Clever People

Lately, I have been curious about clever people. They are everywhere and being very clever they like to teach us many things we stupid people are just too sluggish to figure out for ourselves. Clever people are better than not-clever people and I, for one, am grateful that we live in a world where we have clever people to show us the way. But one thing I have noticed about clever people is that when we stupid people don’t understand their point they get angry and call us ‘scum’ and other not-nice words. I think this might be because they believe this is the only language we understand. They are probably right; after all, they are much cleverer than we are.

For instance, clever people know that the earth is warming. Or that it is cooling. We stupid people lack the intellectual capacity to hold these two opposing views simultaneously, so the clever people try not to burden us with facts which, to the untrained eye sometimes appear to be more speculative than real, evidence-based observations. I have probably already over-stretched my limited mental capacity by using the long word ‘speculative’, without understanding properly what it means. I expect a clever person will point this out to me as ‘an end to the argument’.

Clever people are much nicer than stupid people. This is why almost all clever people are left-wing types who understand that the rich must pay for everything. In this way they can dissuade people from becoming rich people because that makes them hateful. In fact many very clever people have been demonstrating against one particular rich person this weekend. They understand – in a way that I never possibly could – that rich people paying tax is disgusting, especially because they pay so much more tax than poor, stupid people.

I am grateful this has been pointed out for me because without the clever people I would have gone on believing that rich people paying all the tax the law demands was a good thing, when clearly it is not. Clever, rich people – those on the left, for instance – are allowed to reduce their taxes, apparently, but I am not clever enough to work out why. I have, however, deduced from all this that paying tax is wrong because the more tax you pay, the more the clever people hate you. People like Polly Toynbee. And they should know.

Cameron must go... and publish his tax details. Oh...

Clever people know that the world is binary – you are either one of them (clever) or else stupid. The stupid are too stupid to accept this and believe that there are grades of cleverness. But we are wrong; one is either clever or not. You see, we didn't think David Cameron's tax affairs were particularly interesting but we were wrong. Clever people knew better and as a result of them saying so, it seems we will soon be able to see how much tax everybody else has paid or avoided. A lot of Labour MPs will now be doing a lot of shredding and rewriting history as a result. Sometimes I wonder if the clever people are really as clever as they think they are.

Panama People

I listened, incredulous (as is often the only way) when I heard a reporter on Radio 4’s Today programme announce that a study had discovered (‘discovered’ mind - no doubt by some Pulitzer-level miracle of investigative journalism) that over fifty percent of young people ‘drift’ into work without (gasp) a degree. She sounded astonished that such denizens were capable of breathing, let alone earning a living.

Drifting? As if the only way you could get to stack shelves, sweep up leaves or fuck about keeping people waiting for a cup of coffee – no, drawing a heart in the froth does NOT make you a barista – was if you had paid your dues at the altar of higher education. When the economically illiterate Tony Blair made the fallacious deduction that as graduates earned more than the hoi polloi, forcing 50% through the degree sausage machine would somehow increase everybody’s wage, those of us out here in the world of work were screaming “No!”

Getting a sixteen-year old to learn about getting to work on time, every day and actually, you know, working, is hard enough. Trying to do that with an endless succession of twenty-five year old graduates (MA in intersectional gender and social butt-hurt issues) who can’t yet tie their shoelaces and wear their sub-standard scholarship as an entitlement gong, is just a waste of everybody’s time and energy. Education isn’t about ‘things’ it’s about life, which includes finding out how everything actually works.

Maybe a lack of general common sense explains why so many people are over-excited about the ‘scandal’ of the Panama Papers. (Notwithstanding David Cameron’s clumsy handling of his own involvement) If only those nasty rich people who legally avoid paying more tax than the governments ask them to would voluntarily pay more tax – then we could have a universal basic income... they think.

