Sid from South Africa, a finance officer, sent this cited article.  Politicians may promise to bring back jobs to workers replaced by automation, but this article warns such attempts are 'pie in the sky', that the workers must learn several skills, hopefully ones that may NOT be replaced by robots and automation lines.  Woe be unto the unskilled or uneducated person regardless of nationality and woe be unto our societies if we do not provide retraining programs. - Glenn N. Holliman

The Speed of Disruption and Impact on Business - The Fourth Industrial Revolution Has Begun April 2017 | General Liability, Property by Charlie Kingdollar, Property/Casualty Global Emerging Issues Specialist, Stamford

Advances in automation, artificial intelligence and robotics are coming - fast and furiously. These advances will result in job losses as businesses in many countries incorporate artificial intelligence and/or robotics into their operations to cut costs and improve efficiencies. Some refer to this economic shift as the fourth industrial revolution.

Even the experts couldn’t see the changes coming so fast. In 2014 Andrew McAfee, an MIT principal research scientist, coauthored a New York Times best seller about the coming of “The Second Machine Age.” Three years later, he is now saying, “We badly underestimated the scope and the pace of technological process. I would feel bad about that, except everybody else did, too.”

The speed and impact of the disruption on businesses, created by technological advances, was a major theme of the 2017 CEO Summit in Davos. Meg Whitman, Chief Executive of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, said, “Jobs will be lost, jobs will evolve and this revolution is going to be ageless, it’s going to be classless and it’s going to affect everyone.”

American businessman and Dallas Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban recently said, “The biggest difference between now and the past is the speed of change. I don’t think people realize just how quickly this is happening.” He also commented that major companies in the Fortune 500, S&P 500 and Dow 30 are going to employ fewer people “to get a lot more done.”

IDC, the global intelligence firm, predicts that spending on artificial intelligence (AI) technologies by companies is expected to grow to $47 billion in 2020 from a projected $8 billion in 2016.Business Insider believes that enterprise robotic shipments will nearly triple between 2015 and 2021.

U.S. Forecasts

We have no precedent for the speed or the all-encompassing nature of this disruption.

In the past people could move from one kind of routine job to another.

But what’s coming means that when one kind of routine job becomes obsolete, those other routine jobs will be performed by robots. In June last year The Economist noted that Martin Ford, a software entrepreneur and the bestselling author of “Rise of the Robots,” expressed concern about the speed with which software can be deployed today in contrast to the technological shift in agriculture that developed over a few decades. Ford said, “This time many workers will have to switch from routine, unskilled jobs to non-routine skilled jobs to stay ahead of automation.”

In 2013 a University of Oxford study concluded that nearly half of U.S. jobs were at risk for automation, and a 2015 report by Forrester Research predicted that by 2019, some one-quarter of all job tasks will be off-loaded to software robots, physical robots, or customer self-service automation.

A more recent survey by Boston Consulting Group recently found that 44% of U.S. manufacturers plan to install autonomous robots and other automation systems within the next five years.

A January 2017 report by McKinsey & Company found that 45% - 47% of job activities in the U.S. could already be automated “by adopting currently demonstrated technologies.” The report also states that automation could be particularly high in certain sectors.

Global Forecasts

Economies in other countries may be even more susceptible to job loss from AI and robotics. The 2013 University of Oxford study found that “77% of all jobs in China are at risk of automation and 57% of all jobs across the 35-member Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development.”  Boston Consulting Group reports that 66% of German manufacturers plan to install autonomous robots and other automation systems within the next five years.

Among the findings of a recent study by the International Labour Organization, which examined five export-oriented industry sectors across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations:

·       In the automotive and automobiles sector, over 60% of salaried workers in Indonesia and 73% in Thailand face a high risk from robotic automation.

·       In the electrical and electronics sector, over 60% of salaried workers in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam were at high risk from robotic automation.

·       In the textile, clothing and footwear sectors, 88% of workers in Cambodia, 86% of workers in Vietnam and 64% in Indonesia face job disruption due to body-scanning tech and 3D printing.
 

A prediction by Forrester Research estimates that some 25% of all job tasks will be off-loaded to AI or robots by 2019.

Automated Vehicles

Job losses arising from automated vehicles are perhaps the most frequently discussed topic in the press. While 10 years ago many people believed that driverless vehicles were nothing but a pipe dream, today many auto and truck manufacturers are pushing to have fully automated vehicles for sale by 2020 or shortly thereafter. A few companies can already install driverless technology in existing cars and trucks. Estimates are that more than 3 million truck and public livery driving jobs could be eliminated in the U.S. by these advances.

