Daily Archives: December 13, 2021

(Written by Javed Iqbal Wani)

In the past year, farmers have demonstrated the force of popular determination against an arrogant and defiant government. The farmers movement has proved that the revolutionary spirit of the peasant had not diminished with the arrival of new networks of capital. It has established that peasant consciousness in the country remains intellectually sharp, socially sensitive and politically militant. As opposed to the image of the peasant as a marginal figure in history, the recent farmer protests have proved that they remain very much central to the discourse of democracy in India.

The tone of the Prime Ministers address on November 20, 2021, while announcing the decision to repeal the three farm laws highlighted his uneasiness with farmers victory and laid bare his refusal to admit that their perseverance has crumbled his pride. The Prime Minister has time and again resorted to imagery of the ascetic (faqir) to make his political posturing acceptable to a wider public. He aspires to gain a superior moral authority to conceal the shortcomings of his myopic politics. His reference to his own politics as tapasya (devotion/penance) requires some probing. When a government with all the power and authority at its disposal fails to crush a democratic and popular movement, it speaks volumes of the discipline and dedication of the movement. In the spirit of democracy and justice, it was the farmers whose protest deserves to be called a tapasya, because it brought back many foregone frameworks of inclusive and democratic politics in the face of various hardships. As opposed to riots becoming an increasingly dominant expression of collective action in India, the farmers movement made rights and inclusion in democratic decision-making the source of energy for itself. Against endless negative propaganda, police brutality, and shaming in the name of a religion, the farmers stood firm and responded with clarity, sincerity and steadfastness.

It is pertinent to note that the revolutionary spirit of the farmers was registered by the ruling dispensation as reactionary and anti-national only a little while ago. It is an improvement that the Prime Minister has recently declared them vacuous. His recent address declaring the repeal of the three farm laws put the onus of misunderstanding on farmers. If one pays attention to the layers of the Prime Ministers political message, his delayed apology does not appear to be aimed at addressing the suffering of the farmers but to make palatable the inability of his political power to achieve its goal. However, in the end, the determination of the democratic and popular outran the arrogance of those in power.

The farmers have instilled our confidence in some of the forgotten lessons in popular politics. The authority of the people never gets exhausted by the government. Governments tend to see popular protests as politically unsavoury and unjustified. However, popular politics unravels collective responsibility because it demands a response from the people, civil society, and the state. It provides agency to democracy because it makes the democratic and popular active rather than just being there, dependent on an institutional outside that is increasingly controlled and partial to the ruling dispensation.

As opposed to an increasing trend of populist politics which is inward-looking and exclusionary in nature, democratic politics is outward-looking and not threatened by inclusion. In fact, inclusion is the ethic of democratic politics. Mere dependence on jingoist nationalism where defining, classifying, humiliating, and exterminating imagined threats is the primary agenda leads to the obfuscation of real challenges that the polity faces. Popular democratic uprisings, in contrast, challenge ethnic visions of a nation, confront the narrow view that only unidirectional movement of institutional decision-making deserves legitimacy. Democratic politics steer the discourse back to the people by way of questioning legitimacy and authority and celebrating diversity and difference. On November 27, 2021, with the passing of the Farm Laws Repeal Bill, 2021, and the various subsequent written assurances from the government on the critical issue of MSP and protection from punitive measures against protestors, the farmers victory was etched in the annals of history. By ensuring the repeal of the three farm bills, the farmers have done a great service (seva) to the nation not only by saving the peasantry but democracy itself. The protesting farmers at Delhis borders and elsewhere have returned to their homes, leaving behind an assurance in the end, democracy has defeated despotism.

(The writer is currently an assistant professor at Ambedkar University, Delhi)

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Farmers and the defeat of populism - The Indian Express

The idea that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch is old and familiar, but like so many popular sayings, its unclear where the phrase originated.

While economist Milton Friedman is often credited as the man who popularized the ideathe notion that free lunches dont actually exist because someone always paysthe adage appeared in Robert Heinleins 1966 science-fiction novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress nearly a decade before Friedmans 1975 book featured it in its title. (The phrase is actually the title of Book 3 in Heinleins work, for which he received the Hugo Award in 1967.)

Historians, meanwhile, say the phrase had been around for decades prior to Heinleins book. Whatever its origins, the idea that theres no free lunchthat everything has an opportunity costis one author David Bahnsen says humans have not learned very well.

For this reason, Bahnsenchief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group, a National Review contributor, and FEE supporterfeatured the concept in the title of his own economics book: There's No Free Lunch: 250 Economic Truths, released on November 9.

I recently sat down with Bahnsen to discuss his book and a range of economic subjects, including financial markets, cryptocurrencies, and the key to addressing poverty.*

Q: In the introduction of your book, you say many of the problems permeating economic teaching today stem from a flawed definition of what economics is. So lets start there. What is economics?

I define economics as the study of human action around the allocation of scarce resources. I think you get two components that are both individually well regarded as part of economics. Theres obviously a strong relationship between human action out of the Austrian tradition. And the idea of the allocation of resources being fundamental to what we mean as far as household management has a tradition going to Plato and Aristotle.

I like to blend those two ideas together. It captures the humanity of economics and the incentives in economics. In this definition you wont find anything that can be reduced to a formula or a mere econometric analysis. The focus is much more on the human person, and much less on mathematics.

Q: You mention Plato and Aristotle. In your book you collected some of the most timeless economic insights in human history250 quotes, to be precise. How relevant are these ideas today?

I personally believe that they are more important now than they ever have been. There is a certain timelessness to a lot of the wisdom that some of the great classical economists shared. Obviously you can go back to scholastics and the ancients from Aquinas to Augustine to Aristotle and Plato. There are certain nuggets of wisdom and truth there, but I mostly focused my attention on the classical economists.

