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A few weeks ago I emailed an American who contacted Samizdata, wanting to know about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the libertarian movement in the US and the UK.
I included in my response the sentence: “America is the worst country in the world to have a libertarian party”, without qualification (it would have taken too long to cover all the ground).
However this extract from an appeal email sent out from the US Libertarian Party gives a flavour of one of the problems:
“And, unless we can raise a lot more than $2,375 for ballot access right away, we aren’t going to be able to help other at-risk ballot drives and candidates around the country. We need:
· Up to $6,000 for filing fees and petitioning costs to qualify six U.S. House candidates in Kentucky. Deadline: August 13.
· Up to $4,200 in Louisiana to run a full slate of seven U.S. House candidates. Deadline: August 23.
· Up to $1,500 to qualify a full slate of five U.S. House candidates on the ballot in Iowa. Deadline: August 16.
· Up to $4,000 to petition the ballot in Washington, DC, which gives us a shot at major-party status in our nation’s capitol. Deadline: August 28.
· Up to $5,000 to put the Maryland ballot drive over the top. Deadline: August 5.
And, there may be other drives that will require last minute assistance to succeed.
For example, over the past month, we had to step in and provide $8,000 to Illinois and $5,000 to Pennsylvania to put those ballot drives over the top. Both drives would have probably failed without our last-minute assistance.”
Now compare this with the barriers to entry in the UK.
1) To register a political party costs £150 (about 220 US dollars) for mainland Britain and the same again for registering in Northern Ireland. To comply with this a party has to send in a list of national officers, audited accounts, and a copy of the party’s constitution. This allows the name to be registered and a logo to be displayed on ballot papers. The charge includes a web page for the party which lists public contacts, constitution etc.
2) Local council elections require no deposit and there is a spending limit for all candidates. Ten signatures of local registered voters (who don’t need to be supporters) and the candidate must live or work in the borough are the only requirements. A typical spending limit per candidate is about £400 (600 dollars US). This limit obviously favours poorer political parties.
3) Parliamentary elections (legislature) there is a deposit of £ 500 (about 750 US dollars). Ten signatures from local electorate must be found. The candidate doesn’t need to be local, there is a free postal delivery, and each candidate has a spending restriction. The spending limit is under £20,000 (30,000 US dollars). National campaigning which doesn’t promote individual candidates are currently exempt from spending limits.
4) European Parliament and regional elections are by party list and cost about £3,000 (4,500 US dollars). I forget how many signatures must be gathered but I’m sure it’s 100 or less. For these elections the parties have one page in a booklet sent to every registered voter. In Greater London this amounts to over five million copies.
N.B. All deposits are refundable to the candidate if he or she scores 5 per cent of the total polled. The two Independent Libertarian Party election campaigns to date have cost less than £100 between them.
The contrast with the US is astonishing: in one state, the LP has to gather 5 per cent of the entire electorate’s support to be allowed to put up a candidate for the presidency. Yet neither Republican nor Democrat party have to comply with this barrier to entry: they are simply excused. In the UK this would require over two million signatures, as opposed to the 6,570 needed to contest every Parliamentary seat.
Another significant problem for the LP is that it is illegal for the party to receive donations from non-US citizens, so I can’t give money to the LP. But I can send money to the US on behalf of the Costa Rica Movimiento Libertario and US citizens can send money to the UK for a British political party, provided donations don’t exceed £5,000 (7,500 US dollars).
I’m currently looking into registering for next year’s London elections.
I am quite satisfied with the Café Press on-line shop we already have for Samizdata.net (they are currently running a sale in fact!), but does anyone out there know of any other on-line shop providers which offer tee-shirts in colours other than Ash Grey and White? I would love to do black and/or deep blue shirts with our logo in white as well!
Please e-mail us (see sidebar) if you know of any.
Thanks.
I really must take issue with the vilification of Hollywood, and warn against assuming that Mr Blair is just a fool.
The last four films I’ve been to see in the cinema are:
1) Spiderman
2) Bad Company
3) Sur mes levres
4) Minority Report
The idea that any of these movies merely panders to minorities is rubbish.
