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 – newsflash: George Monbiot is an ignoramus Why does it work? Because, as it turns out, the profitable level of a fish stock is above the sustainable level. More fish around, less diesel and time used to catch enough to feed the market. Profits are thus maximised at stock levels substantially above sustainable levels. That means more fish to gawp at while maximising profits.
Or, alternatively, George Monbiot has got the neoliberal capitalist attitude to fisheries entirely and wholly the wrong way around. The reproductive rate of money, within that neoliberal capitalism, is more fish in the sea than there are currently. Therefore, having neoliberal capitalism running the fisheries (some to many fisheries perhaps not all) would increase the number of fish to gawp at. Exactly and precisely the opposite of what George is claiming.
The problem is about George. For someone who keeps insisting that he’s just critiquing the neolberal capitalist attitide to the environment he knows fuck all about the neoliberal capitalist attitude toward the environment.
But then that’s such a strange thing in public intellectuals, isn’t it? Ignorance?
– Tim Worstall
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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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I was going to write about the socialist H.G. Wells today – on another thread. But he is apt for this post as well.
There is a long tradition of treating ignorant people as “great intellectuals” – George Monbiot is an example of this tradition, in that it is obvious from his writings and public statements that he is ignorant, he does not know very much, he lacks basic knowledge of the economic and politics subjects he writes about (ignorance must not be confused with lack of intelligence – George Monbiot may have a very high IQ), yet he is treated as a “great intellectual” and his ignorant writings and public statements are treated as of great importance – as a guide to the young, and not so young.
It was a similar situation even more than a century ago (this is why I refer to a “long tradition” of treating ignorant people as “great intellectuals”) – it was obvious from the writings of the leading Fabians, such as George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells, that they knew nothing about basic economics (and they were also ignorant of the basics of many other subjects they spoke and wrote about) – yet their words were treated as of the highest importance and were presented to the people as a guide. That they wrote and spoke well was, somehow, considered more important than their basic lack of knowledge – that they did not know the basics of what they were speaking and writing about.
If one reads such works as “In The Days Of The Comet” (sometimes referred to as “The Coming of the Comet”) by Mr Wells – the agenda of the left is laid bare.
The story is presented as science fiction or even a love story – but the real agenda (as with all the works of Mr Wells) is political.
The agenda includes such things as getting rid of private property in land and the rest of the “means of production”, destroying the family (a dream of Collectivists since Plato’s idea of the “Gold Guardians”) family life being replaced by casual sexual intercourse (“a world of lovers”), and even the destruction of traditional beautiful buildings and art – to be replaced by the ugly blocks we see in so many towns and cities today.
Remember this story was published in 1906.
In the case of Mr Wells his hatred of beauty, particularly when it came to great houses (although he has the entire population living in tents for awhile – because they destroy everything, and replace it with modernism) may have come from his mother working for awhile as a servant in a great house – envy turning to hate.
However, this hatred of beauty, not only in architecture, but also in painting and music, can be found in many other Progressive thinkers – the victory of ugliness in the arts (from what towns and cities look like – right to painting and music) in the 20th century was not an accident – it was carefully planned and fanatically worked for.
This is the intellectual background the children of caring parents are presented with – caring parents who did not know that Wells, Shaw and so on (there are many others) hated the very concept of the family itself, and did not know they were poisoning the minds of their children with this “literature” novels, short stories, essays, and so on – which pretend to be about many things (from science fiction to love stories), but are really only about one thing – the Collectivist agenda to destroy everything good and replace it with ugliness and tyranny.
What Mr Wells called world government – for no where was to be allowed to escape ugliness and tyranny, this the Progressives were agreed on.
Mr Wells knew nothing about economics, no more than George Monbiot does, any more than he knew about how children should be raised by a loving mother and father – but his lack of knowledge, and the lack of knowledge of the other “public intellectuals” has not prevented their ravings being followed as a guide – due to the fanatical pushing of their ideas in all institutions, public and private.
Hence the crises the modern Western world faces – its basic foundations, its fundamental principles, undermined by the very people that it treats as “great intellectuals”.
