Reader discovers that her boyfriend might be “a bit of a jerk”

A READER WRITES: “I was interested in the research which suggested that romantic infatuations only last for about 18 months. I have been going out with my boyfriend for nearly two years. For the first year, our relationship was passionate and wonderful. But in then our relationship began to deteriorate rapidly. Our sex-life has got worse. I think that I might not have anything in common with him, and that he might even be a bit of a jerk”

BB SAYS: This is a common experience in relationships. When the first flush of romantic love inevitably passes, people discover that they have, as you put it “nothing in common”.

The Ancients Greeks had two different words to describe two different types of human love and human connection: one was Eros, the other was Philia.

Erotic love is passionate, uncertain, and exciting. On the other hand, Philia is based on friendship, companionship, shared interests and mutual respect. Now that the period of erotic infatuation in your relationship has passed, you are finding that there is no basis in Philia to continue your relationship. If you cannot find such ground, then it is difficult to see how your relationship can continue.

Eros and Philia exist in each of us, and they are in tension with each other. Strongly erotic people are not suited to long term relationships - their lives are consumed with the eternal search for novelty and for their “other half”. There is a nobility in this search. Unerotic people tend to be bland and to lack passion. And as the philosopher Hegel says, nothing great has ever been accomplished without passion. Erotic love says Flaubert, “is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings”.

And this brings us to the difficulty with erotic love – it is based on hope and it rarely endures. Love without Philia cannot sustain itself. Indeed, people who have been in successful long term relationships often say that REAL love only begins when the period of infatuation passes. As Balzac says: “True love is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart”. Or consider the wise words of Montaigne: “If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love”.

A successful relationship requires both Eros to initiate it, and Philia to sustain it. Unfortunately it is very hard to find both. That is why, as a minor English poet once put it “the course of true love never did run smooth”. Or look to Montaigne again: “Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out”.

Love is a complex business, and each of us tries, in our own way, to find what Saul Bellow described as “the consummation of the heart’s ultimate need”, where both our erotic longings AND our longing for Philia can be satisfied.

Do YOU have a problem? Leave an anonymous comment, or send your problem in confidence to brianbarrington@gmail.com

The Irish Economy and the Global Recession

A READER WRITES: “I read your masterful analysis of the causes of the current global recession. Very persuasive. I would like to ask you about what Ireland should do about all this. There seems to be a lot of talk in the media about Public Sector pay in Ireland. Should the Irish Government reduce Public Sector pay by 10%?”

BB SAYS: Absolutely not! The government should INCREASE public sector pay by 25%. This can be financed by enormous increases in the national debt, that can be paid back sometime in the future, I’m sure. Even better, increases in the salaries of public service workers can be financed by raising taxes on private sector workers – especially low-paid private sector workers with no pension and no job security.

According to the ESRI, the average public sector worker in Ireland only earns 20% more than the average private sector worker. If one includes pensions, this pay differential rises to a mere 40%. In Ireland, the average public sector worker is older and more likely to have bought a house before the property boom, than the average private sector worker.

By increasing taxes on private sector workers, we can encourage young people to leave the country. Then the country will largely consist of ageing, well-paid public sector workers - and anyone who has a job will have a security and a pension, since the only jobs will be public sector jobs. Problem solved.

The increase in the national debt can be paid for by future inhabitants of this island – if there are any.

The Kant Debate continues: reader considers taking a vow of silence

A READER OF KANT WRITES: “I think I must have read on a little further than you thought [in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason] – I know all about those conceptual sunglasses we go around wearing putting a form on reality – and I didn’t read about them in Look – though I’m sure they will do a feature on them in the spring issue. But what is the point when all that ‘noumena’ is unknowable? How do we not know that we are all wearing different pairs? Look will do a whole spread feature you know. I could be wearing a sexy little red pair and you could be wearing a nerdy thick rimmed black pair with Jack Duckworth sticky plaster keeping them together. And if you are seeing a different world to me; why should I listen to your advice on anything? It doesn’t pertain to me, like last years fashion faux pas – you’d have no relevance in my world. best, your admirer”

BB SAYS: The position you hold is a valid one (although it is certainly not Kant’s position). You are referring to the possibility that everyone sees and experiences the world completely differently. If this is so then there is no common experience between human beings, and communication is impossible. Nothing that I or anybody else says can be relevant to you, since there is no common ground or common experience to make communication possible. Each of us exists entirely in isolation.

