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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I’ve been reading a three-volume fictionalised life of Beethoven, by, of all people, John Suchet, whom most people probably know only as a television newsreader.
The way Suchet tells the story, Beethoven was an oddball from the start. I recall doing a posting here about how Beethoven’s deafness prevented him from having a normal life, as a star pianist, but Suchet’s Beethoven was always set on getting shot of being merely a talented performer, and on becoming a great composer.
Beethoven’s friends and supporters had to put up with a lot at the hands of the irascible genius. They took all the angry insults and demands because, when it came to it, they shared Beethoven’s high opinion of his musical genius, and because they knew also what miseries Beethoven himself had to contend with.
Beethoven’s deafness was no mere inability to hear all the sounds he was surrounded by. It was also the presence of other often very loud sounds inside his own head, often painfully so.
And just to put a tin lid on everything, throughout a lot of Beethoven’s adult life, he had to contend with the consequences of war. Napoleon’s armies took possession of Beethoven’s city of birth, Bonn, and then of the city where Beethoven was based for most of his adult life, Vienna. Quite aside from the usual deaths and disruptions this inflicted upon the Viennese, this played havoc with Beethoven’s various plans to get rich and thereby achieve the freedom he yearned for to just compose his music.
In connection with some of this fighting, Suchet, like the journalist he is, quotes a couple of stories that the Wiener Zeitung published, on a particularly black day for Vienna, in October 1805.
The first concerned the disastrous battle of Ulm:
OUR BRAVE FORCES FACE IGNOMINY!
On 20th October 1805, outside the city of Ulm in southern Bavaria, some twenty thousand of our brave Imperial soldiers, fighting for the honour of His Imperial Majesty, stood and faced the forces of the French imposter Bonaparte, His Excellency General Mack von Leiberich in command.
By an entirely dishonourable manoeuvre, against all the rules of war, the French succeeded in surrounding the Imperial Austrian army.
It is our sad duty to report that General Mack was forced to surrender his army of twenty thousand to the French, handing over the illustrious colours of our brave forebears. The French have taken forty-nine thousand prisoners, whose release His Imperial Majesty is making strenuous efforts to secure.
The latest intelligence from the battle front is that the French are marching east towards our border.
We call on all able-bodied citizens to make preparations to resist the army of the French. The same Bastion which resisted the Turkish invader a century and a quarter ago is being made secure and our civil forces are drilling on the Glacis in readiness to repulse the invader.
John Suchet then adds that at the bottom of this one page, that being all that the Wiener Zeitung could manage on this particular day, there was, in considerably smaller print, a briefer item, which was, Suchet says, “largely ignored by the people of Vienna”. This concerned an insignificant sea battle, somewhere or other off the coast of Spain:
One day after the ignominy suffered by our forces at Ulm, a Franco-Spanish fleet was defeated by a British fleet under the command of His Lordship Nelson off the Cape of Trafalgar.
So, good news, surely. But the Wiener Zeitung cannot force itself to deceive its readers:
This victory for the allies, inglorious and shameful as it is for the enemy, will have no effect on the progress of the war on land.
There you have it. The Continental European attitude to the relative importance of sea power and land power. It took quite a while for that little sea battle to result in the undermining of Napoleon’s power, but it definitely had consequences.
The Samizdata world view is more than a mere preference for navies over armies. But that contrast is definitely part of the story.
I don’t think a German or Austrian author, writing about Beethoven, would have pointed up this particular contrast the way Suchet does. And does, I think you will agree, rather gleefully, despite him ending his chapter with that second quote.
I’d love to have a few here walk with me through South Minneapolis, down Lake Street, maybe talk to a few of my friends who still haven’t been able to re-open and who now seem likely to simply declare BK and walk away, about how it is so much worse that “government” property was invaded for a few short minutes this week. It was “just private property,” after all.
Maybe we could linger in the remains of the burned-down Minneapolis police precinct building that somehow doesn’t represent “government” in their eyes. Burning down the police is somehow less civil-war-ish than temporarily occupying The People’s Chamber?
Several large communities in Minneapolis are still teetering on failure following the riots. But I should be concerned that government staffers felt ill-at-ease?
They are both bad situations. Cooler heads should have prevailed in both, but didn’t. This “oh, but this is so much worse!” handwringing is why liberty declines.
