Two cheers for coercion, and other stories

Coercion: Do we ever think coercion might be a good thing? Brad contemplates what a cheating athlete can teach us about the place of law in public life.

Magic economics: The economy is a Pied Piper - a delightful and insightful image from Gillian.

Debate vs argument: What's the difference? And what difference does it make to recognise the distinction?

Peak coal: John celebrates the 140th anniversary of the death of William Stanley Jevons, an English writer who foresaw the end of British coal-expansion from way back in 1865 (and who also gave his name to the Jevons paradox). Jevons was aware that relying on finite resources brought a false complacency to social questions by enabling the deferral of questions of distributive justice. If we expect the economy to keep growing, then we can skirt of over gross inequality, trusting that a rising tide will lift all boats. If we accept that the global economy faces certain physical limits within timeframes of human interest, then the deferral of questions of distributive justice can no longer be maintained. In short, faced with limits to growth, there is a certain sense in which it becomes incumbent upon us to make wealth history (which is also the name of this excellent blog, in which Jeremy wrestles with the economic and social implications of this insight).

Mortality: Ben Myers is dying.

Chalk wars: Chalk it up to the suppression of dissent; increasingly, people are being arrested for chalking pavements, at least in the Land of the Free™. The Edinburgh Festival would go out of business if this attitude were introduced over here. And Arthur Stace (a.k.a. Mr Eternity) would have gone to gaol.
H/T Gordon for the final observation.

Twenty questions: The questions that the US press ought to asking of those who oppose climate action. These questions, from climate ethicist Donald Brown, would make for some interesting discussion starters for groups wanting to wrestle with some of the ethical implications of climate change.

Growth myths: Herman Daly walks us through eight fallacies about economic growth. A very useful and insightful summary of some of Daly's contributions to these discussions.

Last words: The final unpublished letter from eco-author Ernest Callenbach, discovered after his death. His top tips? Hope, offer mutual support, gain practical skills, organise, learn to live with contradictions.

Climate intro: The basics of climate science. It's worth posting pieces like this from time to time, since I am constantly reminding just how common it is for otherwise intelligent people to have some basic misunderstandings (myself included!).

Compliance: You never know you're in prison until you try the door. Glenn Greenwald reflects on why oppression and tyranny are often invisible when close to home.

Dodging tax: a £13 trillion issue

If avoidance is legal, how can it be wrong?
There is an important legal distinction between tax evasion and tax avoidance. The former means practices that reduce the tax one contributes and which are actually illegal; the latter means practices that reduce the tax one contributes, which are technically legal, but morally dubious, even repulsive. There is an important moral distinction between tax avoidance and proper use of provisions within tax law that attempt to make tax fairer. It is important to keep these distinctions clear.

Some question whether this latter distinction is meaningful. Mitt Romney, for instance, insists that he has paid every cent that he is legally obliged to pay, and not a cent more. This is a common refrain from very rich individuals and massive corporations. Their claims amounts to: I have not broken the law of the land. That may well be a true claim, but it is not the point of the accusation that one has engaged in morally repugnant, even if technically legal, tax avoidance.

Such a legally watertight claim has a certain intuitive ring to it. Why would I not claim deductions for which the law has made provision? Presumably, such provisions were made in order to avoid a potential injustice from which I might otherwise suffer and so my use of them could even be argued to be a moral good, allowing me to dispose of my income to bless others in ways the government could not dream of and for which the government has already planned ahead of time. And put this way, I agree, such moves can indeed be a blessing.

But that there exists legitimate use does not ensure that no abuse is possible. Alcohol has a legitimate use as a good blessing of God, yet there is such a thing as getting drunk. And while the state may legitimately take interest in placing limits of certain forms of drunkenness (such as driving a vehicle while having a blood alcohol limit above a given determinate figure), it will not necessarily legislate against getting drunk and then making a fool of oneself or being rude and obnoxious to one's family while intoxicated. So we can affirm legitimate use while noting illegal extremes and yet still desire to speak of legal - yet morally dubious, even repulsive - drunkenness.

