The Follies of the Left

 Growing up, I remember coming across an old saying. Anybody supporting the left in their twenties has no heart, but anyone supporting them in their forties has no head.

 

I am obviously headless. I have always tilted leftwards, but over the last fifteen years or so my tendency has moved further and further to the left. Give me Elisabeth Warren over Joe Biden any day.

 

I suppose part of my leftward drift has come from living in the USA, where I daily witness the greed and emptiness of the right and the negative consequences of their dominance since the Great Wrong Turning in 1980. But I am also far from sure that the old saying works anymore. There has been a gradual swapping over of support between right and left, so that a patriotic, working class, rooted person without a college degree can now be a reliable supporter of the right, while people like me have moved in the opposite direction.

 

This confusing change is partially explained in a new book about the USA I read this week,Last Best Hope by George Packer. I was initially attracted to the book after an author interview on PBS, in which he started to describe four models of archetypical voters. For all their flaws, I love models, and it seems Mr. Packer does too.

 

Packer describes his first model as Free America, epitomized by Reagan (and Thatcher to we Brits). Societal responsibility means little beyond creating wealth, and markets with minimal regulation are the engine for that. Freedom comes to embody a desire for everybody else to get out of the way of greedy desires.

 

The Smart America of Clinton or Obama accepts part of Free America’s diagnosis, while disguising the greed of its adherents behind a cloak of meritocracy. Education and connections yield rewards, and the Smart use their advantages to hoard more and more of the benefits, turning a blind eye with theatrical hand-wringing to those locked out from some opportunities.

 

Free America flatters to deceive, and Smart America adds condescension to the mix, and the outcome is Trump’s Real America, a land of delusion, nostalgia and revenge. Basic competence and truth are casualties as only the Messiah is deemed credible. The creed speaks of freedom, but the entry fee includes subservience to the demagogue.

 

The author, plainly a Smart American suffused by guilt, is suitably disdainful about Free and Real peers, but reserves his greatest ire for his fourth model, Just America. The creed here is of original sin, a pit from which nobody born white or wealthy or male or cisgender can escape. Practical solutions are jettisoned on the altar of unending blame.

 

The models feel just about coherent and explanatory, and tell a story of spiralling dysfunction without an easy way out. The right lost its heart when it became Free, and its soul when it embraced the Real. The left lost its belief when it became Smart and then its head when it moved to Just. But the intelligent of today cannot but try to repel the Real, finding homes where the left has arrived.

 

As so often, the diagnosis and models are more compelling than the solutions, which read uncomfortably like the Biden agenda. The exit from the spiral lies with rediscovering Equal America, where everybody can feel respected. Journalism, education and activism are positioned as possible weapons, but I will not hold my breath, though the author does suggest that similar crises have been endured before. If his logic about respect is valid, then he and I must agree about the Great Wrong Turning, for that was surely the original sin of the current spiral.

 

Sadly, the left does not make itself easy to support. I can actually live with the fanatical wokeness of cancel culture: naïve youth has to have its dogma. For me the bigger problem is its shambolic analytical discipline.

 

Each week I read The Guardian Weekly of the left and The Economist of what remains of the intelligent right. One exudes pessimism, bemoans everything with lazy generalisations about companies that put profits before people and rarely offers any practical solutions. The other has tight and balanced analysis supported by outstanding graphics and does not shirk from brave advocacy. The left may have become Smart, but is often not very smart.

 

A great example is climate change. To its credit, The Guardian has been banging on about environmental concerns for far longer than most publications and devotes many column inches to the subject. But the analysis is never properly quantified and the solutions seem to involve going back to the dark ages. The Economist was slower to the subject but far more compelling once it found its feet, brimming with data and practical priorities, most recently highlighting methane as a low-hanging opportunity.

 

Probably the greatest book on Climate Change policy was issued this year, written by Bill Gates. It contains his characteristic wide and dispassionate analysis, and offers a workable blueprint to deal with the crisis. I have hopes that many attendees of the upcoming Glasgow summit will have read the book and arrive ready to drive to implement its ideas.

 

How did The Guardian review Gates’ book? His content received little attention, in favour of something of an attempt to undermine the author. Somehow it was not acceptable for such prescriptions to come from somebody so rich whose own environmental footprint is so large, what with his yachts and his travel schedule. The review had Just America’s flaws all over it.

