Matt Welch – author of a recent fine study of John McCain – has this to say about the recent cave-in by so-called conservatives to calls for a massive bailout of failed businesses and banks:
In June I read what I thought I’d never see again: a mainstream column, by a mainstream columnist (The Washington Post’s David Ignatius), arguing against the effects of airline deregulation, one of the most liberating government acts of the last four decades (see “40 Years of Free Minds and Free Markets,” page 28). When reregulation is suddenly on the table even for an industry where market forces have cut prices in half while doubling the customer base, it’s time to get back to first principles and fight like hell to secure victories we’d long thought won.
Indeed. Like a few other Samizdata contributors – such as carbon-footprint monster Michael Jennings – I am a big fan of the deregulated airline business. This business has been a huge boon in places like Europe. Thanks to the lower cost of flying around, I can see friends in Europe, see my family (and they, ahem, can visit me). The development of the cheap airline business model, notwithstanding some of its flaws, has done more to bring Europeans together than all the EU directives ever passed. Arguably, such directives have in fact been a hindrance, rather than a help, to such closeness.
On Matt’s broader point, he is right that we are going to have to make the case for free markets, dispersed property rights, entrepreneurship and trade all over again. It is extraordinary to think that barely over a year ago, Conservative Party leader David Cameron was attacking cheap flights. He has allowed a Big Government, environmentalist message to overshadow what must always be a staunch support of freedom and property rights. He reminded me of the comment attributed to the Duke of Wellington in the 1820s about the railway train: he disapproved of them as they would encourage the common people to move around.
Thankfully, such nonsense has disappeared But just you wait: as and when the good times reappear, the inhabitants of Notting Hill, the Upper East Side and central Paris will be arguing for shackling the unwashed masses to living and holidaying within a few miles of where they live. It is vital, therefore, that the defence of the market order, and resistance to bailing out politically well connected firms like GM or RBS, be given a strong, populist image. Defending deregulated airlines strikes me as a good sort of issue to use in this respect. Keep your stinking, socialist hands off my Ryanairs, my Easyjets and my Southwests! Unleash the spirit of Richard Cobden!
Well, you know what I’m going to say again. The argument was never won by “our side”, and socialism was never defeated- that it was is one of the great myths of the 80s. Neither Thatch nor Reagan created a small government culture, however much we may here (in our case) about Thatcher’s love of Hayek, she never actually put The Road To Serfdom’s lessons into practise. She imbedded the corporate state into our culture. Yes, she abolished exchange controls and privatised, but she didn’t create a free market. The only part of the left “defeated” were the proleterianist communists, the result of which was the ending of the Left’s internal struggle and the giving of free rein to the progressives, who now we suffer as New Labour, and Cameron, and Clegg, who are all of one sad little “One state to rule them all, one state to bind them” mindset. Welcome to Port Sunlight.
It’s not a matter of winning “again”. It’s a matter of winning for the first time. Though as you know, my gut feeling is that we’ve already lost, irreversibly, and we lost a very long time ago.
That is not entirely right. Maggie slashed the top rates of tax from what was almost outright confiscation, broke up a number of state-run businesses, abolished capital and exchange controls, privatised ownership of council homes, abolished absurd restrictions such as Sunday trading bans, etc. For sure, this was not a “perfect” achievement but measured against an ideal, this will always fall short. No, I don’t blame the Tory/GOP governments of the 1980s for not going far enough. The ability to roll back the Welfare State and its trappings is hampered by popular sentiment as much as anything.
The problem is that at root, many people are frightened of freedom and don’t trust a free, civil order to work. A few years ago, before he left in a huff, we used to have a commenter here by the name of Euan Gray. In his dreary, missing-the-point style, he would endlessly recycle the argument that people are not up to coping with freedom, need to be prodded and nudged by paternalists – like himself. It is impossible to exaggerate how much this pateranalist spirit, in both its right wing and left wing incarnations, exerts a hold on what passes for intelligent opinion in this country and in many others. It is like a form of cancer.
What I had to say about Matt’s article yesterday is important enough to link here.
Start this at the bottom, kids, with principles.
“For sure, this was not a ‘perfect’ achievement but measured against an ideal, this will always fall short.”
