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 “The really big point is that far from being a tumultuous, cacophonic, unstable, firecracker of a polity, Brexit Britain is starting to feel like a relative island of calm, more at ease with itself than it has been for many years, led by a sort of 1950s Prime Minister, who is nearly 20 points ahead in the polls. The spotlight of worry has swivelled round elsewhere, to Greece, France and to the United States. If Brexit is a revolution, it is so far turning out to be a very British and incremental one, lacking in violence or upset. More tea, vicar?”
– George Trefgarne
Indeed. What has struck me about some on the Remain side, for example, is that they have been coming across as a bid mad, unpleasant or utopian, not the other side. It is pretty hard to portray the likes of David Davis, for example, as fire-eating radicals when the eurozone, for example, is and remains an economic clusterfuck of Old Testament proportions.
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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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There does seem to be a determination in some quarters to portray ongoing membership of the EU as if it were neutral (like, say, Canada’s membership of NAFTA). It isn’t simply that hardcore Remoaners think that on balance the current positives of membership outweigh the negatives. It’s more that they don’t recognise that any further future negatives might arise at all. In the static sense this might be slightly more justifiable (I should say that I myself voted Remain on a sort of cost-benefit analysis, though I now regret it).
But there’s a refusal to admit that the situation might change and a navel-gazing tendency to ignore what is actually happening in the EU. Certainly some Tory Remainers seem trapped in a past where Europe represents a go-getting future and Britain absolutely must be a part of that, and nothing that happens to the Eurozone can shake them out of it.
While i am pro Brexit, there is still no Brexit in effect.
“the eurozone, for example, is and remains an economic clusterfuck of Old Testament proportions.”
Eurozone is a clusterfuck -i’ll pass the hyperbole – because countries there don’t abide by the rules not because it is a eurozone. Britain in 70’s was also CF because of the same reasons.
Current political/economic system is dependent on monetary growth at all costs so when Capitalism productivity “sabotages” that political/economic logic there is trouble.
“If Brexit is a revolution, it is so far turning out to be a very British and incremental one, lacking in violence or upset.”
A glorious revolution, perhaps?
The Express is reporting that Greece is considering ditching the Euro for dollarisation, sounds a bit implausible, but if the Loony Left of Ecuador (where in for the next Presidential election, the leading candidate’s first name is ‘Lenín‘) can do it, I suppose the Greek Brothers could be persuaded to swallow it.
It would even more be fun to ask the Remoaners to explain the benefits of the EU to Greece should this happen. (Basically, left to their own devices they’d be even worse is presumably the point, but why should we be like mountaineers roped to a bunch of drunks?).
There’s a regional politician in India called M. K. Stalin
In the SQOTD, George Trefgarne writes:
Later in his article, we find:
I am somewhat encouraged by this view of May, the vicar’s daughter. But on a background leading to sound economic policy, is not the grocer’s view more material?
Best regards
Because Brexit has gone so well (so far), and the Remainers have been exposed as so loony, a lot of people who voted Remain have come over to Brexit — see, for eg., here:
https://twitter.com/PaulJDavison/status/831264042052354048
I was born in England and have lived here all my life – and I recognise the above quotation as a typical example of English writing.
I think I will leave it at that.
For all the noise, nothing has yet happened. As is often the case with crises, only a small minority predict them, with everybody else blithely carrying on their business as usual. It is an illusion to think that we can somehow come up with a bespoke agreement with the EU within 2 years, at least one that is better than what we could have with EEA membership (Norway option). Whilst everything is likely to be fine eventually, it’s such a shame that the quick and easy way of leaving the EU (and yes it is leaving) appears to have been discarded, for what is certain to be a less beneficial outcome – even through the eyes of the more hard core Brexiteers.
And the fact that the UK’s economic and political environment looks slightly more positive on the basis of a few GDP forecasts, does not provide any comfort. Many of the Northern European countries have much better fiscal balances than the UK does, for example. Don’t envy their RoP problems of course.