We all know that Spiderman had to be re-shot because of 9-11 and to be frank, the final confrontation with the Green Goblin is a little weak. However, the storyline of the teenager growing up in an unexpected way was engaging and the effects of the New York streets was simply stunning.
The most philosophically impressive movie on this list was Minority Report (despite being directed by Stephen Spielberg). It would have been very easy to lower the depth of Minority Report: the Christian federal agent has two possible motives – is he sceptical of the Pre-Crime idea, or does he merely wish to rule it himself? The doubts he expresses about Pre-Crime are essentially conservative (in the sense of believing in the fallibility of human schemes). I don’t know what kind of movies Friedrich Hayek enjoyed, but I’m sure he would have nodded approval at the script of Minority Report.
Bad Company had a simple gag of having a black comedian playing two roles, one a suave, cultured, CIA agent using the cover of an antiques dealer, the other a street hustling ticket-tout who had to replace the CIA agent for a fortnight. It had the idea of Trading Places except that instead of impersonating a banker, the street kid had to impersonate James Bond. For those who say this is unoriginal, The Prince and the Pauper was probably the plagiarism of a oriental folk-tale.
Sur mes levres, which was made in France was good, but it was a cross between Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amelie Poulain, both films as exploitative in their own way as anything produced by a Tinseltown accountant.
I enjoyed all of these movies and found them a lot better than most of the television I’ve watched recently.
On the issue of commercialism: Ice Cold in Alex (British – 1958) was “probably the longest lager commercial in the world”. French movies of thirties always plugged Dubonnet or milk. On the other hand United Artists studio, founded by Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and others ensured that they would have editorial control and a greater share of their movies’ profits. No film maker I’ve ever heard of refused to collect…
As for Mr Blair. The recent splurge of public spending in the UK marks the end of New Labour’s attempts to portray itself as the human face of Thatcherism. The reason for this is that the political threat to the government doesn’t come from the Conservative Party (apparently some people think “Alan Duncan Smith” the Tory leader “came out” as gay last week). The pressure comes from the Left, which doesn’t believe the Tories can win the next election and therefore see no reason to restrain their lunacy.
This policy is wrong for two reasons: first we know that the extra money cannot produce effective returns without the dismantling of the state command structure, especially in the National Health Service. Second, the extra spending relies on what seem to be over-optimistic assessments of tax receipts for the next two years.
The policy is wrong for economic reasons, but the assumption by Mr Blair that he his greatest political threat comes from the Left is correct. It would not surprise me if the Conservatives failed to make any significant headway in the opinion polls, not because they are rigged, but because the Opposition parties might as well not exist.
There is method in what Blair does: until this year he was set on destroying the Tory party. Now he is set on winning the hearts of his party’s left wing.
The opposition to Blair now comes from us, the libertarians.
Jonathan Hanson takes an elemental look at liberty and culture
My best friend Steve Bodio (yes, the ‘spook‘ who was referenced here some time ago) and I are both freelance natural history writers who live in the rural southwest U.S. We are both strongly pro-environment, pro-gun, hunting-and-fishing libertarians who love watching birds as much as shooting them, drive, respectively, a 20-year old Ford truck and a 30-year-old Toyota Land Cruiser, and live in houses that wouldn’t qualify as closet space to some of the new, liberal enviros who are flocking to our overburdened area of the country. Both of us despair that the battle to save the last open spaces in the American West will be lost, thanks to these self-satisfied ex-urbanites who want to mandate to those of us already here how they think it should be saved.
In Steve’s splendid 1998 book of outdoor essays, On the Edge of the Wild (which everyone here should buy), he wrote two paragraphs comparing the “old” residents of our rural landscape to the “new” ones, to sum up these meddlesome invaders. But on a re-read yesterday, it struck me how well the passage buttonholes a much wider spectrum of the close-minded liberal sheep who are laying waste to freedom and individuality in both the old world and the new. Pay particular attention to the last line.
What the old ones really knew in their bones was that death exists, that all life eats and kills to eat, that all lives end, that energy goes on. They knew that humans are participants, not spectators. Their work and play and rituals affirmed and reinforced this knowledge.
