Just say no to The Smart Fund

The Smart Fund is the idea that those who sell the gizmos upon which digital art is appreciated could chip in some sum from those sales to subsidise the digital art.

The Smart Fund is proposed as a collaboration between creators and performers, technology companies and the Government. It provides a direct way for tech manufacturers to invest in, grow, empower, and enrich the cultural DNA of our society, by supporting the creativity for which the UK is globally renowned.

The Smart Fund places a small one-off levy on to mobiles, laptops, PCs and devices that are built to allow people to store and download content.

These small payments, the equivalent of 1-3% of the sales value, are paid into a central fund that is then distributed to creators to help them sustain a living from their content, support and bring together communities, and put different parts of the UK on an equal footing.

If the hardware manufacturers wish to do this then good luck to them and all who sail in the scheme.

But that, of course, is not what is actually being proposed. Based on the French scheme this is in fact a tax. That is, it’s not a cooperation at all, it’s a forcing.

At which point just a couple of problems. One is that usual one of the hypothecation of tax revenue. If we can tax hardware then why should the tax be spent upon the arts? Why not upon saving babbies in the NHS from the midwives? Say, just for one example. Gaining tax revenue is one thing, disposing of it another, the ability to tax one issue is not proof of where that revenue should be spent.

There’s also the point that we’ve already got tax spent upon the arts. The Arts Council, the lottery, there is already considerable subsidy out there. What’s the case for more?

But the big issue here is the very idea itself. For that hardware itself is indeed what we all consume digital products upon. We spend vast amounts too. Apparently some £2.1 billion on “over the top video”, £5.4 billion on esports and video games. The sector as a whole is worth £60 billion and change including advertising - which does support a significant amount of digital production.

It appears that it’s now easier than ever to gain revenue from producing digital products, art even. Well, assuming that one is producing art that anyone is willing to pay for that is. And, if people are producing art that no sentient being wishes to pay for then why should those same sentient beings be taxed to pay for it?

They shouldn’t of course. So, just say no to The Smart Fund. It’s merely another attempt by the arts establishment to force you to pay for what they - but not you - desire. The correct response to which is pay for your own art desires, Matey.

An exercise in entirely missing the point

Following on from that ludicrous National Food Strategy we are berated with this in The Guardian:

The Food Strategy review itself makes this very clear; it cites the eye-opening statistic that 85% of the land used to feed the UK population is devoted to rearing animals, even though animal products provide only 32% of our calories. Given the need to act quickly before it’s too late, the report’s suggestions are often frustratingly mild.

The mental image of someone observing us with folded arms, foot tapping, awaiting our mumbled response to this clear and obvious fact is difficult to clear from the mind.

Yet the correct response is “Yes, and?”

For the base point of our having an economy, even a civilisation, is being ignored. That base point being that we humans should gain as much of whatever it is we desire from the assets available to us. The rational - omniscient, benevolent etc - planner and the chaos of the free market are not at odds here. The aim is to maximise human utility over time.

There’s a certain free gift of nature in the amount of land out there. Depending on how we count it 30 to 50% isn’t - or hardly is - used by humans. The amount we use for any intensive form of agriculture is falling - when measured per capita it’s near halved in recent decades.

That land is an asset. Gaining a higher return from an asset is also known as “getting richer.” If it is true, and it seems to be, that we humans value meat and dairy more than the alternative starchy stodge crop then we are being made richer by gaining access to that meat and dairy.

That is, this statement that lots of land is used for meat and dairy.

And?

Opposition to this idea - that we are aiming to maximise human utility - clearly calls into question the idea that the would be planners are benevolent. Or even omniscient, given that they’re failing to even ask the right question.

One more little point about the report itself. We are told in it, as proof absolute that something is wrong, that the UK has 28 types of KitKat bar available. We’ve not checked this, not counted, although it has been pointed out to us that Japan has 200. But if Mr. Dimbleby, as he does, presents this as an obvious indication of some problem then he’d better have an answer to this next question. How many types of KitKat should there be?

And why?

