Can Cosmology Provide a Foundation for Human Ethics?

Contemplation of cosmology under the cosmic dawn — How the moon led me to rethink the origins of the universe and humanity’s place and responsibility within it.

As I settle into my new life in Spain, I wake up before dawn in order to jog along the promenade before it gets too hot, watch the sunrise, contemplate cosmology and meditate.

Last week, to the west above the Carihuela, there was a huge, bright, full moon poised low in the sky before the sunrise.

It wasn’t merely bright. It seemed suspended. As if detached from its control of the tides below. Silver against an increasingly blue sky, refusing — for a few precious minutes — to surrender to the approaching sun.

The sea below was calm. The seagulls were swooping down majestically to collect their breakfast. Somewhere behind me, the town was waking. Yet for a brief moment everything felt strangely timeless.

I stood there on the harbour wall longer than I intended. Not because I understood what I was looking at. Indeed, as I meditated, I was startled by how little I did.

That quiet moment began another of my recent intellectual odysseys. I jogged home and began researching in detail the origins of the universe.

The answers I discovered have profoundly changed the way I see both the universe and humanity.

We began with almost nothing

According to our best scientific understanding, the Universe began around 13.8 billion years ago.

In the first few minutes after the Big Bang, almost all that existed were the simplest elements imaginable: hydrogen, helium and tiny traces of lithium.

There was no carbon.

No oxygen.

No calcium.

No iron.

No chlorine.

No lead.

Nothing from which planets, oceans or living organisms could eventually be built.

Everything else had yet to be created.

Stars are not simply lights

The next discovery astonished me even more.

I had always thought of stars as glowing balls of gas.

In reality, they are unimaginably powerful nuclear furnaces.

The identity of every chemical element is determined simply by the number of protons in the nucleus of each atom.

Hydrogen has one proton.

Helium has two.

Carbon has six.

Oxygen has eight.

Iron has twenty-six.

Lead has eighty-two.

Inside stars, gravity compresses matter with such extraordinary force that atomic nuclei are pushed together in a process known as nuclear fusion.

When four hydrogen nuclei fuse together, they produce helium and release enormous amounts of energy.

Later, when stars become even hotter, three helium nuclei combine to create carbon. Carbon can then fuse with helium to produce oxygen. Larger stars continue building heavier and heavier elements through countless further fusion reactions.

Quite literally, the periodic table is assembled one proton at a time.

Eventually, the largest stars manufacture elements all the way to iron. When those stars finally exhaust their fuel, they explode as supernovae, scattering their newly created elements across the galaxy.

During those unimaginably violent explosions, still heavier elements such as gold, lead and uranium are created before being hurled into interstellar space.

Without generations of stars living and dying long before our Solar System existed, neither the Earth nor we ourselves could ever have existed.

We really are made of stardust

Carl Sagan famously said:

“We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”

He also said that we are made of star stuff.

For years I assumed that was simply a poetic metaphor.

It isn’t.

The hydrogen in the water within my body was formed shortly after the Big Bang itself.

But almost every other element within me has a different origin.

The carbon in my muscles.

The oxygen I breathe.

The calcium in my bones.

The iron carried around my body by my blood.

All of them were forged inside stars that died billions of years before the Earth even formed.

Some of those atoms may once have been part of ancient forests.

Some may have passed through dinosaurs.

Some may have circulated through countless generations of my own ancestors.

Matter itself is endlessly recycled.

The atoms change partners.

The universe never stops reusing its building blocks.

In this way, it is no coincidence that the branching networks of our neurons and the elegant spirals in hurricanes and elements of our DNA echo patterns that also appear throughout the cosmos. Different processes, different scales, yet strikingly familiar forms emerging from the same universe.

Then came another surprise

Just when I thought the story could not become any more remarkable, genetics added another layer.

Every person alive today shares common ancestry.

Research suggests that all living humans inherited their mitochondrial DNA from one woman who lived in Africa roughly 150,000 to 200,000 years ago.

Likewise, all living men inherited their Y chromosome from one man who lived much later.

They were not the only people alive at the time.

They are simply the individuals whose particular genetic lines survived uninterrupted to the present day.

Meanwhile, every generation doubles the number of our ancestors.

Travel back only a few thousand years and our family trees overlap so extensively that the distinctions between “my ancestors” and “your ancestors” begin to disappear.

In a very real biological sense, humanity is one enormous extended family.

A different foundation for responsibility

As the moon faded into the brightening Andalusian sky, I found myself asking a question that science itself cannot answer.

If Carl Sagan was right that “we are a way for the cosmos to know itself,” what follows logically from that?

As far as we currently know, nowhere else has the universe organised itself into beings capable of wondering where the universe came from.

Nowhere else has hydrogen learned to write symphonies.

Or paint masterpieces.

Or decode DNA.

Or ask why anything exists at all.

Perhaps intelligent life is common throughout the cosmos.

I hope it is.

But until we know otherwise, we must take seriously the possibility that conscious beings like ourselves are extraordinarily rare. Maybe even unique.

If that is true, then our responsibility extends far beyond ourselves.

Protecting our planet.

Seeking truth.

Advancing knowledge.

Caring for one another.

Safeguarding future generations.

These are not merely useful social conventions.

They become responsibilities entrusted to the very few beings — perhaps the only beings — capable of understanding what is at stake.

The moon itself had not changed that morning.

Nor had the sea.

Nor the rising sun.

What changed was my understanding.

For the first time, I began to see humanity not as something standing apart from the universe, but as one of the most extraordinary things the universe has so far produced.

Perhaps, after all, the starry heavens above us do not merely invite our curiosity. They really can provide us with the most rational basis for human ethics that we will ever discover.

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe… the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”
— Immanuel Kant

Why Did Nobody Teach Me This at School?

What history should really teach — How a Spanish football shirt unexpectedly changed the way I think about history, education and the origins of our globalised world.

I recently bought a Spanish football shirt to wear at a bar while watching Spain’s 3:0 win against Austria on Thursday.

That simple purchase unexpectedly led me down one of the most fascinating rabbit holes I have explored in a while.

