Category: The Conversation

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ge Chen, Associate Professor in Global Media & Information Law, Durham University

When people think about censorship, they often imagine an obvious ban: a book prohibited, an exhibition closed, or a speaker silenced.

But the recent revelation that London’s Victoria and Albert Museum changed exhibition catalogues at the request of its Chinese printer points to something subtler. It suggests that Chinese censorship is increasingly capable of shaping cultural production beyond China’s borders through reliance on foreign companies.

The V&A agreed to remove or replace images from at least two exhibition catalogues after objections from its Chinese printer. This included a historical map in a new exhibition, The Music Is Black, and an image of Lenin in a publication linked to the 2021 exhibition Fabergé: Romance to Revolution.

A V&A spokesperson told The Conversation: “We carefully consider, on a case-by-case basis, where we print all of our books. We sometimes print in China but maintain close editorial oversight. We were comfortable making these minor edits, as they did not affect the narrative, and would obviously pull production if we felt any requested change was problematic.”

The museum may see the changes as minor, but their significance lies less in the scale of the edits than in the mechanism through which they occurred.

Nothing in British law required these changes. No UK official ordered them. Yet the content of a British museum publication was altered because parts of its production process took place within a system governed by Chinese state censorship rules. That is why this matters. It reveals a form of externalised censorship that does not need to arrive as a direct prohibition. It can operate instead through contracts, deadlines, cost pressures and infrastructural dependence.

This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too.

This controversy tells a wider story about the heritage sector. Museums, galleries, libraries and publishers are all under pressure to control costs. If Chinese printers can produce catalogues at roughly half the price of British or European firms, the economic logic is obvious. Once an institution becomes reliant on a supply chain situated within an authoritarian censorship system, the practical conditions of cultural expression begin to change, even if the legal environment at home remains formally free.

In countries such as the UK, free speech is often understood in legal terms: are people formally allowed to publish, speak or exhibit? But the V&A case is a reminder that formal freedom is not the same as institutional resilience. A society may remain free on the surface while its institutions become increasingly susceptible to outside pressure.

Why the censorship matters

Museums matter especially because they are not ordinary commercial actors. They are memory institutions. They help shape public understanding of history, culture and identity. Their catalogues are not mere retail products but part of how knowledge is framed, archived and circulated. A “minor” change to an image in this context is therefore not politically neutral.

The deeper issue is that this is not only about suppressing taboo topics such as Tibet, Taiwan or Tiananmen. It is also about controlling the positive narrative.

Chinese information governance has long worked through both prohibition and projection. The 2020 Provisions on the Governance of the Online Information Content Ecosystem, issued by China’s internet regulator, encourage the production and dissemination of material that helps increase “the international influence of Chinese culture” and presents to the world a “true, three-dimensional and comprehensive China”. This forms part of a broader Party-state project, repeatedly articulated by Xi Jinping, of “telling China’s story well”.

That phrase may sound benign. But in practice it is tied to a political and legal project in which China is not merely defended from criticism, but represented abroad under conditions increasingly shaped by party-state priorities. Seen in that light, the V&A controversy is not just a matter of avoiding sensitive content. It sits within a broader effort to structure the terms under which China may be portrayed at all.

Recent developments in the digital sphere show the same broader pattern in a more aggressive form. In February 2026, OpenAI reported that it had disrupted an operation linked to a Chinese law-enforcement official who allegedly used ChatGPT to document efforts aimed at intimidating dissidents abroad. This included fake official communications and forged documents. That is different from the V&A catalogue dispute. But both illustrate a new stage of transnational control in which the Chinese party state and its affiliated actors can use a range of mechanisms at once: political security logic, economic leverage, platform manipulation, bureaucratic pressure and technological tools.

These cases should not be collapsed into one another. A museum changing an image under pressure from a company in China is not the same as a dissident being targeted through deceptive digital operations. But they belong to the same ecology. One is the hard edge of transnational repression. The other is its quieter institutional face. Together, they show that the challenge is no longer confined to dramatic diplomatic incidents or overt bans.