And as with drunkenness, it is not always easy to pick the precise point where a cheery dram with companions becomes drunken offensiveness, and the distinction may not even always be purely a matter of quantity. But when inebriated revellers stagger down the street at three in the morning yelling abuse at each other and waking everyone within earshot (to pick a hypothetical example), then it doesn't take a finely tuned moral compass to determine something is awry.

Likewise, when an individual or corporation is hiding sums larger than most people will make in a lifetime from the taxman's view by pretending to have some business connexion to a microstate whose primary export is being a known tax haven, then speaking of such practices in a very different moral tone to the teacher who claims a deduction for the purchase classroom materials is no great leap of moral imagination.

And when it is revealed that it is likely that at least £13,000,000,000,000 is hidden in such havens (or more than the combined GDP of Japan and the USA), then moral outrage from the teacher who faces worsening conditions due to budget constraints is neither illogical nor untoward.

Someone who said because the law is not interested in the difference between a relaxed pint over dinner and passing out in a pool of one's own vomitus therefore there is no relevant moral distinction to be drawn would be gently reminded that the point of political authority is not to legislate every morally relevant occasion. Neither should we have any qualms about being willing to distinguish between legitimate tax deductions and the egregious abuse of legal loopholes to avoid sharing the burden and privilege of serving the common good through contributing one's fair share.

Stand with WikiLeaks

The massive campaign of intimidation against WikiLeaks is sending a chill through free media advocates everywhere.

Top US politicians have called WikiLeaks a terrorist organization and suggested assassination of its staff, and the organization has come under intense government and corporate attack. But WikiLeaks is only publishing information passed to it by a whistle-blower. And it has partnered with the world's leading newspapers to vet the information it publishes.

If WikiLeaks has broken laws, it should face legal action. But the immense extra-judicial intimidation is an attack on democracy. We urgently need a public outcry for freedom of the press and expression. Sign the petition to stop the crackdown and forward this email to everyone -- let's get 1 million voices this week!

WikiLeaks isn't acting alone -- it has partnered with the top newspapers in the world (The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, etc.) to carefully review 250,000 US diplomatic cables and remove any information that it is irresponsible to publish. Only 800 cables have been published so far. Past WikiLeaks publications have exposed government-backed torture, the murder of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and corporate corruption [plus government corruption and abuses of power in various places around the world].

The US government is currently pursuing all legal avenues to stop WikiLeaks from publishing more cables, but the laws of democracies protect freedom of the press. The US and other governments may not like the laws that protect our freedom of expression, but that's exactly why it's so important that we have them, and why only a democratic process can change them.

Reasonable people can disagree on whether WikiLeaks is releasing more information than the public should see, whether it undermines diplomatic confidentiality and whether that's a good thing, whether its founder Julian Assange has the personal character of a hero or a villain. But none of this justifies a vicious campaign of intimidation to silence a legal media outlet by governments and corporations. Click to join the call to stop the crackdown.

Ever wonder why the media so rarely gives the full story of what happens behind the scenes? This is why - because when they do, governments [and corporations] can be vicious in their response. And when that happens, it's up to the public to stand up for our democratic rights to a free press and freedom of expression. Never has there been a more vital time for us to do so.

- Avaaz.org.

I think this is a well-worded petition. There is no need to agree with WikiLeak's tactics or its specific judgements on some cables to be disgusted with or at least disturbed by elements of the official response.
PS Hooray for Rudd: "Mr Assange is not himself responsible for the unauthorised release of 250,000 documents from the US diplomatic communications network. The Americans are responsible for that. [...] I think there are real questions to be asked about the adequacy of [the US] security systems and the level of access that people have had to that material. [...] The core responsibility, and therefore legal liability, goes to those individuals responsible for that initial unauthorised release."

