Boris Pasternak – too much a poet to conform
Born on February 10th in 1890, Boris Pasternak went on to become a giant of Russian literature of the 20th Century. His youth was spent amid the churn of revolution, and it was in the year of the Bolshevik Revolution, 1917, that he issued his first book of poetry, "My Sister Life," hailed as "one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language." His work is deeply personal and lyrical, and he could never embrace Soviet Realism, which required writers to deal with the glories of Communist ideals and the triumph of its proletarian peoples.
Soviet authorities were deeply suspicious of him, and he lived in constant threat of arrest and imprisonment. He is best known in the West for his extraordinary novel, "Doctor Zhivago," whose broad sweep covers the turbulent times before, during, and after the Soviet revolution. That revolution is the backdrop to the hero's love story with Lara. Few punches are pulled. The last sentence of the book is particularly poignant, when someone asks what became of Lara and is told, "She was forgotten as a nameless number on a list which was later mislaid, in one of the innumerable mixed or women's concentration camps in the north." It captures the essential inhumanity of the Soviet communist system.
The book's failure to conform to the literary canons that the Soviet authorities required meant that it could not be published there. Instead it was smuggled out by an Italian journalist and published in the West. It was an instant best seller, with the English language version spending half a year at the top of the New York Times list of best sellers. The fury of the Soviet authorities was doubled when Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1958.
He was forced to renounce the prize, which meant it was awarded in his absence. Pasternak was to receive hate mail for the rest of his life, and to be abused and reviled by writers loyal to the regime. The head of the Young Communist League made a speech before a mass audience declaring, "If you compare Pasternak to a pig, a pig would not do what he did, because a pig, never shits where it eats," a line later revealed to have been written by Khrushchev himself.
"Doctor Zhivago" was made into an epic movie directed by David Lean, with screenplay by Robert Bolt, and a cast full of famous stars. It captured the sense and sweep of the book with its lyrical scenes and landscapes, and won 10 Oscars.
The book was finally serialized in Russia under Gorbachev, having been previously only available illegally in samizdat editions. In December 1989, after the Berlin Wall had fallen, Pasternak's son Yevgenii was allowed to visit Sweden to collect his father's prize. And since 2003 "Doctor Zhivago" has been part of the Russian secondary school curriculum.
End the Cuban occupation of Venezuela
Fifteen thousand Cuban intelligence operatives and ‘military advisers’ bar the path to democracy in Venezuela. Luis Amalgro, Secretary-General of the Organisation of American States, has described them as “an occupation army that teaches to torture, to repress, to do intelligence tasks, civil documentation, migration.”
Former President Chavez brought in the Cubans in 2002, following a failed attempt that year to remove him from power. The role of the Cubans was clear: protect Chavez and his regime from any Venezuelan opposition. Under Chavez’s successor Maduro, some 400 Cuban military advisers are attached to the Presidential guard. Cubans effectively run the Maduro regime’s intelligence services. In the early years of the Chavez regime the Cuban Government established its own Independent Counterintelligence Unit (ICU), which operates within the Venezuelan military intelligence apparatus under full Cuban control. It is responsible for monitoring Venezuelan military officers, advising on promotions, and crushing any dissent within the military. Cuban military advisers also run the President’s ‘war room’, which is responsible for security and seeks to control political dissent.
The Cubans are intimately involved in suppressing the opposition to Maduro’s rule. Cuban operatives actively torture dissidents, in addition to training Venezuelans in torture techniques. The Casla Institute’s report on crimes against humanity in Venezuela documented eleven cases in 2018 where the torturers had a Cuban accent. Moreover, former members of Venezuelan intelligence have confirmed that Cubans play a key role in directing the violent suppression of opposition protests.
Cubans are embedded in key positions throughout the government. These Cuban ‘advisers’ issue orders and Venezuelans who disobey them are dismissed. The Financial Times has reported a Latin American Defence Minister as saying “During a meeting with high-ranking Venezuelan officers we reached several agreements on co-operation and other matters. Then three advisers with a distinctive Cuban accent joined the meeting and proceeded to change all we had agreed. The Venezuelan generals were clearly embarrassed but didn’t say a word… Clearly, the Cubans run the show.”
Cubans supervise the computer systems of the Presidency, the police, security services, and ministries. They control the civil registries so that they can track every citizen. There are also large numbers of Cuban healthcare workers, although total numbers have likely decreased from the reported 30,000 since the programme they were running has largely collapsed. Venezuela reportedly pays $5.4 billion a year to Cuba for these services. As the Cuban doctors themselves are paid next to nothing, this is a huge subsidy for the Cuban regime.
