One of the many intriguing aspects of Captain Cook's personality, as portrayed by AN Wilson in his novel Resolution, is the detailed attention the great explorer gives to preventing scurvy on his ships. Cook is also pictured as a leader who, when he can, (and quite often there are long periods of food shortage while away from land for weeks at a time), ensures that those under his command have opportunities to enjoy celebratory meals, even when in very remote places.
Fortunately, Wilson does not merely tell us in vague terms about these meals but describes them fairly thoroughly, which means, hurray, that there is quite a lot about food in the book. Here are the highlights:
1. At one point those aboard are treated to
"mussels, with wild celery which grew abundantly on the rocks".
2. On another occasion, there is a:
"late supper of roasted chicken, sweet potatoes, followed by a banana duff laced with one of Pattinson’s very finest egg custards, [which] put most of the human beings on board in a very good humour."
3. Slightly less tempting, to my mind, on another occasion some of those aboard enjoy:
"a fine dinner of roast albatross and Saur Kraut at the Captain’s table, after which they all toasted him in the excellent brandy which had been brought aboard at the Cape. Returning to their cabins they reeled – unsure how much this was owing to the swell, and how much to the Captain’s good Cognac. A kind of dew settled on everything."
4. Later, the entire ship is treated to a slap up meal, although rather largely of the liquid variety:
"There was plenty of rum for all of them. One of the hogs which he had been taking to breed in New Zealand was roasted. His own cabin was crammed with the gentlemen, and as many officers and petty officers as could be squeezed in, the others eating as usual in the gun-room. They drank Madeira, claret, brandy and rum. From below decks where the men were enjoying rum came the roar of song. Although there was the slightest of swells, everyone to be seen on deck swayed from side to side as if in a typhoon."
Intriguingly, the meals described in the book are all shipboard, even though a large part of the novel is set on dry land. This may simply serve to highlight how much more memorable meals are in situations where you don't get them very often. In any case, as a lover of food in literature, I appreciate the detail given of these various feasts.
Friday, 6 April 2018
Thursday, 5 April 2018
Book 7, 2018 - Resolution by AN Wilson
Resolution is a kind of reimagining, rather than a straight out piece of fiction - AN Wilson himself admits "I have not invented very much in this novel". The book tells the story of George Forster (1754-94), who accompanied James Cook on his second voyage to the Pacific and whose drawings from that time are still held in the British Museum. I suppose Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower is an analogous kind of work, in its form.
In theory, I don't like such novels - despite my love of Fitzgerald, I admire rather than warm to her effort in the genre, even though it is widely considered her greatest book. However, AN Wilson's entry in the field won me, despite initial misgivings.
I have read a few other novels by the author and enjoyed them, but the tone of this one is far less flippant than his straight-out fictions. He also surprised me in this work with his beautiful descriptions of the natural world. Here are two examples, among many I could have chosen:
"By 24th February they had sailed past over a hundred icebergs, and found themselves, after some squally weather and heavy sleet, surrounded by vast floating islands, green and white, which towered over them, many times taller than the mainmast. The waves dashed and foamed against their icy walls creating glories of light, colour and movement no less stupendous than the Southern Lights in the heavens."
"The sea, from being iron-cold and life-destroying expanses of dark blue black, became a shook silk bedspread of vibrant green."
In addition, I particularly liked these lines about the wanton demolition of the cathedral at Arras, witnessed by Forster:
"Coloured glass cascaded outwards and the walls shook like rumpled blankets"
Much of the book is devoted to Forster's travels with Cook, and indeed the book's full - if very slightly misleading (since a great deal of the text covers Forster's life on dry land, even if it is always seen through the prism of his travels with Cook) - title is, "Resolution: a novel of Captain Cook's adventures of discovery to Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii, through the eyes of George Forster, the botanist on board his ship". Pleasingly, I think, Cook, "with his impeccable navigational instinct and skill" and "honest face", emerges from the account as a person of great integrity, despite the misjudgment that led him to his death, (I suspect the description of the events of that day given by Wilson in this novel is as good and accurate as anything in any book of non-fiction, and I found it very useful to get the story clear in my mind).
Wilson's portrayal of Cook is actually one of the pleasures of the book, and I was persuaded by Wilson's argument that, for his time, his motives were less reprehensible than most of his contemporaries:
"While other naval heroes had sought ships to fight, wars to win, Frenchies or Spaniards to cannonade into dark water, Cook was in pursuit of knowledge, his conquest would be a conquest of the future. Already, for the rest of the human race, the world was larger because of James Cook."
"Robespierre and Marat and their colleagues were intent upon ‘changing the world’ by ideas – by inventing new calendars and imposing upon the intractable nature of things their own version of the world. Cook, in every sense a humbler man, had been patient enough to discover the world as it is, and because of his discoveries he made the world a larger place for everybody. In the case of Cook, everything grew out of practical intelligence and empirical knowledge. He had chosen to explore in small sloops, which could hug coastlines – ideal for the cartographer – rather than the hulking warships recommended by the Royal Navy. He had paid attention to every small detail – for example, naval wisdom strengthened planks with copper plates to prevent woodworm, but copper deters fish, the essential source of food on a long trip. So, Cook did not use copper nails but iron nails with big heads. Within a few weeks of wet weather, rust spread over the lower part of the woodwork of the Resolution and the Adventure, just as effective against woodworm as copper. The man who discovered New Zealand and Australia was not a dreamer. It was the coal-haulier, the practical man who knew how to pack a ship. Every storeroom on the Resolution was crammed with things – he personally supervised the packing: Cook and the stevedores at Sheerness made the voyages possible. Once the voyages had been made, the world became larger – it had more lands in it, a greater variety of men and women, birds and animals and plants than had ever been known."
