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The Consequences of Coronavirus
Like most Australians, I have spent the past few weeks isolated in my home. With stores closed and public events cancelled, many of us have had to find new ways of keeping ourselves entertained. For me, this period of isolation has been spent reading, writing, and reflecting. However, when one is relaxing it can become easy to forget about the outside world. And it is easy to forget that the long-term consequences of Covid-19 will far outweigh any short-term inconveniences we may be suffering.
Economic
After its human victims, the first casualty of Covid-19 will be the health and vitality of the global economy. Nations like Australia have decided, quite rightly, that their most immediate priority is to protect the health of its citizens. The lockdowns, social-distancing, and other measures taken to prevent the spread of Covid-19 have certainly been effective, but they have come with negative economic consequences.
This fact has been recognised by authorities ranging from the Australian Prime Minister to the World Economic Forum. The World Economic Forum has warned that Covid-19 will keep “large parts of the global economy shuttered” through April. This view was reflected by J.P. Morgan who stated that Covid-19 had pushed the world’s economy into a twelve per cent contraction.
Particularly hard hit will be the tourism and hospitality industries. The Asia Conference stated that the negative impacts of the virus are “likely to worsen as the outbreak continues to disrupt tourism, trade, supply chains, and investments in China.” Likewise, the World Travel and Tourism Council has warned that the economic impacts of Covid-19 could wipe out fifty-million jobs in the travel and tourism industries.
Political
The second casualty will be a change in the way much of the world thinks about its relationship with China. It took the Chinese Communist Party a month to be bothered informing the World Health Organisation of the existence of Covid-19. Thanks to their incompetence, the virus has been able to spread beyond China’s borders. Many people will be left asking: can we really trust a government that has proven itself to be so intrinsically untrustworthy?
The Chinese Communist Party’s reaction to negative press hasn’t exactly endeared them, either. Chinese authorities have been quick to clamp down on anyone who contradicts the claim that the Chinese response to the virus has been effective. In one notable case, a post made by Dr. Li Wenliang on WeChat was dismissed as “illegal acts of fabricating, spreading rumours, and disrupting social order” because it claimed that victims of Covid-19 were being quarantined at the hospital he worked at.
China’s attempts to crack down on negative press outside their borders have been less successful In February, Ivo Daadler wrote in the Chicago Tribune that the Chinese government’s secrecy over Covid-19 made the situation worse than it needed to be. “The fact that China chose secrecy and inaction turned the possibility of an epidemic into a reality”, Daadler wrote in his article.
Daadler’s article has been picked up by several publications, including the Korea Herald and the Kathmandu Post, who published it with an illustration of Chairman Mao wearing a surgical mask. The Chinese Embassy in Nepal dismissed the article as “malicious.” The Nepalese press, however, responded to the accusation by accusing the Chinese embassy of making a “direct threat to the Nepali people’s right to a free press.”
Social
The third casualty of Covid-19 will be the globalist philosophy that has dominated politics over the past few years. People have discovered, much to their chagrin, that the spread of Covid-19 has been facilitated by the ideals of openness that globalism espouses. They are discovering that open borders, mass migration, and crowded housing are harbingers of disease. It is very unlikely that people will be as accepting of open borders and high immigration as they once were.
The ability to share products and ideas is a wonderful innovation. However, people must be willing to accept that the transfer of these things from one place to another also comes with the transfer of less palatable things, like crime and disease. And, truth be told, most people aren’t. This fact has not been lost on many of Europe’s right-wing political parties who are now calling for tighter restrictions on borders during the pandemic.
Although the decline in globalism is sorely needed, Covid-19 has also come with an increase in racism and xenophobia, particularly against Asian people. According to Business Insider, instances of racist and xenophobic attacks, ranging from mere verbal abuse to physical assault, have increased with the Covid-19 pandemic. The sad truth is that discrimination and hatred go hand-in-hand with pandemics. If you associate a group of people with a particular disease and then refuse to associate with them you are much less likely to catch that disease yourself.
Conclusion
The long-term consequences of Covid-19 are going to be far more severe than the current inconveniences it poses. Measures to restrict its spread have caused profound economic penalties, especially in the hospitality and tourism sectors, that will take years to heal. Similarly, relations between China and the world have been tarnished by the Communist Party’s vehement attacks against negative (and richly deserved) criticism and their refusal to be honest about the situation. Finally, Covid-19 will see a decline in the popularity of globalism, open border policies, and mass migration. This pandemic has marked the beginning of a brave new world.
On Constitutional Monarchy
I would like to begin this essay by reciting a poem by the English Romantic poet, William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850):
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need for thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free
So didst thou travel on life’s common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
The poem, entitled London 1802, is Wordsworth’s ode to an older, nobler time. In it he attempts to conjure up the spirit of John Milton (1608 – 1674), the writer and civil servant immortalised for all time as the writer of Paradise Lost.
Milton acts as the embodiment for a nobler form of humanity. He symbolises a time when honour and duty played far greater a role in the human soul than it did in Wordsworth’s time, or even today. It is these themes of honour, duty, and nobility that will provide the spiritual basis for constitutional monarchy.
It is a subject that I will return to much later in this essay. But, to begin, it would perhaps be more prudent to begin this essay in earnest by examining those aspects of English history that allowed both constitutional monarchy and English liberty to be borne.
The English monarchy has existed for over eleven-hundred years. Stretching from King Alfred the Great in the 9th century to Elizabeth II in the 21st, the English people have seen more than their fair share of heroes and villains, wise kings and despotic tyrants. Through their historical and political evolution, the British have developed, and championed, ideals of liberty, justice, and good governance. The English have gifted these ideals to most of the Western World through the importation of their culture to most of the former colonies.
It is a sad reality that there are many people, particularly left-wing intellectuals, who need to reminded of the contributions the English have made to world culture. The journalist, Peter Hitchens (1951 – ) noted in his book, The Abolition of Britain that abhorrence for one’s own country was a unique trait of the English intellectual. Similarly, George Orwell (1903 – 1950) once observed, an English intellectual would sooner be seen stealing from the poor box than standing for “God Save the King.”
However, these intellectuals fail to notice, in their arrogance, that “God save the King” is actually a celebration of constitutional monarchy and not symbolic reverence to an archaic and rather powerless royal family. It is intended to celebrate the nation as embodied in the form of a single person or family and the fact that the common man and woman can live in freedom because there are constitutional restraints placed on the monarch’s power.
If one’s understanding of history has come from films like Braveheart, it is easy to believe that all people in all times have yearned to be free. A real understanding of history, one that comes from books, however, reveals that this has not always been the case. For most of history, people lived under the subjugation of one ruler or another. They lived as feudal serfs, subjects of a king or emperor, or in some other such arrangement. They had little reason to expect such arrangements to change and little motivation to try and change them.
At the turn of the 17th century, the monarchs of Europe began establishing absolute rule by undermining the traditional feudal institutions that had been in place for centuries. These monarchs became all-powerful wielding their jurisdiction over all forms of authority: political, social, economic, and so forth.
To justify their mad dash for power, Europe’s monarchs required a philosophical argument that vindicated their actions. They found it in a political doctrine known as ‘the divine rights of kings.’ This doctrine, formulated by the Catholic Bishop, Jacques Bossuet (1627 – 1704) in his book, Politics Derived from Sacred Scripture, argued that monarchs were ordained by God and therefore represented His will. It was the duty of the people to obey that individual without question. As such, no limitations could be put on a monarch’s power.
What Bossuet was suggesting was hardly a new, but it did provide the justification many monarchs needed to centralise power in themselves. King James I (1566 – 1625) of England and Scotland saw monarchs as God’s lieutenants and believed that their actions should be tempered by the fear of God since they would be called to account at the Last Judgement. On the basis of this belief, King James felt perfectly justified in proclaiming laws without the consent of parliament and involving himself in cases being tried before the court.
When King James died in 1625, he was succeeded by his second-eldest son, Charles (1600 – 1649). King Charles I assumed the throne during a time of political change. He was an ardent believer in the divine rights of kings, a belief that caused friction between the monarch and parliament from whom he had to get approval to raise funds.
In 1629, Charles outraged much of the population, as well as many nobles, when he elected to raise funds for his rule using outdated taxes and fines, and stopped calling parliament altogether. Charles had been frustrated by Parliament’s constant attacks on him and their refusal to furnish him with money. The ensuing period would become known as the eleven years tyranny.
By November 1640, Charles had become so bereft of funds that he was forced to recall Parliament. The newly assembled Parliament immediately began clamouring for change. They asserted the need for a regular parliament and sought changes that would make it illegal for the King to dissolve the political body without the consent of its members. In addition, the Parliament ordered the king to execute his friend and advisor, Thomas Wentworth (1593 – 1641), the 1st Earl of Stafford, for treason.
The result was a succession of civil wars that pitted King Charles against the forces of Parliament, led by the country gentlemen, Oliver Cromwell (1599 – 1658). Hailing from Huntingdon, Cromwell was a descendant of Henry VIII’s (1491 – 1547) chief minister, Thomas Cromwell (1485 – 1550). In the end, it would decimate the English population and forever alter England’s political character.
The English Civil War began in January 1642 when King Charles marched on Parliament with a force of four-hundred-thousand men. He withdrew to Oxford after being denied entry. Trouble was brewing. Throughout the summer, people aligned themselves with either the monarchists or the Parliamentarians.
The forces of King Charles and the forces of Parliament would meet at the Battle of Edgehill in October. What would follow is several years of bitter and bloody conflict.
Ultimately, it was Parliament that prevailed. Charles was captured, tried for treason, and beheaded on January 30th, 1642. England was transformed into a republic or “commonwealth.” The English Civil War had claimed the lives of two-hundred-thousand peoples, divided families, and facilitated enormous social and political change. Most importantly, however, it set the precedent that a monarch could not rule without the consent of parliament.
The powers of parliament had been steadily increasing since the conclusion of the English Civil War. However, total Parliamentary supremacy had proven unpopular. The Commonwealth created in the wake of the Civil War had collapsed shortly after Oliver Cromwell’s death. When this happened, it was decided to restore the Stuart dynasty.