Theres a lot on Adam Smith, a little from David Ricardo and Jean-Baptiste Say and some highly regarded 19th-century economists. But even as you come into the 20th century, whether its Milton Friedman or the supply side contemporaries like Art Laffer and Bob Mundell who recently passed awayeven guys like Mises and Hayek havent been gone that longthere was a time when these guys were all winning Nobel Prizes in economics.

Now the Nobel methodology has changed completely away from praxeology and the logic of human action to model-driven economics. I think its bad for the profession of economics, its bad for the academic discipline, but its even worse for the laymen and their understanding of how economics affects the real world because it strips out the wisdom of the masters.

And thats why I wrote the book and centered it around some of their foundational truths.

Q: You're considered one of the best financial advisors in America by Barrons, Forbes, etc. What do you make of financial markets right now?

I definitely believe that were living in a timewe have been for a while and likely will for some timethat were going to have to deal with the good and the bad of the Federal Reserve playing such a prominent role in the economy.

This was always one of the dangers of the monetarist school. Fundamentally, the monetarist always invited a higher role for the Fed into the economy, and we kind of have gotten it. More than just their administration of the money supply by their control of the interest rate, the Fed now has become a sort of mitigator of business cycle risks. When I look at financial markets now, I think thats mostly what were dealing with.

Why are equity market multiples at 22x or 23x earnings? Why is the 10-year bond rate at 1.5 percent, and why are investors totally okay with that? Why are real-estate investors willing to buy very significant real-estate investments for a 3 percent cap rate?

These things all seem quite expensive. But they are all done with a repricing of risk, and that repricing of risk is a byproduct of a Federal Reserve put [a put, referring to a put option, is a financial contract that allows the owner to mitigate risk]. We used to talk about a Greenspan put in the stock market, but I dont think thats adequate anymore. I think its become much more comprehensive. There is an expectation the Fed will be there to smooth out any disruptions that take place in the business cycle.

I think thats something investors have to understand. Theyre not getting the price discovery F.A. Hayek wrote about. Theyre not getting the clean allocation of capital Id like to see as an investor.

Now, I also dont want to bet against the Fed. I dont say this to take a blindly pessimistic position. We have to invest for what is, not what we want it to be. But we also have to recognize this is inviting a high degree of malinvestment and misallocation of resources. This requires us to be more prudent and more diligent in the projects we choose to invest in on behalf of our clients.

Q: You say there are major trends in economics today that should be resisted. One is the trend of collectivism as a means of alleviating poverty and inequality. Can you elaborate?

The left-wing risk is relatively well known. A greater invitation into socialism or quasi-socialism. A higher role of the central planner in the economy. But right now a lot of the right-wing populism were seeing is inviting a certain amount of authoritarianism. I think its doing it out of frustration. Theres a culture war issue, as well as cronyism and the way things are playing out in the economy.

Rather than attack subsidies and the regulatory apparatus, many have said if you cant beat em join em. That we need Big Government to work for us instead of them. Im concerned about that approach. When you have a good aim in mind and go about it with bad means, it usually doesnt work out very well.

My fear right now is that the populist economic ethos is going to embolden and empower the central planner. Its going to embolden and empower the collectivist.

My hope is that some of the principles Im inviting people to rediscover in the book can be persuasive. What we need to do is dig in our heels more around the principles of a free society we believe in, and not concede by just trying to switch the uniform of authoritarianism.

Q: I live in the Twin Cities. Minneapolis and St. Paul, like many other cities, recently raised the minimum wage. They also both passed rent control measures. Minimum wage laws. Rent control. Are these effective ways to fight poverty?

No, they are horrible ways to fight poverty. And the reason is explained through the principles that I believe need to be at the foundation of our economics. The knowledge problem leads to a significant distortion in the economy because we ask someone who doesnt have full knowledge of time and place circumstances to set prices.

When we set prices in a transaction, we take what could take place on a voluntary basis under a precondition of freedom, and we make it happen on an involuntary basis. That takes away clarity. It takes away price discovery. It takes away freedom. It takes away incentives for further developers. It could give false signals to produce.

If one believes that prices, including the price of rent, are packets of information, then rent controls take away information. And because I believe the greatest wealth-building activities in history come about by us adding information and knowledge and ideas to raw materialsthats where I believe wealth creation comes fromby distorting knowledge I think we effectively suppress the creation of wealth.

I believe that the intent of a lot of the policymakers is good, but I believe that free exchange in the economy will lead to the right calibration of supply and demand to set prices in a way that meets the needs of humanity. The government intervention is not just unnecessary, but counterproductive.

Q: Once upon a time this was basically Economics 101, wasnt it? So why are these policies coming back? Is it ignorance of economics or is it related more to the populism you mentioned?

The danger of populism is that it lacks a limiting principle. When youre content to work off a playbook of real principles in the way you develop an economic worldview and structure the scaffolding of what you believe as far as social organization, then I think youre less exposed to the arbitrariness of populism, less exposed to the potential abuses.

You say there was a time when this was considered Economics 101. I think its still Economics 101. Its just that some people have decided they dont need Econ 101. Theyll overlook the economic principle on behalf of a desired political aim and what feels right in the moment. Thats by definition what populism is.

Q: You write that class warfare is at an all-time high in the US. Why do you think that is?

If Im giving a gracious and empathetic answer, I think some of it comes down to the cultural ethos in the post-financial crisis. So many did an atrocious job of identifying the players in the financial crisis and providing proper and comprehensive cultural, political, and economic commentary as to what took place in what was the defining economic event of our lifetime.

