Here's a centenary we missed:
"In order for capitalism to generate greater profits than the home market can yield, the merging of banks and industrial cartels produces finance capitalism—the exportation and investment of capital to countries with underdeveloped economies. In turn, such financial behaviour leads to the division of the world among monopolist business companies and the great powers. Moreover, in the course of colonizing undeveloped countries, business and government eventually will engage in geopolitical conflict over the economic exploitation of large portions of the geographic world and its populaces. Therefore, imperialism is the highest (advanced) stage of capitalism, requiring monopolies (of labour and natural-resource exploitation) and the exportation of finance capital (rather than goods) to sustain colonialism, which is an integral function of said economic model. Furthermore, in the capitalist homeland, the super-profits yielded by the colonial exploitation of a people and their economy permit businessmen to bribe native politicians, labour leaders and the labour aristocracy (upper stratum of the working class) to politically thwart worker revolt (labour strike)."
- Summary in Wikipedia of Lenin's 1917 book, "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism."
It is easy to draw parallels between this description and the current state of "crony capitalist" globalism, political "bubble", media manipulation etc.
After Franklin Roosevelt became President in 1933, he made himself so hated by the American Establishment that they changed the Constitution to prevent anyone else serving more than two terms. Yet many argue that he saved capitalism, in a country that was - under severe economic stress - beginning to look at the imagined advantages of socialism.
I wouldn't say that President Trump has anything like the sophistication of FDR and modern American politicians - especially not the suave patter and extensive political connections - but his objective of repatriating work and capital to the USA is a similar attempt to shore up the system.
While the world - as represented by the mainstream news media - was fussing about statues of dead white men and "who shot John" among the warring hooligans in Charlottesville and elsewhere, NAFTA renegotiations are under way - did that feature on the TV news?
Interestingly, the longest-serving woman in Congress - and a Democrat to boot - agrees with Trump:
"The US economy and global corporations can surely benefit from international trade agreements, but that is not enough. Our trade negotiators’ top priority must be the US worker and promoting fair rather than just free trade."
- Marcy Kaptur, in the UK's Guardian newspaper on Thursday (24.08.2017)
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Saturday, August 26, 2017
The Perfect Tax (1)
There are plenty of articles explaining why taxes on the rental value of urban land/location* are the best kind of taxes (see e.g. 2013 article in the FT), some of them start with the underlying moral arguments – that land is a free gift of nature or that 95% of location values are created by the whole of society (“Location, location, location”) – and some skip straight to the positive outcomes (more efficient use and allocation of land, no deadweight costs).
(* Please note that agriculture measured by farm gate prices is only one per cent of the UK economy and the rental value of all farmland, three quarters of the UK by area is only one per cent of the total rental value of urban/developed land. It is barely worthwhile collecting taxes on the value of farmland, this is a non-issue).
Just for a change let’s start in the middle and look at this from a purely pragmatic point of view and compare and contrast three basic kinds of tax (poll tax, income tax and land value tax) in terms of these five headings:
i) assessability
ii) collectability
iii) dead weight costs
iv) ability to pay
v) willingness to pay
I’ll put numbers on all this in a later post – it is most illuminating if we assume that the government rolled all existing “taxes” (i.e. ignoring duties and rents in the narrower sense) into one single tax which would have to raise about £700 billion a year – this post is just to illustrate the principles.
Poll taxes
i) These are easy to assess, it is simply the total tax revenue required divided by the number of adults obliged to pay it.
ii) Collectability is appalling, as we well know.
iii) Ignoring the enormous costs of chasing all the people who can’t afford to pay, poll taxes score well in terms of dead weight costs as they are not a tax on income, so they are an incentive to earn as much as you can rather than being a disincentive.
iv) They score appallingly on ability to pay, by definition, as there is no correlation between the tax and your assets or income.
vi) Everybody hates paying tax. If the entire government were funded by a Poll Tax then the top third or quarter of people by assets or income would do well out of the system if everybody pays up, but they would have the same incentive to cheat as anybody else by e.g. claiming to be non-resident.
Further, there is no correlation between the amount you pay and the benefits you receive from society as a whole. A stockbroker who takes the subsidised train out to his four-bed detached house in the catchment area of a good state school in Surrey clearly receives far more (non-cash) benefits than an unemployed ex-steel worker in a council flat on Tyneside.
Taxes in turnover, employment, profits and income
These include Value Added Tax, National Insurance, corporation tax and income tax. Please note that VAT is not a harmless tax on “consumption”, it is a tax on gross profits of unfavoured productive businesses and is simply not applied to most profits derived from land ownership or banking.
i) Assessability is not impossible, as we know, but most businesses have to cope with four layers of tax on income and split up their turnover, expenses and residual payments out into VAT-able and exempt turnover (or expenses); into payments to employees and the self-employed and into taxable and non-taxable profits (reinvested profits are by definition matched by capital spending or capital allowances). Individuals have to go through the same rigmarole.
ii) Collectability. There is every incentive to avoid taxes. If it is simple evasion then economic activity still takes place, but the residual rates of tax have to be increased on those who are not in a position to hide their income (or who are just too honest for their own good). We know that even in the UK – which has quite a good record of compliance) there are huge amounts of evaded and unpaid taxes.
iii) Dead weight costs. These are enormous of course. These costs refer to the huge but invisible costs of all that economic activity which simply does not take place because of taxes. It is estimated that every 1% on VAT costs 100,000 jobs, for example, the impact of the other taxes in isolation is not quite as dramatic, but it all adds up. So businesses go out of business (or never get off the ground) and we end up with mass unemployment. The total deadweight costs are ten or fifteen per cent of GDP, i.e. between £100 and £200 billion a year (more than enough to eradicate our trade deficit and to turn it into a comfortable surplus).
iv) Ability to pay. These taxes score relatively well on that front, by definition. But remember that if you look at all these taxes in the round, the marginal rate for our median taxpayer (basic rate employee not entitled to tax credits working for a VATable business) is fifty per cent, with much higher rates for higher and additional rate taxpayers and the highest rates of all for those receiving means tested benefits. Again, the people who lose out most are those who pay little or nothing in cash terms – in other words all the failed businesses and the unemployed.
v) Willingness to pay. Although most people comply, this is only grudgingly –they are too honest to cheat and there is a vague understanding that somebody has to pay for all the things the government does. But there is no ultimate correlation between the amount of tax you pay and the cash or non-cash benefits you receive from the government. If anything there is a negative correlation at the bottom end (welfare and pensions claimants) and at the top end because the highest earners receive nothing in cash benefits and are more likely to pay extra for private security, private health insurance or private education.
