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 regulation problem edition “Regulation is arguably the least scrutinised part of government. But it may well be the most important. At the moment, Government too often sees imposing costs on business as a pain-free solution. Unless that changes, we can kiss goodbye to any hope of growth.”
– Robert Colville. CapX. He writes about a new policy paper about the UK problem. Needless to say, the lessons extend far beyond the shores of the UK.
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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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Control by regulation used to be called “War Socialism” or “German Socialism”.
Business enterprises would remain “privately owned” (that is a fairly meaningless concept if a large proportion of shares are “managed” by BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard and other such entities – but leave that aside for the moment), but effective control would be with the authorities with “private owners” (or “private managers”) acting as servants of the state – as they did in National Socialist Germany.
However, this is much older than General Ludendorff and the First World War.
Louis XIV and Colbert had much the same idea – indeed to be a trader or manufacturer in France, under the “Sun King”, you had to pass state examinations, and the state had endless regulations (which could change over night – and were enforced by courts that had no juries).
The Emperor Diocletian had much the same idea in the days of the Roman Empire. Anyone who really believes that Diocletian “saved the Empire from the crises of the third century” is very ignorant indeed – in reality he tipped the Roman world onto a road whose logical end was economic and cultural collapse.
Today such ideas are called “Stakeholder Capitalism” and are enforced by the control of Credit Money (via the Central Banks, such as the Bank of England, and the normal Credit Bubble banks) and such entities as BlackRock controlling (“managing”) trillions of Dollars of shares.
Customers are not relevant (indeed we customers are vulgar creatures – not really human beings at all, after all, as the pet “philosopher” of the World Economic Forum gloatingly informs us, we have no free will – and therefore, no rights against the state) – all that matters is “The Message” the political and cultural agenda.
In California almost all trades are “licensed” – so the grip of state (and corporate) control is everywhere.