 

Another example is the Amazon project for New York City. The behemoth was planning to invest in Queens, creating maybe hundreds of thousands of permanent jobs if all of the associated activity is considered. As soon as the investment was announced, Just America cast it aside, citing the subsidy the City was offering and the general labour practices of Amazon. Within a week, Amazon had decided to go elsewhere.

 

Amazon are not the flashiest employer, but they follow the law, pay on time and provide consistent working conditions and more security than many. The people deprived of their new jobs were not Brooklyn hipsters or the sons of the Smart, they were people eking out a living in multiple sweat shops, probably paid below minimum wage in cash and with the women touched up by the boss on a regular basis. Just America and Smart America conspired to make their compatriots poorer, all over defending a questionable principle.

 

We can do better than that. The left can do better than that, but we languish in lazy out-dated rhetoric rather than trying to address the needs of those we purport to support. We could start by learning from The Economist, starting with metrics. GDP is a wonderful metric for bankers, but a hopeless one for real people. Yet we persist in letting the bankers’ metric be the accepted determinant for human development. Why can the Guardian print a detailed analysis of trends in healthy life expectancy, using country and state comparisons to nail the blame on our Free and Real adversaries? Indeed, how did I observe the 2020 election without hearing a single reference to healthy life expectancy?

 

I represent the Smart. I can be smug. I make sure my own family have all the unearned advantages on offer. But I don’t accept that I have lost my heart, and I urge my Smart colleagues to promote an agenda to equalise those advantages. Elisabeth Warren I a good role model, but even she could go further.     

The All In Society

 One of the more depressing things about travelling in less developed societies is the low value placed on human life. The absence of basic standards in areas such as food or traffic safety, or in police or military behaviour, forces everybody to run unreasonable risks every day. This is turn leads to reckless behaviour and low respect for others, and perpetuates gangs and abuse of force. In such societies, mothers tended to have many children, partly because their own health is not valued and partly to make it more likely that the family farm had enough surviving heirs to continue.

 

In much of the world humanity has made great progress. A virtuous cycle of better healthcare and education is supported by more humane government policy, leading to smaller families and greater value on every individual life. 

 

Sometimes I can argue it goes too far. In pampered societies, the whole concept of the value of a life becomes taboo, causing scarce resources to be widely allocated to keeping centenarians alive for one more month, and to strange decisions in matters such as hostage negotiations. Perhaps the abortion debate falls in the same category, though there do seem to be double standards among many: how can an undeveloped foetus be so precious when a death row inmate or homeless addict or foreign war victim attracts so little support?

 

A key difference between Europe and the USA can be how a human life seems to be valued. It might have to do with the respective histories, with two world wars on one side and a pioneer mentality on the other, but Europe does seem to value its humans more highly. The whole gun culture, universal healthcare, maternity care and traffic standards are examples where Europe seems to have taken a different collective stand. The EU can take credit for exporting its humane standards to its formerly communist members with great success.

 

It does not surprise me that the USA and Europe have been heading in opposite directions along the key metric of healthy life expectancy. With its more positive legacy from the world wars, the USA used to lead the pack (along with Japan). In successive generations, it has been caught up and then overtaken by Europe, so it is now a clear laggard in the developed world. How this is not a major policy debate in the USA is a mystery to me, at least until I consider which interest groups set the policy agenda.

 

I think I perceive a related development emerging in the USA. Respect for life has manifestations at individual, family and societal level. Among individuals in the USA, I have observed something I am calling the “All In” mentality. This is a new recklessness, one that does not directly threaten death, but does risk the prospects of a life that meets basic quality standards.

 

A lot of this comes down to opportunity. When we all lived in villages, we could be reckless in how we used our plough, but most had little chance to stake our wellbeing on chancy business ventures. Nowadays, we can travel and experiment as wildly as we wish.

 

My mother personified the immediate post-war culture in the UK. She was brought up in a sweet shop, and was taught to count the pennies, avoid debt and accept the lot her class determined for her. She was always concerned with risk and instilled cautious values in me too.

 

Especially in the US, there are many societal pressures towards taking risks. Parents and church leaders are listened to much less nowadays than influencers. Hollywood and politicians relentlessly peddle the fiction of the American dream, whereas in fact social mobility is now lower than Europe’s. So often we hear of mantras encouraging risk taking in the name of ambition. The financial industry likes nothing more than to entrap us in debt that we can just about service trends up not down with no prospect of full repayment. The likes of Bitcoin and Robinhood only expand such temptation.