That has implications far beyond museums. Universities, publishers and now cultural organisations in the UK increasingly operate in environments where external authoritarian influence may be felt not through formal legal obligation, but through partnership structures, procurement decisions, market access, technological dependency and reputational caution.

Liberal institutions are often poorly equipped to recognise these pressures because they expect censorship to appear as a clear legal command. Increasingly, it appears instead as a request to make one small change, to avoid delay, to save money, to keep things moving.

The lesson of the V&A controversy, then, is not simply that one museum made a questionable decision. It is that Britain needs a more serious conversation about cultural sovereignty under conditions of asymmetric interdependence.

If institutions rely on companies governed elsewhere by censorship, then freedom of expression at home becomes more fragile. The real question is not whether British museums are free in theory. It is whether they are independent enough in practice to prevent authoritarian preferences from quietly entering the production of public culture.

Ge Chen is Associate Professor in Global Media & Information Law at Durham Law School and Affiliated Fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.

– ref. The V&A catalogue row shows China’s censorship now travels through cultural supply chains – https://theconversation.com/the-vanda-catalogue-row-shows-chinas-censorship-now-travels-through-cultural-supply-chains-280788

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mathew Guest, Professor in the Sociology of Religion, Durham University

Polling company YouGov has thrown into question claims of a recent upsurge in church attendance among young adults. This has not surprised some experts, who cite evidence for the more conventional story of steep religious decline. If Christianity was once central to British society, that claim remains difficult to sustain in the 21st century.

Church membership and attendance have both fallen sharply in recent decades. In England, 11.7% of the population attended church on a typical Sunday in 1979. By 2005, that figure had dropped to 6.3%. The number of people identifying as Christian remained much higher for longer, still above 70% in England and Wales in 2001.

Read more:
There may not be a Christian revival, but Britain’s traditional churches aren’t doomed

Perhaps this was because Christianity continued to function as a marker of national identity or moral inheritance, rather than active belief or practice. Research has shown how, especially for older generations, Christianity retained associations of moral propriety, ethnic identity and national belonging. For some, to be British was to be Christian.

But that tendency too has fallen fast. According to the 2021 census, the proportion identifying as Christian had dropped to 46.2%.

The reasons for this decline are varied and complex. Traditional religious beliefs face widespread scepticism. Cultural pluralism has weakened the assumption that Christianity provides the country’s shared moral framework. Churches have not escaped the collapse in confidence that has affected institutions more broadly, while abuse and corruption scandals have accelerated public cynicism and disillusionment.

But that is not the whole picture. The newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury faces an uphill struggle to restore confidence in a struggling Church of England. But Christianity still retains the power, in some settings, to build community and inspire commitment.

Changing church communities

In Britain today, the most active, vibrant and socially engaged forms of Christianity are often found among ethnic minority and migrant communities.

Black Pentecostal churches seem to resist wider patterns of decline. Some have very large congregations, significant financial resources and real influence in urban centres such as Birmingham and parts of London.

Many were founded in the 1960s and 70s by Afro-Caribbean migrants who encountered the same racial prejudice in British churches that they faced elsewhere in society. Others owe their origins to Pentecostal networks in West Africa. Reporting over 12,000 weekly attendants at its “Prayer City” in Kent, Kingsway International Christian Centre claims to be “the largest growing church in western Europe.”

From the perspective of a moribund Church of England, these black majority churches represent a Christian vitality that many Anglican congregations struggle to sustain.

Research has also identified lively churches attracting Christians of Asian heritage, especially international students at British universities. Others have pointed to the revitalising effect of Eastern European migration on Roman Catholic parishes.