– Bobby B
“There are so many serious problems raised by the nationalisation of medicine that we cannot mention even all the more important ones. But there is one the gravity of which the public has scarcely yet perceived and which is likely to be of the greatest importance. This is the inevitable transformation of doctors, who have been members of a free profession primarily responsible to their patients, into paid servants of the state, officials who are necessarily subject to instruction by authority and who must be released from the duty of secrecy so far as authority is concerned. The most dangerous aspect of the new development may well prove to be that, at a time when the increase in medical knowledge tends to confer more and more power over the minds of men to those who possess it, they should be made dependent on a unified organisation under single direction and be guided by the same reasons of state that generally govern policy.”
– FA Hayek, The Constitution Of Liberty, page 300. First published in the UK in 1960.
Biden victory confirmed after deadly attack on Capitol
Note the convenient unidirectionality of the word “deadly” in that BBC report.
A writing challenge for you: how would these events be reported if those who stormed the Capitol had been doing it in support of Black Lives Matter?
I saw this comment on Facebook from a friend and I quote this in full because it sums up so much for me about what is at stake and what the issues are. My friend here is absolutely not a “covid denier”, or one of those who thinks vaccines are the works of the Devil/the Bald Bloke from Davos who is channeling Ernst Blofeld, whatever.
(My friend responded to a comment from a person who says lockdowns are parallel to wartime measures brought about by extreme circumstances, in which bottom-up solutions aren’t going to work. The comment got a fair amount of pushback, not least around the problems that all wartime measures have around mission creep, corruption of certain agencies, etc.)
Anyway, here is my friend’s response:
The virus is far from severe enough to consider such collectivist war analogies. The virus is mostly at war with rather old and/or unhealthy people, who are largely only alive today because of our productive economy and liberty to innovate – both of which are now being squashed. We will have to wait and see how much liberty we will get back, and how much wealth has been sacrificed (redistributed).
Many elderly people are not too fond of being locked down either, spending perhaps their last Christmas alone, etc. Not to mention the financial, mental wellbeing of the more healthy citizens, or the physical wellbeing of those in the developing world (how many will die from the coming recession, lack of growth etc.?, do they count in this calculus?). And let’s not forget that the lockdowns are meant to solve problems in healthcare that the government has caused: ossified bureaucratic institutions, swamped with regulations, lack of competition and innovation, delayed testing, rationed IC capacity, massively delayed vaccines. The fact that the whole West is reacting like this and even many in the libertarian sphere accept this, is a sign that we are facing a much worse problem than Covid-19: collectivism run rampant.
“The people of Crete unfortunately make more history than they can consume locally.”
– Saki (aka Hector Munro). I just liked this quotation. Yes, it has nothing really to do with anything current, which for my mental balance is a blessing. If anyone needs a mental health break from the Zombie Apocalypse, I recommend all of Saki’s stories.
In less than a year, our government has dictated 1) when we can leave our homes; 2) if we can work; 3) what we can buy; 4) what we have to wear in public; and 5) who we can see in private. All from the initial ‘ask’ of a two-week lockdown to “flatten the curve”. Let that sink in.
– Viva Frei
Although much of the focus in the UK political reporting is on Boris Johnson’s government (the UK has gone into “Tier 5”, which is basically a lockdown in plain language), it is worth remembering that throughout the COVID-19 affair, the leader of the Opposition, Sir Keir Starmer, and leader of the Labour Party, has called frequently for longer, earlier and more severe controls on the public, salved in his mind by calls also for even more gigantic amounts of debt (inoculated, he hopes, by central bank fairy dust). An example of such a call is here.
Sir Keir (he was named after Keir Hardie, first leader of the Labour Party) knows that he will not be held accountable by most voters for any of his calls, or maybe hopes that is the case and that when the next general election is called, this shitshow will be a memory, and his demands for lockdowns will not be held against him. Such are the dangers of our lockdown consensus among large swathes of chattering class opinion.
Even so, I think commentators who want to wind Sir Keir and his colleagues up, and scold and irritate their supporters, should start to refer to the Labour Party as the Lockdown Party on every occasion. It may be rude, even thought a bit juvenile. But we are past the time for being sweetly reasonable towards those who quite clearly want to use these powers and would do so again, possibly on even weaker pretexts than now. If Sir Keir has referred to the civil liberties issues of lockdowns, as Lord Sumption has done, I have missed it. And remember, Sir Keir is a lawyer by profession. One might think that some concern about the civil liberty aspects of lockdowns might be a matter he might address.
