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 often claim that the United States is just as bad (in its own way) as Britain (this fits in well with my “we are all doomed” view of the universe). However a couple of things over the last 24 hours have produced doubts in my mind.
Yesterday I was playing with my computer and looked up the website for South Dakota. It was not a very impressive site and it did not seem to have been created by very bright people, but I did say some things of interest. The Governor of the State casually announced the State’s balanced budget (the State has had a balanced budget every year for the last 113 years), he also mentioned (in passing) that the voters (not the politicians) had voted to get rid of the death tax (the state inheritance tax).
South Dakota does not seem to have much in the way of taxes – no income tax, no business profits tax, a sales tax that is a fraction of ours. It also seems to have little trade union power and the Governor has finished selling off all the state enterprises that were created in the early 1900’s.
The leader of the Democrats in the Senate represents South Dakota – perhaps he should look at his own State sometime. It is not just a bunch of subsidized farmers anymore.
Meanwhile back in Britain. I went to pick up an inhaler today (interesting contradiction – I claim I want to die and yet I go to absurd lengths to stay alive). I presented my prescription to the lady at the chemist shop and she said “you have not ticked any of the exemption boxes”. I explained that I was exempt – that I paid for my prescription. “No, you must tick one of the exception boxes” (said the lady). I pointed out the old saying that “someone, somewhere must pay” – “you have met him” I said “it is me”. “You have not ticked any of the exemption boxes” (said the lady).
Eventually I was able to pay for my prescription. However, I think this type of conversation is the death rattle of the Welfare State (and not in the nice sense that we are about to see free market reform). I do not think I would have this sort of conversation in South Dakota.
Paul Marks
John Webb, Chairman of the the United Kingdom Objectivist Association, understand the truth about paleo-socialist Paul Foot.
“Is capitalism sick?” asks Paul Foot, Cash for Chaos, Guardian, Wednesday June 12, 2002. “Yes,” he contends, “disgustingly so. Its sickness is terminal, and it urgently needs replacing.”
As evidence for this singular claim Foot relates a litany of “misdemeanours” which have recently rocked the business community and suggests that far from being an exception to the daily practise of honest commerce they serve to illustrate what he calls “the central feature of capitalism,” namely, “the division of the human race into those who profit from human endeavour and those who don’t.”
Unfortunately for Paul Foot, all the examples he cites in support of this breathless conclusion have little or nothing to do with the free exchange of goods and services within a capitalist economy, as they are, without exception, directly attributable to governmental interference within a mixed economy.
The Enron Scandal, for example, did not occur within the context of unregulated trade or unbridled competition but within a highly charged political atmosphere so beset by graft and bogus environmentalist concerns that the caprices of an 18th century mandarin would seem enlightened by comparison.
The telecoms industry, which Foot also cites, is another unfortunate example to use as it seems to have escaped his notice that the telecom industry has the distinction of being one of the most highly regulated and licensed industries on the planet and where, in the UK, the telecom regulator OFTEL is a byword for bureaucratic incompetence.
As for the tax evasion “scandal” of Tyco – again it doesn’t seem to have occurred to Foot that such a “crime” could never have happened in a capitalist society – in a capitalist society property rights are inalienable and all coercive taxes would be prohibited by law.
Perhaps some people may be tempted to overlook Foot’s rather lame grasp of even the most elementary principles of politics and economics; after all, he must be so busy campaigning to clear the name convicted murderers like James Hanratty [whose guilt has recently been confirmed by new DNA evidence] that he probably has very little time to obtain an adequate grasp of current events.
And in any case, leaving the obvious factual errors aside doesn’t he make a valid point that the riches of the wealthy few are obtained at the price of the poverty of the many?
Well he would be making a worthwhile point if the Labour Theory of Value on which his argument rests had not been thoroughly refuted by the Austrian School of economics through Carl Menger’s theory of marginal utility more than a century ago.
No, the real problem with Paul Foot lies much deeper.
Paul Foot is not merely guilty of a failure of knowledge.
He is guilty of a failure of morality.
And the name of that failure is altruism.
Unfortunately, many people today mistakenly assume that altruism means having a regard for the well-being of others.
It doesn’t.
On the contrary, altruism, in practice, means having a necessary hostility to others as a consequence of adopting something other than oneself as the very standard of evaluation.