A word of advice

We’re not saying that we agree with this specific critique, even as we hold the general opinion about those who rule us. It’s the next stage in the argument that interests us here:

Having read that lot I despaired, more than a little. How is it that the House of Lords, which is supposed to be a repository of wisdom, seems to know so little on something as important as economics?

As Hayek explained to us all it’s actually impossible for that centre to gain data, let alone process it into information, to be able to plan matters in any detail. We are also not wholly surprised, to put it mildly, that the usual run of PPE graduates are not all that up with the technical details of this and that.

So the idea that a parliamentary report, whether Lords or Commons - or, indeed, any set of deep thinking from the Man in Whitehall - misses a little to much of the necessary understanding doesn’t shock nor surprise us.

Which is why the next stage of the argument is, to us, that those in parliament, Whitehall, should have little and certainly less power over the lives of the rest of us. Simply because they do not grasp the detail.

Where we fail to understand Professor Murphy is in his dual insistence that the rulers don’t kno’ nuttin’ and also that they should have ever greater power and intervene in life to ever greater levels of detail.

Perhaps it’s some special code in academia, even some special insight. But the demand that incompetents and know nothings be given more power strikes us as illogical.

Prevention is Better than Cure

39 Victoria Street, SW1 

“Humphrey.” 

“Yes, Minister?” 

“As I understand it, as the NHS is becoming unaffordable, our Grand Strategy is to beef up public health to the point we’ll all be skipping about like new-born lambs and won’t need it, or not so much of it anyway.” 

“That is the gist and it is why we welcomed the Dimbleby report, although I’m not sure sugar and salt only being available from the NHS is a good idea.”

“The nub, Humphrey, is that we have to simplify and clarify our public health agenda and who is going to carry it out?” 

“Yes indeed, Minister.” 

“I’ve just read your 13th July letter to the Chief Executive of Public Health England.” 

“I think you may be referring to the missive from the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Prevention, Public Health and Primary Care.”

“I know Jo Churchill. Her name may be on it but the style is remarkably similar to the same day’s letter to the new UK Health Security Agency Chief Executive, allegedly from Lord Bethell the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Innovation, but, if I may say so, rather more like your fair hand. Jim Bethell’s main qualifications for the job are being a pal of the late lamented Secretary of State and running that south of the river nightclub, the Ministry of Sound.  He was good at that. The “Ministry of Sound” would be rather a good name for our Department, what?” 

“I could not possibly comment, Minister.  We are here to serve.” 

“Anyway, isn’t it a bit late for Public Health England to be given a pile of priorities? I was told it will definitely be closed by the end of the year, and maybe by the end of September.  That’s just five months to do all the things it hasn’t done so far.” 

“’Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.’  That is Samuel not Boris, Minister.” 

“So, by the end of the year, you say Public Health England will reduce health inequalities with a spot of marketing and advice. It will also support the government’s target of reducing the number of adults living with obesity, halve childhood obesity by 2030 and provide up to 455,000 additional adult lifestyle weight management services, along with 6,000 additional children and family lifestyle weight management services, and trial an extended brief intervention via the National Child Measurement Programme for 60,000 to 85,000 children. Also a new Healthy Weight Coach training module for Primary Care Network staff and expanding the Better Health campaign to motivate people to make healthier choices and to develop and drive take-up of the popular NHS weight loss plan app. Did I mention ‘initiate development of a public facing Nutrient Profiling tool to support businesses to calculate the nutrient profiling scores of their products’? And it has another six laundry lists like that. Might it be quicker just to list the items that are not priorities?” 

“Oh, dear me no, Minister.  For us everything is a priority.  Otherwise, we would never get anything done.” 

“But Public Health England never does get anything done, Humphrey.  I thought that was why we are sacking the Chief Executive, along with the customary encomium of course, and closing it down?” 

“What matters, Minister, is to have clear objectives – and plenty of them. You cannot fault us on that. Furthermore, none of these priorities, apart from the obesity ones, are attached to anything so vulgar as delivery dates or numerical targets and there’s no link, so far as we know, between the obesity targets and anyone losing any weight. These are excellent priorities because no one will ever know if we have achieved them.” 