Cook also provides, in the novel, an ideal father figure for Forster, in contrast with the father he actually has. Wilson's portrayal of the relationship George Forster had with his actual father shows great psychological acuity and might give comfort to readers who suffer in similar kinds of relationships with parents:
"loving his father had been the tragedy of his life, not least because – a fact which dawned on him only when he had left Reinhold in England and, as a young academic, came to take up his post at Kassel University in ’78 – he did not very much like his father, perhaps never had. The fact was too shocking to admit, until he had been free of Reinhold, and to the end of his life George did not like to articulate the fact. If he did not like him, however, this was a minor detail, for from a time which pre-dated conscious memory, he had learnt to love Reinhold. It had skewed love for him. His idea of intimacy was with one he did not like, with one for whom, internally, allowances had perpetually to be made."
The book introduces numerous figures of the 18th century and brings them alive, along with one or two who never existed, most poignantly Nally. By the end, the reader has come a little closer to inhabiting the cold, damp, smelly world of those times and to understanding what the experience of a voyage of exploration may have been like:
"the everlastingness of the limitless sea, the timelessness of days adrift, the unutterable strangeness of being out of sight of land for weeks on end brought a calmness which made him dread the moment when land was descried"
In addition, he or she has been provided with some useful advice, such as this invaluable insight into the English nature:
"when an Englishman shrugs modestly and asks you not to mention it, he actually wants you not merely to mention it, but to gush, to set it to music" -
and some intriguing food for thought, such as this observation:
"Loneliness was sad but there was a comfort in loneliness" -
Above all, they will have discovered enough about George Forster and Captain Cook to feel some impetus to turn to the books those men themselves wrote, the titles of which AN Wilson helpfully lists at the novel's end.
I don't think I've done Resolution justice. Suffice to say, I think it deserves more acclaim than it has received to date.
In theory, I don't like such novels - despite my love of Fitzgerald, I admire rather than warm to her effort in the genre, even though it is widely considered her greatest book. However, AN Wilson's entry in the field won me, despite initial misgivings.
I have read a few other novels by the author and enjoyed them, but the tone of this one is far less flippant than his straight-out fictions. He also surprised me in this work with his beautiful descriptions of the natural world. Here are two examples, among many I could have chosen:
"By 24th February they had sailed past over a hundred icebergs, and found themselves, after some squally weather and heavy sleet, surrounded by vast floating islands, green and white, which towered over them, many times taller than the mainmast. The waves dashed and foamed against their icy walls creating glories of light, colour and movement no less stupendous than the Southern Lights in the heavens."
"The sea, from being iron-cold and life-destroying expanses of dark blue black, became a shook silk bedspread of vibrant green."
In addition, I particularly liked these lines about the wanton demolition of the cathedral at Arras, witnessed by Forster:
"Coloured glass cascaded outwards and the walls shook like rumpled blankets"
Much of the book is devoted to Forster's travels with Cook, and indeed the book's full - if very slightly misleading (since a great deal of the text covers Forster's life on dry land, even if it is always seen through the prism of his travels with Cook) - title is, "Resolution: a novel of Captain Cook's adventures of discovery to Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii, through the eyes of George Forster, the botanist on board his ship". Pleasingly, I think, Cook, "with his impeccable navigational instinct and skill" and "honest face", emerges from the account as a person of great integrity, despite the misjudgment that led him to his death, (I suspect the description of the events of that day given by Wilson in this novel is as good and accurate as anything in any book of non-fiction, and I found it very useful to get the story clear in my mind).
Wilson's portrayal of Cook is actually one of the pleasures of the book, and I was persuaded by Wilson's argument that, for his time, his motives were less reprehensible than most of his contemporaries:
"While other naval heroes had sought ships to fight, wars to win, Frenchies or Spaniards to cannonade into dark water, Cook was in pursuit of knowledge, his conquest would be a conquest of the future. Already, for the rest of the human race, the world was larger because of James Cook."
"Robespierre and Marat and their colleagues were intent upon ‘changing the world’ by ideas – by inventing new calendars and imposing upon the intractable nature of things their own version of the world. Cook, in every sense a humbler man, had been patient enough to discover the world as it is, and because of his discoveries he made the world a larger place for everybody. In the case of Cook, everything grew out of practical intelligence and empirical knowledge. He had chosen to explore in small sloops, which could hug coastlines – ideal for the cartographer – rather than the hulking warships recommended by the Royal Navy. He had paid attention to every small detail – for example, naval wisdom strengthened planks with copper plates to prevent woodworm, but copper deters fish, the essential source of food on a long trip. So, Cook did not use copper nails but iron nails with big heads. Within a few weeks of wet weather, rust spread over the lower part of the woodwork of the Resolution and the Adventure, just as effective against woodworm as copper. The man who discovered New Zealand and Australia was not a dreamer. It was the coal-haulier, the practical man who knew how to pack a ship. Every storeroom on the Resolution was crammed with things – he personally supervised the packing: Cook and the stevedores at Sheerness made the voyages possible. Once the voyages had been made, the world became larger – it had more lands in it, a greater variety of men and women, birds and animals and plants than had ever been known."
