We wasted a good crisis
John Kay (September cover story) is disingenuous about the origins of the financial crisis. He notes the emergence of the derivatives market in the 1970s and deplores banking’s “trading culture.” Yet neither was greatly implicated in the problems of 2007-08. And he is wrong to characterise the advocates of free markets as indifferent to their cultural underpinnings. The founder of free market economics, Adam Smith, wrote one of his two major books, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, about little else.
Kay is also unreliable about risk, which banks do no more than shift around. No question that when money is easy and the herd instinct operates, risk threatens to break the boundaries of the banking system, as it did in 2007-08. But this has nothing to do with Kay’s point about pensions—another sad story, though hardly involving the banks. Nor does it make much sense to suggest that big banks add to risk as a matter of course. It is risible to claim that AIG and RBS were “well-run institutions.”
Kay regrets that nationalisation may not be spoken of. So what exactly does he want? Properly capitalised banks, competing freely in conditions of transparency, restricted by anti-cartel legislation from assuming systemic risk, provided with resolution and insurance regimes that prevent moral hazard? If so, he might find he was closer to the free market than much of his article suggests.
Miles SaltielAdam Smith Institute
Denouncing investment bankers, as John Kay does, might make for easy newspaper copy, but the disingenuousness of our political culture is the bigger problem. There has been a widespread preference for short-term partisan advantage over long-term public benefit, in Britain (the abolition of the FSA), the EU (successive stop-gap solutions to eurozone debt problems) and, most evidently, in the US (the renegotiation of the debt ceiling).
Politicians do not want to tell the truth: that the west is borrowing too much to cover the widening gap between inadequate tax and excessive spending. Blaming this on the City or Wall Street is like shooting the messenger. We could have a better-regulated financial system if we had a better-funded system of welfare and public services; but we will not get the former until we insist on the latter.
Mark HannamLondon, E9
A lesson in policing
Former Met chief superintendent Robert Davies (September) states that “during a training exercise involving the Pakistan police, it was stressed that torture should not be used routinely as a tool to extract confessions.” Does this mean that someone (funded by British taxpayers?) went to Pakistan with these words of wisdom: “Look, guys, torture from time to time is fine, just don’t do it too frequently”? One hopes the British police are not trained to the same effect. Perhaps they should be reminded of basic international law (which prohibits torture in unqualified terms at all times). At the very least, they could refrain from exporting such fine examples of British civilisation.
Francesco MessineoLecturer in International Law, Kent Law School
It is peculiar for Ian Blair (September) to speak of policing becoming “political.” Policing has, and will always be, an inherently political activity. Undoubtedly, Blair himself was promoted to of the Metropolitan police at least partly because he championed a New Labour-friendly agenda. In speaking on concerns about policing, he would do well to reflect on his own failure to address (and fully accept) the charge of “institutional racism” levelled at the Met under his tenure.
Rob HastingsVia the Prospect website
Band aid
In reporting on east Africa’s famine, Michael Holman (September) omits any mention of the region’s rapid population growth. With ever more people and livestock trying to feed themselves from ever less arable soil, grazing land and groundwater, this must be a much higher priority for local governments and aid donors. As the All-Party Parliamentary Group has said, unless future aid includes strong family planning and female empowerment programmes, every child saved today will bring many more children back to the same feeding centres 20 years hence. The only NGO to recognise this is Save the Children. The others remain in thrall to the taboo on the subject, which why it is so neglected.
Roger MartinChairman, Population Matters
Africa pigeonholed
Ruth Franklin (September) writes that my short story, “Stickfighting Days,” focuses on street kids in Nairobi. There is nothing to suggest it occurs in Nairobi or, for that matter, any African city. I have stated in interviews that I was inspired partly by the sight of children sniffing glue in Nairobi, but have also said that I perceive the story to unfold (as Lord of the Flies does) in a fictional dystopia; one that might be Tirana, São Paulo or Manila. Franklin’s praise notwithstanding, her observations show the all-too-glib manner with which writing out of the continent is almost invariably pigeonholed.
Olufemi TerryStuttgart, Germany
Free schools
Melissa Benn’s assumption (September) that “all parents care about their children’s education” is not true. This makes the job of schools much more difficult, and until this sad truth is appreciated, real progress cannot be made.
