Why England's spinners are better

	Swann and Panesar have been more impressive than the Indian spinners, despite theoretically having had to bowl to batsmen more adept at playing spin © Getty Images Enlarge

A look at why Panesar and Swann have outbowled Ojha and Ashwin in India

Aakash Chopra in Cricinfo

December 13, 2012

There were times in India when the sight of a spinner running in to the crease was intimidating for the batsman. The close-in fielders hovered, standing by to take the catches that would inevitably be produced. Back then Indian spinners sent out strong signals - that they were as lethal as the Caribbean quick bowlers, and no second fiddles. Invariably India's spinners were superior to those from other countries, and the land of Bedi, Chandrashekhar and Prasanna kept producing quality spinners, so much so that some of them didn't even play for India - for these three kept going for years. 

Today, though, even on wilting, dusty turners, Indian spinners don't hold the same threat. For the longest time, dishing out a dustbowl guaranteed success, for India's batsmen would score a mountain of runs and the spinners would bowl the opposition out twice, double quick. But since the retirement of Anil Kumble, things have changed.

The signs of the downward spiral have been there for everyone to see. The lowest ebb has been reached in the ongoing series against England - probably the first time in Indian cricket's history that a visiting team from outside the subcontinent has had the services of better spinners, and the decision to dish out a rank turner has been more likely to backfire on India than guarantee success - as happened in Mumbai.

Why is it that Monty Panesar and Graeme Swann are extracting a lot more out of the tracks than their Indian counterparts? (Remember also that they're bowling against a batting line-up that is known for its proficiency against the turning ball.)

Panesar has been the most impressive bowler in the series, operating at a pace ideally suited to the tracks provided thus far. He bowls at least 10kph quicker than is usually recommended for spinners. While that extra pace goes against him on good batting surfaces - because he doesn't keep the ball in the air long enough to create deception - it's working absolutely fine on slow Indian pitches. The extra pace in the air doesn't allow the batsman the luxury of stepping out or of waiting on the back foot. It is this extra pace that made Panesar unplayable at times in Mumbai, because handling a viciously turning ball at high speeds is extremely difficult.

If it was only about the pace, then why didn't India's spinners crack the code and bowl quicker too? After all, how difficult could it be to increase your pace as a spinner?

That's where the basics are important, for speed can work in your favour only if the ball comes out of the hand properly, with enough revolutions on it. That's precisely where Panesar has scored over Pragyan Ojha.

Panesar's action is that of a classical left-arm spinner, with the bowling arm very close to the ear, which enables him to not only get the wrist position slightly tilted (about 45 degrees) at the point of release but also to extract more bounce off the surface with the higher point of release.

He delivers from the middle of the box, which allows him to bowl a lot straighter. Bowling closer to the stumps makes his arm ball a lot more effective, for it is always pitching and finishing in line with the stumps. Also, his follow-through takes him towards the batsman, which means the body momentum is heading in the direction of the ball; that translates into him getting a fair bit of zip off the surface.

In contrast, Ojha releases the ball from the corner of the box, and his bowling arm is further away from the ear than in Panesar's case. Ojha's position on the crease creates an acute angle, which might give a false impression of the ball drifting in. It also means he needs a lot of assistance from the pitch to generate spin off the surface to compensate for that angle. His wrist position is slightly more tilted than Panesar's at the point of release, which negatively affects not just bounce off the surface but also his chances of turning the ball. Finally, there's no follow-through whatsoever: Ojha stops as soon as he delivers the ball, which indicates that his bowling is a lot about wrist and shoulder instead of being about hips and torso as well.

Swann is technically superior to R Ashwin too. His bowling is all about using every limb to impart more revolutions on the ball. Since he plays most of his cricket on unresponsive English pitches, he has learnt the importance of putting revs on the ball every single time, which creates deception in the air by making the ball dip on the batsman, and also produces bite off the surface.

	In Test cricket there needs to be a stock ball that one should bowl, ball after ball. You need to create deception in the air by varying the lines and speeds ever so slightly

Swann doesn't have too many variations; in fact he has got only two deliveries - the one that spins in to the right-hander and the arm ball that goes straight on. Having fewer variations has led him to become more patient, and made him rely on changing the point of release, speed and flight without compromising on length. He has struck a fine balance between being aggressive and being patient.

His lines of operation to right-handed batsmen are slightly outside off, challenging the batsman to play against the spin. Against the left-handers, he bowls a lot closer, cramping them for room. Like with Panesar, Swann's body momentum too takes him towards the batsman.

