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davywavyI've recently been reading Stuart Sutherland's excellent book Irrationality. I'd recommend it. It's a look at how our assumptions and prejudices are usually pretty much wrong and if you want to acheive good decision making it's always a good idea to look at statistical analyses rather than relying solely upon your own brain.
One section of it which really caught my eye was on elections, voting behaviour and decision making. You see, I'd always rather blithely assumed, in a smug educated middle-class sort of way, that when it came to things like understanding issues and being informed about the policies of political parties and their effects upon life the best people at that would be people like you and me, dear readers. i.e smug educated middle-class folks. In that it turned out I was dead wrong.
I spend a lot of time reading about and investigating politics and I'd always assumed that others did something pretty similar, but it appears not. Instead, as a general rule, during elections the people who are best informed as to the policies of political parties and the effects they will have are the people at the bottom of the heap; the poorest. I was surprised but when when you stop and think about it that makes sense, as even marginal differences in social and economic policy will have the greatest relative effects upon their lives and so it is in their interest to be up to speed on what those policies actually are. People are acting in their own self-interest, really.
I got me to thinking about this in the light of the recent results in the European elections and the shock many people felt about the election of a few BNP members. Looking at the results it seemed pretty clear that the Conservatives lost a lot of their traditional voters to the UKIP, and Labour lost theirs to the BNP; if you're unconvinced, take a look at the historic election returns in the wards where the BNP made gains and tell me which parties lost out to them. You can do that here and here. I've seen some people in the media and on LJ suggest that it's teh ev1l Toriezz voting with the nasty racists, but the evidence shows that where the BNP was elected Labour lost seats whilst the Conservatives and LibDems maintained their share of the electorate in those wards, by and large.
A glance at the YouGov poll taken in concordance with the European elections offers some key insights as to who backed them, and why. Nationally, professional workers outnumber manual by 20 per cent to 18 per cent. Among BNP voters the proportion is 11 per cent professional to 36 per cent manual workers. 61 per cent of BNP voters are male. A third read the Sun or Daily Star, compared with just a fifth of the country at large, and only 6 per cent read the upmarket Guardian, Times, Telegraph etc. The average BNP voter’s wage is below the national average. They are, essentially, what once formed the backbone of traditional Labour support.
It's very easy to demonise views and belief systems with which one does not agree, and it's also very easy for lazy thinkers to accuse any attempt to understand those views as being in some way condoning them; look at the time Cherie Blair said she understood why the Palestinians were detonating themselves. She didn't say she condoned or agreed, just expressed understanding, but this was still seized upon and she was forced to make a ritual political apology. However, if we are to stop people acting in a way we find abhorrent or unacceptable, it is important to understand why they're doing it in the first place. As Sun Tzu observed in the Art of War almost two and a half thousand years ago, Know your enemy, know yourself, and you shall not be defeated in a thousand battles. As such, I decided to look into why people felt that the BNP were a sufficiently attractive prospect to start electing them. What I found was interesting.
The fast reaction of many to the prospect of people voting BNP is that this was done out of stupidity or ignorance, but if Sutherland (above) is correct, then this simply cannot be the case. If the poorest are the best informed on issues, and they're the ones voting BNP (i.e. the Labour party's core vote deserting them), then they must be doing so for reasons which seem to them to be both rational and most importantly in their own interest. I had no idea what those reasons are, so plainly there was something going on here that I wasn't aware of.
The primary claim of the BNP is, simply, that 'They're coming over here and taking all our jobs". It's the age-old cry of the knee-jerk reactionary - all we need is for them to add "And women" and it'll be like an episode of Love thy neighbour. This has always struck me as suspect; at the height of the boom back in 2005, Gordon Brown claimed that an additional 2.2 million jobs had been created in the British economy. Even assuming a certain amount of political hyperbole here, anything like that number of created jobs would have had a remarkable effect upon the unemployment figures, and so my next step was to check that out.
The Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) keeps figures of people classed as 'out of work and claiming benefits'. That is, the total number of unemployed and not just the ones claiming the dole or whatever it's called this week. Ever since the convenient political charade of shoving the long-term unemployed onto the incapacity benefit register was started in the late 1980's, this total figure has been the one to watch and investigating that led me to this remarkable chart:
In spite of all the 'new jobs' having been created in the last decade, unemployment in the UK has remained steady. In fact, at no point in the last decade has the number of people out of work and claiming benefits dropped below five million. This took me aback. We've just lived through the greatest economic boom in recorded human history, but in spite of that and all the untold billions spent, sure start places, initiatives, targets and training schemes, UK unemployment hasn't budged.* Instead, it appears that a migrant workforce has taken up the slack.
Now, speaking personally, I'm a big fan of open borders and people being able to move where the work is. If intelligent, educated and diligent Poles with big knockers** (for example) want to move here to work then I'm all for it.
This is not the whole picture either; the image of the unemployed as being either incapable of working or workshy is also simply not true. Of the 5.3 million unemplyed and claiming benefits, the best part of half are classed as lacking but wanting paid employment'; however, it seems they simply being outcompeted by the migratory workforce.
It's here that the BNP have found their niche; despite having invested billions in public services in the same way that I invested four pints up against the garden wall on my way home from the pub the other night, Labour has comprehensively failed their core supporters - indeed, the very people whom the Labour party were created to represent - the working class. Instead, not only there are just as many people on benefits as there were over a decade ago, but many of those genuinely want to work but simply cannot compete in the job markets. More astonishingly, since the 2005 election the incomes of the poorest 10% of the population have actually fallen in real terms. If you combine these factors, the rise of the BNP becomes understandable; a disenfranchised sector of the population who as a whole actually got poorer during the greatest period of economic expansion we have ever known, and who want to work but find themselves out-competed and out-performed by migratory workers makes for a potent brew of disaffection.
I remember railing back in 2005 about the declared public sector liabilities of £38bn; Of course, this was back in the good old days when thirty eight billion quid was a lot of money - since then those liabilities have gone over £720bn and are still growing. This £720bn doesn't take into account unfunded public-sector pension liabilites and PFI commitments*** so you have to admit that Labour's record has been less than stellar; the last time we were this much in debt we at least had punching Hitler squarely on the nose to show for it, but despite that they've not reduced total unemployment by more than can be accounted for by statistical variation and instead made those self same people actually worse off. So much for the 'third way'.
I know there are a number of Labour fans out there on my f-list, so there you are. I've solved your problem for you. The reason the BNP are making gains over you is because you've so alienated and disenfranchised your core electorate over the last ten years that they see voting for the Nazis as preferable. You've shown them what jobs are, but made sure they won't get one and made them poorer instead. If you plan on making a stand at any elections any time soon, you might care to do something about it.
Gosh, that was all very serious, wasn't it? I'll tell some jokes tomorrow, promise. The voices in my head told me some pretty funny ones over the weekend.
*Moreover, thesee figures are over a year old. Since they were compiled, unemployment has risen by somewhere in the region of a million, and if projections are anything to go by the total number of 'unemployed and claiming benefits' will top 7 million people by the end of next year.
**Shout out to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ditzy_pole here.
*** If those showed up on the figures they'd read £2,000,000,000,000, so it's understandable that ol' prudence brown is keeping schtum.
One section of it which really caught my eye was on elections, voting behaviour and decision making. You see, I'd always rather blithely assumed, in a smug educated middle-class sort of way, that when it came to things like understanding issues and being informed about the policies of political parties and their effects upon life the best people at that would be people like you and me, dear readers. i.e smug educated middle-class folks. In that it turned out I was dead wrong.
I spend a lot of time reading about and investigating politics and I'd always assumed that others did something pretty similar, but it appears not. Instead, as a general rule, during elections the people who are best informed as to the policies of political parties and the effects they will have are the people at the bottom of the heap; the poorest. I was surprised but when when you stop and think about it that makes sense, as even marginal differences in social and economic policy will have the greatest relative effects upon their lives and so it is in their interest to be up to speed on what those policies actually are. People are acting in their own self-interest, really.