Taxes on the rental value of urban/developed land
Land Value Tax in all its guises scores well on all fronts and seem to combine the best aspects of the other two types:
i) Assessability. Is easy. As a layman, you cannot begin to guess how many adults live in a particular home, how much they earn or what the turnover and profits or a particular business are – it requires the force of law to make people disclose all these things.
But working out the rental value of each site is very easy; all you need to do is to know selling prices and rental values of a reasonably large sample of residential and commercial premises in each smaller defined area. You then subtract the rental value of similar premises in the cheapest area and the balance is the “site premium”, i.e. the “location, location, location” value which is generated by society as a whole.
ii) Collectability is also a doddle. Whoever is registered as the owner at HM Land Registry has to pay the tax each year. If that owner does not pay, then the arrears can easily be registered as a charge and once two or three years’ arrears have been built up, the title is auctioned off and the arrears withheld from the sales proceeds. For sure, some land owners are not yet registered at HM Land Registry, but that is far from saying that the land itself is not registered and this has never been a hindrance to collecting Council Tax or Business Rates, which have the highest collection rates of all taxes at 98%.
iii) Taxes on the rental value have zero dead weight costs – like a Poll Tax - as they are not related to private income or output. There is plenty of evidence to show that they tend to stimulate the economy because land and buildings will always be put to their most efficient use, in other words it would be too expensive to keep valuable urban sites out of use or to allow buildings to fall derelict. If taxes on land replace taxes on output and employment etc, then this would shed the economy of the existing dead weight costs.
iv) The traditional main argument against taxes on the rental value of land is “ability to pay”, the Poor Widow Bogey. They say that the tax would hit the “asset rich, cash poor”. This is a non-argument in practical terms because it would be easy to give such people discounts, exemptions or even better, the opportunity to defer and roll up the tax to be repaid on death.
It is also only a transitional issue and does not apply to the working population (the “wealth creators”) anyway. By and large, low-income people move into cheap houses and high-income people move into expensive houses. Each purchaser will take the tax into account when deciding which house he wants to buy and will reduce the amount he is prepared to take out as a mortgage accordingly, so in real terms, the tax costs him nothing. It is the same with business tenants – they work out how much premises are worth to them, subtract the Business Rates and pay the smaller balance as rent to the landlord.
v) Willingness to pay. Today’s land owners spit feathers about Business Rates and Council Tax, and we know that the banks and land owners (and their stooges in the press, Parliament and academia) have been are running a highly successful anti-LVT campaign for a century.
But look at in terms of tenants and the next generation of purchasers. Unlike taxes on income, there is a perfect correlation between what you pay and what you get. If you are willing and able to pay more, you get somewhere nicer, if you are unwilling or unable to pay, you get somewhere not so nice – but this is exactly the same allocation as under current rules whereby land/location values are collected privately by the current land owner when he rents or sells.
This is absolutely no different to owners of big cars paying much more in VAT on the new car, in fuel duty or road fund licence. If we go with the fiction that VAT is borne by the purchaser, does anybody complain that VAT on new cars is unfair, as it does not relate to “ability or willingness to pay”? Of course not – if you can afford a new BMW, you pay £10,000 in VAT and if you buy a run of the mill family saloon, you only pay £4,000 VAT. If you can only afford a second hand car, you pay little or nothing in VAT.
Summary
Land Value Tax has all the merits of a Poll Tax – it is easy to assess and has no dead weight costs, but beats it hands down in terms of collectability, ability and willingness to pay (there is a match between amount paid and benefits received).
Land Value Tax has all the merits of taxes on income as in the medium term as it relates to ability to pay (once everybody has “right sized”) but none of the disadvantages – it is easier to assess and collect and has no dead weight costs. It also beats it hands down in terms of “willingness to pay”.
So besides the moral or philosophical arguments and the fact that LVT leads to better outcomes (an LVT-only world works better than a world without government or taxes), it is quite simply the case that LVT beats all other forms of tax in a simple everyday pragmatic sense.
All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.
(* Please note that agriculture measured by farm gate prices is only one per cent of the UK economy and the rental value of all farmland, three quarters of the UK by area is only one per cent of the total rental value of urban/developed land. It is barely worthwhile collecting taxes on the value of farmland, this is a non-issue).
Just for a change let’s start in the middle and look at this from a purely pragmatic point of view and compare and contrast three basic kinds of tax (poll tax, income tax and land value tax) in terms of these five headings:
i) assessability
ii) collectability
iii) dead weight costs
iv) ability to pay
v) willingness to pay
I’ll put numbers on all this in a later post – it is most illuminating if we assume that the government rolled all existing “taxes” (i.e. ignoring duties and rents in the narrower sense) into one single tax which would have to raise about £700 billion a year – this post is just to illustrate the principles.
Poll taxes
i) These are easy to assess, it is simply the total tax revenue required divided by the number of adults obliged to pay it.
ii) Collectability is appalling, as we well know.
iii) Ignoring the enormous costs of chasing all the people who can’t afford to pay, poll taxes score well in terms of dead weight costs as they are not a tax on income, so they are an incentive to earn as much as you can rather than being a disincentive.
iv) They score appallingly on ability to pay, by definition, as there is no correlation between the tax and your assets or income.
vi) Everybody hates paying tax. If the entire government were funded by a Poll Tax then the top third or quarter of people by assets or income would do well out of the system if everybody pays up, but they would have the same incentive to cheat as anybody else by e.g. claiming to be non-resident.
Further, there is no correlation between the amount you pay and the benefits you receive from society as a whole. A stockbroker who takes the subsidised train out to his four-bed detached house in the catchment area of a good state school in Surrey clearly receives far more (non-cash) benefits than an unemployed ex-steel worker in a council flat on Tyneside.
