Skiing, Social Capital and Scottish Independence

The mogulled delights of the Grand Couloir in Courchevel

Late March in the French ski resort of Courchevel. We shared a gondola with a group of well-heeled English women. They were discussing their offspring, one of whom had a job interview that day.

"How did Timmy get on at his interview?"

The proud mother responded. "He's got his second interview with Deloitte Consulting today. He's giving a presentation this time."

"What's the topic?"

"It's on opportunities to profit from the Arab Spring."

"Did you help him with the presentation?"

"You know Timmy, he likes to do his own thing." She laughed then paused. "Luckily we have a family friend who looks after North Africa for (insert name of major bank) so he was able to use him as a bit of a sounding board."

I thought how nice this was for little Timmy. The family friend would no doubt have access to the latest thinking of highly paid consultants on the very topic of his presentation. Imagine the advantage this inside information would give little Timmy in the interview process. Perhaps he would be competing against other candidates from less privileged backgrounds who had had to do their own research and come up with their own ideas. They wouldn't stand a chance.

My mind shot forward twenty years. I visualised Little Timmy as a fully fledged Tory, clad in blazer, Oxford shirt and slacks, asserting arrogantly that he had worked bloody hard to earn his money and didn't see why he should be paying taxes to support lazy scroungers. Why couldn't they learn to stand on their own two feet, as he had done?

This is the concept of social capital in action, the mechanism that explains why the moneyed elite are so successful at ensuring that their offspring get the best jobs in the most lucrative professions, why social mobility is so difficult to achieve and why inequality in our society deepens with every generation. When I was young and naive enough to believe that I lived in a meritocratic, classless country, this may have angered me. Nowadays I regard it as an inevitable part of human society. After all, who wouldn't use their network of friends and professional contacts to help advance their children's careers if the opportunity arose?

Social capital is nothing new. I recently read the abstract of a paper, the authors of which had analysed the bones and teeth of skeletons found in high status neolithic burial sites. They found high levels of strontium in the teeth of the high status skeletons, indicating that as children they had dined on food produced in loess, the best, most productive soil. The authors used this observation to support their thesis that inherited wealth dated back to the very dawn of agriculture, a prime example of using science to support the bleeding obvious. Privileged children grow up into privileged adults. That is why rags to riches stories belong in fairy stories, they are very much the exception.

On a recent episode of Question Time or some other late night discussion programme the musician and social commentator Billy Bragg presented the argument that there was something amiss when so many of our leaders come from such similar backgrounds, public (for any foreign readers this means private) school then Oxford or Cambridge. A lady representing the Labour party challenged him. Surely he wasn't proposing that our leaders should be poorly educated? In any case, she continued, an increasing proportion of the Oxbridge intake now comes from comprehensive schools. To his great credit Bragg quickly clarified his point. It doesn't matter if anyone with the right grades can, in principle, get into Oxbridge. It remains a deeply unhealthy situation that, no matter which political party one votes for, one can be pretty sure that the resulting leaders will be drawn from the same small and deeply unrepresentative pond, and that once in power they will legislate for the benefit of their pond mates rather than in the best interests of the country. In what sense can democracy be said to be working if an overprivileged clique are consistently over-represented at the highest levels of government?

This is why I am disillusioned with Westminster politics, with Old Etonian millionaires pedalling the myth of meritocracy while brazenly hammering the poorest in society and using the proceeds to award tax cuts to the super-rich. The fiasco of the referendum on the Alternative Vote shows that the Westminster system is unlikely to change for the better any time soon. 

I will vote 'Yes' to Scottish independence when I get the chance, not because of any sentimental Braveheart-based reasons, but because I am sure that an independent Scotland, whose voting system already nods in the direction of proportional representation, will elect a representative, progressive government that will be more effective at reducing inequality in our society than any Westminster government, regardless of colour, will ever be. At the very least it might try. 

Capitalism and the Zeitgeist

Michael Moore's documentary 'Capitalism: A Love Affair' kept me up later than intended at the weekend (ironically it was an excessive quantity of adverts, rather than the length of the film, that padded it out until one in the morning). If you haven't seen it I highly recommend seeking it out so that you can be depressed and amused by some hideous examples of American capitalism's worst excesses.