Please stop that, Johnathan. I’m begging you, man: just please get off that “enemy of the good” crap. The issue here is about integration. Half-measures will never do in these affairs because of the corrupting consequences of state intervention of any degree. Apologies for failure are worthless, and so are impotent shrugs that the Eloi don’t value freedom. We already know all of that and it explains nothing in this context.
Thatcher failed and so did Reagan. These are facts, and that’s why they should be congenial to every thinking person.
No. Complaining, as we do, about how a government falls short of some ideal obviously noty a waste of time but at the same time, when people make statements to the effect that Maggie/Reagan/whoever failed to bring about any real change, as Ian B did, I feel bound to point out that this is a mistake.
Focusing on principles is of course a lot of what we write about. But just occasionally, when a person states that nothing really changed in the 1980s, I cannot resist the temptation to say, “bollocks”.
The fact is that in certain respects, we did remove ourselves from the socialist command-and-control world of the immediate post WW2 years. That is why it makes me so depressed that we are returning to such nonsense.
I did not say that nothing changed in the 1980s Johnathan. I said the argument was not won, the argument that many people believe was won and thus stagger around mystified and shellshocked at why this “won” argument has come back to tear great chunks out of our collective behinds.
The development of the cheap airline business model, notwithstanding some of its flaws, has done more to bring Europeans together than all the EU directives ever passed.
Exactly JP. And don’t they hate us for doing it off our own bat not through their largesse.
PS. Can someone please pen the lyrics to “Cheer Up Ian B” (to the tune of Daydream Believer).
Ian B is one of the few commentators who consistently have sensible points to make. Far too much moonbattery and wannabe-Utopianism goes on here otherwise. Jonty P is barely past Sixth Form in much of what he writes.
Giddle, well, not everyone suffers from terminal depression, so get used to it. I wasn’t aware I was a starry-eyed optimist. I have been accused of much worse. I tend not to confuse statements of “we’re all doomed” with profundity.
Johnathan, just because somebody had an unfair go at you on my uninvited behalf doesn’t mean you should have a go at me :p
My point, if point I have, is that until we’re honest with ourselves about the depth of the hole we’re in, we’re never going to know how long a ladder we need to climb out of our confused metaphor.
Ian B – You lost the battle long time ago when you allowed the Gramscians to march through education, the media, and the government. You reap what we sow, and the socialists are finally harvesting the fruits of their labour.
You want to win? Do the same. Get into education, the media(as long as the Fairness Doctrine doesn’t come in, current trends would take care of that), and the government. Although I know that a libertarian civil servant like a colossal oxymoron.
Ian, apols if you thought I was having a go. The thing that pissed me off royally about this “Giddle” wanker was his assumption that I was somehow being juvenile for not taking the line of “we are all fucked” at every opportunity. He (I bet Giddle is a he) is the sort of person who assumes that pessimism: profundity. Samizdata is not a blog that is simply going to carry endless, depressing, apocalyptic articles. The trouble with such depressing worldviews is that they become self-reinforcing, since our enemies will conclude that such depression proves that our views lack any appeal. If this Giddle character wants to read that, he can go elsewhere. I am sure there is plenty to choose from.
Wobbly: I’d sooner eat my own hair than work in government or in a state school.
If we can return to the topic at hand (airline re-regulation), here in the US there is a large segment of the populace (including all of the self-styled intelligentsia) which never liked deregulation, never trusted it, and has been muttering for years about rolling it back. Every time a flight is delayed or cancelled, or someone is unhappy with the quality of the service he received, it’s all blamed on deregulation. (The fact that most delays are caused primarily by our archaic air traffic control system, government-owned airports and irrational policies for assigning landing rights is never mentioned, of course.) So at heart I think Ian B is right; we never really “won” that fight, only achieved a (possibly temporary) victory in one battle.
I am just as annoyed as anyone else by delays, poor service, etc. (It is my firm belief that being a pathological liar is a job requirement for employment by USAirways.) But I’ll suffer that if it’s the price I have to pay for a deregulated industry; someday someone (Southwest?) will figure it out. We’re paying McDonalds prices; we can’t expect white-linen service.
Wobbly Guy-
When who let the Gramsicans march through education? Me? I wasn’t even born when the Long March started. It started a century ago. And anyway, I think it’s incorrect anyway.