FedEx, for example, is investing in AI as well as in autonomous trucks and smaller autonomous vehicles. FedEx has partnered with Daimler and Volvo on driverless technology.  Starship Technologies has already developed cooler-sized delivery robots that drive themselves at speeds up to 10 miles per hour on sidewalks. The delivery robots, which can carry up to 50 pounds of goods, are undergoing trials in several cities including London and Washington D.C.

Warehousing

·       Amazon already has 45,000 robots working in 20 of its warehouses - a 50% increase over the previous year.

·       IAM Robotics is engaged in a pilot program using their robots at Rochester Drug Cooperative warehouses. Rochester is one of the largest healthcare distributors in the U.C.

·       Target is using robots made by Symbiotic LLC in one of its California distribution centers. The Wall Street Journal reported that these “autonomous robots that can travel untethered among storage racks in a distribution center. They can move up and down aisles to stack and retrieve cases. They coordinate with more conventional robots that perform simpler tasks.”

·       Robots at Quiet Logistics, an e-commerce “fulfillment provider” (i.e., warehouse), expects to see an 800% increase in productivity due to the addition of robots.

·       One market intelligence firm’s recent report stated that warehousing and logistics robot unit shipments will increase globally by more than 15 times over the next few years - from some 40,000 in 2016 to 620,000 units annually by 2021.

Agriculture

·       Several companies have developed prototypes or are bringing driverless tractors to market (e.g., CNH Industrial, Kinze).

·       A 120-acre fruit and vegetable farm in Michigan purchased a $132,000 machine that harvests three times as many apples per hour than farm laborers, allowing them to reduce the number of workers.

·       A California vineyard added mechanical leaf pullers to automated harvesters, allowing the owner to reduce his workforce for harvesting from 300 to 15.

·       A UK family carrot farm, which produces 70,000 tons of carrots annually, recently replaced 22 workers with a carrot-grading machine. The manufacturer of an agricultural robot, which was designed to weed in between crops, claims it can replace 30 farm laborers.

·       Another agricultural robot manufacturer has created the “Lettuce Bot,” which is reportedly capable of thinning 5,000 plants per minute with quarter-inch spacing while running at four miles per hour.

Construction/Mining

·       Mining firms already employ driverless earthmovers and heavy driverless trucks. Several companies (e.g., Caterpillar, Komatsu) are now selling driverless bulldozers.

·       Fastbrick Robotics, an Australian firm, has reportedly created a machine that lays 1,000 bricks per hour and can build the shell of a house made of 15,000 bricks in two days with only one or two human contractors.

·       A host of demolition robots is now available that can replace human contractors in some of the most dangerous work conditions.
 

Food Sector

·       Amazon has opened a grocery store in San Francisco, called Amazon Go, with no cashiers and no checkout. Customers just walk out the door with their groceries and are charged via a phone app.

·       Momentum Machines reportedly has created a fully autonomous robotic hamburger maker that can make 400 made-to-order burgers per hour. “The robot can slice toppings, grill a patty and assemble and bag the burger without any help from humans.”

·       Robotic coffee baristas have begun operations in coffee kiosks in California and Hong Kong. The robots reportedly make and serve the coffee, cappuccinos, lattes, etc. within seconds of an order being placed.

Manufacturing

·       Nike reportedly adopted robotics that resulted in increased profits, the elimination of 106,000 contract workers and closure of 125 of its least efficient factories.

·       A Chinese mobile phone manufacturer installed robotics, allowing the company to reduce the number of workers at the facility from 650 employees to 60 and increase production 250%.

·       A Chinese maker of smart metering and smart power distribution equipment has installed robotics, resulting in a 45% improvement in productivity and a 25% decrease in operational costs. Workers who were previously on the assembly line were retrained for other “value-added positions.” In ad dition, the product defect rate dropped by over 50%.
 

White Collar Jobs

Certain white collar jobs will also be affected by the adoption of AI and robotics.

·       Automation is already being used in some enterprises to write certain news/sports stories and sift through legal documents many times faster than paralegals.

·       The Healthcare sector is seeing a rising demand for surgical, rehabilitation and hospital logistics robots.