It began with two Latin words embroidered on Spain’s coat of arms: Plus Ultra.

I knew from my school-Latin what the words meant, further beyond, but I still needed some context to understand the meaning.

A little research revealed that they are a reference to the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar. For the ancient world, these marked the edge of the known earth. The old warning was “Non Plus Ultra” — nothing lies beyond.

Then came the voyages of exploration.

The warning became an invitation.

There was indeed more beyond.

That discovery prompted another question.

Christopher Columbus sailed for Spain. Yet I vaguely remembered reading somewhere that he was Italian. Was that right?

It was. I kept digging.

Born in Genoa, Columbus spent years trying to persuade different European rulers to finance his ambitious plan to reach Asia by sailing west. It was only when the Spanish Crown agreed to back him that history changed forever.

Then I discovered something even more surprising.

Ferdinand Magellan, whose expedition first circumnavigated the globe, wasn’t Spanish either. He was Portuguese. And he himself was killed in the Philippines before the expedition was completed.

Like Columbus, he simply happened to be sailing under the Spanish flag.

As I kept digging, I also learnt for the first time why America is called America and why the Pacific is called the Pacific. I learnt why Brazil speaks Portuguese while much of South America speaks Spanish, why Spain became one of history’s great global powers, how its sudden enormous wealth became a resource curse, and, most strikingly of all, how all these historical facts are mirrored in the events happening in the world today.

By now, all this led to another kind of question:

Why was I only learning this as I approach retirement?

None of these are obscure historical curiosities.

They explain the world we live in.

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that perhaps history has often been taught backwards.

Schools understandably devote considerable attention to national history. In Britain, we studied the Tudors, the Industrial Revolution and the Second World War. In Germany, where I spent many years teaching, National Socialism understandably occupies a central place throughout secondary education.

These are all profoundly important topics.

But too often history becomes an exercise in remembering names, dates, battles and treaties.

The examination rewards recall.

Real understanding often comes later.

History is not simply the story of what happened.

History can be the highly relevant explanation of why today’s world looks the way it does.

Why does almost an entire continent speak Spanish?

Why is Brazil different?

Why was Córdoba (Spain) once much bigger and more important than London?

Why are Europe and Latin America still so culturally intertwined?

Why and how did globalisation begin centuries before the Internet?

Those are historical questions too.

They just happen to illuminate the present rather than merely describe the past.

While I was training teachers at the University of Sussex, one of the finest history lessons I have ever witnessed contained almost no conventional history.

The young trainee teacher warned parents in advance that the lesson would be unusual.

She darkened the classroom. She played the sound of air-raid sirens followed by distant explosions. Beforehand, she asked the children to climb underneath their desks and lie silently on the floor with their eyes closed.

For several minutes they simply listened.

Afterwards she asked them to write, not about dates, military strategy or political leaders, but about how they had felt.

For a brief moment, those children had experienced uncertainty, vulnerability and fear. Not the reality of war, of course, but enough to begin imagining what it might feel like to be a child living through one.

I have forgotten countless historical dates since leaving school. I have never forgotten that lesson.

Nor, I suspect, have the children who experienced it.

That teacher wasn’t merely teaching history.

She was teaching empathy and vividly demonstrating how history is so relevant to life in the 21st Century.

As I have grown older, I find myself increasingly drawn to education that asks questions rather than rewards memorisation.

The same thought has appeared repeatedly in my recent writing about economics.

Financial literacy is not really about memorising definitions.

It is about understanding why economies behave as they do.

Likewise, history should not simply teach us to remember what happened.

It should help us understand why our world became what it is.

Perhaps that is why I have found these discoveries in Spain so unexpectedly exciting.

I wasn’t simply learning historical facts.

I was discovering connections.

The voyages of Columbus and Magellan were not isolated adventures.

They marked the beginning of the first great wave of globalisation.

Trade routes expanded.

Ideas travelled.

Plants, animals, diseases and cultures crossed oceans.

The Mediterranean outside my window here was once dry land – another fact I was unaware of. It is only thanks to the Zanclean Flood that water entered from the Atlantic through the Strait of Gibraltar and opened up the possibility of a future global trade highway.

The world became permanently interconnected.

Five centuries later we are still living with the consequences.

History also reminds us that no civilisation remains permanently at the top.

Sometimes I wonder whether schools unintentionally leave us with the impression that education ends when we pass our examinations.

In reality, the opposite is true.

The most rewarding learning often begins afterwards.

It begins when curiosity replaces obligation.

When we are no longer asking, “Will this be in the exam?”

Instead we ask, “Why did nobody ever explain this?”

Perhaps that is the real purpose of education.

Not to fill our minds with information.

But to awaken a curiosity that lasts for the rest of our lives.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
— Marcel Proust

When a Country Gets Richer, Who Owns the Wealth?

Wealth. A man reading a financial newspaper about who owns Spain's wealth in the background. A newspaper headline over breakfast in Spain made me question something I’d never really considered before. When a country’s economy is booming, who actually owns the wealth that’s being created?

One of the unexpected pleasures of moving to Spain has been rediscovering the lost art of breakfast.

Most mornings I walk to my favourite café, order a café con leche and toasted bread rubbed with fresh tomato and olive oil, then spend half an hour simply watching the town wake up. The same waiter greets familiar faces with effortless warmth. Elderly couples linger over coffee. Shopkeepers raise their shutters. Sunburnt tourists wobble by. There is something reassuring about the rhythm of ordinary life here.

A few mornings ago, however, it wasn’t the people who caught my attention. It was a newspaper.

The gentleman at the next table was reading Expansión, Spain’s financial newspaper. Across the front page was a headline that immediately made me stop.

The real owners of the IBEX 35.

The real owners?

Surely Spain’s largest companies belong to Spain.

I finished my breakfast, but the question followed me home.

The Assumption

Like most people, I have spent much of my life assuming that when a country’s economy grows, its people become wealthier. I’ve lived in Germany for 16 years, which always provided me with the perfect example.

And that is how the news is usually presented.

The economy is booming.

Corporate profits are rising.

