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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Samizdata quote of the day People love to demonize greedy bosses who don’t care for their workers. However, after going through this bout of downsizing my company, I know that my surviving employees are not unhappy about the change, because it was accompanied by a renewed sense of discipline and focus. Employees – or, at least, my employees – have understood and responded positively to their boss’ determination to succeed financially. A boss who tolerates low financial returns will not deliver the wherewithal to provide raises and job security. In retrospect, my biggest sin was not in laying people off during my bout of downsizing – despite the pain involved – but in not demanding enough of them or myself previously. In short, I should have been more greedy … I would have been more socially useful.
– Friedrich Blowhard last Saturday, in the course of explaining why he has been obliged to stop blogging for a while
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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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Having had to downsize a company myself, I know exactly how he feels. Laying off people I counted as friends was the most appalling thing I have ever had to do, but I was haunted, even before I had to do it, by the thought that if I didn’t, many more people, just as deserving, would suffer in the near future. I spent my time thinking how I could lay off one person to secure the jobs of many. Was I evil?
No of course you were not evil; ultimately one’s own welfare is one’s own responsibility and nobody else’s. The nobility of freedom lies with the strength required to bear the burden of insecurity that comes with it.