This may be one reason the political right has taken such a keen interest in Christianity in recent years. Nigel Farage has linked British identity to “Judeo-Christian principles”. Speaking in the House of Commons, former Conservative, now Reform MP Danny Kruger called for a recovery of a “Christian politics”. He contrasts this with “wokeism”: a “dangerous ideology of power” which should be “banished from public life”. Reform-adjacent campaigners, meanwhile, have made no secret of their hostility to Islam.

Some are reclaiming Christianity as part of a symbolic defence of British nationalism. At the Unite the Kingdom rally in London in September 2025, campaigners carried wooden crosses and chanted “Christ is King”. Far-right activist Tommy Robinson has leaned more heavily into Christian nationalist rhetoric, as has Restore Britain founder Rupert Lowe.

If Christianity can offer belonging and solidarity to black migrants navigating a hostile environment, it has also become, in a very different register, a badge of white ethno-nationalism.

Christian nationalism in Britain

The fusion of Christianity and far-right nationalism has a long history in the US. What is unusual is its growing visibility in the UK, which never really had its equivalent of the US Christian right. There are signs that a US-style conservative Christianity may be gaining ground in the UK.

The UK’s Christian Legal Centre resembles US organisations defending the right to affirm Christian values in the workplace. Defendants have included a homelessness officer dismissed from a job at a local council after telling a woman with an incurable illness to “put her faith in God”, and a magistrate fired for objecting to an adoption application from a same-sex couple. Both lost their cases.

Funding from the American Christian right has reportedly fuelled European campaigns promoting conservative perspectives on LGBT issues and the status of women.

This convergence of evangelical conservatism constitutes only a small minority of practising Christians in the UK. If Christian nationalism is becoming more visible, it is not because this minority is necessarily growing in size and power, but because political activists have found that Christian language resonates with their message. And they have become increasingly willing to borrow from the rhetoric of their American political allies.

This is reflected in the increasing affinity between British rightwing politics and the “Make America great again” (Maga) movement. It also points to growing momentum behind a more aggressive use of Christianity in British political life: not as a faith of worship or service, but as a nationalist weapon aimed at defending a particular form of British culture.

While it is currently not possible to gauge the size of a UK strand of “Christian nationalism”, its political, rather than religious, focus means its supporters are not limited to practising Christians. As with its US equivalent, they are more preoccupied with questions of national identity and cultural legitimacy – who belongs and who does not – than with questions of religious truth or practice.

This Christian nationalism foregrounds a common set of enemies: globalism, liberal morality, immigration and Islam. All are presented as inimical to the values of ordinary British citizens, echoing the Christian nationalism of Donald Trump’s America.

Some British Christian leaders have already pushed back against this message, emphasising Christian values of hospitality and compassion and seeking distance from Reform UK. But when they represent churches whose moral and political authority has largely ebbed away, this may not be enough to prevent a US-style Christian nationalism from gaining traction in the UK.

Mathew Guest does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Christianity in the UK is flourishing in immigrant communities – but a US-style Christian nationalism is lurking elsewhere – https://theconversation.com/christianity-in-the-uk-is-flourishing-in-immigrant-communities-but-a-us-style-christian-nationalism-is-lurking-elsewhere-279800

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mikael Fauvelle, Associate Professor and Researcher, Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Lund University

When Iran began demanding payment in exchange for safe transit through the Strait of Hormuz, it offered the option to pay in cryptocurrency. Likewise, the shadowy network of tankers that have smuggled Russian oil to world markets since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 have often been paid this way.

Illicit actors the world over have increasingly turned to cryptocurrency as a way to conduct business while avoiding the risk of US sanctions. In so doing, countries like Russia and Iran are drawing on a characteristic of money that has been around since at least the bronze age: its ability to facilitate trade between strangers and across political boundaries.

In my book Shell Money (2024), which investigates some of the world’s earliest forms of money, I show how similar dynamics have been at play throughout history.

Modern currencies like the US dollar and euro are backed by confidence in the financial institutions of nation states – in a similar way to the first metal coins of antiquity, which were issued by Greek city states in order to collect taxes and pay soldiers.

