An economy is not like a household budget

Repeat after me: the Australian economy is not like a household budget

Our political and economic thinking has been warped by bad analogies to the point where we can’t see the real economy. The Abbott government is happy to play along

• 
• • Warwick Smith
  • theguardian.com, Thursday 8 January 2015 23.57 GMT

‘National governments with their own currency bear absolutely no resemblance to a household or a business.’ Photograph: Scott Lewis/flickr

To prosecute its economic agenda, the Abbott government has relied on the constant repetition of economic myths. I’ve previously dealt with the myths of the budget emergency, the debt crisis and the endlessly repeated lie that the carbon tax was wrecking the economy – but these are only the most obvious myths and not necessarily the most important.

This week, Mathias Cormann repeated one of the other great myths of modern government financing, saying that it was “unfair to rob our children and grandchildren of their opportunities [in order] to pay for today’s lifestyle”.

The suggestion that future generations will have a reduced standard of living because of our government debt needs some unpacking.

What is it that limits the standard of living of people in 2030? It’s the goods and services that those people can produce. Goods and services cannot be sent back in time in order to pay for past spending. The standard of living of people in 2030 will be a factor of the number of workers and their productivity, not how much debt their government carries from the past. So where does government debt fit in?

As I’ve explained elsewhere, the finances of a sovereign government with its own fiat currency bear absolutely no resemblance to the finances of a household or a business. The federal government can create money. They don’t create all of the money that they need for all their expenses because that would cause out-of-control inflation.

The obvious conclusion to be drawn from these two uncontroversial facts is that taxation and borrowing are not the limiting factors on government expenditure, inflation is. Acknowledging this completely turns the mainstream commentary on government financing on its head.

The federal government does not need anybody else’s money in the form of taxation or borrowing in order to spend. They can create money. The reason they tax and borrow is to take money out of the economy so that their spending does not cause inflation or affect official interest rates. In other words, taxation and government debt are tools for economic management, not for revenue raising.

You may have to sit with all this for a moment and calm the voice in your head that is telling you it can’t possibly be true. Our political and economic thinking has been so thoroughly colonised by the finance industry that we often find it difficult to see the real economy. The real economy is the labour of workers combined with capital and land to produce goods and services.

How did the massive postwar government debts impact on the lives of people living in the 1950s and 60s? It didn’t. These are often referred to as the “golden years” where inequality fell and the standard of living rose at a dramatic pace. Could the workers in the postwar years send their goods and services back in time to support or pay for the war effort? Of course not, it’s a ludicrous proposition. Abbott and Hockey’s suggestion that future generations will suffer because of today’s government spending is just as ludicrous.

The only way in the real economy that future generations can suffer because of today’s government debt is if the government raises taxes or cuts spending in order to repay the debt and this causes higher unemployment. This is never necessary and governments who advocate this (like the Abbott government) have fallen prey to household finance analogies.

While there is spare capacity in the economy, inflation risk is low and there is room for greater government expenditure. One simplistic measure of spare capacity is unemployment. While there is excess unemployment there is room for more (targeted) government expenditure. In other words, sovereign governments have the capacity toalways maintain low levels of unemployment if they use inflation as their expenditure cap rather than taxes and borrowing.

If unemployment is the only price future generations pay for today’s government debt and the government can always lower unemployment by more spending, what’s the impact on future generations of government debt? None. Why then don’t we just go on a massive spending spree and have huge debts? Because spending beyond the productive capacity of the real economy would cause inflation.

The costs of too much government expenditure are felt immediately afterwards in the form of inflation and are not borne by future generations.

Hopefully now you can see the full picture. Government expenditure today is not limited by taxation or borrowing but by inflation risk. Government expenditure in 2030 will not be limited by taxation, borrowing or previous debt but by inflation risk. When you’re first presented with these facts it can seem like a magic pudding or a perpetual motion machine but that’s just because we’re used to thinking about finances from a household or business perspective.

National governments with their own currency bear absolutely no resemblance to a household or a business. All of the frequently used analogies give a distorted picture of the reality of government finances. To get a clear picture you need to peel back all the layers of finance speak and look at the real economy.

