the rise of Islam, the Hunnic invasions and their roots on the borders of China, Roman Philosophy, Theological disputes in early Christianity (its still the main thing I have read on the Arians and Athanasians) and the decline of a republic into a despotism. Gibbon awoke in me a respect for the ancient world, I have never quite lost, a respect for republicanism not just as a political philosophy but as a way of living soberly and sensibly and rationally.

2. Isaiah Berlin

Berlin was someone I discovered when I was 17. Listening to a radio program, I heard him interviewed by Michael Ignatieff. Having heard him, I went out the next day and bought every single one of his books that I could find. Berlin stood and stands for me in part as a representative of a culture which I aspire to. As a fellow of All Souls in the 1930s he was involved in political, philosophical and literary conversation. He read and knew Boris Pasternak, John Austin and Felix Frankfurter. As important as that diverse intellectual social life was to me, it was Berlin's celebration in his work of pluralism that I learnt most from. For Berlin didn't believe at all in planning or utopia- Berlin's arguments were concerned with defending the individuality of human beings and the fact that moral choices were never easily reduced to a right or wrong answer. Rather Berlin argued that morality boils down to tragedy more often than not- for example the tragedy of government reducing freedom or allowing the poor to starve. Berlin's pluralism which acknowledged that tragedy is a political philosophy which deeply appeals to me.

3. Friederich Hayek

Hayek like Berlin was thoroughly aware of the evils that totalitarianism stimulated. He was the thinker that dominated my thoughts as a teenager and some of the habits I acquired then have continued till now. Hayek was the apostle of free market Capitalism, he argued for it both economically and philosophically. Hayek's intellectual legacy to me is twofold. Firstly he established for me that knowledge and the incapacity to know certain facts is at the centre of economics. The market is ultimately a device for ensuring the distribution of knowledge about demand through the system. It works better in Hayek's view than a planned economy because no planner can know the preferences of those he plans for in the way that the market can indicate. The second thing that Hayek was centrally interested in was liberty. Hayek had a very simple theory of liberty- but it is a defensible one. He was very worried about the extra-legal powers that governments might create- particularly for themselves. Hayek saw the rule of law as a concept which bound the state to treat itself as it treated those under it. I am not a Hayekian but I am sceptical of state power for reasons that he taught me.

4. Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes is a thinker I discovered at University. During my first year at Oxford I studied the Theories of State paper- and was told to read Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau and Marx. I had already read Aristotle on politics and some Rousseau. But what I read of Hobbes blew me away and during the rest of my degree at Oxford, I spent my time digesting what I had read in that week of the first year. Hobbes's model of politics which sees it as an arena of conflict between people pursuing their selfish desires and that the ultimate aim is a negative one- the provision of peace- has influenced my thinking in all kinds of ways. More than anyone I had come across previously Hobbes provided me with a model of how the state works, why things happen the way that they do and so on. His geometrical approach- where political theory is seen as the addition and subtraction of names from each other- is one that holds attractions for me as well. From Hobbes I learnt the importance of order and the importance of the state.

5. George Orwell

Before I went to Oxford I was told to read Orwell's essays. Whilst there I was frequently instructed by tutors to read and reread them- particularly his wonderful essay on politics and language. I admire most of Orwell's books- Burmese Days for example is amongst the best anti-colonialist writing- some of the novels lack a little inspiration. I suppose from Orwell though I take the idea of a non-communist left. In Down and Out in Paris and London (written whilst Orwell himself decided to spend a couple of years living as a beggar on the streets) Orwell documented in terrifying detail the experience of living in absolute poverty. This book more than any other shocked me out of my complacency and made me want to do something for the poor and dispossessed of the world- its a book I read regularly in order that I remember what kind of fate can await those who fall to the bottom end of society. In 1984 (which I think is his finest acheivement) he demonstrates to me the futility of the idea of the general will (Rousseau and Marx's way out of the misery of capitalism) by suggesting that it destroys human individuality. It demands that Winston Smith believe that 2 and 2 equal five because that is what the state says it equals. In those two books, Orwell lays out both why I think that it is essential to be in favour of moderating the market and why it is essential to be against Communist ideas.