Taxes in turnover, employment, profits and income
These include Value Added Tax, National Insurance, corporation tax and income tax. Please note that VAT is not a harmless tax on “consumption”, it is a tax on gross profits of unfavoured productive businesses and is simply not applied to most profits derived from land ownership or banking.
i) Assessability is not impossible, as we know, but most businesses have to cope with four layers of tax on income and split up their turnover, expenses and residual payments out into VAT-able and exempt turnover (or expenses); into payments to employees and the self-employed and into taxable and non-taxable profits (reinvested profits are by definition matched by capital spending or capital allowances). Individuals have to go through the same rigmarole.
ii) Collectability. There is every incentive to avoid taxes. If it is simple evasion then economic activity still takes place, but the residual rates of tax have to be increased on those who are not in a position to hide their income (or who are just too honest for their own good). We know that even in the UK – which has quite a good record of compliance) there are huge amounts of evaded and unpaid taxes.
iii) Dead weight costs. These are enormous of course. These costs refer to the huge but invisible costs of all that economic activity which simply does not take place because of taxes. It is estimated that every 1% on VAT costs 100,000 jobs, for example, the impact of the other taxes in isolation is not quite as dramatic, but it all adds up. So businesses go out of business (or never get off the ground) and we end up with mass unemployment. The total deadweight costs are ten or fifteen per cent of GDP, i.e. between £100 and £200 billion a year (more than enough to eradicate our trade deficit and to turn it into a comfortable surplus).
iv) Ability to pay. These taxes score relatively well on that front, by definition. But remember that if you look at all these taxes in the round, the marginal rate for our median taxpayer (basic rate employee not entitled to tax credits working for a VATable business) is fifty per cent, with much higher rates for higher and additional rate taxpayers and the highest rates of all for those receiving means tested benefits. Again, the people who lose out most are those who pay little or nothing in cash terms – in other words all the failed businesses and the unemployed.
v) Willingness to pay. Although most people comply, this is only grudgingly –they are too honest to cheat and there is a vague understanding that somebody has to pay for all the things the government does. But there is no ultimate correlation between the amount of tax you pay and the cash or non-cash benefits you receive from the government. If anything there is a negative correlation at the bottom end (welfare and pensions claimants) and at the top end because the highest earners receive nothing in cash benefits and are more likely to pay extra for private security, private health insurance or private education.
Taxes on the rental value of urban/developed land
Land Value Tax in all its guises scores well on all fronts and seem to combine the best aspects of the other two types:
i) Assessability. Is easy. As a layman, you cannot begin to guess how many adults live in a particular home, how much they earn or what the turnover and profits or a particular business are – it requires the force of law to make people disclose all these things.
But working out the rental value of each site is very easy; all you need to do is to know selling prices and rental values of a reasonably large sample of residential and commercial premises in each smaller defined area. You then subtract the rental value of similar premises in the cheapest area and the balance is the “site premium”, i.e. the “location, location, location” value which is generated by society as a whole.
ii) Collectability is also a doddle. Whoever is registered as the owner at HM Land Registry has to pay the tax each year. If that owner does not pay, then the arrears can easily be registered as a charge and once two or three years’ arrears have been built up, the title is auctioned off and the arrears withheld from the sales proceeds. For sure, some land owners are not yet registered at HM Land Registry, but that is far from saying that the land itself is not registered and this has never been a hindrance to collecting Council Tax or Business Rates, which have the highest collection rates of all taxes at 98%.
iii) Taxes on the rental value have zero dead weight costs – like a Poll Tax - as they are not related to private income or output. There is plenty of evidence to show that they tend to stimulate the economy because land and buildings will always be put to their most efficient use, in other words it would be too expensive to keep valuable urban sites out of use or to allow buildings to fall derelict. If taxes on land replace taxes on output and employment etc, then this would shed the economy of the existing dead weight costs.
iv) The traditional main argument against taxes on the rental value of land is “ability to pay”, the Poor Widow Bogey. They say that the tax would hit the “asset rich, cash poor”. This is a non-argument in practical terms because it would be easy to give such people discounts, exemptions or even better, the opportunity to defer and roll up the tax to be repaid on death.
It is also only a transitional issue and does not apply to the working population (the “wealth creators”) anyway. By and large, low-income people move into cheap houses and high-income people move into expensive houses. Each purchaser will take the tax into account when deciding which house he wants to buy and will reduce the amount he is prepared to take out as a mortgage accordingly, so in real terms, the tax costs him nothing. It is the same with business tenants – they work out how much premises are worth to them, subtract the Business Rates and pay the smaller balance as rent to the landlord.
v) Willingness to pay. Today’s land owners spit feathers about Business Rates and Council Tax, and we know that the banks and land owners (and their stooges in the press, Parliament and academia) have been are running a highly successful anti-LVT campaign for a century.
But look at in terms of tenants and the next generation of purchasers. Unlike taxes on income, there is a perfect correlation between what you pay and what you get. If you are willing and able to pay more, you get somewhere nicer, if you are unwilling or unable to pay, you get somewhere not so nice – but this is exactly the same allocation as under current rules whereby land/location values are collected privately by the current land owner when he rents or sells.
This is absolutely no different to owners of big cars paying much more in VAT on the new car, in fuel duty or road fund licence. If we go with the fiction that VAT is borne by the purchaser, does anybody complain that VAT on new cars is unfair, as it does not relate to “ability or willingness to pay”? Of course not – if you can afford a new BMW, you pay £10,000 in VAT and if you buy a run of the mill family saloon, you only pay £4,000 VAT. If you can only afford a second hand car, you pay little or nothing in VAT.
Summary
Land Value Tax has all the merits of a Poll Tax – it is easy to assess and has no dead weight costs, but beats it hands down in terms of collectability, ability and willingness to pay (there is a match between amount paid and benefits received).
Land Value Tax has all the merits of taxes on income as in the medium term as it relates to ability to pay (once everybody has “right sized”) but none of the disadvantages – it is easier to assess and collect and has no dead weight costs. It also beats it hands down in terms of “willingness to pay”.