There are many important conversations and debates we should be having about government finances, the role of government, productivity, consumption and leisure. We cannot have them while the government and media commentators perpetuate myths about how our economy actually functions. Ultimately the material standard of living of future generations is going to depend on the productivity of workers and on a safe environment and climate. Now there’s a policy conversation worth having.

What India's spinners are doing wrong

V Ramnarayan in Cricinfo

Ashwin goes round the wicket far too often  © BCCI

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As someone who watched the great Indian offspinners of the past from close quarters, it is frustrating to watch their modern contemporaries failing to follow some of the basic principles of the discipline.

Before I go into the specifics of the offspin bowling on view in Sydney, with particular reference to India's R Ashwin, I will venture a sweeping statement about Indian bowlers, one that I'll be delighted to be corrected about. On the evidence of the last eight to ten matches I have watched, they give the impression that they do not practise bowling enough. The evidence - circumstantial, I admit - is there for all to see, as they spray the ball around match after match with seemingly no control over length and line. My suspicion was strengthened by what I heard from someone who followed the team around in England and was witness to their practice routine: a lot of gym work and physical training on the field, but not much bowling in the nets. 

This is in sharp contrast to the way Indian bowlers in the 1970s and '80s trained. Spinners and fast bowlers bowled for hours at the nets. Not only does inadequate net practice make you inaccurate in a match, it also denies you the confidence you need to go all out to bowl in an attacking mode, because you are not sure you can land the ball where you want it. You can only play safe then by, for instance, choosing to push the ball through innocuously with greater confidence rather than trying to spin it sharply.

Nathan Lyon of Australia shows much more self-belief than others of his ilk, as did Graeme Swann not long ago. Both give the impression of being well-oiled machines, evidently well primed before they bowl the first ball in a match. Unfortunately even Lyon does not demonstrate great skill or common sense when bowling to left-handers, choosing to go round the wicket the moment one arrives at the crease.

Ashwin, too, is guilty of this seeming lack of application of mind when it comes to bowling to left-handers. Prasanna and Venkataraghavan (and Harbhajan Singh, too) seldom slipped up like this. They preferred to bowl an annoyingly constraining leg-and-middle line to left-handers, to a field that included a slip and gully (or a lone slip after the batsman had settled down and the wicket was not doing much), and always with a forward short-leg waiting for the bat-pad catch. It took a left-hander extraordinarily strong off his pads to force them to go round the wicket. A left-hand batsman will normally feel much more comfortable facing an offspinner coming round the wicket than otherwise.

So when does an offspinner go round the wicket? Mainly to right-handers. Here again, you don't have to look beyond Prasanna and Venkataraghavan. Except when they occasionally did so just to break the monotony of bowling to well-set batsmen, they went round mainly to force the batsman to play, on wickets yielding turn and perhaps bounce. That way, they also reduced the angle and enhanced the chance of lbw decisions, which excessive turn could negate from over the wicket. Two cardinal rules while bowling from round the stumps to right-handers: always have a man at slip, and never change your line. Stick to the off stump or outside it, except when you push one through with the arm from middle to off for an attempt at a clean-bowled or slip catch. The trick is to induce false shots by sticking to the same line and length but altering the angle of delivery.

Going round the wicket also often works against batsmen strong on the sweep. I have seen many such batsmen top-edge catches against this angle of attack.

Watching the Indian bowlers in Sydney, it is difficult indeed to believe that they are sure of their length and direction, or that they have the confidence to bowl to get wickets. The only time they seem to bowl attackingly is when they bowl short - with disappointing results.

In addition to resorting to modern tools of analysis and training, I am sure India's bowlers can benefit from watching videos of former greats or seeking their advice. Ashwin, for one, could be a transformed bowler if he approaches Prasanna or Venkataraghavan for guidance and puts into practice some of their lessons. They could help him improve his finish and follow-through, for instance. I'm sure they are just a text message away.

Cricket - It's all in the angle

Jon Hotten in Cricinfo

How hard is it to deal with a ball that comes at you from "out of the umpire"?  © AFP

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Imagine the scene: David Warner and Chris Gayle are invited to face up to the world's fastest female bowler. Their challenge is to do what they have done to many of the great male bowlers and hit the ball over the boundary. They not only fail to do so, they miss every ball in the over. Waiting in the pavilion, Kevin Pietersen refuses to come in rather than be embarrassed out in the middle.