Because we let others define that moment, were stuck with a narrative of the oppressor and the oppressed out of the crisis. The only difference is many on the right will claim the oppressor was the Fed or Fannie Mae or the government. Many on the left will claim the oppressor was Wall Street or the big banks.

The fact of the matter is we have this environment now where people believe these narratives. If youre 30 years old, your entire adult life has been bookended by the financial crisis and COVID. People see a system that has not worked for a lot of people but does seem to work for others. It exacerbates class aggravations.

Rather than digging our heels in against cronyism, against a relationship between Fannie Mae and K Street, against bailouts, against a monetary policy that serves to boost asset prices, against the subsidization of student loans that gives college administrators a blank check on how they move tuition prices, we saw more of the same.

A lot of frustrations young people have are frustrations I have. But their emotional intuition is to default to something that makes those problems worse, not better.

We have solutions that address what theyre frustrated about. We need to show that human flourishing is enhanced by free enterprise, but that message is not getting through. I blame those of us on the right who do defend free markets; were not defending them well enough.

Q: You bring up young people. They are facing a very different environment than you and I were. Any financial advice for them or tips for living?

I do believe ideologically that young people have been deprived of the ability to learn basic economics, basic finance. I want young people to have a strong self-determination, to believe in self government and the character traits and virtues that are necessary to have a fulfilling and rewarding life.

But when you get to practical finance and engagement with these circumstances, tenacity is the non-commoditized virtue. Young people cant be replaced by a robot who works harder than them. You can always have a work ethic that will make you desirable in the marketplace.

If I can talk to people before they go to college, Id say half of the people spending a quarter-million dollars on an overrated bachelor's degree from an overrated college could rethink that decision. Or at least have a little more specific strategy behind it.

For people who are already graduated or are already in the workforce, I say wealth creation comes from creating more than you consume. That is a tautology that is never going away. That will always be the story of economics, and thats the best way they can apply it to their own lives.

Q: The sustained inflation weve seen in 2021, combined with issues with the supply chain and labor markets, has resulted in a great deal of economic uncertainty. How precarious is the situation right now?

I am of the opinion that a lot of the inflation were seeing right now is heavily supply chain oriented. I think the velocity of the money in supply right now is so low and going lower that we do face a lot of Japan-like deflationary risk.

Its hard to feel that way when prices are doing what you see now, I know. But I think QE and low interests and other distortive measurements of the Fed have a diminishing return for their policy goals. And the excessive government spending has served to take away future growth, so it ends up putting downward pressure on velocity. But then you have an increase in demand for goods and services coming out of COVID, combined with a woeful capacity for productionfrom port disruptions, labor shortages, to the semiconductor problem, which is quite underrated as a problem.

So Im a little less concerned about Milton Friedman-like monetary inflation than I am of voluntary supply-driven inflation because we as a society are not producing the goods and services we need.

Im hopeful some of those things will start to correct. But Im not hopeful that the economic stagnation that theyve created through excessive doses of fiscal and monetary policy is treatable.

Were blessed to have somewhat better demographics, and somewhat better economic organic growth, than Japan. But if were going to continue at halfhalf!of our real GDP growth rate average for another 15 years, like we have the last 15 years, I think its totally unacceptableboth economically and morally. Yet that seems to be in store for us.

Im hopeful we can somehow get back on track, but right now were not even trying to get back on track. Were just debating how much worse we want to make it.

Q: Do you have any thoughts on cryptocurrencies? Are they a hedge against inflation? A revolutionary new form of money? A pyramid scheme built on speculation fed by the Feds money pumping?

I fear that Ill inevitably lose some part of the audience here, because its not a very popular viewpoint right now. But obviously I cant defend it as an inflation hedge when it has no intrinsic value. The argument many of us have made about money and currency for some time has been it has to be a stable medium of exchange. Anything that goes from $60,000 to $30,000 because of a tweet from Elon Musk is probably not a stable medium of exchange.

I think something whose primary utility is for ransomware criminals is probably not a stable medium of exchange. It will grow in its utility, I dont deny that, but fundamentally it doesnt have an intrinsic value. Therefore the question becomes how long regulators will allow it to function the way it does. I dont think that will be very long.

From an investment standpoint, whether or not one believes in the utility of the medium of exchange, why would the value of a coin inevitably go higher? The only answer for that is speculation.

That does make it more pyramid-like in my mind. Never in my investing life have I seen something end well when the majority of people doing it dont know why theyre doing it.

Q: Your book includes quotes from some of the greatest economic thinkers of all time. Mises. Hayek. Friedman. Sowell. Bastiat. Hazlitt. Do you have a personal favorite?

Ive actually been asked this question in other interviews and I have to say the same thing: I just cant pick one. Hayek at some periods of my life was so instrumental in my development. At other periods of my life Milton Friedman was.

In terms of my own sort of anthropology of economics, the way in which I view the human person and how central my belief about humanity is to economics, Im grateful to people like Father Robert Sirico at the Acton Institute. There are contemporaries like that in the book who are at the top of my list.

As far as the subject matter in the book that is nearest and dearest to my heart, it is about human flourishing and establishing our aim in economics. The material and spiritual flourishing which includes abundance, but also peace and balance and joy that the human person can have.

What is the economic structure that can most facilitate that? Thats an entirely different question than saying how can we get everyone to make the most similar amount of money to each other, this obsession with equity and wealth and income inequality. In trying to do economics as social justice, were trying to do something that is neither economic, nor social, nor just.

Q: That leads right into my next question. You write that a materialistic view of poverty alleviation dominates todays culture, one that does nothing to alleviate poverty. Whats a better way?