The exiled Prince Charles returned to France and was crowned King Charles II (1630 – 1685). Like his father and grandfather, Charles was an ardent believer in the divine rights of kings. This view put him at odds with those of the Enlightenment which challenged the validity of absolute monarchy, questioned traditional authority, and idealised liberty.
By the third quarter of the 17th century, Protestantism had triumphed in both England and Scotland. Ninety-percent of the British population was Protestant. The Catholic minority was seen as odd, sinister, and, in extreme cases, outright dangerous. People equated Catholicism with tyranny linking French-Style autocracy with popery.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Catholics became the target of persecution. Parliament barred them from holding offices of state and banned Catholic forms of worship. Catholics were barred from becoming members of Parliament, justices of the peace, officers in the army, or hold any other position in Parliament unless they were granted a special dispensation by the King.
It is believed that Charles II may have been a closet Catholic. He was known for pardoning Catholics for crimes (controversial considering Great Britain was a protestant country) and ignoring Parliament.
However, Charles’ brother and successor, James (1633 – 1701) was a Catholic beyond any shadow of a doubt. He had secretly converted in 1669 and was forthright in his faith. After his first wife, Anne Hyde (1637 – 1671) died, James had even married the Italian Catholic, Mary of Modena (1658 – 1718). A decision that hardly endeared him to the populace.
The English people became alarmed when it became obvious that Charles II’s wife, Catherine of Braganza (1638 – 1705) would not produce a Protestant heir. It meant that Charles’ Catholic brother, James was almost certainly guaranteed to succeed him on the throne. So incensed was Parliament at having a Catholic on the throne, they attempted to pass the Crown onto one of Charles’ Anglican relatives.
Their concern was understandable, too. The English people had suffered the disastrous effects of religious intolerance since Henry VIII had broken away from the Catholic Church and established the Church of England. The result had been over a hundred years of religious conflict and persecution. Mary I (1516 – 1558), a devout Catholic, had earnt the moniker “bloody Mary” for burning Protestants the stake. During the reign of King James, Guy Fawkes (1570 – 1606), along with a group of Catholic terrorists, had attempted to blow up Parliament in the infamous “gunpowder plot.”
Unlike Charles II, James made his faith publicly known. He desired greater tolerance for Catholics and non-Anglican dissenters like Quakers and Baptists. The official documents he issued, designed to bring about the end of religious persecution, were met with considerable objection from both Bishops and Europe’s protestant monarchs.
Following the passing of the Test Act in 1672, James had briefly been forced to abandon his royal titles. The Act required officers and members of the nobility to take the Holy Communion as spelt out by the Church of England. It was designed to prevent Catholics from taking public office.
Now, as King, James was attempting to repeal the Test Act by placing Catholics in positions of power. His Court featured many Catholics and he became infamous for approaching hundreds of men – justices, wealthy merchants, and minor landowners – to stand as future MPs and, in a process known as ‘closeting’, attempting to persuade them to support his legal reforms. Most refused.
That was not the limits of James’ activities, either. He passed two Declarations of Indulgences to be read from every stage for two Sundays, and put those who opposed it on trial for seditious libel. Additionally, he had imprisoned seven Bishops for opposing him, made sweeping changes to the Church of England, and built an army comprising mainly of Catholics.
The people permitted James II to rule as long as his daughter, the Protestant Prince Mary (1662 – 1694) remained his heir. All this changed, however, when Mary Modena produced a Catholic heir: James Francis Edward Stuart (1688 – 1766). When James declared that the infant would be raised Catholic, it immediately became apparent that a Catholic dynasty was about to be established. Riots broke out. Conspiracy theorists posited that the child was a pawn in a Popish plot. The child, the theory went, was not the King’s son but rather a substitute who had been smuggled into the birthing chamber in a bed-warming pan.
In reality, it was the officers of the Army and Navy who were beginning to plot and scheme in their taverns and drinking clubs. They were annoyed that James had introduced Papist officers into the military. The Irish Army, for example, had seen much of its Protestant officer corps dismissed and replaced with Catholics who had little to no military experience.
James dissolved Parliament in July 1688. Around this time, a Bishop and six prominent politicians wrote to Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange (1650 – 1702) and invited them to raise an army, invade London, and seize the throne. They accepted.
William landed in Dorset on Guy Fawkes’ day accompanied by an army of fifteen-thousand Dutchmen and other Protestant Europeans. He quickly seized Exeter before marching eastward towards London. James II called for troops to confront William.
Things were not looking good for James, however. Large parts of his officer corps were defecting to the enemy and taking their soldiers with them. Without the leadership of their officers, many soldiers simply went home. English magnates started declaring for William. And his own daughter, Princess Anne (1665 – 1714) left Whitehall to join the rebels in Yorkshire. James, abandoned by everyone, fled to exile in France. He would die there twelve-years-later.
On January 22nd, 1689, William called the first ‘convention parliament.’ At this ‘convention’, Parliament passed two resolutions. First, it was decided that James’ flight into exile constituted an act of abdication. And second, it was declared a war against public policy for the throne to be occupied by a Catholic. As such, the throne was passed over James Francis Edward Stuart, and William and Mary were invited to take the Crown as co-monarchs.
They would be constrained, however, by the 1689 Bill of Rights and, later, by the 1701 Act of Settlement. The 1689 Bill of Rights made Great Britain a constitutional monarchy as opposed to an absolute one. It established Parliament, not the crown, as the supreme source of law. And it set out the most basic rights of the people.
Likewise, the 1701 Act of Settlement helped to strengthen the Parliamentary system of governance and secured a Protestant line of succession. Not only did it prevent Catholics from assuming the throne, but it also gave Parliament the ability to dictate who could ascend to the throne and who could not.
The Glorious Revolution was one of the most important events in Britain’s political evolution. It made William and Mary, and all monarchs after them, elected monarchs. It established the concept of Parliamentary sovereignty granting that political body the power to make or unmake any law it chose to. The establishment of Parliamentary sovereignty brought with it the ideas of responsible and representative government.
The British philosopher, Roger Scruton (1944 – ) described British constitutional monarchy as a “light above politics which shines down [on] the human bustle from a calmer and more exalted sphere.” A constitutional monarchy unites the people for a nation under a monarch who symbolises their shared history, culture, and traditions.
Constitutional monarchy is a compromise between autocracy and democracy. Power is shared between the monarch and the government, both of whom have their powers restricted by a written, or unwritten, constitution. This arrangement separates the theatre of power from the realities of power. The monarch is able to represent the nation whilst the politician is able to represent his constituency (or, more accurately, his party).
In the Need for Roots, the French philosopher, Simone Weils (1909 – 1943) wrote that Britain had managed to maintain a “centuries-old tradition of liberty guaranteed by the authorities.” Weils was astounded to find that chief power in the British constitution lay in the hands of a lifelong, unelected monarch. For Weils, it was this arrangement that allowed the British to retain its tradition of liberty when other countries – Russia, France, and Germany, among others – lost theirs when they abolished their monarchies.
Great Britain’s great legacy is not their once vast and now non-existent Empire, but the ideas of liberty and governance that they have gifted to most of their former colonies. Even the United States, who separated themselves from the British by means of war, inherited most of their ideas about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” from their English forebears.
The word “Commonwealth” was adopted at the Sixth Imperial Conference held between October 19th and November 26th, 1926. The Conference, which brought together the Prime Ministers of the various dominions of the British Empire, led to the formation of the Inter-Imperial Relations Committee. The Committee, headed for former British Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour (1848 – 1930), was designed to look into future constitutional arrangements within the commonwealth.
Four years later, at the Seventh Imperial Conference, the committee delivered the Balfour Report. It stated:
“We refer to the group of self-governing communities composed of Great Britain and the Dominions. Their position and mutual relation may be readily defined. They are autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.”
It continued:
“Every self-governing member of the Empire is now the master of its destiny. In fact, if not always in form, it is subject to no compulsion whatsoever.”
Then, in 1931, the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the Statute of Westminster. It became one of two laws that would secure Australia’s political and legal independence from Great Britain.
The Statute of Westminster gave legal recognition to the de-facto independence of the British dominions. Under the law, Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland (which would relinquish its dominion status and be absorbed into Canada in 1949), New Zealand and South Africa were granted legal independence.
Furthermore, the law abolished the Colonial Validity Act 1865. A law which had been enacted with the intention of removing “doubts as to the validity of colonial laws.” According to the act, a Colonial Law was void when it “is or shall be in any respect repugnant to the provisions of any Act of Parliament extending to the colony to which such laws may relate, or repugnant to any order or regulation under authority of such act of Parliament or having in the colony the force and effect of such act, shall be read subject to such act, or regulation, and shall, to the extent of such repugnancy, but not otherwise, be and remain absolutely void and inoperative.”
The Statute of Westminster was quickly adopted by Canada, South Africa, and the Irish Free State. Australia, on the other hand, did not adopt it until 1942, and New Zealand did not adopt it until 1947.
More than forty-years-later, the Hawke Labor government passed the Australia Act 1986. This law effectively made the Australian legal system independent from Great Britain. It had three major achievements. First, it ended appeals to the Privy Council thereby establishing the High Court as the highest court in the land. Second, it ended the influence the British government had over the states of Australia. And third, it allowed Australia to update or repeal those imperial laws that applied to them by ending British legislative restrictions.
What the law did not do, however, was withdraw the Queen’s status as Australia’s Head of State:
“Her Majesty’s Representative in each State shall be the Governor.
Subject to subsections (3) and (4) below, all powers and functions of Her Majesty in respect of a State are exercisable only by the Governor of the State.
Subsection (2) above does not apply in relation to the power to appoint, and the power to terminate the appointment of, the Governor of a State.
While her Majesty is personally present in a State, Her Majesty is not precluded from exercising any of Her powers and functions in respect of the State that are the subject of subsection (2) above.
The advice of Her Majesty in relation to the exercise of powers and functions of Her Majesty in respect of a State shall be tendered by the Premier of the State.”