As David Epstein describes in his wonderful book The Sports Gene, something roughly equivalent to the above did take place in baseball, and it may contain some valuable information for the development of bowlers.

Back in 2004, some of America's top MLB sluggers were invited to the annual Pepsi All-Star Softball game in California to face the fastest softball pitcher in the world, Team USA's Jennie Finch (a few months later, Finch would win an Olympic gold medal at the Athens games).

There are some key differences between baseball and softball. The softball itself is bigger, and the pitcher's mound is 43 feet from the batter's plate, as opposed to baseball's 60 feet six inches. Finch's fastball travelled at around 65mph, meaning that it arrived at the batter in around the same time that a 95mph fastball took to cover the longer distance. And to a top baseball slugger, a 95mph fastball is all part of the day job.

In practice at the All-Star game, Finch threw four pitches at Albert Pujols, a legendary hitter. He missed every one. During the game itself she struck out Padres outfielder Brian Giles and Mets catcher Mike Piazza.

Word spread. Finch took part in a TV show, This Week In Baseball, and struck out lots more top players. Then she met Barry Bonds, seven-time National League MVP, at a spring training camp. She threw 12 fastballs past him before he managed to connect, and he succeeded then only because Finch told Bonds where the pitch would go.

Another baseball legend, Alex Rodriguez, refused to face her at all.

So what was happening?

The key difference was the angle of Finch's delivery. She propelled the softball not in the slingy overarm style of the baseball pitcher but by raising her arm high above her head and then swinging violently downwards in a wide arc, eventually releasing the ball from somewhere around her knee.

A baseball, or a softball, travelling across their relevant distances and speeds, takes around 400 milliseconds to reach the plate. Because at least half of that time is required simply for the body to initiate any kind of muscular action, the batter is not simply watching the ball and then hitting it. There is a large measure of anticipation involved.

Over the course of a career, a baseball slugger has seen many thousands of fastballs, and in doing so has built up a kind of mental directory or template of what one looks like. Thus, as the pitcher's arm comes over, he already has lots of other occasions to compare it to, and the body reacts accordingly.

As Epstein points out, once the template is removed - as it was by the new angle of Finch's delivery - the batter is simply trying to produce an almost-impossible physical response.

Research has shown that the same is true in cricket - a batsman facing fast bowling is picking up a complex series of clues from the bowler's approach and delivery stride that aid in hitting the ball.

The other day in the Big Bash, Andre Russell was bowling to Luke Wright when the ball slipped from his hand and flew at shoulder level towards the batsman. Wright managed to lay his bat on it - actually it flew over the boundary - but his shot was a desperate swing, and his head was averted as he made contact.

The rarity of the beamer means that it doesn't fit into the pattern of the many thousands of other quick deliveries that Wright has faced up to, and so requires a different "template" to deal with. He was fortunate that Russell does not bowl at express pace. Bret Lee's accidental beamer to Shane Warne in the MCC game at Lord's last summer badly injured Warne's hand.

The information emanating from baseball isn't just about beamers and other fluke deliveries, though. It made me think about the low arm of Lasith Malinga, and how hard batsmen - especially those facing him for the first time - find it to pick up a ball they describe as "appearing from out of the umpire".

This is just a small change of angle compared to a baseball pro facing Jennie Finch, and yet it is hard for batsmen to have any sort of pattern recognition. Shaun Tait had a similar effect.

In a format like T20, where a handful of deliveries can have a big impact on an innings, it would be no surprise as the game develops to see bowlers introducing more radical changes of arm angle alongside other deceptions.

India and Pakistan: The fault is not in our stars

Badar Iqbal Chaudhary in The Dawn

Updated a day ago

In the hands of zealots and fanatics, the stories become an argument against all peace initiatives, making the journey all the more strenuous. —Reuters

“The fault, dear Brutus”, Cassius says in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar,” is not in our stars, but in ourselves”.