The stock market reaches another record.

We instinctively hear those as different ways of saying the same thing.

But they are not.

Companies create wealth where they operate.

Ownership determines where much of that wealth ultimately accumulates.

The distinction sounds almost trivial.

It isn’t.

It changes the way we think about almost everything.

Creating and Owning Wealth

Imagine two people.

One spends forty years working.

The other spends forty years owning.

The first helps create prosperity.

The second receives part of the return from that prosperity.

Sometimes, of course, they are the same person.

Often they are not.

That morning, as I watched the waiter carrying coffees from table to table, it occurred to me that he was helping to create Spain’s prosperity every bit as much as a hotel owner, a banker or a company director. Every tourist welcomed, every breakfast served and every day’s work honestly completed contributes, however modestly, to a nation’s success.

Yet if one of Spain’s largest companies doubles its profits this year, a significant share of those profits may eventually belong to people who have never set foot in Spain.

The wealth is created here.

The ownership may be somewhere else.

For some reason, that simple distinction had never really occurred to me before.

A Global Story

The more I reflected on it, the more I realised that Spain was merely the setting.

This is the story of the modern world.

Capital crosses borders far more easily than people do.

That freedom has transformed our lives. It has financed innovation, built industries, connected economies and lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Few of us would seriously wish to reverse it.

Yet every system has consequences.

Perhaps the least discussed consequence of global capitalism is that it increasingly separates the place where wealth is created from the place where much of it is ultimately owned.

The two are no longer the same thing.

Britain Taught Me the Lesson Before Spain Did

Ironically, Britain had been teaching me this lesson for decades without my noticing.

Successive governments sold companies, utilities, railways, airports, property and infrastructure into private and often international ownership. We were told that this was modernisation, efficiency and the price of attracting investment. In many respects, it was.

Investment creates jobs.

Investment raises productivity.

Investment helps economies grow.

But every sale also carried another consequence.

A little more of tomorrow’s income would belong to someone else. And if the quality of a service such as buses and railways deteriorates in Manchester when the company owners sit in an office along the Champs Elysées, we should not be too surprised.

At the same time, Britain itself became a major owner of overseas assets. Pension funds, investment companies and multinational businesses accumulated wealth around the world. Perhaps that is one reason Britain has continued to generate considerable income despite producing far fewer of the manufactured goods that once defined its economy.

I had simply never connected those two facts before.

The newspaper in Spain finally joined the dots for me.

The Conversation We Rarely Have About Wealth

Political arguments usually revolve around wages, taxation or redistribution.

The left asks how wealth should be shared.

The right asks how more wealth can be created.

Both debates matter.

But perhaps they both overlook an earlier question.

Who owns the wealth before anyone starts arguing about how to redistribute it?

That seems to me to be one of the defining questions of our age.

Not because ownership should be concentrated within national borders.

Nor because global investment is somehow undesirable.

But because ownership itself has become strangely invisible.

Millions of people spend entire careers helping to create wealth while accumulating very little ownership of the economy they are helping to build.

They earn incomes.

But wages and ownership are not the same thing.

One pays today’s bills.

The other builds tomorrow’s security.

A Fairer Form of Globalisation

I have no desire to retreat into economic nationalism.

The extraordinary prosperity of the modern world owes much to capital flowing freely across borders. The challenge, surely, is not to make investment less global but ownership less exclusive.

Economic growth should not become a spectator sport in which millions of people spend their lives creating wealth they will never meaningfully own.

A healthy economy should produce not only better wages but broader ownership, because ownership is what allows one generation’s work to become the next generation’s security.

That does not require abandoning global markets.

It requires asking whether ordinary citizens have enough opportunities to become long-term owners of the prosperity they spend their lives creating.

What if governments devoted as much energy to widening ownership as they currently devote to encouraging growth?

What if employee share ownership became the norm rather than the exception?

What if ordinary citizens found it easier to build long-term stakes in productive businesses through pension funds, savings schemes and investment accounts?

What if the people whose daily work creates prosperity gradually came to own a larger share of that prosperity?

That strikes me as a far more constructive ambition than trying to turn back the clock on globalisation.

I still remember folding that newspaper and taking one last sip of coffee before walking home.

The headline had answered one question.

But it had raised another.

When we say that a country’s economy is booming, we usually ask how much wealth has been created.

Perhaps the more important question is one we almost never ask.

Who really owns the wealth that a nation’s workforce is creating?

“The political problem of mankind is to combine three things: economic efficiency, social justice and individual liberty.”
— John Maynard Keynes

The Seven Economic Myths We Tell Ourselves

Last week I questioned whether our current school curriculum provides us with the knowledge we require for handling money during our adult life. This week I’d like to look at seven common economic myths I consequently grew up with that, I believe, should be examined by students in today’s education system.

Economics is often presented as a science of numbers. We hear about growth rates, inflation figures, government debt and stock market performance. Experts produce graphs. Politicians quote statistics. Journalists report percentages.

Yet much of our thinking about economics is not based on facts. We inherit economic beliefs in much the same way that we inherit religious beliefs, political loyalties, or assumptions about human nature. They become part of our mental furniture. We rarely examine them. We simply assume they are true.

Here are seven economic stories many of us have been taught to believe.

Myth No. 1. If GDP Is Growing, Everything Must Be Fine

One of the most common assumptions is that economic growth automatically means social progress. If the Gross Domestic Product is increasing, politicians congratulate themselves, commentators celebrate and newspapers announce that the economy is doing well.

But there is an obvious question that often goes unasked: doing well for whom?

GDP measures economic activity. It measures production. It tells us how much a country produces and sells. What it does not tell us is how that wealth is distributed or whether ordinary people are benefiting from it.

A nation can have impressive growth while housing becomes unaffordable, public services deteriorate and large sections of the population struggle to make ends meet.

As a former teacher, I sometimes compare GDP with examination results. A school may improve its statistics while becoming a worse place to learn. The numbers can look impressive while something essential is being lost.

The same is true of nations. Economic growth matters, but it is not the same thing as human flourishing.