Obviously this list is incomplete. Looking back at it, there are people who have influenced the way I think about politics as well as my political ideas. I would add some to this list that I have left off (Umberto Eco springs to mind for his wonderful destruction of conspiracy theories in the novel Foucault's Pendulum, Spinoza the great atheist philosopher of the seventeenth century, some of the people my PhD is about particularly Henry Ireton and their conception of liberty as a defence of the right of conscience to express itself and Peter Kropotkin the Russian anarchist all spring to mind as well). This is not a complete list- nor is it a list I would necessarily agree with tommorrow- but it is definitely a list of people worth reading. I don't agree with everything they say but the five men (unfortunately no women) here have been formative influences on my political thinking- they are all worth reading- why don't you, instead of reading my blog tommorrow- pick up one of them and see what you think!

I suppose I had better pass this on- but I'm not too disposed to overtly do it. So anyone who comes along consider yourself tagged. There are plenty of people who I would love to hear from and whose blogs I respect- you know who you are- so go out and write about your five political influences.

Sex or Violence

Mona Charen thinks Hollywood is wrong to worry about sex more than violence in films. Thinking about my own emotional reaction, and I can't speak either for kids or for others, its violence in films that really provokes an emotional response in me. I can't speak for others- but I have this tendency to empathise with the victim, especially if its a character that I've grown across the film to know. That's why the most shocking scene of a film I have ever seen is the end of Casino where Joe Pesci is bludgeoned to death and then buried alive. I'm not sure how I would have reacted as a child to seeing that scene, but I'm pretty sure it would have deeply upset me. I'm not sure about Charen's overall point either, I think we are exposed as kids to a lot more violence than sex, through the news if nothing else. A child today who saw the news- on a 24 hour news channel- could expect to hear and see images of Burmese monks being beaten today. Violent video games as well are marketed to a teenage audience. I'm not sure if you see as much sex as you see violence. But I'd accept contradiction. It would be really interesting to look at the way that a generation reared on images of extremity are psychologically different to generations before as well and how the images effect the consciousness.

As I hope the tone of this post demonstrates I'm not dogmatic or even convinced about this- so any discussion would add to my stock of knowledge.

Shock Doctrine

In 2005, the ex-German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder surprised his countrymen by taking a job with the Russian giant, Gazprom. The Washington Post at the time noted that "It's the sort of behavior we have -- sadly -- come to expect from some in Congress" whilst condemning the way that Schroeder's last few days in office had enabled deals for the company he was now a director of. For Naomi Klein the news would not have come as a surprise at all.

Klein's Thesis

In her latest book, Klein argues that there is a fundamental contradiction between service to the state and service to a corporation and furthermore that the Wild West capitalism of Milton Freidman and others is incompatible with democracy. She charts a story which in her view runs from the torture chambers of the Latin American dictatorships, particularly Chile, but also Argentina and Bolivia in the seventies, through the reconstruction of Eastern Europe and Russia in the nineties and into the war in Iraq and the aftermath of the tsunami in the early part of this century. She suggests that all the events of the last forty years have something in common. A massive shock, whether by natural disaster, war or even internal coup becomes the prelude to massive economic reforms, which in the normal course of events noone in that society would ever endorse.

Klein's thesis is historical and charts the evolution of the way that these shocks form a starting point for massive structural reform. From Pinochet's torture in the 1970s, which she argues psychologically damaged the Chilean population and made them unwilling to revolt, right up until Tianamen Square, she suggests that dictatorships have used the pressure of torture to prepare the way for in-egalitarian economic reform. That isn't the only part of her story though. For she attempts to demonstrate that the same dynamic works in democracies. In the aftermath of the Falklands War, she suggests that the UK came together and that Margaret Thatcher was able to introduce reforms she never would have attempted before. The same thing happened in 1990 after the fall of the Soviet Union. Eastern European states faced for the first time the explosion of democracy and they too resorted to economic reform, against the wishes of their electorates, at great speed. Economists like Jeffrey Sacks advised them to go very fast in reforming their countries- such dislocations meant that the reform in Sacks's thinking would become embedded and also that the population would be too cowered to object.