Years and years of ‘Aman ke Aashas’ and cabinet level meetings, of confidence-building measures and sari exchanges, of showing up at swearing-in ceremonies and civil society initiatives ... and then they all come tumbling down.

Slowly, painfully, assiduously we pick up the beads and start threading them. Each pearl is accounted for, each step pondered over, but then one slip and the process has to start afresh.

Extravagant, excessive preparations are made to make an omelette of reconciliation. Then a singular egg turns out to be bad, and the food gets spoilt.

It is not that we do not comprehend the need to establish friendly relations. The inevitable falling back to the narratives of peace and of building goodwill, the talks of overcoming the barriers and the friendly gestures all betray the understanding of the necessity of peace that persists among members of the public. If there was a lack of will, these processes would never have initiated, ab initio.

When the anger subsides, the realisation returns that belligerence is not a sustainable model; it cannot persevere, it has to stop.

Why, then, do these initiatives fail time and again?

It is because the animosity is too deep, the sentiments too fragile, the composure too fickle and the hurdles too many. It is this peculiarity which exists in men the world over, but most of all in the men of the subcontinent – the unyielding hubris, and the vanity. That is all it takes to lose focus of the objectives.

All it requires is one Vikram Sood and one Amir Liaqat, and a single moment of commentary in the presence of a jeering, thumping crowd.

All it demands is a single brainwashed soldier, who knows nothing better, and a moment of inhumanity that clouds the mind, to undo years of hard work.

This then gets shared, accumulates airtime, gains public attention and plays on the minds of the two nations – the nations, mind you, who are not wary of barbaric reactions themselves.

Gojra and Gujrat; Babri mosque in Ayodhya and Sri Krishna Ram temple in Karachi; the forced conversions in Uttar Pradesh and the forced conversions in Upper Sindh; all indicate to one aspect of the two nations: despite the animosity, and the overbearing pride in individuality, we are not too different.

We are more alike in treating our minorities than we would feel comfortable to admit.

In the hands of zealots and fanatics, the stories become an argument against all peace initiatives, making the journey all the more strenuous.

Patriotism becomes analogous to war cries, and public representatives, forever ready to pounce on a chance to gain some cheap publicity, dish out threatening statements, basking in their bubbles and relishing the short-lasting pertinence.

Unfortunately, the hawks always take over the narrative in these moments. The cardinal rule of perception is that the more intense, the more enduring statements would be perceived more readily by the public. These bring in ratings, and popularity. They ring home with the fable that has been etched in the conscience of the two countries. In the river of peace, the few ripples of pugnacity get noticed, and the relative sustaining calm gets easily ignored.

Philosophy believes the solutions do exist. Saadi Sherazi, the Persian poet had written:

Garat Khoway man amad nasazawar;
Tu khoway naik-e-khawaish az dast maguzar

[If my nature does not bode well with you, you don’t have to lose your own good nature because of it.]

Or like Marcus Aurelius, one of the five good emperors of Machiavelli, puts it: “The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury”.

One of the two nations would have to show magnanimity; one of the two would have to sacrifice; and one of the two would have to take a leap of faith.

The warmongering would have to take a backseat, despite the excesses from the other side. Hearts would have to be won, foremost. Paranoia would have to be placated. Without this, the current state of affairs would persist.

Building any relationship requires working, but the one that comes with this much baggage requires the most. This is a rut, escaping from which requires considerable courage, ability to forgive and a lot more forbearance than we have shown the capability of.

The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

Life getting you down? Learn to bounce back

Even the most fortunate of us can expect setbacks every now and again. Here are some ways to get back on your feet

• Vanessa King
• theguardian.com, Monday 5 January 2015 16.59 GMT

‘When things go wrong, resilient thinkers see it as transitory.’ Photograph: Getty Images

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger” – so the German philosopher Nietzsche famously said. Luckily, the school of hard knocks isn’t the only way to build our resilience. There are a number of tactics that can get us through tough times, help us to bounce back and make us happier. Next time you are struggling, feeling stressed or stuck, give one or more of these a try.

1. Find something you can control (even if it’s small)

Often when we are struggling we can feel overwhelmed or powerless. And it’s true: there are lots of things in life that we can’t control, including big challenges such as redundancy or broken relationships or bereavement. But taking small, positive steps in any area of our life can have a ripple effect, increasing our sense of self-efficacy and eventually enabling us to move forward in the problem area.