P MichaelVia the Prospect website
Rachel Wolf (September) bases her case for free schools on what parents want for their children. Yet research shows something different. In the 1990s research into city technology colleges (schools funded by business and independent of the local authority) showed that parents opposed the scheme—because while it would advantage their own child, it would disadvantage other children. Studies of academies show, again, that parents and communities will oppose these schools if they are seen to damage the education of other children. As Melissa Benn points out, unless we care for people we are not biologically or legally related to, our social fabric will fray.
Helen GunterVia the Prospect website
Learning from 9/11
Philip Zelikow (September) emphasises the need for a broader approach to the perceived terrorist threat, and notes the US decision in 2010 “to base its aid programme on a more durable compact of trust.” International Alert’s experience bears out the importance of this shift: the role of locally-based institutions, accountable to the population, is critical. Yet Zelikow then claims the change in US policy is “without evident success” and the programme is probably not “especially efficient or effective.” How does he know? We cannot assess the impact of a long-term compact in such a short time, and trust is not to be measured in terms of aid and efficiency. We need fresh ideas about how to support development in conflict-ridden environments.
Dan Smith, Secretary GeneralInternational Alert
Miliband off the hook
The only faintly lively touch of David Miliband’s article (August) was the confession he was “chuffed” (the schoolboy vocabulary is at least revealing) by being convoked to some local radio station on 9/11. Everything else is parsonical verbiage, announcing that the cure for the world lies in the creation of an even greater conglomeration of diplomatic “churches,” no doubt with all the benefits for those likely to officer them (cars, free travel, nice dinners and so on). Why was Miliband not seriously quizzed? There must be some way of engaging with self-advertising politicians which does not allow them to fill your pages with Panglossian bilge.
Frederic RaphaelLondon SW7
The new Russia
I have just returned from Gorky Park in Moscow, where Roman Abramovich’s influence is not much evident. Shaun Walker (September) mentions but doesn’t fully explore two key factors about the state of public art in Russia. First: oligarchs will pay what they are asked to precisely because they—and their patrons in Kremlin—know full well how they made their fortunes. Second: any grassroot initiatives are viewed with enormous suspicion, so most of what appears in Russia are shiny, imported products for a superficially westernised layer of people who do well under the current regime.
Oleg BoldyrevVia the Prospect website
Rights and wrongs
Our distaste for the American right, expressed by Adam Haslett (July), should not blind us to the fact that they have a point. We now treat the government as if it were the parents of a dependent child. This is the inevitable stance of a population brought up in a welfare state, while lacking the power that engenders a sense of responsibility. An infantile mob—as we have recently seen—is a dangerous animal, but its behaviour is only a symptom, not the disease itself, which stems from our failure to adapt to an industrial economy.
John A DavisCambridge
Sacred objects
Marcel Duchamp’s adornment of a moustache on the Mona Lisa wasn’t defiling a sacred object, as Roger Scruton (September) claims; it was more a saucy quip at the expense of a newly-minted “celebrity”—one that would surely appeal to the media of his time, after the mystery and scandal of the painting’s theft. It was the equivalent of a witty Photoshop job of a picture recently in the news. Duchamp simply knew a topical subject when he saw it.
DeschanelVia the Prospect website
Scruton fails to mention images that have become iconic almost by accident: ones with no commercial design, but which are highly evocative and instantly recognisable. My favourite is the American highway shield: Highway 61, for example.
Joan and TonyVia the Prospect website
Misreading history
In reviewing recent works on English history, Dominic Sandbrook (September) misrepresents academic historians. The vast majority of scholarly historical studies do focus on one nation, including disaporas and nations that lack national institutions. Transnational history is relatively rare, but its value lies in reminding us that national(ist) ideas of exceptionalism tend to be self-serving. The idea that scholars must bow to market forces (the apparent appetite for simple national histories) misunderstands the purpose of academia.
Neil Fleming, senior lecturer in Modern History, University of Worcester
Postmodernism lives
Edward Docx’s obituary for postmodernism (August) was persuasive. Yet the first sentence of the next article (“Getting the House in Order”) read: “The Speaker of the House of Commons is microwaving a spaghetti bolognese for lunch.” There is life in postmodernism yet.