Ashwin, on the other hand, has a lot of tricks in his bag. He can bowl the traditional offspinner, a doosra and a carrom ball at will, and with a reasonable amount of control. His high-arm action gets him bounce off the surface too. But while having so many options works wonders in the shorter formats, where the batsmen can't line him up, it works against him in Test cricket.

Wickets in Test matches are a result of setting up a dismissal, and for that you need to be patient, almost bordering on being boring and predictable. There needs to be a stock ball that one should bowl, ball after ball. You need to create deception in the air by varying the lines and speeds ever so slightly. The longer you keep the batsman occupied with one kind of delivery, the better your chances of the variation catching him off guard. Ashwin, with all the weapons in his armoury, feels obliged to bring them out at regular intervals. This hampers his consistency with line and length, and results in him offering up boundary balls often.

Technically, while his wrist and arm position are good, like Ojha he too doesn't put his body behind the ball as much as he should; he falls towards the left after delivering the ball, instead of taking the momentum towards the batsman.

The quality of India's spinners was one of the reasons the team became a force to reckon with in Test cricket. The remarkable records at home were all courtesy spin. India may have had a pantheon of quality spinners but the current crop does not seem to have been able to master the craft. There are plenty of former players around who were masters of the skill. Time India got these veterans to guide the youngsters on how to spin a web around teams again.

Google's tax avoidance is called 'Capitalism'

 Google chairman Eric Schmidt has insisted that he is "very proud" of the company's tax structure, and said that measures to lower its payments were just "capitalism". 

 

Also read Britain could end these tax scams by hitting the big four accountancy firms

 

Mr Schmidt's comments risk inflaming the row over the amount of tax multinationals pay, after it emerged that Google funnelled $9.8bn of revenues from international subsidiaries into Bermuda last year in order to halve its tax bill. Photo: Bloomberg News

 

By Telegraph Staff

6:50PM GMT 12 Dec 2012

 

Mr Schmidt's comments risk inflaming the row over the amount of tax multinationals pay, after it emerged that Google funnelled $9.8bn (£6.07bn) of revenues from international subsidiaries into Bermuda last year in order to halve its tax bill.

However, Mr Schmidt defended the company's legitimate tax arrangements. “We pay lots of taxes; we pay them in the legally prescribed ways,” he told Bloomberg. “I am very proud of the structure that we set up. We did it based on the incentives that the governments offered us to operate.”

“It’s called capitalism,” he said. “We are proudly capitalistic. I’m not confused about this.”

In Britain Vince Cable was unimpressed by Mr Schmidt’s views. The Business Secretary told The Daily Telegraph: “It may well be [capitalism] but it’s certainly not the job of governments to accommodate it.”

A Californian pressure group called Consumer Watchdog wrote to the Senate’s Finance Committee demanding a hearing on Google’s “global tax avoidance strategies”.

Consumer Watchdog’s director John Simpson called for the Committee to schedule a time for Mr Schmidt and Google’s chief executive could “testify under oath and explain their company’s apparent abuse of the tax code to the detriment of all who play fairly.”

Mr Simpson urged the Senate to work with “other countries’ tax authorities” to “put an end to egregious loopholes that allow cynical exploitation by this generation’s Robber Barons.”

“Governments in Europe, many of which have been targets of Google’s morally bankrupt tax policies, are actively seeking redress,” he wrote. “But this is not a problem that only impacts other countries’ revenues. Google’s tactics strike at the US Treasury as well, forcing the rest of us to make up for the Internet giant’s unwillingness to pay its fair share.”

He added: “What makes Google’s activities so reprehensible is its hypocritical assertion of its corporate motto, 'Don’t Be Evil'.”

Documents filed last month in the Netherlands show that Britain is Google’s second biggest market generating 11pc of its sales, or $4.1bn last year.

But the company paid just £6m in corporation tax. Overall, Google paid a rate of 3.2pc on its overseas earnings, despite generating most of its revenues in high-tax jurdisdictions in Europe.
The company reportedly uses complex tax schemes called the Double Irish and Dutch Sandwich, which take large royalty payments from international subsidiaries and pay tax in low rate regimes.
By channelling its revenues through Bermuda, Google avoided $2bn of global income levies last year.

The tax arrangements add fuel to accusations made by British MPs that Google and other firms including Starbucks and Amazon, have been “immorally” minimising its tax bills.
 