“You didn’t just make that money.” they bleat, “Society let you make it.” Society, they say, built the roads, made the energy and bred and cared for the workers, all for those hated capitalists to exploit with their greedy ideas.  I have news; put everybody on a universal basic income and watch that income get redistributed really quickly, right back to the people you took it from. In any case, if everybody started out with something, that something would soon become the datum level... that is, two-grand or ten-grand, everybody would still, effectively, start out with nothing.

Every time some social justice type bangs this particular drum they assume that all the money that the people they hate have access to is unfairly gained, that it is liquid and that it can be effectively taxed. They assume that it can be equitably distributed at no cost and with zero corruption. They also imagine that if this is done, the people being fleeced will be happy to keep on generating more. Possibly the ultimate aspect of their naivety is the belief that everybody else – you know, the ones who are not capable of creating wealth – will spend it wisely.

Not funny... because it's true.

But here’s an idea. Maybe if they chose a vocational education early on, learned to become somebody useful, then went out to earn their own money not at 23 on some extended graduate trainee-ship, but at 16 when they should be perfectly capable of picking up a trade or other useful work skills; maybe then, by the time they come to have an interest in other people’s tax they will have paid plenty of their own and be very cautious of enabling the heavy hand of state to pick their pockets. Just a thought.

Eye of the Tiger

The pursuit of happiness and the quest for the Holy Grail are lauded as the endeavours of ordinary and honourable men. The fight to survive is built into all of us but the drive to succeed is bequeathed to relatively few. One alpha dog in the pack, one full-maned lion; the leader emerges as the one with the best credentials while the losers either fall in line or slope off to become lone wolves. Not only are we no different from the animals, we use animal analogies all the time and our folklore is filled with tales of derring-do in pursuit of riches. We even sing about the fight for supremacy:

It's the eye of the tiger

It's the thrill of the fight

Rising up to the challenge of our rival...

The current media-fest around the so-called Panama Papers is typical of a society smelling blood. We think we’ve found a weakness and we’re trying to mount a challenge. With quite spectacular naivety the press pack is circling the prey and imagining that here is the answer to... something. If we can only slay the monster Grendel the villagers will be able to live in peace. But Russia and Pakistan seem to be bored with it all already, or at least accepting it with a shrug. And while David Cameron’s family tax avoidance affairs come under scrutiny, there will be little enough to gloat over when he leaves office, soon after the referendum.

Corruption is part of the make-up of people who are ruthless enough to gain that level of success. Few and far between are the business giants without metaphorical blood on their hands, so much so that the very few who do appear to be spotless are held up as shining examples of a rare breed. Backstabbing, elbowing aside and teaming up against rivals are human traits you can see in any child until it is beaten trained out of them. But some are so driven they ignore it and succeed anyway. It is a trait we applaud in athletes, adore in leaders, yet abhor in businessmen and politicians. Given the shitty ride those who stride the corridors of power experience only the driven survive, let alone thrive.

Left entirely unchecked of course, the apocalyptic prophecies of tyranny by a cruel ruling elite could come true – it already does in some regions of the world. This is why we came up with democracy which, on the face of it, would appear to be rule by the majority for the majority good. It just so happens that the greater good is often served by letting wealth creators actually get richer still because this, no matter how much you pooh-pooh ‘trickle down economics’, does actually provide employment, incomes and hope for those of us on the lower rungs, even if it is only the crumbs. The alternative may be no crumbs.

But these occasional coups and cries of conspiracy provide mere entertainment. It’s the mob, baying for blood and in the aftermath, those who can will simply take their tax avoidance elsewhere and carry on as before. If they can’t do it in Panama, some other haven will spring up to serve their hoarding needs. Squirrels hide nuts for the winter; we put aside money for the rainy days. This is just the same but with bigger beasts. To imagine you can end corruption is nothing but a pipe dream – it is a part of our nature.

Beowulf in sheep's clothing...

Which is why the limited form of democracy we have, with its limited ability to force real, revolutionary progress is perfect. We muddle along fine until a few people take the piss. We temporarily bring them down and then everything goes back to normal. Corruption thrives, however, where there is no democratic accountability. I wonder what we will uncover when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists turns its searchlight beam on the European Commission?