Myth No. 2. Debt Is Always Bad

Most of us are taught to fear debt. For individuals, that is often sensible. Excessive borrowing can destroy lives. It can create stress, dependency and hardship. Yet not all debt is the same.

A mortgage, a student loan or a business investment is different from borrowing money to fund reckless consumption. One creates future value; the other merely brings tomorrow’s spending into today.

The same principle applies to governments. When a state borrows to invest in education, infrastructure, scientific research or healthcare, it may be creating assets that benefit future generations. The question is not whether debt exists, but whether the borrowing is productive and sustainable.

The most successful economies in the world often carry substantial public debt. What matters is not the existence of debt itself, but the wisdom with which it is used.

Myth No. 3. The Rich Create Jobs

This idea appears so frequently in political debate that many people accept it without question. There is, of course, some truth in it. Entrepreneurs create businesses. Businesses employ people. Investment can stimulate growth. But the story is incomplete.

Businesses do not hire employees simply because their owners are wealthy. They hire employees because there is demand for their products and services. A restaurant expands because customers fill its tables. A manufacturer recruits workers because orders are increasing. A shop hires staff because people are buying what it sells.

In other words, jobs are not created by wealth alone. They are created by economic activity. Moreover, much employment comes not from billionaires or multinational corporations, but from small and medium-sized businesses. Across Europe, countless family businesses, local shops, tradespeople and self-employed entrepreneurs collectively employ millions of people.

The real engine of employment is not wealth itself but a healthy and active economy.

Myth No. 4. Markets Always Know Best

For some people, the market has become almost a secular religion. The argument is familiar. Left alone, markets allocate resources efficiently. Government intervention merely creates distortions and stunts economic growth.

There is certainly some truth in this. Competitive markets can be remarkably effective. They often encourage innovation, efficiency and consumer choice. But markets are not infallible.

Consider healthcare. If access to medical treatment depends entirely upon ability to pay, many vulnerable people will be excluded.

Consider environmental protection. Businesses may profit by passing environmental costs onto society as a whole. Pollution becomes someone else’s problem.

Economists even have a term for these situations: market failures.

The reality is that markets and governments each have strengths and weaknesses. Mature societies require both. The challenge is not choosing one over the other, but finding the right balance between them.

Whenever someone insists that the answer is always more market or always more state, I become suspicious. Human societies are rarely that simple.

Myth No. 5. If You Tax the Rich, They Will Leave

This argument appears whenever tax reform is proposed. Raise taxes on wealthy individuals, we are told, and they will immediately pack their bags and move elsewhere.

At first glance, the claim seems plausible. Yet people are not spreadsheets.

Human beings make decisions based on family, friendships, culture, language, quality of life, security and belonging. Financial considerations matter, but they are rarely the only consideration.

Countries such as Norway, Sweden and Denmark have maintained relatively high levels of taxation while remaining prosperous, innovative and attractive places to live.

This does not mean taxes can be increased without limit. Excessive taxation can certainly discourage investment and entrepreneurship.

The point is simply that reality is more nuanced than political slogans suggest.

People stay for many reasons. They leave for many reasons. Tax is only one factor among many.

Myth No. 6. Inflation Is Always Bad

The word inflation usually arrives wrapped in anxiety. We hear that prices are rising and immediately assume disaster.

Certainly, high inflation can be deeply damaging. It erodes savings, creates uncertainty and hits those on lower incomes particularly hard. Yet economists generally do not aim for zero inflation.

A modest level of inflation is usually considered healthy because it reflects a growing economy. It encourages spending, investment and economic activity.

What is often forgotten is that the opposite problem can be equally dangerous.

If prices continually fall, people postpone purchases. Why buy today if everything will be cheaper tomorrow? Businesses then sell less, investment slows and unemployment may rise.

Like many things in life, the issue is not inflation versus no inflation. It is balance. Too much inflation can be destructive. Too little can be equally problematic.

Myth No. 7. Money Is Real

This final myth is my favourite because it takes us beyond economics and into philosophy.

Most of us think of money as something solid and tangible. We earn it, spend it, save it and worry about it. Yet money possesses no intrinsic value.

A fifty-euro note is merely paper. The number displayed in your bank account is simply a digital record stored on a computer somewhere.

Money works because we collectively believe it works. Its value depends upon trust.

This is not as strange as it sounds. Much of human civilisation rests upon shared beliefs. Nations exist because enough people believe they exist. Laws function because people collectively accept their legitimacy. Companies, universities and governments all depend upon systems of shared trust.

Money is one of humanity’s most successful collective stories. That does not make it imaginary. It makes it a social construct, like any other.

And perhaps that is one of the most important lessons economics can teach us.

If only I’d known in my twenties what I know now

If there is a lesson I wish somebody had taught me when I was starting out, it is that wealth is rarely built through cleverness alone. Looking back, the people who seem to achieve financial security are often not the most intelligent, the most educated or even the highest earners.

They are the people who consistently do a few simple things well.

- They spend less than they earn
- They avoid unnecessary debt
- They acquire productive assets
- They diversify their investment portfolio
- They think long term
- And above all, they allow time and compounding to work their quiet magic.

Perhaps that is the greatest economic lesson of all. Not that there are easy answers. But that small, sensible decisions repeated over decades are often more powerful than brilliant ideas pursued for a few months.

Beyond Economics

The purpose of examining these myths is not to replace one certainty with another.

It is to become more cautious whenever someone offers a simple explanation for a complicated problem.

Economic debates are often presented as battles between truth and error, between common sense and foolishness, between left and right. Reality is usually less satisfying.

The older I become, the less interested I am in certainty and the more interested I am in questions.

- Who benefits from economic growth?
- What kind of debt creates value?
- When do markets work well, and when do they fail?
- How much inequality can a society tolerate before trust begins to erode?

And perhaps most intriguingly of all: what other things do we collectively believe in that are no less dependent on faith than money itself?

Economics turns out to be about far more than money.