The Gramscians didn’t invade education and the elites in general. They were spawned by them. I’d have to write an essay here to explain meself proply, but I’ve increasingly come to the view that progressive socialism, leftist statism, what-have-you, is best seen as a takeover of government by the intellectual/academic class. Technocratic oligarchy- a society run by experts (for experts). People like e.g. Woodrow Wilson- the USA’s first phD, and first socialist dictator haha.
We shouldn’t be asking how the socialists took over academia. Academia spawned them. They spread *out* from there.
Broadly speaking, people as groups follow their own class interests (some people will of course be exceptions, but will always be a minority). Ask an intellectual who should run society, and his natural class instinct is to believe that the answer is “intellectuals”, just as a working class trade unionist would think the government should be run by trade unions, or whatnot. Everyone has a selfish preference for themselves and their own class- their conceptual tribe. Asking an intellectual to oppose technocracy rather than embrace it is asking them to campaign against their own selfish interests, which is why we’re unlikely to ever win in that way; indeed we could argue that most libertarians are irrational as we’re arguing against our own class interests by arguing for a society without patronage. It’s more rational to fight for dominance by one’s own class tribe. Which is what most other people do.
Anyway, there wasn’t IMV a long march, so much as the most aggressively tribal members of certain classes (the intellectual, opinion forming elites) simply shoving their more decent colleagues aside. They didn’t invade those classes, they were already there.
And indeed, there are very few libertarians in those classes, and that is likely to remain the case, because libertarians in general aren’t interested in those lifestyles.
Laird, I could not agree more. I occasionally whine at some of the service quality of the likes of Rynanair, but I am glad they exist.
JP,
When you eat your hat, can you post it on Youtube?
Seriously though. What is the point of a Halllujah Chorus of “We are all fucked” all the time? Why bother going to the time, effort and expense of blogging if it’s all conclusively buggered to all fuckeration on a permanent basis?
I mean if you really believe the end is nigh is there any point to talking about the future much?
Wouldn’t it serve you better to stash away an improvised technical, get in some crossbow practice and bondage gear and make friends with the Humongous – the Ayatollah of Rockanrolla!
“That is why it makes me so depressed that we are returning to such nonsense.”
…which is what sets me off when I hear nonsense about Reagan and Thatcher when the reality is self-evident.
Airline deregulation in Europe was the EU’s doing. It was part of the “1992” single market, although lobbying from vested interests (ie state owned airlines and the governments that owned them) meant that it did not actually happen until 1997. This certainly sped up the growth of discount airlines in Europe, as there is no chance that some European countries (most notably Italy) would have deregulated on their own. Of course, the EU’s attempts to bureaucratise and regulate everything on a Europe wide basis are now doing their best to ruin everything, but the efforts of the EU with respect to allowing airlines to fly on routes outside their own country (which includes recent decisions to replace national treaties with non-EU countries concerning landing rights with deals between “Europe” and non-EU countries) are unequivocally positive.
Ryanair as a company is belligerent, obsessive-compulsive, relentlessly lowbrow, and at times unpleasant to travel on, but I can live with that. If I don’t want to fly with them I will fly with another airline. The best thing about them is that they are responsible for hugely increasing the choice of destinations I can fly to and hugely reducing the price, regardless of whether or not I fly with them.
Of course, I do often choose to fly with them. I know exactly what I will get if I do, and I choose to put up with it in return for a cheap fare. So do all their other passengers.
Ian B – True enough. Still, I plan to work in my government after I finish my masters in public policy. Try my own version of a gramscian march. Been thinking of privatizing the local education system, which for all its success, has been at a rather inefficient price tag. In fact, I’m planning my policy analysis project around this.
Maybe it’ll come to nothing. I can always go back to teaching, either in a state school or offering private tuition(where the money’s actually better). But I won’t accept the obvious reality that all government bureaucrats are statists until I try.
Am I crazy or what?
Try my own version of a gramscian march.
No, that is not the solution. That you can do it is part of the problem.
When proposing any solution, consider this – “Would I be willing for the results of this solution to be in the hands of my enemies?”.
You don’t like school syllabi? So do you propose a takeover by central government in order to fix it? Or do you enhance school choice of syllabus and parental choice of school?
If a takeover happened, then don’t undertake a reverse takeover, destroy the ability of anyone to undertake a takeover, ever.
