The Crooked Timber of Humanity

I asked in an earlier post if Jonah Goldberg was quoting when he referred to “the crooked timber of humanity”. Well, it was the title of a book of essays by Isaiah Berlin, who had the phrase from Immanuel Kant: "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made."

Despair, right? As a properly introspective human being, you know that you are imperfect, that you fall short of the ideal? Of course you do. But you also know that not every deed you have ever done was wicked, or done from wicked motives.

It is an evocative phrase. It evokes for me half-timbered houses, some of the loveliest of buildings in Britain. Indeed, it is the approximate symmetry of these structures which gives them their beauty – one bent timber is laid against another.

Original Sin

There are many hard theological doctrines: the doctrine of the Trinity is very hard. There is no way that you could arrive at this from first principles or by mere observation. The doctrine of Redemption is not easy – just how does it work? The doctrine of Creation is not hard at all; Science comes daily closer to a position from which Creation is the obvious answer. But the easiest doctrine to accept is the doctrine of Original Sin. Switch on the TV; buy a newspaper; examine your conscience. “The best of us is no damn good”, to quote West Side Story.

As the great Jonah Goldberg says, “We are made from the crooked timber of humanity,” (is he quoting?).

CS Lewis in Mere Christianity begins his argument by demonstrating that we all accept that there is a moral law and that we are all offenders. This is unarguable. We know it by introspection. The doctrine of Original Sin is fundamental to Christianity (and Judaism). The Genesis story dates the sin to our first parents. This may be an allegory. Whether or not it is an allegory is moot. Perhaps we are descendants of more primitive creatures – who may have been innocent of sin (as animals are). This we know of ourselves: that we offend against the Natural Law. We may be better at identifying sin in others than in ourselves – no surprise there.

A fundamental truth about human beings is a fundamental Christian doctrine. Rousseau denied it. Progressives deny it. Their fundamental assumption is patently wrong. For them, it is something corrupt in society that makes us do bad things. There is logical fallacy here. If we are fundamentally good, how can society be corrupt?

Our moral and political problem is this: how should society be ordered to eliminate (or, at least reduce) the consequences of bad behaviour? Clearly, according to the progressives, by eliminating corrupt institutions (for which they have no explanation, in view of their assumption that we are naturally ‘good’).

Facing the facts is always a smart policy. Here’s the fact: we are bad – not always but essentially. So, policy should always and everywhere to encourage good behaviour and to discourage bad behaviour, to arrange things so that good behaviour is always and everywhere rewarded – and vice versa. This is not to say that police forces and courts should punish the wicked (although this may be necessary) but that the consequences of feckless behaviour should be visited upon the feckless. We do the opposite, whether in the case of benefit claimants who choose not work or in the case of financial institutions which are bailed out after making disastrous decisions. Fecklessness should always and everywhere reap its own reward.

My fecklessness may have consequences for my family. Rescuing my family may entail duties on my neighbours. Rescuing me does not.

Here’s the point: people respond to incentives. If society rewards good behaviour (thrift, hard work and honesty), then people will be thrifty, work hard and will not routinely cheat each other. If we make it easy to be a free rider, some people (quite a lot) will take advantage. The welfare state makes us feel virtuous; by voting for it we persuade ourselves of our beneficence. The fact is that it is corrupting – encouraging vice in others is wicked. What is more, the resources to pay for our welfare state are looted from the most productive. This is simple theft. And it is spectacularly wasteful. If our youth were brought up to regard self-reliance as normal and noble, to regard self-indulgence as pitiful and shameful, nearly all adults would be real grownups. If we were a society of grownups, what limits would there be to our productivity and prosperity?  

A Momentous Month

I will have been in my new flat for three weeks tomorrow. With nearly every day it becomes more like a home. In a couple of weeks I will have a sofa-bed. Within three weeks I will have new blinds. I still have a few storage problems because, in spite of strenuous efforts, I failed to dispossess myself of enough clutter before I left my terraced house. Today, my handyman and friend, Tony, fitted a couple of ‘grab-rails’, which make getting in and out of the shower a much less alarming process. He drove me to Tesco and I bought a new TV, by far the most sophisticated I have ever watched. Tony then connected it for me. Also today my friend Lesley has helped me to get to grips with the washer-drier. She is so practical!

I am very lucky to be able to call on the assistance of such folks. I am now learning to shop on line from Tesco – what a great business, greater by far than the NHS.

I am a very fortunate man.

Here’s what I would like to do (if you were lucky enough that I were in charge) with the NHS. I would sell it hospital by hospital, GP practice by GP practice, ambulance service by ambulance service to businesses like Tesco, Asda and Bupa (or anybody who believed they could make (sacred word) a profit. I would distribute the proceeds equally to every man, woman and child in the UK. Then I would slash the taxes needed to run this behemoth. Almost everybody would be much better off. They would be able to buy healthcare or health insurance to suit themselves AND they would be able to contribute to charities for the indigent.