Cook also provides, in the novel, an ideal father figure for Forster, in contrast with the father he actually has. Wilson's portrayal of the relationship George Forster had with his actual father shows great psychological acuity and might give comfort to readers who suffer in similar kinds of relationships with parents:
"loving his father had been the tragedy of his life, not least because – a fact which dawned on him only when he had left Reinhold in England and, as a young academic, came to take up his post at Kassel University in ’78 – he did not very much like his father, perhaps never had. The fact was too shocking to admit, until he had been free of Reinhold, and to the end of his life George did not like to articulate the fact. If he did not like him, however, this was a minor detail, for from a time which pre-dated conscious memory, he had learnt to love Reinhold. It had skewed love for him. His idea of intimacy was with one he did not like, with one for whom, internally, allowances had perpetually to be made."
The book introduces numerous figures of the 18th century and brings them alive, along with one or two who never existed, most poignantly Nally. By the end, the reader has come a little closer to inhabiting the cold, damp, smelly world of those times and to understanding what the experience of a voyage of exploration may have been like:
"the everlastingness of the limitless sea, the timelessness of days adrift, the unutterable strangeness of being out of sight of land for weeks on end brought a calmness which made him dread the moment when land was descried"
In addition, he or she has been provided with some useful advice, such as this invaluable insight into the English nature:
"when an Englishman shrugs modestly and asks you not to mention it, he actually wants you not merely to mention it, but to gush, to set it to music" -
and some intriguing food for thought, such as this observation:
"Loneliness was sad but there was a comfort in loneliness" -
Above all, they will have discovered enough about George Forster and Captain Cook to feel some impetus to turn to the books those men themselves wrote, the titles of which AN Wilson helpfully lists at the novel's end.
I don't think I've done Resolution justice. Suffice to say, I think it deserves more acclaim than it has received to date.
Tuesday, 13 March 2018
Book 6, 2018 - A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
I have kept putting off writing about this extraordinary novel, because I wanted to do it justice. As I have no time, I can only recommend it very highly. It may offend modern sensibilities, not only because in the early part of the book, set in Jamaica, it refers to the indigenous people without much respect, but also because its main characters are children, and they are portrayed without sentimentality.
I have seldom read such an original book. It is beautifully written, the plot contains shocks, the imaginary protagonists are completely vivid and believable, and the author is wonderfully observant, with great powers of description, which he combines with insight and no illusion about humanity.
This book should be on any list of great twentieth century novels. It is strange and marvellous.
I have seldom read such an original book. It is beautifully written, the plot contains shocks, the imaginary protagonists are completely vivid and believable, and the author is wonderfully observant, with great powers of description, which he combines with insight and no illusion about humanity.
This book should be on any list of great twentieth century novels. It is strange and marvellous.
Sunday, 11 March 2018
Quantum Phrases
The other day I was reading about quantum physics and a theory within it that suggests that there are many parallel worlds all in existence at once; that, with minor variations, many lives are being lived by the same people. At first, my mind rejected the notion wholesale.
But then I remembered the process of writing - the way that you can produce multiple, parallel sentences, each expressing more or less the same sentiment, while varying very slightly from the others, and I had a dim insight into the possibility that there might be some truth lurking within these barely comprehensible ideas.
The best literary demonstration of the infinitely variable parallel sentence seems to me to be that provided by Camus in The Plague. One of his characters spends months on the first sentence of his own projected novel, providing variants each time he reappears in the text.
Here they are:
“One fine morning in the month of May an elegant young horsewoman might have been seen riding a handsome sorrel mare along the flowery avenues of the Bois de Boulogne.”
“One fine morning in May a slim young horsewoman might have been seen riding a handsome sorrel mare along the flower avenues of the Bois de Boulogne.”
“One fine morning in May, a slim young horsewoman might have been seen riding a glossy sorrel mare along the avenues of the Bois, among the flowers…”
Of course, these are only translations from French, the language Camus wrote in, which means that they are merely variations on variations.
But then I remembered the process of writing - the way that you can produce multiple, parallel sentences, each expressing more or less the same sentiment, while varying very slightly from the others, and I had a dim insight into the possibility that there might be some truth lurking within these barely comprehensible ideas.
The best literary demonstration of the infinitely variable parallel sentence seems to me to be that provided by Camus in The Plague. One of his characters spends months on the first sentence of his own projected novel, providing variants each time he reappears in the text.
Here they are:
“One fine morning in the month of May an elegant young horsewoman might have been seen riding a handsome sorrel mare along the flowery avenues of the Bois de Boulogne.”
“One fine morning in May a slim young horsewoman might have been seen riding a handsome sorrel mare along the flower avenues of the Bois de Boulogne.”
“One fine morning in May, a slim young horsewoman might have been seen riding a glossy sorrel mare along the avenues of the Bois, among the flowers…”
Of course, these are only translations from French, the language Camus wrote in, which means that they are merely variations on variations.
Monday, 26 February 2018
Guns in the Classroom
I love to see coincidences in perfectly ordinary events, so last night when I came across this passage in a story called Flight, part of John Updike's collection called Pigeon Feathers, I took it as a coincidence, given the talk about arming teachers that is going on just now.