The new ones want to evade death and deny it, legislate against it, transcend it. They run, bicycle, network, and pray. They stare into their screens and buy their vitamins. Here, they want the street drunks locked up, cigarettes banned, drunken driving met with more severe penalties than armed assault. They fear guns, cowboys, Muslims, pit bulls, whiskey, homosexuals (though they’ll deny it), and freedom. Strong smells offend them.
“Strong smells offend them.” Couldn’t those four words describe concisely all those who are determined to homogenize our entire society?
Strong smells offend them.
Jonathan Hanson
I’ve actually waited some time and thought a great deal about posting the local angle on the Middle East. I find it sad when a community I am close to sides with my enemies.
Yes, you heard me right. I have known for some time there is considerable sympathy in West Belfast towards everyone in the Middle East who hates the US. I’ve been in heated arguments with dear friends over it and they and I just let it drop.
The sympathy seems to have moved beyond words in the last few months. A source close to me said there were Palestinian fund raisers at a local Republican bar the last time he spent an evening there. Those of you in Boston, New York, Pittsburgh and other heavily Irish cities who remember Republican fund raisers for NORAID should know the model. I never took part in any such myself but I knew well enough about them. A girlfriend bartended one spot North of Pittsburgh that ran them. I also remember being offered a genuine souvineer Derry Rubber Bullet while ordering in my own local of some 20 years standing. Funny enough, that pub was in a Jewish and Academic area of Pittsburgh, so go figure.
If anyone is reading this who actually did “help the cause” back then, I think you should be aware the same people are now using the same techniques to raise money for people who want to see you dead. If the American side of Republicanism has any influence whatever over here, I think a very loud message should be sent back to just “knock it on the head” and send our enemies back where they came from.
I do not wish to classify all Palestinians as my enemy: only those who celebrate the deaths of my countrymen and who support brutal and unhuman tactics of war. Whether the fund raisers are from the suicide bomber tactions or not I do not know. Perhaps someone on the inside can find out.
And yes, I do know a Palestinian or two and they are very decent people thank you. I define my enemies by their actions, not by broad labels.
There does seem to be a lot of confusion (even in libertarian circles) about monetary policy.
There are two points of view, on monetary policy, that libertarians might favour. The better known school of thought (at least better known to the media and other such) is the ‘Monetarist’ school of thought that holds that government should increase the money supply in line with increases in economic output in order to keep the rate of inflation at zero. And the ‘Austrian’ school of thought that holds that government should not increase the money supply at all.
The Monetarist school is most closely associated (in modern times) with Milton Friedman – although the situation is complicated by the fact that Dr Friedman (in recent years) has come out against a government being allowed to increase the money supply in line with the output of general goods – on the grounds that government can not be trusted with this power and that therefore the ‘monetary base’ (the notes, coins and other government produced money) should be ‘frozen’ – i.e. not increased.
The ‘Austrian’ school of thought is divided between those (such as F.A. Hayek) who have argued that money need not be linked to any particular commodity (hence Hayek’s bringing back of the 1920’s idea that money might be based on a ‘basket’ of different commodities held by banks in a sort of ‘index money’), or at least that private institutions who issued paper money (or credit notes) need not be forced to actually have the exact amount of the commodity they claimed was backing their notes. And the ‘hard money’ people who have argued that a bank (or other institution) that issues money should base it on one commodity and have enough of that commodity in its vaults to cover all its notes.
Actually the debate within the Austrian school has little political importance – as even the ‘hard money’ people (Ludwig Von Mises, Murray Rothbard and so on) formally agreed that a bank (or other private institution) did not have to base its notes on a commodity or have to back all its notes with this commodity – as long as it told people what it was doing. A private institution that did not base its notes on a commodity or did not have enough of that commodity to back its notes would only be guilty of fraud if it implied that it did.
The real matter of dispute was what would happen to institutions that issued unbacked paper money – with the hard money people arguing that such institutions would eventually go bust (or convince the government to bail them out).