It is about human beings and the stories we tell ourselves about how society works.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

I studied for four years at Oxford and Nobody Taught Me How Money Works

The British government has this week announced plans to ban social media access for under-16s. Ministers describe it as a historic intervention to protect children. Newspapers are full of discussion about algorithms, screen addiction and online harms. Yet as I watched the announcement unfold, I found myself asking a different question entirely. Why are we once again arguing about what children should be prevented from doing rather than what they should be taught?

The discussion is presented as a matter of national importance. Ministers speak gravely about online harms. Newspapers speculate about restrictions and enforcement. Experts are summoned to television studios. Committees are established. Reports are commissioned.

But all of my experience as a student and teacher tells me that we are arguing passionately about the wrong problem. At sixty-five years of age, having attended good schools, won a scholarship to Oxford, taught for decades and worked in several countries, I have reached an uncomfortable conclusion: almost nobody ever taught me how money works.

Nobody explained investing. Nobody explained compound interest. Nobody explained pensions. Nobody explained the long-term consequences of inflation. Nobody explained the relationship between taxation and public services. Nobody explained mortgages beyond the most superficial level. Nobody explained the astonishing difference between acquiring assets and merely consuming income.

Yet these are not specialist concerns. They are among the most important forces shaping the lives of ordinary citizens.

They influence where people live, when they retire, whether they accumulate wealth, how vulnerable they are to economic shocks and, ultimately, the degree of freedom they enjoy throughout their lives.

The strange thing is that this educational failure is almost invisible. Some parents complain if their children leave school unable to read Shakespeare. Politicians worry if socially constructed examination results fall.

Universities debate decolonisation, inclusion, safe spaces and artificial intelligence.

Meanwhile, millions of young adults enter the world with little understanding of debt, investment, taxation, pensions or wealth creation.

Nobody seems particularly alarmed. But as a teacher, I find this extraordinary. And as a citizen, I find it deeply disturbing.

As someone who grew up in a working-class family, I find it difficult to avoid an even more uncomfortable observation.

Those who grow up in affluent families often learn these things anyway.

They hear conversations around the dinner table. They observe parents discussing property, investments, inheritance and taxation. They absorb financial knowledge almost by osmosis.

Those from less privileged backgrounds are often far less fortunate.

The result is that schools, which are supposed to reduce inequality of opportunity, usually end up reinforcing it.

I studied languages, theology, literature and philosophy. I do not regret a moment of it. Education transformed my life and broadened my horizons in ways I shall always be grateful for.

Yet if I am completely honest, my grandfather, a builder with far less formal education, may well have understood practical wealth creation better than I did. He understood property. He understood value. He understood patience. Most importantly, he understood that money is not primarily about income. It is about what income becomes over time. That lesson alone may be worth more than half the curriculum I studied. Unfortunately, he passed away when I was five years old, so he could never pass on his wisdom.

The question therefore is not whether children should be protected from harmful content online. Of course they should.

The question is why governments find it easier to regulate TikTok than to ask whether the curriculum itself is preparing young people for adult life.

Why is there endless discussion about screen time but comparatively little discussion about economic literacy?

Why do we devote thousands of classroom hours to subjects that many pupils will never use again while allocating almost no serious time to understanding mortgages, pensions, inflation, taxation, investing and economic reasoning?

And why, after decades of educational reform, do so many intelligent, capable and highly educated adults still feel financially illiterate?

These are not merely personal questions. They are political questions. They are social questions.

And they are ultimately questions about power.

A population that cannot critically evaluate economic arguments is easier to persuade, easier to frighten and easier to divide. It becomes dependent upon experts, commentators and politicians to interpret reality on its behalf.

A population that understands economics is harder to manipulate.

Perhaps that is why the seven economic myths I recently encountered fascinated me so much. I will share them here next week.

These seven myths didn’t just reveal something about economics, but they revealed something about education.

And perhaps, more importantly, about what education still fails to teach.

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

— W. B. Yeats

If Yeats was right, then perhaps we need to ask whether we are lighting the wrong fires.

Gregor Gysi: The Best Chancellor Germany Never Had

Why Friedrich Merz Is Sealing Germany’s Coffin

Recently, Gregor Gysi made an observation that deserves far more attention than it has received. According to Gysi, Friedrich Merz’s political strategy is increasingly based on finding new groups of people to blame for Germany’s socio-economic problems rather than confronting the deeper causes of the country’s decline.

First it was immigrants and refugees.

Then it was the healthcare system.

Now it is Germany’s workforce.

Whether one agrees with Gregor Gysi on everything or not, his criticism exposes a troubling pattern. Whenever Germany faces a serious challenge, Merz appears more interested in identifying a convenient target than offering either a compelling vision for the future or consistent decisions aligned with clear political and ethical values.

The Refugees Who Helped Germany

Germany welcomed around one million refugees during the migration crisis of 2015 and 2016. The decision was controversial then and remains controversial today, stoked up by the nationalism of the AfD.

Yet ten years later, many of these refugees have integrated successfully. They have learned German, entered the labour market, started businesses, paid taxes, contributed to the pension system and become part of German society.

Some arrived as highly qualified professionals: doctors, engineers, academics and lawyers. Others filled essential jobs that Germany struggles to recruit for itself.

Germany’s demographic crisis is not a future problem. It is happening now. Employers across the country face labour shortages. The pension system depends on a shrinking workforce supporting a growing retired population.

Against this background, treating refugees primarily as a burden rather than as contributors makes little economic sense.

I recently thought of a young Syrian woman I know. She now speaks fluent German, as well as English and Arabic. She is completing a doctorate in law and has every prospect of becoming a highly productive member of German society.

Yet she is planning her future elsewhere, most likely in the United States.

Germany invested in her integration. Germany benefited from her talent. Germany may now lose her altogether.

That is not a success story. It is a failure of political imagination.

Scapegoating Healthcare

The same pattern appears in healthcare.

Germany undoubtedly faces major financial pressures in its health and social insurance systems. An ageing population, rising costs and economic stagnation create genuine challenges.

But the answer cannot simply be to reduce protections that millions of people rely upon.

The principle that families should have access to healthcare regardless of income has long been one of the strengths of the German social model. Weakening that principle may save money in the short term, but it risks creating greater social and economic costs in the future.