In prehistory, however, there are many examples of monetary systems that developed without state support, such as bronze ingots.

The bronze age (roughly 3300BC to 1200BC) was a time of long-distance voyaging and interregional connectivity. Against this backdrop, having a shared medium of exchange was critical for maintaining trade connections.

Bronze tools were made from copper and tin, which were only available in a few locations in the ancient world. In northern Europe, copper came from sources such as Wales, the Alps, Austria, Sardinia and Iberia, while tin largely came from Cornwall and Devon. This meant that all the copper used in Scandinavia, for example, had to be acquired through long-distance trade.

Much of this trade was dominated by bronze ingots – rings, bars or axe-heads – that were highly standardised in weight and form across regions. This meant that each ingot was interchangeable – a critical characteristic of money. Bronze objects were also broken down into sizes consistent with market-based trade.

The bronze age need for money

Travel during the bronze age would not have been easy. Long-distance journeys would have been dangerous and could take months to complete.

A travelling merchant would have no way to know if the traders they dealt with on one journey would still be around on the return trip. The reciprocity you could depend on in your home community would no longer hold – exchanges needed to be transactional.

Against this backdrop, bronze became standardised into a medium of exchange. By carrying bronze ingots, a traveller could conduct business across the world, confident that wherever they went their money would be accepted.

In other parts of the ancient world, shells and shell beads were accepted as money. The Chinese symbol 貝 (bèi) originated as a pictograph of the cowrie shell and is now used in hundreds of finance-related Chinese characters, including those for buy, sell, wealth and profit. Cowrie shells were traded to China from the Indian Ocean and used as money during the Zhou dynasty.

In North America, small shell beads were used as money and circulated throughout the interior of the continent, thousands of miles from the oceans where they were collected and produced. These examples show that trade money was not restricted to metals but could develop from anything that was desirable and scarce.

The US dollar diminished

The dominance of government-issued “fiat currencies” (meaning they are not backed by physical commodities such as gold) depends on the trust, liquidity and institutional backing they provide.

International trade is currently dominated by the US dollar. However, as we move into an increasingly multipolar world – with competing centres of gravity in North America, Europe and China – we can expect to see the dollar’s role diminish.

Indeed, there is some evidence that this has already happened. The dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency (meaning it is held in large quantities by other governments and central banks to stabilise their economies) has declined from around 70% in the late 1990s to less than 60% today. This trend is likely to continue amid signs of increased US isolationism, strains in North Atlantic cooperation, and the rising economic position of China.

Political fragmentation, however, hardly means the end for international trade. History is rife with periods, from the bronze age on, when political fragmentation coexisted with bustling trade economies. And for those seeking to avoid state control in future, this may mean a growing shift in the type of money that is used.

New forms of money

There are many differences between cryptocurrency in the modern world and the commodity money of prehistory. Cryptocurrency is still rarely used or accepted in daily transactions, is highly volatile and, as with modern fiat currencies, does not have “use value” in the same way as bronze ingots or even shell beads.

Nonetheless, both are forms of “bottom-up” (non-state controlled) money that exist outside of the oversight of any single government or large financial actor.

This lack of state control is exactly what drives sanctioned states such as Iran and Russia to request payments in crypto. As US financial leverage weakens, crypto payments become harder to block and sanction, potentially reshaping how future conflicts are financed.

Cryptocurrency may be well positioned for this environment, continuing to provide one of money’s oldest functions: the ability to conduct business with strangers.

This article references a book included for editorial reasons with a link to bookshop.org. If you click on this link and go on to buy something from bookshop.org, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Mikael Fauvelle receives funding from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation and the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation. He is the author of Shell Money: A Comparative Study (Cambridge University Press).