Kudos too to the hundreds of academics, writers, editors, lawyers, journalists, politicians and other Australian figures who have sent this open letter to PM Gillard, calling for her to uphold the rule of law. I have written to her about this as well, which you can do here.

And Malcolm Turnbull talks a great deal of sense.

As does Frank La Rue, the UN representative for freedom of opinion and expression.

And, of course, Assange himself deserves to be heard.

Balancing the budget: welfare fraud and tax cheats

I've said before that paying taxes is a good thing, a privilege in which Christians can joyfully participate. Two things are certain - death and taxes - right? Wrong. Many people illegally evade taxes or simply exploit legal loopholes to avoid them, breaking the spirit, if not the letter of the law. Avoiding or evading taxation is (yet another) luxury of the rich that enables them to shift burdens onto others. In a country moving into significant austerity cuts at the moment, this isn't simply a matter of personal honesty and integrity but of justice.

Today, work and pensions secretary Smith announced much tighter regulation of welfare, a streamlining of benefits and harsher penalties for fraud. Simplification may be a good thing; I'm not familiar enough with the system to know. Fraud ought to be penalised. But there seems to be something deeply disturbing about chasing benefit fraud that costs £1.1 billion annually (and making other severe cuts such as university funding dropping by 40%), while tax evasion, avoidance and debt in the UK amounts to £120 billion annually, more than three quarters of the budget deficit. Of course not all this can easily recovered, but some can, and focusing political attention and government funds on the recovery of these monies repays £60 for every £1 spent on it. For comparison, clamping down on benefit fraud is more like £3 for each £1.

Why then, would a government make a further 15% funding cut to its tax office in such a situation?

Perhaps these figures are incorrect (the sources are all recorded here if anyone wants to chase them down), but there seems to be a decent prima facie case for making tax avoidance and evasion a major plank in responding to the budget deficit. This isn't about penalising the wealthy or large corporations, but simply upholding existing laws. If it is replied that cracking down on tax evasion would send these wealthy people and companies elsewhere, then perhaps the UK needs to ask itself whether it wants to provide sanctuary for such criminals.

Citizens vs the banks

Over the last few days, more than one hundred and fifty thousand Australians have joined the largest class actions in the nation's history against most of the major Australian banks. The first case against against ANZ has been announced and many more will follow. The issue concerns penalty fees, which have allegedly been illegally imposed at punitive rates rather than simply covering the banks' costs. The class action is being brought by Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, and funded by IMF, and managed by Financial Redress. GetUp have joined with Choice consumer group and the Australia Institute in supporting the action. It will be a very interesting test case.

If you are an Australian citizen, have been penalised by a bank for a relatively minor action at some point since 2004 and would like to join the action to gain a refund and hold the banks accountable, you can do so here.

Can morality be legislated?

"Now the other myth that gets around is the idea that legislation cannot really solve the problem and that it has no great role to play in this period of social change because you've got to change the heart and you can't change the heart through legislation. You can't legislate morals. The job must be done through education and religion. Well, there's half-truth involved here. Certainly, if the problem is to be solved then in the final sense, hearts must be changed. Religion and education must play a great role in changing the heart. But we must go on to say that while it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that is pretty important, also. So there is a need for executive orders. There is a need for judicial decrees. There is a need for civil rights legislation on the local scale within states and on the national scale from the federal government."

- Martin Luther King, Jr. excerpt from an address at Western Michigan University, 1963.

Legislation is a blunt instrument, but it is still an instrument. It is not the only, nor often the best, way of effecting needed social change, but it may have some role. Laws cannot do the entire job, but they can play a real part in restraining evil.

O come, O come, great Lord of might

O come, O come, great Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times once gave the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

The use and limits of the law

"It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important."