On balance the documentary left me feeling optimistic, because I think it signifies the start of a shift in the Zeitgeist, clarification that capitalism itself is to blame for the hitherto non-specific malaise that infuses contemporary society. Until now the best summing up of this pervasive existential angst was to be found on LTJ Bukem's Earth Volume III, when he noted astutely that the 'New Millenium lifestyle' was 'playing games with people's minds'. Now we have identified both the villain, the Capitalist system itself, and the solution, a reclaimed democracy that prioritises people over capital.

Our society's emphasis on individualism often leads us to underestimate the power of the Zeitgeist - the spirit of the times - it being more convenient for us to believe that history is shaped by the actions of individuals. Let me give you an example: Rosa Parks, the black woman who is often credited with starting the civil rights movement in the US. She refused to give up her seat on the bus for a white person, as required by the law of the time, and the court appearance resulting from this crime galvanised the oppressed populace into action. To me the identity of Rosa Parks is irrelevant - the groundswell of opinion existed before she made her stand. Had she not provided a focal point for this Zeitgeist then someone else would have done, change had become inevitable. A similar example could be built around Ghandi and the end of colonial rule in India.

I ruminated over these matters as I ran over the hills on Sunday morning. My reward was the crystallisation of an idea that illustrates perfectly the evil of the capitalist system. Consider this: if I had sufficient capital, I would be able to profit - through share ownership and interest on loans - from almost every act of work completed in the world. In doing so I would be actively impoverishing almost every worker. I could do all this without even leaving my gated compound.

Mull this over as the austerity measures bite, as the fruits of all our labours are transferred to the bailed out bankers and the holders of our national debts. Let the Zeitgeist shift intensify...............

Some photos of Nairn beach and a little bit of politics

A bit of a departure from the norm this week. I felt compelled to provide some political commentary in place of the usual travel / outdoor material. Normal service will be resumed next week. I'm working on a plan for the second nocturnal mountain bike journey of the winter season. Trains will  feature once again!

Autumn leaves carried to the sea by the River Nairn.  Perhaps some fell from trees high in the Monadhliath .

What do I have in common with Boris Johnson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Cameron, Barack Obama, Alistair Darling, Bill Clinton, Jacqui Smith, Al Gore, Caroline Flint, Sarah Palin, Charles Clarke and George W Bush?

One thing at least – I smoked the odd jazz cigarette in my youth. In doing so I established that cannabis, a Class B controlled substance, was far milder than society's favourite drug- alcohol. This alerted me to the fact that the official advise about the relative dangers of the two substances was incorrect. In short, the authorities had lied to me. Almost twenty years ago I wrote a discursive essay on the subject as part of my Standard Grade English. Then, as now, the evidence pointed overwhelmingly to the fact that cannabis is far less harmful than alcohol. Accordingly, it is unfair to criminalise those who use cannabis for medicinal or recreational purposes. For a while it looked as if an evidence-based policy might be considered seriously. Cannabis was downgraded to Class C, only to be upgraded to Class B soon after amid media hysteria about 'killer skunk'.

I will not go into the details of the argument here. Others have stated the case clearly. In any case, arguing with those who are in favour of the War on Drugs is every bit as futile as arguing with creationists or climate change deniers.

Rusty hinge on the structure at the end of Nairn Pier.

It was with great dismay that I learned that Professor David Nutt had been asked by the Home Secretary to resign as chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs because of the views expressed in the report linked above. This is an appalling example of the government refusing to listen to an expert who has been appointed to help ensure that policy is based on scientific evidence. He spoke the truth so they got rid of him. The message seems clear – the government are not interested in basing their policies on science. Rather they want scientists to provide evidence to support their existing prejudices and flawed policies.

In doing so they are failing in their duty to protect society from substance abuse related harm. The only positive side of this sorry affair is that the government's dictatorial attitude did not extend to having him disappear; they simply sacked him. It is worth reflecting that they could have used anti-terror legislation to detain him without trial or fly him off to some faraway land for a good waterboarding to the soundtrack of the Bee Gees.

It is dismaying that the politicians listed above have retreated into hypocrisy, admitting their own drug use while implicitly endorsing the punishment of others who do the same. This is human behaviour at its very worst; the power of the establishment is such that the only view that may be expressed openly is demonstrably false.

As always your comments are very welcome......