– ref. How Iran cryptocurrency demands explain a key role of money throughout history – https://theconversation.com/how-iran-cryptocurrency-demands-explain-a-key-role-of-money-throughout-history-280768

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ivana Babicova, Senior Lecturer, Psychology, Birmingham City University

Loneliness is something most of us will experience at some point. It is a normal emotion, not a character flaw. But it is also something that can quietly affect how we think and remember, and researchers have long debated whether it might even raise the risk of dementia.

A new study, published in Aging and Mental Health, suggests the picture is more complicated than either side of that debate has allowed for.

First, it is worth being clear about what dementia actually is. It is not a single diagnosis but an umbrella term covering a range of conditions – the most familiar being Alzheimer’s disease – that cause memory loss, confusion, difficulties with language and a gradual loss of independence.

Cognitive decline, meaning a general slowing or weakening of mental function, is not the same thing. The two terms are often used interchangeably, but they should not be: you can experience cognitive decline without ever developing dementia.

We do not fully understand what causes Alzheimer’s. We know that a healthy lifestyle lowers the risk, but it is no guarantee. Plenty of people who have done everything right still develop it. The disease is shaped by genetics, ageing and biological factors we are still working to understand.

The new study followed just over 10,000 adults aged between 65 and 94 over six years. All were in good health at the outset, fully independent and free of dementia. Researchers tracked their memory over that period and asked whether loneliness played a role in how it changed.

The answer was nuanced. Loneliness did appear to contribute to memory difficulties – but there was no evidence that it led to dementia itself. That is an important distinction. Memory problems and dementia are not the same thing, and conflating them causes unnecessary alarm. This distinction is crucial, and while the researchers did not conflate the two, this nuance is often lost in interpretation.

Not the whole story

It is also worth noting that loneliness rarely travels alone. Many participants in the study also had diabetes, high blood pressure, depression or low levels of physical activity – all of which affect the brain independently. Diabetes, for instance, can interfere with how the brain processes glucose, the fuel it runs on, which in turn affects memory. Depression has a similar effect. Unpicking loneliness from these other factors is genuinely difficult, and the study does not fully resolve that problem.

One finding that stood out was the high rate of loneliness reported in southern Europe – a region often assumed to have strong social networks. It is a reminder that loneliness is subjective. Feeling lonely is not simply about how many people surround you – it is about how connected you feel to them.

There is also a methodological limitation worth noting. The study treated loneliness as a fixed state, when in reality it shifts – sometimes day to day – across the whole of a life. A single snapshot cannot capture that.

The broader research on loneliness and cognitive decline remains genuinely mixed, and this study does not settle it. What it does suggest, usefully, is that health services might benefit from screening for loneliness alongside routine cognitive testing: treating social connection as part of preventative medicine rather than a soft concern left to one side.

And there is reason for optimism. The brain is resilient. Research suggests that memory difficulties linked to loneliness can improve once that loneliness lifts and that staying socially active may boost cognitive performance more broadly. Loneliness, on its own, is unlikely to be the deciding factor in whether someone develops dementia.

Ivana Babicova does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Loneliness can affect your memory – but that doesn’t mean it leads to dementia – https://theconversation.com/loneliness-can-affect-your-memory-but-that-doesnt-mean-it-leads-to-dementia-280533

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Hasmik Jasmine Samvelyan, Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Science, Anglia Ruskin University

Around 40% of adults worldwide are affected by osteopenia: a loss of bone mineral density. This condition is extremely common particularly in postmenopausal women and elderly adults. It’s estimated that more than 500,000 fractures occur annually in the UK due to low bone density.

Osteopenia itself does not usually cause symptoms and it develops silently over time. Many people may not even be aware that they the condition until they have experienced a fracture or had a bone density test, typically recommended because of risk factors such as age and menopause. This makes osteopenia a significant but often under-recognised public health issue.

Bone is a dynamic tissue that undergoes continuous renewal through a process called bone remodelling. During this process, old bone is broken down (resorption) and new bone is formed (formation).

