Individuals 1, Social class 0: How the Seven Up! series scored an own goal

You start off making serious documentaries trying to prove that social class pre-determines life.  Forty-two years later, you find yourself producing entertaining documentaries that compete at the up-market end of the reality television market.  Such could be argued is the fate of Michael Apted and Co., the producers of the Up series, the latest instalment of which, 49 Up, has recently been showing in Australian cinemas.

There are some strong political conclusions to be drawn from the series -- although probably not the ones that may have been expected when Seven Up! was filmed in 1963 and screened in 1964.

For those who are unaware of the series, it began when Granada TV's World in Action programme decided to test the Jesuit maxim "Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man".  The Granada team interviewed 14 English seven-year-olds, asking them about their lives and their expectations for the future.  While the original programme was intended as a one-off, the producers have been back every seven years since to check on the subjects' lives.

Unfortunately, the series always suffered from a gender imbalance (ten boys and four girls) and from a lack of middle-class children.  The choice of children from societal extremes (14 per cent of British children were not living in orphanages in 1963) was clearly designed to add weight to the proposition that roles in Britain's class system were pre-ordained.  Too many middle-class, or even lower middle-class, children would only have blurred the message.

Having originally chosen only three broadly middle-class children, any hopes that they might make a remotely useful sociological contribution were destroyed long ago by the atypical lives of two of them.

Nick, the shy, glasses-wearing son of a Yorkshire farmer provided hopes of some balance not only by being at least arguably middle class, but also by being the only participant from a rural background.  However, he progressed from the one-room school he was attending at seven to studying science at Oxford by 21.  From his mid-twenties, he has been living in the United States, where he is an academic at the University of Wisconsin.

In 42 Up, Nick claimed that one of his goals was to become more famous for producing ground-breaking research than for being in the Up series!  By 49, these hopes have been somewhat dimmed, as his research outcomes did not match his hopes.  Between 42 and 49, he has also progressed from his first to his second marriage, a change which will have done nothing to dim the feelings of envy he must induce among less ambitious, stay-at-home Yorkshire farm boys.

While Nick's academic disappointments have come later in life, those of the Up series' most famous participant, Neil, came much earlier.  Having to settle for the University of Aberdeen rather than Oxbridge was the trigger for sending Neil on a downward spiral that saw him living in a London squat at 21, homeless in northern Scotland at 28, and living in a council house in the Shetlands at 35.  By 42, he seemed to have new purpose in his life, being active in local politics as a Liberal Democrat councillor.  He is still doing this at 49, but only after a radical geographic shift from London to north-west England.

If one of the working-class participants had ended up living Neil's destitute existence at 21, 28 and 35, all sorts of class-based conclusions could have been drawn.  As it was middle-class Neil, only individual-based ones were available.  To Neil's credit, these are the only ones he attempts to make.  Indeed, he has always been quite perceptive about himself and others, a fact best illustrated in 49 Up by his description of how a day at the cricket provided a suitable forum for a partial reconciliation with his father, with whom his relationship had been difficult for many years.

The final blow to any hopes of the Up series having anything profound to say about what happened to middle-class children of the 1960s was the decision by Neil's childhood friend, Peter, not to re-appear after his sour performance at 28.

However, the fact that there are no childhood middle-class participants living adult middle-class lives in Britain does not mean there are no middle-class participants in 49 Up.  There are.  Some of the working-class children of the 1960s have become middle-class adults in the twenty-first century, working as university administrators or owning villas in Spain.

Few could have imagined how capitalism has enabled the industrious working class to gain a standard of living that would have been unimaginable in 1964.  In fact, the current standards of material prosperity were probably even less imaginable in the Britain of the late 1970s, before Margaret Thatcher had retrieved the country from the path of complete economic destruction.

Even before she had become Prime Minister, Thatcher had come under attack in 21 Up.  The verbal assailant was Bruce, an upper-class boy who has always wanted to help the poor, while constantly failing to appreciate that capitalism offers the quickest route out of poverty.  In partial mitigation, he did at least endeavour to act on his "do-gooder" views, spending years working in underprivileged schools in London and the Third World.

Between 42 and 49, Bruce has been mugged by reality.  In 42 Up, he had recently married and now, having had a couple of children, he has decided that a life spent teaching at a nice private school and playing village cricket does have its advantages.  Perhaps surprisingly to some, he seems a much more pleasant person when he is focused on creating a good life for those in his immediate circle, rather than when he is trying to change the world.

To underline how one cannot help but view the film as a piece of entertainment, the fact that Bruce has become less painful has resulted in the mantle of least satisfying participant passing to Andrew.  This is somewhat unfair, since there is nothing at all objectionable about him, but being decent, pleasant, successful and happily married makes for somewhat dull footage.  As Andrew himself comments, he has learnt to conceal many of his views.  When asked about why he is guarded, he says he will be "guarded about being guarded".

Andrew is the only one of the three upper-class boys, filmed together at their preparatory school in 1964, who has appeared in every episode.  Charles, who has not appeared since 21, is somewhat ironically (and arguably hypocritically) himself a documentary film-maker.  Barrister John seems to appear in every second one, with 49 being an on-again year.

John's reappearance means that Apted has 12 of the original 14, although judging by some of the comments, there may be a couple more missing at 56.  Suzy says of her part in the series "I haven't enjoyed it in any way", while Jackie complains bitterly about her treatment by Apted at 42.  You can see the participants' point.  The series takes all the pressures that may apply to the rest of us attending a school reunion and multiplies them onto a far more public scale.

There is also the risk that the prospect of seven-yearly reviews could actually alter how the participants conduct their lives.  It is difficult to gauge whether this has happened, but what the series does demonstrate is that, while the occupations and aspirations of the participants are still clearly affected by the class in which they grew up, the degree of fulfilment and happiness in their lives is largely independent of their upbringing.

Further to this, the Up series also shows that political views can straddle class lines.  John, the upper-class barrister has been expressing strong political views since 14 and, at 49, still says that he is not too old to embark on a political career.  His political views have always seemed very close to those of working-class Tony.  They might read different newspapers, but certainly neither would read The Guardian.

Tony seemed a little down on form at 42, but is back to his cracking best at 49.  Regular viewers will recall how, at seven, the pint-sized East-Ender had dreams of becoming a jockey and at 14 seemed well on the way to achieving that feat.  However, at 21 the dream was over and he was doing "the knowledge" to become a London cabbie.  It was also at 21 that he came up with the memorable line about usually doing the "four f's" with a girl, but how in one case he had not been able to forget her.  He is still with this girl at 49 and, having spoken with brutal honesty at 42 about some of their past marital problems, the joys of grandchildren seem to have made their relationship stronger than at any time in the past couple of decades.

Tony's great appeal is that he has always taken responsibility for his own life.  One could not help admire, at 21, his ability to accept the fact that he was not going to be a jockey and move onto something else.  He admits his mistakes.  He has an entrepreneurial spark.  He provides for his family.  He is an interesting human being.

The only sad aspect of his life is that he no longer feels any affinity with the culture of the area in which he grew up.  For Tony, the traditional East End was poor, but its dominant philosophy was that if you worked hard, you could make a better life for yourself and your family.  He is clearly frustrated that, having put this philosophy into action, he feels that he has to pay too much tax to support others who wish to live lives in direct opposition to that philosophy.

There is no doubt that the removal of the need for self-reliance has imposed social damage on the working-class suburbs of Britain.  While the 90 per cent plus tax rates and the industrial anarchy of the 1960s and 1970s have been confined to the scrap heap, the British welfare state had become so well entrenched by then that it has proved almost impossible to wind back.  Fortunately, the prosperity that capitalism produces has been so great that it has been able to carry the burden of the welfare state.

Tony's views of what has happened to the culture of the East End are echoed in varying degrees by at least two of the three working-class East End girls.  University administrator Sue now lives in a nice home in what appears to be a nice middle-class suburb.  Apted asks Sue the quite reasonable question whether she now considers herself middle class, but he cannot help doing so in a tone which suggests this may be more an accusation of class treachery, rather than giving credit for the hard-work of a single mother.

Sue's happiness at 49 is clearly helped by being in a very happy relationship, and this lends further weight to what has become one of the key take-out messages from the Up series.  Forget social class; it is the personal sphere (health, marriage, family, etc.) that defines life as much as anything.  It is striking how hard a number of the working-class participants have worked to keep their families together.  Tony maintains that family is what really matters.  This sentiment is echoed by Paul and Symon, the boys from the orphanage, living quite different lives on opposite sides of the world (Paul providing particular interest to Australian viewers since moving to Melbourne between 7 and 14).  These two have had their ups and downs over the years but, considering the start they had in life, one has to say the positives have outweighed the negatives.

While Pulitzer Prize winning film critic Roger Ebert's view that the series rates in his top ten films of all time and is "an inspired, almost noble use, of the film medium" may be a little exaggerated, one must acknowledge that the Up series is outstanding.  It has always had imperfections, but it continues to draw viewers back, not because it has any message about social class or other determinist theories, but because we are interested in the participants as individuals and we want to see how individual personalities and the choices they make affect life outcomes.