These two laws reveal an important miscomprehension that is often exploited by Australian Republicans. That myth is the idea that Australia does not have legal and political independence because its Head of State is the British monarch. The passage of the Statute of Westminster in 1931 and the Australia Act in 1986 effectively ended any real political or legal power the British government had over Australia.
In Australia, the monarch (who is our head of state by law) is represented by a Governor General. This individual – who has been an Australian since 1965 – is required to take an oath of allegiance and an oath of office that is administered by a Justice (typically the Chief Justice) of the High Court. The Governor-General holds his or her position at the Crown’s pleasure with appointments typically lasting five years.
The monarch issues letters patent to appoint the Governor General based on the advice of Australian ministers. Prior to 1924, Governor Generals were appointed on the advice of both the British government and the Australian government. This is because the Governor General at that time represented both the monarch and the British government. This arrangement changed, however, at the Imperial Conferences of 1926 and 1930. The Balfour Report produced by these conferences stated that the Governor General should only be the representative of the crown.
The Governor General’s role is almost entirely ceremonial. It has been argued that such an arrangement could work with an elected Head of State. However, such an arrangement would have the effect of politicising and thereby corrupting the Head of State. A Presidential candidate in the United States, for example, is required to raise millions of dollars for his campaign and often finds himself beholden to those donors who made his ascent possible. The beauty of having an unelected Head of State, aside from the fact that it prevents the government from assuming total power, is that they can avoid the snares that trap other political actors.
The 1975 Constitutional Crisis is a perfect example of the importance of having an independent and impartial Head of State. The crises stemmed from the Loans Affair which forced Dr. Jim Cairns (1914 – 2003), Deputy Prime Minister, Treasurer, and intellectual leader of the political left, and Rex Connor (1907 – 1977) out of the cabinet. As a consequence of the constitutional crisis, Gough Whitlam (1916 – 2014) was dismissed as Prime Minister and the 24th federal parliament was dissolved.
The Loan’s affair began when Rex Connor attempted to borrow money, up to US$4b, to fund a series of proposed national development projects. Connor deliberately flouted the rules of the Australian Constitution which required him to take such non-temporary government borrowing to the Loan Council (a ministerial council consisting of both Commonwealth and state elements which existed to coordinate public sector borrowing) for approval. Instead, on December 13th, 1974, Gough Whitlam, Attorney-General Lionel Murphy (1922 – 1986), and Dr. Jim Cairns authorised Connor to seek a loan without the council’s approval.
When news of the Loans Affair was leaked, the Liberal Party, led by Malcolm Fraser (1930 – 2015), began questioning the government. Whitlam attempted to brush the scandal aside by claiming that the loans had merely been “matters of energy” and claiming that the Loans Council would only be advised once a loan had been made. Then, on May 21st, Whitlam informed Fraser that the authority for the plan had been revoked.
Despite this, Connor continued to liaise with the Pakistani financial broker, Tirath Khemlani (1920 – 1991). Khemlani was tracked down and interviewed by Herald Journalist, Peter Game (1927 – ) in mid-to-late 1975. Khemlani claimed that Connor had asked for a twenty-year loan with an interest of 7.7% and a 2.5% commission for Khemlani. The claim threw serious doubt on Dr. Jim Cairn’s claim that the government had not offered Khemlani a commission on a loan. Game also revealed that Connor and Khemlani were still in contact, something Connor denied in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Unfortunately, Khemlani had stalled on the loan, most notably when he had been asked to go to Zurich with Australian Reserve Bank officials to prove the funds were in the Union Bank of Switzerland. When it became apparent that Khemlani would never deliver Whitlam was forced to secure the loan through a major American investment bank. As a condition of that loan, the Australian government was required to cease all other loans activities. Consequentially, Connor had his loan raising authority revoked on May 20th, 1975.
The combination of existing economic difficulties with the political impact of the Loan’s Affair severely damaged to the Whitlam government. At a special one day sitting of the Parliament held on July 9th, Whitlam attempted to defend the actions of his government and tabled evidence concerning the loan. It was an exercise in futility, however. Malcolm Fraser authorised Liberal party senators – who held the majority in the upper house at the time – to force a general election by blocking supply.
And things were only about to get worse. In October 1975, Khemlani flew to Australia and provided Peter Game with telexes and statutory declarations Connor had sent him as proof that he and Connor had been in frequent contact between December 1974 and May 1975. When a copy of this incriminating evidence found its way to Whitlam, the Prime Minister had no other choice but to dismiss Connor and Cairns (though he did briefly make Cairns Minister for the Environment).
By mid-October, every metropolitan newspaper in Australia was calling on the government to resign. Encouraged by this support, the Liberals in the Senate deferred the Whitlam budget on October 16th. Whitlam warned Fraser that the Liberal party would be “responsible for bills not being paid, for salaries not being paid, for utter financial chaos.” Whitlam was alluding to the fact that blocking supply threatened essential services, Medicare rebates, the budgets of government departments and the salaries of public servants. Fraser responded by accusing Whitlam of bringing his own government to ruin by engaging in “massive illegalities.”
On October 21st, Australian’s longest-serving Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies (1894 – 1978) signalled his support for Fraser and the Liberals. The next day, Treasurer, Bill Hayden (1933 – ) reintroduced the budget bills and warned that further delay would increase unemployment and deepen a recession that had blighted the western world since 1973.
The crisis would come to a head on Remembrance Day 1975. Whitlam had asserted for weeks that the Senate could not force him into an election by claiming that the House of Representatives had an independence and an authority separate from the Senate.
Whitlam had decided that he would end the stalemate by seeking a half-senate election. Little did he know, however, that the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr (1914 – 1991) had been seeking legal advice from the Chief Justice of the High Court on how he could use his Constitutional Powers to end the deadlock. Kerr had come to the conclusion that should Whitlam refuse to call a general election, he would have no other alternative but to dismiss him.
And this is precisely what happened. With the necessary documents drafted, Whitlam arranged to meet Kerr during the lunch recess. When Whitlam refused to call a general election, Kerr dismissed him and, shortly after, swore in Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister. Fraser assured Kerr that he would immediately pass the supply bills and dissolve both houses in preparation for a general election.
Whitlam returned to the Lodge to eat lunch and plan his next movie. He informed his advisors that he had been dismissed. It was decided that Whitlam’s best option was to assert Labor’s legitimacy as the largest party in the House of Representatives. However, fate was already moving against Whitlam. The Senate had already passed the supply bills and Fraser was drafting documents that would dissolve the Parliament.
At 2pm, Deputy Prime Minister, Frank Crean (1916 – 2008) defended the government against a censure motion started by the opposition. “What would happen, for argument’s sake, if someone else were to come here today and say he was now the Prime Minister of this country”, Crean asked. In fact, Crean was stalling for time while Whitlam prepared his response.
At 3pm, Whitlam made a last-ditch effort to save his government by addressing the House. Removing references to the Queen, he asked that the “House expresses its want of confidence in the Prime Minister and requests, Mr. Speaker, forthwith to advice His Excellency, the Governor-General to call the member of Wannon to form a government.” Whitlam’s motion was passed with a majority of ten.
The speaker, Gordon Scholes (1931 – 2018) expressed his intention to “convey the message of the House to His Excellency at the first opportunity.” It was a race that Whitlam was not supposed to win. Scholes was unable to arrange an appointment until quarter-to-five in the afternoon.
Behind the scenes, departmental officials were working to provide Fraser with the paperwork he needed to proclaim a double dissolution. By ten-to-four, Fraser left for government house. Ten minutes later, Sir John Kerr had signed the proclamation dissolving both Houses of Parliament and set the date for the upcoming election for December 13th, 1975. Shortly after, Kerr’s official secretary, David Smith (1933) drove to Parliament House and, with Whitlam looming behind him, read the Governor General’s proclamation.
The combination of economic strife, political scandal, and Whitlam’s dismissal signed the death warrant for Whitlam’s government. At the 1975 Federal Election, the Liberal-National coalition won by a landslide, gaining a majority of ninety-one seats and obtaining a popular vote of 4,102,078. In the final analysis, it seems that the Australian people had agreed with Kerr’s decision and had voted to remove Whitlam’s failed government from power once and for all.
Most of the arguments levelled against constitutional monarchies can be described as petty, childish, and ignorant. The biggest faux pas those who oppose constitutional monarchies make is a failure to separate the royal family (who are certainly not above reproach) from the institution of monarchy itself. Dislike for the Windsor family is not a sufficient reason to disagree with constitutional monarchy. It would be as if I decided to argue for the abolition of the office of Prime Minister just because I didn’t like the person who held that office.
One accusation frequently levelled against the monarchy is that they are an undue financial burden on the British taxpaying public. This is a hollow argument, however. It is certainly true that the monarchy costs the British taxpayer £299.4 million every year. And it is certainly true that the German Presidency costs only £26 million every year. However, it is not true that all monarchies are necessarily more expensive than Presidencies. The Spanish monarchy costs only £8 million per year, less than the Presidencies of Germany, Finland, and Portugal.
Australia has always had a small but vocal republican movement. The National Director of the Republican Movement, Michael Cooney has stated: “no one thinks it ain’t broken, that we should fix it. And no one thinks we have enough say over our future, and so, no matter what people think about in the sense of the immediate of the republic everyone knows that something is not quite working.”
History, however, suggests that the Australian people do not necessarily agree with Cooney’s assessment. The Republican referendum of 1999 was designed to facilitate two constitutional changes: first, the establishment of a republic, and, second, the insertion of a preamble in the Constitution.
The Referendum was held on November 6th, 1999. Around 99.14%, or 11,683,811 people, of the Australian voting public participated. 45.13%, or 5,273,024 voted yes. However, 54.87%, or 6,410,787 voted no. The Australian people had decided to maintain Australia’s constitutional monarchy.
All things considered, it was probably a wise decision. The chaos caused by establishing a republic would pose a greater threat to our liberties than a relatively powerless old lady. Several problems would need to be addressed. How often should elections occur? How would these elections be held? What powers should a President have? Will a President be just the head of state, or will he be the head of the government as well? Australian republicans appear unwilling to answer these questions.