I believe that the number one thing we need to do when we look to alleviate poverty is, first, we need to define poverty and wealth. If poverty is the opposite of wealth, how do you create wealth?

As I said earlier, you create wealth by creating more than you consume. So do we solve poverty by having no supply-side solution, but only think about wealth redistribution?

My view is we need to focus on wealth creation. In a free society of free exchange where there is true respect for the dignity of the human person, wed never tolerate an approach that treats half of society like they're incapable of being productive, incapable of being creative, incapable of being innovativeand have them live off the largesse of the other half. I think its insulting and dehumanizing.

We want a system that creates more and more wealth creators. That is the solution to poverty. I want more people who produce more than they can consume.

*This interview was condensed and edited for clarity

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Economics, Finance, Populism, and the Fed: An Interview With David Bahnsen - Foundation for Economic Education

But as one character says to another: Why are you so afraid of the word fascism? Might not be so bad, with all of the lazy bums we got panhandling relief nowadays and living on my income tax and yours. Not so worse to have a real Strong Man, like Hitler or Mussolini and have em really run the country and make it efficient and prosperous again.

All of which might or might not be echoed in todays politics. Again, you can decide for yourself.

Yet while we think about such questions, we also should ponder how we arrived at this place, and why Trump still holds sway over the Republican Party. In truth, such de-evolution does not happen in a vacuum. It takes decades to develop, and the Despotism film offers a suggestion: If a communitys economic distribution becomes slanted, its middle-income groups grow smaller and despotism stands a better chance to gain a foothold.

Last year, I asked a former professor of mine, Peter Hayes, about why fascism is often being excused as populism, not only in this country but in other democracies. Its a globalizing world with complicated problems that can only be handled, if at all, by collective, international responses, which are hard to devise and understand, Hayes wrote in an email. Retreating into a fortress mentality is simply easier, and hating complexity and the people who seem to cause it feels good to many people.

Which helps explain why the United States is where it is now. Which helps explain why many Republicans have avoided the opportunity to move beyond Trump as their partys standard bearer.

That is fine; that is their choice. But we were warned about the dangers many years ago.

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Jayne: Yes, it can happen here - The Columbian

William Shakespeare once famously described the world as a stage, where men and women are merely players, each having "their exits and their entrances". It's the perfect analogy for Philippine politics today, particularly as business-as-usual drama is about to reach its crescendo ahead of next year's presidential election.

Throughout its centuries-long existence, the Philippines has been tossed among rapacious empires and self-serving elites. But it has not seen a leader quite like Rodrigo Duterte. For the past five years, the president has run the country like a personal fiefdom, dictating the course of politics and public discourse.

However, the Covid-19 pandemic, which triggered five quarters of recession and the deepest economic crisis in the country's modern history, has left the government exposed. As a result, a growing number of Filipinos are looking for alternatives, seeking competent leadership and a clear map for post-pandemic recovery.

Mr Duterte is entering his twilight months in power with rapidly declining approval ratings. Populist politics, nevertheless, continues to be a major force in the Philippines. Thus, almost all of his potential successors are presenting themselves as amalgams of technocratic competence and anti-establishment populism. Chief among them is the young and charismatic mayor of Manila, Francisco "Isko" Moreno, who is positioning himself as a kind of "Macron of the Philippines" referring to French President Emmanuel Macron wrapping proactive governance in populist rhetoric inside a broadly centrist political agenda.

More from Richard Javad Heydarian

This formulation is an outcome Mr Duterte's impact on the political landscape. A consummate politician with inscrutable charisma, the incumbent leader has faced a number of crises without losing his grip on the imagination of millions of Filipinos.

His political success is underpinned by a phenomenon called "performative populism", which involves mobilising a range of evocative symbols, powerful images and emotionally driven rhetoric, which collectively create an impression of decisive and sincere leadership. A public relations machinery powered by an engaging disinformation campaign and a set of pro-Duterte social media influencers and bloggers with immense reach has proven helpful.

It's precisely Mr Duterte's flair for the dramatic that explains the rollercoaster drama ahead of the 2022 presidential election.

In early November, the Davao City mayor and presidential daughter, Sara Duterte, toyed with the idea of running for the presidency, which would have placed her on a collision course with former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the namesake son of the former Filipino strongman. Ms Sara eventually settled for a vice-presidential run in tandem with the ascendant Mr Marcos. Unwilling to cede initiative, Mr Duterte threatened to run for the vice-presidency against his own daughter, only to drop the idea days later.

But while the dramatic turn of events captured public imagination, it's unlikely to indefinitely distract voters from the pandemic-led impoverishment throughout the country. All the key global rankings, from Nikkei Asia's Covid-19 Recovery Index to Bloombergs Resilience Index, have shown that, under Mr Duterte, the Philippines is among the world's laggards in pandemic management.

The Philippines has seen few leaders like President Rodrigo Duterte. AP Photo

Be that as it may, both Ms Sara and Mr Marcos have consistently topped surveys of potential contenders for the presidency, while relishing a nationwide network of supporters and massive electoral machines.

Yet, the heirs of two of the most influential Filipino political families are far from invincible. If anything, both "establishment candidates" are vulnerable to public backlash amid a prolonged economic crisis, which has wiped out a decade of developmental gains and driven millions of Filipinos into precarious employment conditions for years to come.

And yet, there is little indication that the public wants a reversion to a liberal-reformist past. Throughout the past decade, surveys have consistently shown a preference for decisive leaders, who can swiftly and effectively deliver public services. Surveys show that only about 15 per cent of Filipinos are committed to liberal democratic politics, meaning that the vast majority is possibly open to more populist, if not authoritarian, leaders.