But CC, you take not into account the problem of Asians. Specifically, Singaporean/Malaysian-type Asians. The kind who grew up thinking civil service was an honour, and the pinnacle of success, and safe, and fire-proof. The kind who were my grandparents, true, but whose influence still permeates every aspect of society.
At heart is the way we look at things. The Chinese, for example, are still ‘bureaucratic’ in nature. Malays work best in a hierarchy. Indians are a very communal, social pressure kind of race. None of us are by nature what you’d call libertarian or tend towards anarchistic systems.
I do not presume to speak for my Singaporean neighbours, but Malaysians are not too strong on ‘how do I break the current government system and replace it with less government system?” – we’re more of “how do I game the government system so that I get what I want out of it?”
The education (well, let’s call it indoctrination) system in Malaysia for instance. Completely government-controlled, save a handful of international schools (and Malaysian students are not permitted to go there)
http://www.alice-smith.edu.my/temp/education-at-klass.htm
No such thing as home-schooling, you notice.
So, are there people agitating for vouchers, or home-schools, or whatever? Fat chance. No, it’s all private tuition, or private schools, or studying really, really hard so that you can get into a ‘elite’ national school. It’s all working *within* the system, but twisting it to your advantage.
The problem is that we’ve all bought into the current situation. Not all of us per se; I haven’t, for example. But enough have. The imperial system in China, for all its problems and faults, never suffered a serious threat until , strangely enough, the Commies came around. Because the Chinese had bought into the system, and they could become part of it, and change it from inside.
I was brought up with the idea that any given individual can become educated, informed, and capable of making rational decisions, in essence becoming an active participant in life. I have since developed the sneaking suspicion that not only is this not true, but that there are huge substantial numbers of people out there who do not want to become informed or make rational decisions – indeed, are quite happy being the ‘sheeple’ of scorn. There is a difference between a Mycroft Holmes, who being smart still does not bestir himself, and your generic Malaysian ccivil servant, who is not only stupid but lazy to boot. And viciously vengeful.
CountingCats – How can the fact that I can do that be a problem?
Actually, the problem comes down not to the syllabus, but the entire system of education as a whole. And nobody here is even willing to talk about privatization or a voucher system, unlike the US.
So the best way to do it would be from the inside, where the levers of power are and where the voices of influence are. Go in, talk to people, get them around to your view. Eventually enough people get the idea, that hey, there’s a problem, and here’s a solution we can try out.
Doing it from the outside is just pissing into the wind. When the government is that powerful, often the only way to pare it down is to do it from the inside. Reagan did that, IIRC. It would have been pointless if he had went the lobbying route. Don’t expect to make the government give up its power via the ballot box(there’s enough ways for pols to convince the people that’s a bad idea; see the Massachusetts tax resolution). The best way is to do it from within.
Another way to look at it is that all over the world, people have grown accustomed to the government telling them what to do. If you try to speak out from their side, even if it’s ultimately for their good, they get fearful, as in, ‘what is this guy saying?!? I can’t believe what I’m hearing!’. I get that reaction a lot, and it’s hard to make any headway. But if you go from the government side, the reaction tends to be less fearful, and the government’s giving up its power on its own initiative often makes people say ‘oh, they probably have a good reason for doing this’, even if the reasons are exactly the same no matter where they come from! Just an observation I’ve made.
Stop thinking in ideologically ‘pure’ terms and start being a bit more pragmatic about what changes you’d like to make, how to convince people about those changes, and how you’re going to make sure that those changes allow for greater freedoms. If it takes going into government or running for office, then go do it, instead of moaning and pissing here, as Nick mentioned.
TWG,
I admire your idealism but… You are though still talking about “reforming a system”. The metaphorical political and civil service graveyards of the world are cluttered with headstones of “reformers”. I suggest you watch a few episodes of “Yes Minister” because the system has more inertia than an aircraft carrier at full-steam ahead.
But heck, if you can turn the ship of state around from the inside then not only will I eat my hat, but Jonathan Pearce’s hat as well, with ketchup.
I suggest the alternative is to run parallel to the state and offer something better. Off course the best private schools are too expensive for most folk (and it’s utterly galling to have to pay twice) but there’s always home-schooling of the sort of co-operative manner where a group of like minded parents within an area pool their skills and knowledge.
And the more people realize they can do stuff for themselves…
So how did the Gramscians (aren’t they from Star Trek?) do it? I am going to sound a bit Ian B here but I think their plots succeeded because they in some intangible way seized a zeitgeist and also because the civil service always wants to expand – see Yes Minister again for that. Maggie T’s favourite show, BTW.
