I Love Dogs
I have always loved dogs. My first dog was a wire-haired fox terrier called Scotty, whose irritating habit it was to snap up the daily paper as soon as it was delivered and run under the house with it every afternoon. Guess who had to crawl after him every day after school to retrieve the family’s news?
My next dog was a beautiful pedigree rough-coated collie called Stornoway Dandy, given to me by two elderly ladies in Grace Road when they could no longer look after him, and after I got to know him when delivering their copy of the Bay of Plenty Times.
Since then, I have lost none of my love of dogs and, fortunately, my wife shares my enthusiasm. Dogs have been part of our family throughout our marriage; for the last 40 years our dogs have been West Highland White Terriers, sometimes one at a time and sometimes in pairs.
The pleasure our dogs have brought us has often led me to wonder what it is that brings humans and dogs together in a relationship that is so rewarding to both parties. In return for the pleasure they give us, they of course, if they are lucky in their human masters, receive the care and sustenance that they would otherwise be unable to find.
Dogs, in their relationship with us, have of course been much more than pets. They have been faithful servants, often – as in opening up the South Island high country, or in crucial rescue efforts, or helping the police or armed forces – bringing great benefit to humankind.
And today, dogs are taking on new roles – as comforts to those who are terminally ill, or as companions and guides to those, like the blind, who need help, or even as detectors of particular kinds of illness.
But, our relationship with them goes well beyond the utilitarian. Even as workers, dogs have shown a remarkable ability to enter into our lives, sharing them with us, seeming to see the world through our eyes, and teaching us some of life’s most important lessons.
More than any other creature with which we inter-relate, dogs are able to align themselves with us, to play their part in our world – indeed, they seem to imagine themselves to be one of us. As pack animals, they live happily in a pack including us and – no doubt more than we deserve – are ready to recognise us as pack leaders.
The special relationship depends on the way that each species recognises the particular qualities of the other. Dogs, more than any other animal, seem to have the same emotional range that we do, and display those emotions without inhibition and in ways we can recognise.
And they have, it seems, a level of intelligence – both emotional and intellectual – that allows their human partners to see in them many human characteristics. No other species displays such understanding and empathy in human terms – sometimes at a level beyond our own comprehension.
But there is one further – and very important – reason for the affinity that many humans feel with dogs. We see in dogs many of the qualities that we most admire and appreciate. But when we meet them in humans, those qualities often come with baggage attached – as part, if you like, of a bargain where a quid pro quo must be offered.
With dogs, though, the loyalty, the sensitivity to our needs, the commitment, the pleasure they show when we appear after absence, the affection – yes, the love – are offered unconditionally. And they are offered to any one of us, not because we are wealthy or famous or successful, but because we and dogs treat each other as loyal and valued friends and then live that friendship on terms that suit us both.
They help us learn the rewards of showing love and kindness to, and the pleasure of thinking of and showing consideration for, another creature – lessons of huge benefit to children as they grow up. Human society would be better and more harmonious if we learned more from dogs.
Yes, as you will gather, I am quite keen on dogs, and on my own little Westie, Lachie, in particular. Our lives are the better for having him with us.
Bryan Gould
23 February 2017
Religious Fervour Can Be A Bad Guide
When Tony Blair first came to my attention, and I brought him on to the Front Bench as a promising young MP, he gave no sign of religious fervour. Like many others, therefore, I was surprised when he later revealed the strength of his religious beliefs, and the part they seem to have played in some of the more momentous decisions he took, not least over the decision to invade Iraq.
Some of his critics have claimed that his religious faith takes a particular form, in that he suffers a Messiah complex that impels him to see himself as the central figure in any great issue of the day. If that is so, then he seems to be at it again, with his announcement that he is prepared to offer himself as the saviour of the remain campaign, and ready to lead the lost tribes back to the EU’s promised land.
The immediate response to his easy assumption that his renewed intervention will prove decisive is to wonder why it should be any different this time. His persuasive skills seemed less than fully effective the first time round, during the referendum campaign; there were even those who feared that his endorsement of the remain campaign might actually have been counter-productive.
My purpose, however, is not to speculate as to whether or not there will be another round at some future date, and – if so – what part Tony Blair might play in it, but rather, to point up an impact he is sure to have on the critical situation faced by the British people right here and now.
