George Monbiot made one valid point in his debate with Perry (and others) on B.B.C. Radio 3. Although I suspect that Mr Monbiot did not believe in his own point.
George Monbiot stated that a Parliament does not have to pass laws so his World Parliament need not mean world regulations. I suspect that world regulations are exactly what Mr Monbiot wants (indeed he admitted this by talking about ‘fair trade’ rules in the same discussion). However, a Parliament need not be, indeed should not be a legislature.
Having a group of people elected to pass laws is a terrible system. It leads to endless laws to please this or that special faction (which may represent only a tiny fraction of the general population), and even laws passed to satisfy the whims of politicians.
When libertarians and others denounce ‘delegated legislation’ (rules made up by officials), we should not forget that laws made up by politicians are no good either.
Whether one believes that law should be established by deduction from the principles of justice (i.e. property rights – the nonaggression principle), and-or should evolve in a Common Law way – the whole concept of a body of politicians creating laws (a legislature) just does not make sense.
But can a Parliament just be a check on the Executive – deciding on the budget and (under some systems) throwing out the Executive if the Prime Minister or President becomes too bad to tolerate.
Does not having a body of politicians sitting there and then saying “now do not do very much” involve a fatal contradiction? Someone is not going to go through all the vast effort of getting to be a member of this body and then do little or nothing – human nature just does not work that way. Individuals and parties are going to mess about.
Once you elect a body of people (called a Parliament or whatever) do they not inevitably become a legislature – creating laws as they choose? That is part of the basic anarchist libertarian case.
Constitutional limits on the power of such bodies have proved largely ineffective (although in the case of the United States Constitution this may be because it relies for its enforcement on a body of appointed judges).
Perhaps the way to go is the way of the Constitution of Texas – have the ‘legislature’ meet for as few days as possible, this structural limit (rather than policy limit) may have some effect in limiting the number of crazy laws such a body can pass.
I hope there are not too many absurdities in the above (sleeping in the last day or so might have been a good idea), but let those who will open fire.
Due to a technical glitch, a couple comments to this post were deleted in error. Sorry.
That’s interesting. Thanks for sharing that.
Talking of Monbiot, a friend of mine the other night came out with ‘monoversity’ for a ‘university’ which only teaches one subject.
I’ve been sniggering for years at Eastern European institutions like Budapest’s Medical ‘University’ or Economics ‘University’ or (yes, oh yes) the Budapest Gardening ‘University’, but now that Blair’s Britain is to have such places named ‘universities’ too, I’d better stop smirking.
Having lived under the Texas Constitution for a quarter century, I would agree that the time limit on the legislature has helped to limit its depredations. A more severe limit, I think, is the very encompassing and detailed nature of our constitution. Unfortunately, in a world where politicians are constantly trying to find ways to decrease our liberty and where a simple and forthright constitution like the US Constitution is ‘interpreted’ out of the way when it is inconvenient, a nit-pickingly detailed document may, sadly, be the next best defense.
I do not see how, in reality, explicit laws enacted by fallen human beings are to be avoided, except by the committed, extreme anarchist. Even in the cases of common law and law logically derived from principles of justice, some human must do the derivation. Perhaps someday soon it may be feasible to have this done by a computer – but then I would have to mistrust the programmer. And remember that many of the principles of mathematical logic go back to Bertrand Russell -not someone I want making laws for me! Pure democracy is, of course, eventually a recipe for tyranny of the mass.
The problem is not in having a legislature, but in the insulation of the legislators from the people whom they represent. Someone whose name I have forgotten once observed that the worst blow to American liberty was the invention of air conditioning. It made full time congressional sessions possible by making the Washington summers bearable. Congressmen no longer had to return to their districts and possible horsewhippings. Their fellow politicians became even more exclusively their collegues and friends.
I have a modest proposal: Every congressman confers, debates and votes over a modem, on an open website, from a public storefront office in his district. Trips to Washington would need to be taken only very occasionally –say for swearing in and for State of the Union messages. This would break the exclusive connection between them and reestablish the bond with the people that they claim to represent. It would also make them less accessible to national lobbyists and pressure groups, which would then have to take their cases to the constituents to be effective.
Perry – I’ve got to disagree:
“…the whole concept of a body of politicians creating laws (a legislature) just does not make sense.”
Sorry -regardless of how logical this argument may appear to you- it doesn’t make sense to the vast majority of people living under Parliamentary rule for one very simple reason – they LIKE parliaments and legislatures; Parliament allows them to come home and put their feet up in front of the TV because while they were at work it “dealt” with all those nasty big problems in the big bad world.. and also they like it because it affords them continuity which gives them another reason to feel secure!
So for most people a parliament or legislature that is “seen” to be passing laws – no matter how ridiculous the laws – is on some level regarded as a good parliament because it “is dealing” with those “difficult problems” that most people just dont like to think about…, a ” law-making” parliament keeps them in their comfort zone.