 

Legislators do their part too. Consumer protection in the US is threadbare: every time I hear an advert promoting some loan as “almost like free money” I cringe. Governments cannot resist the easy revenue from lotteries and sports betting. Pensions are now personal responsibility rather than tied to employment, further reducing incentives for prudent saving. Then there is the exaggerated feel-good drumbeat of social media and the consequent pressure to be a star.

 

Some of this is good. The Internet has led to a society full of great hustles that only existed for the privileged a generation ago. It is so easy to set up a business, obtain credit and find a niche with low overheads and genuine prospects. The smart can do very well these days.

 

But not everyone can be both smart and lucky, and a losing streak can quickly lead to a place of doom with no feasible exits. Trends of rising gun violence, addiction, suicide and homelessness testify to this growing band of losers. The excellent Nomadland chronicles one common end state. This is by no means the worst-case scenario: many suffer premature death, and feed the US decline down the global mortality league table.

 

The classic policy prescription for this malaise is welfare, in the form of support during periods of unemployment or rehabilitation. I support this, and of course the failure to deal with the prevalence of guns in society is a national disgrace too.

 

But I would also advocate a response more geared towards education. High flyers in finance understand that there is little to justify their exorbitant bonuses than knowledge of risk and odds. It is stunning how little understood this simple concept is in the rest of society.

 

Covid is a great example of this. Everything about Covid comes to understanding a spectrum of risks and odds. We bleat about herd immunity, but there is no such thing, certainly not at a fixed percentage of vaccinated people, only a possible outcome when risks become tolerably low. There is nothing magical about six feet of distance or masks. In some situations (such as a chanting crowd) risks were always high even at twelve feet and masked up, whereas in others risks remained low at two feet and mask free. A vaccine does not confer immunity, only a reduced risk, especially of serious illness. If we understand the nuance of risk and odds, all of this is obvious. But sadly that remains beyond most Americans.

 

I remember a particular maths lesson from when I was sixteen. It was the end of term and the teacher had completed the syllabus and wanted something to entertain us for the day. He chose gambling. Why do bookies make money? It is nothing to do with knowing which horse is more likely to win. It is all about the spread margin factor, something that we can all calculate but few bother with.

 

Consider a three horse race where the offered odds are respectively evens, two to one and three to one. Properly hedged and over the long term, the bookmaker will retain 50% of the total stake for the first horse, 33% for the second and 25% for the third. The margin is a modest 8%. In practice, most margins are more like 20-30%. That is why we all lose and they can afford all the adverts on TV to entice us into their kingdom.

 

Risk and odds are critical to a good life education, but I only learned that lesson because I had a great teacher who found some spare teaching time. There are many good applications in finance. We would all understand insurance much better if we had that knowledge, and the debate about climate change would be much more enlightened, even among so called leaders.

 

This thinking can also help us plan our lives. Taking on debt and some financial risk makes sense in our twenties, when our future earning potential is high. But once we turn fifty we ought to be thinking of paying down debts and finding ways to save, unless we fancy finding more about Nomadland from practical experience.

 

Humanity has made stunning progress, and healthy life expectancy is one powerful measure to demonstrate it. The “All In” society jeopardises some of that progress. Education about risk, at societal and family level, is one way to reduce its corrosive effects. 

Accommodating China

It is astonishing how opinions of China in the West have changed over the last ten years. Hostility has steadily climbed, and now there seems little hope of a change of trajectory. This feels like a tragic mistake to me, one that will harm all of humanity, especially the western nations pursuing the policy.

 

The Chinese people have endured much hardship. European colonialism left its mark and the nation was slow to develop in the modern era. Hostility with Japan was followed by a civil war and then an inward looking regime. Mao did untold damage during the Cultural Revolution, pitting citizen against citizen, murdering many and impoverishing everybody else.

 

Only after Mao’s death were Deng and his successors able to drag the country forwards, and what has been achieved has been truly remarkable. As many as half a billion people, the population of any other continent except Africa, have been raised up from subsistence into a life with substantial modern comforts. Using the GDP type measures preferred by the West’s financiers, China has contributed more than half of global growth during the past thirty years or so. The Chinese are doing something right.

 

Since 1947 China has been following a path labelled communism, but, as far as I can tell, Marx would recognise almost nothing from his manifesto. It is more helpful to consider China in terms of its people, its governance, the apparent goals of its leaders, and the impacts on the populace and the rest of humanity. Some of these are negative, but many seem to be positive.