As we are constantly told, the Brexit vote will require a prolonged and difficult negotiation between the UK and our former partners in the EU. Much will depend on the attitudes taken by the negotiators on either side as to whether Europe – whose fortunes are supposedly so dear to the hearts of so many remainers – will emerge in good order, with relations in good shape, and with a constructive future before it. Each party will nevertheless, no doubt, strive might and main in the search for an advantage.
In these respects, the stance of our European partners will matter just as much as our own and, on that score, the omens are not promising. The prevailing attitude of leading EU figures seems to be that the UK must be made to pay a price for our temerity in deciding our own future and that there will be no easy deal or constructive relationship as the former partners ride off separately into the sunset.
This attitude is usually explained and excused by its supporters as a necessary piece of self-protection, for fear that otherwise others might also be tempted to leave the club – so much for any thought that lessons might be learnt so that the future health of European cooperation might take priority over the immediate and particular requirements of the cabal that currently runs the EU.
But what this certainly means is that the EU negotiators will be looking intently for anything that could be exploited in the negotiations – for any weakening of the British position or any lessening of their resolve. Any suggestion from within the UK that the Brexit decision might be reversed or that opinion is moving in favour of remain will be meat and drink to those engaged, from the other side of the table, in trying to nail us to the worst possible deal.
Never mind that the polls seem to suggest that any movement in opinion since the referendum has been to confirm the Brexit decision. When a former Prime Minister proclaims his readiness to lead an uprising in favour of reversing Brexit, the EU negotiators are bound to sit up and take notice and to redouble their efforts.
There is, in other words, an unfortunate shared interest between the EU at the negotiating table and the remainers at home. Both want the UK to end up with a bad deal, both pour encourager les autres in Europe, on the one hand, and to persuade British voters to re-consider on the other. The sad truth for remainers is that some of their leading champions are not only campaigning to negate a democratic decision at home but are acting against our national interests in a crucial negotiation abroad.
It is in that precise context that Tony Blair’s intervention should be seen. Whether deliberately or carelessly, he seems happy to give comfort to those who would do us down, and to increase the chances that the UK and the EU will part on bad terms, following a bad-tempered negotiation, and to their common disadvantage.
Religious fervour can be a dangerous and uncaring guide and taskmaster. When our self-proclaimed leaders take sides, it’s good to know whose side they are on.
Bryan Gould
20 February 2017.
Does the Rule of Law Matter?
Most people in Western countries, one would like to think, see great value in the democracy they enjoy. Rather fewer, perhaps, attach similar importance to the rule of law under which they live.
Yet the rule of law is a central element of the ordered, yet free, society which we have succeeded in creating. It is the rule of law that ensures that government is not able to exercise arbitrary power, but is subject to the same legal checks and balances as apply to the rest of us.
It was the great Chief Justice, Sir Edward Coke, who established early in the seventeenth century the fundamental principle that “no man – not even the King – is above the law”. At that time, the King was – or at least saw himself as -the government, and was determined that his supposedly divine right to rule could not be limited by any other body – neither parliament nor the courts.
Coke’s great principle is still alive today. Governments will still try from time to time to behave as autocrats – and indeed, they find it easier in some ways to do so than did Charles the First. This is because, in a modern parliamentary democracy, governments are often able to rely on their parliamentary majority to carry the day – and they therefore behave as though they can take parliament for granted, which often they can. A compliant parliament can allow the executive, in other words, a virtually free hand.
Step up the courts. It is the courts that will ensure that governments, even if they have command of parliament, cannot step over the mark. The courts have developed a range of remedies available to the ordinary citizen when governments behave in an arbitrary fashion. One of the earliest such remedies was the ancient writ of habeas corpus which required “government” or “officials” in whatever guise to give up “the body” – that is, to release a person who was being held illegally.
Since then, a whole body of law, known as administrative law, has been developed to rein in public authorities that exceed their legal authority; I had the great pleasure, as an Oxford law don many years ago, of making a small contribution to its development.
It is this body of law that ensures that a government minister who makes a decision affecting private rights will find his decision struck down if it is biased, or he suits only his own interests or fails to listen fairly to all sides, or he takes account of irrelevant factors or ignores relevant factors, or he behaves or decides unreasonably, or he makes a legal error, or exceeds the powers he can lawfully exercise.
The courts stand ready, at the request of an individual citizen, to conduct what is called a “judicial review” of decisions that might be vitiated by any of these errors and to make sure that governments cannot simply say “we are the government – we can do what we like.”