If this is so, then it also follows that nothing you say can be of any relevance to me or anyone else. Therefore, if what your post says is true, we should all ignore it, because it cannot possibly contain any relevant information for anyone. Furthermore, your attempt to read Kant would be pointless, since he would be wearing different glasses to you. But how can you know for sure that he is wearing different glasses to you? How can you know for sure that there are no common human experiences?

Regardless of this, the position you put forth is, to some extent, a coherent one. However, in order to hold it consistently, you would need to concede that all conversation is pointless and that all communication between human beings is impossible – you would need to be COMPLETELY SILENT. However, your posts would indicate that you are not completely silent. It would appear that you hold conversations and that you try to communicate with other human beings. I invite you to consider the possibility that your actions give the lie to your solipsistic posturing. However, if you wish to embrace a vow of silence, then I support that decision. As Wittgenstein once put it “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”.

Reader struggles to grasp the meaning of Kant's Transcendental Idealism

A READER WRITES: "Dear BB, I've been reading Kant's critique -- on a friends
recommendation. That is, whenever my feeble arms will allow me to lift the heavy
tome - such is the weight of knowledge. I've just come to his infamous
copernican turn. It seems that he favoured inquiry into the world of
appearances. Would I be as well of to spare my bi-ceps and restrict my future
readings to Look magazine, best, Your admirer"

BB SAYS: It is true that Kant did not believe it was possible to say or know anything about what he called "things in themselves" or "noumena" i.e. things as they exist independently of our perception of them, or things that transcend the empirical or phenomenal world i.e. the world of appearances. So Kant did, indeed, favour inquiry into the world of appearances.

However, he was not a straightforward empiricist or phenomenologist. His Transcendental Idealism permitted him to believe in the existence of synthetic a priori knowledge – what he took to be the pre-condition for the existence of appearances or phenomena e.g. the reality of time, space, causality and so forth. Because of this, Kant is often held to have synthesized the British Empirical philosophy of Locke, Berkeley and Hume, with the Continental Rationalist Philosophy of Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz. Kant's thought, is, in many repsects, the culmination of Enlightenment philosophy.

Your post’s emphasis on appearances suggests that you may not have sufficiently considered Kant’s Transcendental Idealism or his theory of synthetic a priori truths. For this reason, I recommend that you continue your reading of the Critique of Pure Reason. If you find it hard-going at times, take a break and read Look for a while. But do not become deterred - Kant's Critique is one of philosophy's most notoriously difficult texts.

“Why Pursue Happiness Anyway?”

A READER WRITES: “To be free, I should neither pursue long-term happiness nor short term pleasure.”

BB SAYS: This is a valid approach - attaining freedom through the annihilation of ALL desire, and thus attaining a genuine liberation from the suffering of life. This is the approach of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who believes that all life is a meaningless struggle, with people oscillating helplessly between desire (which is frustrating) and boredom (which is the desire to have a desire, and also a form of suffering). Consequently, life consists entirely of various types of suffering. The only true solution is the TOTAL ANNIHILATION OF ALL DESIRE, advocated in various ways by Buddhists, Hindus, Christian monks, Stoics and other types of ascetics. One must therefore conquer all one’s desires, including the desire for pleasure and for happiness.

However, Schopenhauer says that only a small proportion of human beings have the strength and ability to attain this blessed state. If you have the strength to do it, then perhaps it is the way for you to go.