Shocks whether external or internal create for Klein a moment outside of the normal process of every day politics. A moment of dictatorship for a democratic regime- you might say that the Bush administration faced just such a moment on September 11th. She suggests that corporate capitalism now runs on the basis of such shocks. That the major companies of the world now invest in disaster prevention, they have in her words hollowed out the state, and present solutions to the problems of war or disaster which enable them to profit out of it. She argues that this establishes a disaster complex that in economies like Israel, make the economic logic of the situation lead to further wars. Furthermore these companies then agitate against policies that would lead to fewer disasters- the classic example in her mind being the corporate case against global warming. The rich who run the companies ultimately don't suffer from disaster- but the poor do- as Hurricane Katrina in her view demonstrated the rich are able to buy protection, medical care and other things whereas the poor are neglected and treated as criminals.

Klein's Blindnesses

Klein offers us a historical narrative, the problem is that she is trying to make a point in political philosophy via her historical narrative. She doesn't devote that much time to making philosophical points, they arise by inference from the narrative. And that exposes her to writing something which for all its historical coherence, may not be philosophically coherent. I'm not qualified to write about the history that Klein scans- some of it, in particular the mismanagement of the Iraqi utilities by American contractors I can endorse but there are large swathes of Klein's book, the internal politics of Bolivia, that I would turn over to others to critique. But I do think that Klein misses some major points, and its worth just pausing to reflect on these misses before you accept her underlying thesis.

The first of these misses is that capitalism and corruption are uniquely bound together. She establishes that there is a conveyor belt which takes politicians to corporate jobs, and directors to political jobs, that is particularly true in the United States. She asks some legitimate questions- when Henry Kissinger met Bush and Cheney, did he meet them as an ex Secretary of State (his job thirty years before) or as the Chairman of Kissinger Associates. Donald Rumsfeld never divested himself of his major stock options, particularly in health companies, despite presiding over the privatisation of the health care system for American soldiers returning home. George Bush's father is a member of the Carlyle Group which has profited directly from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We could go further- but it isn't necessary. Klein's point is that capitalism as practised in the US is corrupting, there isn't really much argument on that point. But there could be an argument that its uniquely corrupting- it might beafter-all human nature that produces corruption and not capitalism alone. For example, plenty of the leading Nazis were personally very corrupt, inside a system that definitely wasn't capitalist. So were many of the leading communists in the USSR and so was famously the ancien regime in Europe. Corruption is a worry that goes back to Rome if not before.

She also, rightly again, points out the ways that ideologues from the Heritage foundation and Chicago University have used moments of crisis to impose a purist view of their ideology. Again that isn't unique to capitalism. Intellectuals of the left have often flooded into dictatorships to offer their advice at moments of shock. The French Revolution and the Russian Revolution were used as Klein admits to introduce massive changes which never would have been democratically acceptable. Perhaps to use John Gray's formulation it is market fundamentalism which is anti-democratic but in the same way that socialist or any other fundamentalism is, it fails to deal with the crooked timber of humanity, forcing it into straight lines and straight purposes. Like Mr Wickfield in David Copperfield, the economist measures by only one indicy and hence measures nothing of use to anyone not using that indicator. In that sense Klein's radical case, becomes another repetition of the conservative case- distrust ideologues, distrust quick decisions.