Margaret Tavits of Washington University in St. Louis once observed that: “monarchs can truly be above politics. They usually have no party connections and have not been involved in daily politics before assuming the post of Head of State.” It is the job of the monarch to become the human embodiment of the nation. It is the monarch who becomes the centrepiece of pageantry and spectacle. And it the monarch who symbolises a nation’s history, tradition, and values.
Countries with elected, or even unelected, Presidents can be quite monarchical in style. Americans, for example, often regard their President (who is both the Head of State and the head of the government) with an almost monarchical reverence. A constitutional monarch might be a lifelong, unelected Head of State, but unlike a President, that is generally where their power ends. It is rather ironic that the Oxford political scientists, Petra Schleiter and Edward Morgan-Jones have noted that allow governments to change without democratic input like elections than monarchs are. Furthermore, by occupying his or her position as Head of State, the monarch is able to prevent other, less desirable people from doing so.
The second great advantage of constitutional monarchies is that they provide their nation with stability and continuity. It is an effective means to bridging the past and future. A successful monarchy must evolve with the times whilst simultaneously keeping itself rooted in tradition. All three of my surviving grandparents have lived through the reign of King George VI, Queen Elizabeth II, and may possibly live to see the coronation of King Charles III. I know that I will live through the reigns of Charles, King William V, and possibly survive to see the coronation of King George VII (though he will certainly outlive me).
It would be easy to dismiss stability and continuity as manifestations of mere sentimentality, but such things also have a positive effect on the economy, as well. In a study entitled Symbolic Unity, Dynastic Continuity, and Countervailing Power: Monarchies, Republics and the Economy Mauro F. Guillén found that monarchies had a positive impact on economies and living standards over the long term. The study, which examined data from one-hundred-and-thirty-seven countries including different kinds of republics and dictatorships, found that individuals and businesses felt more confident that the government was not going to interfere with their property in constitutional monarchies than in republics. As a consequence, they are more willing to invest in their respective economies.
When Wordsworth wrote his ode to Milton, he was mourning the loss of chivalry he felt had pervaded English society. Today, the West is once again in serious danger of losing those two entities that is giving them a connection to the chivalry of the past: a belief in God and a submission to a higher authority.
Western culture is balanced between an adherence to reason and freedom on the one hand and a submission to God and authority on the other. It has been this delicate balance that has allowed the West to become what it is. Without it, we become like Shakespeare’s Hamlet: doomed to a life of moral and philosophical uncertainty.
It is here that the special relationship between freedom and authority that constitutional monarchy implies becomes so important. It satisfies the desire for personal autonomy and the need for submission simultaneously.
The Christian apologist and novelist, C.S. Lewis (1898 – 1964) once argued that most people no more deserved a share in governing a hen-roost than they do in governing a nation:
“I am a democrat because I believe in the fall of man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the idea of people like Rousseau who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true and whenever their weakness is exposed the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure.”
The necessity for limited government, much like the necessity for authority, comes from our fallen nature. Democracy did not arise because people are so naturally good (which they are not) that they ought to be given unchecked power over their fellows. Aristotle (384BC – 322BC) may have been right when he stated that some people are only fit to be slaves, but unlimited power is wrong because there is no one person who is perfect enough to be a master.
Legal and economic equality are necessary bulwarks against corruption and cruelty. (Economic equality, of course, refers to the freedom to engage in lawful economic activity, not to socialist policies of redistributing wealth that inevitably lead to tyranny). Legal and economic equality, however, does not provide spiritual sustenance. The ability to vote, buy a mobile phone, or work a job without being discriminated against may increase the joy in your life, but it is not a pathway to genuine meaning in life.
Equality serves the same purpose that clothing does. We are required to wear clothing because we are no longer innocent. The necessity of clothes, however, does not mean that we do not sometimes desire the naked body. Likewise, just because we adhere to the idea that God made all people equal does not mean that there is not a part of us that does not wish for inequality to present itself in certain situations.
Chivalry symbolises the best human beings can be. It helps us realise the best in ourselves by reconciling fealty and command, inferiority and superiority. However, the ideal of chivalry is a paradox. When the veil of innocence has been lifted from our eyes, we are forced to reconcile ourselves to the fact that bullies are not always cowards and heroes are not always modest. Chivalry, then, is not a natural state, but an ideal to be aimed for.
The chivalric ideal marries the virtues of humility and meekness with those of valour, bravery, and firmness. “Thou wert the meekest man who ever ate in hall among ladies”, said Sir Ector to the dead Lancelot. “And thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever-put spear in the rest.”
Constitutional monarchy, like chivalry, makes a two-fold demand on the human spirit. Its democratic element, which upholds liberty, demands civil participation from all its citizens. And its monarchical element, which champions tradition and authority, demands that the individual subjugate himself to that tradition.
It has been my aim in this essay to provide a historical, practical, and spiritual justification for constitutional monarchy. I have demonstrated that the British have developed ideals of liberty, justice, and good governance. The two revolutions of the 17th century – the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution – established Great Britain as a constitutional monarchy. It meant that the monarch could not rule without the consent of parliament, established parliament as the supreme source of law, and allowed them to determine the line of succession. I have demonstrated that constitutional monarchs are more likely to uphold democratic principles and that the stability they produce encourages robust economies. And I have demonstrated that monarchies enrich our souls because it awakens in us the need for both freedom and obedience.
Our world has become so very vulgar. We have turned our backs on God, truth, beauty, and virtue. Perhaps we, like Wordsworth before us, should seek virtue, manners, freedom, and power. We can begin to do this by retaining the monarchy.
DEMAND-SIDE ECONOMICS VERSUS SUPPLY-SIDE ECONOMICS
On May 9th, 2018, the YouTube Channel, Juice Media uploaded a video entitled “Honest Government Ad: Trickle Down Economics.” In the video, the rather obnoxious and condescending female presenter tells the audience that the reason Australia has “one of the fastest growing inequality rates in the world” is trickle-down economics, which she defines as “when we [the government] piss on you and tell you it’s raining.”
According to the video, tax cuts for investors, entrepreneurs, and business are directly correlated with poverty and the lack of wage growth in Australia. The presenter argues that the government cuts taxes on the rich while simultaneously claiming that they don’t have enough money for healthcare (which would be a lot more effective if people took responsibility for their own health), renewable energy (which is really an excuse to take control of the energy market), and the ABC (which doesn’t deserve a cent of anyone’s money).
The primary problem with the video is that the premise of its argument does not actually exist. There is not a single economic theory that can be identified as trickle-down economics (also known as trickle-down theory). No reputable economist has ever used the term, nor have they ever presented an argument that could be said to conform to the idea of what it is supposed to be. As Thomas Sowell (1930 – ) wrote in his book, Basic Economics:
“There have been many economic theories over the centuries accompanies by controversies among different schools and economists, but one of the most politically prominent economic theories today is one that has never existed among economists: the trickle-down theory. People who are politically committed to policies of redistributing income and who tend to emphasise the conflicts between business and labour rather than their mutual interdependence often accuse those opposed to them of believing that benefits must be given wealthy in general, or to business in particular that these benefits will eventually trickle down to the masses of ordinary people. But no recognised economist of any school of thought has ever had any such theory or made any such proposal.”
The key to understanding why political players disparage pro-capitalist and pro-free market economic policies as trickle-down economics is understanding how economics is used to deceive and manipulate. Political players understand that simple and emotionally-charged arguments tend to be more effective because very few people understand actual economics. Anti-capitalists and anti-free marketeers, therefore, use the term trickle-down economics to disparage economic policy that disproportionately benefits the wealthy in the short term, and increases the standards of living for all peoples in the long-term
The economic theory championed by liberals (read: leftists) is demand-side economics. Classical economics rejected demand-side economic theory for two reasons. First, manipulating demands is futile because demand is the result of product, not its cause. Second, it is (supposedly) impossible to over-produce something. The French economist, Jean-Baptiste Say (1767 – 1832) demonstrated the irrelevance of demand-side economics by pointing out that demand is derived from the supply of goods and services to the market. As a consequence of the works of Jean-Baptiste Say, the British economist, David Ricardo (1772 – 1823), and other classical economists, demand-side economic theory lay dormant for more than a century.
One classical economist, however, was prepared to challenge the classical economic view of demand-side economics. The English economist, Thomas Robert Malthus (1766 – 1834) challenged the anti-demand view of classical economics by arguing that the recession Great Britain experienced in the aftermath Napoleonic Wars (1803 – 1815) was caused by a failure of demand. In other words, purchasing power fell below the number of goods and services in the market. Malthus wrote:
“A nation must certainly have the power of purchasing all that it produces, but I can easily conceive it not to have the will… You have never I think taken sufficiently into consideration the wants and tastes of mankind. It is not merely the proportion of commodities to each other but their proportion to the wants and tastes of mankind that determines prices.”
Using this as his basis, Malthus argued that goods and services on the market could outstrip demand if consumers choose not to spend their money. Malthus believed that while production could increase demand, it was powerless to create the will to consume among individuals.
Demand-side economics works on the theory that economic growth can be stimulated by increasing the demand for goods and services. The American economist, J.D. Foster, the Norman B. Ture Fellow in the Economics of Fiscal Policy at the Heritage Foundation, argued that demand-side works on the theory that the economy is underperforming because the total demand is low, and, as a consequence, the supply needed to meet this demand is likewise low.
The American economist, Paul Krugman (1953 – ), and other economists believe that recessions and depressions are the results of a decrease in demand and that the most effective method of revivifying the economy is to stimulate that demand. The way to do this is to engage in large-scale infrastructure projects such as the building of bridges, railways, and highways. These projects create a greater demand for things like steel, asphalt, and so forth. And, furthermore, it provides people with a wage which they can spend on things like food, housing, clothing, entertainment, so on and so forth.
Policies based on demand-side economics aims to change the aggregate demand in the economy. Aggregate demand is consumer spending + investment + net import/export. Demand-side economics policies are either expansive or contractive. Expansive demand-side policies aim at stimulating spending during a recession. By contrast, contractive demand-side policies aim at reducing expenditure during an inflationary economy.