But for most human beings, it is impossible to completely overcome one’s basic, natural desires. Indeed, philosophers such as Nietzsche have argued that asceticism and quietude are false consolations, and that even people who claim to achieve Nirvana, do not really do so, but are merely fooling themselves, and sublimating or repressing their true desires, which then mutate and find a release in some other way (often in a dangerous, perverted, unhealthy way). Nietzsche argues that in order to experience joy one must also experience suffering. Consequently, he advocates an embrace of suffering, so that one can live a full and joyful life. He regards ascetics as cowards, who do not have the courage to say “Yes to life”. Saying “Yes to Life” means accepting that a certain amount of suffering is inevitable, since one cannot live without suffering.

Whatever one thinks about the merits of Nietzsche’s arguments, it would seem that the complete absence of desire is not feasible for most people.

But there is room for reasonable people to disagree on this. To some extent the disagreement centres on the meaning of the word “Happiness”. Your comment essentially replaces the word “happiness” with the word “freedom” – if we define “happiness” at the most abstract level, as the ultimate state which human beings would like to attain.

The Problem of Unwanted Erotic Attention, and the Reverse problem of Unrequited Love

A READER SAYS: “Dear BB, I was over-joyed to find your blog. Help at last! Or so I thought. It was only the start of my trouble, for BB, I think I have fallen in love with you. Your wise words and above average good looks have left me in a tail-spin. I am sure this is a regular occurrence for you, having women fall head-over-heels in love with you, how do you deal with all the female attention? And what should I do about my own infatuation? And please, I read your blog, do not advise I get a dog. Best, An admirer”.

BB SAYS: Thank you for your kind words.

Unwanted attention and attraction from the opposite sex is apparently a real problem for exceptionally desirable or attractive men and women. I have had beautiful women tell me that they find it impossible to form friendships with men, because the men eventually always fall in love with them. To this I would say: stop moaning. How would you like it if no one was in love with you? That is the condition of many less lucky people. Or what about being in love with someone when that love is unrequited? That is a much more painful condition than being the object of unrequited love. OK, being a beloved can be a minor nuisance sometimes, but overall you should be grateful for your good fortune – very many people do not have enough love in their lives. If you have too much love in yours, then you are one of the fortunate few.

As regards your infatuation with me. Do not worry about it. Unrequited love can be painful, but it is also elevating, joyful, sublime, exhilarating – one of the most intense emotions a human being can experience. Unrequited love has been celebrated by poets throughout history – think of Dante’s love for Beatrice, or Yeats’ love for Maud Gonne. Turn to poetry or write a song. Make the most of your passion before it passes, as it surely will – scientists estimate that “romantic love” of the sort you are experiencing lasts for a maximum of about 18 months.

Many poets and philosophers have held that love is in essence unrequited, since it is awareness of a lack, of one’s incompletion – one seeks to find completion in the arms of another, who represents perfection. But since the beloved does not have such a need or lack, the passion is not reciprocated. For consolation, recall the immortal words of Tennyson: “It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all”. Also heed the advice of Ovid: “If thou wouldst be loved, then make thyself worthy to be loved”.

Do YOU have a problem? Leave an anonymous comment, or send your problem in confidence to brianbarrington@gmail.com

Reader spills the beans on Roger Scruton

A concerned reader has drawn my attention to the below information on Roger Scruton, the famous Conservative Philosopher:

"There is an interesting little piece on Scruton which mentions:

In early 2002, The Guardian disclosed a leaked confidential e-mail in which he asked Japan Tobacco International for an increase of £1,000 over his existing fee of £4,500 per month and discussed his aim of getting opinion pieces published "in one or other of The Wall Street Journal, The Times, The Telegraph, The Spectator, The Financial Times, The Economist, The Independent or the New Statesman" on "major topics of current concern" to the tobacco industry. As a result of the disclosure, The Financial Times dropped his weekly column, "This Land". Scruton argues that his relationship with JTI was never concealed, and the new proposal was never acted upon, but his critics respond that his previous articles failed to mention any links to the tobacco industry."

Reader Stuggles with violent urges towards work colleagues

A READER WRITES: “it's a constant internal battle for me not to inflict physical bodily harm on my colleagues. if you could help me ignore these violent urges my life would be better and i would be happier. also, my colleagues would be safer. thanking you, your loyal reader”.