What is particularly striking is the contrast between the urgency applied to military spending and the hesitation shown towards investments in social infrastructure.

Politicians readily describe defence spending as an investment in the future. Yet healthcare, education and social stability are investments too.

A nation is not defended only by weapons. It is defended by healthy, educated and confident citizens.

The Myth of Working Longer

The latest target appears to be Germany’s workforce.

Merz has argued that Germans need to work more hours and remain economically active for longer. On the surface, this sounds practical and responsible.

In reality, it reflects a remarkably outdated understanding of productivity.

Human beings are not machines.

Productivity depends upon motivation, trust, leadership, skills, technology and working conditions. A well-managed and valued employee working thirty-five hours per week can often contribute more than an exhausted and disengaged employee working fifty-five.

The most successful economies do not necessarily have the longest working weeks. They have the most productive working hours.

Germany’s challenge is not primarily that its people are lazy. It is that investment in digitalisation, reducing bureaucracy, promoting infrastructure and innovation has lagged behind many competitors for years.

Blaming workers is easier than fixing structural problems. But it is also less effective.

Germany Needs Leadership, Not Scapegoats

Friedrich Merz undoubtedly possesses ambition. He looks like a statesman. He speaks confidently. He projects authority.

Yet genuine leadership requires more than authority.

It requires empathy.

It requires vision.

It requires values.

The CDU once prided itself on balancing economic responsibility with social responsibility. Today, that balance often seems absent. The willingness to embrace large-scale borrowing while simultaneously questioning social protections creates the impression not of strategic thinking but of political inconsistency.

Germany faces enormous challenges: demographic decline, economic stagnation, digital backwardness, labour shortages and growing political polarisation.

None of these problems will be solved by blaming refugees, healthcare recipients or workers.

They require something much rarer.

They require a government willing to unite rather than divide.

For all his political flaws, Gregor Gysi has long understood one simple truth: a society becomes stronger when it expands the circle of belonging rather than narrowing it. He truly is the best chancellor Germany never had.

Germany’s future will depend on whether more of its leaders understand that truth as well.

“When five people own more wealth than the poorer half of an entire nation, the problem is not refugees, nurses or workers. The problem is where the wealth has gone.”
— Gregor Gysi (paraphrased from his speeches on wealth inequality)

No Such Things As Humane Suffering

On my way to the shops recently, I came across a small group outside the mall. They wore Guy Fawkes masks and held laptops showing videos of animal suffering. Their banner read: Anonymous for the Voiceless.

All my life I had pushed this issue aside and carried on eating meat. But one phrase on their placard stopped me in my tracks:

“Why are my taste buds more important than the suffering and death of another living creature?”

That line wouldn’t leave me. I watched two of the videos they recommended — one by Ed Winters (UK), the other by Gary Yourofsky (USA) — and for the first time I felt obliged to reconsider my standpoint.

What I Didn’t Know

Of course I knew animals were killed for meat. But I had never really thought about the dairy industry.

- Cows must be artificially inseminated to produce milk.
- Their calves are taken away soon after birth so humans can consume the milk.
- The calves’ stomachs are then used for rennet, a key ingredient in many cheeses.
- Chickens in the egg industry live in conditions so brutal they barely warrant description.
- Now I understand why vegans put dairy and meat on the same level. There is no such thing as humane suffering or a humane death.

Cultural Defences

In the same week, I read about Air New Zealand serving vegan burgers on flights to the USA. Carnivores were furious. MP Nathan Guy tweeted:

“Disappointing to see Air NZ promoting a GE substitute meat burger. We produce the most delicious steaks and lamb on the planet – GMO and hormone free. The national carrier should be pushing our premium products.”

So — jingoism as a defence for cruelty?

Religion and the Blind Spot

Years ago, when I still believed in God, vegetarian friends asked me why I ate meat. I had no good answer.

Looking back, I see how Christianity itself shaped my indifference. The Bible tells us that:

- God preferred Abel’s animal sacrifice over Cain’s vegetables (Genesis 4).
- Humans were given permission to eat meat (Genesis 9).
- Animals lack souls and need no salvation (Genesis 1).
- Humans are to rule over animals and nature (Genesis 1).
- Sacrificed animals were required to cover sin (Hebrews 9).
- This world will one day be destroyed and replaced (2 Peter 3).

With such narratives, why give thought to the suffering of animals or the destruction of the environment? When was the last time you heard a sermon in church encouraging veganism?

By contrast, many Hindus are vegetarian. In Hinduism, animals are treated with greater respect — perhaps because of reincarnation, perhaps because there is no idea that this world is disposable.

My Challenge

In conclusion, I challenge you to watch either Dominion or Land of Hope and Glory. If you do, you may find yourself with no excuses left to remain a carnivore.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. The more helpless the creature, the more it is entitled to protection.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

The rise and fall of every Christian revival

Every revival follows the same bell curve: born in protest, swollen with prophecy, and ending in the death it once defied.

Church renewal movements are born in fire, out of dissatisfaction with the lifeless liturgy of the established church, or the suffocating legalism of groups like the Exclusive Brethren. At first they return to the raw text of Scripture and gather in homes, led not by ordained clergy but by men who claim the authority of the Spirit.

Then comes structure. Buildings. Bands. Youth groups. Paid pastors.

At the crest of the curve come the prophecies: revival is coming, just around the corner, greater than anything seen before. Money is given sacrificially. Lives are rearranged. Large buildings bought. Hope is inflated into certainty.

But the revival does not come.

The failed prophecies are rarely named as failures. No serious apology is made for the emotional pressure, the money raised, or the years of expectancy spent on promises that dissolved into air. The people who joined near the beginning often remain inside the system anyway, not because the prophecy came true, but because they have built their lives inside its language. One reason the cycle works is brutally simple: those with living memory of the last false dawn are eventually buried. The cycle renews itself not by repentance, but by funerals.

