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The ballot for the North Carolina General Election in November may become a little more crowded if a U.S. Senate third-party candidates approval to appear on the ballot is granted.

Green Party candidate Matthew Hoh said on his Twitter account on June 8 that his campaign has turned in over 22,000 signatures of which 16,000 were verified. The states requirement is 13,865.

According to Patrick Gannon, public information director for the N.C. State Board of Elections, the board wont know for sure how many valid signatures they received until a review by the State Board and county boards of elections is completed by the end of June. Once the review is complete, a meeting of the State Board of Elections will be scheduled to consider the recognition of the party.

A political party can be recognized in the state if it meets one of three criteria. The Green Party chose the option of filing petitions with signatures from 0.25% of all voters in the most recent election for governor, with at least 200 registered voters from each of 3 N.C. congressional districts. Alternatively, a partys candidate for governor in the most recent state election qualifies by winning at least 2% of the total vote. Lastly, a party can qualify if it was recognized in 70% of all states in the preceding presidential election.

If Hoh is certified by the NCSBE, a state party convention announcing the nomination would also have to take place before July 1 for Hoh to appear on the ballot in November, along with Republican U.S. Congressman Ted Budd, Democrat Cheri Beasley, and Libertarian Shannon Bray, who are vying for the seat of the retiring Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr.

The North Carolina Green Party bills itself as an anti-racist, feminist political party that supports gender equality and gender diversity and rejects capitalism in favor of a democratically run economy that responds to the needs of the community and planet.

According to his campaign website, Hoh, of Wake Forest, served in the U.S. Marines and worked at the State Department until resigning in 2009 in protest over what he calls the American escalation of war. He supports abortion rights, universal health care, legalizing all forms of narcotics, housing as a human right, abolishing the Electoral College, term limits for members of Congress, and giving control of police forces to the communities they serve, including hiring, firing, and disciplinary action, not only for the officers themselves, but would also include councils, mayors, county commissioners, district attorneys, and other officials for the policies they create and implement, among other progressive ideas.

The Green Party was officially recognized in the state in 2018 after the General Assembly voted to lower the qualification requirements for a party to appear on the ballot. The party lost its recognition in 2021 after failing to turn out 2% of the vote for gubernatorial or presidential candidates in the 2020 general election. It has never won a major election in North Carolina.

What impact will Hoh have on the other candidates if he is certified to be on the ballot?

The Green Partys impact on the 2022 election will be minimal, said Andy Jackson, director of the John Locke Foundations Civitas Center for Public Integrity. Their presidential candidate got less than one-half of one percent of the vote in North Carolina in 2020 (0.22%) and they did not even nominate a candidate for governor or any other office in the Council of State. The weak performance of their candidates is why they lost their official party status in North Carolina after the 2020 election.

Jackson said the party will be the strongest in progressive areas such as Durham and Asheville and will mainly pull votes from Democrats in those areas. But Democrats have such a strong advantage in those areas that Green Party candidates will not win enough votes to act as spoilers and help Republicans win there.

He added that the Green Party will almost certainly cost Democrats fewer votes than the Libertarian Party costs Republicans, and that research has found that Libertarians pull about twice as many votes from Republicans as they do from Democrats.

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Green Party Senate candidate may appear on N.C.s ballot in November - The Richmond Observer

The U.S. Supreme Court has denied review for a case brought by an Oakland couple regarding their owner move-in eviction, in a blow to all landlords who want to legally challenge city requirements regarding tenant buyouts in no-fault evictions.

The real estate lobby and landlords in Bay Area cities that have strict rules about tenant relocation payments were closely watching this case, which dates back to 2018. Landlords Lyndsey and Sharon Ballinger, who were both enlisted in the Air Force when they moved out of their Oakland home in order to be transferred to Washington, D.C. in 2015, came back in late 2018 to find that they could not just politely ask their tenants to leave. They were required under Oakland law to pay $6,582 in relocation expenses to the tenants, which they paid, but they then sued the city over what they considered illegal government seizure of property.