Matthew ParsfieldLuton
Have your say: letters@prospect-magazine.co.uk
John Kay (September cover story) is disingenuous about the origins of the financial crisis. He notes the emergence of the derivatives market in the 1970s and deplores banking’s “trading culture.” Yet neither was greatly implicated in the problems of 2007-08. And he is wrong to characterise the advocates of free markets as indifferent to their cultural underpinnings. The founder of free market economics, Adam Smith, wrote one of his two major books, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, about little else.
Kay is also unreliable about risk, which banks do no more than shift around. No question that when money is easy and the herd instinct operates, risk threatens to break the boundaries of the banking system, as it did in 2007-08. But this has nothing to do with Kay’s point about pensions—another sad story, though hardly involving the banks. Nor does it make much sense to suggest that big banks add to risk as a matter of course. It is risible to claim that AIG and RBS were “well-run institutions.”
Kay regrets that nationalisation may not be spoken of. So what exactly does he want? Properly capitalised banks, competing freely in conditions of transparency, restricted by anti-cartel legislation from assuming systemic risk, provided with resolution and insurance regimes that prevent moral hazard? If so, he might find he was closer to the free market than much of his article suggests.
Miles SaltielAdam Smith Institute
Denouncing investment bankers, as John Kay does, might make for easy newspaper copy, but the disingenuousness of our political culture is the bigger problem. There has been a widespread preference for short-term partisan advantage over long-term public benefit, in Britain (the abolition of the FSA), the EU (successive stop-gap solutions to eurozone debt problems) and, most evidently, in the US (the renegotiation of the debt ceiling).
Politicians do not want to tell the truth: that the west is borrowing too much to cover the widening gap between inadequate tax and excessive spending. Blaming this on the City or Wall Street is like shooting the messenger. We could have a better-regulated financial system if we had a better-funded system of welfare and public services; but we will not get the former until we insist on the latter.
Mark HannamLondon, E9
A lesson in policing
Former Met chief superintendent Robert Davies (September) states that “during a training exercise involving the Pakistan police, it was stressed that torture should not be used routinely as a tool to extract confessions.” Does this mean that someone (funded by British taxpayers?) went to Pakistan with these words of wisdom: “Look, guys, torture from time to time is fine, just don’t do it too frequently”? One hopes the British police are not trained to the same effect. Perhaps they should be reminded of basic international law (which prohibits torture in unqualified terms at all times). At the very least, they could refrain from exporting such fine examples of British civilisation.
Francesco MessineoLecturer in International Law, Kent Law School
It is peculiar for Ian Blair (September) to speak of policing becoming “political.” Policing has, and will always be, an inherently political activity. Undoubtedly, Blair himself was promoted to of the Metropolitan police at least partly because he championed a New Labour-friendly agenda. In speaking on concerns about policing, he would do well to reflect on his own failure to address (and fully accept) the charge of “institutional racism” levelled at the Met under his tenure.
Rob HastingsVia the Prospect website
Band aid
In reporting on east Africa’s famine, Michael Holman (September) omits any mention of the region’s rapid population growth. With ever more people and livestock trying to feed themselves from ever less arable soil, grazing land and groundwater, this must be a much higher priority for local governments and aid donors. As the All-Party Parliamentary Group has said, unless future aid includes strong family planning and female empowerment programmes, every child saved today will bring many more children back to the same feeding centres 20 years hence. The only NGO to recognise this is Save the Children. The others remain in thrall to the taboo on the subject, which why it is so neglected.
Roger MartinChairman, Population Matters
Africa pigeonholed
Ruth Franklin (September) writes that my short story, “Stickfighting Days,” focuses on street kids in Nairobi. There is nothing to suggest it occurs in Nairobi or, for that matter, any African city. I have stated in interviews that I was inspired partly by the sight of children sniffing glue in Nairobi, but have also said that I perceive the story to unfold (as Lord of the Flies does) in a fictional dystopia; one that might be Tirana, São Paulo or Manila. Franklin’s praise notwithstanding, her observations show the all-too-glib manner with which writing out of the continent is almost invariably pigeonholed.
Olufemi TerryStuttgart, Germany
Free schools
Melissa Benn’s assumption (September) that “all parents care about their children’s education” is not true. This makes the job of schools much more difficult, and until this sad truth is appreciated, real progress cannot be made.