2. Focus on what’s right

As a species, we tend to focus on what’s wrong rather than what’s right. Psychologists suggest we developed this “negativity bias” when we were hunter-gatherers, constantly surveying our environment for dangers.

Of course looking out for risks is still important, but we can benefit from paying more conscious attention to what’s going right. In one experiment psychologists asked people to spend a few minutes at the end of each day for a week, making a note of three things they enjoyed, were pleased about or grateful for that day and the reason they found these things good. At the end of the study, participants who did this were happier than those who didn’t – and this effect lasted for as long as six months.

This isn’t about putting on rose-tinted glasses – it’s about a more balanced perspective. Good things happen even on the worst days, even if these are as small as someone making us a nice cup of tea, yet we often let them pass by without much attention. Psychologists have shown that consciously focusing on these good things helps to increase our experience of positive emotions. Over time this has a number of benefits for our resilience and wellbeing as, for example, we become more open to ideas, better at problem-solving and more trusting of others.

3. Check your thinking

Albert Ellis, one of the fathers of cognitive behavioural therapy, wrote that we are remarkably good at disturbing ourselves – in other words, the way we think can undermine our own resilience.

Let’s look at an example: the way we think when things go wrong in our day-to-day lives. Leading psychologist Martin Seligman found that the way we interpret the causes of everyday setbacks can have a significant impact on our ability to cope, our physical health and our persistence in the face of adversity. He also showed that we can learn more resilient thinking styles.

Seligman looked at three key dimensions to our interpretations:

Is it down to me? When bad things happen, resilient thinkers tend to focus on causes outside themselves. For example, if they miss a deadline they will look at the computer issues they had or the other pressing jobs they had to do, rather than only beating themselves up for being late.

How long will this problem last? When things go wrong, resilient thinkers see it as transitory, perhaps thinking: “It didn’t work this time, but next time it will be better.” Someone with a less resilient thinking style might believe it will always be that way: “It didn’t work this time, and it’s never going to.”

What other aspects of my life will this affect? When something goes wrong in one area of a resilient thinker’s life, they put boundaries around the issue, limiting it to that specific area – for example: “I went the wrong way; I find following directions hard.” We can undermine our resilience if we see the problem as spreading out to everything: “I went the wrong way. That’s typical of me – I’m no good at anything.”

This isn’t about being unrealistic or not taking responsibility when problems occur, but about being realistic and flexible in our thoughts about why these issues happened. If we are stressed or down, we can all too easily fall into the trap of thinking that everything is our fault, can’t be changed and trouble will spread to all areas of our life. This makes us feel hopeless and can start a downward spiral towards lower resilience and even depression.

So the next time something goes wrong for you, pause for a moment and think realistically: how did I, others or the situation contribute to this? What can I do that will help now or stop the problem occurring again?

4. Ask others to help

When we have problems, it is very easy to feel isolated. We are bombarded by images of people with perfect lives or who have achieved great things, which can make us feel we’re not good enough or even ashamed that we are struggling. Remember the saying “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle inside” and don’t be afraid to ask for help. We all have ups and downs, strengths and weaknesses, and connecting with other people is a source of resilience.

Human beings evolved to live in social groups. Our relationships with those around us are really important for our wellbeing and resilience (and that of our communities). By asking for help we are showing that we value and respect other people. Scientists are also finding that the act of helping actually boosts the helper’s own wellbeing. Showing our vulnerability makes others see us as human, making them feel more able to ask us for help when they need it, so building the relationship. This helps to increase wellbeing and resilience for both of you.

Your request doesn’t have to place a burden on the other person – it could be as simple as asking them to listen, share their experience, knowledge or ideas to help you move forward, or perhaps make a connection to someone they know. You could even offer to help them with something in return (that could help you too).

5. Distract yourself

It often helps to take time out from the things you are worrying about – even if it’s just a few minutes.

When we are immersed in a problem it is hard to think creatively about ways to deal with it. How many times have your best ideas come when you’ve been in the shower or tidying up? Our brains are amazing organs – they are still working on issues even when we aren’t consciously focusing on them. In fact, allowing time off from the thing we’re grappling with can work wonders.

