Bumper profits, for who?

Today Goldman Sachs announces first quarter profits of $13.8 billion dollars. This comes after it re-payed the $10 billion dollars it owed to the US Government, along with $426 million in dividends last month.

Brilliant! You might say. The banks are booming again!

However, there is another side to this story, which demands our attention. Namely; the return of massive bonuses for employees at Goldman Sachs and a return to the greed that played a large part in producing the mess the banks found themselves in last year.

In the first half of the year employees at Goldman Sachs recieved $11.4 billion ($386k each) in overall renumberation.

As a libertarian I believe in rewarding success and punishing failure, and that risk (when it pays off) should lead to reward. However it wasn't the bank whose money was at risk here! It was the money of the US taxpayer: and therefore it was the government who should have been rewarded.

This is not how Capitalism works! If banks are too big to fail they can take whatever risks they want, now and in the future, knowing that the government will have to provide a guarantee.

In short: The message that banks could well take from this is a simple formula:

HIGH RISK = BIG REWARD

...and this can only lead to another crisis.

Entropy

I've just tidied my flat. A tiring and arduous task, and one which will prove, ultimately, to be a fruitless endevour.

The reason is one word: Entropy!


Entropy

Entropy is the second law of thermodynamics. And it is a bitch!

It states that all systems will become more disordered over time. In fact: Although my flat is "tidier" by my estimation. The physical exertion that I put into the task: the buzzing of the hoover and the heat of my body will all have served to send particles whizzing around in a much more disorganised way: thus proving the law! My flat may look tidier. But, on a particle level, my exertions have actually caused chaos on a massive scale!

The same principle applies to complex molecules like DNA, with its characteristic double helix structure. This is because, just like in the example above, the energy required to construct the molecule will create disorder in the particles surrounding the reaction.

So, any quest for order amidst this chaos is fruitless. But that shouldn't stop you tidying your kitchen! Becuase entropy will ensure that you will have a mountain to climb the longer you leave it!

The Return Of History and The End Of Dreams

I've just finished reading a fantastic book by Robert Kegan (above). It is a very interesting discussion of some of the potential flash points which could lead to international tensions in the future, with the major international dividing lines being between a coalition of Autocratic governments on the one hand (Russia, China, Iran) and the Democratic governments of the West.

The idea of a world of shared, converging values is blown out of the water: and rightly so!

The tensions in question are already evident in Asia, over the status of an independent Taiwan, in Eastern Europe over the "colour revolutions" in Georgia and the Ukraine and over the sovereignty of states like Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.

I share the view of the author that the next century will present many fresh challenges and that "the liberal world need to choose whether they want to shape it - or let others shape it for them."

How likely is World War 3?

I've just got back from teaching in The Gambia, where one inquisitive student asked me what my thoughts were on the possibility of World War 3.


I told him that in my opinion world peace relies on one crucial ingredient: Namely, the supreme military power of one state over all competitors.

The Cold War

We saw during the Cold War, that a fragile situation existed between the United States and the Soviet Union because two economic powerhouses were fighting for supremacy in a bi-polar world. Fortunately, the result was not the kind of "hot war" situation seen in 1914 and 1945, but a Cold War which gradually wore down the USSR.

Since the collapse of the USSR and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the US has been the supreme military power by a wide margin. They spend just 4% of their GDP on their military, but this expenditure ($651 trillion) is double what is spent by the entirety of the EU ($312 trillion) and almost ten times what is spent by their nearest rival, China ($70 trillion).

Should we be complacent?

I believe that the biggest threat to world peace is the rise of China. Their economy is growing much faster than the US and although this growth has slowed during the economic downturn, they have avoided recession and look set to grow by 6-7% in 2009, compared to a predicted contraction of 3.1% in the United States.

Even so. China are still a long way behind, and if we factor in the military budget of other NATO members, who would presumably ally themselves with the US in any new Cold War situation. I remain optimistic that we can look forward to peace for the foreseeable future.

Is happiness desirable?

Hedonism

Many people believe that striving for happiness is a laudable aim. 

When people are in dire straights they are advised to "put on a brave face" and try thier best to be happy.

This philosophy of hedonism has its roots, like many things, in Greek Philosophy, with it's earliest proponent being Democritus, who argued that joy was the ultimate aim in life, and that sorrow was to be avoided.

Acording to this theory we should at any particular moment just do whatever makes us happy, and avoid things which make us sad or sorrowful.

Utilitarianism

This idea was revived by Jeremy Bentham in the 18th Century, who argued that life could be divided into the basic emotions of pleasure and pain, and that whilst pain was to be avoided, pleasure was the sole good in life. He therefore argued for the "greatest good to the greatest number." 

