Pushing it

So I couldn't help but notice that the owner of these 'beauties' was not the youngest pig in the pen. In my mind, the wearing of perilously impractical footwear is to be associated with the impetuous frivolity of bandy-legged youth. However, as can be seen from the photo, this chap was certainly not bandy-legged, and neither was he a youth by any definition.
Really, if I was in any way down with the kids (which phrase alone proves that I am not), I would probably know that they have moved on and it is only the fashion unconscious over 30s that remain stubbornly wedded to the pointy shoe. This is odd, because it's precisely these people for whom the term 'winkle pickers' should have negative connotations.
The kids are wearing DMs (and if that doesn't make you feel nostalgic then you're probably wearing DMs). They've moved on, maybe it's time the rest of you did.

Promotion

Over the past few years, much credence has been given to the idea of meritocracy. It is argued that this is a fair way for a society to be structured: those who want to get ahead in life are given the opportunity to do so and those who just expect a free ride won't get it. This appears to be a generous as anyone is willing to get these days. I wonder what Nye Bevan would have made of it.
Anyway given that it's the default caring sharing attitude of no-wing politics, we should have a think about what it really means and whether it really delivers social justice (whatever that means).
I think one of the 'useful' things about the idea of meritocracy is that it is fairly nebulous, and can therefore appeal to a broad spectrum of society. In this case, it is simply a sound-bite, deployed by politicians keen to appeal to as many voters as possible. If this is all it is, I think there is even more need to pin it down in terms of actual meaning: politicians already get away with too much vagueness in my opinion.
Option 1: Capitalism As Meritocracy
Obviously this is the favourite of the current bogeymen, the bankers. It is basically the argument that they deploy to justify their stratospheric remuneration packages. Basically, people get paid what they're worth, the argument goes, so only the best rise to the top, resulting in the spectacularly well run financial sector that we see pulling this country out of recession by the bootstraps. Oh, hang on...
Anyway, the argument continues by pointing out that the fabulous wealth generated by these ubermensch trickles down to us mere mortals, allowing us to pay for education that may allow us one day to be as clever as them. It also allows us to pay into the pension schemes, ISAs, etc. that enable the people at the top to gamble on the economies of nations or the debts of homeowners. 

It may be fairly apparent that I do not think too much of this model. I don't, largely because it is not meritocratic. Whilst I am not for one moment suggesting that the City does not contain a large number of intelligent people, it is simply not the case that the brightest and best rise to the top. Promotion is due to a combination of luck and being bolshy enough. I personally don't consider having an over-inflated sense of self worth to be a skill. Also, whilst the City indisputably generates money, it does so using wealth created by other people elsewhere, who receive as their reward for generating this wealth only the standard returns of their ISA or pension scheme, and then only when the masters of the universe do their jobs well; even though they get paid regardless. Again it could be argued that this is a distortion of capitalism anyway, because only the investors lose out through poor performance, whilst the company itself, and certainly its employees remain largely shielded from the negative effects. So it's possible that I'm more in favour of capitalism as meritocracy than I first thought, it's just that for it to work the same rules need to apply to all. It is in the manner in which the playing field is levelled that his is where another conception of meritocracy comes into play. 

Option 2: Free education as meritocracy
Clearly this option is no longer quite as popular as it once was, as we only get free education up to the age of 18 these days. University education is however available to nearly anyone willing to pay for it, making it less meritocratic, and more afflucratic. When higher education was free, considerably fewer people gained undergraduate degrees than they do now, meaning that they carried some weight in the real world. Now the proliferation of degrees has utterly devalued them, they are simply being turned into vocational training for whichever employer is willing to partially fund them. I am not for one minute saying that 30 year's ago, the system was entirely egalitarian and the old-boys network played no part in it, but through the commoditisation of the the bachelor degree we have created a system firmly weighted in the favour of those who are willing to bet against their future earnings. Such a position is easier if you have a backstop to your debt, such as the wealth of your parents. The argument for the current fee-based system of higher education for all who can afford it is that it is more egalitarian. If we assume everyone is starting from the same position, then they will incur the same level of debt. However, as everyone is not starting from the same position, it is disingenuous to call it egalitarian. Anyway we're dealing with meritocracy here, and a system of free higher education for fewer people is more meritocratic than the current system. Yes, it is elitist, but meritocracy is elitist. Perceptions of elitism could be mitigated by the provision of meaningful vocational further education, partially sponsored by employers (just don't call them degrees). Alternatively, everyone gets a degree and it means nothing except that they are less creditworthy. Nothing is more meritocratic than equal access to an elitist system, and in dismantling some of the perception of elitism, we have not made it any more meritocratic.
Option 3 - the welfare state as meritocracy
The welfare state can't be meritocratic surely, it's the cushion of the lazy and un-ambitious. How does one find merit in listless inactivity? These are not my opinions, but I imagine they are some of the philosophical challenges facing those who wish to make the welfare state a more meritocratic place to be. Of course there is nothing wrong with making the system a bit more meritocratic if you see it as a hierarchical system. I don't, I see the welfare state as a safety net. The fact that some people do genuinely 'work the system' is a shame, mostly for them: you cannot have a massive sense of self-worth if you believe your greatest earning potential to come from meagre state handouts. However, it appears that the meritocratisation of the welfare state is aimed at such people and others for whom getting back into employment could lead to a drop in income. The idea is that people will be encouraged to take work by never being worse off (presumably though some sort of graded benefit system). All very laudable, except for two things.
Firstly, there is nothing much meritocratic about telling someone to take a job, any job just because it's there. One could argue that it is meritocratic because they are worth any job more than unemployment, but that removes the meritocratic element of rewarding those who choose to take measures to increase their employability, by choosing to undertake training whilst unemployed for example.
Secondly, for it to be truly meritocratic, people would always have to be better off from an improvement in personal wealth. Every welfare reform, including the current bunch, has a cliff-edge, so there is always a point at which it is worse to be better off. For some people, that point is achieving an above average salary each for one of a couple with children, for others it is having survived cancer for a certain period of time. 