·       Robots have also begun to show up in hotels, shopping malls and retail stores. In September 2016 Walmart announced it would lay off some 7,000 accounting and bookkeeping positions as they will be replaced by an automated cash management system.  According to a recent article in WIRED, “More than 2 million people were employed as accountants, bookkeepers, and auditors in 2015. Until now, these types of information-oriented professions have resisted automation because they require managing unstructured data emanating from the real world, making judgments, and dealing with actual people. What’s different now, however, is that artificial intelligence’s perceptive capabilities have improved. Machines can now handle images, sounds, and text in a way that enables them to ingest and analyze data at high volume, without making costly mistakes” - and putting these jobs at risk.

·       Scientists and doctors are also using AI to read X-rays, “analyze gene mutations, make better use of scientific studies, and enhance doctors’ clinical knowledge beyond their firsthand experience.” AI is also being used to identify diabetic retinopathy in patients and study traumatic brain injuries.

·       Wealth management firms are adopting AI, too, which may threaten thousands of brokerage jobs. According to a recent study by Spectrem Group, “Nearly one in three investors says these machines are superior at picking stocks and lessen their risk, and almost as many say the machines are better at selecting investments for retirement than human brokers.”

·       By one estimate, financial services firms employing AI “could cut costs by up to 75%. Not only that, but they would gain a competitive advantage by being faster and more accurate than firms that still use people for the same tasks.”

·       Even technology companies aren’t immune. “According to reports, automation replaced 17,000 ‘roles’ in back office processing at Accenture, a professional services and tech firm over the past year and a half. Thankfully, in this case, no jobs were lost. According to Accenture, automation eliminated menial work, allowing the company’s workforce to do more productive work on behalf of the company.”

Did you pick up the new abbreviation (or new to me) - AI or artificial intelligence.  Thanks Sid and to this author for a glimpse not of tomorrow, but today's reality. - GNH

Notes from an American Airport Lounge

Reflections on Leaving America for Europe

By Terry Field, Englishman en route to France

Sitting in the enchanting atmosphere of Starbucks in Tampa airport, after six months in the pleasurable surroundings of Sarasota, it seems an opportune time to reflect upon the experience, both socially, culturally and also with reference to political life and the ‘world views’ that are the seas within which we all swim.

A water feature at the Sarasota home

Firstly, it must be observed that the people I have met are an eclectic bunch, from all over the States, as well as from around the world. Very few boring conversations, but some predictable. The inhabitants of the ‘interior’ states so often are content – more than less now – but content with the Trump experience.

I am by nature and education not drawn to demagogy, and I prefer my ‘leaders’ to be possessed of insight, intelligence and wisdom. From this my personal approach to this quite novel president cannot be misjudged.

The folk who like him, however, often describe reasons that seem really quite understandable, and at this stage it is important to acknowledge that the USA is in no way the society that Europe and England is. Its experience, its responsibilities, the blood it has spilt and continues to spill, all give its people a –properly – unique view of themselves, the world, and indeed the very definition of human reality and the human condition. Thus the politics are NOT transferable, as so many proselytizing Europeans and British consider they should be.

As I have described in the blog, there are people with minds that suggest their mothers contracted Zika, and whose adoration of guns, Trump, aggression, national arrogance, etc, etc are all of a piece. But for every one of them there are many decent folks who voted for The Donald for good reasons. To them, rational reasons. And not unkind reasons.

I am content to call some of these folk my friend, and we agree to disagree about politics. That is as it should be; grown up people do not lose friendships over the trivia of political life- unless their friendships were not worth a light in the first place.

Let’s talk about healthcare

I have been struck at the inheritance of personal freedom and the perception of invulnerability that has persuaded millions of Americans not to take up Obamacare, as they wish not to be controlled as to their requirement to cover themselves with insurance to protect against future illness. That thought process springs from deep wells of freedom, born of the New World. In Europe, corralled as we are by war, super-powerful government, and collapsed personal freedom during the 20^th C, we accept that being socially managed ‘for group benefit’ is the rational way to live.

Maybe. But so much of British and European life is controlled and directed that free life - ‘libertarianism’ as the left describes it – is squashed at every opportunity. I am in the American camp, but would expect that healthcare will become a little more ‘socialised’ over the years.

Guns

Saw only a few; the guns seemed tame. The hands holding them attached to minds less secure than the safety catches. Worrying.