I also took it, like almost everything else I read by Updike, as evidence of Updike's astonishing ability. I admire the way that he can take unexciting things and somehow make them worth attending to, observing so closely, describing so accurately that the scenes in his stories about small incidents in uncelebrated lives shine like bright gems. I admire the tenderness he bestows on his characters - and, indeed, his close attention to ordinary reality is a form of tenderness, when you think about.
The truth is, the more I read of Updike, the more I admire every one of his skills as a writer. He is so unshowy, and yet he takes your breath away. If you read nothing else, try Walter Briggs, the first story in Pigeon Feathers. It is puzzling, apparently a wisp of almost nothing, yet it is resonant and mysterious - in fact, for me at least it is a masterpiece.
Anyway back to the passage that I took to be a coincidence; it concerns the story's protagonist's parents and how, because of the Depression, they had to find jobs that didn't suit them particularly well:
My mother went to work in an Alton department store, selling inferior fabric for $14 a week. During the daytime of my first year of life it was my father who took care of me. He has said since, flattering me as he always does, that it was having me on his hands that kept him from going insane. It may have been this that has made my affection for him so inarticulate, as if I were still a wordless infant looking up into the mothering blur of his man's face. And that same shared year helps account, perhaps, for his gentleness with me, for his willingness to praise, as if everything I do has something sad and crippled in it. He feels sorry for me; my birth coincided with the birth of a great misery, a national misery - only recently has he stopped calling me by the nickname "Young America". Around my first birthday he acquired a position teaching arithmetic and algebra in the Olinger high school, and though he was so kind and humorous he couldn't enter a classroom without creating uproarious problems of discipline, he endured it day by day and year by year, and eventually came to occupy a place in this alien town, so that I believe there are now one or two dozen ex-students, men and women nearing middle age, who carry around with them some piece of encouragement my father gave them, or remember some sentence of his that helped shape them. Certainly there are many who remember the antics with which he burlesqued his discomfort in the classroom. He kept a confiscated cap pistol in his desk, and upon getting an especially stupid answer, he would take it out and, wearing a preoccupied, regretful expression, shoot himself in the head.
Whether or not it is a good thing, I doubt such behaviour would be tolerated nowadays - "inappropriate" would probably be the term used by the prosecution.
I also took it, like almost everything else I read by Updike, as evidence of Updike's astonishing ability. I admire the way that he can take unexciting things and somehow make them worth attending to, observing so closely, describing so accurately that the scenes in his stories about small incidents in uncelebrated lives shine like bright gems. I admire the tenderness he bestows on his characters - and, indeed, his close attention to ordinary reality is a form of tenderness, when you think about.
The truth is, the more I read of Updike, the more I admire every one of his skills as a writer. He is so unshowy, and yet he takes your breath away. If you read nothing else, try Walter Briggs, the first story in Pigeon Feathers. It is puzzling, apparently a wisp of almost nothing, yet it is resonant and mysterious - in fact, for me at least it is a masterpiece.
Anyway back to the passage that I took to be a coincidence; it concerns the story's protagonist's parents and how, because of the Depression, they had to find jobs that didn't suit them particularly well:
My mother went to work in an Alton department store, selling inferior fabric for $14 a week. During the daytime of my first year of life it was my father who took care of me. He has said since, flattering me as he always does, that it was having me on his hands that kept him from going insane. It may have been this that has made my affection for him so inarticulate, as if I were still a wordless infant looking up into the mothering blur of his man's face. And that same shared year helps account, perhaps, for his gentleness with me, for his willingness to praise, as if everything I do has something sad and crippled in it. He feels sorry for me; my birth coincided with the birth of a great misery, a national misery - only recently has he stopped calling me by the nickname "Young America". Around my first birthday he acquired a position teaching arithmetic and algebra in the Olinger high school, and though he was so kind and humorous he couldn't enter a classroom without creating uproarious problems of discipline, he endured it day by day and year by year, and eventually came to occupy a place in this alien town, so that I believe there are now one or two dozen ex-students, men and women nearing middle age, who carry around with them some piece of encouragement my father gave them, or remember some sentence of his that helped shape them. Certainly there are many who remember the antics with which he burlesqued his discomfort in the classroom. He kept a confiscated cap pistol in his desk, and upon getting an especially stupid answer, he would take it out and, wearing a preoccupied, regretful expression, shoot himself in the head.
Whether or not it is a good thing, I doubt such behaviour would be tolerated nowadays - "inappropriate" would probably be the term used by the prosecution.
Sunday, 25 February 2018
Book 5 - 2018 The Euro by Joseph Stiglitz
I read The Euro by Joseph Stiglitz because Gavin Hewitt's Lost Continent had made me so interested in the euro project that I wanted to find out more. As Stiglitz has a Nobel prize, I thought this would be a better book than Hewitt's, but it isn't. Stiglitz writes inelegantly; here are some examples of what I mean:
1. This first is such a badly written sentence that I cannot extract any meaning from it, but perhaps other readers may be able to:
They argued that there were important instances where when governments had contracted government spending, and the result was that the overall economy grew.
2. This one includes the odd usage "intended at", which I don't think is normal:
Some of the reforms seemed intended at increasing the likelihood that creditors would be repaid;
3. This one seems to be missing a preposition:
... necessary if there is to be a transfer of resources from the crisis countries to those that they owe money;
I could go on, but you probably get the picture.
As well, Stiglitz is too personally invested in what has happened in Greece to be persuasive in those sections devoted to that country's travails; one feels he is arguing for his friends rather than for reason.