Venezuelan resources are critical, maybe even indispensable, to the survival of the Cuban regime. Trade in goods and services with Venezuela amounted to 20.8% of Cuba’s GDP in 2012. By contrast, trade with Cuba only represents 4% of Venezuela’s GDP, which highlights the asymmetrical nature of the relationship. This relationship is built on a core of subsidised Venezuelan oil, which Cuba receives in far larger quantities than it needs for domestic consumption. Cuba sells the excess oil on the international market, which brings in valuable hard currency. Despite continued sharp falls in Venezuelan oil production, now below 1.3 million barrels per day, Venezuela continues to supply Cuba with around 55,000 barrels of oil per day, costing the country around $1.2 billion per year. That money could be used to import desperately needed medicines instead.
Venezuela has also invested considerable funds in Cuba. As of 2011 the Venezuelan development bank BANDES had invested 70% of its portfolio (over $1.1 billion) in Cuba. Between 2000 and 2011, 370 joint investment projects were launched including a $2 billion investment into Cuban oil refineries.
All this largesse means that Cuba is very dependent on Venezuela to keep its failing economy afloat, and the Castro regime is desperate for the Chavistas to remain in power. As former Chávez ally General Antonio Rivero said when resigned his position in 2010 to denounce the presence of thousands of Cubans in the military, “Cuba wants Chavez to remain in power because he gives them oil.” The road to the restoration of democracy in Venezuela may have to go more through Havana than Caracas. The world should place pressure on Cuba to withdraw its occupation forces and cease obstructing democracy in Venezuela.
How should we judge a universal basic income?
Some results are in from Finland’s experiment with a universal basic income. Those results leading to the question, well, how should we judge success here? Our view is possibly more than a little idiosyncratic:
A nationwide experiment with basic income in Finland has not increased employment among those participating in the two-year trial, but their general well-being seems to have increased, a report said on Friday.
Whether or not a UBI increases employment isn’t really the point. We know very well how we can decrease unemployment of course - have no benefits at all. Either people get jobs or they fairly rapidly stop being unemployed through starvation. We tend to think this isn’t the right manner of going about things.
Thus we are going to have some sort of welfare system. The question becomes, well, what system makes us all richer. Or even, what system makes us the most richer? To calculate this we need to consider the effect upon those unemployed as well as upon those taxpayers coughing up for it.
It’s a simple truism that people value cash more than they do goods or services to the value of that cash - agency has a value. Thus whatever aid or benefits there are should be in payment, not in a ration of whatever. Thus those receiving benefits are made richer at the same cost to the taxpayer, or of course as well off at less.
This is perhaps the flip side of the finding here, that well being increased. This is not a sufficient condition for expanding the scheme but it is a necessary one - that someone is made better off. Whether it’s a Pareto improvement, one that makes some better off at no detriment to others depends upon the costs. That is as yet unknown.
But it does appear that a UBI passes that first and necessary test. Are we making some people better off by having one? Yes, so, let’s proceed to the next test, have we increased well being overall?
Sir Freddie Laker, cartel buster and passengers' champion
Sir Freddie Laker died on February 9th, 2006, having been one of the leading pioneers in opening up civil aviation to vast numbers of ordinary people who were previously priced out of it. Most airlines, both public and private, were members of IATA, the International Air Transport Association, which in those days acted to limit competition between them. They charged the same (high) fares, and were even subject to regulations governing the quality of sandwiches they served to prevent attempts to poach passengers by serving better ones.
I sometimes flew with Loftliedir, the Icelandic airline that refused to join IATA, and could charge lower fares. But it did involve stopping at Keflavik on the way, and therefore took longer.
Sir Freddie founded Laker Airways in 1966 with a couple of second-hand turboprops. He ran no-frills charter flights for which passengers bought tickets on the day of travel, and provided their own food. It became his model for the later 'Skytrain' flights, but it took years of negotiating with civil aviation authorities, which were themselves subject to intense strong-arm lobbying by established airlines trying to squeeze out would-be competitors, and by politicians trying to protect their national flag-carriers.
He applied for a licence to run low-cost transatlantic flights in 1971, but it took years of wrangling against determined opposition before the first Skytrain flight to the US took off in 1977. It was an immediate sensation, charging £59 one-way for a no-frills flight aboard his red, black and white DC-10s. His business model aimed at a load factor of 50 percent, but within a year it was 80 percent. It was then that he received his knighthood.