BB SAYS: Don’t worry, violent urges are normal, and it is perfectly OK for you to desire to inflict bodily harm on your work colleagues. If you have not acted on these urges yet, and have no history of violent behaviour, then you are unlikely to act on those violent urges now.

Much of your frustration is probably being caused by your job. Most jobs are boring and unpleasant. That is why people need to be paid in order to do them. The capitalist system has created the myth that work is fulfilling, interesting and exciting. It isn’t. The capitalist system has created this myth in order to try and make you work more than you want to, in order to get you to buy things that you do not want or do not need. It is a method of social control.

One good option is not to work at all, since most jobs are pointless and unnecessary. But not working requires a strong character. One may need to cope with not having much money - but since a sensible person does not need much money to get by, this should not necessarily stop you from not working. One might also need to cope with people thinking that you are a lazy, stupid failure. But most of these people are conformist fools, so why should you care what they think about you?

Only boring people can enjoy doing boring jobs. So if you don’t enjoy your job it is a good sign, because it probably means you are not boring enough to enjoy it. Only about 1 percent of people have jobs that are genuinely interesting or satisfying - successful actors, rock stars, sports stars, best-selling writers, celebrities, world-renowned professors, powerful politicians, wealthy entrepreneurs and so on. Many people want to do these interesting careers – competition for these jobs is ferocious, so you will probably not get one of these jobs. The supply of people who want to do these jobs is enormous. The huge supply means that they are badly paid, except for the tiny proportion of people who become successful at them. Attempting to get a job like this requires years of low pay, humiliation - and the attempt will probably end in failure. Most people who try to do one of these jobs fail, and end up with nothing. It is better not to try. Getting a genuinely interesting job requires both luck and skill. In any event, most of the people who do have “interesting” jobs, are not happy, because they are ambitious, and ambitious people are always consumed with envy and self-doubt. But if you think it is worth the risk to aim high and attempt to get interesting work, then go for it. However, unless you are both lucky and talented, you will probably end up sad and miserable.

The alternative is to cope as best as possible with the boredom of your current job. The way to do that is to spend as little time and energy as you can doing the job. Here are some suggestions:
- go in late
- leave early
- surf the internet
- email friends
- go on long coffee breaks
- go on long toilet breaks
- start smoking and go on frequent smoking breaks
- spend time on the phone talking with friends
- talk with interesting people in your work location (if there are any, which is unlikely)
- disappear for long stretches of the day (e.g. go shopping or on “dental appointments”)
- take extensive lunch breaks
- listen to music
- spend the day blogging or writing a book
- take as many sick days as you can
- entertain yourself by sneering at your colleagues
- pass the time by daydreaming about being famous or wealthy. Indulge in sexual fantasies.

In general, focus on making the most of your leisure time, and on making your “working” time as much like your leisure time as is feasible.

Another way to cope with the boredom of work is to change your job frequently. However, moving jobs is stressful, and when you get a new job you are often expected to work hard in order to create the impression that you care and that you are a “productive employee”. So there is a strong case to be made for staying in the same job year after year after year, and never moving until you are fired or made redundant or retire or die.

Do YOU have a problem? Leave an anonymous comment, or send your problem in confidence to brianbarrington@gmail.com

Reader asks God for help

READER ALEX WRITES: “I have just had a brief look at your website. God help us all”

BB SAYS: Interesting point Alex.

It only makes sense to appeal to God for help if you believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing God. But even that is not enough. If you believe in a Deistic God (who is indifferent to human beings and their destiny) then it makes no sense to petition him to help you. But if you believe in a Theistic God (one who is infinitely good, and concerned with your well-being) then it may make sense to petition him for help.

However, there is a problem with believing in a Theistic God, which is known by Philosophers and Theologians as The Problem of Evil. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, and also infinitely good, then why does he allow so much evil in the world? Why does he allow the innocent to suffer?.