“I’m sorry to break this to you Humphrey but everyone, even the chap on the Clapham omnibus, knows that Public Health England has been utterly useless and its handling of the pandemic has been dire. Even securing Covid vaccines had to be handed to someone else or we’d still be waiting. Why else would we be sacking the Chief Executive and closing it down?” 

“I do agree, Minister, but people do not appreciate the sterling work Michael Bodie and his team have been doing, often working with charities, universities and the private sector.  PHE has been generous in allowing others to take the credit. Now those wonderful results will grow as the UK Health Security Agency, under Jenny Harries, takes over.” 

“Yes, I noted that in the two letters, except last year we said that the National Institute for Health Prevention under Dido Harding would be taking over.  And the charities were up in arms as we wouldn’t promise to maintain the £760M p.a. that PHE gave them.”

“I think the word is Protection, Minister, but I take your point.  It is confusing. When we announced the dissolution of Public Health in August last year, we said its replacement would 'be operational from Spring 2021, to prevent any disruption to ongoing vital work'.  On 13th July this year, however, we described the UK Health Security Agency as ‘the new organisation responsible for preparing, preventing and responding to threats to the nation’s health’[6], which obviously includes Public Health England. As you can see, Minister, we are keeping up with the times.” 

“I can? So what has become of Health Protection?” 

“Our late Secretary of State intended to make Lady Harding Chief Executive of the NHS Commissioning Board, which you may know as NHS England. He freed her up by rolling the Health Protection into Health Security.  Alas, Protection is no more, Minister. Prevention is the name of the game and that is better than cure.” 

“Absolutely. I thought putting Lady Harding in charge of Health Prevention was rather a good idea but maybe not NHS England . “ 

“Indeed not.  But all is not lost. In Whitehall when one arm’s length body closes, two more will open. On 29th March, we announced the Office for Health Promotion ‘will combine Public Health England’s health improvement expertise with existing DHSC health policy capabilities, in order to promote and deliver better health to communities nationwide. By combining and enhancing these functions, the Office will play a vital role in helping the public lead healthier lives.’”

“Jolly impressive, Humphrey, barring one little snag.  It was all going to be formalised in the Health and Care Bill. I’ve been through the Bill with a fine-tooth comb and I can’t see a word about this Office. The Bill just says the locals will have to sort it out but local authorities are always a bit strapped for cash. Is this the Ministry of Sound again?” 

“Minister, if I may say so, that is unworthy of someone holding one of the great offices of state. Though I would not do so myself, others might describe it as cheap. We are doing our best. The new Health Security Agency is a very exciting development. Lord Bethell, in his letter, sets out its main role as being to ‘anticipate threats to health and help build the nation’s readiness, defences and health security.’” 

“Yes, that is jolly good, Humphrey. Jenny Harries will divine new diseases that no one has ever heard of and manufacture millions of vaccines for each one before anyone has copped the first dose?” 

“You could put it like that, I suppose.” 

“Wow! Would Jenny like to accompany me to Goodwood next month?”

One thing we'd like to ask about this National Food Strategy

Well, another thing. Much blame is placed upon the consumption of “ultraprocessed” food. The argument then being that we should all be eating unprocessed foods. Or rather, foods that are not processed in a factory, but are processed in the kitchen, at home.

Hmm, well, OK. Who is going to do this?

Or, to put it another way, why are we trying to abolish the washing machine?

As both Hans Rosling and Ha-Joon Chang have been known to point out the washing machine matters. For the former it brought him books, the latter has insisted - and he’s probably right so far at least - that it’s a more important technology than the internet.

Neither are really referring to the machine itself, rather it’s a symbol of all those domestic technologies which have saved that unpaid labour in the household. The very things which have allowed the economic emancipation of women over the past century or so.

The demand now is that the processing in factories must stop. Thus, someone, somewhere, is going to have to be doing it at home. So, who is that going to be?

To put this another way, has Mr. Dimbleby actually thought through the effects of adding another 5 to 10 hours (perhaps a 50 to 100% rise) to the household weekly labour budget? We’re really pretty certain that he hasn’t and also that he should.