It changed aviation forever. The big established airlines, British Airways, Pan Am and TWA, immediately matched Laker's standby fares and rules for a few of their economy-class seats, and standby fares were introduced. The media commented on the new "blue jean" young passengers who were taking to the airways as air travel at the new low prices achieved mass popularity. Laker's low-cost model was the precursor to later budget airlines such as easyJet and Ryanair.
His company went bankrupt in 1982, following an aggressive and sustained campaign by American and European airlines to put him out of business. The campaign included pressure on banks to foreclose on loans made to Laker. A civil lawsuit brought by Laker was settled out of court in his favour.
Civil aviation was changed forever by Sir Freddie, and his legacy lives on in the low-cost carriers that fly today. His name is preserved in several airport lounges named after him, and in planes named "Spirit of Sir Freddie." He is remembered with affection by those who campaign for choice and competition to break open cartels and service customers instead of protecting producers.
Why not do this anyway, Brexit or not?
We have to say that we don’t see this as a threat:
Britain will cut taxes and slash tariffs under secret plans drawn up by officials to kick-start the economy in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
Sir Mark Sedwill, the Cabinet Secretary, has led a cross-departmental team examining the "economic levers" that can be used to make Britain more competitive.
The plans, which have been drawn up under the codename "Project After", include a series of aggressive policies to help the UK "steal a march" on the European Union.
For we desire that low tax, free trading, nation anyway. Given that the cognomen is richer than we are we just don’t see anything wrong with Singapore By The North Sea.
However desirable we don’t see why this has anything to do with Brexit. Britain would be a better place as a free trading low tax nation whatever our relationship with Brussels. The difficulty is only on whether we would be allowed to be so given our current relationship.
Which is where some Remainers are actually right. There are those who insist we must stay in in order to be a European social democracy hiding behind the trade restrictions of the zollverein. Membership of the EU virtually forces that upon us therefore membership is desirable. For it closes off the entire political debate over the possibility of our not being such a European social democracy.
Merits or not of Brexit is argued over here among us just as it is elsewhere. But there’s no doubt that it opens the political and economic possibilities for Britain. And we think slashing tariffs and lowering taxes are a good idea in themselves, how ever we get there.
Vikings or Vagabonds?
There are two types of people in the world. One to whom the conception of Medieval Iceland as a stateless nation appears to be a Hobbesian nightmare, the other who considers it a Nozickian dream. The problem is that Icelandic society from the late ninth century classifies itself into neither category of convenience.
The structure of Icelandic society was two-fold. There was a strong community of people with shared norms, values and source of income—culminating in a nation—and following from this there was no executive branch. It was a phenomenon most poetically described by the 11th-century historian Adam von Bremen when he said that Icelandic society had ‘no king but the law’.
It was a decentralised order, but it’s a mistake to believe that this means chaos or confusion. Iceland was complex and small but its rules were real and are not easily dismissed as a crude privatisation of government of the kind Jared Diamond says would be ‘beyond Ronald Reagan’s wildest dreams.’ It is fair to say, though, that there was no state, in the sense that we are familiar with today.
Iceland’s unique geography, culture and population all play into how property developed, and we ought to be dubious that it could be copied in our modern, vastly populated and interconnected world today. Its geography, relative to where its initial inhabitants arrived from (Norway) may have been more fertile and thus more attractive for a largely agricultural economy. The population of c. 25,000 made it possible for more coordinated conflict resolution and a homogenous culture, an idea supported by the theory of Dunbar’s optimum number which explains why they preferred kinship over kingship. But that’s not to say there aren’t lessons to be learned.
Here I explore three approaches to medieval Icelandic society, each one offering a unique perspective on the dynamics of such a complex arrangement.
Kropotkin
Kropotkin’s ideas regarding mutual aid institutions are a helpful but insufficient perspective on Icelandic society. He maintained that self-sacrifice and loyalty to a common cause and concern for the well being of the whole are advantageous. Communities which were sociable and therefore interdependent on each other were the most successful in the struggle for survival.
Kropotkin's rejections of the Hobbesian state of nature as ‘nasty, brutish and short’ is largely evident by the lack of an executive arm of government in Iceland. Nonetheless, it is simplistic to assume that the reason there was a relatively peaceful and sustainable society was that they avoided competition by maintaining self-sacrifice.