During early adulthood this process is balanced, so bone resorption equals bone formation. Bone mass usually peaks around a person’s mid-20s to early-30s. After this peak bone loss gradually exceeds bone formation. Over time this leads to reduced bone density.

Ageing is the main risk factor for bone loss. But several additional factors can accelerate the process.

For instance, hormonal changes, especially the decline in oestrogen after the menopause, can significantly increase bone breakdown. This is because oestrogen helps protect bones by slowing the natural process of bone breakdown. Around one in two women over 50 will experience a fragility fracture.

Lifestyle also plays an important role. Smoking, excessive alcohol consumption and physical inactivity can contribute to reduced bone strength over time. Diet is equally important. Insufficient calcium intake and low vitamin D can limit the body’s ability to build and maintain strong bones.

Certain medications, particularly long-term steroid use, as well as health conditions that affect hormone levels or nutrient absorption (such as Crohn’s or coeliac disease), can further increase the risk.

Managing osteopenia

Detecting osteopenia early is crucial. This allows you and clinicians to take steps that can reduce the risk of fractures and prevent osteopenia progressing to osteoporosis, where bone loss is more advanced and the risk of fractures is significantly higher.

Bone mineral density is commonly measured using a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scan. This is a type of low-dose X-ray scan used to assess bone strength. Results are usually given as a T-score, which compares a patient’s bone density to that of a healthy young adult. A T-score between –1.0 and –2.5 indicates osteopenia, while a T-score below –2.5 meets the diagnostic threshold for osteoporosis.

Management of osteopenia typically focuses on slowing down or preventing further bone loss and reducing the risk of fractures. This involves making lifestyle changes (such as avoiding smoking, limiting alcohol intake or maintaining healthy body weight), nutritional support and, in some cases, prescription treatment.

Weight-bearing exercises, such as walking, dancing or jogging stimulate bone formation by placing strain on the skeleton. Resistance training can further strengthen bones and muscles.

Research shows that regular physical activity is associated with improved bone mineral density and may reduce the risk of osteoporosis. Exercise, such as Tai Chi, also improves balance and muscle strength, reducing the risk of falls that could lead to fractures.

Sufficient calcium intake supports bone structure too, while vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium efficiently. Foods such as dairy products, leafy green vegetables and fortified products are common dietary sources. Supplements may also be recommended where dietary intake is insufficient. In the UK, vitamin D deficiency is relatively common, so supplementation is often advised.

Not everyone with osteopenia requires drug treatment. Instead, clinicians often use a fracture risk assessment tool to evaluate ten-year probability of a fracture based on age, bone mineral density, steroid use and other risk factors.

If fracture risk is high or if a person has already experienced a fragility fracture, medications may be recommended. These can include antiresorptive drugs which slow bone breakdown and help maintain bone density. Such treatments are more commonly used in osteoporosis but may also benefit high-risk patients with osteopenia.

Osteopenia should not be viewed merely as a mild or early form of osteoporosis but rather as a warning sign and point of intervention. Progression from osteopenia to osteoporosis is not inevitable.

Evidence suggests that early detection and targeted lifestyle changes can maintain bone health, significantly slow bone loss and reduce risk of developing osteoporosis later in life. In some cases, bone density may even improve with appropriate treatment and lifestyle adjustments.

But prevention requires a long-term perspective. Bone health reflects the cumulative influences of our health and lifestyle across the lifespan including our diets, physical activity levels and hormonal changes we have gone through. Maintaining healthy habits over time remains the most effective strategy for protecting bone strength.

Hasmik Jasmine Samvelyan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Osteopenia: loss of bone mineral density affects millions of people – here’s what you need to know – https://theconversation.com/osteopenia-loss-of-bone-mineral-density-affects-millions-of-people-heres-what-you-need-to-know-278463

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alan Shipman, Senior Lecturer in Economics, The Open University

Lord Robertson’s claim that the UK cannot defend itself with an “ever-expanding” welfare budget has resonated loudly, given his previous positions as a Nato secretary-general and UK defence secretary. Following up on the UK’s 2025 strategic defence review, which he led, Robertson warned that low investment is leaving UK security “in peril”.