Then I’d move on to state schools. There are so many of these ghastly institutions that it would probably take longer. I imagine that Eton College Plc, Malborough College Ltd (plus Tesco) would find it easy to raise the finance to buy them and make them work. Abolishing the Dept for Education and Science would save a fortune. Rich and poor alike would have more money (after more taxes were slashed) to buy the schooling for their children that they actually wanted. The cost of education would necessarily fall. Education charities would spring up – our richer population would have the cash and the incentive to ensure the children of the poorest were not illiterate and innumerate.

Where next?

Well, under my scheme (please note that I want nothing to do with specific policies in specific schools or hospitals), each individual would be so much richer that they would be casting about for ways to invest their surplus income. Employment would soar. The need for benefits would plummet.

Would I reprieve a few ‘safety net’ services? I think not. Bureaucracies have no incentive to limit themselves. Would there be casualties? Probably. Would they exceed the casualties suffered under our current system? I think not.

It would take more years than I expect to have left to implement other necessary reforms (sound money being one of the most important). Sound money, as opposed the fiat system now in operation, would prevent government from looting us by inflation – in addition to the lawful looting which is taxation.

Of course, by some people’s lights this would be described as free markets gone mad. Is it possible to deny that what we have now is a welfare state gone mad? No.

I would be for these changes for two reasons: efficiency and morality. It is patently obvious that free enterprise runs things better than governments. Yes, they take a profit for what they do. Making a profit by undertaking risk, investing creativity and hard work – who could reasonably object? Rationality is in short supply these days – alas! When governments run things, they do not look to make a profit. Instead, they ‘administer’ each and every gruesome programme. This is fabulously expensive. Average return on capital for a free market enterprise is a few percentage points. The cost in admin for each programme is a hefty proportion of what is actually doled out.

Capitalism is far more moral than the alternative. Real virtues are rewarded: thrift, hard work etc. Failure is punished – sometimes in sad circumstances. When a state school fails, money is shovelled in to ‘remedy’ the situation. When a supermarket fails, it fails and other entrepreneurs have a chance to buy the assets and have a go. In the third world there are many examples of poor people choosing to spend money on private education, rather than send their children to ‘free’ state schools.

Capitalism is free exchange. Every exchange is based on the fact that each party takes part in the expectation of being better off. This is a fallen world. Sometimes we regret an exchange – we learn, it is to be hoped. Capitalism is about learning – about information. No government department has a fraction of the information required to run public services. They have a pitifully poor record of learning from mistakes. The opportunities for corruption are rife. A particular favourite of mine is pensions for state employees – paid for by taxpayers. A headmaster, who may have done an OK job, gets an inflation proof pension paid for by many people who get no such benefit – this is corrupt.

Well, good night. I am not asking for your vote. I wouldn’t have the chutzpah to fight the vested interests.

Abortion Continued – Would You Kill This Baby?

A thought experiment which has occurred to me since my last post: You are presented with a live scan of two foetuses (at exactly the same stage of development). You do not know which is which. One is the offspring of married parents who are thrilled at the prospect of the birth. One is the accidental product of a casual union of two people who are not in a position to bring up a child. Both are healthy. Each has an equal chance (as far as you can tell) of growing up to make a contribution to society. The choice is yours. Press button A and the first baby dies. Press button B and the second baby dies. Button C and they both live – Button D and they both die. Don’t press D – you will go to Hell. Which of the remaining buttons can you press and remain a moral human being? Only C. QED.

It IS that simple.

Abortion

Abortion is not the hot political issue in the UK that it is in the USA. This is probably because a majority of American electors identify themselves as religious believers. I visited Florida a few years ago and was amazed at the number of churches. On Sunday mornings it was plain to see that most of these churches were well attended. Nearly all Catholics and Evangelicals are ‘pro-life’, as are most other denominations.

I am a Catholic and a staunch supporter of SPUC (The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children). For me, this is not a shades-of-grey issue. Abortion is murder. Try as I might, I find it impossible to twist my mind into a state of sympathy for the ‘pro-choice’ position.

A mother and father who find themselves the parents-to-be of a wanted child would be justifiably outraged by any crime or negligence which caused the miscarriage of their baby – a week, a month or six months after getting a positive result from the GP. We would all share this outrage. We would grieve with them for their loss. Their grief and ours would stem (partly) from a sad sense of what might have been: a healthy baby, a happy toddler, a successful scholar or sportswoman – a mother.

What is the difference if the pregnancy is not convenient? A deliberate ending of the pregnancy would involve exactly the same sad sense. What if both parents were not equally overjoyed by the impending birth? If one parent were under pressure to consent to a ‘termination’? What if both were equally appalled by the consequences for themselves if nature were to take its course? There is no difference. The consequence for the baby would be the same. The attitude of the parents is of no consequence. The baby, the toddler, the scholar, the sportswoman, the mother would be (in circumstances increasingly horrible to imagine as time progressed) snuffed out and discarded. A miscarriage caused by crime or negligence makes us weep. The deliberate destruction of an exactly equivalent foetus (baby) is justified as ‘a woman’s right to choose’. Where is the logic? Nowhere.