An effective ways of taking time out is exercise. Not only does this give us a break from what we’re doing and our worries; it’s also great for our minds. Anything moderately aerobic, such as jogging or simply a brisk walk, has a physical impact on our brain, helping us to think more clearly.

Much has been written about mindfulness, and this can be very effective way to boost our resilience. Even a few minutes can give us a little space from our worries and help put things in perspective.

Take time to laugh. We have already looked at the benefits of positive emotions. Years ago I trained as an accountant (we can all make career mistakes). This involved doing a lot of difficult exams and a lot of pre-exam nerves. To deal with that anxiety, my friend Siobhan, who was doing the same training, had a tactic that we all thought was mad at the time but, based on recent psychological research, turned out to be a good one. Outside the exam room, as we waited to meet our destiny, Siobhan would immerse herself in a joke book. She said it helped to put her in an upbeat frame of mind, ready to focus in the exams (which she went on to pass).

And finally, if you can’t get to sleep because your mind won’t switch off, find a way to distract it – for example, counting back from 100 in threes or going through the alphabet trying to think of as many animals/actors/footballers (you choose the topic) for each letter as you can.

India's ancient contribution to science

Shashi Tharoor on NDTV

The unseemly controversy over ancient Indian science at the ongoing Indian Science Congress reflects poorly on all the parties involved, including the conference itself, which is now in its 102nd year without ever having discussed the ancient roots of our indisputable national scientific tradition till yesterday.

First, it reflects poorly on the traditionalists, who have turned revivalism into a form of revisionism with their outlandish claims of improbable Vedic accomplishments. The victory of Narendra Modi in the general elections this year has propelled a number of true believers of Hindutva into positions of unprecedented influence, including in such forums as the Indian Council for Historical Research, the University Grants Commission, and, it now seems, the programme committee of the Indian Science Congress, which scheduled a talk on "Vedic Aviation Technology" that elicited howls of protest from many delegates. 

It has also given a licence to unqualified voices who gain in authority from their proximity to power - none more significant than the Prime Minister himself, who suggested in a speech at a hospital, no less, that Lord Ganesha's elephant head on a human body testified to ancient Indians' knowledge of plastic surgery. Such ideas, because they are patently absurd, except in the realm of metaphor, have embarrassed those who advance them, as well as those who cite them in support of broader, but equally unsubstantiated, claims to past scientific advances, from genetic science to cloning and inter-stellar travel. Petty chauvinism is always ugly, but never more so than in the field of science, where knowledge must be uncontaminated by ideology, superstition or irrational pride.

But the controversy also discredits the modernists who, in their contempt for such exaggerated and ludicrous claims, also dismiss the more reasonable propositions pointing to genuine Indian accomplishments by the ancients. As I pointed out on Twitter yesterday, it is not necessary to debunk the genuine accomplishments of ancient Indian science in order to mock the laughable assertions of the Hindutva brigade.

As I have been repeatedly saying, not everything from the government-sponsored right is necessarily wrong. A BJP government choosing to assert its pride in yoga and Ayurveda, and seeking to promote them internationally, is, to my mind, perfectly acceptable. 

Not only are these extraordinary accomplishments of our civilization, but they have always been, and should remain, beyond partisan politics. It is only if the BJP promoted them in place of fulfilling its responsibility to provide conventional health care and life-saving modern allopathic medicines to the Indian people, that we need object on policy grounds.

Similarly, in asserting that ancient Indians anticipated Pythagoras, Dr Harsh Vardhan was not incorrect and should not have been ridiculed. In fact he could have added Newton, Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo as well, every single one of whom had been beaten to their famous "discoveries" by an unknown and unsung Indian centuries earlier.

The Rig Veda asserted that gravitation held the universe together 24 centuries before the apple fell on Newton's head. The Siddhantas are amongst the world's earliest texts on astronomy and mathematics; the Surya Siddhanta, written about 400 A.D., includes a method for finding the times of planetary ascensions and eclipses. The notion of gravitation, or gurutvakarshan, is found in these early texts. Lost Discoveries, by the American writer Dick Teresi, a comprehensive study of the ancient non-Western foundations of modern science, spells it out clearly: "Two hundred years before Pythagoras," writes Teresi, "philosophers in northern India had understood that gravitation held the solar system together, and that therefore the sun, the most massive object, had to be at its centre." 

