When Republican senators put their own interests and those of their party ahead of those of the country and voted to acquit Donald Trump on his impeachment charges, they convinced the President that he was bullet-proof and could not be touched.

Newly emboldened by his acquittal, Trump has now proceeded to defy one of the basic rules of a constitutional democracy and of a free country. That basic rule is a principle established centuries ago by English patriots who defied the claim that kings had a divine right to rule – and were supported by one of the greatest of English judges, Chief Justice Coke, who proclaimed that no man, “be he ever so mighty”, is above the law.

Trump, however, post-impeachment; has not bothered wth nice questions as to whether he is above or subject to the law. He says instead “I am the law” – and he has proceeded to act on that claim by interfering in court cases involving his associates so as to acquit them and pardon them for wrongdoing.

His Republican supporters seem unconcerned at a claim that in most countries would be recognised for what it is – the foundation stone of an embryonic dictatorship. Trump’s claim to be able to make the law, without reference to the legislature or the judiciary, is a first (and major) step towards the exercise of unbridled power – and he has backed that up with a range of further claims and actions that have no place in a proper democracy.

In case his claim to “be the law” is challenged and rebutted, he has systematically stacked the judiciary (including the Supreme Court) with his own nominees. And he has pursued a number of other steps that are reminiscent of Hitler’s Germany.

He has used as a political weapon a series of mass rallies at which he rouses his audience to chant slogans aimed at his opponents, and takes the opportunity to attack those who are “different” in colour, ethnicity, origin and political opinion.

He has pursued a long campaign of denigrating and badmouthing the media , and their role as a bastion of democracy, encouraging his followers to think that they are being lied to, and that only he can be relied upon to “tell it like it is” – all this, presumably, in an attempt to escape and circumvent the scrutiny of a free press.

He continues to remove from office those public servants who fail to deliver the kind of unquestioning support he demands from them. His aim seems to be a body of public servants whose loyalty is to him personally rather than to the country as a whole or to the constitution.

He has made no secret of his wish to establish a dynasty – following in the footsteps no doubt of the Kim dynasty in North Korea which he seems greatly to admire – and it would come as no surprise if he were to attempt, if elected for a second term, to change the rules in due course that would limit his ability to seek a third term.

It might seem fanciful to detect an emerging dictatorship in the world’s greatest democracy, but we should recall that there was a similar reaction to the emergence of Hitler in 1930s Germany – and we should not forget that Hitler came to power by virtue of an election victory.

It is hard to believe that the great American public could be so ignorant, unconcerned and lacking in self-respect as to allow the same thing to happen in their own country. But the “unthinkable” only happens if we don’t think about it.

The price of freedom is “eternal vigilance”. Dictatorships do not always come about by virtue of a coup or force of arms. They can emerge much more easily as a result of a series of small steps, small erosions of the safeguards that define our freedom and democracy, and that are not seen for what they are until it is too late.

All that is now missing in the US is that the forces of law and order are also bent to the President’s will. What odds against the establishment of a Trumpian secret police force?

Bryan Gould

1. March 2020

I was struck the other day by a news report about the floods and storms in the UK. Some of those whose homes had been flooded were interviewed; they complained bitterly that the government had done nothing to prevent the disaster or to help them in its aftermath.

What struck me about the report was the immediate assumption on the part of ordinary citizens that they were entitled to expect “the government” to “do something” about the effects of natural disasters and to complain if remedial action was not forthcoming.

We live in an era when, because of climate change, natural disasters are likely to come thick and fast. There will be some instances, such as the Australian bushfires, when governments are justifiably put in the dock because of their failure to foresee that their policies are likely to increase the chances of damage to people, animals and property.

But, in most cases, natural disasters come out of the blue. In New Zealand, we have had our fair share of floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions, and we have, on the whole, recognised that, while governments certainly have a role in helping people to recover from the worst effects, they cannot be held responsible for their occurrence.

“Natural” disasters are, by definition, forces of nature, and governments are merely human agencies. They should certainly be expected to mitigate the consequences of natural disasters but they have no ability to wish them away.

We now know that the category of natural disasters is not limited to weather events. The advent of the coronavirus outbreak teaches us that the definition of natural disasters now includes the spread of dangerous viruses.

We can all sympathise with those caught up in the consequences of the outbreak. Those Kiwis who found themselves in Wuhan at the time of the outbreak, and those who were unlucky enough to find themselves on the cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, in Yokohama, quite naturally turned to their government to bail them out of their dangerous and difficult plight, and get them home to safety.

It has to be said that our government stepped up to the plate pretty effectively. They were able to organise a flight out of Wuhan back to New Zealand, and they had the generosity and foresight to find seats for Australians and Pacific Islanders as well.