I think this constitutes an indictment of our sentimentality. The murder (and there have been alarmingly many in recent years) of small children revolts us. When it takes place in the dark before the child is born, it is something to be ignored. Indeed, we acquiesce to being taxed to pay for it!

And this at a time when contraception is effective and cheap.

We are, as a society, in full flight from consequences. The state indemnifies us from the consequences of our actions. We have become worse people, infantilised.

Are there any arguments for the ‘pro-choice’ position? A few weak ones, perhaps. What about rape? The rape was the fault of the rapist, not the baby. What about incest? Igualmente. What about if the mother’s life is endangered? A vanishingly small proportion of cases, in some of which we may find ourselves confronted with a moral choice. In nearly seventy years I have never encountered such a case – lucky me!

Abortion is Murder – there are no two ways about it.

A New Role for Legislatures

I astonish myself. Here am I, a critic of governments, suggesting that there should be a new role for our elective representatives. This came to me in a flash and it is not well thought out.

It must be clear that our legislatures make mistakes – huge mistakes; but when the laws are passed, we are stuck with them. Life is an experiment. We make decisions; we have regrets. As individuals, we sometimes have the wit to learn from our mistakes. Sometimes the decisions we make are catastrophic, there is no undoing them. The best we can hope for is to avoid making similar disastrous decisions. In the case of legislation (let us take minimum wage laws as an arbitrary example), the law is passed and it has consequences – perhaps good, perhaps bad, perhaps a mixture. The minimum legal wage is raised. Some people clearly benefit, some other people are thereby priced out of the labour market. Young, inexperienced, unskilled people are prevented from putting a foot on the bottom rung of the employment ladder. They never get the chance to gain experience and skills. The legislation hurt them. But the legislation remains.

What I am proposing is that every law should be on probation, after it comes into effect. Twelve months (maybe 18 months) after raising income tax rates (for example) Parliament should be obliged to revisit the issue. They would have three options. First (and most draconian), the law would be repealed and its effects would be undone (for example, the money should be refunded). Second, the law would be repealed and the law books would revert to the status quo ante, third, the law would stand, its benefits having been demonstrated.

The objection I foresee is that this would place a huge burden on lawmakers. I see this as its greatest appeal. Large scale legislation would be dis-incentivised (what a ghastly phrase). Obamacare would never make it through Congress. Think of the chaos if it were unceremoniously scrapped a year later. Legislating would be a minefield. Our current legislators waltz into unmapped territory, blithely secure that they have made the world a better place. But what if they (or their successors) recognised that their blitheness had been unjustified?

The amount of time available for new legislation would be dramatically reduced. Time is in short supply and would be more so if debates had to take place on every year old piece of law-making.

The debates would be unprecedentedly well informed. Supporters and opponents of each piece of legislation would be able to say, “See, it worked (or didn’t work).”

Society would be become a laboratory. We keep what works, if we decide to. We dump what doesn’t. I think Edmund Burke is cheering me from Heaven.

The ‘ten year option’ has just occurred to me. After ten years every law passed and confirmed would again be subject to the same process. The poor bastards wouldn’t know whether they were coming or going.

Another example would be repeal of the laws against homosexual activity. Pass this law and review it a year later. Has society collapsed? Repeal the repeal or confirm it.

The legislative process would be almost completely constipated. You and I would be better off.

Sleep on it. Wake up and decide if it was good idea.

Tinkering should be a legislative principle. Major changes are dangerous; minor changes can be corrected.

The Grace of God

Those who claim that ‘the capitalist system’ is one of dog eat dog have it completely the wrong way round. All systems other than free markets depend on coercion to operate. Under capitalism the only way to succeed is by serving your fellow man. For sure, many corporations depend on government regulation to protect their profits – but that is not capitalism!

Made in the image of God, we are creative and we have free will. God has designed the world so that we can benefit by serving one another. We are fallen; so we don’t as much as we should. Under capitalism prices fall and wages rise; under capitalism the poorest are fed. It is miraculous – literally. It is hard to think of plainer evidence of God’s grace.

Some entrepreneurs become rich. Many rich entrepreneurs contribute handsomely to charity. Envy of the rich is self-destructive; and it is a sin.

I confess myself baffled by the widespread hostility to capitalism. We should be on our knees, giving thanks for living in a (partly) capitalist society. What is all this claptrap about income inequality? We are unequal in every imaginable way. You may be better looking or brainier than me. Who would think it right for you to be mutilated to reduce the disparity in looks or nous? The idea is preposterous and repulsive.

Thrift, energy, ingenuity and hard work are good. Envy is bad. Socialism is founded on envy and implemented by force.

Adam Smith spoke of the ‘invisible hand’. He did not identify it as the hand of the Almighty; but it is not much of a stretch.