As a bonus, we get to note the vast increase in the standard of living that capitalism has been able to deliver to working-class people across the Western world.

May '07 bring back sceptics

I will remember 2006 as the year a misguided film portraying carbon dioxide as the main cause of all climate change captured the imagination of so many, even changing government policies.

Failed US presidential hopeful, Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, describes carbon dioxide as the enemy.

It then constructs a storyline as simplistic, horrific, technically flawed and politically naïve as the Central Intelligent Agency's dossier on those elusive weapons of mass destruction that were never found.

While that CIA dossier saw the US, British and Australian send troops to war in Iraq, the Al Gore film has been crucial in convincing Australia and other countries to do much more about climate change.

It seems that there is now no place for scepticism.

When former Canadian champion alpine skier and now Chancellor of Canada's Thompson Rivers University, Nancy Greene-Raine, said on television last week that since we don't know what next week's weather is going to be, it is perhaps presumption to suggest we know what it will be in 50 or 100 years, many wanted her sacked.

A Canadian government meteorologist joined the public attack, questioning why the former Olympic skiing champion would offer comment about something on which she was not versed, noting that no one came to him for advice on skiing.

Indeed we are all now expected to do something about climate change, but not expected to make up our own minds on the issue.

One of my concerns with the blind focus on carbon dioxide as a cause of global warming is that it ignores the many other factors which may be contributing to changed weather patterns.

While rising carbon dioxide levels may be responsible for melting of Arctic ice sheets, they may not be responsible for the drought across southern Australia.

Head of climate analysis at the Bureau of Meteorology, David Jones, has explained that the hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic may have increased the temperature gradient between the equator and the South Pole, strengthening westerly winds and changing weather patterns across southern Australia contributing to the below average rainfall.

New climate modelling by Leon Rotstayn, at CSIRO's Marine and Atmospheric Research division, says pollution from Asian industry may be responsible for the increased rainfall and cloudiness since 1950 over north western Australia.

Understanding changes in weather patterns is very important for agriculture.  If Dr Rotstayn is correct, and if Asian industries cleanup their smoke stacks, will rainfall then decline across north western Australia?

In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore suggests that climate change from carbon dioxide is a moral issue and that anyone who questions his claimed consensus is a heretic.  But in a truly civil society there should always be room and respect for dissent.

Indeed, sceptics can be valuable, pointing out where conventional wisdom is not quite on the mark.

Australian farmers have historically been a sceptical lot, ever wary of the snake oil salesman.

I hope farmers remember the value of healthy sceptism into 2007 -- when hopefully this drought will break.

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It's time for the Liberal Party to live up to its name

In last month's state election, the combination of an engaging leader and competent campaigning delivered an improved result for Victoria's Liberals.  However, as Tim Colebatch explained in Monday's Age, a massive swing of 6.3 per cent will still be required to win in 2010.

With Liberals in all states a long way from regaining government, maybe they should try a change of focus.  A basic first step must be to seek policy consistency and distinctiveness.  An important test for the Liberal Party in each state is to ensure that it has policies that are distinctly "liberal".

For starters, the Liberal Party should always be seen as the party of small government.  Its MPs at state level need to do some hard thinking about how that principle can be enunciated in this era when state governments are awash with cash.

Fundamental to this will be developing a new model for federal-state relations to tackle the huge problem that vertical fiscal imbalance creates.

No one should underestimate how hard this task will be.  However, there are other policy areas where developing a Liberal position should be comparatively easy.  There are large swathes of state government responsibilities where the Liberal Party can position itself firmly on the side of citizens who want to live their lives free of unnecessary government-imposed rules and regulations.  Unfortunately, state Liberals have been patchy, at best, in these areas.

The Liberal Party has often got itself into a muddle on issues like racial and religious vilification laws.  Once you start down the slippery slope of this type of restrictive legislation you can end up with the sort of scenario as sketched by British writer Rod Liddle in The Spectator recently.  "Today you can be prosecuted for insisting that homosexuality is a crime against nature and yet also prosecuted for denigrating the Koran, a book which insists that homosexuality is a crime against nature".  Let the Liberal Party be the party of free speech.

The Liberal Party also needs to re-address the area of planning.  Too often planning policy achieves the amazing double of both imposing prohibitively high costs on those perceived to be contributing to urban sprawl and imposing restrictions on market-based opportunities to deliver urban consolidation.

State Liberal parties should adopt policies that increase land supply and reduce charges for new development.  At the same time, they must stop pandering to busybody neighbours and control freak local councils, and instead defend the rights of property owners to develop their properties in the way they see fit.

As well as being the party that defends property rights, the Liberal Party must be the pro-consumer party.  The past two decades have seen significant improvements in shop trading laws but, in states such as Western Australia, there is still much more to be done.  The Liberal Party should stand squarely behind the interests of consumers and against the vested interests that restrict shop trading hours.

The Liberal Party should also take a stand on behalf of the group that is rapidly becoming the most maligned in the country -- poker machine players.

The fact that a minority abuse a product is not a legitimate reason to deny the majority the right to their enjoyment.  The current anti-pokies proposals reek of those that the temperance movement tried against alcohol.  Reducing pokies numbers is the modern-day equivalent of the "six o'clock swill".  There may be worthwhile reforms that can be made to how licences are issued and how machines are allocated, but that can be done without attacking the rights of citizens to enjoy the leisure activity of their choice.

Across a whole range of areas there should be a real focus on removing the myriad of rules and regulations that stifle genuine community activity.

In various jurisdictions, there are now laws that prevent the Country Women's Association preparing sandwiches for volunteer firefighters;  other laws prevent parents coaching junior sporting teams without police checks, while various regulations have to be complied with before children can work on a relative's farm;  and there are even rules covering the taking of photos in public places.  Instead of all this regulation let civil society work it out.  This way trust will be built, rather than destroyed by the nanny state.

Some of this agenda of personal freedom may be instantly appealing to voters, other parts less so.

The tendency for state Liberals will be to try and cherry-pick.  That misses the point.  It is only through arguing from a consistent philosophic base that they will build credibility with the community.

In fact, the very act of taking a stand on some tough issues will make the Liberals appear stronger than they have at any time in the almost 10 years since they last won a state election anywhere in Australia.

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BHP shouldn't have to share

Inching its way through the court system is a case of immense importance to the future of Australia's major industries.  The case concerns the attempt by Fortescue Metals Group and the National Competition Council to force BHP Billiton to share its Pilbara rail lines using Part IIIA of the Trade Practices Act.  A decision by judge John Middleton yesterday endorsed this application to obtain a cheap ride courtesy of government regulation.

Part IIIA of the TPA, and Australian regulators' aggressive use of this to pursue open-access regimes, threatens to undermine investment incentives.  It's all very well for regulatory bureaucrats to argue that if a firm has spare capacity, it should be obliged to share it with other firms on "fair" terms.  But firms, like individuals, have ample incentives to do this.  When they refuse to do so, it can be because the price offered is too low, the disruption to its own activities would be so great as to make any such sharing difficult to accommodate, or because it is a monopoly trying to squeeze out a rival.

The regulator in this case also sees another possibility:  that businesses are so self-centred that they need "jogging" to be alerted to sensible profitable opportunities.

This is a bureaucrat's fantasy.  Those who have never operated in a commercial world would never understand how even rivals like the Murdochs and Packers -- Australia's 21st century version of Verona's Montagues and Capulets -- will readily combine to pursue particular opportunities while remaining adversaries in other theatres.

BHP and rival Rio Tinto have vigorously opposed the commandeering of their assets sought by the NCC.  BHP itself has only 15 per cent of the world's iron ore market even at its most restrictive definition.  Fortescue's mine could never achieve 1 per cent of the market and could not apply serious pressure on the existing producers.  Protecting some mythical monopoly position is just not a credible reason for BHP's opposition to facility sharing.

What is clearly of concern is the fact that the regulator will inevitably choose a "fair" price that the provider considers inadequate.  More importantly, the regulator may well also arbitrate to ensure that applicants get equivalent services to the owner.

This could be very costly in an integrated just-in-time business which schedules shipments of different grades so that the final product arrives at the port precisely as contracted.

In the present case, Middleton rejected the reasoning in an earlier decision by judge Susan Kenny on a similar case.  In that case, a competitor was attempting to hitch onto Rio's Pilbara rail lines and Kenny recognised that iron ore rail transport was akin to a manufacturing plant, which even Part IIIA has baulked at regarding as eligible for regulatory seizure.

Middleton also rejected advice given by half a dozen eminent economists.

One of these, New York professor Janusz Ordover, had previously provided advice in the Duke pipeline case.  This connected Bass Strait gas to Sydney, bringing competition to the pipeline from Moomba.  Ordover argued that the new competition was inadequate to justify deregulation.  He concluded that the price should have fallen further than it did.