So besides the moral or philosophical arguments and the fact that LVT leads to better outcomes (an LVT-only world works better than a world without government or taxes), it is quite simply the case that LVT beats all other forms of tax in a simple everyday pragmatic sense.
All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.
Friday, August 25, 2017
FRIDAY MUSIC: Tom Waits, by JD
A one-off, totally unique. Excellent songwriter and a singer so bad he is mesmerisingly wonderful!
"Don’t you know there ain’t no devil, it’s just god when he’s drunk."
http://hollowverse.com/tom-waits/
"Don’t you know there ain’t no devil, it’s just god when he’s drunk."
http://hollowverse.com/tom-waits/
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
A terrifying - true - Russian story
Autumn 1907: Maurice Baring, journalist and writer, is travelling in southern Russia and heading back to the centre of the country. He has previously covered the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 and the ensuing 1905 Russian Revolution. Since then, despite promises of democratic reform, the government has reneged and the country is in semi-chaos, the strikes and mutinies replaced by terrorism and criminality. Peasants who have not previously discussed politics are beginning to do so and the population is full of uncertainty and dread.
In the course of his travels Baring goes to the railway station in Tzaritzyn (now called Volgograd) at midnight, for the two a.m. train to Tambov. The place is full of sleeping travellers:
"... It was like the scene in The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, when sleep overtook the inhabitants of the castle. There was a bookstall and a newspaper kiosk. The bookstall contained as usual -the works of Jerome K. Jerome and Conan Doyle, some translations of French novels, some political pamphlets, a translation of John Morley's Compromise, and an essay on Ruskin a strange medley of literary food. At the newspaper kiosk, the newsvendor was so busily engrossed in reading out a story, which had just appeared in the newspapers, about a saintly peasant who killed a baby because he thought it was the Antichrist, that it was impossible to attract his attention. His audience were the policeman, one of the porters, and a kind of sub-guard. The story was indeed a curious one, and caused a considerable stir. I wrote about it later on in the Morning Post."
- Page 381
https://archive.org/stream/puppetshowofmemo00baririch#page/380/mode/2up/search/antichrist
Here, narrated in the embellished style of his time, is how Baring reported it for his newspaper:
THE ANTI-CHRIST. A RUSSIAN STORY. BY MAURICE BARING
In the village of X., which is in the Government of O. in Central Russia, there were two men : one was called Michael and the other was called Andrew. They were both deeply religious and concerned with the things of a world which is not this world. They spent days and nights in reading the Scriptures and pondering over the meaning of difficult texts. They had both resolved in their early youth never to marry, for they considered that the human race had something so radically bad about it that the sooner came to an end the better. They decided, therefore, that it was their duty not to prolong its existence. But when they attained to early manhood the parents of Andrew contracted an alliance for him, and he was wedded to a girl named Masha. Their union was not blessed by offspring, and Michael, who continued to lead a solitary life, with rigorous fasting and uninterrupted meditation, said such was the will of Providence. The young wife of Andrew did not share the views of the mystic, and she yearned to be the mother of a child. Unbeknown to her husband she sought one night the Wise Woman of the village, who was skilled in finding lost objects, and who was versed in the properties of herbs and knew the words of power which cured the sick of dreadful disease.
Masha sought the Wise Woman in the night and told her her trouble. The Wise Woman lit a candle, muttered a brief saying in which the name of King David was mentioned, and that of a darker Prince. She gave her a small green herb, telling her to eat it on the first moonless night in June, and that her wish would be fulfilled.
Masha obeyed the Wise Woman’s behest. A year passed by and the wish of her heart was granted. A son was born to her. And Masha and Andrew greatly rejoiced over this. But when Michael heard of it his spirit was troubled. He consulted the Scriptures, and the meaning of the event became clear to him. He sought Andrew and said to him:
“This is the work of Satan. You have dabbled in black magic, and you are in danger of eternal perdition. Moreover, the truth has been revealed to me — the child which has been born to you is none other than the Anti-Christ, of which the Book of Revelation tells. And that is why our poor country is distressful, seething with trouble, sedition, and revolt, and why our Sovereign is vexed, and why evil days have fallen upon Russia, our Mother. We must slay the Anti-Christ, and immediately the dark cloud will be lifted from our land and peace and prosperity shall come to us once more.”
That night Michael convoked Andrew and Masha to his house. It was a small, one-storeyed wooden cottage, thatched with straw. It was swept and clean, and in one corner of the room were many glittering images of the Queen of Heaven and the Saints, before which burned small red lights; and besides this Michael had erected a shrine on which more than a dozen thin waxen tapers were burning. Michael convoked Andrew and his wife to his house, and the elders of the village also, and they spent an hour in chanting and in prayer, each bolding a candle in his hand, but to the priest he said no word of this matter, for he did not trust him nor believe him to be possessed of celestial grace. After they had prayed for an hour Michael said to Masha: “Go home and fetch your child.”
Masha obeyed, and returned presently bearing the infant, for whose advent she had so sorely longed, and which in coming had been the cause of such joy to her. Michael took the infant and said:
“In the body of this child is the power of Satan; in the body of this child is the Anti-Christ of whom the Scriptures tell — this is the cause of the misfortunes which have visited our dear country and vexed the spirit of our Lord and Sovereign.”
He then extinguished all the lights and the tapers in the room; it was pitch dark, and no sound was heard save the muttering of Michael’s continuous prayer. Masha trembled, for she was afraid. Michael took the infant. It lay quite still, for it was asleep.
And as Michael took the infant he said: “We must exorcise the spirit and slay the Anti-Christ, who has been born in this child to the bane of Russia and to vex the heart of our Sovereign!”
And Michael bade the people who were gathered together the dark room — there were five men, the eldest in the village, and seven women — be prepared for the great event, and he lifted his voice, and in a wailing whisper he addressed the Evil Spirit.
“Evil Spirit,” he said, “Anti-Christ, of whom the Holy Scriptures tell, through the dark dealings of our brother Andrew and his wife, who have trafficked with Satan, thou hast found a way into the body of this child, but it is written that the troubles of Russia and of our Sovereign shall be at their thickest at thy advent, but shall diminish and pass away with thy disappearance. Evil Spirit, I conjure thee, leave the body of this child.”