Lastly there is another problem inside Klein's thinking and that is the complete lack of a positive alternative. Klein points at several moments in the book to administrations or policies she approves of. She points to South American economic policy in the fifties and sixties, to Scandinavian economies and to the self help efforts of Thai peasants to rebuild their own villages after the tsunami. That's all very well. But of course, there are problems in all the systems that she offers to us. Keynesian big governmental management can end in as much corruption as capitalism. Klein detects where the big areas for the left are- the Economist magazine recently admitted that the Scandinavian model represented a way forwards- and libertarian socialism is an idea whose time may be coming back. She doesn't reflect on any of these ideas, she offers no thoughts of her own but endorses them all. This is a problem in a book that wants to be an inspirational philosophical tool for the left. Klein takes Chomskyite ideas a little further, but she hasn't really devoted herself to an alternative. Perhaps that is something she should consider. Interestingly she believes that globalisation increases inequality and poverty but never mentions the Marxist view that such inequality leads to revolution and the establishment of a new society.

There are also deep problems in her history. Occasionally Klein links things in such a way as to imply a causal connection where none can actually be found. Perhaps most important is the way that she implies in chapters one and two of the book a connection between the thinking of Dr. Ewen Cameron and Milton Friedman. Cameron advocated in the early fifties a method of psychiatric treatment which included the deliberate annihilation of the personality of the patient concerned. His techniques were taken up by torturers in the CIA. Friedman, Klein tells us, was the other doctor shock. What she never does is establish anything more than an analogy between the two people- at times she implies a connection but she never establishes that connection. Tocounter-pose them so often, and draw so many parallels and allege a connection, one has to show that there is one. Klein doesn't.

Furthermore there isn't enough accident in this history. In real life accident, luch and chance provide much of the incident, but for Klein accident seems separate. There are particular examples when it seemed to this author, Klein played fast and loose with the truth. She uses Tianamen to explore the experience of Shock Doctrine, and is right that the events in the square were objections to reform as much as to communism. But she is wrong to suggest that China was able to reform more because of Tianamen. The power of the communist party meant that it could decide what it wished in China- it still can. The party decided in the late seventies that reform was the way to go, Tianamen was a mere episode in that process but it was not crucial. One gets the sense that she needed to write something about China and forced the example into her theme rather than treating it through its own merits.

Capitalism, Liberalism and Democracy

Klein doesn't offer any positive picture, what she does though is suggest some negatives about the Freidmanite view of Capitalism. Simply put, the simple equation between capitalism, liberalism and democracy is one that she undermines. Her view is that capitalism creates centres of power which are far from the democratic arena. These centres of power influence and can control democratically elected politicians through the use of money and offices.Essentially in a a capitalist society profit is the only motivating force and therefore there is no moral imperative holding politicians back from corruption, holding Schroeder back from the Russians.

There is a further point here that she makes but doesn't really develop. Civic virtue is different to the virtue created in the market place. Frequently Klein argues that the big contractors employed by the Americans in Iraq have placed their bottom line ahead of the public good- the hollowing out of the state is a problem she argues for the precisely the same reasons that tax farming was a problem in 18th Century Europe. No contractor is interested really in the outcome that the state wants, they are interested in making profit- and if it costs less to subvert the process or install layers of contractors to insulate against legal risk then that is what they will do. In part Klein argues this is the reason why despite so many millions spent on aid to Iraq or to the tsunami affected areas, nothing happened. The same thing goes for liberalism- if companies evolve promising security and in order to achieve that security they have to torture, they will torture. Again the legal and political systems as in Iraq with reference to the contractors can be and have been corrupted at a cheaper rate than it costs to offer the service.

What Klein is arguing for is some kind of mixed economy. There is plenty to agree with in her rebuttal of the wilder claims its advocates make for capitalism. But there are still some worrying issues in this account.After-all most regimes suffer acutely from corruption, most ideologues take opportunities to ignore due process (I know many personally on the left who have this point of view). It isn't enough to merely say capitalism is bad- you have to as well suggest an alternative. Otherwise you go down a route that at times Klein- and definitely Noam Chomsky- are in danger of going down- praising regimes such as Serbia simply because they are not Capitalist.