Matt Brittin, Google’s UK boss, said MPs were blaming companies for a system that they had designed. “Google plays by the rules set by politicians,” he said. “The only people who really have choices are politicians who set the tax rates.”

Last week, Starbucks caved into public pressure and promised to pay £20m to the Treasury over the next two years. However the trigger more criticism of “optional” tax payments.

Figuring out the Modi speed machine

Vidya Subrahmaniam

The Hindu

Rural Gujarat is in distress and today more and more people seem willing to speak out against Narendra Modi. Yet even his detractors say he will win

You should go to Gujarat only if you can will yourself to dismiss the contrarian signals: Because in the land of Narendra Modi, anything that mars the big picture, which is Narendra Modi himself, can be a red herring.

So much so, even the grouch with the litany of complaints — oh yes, he exists and his tribe is growing — will say in the end that much as he wishes otherwise, nothing can stop the three-time Chief minister from winning again. Apparently, the only point of curiosity in election 2012 is whether Modi will hold his current tally of 117 of 182 Assembly seats or fall behind it and, if the latter, by how much.

The 2007 scenario

I stepped into the Modi minefield in the 2007 Assembly election when the theoretical odds seemed stacked against the Chief Minister. In September of that year, Saurashtra, accounting for 54 seats, had risen in revolt against Modi; in a spectacle quite at odds with the picture of bounty and happiness that was Gujarat in the publicity brochures, over 5 lakh farmers had gathered in Rajkot, denouncing the Chief Minister for leaving them to rot while he ministered to the business-affluent classes. “We will finish you,” the milling, surging crowds vowed, their war-cry echoing off the power corridors of Gandhinagar.

As elections neared, the underclass, their wretchedness revealed in their tattered clothing and the lines on their faces, turned up in hordes to hear Sonia Gandhi. The numbers, formed by Gujarat’s poor, Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims, seemed ranged on her side. This not counting Modi’s own not inconsiderable problems. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, whose cadre worked on the ground to deliver votes to the Bharatiya Janata Party, was deeply discomfited by the growing personality cult around Gujarat’s Chief Minister: The sangh’s once disciplined, devoted foot-soldier was now an icon who inspired hysteria and revelled in it too. An influential local RSS leader told me that Modi had crossed the line on a fundamental sangh belief: vyakti se paksh mahan, paksh se desh mahan (party is greater than person, country is greater than party). Modi as an autonomous power centre also upset sections of the administration, from ministers and bureaucrats to lower level staff, police personnel and teachers. The latter manned the election machinery and conventional wisdom had it that you didn’t win elections by alienating them.

On the other hand, there was Modi’s incredible chemistry with the voters, visible at all his rallies. They wore Modi masks, waved his posters and roared in approval as he made off-colour jokes about Sonia and the Congress. On counting day, the arithmetic came apart. The policeman who had called up a day earlier to tell me “Hitler is losing,” was untraceable. The RSS was numb with shock, and most unbelievably, it was a near clean-sweep for Modi in dissenting Saurashtra. Like Indira Gandhi, Modi had dispensed with party and government — in his case also the sangh — and connected directly with the people. The crowds that attended the Congress chief’s rallies had no one to vote for in the Congress whose local leadership was diminished even more by Modi’s towering presence.

Returning to Gujarat five years later, I’m struck by the far wider rich-poor gulf. Ahmedabad exemplifies Shining Gujarat, with showrooms and shopping plazas to rival the best in Europe. The beautified Sabarmati Riverfront is a captivating sight that is the regime’s newest pride. Happy stories greet the visiting journalist on the mofussil stops along the super highway from the State Capital to Rajkot in Saurashtra. “Narendrabhai, Narendrabhai” chant little children as their parents gush about the rewards of having Modi as Chief Minister: uninterrupted power supply, adequate water, pucca roads, houses, strife and fear-free environment and, above all, a leader who fans the fires of Gujarati asmita (identity) . At Sangani in Chotila, Sarpanch Waghabhai Danabhai describes Modi as a God-send to Gujarat. Next door, Bharatbhai, who is unemployed, gives Modi 130 seats, up 13 from 2007, and insists that after this election, he would be unstoppable on the road to Delhi and Prime Ministership. Bharatbhai is unbothered by his own jobless state.