Though the precise standard of altruist morality varies depending on the prevailing ideology, the People, the Race, the Proletariat, the Gender, the God, the Prophet, the Environment, the Social Organism etc., the premise which always remains constant in the altruist’s world-view is the notion that there is some overriding standard, something other, something above and beyond and greater than the individual to which everyone should gratefully and enthusiastically sacrifice themselves.
According to altruism ANY desire, ANY benefit, ANY positive evaluation in this life or even the next, if Kant is to be believed, is immoral.
If you feed your child, or help an elderly stranger or the hapless victim of an unfortunate accident and feel even the slightest glimmer of vicarious pleasure yourself, then that pleasure counts as a benefit to yourself and whatever else you may have intended you have not committed a moral act.
By such a standard of morality any act whether beneficial to oneself or the whole of humanity is of no moral worth if it is motivated by the slightest concern for personal benefit.
That people might prosper by freely pursuing their own interests, to mutual benefit and by voluntary consent, without needing to inflict harm on others is an anathema to the likes of Foot.
Why?
Because Foot is a collectivist and for collectivists, all human endeavour, all profit, all property, all knowledge, all values, all human life, is collective.
Anyone pursuing their own interests for their own sake is necessarily at war with the “common good” – a “good” so rare and lofty that only “politically aware” people like the fabulous Foot can identify it.
In this view, company directors don’t earn their bonuses – they “steal” them.
One man’s “gain” is another man’s “loss.”
The rich grow “richer” and the poor, who have a higher standard of living than a medieval King, grow “poorer.”
Property isn’t created – it’s “ill-gotten.”
Wealth isn’t something to be earned – it’s something to be “shared.”
Individual prosperity above the level of “equality” isn’t desirable – it’s “excessive.”
The rich are “guilty” in virtue of their wealth.
And the living are guilty in virtue of dead murderers like James Hanratty.
So how does Foot get away it?
He relies on the reluctance of others – the very others that he would so earnestly make his victims – to abstain from making a moral judgement.
So now it is time to make a judgement.
For decades Paul Foot has sanctimoniously postured as a supporter of the underdog, a valiant champion of the outcast, defender of the weak, and a protector of the innocent.
In reality, however, his is one of their greatest enemies for all he has ever been is an altruist, his entire journalistic career amounting to nothing more than a demand for the glorification of force based on the cultivation of the vice of envy – an vice defined by Ayn Rand as “a hatred of the good for being the good.”
Is Paul Foot sick?
No.
He doesn’t have that excuse.
John Webb
Of course, some libertarian parents don’t pay twenty grand a year to avoid state schools; they keep their kids out of school altogether. Which arguably costs more, as it can mean the loss of an income, although the older they get, the easier it is to do other things than run circles around them all day. And if you work out how many minutes of teacher-time a child in a class of thirty actually gets to himself (something like ten minutes) the prospect of home educating is less overwhelming. It’s mostly a matter of setting them up, and then letting them get on with it.
Advocates of the Taking Children Seriously school of libertarian parenting believe in letting their kids decide for themselves whether they want to spend all day in a classroom doing rote spelling followed by long evenings sweating over homework assignments. The impressive results of independent schools like the one where I taught for seven years don’t just come from their less violent and drug-crazed atmospheres; those kids are made to work like…well, I can’t think of any adult job where you do a seven hour day in a compulsory unpaid job not of your choosing followed by two or three hours of homework, plus regular testing. For, oh, eleven years.
What I remember most about attending school is its mind-blowing tediousness. This is not an experience I could honestly recommend to an innocent small person, and it always amazes me how so many people who patently hate school when they are actually there, suddenly decide it’s just wonderful fun when their kids get to the age of five, or four, or two months, or whatever the school starting age is in the UK these days. I personally think they learn more from “Spiderman” (narrative structure, characterization, moral theories) than from any number of weirdly patronising and contrived government tests.
However, as a home educating adult, I do vastly appreciate the ability of schools to keep huge numbers of noisy unruly children out of the places I want to go in the daytime with my flawless well-behaved angelic ones (ahem). Except that, the ones who have guns probably aren’t too bothered about whether or not their parents are jailed when they truant.
Alice Bachini
In the recent Samizdata article American Perfidy it is claimed that “apart from the tax cut” Mr Bush has allowed his agenda to collapse.