Libertarian activists nationwide, and real estate interests, saw this as a good case to run up the chain in the hopes of invalidating pro-tenant laws like this, the likes of which have been on the books in San Francisco, Berkeley, San Jose, and Los Angeles for years but Oakland's law only took effect in 2018. The libertarian-leaning Pacific Legal Foundation took on the case.

In 2019, a federal judge ruled against the Ballingers, saying that the "[Oakland] City Councils legislative purpose, to promote community stability and help tenants avoid displacement and high moving costs, was a legitimate one."

They appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit, which ruled against them in February. "The Ballingers voluntarily chose to lease their property and to evict under the ordinance conduct that required them to pay the relocation fee," wrote Trump-appointed Judge Ryan Nelson in the 3-0 ruling. Nelson further wrote that the Oakland ordinance was not an illegal government seizure of money or property, but was a standard "regulation of the landlord-tenant relationship," which the Supreme Court had consistently upheld. Cities are permitted to charge taxes and fees to property owners for various reasons, including for things like hazardous waste cleanup.

And as the Chronicle reports, the Supreme Court has essentially concurred, though without any written decision or evidence of dissent.

The Pacific Legals Foundation has tried to set this up as a conflict between two hard-working members of the military and their former tenants, who were apparently tech workers.

"The Ballingers are disappointed that the court failed to recognize that the Oakland law forcing them to pay their software industry tenants $6,500 before they could re-occupy their own home, in accordance with the terms of lease executed before the law was even enacted, is unconstitutional," the foundation said in a comment after the Ninth Circuit ruling four months ago.

But tenants' rights advocates argue that such laws are necessary especially in places like the Bay Area with extremely high rents.

Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker said, in response to the Supreme Court's denial, that "the modest relocation assistance landlords must provide to tenants who are displaced, by no fault of their own, in an owner move-in eviction, provides critical support for those facing unanticipated moving expenses and other relocation costs," and can help tenants avoid homelessness. Parker previously has cited the fact that many displaced tenants lose the rent-control protection they may have had for years, and they face a rental market with exorbitantly higher rents than they were paying, leading to potential displacement out of their community altogether.

J. David Breemer of the Pacific Legal Foundation said in a statement, per the Chronicle, that the Ballingers are disappointed but they hope the Supreme Court, in a future case, "will ultimately agree that rental owners are entitled to real constitutional protection when government requires them to pay off tenants before moving back into their own home."

Previously: Oakland Landlords Lose Case Over Paying Tenants $6,500 To Leave

Photo: Ian Hutchinson

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Supreme Court Rejects Oakland Couple's Case Opposing Tenant Payouts, In Win For Tenants' Rights - SFist

Elon Musk at the opening ceremony of a new Tesla Gigafactory for electric cars in Gruenheide, Germany, March 22, 2022. Photo: Patrick Pleul/Reuters

Elon Musk styles himself as a character out of science fiction, posing as an ingenious inventor who will send a crewed mission to Mars by 2029 or imagining himself as Isaac Asimovs Hari Seldon, a farseeing visionary planning ahead centuries to protect the human species from existential threats. Even his geeky humour seems inspired by his love for Douglas Adamss Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

But while he may take inspiration from science fiction, as Jill Lepore has observed, hes a bad reader of the genre. He idolises Kim Stanley Robinson and Iain M. Banks while ignoring their socialist politics, and he overlooks major speculative traditions such as feminist and Afrofuturist science fiction. Like many Silicon Valley CEOs, he primarily sees science fiction as a repository of cool inventions waiting to be created.

Musk engages with most science fiction in a superficial manner, but he is a careful reader of one author: Robert A. Heinlein. He named Heinleins The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress from 1966 as one of his favourite novels. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a libertarian classic second only to Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged in its propaganda value for neoliberal capitalism. It inspired the creation of the Heinlein Prize for Accomplishments in Commercial Space Activities, which Musk won in 2011. (Jeff Bezos is another recent winner.)