What does make the book worthwhile though is the fact that, despite being a huge believer in the EU as a concept, Stiglitz regards the organisation and its various institutions as they operate now as undemocratic and far from benign, with Germany his choice as prime villain in the construction of this state of affairs. His view is that the euro has brought nothing but misery to many countries who signed up to it, mainly because they cannot use exchange rate adjustments as a budgetary mechanism when in trouble. One Stiglitz suggestion is that Germany, which he sees as fairly monstrous in its influence over euro policy, be removed from the eurozone. Not something that is going to happen any time soon, but an interesting idea.
I was also pleased to see him argue that the EU's approach to Brexit is as destructive to the EU as it hopes it will be to the UK:
"Anything the EU does to the UK to try to punish it would have an “equal and opposite effect,” hurting itself at least as much in the process."
and that those in the financial sector who argue they have to leave the UK after Brexit are wrong:
Some in the financial sector have argued that without the single market, without free migration between the UK and the EU, with different regulatory systems in the EU and the UK, they would have to leave London and relocate elsewhere in the EU. While there may be some relocation, the case that there would have to be massive shifts is unpersuasive.
He also states that he believes austerity rather than Brexit to be the real threat to European union:
...the unrelenting commitment to austerity by the European Commission will probably do more to encourage exits from the eurozone than anything the UK does.
Unlike many, Stiglitz also highlights Juncker's utter unsuitability for the job of head of the European Commission, given his role as:
"proud architect of Luxembourg's massive corporate tax avoidance schemes."
He also argues well that rather than having regulations that impose uniformity across all the nations of the European Union, it might be better to have disclosure, allowing the consumer to decide which standard of product they want:
...there is a much simpler solution than the hypothetical situation of requiring all ice cream to have a certain cream content: adequate disclosure of the cream content. Provide the relevant information, and let consumers make the choice for themselves. Car windscreens provide a slightly more complex example. It may be slightly cheaper to force all cars to have the same glass standard—but by a small margin
Stiglitz delineates well the utter unfairness of the way that Irish taxpayers have been treated within the eurozone:
The critical issue is this: the Troika was asking ordinary Irish citizens to pick up the tab for regulatory failures of the ECB and other regulatory authorities within the eurozone
The Irish people were unjustly forced to pay the price for others’ mistakes—a double injustice, because it was in effect a transfer of money from the poor to the rich. But Trichet -
[Stiglitz reserves particular contempt for Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank from 2003-11, going so far as to comment thus at one point: Trichet will be remembered for his colossal misjudgments,] -
knew where he stood: he was an ally of the bankers against ordinary workers, constantly demanding wage cuts that would lower their standards of living.
He never forgets the appalling way in which banks and other corporations were not required to pay for the financial mess they made, getting off scot-free while the unsuspecting general population had to pay off their debts:
In the 2008 crisis, hundreds of billions of dollars were effectively given (or lent at below-market interest rates) by central banks in the advanced countries to commercial banks, in the most massive government-assistance program to the private sector ever conceived. This program of corporate welfare for the suffering banks was greater by an order of magnitude than any welfare program constructed by any government to alleviate the suffering of ordinary individuals
nor the amorality of the actions of the banks themselves, aided and abetted by bad government:
The real moral hazard problem arises for banks, who have an incentive to induce countries to borrow excessively, knowing that current politicians benefit from the increased spending and future politicians pay the price.
He produces some alarming facts, among them this:
In virtually every country in the eurozone there has been an increase in poverty, especially childhood poverty
and also some infuriating ones (well, the whole subject is infuriating really):
.. the Troika demanded that Greek firms, including mom-and-pop operations, pay all of their taxes ahead of time, at the beginning of the year, before they have earned any money and before
Of the total lent to Greece, less than 10 percent ever got to the Greek people. The rest went to pay back creditors, including German and French banks.
and repeatedly highlights what he calls a "democratic deficit" at the heart of the euro project:
In each [eurocrisis] country, the newly elected government was told in effect that they had no choice: accept the conditions or your banking system will be destroyed, your economy will be devastated, and you will have to leave the euro. What does it mean to be a democracy, where the citizens seemingly have no say over the issues about which they care the most, or the way their economy is run? This democratic deficit destroys confidence in democratic processes—and encourages the growth of extremist parties that promise an alternative.
The growing democratic deficit is seen most obviously in the fact that when given the opportunity, the countries of Europe have repeatedly rejected the policies being imposed on them.
The problem is that Germany has used its economic dominance to impose its own views, and those views are not only rejected by large parts of the eurozone but also by the majority of economists. The problems were collectively created. The only solution is a collective solution. The reforms are based on different economic understandings
and mounts a strong case for the idea that the actual way the eurozone is structured is at the heart of the zone's problems:
There simply isn’t enough flexibility within the eurozone, as currently constituted, for the eurozone to work for the weakest.
Since adjustments in interest rates and exchange rates are among the most important ways that economies adjust to maintain full employment, the formation of the euro took away two of the most important instruments for ensuring that.
Not only did those countries signing up to the eurozone not fully realize the consequences of borrowing in a currency out of one’s control, they also didn’t realize the implications for their national sovereignty: a transfer of power had occurred that could be—and was—abused. When lenders wouldn’t lend to, say, Spain, the only recourse the country had was to turn to their partners in the eurozone, to get money through the European Central Bank or through some other mechanism. It was a fateful development.