On the downward slope, the message softens to attract outsiders. The sharp edges are rounded off. Meetings shortened. Speaking in tongues relegated to prayer meetings. Women step into the pulpit. Social projects begin to replace urgent evangelism. By the time the curve flattens, the movement has drifted back into the same spiritual lethargy from which it once broke free.

And somewhere, quietly, the pattern begins again.

This is not new.

The eighteenth-century Methodist revival carried the same internal logic, though in a different register. Prophecy was not usually delivered as spontaneous announcements of imminent awakening, but woven through sermons, hymns and journals. John Wesley spoke of a “work of God” spreading across England; early Methodists read their experience as the fulfilment of biblical promise, the “latter rain” of the Spirit poured out again in the last days.

And yet Methodism, too, followed the curve. What began as a disruptive, Spirit-driven renewal gradually became a structured denomination.

It always does.

What is more interesting is what happens before the next rise.

Recent history gives us several variations on the same descent.

Hillsong shows what happens when a movement builds itself around energy, scale and centralised identity. For a time it feels unstoppable — global, confident, culturally dominant. But when leadership fails and the narrative fractures, the fall is sudden. Not total collapse, but deflation. What was once a movement becomes an organisation trying to stabilise itself.

Mark Driscoll represents another version of the curve: charisma outrunning character. The rise is rapid, the influence undeniable, but the culture formed around the leader cannot bear the weight placed upon it. When the collapse comes, what once looked like authority begins to look like control.

Newfrontiers offers a quieter trajectory. No great implosion, no single scandal at the centre — simply dispersal. A movement built around relational authority fragments into multiple streams. It continues, even grows, but the shared identity thins. What was once a single current becomes a cluster of networks, leaving behind a nagging feeling of dissolution.

Vineyard perhaps shows the most stable outcome of all. No collapse, no dramatic fracture — simply absorption. Its innovations in worship and church culture spread so widely that the movement itself becomes less distinct. It survives by dissolving into the mainstream it once helped reshape.

Sudden deflation. Moral collapse. Gradual dispersal. Quiet absorption.

These are different endings, but they belong to the same curve.

And beneath them lies something more uncomfortable.

These movements do not begin with authority. They begin with relief. A sudden sense that life makes sense, that one is seen, located, given purpose. Meaning becomes structure. Structure becomes authority. Authority becomes identity.

Then, slowly, the system outgrows the intensity that created it.

What felt like life begins to feel like maintenance.

What felt like truth begins to feel like language.

What felt like revival becomes, in time, another form of what it once opposed.

The bell curve is not just a pattern in churches.

It is a pattern in us.

“The most terrible thing of all is when a movement that began in passion ends in habit.” – Søren Kierkegaard

Sovereignty Begins at the Desktop

Linux desktop workspace representing digital sovereignty, privacy and independence from big tech ecosystems

For years, choosing an operating system was treated as a consumer preference: Mac or Windows. Apple or Microsoft. Design or compatibility.

Those days are ending. Indeed, for me, they have already ended.

My move to Linux was not born of practicality. It began as an explicitly political decision: a small personal protest against what I see as the increasingly troubling direction of the United States and my growing discomfort about privacy and with Europe’s dependence on American technology.

What began as principle, however, quickly became something more exciting. An education, even.

In moving away from mainstream platforms, I discovered not merely a political statement but a better way of computing: faster, calmer, less intrusive, more user-controlled—and one that forced me to confront how casually many of us have entrusted vast quantities of personal data to a handful of foreign corporations.

Increasingly, our technology choices are no longer merely about convenience or aesthetics. They are about jurisdiction, sovereignty, dependence and trust.

The Illusion of Neutral Technology

We have spent two decades pretending that software is apolitical. It is not.

Private data is the so-called new oil.
Cloud platforms are geopolitical assets.
Operating systems are instruments of jurisdiction.
App ecosystems are channels of dependency.

To build one’s digital life entirely on American platforms is not simply to use foreign products. It is to place one’s communications, workflows, data and habits inside systems governed elsewhere.

For years, this dependency seemed harmless because America appeared stable, predictable and aligned with European interests. That assumption now looks far less secure.

Why Linux Appeals Beyond the Technically Curious

My own switch to Linux was motivated initially by principle, but sustained by practical reality.

Linux is, quite simply, excellent.

It offers:

- greater speed and efficiency
- far less software bloat
- more user control
- minimal intrusive advertising or telemetry
- freedom from forced ecosystem lock-in
- a calmer, more focused computing experience

It also avoids a growing trend I find exhausting in mainstream software: the transformation of operating systems into hyperactive consumer platforms.

Notifications.
Recommendations.
Prompts.
Pop-ups.
Embedded AI assistants.
Animated interfaces designed less for work than for perpetual engagement.

Linux, by contrast, still feels like a tool. Not a theme park.

My Preferred Distributions: Mint and Arch

For those exploring Linux, I find two distributions particularly compelling.

Linux Mint: Mature Practicality

Mint is Linux at its most civilised.

Stable, polished, intuitive and highly accessible, it offers a reassuringly traditional desktop experience without sacrificing elegance.

It is the Linux distribution I would recommend to most ordinary users and beginners.

Arch Linux: Radical User Ownership

Arch is a different philosophy entirely.

Minimal, modular and deeply configurable, it demands more of the user—but rewards that effort with extraordinary control.

Arch is not merely software.

It is a statement of intent:

I will shape my tools. My tools will not shape me.

Europe Is Beginning to Think This Way Too

What may once have looked like niche hobbyism is increasingly becoming state policy.

The French government has announced plans to migrate large parts of its public administration away from Windows and toward Linux as part of a broader digital sovereignty strategy.

Other European administrations are exploring or implementing similar moves, including regional and national migrations toward open-source alternatives in Germany and Denmark.

Why?

Because governments are recognising what individuals increasingly recognise:

Dependency creates vulnerability.

Reliance on foreign proprietary platforms means reliance on:

- foreign licensing decisions
- foreign corporate roadmaps
- foreign legal jurisdictions
- foreign political stability

The Great Irony: Linux Already Runs the World

Here is the part casual users often miss: Linux may still be niche on consumer desktops, but it already powers much of the digital world.