Decolonization

There is a current trend by people in education or in our institutions to “decolonize” the culture they work within. It is quite an amorphous project, and it is quite difficult to focus on what the term actually means. One of its exponents put into words what its programme entails. 

“Decolonizing the curriculum means, first of all, acknowledging that knowledge is not owned by anyone. It is a cumulative and shared resource that is available to all.”

Does anyone suppose that knowledge is owned by anyone? Most people would probably think that knowledge is already a cumulative resource available to all. People can access it because it is not hidden and restrictive but open to all.

Delving more deeply into what “decolonizing” the culture might entail, we are confronted with the notions that logic, mathematics and physics are “Western,” and have “Western” values and assumptions built into them. To think that these disciplines might be objective and open to all of humankind is thought by some to represent “colonial” thinking. The assumption seems to be that there is a more “inclusive” kind of logic, and a mathematics and physics that do not have to follow the rigour of systematic linear thinking.

 It is quite difficult to conceive of a logic that does not follow the rules of logic, or indeed a mathematics in which the numbers and equations do not have to follow the remorseless rules of that discipline. For that matter, it seems unlikely that there can be an alternative physics in which theories do not have to predict and explain, or be tested against the world of our observation.

It could be that “decolonization” simply means declaring that the British empire and all others that preceded or succeeded it were bad. This is a value judgement that could be supported or contested. All empires have involved conquest, but some have been more benign that others. In Roman Britain, for example, the citizens who enjoyed roads, villas, mosaics, clean water and central heating were not, for the most part, invading Roman overlords. They were the British people who had fought against the Romans initially and then became Roman themselves, to enjoy a lifestyle they preferred to the one previously available to them.

The British empire saw its share of conquest and war crimes, but most people would rate these as less atrocious than the mass exterminations of Nazi death camps, or the brutal murder and starvation of many more millions in the Soviet empire of the dictatorship of Mao’s Communist China. The strange woman who teaches literature at Churchill college thinks otherwise, of course, and in a free society is allowed to express views that would have led to swift execution in those other empires.

The British Empire was the first advanced nation to abolish slavery, a practice that had been endemic in every previous culture. It spread science, technology, and ultimately democracy to parts of the world that had seen little of it, and in doing so raised living standards, together with the advance of moral and ethical standards that tend to accompany that.

It spread trade, enabling people to interact and exchange with distant other people beyond their villages. It helped raise the prospects and the aspirations of peoples within it.

There were atrocities, as there have been throughout history, and armed with our present-day morality, we condemn them as we do the others. But they lived by the standards of their day, not by ours. Most of the great thinkers and the virtuous lives we revere in history owned slaves because this was the norm. The fact that it is not now owes something to the people of the British Empire who campaigned for decades to make that so.

If “decolonization” means condemning all the past because it is not the present, it seems to offer little, and puts at risk the heritage we have acquired, and through which we have gained what we today regard as moral improvement.

Planes are significantly cheaper than trains

An interesting little finding here:

Train trips in the UK are on average 50 per cent more expensive than flying on the same routes, forcing travellers to choose between price and the environment, a new study has found.

Taking the train is more expensive on eight of the 10 most popular routes across the UK, according to research by consumer organisation Which?.

The biggest price difference was in a plane fare between Birmingham and Newquay, at £67, and a train ticket at £180, more than 2.5 times as expensive. However, travelling by train would emit just a fifth of the carbon emissions that would be produced by flying on that route, the consumer outlet said.

The ‘plane is cheaper in that cost charged to the consumer. But there is that little point of the costs of the externality, the CO2 emissions. Fortunately, we already have a system that deals with this, Air Passenger Duty. This is £13 on a domestic flight.

Emissions - just to be rough about it - are 50 to 100 kg on a domestic flight. From the Stern Review we know the social cost of carbon, $80 (or perhaps £60 today) per tonne CO2-e. APD is more than covering this externality.