While he states that:
The euro created the euro crisis
he also explains that the way in which the ECB was established has constrained it from being a force for good:
While other central banks, most notably the US Federal Reserve, have reformed, focusing much more on unemployment and the stability of the financial market—and even beginning to talk about how their policies affect inequality—the ECB’s mandate is limited by the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 to a single-minded focus on inflation. The deeper problem of the ECB is the absence of democratic accountability.
The result of the ECB’s focus on inflation is that growth and stability are lower than they otherwise would have been —ironic, since the alleged purpose of the economic framework of the eurozone was to promote growth and stability.
The ECB had become Europe’s sledgehammer, the tool by which Greece was forced to accede to what the Troika wanted.
While what he says about Brexit and the best possible outcome from it is probably true, I doubt very much whether it is the outcome the EU will manage to come up with:
The best outcome of the Brexit referendum would be that it acts as a wake-up call to the EU’s leaders: unless they make the EU more democratic, more democratically accountable, and more economically successful, the likelihood of further integration, political or economic, could be nil; the forces for disintegration will only mount.
So all in all the story is fairly grim - and there isn't much glimmer of hope on the horizon, at least not from either Hewitt's or Stiglitz's perspective. I am now thoroughly convinced that, for all its convenience for travellers, the euro is a very bad thing.
.
1. This first is such a badly written sentence that I cannot extract any meaning from it, but perhaps other readers may be able to:
They argued that there were important instances where when governments had contracted government spending, and the result was that the overall economy grew.
2. This one includes the odd usage "intended at", which I don't think is normal:
Some of the reforms seemed intended at increasing the likelihood that creditors would be repaid;
3. This one seems to be missing a preposition:
... necessary if there is to be a transfer of resources from the crisis countries to those that they owe money;
I could go on, but you probably get the picture.
As well, Stiglitz is too personally invested in what has happened in Greece to be persuasive in those sections devoted to that country's travails; one feels he is arguing for his friends rather than for reason.
What does make the book worthwhile though is the fact that, despite being a huge believer in the EU as a concept, Stiglitz regards the organisation and its various institutions as they operate now as undemocratic and far from benign, with Germany his choice as prime villain in the construction of this state of affairs. His view is that the euro has brought nothing but misery to many countries who signed up to it, mainly because they cannot use exchange rate adjustments as a budgetary mechanism when in trouble. One Stiglitz suggestion is that Germany, which he sees as fairly monstrous in its influence over euro policy, be removed from the eurozone. Not something that is going to happen any time soon, but an interesting idea.
I was also pleased to see him argue that the EU's approach to Brexit is as destructive to the EU as it hopes it will be to the UK:
"Anything the EU does to the UK to try to punish it would have an “equal and opposite effect,” hurting itself at least as much in the process."
and that those in the financial sector who argue they have to leave the UK after Brexit are wrong:
Some in the financial sector have argued that without the single market, without free migration between the UK and the EU, with different regulatory systems in the EU and the UK, they would have to leave London and relocate elsewhere in the EU. While there may be some relocation, the case that there would have to be massive shifts is unpersuasive.
He also states that he believes austerity rather than Brexit to be the real threat to European union:
...the unrelenting commitment to austerity by the European Commission will probably do more to encourage exits from the eurozone than anything the UK does.
Unlike many, Stiglitz also highlights Juncker's utter unsuitability for the job of head of the European Commission, given his role as:
"proud architect of Luxembourg's massive corporate tax avoidance schemes."
He also argues well that rather than having regulations that impose uniformity across all the nations of the European Union, it might be better to have disclosure, allowing the consumer to decide which standard of product they want:
...there is a much simpler solution than the hypothetical situation of requiring all ice cream to have a certain cream content: adequate disclosure of the cream content. Provide the relevant information, and let consumers make the choice for themselves. Car windscreens provide a slightly more complex example. It may be slightly cheaper to force all cars to have the same glass standard—but by a small margin
Stiglitz delineates well the utter unfairness of the way that Irish taxpayers have been treated within the eurozone:
The critical issue is this: the Troika was asking ordinary Irish citizens to pick up the tab for regulatory failures of the ECB and other regulatory authorities within the eurozone
The Irish people were unjustly forced to pay the price for others’ mistakes—a double injustice, because it was in effect a transfer of money from the poor to the rich. But Trichet -
[Stiglitz reserves particular contempt for Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank from 2003-11, going so far as to comment thus at one point: Trichet will be remembered for his colossal misjudgments,] -
knew where he stood: he was an ally of the bankers against ordinary workers, constantly demanding wage cuts that would lower their standards of living.
In the 2008 crisis, hundreds of billions of dollars were effectively given (or lent at below-market interest rates) by central banks in the advanced countries to commercial banks, in the most massive government-assistance program to the private sector ever conceived. This program of corporate welfare for the suffering banks was greater by an order of magnitude than any welfare program constructed by any government to alleviate the suffering of ordinary individuals
nor the amorality of the actions of the banks themselves, aided and abetted by bad government:
The real moral hazard problem arises for banks, who have an incentive to induce countries to borrow excessively, knowing that current politicians benefit from the increased spending and future politicians pay the price.