Linux runs:

- most of the web’s server infrastructure
- the overwhelming majority of supercomputers globally
- vast portions of cloud computing infrastructure
- countless embedded and industrial systems
- even Android is based on a modified version of the Linux kernel

In other words:

Linux is not an outsider technology.

It is the backbone of modern computing.

The desktop is merely catching up.

A Warning to America — And An Opportunity for Europe

The United States should not assume technological dominance is permanent.

Consumers, institutions and governments are increasingly asking difficult questions:

- Who controls our infrastructure?
- Who governs our data?
- What happens if political alignment breaks?
- Why are we so dependent on foreign platforms for essential digital life?

If American tech firms continue to treat lock-in as strategy and complacency as entitlement, they may discover that dominance breeds resistance.

Meanwhile Europe has an opportunity.

Not necessarily to replace Silicon Valley overnight.

But to build credible alternatives.

To invest in open standards.
To support interoperable software.
To back European cloud and software infrastructure.
To treat digital autonomy as seriously as energy autonomy.

The next decade may not produce a mass exodus from American technology.

But the direction of travel is becoming harder to ignore.

Slowly, unevenly, but unmistakably.

Final Thought

My move to Linux will not alter geopolitics.

But it is, in its own small way, an expression of a wider conviction:

That technology should serve its user.
That infrastructure should remain contestable.
That dependency should never become invisible.

Linux is not merely for hobbyists anymore.

It is increasingly for those asking a larger question:

Who should control the tools on which modern life depends?

“In times of change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists.”
— Eric Hoffer

They fuck you up, your mum and dad

The Family: Where Human Flourishing Begins

We live in an age inclined to treat the family as merely one lifestyle choice among many: important perhaps, but ultimately interchangeable with any arrangement sufficiently loving and well-intentioned.

Yet history, psychology and ordinary human experience suggest otherwise.

Before the state, before schools, before therapists and welfare systems, there was the family.

It is there that a child first learns whether the world is safe; whether love is conditional; whether conflict destroys or can be survived; whether authority protects or humiliates; whether they themselves are fundamentally secure and wanted.

Long before formal education begins, the family has already taught its curriculum.

Why Family Matters

Healthy family life gives a child the internal structure from which adulthood is built: security, attachment, discipline, resilience, self-worth, emotional regulation, and a workable model of intimacy.

No family can guarantee psychological health. Human beings are too complex for guarantees and there are always external factors at play beyond the family’s control.

But stable, loving family life remains the environment most likely to produce adults capable of trust, responsibility and emotional maturity.

Children do not simply hear what parents say. They absorb what parents are and often copy what they do.

They learn from atmosphere more than instruction, from example more than ideals, from what is lived more than what is preached.

When Family Fails

But if the family is where health begins, it is also where damage often begins.

The same intimacy that nurtures can wound most deeply. The same bonds that create belonging can transmit fear, shame, addiction, insecurity, emotional neglect, and distorted ideas of love.

And the most dangerous aspect of family dysfunction is that it rarely appears dramatic from the inside. To a child, home is simply normal. What is repeated on a daily basis becomes invisible.

Many adults spend half their lives discovering that what they thought was personality, fate, or bad luck was in fact inherited emotional architecture.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” ― C.G. Jung

This truth is captured powerfully in the closing moments of the Netflix drama Adolescence, when the parents are left confronting the unbearable possibility that what has gone wrong in their son may not be separable from what was formed in their home. It is a fictional scene, but one recognisable to many families: the dawning awareness that neither parental love nor parental mistakes alone cause damage to a child.

Through a Glass, darkly — Family

From my memoir, Teacher, There Are Things That I Don’t Want to Learn (significantly redacted in order to protect my children)

The family is the first, best, and original department of health, education, and welfare. The question is: what if it goes wrong? What if the wrong is passed on? And how can it ever be put right?

What follows is not accusation, just an inventory of what moved downstream.

In prison, I began to see not only the dysfunction in my own parents, but how faithfully I’d copied it. I had fooled myself by pointing to my rebellion — I didn’t smoke, I voted Labour, I hated football, I jettisoned their culture and accent — yet I had replicated their marriage almost exactly. I was the charismatic workaholic in charge of everything; my wife stayed passively at home. Without discussion, we traded my selfish busyness under the lights for her quiet withdrawal behind the scenes.

I inherited my father’s drinking, his love-hate with public speaking, and his fear of sexual shame; from my mother, her retreat from the world when overwhelmed, and her habit of abandoning people once they’d served their purpose. From my grandmother I learned how to cook, keep house, and draw attention toward myself as the golden boy — the shining charmer whose light dimmed everyone else.

Only what was genuine seems to have survived in our four children: resilience, manners, a hatred of racism, a creative streak, a love of travel and sport, and gratitude. So yes, family goes wrong — and what goes wrong is passed on, along with what was good. Can it ever be put right? I doubt it. Maybe it isn’t meant to be. But I’ve learned, as both son and father, that while you can’t go back or make it up to your children, you can stop it, through self-awareness and responsibility, from getting worse.

Grace in parenting is complicated. We hand down the worst with the best, model life badly, and often fail to hear our children’s cries — like my son’s warning that I “worked to rest.” Yet we cannot control everything: peers, culture, the online world, the strange chemistry of temperament. Our children are miraculous mixtures of countless influences. We must accept our share of responsibility without assuming all the blame.

Grace also looks like this: once we are parents, we remain parents until we die. However badly we fail, that bond is indelible. Our only hope is that our children will become better parents than us — both despite us, and because of us.

Breaking the Chain

No one emerges from family life unmarked. The question is what we will do with that knowledge as we discover it. We cannot undo the past. We cannot parent again the children already grown. We cannot demand retroactive healing from those we wounded.

But we can become conscious. We can tell the truth. We can take responsibility for what is ours without arrogantly assuming all blame for what is not. And we can refuse to pass on everything we received.

That may be the most realistic form of redemption available to any parent. And, in that context, I wish every mother a peaceful and re-assuring Mother’s Day this coming Sunday.

“Every child begins the world again.” — Henry David Thoreau