Subjectively, the ‘redneck’ backwoodsman, a remote and minority figure a couple of decades or so ago, seems to be much more prevalent now. Their influence, to my mind, is malign. It comes, I suggest, not from an experience of hardship, but of the possibility to be personally irresponsible and isolated that comes directly from immense national wealth, massive consumer power, unending superfluity of all goods; everything is available in America.  All you need to do is reach out and grab what you want, via some education, a little work. Not much else.

Growing excess for a century has produced a sort of human super-rat; aggressively avaricious, potentially violent, not possessed of a great mind (since it is an optional extra) and willing to behave with dissociated selfishness, all the while whining on about ‘community’, ‘God’, ‘The Lord’. We have this in England, in our proletarian subculture, but it is corralled into poor city margins, and when it riots it is controlled by Special Magistrates.

Leaving aside this disagreeable experience, the rest is almost entirely positive. Americans seem universally polite, considerate, courteous, helpful and good-to-know.

Lost in this Florida vegetation are two polite lizards.  Can you spot them?

I have many experiences of kindnesses and assistance when my/our aging minds screw up tickets, appointments, all manner of things. My lady wife agrees with me that, were these misfortunes to have overtaken us in Britain, and even more so in France, kind help and the resolution of difficulties would not have been anything like as forthcoming.

I love the American tendency to group together for charitable events, and the togetherness they love whenever a disability or problem arises. Illness; there is always a group of fellow sufferers who want to share experiences and alleviate suffering. A bonus in a strange place at times.

I have been immensely entertained by the American comedy industry, and in this I include the channels that devote themselves to God. There is always a ‘preacher’ – often an elderly man, usually wearing the sort of purple cheesecloth jacket that Desi Arnaz would have favoured, declaiming to the serried ranks of the blue-rinsed (these days also henna-rinsed) once-ladies-now-hermaphrodites that they will, if their credit card is properly put to’ The Lords Work,’ be reborn as a Barbie-Doll-in Christ.

This obviously attractive prospect is something I would jump at, were I of the female persuasion, and indeed it seems to be a distinct improvement on the Jehovah Witness offering. I could not find a preacher offering me anything like such an offer; I would have accepted to be resurrected as a Tom Cruise, or even a young Bill Cosby (with plea-bargain included) but they simply offer God will ‘smile on me’.

This lack of imagination seems to me to be quite un-American. I am sure Trump will sort it out, and I will be offered the resurrected body of a ‘Transformer’ or Captain America before his administration, bathed in glory, comes to an end.

The Amish

Wonderful. They offer the best grocery store I have encountered in America; excellent variety of fruits, vegetables, fish, meats, etc – the quality and variety shames the idle French, and totally eclipses the benighted British food experience. How can a bunch of 17^th century, Dutch-German (Prussian, actually) run rings around Sainsbury, and even Waitrose? (For those of you unfamiliar with Britain, these are places the British go to avoid starvation; Had he been contemporaneous, Dante would have certainly included them in the First Circle of Hell reserved for those blessed with a total lack of culinary imagination).

In addition to offering great food, these bicycle-travelling Amish folk - not forgetting the more worldly-wise Menonites (who drive automobiles!!!) - also offer fine residential care facilities for the progressively infirm. In England such people live in little ‘flats’ where the rooms are so narrow the knees are gradually worn down by friction with the wall as one tries to walk past the ‘sofa’.

In the abundance that is America, a friend of mine, fearing death within the next fifteen years and thus ‘planning for the future’ has bought a luxurious condo in a massive ‘progressive retirement complex’ run by Menonites. This is the equivalent of Henry Ford’s vertically integrated factories. Just as he started with iron ore, and via foundries, machine shops, then assembly plants, Model Ts were shed one a minute to the greedy public, so in this home, the lucky inhabitant starts in ‘independent living’ (wife included as required), and progresses to ‘assisted living’, thence to ‘memory-enhancement facility living’, through to ‘togetherness living’ and finally to the ‘home hospital’ facility, thence to the pine box, and a choice of the Inferno so well described by Dante, or a concrete coffin ( outer only, inner in Oak with ‘cosseted silk lining’) thence to be interred in the ‘close-by Garden of Rest’.

ALL this, with no effort exerted by the ‘inhabitant’. Pre–paid by a lifetime care-plan!!!!!

WHAT A CIVILISATION! EAT YOUR HEART OUT PUTIN!!!

At this point in the narrative, I must hover, hawk-like, over a restaurant on the ‘Tamiami Trail’ (an ancient Indian trail, worn by canoes of those hunters of alligators and turtles; no ‘memory-enhancement living’ for them).