Here we encounter one of the biggest obstacles to establishing a truly meritocratic society: what merits to promote. As a rule, moderate financial success is seen as merit worthy, but excessive financial gain is not. Who should define what is meritorious? Should we have an index of merit, like the RPI? Would it be possible in future to get people to vote on what they consider worthy of merit on a regular basis? Would this not be open to extremes and swings in public attitudes fuelled by tabloid horror stories? This is clearly unworkable. Obviously in practice it is the government of the time that decides what is merit worthy, guided by public opinion and the vested interests they represent.
So meritocracy is not an absolute, it can have any number of meanings, but basically it usually means 'rewarding people like me'. How generous and selfless. What a giving society we have become. 

There is one other major problem with attempting to make the whole of society a meritocracy: by definition it has to have losers. For one person to achieve through 'merit' (however you define it), others must fail. When rewards and benefits are based on a system of competition that by its nature guarantees a number of losers per winner, surely we should be looking at ways we can eliminate the losing element rather than how we create more winners (and therefore by definition more losers). Surely the very concept of meritocracy is simply another way in which the language of the selfish has come to define our terms of reference. If the language of one group defines our terms of reference, then it frames our debate, limiting it to a set of outcomes largely predetermined by the terms of reference.

Portions

In the long slow battle against the public sector that the Tory party is currently engaged in, itemising the tax bill is a masterstroke. Like all great pieces of strategy, it will easily be obscured by something seemingly more important (in this case arguments about the top rate of tax) whilst it quietly changes the landscape entirely.
Everyone will have a little bit of interest in seeing how much they pay for the NHS or unemployment benefit. Then they will start asking why they should pay for the NHS, when they have private medical insurance, or why they should pay for schools when they have no children. Once you see your tax as a set of payments for specific services, you will want to start managing them and opting out of the ones you don't want. Once services become optional rather than universal, what is the point in the government providing them? You may as well buy them off a private company. Philosophically, the objection to any form of privatisation is removed.
When talking to people in the USA, I noticed that they really resented the state because every year they had to fill in a tax return and pay money directly to the state. In this country, because the bureaucratic infrastructure has been in place for hundreds of years, most of us are taxed before we are paid, meaning that we have little sense of having to give money to the state. This creates an entirely different relationship with the concept of tax that explains much of the difference in the approach to the state's role on either side of the pond. Obviously, the Tories would love us all to have an American-style tax system that made us resent every penny we pay to the state, but abolishing PAYE would lose them the election. Much 'better' to change our attitude to the tax system by other means.
The itemised tax bill changes nothing immediately, it just allows us to argue about whether we are paying enough for this or that service. It is once we start to ask if we are paying too much that the whole landscape begins to change.