Actually (as I and others have pointed out) “apart from the tax cut” Mr Bush did not have an agenda worth talking about (just a lot of waffle about being “compassionate” by handing out tax payers’ money to religious charities). To be fair if Mr Bush had gone into the 2000 election with a decent agenda he would have lost. The “window of opportunity” that existed in Britain in 1979 and the United States in 1981 has gone. Just over 20 years ago most people would have accepted real budget cuts and deregulation, but this mood has past. The public (in both the Britain and the United States) are now obsessed with the “public services” and see new regulations as the correct response to any problem from Enron to hay fever.
Sadly the judgement on Mr Reagan and Mrs Thatcher must be that they had a chance but failed (in terms of regulations and welfare state programs government is bigger than ever now) – although in both cases one can produce a case for the defence (Mr Reagan faced a House of Reps controlled by the Democrats, Mrs Thatcher was surrounded by traitors from day one…). As for Mr Bush – he never had a chance. The media were against him, the “intellectuals” and their universities were against him, the Republicans did not have firm control of the Senate – all these things might have been overcome. However, Mr Bush faces a general public the majority of whom are statist – and against that what can he do?
Oh by the way – no Mr Clinton did not favour free trade. Mr Clinton liked trade agreements if they led to regulations being imposed on countries (especially “pro labour” union type regulations) and he especially liked trade deals if they helped build up the old dream of a world government (replacing G.A.T.T. with the W.T.O. was a fifty year old dream in certain circles in the U.S.) – one step at a time was Mr Clinton’s way (after the health care defeat early on in his administration). However an actual free trade deal – no, Mr Clinton never very keen on them.
Paul Marks
Ian Rowan sees the dark side of Disney’s ‘magic kingdom’
In the currently raging debate over intellectual property which has inevitably revealed an increasingly unhealthy marriage of private guilds and corporations with the Leviathan state, those who argue in favor of draconian restrictions upon technology and the end user/citizen have made a number of sweeping claims, among the most preeminent that without such restrictions, artists will not be properly compensated for their labor, and creativity itself will wither and die.
I find this particular stance especially galling due to its hypocrisy. While Disney has indeed done some very nice work in the past if you like that sort of thing (my wife does; where I tend more toward the Warner Brothers school of animation, as a friend of mine suggests most males align themselves with the Three Stooges to the exclusion of most women), they have joined the ranks of most success stories by placing increasing emphasis upon slick appearance and lack of actual creative substance. They simultaneously lobby the state for the further extension of copyright, to the point that one can only conclude that their goal is to be able to retain the right to sue people who portray Mickey Mouse in an unflattering context until the heat-death of the universe; rest on their laurels by continuing to milk their classic creations ’til the memory is distorted beyond all recollection; and churn out ‘new’ movies consisting primarily of established and existing folk tales, or when absolutely pressed, a cookie-cutter, blandly inoffensive and ever-so-correct morality play with all the moral tension of ‘Davey and Goliath’.
Yet for me, even these established and indisputably reprehensible tactics pale in comparison to Disney’s recent “crackdown on kung fu”.
While it is relatively simple to avoid giving any of my time, attention or money to Disney’s creations, they are now claiming ownership and control over works they have not themselves produced, but which they have acquired from others. Specifically, the Disney sub-feifdoms Miramax and Dimension Films are claiming “exclusive North American distribution rights” on a fast increasing number of Asian films, to the point of threatening legitimate distributors who offer the original versions.
When released to the American public, the rule of thumb has been to dub the dialogue into English (and to replace the original soundtrack with bad rap, a separate sin and one beyond the scope of this essay). Worse yet is for films to have material completely removed, and not just in terms of plot or comedy deemed too ‘foreign’, but in the essential action sequences. Even Drunken Master 2, which was edited less than any other ‘Disneyfied’ Asian film to date, was not spared a dub job, and the result was music and sound effects far inferior to the original. It’s not for nothing that Harvey Weinstein has earned the nickname “Harvey Scissorhands”:
Asian cinema? I was doing Asian cinema fucking 10 years ago. Crouching Tiger – is that a new thing? Give me a break, I own all the Jackie Chan back catalogue in America, all the Jet Lee, all the Chow Yun-Fats. I was so far ahead of myself. [And apparently full of himself as well -Ian Rowan]
While I can regrettably understand the ‘bums on seats’ arguments from the bean-counters in favor of such a maneuver, even given the success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a theatrical release and even a traditional home video are wholly different animals from a DVD. While this newer format has its own superset of not entirely unique issues, one would still think that its ability to contain multiple soundtracks would satisfy both the company and fans if all flavors. Foreign distributors seem to recognize this, as most imported discs contain far more languages on average than their typical North American counterpart. But the choice has been made for you, and more distressingly, Disney is resorting to the gun of the law to prevent people from acquiring the original product through lawful purchase.