Terry and  his dear wife, sharing a breakfast with

the masses in America

The restaurant in Question – one ‘Dutch Valley’. A wonderful place. It sports a sign dishonestly offering ‘Belgium Waffles’. The ‘Dutch Valley’ has fabulous offering of ‘eggs Florentine’ – wonderful eggs, covering spinach, tomato, and drowning in ‘Mayo’. I am surrounded by those hardy nonagenarians who have escaped the ‘independent living’ facility to eat enough for twenty-four hours in the next forty minutes. The interesting thing about the geriatric stomach is that it delicately encases the food shovelled into it. It expands like a balloon; no functioning muscles discloses a stomach that, on entering the restaurant, was not noticeable, but on leaving it, wobbles between thigh and knee. All around me the tummies grew. A sort of comforting approbation of the gastronomy; like an African who belches loudly to advise the host the repast was excellent.

A jolly place of indulgence. The impression these attached stomachs give is that of a gathering of boa constrictors after each has eaten a sizeable antelope, or wart-hog, or aardvark, slim everywhere except for the centre.

From this, I have to advise that America has delighted in an unexpected quarter – eggs. American eggs are wonderful. The extreme refrigeration produces a tight meniscus, a proud yolk, a true delight to fry or boil. This is NOT the British or European experience- there things are more variable. The other side of the Atlantic continues to experiment with refrigeration, and the guilt-ridden middle classes there think they are all earth-mothers if they buy warm eggs from ‘farmers markets’ (yea right) and when they cook them, they are so old the white spreads wider than the average pizza bread.

NOT SO IN AMERICA – SO UP YOURS ASSAD!

Finally, since I must prepare myself shortly for the rigours of the ‘full body inspection’ at this blessed airport, I mention, with genuine wonder, the exquisite birdlife of Florida. Having removed the pesky Indians to ‘Nations’ (you know, the way we corral people into places like Slough in England) the Europeans have been in Florida for only a short time, too short to terrify the birds as we did in Europe around the time the sabre-toothed tiger was having fun) and thus these exquisite creatures, sand hill cranes, egrets, all manner of heron wonder around in close proximity to people.

Terry taking photographic aim at Florida bird life near his domicile complex this past winter.

Good thing they are Anglo Saxons, (people whose cerebellum has no neurological centre that specialises in food) and not French. Had they been French, there would have been a ten-year splurge of Pate d’Egret, Fricase de Crane de Sand Coline’, followed by only the odd disconsolate sparrow flitting around.

The bird’s done good. Thank the Anglo Saxons.

With our next essay from Terry, he will be reporting from his summer garden in Normandy, France, perhaps having checked in French wine cellar with a concerned enthusiasm....

The European Union is Self Serving

David Lott, retired Royal Air Force and commercial airline pilot and a founder of the United Kingdom Independent Party, is no stranger to these posts.  He has devoted more than a quarter century to securing Britain's independence from the European Union.  His feelings of nationhood are shared by many in the U.K. and other political parties in Europe.  As the E.U. represents over 500 million persons and a sizable portion of the world's economy, it is important for Americans and others around the globe to understand the feelings and forces at work during our time. - GNH

EU Self Serving

by David Lott

Here in Europe, away from the thrill of a US return towards regime change in Syria to complete the hat trick of nations scalped to hang from its belt, we across the Atlantic are facing a European Union at loggerheads with its own people.

The flags of the member nations of a federated Europe

By this I mean the interests of the EU Administration itself are put ahead of the interests of the people, which has become the norm in ‘democratic’ governments throughout the West. The EU though has a better excuse to be so self serving than most as it has no claim to be Democratic whatsoever.

The EU through its 5 presidents: Rotating President, President of the Council of Ministers, President of the Commission, President of the European Central Bank and President of the EU Parliament have outlined their requirements before trade negotiations can commence for the UK’s departure from the EU.

They are:

1.      A bill for 52 Billion Euros for the UK to pay up front

2.      No representation of the UK on the Council of Ministers for ALL meetings

3.      Forbid the UK to discuss free trade with any other country in the world during the Article 50 process

4.      Allow Spain to have a veto over the whole departure deal unless they are satisfied with the position of Gibraltar with respect to Spain.

5.      To declare that we shall not reduce our corporate taxes or remove anti- competitive EU regulation in order to have a commercial advantage over the EU

Four of these conditions are completely unacceptable and all are an insult to us as a nation which should force us, as a free nation to walk away and accept there will be no deal.