Ordover therefore comes with clear credentials as an economist more than willing to back his own estimates about where the market should be, rather than observing outcomes generated by actual participants.  The fact that he, alongside others, opposes the regulatory seizure of BHP's Pilbara rail assets is clear evidence that something is wrong with the NCC's case and the law as interpreted by Middleton.  Important in this respect is that there are two rail lines serving the area and a further one planned by Fortescue itself to service a larger nearby development.  Hence BHP's lines could hardly be described as a monopoly.

Australia has an expansive definition of facilities that are eligible for government regulation.  Firms facing forced sharing of their facilities will fight against this.  They and other firms confronting such dilutions of property rights will be ultra-cautious in embarking on new investments.  The latest decision will create greater uncertainty and impede investment in telecoms, ports, pipelines and any other such facilities.

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Leave water recycling to Mother Nature

The Bracks Government re-election represents the electorate's confidence in the steady-as-she goes administration.

But government is also about leadership.  This has been avoided by Deputy Premier John Thwaites in his capacity as environment minister.

Green zealotry makes the environment portfolio an unenviable job.  That's why Mr Thwaites wanted to move to the less stressful role of attorney-general.

Many Bracks Government decisions have pandered to environmentalist pressures.  Water policy represents the biggest failure.

This year's drought has left Melbourne's water storage levels at 40 per cent below last year's.  The key Thompson dam is at only 27 per cent capacity.

Ironically, the effects of the drought are amplified by state reafforestation.  New trees absorb water that would otherwise flow to rivers.

This year's water shortage illustrates the risks timid governments take when surrendering to green activists opposed to new dams and other needed capital works.

The state water authorities used to develop plans for water storage increases to keep pace with the growth of the urban area.

In the 1990s, there were plans for a dam on the Mitchell.  This would have been in commission by now -- 23 years after the previous major dam on the Thompson had been filled.

Over 23 years, Melbourne's population has increased more than 30 per cent.  Naturally the city requires more water.

Contrary to green myths, water is available.  Although it is valuable, almost 80 per cent is used for irrigation.

Farmers will sell their water allocations if the price is right and shift into different agricultural activities or invest in water-saving measures.

Urban consumers would have to pay for water bought from farmers and for a new dam or a diversion facility to the existing Thompson dam.

But this would mean an increase in water bills of less than 15 per cent for all the water that city people want.

The alternative water-restriction policy entails far greater costs.  It requires a new bureaucracy to which businesses have to report (normally concocted) claims of how they are saving water.

It means that some businesses, like those involved in providing sporting facilities, face severe problems of survival.  Water restrictions for many such businesses cause their facilities to deteriorate and may also pose safety risks.

We are also examining increasingly costly and bizarre plans for water recycling.

Recycling water is what nature does.  Water falls as rain and eventually returns to the oceans -- some of it via human bodies.  It becomes naturally purified in the oceans before being evaporated, falling as rain and continuing the cycle.

Why interfere with nature's processes with expedited desalination or purification?  The earth's water cycle is a closed system -- there is no more to be created and none is lost.

The Prime Minister has a National Water Commission.  This should prod the State Government to adopt more rational policies on these matters.

Victoria's "Mediterranean" climate will always face recurring droughts.

Nonetheless, it supports a population which is less than one-tenth of that of the European countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea.

Yet it is us and not those European countries who are said to have a problem!

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PM's hidden APEC emissions agenda

Has the Prime Minster already outflanked Kevin Rudd on climate change?  Despite the focus on the global warming issue, by the time the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit is held in Australia, the Opposition Leader may have no policy left.

ALP strategists would be hoping Kevin Rudd's elevation would neutralise foreign affairs as an election issue.  As Labor's foreign affairs spokesman since 2001, his understanding of this policy area should be considerable, and elections are rarely fought on foreign policy.

Yet, the context of the next federal election is likely to make foreign affairs a headache for Rudd.  He may have much of this headache for himself.  He has already outlined climate change as one of his key attack points against the Government.

Climate change will be central to the context of the next election.  If there is any doubt about the contribution of context, just ask Kim Beazley about the 2001 election.

It presents a significant challenge for the Coalition.  Regardless of the science, climate change is a policy issue that is resonating.

The politics of climate change is played on its opponent's turf.  This is more true than ever:  Rudd's widely acknowledged strength is foreign policy.

Rudd has tried to boost Labor's climate change credentials with the promotion of Peter Garrett as Opposition spokesman on the subject.  But by the election, Labor will have little room to move.  The politics of climate change is as much about the environment as the economy.  The Howard Government is acutely aware of how an obsession with carbon dioxide reduction targets must correlate with job losses.

Australia will host APEC next year.  There is no set date for the 2007 election, but dates in October or November are likely because of the APEC summit in September.  It is protocol that an election cannot be called while a foreign head of state is in the country.

The APEC ministerial and bureaucratic forums will be held throughout 2007.  At present the only meeting that gets any serious attention is the summit -- when John Howard, George Bush and all the Asian leaders stand in a line and wear funny outfits.

Howard will use APEC to support his electoral prospects.  He has already indicated he will use APEC to establish a new climate-change pact.  It is the perfect forum.  APEC includes economies that are or will be the largest emitters of carbon dioxide in the world.

More importantly, it is a forum where Europe is not at the table.  The Kyoto Protocol failed because it was an agreement written for Europe.  Kyoto suited Europe because it didn't undermine their energy production.  Targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions are unsustainable for developing economies or economies dependent on coal, such as Australia.

They are not prepared to sacrifice economic growth and keep people trapped in poverty.

With Europe off the negotiating table, they will be bystanders.  They will be locked out of negotiating the framework for one of the most important international pacts for the next 20 years.  It will also mean the focus will shift from reducing carbon emissions through reduction targets to use of technology.

Meanwhile, Australia, the US and the major developing economies of Asia will endorse a pact that promotes growth, reduces emissions and is sensitive to alleviating poverty.  The focus will be on developing, using and sharing technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

This will leave Labor with limited options.  Rudd cannot harp on about Kyoto.  It is already yesterday's agreement, with so many European economies failing to meet their emissions targets.  The prospect of a new international agreement with the endorsement of the US and Asia will ensure it is officially buried.

And the Labor leader has already signalled his opposition to nuclear power.  He cannot side with Europe and its emissions targets unless he is prepared to embrace a nuclear future.  Such a proposition would tear federal Labor apart.  It would also put federal Labor at odds with state Labor governments.

Targets will also provide ample evidence to the Coalition to aim at areas where Labor prioritises appeasing the Greens over keeping their jobs.  Mark Latham learnt this lesson the hard way.  Rudd will be forced to either support the pact or look like a pariah.

Howard can then call an election and bask in the images run on television of presidents Bush and Hu applauding his efforts.  He will be able to crow that Australia has punched above its weight in securing one of the most important environmental pacts in history.  And he will have demonstrated his capacity to marry relations between the current and emerging superpowers.

Howard will also be able to take quiet, personal satisfaction that he will have finally killed Paul Keating's image as Australia's big man in Asia.  Rudd, the new head of Keating's party, will only be able to watch.

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The time for moderation

With just a week to go until Christmas there's one question being asked in offices around the country.  It's a question on which careers hinge.  "What should I get my boss for Christmas?"  Whisky or golf balls are reliable stand-bys but they suffer from a certain lack of imagination.

Books are good presents.  Giving a book has the benefit of flattering the ego of the recipient.  There's the implication that the giver assumes the recipient would prefer a book to a 12-year-old single malt.

The biggest benefit of books as gifts is that you might learn something from reading them.  Anyone lucky enough to receive The Search for Stability for Christmas will learn a lot.  At just over 100 pages of text, it's short.  It can be comfortably read from cover to cover in a couple of lunch breaks during the Boxing Day Test.

The Search for Stability is one of the best and most important works on Australian politics and economics of recent years.  The book is the text of this year's ABC Boyer Lectures delivered by the recently retired governor of the Reserve Bank, Ian Macfarlane.

Put very briefly, the series traces the development of Australia's post-war economic policy.  The sixth and final lecture will be broadcast on Radio National this Sunday.

Central bankers are paid to be boring.  However, these lectures are anything but boring.  They are interesting, challenging, and provocative.  Macfarlane has the facility possessed by the best economists (both Keynes and Friedman had it) of being able to communicate an idea in one sentence rather than 10.

A good example is his discussion of the definition of "economic rationalism".  He says, very simply, "As far as I can tell, economic rationalism basically means no more than mainstream economics ..."  Never have truer words been spoken.

A valuable service is performed when he punctures the myths of the so-called Golden Age.  If the effects of population growth are discounted, then during the 1950s Australia's gross domestic product grew annually by 1.7 per cent compared with an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average of 3.3 per cent.  Australia "managed" despite centralised wage fixation and tariff protection, not because of it.  Kevin Rudd might remember this when he next talks about having an industry policy for manufacturing.