Demand-side policy can be split into fiscal policy and monetary policy. The purpose of fiscal policy in this regard is to increase aggregate demand. Demand-side based fiscal policy can help close the deflationary gap but is often not sustainable over the long-term and can have the effect of increasing the national debt. When such policies aim at cutting spending and increasing taxes, they tend to be politically unpopular. But when such policies that involve lowering taxes and increasing spending, they tend to be politically popular and therefore easy to execute (of course they never bother to explain where they plan to get the money from).
In terms of monetary policy, expansive demand-side economic aims at increasing aggregate demand while contractive monetary policy in demand-side economics aims at decreasing it. Monetary expansive policies are less efficient because it is less predictable and efficient than contractive policies.
Needless to say, demand-side economics has plenty of critics. According to D.W. McKenzie of the Mises Institute, demand-side economics works on the idea that “there are times when total spending in the economy will not be enough to provide employment to all want to and should be working.” McKenzie argued that the “notion that economics as a whole, sometimes lacks sufficient drive derives from a faulty set of economic doctrines that focus on the demand side of the aggregate economy.” Likewise, Thomas Sowell argued in Supply-Side Politics that there is too much emphasis placed on demand-side economics to the detriment of supply-side economics. He wrote in an article for Forbes:
“If Keynesian economics stressed the supposed benefit of having government manipulate aggregate demand, supply-side economics stressed what the marketplace could accomplish, one it was freed from government control and taxes.”
John Maynard Keynes
The man who greatly popularised demand-side economics was the British economist, John Maynard Keynes (1883 – 1946). Keynes, along with many other economists, analysed the arguments of the classical economists against the realities of the Great Depression. Their analysis led many economists to question the arguments of the classical economists. They noted that classical economics failed to answer how financial disasters like the Great Depression could happen.
Keynesian economics challenged the views of the classical economists. In his 1936 book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (one of the foundational texts on the subject of modern macroeconomics) Keynes revivified demand-side economics. According to Keynes, output is determined by the level of aggregate demand. Keynes argued that resources are not scarce in many cases, but that they are underutilised due to a lack of demand. Therefore, an increase in production requires an increase in demand. Keynes’ concluded that when this occurs it is the duty of the government to raise output and total employment by stimulating aggregate demand through fiscal and monetary policy.
The Great Depression is often seen as a failure of capitalism. It popularised Keynesian economics and monetary central planning which, together, “eroded and eventually destroyed the great policy barrier – that is, the old-time religion of balanced budgets – that had kept America relatively peaceful Republic until 1914.”
David Stockman of the Mises Institute argues that the Great Depression was the result of the delayed consequences of the Great War (1914 – 1918) and financial deformations created by modern central banking. However, the view that the Great Depression was a failure of capitalism is not one shared by every economist. The American economist, Milton Friedman (1912 – 2006), for example, argued that the Great Depression was a failure of monetary policy. Friedman pointed out that the total quantity of money in the United States – currency, bank deposits, and so forth – between 1929 and 1933 declined by one-third. He argued that the Federal Reserve had failed to prevent the decline of the quantity of money despite having the power and obligation to do so. According to Friedman, had the Federal Reserve acted to prevent the decline in the quantity of money, the United States (and subsequently, the world) would only have suffered a “garden variety recession” rather than a prolonged economic depression.
It is not possible to determine the exact dimensions of the Great Depression using quantitative data. What is known, however, is that it caused a great deal of misery and despair among the peoples of the world. Failed macroeconomic policies combined with negative shocks caused the economic output of several countries to fall between twenty-five and thirty-percent between 1929 and 1932/33. In America between 1929 and 1933, production in mines, factories, and utilities fell by more than fifty-percent, stock prices collapsed to 1/10th of what they had been prior to the Wall Street crash, real disposable income fell by twenty-eight percent, and unemployment rose from 1.6 to 12.8 million.
According to an article for the Foundation for Economic Education, What Caused the Great Depression, the Great Depression occurred in three phases. First, the rise of “easy money policies” caused an economic boom followed by a subsequent crash. Second, following the crash, President Herbert Hoover (1874 – 1964) attempted to suppress the self-adjusting aspect of the market by engaging in interventionist policies. This caused a prolonged recession and prevented recovery. Hourly rates dropped by fifty-percent, millions lost their jobs (a reality made worse by the absence of unemployment insurance), prices on agricultural products dropped to their lowest point since the Civil War (1861 – 1865), more than thirty-thousand businesses failed, and hundreds of banks failed. Third, in 1933, the lowest point of the Depression, the newly-elected President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882 – 1945) combatted the economic crisis by using “new deal” economic policies to expand interventionist measures into almost every facet of the American economy.
Let’s talk about the New Deal a little bit more. The New Deal was the name for the Keynesian-based economic policies that President Roosevelt used to try and end the Great Depression. It included forty-seven Congress-approved programs that abandoned laissez-faire capitalism and enacted the kind of social and economic reforms that Europe had enjoyed for more than a generation. Ultimately, the New Deal aimed to create jobs, provide relief for farmers, boost manufacturing by building partnerships between the private and public sectors, and stabilise the US financial system.
The New Deal was largely inspired by the events of the Great War. During the War, the US Government had managed to increase economic activity by establishing planning boards to set wages and prices. President Roosevelt took this as proof positive that it was government guidance, not private business, that helped grow the economy. However, Roosevelt failed to realise that the increase in economic activity during the Great War came as the result of inflated war demands, not as the achievement of government planning. Roosevelt believed, falsely, that it was better to have government control the economy in times of crisis rather than relying on the market to correct itself.
The New Deal came in three waves. During his first hundred days in office, President Roosevelt approved the Emergency Banking Act, Government Economy Act, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Federal Emergency Relief Act, Agricultural Adjustment Act, Emergency Farm Mortgage Act, the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, the Security Act, Abrogation of Gold Payment Clause, the Home Owners Refinancing Act, the Glass-Steagall Banking Act, the National Industrial Recovery Act, the Emergency Railroad Transportation Act, and the Civil Works Administration.
In 1934, President Roosevelt bolstered his initial efforts by pushing through the Gold Reserve Act, the National Housing Act, the Securities Exchange Act, and the Federal Communications Act.
In 1935, the Supreme Court rejected the National Industrial Act. President Roosevelt, concerned that other New Deal programs could also be in jeopardy, embarked on a litany of programs that would help the poor, the unemployed, and farmers. Second-wave New Deal programs included Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act, Emergency Relief Appropriation, the Rural Electrification Act, the National Labor Relations Act, the Resettlement Act, and the Social Securities Act.
In 1937, Roosevelt unleashed the third wave of the New Deal by aiming to combat budget deficits. It included the United States Housing Act (Wagner-Steagall), the Bonneville Power Administration, the Farm Tenancy Act, the Farm Security Administration, the Federal National Mortgage, the New Agriculture Adjustment Act, and the Labor Standards Act.
According to the historical consensus, the New Deal proved effective in boosting the American economy. Economic growth increased by 1.8% in 1935, 12.9% in 1936, and 3.3% in 1937. It built schools, roads, hospitals, and more, prevented the collapse of the banking system, reemployed millions, and restored confidence among the American people.
Some even claim that the New Deal didn’t go far enough. Adam Cohen, the author of Nothing to Fear: FDR’s Inner Circle and the Hundred Days that Created Modern America, claims that the longevity of the Depression (the American economy didn’t return to pre-depression prosperity until the 1950s) is evidence that more New Deal spending was needed. Cohen commented that the New Deal had the effect of steadily increasing GDP (gross domestic product) and reducing unemployment. And, which is more, it reimagined the US Federal government as a welfare provider, a stock-market regulator, and a helper of people in financial difficulty.
However, the historical consensus is not to say that the New Deal is without its critics. The New Deal was criticised by many conservative businessmen for being too socialist. Others, such as Huey Long (1893 – 1935), criticised it for failing to do enough for the poor. Henry Morgenthau, Jr. (1891 – 1967), the Secretary of the Treasury, confessed before Democrats in the House Ways and Means Committee on May 9th, 1939 that the New Deal had failed as public policy. According to Morgenthau, it failed to produce an economic recovery and did not erase historic unemployment. Instead, it created a recession – the Roosevelt Recession – in 1937, failed to adequately combat unemployment because it created jobs that were only temporary, became the costliest government program in US history, and wasted money.
Conservatives offer supply-side economics as an alternative to demand-side economics. Supply-side economics aims at increasing aggregate supply. According to supply-side economics, the best way to stimulate economic growth or recovery is to lower taxes and thus increase the supply of goods and services. This increase leads, in turn, to lower prices and higher standards of living.
The lower-taxes policy has proved quite popular with politicians. The American businessman and industrialist, Andrew Mellon (1855 – 1937) argued for lower taxes in the 1920s, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917 – 1963) argued for lower taxes in the 1960s, and both President Ronald Reagan (1911 – 2004) and President George Walker Bush (1946 – ) lowered taxes in the 1980s and 2000s, respectively.
Supply-side economics works on the principle that producers will create new and better products if they are allowed to keep their money. Put simply, supply-side economics (supply merely refers to the production of goods and services) works on the theory that cutting taxes on entrepreneurs, investors, and business-people incentives them to invest more in their endeavours. This money can be invested in capital – industrial machinery, factories, software, office buildings, and so forth.
The idea that lower taxes lead to greater economic prosperity is one of the central tenants of supply-side economics. Supporters of supply-side economics believe that providing financial benefits for investors (cutting capital gains tax, for example) stimulates economic growth. By contrast, high taxes, especially those metered out on businesses, discourage investment and encourages stagnation.
Tax rates and tax revenue are not the same thing, they can move in opposite directions depending on economic factors. The revenue collected from income tax for each year of the Reagan Presidency was higher than the revenues collected during any year of any previous Presidency. It can be argued that people change their economic behaviour according to the way they are taxed. The problem with increasing taxes on the rich is that the rich will use legal, and sometimes illegal, strategies for avoiding paying it. A businessman who is forced to pay forty-percent of his business’ profits on taxation is less likely to increase his productivity. As a consequence, high tax rates on businesses leads to economic stagnation.