Anyway, TWG, I hope you make a fool of me and good luck!
The best way?
It may be.
It also explains why I’m divorced, why I drink, why I have the gray hair of a 45-year-old (I’m probably the youngest commenter here), and why I buy Zantac in Costco-sized packages.
And that’s with a relatively receptive audience, co-workers who’ve made an entire career of having their faces rubbed in the utter worthlessness of the state in solving social problems.
I don’t mean to discourage you, but if you’re serious then you’ve got your work cut out for you.
“In a war of position a counterhegemonic movement attempts, through persuasion or propaganda, to increase the number of people who share its view on the hegemonic order; in a war of movement the counterhegemonic tendencies which have grown large enough overthrow, violently or democratically, the current hegemony and establish themselves as a new historic bloc.”
Wikipedia on Neo-Gramscianism
“What is the point of a Halllujah Chorus of “We are all fucked” all the time? Why bother going to the time, effort and expense of blogging if it’s all conclusively buggered to all fuckeration on a permanent basis? “
‘Permanent’ is far too conjectural an adjective. But buggered to all fuckeration we are. Christ on an Obama-dildo, man, there are plenty of people who think that everything will be fine if there’s a couple of tax cuts and a pol makes some noises about freedom.
Incidentally, buggered to all fuckeration is surely a feeling all Newcastle supporters have about their season…
The boiler is bust, my foot hurts like hell and thanks for that last comment mike. Cheers. We’d be better off with Roy Kinnear at the helm rather than Joe Kinnear and Roy Kinnear is dead.
Ian B,
What was that bilge you just quoted? It makes no sense at all to me. Perhaps that’s their power? It’s like wrestling the invisible man. The obfusticating bastards. This is why I did science at University…
If I may quote Chandler, “I’ve never seen so much waste of intelligence outside of an advertising agency”.
The problems with air travel in the United States are caused by government – for example by the collectivist mess that is “air traffic control”.
People only have to look north to Canada to see that a less statist system of air traffic control works better – but they do not.
Even nonleftists like Bill O’Reilly (do not sneer – the words of a television and radio man like him reach vastly more people than our words do) blame the problems on “the airlines” (as if airlines enjoy keeping their customers on the ground in aircraft for hours), just as they blame high prices for fuel on “the oil companies” or “the speculators”.
And this is someone who went to a private (Catholic) school and a private university (at a time when private universities in the United States did NOT get most of their money from the taxpayer.
The ideology of statism is so widespread and so deeprooted that it effects even those people who consider themsleves as anti leftist defenders of the free market.
However, there is another factor in the United States – the elected politicians are in an oddly weak position.
In all big government nations the unelected administrators have wide powers (they have to, as government simply tries to do too much for the elected politicians to control – hence “delegated legislation”, “standing instruments” and so on), but the elected government does have the final say.
But not in the United States – at least not recently.
For example, in the 1950’s President Eisenhower ordered the removal of illegal immigrants – and they were removed.
Now the elected government can not even secure the border – the orders of the elected politicians do not translate into action. Two years ago the Congress voted (and the President signed into law) the construction of a security fence along the border with Mexico – but the fence is not there.
I am not saying that the idea was a good one or a bad one – but it is of note that the orders of the elected politicians have no physical results. And they often do not.
For example, President Bush is supposed to be very interested in the “War on Terror” but the C.I.A. (supposedly under his control) has a spent most of the last seven years undermining him in various ways, and his efforts to control the C.I.A. have been pathetic.
On air traffic control it is much the same.
When President Reagan wished to control the air traffic control system he fired all air traffic controllers who went “on strike”, and when a few of the union leaders decided to be irritating they found themselves being dragged away in chains (in mean this quite litterally).
But President Bush has no more power over the air traffic control system than I have.
Again I mean exactly what I have written. President George Walker Bush talking about the air traffic control system has no more physical effect than me talking about it.
It is like when he visited New Orleans some time ago.
The various things that President Bush had promised in 2005 had not happened – even though the Army Corps of Engineers is (supposedly) under the command of the President.
No it is all “Civil Service rules” (for the civilian side of government) and “military command structures” for the military side.