Theologians have struggled with this problem for centuries. Some have argued that this world is, despite appearances, the best of all possible worlds. There may appear to be evil, but that is because human beings are incapable of understanding God’s mysterious ways. The innocent may sometimes suffer, but that suffering is ultimately necessary, even if we humans are not able to understand why. These are the arguments of some theologians.

Nevertheless, if one believes in an infinitely good, omnipotent and omniscient God, then one could still argue that there is no point in praying to Him for help– if he is omniscient then he already knows what help you need; if he is omnipotent then he already has the power to help you, and if he is infinitely good then he already wants to help you.

Given this, it would appear that your request to God to “help us all” is redundant. Perhaps we would be better off trying to help ourselves, rather than appealing to a hypothetical God.

“I've been enslaved by my instincts”

A READER WRITES: “I'm a big fan and I enjoy your work. My question: I fear that I've been enslaved by my instincts. I don't choose what makes me happy or gives me pleasure, but I spend my time running round trying to pursue happiness and doing pleasurable things. Similarly I don't choose my wants. They were decided for me. Can I be more free by ignoring my wants and my happiness?”

BB SAYS: Excellent question! Many of our desires, instincts and needs are NOT chosen by us. They are hardwired into our DNA, and part of our human nature e.g. the desire for survival, food, sex, status, social belonging, knowledge. However, there are other desires that are largely given to us by the society we live in – such as the desire to take out a loan to buy an expensive car that you might not really need, or the desire to circumcise your children. These desires are not universal, but specific to particular times and places – they are conventional and conditional, not natural. Often these desires arise from attempts by society (or those in power) to exploit you.

First, you need to make a distinction between your NEEDS (which are natural) and your WANTS (which are conventional). You can work to control your “wants”, and make sure that you do not pursue short-term “pleasure” at the expense of long-term happiness. You can do this by liberating yourself from the conventions of the society you happen to find yourself in.

But what about your needs? These can also be rationally analysed and evaluated. Pursuing any particular need to EXCESS can also lead to long-term unhappiness. For example, eating too much at the expense of one’s health and appearance. Or drinking too much alcohol. Or having too much sex at the expense of real love. The key is to pursue each need in MODERATION, so that you remain in balance – if you pursue one need to excess, it could be at the expense of your other needs.

Also, researchers in the Psychology of Happiness make a distinction between PLEASURE and JOY. Pleasure comes from the short-term indulgence of satisfying a desire e.g. watching TV, taking drugs. In this case, you are generally not using your FACULTIES in any challenging way, but merely passively trying to achieve pleasure. Such activities rarely bring much lasting joy or satisfaction. For example, many people report that they are at their least happy when watching TV, because they are being passive and do not feel in control. In contrast, researchers have found that ACTIVE and challenging use of one’s faculties brings lasting joy and satisfaction e.g. activities like rock-climbing, creating works of art, learning to play a musical instrument, gardening and so forth. These activities may not be instantly pleasurable while you are doing them, because they are hard work. But when people look back on these activities they always say “Yes, when I was doing that I felt really alive and in flow. It was a joyous experience. I felt I was in control”. Researchers have found that people who focus on these kinds of challenging activities tend to be HAPPY.

If you are interested in pursuing this further I would recommend reading “Flow: Psychology of Happiness” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Csikszentmihalyi has taken an EMPIRICAL approach to seeing what makes people happy, by studying and interviewing thousands of happy people. He has come up with some interesting results. I would also recommend reading Aristotle’s “Ethics”.

Exchange with Roger Sruton about Conservatism

BRIAN BARRINGTON:
Dear Mr. Scruton,
I am sympathetic to your writing and philosophy, but it seems to me that conservatism suffers from a basic logical problem: the standards conservatism defends did not always exist and were once considered radical. For example, the classical architecture that conservatives defend would have been “revolutionary” when it was first created in Ancient Greece. The Christian “tradition” that many conservatives defend was, at the time of Christ and in the centuries after Christ, a radical new teaching that challenged the pagan view of life that was prevalent at that time. The music of Bach and the painting of the Renaissance were also revolutionary developments. Even farming, and the country life that conservatives defend, would have been “revolutionary” at the time when human beings were moving from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural societies. Is there a way to overcome this apparent logical problem with conservatism?