The controversial parts of The Search for Stability deal with "the recession we had to have".  According to Macfarlane, the interest rate policy of the time was not a mistake, and it was the only instrument available that could have broken inflationary expectations.

Paul Keating is absolved a little disingenuously for the policy blame by Macfarlane claiming that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the coalition in opposition advocated monetarist policies no less harsh than were being implemented by Labor.  This is true -- but it is only half the story.  The coalition was also advocating tax and industrial relations reform, which would have smoothed the transition to a low inflation economy.  These were measures that Keating could not, or would not, undertake.

Those who have no curiosity at all about history can go straight to the final chapter, in which Macfarlane distills his 27 years of experience at the Reserve Bank.  Quietly, but firmly, he states that he is "not so optimistic" as to believe that the business cycle is dead.

More ominously he identifies rapidly increasing prices in asset markets as potentially the biggest threat to economic stability.  He echoes the comments made earlier this week by his successor at the Reserve Bank, Glenn Stevens, that highly leveraged households and companies are now particularly susceptible to any economic downturn.

While inflation has been low we've been lulled into a false sense of security, and we've forgotten that "the broader evidence does not support the view that low inflation will prevent booms and busts developing in asset markets".

A bust in asset markets would not just be a disaster for everyone with a big home mortgage who has banked on the value of their house increasing in perpetuity.  Because of our superannuation system, retirement incomes are now inextricably linked to asset prices in a way the traditional government-funded aged pension was not.

A general rule of thumb for Christmas festivities is to enjoy everything in moderation.  The lesson from The Search for Stability is that we could apply this same rule to our current good economic fortune.

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Rudd's fork in the road looks to be heading backwards

The ALP is sending a clear signal that the economy and values will be a battleground leading up to the 2007 election.

Kevin Rudd keeps indicating we have reached a "fork in the road".  He has also been arguing against what he calls "uncompromising free-market fundamentalism".

This is really a discussion about how "working families" and the economy interact.  Politicians who campaign on "family values" always get into trouble, so the ALP will talk about the evils of "market fundamentalism".

The appointment of Senator Kim Carr of the Victorian Socialist Left to the shadow industry portfolio needs to be seen in this light.  Nobody has ever accused "Kim il Carr" of market fundamentalism.  Indeed, he has been an implacable foe of all things "market".

Rudd has made the point that Australia should have a strong manufacturing sector, that he wants Australia to "make things".  This sounds all very well and good, but what does it mean?

When challenged last week on the ABC to produce "one concrete idea", Rudd was stumped, and promised detailed policies in the months ahead.

He did, however, talk about education, innovation policy, and research and development.  This is where Carr comes into the picture.  He held the industry and the science and innovation portfolios before the last election -- clearly Rudd thinks he did a good job.  Yet Carr was effectively dumped from those portfolios.

Carr has argued that our prosperity reflects the reforms of the Hawke and Keating governments, and the ALP has not done enough to emphasise that point.  The Hawke government, at least, did not pursue protectionist policies.  Yet Carr went to the last election promising to slow tariff reductions, and opposed further tariff cuts after 2010.

However, Rudd is promising a new direction in industry policy -- not the discredited industry policy that leads to high tariffs, protectionism, and hidden taxes on consumers.  So while Rudd is telling us that tariffs are discredited, he is reappointing the man who campaigned for that very policy at the last election.  Where does the ALP stand on free trade?  Rudd is reportedly a free trader -- yet one of his early comments as leader was about the trade deficit.  He has a desire to "make things" -- the ALP is beginning to sound very mercantilist.

We are being told that the new-direction industry policy involves knowledge-based industry.  This is code for spending even more money on education.

The ALP has been arguing for some time that Australia has a shortage of skilled labour.  When unemployment is less than 5 per cent, a skills shortage is a good problem to have.  It is not clear that spending more money on education will relieve that skills shortage in the short term.

In any event, the ALP has opposed the Federal Government's efforts to establish technical colleges, and Carr has opposed all private-sector involvement in education and the application of market principles to education.  So it is difficult to understand how he would work with education providers to meet industry needs.

The new industrial policy is also code for spending taxpayer dollars on innovation policy and R&D tax breaks.

Before the last election, the ALP had indicated it would reintroduce the 150 per cent R&D tax concession, but at the last minute backed away after not costing the policy.  This was Carr's responsibility and he failed to perform.

Unfortunately, all governments are wedded to the notion that throwing money at R&D promotes productivity growth, and hence economic growth.  But in a 2003 report, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development indicated that public spending on R&D had a negative impact on growth.  Anyhow, the ALP at the last election wanted to reintroduce its 1985 policy.

Where will Rudd's fork in the road take us?  So far, it looks to be heading backwards.  Reintroducing industry policy in any guise is poor economics.  Putting a socialist in charge of a poor economic program must be poor politics.

Rudd opposes "market fundamentalism" and is worried about family relationships.  Will his solution involve reregulating the economy, reregulating working conditions and imposing draconian shopping hours?  It appears a return to anti-market and anti-consumer choice policies may be on the cards.

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Save Forests, Bring Back Millers

Back in August 2002, as part of its campaign to increase the area of national parkland in NSW, the Western Conservation Alliance held a forest protest in the Tinkrameanah State Forest.

It said logging threatened the high conservation value of the forest, near Coonabarabran, because contractors were not supervised.

Tinkrameanah State Forest became a national park last year after former Premier Bob Carr locked up vast areas of the South Brigalow Belt Bioregion's Pilliga scrubland.

In the past week, more than 100,000 hectares have burnt in the Pilliga region, including the Tinkrameanah forest.

Volunteer fire fighters were hard pressed to stop the spread of a fire which started there because the National Parks and Wildlife Service were concerned about the environmental impact of a proposed fire break.  Locals report how the fire subsequently spread and Tinkrameanah forest was "completely incinerated".

So much for stopping the grader to protect biodiversity.

This part of the Pilliga has a fascinating history.  Early explorers described much of it as open woodland.

Flooding rains in the 1880s triggered a massive germination of native cypress and eucalyptus and gradually a forest industry emerged with timber workers who diligently thinned the cypress and managed the scrub regrowth.

The industry flourished until about 1967 when the State Government started converting the working forests to reserves and parkland, beginning with the 80,000 ha Pilliga Nature Reserve.

In May last year, Bob Carr banned logging of a further 350,000 ha, stating the decision achieved "permanent conservation of iconic forests".  As the timber workers were chased out of their forests, they protested that without active management there could be no conservation.  Now the forests are burning and the Tinkrameanah is gone.

The Pilliga has an extensive fire history, with more than 350 fires recorded in the past 50 years, including a number exceeding 100,000 ha.

The Tinkrameanah forest may have been incinerated even if it had not been converted to Nature Reserve, but there is a history of better fire management in State forests.  Indeed, foresters have a vested interest in not letting their forests incinerate, and that interest has benefited barking owls and koalas.

I'm sure the Western Conservation Alliance, not to mention The Wilderness Society, are disappointed the Tinkrameanah is gone.

But the bottom-line is that while campaigning for national parks, they didn't budget for fire prevention, in fact, environmental activists have lobbied hard for restrictive fire intervals for prescribed burning and heavily conditional licensing.

The Tinkrameanah forest may grow back one day, but with timber workers excluded it will never be as biologically diverse and, indeed, if the cypress is not thinned it may just become a thicket.

The Western Forest Alliance was wrong to claim the biggest threat to the Tinkrameanah was logging, in fact the long term survival of biologically diverse healthy Pilliga forests may depend on sustainable conservation, such as bringing the timber workers back in.

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Rudd has got to live up to his words

Labor MPs got more than they bargained for when they chose Kevin Rudd as their leader.  He poses a far greater potential risk for the ALP than Mark Latham did.  The benefit for the party is that Rudd gives his party its best chance in a decade of beating John Howard.

His public pronouncements reveal that Rudd might possess a quality that Kim Beazley didn't display nearly often enough, and it is a quality that even John Howard's opponents concede to the prime minister.  The new Labor leader might have the courage of his convictions.

In response to media questions over the past few days, Rudd has spoken about his esteem for Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor put to death by the Nazis in 1945.  In an essay in The Monthly in October, Rudd called Bonhoeffer "the man I admire most in the history of the 20th century".  Bonhoeffer was repelled by the evils of fascism and fought overtly and then covertly against the Nazi regime.  He was executed when his involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler was discovered.

There are no shades of grey about Bonhoeffer's actions.  Even though he was a pacifist, and had devoted his life to trying to achieve peace, ultimately he understood that there was no alternative than to plan for the murder of Hitler.

It would have been easy for Rudd never to have discussed Bonhoeffer or to have chosen a less problematic hero.  The traditional legends of Curtin and Chifley are safe, and are the ones usually invoked by aspiring ALP leaders.  That he opted not to go down this route is telling.

Rudd would be the first person to realise that he is heading a Labor Party, some of whose members are profoundly uneasy about the notion that anyone can achieve the sort of moral clarity reached by Bonhoeffer.  As a Christian, Rudd would also know that there would be few members of any Christian denomination in Australia who would unambiguously condone assassination.

