A.C. Grayling and Democracy

Last week I had the good fortune to attend another of the brillant A.C. Grayling lectures in Edinburgh during a pre-release of this new book Democracy and its Crisis.

As you may know from my post from last year, I am a huge fan of Professor Grayling and have attended his book releases before. Again after his lecture I was able to obtain a copy of his new book over a week before its official release date and he also kindly signed it for me, making it out to my son Sam who is currently 13 but my hopes are he may gravitate towards such readings in the future once he is older and thus understand the history behind democracy and its current shortcomings.

I dont intend to give a full review of this excellent book here but what I will say is its an excellent and informative read, only a couple of hundred pages long so can be finished in one sitting if you have the coffee handy. The story about democracy is very interesting. Democracy first came about in Ancient Greece. The famous Athenian contemporary thinker Plato was actually very critical against a democracy for fears that it could readily degenerate into a ochlocracy (get the dictionary out, I certainly required it as an aid whilst digesting this book) which is basically mob rule and the direction of this mob rule can be instigated by a hidden oligarchy which is a small group of people and they would control the larger number by manipulation to carry out the hidden oligarchy's agenda by directing public anger through fiery rabble-rousing speeches and strategically chosen "false news" which these days can be driven through newspapers, internet and social media to its targeted audience. Basically this is demagoguery which means an appeal to people that plays on their emotions and prejudices rather than on their rational side. It's a manipulative approach often associated with dictators and sleazy politicians that appeals to the worst nature of people. We need a informed and reflective electorate and a responsible Fourth Estate as a vehicle for distributing information and providing a platform for debate and analysis. Unfortunately we don’t have this and our democracy suffers as a consequence (I am tempted to input some of my views about the Scottish Nationalist party and their attempts to get independence but I don't what to air my political views just now.....at least not on this post but people with a certain grasp on these things will know already)

Its rather interesting that Professor Grayling said (or at the very least hinted at) Brexit will not go ahead, well at least not as we feared. He would not elaborate on this point as he said he was sworn to secrecy, even when I asked him personally whilst signing my (well, Sam's) book the best I could get from him was..."watch for an announcment soon"....all very intriguing. Again it was so great to see and hear this wonderful man who I have a lot of respect for. He continues to be the professor of philosophy and master of the New College of the Humanities in London and if you have never read any of his many books then please at least try his essays which are collected in many books, they are wonderful and enlightening reading. He does refer to Plato often and its worth doing some homework and reading Plato's 8th book of the Republic if the Philosophy of democracy interests you. With recent events such as Brexit and Trump across the ocean it really should, we bitch and complain about it but Grayling instead of banging his head of a wall writes a book about in in the attempt to understand its failings and where it all went wrong.

Understanding the tax-system, simplified!

After the Memes and posts I have been seeing on Facebook since the GERS figures were released in Scotland a couple of weeks ago I can see there is still a lot of illiterate online when it comes to the Tax system so here is a wee dummies guide. Suppose that once a week, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to £100, this is quite a cheap night out, don't expect this in Edinburgh or Falkirk for that matter but lets keep the maths nice and simple with round easy numbers. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this... The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay £1. The sixth would pay £3. The seventh would pay £7. The eighth would pay £12. The ninth would pay £18. And the tenth man (the richest) would pay £59.　 So, that's what they decided to do as this bunch are all friends and consider being generous to the less fortunate of their group. The ten men drank in the bar every week and seemed quite happy with the arrangement until, one day, the owner caused them a little problem. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your weekly beer by £20." Drinks for the ten men would now cost just £80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free but what about the other six men? The paying customers? How could they divide the £20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share? They realized that £20 divided by six is £3.33 but if they subtracted that from everybody's share then not only would the first four men still be drinking for free but the fifth and sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.　 So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fairer to reduce each man's bill by a higher percentage. They decided to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay. And so, the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (a100% saving). The sixth man now paid £2 instead of £3 (a 33% saving). The seventh man now paid £5 instead of £7 (a 28% saving). The eighth man now paid £9 instead of £12 (a 25% saving). The ninth man now paid £14 instead of £18 (a 22% saving). And the tenth man now paid £49 instead of £59 (a 16% saving).　 Each of the last six was better off than before with the first four continuing to drink for free.　 But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got £1 out of the £20 saving," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got £10!"　 "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a £1 too. It's unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!"　 "That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get £10 back, when I only got £2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"　 "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "we didn't get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!" The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.　 The next week the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important - they didn't have enough money between all of them to pay for even half of the bill!　 And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy and they just might not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.　 For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible and I shall expect to keep seeing your Memes on Facebook.