I have been planning for some time to write about the supposed German holocaust of the 1940s, but that would require more time than I have available to me right now.
What I will note today is this famous quote from Lord Shawcross, who was the lead British prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials:
There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience.
I am not sure that the British establishment has ever allowed this pearl of wisdom to apply to British people - or indeed to people whom they regard as British.
It is reported today that the BBC has argued that William Joyce - also known as Lord Haw Haw - should never have been convicted of treason by the British government on the grounds that he was an American national.
It is also noted that the British government during the Second World War interned people who were suspected of being sympathetic to the German government. The German government sent people to concentration camps on the grounds of their political views, and so too did the British government.
It is curious how people in the political arena can often be adept at spotting hypocrisy in their rivals, but can be utterly blind to their own hypocrisy. In the time I have been writing this blog, I have tried to avoid writing anything which could be seen as hypocritical, and I am pleased that no one has yet accused me of hypocrisy. Comments are welcome as always.
Related previous posts include:
The outdated concept of treason
Sunday 31 January 2016
Sunday 24 January 2016
The economics of the minimum wage
The United Kingdom has high levels of unemployment. The level fluctuates, but even in a supposedly good year it will be sufficiently high to ensure that worklessness remains a way of life for far too many people in this country.
An employer can advertise almost any number of job vacancies which pay only the minimum wage, and still expect to fill possibly every single vacancy. Doubtless there may be exceptions where certain very specific skills are required, but I don't see much evidence of actual exceptions.
People who claim jobseekers' allowance soon find out that their payments can be sanctioned at almost any time, and so the incentive to find a job - even at a low wage - soon becomes obvious.
On the one hand, it might seem pointless for an employer to offer to pay more than the minimum wage when they do not need to pay any more in order to fill their vacancies. Then again, a lot of employers rely on the flexibility provided by overtime.
Not everyone is prepared to work overtime, however. In the past few months I have talked with a young woman who was unwilling to work overtime at any price, and with a man who was unwilling to work overtime unless he were to be paid around ten pounds per hour - which is significantly more than the minimum wage.
When employees refuse to work overtime, an employer must either recruit more staff, or pay a recruitment agency to supply more staff, or else allow a backlog of work to build up. Given that newly recruited staff are often of little use until they have received some in-house training, then a backlog of work might build up even where more staff are recruited. In other words, there is an advantage to having existing employees agree to work overtime, and paying above the minimum wage can assist in that process.
A related point is employee retention. It is not productive for managers to be perpetually engaged in recruiting and training new staff, and so there is an obvious incentive for most employers in having their existing staff remain on the payroll. Nevertheless a lot of employers face quite serious problems of staff turnover.
Paying above the minimum wage can probably help employers to retain staff, although there is no magic formula here. There are many reasons why an employee might leave, and not all of them are related to money.
In my experience, people who work either for the minimum wage or for not much more than the minimum wage tend to be efficient and dedicated. Nevertheless, an employer who pays significantly above the minimum wage can expect greater efficiency in the long term through lower levels of staff turnover and higher levels of overtime.
Related previous posts include:
Fellow blogger is wrong about the minimum wage
We get monkeys anyway
An employer can advertise almost any number of job vacancies which pay only the minimum wage, and still expect to fill possibly every single vacancy. Doubtless there may be exceptions where certain very specific skills are required, but I don't see much evidence of actual exceptions.
People who claim jobseekers' allowance soon find out that their payments can be sanctioned at almost any time, and so the incentive to find a job - even at a low wage - soon becomes obvious.
On the one hand, it might seem pointless for an employer to offer to pay more than the minimum wage when they do not need to pay any more in order to fill their vacancies. Then again, a lot of employers rely on the flexibility provided by overtime.
Not everyone is prepared to work overtime, however. In the past few months I have talked with a young woman who was unwilling to work overtime at any price, and with a man who was unwilling to work overtime unless he were to be paid around ten pounds per hour - which is significantly more than the minimum wage.
When employees refuse to work overtime, an employer must either recruit more staff, or pay a recruitment agency to supply more staff, or else allow a backlog of work to build up. Given that newly recruited staff are often of little use until they have received some in-house training, then a backlog of work might build up even where more staff are recruited. In other words, there is an advantage to having existing employees agree to work overtime, and paying above the minimum wage can assist in that process.
A related point is employee retention. It is not productive for managers to be perpetually engaged in recruiting and training new staff, and so there is an obvious incentive for most employers in having their existing staff remain on the payroll. Nevertheless a lot of employers face quite serious problems of staff turnover.
Paying above the minimum wage can probably help employers to retain staff, although there is no magic formula here. There are many reasons why an employee might leave, and not all of them are related to money.
In my experience, people who work either for the minimum wage or for not much more than the minimum wage tend to be efficient and dedicated. Nevertheless, an employer who pays significantly above the minimum wage can expect greater efficiency in the long term through lower levels of staff turnover and higher levels of overtime.