Supply-side supporters use Arthur Laffer’s (1940 – ) – an advisor to President Ronald Regan – Laffer Curve to argue that lower taxes lead to higher tax revenue. The Laffer curve showed the dichotomy between tax revenue and the amount of tax that is collected. Laffer’s idea that the more taxation increased, the more tax revenue is collected. However, if taxes are increased beyond a certain point, less revenue is collected because people are no longer willing to make an economic contribution.
Taxation only works when the price of engaging in productive behaviour is likewise reduced. Daniel Mitchell of the Heritage Foundation stated in an article entitled a “Supply-Side” Success Story, that tax cuts are not created equally. Mitchell wrote: “Tax cuts based on the Keynesian notion of putting money in people’s pockets in the form of rebates and credits do not work. Supply-side cuts, by contrast, do improve economic performance because they reduce tax rates on work, saving, and investment.” Mitchell used the differences between the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts as evidence for his argument. Mitchell pointed out that tax collections fell after the 2001 tax cuts whereas they grew by six-percent annually after the 2003 cuts. Mitchell points out that job numbers declined after the 2001 cuts whereas net job creation averaged more than 150,000 after the 2003 cuts. Mitchell points out that economic growth averaged 1.9% after the 2001 tax cuts, compared to 4.4% after the 2003 cuts.
Proposals to cut taxes have always been characterised by its opponents as “tax cuts for the rich.” The left believes that tax cuts, especially cuts on the top rate of tax, does not spur economic growth for lower and middle-class people and only serves to widen income inequality. They argue that tax cuts benefit the wealthy because they invest their newfound money in enterprises that benefit themselves. Bernie Sanders (1941 – ), the Independent Senator from Vermont, has argued that “trickle-down economics” is pushed by lobbyists and corporations to expand the wealth of the rich. Whilst opponents of President Ronal Reagan’s tax cuts likewise referred to the policy as “trickle-down economics.”
In reality, the left-wing slander of tax cuts can best be described as “tax lies for the gullible.” The rich do not become wealthy by spending frivolously or by hiding their money under the mattress. The rich become rich because they are prepared to invest their money in new products and ventures that will generate greater wealth. In reality, it is far more prudent to give an investor, entrepreneur, or business owner a tax cut because they are more likely to use their newfound wealth more prudently.
According to Prateek Agarwal at Intelligent Economist, supply-side economics is useful for lowering the natural rate of unemployment. Thomas Sowell, a supporter of supply-side economics, claims that while tax cuts are applied primarily to the wealthy, it is the working and middle classes who are the first and primary beneficiaries. This occurs because the wealthy, in Sowell’s view, are more likely to invest more money in their businesses which will provide jobs for the working class.
The purpose of economic policy is to facilitate the economic independence of their citizens by encouraging economic prosperity. Demand-side economics and supply-side economics represent two different approaches to achieving this endeavour. Demand-side economics argues that economic prosperity can be achieved by having the government increase demand by taking control of the economy. By contrast, supply-side economics, which is falsely denounced as “trickle-down economics” by the likes of people like Juice Media, champions the idea that the best way to achieve economic prosperity is by withdrawing, as far as humanly possible, government interference from the private sector of the economy. Supply-side economics is the economic philosophy of freedom, demand-side economics is not.
MARRIAGE AND THE LATE BARBARA BUSH
The recent death of Barbara Bush (1925 – 2018) and her seventy-three-year marriage to former US President, George H.W. Bush (1924 – ) has got me thinking about the state of marriage in our society.
According to a report by the West Australian, marriage rates in October 2017 had dipped below that of the Great Depression, the lowest in Australia’s history.
More surprising, however, been the conditions under which this decline has occurred. The modern decline in marriage appears to be the consequence of changing cultural norms and social attitudes that are dismissive, even hostile, to the idea of lifelong, monogamous marriage.
By contrast, the low rates of marriage during the Great Depression was largely the result of poor economics. Low wages, wealth destruction, and unemployment meant people couldn’t afford to get married, so they didn’t.
Similarly, research has revealed that marriage in the United States is fracturing along socioeconomic lines. Today middle and upper-class Americans are far more likely to wed than the American working class. Only thirty-nine percent of the American working class are married compared to fifty-six percent of members of the upper and middle classes.
Our socio-political culture has slowly but surely stripped marriage of the privileges that were once exclusive to it. Casual and extra-marital sex is almost encouraged, sexual licentiousness is no longer frowned upon, and the existence of the Welfare State means that women no longer have to rely upon a husband for financial support (rather, she relies upon the government).
Sexual behaviour is a key indicator of a society’s moral character. Ethical sexual relationships, including good marriages, are based upon love and respect. The problem with the modern conception of sex and marriage is that it has forgotten that sex concerns flesh and blood human beings. It has therefore fooled itself into believing that it can be divorced from emotions, responsibility, morality, and consequences.
While society continues to value licentious sex over long-term commitment, the institution of marriage will continue to decline. Things could change, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
THE INVASION OF EUROPE
In January of 2017, Emillem Khodagholli, a refugee on probation for a raft of offences that included death threats and assault, Maisam Afshar, another refugee well-known to Swedish authorities, and a third unidentified man made their way to Upsala where they broke into a young woman’s apartment. Streaming their despicable crime on Facebook, the three men tore off the young woman’s clothing and raped her for three hours at gunpoint. Afterwards, Khodagholli taunted his barely conscious victim as she tried to call for help. “You got raped”, he gloated. “There, we have the answers. You’ve been raped.”
Modern Europe’s migration crisis represents the most significant existential problem the continent has ever faced. The migration of millions of non-Europeans represents the largest mass movement of people into Europe since the Second World War. According to the International Organization for Migration, around a million migrants migrated to Europe in 2015. These migrants primarily came from Syria (268,795), Afghanistan (127,830), Iraq (97,125), Eritrea (19,100), Pakistan (15,525), and Nigeria (12,910).
For the most part, journalists, politicians, advocacy groups, and private organisations have attempted to paint Europe’s migration crises as a human right’s problem mired in social justice and global inequality. They would have Europeans believe that the people migrating into their countries are doctors, engineers, and other learned professionals fleeing from persecution.
In reality, these migrants come from a host of Sub-Saharan African countries and are travelling to Europe for a myriad of different reasons, of which fleeing persecuting is only one. As the Netherland’s European Union commissioner, Frans Timmermans (1961 – ) pointed out: over half (sixty percent) of the people moving into Europe are not refugees, but economic migrants.
While the European Union remains committed to a pro-migration and open-borders policy, there remains the odd voice of dissent among their ranks. The President of Latvia, Valdis Zatlers (1955 – ) commented that while Europe was powerless (in his opinion) to stop migration, they could hope to manage the flow of people into their continent:
“We can’t stop this process, but we have not learnt how to manage it, and Europe was about ten years’ late to make decisions on illegal immigration and to help the countries where the migrants come from. In each country and in Europe as a whole, we have to think about how to manage the process and how to really decrease the expectations of people.”
Similarly, the Slovakian Prime Minister, Robert Fico (1962 – ) implored the European Union to put an end to the inflow of migrants. Fico described the Union’s distribution policy as an utter “fiasco” and warned they were committing ‘ritual suicide’ through their immigration policy.
The most notorious effect of ethnic crime in Europe has been the increase in sex crimes committed since millions of North African and Middle Eastern migrants poured into Europe. This begins with the sexual slavery of their own women. According to the PBS, as of September 2016 around eighty-percent of Nigerian women who made it to Italy have been forced into prostitution.
On January 9th, 2016, a forty-eight-year-old woman was raped by three Muslim men. On January 10th, 2016, a twenty-one-year-old West African man was arrested for raping a fifteen-year-old girl at a train station in Wuppertal. On January 15th, 2016, a public swimming pool in Borheim was forced to ban all male migrants following reports that they had been sexually assaulting the female patrons. On January 25th, 2016, a thirty-year-old Afghan man exposed himself to a nineteen-year-old woman on a public bus.
In Kiel, Germany, in 2016, three teenage girls, aged fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen, were stalked by two Afghani asylum seekers, aged nineteen and twenty-six, who filmed them on their mobile phones. A restaurant owner at the mall commented: “The moment they [male migrants] see a young woman wearing a skirt or any type of loose clothing, they believe they have a free pass.”
During New Year’s 2015/2016, thousands of women in Stuttgart, Cologne, and Hamburg were sexually assaulted. Remarkably, these crimes were ignored by the German authorities until eyewitness reports surfacing on social media forced them to take the problem seriously.
In Vienna, an Iraqi refugee who raped a ten-year-old boy at a public swimming pool had his conviction overturned by Austria’s Supreme Court despite watershed evidence proving his guilt. The court deemed that the refugee, who had excused his despicable crime by claiming it was a “sexual emergency”, could not have known that the act was non-consensual. Thankfully, the refugee was sentenced to seven years imprisonment at his retrial.
In England, the Pakistani comprised Rotherham child sex ring abducted, tortured, raped, and forced into prostitution at least fourteen-hundred young girls over a period of sixteen years. According to Jihad Watch, those posed to do something about the ring expressed “nervousness about identifying the ethnic origin of perpetrators for fearing of being thought of as racism.” Others were instructed by their managers not to disclose the ethnic origin of the perpetrators.
The Swedes boast one of the largest incidences of rape in the world. According to a 2015 article published by the Gatestone Institute, in the forty years since Sweden decided to become a multi-cultural society violent crime has increased by three-hundred percent and rape has increased by fourteen-hundred-and-seventy-two percent. In 1975, only four-hundred-and-twenty-one rapes were reported to Swedish police. In 2014, it was six-thousand-six-hundred-and-twenty. This increase in the number of reported rapes can partially be explained by the increase in the number of sexual activities that can be classified as rape, and partially by an increase in the number of women who may otherwise have been uncomfortable in reporting their rapes.