I got me to thinking about this in the light of the recent results in the European elections and the shock many people felt about the election of a few BNP members. Looking at the results it seemed pretty clear that the Conservatives lost a lot of their traditional voters to the UKIP, and Labour lost theirs to the BNP; if you're unconvinced, take a look at the historic election returns in the wards where the BNP made gains and tell me which parties lost out to them. You can do that here and here. I've seen some people in the media and on LJ suggest that it's teh ev1l Toriezz voting with the nasty racists, but the evidence shows that where the BNP was elected Labour lost seats whilst the Conservatives and LibDems maintained their share of the electorate in those wards, by and large.
A glance at the YouGov poll taken in concordance with the European elections offers some key insights as to who backed them, and why. Nationally, professional workers outnumber manual by 20 per cent to 18 per cent. Among BNP voters the proportion is 11 per cent professional to 36 per cent manual workers. 61 per cent of BNP voters are male. A third read the Sun or Daily Star, compared with just a fifth of the country at large, and only 6 per cent read the upmarket Guardian, Times, Telegraph etc. The average BNP voter’s wage is below the national average. They are, essentially, what once formed the backbone of traditional Labour support.
It's very easy to demonise views and belief systems with which one does not agree, and it's also very easy for lazy thinkers to accuse any attempt to understand those views as being in some way condoning them; look at the time Cherie Blair said she understood why the Palestinians were detonating themselves. She didn't say she condoned or agreed, just expressed understanding, but this was still seized upon and she was forced to make a ritual political apology. However, if we are to stop people acting in a way we find abhorrent or unacceptable, it is important to understand why they're doing it in the first place. As Sun Tzu observed in the Art of War almost two and a half thousand years ago, Know your enemy, know yourself, and you shall not be defeated in a thousand battles. As such, I decided to look into why people felt that the BNP were a sufficiently attractive prospect to start electing them. What I found was interesting.
The fast reaction of many to the prospect of people voting BNP is that this was done out of stupidity or ignorance, but if Sutherland (above) is correct, then this simply cannot be the case. If the poorest are the best informed on issues, and they're the ones voting BNP (i.e. the Labour party's core vote deserting them), then they must be doing so for reasons which seem to them to be both rational and most importantly in their own interest. I had no idea what those reasons are, so plainly there was something going on here that I wasn't aware of.
The primary claim of the BNP is, simply, that 'They're coming over here and taking all our jobs". It's the age-old cry of the knee-jerk reactionary - all we need is for them to add "And women" and it'll be like an episode of Love thy neighbour. This has always struck me as suspect; at the height of the boom back in 2005, Gordon Brown claimed that an additional 2.2 million jobs had been created in the British economy. Even assuming a certain amount of political hyperbole here, anything like that number of created jobs would have had a remarkable effect upon the unemployment figures, and so my next step was to check that out.
The Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) keeps figures of people classed as 'out of work and claiming benefits'. That is, the total number of unemployed and not just the ones claiming the dole or whatever it's called this week. Ever since the convenient political charade of shoving the long-term unemployed onto the incapacity benefit register was started in the late 1980's, this total figure has been the one to watch and investigating that led me to this remarkable chart:
In spite of all the 'new jobs' having been created in the last decade, unemployment in the UK has remained steady. In fact, at no point in the last decade has the number of people out of work and claiming benefits dropped below five million. This took me aback. We've just lived through the greatest economic boom in recorded human history, but in spite of that and all the untold billions spent, sure start places, initiatives, targets and training schemes, UK unemployment hasn't budged.* Instead, it appears that a migrant workforce has taken up the slack.
Now, speaking personally, I'm a big fan of open borders and people being able to move where the work is. If intelligent, educated and diligent Poles with big knockers** (for example) want to move here to work then I'm all for it.