During most of the Icelandic commonwealth period (930 - 1262 AD), Iceland was a far more independent society in which members chose to live competitively. After all, they fled from the relatively centralised reign of Harald Fairhair, King of Norway. Fairhair, in conformity with western European ideas of the time, tried to govern as the other kings had done on the continent and in the East. In doing this he deprived many local chieftains of their landed property which they perceived their heritage gave them the exclusive rights to.
Competition was evident in their political system by the relationship between the ‘godi’ and his ‘thingmen’ (those that followed the godi). This was a contractual relationship but they did not require submission in a feudal sense, as the ‘thingman’ was free to transfer his allegiance to another ‘godi’, reducing the principal-agent problem. Lineage, not the household, was the standard unit of society—though this was weakened by family ties breaking from travel from Norway to Iceland.
Iceland’s distance from Norway created a level of independence, that meant its society had to stand on its own two feet. When it needed aid they could not rely easily on neighbouring states. They developed a system of claims, where wrongdoings created fines and these could be exchanged. In effect, a market for aid based on past behaviour—not one based on territory or ancestral allegiance.
Kropotkin’s ideas are helpful in understanding how Icelanders allowed for social welfare in society. Charity was not systemic but became increasingly so with the conversion to Christianity in 1000 BC. Instead, it was provided by the ‘hreppr’, a form of communal organization (though note: not communal property ownership) and operated mainly through duties arising from lineage. All members of the ‘hreppr’ were obliged to attend three meetings a year, they did not receive any payment for their work and the right to vote was the privilege of the farmers paying tax. Those that did not pay alms to the poor (called ‘omagis’: those unable to work) were punished.
Nevertheless, the competitive nature of Icelandic society is evident as beggars and vagabonds were not allowed to receive charity, those in the ‘hreppr’ that maintained people from outside the commune were punished. The reasoning was that not only had they no fixed domicile (so it was unclear who was responsible for them), but they withheld from society their much-needed manpower, and caused social problems.
While mutual aid is evident in providing forms of social welfare, evidence for communal land ownership is yet to be found in fiery sagas such as the Laexdaela and Njal’s saga which demonstrate a competitive yet cooperative community. The Njal’s saga provides an intriguing story defending family honour, but it arises from competition and private market systems. The arrival of extended families together is understandable (presumably so travel to Iceland from Norway was safer) but large families travelling together may not always correlate to communal property ownership.
2. Friedman
Friedman’s preferred unit of analysis of medieval Iceland is its legal system which has origins in its systems of private property ownership, however, his analysis fails to consider the importance of communal organisations such as the ‘hreppr’.
Political leaders competed for non-territorial jurisdictions, thus political power was over people rather than land, and crucially - marketable - so seats in the legislature could -quite literally- be bought. The government, as we would understand today, was not very political (in the sense that they did not have much power) perhaps they had understood the virtues of public choice theory before us. This system helped to ensure that subjects were consumers so their leaders; ‘godi’ had to win over their loyalty thus a leader rife with corruption and abuse would simply lose followers.
Furthermore, the system of property rights in relation to the law ensures that the weak are not always defenceless and the rich are not always immune to consequences from their wrongdoings. Those who could not prosecute or enforce a verdict could sell the claim to another who did and who expected to make a profit in both money and reputation by winning the case and collecting the fine.
As with Ostrom, Friedman provides evidence from the sagas which emphasise the cultural norms which governed the society and made it conducive to sustaining the system of property rights.
“ Conflict between two groups has become so intense that open fighting threatens to break out in the middle of the court. A leader of one faction asks a benevolent neutral what he will do for them in case of a fight. He replies that if they are losing he will help them, and if they are winning he will break up the fight before they kill more men than they can afford!”
This arises from the ‘feud’ system; a system of private law whereby the threat to harm is more believable if you have harmed a member of the society than if you have not. Those who died must be paid for, demonstrating a strong spirit of individual responsibility in the society.
Although the reliability of the sagas is questionable, they are more useful than many give them credit for. Most of the sagas were written during or after the Sturlung period, the final violent breakdown of the Icelandic system in the 13th century and so are seen by many as evidence for a largely violent society. However, even during this supposedly violent period, the sagas still demonstrate the cooperative nature of the society; the death rate then, is comparable to the rate currently in the US.
3. Ostrom
An approach using Ostrom’s seminal work; ‘Governing the Commons’, is centred around common-pool resource property arrangements. Though not intended to be projected retrospectively to previous societies, her work allows for further exploration between the usual public-private dichotomy when examining Icelandic society.