But moral clarity is exactly what will be required in the coming decades as Australia and other liberal democracies fight a war against radical Islam.  It is a war that could last a generation.  John Howard, Tony Blair and George Bush have all endorsed freedom and democracy over every other alternative, and it is precisely their clarity that has so unnerved their critics.  All three leaders know that on some questions there is simply no scope for negotiation.  Fortunately, it appears this is also the position of the new Labor leader.

Rudd is brave enough to confront those who believe that the challenge to liberal democracy can be solved through discussion.  As he wrote two months ago "of discomfort to certain elements of the far left would be the truthful conclusion that there is a fundamental problem within militant Islamism, which values violent jihad in its own right and is not amenable to engagement, dialogue or persuasion".

The one fault with this statement is that Rudd believes that only "certain elements" of the "far left" are discomforted by the fact that militant Islamism can't be negotiated with.  What he describes is an attitude that exists in his own party and cuts across the political spectrum.  It is a view that questions not how to fight militant Islamism, but whether to fight it at all.

According to Rudd, "of discomfort to the right is the conclusion that the politics of economic underdevelopment in much of the Islamic world breeds resentment, denies opportunity and therefore provides fertile recruitment fields for jihadists".  Actually, for those on the right such an analysis is not at all troubling.  Much of the Islamic world is ruled by totalitarian dictators or governed as a one-party state so it is no surprise that economic underdevelopment is the result.  The phenomena that Rudd describes are much bigger problems for the left than the right.

Rudd spoke about domestic matters after his elevation.  All are important, but they are minor and easy compared with foreign policy challenges.

If, after a Labor win at the next federal election, Labor withdraws Australian troops from Iraq it would be a mistake.  But our elected politicians are going to be required to make decisions even more significant than about the future Iraq.  They will have to choose whether to negotiate with, or confront those who threaten the way of life we enjoy.

The risk for Labor is that one day as prime minister, Rudd may be required to match his deeds with his words.

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Anvil Hill Decision: Impractical and Uncompetitive

Last week the NSW Land and Environment Court found that a proposed coal mine at Anvil Hill in the Hunter Valley was being approved without adequate consideration of the likely impacts of greenhouse gas emissions.  While many consider the judgment a big win for the environment, with national implication, on careful analysis it's perhaps just an example of the pointlessness of trying to deal with global warming through regulation and legislation.

A young environmental activist, Peter Gray, brought the action.  The Minister for Planning is now obliged to consider ecologically sustainable development principles including the precautionary principle in relation to the Anvil Hill Project.  The Minister has to balance environmental against economic considerations.

Mark O'Neill from the Australian Coal Association has said that if Anvil Hill does not go ahead, not one molecule less carbon dioxide will be emitted because customers will simply buy their coal from elsewhere.

But the Coal Association is overreacting because the mine is still expected to go ahead.  Indeed the affected coal company, Centennial Coal, has stated that the current approval process for the Anvil Hill mine remains on track and that they have already prepared a document that comprehensively deals with the downstream greenhouse gas impacts.

Indeed even Mr Gray has said:  "The thrust of the case was not that you should not approve Anvil Hill but that it should be assessed [for climate change] before it goes ahead".

But this is absurd.  It is possible to determine the likely amount of carbon dioxide generated by the mine and emitted by the burning of the coal from the mine, however, it is not possible to determine the impact of this carbon dioxide on global climate.

Think for a minute what fraction of a per cent coal from that mine would constitute relative to all the coal mined and burned in all the world not forgetting industry growth.  For example, every 10 days a new coal-fired power station opens somewhere in China.

It is also interesting to ponder all the potential non-carbon sources of global warming including methane and nitrous oxide emissions and that a recent published study indicates the United Kingdom may be emitting 92 per cent more methane than it declares and France 47 per cent more.

Then there are also significant uncertainties associated with the models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) with latest official projections suggesting anything from a 1.4 to a 5.8 degree Celcius increase in average surface temperatures over the period 1990 to 2100.  Furthermore, the IPCC does not assign any probability to these projections and acknowledges that there is a need for better models and better scientific understanding.

In short, given the many and growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions, the uncertainties in carbon accounting and the models, it is simply not possible to calculate the likely environmental impact of the Anvil Hill mine on climate yet this is what the law, at least in NSW, now seems to expect.

Climate change is emerging as the environmental issue of this century, but the Anvil Hill decision illustrates the extent to which all the campaigning, good intentions and regulation are unlikely to achieve anything except a further increase in the regulatory burden on industry.

The NSW Labor government says it intends to make climate change a campaign issue at the next state election, but at the same time wants the Anvil Hill coal mine to go ahead.  So it's nothing more than lip service to greenhouse?

Most of the coal from Anvil Hill is to go to Japan.  But Japan is not dependent on Australia for its energy needs.  Indeed Japan recently reached an in principle agreement with Indonesia -- already the third largest exporter of coal to Japan -- for a bilateral free trade agreement including an energy security partnership.  So Mark O'Neill is correct, if it's not mined here it will be mined somewhere else.

Interestingly even Germany, a country bound by the Kyoto Protocol, is building new coal-fired power stations and at the same time allowing them to opt out of the European Union carbon trading scheme until 2022.

In other words, global consumption of coal is not going to be limited by supply from Anvil Hill or the Kyoto Protocol.

Peter Gray, once a university student studying Ancient History, has been hailed the winner in a David versus Goliath battle.

But in the end, the original action and the ruling are all about process and amount to no more than a requirement that the parties acknowledge greenhouse, not that they change their ways.  What is the net result -- apart from an increase in the regulatory burden on Australian industry?  It's business as usual as long as everyone pays lip service to global warming in an increasingly energy-hungry world.

Populist fads keep Victoria in the shade

High court judgments increasingly leave state governments as service managers and providers rather than policy makers on industry development, labour laws, welfare and the like.

Even so, mismanagement can drive Victoria towards bankruptcy in the 21st century just as it did in the Cain/ Kirner days.

Indeed, Victoria is even more vulnerable.  As the unfortunate former employees at Ajax Fasteners discovered, neither union muscle nor government assistance are substitutes for competitive supply.

Unlike in Western Australia, Victoria's industries compete with rather than feed the emerging powerhouse of China.  This means Victoria has little slack for bad government decisions.

In the first two Bracks administrations the Premier and Treasurer John Brumby were not always successful in staving off new green-inspired regulatory and spending proposals.

Adopting too many of these populist fads transforms the "place to be" into the "place to escape from".

Such self indulgences can destroy governments as well as hospitalise the state.  So how does the third Bracks administration position Victoria to capitalise on opportunities and combat the threats to prosperity?

Basically, it has to remove blockages that prevent Victorian businesses from thriving and providing jobs and wealth.

Even before the election, the government made a start with some fairly rigorous proposals for reducing regulatory red tape.

It needs to build on these approaches.

One important area of activity concerns the state's transportation arteries.

These must be kept open.

Deepening Melbourne's port is essential and should not be thwarted by trumped up fantasies that this endangers some "unique ecological communities".

Ensuring adequate road capacity is an associated need.  Over recent years we have seen the priority skewed towards public transport which provides only 8 per cent of trips.

A competitive and prosperous economy needs a modern road system both for car owners and freight.

The appointment of Bracks trustee Tim Pallas in the road and ports job is a promising sign.

Lynne Kosky heading public transport will also be helpful if she can regain her reputation for ensuring value from public expenditures.

We also need a new dam if water is not to be astronomically priced and regulated.

Can John Thwaites change his spots on this?

Affordable housing is essential.  The key to this is allowing more land to be supplied by loosening the restraints on urban land development.

No Australian state has shone in this respect, though Victoria has done better than the others.  Planning Minister Justin Madden has a vital role in combating the anti-development lobby.

Victoria also needs to lift its ban on modern, safe GM food technologies.

This threatens our agricultural competitiveness.

In addition it harms other sectors.  It means higher costs for our food processing industries and undermines the government's hi-tech industry strategy.

Other necessary measures include ceasing to pander to green wind farm lobbies.  We cannot afford empty gestures that raise power bills and reduce industry costs.

Ministers have to recognise that the present globalised world is an unforgiving place.  It mercilessly punishes jurisdictions which follow bad economic management policies.

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The long First World War

The Great War
by Les Carlyon
(Macmillan Australia, 2006, 880 pages)

History is usually about "what happened next".  Events are important, not only because they happened, but because they lead to something else.  And so it is with the First World War.  Strictly speaking, The Great War begins at the battle of Fromelles in July 1916 and concludes with the Armistice in November 1918.  However, in a broader sense, the story of The Great War actually ends in 1945.

What is described in The Great War takes on significance because we know what happened after the fighting stopped in 1918, and after the Treaty of Versailles, and after the Nazis' rise to power.  Carlyon offers an understanding of much more than just the experiences of the Australians on the Western Front during the First World War.  He offers a clue to the puzzle of the 1930s.