The “rule of law” is sometimes attacked by those who resent being constrained by the law of the land. But it is the courts that stand as a bulwark between arbitrary power and the ordinary citizen and that guarantee to each one of us equality before the law.
Does any of this matter any more? Yes, of course it does, and even more so in modern times when the power of government reaches into every aspect of our lives. And we have just seen a striking current example, not here in New Zealand, but in the United States.
The new US President is obviously no constitutional lawyer. He appeared to believe that, as President, he enjoyed supreme power – a modern Charles the First! When the courts declared that, in banning entry to citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries, he had exceeded his powers and had discriminated against people on unacceptable grounds, he was outraged, and attacked the courts as a whole for “usurping power”.
He appeared unaware that the law is not made merely on his say-so. Much as he seemed to relish, with the cameras on him, the act of signing his “executive orders”, they must be made in a proper exercise of his legal powers. If a would-be autocrat tries to exercise powers he does not have, it is in the interests of every citizen that he should be struck down. We can all rest more easily under the rule of law.
Bryan Gould
14 February 2017.
Why Not Try “Bubble Up”?
Thomas Picketty is a French economist who recently took the economics world by storm. He demonstrated that, in a modern, “free-market” economy, growing inequality is inevitable, unless we do something deliberately to counteract it.
Picketty shows that, over hundreds of years and in technologically advanced economies in particular, the return on capital will always rise faster than the growth rate in the economy as a whole. The rich, in other words, will inevitably get richer, while the rest of us get comparatively poorer – and sometimes absolutely poorer as well.
It was only in exceptional times – for instance, in the period immediately after the Second World War – that we were able to buck this otherwise inexorable trend, and that was only because we elected governments that were inspired by post-war optimism to make a fresh start – to try consciously to create better and fairer societies, and to include everyone in what was hoped would be better times.
But, in New Zealand and the UK and in most of the western world, the long-term trend is now back. The gap between rich and poor is widening again, and more rapidly, and – in the absence of governments willing to do much about it – it will go on getting worse.
We are constantly urged by the wealthy, and by politicians representing their interests, to accept that it is good for all of us that the rich should go on getting richer. Wealth at the top will, we are told, “trickle down” to benefit the rest of us. This, it is argued, is the mainspring of economic growth; if we interfere, then the economy as a whole will slow down and we will all be worse off.
The “trickle down” theory enjoyed a considerable vogue for a time, and it has certainly been given an extended trial period. But the results have confirmed the doubts of the sceptics. Gravity, as an economic driver, doesn’t seem to have worked too well.
Not only have the poorer sectors of society continued to miss out on the prosperity enjoyed by the better-off, but the economies which have most assiduously applied the theory have done worse in economic terms than those (in Scandinavian countries, for example) which have consciously tried to maintain a reasonable degree of wealth and income equality.
The reasons for this are not hard to find. If most new wealth ends up in the hands of those who are already wealthy, (which is exactly what has happened in much of the post-war world), it is odds on that much of it will be hoarded or used to produce an unearned income or spent on conspicuous and non-productive consumption.
To the extent that it goes into productive investment, it will be spent on new capital equipment, which does little for the jobs and wage rates on which the poor depend but simply extends the income-maximising advantage enjoyed by the wealthy.
It has always seemed to me that the metaphor that envisages money as a liquid that “flows” or “trickles” downwards is a misconception of what really happens. Rather than hoping to see money automatically “trickle down” from the wealthy, in the vain hope that it will somehow reach those who need it, it is surely better to direct money quite consciously into the hands of the poor where it can do most good and so that it can “bubble up”.
It will then benefit us all since we can be very confident that every dollar in the hands of those with little money to spare will be spent and will do much to alleviate poverty. Every cent will then bubble up through the whole economy, like yeast in dough, passing through one set of hands after another, the increased purchasing power and demand providing higher incomes to tradesmen, small shopkeepers and businesses, and in turn leading, as the great John Maynard Keynes argued, to increased economic activity and to more employment and investment.
We pay a heavy price for failed “trickle down” policies – not only a poorer economy, but a weaker and less integrated society as well. Why not give “bubble up” a chance to build a stronger economy and a healthier and happier society?
Bryan Gould
4 February 2017
Who’s for Paella?
Amidst all the wailing and tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth on the part of those who bemoan the UK’s decision to set its own course with Brexit, how many of those who regret the apparent breach with “Europe” have paused to consider the real identity of the “Europe” they seem to hold so dear?