Let me address points 1 and 2 first as they belong together for the purposes of argument.

No official has provided any basis whatsoever for this huge charge of 52 billion euros. There has been no breakdown and no explanation, it is a figure plucked from the air. The UK during its 44 year membership has paid a net 200 billion Euros to the EU, we therefore have a stake in all the buildings and pension funds of the EU; the two Parliament buildings, one in Strasbourg (used one week per month) the other in Brussels (used the rest of the month), the enormous Berlayment Building, the Ministry of the Regions building, the European Central Bank Building in Frankfurt and many minor buildings. Surely they should pay the UK investment off, or at the very least allow the UK to charge rent for the buildings and interest on our stake in the massive pension funds.

 The nations that compose the 28 member Union

As we are not being allowed to have any say in the Council of Ministers at all on any subject we must look at our current payments which will amount to a net amount of a little more than 30 Billion Euros by the time we leave in March 2019. If we are to have no say then surely it is a case of no pay. The same premise which led directly to your War of Independence in the USA. Whilst there may be a case for us to continue to pay into some small projects in which we shall continue to partake in the future, the fact is that a 52 Billion Euros bill to leave is preposterous.

As to item 3 that we should not discuss future trade deals until we leave is just nonsense and I am pleased to see that our government is simply ignoring this pompous edict.

Item 4 is a red line and nothing to do with our leaving the EU and everything to do with Spain’s long running efforts to oust the British from Gibraltar. We protect our own as we did with the Falklands and the Gibraltarians voted in the last referendum by 98% to remain British so we will not and cannot betray them. If the EU insists upon this demand then, as a free nation, we must simply walk away from the negotiations and adopt World Trade Organisation rules and continue trading with the EU on the same basis as most other countries in the world such as the USA.

And item 5 would bind us to EU rules and compliance with the dictates of the European Court of Justice, in other words we would remain in the EU with no ultimate say on taxation and self regulation. Certainly not reflecting our referendum result.

These conditions are not an opening gambit, these EU ‘Presidents’ know they are completely unacceptable and would be rejected out of hand. But worse is the fact that by losing the ability to trade freely with the UK EU businesses will suffer and millions probably will be thrown out of work. We can live without French cheese or wine along with Belgian chocolate of even German cars. We can use markets elsewhere in the world and enjoy lower prices but it will not come to this because popular opinion has to be taken into account at the French, German and Italian elections.

Yes that word ‘popular’ arises again. If the politicians just look after their own interests’ then populism will kick them where it hurts.

Ukip Members of the European Parliament will be travelling around the EU nations over the next 18 months talking to small and medium sized businesses that stand to lose so much if the UK is deliberately alienated, or perhaps punished is a better word. They will find out just how little their masters in Brussels care about them and their families. A conclusion already drawn from the influx of migrants, the strain they are on services, the rise in terrorism, crime and rape in particular which they have to endure. They are abjured to hold hands in solidarity but political Islam laughs at them for such weakness.

In addition the southern nations are bleeding to death under a mountain of debt that is never repayable. They made mistakes for sure but they no longer have the ability with their own currency to inflate their way out of debt. Germany on the other hand thrives from the low value of the Euro.

The EU is reeling from rebellion within their ranks and if they punish the UK then these power lusting fools will pay the price and we shall perhaps all become free again within Europe but not within the EU. Sadly under these circumstances it will not be an orderly transition.

If EU politicians were to grow up, listen and then gradually loosen the strings such that it become a Common Market, which is what we thought we voted for in the first place, then their future as well as that of the UK could emerge peacefully and successfully. Right now though they are going hell for leather for more power and integration. We, in Britain, are taking to our own lifeboat because it is very necessary.  - David Lott, United Kingdom

This past week a British member of Parliament suggested the United Kingdom would go to war with Spain if necessary to maintain Gibraltar as part of the Commonwealth.  Our regular writer, Terry Field, a British citizen sojourning in Florida for the winter, has recoiled in horror and pessimism to this statement.  Thus he has written the following item, a pessimistic one, in which he decries the growing tide of nationalism as the Post-World War II order of western alliances appears to be breaking down. This is a piece requiring our reflection. - Glenn N. Holliman

Nationalism is an infection of the Soul 

by Terry Field

In these current times, there is a change in the air.