As for ..
“The environment”, like “Covid” or “public health” or “racism-sexism-homophobia-transphobia-Islamophobia”, is an excuse for a pre existing Collectivist agenda.
The people behind such things as the world “governance” agenda of the Rio Conference of 1992 did not really care about C02 – they just used it as an excuse for what they wanted to do anyway (for a pre existing agenda).
Today the last coal powered power station in Britain closes – from tomorrow we will have no coal power at all, for a nation of many tens of millions of people. And we do not have the nuclear power to power more than a fraction of the country.
George Monbiot will be delighted – and things that delight such establishment “intellectuals” are terrible indeed.
Those with financial means are leaving the United Kingdom.
It should be stressed that it is not just socialists, such as the “wolves in sheep’s clothing” (see the “Fabian Window”) of Wells, Shaw, the Webbs and other vicious totalitarians (and haters of everything that is beautiful and everything that is true) who are ignorant of basic economics.
The establishment are also utterly ignorant of basic economics – as shown, for example, by that fountain of ignorance, the Economist magazine – each week.
In this week’s issue of the magazine (which falsely claims to be a newspaper for tax and postal reasons) there was an article advertised as “is the big state failing the citizens?” (or words to that effect – it may have been “its citizens” which would have been a totalitarian way of framing the matter, as if the state owned the citizens).
I was interested – could it be that the Economist magazine was going to say something true? For the answer to the question of whether the big state is failing the public is obviously “yes” and this is one of the reasons why government spending should be radially reduced and the basic functions of life returned to Civil Society – to the voluntary interaction of free will human beings.
But sadly NO – the article did not say anything of the sort, it turned out to be yet another Economist magazine demand for even higher taxes (such demands for even higher taxes appear in the Economist magazine rather often) in spite of taxes in Western countries already being at a record high.
Readers were told by the Economist magazine that it did not really matter that government spending was already almost half the economy in many Western countries – and set to go higher, because most of the spending is on the Welfare States and this government spending “only harms incentives” and is of no great harm in-its-self as it just transfers spending from some people to other people.
This level of utter idiocy was mocked by some of great French economists (J.B. Say and others) centuries ago – but the staff of the Economist magazine have not caught up.
It would be like saying that the cripplingly high Poor Law Taxes in Ireland in the late 1840s did no harm – as they simply “took money from Peter to give to Paul” and that policy followed a path of free market “laissez faire” because “international trade” was open, even though Ireland was utterly crushed with savage taxation. Anyone who really believes that high Poor Law taxes do no real harm , other than to, perhaps, disturb incentives, is a cretin – and no apology for the harsh word.
Nor was the magazine finished – if there was a problem with financing yet more government spending, we were told, a Land Tax would do the job – as Land Taxes were, somehow, less harmful than other taxes. This delusion (of David Ricardo and Henry George) was refuted by Frank Fetter more than a century ago – but, again, the Economist magazine has not caught up.
Failing this, the Economist magazine went on, we could increase the sales tax (“Value Added Tax” – hence the title of the article “The Case for VAT”) 20% sales tax in Britain being, supposedly, not high enough.
But one tax increase the Economist magazine was very clearly AGAINST – a tariff.
Tariffs, seemingly alone of all taxes, are BAD THINGS (TM) because they “distort international trade” – by which the Economist magazine means the interests of the People’s Republic of China Communist Party Dictatorship, which dominates “international trade”.
We in the West must not upset the Great Leader Xi – it would be against the free market to do anything that might harm the interests of the People’s Republic of China Communist Party Dictatorship – which celebrates its, blood soaked, 75 years of tyranny tomorrow – October the First (also President Carter’s birthday – if I remember correctly).
But, please note, the international establishment do not give a damn about the free market in any other respect (increase taxes and government spending even higher – the Economist magazine will cheer you on Comrade K. Harris and Comrade Tim Walz)- the only aspect of the “free market” they care about is maintaining the economic dominance, of manufacturing and international trade, of the People’s Republic of China Communist Party Dictatorship.
He did give us the term “ moonbat” , for which I am grateful.
Actually… no.