This should come as no surprise. As the leading political scientist Cas Mudde explains, populism represents "an illiberal democratic response to undemocratic liberalism", and in the Philippines, the liberal elite broadly failed to bring about inclusive development after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship in the mid-1980s.

To be fair, there is no consensus on the exact definition of populism, which is often conflated with authoritarian rule. In simplest terms, populism can be defined as a distinct style of politics and electoral mobilisation strategy, whereby the leader claims to be the true representative of the masses against a self-serving elite. This is why scholars such as Jan-Werner Muller insist that populism is inherently authoritarian, since it is "an exclusionary form of identity politics" that portrays all critics as public enemies.

The political scientist Chantal Mouffe has, however, argued that populism can also be channelled in a more progressive direction, especially when it's narrowly employed as a tactic to "mobilise progressive passions towards promotion of democratic designs".

Ferdinand Marcos Jr, left, the son of late Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos, and Sara Duterte, right, the daughter of Rodrigo Duterte, are a formidable tandem but they are also dynasts. Reuters

Like Isko Moreno, Manny Pacquiao, too, has tried to balance his image in his presidential campaign. AFP

Thus, enter alternative candidates in next year's presidential race.

Take the example of Vice President Leni Robredo, de facto opposition leader. On the one hand, she emphasises her humble roots to offset her affiliation with the largely discredited Liberal Party, while on the other, trumpets her technocratic background, including her training as an economist in one of the country's most prestigious universities.

Boxer-turned-senator Manny Pacquiao, with his rags-to-riches life story, is also presenting himself as the man of the people who will fight against corruption and oversee economic recovery by tapping into his global network of billionaire investors.

But it is Mr Isko, the capital city's mayor, who could represent the most potent version of technocratic populism.

There is little indication that the Filipino public wants a reversion to a liberal-reformist past

Raised in Manila's slums amid crushing poverty, the former movie actor is a natural populist who appears to have sensed the pulse of the people. He has shown remarkable ease in the company of entrepreneurs and tycoons, while being relatable with the public. This explains why he has consistently ranked among the top three candidates.

Stints at the Harvard and Oxford universities have given Mr Isko a good understanding of modern governance, too. Under his watch, Manila has become one of the country's best-performing local governments. He has also drawn international praise for his pandemic management, including setting up mass vaccination centres and makeshift hospitals. He is, meanwhile, attracting big businesses to the capital.

In recent weeks, he has also sought to showcase his nationalism by taking an increasingly populist stance vis-a-vis the Philippines' territorial disputes with China and other neighbouring countries in the South China Sea.

Similar to Mr Macron, who rose to power on the back of a technocratic-centrist campaign, Mr Isko is presenting himself as post-partisan figure who will serve as a "healing president" by prioritising technocratic solutions over ideological debates and partisan mudslinging.

A self-made man, Mr Isko has publicly chastised Ms Sara and Mr Marcos, characterising them as privileged dynasts, while actively courting the support of Mr Duterte, who has lately expressed his dislike for the Marcoses. For critics, Mr Isko is effectively becoming a "Duterte lite", a more gentle and youthful version of the incumbent populist.

The reality is that he and other candidates are trying to beat the Dutertes and the Marcoses at their own game by giving a new and increasingly resonant twist to populism. Whether this will be a winning strategy in five months' time, it is too soon to say.

Published: December 9th 2021, 4:00 AM

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Can the 'Macron of the Philippines' succeed Duterte? - The National

ON BOARD THE PAPAL PLANE Pope Francis on his way back to Rome on Monday criticized the rise of western populism, advocated on behalf of migrants, and stressed the need to continue working for unity with the Orthodox.

Speaking to journalists on board his flight from Athens to Rome at the end of a Dec. 2-6 visit to Cyprus and Greece, the pope also touched on the fall from grace of French Archbishop Michel Aupetit, the former archbishop of Paris.

Aupetits resignation was accepted on Thursday after a report was published last week in Le Point magazine saying he had a consensual, intimate relationship with a woman.

Aupetit responded to the report saying he didnt have sexual relations with the woman. However, in an interview with Catholic radio Notre Dame last week, the French archbishop admitted that he poorly handled the situation with a person who was in contact many times with me.

Francis challenged allegations against Aupetit, saying, what did Aupetit do that was so bad in order to give his resignation?

Answer me, he asked the journalists on the papal plane, and handed the microphone to the journalist who asked the question. When there was no answer, the pope insisted that if we dont know the accusation, we cant condemn him.

When there are allegations, an investigation must be made, but it should not be the public that condemns, Francis said.

Pope Francis admitted that while there was perhaps a violation of the sixth commandment not to commit adultery, it was not totally a violation in Aupetits case.

There were small caresses, massagesThis is the accusation, he said, saying This is a sin, but its not among the most serious, no?

Everyone is a sinner, including Aupetit and himself, the pope said, noting that even Peter sinned by rejecting Jesus before his passion.

We must all always feel that we are sinners, and we must be humble, he said.

When gossip grows and grows and grows and takes the good name from someoneThis is an injustice, he said, saying he accepted Aupetits resignation not on the altar of truth, but on the altar of hypocrisy.

In Aupetits case, Pope Francis appeared to deviate from his previous approach to similar situations, having refused to accept the resignation of German Cardinal Reinhard Marx earlier this year over failure to properly handle the clerical abuse crisis.

Pope Francis also reiterated criticisms he made during his opening speech in Greece to civil authorities, when he said that democracy throughout Europe and the West is being weakened by a wave of nationalism.

The pope told the reporters on the plane that democracy is a treasure of civilization. A treasure that countries need to defend with themselves but also elsewhere.