This book is deeply flawed. It is also impressive. Klein has done a lot of research, been helped by a lot of people. There are things that might be improved but still there are many things that can be learnt. Reading about torture procedures in Iraq is chilling, reading about the way that private contractors have been employed since September 11th is frightening (at times Klein's book is similar to a long extract from the British anti-establishment magazine Private Eye!) and reading about the callous ways that economists have dismissed at conferences and on television programs the deaths of thousands and unemployment of millions is shaming. That opens up another problem with Klein's argument: she never takes on her opponents where they are strongest but only when they are at their weakest. As a polemical strategy that might work, as an intellectual one it is deeply corrupting. But there are still things missing from this book that would have made it better.

Shock Doctrine is an interesting but deeply flawed book. There are many problems within it, but there are also good things. It is a very long book, coming in at over 400 pages and it is a dense read. Klein can do style but perhaps she could learn brevity as well. It is a book that this reviewer is deeply ambivalent about: I accept that there are problems about capitalism in the modern world, I'm not so sure that Klein will convince many or offers interesting answers to what we do about those problems. She makes many mistakes in this book: if I knew the history better I am sure I could find more- but she has also done some good investigative reporting. Like a Michael Moore film, Shock Doctrine is good reportage, bad history and bad philosophy.

Ultimately Klein's argument is really a conservative one. Utopias and universal solutions don't work! How ironic to have it coming from a professed radical.

Crossposted at Bits of News.

Left List

Worth noting that to compliment Iain Dale's recent blogging lists, Andy at Socialist Unity has put up his own list of the best left wing blogs around.

Interview

'There is no equality, there is always a winner and a loser'
'Exactly'

Interview, the film might be summed up in that exchange between Sienna Miller's character Katya and Steve Buscemi's character Pierre. Katya is a star, a sex kitten who lives in a high rise appartment. Buscemi is a Washington reporter, sent against his will, to interview this starlet, to find out what motivates her.

They both resent the fact that they have to spend any time with the other. Katya has been there, done it and got the picture, she can't face another interview and thinks the press are scum. Pierre thinks that the starlet is vacuous and irritating, he turns up for the interview without doing any preparation and unsurprisingly its a disaster. He doesn't know or care about her, she has nothing but contempt for him. Then because of a car accident, she takes him up to her appartment and an evening of talking and drinking begins.

Discussion is a way to communicate between human beings. In this film, discussion is used communicate indeed. But it communicates all sorts of things that normally are viewed as unconstructive. Both characters make clear their contempt for the other. He views her as an idiotic pretty head, she views him as an ugly old man, who looks like her father. Both of them though want to control the situation, both of them see social interaction as a competition, an occasion to anialate the other person. What that produces of course for both of them is an agreeable frisson. The old reporter gets to kiss the young starlet, she gets to know that her sexuality charms and delights him.

There is more to it than that though, they genuinely do manage to charm each other because their impressions are actually wrong. Miller is not a braindead fool, but is impressively cunning and witty. Buscemi, she discovers is a guy she can feel attracted to. Their flirting works ultimately because they are in some sense both attracted to each other. When Buscemi says to her that he feels like a father to her, its true. When Miller responds affectionately to him, it has a certain truth to it too.

But neither can retain that for long. Every comment comes with a barb. Every overture or opening is seen as a vulnerability and neither of them actually care about how or whether they lose. The night is rounded off with Buscemi leaving Miller's apartment and a twist in a tale- which you'll have to see the movie to find out. But the essential truth is that this film is a contest where there needed not be a contest, an exchange of fire where there needed not be such an exchange. Whether they sleep together or not comes second to the fact that for a moment they both taste the flavour of intimacy, but both draw back before they can sip.

That drawing back is at times a conscious lie. By telling an untruth, even in a moment of intimacy, the two characters end up betraying that intimacy. By telling an untruth, they reserve the right to opt out of intimacy. Both Buscemi and Miller are lying throughout their conversation- she provocatively kisses him and invents scenarios which aren't true, he tells her stories which are blatantly false. Both are in the utmost degree whores- she is constantly referred to by both of them as a whore, a crack whore, a whore, and he also is a whore, selling his stories to the best bidder. Both of them are for sale- and yet neither of them really have anything they want to buy. Miller's character seems to have no joy in life, no empathy with Buscemi's character. He seems to cynical to find any friendship or emotion which pleases him.