Ostrom opposes both the ‘Leviathan is the only way’ dogma on the left and the free market technocrats on the right. Instead, she emphasises a middle ground whereby decision making is taken at very low levels. This explains the occurrences of the ‘hreppr’ (communal organisations which may have arisen from neither public nor private property ownership) and why such systems which were not private could still have well defined rights and responsibilities.
Her empirical study focuses on societies vastly different from medieval Iceland, nonetheless, the lack of a centralised system in the fishery of 1970s Alanya, Turkey provides some insight as to what life could have been like in medieval Iceland. National legislation that has given cooperatives jurisdiction over ‘local arrangements’ has been used by cooperative officials to legitimise their role in helping to devise a workable set of rules. Albeit a lack of an executive branch of government, customary laws or risk of being outlawed from Iceland may have encouraged such a system of mutual cooperation.
Medieval Iceland has many lessons for us today. One is of the importance of decentralised systems of power; from the hreppr, to the system of courts, the only ‘King’ was the consumer. The advancement of technology can help to coordinate localities to make such a system easier to implement. Additionally, turning criminal offences into civil ones where victims could transfer their claim then victims would have a greater incentive to bring the criminal to justice. This would help in overcoming the public good aspect of criminal enforcement. Though this is not a panacea to solve the array of problems that come with very centralised governments, it reminds us that keeping leaders on a short leash and economic freedom go hand in hand.
The medieval Icelandic state outlasted the United States by 106 years (the U.S. had its first civil war after c. 80 years of its birth) and had incredibly civilised and complex societies. Exploration of this fascinating society from different perspectives allows for both rigorous analysis of their political philosophies and even ideas for policy prescriptions today.
Stasi – the East German secret police
It was on February 8th, 1950, that one of the most feared and extensive surveillance organizations was established in East Berlin. It was the State Security Service, (or Staatssicherheitsdienst, SSD), which everyone called the Stasi. It spied on its own citizens on a massive scale, as well as engaging in foreign espionage. It was the counterpart of the Nazi Gestapo, although considerably more extensive. Like the Gestapo, it used citizens to spy on citizens.
The opening of its files after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Communism staggered the world with the scale of its operations. It was estimated to have had 500,000 informers, although a former Stasi colonel put the figure as high as 2 million if occasional informants were included.
Its purpose was to stamp out ruthlessly any dissent in the German Democratic Republic, described by Sir Alec Douglas-Home as “neither German, nor Democratic, nor indeed is it a republic.” It was in fact a totalitarian Communist dictatorship, like the other Soviet satellite states of Eastern Europe. Its secret police infiltrated most aspects of East German life, such as schools, universities and recreational organizations such as sports and computer games clubs.
Its agents filmed people though holes drilled in hotel rooms or in their apartments. It intercepted people’s mail and telecommunications. It had a Division of Garbage Analysis that searched garbage for signs of Western foods or other suspicious items. It stored people’s scents so that sniffer dogs could track their movements. It trained, armed and sheltered Western terrorists such as the Baader-Meinhof gang. It ran prison camps for political dissenters. It funded neo-Nazi groups in West Germany to desecrate Jewish sites in a bid to discredit the West.
The activity of spying on, intimidating and imprisoning their own citizens is something that had been practised by all Communist governments, including the Soviet Union, its Warsaw Pact allies, Communist China, and Cuba—which received help from the Stasi in setting up its own secret police. More recently it has been done in Venezuela. This is not something that just happens to be done; it is part and parcel of Communist totalitarianism that it cannot tolerate dissent and has to seek out and expunge it, no matter what the cost is to the human rights of their citizens.
People who suppose it would be different today, and that current apologists for those brutal regimes would behave differently if they achieved power, are living in a fool’s paradise. This always happens. It is a necessary corollary of an evil system, and the Stasi is simply one of the most brutal examples.
It's rare to find The Guardian so entirely right about something
Certain ways of doing things are but passing phases - the technology of production can indeed determine social relations. Given the centrality of this idea to Marxist thought we’d all rather expect The Guardian and the like to grasp it but it does seem to be rare that they do.
For example, in the conversation about the High Street. Quite clearly there is going to be pressure on retail space dependent upon footfall as online removes that footfall part. The latest ONS figures are that 20% of retail sales are online now. It’s not a surprise therefore that the High Street is looking a little gap toothed.
This being something that must, we are told, be fought. A struggle that must be undertaken. Whereas this is rather something that must be adapted to - that technology has changed so therefore so must the relations.