Off the highway into rural Saurashtra, the narrative changes gradually, yet dramatically — from striking prosperity and raging Modi-mania to poorer habitations and robust Modi-bashing. This is also Keshubhai country. The BJP veteran and now leader of the Gujarat Parivartan Party, had sided with the Congress in 2007 only for his dream to go up in smoke. His Leva Patel community preferred Modi to the Congress. Now his hope is that the GPP will tap into the anger which had no outlet then.

Indeed, in the deeper interiors the shine entirely comes off Gujarat’s magnificent bijli, paani, sadak (power, water, roads) story, told and retold by Modi, and magnified online and offline by his manic fan clubs. Patchy and potholed roads are quite the norm here. The villages here could be from impoverished Uttar Pradesh, judging by the dusty, arid landscape, rundown homes, dark, dank shops, and turbaned men sitting around in groups, their foreheads creased in anxiety over the persistent drought conditions and what that means for their cotton crop. The luckier villages here get water once in three days for 15-odd minutes, others wait up to a week or more. Modi has promised a massive irrigation project for the region but what looms large for now is acute water scarcity made worse by reduced job prospects and runaway prices of essentials.

For Premjibhai, who works as a daily wager on the cotton fields, no water means almost no money to take home. “Vikas (development)? What vikas? Can’t you see the conditions here? Modi speaks for the rich and they speak for him. I hope Keshubhai defeats Modi but it won’t happen because Modi is too clever.”

Industrialised North Gujarat has always boasted a healthy bottom line, and this is reflected in the region’s admiration for Modi. “Sautaka (hundred per cent) he will win,” is a familiar one-liner in these parts. But here too there are strong anti-Modi voices, and as in Saurashtra, he is portrayed as the rich man’s Chief Minister without a care for the poor and the marginalised. At Nugar village in Becharaji, Mehsana, Ganpatbhai, a destitute lower-caste tailor rants against Modi, “Write this down,” he shouts, charging with his fists at the Sarpanch who tries to shut him up, “the darji jaat [tailor caste] doesn’t get plots. Modi is a capitalist surrounded by rich industrialists. And the village headmen are in league with him.” As I leave, Ganpatbhai says grumpily, “I know Modi will win.”

Scary

Why is Modi’s victory treated as a given? Is it because the Congress in Gujarat is in abject surrender? Or is it because people have been conditioned not to see beyond Modi? The magic Modi works on his audience is to be seen to be believed. Modi was scheduled to address an election meeting on October 9 at 7 p.m. in Ahmedabad. He arrived at 10 p.m. to frenzied crowds asking for more — and more. An hour earlier, BJP managers had flung poll memorabilia at them: Modi masks, Modi posters, Modi gloves, Modi T-shirts, bandana, scarves and the works. If the sight of ordinary men turning in an instant into thousands of Modis, waving thousands of Modi posters, was unnerving, the music that pumped them up — relating the gatha (story) of Gujarat and Modi — was infinitely more scary, macho, muscular and intended to induce fear and admiration.

As the crowds grew restive, the organisers pressed other resources into service: high-ranking party functionaries eulogised Modi, a folk singer compared him to Shivaji, Prithviraj Chauhan and Vivekananda. But the masked men would have none of it. “Not you, not you” they cried, as a line-up of partymen competed to paint Modi in hagiographic shades. Modi finally arrived, giving the audience their paisa-wasool moment. He mocked at Sonia and Manmohan Singh, knowing that would elicit the laughs. And he thundered and rallied — “Pradhan Mantriji, don’t you dare trifle with Gujarat” — knowing that would stir the Gujarati pride, his ever-ever formula for success.

India was Indira and Indira was India. But in Gujarat today, every Gujarati is Modi. Or so you are told by Modi himself. His blog, narendramodi.in, says: “In the by lanes of Gujarat’s towns and cities, on the fields of Gujarat, on the coasts of Gujarat, people [are] taking pride in saying one thing — Hoon to Modi No Manas Chu [I am Modi’s person!]” No BJP here. Only Modi.

As in 2007, so in 2012, perhaps more so this time: Saurashtra is angry, the RSS is openly backing Keshubhai, who now has his own party — even a few seats lost in Saurashtra would be a setback for Modi — and there is disaffection within the Gujarat administration. But 58 per cent of Gujarat is urban which is Modi’s strength. The Modi speed machine overrode all obstacles in 2007. What now? Over to December 20, 2012.

Keywords: Narendra Modi, Gujarat politics, Gujarat Assembly elections

Why is no one defending teaching at our universities?