That foresight paid off when it came to planning a rescue for those imprisoned on the Diamond Princess. The Kiwis anxious to escape their plight were able to cadge a lift on an Australian flight out of Japan when the Aussies decided to return the favour.

Those rescued will still have to endure a further period of quarantine, but that is clearly needed, and justified in the public interest, given the level of infection that had arisen on board the cruise ship. On the whole, the issue has so far been handled by the government with good sense and to good effect.

The economic effects of the crisis are less easily counteracted. Particular areas of economic activity, such as tertiary education, forestry and tourism, will clearly take a hit, but the government is already considering special measures to help them – and there is little to be done to withstand the overall impact on the economy of the blow delivered by the virus to international trade and movement.

We can, however, and sadly, still expect to hear voices raised to echo the complaints of the victims of the UK floods. The government, we will be told, “has not done enough” or has acted “too late”.

A mature democracy should have learned by now, though, that – in an era when natural disasters are likely to become the norm – governments do not have a magic wand. We should adjust our expectations accordingly. We can expect them to be efficient and sympathetic in mitigating the adverse consequences, we can hope that they will usher in improved policies designed to minimise the risks of further disasters, but we have to accept that, human as – like us – they are, their power to negate natural disasters when they happen is strictly limited.

Bryan Gould
18 February 2020

Over recent months, I have, for my sins, been thinking about, and trying to write, a book that is intended to answer the question of how we might arrive at a system of values that would guide us as to how we should treat each other.

My tentative conclusion so far is that, in conducting such an inquiry, and in the absence of any external authority telling us what to do, we should draw on our own reasoning ability, our own accumulated knowledge as to how our world works, and our own experience as to what is most likely to provide us, as individuals, with fulfilling lives, and to give us – as a society and as a species – the best chance of survival.

There are many sources of experience and inspiration that might help us in such a quest and that will allow us to identify those behaviours that we can approve and that will make us feel better. One such experience, and one that many of us will have shared, is the experience of having a pet.

My wife and I have long been dog-lovers. Our little West Highland White Terrier, Brodie, has now been with us for a year – and he has been a major influence on, and factor in, our lives over that period.

He was born on a farm, and into a family with small children. He was, accordingly, cosseted and fussed from the moment he was born, and grew up to expect that he would be well treated.

It is that early experience of being loved and cherished that explains, we think, his sweet temperament – and, in the whole of his life so far, he has continued to experience nothing but love and kindness.

As a result, he likes everybody, and expects that everybody will like him. He approaches everyone with a wagging tail, and everyone responds to him with pleasure and warmth. He has created a self-fulfilling virtuous circle for himself – because he has been kindly treated, and expects to be so, he responds to people with pleasure and affection, and when people recognise that this is what he expects in return, they respond accordingly.

My wife and I are the beneficiaries of this virtuous circle. We are rewarded with the constant pleasure and enjoyment of our little dog’s companionship, affection and eagerness to please. He has repaid us many times over for the care we lavish on him.

As I reflect on this interaction with our dear little friend and companion, I cannot help but wonder whether it could form a kind of blueprint for our relationships more generally. If we can establish such a mutually beneficial interaction with another sentient (though, in this case, non-human) being, why could those behaviours not be similarly rewarding when applied to inter-human contacts?

We all know and recognise the pleasure that acts of kindness can bring us – when we receive kindness, offer it ourselves to others and observe it in others. And it is not just as individuals that we derive these benefits; the society in which we live and of which we are a part is also healthier, and functions better and more harmoniously – and our chances of survival as a species are also enhanced, as are those of our planet.

It may be that I am, in setting up our little dog as an exemplar of good behaviour, asking Brodie to bear too heavy a burden. Perhaps it would be better to leave him in his own happy little world. But why should we humans be so arrogant as to assume that we can learn nothing from other species? And why should we be reluctant to conclude that love, affection and kindness, wherever they may be found, are the building blocks of a society that functions well and that allows us all to make the most of our lives?

Bryan Gould
11 February 2020

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In the midst of the blanket news coverage of the coronavirus outbreak, how many people registered the news report that the Chinese government had taken action to counteract the adverse effects of the outbreak on the Chinese economy?

The report was to the effect that the Chinese government was to inject around $170 billion of new money into the economy, so as to provide a stimulus that would help to offset the slump in economic activity brought about by the virus outbreak.

And how many people would have wondered, on hearing this news, how the Chinese government could find such a large volume of new money. Was it, up to that point, just lying around doing nothing? Or did they borrow it from somewhere? Or did they sell off assets in order to produce the cash?