Then the infant cried plaintively, twice.
“Hark,” said Michael, in a solemn voice, “the spirit of the Anti-Christ is speaking. Hark to the cry of Satan, who is leaving the body of the child. Pray, pray with all your might, and help me to slay the Anti-Christ.”
And fear came upon everybody, nor durst they utter in the stillness, but their spirits were spellbound and seemed to be drawn and taut as stretched wires, in that effort of prayer for the passing of the spirit of Satan and for the slaying of the Anti-Christ.
The infant cried once again — and then it cried no more.
“The Anti-Christ has been slain,” said Michael, and a great stillness came on the assembly. “The Anti-Christ,” said Michael, “must be buried.” And he walked out of his cottage into the yard where in a shed his horse and cart were kept. He unloosed his horse and said, “Whither the horse shall lead, thither must we follow.”
The horse trotted slowly down the deserted street. That night there was neither moon nor stars in the sky. Beyond the village was a marshy plain. It was just before dawn, and in the thick velvet darkness of the sky there was a glow as of a living sapphire. They reached the marsh and there the horse stopped, and began to browse.
“It is here that the Anti-Christ must be buried,” said Michael. And they buried the infant by the reedy marsh. And all this time neither Andrew nor Masha, nor the elders, nor the women who were there, spoke a single word; and when they had finished burying the infant a breeze came from the East, and the dawn, grey and chilly, trembled over the horizon, and the wild ducks awoke, and rising from the marsh uttered their cry, and rose into the air.
The spell that had kept this assembly mute and speechless vanished with the vanishing darkness. The noises of life began; the creaking of carts was heard from the village, and the cocks were crowing.
Andrew and Masha looked at each other, and a great fear came upon them, and indeed on all the assembly, for what they had done. They did not speak, but returned severally to their homes, and Masha, when she reached her home, too frightened to cry or even to speak, sat motionless before the swinging cradle which hung from the roof of her cottage, and which was now empty. And Andrew durst not look at her. Presently he left the house and sought the dwelling of the priest. The priest let him in and there be found Michael who likewise, overcome with terror and misgivings as to what had been done, had come to tell the story.
The priest reported the whole matter to the local policeman, who his turn reported it to the police captain of the district, and three days afterwards Michael, Andrew, Masha, and the others were locked up in the prison of a neighbouring town, and a day after their arrest an old woman of the village sought out the police captain and asked to see him.
“I was present,” she said to him, ”at the slaying of the Anti-Christ. I held the candle in my bands myself when the evil spirit was exorcised. and the cause of all Russia’s trouble was destroyed. They say the Czar has given money to the others for having destroyed his enemy, and I, who am poor and old, and who was there also, have received nothing. Let me receive my due. Give me the money that the Czar owes me, for I also helped slay the Anti-Christ."
This story is true. It happened last September and was recorded in the newspapers, with many more details than I have told. And at the station of Kozlov, in the Government of Tambov, between the hours of midnight and 2 a.m., a railway guard told it to myself and a newsvendor, and when he had finished telling it sighed and bewailed the blindness of his fellow creatures, the peasants of Russian villages, who, as he wisely said, had much kindness in their hearts, but were often led through their ignorance to do dreadful deeds.
_______________________________________________________________________
- Taken from the Morning Post, Friday 05 June 1908, via the British Newspaper Archive
http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000174/19080605/121/0007
In the course of his travels Baring goes to the railway station in Tzaritzyn (now called Volgograd) at midnight, for the two a.m. train to Tambov. The place is full of sleeping travellers:
"... It was like the scene in The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, when sleep overtook the inhabitants of the castle. There was a bookstall and a newspaper kiosk. The bookstall contained as usual -the works of Jerome K. Jerome and Conan Doyle, some translations of French novels, some political pamphlets, a translation of John Morley's Compromise, and an essay on Ruskin a strange medley of literary food. At the newspaper kiosk, the newsvendor was so busily engrossed in reading out a story, which had just appeared in the newspapers, about a saintly peasant who killed a baby because he thought it was the Antichrist, that it was impossible to attract his attention. His audience were the policeman, one of the porters, and a kind of sub-guard. The story was indeed a curious one, and caused a considerable stir. I wrote about it later on in the Morning Post."
- Page 381
https://archive.org/stream/puppetshowofmemo00baririch#page/380/mode/2up/search/antichrist
Here, narrated in the embellished style of his time, is how Baring reported it for his newspaper:
THE ANTI-CHRIST. A RUSSIAN STORY. BY MAURICE BARING
In the village of X., which is in the Government of O. in Central Russia, there were two men : one was called Michael and the other was called Andrew. They were both deeply religious and concerned with the things of a world which is not this world. They spent days and nights in reading the Scriptures and pondering over the meaning of difficult texts. They had both resolved in their early youth never to marry, for they considered that the human race had something so radically bad about it that the sooner came to an end the better. They decided, therefore, that it was their duty not to prolong its existence. But when they attained to early manhood the parents of Andrew contracted an alliance for him, and he was wedded to a girl named Masha. Their union was not blessed by offspring, and Michael, who continued to lead a solitary life, with rigorous fasting and uninterrupted meditation, said such was the will of Providence. The young wife of Andrew did not share the views of the mystic, and she yearned to be the mother of a child. Unbeknown to her husband she sought one night the Wise Woman of the village, who was skilled in finding lost objects, and who was versed in the properties of herbs and knew the words of power which cured the sick of dreadful disease.
Masha sought the Wise Woman in the night and told her her trouble. The Wise Woman lit a candle, muttered a brief saying in which the name of King David was mentioned, and that of a darker Prince. She gave her a small green herb, telling her to eat it on the first moonless night in June, and that her wish would be fulfilled.