ROGER SCRUTON:
To Brian Barrington,
There are two quite different understandings of the word ‘conservatism’. In one understanding the conservative is just anyone who is trying to hang on to the old order of things, regardless of its value, and perhaps because of his own secure position within it. In that sense people used to refer to ‘conservative elements’ in the Soviet Communist Party – i.e. people determined to hold on to the revolutionary doctrines of Marxism-Leninism and who endorsed the oppressive methods needed to put them into practice. In the other sense such people could not be described as conservative at all, but the very opposite. In the other sense the conservative is someone who believes that the solutions to social problems are hard to find, that they emerge over time, through custom and tradition, and that they are solutions precisely because they correspond to something deep in human nature which we must respect. Such a conservative believes that we make mistakes, that mistakes must be corrected, that tradition is a guide but not the sole guide, and that from time to time we must return to our basic intuitions about humanity and the moral life in order to renew the social fabric. Of course Christ was a disturbing figure; but his aim was to return people to the understanding contained in the two commandments given in Leviticus – to love God entirely and to love your neighbour as yourself. His message was addressed to the individual, and concerned the morality of daily life. Such examples are shocking, and people recoil from them, as the Gospels show. But their meaning is not revolution in the modern sense but moral renewal. Who can deny that our society stands in need, now, of such a renewal? My own view is that any such renewal must also be conservative – rediscovering the moral knowledge contained in customs and traditions on which we have trampled or which have been sneered at by the advocates of liberation.

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14210188&postID=4200347230388694612

"Nobody reads my blog"

A READER WRITES: “Hardly anybody reads my blog and the few people that do are simpletons or weirdos. What should I do?”

BB SAYS: Not a problem. Hardly anybody reads my blog either, and the few people that do are either simpletons or weirdos. I have so few readers that I actually have to INVENT questions from readers. How sad is that?

But don’t worry about it. Hardly anybody reads anybody else’s blog. Who cares? You strike me as a person who has a lot of things to say for himself - a lot of things that nobody wants to hear about, a lot of ideas that are of absolutely no interest to anybody. Put them all on your blog, where they can remain happily unread.

(Purchase the Go Scott T-shirt here)

Do YOU have a problem? Leave an anonymous comment, or send your problem in confidence to brianbarrington@gmail.com

Reader fails to accomplish anything with his life

A READER WRITES: “I feel that I have not accomplished anything worthwhile with my life. What should I do?”

BB SAYS: You did not ask to be born. You did not ask to live. You did not ask to be a human being. Nobody consulted you beforehand. Your current condition was INFLICTED on you. Therefore, you are under no obligation to accomplish anything, or to try and accomplish anything. What is an “accomplishment” any way? Activity is pointless, “accomplishments” are illusory. Liberate yourself from the ridiculous notion that you are obliged to “accomplish” something. Then you can start to actually enjoy your life. Enjoying your life is the only genuine accomplishment. In order to start doing this, I recommend going for a nice walk. While you are walking, closely observe what you see around you.

"What caused the Global Credit Crunch?"

A READER WRITES: “What is the real cause of the current Global Credit Crunch? People say that it is the result of a “loss of confidence”, but what causes the loss of confidence? People say it was due to lax mortgage lending, but what causes the lax mortgage lending? What is the REAL cause behind what is going on?”

BB SAYS: Most economists are perplexed by the global credit crunch. That is because most economists are idiots, and have no idea what they are talking about. Given that this is the biggest global recession since the Great Depression, we need to ask: what caused the Great Depression? In order to answer that question we need to see what the man who did most to solve the Great Depression had to say about it. The man who did most to solve the Great Depression was the man who implemented the New Deal in the US, namely President Roosevelt’s Treasury Secretary, Marriner Stoddard Eccles. What did he think caused the Great Depression? Well, here is what he said in his autobiography:

As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption, mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth -- not of existing wealth, but of wealth as it is currently produced -- to provide men with buying power equal to the amount of goods and services offered by the nation's economic machinery.