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress popularised the motto Theres no such thing as a free lunch, often used by defenders of capitalism and opponents of progressive taxation and social programmes. Its about a lunar colony that frees itself, via advanced and cleverly applied technology, from the resource-sucking parasitism of Earth and its welfare dependents. In this instance, it appears that Musk correctly caught the authors drift.

No such thing as a free lunch

Heinlein filled his fiction with loudmouthed men who claim to be accomplished polymaths. They boss everyone around, make decisions on a whim and ignore advice regardless of the consequences. In other words, they act just like the CEO of Tesla, Inc. Likewise, Musk often attracts investors through publicity stunts rather than proven science and engineering, a self-marketing strategy that puts him, as Colby Cosh has pointed out, in the same dubious company as Heinleins space entrepreneur D.D. Harriman in his story The Man Who Sold The Moon.

But Heinlein wasnt in the business of criticising free-market capitalism far from it. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress depicts a Moon colony forced by the centralised Lunar Authority to ship food to Earth where it goes to feed starving people in places like India. The lunar citizens, or Loonies, revolt against the state monopoly and establish a society characterised by free markets and minimal government. The Loonies welcome the Malthusian catastrophe that will follow their withdrawal of nutritional assistance from Earth because they believe population collapse will ultimately make the welfare dependents down there more efficient people and better fed in the long run.

In addition to basic libertarianism, the novel promotes what Evgeny Morozov would call technological solutionism, the belief that every social or political problem can be solved with the right technical fix. This ideologys roots go back to the 1930s technocracy movement, which, as Lepore points out, numbered Musks grandfather among its adherents. Musk has taken up this legacy, promoting the electric car as the solution to climate change. In Musks view, private innovation rather than state intervention or activist politics will save the world.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress follows the same mindset. Although the Loonies advocate libertarian principles we learn that the most basic human right is the right to bargain in a free marketplace these prove secondary to the practical problem that Earth is draining Lunas water and other resources at a rate they predict will result in mass starvation on the Moon.

Their solution to this problem touts itself as equally scientific. In the book we learn that an insurrectionary group is no different from an electric motor: it must be designed by experts with function in mind. The Loonies revolutionary conspiracy decides that revolutions are not won by enlisting the masses. Revolution is a science only a few are competent to practice. It depends on correct organisation and, above all, on communications.

Acting on this principle, one of the co-conspirators, Mannie the computer technician, designs their clandestine cell system like a computer diagram or neural network, mapping out how information will flow between revolutionists. They determine the best way of organising a cadre not through democratic deliberation or practical experience but through cybernetic principles.

Mannies disinterest in the messy business of political persuasion is a strength, not a weakness, because it allows him to see people as mere nodes in the network. Indeed, Mannys narration throughout the novel uses engineering terms to describe human beings and social interactions. He describes one woman as [s]elf-correcting, like a machine with proper negative feedback. Mannie, who boasts a cyborg arm, treats others as mechanisms in need of tinkering. Musks brain-machine interface company, Neuralink, attempts to operationalise this idea.

Also read: Elon Musk Thinks Neuralink Could Merge Humans With AI Neuroscience Says Wait

For Mannie and his co-conspirators, democratic input from the revolutions mass base is noise that can only interfere with the signals transmitted from the elite leadership outward to their interconnected web of subordinates. Even when it comes time to establish a constitution for the Luna Free State, the conspirators use clever procedural tricks to do an end run around everyone in the congress who is not a member of their clique. Smart individuals always win out over mass democracy in Heinleins fiction and thats a good thing.

The novel takes solutionism to the extreme when Mannie enlists the help of a sentient supercomputer named Mike to lead the overthrow of Earths colonial government on Luna. Anticipating the exuberance of the dot-com era, Heinlein suggests that a computer can foment change better than any movement or organisation. Mikes revolutionary tactics reflect the novels obsession with communications: much of the book is devoted to the conspiracys attempts to shift public opinion against the Lunar Authority and sow confusion among the governments ranks through hacking and media campaigns.

Like the keyboard warriors of our present moment the hyperonline Musk among them Heinleins revolutionary elite hope to change society by manipulating information.