This is not the whole picture either; the image of the unemployed as being either incapable of working or workshy is also simply not true. Of the 5.3 million unemplyed and claiming benefits, the best part of half are classed as lacking but wanting paid employment'; however, it seems they simply being outcompeted by the migratory workforce.
It's here that the BNP have found their niche; despite having invested billions in public services in the same way that I invested four pints up against the garden wall on my way home from the pub the other night, Labour has comprehensively failed their core supporters - indeed, the very people whom the Labour party were created to represent - the working class. Instead, not only there are just as many people on benefits as there were over a decade ago, but many of those genuinely want to work but simply cannot compete in the job markets. More astonishingly, since the 2005 election the incomes of the poorest 10% of the population have actually fallen in real terms. If you combine these factors, the rise of the BNP becomes understandable; a disenfranchised sector of the population who as a whole actually got poorer during the greatest period of economic expansion we have ever known, and who want to work but find themselves out-competed and out-performed by migratory workers makes for a potent brew of disaffection.
I remember railing back in 2005 about the declared public sector liabilities of £38bn; Of course, this was back in the good old days when thirty eight billion quid was a lot of money - since then those liabilities have gone over £720bn and are still growing. This £720bn doesn't take into account unfunded public-sector pension liabilites and PFI commitments*** so you have to admit that Labour's record has been less than stellar; the last time we were this much in debt we at least had punching Hitler squarely on the nose to show for it, but despite that they've not reduced total unemployment by more than can be accounted for by statistical variation and instead made those self same people actually worse off. So much for the 'third way'.
I know there are a number of Labour fans out there on my f-list, so there you are. I've solved your problem for you. The reason the BNP are making gains over you is because you've so alienated and disenfranchised your core electorate over the last ten years that they see voting for the Nazis as preferable. You've shown them what jobs are, but made sure they won't get one and made them poorer instead. If you plan on making a stand at any elections any time soon, you might care to do something about it.
Gosh, that was all very serious, wasn't it? I'll tell some jokes tomorrow, promise. The voices in my head told me some pretty funny ones over the weekend.
*Moreover, thesee figures are over a year old. Since they were compiled, unemployment has risen by somewhere in the region of a million, and if projections are anything to go by the total number of 'unemployed and claiming benefits' will top 7 million people by the end of next year.
**Shout out to
ditzy_pole here.*** If those showed up on the figures they'd read £2,000,000,000,000, so it's understandable that ol' prudence brown is keeping schtum.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-07-06 01:17 pm (UTC)Your customers think they're judging who has the best product, what they're actually judging in many cases is who lies the best, who has the best patter and who can hide their indiscretions best.
Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 01:19 pm (UTC)Re: Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 01:22 pm (UTC)Re: Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 01:24 pm (UTC)Can you let me know how they're lying, if it's not me? I must say, that sort of information would be jolly handy in the current market, because they all seem pretty honest to me.
Re: Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 01:27 pm (UTC)Can haz reading comprehensionz?
I don't know about your specifics, though I wouldn't put it past you given your robust defence of systems that encourage and exacerbate such behaviour. I would hope you're not SO blinkered by your viewpoint that you'd say that some, indeed many, companies lie, cheat, steal, skate the edge of the law, cross the line and indeed lie to secure and maintain business.
Sales and marketing is almost all about creatively lying to people.
'In many cases' does not mean in all cases and may or may not include you.
Re: Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 01:31 pm (UTC)Would it be fair to say that the people who buy your pdfs have been lied to about their quality and their value for money? I mean, 'in most cases' would certainly indicate that, yes, it would be a reasonable assertion at least for greater than 50% of your product line.
The thing I like about English law is that people are judged upon things they can be demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt to have done, not what they probably might have sort of done. Ish. In many cases.
Re: Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 01:35 pm (UTC)Re: Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 01:36 pm (UTC)Re: Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 01:44 pm (UTC)Occasionally the benefits outweigh the drawbacks but to pretend that this doesn't go on, a great deal, is frankly ludicrous.