Instead of achieving that kind of distribution, a giant suction pump had by 1929-30 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth. This served them as capital accumulations. But by taking purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied to themselves the kind of effective demand for their products that would justify a reinvestment of their capital accumulations in new plants. In consequence, as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped.

That is what happened to us in the twenties. We sustained high levels of employment in that period with the aid of an exceptional expansion of debt outside of the banking system. This debt was provided by the large growth of business savings as well as savings by individuals, particularly in the upper-income groups where taxes were relatively low. Private debt outside of the banking system increased about fifty per cent. This debt, which was at high interest rates, largely took the form of mortgage debt on housing, office, and hotel structures, consumer instalment debt, brokers' loans, and foreign debt. The stimulation to spend by debt-creation of this sort was short-lived and could not be counted on to sustain high levels of employment for long periods of time. Had there been a better distribution of the current income from the national product -- in other words, had there been less savings by business and the higher-income groups and more income in the lower groups -- we should have had far greater stability in our economy. Had the six billion dollars, for instance, that were loaned by corporations and wealthy individuals for stock-market speculation been distributed to the public as lower prices or higher wages and with less profits to the corporations and the well-to-do, it would have prevented or greatly moderated the economic collapse that began at the end of 1929.

The time came when there were no more poker chips to be loaned on credit. Debtors thereupon were forced to curtail their consumption in an effort to create a margin that could be applied to the reduction of outstanding debts. This naturally reduced the demand for goods of all kinds and brought on what seemed to be overproduction, but was in reality underconsumption when judged in terms of the real world instead of the money world. This, in turn, brought about a fall in prices and employment.

Unemployment further decreased the consumption of goods, which further increased unemployment, thus closing the circle in a continuing decline of prices. Earnings began to disappear, requiring economies of all kinds in the wages, salaries, and time of those employed. And thus again the vicious circle of deflation was closed until one third of the entire working population was unemployed, with our national income reduced by fifty per cent, and with the aggregate debt burden greater than ever before, not in dollars, but measured by current values and income that represented the ability to pay. Fixed charges, such as taxes, railroad and other utility rates, insurance and interest charges, clung close to the 1929 level and required such a portion of the national income to meet them that the amount left for consumption of goods was not sufficient to support the population.
This then, was my reading of what brought on the depression.

Did something similar cause the current global recession? That global inequality of wealth has increased hugely over the last 30 years is not controversial. The 1996 'Global Report' of the UN Industrial Development Organisation estimates that the disparity between the richest and poorest 20 percent of the world population increased by over 50 percent from 1960 to 1989. The process has increased since then.

In America, there has been huge economic growth and nearly all of that new wealth has gone to the wealthiest 10 percent, and to higher profits for corporations. Median incomes have hardly increased at all. The non-wealthy have only been able to sustain increases in their spending by borrowing the savings of the wealthy.

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/ib239

Look at the graph at the bottom of the above link. Between 1979 and 2005, incomes of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans increased by 250%. Incomes of the wealthiest 20% have increased by nearly 100%. Incomes of the poorest 20% have hardly increased at all. The incomes of people in between have also not increased very much. For 25 years real wages have been in decline for the majority of the American population. Salaries have remained the same, but working hours have increased, and inequality has just soared. Something similar has happened in other countries. Remember: we are not talking about poverty here – absolute poverty (malnutrition etc.) can decline while inequality rises.

We all know that the recent asset bubbles were the result of excessive borrowing by people who do not have sufficient incomes to pay back their loans. Excessive borrowing by some is made possible by excessive saving by others. The non-wealthy have become more indebted; and now they have stopped borrowing and they have stopped spending. The non-wealthy no longer have enough wealth to continue borrowing and spending. The only solution is a radical reduction in inequality of wealth.

