We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Who is the ‘we’, paleface? According to super-rich, property magnate Will Hutton, we are all Europeans now:
There are strong reasons for Britain to want more than a common market like the rest of Europe, and to try, in the process, to create the European public realm we currently lack. We share, despite a multiplicity of languages and histories, the same core values – a belief in the social contract, an adherence to the idea of the importance of the public realm and shared views that capitalism must be fairly run.
Hutton’s Europe: a land of permanent paternalism.
I wonder if Mr. Hutton’s tenants have to tug their forelocks and call him ‘sir’?
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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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You guys are doomed.
I know this is a rare access of optimism for me, but Sandy P. is wrong. Things have looked bad for a while, but none of the separate European traditions (whether entirely distinct or overlapping) is yet doomed.
Hutton is bullshitting–and he may even realise that he is–about the commonly held “values”. Neither the values, their practice, nor the underlying theories (all of which he blurs together) are very similar, or indeed compatible, when you look at them close up. (As I’m sure continentally based commentators will verify.)
That is the reason for his, and his fellow power-brokers’, anxiety to create a “European public realm”. (Realm = rule, a common statehood, does it not?) They more and more openly wish to displace multiplicity with unity, and overwrite those various histories and cultures with an “European” identity for the new continent-state of Europa. I maintain a hope that this is too grand a project, however well prepared it has been over half a century; that the mini-Bismarcks have prevailed so far through staying hidden, and courting the deep indifference of the many publics in Europe.
The constutional Big Con can fail, though it may not. IF it fails it may just stall the heroes of unity, but it may also give the chance to make the case for variety and smash ’em in open conflict. Secrecy, tedium and monotonic “inevitable” movement, have been their greatest weapons. Put a stop to those, and suddenly we are somewhere.
My fave rave from Hutton’s piece is actually this hilariously self-regarding snippet:
“Even a European intellectual community is only in its hesitant infancy.”
Sucks to you Albertus Magnus and Marin Mersenne! Europe has the hesitant infancy of a transnational intellectual community now that Mr Hutton has a few foreign friends.
Guy Herbert – … about the commonly held “values”. Neither the values, their practice, nor the underlying theories (all of which he blurs together) are very similar, or indeed compatible, when you look at them close up … (As I’m sure continentally based commentators will verify.).
I verify. Public life and values in countries with legal systems built on English Common Law and those of the continent of Europe have little in common, the most gaping and often quoted difference being the most obvious: in the Anglosphere, there is a presumption that anything not specifically ruled against is permissible. On the continent, your rights are accorded to you by the state and everything is forbidden save that which the state has granted you.
In the Anglosphere, the politician is our temporary servant. On the continent, as the dispenser of rights, he assumes a more formidable, paternalistic role.
Besides, Hutton should take a break from counting his money and get out more. He writes “… We share, despite a multiplicity of languages and histories, the same core values – a belief in the social contract …” blah blah blah. I have never lived in a society that did not have a belief in the social contract. It’s also known as common humanity and is universal.
This is the same Will Hutton who last month he appeared in a BBC drama-documentary about poverty (‘If’). The villain was a fictitious property developer, who lived in a rural retreat with a swimming pool, athough the properties he apparently let were not in a ‘cramped and run-down situation’ (Lewisham Council on First Premise Ltd’s properties in South East London).
The Telegraph did a rather nice piece on this hypocritical hack which can be found here
Sounds as though the man believes his own publicity, and is suffering from delusions of grandeur.
A genuine pro-European who understood both British national interests and the over-riding necessity to sustain multilateralism would not have pre-emptively invaded Iraq without a second UN resolution – even if subsequently justified by finding weapons of mass destruction
Mention of the EU and the UN in one sentence, – all very suspect, methinks he is a mite envious of those ‘worthies’ who had access to all that ‘funding’ from the ‘Oil for Food’ programme. Doesn’t he have the wit to realise that the French, German and Russian opposition to the war, had more to do with trying to negotiate a profitable position vis-a-vis the oil, than any idealistic ideas of multilateral unity and action.
They just did not understand that – even though the American build-up to the war was painfully slow, it was still a lot faster than anything that the EU and the UN could hope to achieve, and that such action was necessary. That most of the anti-Bush sentiment evolves from Bush’s pre-emptive action in Iraq, and his blunt rebuttal of their aims and claims, which revealed to the world just what a bunch of self-serving hypocrites the EU and the UN really are.
As he points out, even WMD’s, and no doubt the mass murders, did not form a basis for any punitive action. Like all socialists he has the hypocrisy to join the club, and he is just miffed that he was not asked to join. They even thought Galloway was more acceptable than him…
too much political capital has been consumed; too little trust remains
The age old cry when the political elite are found to be the lying, greedy, self-serving scum we always suspected them to be. “Oh dear!, they don’t trust us”, just what do they expect? they all preach one sermon, but not one of them practises what they preach.
We could have backed the US with a powerful contribution to reconstruction and policing afterwards to show solidarity; but we had to stand with the Europeans over invasion.
Ah! now we get to the crux of his reasoning. Why spend all that money in fighting the war, when we could have come in when it was all over, offer our wholehearted support, and walked off with lots of profitable contracts and grants, and meanwhile it wouldn’t have cost lives, and more importantly all that cash. Mention ‘solidarity’, and bingo, we are the good guys… how very French, how very European…how very socialist…
When devoted hypocrites, such as Hutton, decry Blair, I almost believe that Blair may not be so bad after all….. maybe some of Bush’s blunt honesty is rubbing off…..
There must be a nice little earner in there somewhere
If capitalism must be “fairly run” how come he’s got so much money?