Perennial

I recently excused myself from what was bound to be another Twittercation (a lighthearted altercation that drags on far too long due to the 140 character limit on Twitter) by stating that I have nothing against summer. This was technically a lie. Summer is my least favourite season, and I apologise in advance to friends who've heard this before.
I find it difficult to sleep in summer, as there is not enough darkness and it is usually too hot. In fact being too hot is generally my problem with summer. I break into a sweat at the drop of a hat, so I spend most of summer personally and socially uncomfortable. Dressing in season-appropriate clothing obviously mitigates this somewhat, but this is another problem I have: I'm English, I have no idea how to dress for summer. Certainly I will never overcome that nagging sense of self-consciousness an Englishman gets from exposing too much of his pasty flesh to the elements. Weirdly, this appears to be location specific: I had no problem wearing shorts for large portions of the time whilst I was in the USA. Mind you, I had no real issues with the dry heat of the American Midwest. So perhaps it is just the English summer that I have an issue with, the English summer in all its clammy discomfort. There is no comfort to be found in summer: you can't put on comfy clothing, or curl up in a comfy chair by a fire; all comfort food is winter food.
All this said, I don't spend all summer being miserable. I love cricket and salads and pub gardens and picnics. I like many things about summer, but mostly I like it for the same reason I like every other season: it comes to an end. People constantly mourn the passing of summer as part of a general mourning of the passing of time. This is an inherently pessimistic viewpoint as it allows only the possibility that you will be endlessly disappointed by life. Life is nothing if not the experience of time passing, so we may as well enjoy it and all the things that mark it, such as the end of things we enjoy or endure, or remain staunchly ambivalent towards.
Woohoo, that's another few minutes done right there.

Purpose

I'm trying to do my bit. I really am, that's supposed to be what this blog's all about*: despite my desire consume as much as possible, despite that desire being fed and encouraged by virtually every aspect of the world in which I live, I want to do the right thing; I want to be a good citizen of the world. Yeah, sure, you know all this, and I'm always agonising over the best way to do this, going on and on like a stuck record. But hey at least I'm consistent in striving for my goal. Except recently I've been thinking a bit more about what that goal should be.
Obviously on a personal level it should be to have as little negative impact on the world as possible, but how we measure negative impact is not always clear. Of course I should be guided in this by ideologues and policymakers, but both appear a little thin on the ground. There are no end of idiots like me all too keen to point out what's wrong, and no end of politicians willing to arrive at policies via the path of least resistance. However, there is virtually no one who says "this is the world we should strive for and here's how". I understand the second part of that statement is the sticking point, but we shouldn't shy away from it because it's difficult. Maybe if we understand why it's difficult, we might be able think more about how we address it.
Firstly, and most simply, the world is an incredibly complex place and therefore even attempting to tackle its issues is a daunting task for any one person. There are theories that the level of complexity of many of the systems that govern our lives is now such that it is not possible for the human mind to comprehend in its entirety. This is a fundamental problem, as it means we are reliant upon simplified models for our understanding of the problems we face.
An appendage of this issue is the sheer volume of data available to us. We're overwhelmed by data, including many contradictory 'facts' generated by one stripe of vested interest or another. It would take a lifetime to sift though even one subject: requiring us to rely further on the summaries of experts.
All of these are mitigating factors, excuses for the budding policymaker should their policies turn out to have been based on unsound logic. Unfortunately, we can't fall back on excuses anymore, as we don't have massive room for error when it comes to many of the problems the world currently faces.
So our policymakers and ideologues face an uphill struggle even in gaining all of the information that they require to take a position on anything, and there will always have to be a degree of faith behind whatever position they take. However, having gathered all the relevant information or beliefs, they must then decide on a future vision, a reason, a goal for their particular ideology. This sounds ridiculous: of course they'll know what the goal of their ideology is, it's their ideology, it's what they believe is right. Except for all the reasons detailed above, it's not that simple. Many of the traditional ideologies from which we might want to form our own are self-conflicting.
If we take Socialism for example. A traditional socialist viewpoint would be that in order to ease the burden on workers and small businesses, fuel prices should be subsidised. However, this policy would have the supplemental effect of maintaining fuel consumption, leading to increased global warming and ultimately an increased cost in many goods and services, with the associated detrimental effect that will have on quality of life for the people the policy was originally supposed to help. It is perhaps not the best example, but it illustrates the problem with traditional ideologies, or at least traditional short-termist applications of such ideologies. The problem is that democracy works on a short-term basis, with absolutely no incentive for genuine investment in the future. In such a climate, vested interests take over and push policy in any number of directions. The traditional points of the political spectrum are merely measures of which set of vested interests one associates with.
I was discussing some of these thoughts with a friend recently, when he said that the current health and education reforms could not be anything other than ideological. But I would argue that even these are simply the representation of a vested interest: pure capital, a market obsessed that everything should have the potential to turn profit. This is not an ideology, it is simply a manifestation of short-termist greed.
Reading back over what I've written, I see that what I'm saying could be construed as an assertion that being accountable to a constituency is a bad idea, indeed so is the rest of democracy, but this is not my point. Democracy should be an exchange between a politician and their constituency. People can only form an opinion based on the information they are presented, and if that information is merely the reflection of self-interest, then people get no real options, they get nothing to aspire to ideologically, they get no inspiration; they can only reflect self-interest back. In contemporary society, democracy can easily tend towards this lowest common denominator. It should be the job of our politicians and ideologues to make sure that it doesn't. Of course the rest of us could help by being a bit less short-termist in our outlook, or greedy in our expectations.

* that and photos of bad footwear.