Your undergraduate experience depends upon the quality of teaching staff - yet universities continue to put research first, argues Gervas Huxley.

University teaching: it’s time for both Parliament and the public to address the quality of teaching at our universities.  Photo: OJO Images Ltd / Alamy

By Gervas Huxley

7:00AM GMT 12 Dec 2012

Much as we wish it weren’t so, Christmas shopping really boils down to one simple rule – the more you spend, the more you end up with under your tree.

The same does not seem to apply to our university system. Students are typically taught in tutorials of 15 or more students these days, whilst their parents (if they went to university) studied in classes less than half this size and of course paid no fee.

How can this be fair? For all the talk about market forces and value for money supposedly reshaping our university system, it doesn’t take an Economics lecturer to see there’s something amiss.

And yet when do we ever hear concerns about the quality of teaching? Rarely, if at all.

As it happens I am an Economics lecturer. More specifically, I am a Teaching Fellow at the University of Bristol. This means I am paid to teach, and only to teach.

I mention this because the status of my profession gives a good insight into the esteem in which teaching is held in academia. As the balance between teaching and research has shifted decisively in favour of research, not just in this country but around the world, the emphasis on research in Russell Group universities means that the role of teaching is increasingly neglected.

And it's not just the universities – almost any academic you’ll find speaking about our university system in the Houses of Parliament or in a national newspaper will be there because of their research.
I’ve been asked to give evidence at the House of Lords this week on the state of higher education teaching – and invited to write this blog – because of a lecture voted for by my students which appeared online last year. But this is highly unusual.

This lack of emphasis on teaching is one of the major problems facing our higher education system. The quality of education received by undergraduates relies increasingly on what teaching staff like myself have to offer, but far too little is known about our role.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the near-total absence of discussion about class size. If increasing class size was the inevitable consequence of falling funding per student for almost two decades from 1979 until 1998 – when students began to pay fees of £1,000 – shouldn’t students be seeing a benefit from the successive increases in the fee since 1998?

So far there’s been no sign of this happening. It’s time for both Parliament and the public to address the quality of teaching at our universities.

And it’s time that those of us in academia whose main concern is teaching began contributing to this debate.

Gervas Huxley is a Teaching Fellow at the University of Bristol and consults on Higher Education policy.

There are no shortcuts

Pritish Nandy in The Times of India

When people run short of ideas, they reach out for other things.

There’s money, the first crutch of all fools. For all those who lack self esteem, the first argument is: If I had enough money, I could have done it. This is untrue. Money can make nothing happen unless you will it. And you can will nothing without a precise premise, a strategy or game plan that you have clearly thought through. In short, an idea. Without the idea, without the intellectual or emotional muscle that goes with that idea, any idle dream based only on the availability of money is always doomed. That’s why angel investors do due diligence. Not only of the idea to invest in but also of the person who will deliver it. Does he or she have the grit, gumption, dedication and leadership? Or the persistence to see the idea through its initial days when all that can go wrong always does, following Murphy’s Law?

The other crutch, very popular in India, is connections. Most people think they can achieve anything if only they had a godfather to see them through. The truth is, much as we may like to believe the opposite, few success stories of modern India have anything to do with godfathers. Except in politics and business, where it has been a tradition to mentor heirs from within the family. So it’s tough to break in. It’s far simpler to go out and make your own road. To do that, the first important step is to stop looking for godfathers. Mentor yourself. The rich uncle will always come to you once you have demonstrated your ability to deliver on your own promise. But if you hang around him hoping he will give you the first break, be sure that he will soon start avoiding you.

The third crutch is fate. We believe so much in it that we spend the best years of our life chasing those who pretend they can predict it. Fortune telling is big business out here and there’s a large contingent of charlatans who make their money telling us how we must live our life, what coloured stones to wear, which God to pray to, and on what days we ought to fast. The same person who is vegetarian five days a week to appease a certain God is also ready to slaughter a hapless animal to please another God on another occasion. We would rather go with what others tell us to do than follow our own heart. We are not ready to think through our own solutions. We need intermediaries to advise us on how to live, how to invest, how to seduce luck. Curiously, the richer people become, the more they depend on fake gurus and fraudulent fortune tellers.