When revolutionary war breaks out, Mikes technical superiority emerges as the deciding factor. Using electromagnetic catapults, the supercomputer hurls rocks at Earth that impact with the force of atomic explosions. The Federated Nations of Earth are forced to grant their lunar colonies independence after this calculated show of force. In the end, the Loonies achieve political emancipation thanks to a gadget.

Markets and machines

These ideas would later feed into what Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron call the Californian ideology, a combination of techno-utopianism and economic libertarianism espoused by digital artisans such as software engineers working in Silicon Valley. As Barbrook and Cameron note, the Californian ideologys evangelists in the 1990s tended to be science-fiction fans who loved Heinlein and fancied themselves countercultural rebels bringing about a golden age of freedom by building the electronic marketplace. They believed that once unleashed from physical as well as governmental constraints, the free market would produce new technologies to address every possible problem or need.

Even more fundamentally, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress reflects a prevailing dogma that promotes cybernetics as the key to understanding the universe. Under this belief system, everything from markets to ecosystems appear as information processors operating based on feedback mechanisms. Like a thermostat, they respond to changing circumstances without conscious human control. Because the economy is a self-regulating system too complex for anyone to understand let alone steer, the Californian ideologists suggest, it should be insulated from democratic interference by a global legal order developed by neoliberal experts.

Musk has immersed himself in this ideology since his involvement with PayPal in the 1990s, and so it makes sense that he would be drawn to The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Hes so mired in this way of thinking that he entertains the idea that all of reality is a computer simulation. In many ways, Musk models himself on Mannie the computer technician, the wisecracking rebel who only wants the government to get out of his way so he can make things work.

When Musk encounters traffic congestion, he doesnt see it as a failure of urban planning or a problem following from underinvestment in mass transit. Instead, he sees it as an opportunity to build a hyperloop. His solution to everything is an invention developed and marketed by rogue geniuses in the private sector. His faith in technofixes is so great that he imagines machines as potential overlords waiting to take over. There is more than a hint of Mike in his fear of an impending robot apocalypse.

Even his efforts to acquire Twitter and strip it of content restrictions seem to be motivated by the same ideology. Fred Turner argues that Musks opposition to content moderation stems from a belief that information wants to be free. When speech counts as data rather than dialogue, it becomes impossible to see why hate speech might be harmful.

Musks belief system rules out the idea that society is riven by antagonisms, least of all class struggle. He will always see problems like climate disaster as purely technical rather than derived from the profit-seeking behavior of the corporations ruining the planet. If science fiction reveals the contradictions of capitalism and encourages us to imagine alternatives, then Musks sci-fi persona is a cheap imitation. As a libertarian and a technocrat, the best he can do is fantasise about handing the revolution over to the machines.

Jordan S. Carroll is a visiting assistant professor of English at the University of Puget Sound. He is the author of Reading the Obscene: Transgressive Editors and the Class Politics of US Literature (Stanford 2021), and he is currently working on a book on race, science fiction and the alt-right.

This article was first published by Jacobin and has been republished here with permission.

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Why Understanding This '60s Sci-Fi Novel Is Key To Understanding Elon Musk The Wire Science - The Wire Science

CHARLESTON, S.C. At a campaign event the weekend before South Carolinas primary election, Tom Rice, a conservative congressman now on the wrong side of former President Donald J. Trump, offered a confession.

I made my next election a little bit harder than the ones in the past, he said on Friday, imploring his supporters a group he called reasonable, rational folks and good, solid mainstream Republicans to support him at the polls on Tuesday.

Two days before and some 100 miles south, Representative Nancy Mace, another Palmetto State Republican who drew the former presidents ire, recognized her position while knocking doors on a sweltering morning.

I accept everything. I take responsibility. I dont back down, she said, confident that voters in her Lowcountry district would be sympathetic. They know that hey, even if I disagree with her, at least shes going to tell me where she is, she added.