Parliaments, legislatures or whatever you want to call these things exist because of the need to control group structures which is something that anarchist libertarian ideals cannot contend with as they are divisively individualist by their very nature … There are very few places apart from extreme habitats where it is possible to live a truly anarchist libertarian lifestyle. Most places in the world are by necessity under group control because they encompass the lives and habitats of large numbers of diverse (and not so diverse) groups of diverse individuals.
Because some form of Parliament/legislature is necessary the best any individual person living in a group environment can hope for is that the parliament/legislature gives as much respect to their right to be as individual as is possible given whatever restrictions are imposed by the group environment.
Everytime you use the words “anarchy” and “libertarian” I reckon you lose most of your audience in the “general public”, because those words lie outside their comfort zone… it conjures up images of the loss of a beloved parliament (security)and therefore the loss of liberty not the gaining of it!
The real problem most people have with any parliament is not the number of laws or even the powers that they have… it is the growth of bureaucratic stupidity and the abuse of these legislative powers. That is what most people want controlled.
Start with that….
The way to go is firstly to lose the word “anarchy” (the whole anarchy concept gives most people nightmares!- its one big turn off…it doesnt free people it binds them with fear!). Change how “libertarianism” is perceived… instead of attacking parliament (their security)- and proposing huge changes in how people are governed (taking them out of their comfort zones) you need to be seen to be freeing people in a way they desire. Gently helping to restrain Parliamentary excesses that people hate.
You’re asking how to take big leaps when you should be taking small steps… slow down until the peoples comfort zones are enlarged to include the desire for the responsibilities that the freedoms you are seeking require they take on themselves. (which right now they don’t want)
The bottom line with regard to Libertarianism and Parliament is this:
Libertarianism needs a change of image before it can change Parliaments image!
like they say, least worst systm
Joe is right. Constitutional systems aren’t just familiar, they have benefits. (Certainly I find the idea of government magically derived from “natural rights” terrifying: we’re back to living under the tyrranny of an arbitrary zealot-defined perfection. Who’s to say what rights are natural?)
Actually the worst problem with legislatures isn’t that they make laws. It is that they don’t actually make them.
Generally they pass, and hence legitimise, laws made by others: usually civil servants (so called… = bullying masters) and/or lobby-groups. In Britain much legislation is not even discussed in the most cursory fashion by Parliament: it comes in the form of Statutory Instruments. But even laws that do get discussed are voted through (and even heavily amended!) under the whip system by members who haven’t even read it, let alone given thought to what they are doing.
Reducing parliamentary time doesn’t help this problem. Indeed, existing parliamentary time being inadequate to the ever increasing demands of government, Westminster has just been reorganised to enable it to put through more primary legislation with less consideration.
Structure may be able to help, but the problems of practice are cultural. Somehow broader society (as well as MPs) needs to be persuaded that (1) to “do something” about the latest panic ought not to be the role of government, and (2) that MPs have a duty to vote down every proposal before them that they cannot honestly support with full understanding, and doing so is a good use of their time.
If anyone is sick of government meddling it’s teachers. Introducing school vouchers and decentralising control of the curriculum to the level of individual schools would, I think, prove a very popular peeling back of the state.
Individuals voluntarily pooling resources to create a self managing shareholder community for mutual benefit. It could start a cultural revolution.
What’s all this talk about libertarianism? This is Samizdata.net for chrissake and not a libertarian forum. Well, at least not as far as I am concerned.
You’re asking how to take big leaps when you should be taking small steps… slow down until the peoples comfort zones are enlarged to include the desire for the responsibilities that the freedoms you are seeking require they take on themselves. (which right now they don’t want). The bottom line with regard to Libertarianism and Parliament is this: Libertarianism needs a change of image before it can change Parliaments image!
Why should we try to change libertarianism’s image? If it got itself into an ‘image guamire’ well, let’s stop using -isms and try to have an intelligent discussion (such as Paul Marks’s post) regardless of how the ‘General Public’ may react. Why should we be constrained in our discourse by the ‘comfort zones’ of the People, whoever they are?
If we have learnt anything from blogging on Samzidata.net is that you can’t be all things to all people, so we will just stick to our opinions, even if they include scary words like ‘anarchy’ and ‘libertarian’. (The latter of course mostly in connection with the US anti-war variety of barking moonbats.)
Anybody left I haven’t pissed off by this comment? Raise your hand, please…
I would raise my hand – but it was chopped off by a liberated regime in Saudi Arabia.
And I agree. This is not a libertarian forum. It’s more a libertarian against ’em. :0)
Gabriel, you’re right -this is Samizdata- why should you try to show people (the general public) the benefits of anything? It is just a blog….