As for the Liberal Democrats, they might as well belong in a museum.
Anyway, back to the Labour Party. I think Lockdown Party sounds much better. This will be a more accurate reflection of its values. The party is not really interested in work any more – groups such as the teaching unions seem to positively recoil from it – and many of its members no doubt hope that in world of universal basic income, paid out of the profits of Big Techs in some sort of Brave New World, human labour will be irrelevant.
Let’s make the change, today!
BBC On This Day: 1951: Communist forces to re-take Seoul
The Third Battle of Seoul
We in the West seem to have entirely forgotten the Korean War. President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China is keeping the memory alive, in his own fashion.
“The EU is a divided house”, writes John Keiger at the Spectator:
A 2019 German think tank report, entitled ‘20 Years of the Euro; Winners and Losers’, costed the single currency’s impact on individual states. From 1999 to 2017, only Germany and the Netherlands were serious winners with the former gaining a huge € 1.9 trillion, or around €23,000 per inhabitant.
In all other states analysed the Euro has provoked a drop in prosperity, with France losing a massive €3.6 trillion and Italy €4.3 trillion. French losses amount to €56,000 per capita and for Italians €74,000. Without fundamental reform the nineteen-member single currency’s divide between high-debt, high-unemployment southern states and their low-debt, low-unemployment northern counterparts will widen. The next crisis will come as the ECB’s quantitative easing programme ends and southern debt ceases to be sucked up by the Bank.
“The EU’s China deal is bad for democracy”, writes Edward Lucas at the Times:
The deal itself is quite narrow. It replaces and amplifies multiple existing agreements, with the aim of protecting investors against arbitrary treatment. Their bugbears include mandatory joint ventures, which China uses to steal technology and other secrets, and subsidies for local competitors. China has also made a mealy-mouthed commitment to make “continued and sustained efforts” to ratify International Labour Organization conventions that underpin free trade unions and prohibit slave labour.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may have given away a bit on this front but has gained far more on others. Hopes of a global stance against Chinese bullying are dashed. Australia, the subject of ferocious pressure, is left marooned. Countries mulling how far to stand up to China will draw their own conclusions: Europe talks about values but self-interest trumps solidarity.
The deal exemplifies the gap between the EU’s foreign policy aims and reality. The European Commission claims to be “geopolitical”. In 2019 it deemed China a “strategic rival”. Yet the mercantilist influence of big business, particularly in Germany, steamrollers ethical and security concerns.
“EU’s coronavirus vaccination strategy in chaos as supplies run short”, write Oliver Moody and Charles Bremner, also in the Times:
The European Union’s vaccine strategy has been criticised as “clearly inadequate” after a first week of inoculation on the continent was marred by logistical mishaps.
President Macron reprimanded his ministers over France’s sluggish start after only 400 people received the Pfizer-Biontech jab in the first six days.
A senior German minister and the German-Turkish scientist who developed the Biontech vaccine questioned why the EU had not amassed a sufficient stockpile of the only vaccine it had licensed. Brussels has ordered up to 300 million doses of the jab — barely enough to cover a third of the EU’s 450 million residents — but turned down an offer of an extra 500 million doses, according to Der Spiegel magazine. This has left the bloc dependent on a range of vaccines that have yet to be licensed, including those from Sanofi and Curevac, which are not expected to be available until at least the second half of the year.
But the EU has survived many predictions of its demise, and it is not the only union of nations under strain. “With Brexit, the UK may be bolstering the EU and seeding its own disintegration”, writes Andrew Hammond in the South China Morning Post:
Within the EU, for instance, there are several key debates about the 27-member bloc’s future well under way, including rebalancing the union given the new balance of power within it, and whether the EU now integrates further, disintegrates or muddles through.
For instance, with the UK no longer in the Brussels-based club, the EU 27 has already made significant steps last year towards greater federalism. One example is the new €750 billion (US$825 billion) coronavirus recovery fund, a major political milestone in the post-war history of European integration, which saw the continent’s presidents and prime ministers commit for the first time to the principle of jointly issued debt as a funding tool.
What do you think will happen to the EU? What do you want to happen? Views from citizens or residents of EU countries would be especially welcome.
(A repeat of a comment I posted to a Facebook page. I have added a fresh comment at the bottom of this article.)