Ms. Mace and Mr. Rice are the former presidents two targets for revenge on Tuesday. After a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, they were among those who blamed the president for the attack. Ms. Mace, just days into her first term, said that Mr. Trumps false rhetoric about the presidential election being stolen had stoked the riot and threatened her life. Mr. Rice, whose district borders Ms. Maces to the north, immediately condemned Mr. Trump and joined nine other Republicans (but not Ms. Mace) in later voting for his impeachment.

Now, in the face of primary challenges backed by the former president, the two have taken starkly different approaches to political survival. Ms. Mace has taken the teeth out of her criticisms of Mr. Trump, seeking instead to discuss her conservative voting record and libertarian streak in policy discussions. Mr. Rice, instead, has dug in, defending his impeachment vote and further excoriating Mr. Trump in the process.

Should they fend off their primary challengers on Tuesday, Ms. Mace and Mr. Rice will join a growing list of incumbents who have endured the wrath of the G.O.P.s Trump wing without ending their political careers. Yet their conflicting strategies a reflection of both their political instincts and the differing politics of their districts will offer a look at just how far a candidate can go in their defiance of Mr. Trump.

In the eyes of her supporters, Ms. Maces past comments are less concrete than a vote to impeach. She has aimed to improve her relationship with pro-Trump portions of the G.O.P., spending nearly every day of the past several weeks on the campaign trail to remind voters of her Republican bona fides, not her unfiltered criticism of Mr. Trump.

Everyone knows I was unhappy that day, she said of Jan. 6. The entire world knows. All my constituents know.

Her district, which stretches from the left-leaning corners of Charleston to Hilton Heads conservative country clubs, has an electorate that includes far-right Republicans and liberal Democrats. Ms. Mace has marketed herself not only as a conservative candidate but also one who can defend the politically diverse district against a Democratic rival in November.

It is and always will be a swing district, she said. Im a conservative, but I also understand I dont represent only conservatives.

That is not a positive message for all in the Lowcountry, however.

Ted Huffman, owner of Bluffton BBQ, a restaurant nestled in the heart of Blufftons touristy town center, said he was supporting Katie Arrington, the Trump-backed former state representative taking on Ms. Mace. What counted against Ms. Mace was not her feud with Mr. Trump but her relative absence in the restaurants part of the district, Mr. Huffman said.

Katie Arrington, shes been here, Mr. Huffman said, recalling the few times Ms. Arrington visited Bluffton BBQ. Ive never seen Nancy Mace.

During a Summerville event with Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, Ms. Mace gave a stump speech that ran down a list of right-wing talking points: high inflation driven by President Bidens economic agenda, an influx of immigrants at the Southern border, support for military veterans. She did not mention Mr. Trump.

Ms. Mace predicts a decisive primary win against Ms. Arrington, who has placed her Trump endorsement at the center of her campaign message. A victory in the face of that, Ms. Mace said, would prove the weakness of any endorsement.

Typically I dont put too much weight into endorsements because they dont matter, she said. Its really the candidate. Its the person people are voting for thats what matters.

Speaking from her front porch in Moncks Corner, S.C., Deidre Stechmeyer, a 42-year-old stay-at-home mother, said she was not closely following Ms. Maces race. But when asked about the congresswomans comments condemning the Jan. 6 riot, she shifted.

Thats something that I agree with her on, she said, adding that she supported Ms. Maces decision to certify the Electoral College vote a move that some in the G.O.P. have pointed to as a definitive betrayal of Mr. Trump. There was just so much conflict and uncertainty. I feel like it shouldve been certified.

Mr. Rices impeachment vote, on the other hand, presents a more identifiable turnabout.

Its part of the reason Ms. Mace has a comfortable lead in her race, according to recent polls, while Mr. Rice faces far more primary challengers and is most likely headed to a runoff with a Trump-endorsed state representative, Russell Fry, after Tuesday.

Mr. Frys campaign has centered Mr. Rices impeachment vote in its message, turning the vote into a referendum on Mr. Rices five terms in Congress.

Its about more than Donald Trump. Its about an incumbent congressman losing the trust of a very conservative district, said Matt Moore, former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party and an adviser to Mr. Frys campaign.