It's commonplace to be told about how the politicians of the inter-war period did everything they could to avoid the horrors of another war -- however diplomatic histories don't provide an explanation for appeasement.  Nor do they provide an explanation for the near unanimous support for the policy in Britain, France and Australia.  (It shouldn't be forgotten that both Menzies on the conservative side and Curtin on the Labor side of politics were firmly "pro-appeasement").

The attitude of the liberal democracies to Hitler's Germany up until 1939 is explained by what occurred between 1914 and 1918.  Nearly a century later, the scale of the human sacrifice is still difficult to contemplate.  One million dead from the British Empire, 1.4 million dead from France, and nearly two million dead from Germany.  Double these number were wounded.  More British, Australians and French died in the First World War than in the Second.

In Australia, 324,000 volunteered for the war from a population of five million.  Sixty-one thousand were killed and 155,000 were wounded.  Expressed in terms of today's population, it is the equivalent of 1.3 million Australians serving in the armed forces during a war, with 240,000 of them being killed, and 620,000 being wounded.  From the end of the war up until the 1930s, another 60,000 died from war wounds and war-related illnesses.  In the 1920s, war pensions comprised more than ten per cent of total Commonwealth government outlays.

Many of those who survived turned to alcohol and violence and, as Carlyon says, these consequences "may explain why many Australians in the thirty years after 1918 did not see the war, and Gallipoli in particular, in the romantic lights that have flickered around it in the new century".

What's shocking about the First World War (and there's no other word for it) is not only the number of soldiers dead and wounded.  It is the way in which casualties were inflicted.  It is descriptions of war and death that are the greatest achievement of The Great War.  There's not a great deal in the book about the strategies of the generals or the statecraft of the politicians, while the origins of the war take up just a few pages.  Carlyon's skill is his ability to capture the tragedy of the war from the perspective of the soldiers themselves.  For example, there's much discussion of mud.  "Mud" has its own entry in the index.

On the Somme during the winter of 1916 the mud was so deep that three horses were required to drag the wounded from the battlefield.  "Men pulled out of the sucking clay often left their boots and trousers behind.  Rescuers of an officer accidentally broke his back".  At Ypres in 1917, "the mud sucked the boots off soldiers and broke the spirit of horses".  Pigeons were caked in so much mud they couldn't fly.  On the day following an Allied offensive, The Times ran a photograph.  It showed stretcher-bearers standing in mud up to their knees.

British soldiers learned much this day.  There were so many ways of killing a man in the Great War, but here was something new.  Wounded men lay in shell holes -- and drowned.  They lay out there because it sometimes took six stretcher-bearers an hour to carry one wounded man 100 yards ...  Men with relatively minor wounds had arms and legs amputated because they had lain in the mud too long.  Unwounded soldiers discovered that the mud had no bottom, that if they struggled too violently against it, they would only sink deeper.

Readers are never allowed to forget that for every life lost there is a tale, and from the personalities of the soldiers themselves Carlyon draws conclusions about the nations involved in the war.

For example, of the French there are quoted the remarks of Charles de Gaulle about the first confrontation between French officers and the Germans in August 1914.  "With affected calm the officers let themselves be killed standing up, some obstinate platoons stuck their bayonets in their rifles, bugles sounded the charge, isolated heroes made fantastic leaps, but all to no purpose.  In an instant it had become clear that not all the courage in the world could withstand this fire".

As Carlyon comments, "De Gaulle, a soldier in the line, knew at once that a machine gun spitting out 500 rounds a minute could kill a lot of character".

Of the Australians, Carlyon tends to endorse the sentiments of the official historian of the First World War, Charles Bean.  According to Bean, the country's soldiers came from a "quirky new democracy", where respect was earned not inherited.  Australia might not have been classless but it had an "egalitarian streak".  If there is such a thing as an "Australian way of war" it is not a way that has anything to do with equipment, battle formations, or technology.  The Australian way of war is manifest in the attitude of our citizen soldiers, and it is an attitude shared by both officers and their subordinates.  It is an attitude born of our democracy, our egalitarianism, and our mateship.

The Great War is a story of a war of unremitting confusion, incompetence, and above all, killing.  A few yard of territory gained for the price of thousands of casualties.  All the stereotypes of the First World War are confirmed.  After the first few hundred pages the names of the myriad of battles, villages, and trench lines blur and details about them are soon forgotten.  What's not forgotten are the soldiers themselves.

It begins with feasting

The Pursuit of Happiness:  From the Greeks to the Present
by Damn McMahon
(Allen Lane, 2006, 560 pages)

There are two images that are engrained in the reader's mind after reading The Pursuit of Happiness.  One is of Raphael's "School of Athens", of Plato and Aristotle centred in the picture, Plato in mid-step with one hand pointing to the sky, Aristotle with both feet on the ground with one hand parallel to the earth.  The other is an absurdly futile mathematical formula intended to calculate benevolence, developed by Francis Hutcheson in the eighteenth century.

These images describe the ultimate pursuit -- Plato yearns for some divine, heavenly answer whereas Aristotle concerns himself with more earthly matters.  Likewise, Francis Hutcheson, and later the utilitarians, yearn for some concrete measurement that might place a value on human morality.

Both Raphael's "School of Athens" and Hutcheson's formula epitomise an inner conflict that McMahon attempts to confront in his ambitious history on happiness.  It is a conflict between reconciling our ceaseless hunger for satisfaction with the ever-lingering thought that we can never be completely content -- this is the pursuit of happiness.

The book itself is a very detailed and well-researched history.  Its strength is the objectivity that McMahon has endeavoured to create when dealing with countless competing opinions on the subject, from Thomas Aquinas to Karl Marx.

Each thought and idea is given serious consideration and we are left to draw our own conclusions.  McMahon continually draws upon new ideas that have come and gone since the early texts of the Greek philosophers, and in doing so brings forth important philosophical as well as political considerations when dealing with the problems of our own time.

Perhaps the greatest difficulty with writing a history on happiness is the definitional problem.  If we wish to incorporate the concept into psychological studies or even governmental responsibility, we must at least know what the word actually means.  McMahon's history shows an evolution of the meaning, a constantly evolving but ever-present idea that changes shape and size depending on the general ethos of the society and the times.

For the Ancient Greeks, instability and frequent violence made pleasure a scarce luxury, and happiness a state only attainable through death.  "Where life is governed by uncertainty, one can count no man happy until he is dead", writes McMahon.  Drawing on the writings of Herodotus and the remaining Greek tragedies that have survived the march of time, McMahon interprets happiness during this period as not simply a description of the emotional highs with which we tend to equate happiness today, but a symbol that recognises man's achievement in his work, health, relationships and harmony with the world.  McMahon writes:

Happiness, rather, is a characterisation of an entire life that can be reckoned only at death.  To believe oneself happy in the meantime is premature, and probably an illusion, for the world is cruel and unpredictable, governed by forces beyond out control.  A whim of the God's, the gift of good fortune, the determination of fate:  Happiness at the dawn of Western history was largely a matter of chance.

While happiness certainly celebrated human achievement, the ability for men to actually direct themselves to this goal was practically impossible.

It was a concept that would eventually find a new home in Christianity, a "gift of God" that would be "imparted only at death and only to a chosen few".  McMahon points to a chapter title in one of St Augustine's works -- "True happiness, which is unattainable in our present life".  Original Sin had stripped us of perpetual bliss, punished us with knowledge, and cast us into a world of suffering and pain redeemable only after death.  "The struggle of the journey", writes McMahon, "was itself a constant reminder that struggle was not in vain, for to suffer was to suffer in righteous punishment".

The most interesting part of McMahon's history, and perhaps the most important, comes during his description of the Utilitarians.  Bentham, in his quest to calculate pleasure, was unable to do so.

Tis in vain to talk of adding quantities which after the addition will continue distinct as they were before, one man's happiness will never be another man's happiness:  a gain to one man is no gain to another:  you might as well pretend to add 20 apples to 20 pears.

Perhaps Bentham's discovery (or lack thereof) is the greatest of all arguments for a free and liberal society.  If one man's pleasure is another man's pain, how can any government, or any central authority, successfully hand down orders or pass laws that aim at distributing happiness amongst the people?  When UK Conservative leader David Cameron argues that "it's time we focused not just on GDP but GWB -- General Well Being", it is hard not to take this as just another futile effort to measure the immeasurable.

Contemporary debate on happiness has left-wing critics drawing on the argument that happiness and liberalism are at conflict, and this argument is given ample consideration in the book, and perhaps even a slight endorsement from the author.  When McMahon describes the "troubling thought" that "the majority might actually prefer its petty fortune" to "higher joys" and "Socratic delights", it is hard not to be slightly unsettled by the thought that even the more objective of authors (at least in this book) may be prone to enforcing his own beliefs on the judgement of others.