We can and should go further too. Passengers on the rail network, roughly enough, cover the operating costs of said network through their ticket payments. There is considerable subsidy to the capital costs of the network from taxpayers. Aviation gains little subsidy from the taxpayers - no, we can’t shout that avgas is tax free because so, near enough, is train diesel etc. Plus, the train isn’t paying anything at all for that externality of emissions while aviation is more than covering it.

That is, when including all costs, aviation over certain distances is cheaper than train travel over the same distances. It’s also quicker, reducing the time costs to the passengers.

At which point one possible observation is how remarkable is that? A 20th century technology is better than a 19th century one? Even, one that really got going in the 1950s is better than one that did so in the 1840s? Hush now, isn’t that a surprise?

Another observation is that the ‘planes are the better technology, all things considered. So why is it that we’ve all these demands for the constriction of the better and the subsidy and expansion of the worse?

No, carbon doesn’t cut it, we’ve already internalised that through the APD.

Anyone with any answers might consider jotting them down on a postcard for Grant Shapps. We do have this vague feeling that policy based upon facts is going to work better than that based upon shibboleths.

Rule by scientists

H G Wells wrote prophetically about a world ruled by the dictates of science. His book, “The Shape of Things to Come” was published in 1933, and he collaborated on a movie version released as “Things to Come” in 1936.

In Wells’ futuristic vision, the world undergoes a long and debilitating war, and humanity enters a new dark age. The world’s cities are in ruins, their economies destroyed by hyperinflation. The only technology that survives is a primitive military one. As tribes fight turf wars, a new aircraft lands to proclaim that the last surviving engineers and mechanics who control global transport have taken over the world. They are called “Wings Over the World,” and are rebuilding civilization anew. Their leader declares, “And now for the rule of the Airmen and a new life for mankind.”

Their dictatorship has total power, using the “gas of peace” to enforce compliance. They promote science, enforce Basic English as a universal language to replace all others, and eradicate all religions, setting the world on the road to a peaceful scientific utopia. Their aim is to “educate” all humanity to a sensible, forward-looking, intellectually-based outlook. They build a technologically advanced civilization that tolerates other human aspirations, such as artistic achievement, with an amused disdain. To Wells this represented utopia.

Others might take a different view, having seen what scientists do when government follows their lead, sheltering controversial decisions behind their immaculate white coats. To many of them basic human desires, such as the need to interact with friends and family, to hug, to have fun together, to travel, and to engage in communal activities, are all things that have to be suspended or suppressed in the interests of what they call safety. Some want permanent changes to the way people live, with face-masks, social distancing and travel restrictions to continue “indefinitely” because they make for a safer world.

“Scientific” advisers in and around the Department of Health would probably have us live in a world without alcohol, sugar, salt, or most of the foods we enjoy. Those in and around the Department of Transport have a similar mindset. Helmets would be compulsory for cyclists, and seat belts would be required on buses and trains. Everything that might involve a degree of risk, no matter how small, or how ready people were to accept it, would be controlled, banned, or made sufficiently unpleasant that people would stop doing it.

Most of us in our daily lives routinely do cost-benefit analysis and make its trade-offs. Yes, driving a car is risky, and people are killed or injured doing it, but the convenience of being able to reach places is reckoned to be worth the small risk to each of us. Yes, sports such as scuba diving, rock-climbing and parachuting have their dangers, but many of us trade the risk for the thrill. Indeed, the risk for some is part of the thrill.

In a world controlled by the scientists we’d all sit quietly and safely in a risk-free environment, waiting for the bell to ring that leads us all out to pasture. In this world, though, we’d rather weigh up the risks and benefits of living the sort of lives we want to live and regard as worth living, and make our own decisions.

Things that are, in fact, not true

From The Guardian:

Eliminating plastic pollution, reducing pesticide use by two-thirds,...(...)... among the targets in a new draft of a Paris-style UN agreement on biodiversity loss.

That’s not in fact true. From the UN document itself:

Reduce pollution from all sources to levels that are not harmful to biodiversity and ecosystem functions and human health, including by reducing nutrients lost to the environment by at least half, and pesticides by at least two thirds and eliminating the discharge of plastic waste.