Still, Mr. Rice is betting on his hyper-conservative economic record and once-unapologetic support of the former president to win him a sixth term in one of South Carolinas most pro-Trump congressional districts.

In an interview, Mr. Rice noted the Republican Partys shift toward pushing social issues over policy something he said had been driven in part by the former presidents wing of the party, which helped redefine it.

Why are these midterms so important? This years races could tip the balance of power in Congress to Republicans, hobbling President Bidens agenda for the second half of his term. They will also test former President Donald J. Trumps role as a G.O.P. kingmaker. Heres what to know:

What are the midterm elections? Midterms take place two years after a presidential election, at the midpoint of a presidential term hence the name. This year, a lot of seats are up for grabs, including all 435 House seats, 35 of the 100 Senate seats and 36 of 50 governorships.

What do the midterms mean for Biden? With slim majorities in Congress, Democrats have struggled to pass Mr. Bidens agenda. Republican control of the House or Senate would make the presidents legislative goals a near-impossibility.

What are the races to watch? Only a handful of seats will determine if Democrats maintain control of the House over Republicans, and a single state could shift power in the 50-50 Senate. Here are 10 races to watch in the Houseand Senate, as well as several key governors contests.

When are the key races taking place? The primary gauntletis already underway. Closely watched racesin Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia wereheld in May, with more taking place through the summer. Primaries run until September before the general election on Nov. 8.

Go deeper. What is redistrictingand how does it affect the midterm elections? How does polling work? How do you register to vote? Weve got more answers to your pressing midterm questions here.

He also laid out what the Republican Party should stand for: less taxes, less government, more freedom, individual responsibility, the American Dream, he said. If were not for that, then, gosh, I dont know what the Republican Partys about.

The impeachment vote has also won him favor with some voters. Rick Giles, a Rice supporter in Conway, S.C., said he admired Mr. Rice for his vote.

He stood up to Trump when a lot of people didnt, Mr. Giles said. He stood on his values. He didnt go with the party line. I like that.

Mr. Rices district, in South Carolinas northeast corner along the North Carolina border, is one of the states most conservative, favoring Republicans by nearly 30 points. And before the impeachment vote, Mr. Rice was one of Mr. Trumps most staunch supporters, with a voting record that matched Mr. Trumps stance more than 90 percent of the time.

Its not about my voting record. Its not about my support of Trump. Its not about my ideology. Its not because this other guys any good, Mr. Rice said. Theres only one reason why hes doing this. And its just for revenge.

Mr. Trump has had less success in the states at the root of his primary challenger push. In Georgia, two of his most prominent perceived enemies, Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, handily won their primaries against challengers backed by the former president. The two House races where he did not endorse incumbents have gone to a runoff.

Mark Sanford, a former congressman who was bested by Ms. Arrington in 2018 after Mr. Trump backed her primary challenge, predicted that Ms. Mace would prevail.

I think shell be fine, he said, pointing to the states increasing number of transplants from northern states who tend to favor establishment candidates. That bodes well for Nancy, it doesnt bode well for Katie.

Still, he said, Tuesdays outcome is unlikely to change the former presidents approach to politics.

Its binary with Trump, Mr. Sanford said. Youre not halfway in, halfway out youre either in or out.

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Two Targets of Trumps Ire Take Different Paths in South Carolina - The New York Times

Last autumn, Boris Johnson brought the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities into being. Naming a ministry after a catchphrase seems to suit our age of rhetoric as policy. How long before we see a Department for Getting on Your Bike, or a Department for Unleashing the British Entrepreneurial Spirit?

The levelling up initiative was born out of the Conservatives 2019 election victory, in which many former Labour constituencies in the north and Midlands the so called red wall changed sides. The thinking was that these acquisitions, the fruits of the war over Brexit, could not be kept once Brexit was done unless their needs were addressed. The idea of levelling up finding policies to reverse regional gaps in income, health, education and jobs was part of a wider narrative of a realignment, moving left on economics, right on questions of social policy. It was a way to consolidate the coalition brought together by Brexit so that it would have a life beyond Brexit itself.