The fourth crutch is new: Technology. We have suddenly found technology as a placebo for everything. Doctors have forgotten how to diagnose. So everyone goes for every stupid test. Robotic surgery is replacing human skill and ingenuity. You can’t make good movies. Go for 3D. Dazzle everyone with SFX and sheer wizardry. Demand a 250 million dollar budget when the greatest films in the world have been made for a pittance. (Pather Panchali was made for Rs 150,000 and Bicycle Thief, $133,000!) We have become so stupid that we can’t even make imaginative porn. So Hugh Hefner now uses 3D to make his centrespread girls look sexy whereas a fully clad Garbo once had the whole world salivating every time she turned around and Mae West, at 83, could get any young man into her pad with a single come hither line.

The purpose of technology, we often forget, is not to replace human ingenuity but to support it. We don’t need a computer to write like Shakespeare. We need to create new Shakespeares. The future lies in technology that can support our skills, not supplant them. Avatar is not the future of movies. Marge Simpson is not the future of sexuality even though she was on the Playboy centrespread. Ever seen Madhubala wet in the rain? Now try it. Rediscover the unforgettable power of sexuality.

On the 12th day of Christmas ... your gift will just be junk

Every year we splurge on pointless, planet-trashing products, most of which are not wanted. Why not just bake them a cake?

• 
• • George Monbiot
  • The Guardian, Monday 10 December 2012 20.30 GMT

Illustration by Daniel Pudles

 

There's nothing they need, nothing they don't own already, nothing they even want. So you buy them a solar-powered waving queen; a belly-button brush; a silver-plated ice cream tub-holder; a "hilarious" inflatable Zimmer frame; a confection of plastic and electronics called Terry the Swearing Turtle; or – and somehow I find this significant – a Scratch Off World Map.

They seem amusing on the first day of Christmas, daft on the second, embarrassing on the third. By the twelfth they're in landfill. For 30 seconds of dubious entertainment, or a hedonic stimulus that lasts no longer than a nicotine hit, we commission the use of materials whose impacts will ramify for generations.

Researching her film The Story of Stuff, Annie Leonard discovered that, of the materials flowing through the consumer economy, only 1% remain in use six months after sale. Even the goods we might have expected to hold on to are soon condemned to destruction through either planned obsolescence (wearing out or breaking quickly) or perceived obsolesence (becoming unfashionable).
But many of the products we buy, especially for Christmas, cannot become obsolescent. The term implies a loss of utility, but they had no utility in the first place. An electronic drum-machine T-shirt; a Darth Vader talking piggy bank; an ear-shaped iPhone case; an individual beer can chiller; an electronic wine breather; a sonic screwdriver remote control; bacon toothpaste; a dancing dog. No one is expected to use them, or even look at them, after Christmas day. They are designed to elicit thanks, perhaps a snigger or two, and then be thrown away.

The fatuity of the products is matched by the profundity of the impacts. Rare materials, complex electronics, the energy needed for manufacture and transport are extracted and refined and combined into compounds of utter pointlessness. When you take account of the fossil fuels whose use we commission in other countries, manufacturing and consumption are responsible for more than half of our carbon dioxide production. We are screwing the planet to make solar-powered bath thermometers and desktop crazy golfers.

People in eastern Congo are massacred to facilitate smartphone upgrades of ever diminishing marginal utility. Forests are felled to make "personalised heart-shaped wooden cheese board sets". Rivers are poisoned to manufacture talking fish. This is pathological consumption: a world-consuming epidemic of collective madness, rendered so normal by advertising and by the media that we scarcely notice what has happened to us.

In 2007, the journalist Adam Welz records, 13 rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa. This year, so far, 585 have been shot. No one is entirely sure why. But one answer is that very rich people in Vietnam are now sprinkling ground rhino horn on their food, or snorting it like cocaine to display their wealth. It's grotesque, but it scarcely differs from what almost everyone in industrialised nations is doing: trashing the living world through pointless consumption.

This boom has not happened by accident. Our lives have been corralled and shaped in order to encourage it. World trade rules force countries to participate in the festival of junk. Governments cut taxes, deregulate business, manipulate interest rates to stimulate spending. But seldom do the engineers of these policies stop and ask, "spending on what?" When every conceivable want and need has been met (among those who have disposable money), growth depends on selling the utterly useless. The solemnity of the state, its might and majesty, are harnessed to the task of delivering Terry the Swearing Turtle to our doors.

Grown men and women devote their lives to manufacturing and marketing this rubbish, and dissing the idea of living without it. "I always knit my gifts," says a woman in a TV ad for an electronics outlet. "Well you shouldn't," replies the narrator. An ad for a Google tablet shows a father and son camping in the woods. Their enjoyment depends on the Nexus 7's special features. The best things in life are free, but we've found a way of selling them to you.