It is the pesticide runoff which is to be reduced, not the use of pesticides. It is possible to accuse us of pedantry here but when discussing plans to rule the world we do think such details are important.

The little bit that amuses though is this:

Goal C

The benefits from the utilization of genetic resources are shared fairly and equitably, with a substantial increase in both monetary and non-monetary benefits shared, including for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

Milestone C.1

The share of monetary benefits received by providers, including holders of traditional knowledge, has increased.

The logic here is that if in those rainforests someone discovers something like quinine again then the government of the forest should receive oodles of cash. About which, well, OK, maybe?

It’s just that this seems to rather conflict with the other current UN insistences that those covid vaccines must be delivered free, without patent restrictions, to all.

Which does seem to be the wrong way around. Those genetic resources, that biodiversity and so on, those are things that already exist. There is therefore no need to provide incentives to bring them into existence. The vaccines did not exist a year back - maybe 18 months - and the necessary vaccines for whatever next escapes from a laboratory do not as yet. Therefore some system of incentives to create them was needed, is and will be.

Yet the UN insistence is that everyone had better cough up to create incentives where none are needed, should not have to where they are. Which does seem to be alarmingly the wrong way around.

Perhaps this idea of running the world by committee isn’t quite the way to do it?

Do we save the high streets?

The traditional High Street with its row of small shops was already in decline before the pandemic and its associated lockdowns came to put more of its businesses in jeopardy. Changing demographics and changing lifestyles had led to changed behaviour. More women went out to work and no longer had the time to shop locally each day. Visits to the out of town supermarkets, partly made possible by higher car ownership, led the big shopping trip to replace the many smaller ones.

The changing face of High Streets was evident four or more decades ago. As businesses closed, charity shops often replaced them, having the advantage of lower business rates, sometimes with up to 80 percent discount on what commercial premises would incur. After the wave of charity shops the High Street businesses that closed tended to be replaced more recently by the coffee shops that proliferated everywhere. And after the coffee shops it was the turn of the sandwich shops.

None of these were the traditional small shops that sold things, the butchers, ironmongers, bakers and haberdashers. But their replacements still produced the footfall of visitors that businesses depended on, and therefore kept the High Streets going as local centres. The pandemic has accelerated the change, with locked down shoppers buying in record amounts online, and with home delivery replacing the shopping trip. Working from home means much lower footfall in city centre offices, and therefore fewer customers for shops, cafés and sandwich bars.

Now most High Streets feature boarded up windows and doors, and many will not reopen. According to the Centre for Retail Research there were around 50,000 fewer shops on our High Streets than were there just over a decade before the pandemic. There will be many fewer still after it has passed. Recent losses have included Debenhams, Topshop, BHS, the Edinburgh Woolen Mill, and many other familiar household names. With them have gone most of their jobs. And as fewer people come to the High Street, it can accelerate the cycle of decline. The High Street for some is no longer a pleasant place to visit, especially after dark.

People ask the question “Can the High Street be saved?” And there are several organizations and initiatives attempting to do that. It seems unlikely, however, that High Streets will be remade to suit the preferences of a group of planners, and perhaps more likely that creative market decisions will interact to produce an outcome that cannot be predicted in advance. Even so, we can speculate on what might happen.

For example, housing is in short supply, and High Streets are places where people might want to live, close to their work. The space above High Street premises might be more extensively used to create flats for more urban dwelling. And more premises might move away from competing with online sales and home deliveries, and adapt to services less easy to perform online, services such as beauty parlours, nail salons and yoga classes.

In some places green spaces are replacing car parks, and the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius might provide an example. The city centre is being transformed into an open-air café where hundreds of bars and restaurants are setting up in plazas, squares and streets. It is possible that the High Streets of the future might become communal open spaces with flowers, fountains and sculptures, with free wifi and street food and coffee stands. They might become places where people will meet, rather than shop.

The important thing is to facilitate the flexibility that will enable High Streets to adapt to changing habits and lifestyles, rather than trying to preserve them unchanged, like insects preserved in the amber of their past.