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The answer is that they did none of those things. The Chinese understand very well that, as a sovereign country with their own currency, their government is able to produce money at any time in whatever quantity and for whatever purpose they like. They understand that the one thing that a modern country should never be short of is money. They understand that, as a modern western economist has recently said, “we can afford whatever we can do”. They realised that money is their servant, not their master.

This, after all, is how the Chinese are able so often to buy up foreign assets, including New Zealand assets, whenever they wish. When New Zealand enterprises languish for lack of capital, they can be easily picked off by a Chinese purchaser, usually government owned or backed, and able to raise new money by a stroke of the pen.

The Chinese are not alone in realising that they need never be short of money, provided their government is ready and willing to create the money that is needed. The Japanese have followed a similar strategy and used it to transform a war-torn and shattered Japanese postwar economy into a manufacturing powerhouse.

It is tempting to say that we, in the western world more generally and in New Zealand in particular, have never been clever or brave enough to follow suit – but that is not quite true. In the Depression years before the Second World War, the Labour government headed by Michael Joseph Savage used exactly this technique to finance and build thousands of state houses.

The result? The government found itself, as the owner of the new houses, sitting on a major new income-producing asset. Thousands of construction workers had jobs they wouldn’t otherwise have had, and wage packets that enabled them to buy goods produced by other Kiwis, while yet others were able to settle into affordable homes for the first time – and New Zealand escaped the Depression in better shape than virtually any other country.

Sadly, the lesson learnt then has long been forgotten, and we have found ourselves taken over by the timid and the ignorant, convinced by orthodoxy to the effect that “printing money” must always be a bad thing – and this in a world where the banks are allowed a monopoly on creating money out of thin air and when governments have used “quantitative easing” (just a fancy way of saying “printing money”) to bail out the banks when they behaved irresponsibly and produced the Global Financial Crisis.

But, while we might wait in vain for a New Zealand government to learn this simple lesson, hats off to the Chinese, who have not been held back by stultifying orthodoxy and who have taken effective action to ensure that the coronavirus does not ruin their economy as well as the health of their people.

If only we had politicians with similar vision and ability to think for themselves.

Bryan Gould

5 February 2020

For the Polly Toynbees of this world, the battle continues, though quite what victory might look like for them is not clear. We can only assume that, having done all they could, as the exit process took place, to predict Brexit doom, they are now pulling out the stops to try to ensure that their predictions are validated and justified.

Now that the UK is no longer a member of the EU, they have changed their focus. They now profess to see a myriad of obstacles standing in the way of a sensible and mutually beneficial trading arrangement between the EU and a newly independent UK. So, both British remainers and EU leaders to some extent, prepare to “cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war”.

What they do not seem to have grasped is that the bargaining position of the parties has changed fundamentally in light of the British departure. The UK and the EU are both now sovereign entities; whatever the obligations that might have been owed by one to another in an earlier relationship are now consigned to history.

The UK is fully able and entitled to approach negotiations on a new trade deal, unencumbered by any concern for customs unions and single markets or any other EU preoccupation. And the EU, as would be the case in a negotiation with any other sovereign country, has no power to insist that acceptance of the rules enjoined by either or both a single market and a customs union, is the pre-condition of a trade agreement.

The extent to which such preoccupations are implicit in the EU negotiating position is a matter for the parties to decide once the negotiations are under way, but they cannot be treated ab initio as an immutable feature of the negotiating landscape, as some seem to favour. The UK is no longer subject to the obligations of EU membership – that was the whole point of Brexit.

It would be a major departure from normal practice if a trading partner were required by the EU, as part of the deal, to comply with EU domestic laws – not only existing laws but laws made in the future as well – that would dictate to that trading partner what it could or could not do in matters of its own domestic economic and industrial policy.

If any such an ambition lurks in the EU negotiating position, then the EU should get over themselves. They no longer hold the trump cards; the UK is no longer subject to their jurisdiction. The EU have no choice but to enter the negotiations as anyone else would do – seeking the best possible and most beneficial trade outcomes for themselves, and using such cards as they hold in order to secure that outcome.

They are, in other words, in no different a situation from that of the UK. Like the EU, the British have no power to lay down compliance with their domestic laws as the pre-condition of a trade deal. The extent to which the British might comply with any specific EU preferences is a matter for negotiations yet to be held.

There is one other sense in which the situation has changed fundamentally. The British are no longer demandeurs or supplicants. They enter the negotiations like any other negotiator, and like the EU, eager to protect and further their own interests and to arrive at a deal that suits all parties.

There seems to be no reason why negotiations entered into on this basis should not produce an outcome that is acceptable to everyone.

Bryan Gould
4 February 2020