This film is a tragedy for both characters. Part of the reason it is a tragedy is that neither of them could diagnose their own condition. Miller doesn't at the end believe that she has lost anything- she is still the sexy young woman about town. Buscemi may believe he has lost, he might not have got the sexual fulfillment he might have wanted. The real loss though is the opportunity to meet another person's subjectivity and try and understand, neither character can break through the walls to do that, they both have to lie to maintain the illusion that they exist invulnerable within a world they presume cheats them at every stage. Both of them hate humanity and hate themselves. That is the tragedy.

Right at the beggining of the film, Buscemi's character talks to his mute brother. He shows real concern but the brother isn't a human being, it's not fair because the brother can't respond and its not fair because Buscemi can't really engage. Miller acts the same words, for her too its not fair because though everyone loves her, she can't love. This film includes amusing, sexy dialogue, and communication. But despite words upon words upon words, neither of the characters are ready to converse.

Every piece of communication in this film is subject to doubt, every time someone says something you can rely on the fact that they are lying, that their words don't mean what they mean. Every exchange is a feint, a tactic, unreal because of that. You can only really relate to the injured or the mute. These two people present for all their undoubted wit and sexiness, a dystopian nightmare for the human soul, where all conversation is like wrestling.

This film, like Closer before it, is an examination of the worst in human nature, its worth seeing and its worth avoiding the fate of its characters.

Crossposted from Bits of News

James Purnell's nonstory

James Purnell was all over the news today for a scandal or an embarrassment, term it what you care. A mix up at an NHS hospital resulted in the minister being included in a promotion photo that he was too late in reality to attend. His image was photoshopped in with a couple of other MPs. The Tories are demanding an apology or even resignation, the press are on the hunt and have been all day and the BBC are making it the story of the hour. But nothing has actually happened beyond a minor mix up. Even if Purnell had deliberately wanted to fake the photograph, who cares. He was late, he missed something for a reason we don't know, and the photo was faked, end of story.

You might wonder why I'm writing about this. Because amidst all the rubbish about BBC bias and leftwing and rightwing newspaper bias, this is what is irritating about the media today. It is this bias towards triviality. This led the BBC Radio 4 News at 6 o'clock this evening (after Burma), this not efforts to come to a treaty about oil in the Caspian, not human rights abuses in Africa, not the climate change summit in America. This was the second most important thing according to the BBC going on in the world today- it makes one wonder. This is a non-story, it is a nothing, a scandal that doesn't exist. It is so far from a story that I don't even care whether Purnell photoshopped the image personally having arrived late because he slept in.

This is precisely the kind of media bias that hurts us all- not a bias leftwards or rightwards but a bias towards stupidity and triviality. If this is the kind of thing that gets broadcast on the news, I'd rather they didn't broadcast the news. Tell us about Turkmenistan, tell us about China (on which we get almost no information) or about our own government's economic policies- explain concepts like inflation- educate us- don't get wrapped up in stupid crises. Purnell, I know from friends involved with his previous job at pensions is actually a rather good minister. Lets start getting rid of ministers for stupidity and not making tiny mistakes. This goes for politicians as well of all parties.

To all involved, just stop, this is hurting us, hurting democracy.

Hillary's Robotic Laugh

Zodiac and the art of Comprehension

Film is a medium for communicating- a medium for communicating a message. Viewers of a film assemble pieces of the film, finding a story amidst the shots and scenes that they see, finding a meaning often in the portraits on the screen. Critics often, including your correspondent, do that too, putting together the various shots, the various ways of seeing things that the film embodies. For a moment, we become involved in a story which is not our own, which seems to us a signifier of much larger and more powerful currents. We interpret our lives, as Slavoj Zizek has argued, through the media of film. Consequently in some sense, we become film, through investigating and contemplating the film our object, we ourselves assimilate its conclusions, turning slowly into that which we investigate.