A troubling thought for many is what would the present – and other – governments have done without a credible vaccine? (I leave aside the specifics of the Pfizer/Oxford etc outcomes for the moment.) Suppose nothing was on the horizon. What, to take the UK example, would Mr Johnson and his colleagues have done in this situation? Lockdowns for a further six months, then a pinch of liberty in mid-summer in time for Ascot, Wimbledon and Le Mans (in my case, beer in hand) before we go back to our manacled, shriveled existence? Another year? Two? Three? Maybe redefine lockdowns into some “reset” terminology so that going out to the pub is just accepted as a vanished custom?
For example, I have heard it said that “shielding” is not viable, because, er, reasons. Apparently, shielding only works with great test and trace and well, the less said about that the better. So if shielding is not viable – as the government and is defenders claim – a world without vaccines would be intolerably bleak. At some point in this scenario you might expect a significant upsurge in social protest, coinciding with rising inflation, failed government bond sales, a run on the pound, maybe calls for exchange controls and for more rationing. A repeat of the 1970s economic scenario, but without flared jeans and Roxy Music.
It is worth thinking about what would happen without a vaccine. I’d like to see a politician, particularly Mr Johnson, put on the spot about this. Because to be frank I don’t think he or his colleagues would have the foggiest notion.
(One person who thinks that regardless of policy, we are in this mess for almost two years or so is Stephen Davies, of the Institute of Economic Affairs. For all his radical classical liberalism, he has stated that the lockdown policy we have had on and off has been largely inevitable given the failings of track and trace and the initial failings to hit the virus early.)
2.3 million people have listened to Matron Laura Duffel’s alarming account of a system overwhelmed:
2:00 PM, Jan 1, 2021.
BBC Radio 5 Live
@bbc5live
“It was minimally affecting children in the first wave… we now have a whole ward of children here.”
Laura Duffel, a matron in a London Hospital, tells Adrian Chiles about the Covid situation in hospitals.
The tweet in reply sent at 8:21 PM, Jan 2, 2021 by Professor Russell Viner, President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health saying, “As of now we are not seeing significant pressure from Covid-19 in paediatrics across the UK” has garnered less interest, though that may change. It includes a link to this article on the BBC website:
Doctors have sought to reassure parents that there has been no increase in the severity of Covid-19 cases among children because of the new variant.
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) said children’s wards are not seeing any “significant pressure” from Covid-19.
It comes after London hospital matron Laura Duffel told BBC Radio 5 Live that wards were full of children with coronavirus.
Doctors have denied this is the case.
Professor Russell Viner, president of the RCPCH, said: “Children’s wards are usually busy in winter. As of now we are not seeing significant pressure from Covid-19 in paediatrics across the UK.
“As cases in the community rise there will be a small increase in the number of children we see with Covid-19, but the overwhelming majority of children and young people have no symptoms or very mild illness only.
“The new variant appears to affect all ages and, as yet, we are not seeing any greater severity amongst children and young people.”
Dr Ronny Cheung, a consultant paediatrician at Evelina Children’s Hospital, in London, added: “I’ve been the on-call consultant in a London children’s hospital this week. Covid is rife in hospitals, but not among children – and that is corroborated by my colleagues across London.”
Prof Calum Semple said that he spoke to colleagues on intensive care units and “not one of them has seen a surge in sick children coming into critical care and we’re not hearing of a rise in cases in the wards either”.
“We’re not seeing a different spectrum of disease in children, certainly we’re not seeing a surge in cases,” Prof Semple told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme.
Dr Liz Whittaker, a consultant paediatrician at St Mary’s Hospital London, said “only small numbers” of children who test positive for Covid develop severe disease and these are “within expected levels” at the moment.
“I continue to worry for my elders, not my kids,” Dr Whittaker added.
Meanwhile, Dr Lee Hudson, from Great Ormond Street Hospital, said that none of his paediatric colleagues at hospital across London were reporting higher rates of sick children because of Covid but said that parents should never be afraid to seek medical help if they are worried about their children.
The Daily Mail says, “Ms Duffel is a vocal campaigner for nurses who has appeared on Good Morning Britain on a number of occasions”.
Edit: Having seen some of the comments made against Ms Duffel on Twitter, I want to add that I very much doubt she intended to misinform people. It is far more likely that she saw a local spike in children getting Covid-19 and mentally leapt to generalise it because oncoming catastrophe fitted her model of the world.
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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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