Related previous posts include:
Fellow blogger is wrong about the minimum wage
We get monkeys anyway
Thursday 14 January 2016
Mortocracy versus democracy
Once again I find myself with so many things to write about, but I have opted to reply to a message I came across on social media a few weeks ago. The author - I cannot recall who he was - expressed a dislike of democracy. He said he preferred republicanism, and his argument was along these lines: In a democracy, my rights can be removed according to the wishes of the electorate; but in a republic my rights are protected by a constitution. I will assume that the author was an American national.
I have written in a previous thread about mortocracy, which I define as government by the dead.
Nowadays, democracy is normally envisaged as government according to the will of the people, as expressed at the ballot box. Mortocracy is government according to the dictates of people who are no longer alive. Examples of mortocracy include the Geneva Convention, which was most recently ratified in 1949.
The USA has a written constitution which cannot easily be amended. According to Wikipedia:
A proposed amendment becomes an operative part of the Constitution as soon as it is ratified by three-fourths of the States (currently 38 of the 50 States).
By contrast, the United Kingdom has a constitution which is not written in any single document, and which can be amended by any act of parliament - passed on a simple majority vote.
The constitution of the USA can be interpreted by judges, and it is normal for judges to the supreme court to be appointed on the basis of how they are expected to interpret the constitution. In a sense this is vaguely democratic. The people elect the president, who then appoints judges to the Supreme Court. Nevertheless it is at best a bizarre form of democracy.
I recall once complaining that a federal judge in the USA had acted undemocratically by overturning the policy of an elected body. Someone replied that the ruling was democratic as it arose from a lawsuit brought by local people. The logic of that escapes me.
I recall also once remarking in a debate that a federal court ruling had been overturned on appeal. Someone replied that he could wait for the Democrats to return to power and - as he put it - reassert the constitution. I asked if he thought it proper that a Democrat administration should interfere in the judicial process, and he replied that the ruling in question was the work of judges appointed by a Republican administration. I then asked him if under a Democrat administration all appointments to the judiciary would be politically neutral, and he conceded that this would not be the case.
When people in the USA bring lawsuits based on the constitution, they will often argue that they are defending the constitution, but I wonder if any one of them truly cares about the constitution.
For example, proponents of the misnamed American Civil War argue that the constitution did not allow any of the states to leave the Union. In that it was utterly undemocractic, as each of the eleven states which left the Union in 1861 did so by the will of their elected politicians.
However what proponents of the misnamed American Civil War rarely admit is that the misnamed American Civil War was by that logic a violation of the constitution. If the states were not allowed to secede, then the citizens of those secessionist states were still technically American citizens. The war deprived many of them of their lives, but in most cases without the privilege of trial by jury, which is guaranteed by the constitution.
People who support government by written constitutions are almost certainly not truly interested in democracy, and are almost certainly hypocrites. I am proud to be a democract, and not a mortocrat.
Related previous posts include:
What is mortocracy?
I have written in a previous thread about mortocracy, which I define as government by the dead.
Nowadays, democracy is normally envisaged as government according to the will of the people, as expressed at the ballot box. Mortocracy is government according to the dictates of people who are no longer alive. Examples of mortocracy include the Geneva Convention, which was most recently ratified in 1949.
The USA has a written constitution which cannot easily be amended. According to Wikipedia:
A proposed amendment becomes an operative part of the Constitution as soon as it is ratified by three-fourths of the States (currently 38 of the 50 States).
By contrast, the United Kingdom has a constitution which is not written in any single document, and which can be amended by any act of parliament - passed on a simple majority vote.
The constitution of the USA can be interpreted by judges, and it is normal for judges to the supreme court to be appointed on the basis of how they are expected to interpret the constitution. In a sense this is vaguely democratic. The people elect the president, who then appoints judges to the Supreme Court. Nevertheless it is at best a bizarre form of democracy.
I recall once complaining that a federal judge in the USA had acted undemocratically by overturning the policy of an elected body. Someone replied that the ruling was democratic as it arose from a lawsuit brought by local people. The logic of that escapes me.
I recall also once remarking in a debate that a federal court ruling had been overturned on appeal. Someone replied that he could wait for the Democrats to return to power and - as he put it - reassert the constitution. I asked if he thought it proper that a Democrat administration should interfere in the judicial process, and he replied that the ruling in question was the work of judges appointed by a Republican administration. I then asked him if under a Democrat administration all appointments to the judiciary would be politically neutral, and he conceded that this would not be the case.
When people in the USA bring lawsuits based on the constitution, they will often argue that they are defending the constitution, but I wonder if any one of them truly cares about the constitution.
For example, proponents of the misnamed American Civil War argue that the constitution did not allow any of the states to leave the Union. In that it was utterly undemocractic, as each of the eleven states which left the Union in 1861 did so by the will of their elected politicians.
However what proponents of the misnamed American Civil War rarely admit is that the misnamed American Civil War was by that logic a violation of the constitution. If the states were not allowed to secede, then the citizens of those secessionist states were still technically American citizens. The war deprived many of them of their lives, but in most cases without the privilege of trial by jury, which is guaranteed by the constitution.
People who support government by written constitutions are almost certainly not truly interested in democracy, and are almost certainly hypocrites. I am proud to be a democract, and not a mortocrat.
Related previous posts include:
What is mortocracy?
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