In the West, since 1945, the experience of American peace, and Soviet eastern hegemony, with mutually interlocking alliances that protected the nations in bondage on both sides of the political divide from expressing themselves, one could be forgiven for thinking that stability, continuity, quietness surrounded by unusable military power (except in remote peripheries where proxy wars raged) prefigured a future where it was possible to reduce the awareness of, and potency of distinct national difference.

Only in America and Russia, the centres of control for these new unchanging times, was there a little more awareness of the pride of nationhood. In all other states, that pride was stained with failure, collapse, murder, horror. Across the globe, people looked to a future of quiet, family and individual-centred lives; less and less military service – volunteer armies became the norm – nobody heard any more the sound of marching regiments, the stir to the heart from martial music. No speeches to enhance forlorn hopes of glory and of conquest. Every minority became our obsession.

'The impulse to clump together with other citizens of the nation state is seductive - it allows one to avoid rational complex thinking.' - TF

All became, by reference to the past two centuries, relatively quiet. Quiet is the word that characterized our lives until recently.

The computers talk to each other over the globe. We request goods. They arrive. We enjoy those goods, and see only our pleasure; all the while, the dispossessed who used to work as labour in factories, all now closed, live at the margins; eat poorly; weep inside for the past; die conveniently young. Often assisted by opiates.

From recent experience, as well as from the 20^th century in Europe, it is fairly obvious that in a secular society morality is plastic and deforms at will. Our love of companionship used to be based on all the people in our villages, our small towns, only rarely in big city neighborhoods. All were welcome to join the celebration of togetherness.

It is striking, for example, how rapidly populations switch from liberal democracy to socialism. When that fails, as it has in most places in Europe (when it is financed by irresponsible debt by corrupted politicians, be it in Britain, France, Italy, Spain, the list is long), socialism morphs to national socialism. That is in rapid progress in Britain, is clearly possible now in France, and has established itself in other North Sea countries recently, deforming their prior-constructed open societies.

Strangely, the weak, southern states bordering the Mediterranean have not declined to this condition; a possible reason may be that these areas are less confident in the concept of the nation state. Italy was never a cohesive nation, and Mussolini leaves a recollection of disaster, whilst Spain has the association of Franco and that schism in society whenever the nation state is closely regarded.

The post war European political space was dominated by togetherness, coddled in a nest built by bothRussia and the United states. Both nest-builders are now ripping the twigs and moss away now.

The response of Europeans to economic stress, global competitiveness that they can, in general, not survive well in, and pressure from a massive Muslim violent competition to the south, together with a vibrant Russian autocracy in the east, has generated national awareness in the northern states not seen since the 1930s. Except, possibly, for Germany. In Germany, they still recall the collapse and the consequences after the most bass-relief nationalism ever constructed.

But time passes; I do not consider German revanchist nationalism as improbable.

The post-war order of alliances linked to the super-powers is coming to an end. This leaves vacuum.

I have seen nothing to suggest that, should nationalism rise across the globe, to include the United States, that it would not include aggressive fascism. Fascism is simply the weak binding together to become unbreakably strong. The United States celebrates a benign version of this – in its parliamentary halls, there is a bundle of fasces ensconced either side of the speaker’s chair in the lower house. E Pluribus Unum is the Latin representation of a fascistic ideal. Out of many  (weak) one (strong).

It is not at all inevitable that the unity of the many otherwise weak reeds results in vicious fascism in the mould of 1920s and 1930s Europe. The actions and high-mindedness of the United States since 1914 attests to this; but the reason this great power has behaved so kindly and well in accommodating and respecting small states, and in promoting human rights may in part – even in large part – be because everything was acting to reinforce comfort, prosperity and ease in that continent.

That tide turned some decades ago, and the rise of the internet has commoditised news, and degraded quality and truthfulness of information, as well as having made finding truth and honest reporting harder to achieve.

This degraded environment of wise thinking is a return to the days of press supporting irrational and violent nationalism.

In the mind of the citizen, the impulse to clump together with other citizens of the nation state is seductive - it allows one to avoid rational complex thinking, to avoid economically rational decision making that can be so tiresome, to disregard the perils minorities find themselves exposed to.

It also allows one to live for today, and to hell with tomorrow.

More sinister is the camouflage that nationalistic fever offers to those who would do violence to people, ideas, property, fragile human relationships, in order to coral the minds of the stupid to support their corrupted desires.