There is a clear theme that McMahon uses to encompass and bound this history, and it is the age-old idea that the pursuit of happiness is ultimately a tragic one.  "The tragedy of happiness" (which may have been a more accurate title for the book) is not so much a philosophical concept anymore, but a condition inherent in our nature that is supported by contemporary evidence.

"The same research that testifies to human beings' ability to pick themselves up after a fall" writes McMahon, "also suggests a dismaying tendency to waft back to earth when we have risen too far from the norm".  That we will never achieve perpetual happiness, that our satisfactions continually climb to more demanding heights, is considered a "tragedy" by some.  From Darwin to contemporary evolutionary psychologists,

In what they call the "tragedy of happiness" or "the hedonic treadmill", they point out that human beings display an undeniable tendency to quickly accommodate themselves to their pleasures -- to grow bored -- and then become anxious or uneasy in their satisfaction.  Like junkies in need of a fix, we need variety in our pleasures or greater doses of the same when the initial "rush" wears off.  It is this longing -- a form of pain -- that sends us in renewed pursuit.

There are problems with this concept, however, not so much with the explanation of our infinite desire, but with the claim that this is somehow a tragedy.  That our needs can never be fully satisfied is not a tragedy but an extraordinary gift, that without them we would simply stop moving and die out.  Though this is acknowledged by proponents of evolution, it is nonetheless painted in tragedy, suffering, and "longing" by some, including McMahon:

Is not this desperate longing for good feeling -- this frantic, frenzied pursuit -- a symptom of the evaporation of meaning, or the belief in meaning, in other ends?

McMahon's criticism of the pursuit of pleasure will inevitably lead the author to criticise contemporary society in general.  "The problem for many in the contemporary world", writes McMahon, is that people "find it hard to set long-term goals other than good feeling, to chart narratives that give hope, conviction, and purpose in their lives".  This is always useful advice, but probably one that's been given every year since man has learnt to communicate.  When reading the early pages of McMahon's text, of the "privileged male dinner parties" of Ancient Athens "that began with feasting, end with fucking, fuelled by binge drinking and sometimes fighting along the way", the contention that modern man is somehow more materialistic and vulnerable to the simple pleasures becomes utterly unconvincing.

Though the conclusions of the author leave much room for disagreement, they are disagreements that are, ironically, harnessed by the objectivity that McMahon has, for the most part, presented in his history.  That we are able to draw our own conclusions from this smorgasbord of philosophy makes this a rare and ultimately rewarding history.

Steyn on civilisation

America Alone:  The end of the world as we know It
by Mark Steyn
(Regnery Publishing, 2006, 224 pages)

Mark Steyn has for many years been building a reputation as one of the finest conservative columnists in the world.  His new book, America Alone, confirms this well-earned reputation.  Because he is such a skilled and funny polemicist, there is a risk that one might not take his arguments as seriously as if they had been written in a more scholarly manner.  This would be a dreadful mistake, however, for the issues he raises in this book are the most serious imaginable.

America Alone is at its core a book about the future of Western civilisation, and whether that civilisation and the culture it has bequeathed to us has the will to survive.  Steyn hopes that the answer is "yes", but gives us plenty of reasons to think that the answer might be "no".  He suggests that most citizens of the West have yet to wake up to the fact that the comfortable world they have been living in over recent decades is but a tiny blip in history -- the world that future generations will face may possibly be somewhat less pleasant.

At the heart of Steyn's thesis is a paradox -- the West, which has long enjoyed military power and economic prosperity to an extent perhaps unrivalled in history, seems to have horribly lost its direction and confidence in itself.  Many Western nations are suffering from demographic collapse and failing to reproduce themselves.  Nature abhors a vacuum, however, and filling it is a resurgent, youthful and culturally confident militant radical Islam that threatens to change these societies in ways that would have been unthinkable only a few decades ago.

Steyn believes that the key to understanding how this situation has arisen is the growth of big government in Western nations, which has elevated the secondary impulses of society (such as government health care, government child care, lifelong welfare) over the primary impulses of society (such as self-reliance, national defence, and reproductive activity).  The result of this has been to infantilise the citizenry of those nations, whose lives have been largely reduced to pleasure-seeking and the prolonging of adolescence, but which are otherwise devoid of meaning and direction, thus destroying the primal instinct for survival.  Steyn gives an example of this problem -- the growing tendency for Western elites to worry in apocalyptic terms about environmental issues that do not constitute an immediate threat to civilisation, while down-playing politically difficult issues such as the rise of militant radical Islam that might constitute such a threat.  The point we are meant to take from this discussion is that socialist policies constitute not only a threat to economic prosperity, but also to national security through the impact they have on people's fundamental beliefs and values.

The negative impact of big government socialism has been most obvious in Europe, where many nations are now in demographic freefall, having lost the fundamental desire to reproduce themselves.  The new workers that will be required to support the welfare state so beloved of Europe's rapidly ageing population are increasingly becoming few and far between.  As a result, European nations have had little choice but to massively increase immigration, which has taken place largely from Muslim countries.  These high immigration rates taken together with fertility rates that are substantially higher for European Muslims than for the original population mean that Europe is rapidly becoming more Islamic in character.

In the past, it has normally been assumed that immigrants would eventually assimilate into the dominant or native culture.  However, the reverse is largely happening in Europe, where the native citizens are increasingly being expected to assimilate towards (the still as yet minority) Islamic culture.  This has been brought about largely as a symptom of the decline of self-confidence by Western societies alluded to earlier, a major outcome of which has been the rise of the ideology of multiculturalism, which is memorably described by Steyn as a "kind of societal Stockholm Syndrome -- a desperation to identify with anything that comes along other than your own".

The multicultural preaching of tolerance at any cost, including tolerance of the intolerant, has allowed radical Islam to gain numerous footholds right in the heart of Europe.  Large numbers of immigrants and even growing numbers of native-born have become increasingly alienated from the society that surrounds them, a process that has been hastened by official policies that have the practical effect of all but encouraging them to feel contempt and even hatred for the dominant culture.  It is thus not surprising to find that growing numbers of people are finding their meaning and identity in radical Islam, which at least offers a strong and coherent worldview for its followers.  The growing impact of Islamic radicalism in Europe, however, is troubling to say the least.

Much of Europe is now finding itself under increasing threat from home-grown terrorism, as can be seen by the Madrid train bombings or the London tube bombings to give just two spectacular examples.  It has been revealed that the security service in the United Kingdom was aware of close to 30 separate plots to kill people and damage the economy in the UK alone.  Furthermore, those that seek to question the growing influence of radical Islam in Europe sometimes face death threats and are forced into hiding, perhaps the most famous recent example of which is Ayaan Hirsi Ali.  The well-known film maker Theo van Gogh was actually murdered.

Steyn draws attention to surveys suggesting that only 17 per cent of British Muslims believed that there was any Arab involvement in the September 11 terrorist attacks.  To be fair, however, they are not exactly on their own in Europe at the moment, as is indicated by another survey suggesting that approximately one-third of Germans under the age of 30 think that the US Government was responsible for carrying out the September 11 attacks.  Both of these polls give a sense of the air of unreality that has descended over large parts of Europe in recent times.  Another poll that is mentioned indicates that 60 per cent of British Muslims want to live under Shariah law, and numerous examples are given showing how parts of Britain are now rapidly changing in small but significant ways.  These range from public authorities showing an increased sensitivity to images of pork to the growing prevalence of non-Muslim women heavily covering themselves up when going out in public in largely Muslim areas.

Steyn suggests that this is how nations die -- not by way of conquest, but by a thousand seemingly trivial concessions.  As suggested by the title of this book, he believes that, within the space of only a few decades, the US along with Australia may be the only outposts of traditional Western civilisation remaining in the world.

Unfortunately, America Alone will be difficult to find in most Australian bookstores, which tend to be heavily stocked with the titles of somewhat less insightful commentators.  If you are looking for books by Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore, you'll have no problem.  Authors who buck the prevailing trendy left-wing view of the world such as Mark Steyn, however, often tend to get far less of a run, meaning that those who wish to buy a copy will probably have to go searching on the Internet.

But few of those who take the trouble to order America Alone over the Web will regret it.  It is difficult to think of such a funny book written about such a depressing subject, but the combination makes it a book that is very difficult to put down.

His number was in the book

People, Parliament and Politics
by Walter Jona
(Tertiary Press, 2006, 228 pages)

There has been little reflective writing about State politics in Australia, and so the publication of the memoirs of Walter Jona (Victorian Liberal MLA 1964-85) is a welcome event.

Jona was always an unusual politician in one regard -- he only ever wanted to represent one electorate (Hawthorn), not use any available seat as a springboard to a parliamentary career.  In the earlier part of his career, the seat actually spanned the geographic and demographic divide of the Yarra, taking in a solid chunk of working class Richmond and he has some interesting stories to tell about how Labor politics was conducted in that suburb's notorious local council.