The comments have instant appeal in one sense. Defence is indeed awarded a far smaller share of the pie than social protection: 6.5% of total managed expenditure for 2026/27 against 28%, according to estimates.

The UK’s budget deficit is adding to already high public debt, and the IMF has forecast that Britain will be hit harder than other countries by the economic effects of the Iran hostilities. The government is already seeking savings from other departments as it tries to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027.

But the idea of a simple trade-off, with more weapons requiring less welfare, confuses two very different types of public spending.

Defence is part of “final” public expenditure, funding armed forces’ pay and the weapons and equipment they work with. This takes up money that can’t be assigned elsewhere in the budget, and consumes a share of national output when the government spends it.

In contrast, the welfare budget consists mainly of “transfer payments” that shift income between households. Some transfers are made according to assessed need, others also depend on past national insurance contributions. All represent a redistribution of income without any exchange of goods or services, leaving recipients to decide what to do with the money. This allows prices to steer spending away from scarce resources, while some is used to repay debts or clawed back in tax.

Demands on the public purse

As the government’s overall budget is in deficit (to the tune of around 4.5% of national income in 2025/26), it is true that welfare payments compete with other demands on the public purse. But the boost to recipients’ income is still largely offset by taxes collected from better-off households.

In principle, a country could raise its welfare budget to 100% of its GDP, by collecting all the money generated by production as tax and then paying it out to households. It would compromise efficiency, as happened in Europe’s “state socialist” countries before 1989. But such an economy could still function.

In contrast, raising the defence budget even to 3% of GDP – the UK’s target for the next parliament – will cause political and economic strain. This is due to the trade-off against other final expenditures, including healthcare, education and policing – all equally vital for national survival and security.

The UK and other countries with large welfare systems have reformed them with the aim of adding at least as much to output as to demand. Transfer payments are increasingly designed to keep people economically active, moving into new and more productive work. This matching of extra income to extra production keeps the inflation risk low, even if the government is “printing money” to fund some of its transfer payments.

Extra defence spending carries greater inflation risks. Paying for more weapons and military training generates new income and demand for consumer products. At the same time it can divert workers and materials away from civilian production, into military hardware that is intended never to be used.

Stronger defence could boost production as much as consumption if, as many advocates claim, it stimulates investment and innovations that other industries can adopt. The Manhattan Project remains a standout example of “mission-oriented” military spending that sped the arrival of new technologies and methods of organisation.

Studies confirm a pick-up in innovation and growth after major increases in military spending. But these tend to focus on the US and trace the improvement to increased research and development (R&D). Growth might be stimulated equally well, making more weapons and more welfare an affordable option, if greater sums went into R&D without a link to war preparations.

Of course, defence can be counted as an even more productive investment if, through effective deterrence, it prevents costly wars that would devastate civil production.

But again, there is an important difference between investing in military hardware and in social protection. The welfare bill is hard to forecast, as it varies with the state of the economy and trends in income and employment. But when transfer payments enable people to recover their health or acquire new skills and return to work – or when they keep pensioners out of poverty – the government gets a rapid return on its investment and reduces longer-term costs.

Investment in more soldiers and equipment may be easier to control in the short term. But it commits the government to maintenance and upgrades over the long term, without which the fighting capacity can soon become non-operational. The UK has a history of cost overshoots and delays keeping tanks and ships out of service. That’s why a Treasury set on cost-effectiveness will always choose butter over guns.

Alan Shipman has previously received funding from the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust and the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.

– ref. What ‘warfare versus welfare’ gets wrong about real-life economics – https://theconversation.com/what-warfare-versus-welfare-gets-wrong-about-real-life-economics-280747