The growth of inequality that has accompanied the consumer boom ensures that the rising economic tide no longer lifts all boats. In the US in 2010, a remarkable 93% of the growth in incomes accrued to the top 1% of the population. The old excuse, that we must trash the planet to help the poor, simply does not wash. For a few decades of extra enrichment for those who already possess more money than they know how to spend, the prospects of everyone else who will live on this Earth are diminished.

So effectively have governments, the media and advertisers associated consumption with prosperity and happiness that to say these things is to expose yourself to opprobrium and ridicule. Witness last week's edition of Radio 4's The Moral Maze, in which most of the panel lined up to decry the idea of consuming less, and to associate it somehow with authoritarianism. When the world goes mad, those who resist are denounced as lunatics.

Bake them a cake, write them a poem, give them a kiss, tell them a joke, but for God's sake stop trashing the planet to tell someone you care. All it shows is that you don't.

Family isn't dead – it's getting better

If people abandon the traditional model and forgo children or marriage it does not destroy societies, it can liberate them

• 
• • Jill Filipovic
  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 December 2012 13.30 GMT

'It is actually exceedingly difficult in much of the world for women to achieve highly in a career while also having a thriving family and personal life.' Photograph: Aping Vision/STS/Getty Images

 

Are we living in a post-familial age? According to a new report, The Rise of Post-Familialism: Humanity's Future?, the answer is yes: the traditional family unit is slowly dying out as more people choose to forgo children and even marriage. As a result, society is economically imperilled, lacking the necessary workforce to support older generations. We're also "values-challenged", entering a brave new world of materialistic indulgence, selfishness and protracted adolescence.

Sounds awful, doesn't it? Luckily, almost none of it is true.

People around the world are indeed delaying childbearing and marriage, and larger numbers of people never marry or reproduce at all. But that is not synonymous with a moral decline, or selfish decadence. It represents an uptick in women's rights, a commitment to creating the family one wants, and wider choices for everyone.

It's no shock that the drop in the number of children a woman has came along with the advent of the birth control pill. The countries with the highest birth rates aren't just highly religious; they're poor, have abominable human rights records and lack access to reliable birth control. Contrary to New York Times columnist Ross Douthat's position, it is not in fact the country with the most babies that wins: if that was the case, Nigeria would be running the show.

Despite the clear correlation between reproductive rights and prosperity, the report's author, joined by conservative commentators, laments the decline in childbearing because, as David Brooks says, it represents a rise of individualism and personal freedom – and that's a bad thing. Brooks writes:

"People are not better off when they are given maximum personal freedom to do what they want. They're better off when they are enshrouded in commitments that transcend personal choice – commitments to family, God, craft and country."

But the moral case against individualism and choice doesn't have legs. It's a moral good when people have a wide array of choices and increased personal freedom – not just for the individual, but also for children, family and society. And the evidence backs that up.

Valuing tradition, family and God doesn't automatically translate into healthy families or economic prosperity. Just look at the United States: the states that most idealise the conservative model do have higher birth rates, earlier marriage, higher levels of religiosity and more consistent church attendance. They make up consistent conservative voting blocks. They also have the highest levels of divorce in the country, the highest poverty rates, the highest teen pregnancy rates, the lowest child health ratings and the lowest education levels. On the other hand, the states that champion "liberal values" do have later marriage rates and lower birth rates. They're also richer and better educated, the children that reside in them are healthier and families split up less often.

And contrary to the assertions in both the report and the commentary surrounding it, a lower birth rate does not actually mean that individuals end up voting to support only the interests of affluent childless singles. Quite the opposite: the social safety net is much stronger in liberal, supposedly individualistic, lower-birthrate blue states. An array of choices seems to mean that people respect and support a variety of paths.

The rest of the world tells a similar story. There are obviously myriad complex factors that play into a nation's success, but the places where people are the healthiest and the most economically stable are the relatively liberal nations that provide for social welfare while allowing many different models of family to flourish.

Meanwhile, the arguments in favour of a return to the traditional family remain unconvincing, and even insulting. For example, NYT columnist Ross Douthat accuses single people of being "decadent" in their selfish singledom (an argument neatly taken down by Ann Friedman). In the report itself, the authors project a nobility on to staying at home and "sacrificing" for one's family, as opposed to young people who show "an almost defiant individualism" and "indulge themselves in hobbies, fashion or restaurants". Singapore pastor Andrew Ong says that the child-free media culture is "about not growing up".