The President (at least this President) seems to be no more in command than the Fairy on top of the Christmas tree controls that Christmas Tree.
Statism is one thing – but statism with someone as weak as this (or, perhaps, in such a weak position as this) “in charge” is weird.
It is like watching Louis XVI – supposedly a King with near total power, but in reality (from the very start) someone with hardly any power at all.
However, there is another factor in the United States – the elected politicians are in an oddly weak position.
In all big government nations the unelected administrators have wide powers (they have to, as government simply tries to do too much for the elected politicians to control – hence “delegated legislation”, “standing instruments” and so on), but the elected government does have the final say.
But not in the United States – at least not recently.
For example, in the 1950’s President Eisenhower ordered the removal of illegal immigrants – and they were removed.
Now the elected government can not even secure the border – the orders of the elected politicians do not translate into action. Two years ago the Congress voted (and the President signed into law) the construction of a security fence along the border with Mexico – but the fence is not there.
I am not saying that the idea was a good one or a bad one – but it is of note that the orders of the elected politicians have no physical results. And they often do not.
For example, President Bush is supposed to be very interested in the “War on Terror” but the C.I.A. (supposedly under his control) has a spent most of the last seven years undermining him in various ways, and his efforts to control the C.I.A. have been pathetic.
On air traffic control it is much the same.
When President Reagan wished to control the air traffic control system he fired all air traffic controllers who went “on strike”, and when a few of the union leaders decided to be irritating they found themselves being dragged away in chains (in mean this quite litterally).
But President Bush has no more power over the air traffic control system than I have.
Again I mean exactly what I have written. President George Walker Bush talking about the air traffic control system has no more physical effect than me talking about it.
It is like when he visited New Orleans some time ago.
The various things that President Bush had promised in 2005 had not happened – even though the Army Corps of Engineers is (supposedly) under the command of the President.
No it is all “Civil Service rules” (for the civilian side of government) and “military command structures” for the military side.
The President (at least this President) seems to be no more in command than the Fairy on top of the Christmas tree controls that Christmas Tree.
Statism is one thing – but statism with someone as weak as this (or, perhaps, in such a weak position as this) “in charge” is weird.
It is like watching Louis XVI – supposedly a King with near total power, but in reality (from the very start) someone with hardly any power at all.
I should have mentioned that in his visit to New Orleans President Bush went about hugging people – perhaps it was a Bill Clinton impression, but it was also a substitute for having no power to get done what he said would be done (in spite of vast sums of money being spent).
Perhaps some people like this sort of behaviour – but I was filled with contempt.
Either get the government out (the libertarian solution) or do the job.
Sorry but “the President does not directly command the Army” (or whatever) does not cut it.
Presidents used to have direct power over the Executive (civilian and military) because they fired anyone who did not do what they told them to do.
And you can bet anything you like that Comrade President Obama will not have any “Civil Service rules” or whatever standing in his way – because he will not allow it.
Of course this does not mean that government will be able to violate economic law (actions have consequences), but it does mean that government will be far more effective in such things as “regulating the internet” than libertarians think it will.
We will not be dealing with Bush-brain anymore.
Yes best of luck TWG, but I think you are in for a very large dose of disilusionment.
All the teachers I know are desperate to leave and know to the year month and day when they are pensionable and can get the hell out.
State schools should be abolished because they have caused a decline in literacy levels, not raised them, as they were supposed to.
When you pay for something you make sure you get the value out of it. Yes I know we all pay for State schools via taxes, but the con is that, like the NHS, it is “free” at the point of delivery.
It is an exercise in socal engineering (we must all be equal! that is, equally uneducated).
My great Grandfather owned and ran a Private school in the 1860s. I wasn’t an Eton or anything, it was a plain 3 Rs day school. Then he got Nationalised in 1870.
Try this. It is a bit dry, but shows what I mean, I hope.
http://mises.org/story/1425
Uhm, RAB and everybody, I’m not in the UK. Singapore, as some will tell you, is somewhat different. It, plus Hong Kong, and maybe some parts of China, are probably going to be best place to test this out, notwithstanding the trials already done in the US.
And Yes Minister is an interesting point. I heard it was also Singapore’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew’s favorite show. Coincidence? I think not.