To hear the way they tell it, the “Europe” they long for and feel such affinity with is the fons et origo of all that is good about our culture and civilisation. “Outside” this “Europe”, we will apparently be cut off from, and disqualified from enjoying, European food, art, music, literature and architecture – no more than a few lonely offshore islands, devoid of anything approaching European culture and unable to claim to have contributed anything to it.
I recall seeing during the referendum campaign a Facebook posting, from an emotional remainer, of an attractive picture of a paella, with the caption “And they say we should leave Europe!” Oh, the sophistication of the argument! No wonder mere plebs had trouble following it.
The truth is, of course, that British involvement in Europe has been with us for centuries – a multi-way traffic of great value to all parties, a continuing contribution from all sides to the continuing warp and woof of the fabric of European civilisation, and of particular value at critical moments in our common history when British intervention has been especially significant. As part of that Europe, Britain is not about to leave and British involvement is unlikely to cease any time soon.
The “Europe” whose loss so many appear to fear is not, in other words, the Europe of which we have been a part for centuries, but the European Union or EU – a quite different animal that is merely an economic arrangement, originally framed on the basis of a Franco-German deal to put together a Common Agricultural Policy to suit inefficient French agriculture and free trade in manufactures to suit efficient German industry. This different animal has unfortunately grown to display an increasingly mangy appearance.
Yes, it is true that the original impetus towards what became the European Union was the noble and commendable aim of saving Europe from yet another re-run of the German attempt to dominate the continent by military force. But so self-congratulatory has been the legend created around this deal that it is virtually no longer possible to identify or even remark upon what has been the actual, and unfortunate, outcome. The “European ideal” precludes, it seems, a discussion of anything so indelicate.
When the Second World War ended, the victors were determined to avoid the mistakes made after the First World War, and went to great lengths to welcome Germany back into the comity of civilised nations; and they eventually went further, by ensuring that the divided nation was reunited so that the full weight of a united Germany’s economic success could be brought to bear.
The deal the Germans were offered under the EU was that they should restrain themselves from future adventures on the condition that they would be free to exert such economic power as they could muster. The Germans magnanimously accepted the arrangement.
We need speculate for only a moment as to the different Europe we would all now live in if victors and vanquished had swapped identities. Fortunately for us, it was the far-sighted victors of 1945 who ensured that, with the exception of regrettable episodes of great violence and cruelty, as in the Balkans, Europe has enjoyed substantial peace and prosperity in the post-war period.
The outcome of their efforts, however, has not been quite what they had presumably foreseen or intended – a Europe at ease with itself. Instead, they have brought about a thorough-going German hegemony – a greater German economy calling the economic shots across Europe – without a shot being fired.
No student of today’s European Union could or should fail to notice the German domination of the European polity. Some – like the Greeks and other weaker economies – have had particularly good reason to take note.
It is German economic dominance that dictates policy to EU countries and institutions – and, for the Greeks, the consequences have been disastrous.
Encouraged by the apparent security of euro membership to borrow, the Greeks found themselves unable to repay when the debts were called in. Successive bail-outs have allowed them to ward off forced departure from the euro zone and bankruptcy, but the savage cuts demanded by the creditors have created emergency levels of poverty and unemployment and have so weakened and reduced the size of the Greek economy as to make it impossible for them to service or repay the borrowings.
The usual remedy of devaluation for such a plight is simply not available to the Greeks, for as long as they are part of the euro – and the masters of the euro are determined to allow no backsliding. All potential escape routes are closed, and the Greeks have been hung out to dry.
The Germans accept no responsibility for their initial eagerness to lend and they continue to rack up huge trade surpluses which by definition must be matched by deficits on the part of smaller and less developed economies. But the Germans insist that there can be no debt relief.
The only options offered the Greeks are further “structural reforms” – a euphemism for “free-market” measures designed to increase privatisation and provide opportunities to bargain-hunters – and further reductions in social costs such as pensions which have already been cruelly slashed below survival level.
The “Europe” in which Greece – and other weaker economies, especially in Eastern Europe – find themselves struggling to survive is the same “Europe” as we are invited to lament. It is a Europe prepared to inflict the most draconian of austerity measures on some of its most defenceless citizens, in the interests of a pitiless application of financial orthodoxy and at the behest of its dominant economic power whose self-defined interests are given priority over all else.
Perhaps it’s time we cast off our rose-tinted spectacles. Let’s just enjoy the paella.
Bryan Gould
7 February 2017