This philosophy, which became known as Utilitarianism, was expounded upon by John Stuart Mill who qualified the original philosophy by arguing that not all forms of happiness are morally neutral and that there are in fact "higher pleasures" and "lower pleasures." In the language of Mill:

"It is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied"

In other words: It is not good enough to just be happy. Your happiness needs to be of a certain quality, or directed towards a higher end. According to Mill: It is not good enough to simply follow our inclinations from one moment to the next. Because whlst we may think that we know our own good. We can only possibly know in hindsight whether it was better for us to induce positive  emotion with drugs (a lower pleasure) or with opera (ahigher pleasure), for instance.

Epicurius

Which brings us back to the many Greek responses to the idea of hedonism. Many Greeks belived that there were higher ends, which superceded our our immediate need for gratification and happiness.

This idea finds its most fruitful expression in the work of Epicurus, who argued that what matters is whether your life as a whole is a good one. He belived that what matters is eudomonia (a Greek word which can be loosely translated as "good spirit"), which refers to some inexplicable factor which reaches beyond transitory feelings and towards a more complete conception of what it means to live a good life, and can only be assessed over the entire course of a human life.

Many Greek theories preferred to look at life like this. These theories, rather than focussing on the consequences of our actions at any moment (in their production of pleasure and pain for instance), look at what it means to be human and what the end (telos) of our lives is, when taken as a whole.

According to these teleological theories, our lives should be measued according to whether, taken as a whole, they are good or virtuous.

Conclusion

And so... In answer to the question I proposed above: Is happiness desirable?

My answer is yes! It is! But what I mean by happiness is what Epicuriucs meant:

He lived a life in a commune, living with close friends and surviving on what nature provided, and he wanted his life to be judged by people in its totality - and whilst I'm not about to become a hippy. I can appreciate his philosophy much better than our modern conceptions of happiness: which lead to consumerism, casual sex and drunken debauchery.

When people look back at my life they will look at my life as a whole, because that is what human beings do. Whether I am happy or sad from one moment to the next is immatterial, as long as I continue with my goals in life, despite what fortune throws at me.

From my favourite poem:

"It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the Captain of my fate,

I am the master of my soul."

- William Ernest Henley

Big Brother society... 42 days too many?

Imagine a world in which 4.2 million cameras watch our every move. In which the DNA of 4.5 million citizens is held in the world's largest database. In which we can not express our opinions in case it causes offense to those around us. In which we are forced to carry around ID cards to prove our rights; And, in which a suspicion of guilt can lead to our arbitrary arrest and detention for 42 days, without trial.

This sounds like a scene from Orwell, and yet it is in fact a portrait of modern Britain under New Labour... and yet it is not this per se which causes me to be angry. Rather, it is the attitude of the British public: who have allowed themselves to be slowly brought to a point where our liberties are in serious peril!

The latest in a string of illiberal decisions by this government was pushed through the Commons on Wednesday last, in a vote which was so tight it relied of the votes of a small band of Irish MPs to win the day. The new bill will allow British citizens to be locked up without trial for 6 weeks (42 days) and it represents, in my view an appalling attack on our fundamental liberty to go about our lives without fear of arbitrary arrest and detention. It is a suspension of heabus corpus, and reverses the rights that we have enjoyed since the signing of Magna Carta almost 800 years ago.

It's supporters claim that it is a necessary measure to ensure our security in an age of terrorism, and 69% of the British public are convinced that “in exceptional circumstances” we do need powers like these.

We are asked by supporters of the bill to think back to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in New York and 7/7 in London and imagine that these attacks could have been stopped if only we had been more proactive. But are we really deluded enough to believe that there is anything that could have stopped so determined an enemy; and what exactly are we defending if we are so willing to throw away our fundamental liberties?

A further reason given in favour of this law is that it is that it is only “terrorists” that have anything to fear, and not law-abiding citizens. But they would think that wouldn't they? Because it's not their brothers, sisters, sons and daughters who will be targeted by this legislation! The reality is that this kind of law does not affect the vast majority of the population because in modern Britain potential terrorist attacks now come almost exclusively from a small indigenous Muslim population: A fact which should make this legislation even more disturbing!

As a general rule any law which overtly or covertly singles out a minority group for special treatment under the law, goes against everything our legal system has been based on for centuries and everything it should be based on. In fact, it is exactly the kind of legislation which leads us down a path towards totalitarianism, which is something Winston Churchill understood better than anyone:

“The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.”

- Winston Churchill

The entire debate in this country has focused on how many days are “enough” to ensure our safety and yet surely, the real question we should be asking is should we be doing this at all? The answer can be found by completing the Churchill quotation above:

"...Nothing is more abhorrent than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization."

Death

I've been reading lots of books recently, but this one is certainly special, and deserves a mention. It starts with the brutal rape and murder of a 14 year old girl from her perspective, and tells the story of her journey in heaven to come to terms with her own death...

I'm only on Chapter 6 at the moment, but I'm hooked!