Masha obeyed the Wise Woman’s behest. A year passed by and the wish of her heart was granted. A son was born to her. And Masha and Andrew greatly rejoiced over this. But when Michael heard of it his spirit was troubled. He consulted the Scriptures, and the meaning of the event became clear to him. He sought Andrew and said to him:
“This is the work of Satan. You have dabbled in black magic, and you are in danger of eternal perdition. Moreover, the truth has been revealed to me — the child which has been born to you is none other than the Anti-Christ, of which the Book of Revelation tells. And that is why our poor country is distressful, seething with trouble, sedition, and revolt, and why our Sovereign is vexed, and why evil days have fallen upon Russia, our Mother. We must slay the Anti-Christ, and immediately the dark cloud will be lifted from our land and peace and prosperity shall come to us once more.”
That night Michael convoked Andrew and Masha to his house. It was a small, one-storeyed wooden cottage, thatched with straw. It was swept and clean, and in one corner of the room were many glittering images of the Queen of Heaven and the Saints, before which burned small red lights; and besides this Michael had erected a shrine on which more than a dozen thin waxen tapers were burning. Michael convoked Andrew and his wife to his house, and the elders of the village also, and they spent an hour in chanting and in prayer, each bolding a candle in his hand, but to the priest he said no word of this matter, for he did not trust him nor believe him to be possessed of celestial grace. After they had prayed for an hour Michael said to Masha: “Go home and fetch your child.”
Masha obeyed, and returned presently bearing the infant, for whose advent she had so sorely longed, and which in coming had been the cause of such joy to her. Michael took the infant and said:
“In the body of this child is the power of Satan; in the body of this child is the Anti-Christ of whom the Scriptures tell — this is the cause of the misfortunes which have visited our dear country and vexed the spirit of our Lord and Sovereign.”
He then extinguished all the lights and the tapers in the room; it was pitch dark, and no sound was heard save the muttering of Michael’s continuous prayer. Masha trembled, for she was afraid. Michael took the infant. It lay quite still, for it was asleep.
And as Michael took the infant he said: “We must exorcise the spirit and slay the Anti-Christ, who has been born in this child to the bane of Russia and to vex the heart of our Sovereign!”
And Michael bade the people who were gathered together the dark room — there were five men, the eldest in the village, and seven women — be prepared for the great event, and he lifted his voice, and in a wailing whisper he addressed the Evil Spirit.
“Evil Spirit,” he said, “Anti-Christ, of whom the Holy Scriptures tell, through the dark dealings of our brother Andrew and his wife, who have trafficked with Satan, thou hast found a way into the body of this child, but it is written that the troubles of Russia and of our Sovereign shall be at their thickest at thy advent, but shall diminish and pass away with thy disappearance. Evil Spirit, I conjure thee, leave the body of this child.”
Then the infant cried plaintively, twice.
“Hark,” said Michael, in a solemn voice, “the spirit of the Anti-Christ is speaking. Hark to the cry of Satan, who is leaving the body of the child. Pray, pray with all your might, and help me to slay the Anti-Christ.”
And fear came upon everybody, nor durst they utter in the stillness, but their spirits were spellbound and seemed to be drawn and taut as stretched wires, in that effort of prayer for the passing of the spirit of Satan and for the slaying of the Anti-Christ.
The infant cried once again — and then it cried no more.
“The Anti-Christ has been slain,” said Michael, and a great stillness came on the assembly. “The Anti-Christ,” said Michael, “must be buried.” And he walked out of his cottage into the yard where in a shed his horse and cart were kept. He unloosed his horse and said, “Whither the horse shall lead, thither must we follow.”
The horse trotted slowly down the deserted street. That night there was neither moon nor stars in the sky. Beyond the village was a marshy plain. It was just before dawn, and in the thick velvet darkness of the sky there was a glow as of a living sapphire. They reached the marsh and there the horse stopped, and began to browse.
“It is here that the Anti-Christ must be buried,” said Michael. And they buried the infant by the reedy marsh. And all this time neither Andrew nor Masha, nor the elders, nor the women who were there, spoke a single word; and when they had finished burying the infant a breeze came from the East, and the dawn, grey and chilly, trembled over the horizon, and the wild ducks awoke, and rising from the marsh uttered their cry, and rose into the air.
The spell that had kept this assembly mute and speechless vanished with the vanishing darkness. The noises of life began; the creaking of carts was heard from the village, and the cocks were crowing.
Andrew and Masha looked at each other, and a great fear came upon them, and indeed on all the assembly, for what they had done. They did not speak, but returned severally to their homes, and Masha, when she reached her home, too frightened to cry or even to speak, sat motionless before the swinging cradle which hung from the roof of her cottage, and which was now empty. And Andrew durst not look at her. Presently he left the house and sought the dwelling of the priest. The priest let him in and there be found Michael who likewise, overcome with terror and misgivings as to what had been done, had come to tell the story.
The priest reported the whole matter to the local policeman, who his turn reported it to the police captain of the district, and three days afterwards Michael, Andrew, Masha, and the others were locked up in the prison of a neighbouring town, and a day after their arrest an old woman of the village sought out the police captain and asked to see him.
“I was present,” she said to him, ”at the slaying of the Anti-Christ. I held the candle in my bands myself when the evil spirit was exorcised. and the cause of all Russia’s trouble was destroyed. They say the Czar has given money to the others for having destroyed his enemy, and I, who am poor and old, and who was there also, have received nothing. Let me receive my due. Give me the money that the Czar owes me, for I also helped slay the Anti-Christ."
This story is true. It happened last September and was recorded in the newspapers, with many more details than I have told. And at the station of Kozlov, in the Government of Tambov, between the hours of midnight and 2 a.m., a railway guard told it to myself and a newsvendor, and when he had finished telling it sighed and bewailed the blindness of his fellow creatures, the peasants of Russian villages, who, as he wisely said, had much kindness in their hearts, but were often led through their ignorance to do dreadful deeds.
_______________________________________________________________________
- Taken from the Morning Post, Friday 05 June 1908, via the British Newspaper Archive
http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000174/19080605/121/0007
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Josephine Baker, by Wiggia
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https://www.biography.com/.image/t_share/MTMwNjE2OTI2NDcxNzc4Mjc0/bio_quotes_articlebody_josephinebaker-2jpg.jpg
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Strange how lately small readings, items and simply noticing something jog the old grey matter into action. Two items prompted this: Sackerson's Sarah Bernhardt piece because the story was in Paris, and recently the Tour de France coverage - one of those helicopter shots hovered over what was the home of the subject of this piece, the Chateau des Milandes.