In providing an insight into his own work practices as an MP, Jona performs the important service of highlighting how much the profession of politics has changed.  Only in 1973 were electorate offices introduced for Victorian MPs, prior to which they either provided an electorate office out of their own pocket, or did their constituency work at home.  In Jona's view, current politicians are generally less accessible as he notes that these days they "exclude their home addresses and phone numbers from the telephone directory".

Moving beyond local politics, Jona provides a detailed account of his role in one of the key policy changes at a State level in Australia in the second half of the twentieth century.  As Chair of the Parliamentary Road Safety Committee, he was instrumental in pushing the Bolte Government into world-leading road safety measures, in particular, the compulsory wearing of seat belts.

Jona comments that there was opposition to these changes, but he ascribes this to conservatism rather than to genuine concern about whether it is the role of the state to protect people who choose not to protect themselves.  For Jona, the decline in the road toll, of itself, seems sufficient to answer any philosophical arguments.

The other political issue to which Jona devotes the most space is his role as Minister for Community Services in the building of the Jika Jika section of Pentridge Prison.  The campaign against the new facility saw "Jail Jona" posters plastered all over Melbourne for quite some time.  He presents a strong case that the critics of what was being built were generally acting from mischievous motives, rather than genuine concern, as the new wing was clearly an improvement upon what it was replacing.

Beyond road safety and prisons, and his role as Australia's first ethnic affairs minister, Jona spreads himself far and wide across political issues, persuasively on some topics (for example, preferential voting) and less so on others (for instance, compulsory voting).  The book begins with a well-argued and topical chapter on the dangers of federal incursions into traditional areas of State responsibility that got him quite a run in The Age on the day the book was launched.

As well as politics, Jona addresses other important aspects of his life.  His description of the persecution suffered by his Jewish forebears in nineteenth-century Europe is all the more powerful for its understated tone;  his recollections of the Hawthorn Football Club in the 1930s and 1940s are evocative of the era and benefit from his understanding that his father's position as club President gave young Walter privileges that were not available to others.

While Jona has been a member of the Hawthorn Football Club for 74 unbroken years and of the Liberal Party for 60, it should also appeal to a broader audience, as it is a very genuine account of an important politician's life.

Containers and their enemies

The Box:  How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
by Marc Levinson
(Princeton University Press, 2006, 392 pages)

Strictly, the father of the modern international shipping container, Malcolm Mclean, didn't invent his own invention.  It wasn't even new.

When the shipping container was first deployed on McLean's converted World War II tanker Ideal X in 1956, experiments with its ancestors had been being conducted for nearly a century.  British and French railway operators tried using custom-made wooden boxes for household furniture shipment in the second half of the nineteenth century.  After the First World War, entrepreneurs experimented with interchangeable truck bodies and steel containers for railroads.

The problem was simple:  none of these efforts ever demonstrated any cost savings to transport.  Malcolm Mclean's innovation was not the box itself, but the systematised, standardised, international network of shipping containers, freighting massive quantities of goods speedily and efficiently across the world.

Marc Levinson's The Box:  How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger illustrates clearly how great risks are taken by entrepreneurs when entrenched interests and government regulators conspire against them.  Even after these opponents are dispatched, technological and economic uncertainty plague the entrepreneur just as much as the vaunted "first-mover advantage" blesses him, perhaps more.

The story of the shipping container is the story of the opponents of innovation.

UNIONS

Before the shipping container, the job of a longshoreman was brutally physical.  Longshoreman could utilise winches to load and unload ships, but, as the unsorted cargo was dumped on the dock after its trip by railway or truck, and squeezed into every irregular space in the ship's hold, human force was resorted to more often than not.  Levinson quotes a former pier supervisor:  "Because they had to bend over to do that, you'd see these fellows going home at the end of the day kind of like orangutans.  I mean, they were just kind of all bent, and they'd eventually straighten up the next day".

Not only this, but as pallets were packed and unpacked to squeeze into irregularly shaped cargo holds (the shipping fleet used after the war was mostly converted military surplus, not custom-made cargo vessels) damage -- and "damage" -- were common.  Longshoremen would pride themselves on such skills as the ability to tap whiskey form a sealed cask supposedly stored deep in the ship's hold.

Automation, in its full-blooded shipping container form, came as a shock to the highly parochial and defensive maritime unions.  Containerships could be loaded and unloaded in one-sixth of the time it took for traditional cargo ships.  Sealed containers dramatically reduced theft.  More disturbingly, containerisation required one-third of the labour.  When the first shipping line asked to hire a smaller work gang in New York, the unions announced boycotts.  The industry was to become bogged down in union disputes for ten years after the Ideal X first sailed.

Levinson details carefully the internecine rivalries of competing unions and the negotiations needed to relax the rigid contracts which had dominated maritime work.  The radical changes that were re-negotiated slowly modernised the docks, but also spurred a massive boost in productivity for non-containerised cargo loading, as employers were suddenly given the capacity to change previously entrenched work practices on the docks.  The casual conditions and practices were, in the ensuing decades, converted into highly paid, highly structured and highly secure jobs.  But one unionist lamented:  "the fun is gone".

REGULATORS

Unions desperate to preserve existing work practices present a huge challenge for entrepreneurial innovation, but, as Mclean and other adopters of the shipping container discovered, the challenge posed by regulators can be even larger.  By the mid-twentieth century, the United States' Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) had developed a firm regulatory structure which was being undermined not only by the nascent shipping container, but also by the increasing dominance of trucking.

The ICC, which regulated the rates and services of both trains and interstate trucks, struggled to adjust its regulations to the new dynamics of trucking and shipping.  Rates were previously set depending on the commodity being carried, but in an era of homogenous containers distinguishable only by weight, this rate-setting principle began to make less and less sense.

But the ICC s primary error was not practical but philosophical.  The ICC's brief, which was reiterated in the Transportation Act of 1958, was to block the chimeras of unfair or destructive competition.  In the highly dynamic transport industry of the 1950s and 1960s, this instruction encouraged the ICC to protect existing operators from innovative practices such as the shipping container, and "piggy-backing" -- that is, placing a truck's body on rail for the long legs of its journey.

A regulator briefed to defend an industry against "destructive" competition -- a phrase which is antithetical to an entrepreneurial economy -- is not uncommon.  It is just as antithetical to economic growth.  Regulatory frameworks which are built around specific technologies or business models have no reason to promote innovation within that industry, and firms which benefit from the confines of those frameworks have every reason to prevent or resist change.

After a lengthy series of court decisions and regulatory pronouncements, the full influence of containerisation, which both ripped up the transport industry and pumped up the world economy, is obvious.

Levinson spends time trying to tease out the quantitative benefits of the box -- as he notes, "a near impossible task" -- but he quotes Edward L. Gleaser and Janet E. Kohlhase who argue that, "it is better [now] to argue that moving goods is essentially costless than to assume that moving goods is an important component of the production process".  Levinson convincingly credits McLean's shipping container as a major, if nor definitive, cause of the boom in world trade since the 1960s.

PORTS

There was a boom for the international economy, but like so many economic revolutions, the benefits were diffuse.  There were definite losers, particularly if you were a mayor in a town traditionally based around a port.  The new breed of ship quickly outgrew the available space in ports designed before the container.  Furthermore, older ports tended to have entrenched unions with just as entrenched antagonism towards change.

But some of the largest problems for older ports stemmed from the rapid change in business models caused by dramatically cheaper ocean transport.  Immediately, the cost advantages of a factory location in New York, right next to the port, were eliminated.  Between 1967 and 1976, New York lost a quarter of its factories and one-third of its manufacturing jobs.

In 2006, with "essentially costless" transportation, it is possible to distribute the production of goods across the globe.  The sudden rise of ports at Busan in Korea and La Havre in France and new ports at Felixstowe in England and Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia, capable of processing super-sized container ships is just as much a factor in the deindustrialisation of the Western world as is industrial relations.

Once the impact of containerisation was clear, traditional port cities unleashed vast sums of money during the 1970s and 1980s to upgrade their infrastructure.  In some cases they were successful.  Seattle's docks saw 10 per cent less cargo in 1960 than 1950, but had managed to resuscitate their traffic by the 1970s.  Others, such as New York, tried and failed to do so.

But by the 1990s, not even the largesse of government was sufficient to make or break ports.  Seven of the top 20 ports in 2003 had seen little or no traffic in 1990.  Tanjung Pelepas, which now handles three and a half million 20-foot containers a year, did not exist in 1990.  These new ports are mostly privately financed and managed -- as Levinson describes them, "investments in globalisation".  As container ships inevitably grow, new ports will be built to service them.

In 2006, the revolution in international transport is obvious, but not complete.  All innovation is incremental;  steady computerisation and automation is cutting down the time spent at port and streamlining the processes.  Reduced paper handling in Australian ports, and the reduction in manpower and human error it has brought, has already brought greater productivity for shipping lines.  The upheaval brought about by containerisation has cleared many of the entrenched obstacles to change.

For the dock culture in the old, traditional, highly-unionised ports, the fun may be gone, but the benefits to all consumers brought about by costless shipping are clear.