Francis said he sees two current threats to democracy, the first of which is populism, which he said is starting to show its nails.

I am thinking of the populism from last century: Nazism. Nazism was a populism that defended national values. Or so it said. But it managed to annihilate democratic life, it became a dictatorship, he said, cautioning governments on both the right and left to be careful not to slip on the road of populism.

Populism, he said, has nothing to do with popularism, which is the expression of a nations identity, folklore, value, but is rather a system in which national values are sacrificed and watered-down in favor of a government that goes beyond national interests.

We shouldnt water down our identity for national gain, he said, pointing to the 1907 end times novel The Lord of the World, written by English convert Father Robert Hugh Benson, who foresaw the rise of an international government that ruled all other nations.

This is what happens when a superpower dictates the economic, cultural and social value, he said.

Pope Francis also touched again on the issue of migration, which was a primary theme of his visit to both Cyprus and Greece, telling journalists that those who build walls forget history.

He also spoke of relations with the Orthodox churches, saying they can walk together toward unity through prayer and acts of charity, while theological disputes are worked out over time. He also said a potential second meeting with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow is being planned, but offered no other details.

Follow Elise Ann Allen on Twitter:@eliseannallen

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Pope on resignation of French archbishop: What did he do that was so bad? - Crux Now

In the public-health world, the rise of Omicron prompted a great, big I told you so. Since the new variant was detected in South Africa, advocacy groups, the WHO, and global-health experts have said the new variant was a predictable consequence of vaccine inequity. Rich countries are hoarding vaccine doses, they said, leaving much of the developing world under-vaccinated. But in reality, countries with low vaccination rates are suffering from more than just inequity.

South Africa, the country where the variant was first reported, did receive vaccines far too late, partly because wealthy countries did not donate enough doses and pharmaceutical companies refused to share their technology. At one point, South Africa had to export doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine that it had manufactured in-country in order to comply with a contract it had signed with the company. The COVID-19 vaccines must be kept cold, and because not everywhere in South Africa has reliable roads and refrigeration, the country has struggled to store and transport vaccine doses to far-flung areas.

Today, though, South Africa has about 150 days worth of vaccine supply. Its now facing the same problem thats bedeviling countries the world over: Lots of people dont want to get their shots. South Africa recently paused deliveries of the J&J and Pfizer vaccines because it has more stock than it can use. We have plenty [of] vaccine and capacity but hesitancy is a challenge, Nicholas Crisp, the deputy director-general of the countrys health department, told Bloomberg recently.

The South African experience is an example of how anti-vaccine sentiment has become a global phenomenon at precisely the worst time. Nearly a quarter of Russians, 18 percent of Americans, and about 10 percent of Germans, Canadians, and French are unwilling to get vaccinated, according to a November Morning Consult poll of 15 countries. South Africa wasnt part of the Morning Consult sample, but a study from this past summer found that it had a high level of vaccine hesitancy when compared globally. It falls roughly in the middle of African countries in terms of vaccine hesitancy: About a third of South Africans have been vaccinated, a higher percentage than most other African countries, but 22 percent of South Africans werent willing to accept a COVID-19 vaccine, according to a study from this past spring, compared with just 4 percent of people in Ethiopia and 38 percent of people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Malawi and South Sudan recently destroyed thousands of vaccine doses because the countries werent going to be able to administer them before they expired.

The U.S. should not blame South Africaor any other nationfor vaccine hesitancy, or stop sending vaccines to places that need them. Vaccine access is crucial. But vaccine hesitancy is an urgent problem, and a global one. New variants can emerge wherever populations remain unvaccinated. (Indeed, its possible that Omicron emerged elsewhere and was merely detected in South Africa, which has an advanced genomic-sequencing operation.) If we had had everybody immunized in the world who is over the age of 18 with at least one dose of COVID vaccine, Omicron might not have happened, Noni MacDonald, a vaccinologist at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, told me. Some surveys suggest that vaccine hesitancy is actually higher in rich countries than in poor ones, so the virus is just as likely to evolve into some dreadful new form in an unvaccinated Americans body as in a Congolese or Russian persons.

Read: Inside the mind of an anti-vaxxer

If policy makers want to limit the damage that Omicron and future variants do, theyll have to better understand why people reject vaccines. Something as complex as vaccine hesitancy is bound to have many causes, but research suggests that one fundamental instinct drives it: A lack of trust. Getting people to overcome their hesitancy will require restoring their trust in science, their leaders, and, quite possibly, one another. The crisis of vaccine hesitancy and the crisis of cratering trust in institutions are one and the same.

The world over, people feel lied to, unheard, and pushed aside. They no longer have any faith in their leaders. Theyre lashing out against their governments and health officials, in some cases by rejecting the COVID-19 vaccine.

Populism, a political expression of this mistrust, is correlated with vaccine hesitancy. In a 2019 study, Jonathan Kennedy, a sociologist at Queen Mary University of London, found a significant association between the percentage of people who voted for populist parties within a country and the percent who believe vaccines are not important or effective. Past research has similarly found that populists around the world are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories about issues such as vaccination and global warming. Vaccine hesitancy and political populism are driven by similar dynamics: a profound distrust in elites and experts, Kennedy writes. In politics, populism manifests as supporting parties and figures outside the mainstream, like Donald Trump or UKIP. But populism can be expressed differently in other spheres. In public health, theres this growing distrust and anger towards doctors, also towards pharmaceutical companies. Medical populism is skepticism that's uninformed, Kennedy told me.