Inequality of wealth causes too much saving by some and too much borrowing by others. Now, the wealthy cannot spend all their money. So they save it. This means that there is money for people to borrow – remember that Total Borrowing must ultimately equal Total Saving. Other people then borrow the savings of the wealthy – but if the incomes of the borrowers are not increasing they can only sustain so much borrowing. Eventually there is no productive place for the wealthy to put their savings – and that's when asset bubbles start – that's when assets start to be overpriced – when people are looking for a place to put their savings that will bring them a return. But now there are no good investment opportunities for savings, because ordinary people do not have money to buy extra goods and services.

The period between 1950s to the early 1970s was the period of real economic growth, based on social welfare and egalitarian distribution of income – when societies actually got better and social indicators improved. In the late 1970s the social indicators began to decline and growth fell very sharply and inequality fell back to what it was in the 1920s – leading eventually to a crash similar to the one that happened at the end of the 1920s. We need to abandon the Free Market Fundamentalism and Right Wing Economic Madness of the last 30 years, and return once more to egalitarian and sustainable economic growth.

"My therapist doesn't understand me"

A READER WRITES: “I have been seeing a psychoanalyst for years now. Is this a worthwhile thing to do?”

BB SAYS: No, seeing a psychotherapist is a dreadful waste of time, energy and money. You might as well become a Scientologist, and give all your money to the frauds who run Scientology. There is no scientific evidence that psychiatry improves mental health. There have been tests done on this. Researchers monitored a large group of people with mental health problems, who attended psychoanalysts over a number of years, to see if there was any improvement in their mental health. What did the research find? On average, there was some significant improvement in the people’s mental health.

So psychoanalysis worked! Not so fast. In order to carry out a scientific test you need a test group. In this case you need a group of people with similar mental health problems but who did NOT go to a psychiatrist. What happened to that test group? On average there was some improvement in their mental health – the same amount of improvement as the people who went to the psychoanalysts. So the passing of time helped to ameliorate the mental health problems. But going to a psychoanalyst contributed absolutely nothing to the people’s mental health.

The only therapy that has been shown to cause measurable improvements in mental health is Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy is sometimes also known as “Common Sense” or “Philosophical Psychology”. I would recommend paying to see a Cognitive Behaviour Therapist. Alternatively you can just read this blog, which is free, and will tell you the many of the same things that a good Cognitive Behaviour Therapists will tell you.

"How can I find a partner?"

A READER WRITES: “I am a single and I want to find a partner. How can I find a partner?”

BB SAYS: If you do not have a partner it is probably because your standards are too high. If you want to have a partner you need to reduce your standards. If you are a man, you would probably like to go out with a super-model. But why would a super-model want to go out with a mediocre failure like you? If you are a woman you would probably like to go out with a successful, confident, high-status male. But why would a high-status male want to go out with someone not very desirable, like you? You need to lower your standards drastically, and then you will have no problem at all finding a partner.

You may think that by lowering your standards you are in danger of “selling yourself short”. If this happens then you can dump the person you are going out with, and try to find someone better. Also, successful relationships require practice. You can gain valuable practice at relationships by going out with someone who is “beneath you”. Then you will become better at relationships, and be able to have a better partner once you dump your existing partner, and go looking for another one.

Reader has a problem

A READER WRITES: “I have a big problem that is making me anxious. How can I solve it?”

BB SAYS: Just because you have a problem, it does not mean there is a solution to the problem. Most of your problems have no solution.

If there is a solution then you probably know it already, but you are not doing it for some reason. If there is a solution to your problem then there is no need to worry about the problem, because it can be solved if you actually want it to be solved. Equally, if there is no solution to your problem then there is also no need to worry about the problem, since there is nothing you can do about it.

In most cases, the reason people have “problems” is because THEY WANT TO HAVE PROBLEMS, either because they are bored, or because they want attention. If this is the case, then cherish your “problem” – enjoy it and make the most of it!


Do YOU have a problem? Leave an anonymous comment, or send your problem in confidence to brianbarrington@gmail.com