Perry asked about the absurdities of his post and “the way to go” – I answered that…
Which makes me right too! (big grin)
….after all a blog is what you make of it 🙂
I’d like to register a gentle quibble:
— Constitutional limits on the power of such bodies have proved largely ineffective (although in the case of the United States Constitution this may be because it relies for its enforcement on a body of appointed judges). —
In the U.S., the enforcement of the Constitution was intended to be left in the hands of the people in arms; that was most of the point of the Second Amendment. The courts’ role was originally intended to be far less significant; in particular, note that Federal courts were deliberately left with no instrument of force with which to work their wills. As an organ of the State, the judicial branch was quite capable of succumbing to power-lust itself, and leaguing with the other branches in pursuit of its own interests — and America’s courts have proved it.
Makes the disarm-the-citizenry movement lots easier to understand, don’t it?
To get back to Paul’s original post – the sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein once proposed that in a bicameral legislature, one house be devoted to passing laws, requiring a two thirds majority. And the other house be devoted to repealing laws, acting with a one third minority. A wonderful idea that will probably never be adopted.
Something else we might do, “structurally,” to limit legal frivolities and outright insanities comes from a brilliant, angry man who, under the pseudonym “John Galt,” wrote a brilliant, angry book titled Dreams Come Due: Government And Economics As If Freedom Mattered:
“It is said the ancient Greeks used a simple method to stop the multiplication of ‘laws.’ Perhaps we should try it on our Congress. Anyone wishing to propose a new law had to do so while standing on a platform with a rope around his neck. If the law was passed, the rope was removed. If the law was voted down, the platform was removed.”
Stretches the, uh, mind!
Guy,
Joe is right. Constitutional systems aren’t just familiar, they have benefits. (Certainly I find the idea of government magically derived from “natural rights” terrifying: we’re back to living under the tyrranny of an arbitrary zealot-defined perfection. Who’s to say what rights are natural?)
The natural rights argument is simple in principle – no magic need be involved. It is just an argument that individuals, entitled to freedom from violence, are owed barriers to coercion.
What those barriers are, and where those lines are drawn, is a determination of the law, ideally Common Law.
But at least, natural rights are a principle. Legislation today is not based on pricinples; it is based on whim and bribery. Paul is certainly correct – having an elected group of people ‘make’ laws is a horrible system.
Am I imagining this, or is the John Galt writer that Francis mentions the far-right conspiracy-theorist briefly publicised during the discussion of what on earth the Oklahoma City bombers thought they were trying to achieve?
Do I have the wrong end of the stick again?
No, I’ve claimed that end of the stick…
Fair enough, Joe. 🙂
However, I protested not because I think we are just a blog, (which we are not), but because you seemed to ascribe us some role in promoting or salvaging libertarianism. That is what got up my nose. The only -ism I am willing to accept when describing myself is ‘anti-collectivist individualism’.
But what still puzzles me is: Perry asked about the absurdities of his post and “the way to go” – I answered that…
I can’t find Perry asking that anywhere? :-/
A sticky situation?
Gabriel, apologies – it was Paul that wrote it. I was thinking about the subject matter not the writer – made a boob – oops !
I’m always perfect when no one else is looking 🙂
As for your statement: “you seemed to ascribe us some role in promoting or salvaging libertarianism. That is what got up my nose.”
… Look at the blurb under the “SAMIZDATA.NET WEBLOG sign on the left hand column.. it reads : “A ‘blog’ for people with a critically rational libertarian perspective. Developing the libertarian meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous… ”
I took my stance from that perspective 🙂
The main problem is that legislatures draft laws in the hypothetical and then apply them to the whole of society.
This is the exact opposite of a common law system, in which laws arise out of actual circumstances, and are applied ony so far as theose circumstances exist.
Also, the whole concept of legislation implies prior restraint. Under common law, the law doesn’t come into play until there’s an actual dispute.
The traditional roles of legislatures always were to be a sort of “board of directors” for the state, to manage its finances, etc. In colonial America, it was always common for any legislative act by a colonial assembly to contain a preamble justifying it in terms of the existing common law. Now it’s the exact opposite.
Joe, again fair enough. We have been planning to elaborate on that text for some time. You see we also are perfect when no one is looking. The trouble with a blog is that someone is looking most of the time. 🙂
And we would not have it otherwise!
The problem with using common law in place of parliamentary acts is that you’ll get the kind of legislation by litigation that has become so common in the U.S. We’ve had a case, for example, where a judge ordered tax rate increases in order to fund specific reforms in the public schools.
An evolving body of common law would be even easier for judges to maipulate than a “living Constitution” has proved. Just wait for the first judge to declare that the NHS is a fundamental human right and that voting to reduce its funding is thus a criminal violation of human rights.
At least it’s easier to change legislators than judges.