Listening to these guys, you would think that kids are an awful drag, that raising a family requires (almost entirely female) sacrifice, and that such hardship simply must be endured for … something they don't quite specify. By contrast, they seem to think that single people are in a perpetual adolescence, out partying, eating and drinking until, I suppose, we get ours by dying alone with our cats.

That's not making much of a case for marriage and babies, is it?

In reality, most of these selfish singles are in fact eventually getting married and having babies. They're just doing it later. The result is that these selfish late procreators are wealthier, their marriages last longer and their kids are healthier. How awful.

Investing in future generations is crucial, but conservatives seem to value not so much investment as major personal sacrifice in the here-and-now that results in poorer outcomes for everyone involved. And for what? So that future generations can grow up to sacrifice themselves too? Feminists and other liberals aren't against supporting children and making the world a better place. We just realise that the best way to do that isn't by making ourselves collectively miserable, but by actually taking steps to improve society for everyone, now and later.

One of the ways we're doing that is by making it easier for women to choose to have children. Demanding that women sacrifice everything for child-rearing isn't exactly getting the young ladies to line up, but that's what our current employment model is based upon. It is actually exceedingly difficult in much of the world for women to achieve highly in a career while also having a thriving family and personal life. Our current employment model is based on a family economy with a male partner who is able to work full time, and a female partner who stays at home and tends to the children. Women are now in the workforce in unprecedented numbers – but the workforce hasn't adjusted to give people much time for anything other than work. And conservatives have championed this model, praising folks who do multiple jobs just to make ends meet or work 80 hours a week. High-achieving men still often have wives who stay home. What happens, then, is high-achieving women either "opt out" and let their husbands do the bread-winning, don't get married or decide that they want to have kids later or not at all. And the economy suffers for it.

But young single people don't just want to slave away at work all day, and we don't have someone at home taking care of the rest of our lives. We also want a work-life balance. We may not be going home to children, but we want to pursue our hobbies, spend time with the families we've created and engage with our communities. We realise there is much more to life than just work – but we also think there's much more to life than a traditional family.

That kind of push-back could be the key in making work-life balance a reality. Historically, women's work has been undervalued and disrespected. One reason "work-life balance" is discussed but not actually executed is because, I suspect, it's women – and the most disrespected and undervalued group of women, mothers – who that balance is perceived to benefit. So what if this new group of highly effective, highly motivated, hard-working young single people are now demanding more balance and reasonable work hours and leave policies? Everyone benefits.

Women today also want relationships that are mutually supportive and egalitarian, something they might struggle to find – but not for the reasons conservatives seem to think. Lots of men haven't caught up, and still want wives who will be subservient and financially dependent. For men, getting married and having kids comes with increased social status and emotional benefits, not to mention actual salary increases and workplace opportunities. For women it's the opposite: motherhood brings with it lost income and opportunity. There simply aren't enough subservient women who are willing to put themselves in financial, social and sometimes even physical peril to have a "traditional family".

Despite its reliance on rightwing values, there is much to be gleaned from this report. It identifies a place where liberal feminists worried about gender equality and conservatives worried about fertility rates can come together to promote both of our goals. Make reproductive freedom a priority, including the right to have healthy babies. We do this by promoting healthcare that covers the family planning tools that lead to healthy, wanted pregnancies. Federally mandated parental leave and other family-friendly policies like state-sponsored childcare would also make it easier for women and men to work and raise families. More affordable housing programmes would make it more plausible for parents to stay in the places where they choose to live, and where they have put down their social roots and earned their stripes at work. Real investment in public education would relieve much of the financial burden for parents who want their children to have the same opportunities they did.

Finally, support a variety of lifestyles and choices. When the traditional family model isn't something that everyone is expected to personally sacrifice to create, we can construct and implement policies that benefit actual families, in all of their incarnations. When they are not a crass economic contract where financial support is traded for housekeeping and child-rearing but instead a unit based on love, respect and mutual support, marriages last longer. The conservative and religious promise that there is only one best way to live, one that requires temporal sacrifice and is justified solely by obligation but will be rewarded by happiness in the afterlife, but it doesn't actually lead to good outcomes here on Earth.

Family isn't dead. It's just getting better. Expanding its definition and allowing people to choose their own happiness model is just making it more highly valued than ever.