He produces some alarming facts, among them this:
In virtually every country in the eurozone there has been an increase in poverty, especially childhood poverty
and also some infuriating ones (well, the whole subject is infuriating really):
.. the Troika demanded that Greek firms, including mom-and-pop operations, pay all of their taxes ahead of time, at the beginning of the year, before they have earned any money and before
Of the total lent to Greece, less than 10 percent ever got to the Greek people. The rest went to pay back creditors, including German and French banks.
In each [eurocrisis] country, the newly elected government was told in effect that they had no choice: accept the conditions or your banking system will be destroyed, your economy will be devastated, and you will have to leave the euro. What does it mean to be a democracy, where the citizens seemingly have no say over the issues about which they care the most, or the way their economy is run? This democratic deficit destroys confidence in democratic processes—and encourages the growth of extremist parties that promise an alternative.
The growing democratic deficit is seen most obviously in the fact that when given the opportunity, the countries of Europe have repeatedly rejected the policies being imposed on them.
Removing central banking from political accountability, at least in the way that it has been done in the United States and Europe, effectively transfers decision-making to the financial sector, with its interests and ideology.
As soon as some of the countries in the eurozone owed money to other member countries, the currency union had changed: rather than a partnership of equals striving to adopt policies that benefit each other, the ECB and eurozone authorities have become credit collection agencies for the lender nations, with Germany particularly influential.
The power to withhold credit becomes the power to force a country to effectively cede its economic sovereignty, and that is precisely what the Troika, including the ECB, has done, most visibly to Greece and its banks, but to a lesser extent to the other crisis countries.
He indicates how bad policy has helped to create the political climate we have today:
..if Europe continues with changes in labor legislation that weaken workers’ bargaining rights, and if, as expected (and partly as a result), wages do not rise much, that will also increase the resistance to accepting migrants.
He argues strongly against German dominance:
As soon as some of the countries in the eurozone owed money to other member countries, the currency union had changed: rather than a partnership of equals striving to adopt policies that benefit each other, the ECB and eurozone authorities have become credit collection agencies for the lender nations, with Germany particularly influential.
The power to withhold credit becomes the power to force a country to effectively cede its economic sovereignty, and that is precisely what the Troika, including the ECB, has done, most visibly to Greece and its banks, but to a lesser extent to the other crisis countries.
He indicates how bad policy has helped to create the political climate we have today:
..if Europe continues with changes in labor legislation that weaken workers’ bargaining rights, and if, as expected (and partly as a result), wages do not rise much, that will also increase the resistance to accepting migrants.
He argues strongly against German dominance:
The problem is that Germany has used its economic dominance to impose its own views, and those views are not only rejected by large parts of the eurozone but also by the majority of economists. The problems were collectively created. The only solution is a collective solution. The reforms are based on different economic understandings
and mounts a strong case for the idea that the actual way the eurozone is structured is at the heart of the zone's problems:
There simply isn’t enough flexibility within the eurozone, as currently constituted, for the eurozone to work for the weakest.
Since adjustments in interest rates and exchange rates are among the most important ways that economies adjust to maintain full employment, the formation of the euro took away two of the most important instruments for ensuring that.
Not only did those countries signing up to the eurozone not fully realize the consequences of borrowing in a currency out of one’s control, they also didn’t realize the implications for their national sovereignty: a transfer of power had occurred that could be—and was—abused. When lenders wouldn’t lend to, say, Spain, the only recourse the country had was to turn to their partners in the eurozone, to get money through the European Central Bank or through some other mechanism. It was a fateful development.
While he states that:
The euro created the euro crisis
he also explains that the way in which the ECB was established has constrained it from being a force for good:
While other central banks, most notably the US Federal Reserve, have reformed, focusing much more on unemployment and the stability of the financial market—and even beginning to talk about how their policies affect inequality—the ECB’s mandate is limited by the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 to a single-minded focus on inflation. The deeper problem of the ECB is the absence of democratic accountability.
The result of the ECB’s focus on inflation is that growth and stability are lower than they otherwise would have been —ironic, since the alleged purpose of the economic framework of the eurozone was to promote growth and stability.
The ECB had become Europe’s sledgehammer, the tool by which Greece was forced to accede to what the Troika wanted.
While what he says about Brexit and the best possible outcome from it is probably true, I doubt very much whether it is the outcome the EU will manage to come up with:
The best outcome of the Brexit referendum would be that it acts as a wake-up call to the EU’s leaders: unless they make the EU more democratic, more democratically accountable, and more economically successful, the likelihood of further integration, political or economic, could be nil; the forces for disintegration will only mount.
So all in all the story is fairly grim - and there isn't much glimmer of hope on the horizon, at least not from either Hewitt's or Stiglitz's perspective. I am now thoroughly convinced that, for all its convenience for travellers, the euro is a very bad thing.
.
Tuesday, 20 February 2018
Decadence
Yesterday, I mentioned dwarves in the contexts of beans and then, coincidentally - or possibly randomly, which isn't quite the same thing - I heard a discussion on a recent Spectator podcast about a new London phenomenon. It appears that people who in other areas of life regard themselves as decent, progressive, and so on and forth, somehow suspend their notions of all that is right when it comes to organising parties and have started demanding the services of dwarves as waiters and waitresses and general festive accessories.