Aryabhata was the first human being to explain, in 499 A.D., that the daily rotation of the earth on its axis is what accounted for the daily rising and setting of the sun (his ideas were so far in advance of his time that many later editors of his awe-inspiring "Aryabhatiya" altered the text to save his reputation from what they thought were serious errors). Aryabhata conceived of the elliptical orbits of the planets a thousand years before Kepler, in the West, came to the same conclusion (having assumed, like all Europeans, that planetary orbits were circular rather than elliptical). He even estimated the value of the year at 365 days, six hours, 12 minutes and 30 seconds; in this he was only a few minutes off (the correct figure is just under 365 days and six hours). The translation of the Aryabhatiya into Latin in the 13th Century taught Europeans a great deal; it also revealed to them that an Indian had known things that Europe would only learn of a millennium later.

The Vedic civilisation subscribed to the idea of a spherical earth at a time when everyone else, even the Greeks, assumed the earth was flat. By the Fifth Century A.D., Indians had calculated that the age of the earth was 4.3 billion years; as late as the 19th Century, English scientists believed the earth was a hundred million years old, and it is only in the late 20th Century that Western scientists have come to estimate the earth to be about 4.6 billion years old.

India invented modern numerals (known to the world as "Arabic" numerals because the West got them from the Arabs, who learned them from us!). It was an Indian who first conceived of the zero, shunya; the concept of nothingness, shunyata, integral to Hindu and Buddhist thinking, simply did not exist in the West. Modern mathematics would have impossible without the zero and the decimal system; just read a string of Roman numbers, which had no zeros, to understand their limitations. 

Indian mathematicians invented negative numbers as well. The concept of infinite sets of rational numbers was understood by Jain thinkers in the Sixth Century B.C. Our forefathers can take credit for geometry, trigonometry, and calculus; the "Bakhshali manuscript", 70 leaves of bark dating back to the early centuries of the Christian era, reveals fractions, simultaneous equations, quadratic equations, geometric progressions and even calculations of profit and loss, with interest.

The Sulba Sutras, composed between 800 and 500 B.C., demonstrate that India had Pythagoras' theorem before the great Greek was born, and a way of getting the square root of 2 correct to five decimal places. (Vedic Indians solved square roots in order to build sacrificial altars of the proper size). The Kerala mathematician Nilakantha wrote sophisticated explanations of the irrationality of "pi" before the West had heard of the concept. The Vedanga Jyotisha, written around 500 B.C., declares: "Like the crest of a peacock, like the gem on the head of a snake, so is mathematics at the head of all knowledge." Our mathematicians were poets too! 

Indian numbers probably arrived in the Arab world in 773 A.D. with the diplomatic mission sent by the Hindu ruler of Sind to the court of the Caliph al-Mansur. This gave rise to the famous arithmetical text of al-Khwarizmi, written around 820 A.D., which contains a detailed exposition of Indian mathematics, in particular the usefulness of the zero. It was al-Khwarizmi who is credited with the invention of algebra, though he properly credits Indians for it himself.

But the point is that, alas, we let this knowledge lapse. We had a glorious past; wallowing in it and debating it now will only saddle us with a contentious and unproductive present. We should take pride in what our forefathers did, but resolve to be inspired by them rather than rest on their laurels. We need to use the past as a springboard, not as a battlefield. Only then can we rise above it to create for ourselves a future worthy of our remarkable past. 

It’s divorce day – let’s bust some marriage myths

The conservative narrative baffles: how can tying the knot be both a moral choice and an insurance policy?

• 
• • Zoe Williams
  • The Guardian, Monday 5 January 2015

‘There’s nothing moral about making a promise, the moral part is in keeping it.’ Illustration by Mitch Blunt

It’s “divorce day”, the first working Monday after Christmas, customarily the busiest time of the year for family lawyers. In this age of constant contact, there’s been a modest surge in people seeking advice between Christmas and New Year, but for most, Twelfth Nisi is today (a half-pun for those who have already begun their divorce). If you’re married, there is a one in five chance you’re considering a split (according to a survey by legal firm Irwin Mitchell); it sounds improbably large, but there it is. If it’s not you, it’s probably him; check his phone, that’s how all the best divorces start.