Her story is well known and a film was made, The Josephine Baker Story (1991) starring Lynn Whitfield as the artist. I will not here attempt to do the life story; that was remarkable, in that it was a classic case of child-to-star and lifting herself out of poverty - poverty in those days was sleeping on the street as a child and dancing on street corners for money to survive, a far cry from what is considered poverty today - but I digress. Below is her coming into the world, which gives a flavour of what was to follow. I have lifted this direct from Wiki as there was not a better version out there:
"The records of the city of St. Louis tell an almost unbelievable story. They show that (Josephine Baker's mother) Carrie McDonald ... was admitted to the (exclusively white) Female Hospital on May 3, 1906, diagnosed as pregnant. She was discharged on June 17, her baby, Freda J. McDonald having been born two weeks earlier. Why six weeks in the hospital? Especially for a black woman (of that time) who would customarily have had her baby at home with the help of a midwife? Obviously, there had been complications with the pregnancy, but Carrie's chart reveals no details. The father was identified (on the birth certificate) simply as "Edw" ... I think Josephine's father was white—so did Josephine, so did her family ... people in St. Louis say that (Baker's mother) had worked for a German family (around the time she became pregnant). He's the one who must have got her into that hospital and paid to keep her there all those weeks. Also, her baby's birth was registered by the head of the hospital at a time when most black births were not. I have unraveled many mysteries associated with Josephine Baker, but the most painful mystery of her life, the mystery of her father's identity, I could not solve. The secret died with Carrie, who refused to the end to talk about it. She let people think Eddie Carson was the father, and Carson played along, (but) Josephine knew better."
Primarily a dancer, she became the first black American to be become an international star, though it has to be said it was her moving to live in France where she became a huge star that sealed that title, rather than what she achieved in the States.
Although she achieved recognition as a dancer in the States, problems with her mother and rejection as a black woman both personally and as an artist drove her (with her mother's encouragement) to go to France, a place she had toured and liked simply because the barriers for black people at home did not exist there in France.
It was as an erotic dancer appearing at the Folies Bergère, appearing in the outfit that consisted purely of bananas, that she become an overnight sensation. Her fame meant she was recalled to the States to appear in the Ziegfeld FolLies, but the critics were not kind and again rejected a black woman being given the lead role and she was replaced, returning to France heartbroken and then made the decision to become a French citizen. There is of course a lot more - her many husbands, her adopted children - but it was the war story that fascinated, a story that has more to it than the rather cut-and-paste items that seem identical when researching this; in fact, it took a lot of digging to find even simple variations on the theme.
In 1939 after war had been declared, Josephine found herself entertaining a very different audience: French and British soldiers, looking for entertainment in what was (so far) the false lull in activities .
Josephine had many male fans, a thousand marriage proposals after her Folies debut, but an unlikely admirer was the 33-year-old head of French military intelligence, Jacques Abtey. He was in the process of acquiring agents to work undercover without pay for the French war effort.
Abtey had a friend who had a brother who worked for Baker, and it was he who suggested she might be suitable. Abtey was at first reluctant to approach her, fearing that if exposed she would end up like Mata Hari who was shot as a spy in WWI.* The similarities of the two women worried him and he did not want to take the risk.
But his friend persisted, saying she was perfect for the job: with travel normal for her friends in high places, she would have little trouble passing back and forth whilst performing in European countries. She also had a loathing of Nazis, who reminded her of the people back home in the States who put up barriers to non-whites.
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| http://cultures-j.com/wp-content/uploads/chateau-des-milandes.jpg |
Abtey was convinced and arranged a meeting with Baker at her Chateau. He was taken aback when she was not quite the woman he had envisaged, being dressed in old clothes and carrying a can of snails, which she had collected in the garden to feed her ducks. It improved after that as once inside Abtey laid out his mission to her over glasses of champagne served by her butler.
Her response took him by surprise. She explained that France had taken her in and her gratitude knew no bounds, she was prepared to lay down her life for the cause and told him to use her any way he wished for the war effort. Abtey had no qualms and hired her on the spot. She began training immediately with enthusiasm, learning karate and becoming a crack shot with a pistol in a few weeks.
Back in Paris she worked at the Red Cross shelter with Belgian refugees. In between playing the music halls, she started to keep an ear out for relevant information at all the parties and functions she attended all over Europe. Her international fame had spread and she was adored by Mussolini who entertained her. Within a week she had codes from the Italian embassy that were passed back to Abtey.
When the Germans invaded France Abtey was worried for her and suggested she leave Paris. She returned to Milandes where she took in refugees including military personnel and hid them in various parts of her huge chateau. Although worried about being shopped by sympathisers she carried on and even when five German officers showed up to search the chateau she charmed them to such an extent that they went on their way without entering the place.
But she was not safe there. Being black and still technically married to a French Jewish man she was in extreme danger - should she have been outed she would have suffered dire consequences. She left for Portugal after De Gaulle asked her and Abtey to to go to Lisbon- a neutral country - and send reports back to London.
The trip was accomplished by disguising it as a through trip to South America they had to transport classified information and it was Baker who came up with the idea of using invisible ink to write it on her sheet music.
Once there she was invited to all the parties held at the various embassies. Everyone wanted to be seen with her and talk to her and the information flowed. On her return to her hotel she would make notes on slips of paper and hide them in her bra and panties - the chances of her being searched were very unlikely.
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| http://solarey.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Josephine-Baker-09.jpg |
On her assignments for De Gaulle she traveled with the extravagance she was renowned for: a huge amount of luggage and a menagerie of pets including a Great Dane and three monkeys. All this made her seem more “normal.” With France now occupied she could not return home and she and Abtey (who all along played the part of her assistant) went to North Africa, setting up a liaison and transmission center with British Intelligence. Visas for travel were slow to come and difficult to obtain, but they finally made it to Casablanca, meeting up with the Free French. From there she toured Spain, Portugal and Morocco to enthusiastic audiences, still gathering information and with a career still on a high. Abtey had become devoted to her; they became lovers and had an intense five-year relationship. All her relationships were intense; she openly admitted she loved sex but as with all things the relationship side would be relatively short.