These seemingly obscure matters of theory do matter. For example when a libertarian says that the government is increasing the money supply ‘too much’ he is talking as a Monetarist (whether he knows it or not) – as an Austrian school man (of whatever faction) would hold that government had no business being involved in increasing the money supply at all.
For the record I am Austrian school man – and of the ‘hard money’ faction. Any book choice I recommended might well be influenced by these facts – so I will stop here.
Paul Marks
I ran across this article from my old home city of Pittsburgh. A local unit was called to active duty in May. I was of course interested because the unit is based near my home town of Coraopolis, But I’m sure anyone should see the implications. A large medical unit was called up and sent off “somewhere”.
I would take it as an expectation of some serious ground combat, and if I were to make a really good stab at where they are going I’d put southern Turkey (by a wide margin) on the top of the list and northern Saudi Arabia as the number two.
I think September 11th would be a lovely day to hang Saddam, don’t you?
It has taken me nearly a year to “get around to” a small task. Reading the list of the dead from the opening shot of the war. It was not a pleasant thing to do. At each scroll I expected to see some name jump out at me.
None did.
Oh, there was one possible, a person with the same name and age as someone I went to Coraopolis High School with. But it is not likely he’d have been in financial services in New York and there was no hit on the name when I searched the old home town.
It doesn’t mean there weren’t any people I knew in the list. I just didn’t spot any. You can’t ever know, Not really. Old girlfriends get married and change their names; people vanish from a “crowd” and a time. Names and faces become indistinct with time. I may yet hear sad news at some gathering of old friends,.but at least the names I most worried about were not there.
My biggest fear was assuaged by a hole in the list of the dead from the New York Fire Department. A hole where a name I knew wasn’t to be found.
It is good to know I will listen and enjoy the craic with Tony DeMarco again as he fiddles away at his weekly Session at Paddy Reilly’s.
I think I’ll just give him a hug next time over.
The other day I made my humble effort at trying to make the case for why we (the U.S., Britain and a few other Anglosphere nations) should boot out the odious regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. I must confess it is a tough call for a minarchist verging on anarcho-capitalist to make.
Well, Mark Steyn in the British weekly magazine, the Spectator, has penned what is for me the best argument for why deposing Hussein is necessary and will trigger off beneficial consequences in the Middle East, and by extension, everywhere else. It is a must-read.
Further proof also, I reckon, that Mark Steyn is the best columnist around. And he regularly refers to bloggers in his articles, showing he knows where the real intelligent action is.
While googling for the previous posting I ran across a pair of articles which left me open jawed. The first of them should be informative to many as to why Americans think Europeans dislike Americans for their middle class culture. While the reality is euro-trash culture is just as middle class as that of the US, the Continental Elites are, well, more Elite. “People who matter” actually listen to them and nod in sage agreement when they speak.
But before anyone over there gets their back too straignt and proud, read this one. You’ve got your own Holier Than Thou academics, every bit as bad as their euro-brethren.
It’s just that you don’t pay them no never mind.
I was quite pleased to read New Yorkers have as much disdain for the plans as I have.
I don’t know about you, but I found all six of the plans cowardly and inward looking. I was really rather disgusted – and offended – by them. The NY I came to know, while living in the East Village and working in Midtown, would build them bigger and better than they were. Personally I kind of liked the idea of one wag: four tall buildings. One slightly taller… yep, an upraised finger to those fuckers.
Yeah, that’s the ticket!
“Cleanse The State With The Blood of Martyrs”, rumbled Three Yoked Oxen. Rincewind spun around and waved a finger under Three Yoked Oxen’s nose, which was as high as he could reach. “I’ll bloody well thump you if you trot out something like that one more time!” he shouted, and then grimaced at the realisation that he had just threatened a man three times heavier than he was. “Listen to me, will you? I know about people who talk about suffering for the common good. It’s never bloody them! When you hear a man shouting “Forward, brave commrades!” you’ll see he’s the one behind the bloody big rock and wearing the only really arrow-proof helmet!”
– Rincewind, the Wizard from Terry Pratchett’s Interesting Times
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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