Medical literature reveals a strong connection between vaccine hesitancy and distrust of pharmaceutical companies, government officials, and health-care workers, even among health-care workers themselves. Studies and polls from various countries over the past two years show that people who are reluctant to get a COVID-19 vaccine are more likely to vote for politically extreme parties and to distrust the government, and to cite their distrust as a reason for not getting the shot. In a recent German poll, half of the unvaccinated respondents had voted for the far-right populist party, Alternative fr Deutschland, in the recent election. Anti-vaccine sentiments are also most common in the populist areas of Austria, France, and Italy.

In South Africa, vaccine hesitancy is higher among white South Africans than among Blacks, though whites are more likely to have been vaccinated, possibly because of better access, an August survey found. Some white South Africans mistrust the countrys government, which is led by politicians from the Black majority. South Africans circulate American anti-vaccine material on WhatsApp and Facebook, including videos by Tucker Carlson and memes about Tony Fauci, says Eve Fairbanks, a Johannesburg-based journalist at work on The Inheritors, a book about South Africa. A group representing the Afrikaans-speaking white minority, AfriForum, recently came out against vaccine mandates. I feel like theres a little bit of a posturing and a sort of feeling of being marginalized among white South Africans, Fairbanks said. One of the biggest losses that white South Africans suffered after the end of racial segregation was not material, but it was status. Among Black South Africans, skepticism toward doctors might arise from the fact that pro-apartheid arguments were often rooted in wrong, but supposedly scientific, beliefs about differences between races.

Though many factors contributed to the erosion of trust in government and science, Kennedy highlighted one in particular: As the postwar narrative of optimism and progress failed to pan out for some people, they became suspicious and angry. Theres large amounts of the population that havent benefited economically from globalization, he said. Theres lots of people who feel increasingly disenfranchised by politics; they feel like mainstream politicians are aloof and arent interested in them. Populism and anti-vax sentiment, then, seems to be a kind of rejection of this narrative of civilizational progress ... Its kind of like a scream of helplessness.

Perhaps no country better exemplifies the role of trust in vaccine uptake than Russia, one of the most vaccine-hesitant countries on Earth. Despite the fact that its vaccine, Sputnik V, was one of the first developed, only 40 percent of Russians have been vaccinated. Russian anti-vaxxers are numerous and include opposition activists, Communists, and some Orthodox figures.

Russia, and Eastern Europe in general, has an extremely low level of trust in institutions: One in three Eastern Europeans doesnt trust the health-care system, compared to one in five residents of the European Union on average. Romania and Bulgaria have also vaccinated only small fractions of their populations, despite an abundance of vaccines, in part because trust in health care is much lower in these formerly communist countries. One of the legacies of the Soviet health-care system is the high level of bureaucracy, says Elizabeth King, a professor of health behavior at the University of Michigan who has studied Russia. The multilevels of bureaucracy also work to erode trust in the medical-care system, including vaccination efforts.

Russia also spreads vaccine hesitancy beyond its borders with the help of government-funded news sites and trolls. Russian state news agencies have gleefully amplified every complication and casualty from vaccines produced by BioNTech-Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca and gloated over every development hiccup. Meanwhile, the Russian foreign broadcaster RT has been feeding Western audiences anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories, comparing lockdowns and other restrictions to the Nazi occupation and apartheid, the Russian journalist Alexey Kovalev wrote in Foreign Policy. Russian trolls have, for years, posted anti-vaccine content to social media, hoping to sow division in the U.S. During the pandemic, Russia Todays German-language channels have promoted skeptical views of vaccines, masks, and lockdowns. At one point, the Russian government used fake news sites to undermine trust in the Pfizer vaccine, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Read: Vaccinated America has had enough

Russia-specific factors contribute to this distrust in vaccines: Russia has a tradition of folk medicine, perhaps allowing skeptical Russians to believe that there are alternatives to vaccination. Sputnik V was released quickly and with little public data, making it hard to trust, and Russian President Vladimir Putins government has issued conflicting and confusing statements about the true scope of the pandemic. After centuries of government mistreatment, fatalism pervades Russia, and some Russians have come to the conclusion that it doesnt matter whether they get COVID or not. Judy Twigg, a global-health professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who focuses on Russia, told me she hears arguments from Russians like, This is just another in a long series of ongoing catastrophes affecting our country, or Whats going to happen is going to happen, and everything is always terrible. More and more, people outside Russia seem to feel the same way about their own countries.

Restoring trust in institutions will be hard. The simplest step governments can take immediately is making it easier to get the vaccine and to learn about it. Developing countries havent, for the most part, had the money to invest in flashy pro-vaccine ad campaigns. How easy I make it for you to get information about the vaccines thats of good quality, and how easy I make it for you to be able to access that vaccine, makes a huge difference on vaccine acceptance, MacDonald said.

Though some low-income countries might have adequate doses right now, being forced to wait for doses while the rest of the world swam in them might have increased vaccine skepticism. If you cant have what you should have, sometimes you rationalize it by saying you dont need it, says Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health.

But mostly, restoring trust in medicine and vaccines comes down to the extremely boring and extremely necessary task of properly funding public health, even when theres not a pandemic raging. African countries have struggled to vaccinate willing people with the doses they have, because clinics are few and the health workforce is strapped. Sometimes even political populism can be overcome if the public-health system is strong: Brazil, where trust in the public-health Sistema nico de Sade is high, has an excellent immunization track record despite having a populist leader. Brazilians trust the SUS with their lives, so they trust it for their shots.

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Whats Really Behind Global Vaccine Hesitancy - The Atlantic

Mandatory vaccination these words could well be two of the most controversial of 2021. But so contentious that they could divide German society?

At the moment, it certainly feels that way.The fact thatvaccination against COVID-19 could well become compulsory next year in Germanyhas prompted much heated debate.