In 1941 it all stopped. She suffered a miscarriage and had to have an emergency hysterectomy, complications set in and she was hospitalised for eighteen months. During that time Resistance members would meet in her private hospital room and discuss strategy and German troop movements. Not able to perform, she became invisible to the extent that many outside of France believed she had passed away; she had to issue a press bulletin saying “she was too busy to die” to rectify the sad news.
Once recovered she was back on the road entertaining the troops and it saw the beginnings of her involvement in the equal rights movement as she insisted on integrated audiences.
After a benefit performance in Algiers for the Free French she finally met De Gaulle who presented her with the Cross of Lorraine, his chosen symbol for the Free French. It became her most prized possession. She was made a sub–lieutenant in the Women's Auxiliary of the French Air Force and later received the Croix de Guerre and the Medal of Resistance with rosette; all were treasured by her.
The Allied victory in 1945 had been sealed by the American war effort, so Josephine felt encouraged to return to the States for various activities in the civil rights movement, and in ‘63 she spoke in Washington alongside Martin Luther King, wearing her Free French uniform; she was the only woman to speak, and that in front of 250,000 people.
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| http://www.frasques.com/photo/art/grande/8129826-12682693.jpg?v=1439365306 |
Her remarkable story did not end there, it carried on with assorted husbands and lovers, her rainbow tribe of 12 adopted children, her having to leave her wonderful home at Milandes, and her close friendship with Grace Kelly who found a villa for her and the children in Monaco after leaving Milandes. During all this time she was an activist in the civil rights movement, something she had striven for all her life, the right to be equal; it made her a person who was watched by the FBI - they considered her a security threat and had a file of over 450 pages on her, calling her a Communist Party apologist; but she never relented.
Her final comeback in the States was in 1973 at Carnegie Hall; after decades of rejection, she received a standing ovation. Back in Paris she started a run at the Bobino Theatre in Paris with her good friends Grace Kelly and Sophia Loren in the audience - this was in April 1975; a few days later, on the 12th, she died in her sleep of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 68.
Her funeral drew a large crowd and she became the first American woman in history to be buried with full military honours, including a 21-gun salute.
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* Some now think Mata Hari was framed - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/was-mata-hari-framed-9245320.html (Ed.)
Monday, August 21, 2017
Like I said: Alternative Vote / Single Transferable Vote
From the Electoral Reform Society's recent report (p. 33):
The Single Transferable Vote has long been the ERS’ preferred electoral system... [It] has many advantages. Firstly, it tends to produce broadly proportional election results. But it combines this with powerful constituency representation and ties. Voters’ ability to influence who represents them, both in terms of parties and candidates, is incredibly strong.
Due to this strong link, representatives are incentivised towards a high level of constituency service*. A 1997 study found that Irish TDs were far more active in their constituencies than British MPs, while a recent ERS report showed how election campaigns in Ireland are highly localised partly as a result of the voting system.
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/2017-UK-General-Election-Report.pdf
- htp: Danny Lawson on "The Conversation" website:
https://theconversation.com/wasted-votes-hyper-marginals-and-disillusion-reform-group-issues-damning-report-on-election-2017-82613
*It is for this reason that I "voted Labour" in the last General Election. I was not voting Labour: I was voting for Jess Phillips, who is the only MP I've had in over 30 years who has shown any active interest in the constituents; and against the previous LibDem MP, who gave me the runaround when I wanted a simple question asking in Parliament.
Some argue these days for "direct democracy", but its proponents appear to assume that the people are (a) broadly agreed on many issues and (b) willing to go along with a narrowly-carried motion with which they disagree. I haven't seen much evidence to support either assumption, recently.
So I would like to see a representative democracy, but one that is made more responsive to the constituents. We've seen far too much political absentee-landlordism and over-focusing on "the swing voter in the swing seat" - the ERS points out that 533 extra votes in key marginals would have given the Conservatives a majority in the current UK Parliament!
_____________________________
Relevant previous Broad Oak posts:
http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/why-i-voted-labour.html
http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/voting-reform-av-first-past-post.html
The Single Transferable Vote has long been the ERS’ preferred electoral system... [It] has many advantages. Firstly, it tends to produce broadly proportional election results. But it combines this with powerful constituency representation and ties. Voters’ ability to influence who represents them, both in terms of parties and candidates, is incredibly strong.
Due to this strong link, representatives are incentivised towards a high level of constituency service*. A 1997 study found that Irish TDs were far more active in their constituencies than British MPs, while a recent ERS report showed how election campaigns in Ireland are highly localised partly as a result of the voting system.
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/2017-UK-General-Election-Report.pdf
- htp: Danny Lawson on "The Conversation" website:
https://theconversation.com/wasted-votes-hyper-marginals-and-disillusion-reform-group-issues-damning-report-on-election-2017-82613
*It is for this reason that I "voted Labour" in the last General Election. I was not voting Labour: I was voting for Jess Phillips, who is the only MP I've had in over 30 years who has shown any active interest in the constituents; and against the previous LibDem MP, who gave me the runaround when I wanted a simple question asking in Parliament.
Some argue these days for "direct democracy", but its proponents appear to assume that the people are (a) broadly agreed on many issues and (b) willing to go along with a narrowly-carried motion with which they disagree. I haven't seen much evidence to support either assumption, recently.
So I would like to see a representative democracy, but one that is made more responsive to the constituents. We've seen far too much political absentee-landlordism and over-focusing on "the swing voter in the swing seat" - the ERS points out that 533 extra votes in key marginals would have given the Conservatives a majority in the current UK Parliament!
_____________________________
Relevant previous Broad Oak posts:
http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/why-i-voted-labour.html
http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/voting-reform-av-first-past-post.html
Sunday, August 20, 2017
Sarah Bernhardt's Triumph
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| Image source: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/467389267558707367/ |
Sarah Bernhardt's fame was such that when, at the age of 75, she starred in Jean Racine's "Athalie", all the theatres in Paris closed for one day so that their actors could see her perform.*
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*According to Maurice Baring's "The Puppet Show Of Memory" (1922), pp. 235-6
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