During the podcast it was alleged that on occasion said dwarves have been asked to work naked, while on other occasions they are handcuffed to men at stag nights, who then post pictures of themselves at urinals, their locked-on dwarf standing behind them, being splashed. The apparent mood of patrons of such events is that this is a really larky new idea, rather than evidence of utter decadence. To further complicate things, a spokesman for dwarves reportedly asks that no one object, as this new fashion is providing lots of work for dwarves. However, while "please let us be humiliated, because otherwise we will starve" could be the rallying cry of any number of badly treated groups of people, as a long term strategy it sets no worthwhile goals.
It turns out there is an accompanying article in the Spectator magazine - here it is; the question it poses is a good one, namely, "What's beyond the pale and what is fashionable fun?:
From The Spectator, 10th February, 2018:
"You’re planning a party. You’ve hired the vaults of a former bank, Le Caprice is doing the catering, and a celebrity DJ will round things off on the dance floor — but you want that little bit extra to give your fashionable, jaded guests something to remember. What about a dwarf? It’s a curious fact that even people who think of themselves as modern and caring feel quite comfortable laughing at dwarfs.
During the podcast it was alleged that on occasion said dwarves have been asked to work naked, while on other occasions they are handcuffed to men at stag nights, who then post pictures of themselves at urinals, their locked-on dwarf standing behind them, being splashed. The apparent mood of patrons of such events is that this is a really larky new idea, rather than evidence of utter decadence. To further complicate things, a spokesman for dwarves reportedly asks that no one object, as this new fashion is providing lots of work for dwarves. However, while "please let us be humiliated, because otherwise we will starve" could be the rallying cry of any number of badly treated groups of people, as a long term strategy it sets no worthwhile goals.
It turns out there is an accompanying article in the Spectator magazine - here it is; the question it poses is a good one, namely, "What's beyond the pale and what is fashionable fun?:
From The Spectator, 10th February, 2018:
"You’re planning a party. You’ve hired the vaults of a former bank, Le Caprice is doing the catering, and a celebrity DJ will round things off on the dance floor — but you want that little bit extra to give your fashionable, jaded guests something to remember. What about a dwarf? It’s a curious fact that even people who think of themselves as modern and caring feel quite comfortable laughing at dwarfs.
Type the words ‘dwarf’ and ‘rent’ into a search engine and you’ll be amazed at the number of websites offering to ‘supply a little someone’ for every occasion. Just click ‘dwarf’ and ‘add to cart’. One online agency boasts: ‘If you require the midget to perform and dance… or if you would like our mini man to be handcuffed to a specific person this can be arranged.’
Fun-loving party-people seem oddly keen to be handcuffed to dwarfs. One video, with thousands of ‘likes’ on Facebook, shows a male dwarf standing with his face at groin-level, handcuffed to a man using a urinal. A comment reads: ‘I want one of these at my hen night!’ Other photos show middle-aged men on stag nights, posing with a dwarf dressed in nothing but a nappy, astride their knee. It’s surprisingly popular.
Some friends of mine recently attended the party of a beautiful socialite, where canapés were served by naked dwarfs. Why would intelligent, privileged women pay people with a genetic disorder to serve them food? And why nude? Does being naked make being short funnier? It must certainly make it more humiliating for the poor dwarf.
‘If we decide a dwarf at a stag night is unacceptable then where will it end?’
The term dwarfism covers a number of syndromes, the most common being achondroplasia, a genetic condition resulting in shortened arms and legs. Spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenital (SEDc) tends to result in more proportionate limbs. If you consider that two people with dwarfism starting a family together have a one in four chance of their baby inheriting the gene from both parents and dying within days of birth, it’s not unreasonable to feel that bodies that characterise this condition aren’t all that funny.
And yet… I spoke to the actor Warwick Davis recently (star and co-writer of the comedy Life’s Too Short and co-founder of Little People UK), who showed me another side of what had seemed to me a pretty straightforward story. If we shame our countrymen into dropping the dwarfs, what will the unintended consequences be? Warwick says ‘solving one problem may well cause problems for little people elsewhere’.
Davis uses, by way of illustration, the Harvey Weinstein scandal, which has rapidly progressed from the downfall of a serious abuser to the criminalisation of clumsy would-be seducers. ‘If we decide a dwarf at a stag night is unacceptable then where will it end?’ he says. Will people start campaigning for pantomimes to stop hiring dwarfs as it is ‘demeaning’? In 2011 Qdos Entertainment re-cast children in the roles of the seven dwarfs in a panto version of Snow White. They claimed to be being politically correct, but in fact, says Davis, they were cost-cutting.
Davis has reason to be frustrated by what he describes as ‘people taking offence on my behalf’. The biggest challenge his Reduced Height Theatre Company faced in its 2014 touring production See How They Run was breaking through the political correctness barrier. ‘The play is a farce, people were meant to laugh at us! It had great reviews and those that came loved it, but persuading them to come was the hardest part.’ Another entertainer, Laura Whitfield-Phillips, agrees. ‘I get people apologising to me on bookings,’ she says. ‘Even trying to send me home early as now they’ve found I’m just a normal person, they feel bad for me. I tell them please don’t, I wouldn’t be taking any job I’m not happy to do.’
What’s beyond the pale? What’s just fashionable fun?
Perhaps what’s in the real interests of little people is just to smile politely and admire their ability to look dignified even handcuffed to a drunk and hope that there’ll be better jobs on offer in the future.
The set of See How They Run was built in proportion to the actors. Once it began, says Warwick Davis, everyone forgot they were watching dwarfs on stage. When the six-foot director came to take a bow at the end of the play the audience gasped at the sight of him, a giant."
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