Europe, under the Divine Right of Kings, with the imprimatur of the Universal Church, allowed for unending super-violence against groups of citizens, against cities, indeed against whole populations to have no moral challenge. Ultimately, this institutionalized freedom to kill with impunity led to the horror of the Fist World War.

The ultimate face of nationalism combined with machined steel and explosives came in the Kaiser's definition of conflict: ‘We do not kill people – we simply destroy the enemy’.

After him, when the German state had failed to overcome the massive strength of Soviet armies, the defeated Fuhrer combined Darwin – his version – with nationalism, in the nihilistic acceptance that the German State (and the people within it) could be destroyed utterly by the greater competitor power.

When Goebbels, late in that war, rallied the faithful, by now almost starving, with horrors visited on them from the air daily, and asked ‘do you want total war?’, the screamed their assent.

These things are the end product of nationalism. It is the ultimate evil.

The tribe together – that must find enemies outside, and is happy to suffer together. With nationalism, suffering becomes a proof of participation; it can be seen as desirable. Dissociated maleness twisted to self-destruction by the new world of massive power, the inconsequential individual, the leader. All this lives within nationalism.

I note Farage (UK Independence Party leader) was kind to the idea of the leader; was kind to the leadership of Putin. He is on record as sneering against representative democracy.

Trump is recorded as being admiring of the strong leader.  For these people it is an end in itself.

I further note that the Tory Party in England is less concerned with the economic result of Brexit- which clearly will be unfavorable, and much more concerned with shoring up the national pride and national awareness.

This week, a failed previous Tory Party leader, one Michael Howard, stated that Britain would make war on Spain to ‘protect’ Gibraltar.

We have thus got to the point where the post war togetherness in Europe is replaced with the contemplation of war. That the British State is poor, hemmed in by problems, almost non-functional militarily, actually adds to the imperative to jingoistic bluster.

In the wider world, the Trump new American nationalism suggests a final treatment of the North Korean ‘problem’, with senior people talking about final defeat of Korea, whilst contemplating the attack by North Korea on the South. Seoul is close to the border. It could be destroyed before the American ally turned the tide of attack.

No matter.

Nationalism and all that goes with it is back again.

The press in the USA are reduced, as would be expected where nationalistic tribal togetherness reduces tolerance for diverse discussion and subsequent cohesion by consent.

All this was seen long ago.

Aristotle saw mass democracy as inevitably falling to autocracy, as corrupted politicians buy the votes of the millions and impoverish the state. The Browns of this world; the Hollandes of this world.

It happened in Europe in the 1930s.

It has happened again.

Will the system finally collapse to violent nationalistic autocratic poverty? It appears to be really quite probable now.

Trump, Farage, Howard, Johnson, May, Le Pen, Putin, all tend to this outcome.

How can it now be stopped?

I have no idea.

The structure of the liberal democratic order born of war has crumbled and is falling to pieces before our eyes.

At root, we are tribal, aggressive, tend to mass murder when possible, and have decided not to protect our climate, nor our vital world that sustains us.

We are indifferent to what we do to creatures under our care; we care not at all about the mass destruction of habitats and their occupants.

Why?

In every case, our nationalistic, tribal, dissociated cushion anesthetizes our care.  Morality is plastic.

Can anyone see a way out of the horror that is our increasingly probable future? - Terrance Field

Comments:

Hi there Glenn

As far as Terry’s concerned, sounds like we’re all going to hell in a handbasket, and I believe this may be true especially after all the posturing and Trump upping the ante in Syria after those emotive pix of chemical warfare. Even stupid Australia sent a ‘show of force’, whatever that means. I really do despair. An Aussie expert on this matter has gone against popular opinion and said that for all Assad’s ‘imperfections’, we would be much better to support the regime. As things are, we are supporting - who? I’m not really sure. And who are we fighting? Er, I’m not really sure.

Maybe nationalisation is to blame for many of our current woes, but nationalising doesn’t have to mean fascism and atrocity. It can simply mean, let’s revert to having a bit of say in the running of our own country, and pull back on this recent worship of globalisation. I know we have to think big when it comes to trade, but I hate the way we have to kowtow to China, no matter how China abuses human rights and supports others who do the same, because we need China for our trade deals. Not sure what the answer is to this if I had to be a pragmatic leader. It represents a moral stance up against an economic one, and there are no prizes for guessing which always has to win.

And the major world leaders, including my own, have withdrawn from any ideas of putting the planet first. So, I think Terry is right. Sooner or later, we are going to hell in a handbasket.

Happy times!!

Steph Mc