David Fincher's film, Zodiac, definitely explores such ideas. Zodiac concerns an investigation into the identity of the notorious serial killer who terrorised southern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In real life the killer was never caught and there remain several plausible theories as to who it might have been. But Fincher's film isn't really so concerned with the Zodiac himself or why he committed these murders- he can't be, we just don't know, as with the effects that those murders had on those investigating them. The film is about the investigators- both a pair of journalists and a pair of police officers- who for a variety of reasons become deeply involved within the case.

Three of these characters become deeply involved because of their roles, as the officers assigned to the case and the San Francisco Chronicle's crime reporter, but one of them doesn't have any such direct connection. For him and increasingly for the other three the Zodiac is an intellectual phenomenon. He tells his wife at one point in the film that all he wants is to be able to see the Zodiac and know that that is the man who terrified all those people for so long. There is no sense of justice in this. Afterall the Zodiac committed according to the police officer at one point, only 5 murders, whereas there are hundreds of murders in California during the time he was active and almost certainly unsolved murders as well by the legion. But this man presented a conumdrum, he sent codes in ciphers which still defy the US police, he left very few clues and those that he did leave were contradictory. In addition, as he became more famous the chances of fake letters and phone calls rose, so there was also the question of which calls and letters to decipher.

One is tempted to say but this is the generation of Vietnam and Chile and countless other disasters. All the minds involved in searching for the Zodiac were tempted by the intellectual complexity but also by the simplicity. For taking on the question of Vietnam exposes one to all sorts of moral dilemmas- there are difficult choices to make every time you put down a foot. The Zodiac case though was complicated but also simple. Simple for it was clear- there was a murderer, there were victims, there was a problem. In so many intellectual problems there isn't such an easily graspable issue- the deaths of American soldiers have to be weighed against the deaths of Iraqi civilians for example.

Fincher shows us how these intelligent men became dominated by the cause. Behaving at times like a madman, the cartoonist Robert Graysmith loses his marriage, almost loses his children. The Crime Correspondent loses his job and perhaps his mind. The Policemen both end up transferring out of the department, one with issues hanging over him. All of them are upset by the clue that fails to yield. Graysmith in particular is shown as living in a twilight world, where every stranger could be the Zodiac, where every basement could be used to store murdered bodies, where suspision hangs over everyone. The investigation becomes his life. He turns himself into the hunter, and thus becomes hunted by his imaginary Zodiac in every window. The serial killer dominates his conscious life and he becomes taken over by that life- his escape at the end is through solving in his own mind the murder.

There is a sense in which intellectual pursuits can lead this way. In which seeing the world in a flower means that one's world becomes that flower. You can be taken over by seeing the essense of everything as part of a great pattern whose ultimate resolution is to be found in this particular instance. Films provoke this as well- they too are a pattern that we break down and solve and that as Zizek argues can become part of us, can dominate us. The Zodiac as a film suggests that there is peril as well as achievement in obsession. Fincher shows us what happens when a man or men in general are so dominated by one idea that their whole lives become dedicated to it. In a sense during an investigation, they become the investigator and that is all.

Definitely that is the place which Graysmith, superbly played by Jake Gyllenhaal ends up at. Indeed as he is the character whose inner life is really portrayed here, more than any other, it is within him that we can see this at its strongest. But other characters too end up as investigators rather than characters, they lose their humour, take to drink, lose their sense of self and hope for the future, all because of a killer, who has killed a fraction of those killed in the city over the years that he functioned in. They don't learn from this instance but the patterns they derive are false.

Fincher's film calls into question the nature of intellectual obsession, what if your obsession drives you into dark corners and believing that the nature of the world is darkness, you recede ever further into the black whole of a disturbed and suspicious mind. In this film it is neither the Zodiac nor his victims who are the focus, its the slowly disintegrating investigators, who swirl around the murderer, pulled in by the gravitational fascination that they feel to him, to seek light in the heart of darkness.

Crossposted at Bits of News.