The problem is, levelling up is running into difficulties and looks as if it is getting nowhere. For a start, the government has been distracted by both Partygate and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While these distractions may be temporary, other obstacles will remain. The small-state, libertarian faction of the Tory party, which wants low taxes and a government that stays out of the economy, is no fan. Neither are those in the blue wall: MPs from traditional Tory constituencies that dont want to lose funding to more deprived areas. Internal opposition aside, the pressure to keep taxes as low as possible, and the other calls on the government purse, greatly limit the cash available to make levelling up a reality.

But if the policy fails, we should not mourn its passing. Why? Its not likely to work, and there are initiatives more deserving of money that probably will.

Its hard to diagnose the dysfunctions that create regional disparities. They can be rooted in the people of a particular place, or caused by an accident of history. There may be as many causes as there are people or firms in a particular place. Accidents of history also play a role. Things like fancy amenities or infrastructure may well be part of the reason for a towns success, or they could be the fruits of it (or both). This difficulty in diagnosing root causes is part of the reason why regional inequality is so entrenched. Its also why income gaps between nations across the world are so hard to close.

If you dont know with any certainty why one place is succeeding and another isnt, then you are likely to waste money by building bridges or transport links that will be underused, or producing housing or industrial estates that are unwanted.

In my view, there is no ethical defence of the disparities in incomes and life chances that market forces help to generate. In an ideal world, they would not exist. But the pure socialist systems that try to prevent them have such bad side effects corroding incentives and personal liberties, and being vulnerable to exploitation by powerful members of the party hierarchy that we have no choice but to tolerate a certain level of disparity. What applies to people also applies to towns, cities and regions. Part of the problem is that people are drawn to a place to do business because of who else is going to be there; yet who else is going to be there is determined by what they think others will do, creating a chicken and egg situation. Governments can help convince people that a place is viable by providing good attractions, amenities, or a university or a transport node. But a citys viability can unravel quickly and unpredictably, as seen in Detroit, which, from a high of about 1.85 million people in 1950, lost almost two-thirds of its population.

Levelling-up enthusiasts see regional devolution as a way to help crack these problems of diagnosis and prescription. But devolution carries it own risks. Devolving tax and spending limits the possibility of redistribution from richer areas to poorer ones; it unravels the fiscal union, setting the scene for the kinds of difficulties the euro area experienced after the financial crash. In addition, local politics is more vulnerable to corruption. Local politicians wont have national interests at heart, so may engage in unproductive fights simply to move economic activity from one place to another.

None of this is to say that every levelling up initiative is a bad idea. But right now, there are a lot of other things governments could do that would be better value for money. We need to tackle the cost of living crisis by moving money from those who can pay to those who are experiencing hardship. We have got to address the Covid legacy of long NHS waiting lists, and put the service on a more resilient footing to deal with future pandemics and other challenges. Government has to deal with the crisis in social care. The gap between real funding per head in state and private schools is widening. And we have to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, something made all the more urgent by the imperative of weaning ourselves off Russian fossil fuels. There is other post-Covid work to do in broadening access to high-speed internet and making food and other distribution networks more resilient.

This is a long list of policies that are expensive but essential, and will stretch government capacity and the electorates tolerance of taxation to its limits. Many of them, if they work, will also help with the broad set of objectives put in the bucket marked levelling up. For instance, better funding for the NHS and social care will help close one of the worst aspects of inequality, the gap in life expectancy between rich and poor.

Even at the best of times, we need to recognise the limits of a generous and muscular state. Offering everyone the chance to do the job of their choice at the same wage wherever they live is well beyond those limits. Providing decent education, health and social care and green energy is not and we should focus on those things instead.

Tony Yates is a former professor of economics and head of monetary policy strategy at the Bank of England.

Inequality, what can be done? by Anthony B Atkinson (Harvard, 16.95)

Brexitland: Identity, Diversity and the Reshaping of British Politics by Rob Ford and Maria Sobolewska (Cambridge, 15.99)

Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo (Penguin, 9.99)

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The big idea: why we shouldnt be levelling up - The Guardian