P MichaelVia the Prospect website
Rachel Wolf (September) bases her case for free schools on what parents want for their children. Yet research shows something different. In the 1990s research into city technology colleges (schools funded by business and independent of the local authority) showed that parents opposed the scheme—because while it would advantage their own child, it would disadvantage other children. Studies of academies show, again, that parents and communities will oppose these schools if they are seen to damage the education of other children. As Melissa Benn points out, unless we care for people we are not biologically or legally related to, our social fabric will fray.
Helen GunterVia the Prospect website
Learning from 9/11
Philip Zelikow (September) emphasises the need for a broader approach to the perceived terrorist threat, and notes the US decision in 2010 “to base its aid programme on a more durable compact of trust.” International Alert’s experience bears out the importance of this shift: the role of locally-based institutions, accountable to the population, is critical. Yet Zelikow then claims the change in US policy is “without evident success” and the programme is probably not “especially efficient or effective.” How does he know? We cannot assess the impact of a long-term compact in such a short time, and trust is not to be measured in terms of aid and efficiency. We need fresh ideas about how to support development in conflict-ridden environments.
Dan Smith, Secretary GeneralInternational Alert
Miliband off the hook
The only faintly lively touch of David Miliband’s article (August) was the confession he was “chuffed” (the schoolboy vocabulary is at least revealing) by being convoked to some local radio station on 9/11. Everything else is parsonical verbiage, announcing that the cure for the world lies in the creation of an even greater conglomeration of diplomatic “churches,” no doubt with all the benefits for those likely to officer them (cars, free travel, nice dinners and so on). Why was Miliband not seriously quizzed? There must be some way of engaging with self-advertising politicians which does not allow them to fill your pages with Panglossian bilge.
Frederic RaphaelLondon SW7
The new Russia
I have just returned from Gorky Park in Moscow, where Roman Abramovich’s influence is not much evident. Shaun Walker (September) mentions but doesn’t fully explore two key factors about the state of public art in Russia. First: oligarchs will pay what they are asked to precisely because they—and their patrons in Kremlin—know full well how they made their fortunes. Second: any grassroot initiatives are viewed with enormous suspicion, so most of what appears in Russia are shiny, imported products for a superficially westernised layer of people who do well under the current regime.
Oleg BoldyrevVia the Prospect website
Rights and wrongs
Our distaste for the American right, expressed by Adam Haslett (July), should not blind us to the fact that they have a point. We now treat the government as if it were the parents of a dependent child. This is the inevitable stance of a population brought up in a welfare state, while lacking the power that engenders a sense of responsibility. An infantile mob—as we have recently seen—is a dangerous animal, but its behaviour is only a symptom, not the disease itself, which stems from our failure to adapt to an industrial economy.
John A DavisCambridge
Sacred objects
Marcel Duchamp’s adornment of a moustache on the Mona Lisa wasn’t defiling a sacred object, as Roger Scruton (September) claims; it was more a saucy quip at the expense of a newly-minted “celebrity”—one that would surely appeal to the media of his time, after the mystery and scandal of the painting’s theft. It was the equivalent of a witty Photoshop job of a picture recently in the news. Duchamp simply knew a topical subject when he saw it.
DeschanelVia the Prospect website
Scruton fails to mention images that have become iconic almost by accident: ones with no commercial design, but which are highly evocative and instantly recognisable. My favourite is the American highway shield: Highway 61, for example.
Joan and TonyVia the Prospect website
Misreading history
In reviewing recent works on English history, Dominic Sandbrook (September) misrepresents academic historians. The vast majority of scholarly historical studies do focus on one nation, including disaporas and nations that lack national institutions. Transnational history is relatively rare, but its value lies in reminding us that national(ist) ideas of exceptionalism tend to be self-serving. The idea that scholars must bow to market forces (the apparent appetite for simple national histories) misunderstands the purpose of academia.
Neil Fleming, senior lecturer in Modern History, University of Worcester
Postmodernism lives
Edward Docx’s obituary for postmodernism (August) was persuasive. Yet the first sentence of the next article (“Getting the House in Order”) read: “The Speaker of the House of Commons is microwaving a spaghetti bolognese for lunch.” There is life in postmodernism yet.
Matthew ParsfieldLuton
Have your say: letters@prospect-magazine.co.uk