 

During my lifetime the Western press and politicians have peddled a series of simplistic narratives about China. First they were folksy and backward. I experienced my youth in blissful ignorance of Mao’s atrocities, mainly because communications were so much more limited at the time, and perhaps because propaganda wanted to avoid discussion of atrocities being carried out in our names nearby in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

 

Once China escaped Mao, the narrative moved on, starting with disdain. Just like with Japan, we mocked early attempts to emulate western methods, and were then embarrassed by the ability to learn and even overtake our own standards. A sort of patronising admiration followed, including some do-gooding and some greed, as western companies spied the growing market and decided to take a share of the action. Then the Chinese learned to copy the elements of our methods we were less proud of, such as bullying and stealing and fixing the rules, and we started to cry foul, while still greedily grabbing what we could.

 

Then came Trump and the pointless fight back, lacking any goals or strategy beyond creating sound bites. China’s response has been to become as USA-proof as possible, and who can blame it? Biden’s team are more logical but possibly even more combative, and recent meetings have descended into acrimony. And how can China be sure that Trump, or worse, will not return?

 

It reminds me of the mistakes we all make as parents. Once our children are no longer cute and accepting, but instead demanding and rebellious, our reaction can lack maturity. When our offspring start to mimic our own flaws and to outperform us in other areas, it is hard for us to accept the required change in terms of our relationships. In some cases, we can resort to bullying and restrictions, generally making the situation worse for all sides.

 

Currently, it is hard to read any opinion about China that does not parrot the official negative propaganda. We hear about Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xinjiang without any attempt at seeing the Han Chinese perspective. How is the Chinese approach in Xinjiang more reprehensible to the American approach in Afghanistan, or for that matter towards its own indigenous population? The military build up is exaggerated and not seen as a logical response to US militarism, and explained as against an international law that our own side applies selectively. Economically, China’s inward moves are condemned, despite each step being a natural response to a provocation.

 

It is very sad for humanity. We should remember that the Chinese miracle did more than raise living standards for Chinese people. We all have China to thank for our abundance of cheap gadgets, and, more important, the rest of the developing world was being pulled up by Chinese bootstraps. Now this is all stopping and a new cold war is unfolding. Let us be clear: this is not China’s fault.

 

The silliest thing about the US policy is that it is bound to fail. The western economies are far more dependent on China than the Chinese one is on the west, even before the active Chinese decoupling taking place now. China must work out that military action by the west will surely not be a practical option, and at some point they will integrate Taiwan, thereby also securing dominance in one more critical sector, that of semiconductors. Demographics and education are strongly on China’s side.  Arguably, so is their political model, being more able to mobilise and push through aggressive measures: just look at Covid for evidence of that.

 

This tragedy is wholly unnecessary. I believe that China would be willing to accept a rebalancing of the world order that could lead to growing prosperity for a new generation. It is true that the small cabal of leaders at the heart of the Chinese communist party think first of their own power, but they are strategic and smart, and probably see that their best chance of holding on to power lies in continued development.

 

Viewed from China, external threats are everywhere. Their own shipping lanes are dominated by the US military, and hostile nuclear weapons lie nearby in Japan, Korea and Guam. The US holds the world economy hostage via the dominance of the dollar and overuse of sanctions. Cyber spies are ubiquitous. Increasingly, Chinese students and companies are no longer welcome in the west.

 

The new world order would need to rekindle the spirit of 1947. In terms of governance, a refigured and less skewed UN security council could find respect and be bolstered by international law that even the powerful accepted. Nuclear weaponry and other military spending could be curtailed by a rule that 50% of all new spending must be multilateral.

 

In economics, a true world bank could set monetary policy from a currency that no nation had excessive influence over, and a global Tobin tax could fund items of global importance, most notably climate change, but also cyber security, bioscience and poverty reduction.

 

The toughest nut to crack would be the social side. Neither China nor the US would find it easy to agree to any human rights charter that Eleanor Roosevelt might applaud, and especially not any enforcement mechanism. I would love a world moving towards global free movement, with transitional obligations on migrants towards their new and former domiciles. But I have to concede that we are long way from that utopia.

 

Apart from the social side, I believe China would support a fair new world order, and indeed would be happy to take a leading role in forming it. The EU offers a wonderful template and many effective diplomats. Sadly, the stumbling block is the USA. Biden has to keep at least one eye focused on 2024 and a possible Trump return. But even so, I find it very sad that I find no discussion at all of any alternative to the current unintelligent, imaginative and ultimately doomed China policy. I believe our children will look back on this decade as a historic lost opportunity.