One need only look at todays news to see the FSA moving to try and tackle this problem - though typically by punishment rather than addressing the actual causes or the lag between drops in oil prices and the sales price, while rises are almost immediately reflected. Or the other week with Microsoft being slapped - repeatedly - for antitrust behaviour. Indeed MS makes an excellent case in point of this sort of institutionalised behaviour in large companies.
Ah well, you're not going to listen anyway, so back to work for me, enough windmill tilting for one day. You only want to listen to your own PoV it seems, which makes me wonder why you make these posts.
Re: Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 01:52 pm (UTC)If we assume competition is inherently inefficient, but that no competition means we just do what the dictator says, then we're kinda bewteen a rock & a hard place it seems to me. Even though what is it, 80% of new startups fail (or is it 95%) the 5% that make it are the ones that drag us into the future.
How then, to increase the likelihood of good ideas being selected over bad ones?
Re: Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 01:58 pm (UTC)Encourage rational thinking and dispassionate assessment is the answer to the ending question, but we'll have to pick this up another time.
Re: Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 02:04 pm (UTC)Seems to me making sure clever people are put in positions of responsibility would be a start. Or maybe just lucky people, as cleverness seems only to be important once you've got a good idea, but genuis strikes, like lightning, at random.
Re: Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 02:05 pm (UTC)Re: Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 02:10 pm (UTC)Re: Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 02:12 pm (UTC)Re: Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 02:13 pm (UTC)Re: Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 02:14 pm (UTC)Re: Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 02:28 pm (UTC)Re: Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 02:30 pm (UTC)Re: Um...
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2009-07-06 02:38 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: Um...
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From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2009-07-06 02:47 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: Um...
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Date: 2009-07-06 01:54 pm (UTC)However, points to ponder;
1) Your assertion was that in sales & marketing is lying. You started out by suggesting it was for 'my clients', I accept you simply worded that badly, but I do still ask you to demonstrate it, as I think it's unprovable in the same way that 'God exists' is unprovable.
2) Haven't seen the news today, so I shall look
3) I made the post on the rise of the BNP as a result of the betrayal of the working class by the Labour party. If I'm wrong anywhere on that, I'm happy to debate that too?
Re: Um...
Date: 2009-07-06 02:50 pm (UTC)actually its the sort of thing the consumers not giving a shit encourages. Ask the average person in the street if they think child labour or expensive shoes are worse and they will say 'child labour'. Run an expose all over the press on Nike making cheap shoes with child labour and wathc their market share go down, then back up again once people think they can get cheap shoes without social stigma
remember kids: corporations only get away with it because we let them, just as advertising only works because we want it to
Point of order
Date: 2009-07-06 02:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-06 01:56 pm (UTC)The presentation of any information is marketing to an extent.
With the VHS/Betamax situation there were many factors beyond just quality of picture, VHS tapes for example were initially sold at three hours long as opposed to one hour long for Betamax; result being you could fit a movie on a single VHS tape and not on a Betamax...
Addendum: This isn't to say I particularly like marketing!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-06 02:09 pm (UTC)Why dislike someone simply because they're good at doing that? I usually respect skilled people.
I have to admit that I was somewhat miffed by Grims assertion that I lie to my clients. Why would I?
no subject
Date: 2009-07-06 02:25 pm (UTC)In regards to 'liking marketing' I think it is more that I have become fed up with marketing (and indeed news, a form of marketing, etc etc) saturation; adverts blot out virtually every part of our lives to the point where it becomes virtually a constant (annoying) background noise with people trying to sell me things all the time; a certain level of this is helpful naturally - finding out that now I can stuff my face with three doughnuts instead of only two - but the levels to which it permutes our society is very tiring.
Now clever marketing I have a lot of time for; adverts or campaigns that make me think, make me laugh - that is my demographic at least!
I can understand your miffed-ness about insinuation of lying, it's not very nice; certainly lying when you're marketing is a road that can certainly fall rapidly off a cliff when your whoppers are exposed, so why indeed would you?