According to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, twenty-thousand-three-hundred sexual assaults were reported. This included six-thousand-seven-hundred-and-twenty rapes. Statistics provided by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention reveals that rape victims are most likely to be young women aged between sixteen and twenty-four. In fifty-percent of cases, rape is likely to occur in a public place, as opposed to a residence (19%), the workplace or school (18%), or elsewhere (12%).
The migrant sex crime is essentially caused by three problems. First, cultural differences in attitudes towards women between migrants and native Europeans, the educational and economic gap experienced by migrants, and a refusal to acknowledge the root causes of the problem.
The majority of migrants pouring into Europe come from a culture and civilisation that treat women as second-class citizens. There appears to be a belief among young Muslim men that an uncovered woman is an adulterer or a prostitute, and that she is, therefore, ‘fair game.’ It is an attitude that professes that all uncovered and non-Muslim women can be used for a Muslim man’s sexual gratification. Doctor Abd Al-Aziz Fawzan, a teacher of Islamic law in Saudi Arabia, opined: “if a woman gets raped walking in public alone, then she, herself, is at fault. She is only seducing men by her presence. She should have stayed home like a Muslim woman.”
The problem is further exacerbated by the educational and economic gap experienced by migrants. As a result of their low skills and education, coupled with their inability to speak to speak the local language, many migrants are rendered virtually unemployable. Many of the migrants arriving in Europe will move further northward and find employment within illegal gangs that are often comprised of members of their own ethnic group.
Finally, the migrant sex crime is also borne out of an insipid refusal to acknowledge the root cause of the problem. “Every police officer knows he has to meet a particular political standard”, Rainer Wendt (1956 – ), the head of the German Police Union, stated. “It is better to keep quiet [about migrant crime] because you cannot go wrong.”
Europe is acting as the metaphorical canary in the coal mine. Europe’s decision to pursue relaxed immigration laws and open border policies has led to the mass influx of non-European migrants into their country. An unfortunate by-product of these decisions has been an increase in the number of sex crimes committed by migrants against native Europeans and a total refusal from the authorities to acknowledge the root cause of the problem. Europe acts as a stark reminder of what happens to a continent and country that refuses to police its borders correctly.
THE LEGACY OF MARGARET THATCHER
Margaret Thatcher (1925 – 2013) is a titan of world politics. A conservative heavyweight who effectively championed the conservative ethos in the public sphere and, in doing so, managed to transform her country for the better.
Margaret Thatcher was born Margaret Hilda Roberts on October 13th, 1925 above a green grocer’s store in Grantham, Lincolnshire. Thatcher was an ambitious and driven student who won scholarships to Kesteven and Grantham Girls’ school and Oxford University. After university, Thatcher worked as a chemist but abandoned it to study for the legal bar after meeting her husband Dennis Thatcher (1915 -2003), whom she married in 1954. Thatcher became a fully qualified lawyer that same year. Thatcher became the Conservative member for Finchley in 1959.
During her rise to power, Thatcher was not massively popular. Facing oppositions because of her gender – when she was elected she was one of only twenty-four female Parliamentarians (out of six-hundred members) and, even more unusually, was the mother of twins – and her social class. The Conservative Party had not changed its structure since the 19th century. She was often denounced as the “grocer’s daughter”, one conservative politician even commented that she was “a good-looking woman without doubt, but common as dirt.” In spite of these barriers, Thatcher managed to rise through numerous junior ministerial positions to become the shadow education spokeswoman in 1967. She became the Secretary of State for Education and Science when Edward Heath (1916 – 2005) became Prime Minister in June of 1970. Thatcher became the leader of the Conservative Party in 1975.
Margaret Thatcher was conservative Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1979 to 1990 and in her time, she changed Britain and helped define the times she lived in. Thatcher became Prime Minister after defeating James Callaghan (1912 – 2005) with a seven percent majority. There were many reasons for the conservative victory, the main ones being economic failure and the lack of union control. Thatcher was seen as aggressive but also as something of a paradox. She was the first scientist in Downing Street and was enthusiastic in pushing Great Britain’s technological innovations forward, but was an anti-counterculture revolutionary who opposed trade unions and the socialism they represented.
During Thatcher’s first term, however, it was the economy that needed the most attention. By the late 1970s inflation in Great Britain had peaked at twenty percent due to rising oil prices and wage-push inflation. The once mighty nation had become known as the ‘sick man of Europe’. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, by 1980/81 Britain was suffering from downward trends in employment and productivity. The great industrial cities were in decline. Glasgow, for example, had seen a decline in its population from 1.2 million following World War One to eight hundred thousand in the early 1980s. In some areas of Glasgow, male unemployment would remain at between sixty and seventy percent throughout the 1980s. The director of the Department of Applied Economics, Wayne Godfrey, stated on the prospect of the 1980s: “it is a prospect so dreadful I cannot really believe there won’t be a sort of political revolution which will demand a basic change to policy.”
Inflation, particularly cost-push inflation, was seen as the biggest enemy. However, Thatcher knew that tackling inflation would require restricting the flow of money and causing mass job losses. It was a sacrifice she was willing to make. The government had a three-step process for tackling the issue. First, they increased interest rates. Second, they reduced the budget deficit by raising taxes and cutting government spending. Third, they pursued monetarist policies to control the supply of money. Despite great job losses, the economy slowly improved over Thatcher’s first two years in power.
In 1981, however, her policies caused a recession and unemployment peaked at three million. In fact, unemployment would remain a characteristic of the 1980s. Following the recession, Great Britain saw a period of economic growth with inflation dropping below four percent, although unemployment soared to 3.2 million before easing off a little. It is also of note that despite the mass unemployment, average earnings were, in fact, rising twice as fast inflation and those in employment had it better than ever. The Secretary of Transport, David Howell (1936 – ), stated in 1983: “if the conservative revolution has an infantry, it is the self-employed. It is in the growth of the self-employed, spreading out to small family businesses, that the job opportunities of the future are going to come.” Thatcher’s biggest achievement in her first term, and the one which endeared her most to the British public was the Falklands War. Following the Argentinean surrender in 1982, Thatcher stated: “today has put the great back into Britain.” The Falklands War rekindled the British public’s pride in her navy and in the nation, itself.
The Conservative Party won the 1983 election by an overwhelming majority. Thatcher had become the uncontested leader and saviour of the Conservative Party. Thatcher used the victory as an opportunity to change the configuration of the Conservative Party and reshape it in her image. She fired Foreign Secretary, Francis Pym (1922 – 2008) and sent the Home Secretary, William Whitelaw (1918 – 1999) to the House of Lords. Having ended the ancien regime, she refilled the front bench with dedicated Thatcherites. Only one old Etonian remained: Lord Chancellor Hailsham (1907 – 2001), who was eighty-five at the time. Thatcher then embarked on a policy of privatisation and deregulation with the intention of decreasing dependency on the government and encouraging personal responsibility. Critics accused Thatcher of attempting to dismantle the welfare state and refusing to provide a base safety net for those down on their luck. Unusually for an anti-socialist, Thatcher established the Greater London Council along with six metropolitan councils in an attempt to control local councils from Whitehall.
The conservatives won the 1987 election having lost twenty-one seats, but with a majority of more than one hundred. Thatcher focused on social issues and embarked on a program for social engineering. This was a seven-step process. First, the program actively encouraged women to stay at home and look after their children rather than join the workforce. Second, the program suggested putting the care of the old, unemployed and disabled into the hands of families. Third, the program suggested helping parents set up their own schools. Fourth, the program suggested providing support for schools with a clear, moral base, including religious schools. Fifth, the program suggested creating a voucher system to encourage parents to send their children to private schools. Sixth, the program suggested training children in the management of pocket money and the setting up of savings accounts. Seventh, the program wished to alter the way the public viewed wealth creation so that it would be seen as an admirable pursuit. Thatcher’s tenor as Prime Minister ended when she stood down from cabinet after her party refused to support her in a second round of leadership challenges. She was replaced by John Major (1943 – ).
After leaving office, Thatcher wrote two memoirs: The Downing Street Years (1993) and The Path to Power (1995). Thatcher was known as many things, including ‘The Last of the Eminent Victorians’, ‘New Britannia’, and, most famously, ‘The Iron Lady’. However, despite her many years in politics and her eleven years as Prime Minister, Thatcher was never a populist. This was probably because of her deep personal convictions which were stronger than her fear of the consequences. Thatcher did, however, demand and receive respect from the public. Satire almost always focused on her husband Dennis rather than on her. It is also worth noting that in her time Thatcher never lost an election. As a politician, Thatcher revolutionised political debate, transformed the Conservative Party, and altered many aspects of British life that had long been deemed permanent. Paul Johnson (1928 – ), a prominent English journalist, stated on Thatcher’s abilities as a politician: “though it is true in Margaret Thatcher’s case, she does have two advantages. She did start quite young. She does possess the most remarkable physical stamina of any politician I’ve come across.” In her time, Thatcher was determined to curb government subsidies to industry and to end the power of the trade unions. She made the trade unions liable for damages if their actions became unlawful and forced the Labour Party to modernise itself. Margaret Thatcher was an impressive and important Prime Minister whose political career and personality helped change Great Britain for the better.
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THE PROTESTANT WORK ETHIC
This is our weekly theological article.
If there is any philosophical or moral principle that can be credited with the prosperity of the Western capitalist societies it would have to be the Protestant work ethic. This ethic asserts that a person’s success in this life is a visible sign of their salvation in the next. As a result, the Protestant work ethic encourages hard work, self-reliance, literacy, diligence, frugality, and the reinvestment profits.
Prior to the Reformation, not much spiritual stock was placed on labour. The Roman Catholic Church placed more value on monastic prayer than on manual labour. Much would change when the German monk, Martin Luther (1483 – 1546), nailed his ninety-five theses on the door of the All Saint’s Church in Wittenberg. Luther railed against the Catholic Church’s sale of indulgences as a way of avoiding purgatorial punishment. Luther asserted faith over work believing that a person could be set right with God through faith alone. It was Luther’s opinion that an individual should remain in the vocation God had called them to and should work to earn an income, rather than the accumulation of wealth. This belief stood in stark contrast to the Catholic Church’s philosophy that relief from eternal torment came from Godly rewards for good works. By contrast, the second great Protestant, John Calvin (1509 – 1564), believed that faith and hard work were inextricably linked. Calvin’s theory came from his revolutionary idea of predestination, which asserted that only certain people were called into grace and salvation. It is from this that the Protestant work ethic is borne.