But before we start making things worse by banging on about polarization in a knee-jerk reaction, it is worthwhile to pause for a bitand listen.

Listening, for example, to what the new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said about the day that he was elected about the vaccination causing the much-cited rift in society. "I don't think much of that view of things," he said, pointing out that most citizens have been vaccinated.

And he is right. As of December 10, almost 70% have received the full dose of the vaccine."And many more think that this is right or at least not wrong in principle," Scholz added. That is also true.

But he really hit the markwith this sentence: "We must not assume that the whole of society is split just because a vocal minority is being extremely radical in its behavior." Well said, Mr.Chancellor! If anybody doubts his words, they should take a closer look at studies on polarization and populism. There are many of these, and their findings are clear: Social cohesion is much greater than many people would assume.

DW's Marcel Frstenau

In a study conducted for Germany's Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Jochen Roose, who researches elections and society, wrote: "At the beginning of 2019, two-thirds of the population believed that there was little or no cohesion in society. This perception of polarization has declined during the COVID-19 pandemic. Agreement with the statement 'In our society, people are irreconcilably opposed to each other' decreased from 41% before the pandemic to 31% in the pandemic."

It should be notedthat this is how people in Germany themselvesassess the situation.

The Bertelsmann Populism Barometer also contains reassuring statements:"Currently, only about two in 10 eligible voters in Germany (20.9%) remain populist in their views. That's 11.8 percentage points, or a little more than a third, less than in November 2018 (32.8%)."

This also contradicts the widespread perception of an increasingly divided society.

Why then is there so much talk of division, polarization and conspiracy theories? One explanation is that we live in a so-called media democracy. What is positive about the digital age is that anyone can, in theory, express themselves about anything at any time, thanks to social media.But the negative side of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the like is their unbridled buzz potential. And that's where age-old reflexes kick in: The louder and more agitated someone appears, the more attention they attract.

According to a study by public broadcasters, only a minority of people use social media in Germany. In 2020, 26% were active on Facebook, 20% on Instagram and only 5% on Twitter. However, there are people in certain sectorswho are particularly active: politicians,activists of all stripesand journalists.

All of them want and have to put their messages out in front of the public, and it is unthinkable to do so today without social media platforms since those who disregard these platforms are no longer heard or seen. Tweets and other posts on social mediahave become the fastest way of broadcasting an opinion without being asked for one. Such opinion-giverswould mostly remain among themselves if not for theother people and channelsthat spread their views. As it is, however,they can sometimes reach millions through more traditional media platforms, especiallyTV talk shows.

In the never-ending competition for audiences, ratings and clicks, sensational headlines and exaggerationare part of the trade. A debate about the pros and cons of mandatory vaccination can thus quickly give the impression of a divided society.

But here, too, Olaf Scholz had something sensible to say: "Of course, this can be debated fiercely. And that is not a problem at all. That's what democracy is about."

To conclude, let us look at an award-winning essay entitled "Anger and Worldview" by Paula Khler of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. The author argues that Germany is not so much experiencing a polarization of society as a whole but a debate that it is increasingly personalized.

"A small part of the population (political elites and opinion-makers)[is] bombarded with hatred and slanderby an equally unrepresentative small part of the population (angry online trolls)," she writes. And this, in turn, she says, impacts the broader debate culture.

Unfortunately, she is right there.

This article has been translated from German.

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Opinion: The myth of a divided German society - DW (English)

Succession9pm, Sky Atlantic

As Shiv stirred the pot around his predilection for sending nude pics to Gerri, it seemed that Roman was having the worst week of all the Roy siblings. Kendall wasnt faring too well either, with Logan having reneged on his earlier offer to end their civil war and let him cash out. Then came the end of episode eight, and the moment of tragedy viewers had been both dreading and anticipating all season (and could it really be?). With all the bickering, backstabbing and Lukas Matssons tech bro twaddle suddenly rendered utterly trivial, prepare yourself for a devastating, revelatory end to this masterful third series. Hannah J Davies

Part polemic, part appeal for common sense, this documentary sees Twitter addict Baddiel explore the grim synergy between new communications technology and dysfunctional movements ranging from rightwing populism to cancel culture. Its understandably light on plausible solutions but, at the very least, its a thoughtful acknowledgment that, collectively, we have a big problem that isnt going away any time soon. Phil Harrison

More mechanical tinkering from Guy Martin in this episode, prepare for the slowest and least glamorous race of his career. Underpowered, functional and basic in every sense, the Trabant was a symbol of pre-glasnost East Germany. Guy prepares for a race at Brands Hatch in which these dowdy vehicles are pushed to their limits. PH

Romesh Ranganathan is in charge of the banter-fuelled panel shows festive fun this year and hes dragging Freddie Flintoff and Jamie Redknapp to Center Parcs for physical challenges with a variety of special guests. Ranganathan also likes to get his mum involved tonight, shes helping him serve a Sri Lankan Christmas meal. PH

All flu-ridden Beth (Arabella Weir) wants is a hot water bottle, so every neighbour in town is popping in to give advice, soup and anecdotes about legendary colds theyve had. The action reaches a climax when tact vacuum Cathy (the fabulous Doon Mackichan) turns up to bring her unique brand of entertainment and tough love. Hannah Verdier

Christmas with the Cockfields rings in festive drama. Simon has made time out from his busy work schedule to visit his mother two days after the 25th only to find friction with his stepfather. Tensions rise but can a trip to the pub bring peace? HV

Championship football: Sheffield United v Queens Park Rangers Mon, 7pm, Sky Sports Main Event. From Bramall Lane.

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TV tonight: Successions devastating finale - The Guardian