Then we get that rarity, The Guardian explaining this to us all, clearly and simply:
We must fight to save our dying high streets
Ah, no, not that bit. This:
Perhaps we should consider that the high street is a passing phase in history, a 20th-century phenomenon? The modern high street evolved in the 19th century from temporary then more permanent markets set up within a living community. The markets evolved into permanent shops and, in doing so, displaced the very lifeblood of the living community. Then we had the adverse effect of cars bringing out-of-town supermarkets and the huge additional cost of parking near the high street. Now we have the internet killing off the remaining high street shops but leaving no living kernel in their place because of housing regulations and excessive rent and parking charges from councils.
I believe the 20th-century high street may be essentially dead and what is needed is further evolution so that these empty shops are converted back to living accommodation. We may have fewer shops, but they will again be within walking distance.
Yes, quite so.
Don’t worry too much about this though. It’s not that the institution of The G has suddenly managed to get something right. This is a reader’s letter, not something from the production team - that explains why it’s right perhaps.
The meaning of Maastricht
On February 7th 1992 the Maastricht Treaty was signed. It was more properly called the Treaty on European Union, and was signed in Maastricht by the then members of the European Economic Community. Its purpose was to further European integration. As part of that project it renamed the EEC the European Community, dropping the word ‘economic’ to emphasize its move into social, foreign, judicial and security matters. It retained that name until 2009, when it officially became the European Union.
The Maastricht Treaty heralded moves to create a common European currency, the Euro. The UK and Denmark secured opt-outs from the European currency and its attendant convergence criteria. The UK also secured an opt-out from the Social Chapter, a concession rendered meaningless when the working time directive was imposed under health and safety rules instead. The first government of Tony Blair abandoned the Social Chapter opt-out, but the UK and Ireland retained the opt-outs they secured on the Schengen agreement on borderless travel.
The Maastricht Treaty probably marked the start of an increasingly fractious relationship between the UK and the EC/EU. Many people in the UK thought that European integration was completed with the establishment of a single market, and were opposed to the creation of a European state as a political entity. Some European leaders were quite open about wanting a political union to oppose the influence of the United States, and to have a European currency that could compete with the dollar for world eminence. Most UK people did not support such ambitions. Indeed, many saw more in common with the US than they did with the EU.
Edmund Burke had written of the American colonists’ attitude to British rule: “They augur misgovernment at a distance and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze,” and the same might be said of increasing misgivings many UK people felt about the rules being imposed on them from afar. It is an entirely plausible claim that it was on this day 27 years ago that a fuse was lit that would eventually burn its way to the heart of the UK’s relationship with the EU, and would explode into the vote in 2016 to change that relationship.
It could be that only the older among us can afford to drink reasonably
Those of us who work or have done in journalism have a certain problem with the current safe drinking limits. What is said to be the maximum safe weekly consumption is what we certainly used to call lunch. That says more about us than anything else of course.
And yet it is also true that the limits of 14 units a week are ludicrous. The earlier, higher, limits were quite literally plucked from the air. That’s before the near random reduction in them. The actual truth is that being teetotal carries risks, as does any level of alcohol consumption. What we want to know though is what is the accumulation of the various risks, that being imbibing up at the 30 to 40 units a week level being as risky, overall, as drinking none.
However, we think there might be a different explanation for this:
Overall, 21% of people aged 16 and over in England drink more than the 14 units a week recommended by the UK’s four chief medical officers, a fall on the previous year.
Far more men (28%) than women (14%) drink more than this threshold, according to NHS Digital, in a detailed portrait of alcohol and the harm it causes.
Men are likely to drink more than women - not a great surprise to any observer of our society over the generations.
NHS Digital’s report, which used 2017 data from England, showed that adults from wealthier backgrounds (27%) were almost twice as likely as those from poorer homes (15%) to drink more than the 14-unit weekly ceiling.
The rich tend to drink more than the poor.
Those aged 55 to 64 are the likeliest to drink more than 14 units a week, with 36% of men and 20% of women doing that.
Those more mature in years are more likely to drink more than those less wise. A reasonable response to modern life we might think.
Yet we should also consider the manner in which race changes with age cohorts. The BAME, for example, portion of the population is rather higher among the young than it is among the old. That’s what the recency of mass immigration means.
It’s possible to piece this together. We tax drink highly in the UK. The result of which is that those who are able to enjoy it are the richer, older, whiter, males among us. The only group left that can afford to enjoy it in quantity perhaps.
Any other policy we had which privileged rich old white guys would be rightly decried and changed. Perhaps we should change our taxation of alcohol therefore?