As a consequence, many Protestants worked hard to prove to themselves that they had been preselected for a seat in heaven. A result of this extreme predilection towards hard-work was an increase in economic prosperity.
The French sociologist, Emile Durkheim (1858 – 1917), believed that capitalism was built on a system that encouraged a strong work ethic and delayed gratification. Similarly, the German sociologist, Max Weber (1864 – 1920), argued in The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) that America’s success boiled down to the Protestant work ethic. It was asserted as the key idea that would encourage individuals to move up the social ladder and achieve economic independence. Weber noted that Protestants – particularly Calvinists, were largely responsible for early twentieth-century business success.
The Protest work ethic is credited with the United States’ economic and political rise in the 19th and 20th centuries. As the political scientist, Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 – 1859), wrote in Democracy in America (1835):
“I see the whole destiny of America contained in the first Puritan who landed on its shore. They will to their descendants the most appropriate habits, ideas, and mores to make a republic.”
A study in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology found that nations with a majority Protestant population enjoyed higher rates of employment. The economist, Horst Feldman, analysed data from eighty countries and found that countries with majority Protestant populations – America, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway – had employment rates six-percent higher than countries where other religious beliefs were practised. (Furthermore, the female employment rate in Protestant countries is eleven-percent higher). Feldman explained how the legacy of Protestantism led to increased prosperity:
“In the early days, Protestantism promoted the virtue of hard and diligent work among its adherents, who judged one another by conformity to this standard. Originally, an intense devotion to one’s work was meant to assure oneself that one was predestined for salvation. Although the belief in predestination did not last more than a generation or two after the Reformation, the ethic of work continued.”
The Protestant work ethic is one of those Christian ideas that have helped create Western capitalist democracies in all their glory. It is yet another example of the influence that Christianity has had on the modern world.
NAPOLEON SYNDROME
Shorter men who attempt to assert or defend themselves are frequently met with the harrowing accusation that they are suffering from ‘Napoleon complex’, otherwise known as ‘short man syndrome.’ While there is some evidence – based both on research and common experience – that this may be the case, the root causes of the issue reveal a problem that is more complex and entrenched than the general public would like to believe.
The term ‘Napoleon complex’ was first coined by Alfred Adler (1870 – 1937) in 1912. Remarkably, however, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 – 1821), the man for whom ‘Napoleon syndrome’ is named, was not actually short. Napoleon’s personal physician, Francesco Antommarchi (1780 – 1838), recorded the deposed Emperor’s height as being five pieds, two pouces, or five-feet, six-and-a-half inches. This was a half-inch taller than the average Englishman of the time, and a full two inches taller than the average Frenchman. The myth of Napoleon’s short stature comes from two places. First is the fact that Napoleon frequently surrounded himself with men taller than himself. Height requirements specified that the Grenadiers in the Elite Imperial Guard be 5’10 or over, whilst members of the Mounted Chasseurs had to be 5’7. To any casual observer, Napoleon would have looked noticeably smaller by comparison. And second, there is the anti-Napoleonic propaganda that frequently depicted the Emperor as small.
Like many physical characteristics, height can have a profound effect on a person’s self-perception. The shorter man’s poor self-perception begins in childhood when smaller children are often the targets of taunts and ridicule. As adults, shorter men are more likely to be overly-aggressive, domineering, and have an increased proclivity for resorting to extreme measures in order to prove themselves. Unfortunately, research shows that shorter men may, in extreme cases, resort to violence as a means of disguising their insecurities. The Journal of Injury Prevention found that men who struggled with their height and masculinity were three times more likely to commit violent assaults using a weapon. This study, which involved six-hundred American men aged between eighteen and fifty, asked participants to answer two sets of questions. The first asked about their self-image, drug use, and violent behaviour. The second set of questions asked the participants about their beliefs on gender roles, how they felt women and their friends perceived them, how they perceived their own masculinity, and how much they’d like to be a “macho man.”
Taller men are far more likely to succeed in positions of authority and power than shorter men. An early study of height and occupation reveals bishops to be taller than parish priests, sales managers to be taller than salesmen, and university presidents to be taller than the presidents of more modest higher-education facilities. In US Presidential elections, it is typically the taller of the two Presidential candidates that end up winning: John F. Kennedy (1917 – 1963) was six-feet tall compared to Richard Nixon (1913 – 1994) who was five-foot-eleven, Ronald Reagan (1911 – 2004) was six-foot-one compared to Jimmy Carter (1924 – ) who was five-foot-ten, and Barack Obama (1961 – ) was six-foot-one compared to John McCain’s (1936 – ) who was five-foot-nine.
And, as if that isn’t bad enough, merely finding employment can be a struggle for many shorter men. A 2001 study by Nicolo Persico, Andrew Postlewaite, and Dan Silverman of the University of Pennsylvania, found that shorter teenagers had a harder time finding employment than their taller counterparts. Persico, Postlewaite, and Silverman chalked this up to the attitudes and worldview of the shorter teenager. “Those who were relatively short when young”, they explained, “were less likely to participate in social activities associated with the accumulation of productive skills and attributes, and report lower self-esteem.”.
Things don’t get much better once they are employed, either. Shorter men are less likely to be afforded promotions and pay-rises than their taller peers. A study by Leland Deck of the University of Pittsburgh found that men who are 6’2 or taller earn 12.4% more than men who are below six feet.
Then there is the challenge of forming intimate relationships. Men are considered attractive when they are tall, broad-shouldered, and well-toned. An analysis of personal ads found that most women prefer dating men who are six-foot-tall and over, especially when it comes to casual sex. A study published in the March 2016 edition of Personality and Individual Differences journal found that while women did not particularly care about hair, weight, or penis size, they did care about a man’s height. It is believed that the primary reason for this preference is that height is a sign of high testosterone – and men with higher testosterone tend to be better protectors and lovers.
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that height is a source of great insecurity for many men. The shorter man’s sense of insecurity and resentment is almost certainly borne out of poor experiences associated with their stature. Smaller children are more likely to be the victims of taunts and ridicule. As adults, shorter men find it more difficult to form intimate relationships, find employment, and achieve positions of authority and status. Perhaps people ought to remember that Napoleon Complex is more complicated and entrenched than they like to believe.
PRESIDENT TRUMP PUTS TAX REFORM ON THE TABLE
President Trump has chosen Springfield, Missouri, to outline his planned tax reforms for the United States.
President Trump’s speech, which used overarching themes, outlined the four principles which would guide the reforms. First, a tax code that is easy and simple to understand. Second, a tax rate that would allow businesses to remain globally competitive. Third, tax relief for middle-class families. Fourth, tax breaks for corporate profits repatriated abroad.
During his speech, President Trump stated:
“We’re here today to launch our plans to bring back Main Street by reducing the crumbling burden on our companies and on our workers. The foundation of our job creation agenda is to fundamentally reform our tax code for the first time in more than 30 years.”
President Trump went on to note that tax reform would help small business and encourage economic growth at all levels. He commented that ninety-percent of taxpayers required help filing their taxes and that the current system only benefited those who could afford good tax lawyers and accountants.
President Trump also implored the US Congress, in particular, the Democrats, not to blow their chance at tax reform. President Trump said:
“This is our once in a generation opportunity to deliver real tax reform for everyday, hardworking Americans. This is our opportunity to deliver real tax reform for Americans. I am fully committed to working with Congress to get this job done.”
Speaking to Democrats, President Trump said:
“Put the partisan posturing behind us and come together as Americans, to create the 21st-century tax code that our people deserve. What could possibly be more bipartisan than helping people keep more of what they earn?”
Whilst it is believed tax reform will increase employment among Americans, Republican Senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, has expressed concern about overhauling the tax code without first lowering revenue. In an op-ed for CNN, Paul stated:
“Tax reform can be simple, but I’m afraid those who are in charge will make it unnecessarily complicated.”
Despite this, there have been concerns over the effects of tax cuts on the Federal budget deficit and Federal debt levels. Furthermore, there is also concern that the White House may have a difficult time selling their tax reforms to the American people. Cliff Simms, the White House Director of Message Strategy, dismissed this, saying:
“I think that the media underestimates the economic understanding of the American worker out there — middle-class, rural, blue-collar folks in Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania and other states around the country who have watched the tax code, the tax system as it is today play a huge role in their factories closing and being shipped overseas. They totally understand competitiveness and totally understand how this is going to — in the President’s words — help us win again.”
PLAN TO REFORM US IMMIGRATION SYSTEM
President Donald Trump has joined Republican Senator for Arkansas, Tom Cotton, and Republican Senator for Georgia, David Perdue, in reworking the “Reform American Immigration for a Strong Economy” act (RAISE). This act will help Trump to fulfil his campaign promise to reform the immigration problem.
Trump told reporters that the Raise Act will “reduce poverty, increase wages and save taxpayers billions of dollars.” Trump went on to say:
“This legislation demonstrates our compassion for struggling American families who deserve an immigration system that puts their needs first, and that puts America first.”
A press release from the White House states that the current US immigration rate does not prioritise highly skilled immigrants over immigrants with low skills or no skills. At the moment, only six-percent of the one-million immigrants the US accepts annually emigrate because of their skills. Instead, the US has experienced decades of emigres with little to no skills. (To make matters worse, fifty-percent of immigrant households receive welfare compared to thirty-percent of native households). According to the release, the mass influx of cheap, unskilled labour has depressed wages and harmed vulnerable Americans.
The RAISE act seeks to replace the current permanent employment-visa framework, especially the diversity visa lottery system, with a new system which rewards applicants based on their merits. This system, which echoes similar immigration system in Australia and Canada, selects immigrants based on their level of education, their ability to speak English, their past achievements, and their entrepreneurial initiative.