Still, even the problems RAB mentioned are beginning to rear their heads in Singapore. Teacher retention is becoming a problem, More and more qualified teachers are deserting the service for greener pastures, either other jobs or private tuition(pay is ridiculously good for higher levels; I can earn 3 times more for less effort). The downside is that the remaining ones are pretty bad, or inexperienced.
I know this for a fact because when I was resigned for my full time masters, many of my students were almost in tears and begging me to give them private tuition. In the end, I kinda took in some of the worst performers for a price way below market rates. Am I stupid or what?
So, I’d like to accelerate the process. In fact, why should students waste time in schools when private tutors, or even their own parents, are sufficient?
“The boiler is bust, my foot hurts like hell and thanks for that last comment mike. Cheers. We’d be better off with Roy Kinnear at the helm rather than Joe Kinnear and Roy Kinnear is dead.”
Ha! Nevermind, this is Samizdata after all and football is only a joekinnear!
“The ideology of statism is so widespread and so deeprooted that it effects even those people who consider themsleves as anti leftist defenders of the free market.”
I see the truth of that verified every time I talk to my two bar-owning American friends out here in Taiwan. The poor bastards have this horrible conflict between their sense of loyalty to the United States – with all the noise about freedom which that necessarily entails – and the reality that it just doesn’t exist anymore. They fucking know it, but are reduced by their sentimental attachments (with which I sympathize to a greater extent than they might imagine) to uttering forgettable little burps like ‘maybe Obama won’t be such a bad President after all’.
“And you can bet anything you like that Comrade President Obama will not have any “Civil Service rules” or whatever standing in his way – because he will not allow it.”
That certainly is a different thesis from the ‘rorschach theory’ of Obama that gets put about a lot. Presumably you are taking into account not merely Obama’s voting record and previous associations but also the fact that he won by something of a landslide and his party controls both houses of Congress, right? I know, it’s frightening.
Even if Obama turns out to be merely a Clinton mark 2 (or mark 3), that would still be more than disaster enough.
It is really horrifying to read Thoreau (mid-1800s) in this day and age:
“There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and of Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; who even postpone the question of freedom to the question of free-trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both. What is the price of an honest man and a patriot to-day? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well-disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and God-speed, to the right, as it goes by them.”
– Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience – p391 (Penguin Classics, 1986). Emphasis original.
Start off small – stop paying petty traffic fines. Then stop paying taxes. Engineering your job and your life just to take a stand against the State is a nothing less than a whole life-time’s work. But it is equally important to explain why we are ‘buggered to all fuckeration’.
Regarding the coming fuckeration of the airlines, people in Taiwan literally drop their jaws in disbelief when I talk about the deregulated airline industry in the UK. When I mention having flown, in 2004, from Newcastle to Berlin for about £17 – their heads just about explode in disbelief. To fly Kaohsiung to Singapore say (a roughly similar distance) would typically cost around 15 times a ridiculous £17. That it is cheaper to fly to London from say, Edinburgh, than to take the train strikes them as just preposterous in their country in which the airline industry is run by a poxy little cartel with zero competition. It is sickening to my soul to have to tell them that those days are already numbered because of all this shite spouted about carbon dioxide.
It’s such a hammer.
And what makes it harder to endure is that, amongst the other westerners out here, most of them haven’t got a fucking clue as to why I would be upset about airline regulations in the first place – including the goddamn ‘Americans’. Damn them all to lives of shit and shale…
Now that is a plan I can get behind.
Though I think “Improvised Technical” is a bit redundant.
Ok, it’s a thought, but do you stop at some point? If you don’t pay your traffic fines, eventually they come take your car. Do you let them do it, or do you resist? If you resist, to what level?
Same thing with taxes. In the end, if you put up enough of a fight, men with guns and the imprimatur of the state’s official sanction to use them will show up for you. You always have the choice of cooperating or not, but non-cooperation leads to losing, badly, even if you “win” the immediate confrontation.
I suppose if you got wind of it, you could just pack up and run off with a pocketful of gold coins, but the nomadic life appeals a lot less now than it did when I was 15. Hell, who knows, maybe I just don’t want liberty bad enough.
perlhaqr
Civil disobedience is not simply small numbers of isolated individuals shooting it out with the cops or running off into the woods with some pieces o’eight.
In the end this can only be done socially, I merely pointed to aspects of civil disobedience from the point of view of the individual. As it happens, I have just about been able to manage some of those things for the last two years now.