Sir Paul Coleridge, a former high court judge, runs the Marriage Foundation, a charity that encourages getting and staying married. He told the Sunday Times, as part of a marriage-promotion drive in the lead-up to D-Day, of a case he’d seen: “She was the long-term girlfriend of a very high-profile celebrity person by whom she had had no fewer than four children. It was looking as if it was going to come unstuck, and she wanted to talk to me informally about what her position was. She said, ‘We’ll no doubt need an hour or two.’ I said, ‘We’ll need a minute or two because the answer is very simple: you have no rights.’”

Many people – in the 18-34 age group, almost half – believe that “common law” marriage actually comes with rights attached; that cohabiting couples with children have the same access to each other’s incomes, in the event of a split, as married ones do. This is untrue, though the “no ring, no rights” rallying cry of the marriage lobby is a bit of an overstatement (maintenance obligations obviously exist for the non-resident parent, whether previously married or not). This can prove disastrous for the main carer, who is unlikely to be the higher earner and, labouring under an illusion of legal protection, may have made no attempt to shield their finances from the hit of parenthood.

Family lawyers are divided on the answer – some would like to see new legislation that brings the common law into the purview of the actual law. Others, like Coleridge, see this as totally illogical; marriage, being limitless in both time and liability, is about the most profound contract a person can enter into. You can’t just slide into it, via cohabitation and parenthood; you have to enter into it willingly. His view is that marriage must be taught in schools (as a good idea, that is; I believe children already broadly know that it exists), and he’s supported in this by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), among others. There is something touchingly absurd about the amount of store people set by telling children things in schools – as if, when you want to alter behaviour, you simply insert a lesson and make it so. It doesn’t even work with oral hygiene.

Conservative belief in the institution of marriage runs like this: making a commitment to one another is what moral people do, and this makes marriage the most stable of all known relationships. Since stability is good for children, marriage is good for children (this mantra is given by the CSJ, especially, as something akin to gravity in its self-evidence).

Then, finally, if it all goes Pete Tong, you have the protection of the law, without which the weaker party may well end up dependent on the state. (The Sunday Times article was illustrated rather vividly by the story of a woman who, while waiting two and a half years for her husband to pay maintenance, said: “I’m pretty sure I cost the government around £400,000.”)

Few of these suppositions make much sense. There’s nothing moral about making a promise, the moral part is in keeping it, which 42% of married people don’t. Arguably, cohabiting couples are more moral than married ones, never making the promise in the first place that, most people agree and 42% prove, is rather unrealistic. In many cases, the so-called stability conferred by marriage is indistinguishable from that bestowed by wealth, which has itself become a major determinant of people’s decision to get married. But the critical contradiction, the bit I really cannot compute, is the idea of marriage as at once a moral choice and an insurance policy. It’s one or the other, surely? The abnegation of the self in the search for true togetherness, or a bid for your spouse’s income: how can it be both?

A conservative would see no contradiction, here: to have taken out the insurance policy of marriage is to have assured one’s self-sufficiency, thus protecting the state from its otherwise 400k liability (that figure does seem improbably high, but let’s go with it). Self-sufficiency is a moral act, to a conservative. In practical terms, this is nonsense; you may have left a copper-bottomed marriage, but if you weren’t rich to begin with, it is highly unlikely that your family earnings will expand to cover two households. Forty-two per cent of single parents live in poverty, 63% have no savings, 71% of all those renting are on housing benefit; so “self-sufficiency” is a byword for affluence, which then has moral superiority conferred upon it.

This is a recurring motif in the political mood music, cropping up in discussions from marriage to poverty to growth. The view from the right is that the ultimate in respectability is to need nothing from anyone: to which the left generally answers, self-sufficiency is about systems, and in the current system, it is very hard to be self-sufficient, however hard you work. But perhaps the question should be: what’s so wrong with needing one another in the first place?