- Martin Luther King

Aquinas on Law and Gospel

There is a twofold element in the Law of the Gospel. There is the chief element, namely, the grace of the Holy Spirit bestowed inwardly. And as to this, the New Law justifies. Hence Augustine says "There (that is, in the Old Testament) the Law was set forth in an outward fashion, that the ungodly might be afraid; here (in the New Testament) it is given in an inward manner, that they might be justified." The other element of the Evangelical Law is secondary; namely, the teachings of faith, and those commandments which direct human affections and human actions. And as to this, the New Law does not justify. Hence the Apostle says: "The letter killeth, but the spirit quickeneth" (2 Cor 3.6), and Augustine explains this by saying that the letter denotes any writing that is external to man, even that of the moral precepts such as are contained in the Gospel. Therefore the letter, even of the Gospel, would kill, unless there were the inward presence of the healing grace of faith.

- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-II.106.2
Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: 1946)

Many associate Aquinas with natural law ethics, in which humanity is to do that which conforms to the law of nature and which can be known naturally. However, notice that here Aquinas 'assumes that an adequate theological ethics could not be limited to or based on an analogy with law.'*

I'd love to hear what people think of this quote. Do you agree? Is this what Paul is getting at in 2 Corinthians 3 when he speaks about the letter and the S/spirit?
*Stanley Hauerwas, "On Keeping Theological Ethics Theological" in The Hauerwas Reader, eds. John Berkman and Michael Cartwright (Durham: 2001), 71. The earlier Kant quote was also cited in this essay. Please don't get the impression that my recent enforced convalesence is being hugely productive in terms of reading. This is the final essay we're reading for the reading group I mentioned a while ago. We'll try to decide this morning what to read next.

One command or two?

Loving God and neighbour

      When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.
      “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
      He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

- Matt 22.34-40 (cf. Mark 12.28-34)

I used to think love was a zero-sum game. To love God more, I had to love other things less. To love any created thing too much was to threaten my first priority of loving God. And so all horizontal loves had to be kept partial, conditional, hedged by constant vigilence, lest I get too attached to a secondary good and so distracted from the highest good.

But Jesus' affirmation of the first and greatest commandment from Deuteronomy 6.5 will not allow such an understanding. God is not simply to be loved with more of my heart than anything else, but with all. There can be no love, no loyalty, no joy, no delight and affection for anything but God. This command is totalising. Leaving aside for the moment the issue of whether love can be commanded at all, this is a shock to human pride. No longer can I feel quietly confident of having more or less kept God number one, and kept other things back down at least as far as second in my affections. This is a command I cannot keep without a new heart, undivided and unalloyed.

This command makes Christianity an offense, for the God of which Jesus speaks is not any old deity according to how we might prefer to imagine a higher power. He is speaking of the one he calls 'Father'. The one his people identified as Yahweh, who brought them out of slavery in Egypt. It is this God that Jesus demands we love with all that we are: heart, soul, mind and strength. Not four different kinds of love, but a fourfold repetition of all of us.

But, and this is crucial, Jesus doesn't stop there. Incredibly, after the universe that is the first and greatest command, he says that there is a second. What room is left? What love is still available? What has not been claimed and owned for all time by the first commandment? This second commandment he says is 'like' the first. Like in what way? "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Like the first, it is taken from Israel's Law (Torah), this time from Leviticus 19.18. Like the first, it is demanding and difficult: how can I be as concerned for the needs of one whom I don't always see, whose thoughts and needs I often don't know? But I'm not sure that this is how the second command is like the first.

I wonder whether it is like the first because it is a translation of it, a paraphrase, an explanation, a gloss? I love God not in competition with loving our neighbour, but precisely by loving my neighbour. In 1 John 4.20 we read Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The visible manifestation of our love of an invisible God is to love what we can see. Wholeheartedly. The one love embraces both objects simultaneously. Love is not a zero sum game. The commands do not collapse into one, but they are mutually interpreting. I am to love my neighbour more in order to grow in love for God. And the converse is also true: unless I am also loving this God, then I am not really loving my neighbour.
Ten points for the country in which the original artwork is located.
Some readers may have been confused by the final paragraph of my previous post Thanks. It was missing a link to Ben Myers, which is now fixed.