A more cynical person might suggest that Disney is attempting to create the impression that they are the actual creators of these works, concealing their true origin for a number of nefarious reasons, but I don’t really care about their motivations. It’s bad enough when the state presumes to tell me what I am allowed to buy and who I’m allowed to buy from, but when a private guild goes begging to that same state for the privilege to enforce their dubious claims on that same authority, they have committed a far greater evil than any amount of tasteless over-marketing or vapid product. Weinstein’s remarks above are certainly revealing, in that he speaks as if his keen acumen in acquiring the rights to the works of others is the equal of having created those works in the first place.
Those who desire the original soundtrack and an unedited film have over the years turned to various importers for material which for whatever reason was not available in their own country. Unauthorized copying and sale still occurred, but as long as there were legitimate sources they did a reasonable business, with an informal network of fans taking advantage of the Internet to inform each other of disreputable or unreliable merchants. With the outlawing of such sources, however, Disney’s behavior will ultimately prove self-defeating. The longer they sit on and butcher these movies, the greater the demand will grow for unauthorized versions — and the laws of economics dictate that where there is demand, there will be a supply to fill it. Thus, Disney’s own actions create and encourage the very copyright violation they have sworn to stamp out.
Ian Rowan
Paul Marks takes a radical view of Britain’s transport system
No one has yet explained to me why the railways could not have been sold as a single unit.
If it had been more efficient to brake up British Rail into regional companies then the new owners would have done just that. Just as if it had been more efficient for the rail to be owned by one company, and have the trains run by other companies this is what would have evolved via the choices of people buying and selling shares (“market forces” are, of course, simply the choices of people engaged in trading). There was certainly no need for the government to engage in complicated schemes – just sell the thing and stand back.
People often talk for the need for subsidies for the railways to compete with the roads (and, to a lesser extent, the airlines) – but whilst I am pleased to accept the fact that the railways and roads do compete for custom (which rather undermines the idea that the railways must be compulsorily broken up to ensure “competition”) I think the whole idea that the railways must fall apart without subsidies is false.
Firstly the roads should not be provided “free” (i.e. free at the point of use) by the state. The problem is not that the government builds motorways late – the problem is that it builds them at all. If people want motorways let them build them and charge people to use them (such things as “road tax” should, of course, be abolished). If people really want to build free motorways let them do so – but I doubt charitable people will put up enough money for this idea.
As for the railways – subsidies should be abolished, but so should regulations. The railways have been attacked by regulations as far back as the 19th century (there were such things as profit controls even then), but in 1906 the government basically declared war on the private railways. Putting trade unions above the law of contract (i.e. outside civil interaction) hit British industry badly – but the railways companies were a specific target of the 1906 Act (the Act was, after all, a direct reaction to the “Taff Vale Judgement” in which the courts declared that a railways company had the right to sue a trade union for organised contract breaking). The “Liberal” government of the day also launched a tidal wave of regulations at the railway companies in the period 1906 to 1914. And then (during the First World War) the railways were taken over by the government, maintenance neglected and the system undermined. We should be very wary of making claims such as the idea that the British railway system was the best in the world in 1919 – such claims are not only rather easy for statists to refute, but (more importantly) undermine the libertarian case that regulations and state control have undermined the railways.
Why the history lesson? Simple – after the returning of the railways to a sort of private ownership history repeated itself. First history repeated itself as farce – in that the government of Mr Major did not intend to harm private railway companies with regulations (but did anyway). And then history repeated itself in a straightforward way with the Labour government’s transport boss (Mr Prescott) setting out to undermine the railway companies as much as he could. A policy continued by his supposedly arch “New Labour” successor as transport boss.
Without the regulations the railways might well be able to compete quite well with the roads without any subsidies at all – even if the roads remained free.
And (of course) a railway system without regulations would be a much safer railway system – as it would be clear who was in charge and who was responsible.
Paul Marks
Tony Millard cogitates about ancestry and its influence on the modern man…sort of
Another major busy farmer day yesterday – among other events there was a return of the well excavator, which has been away for a month, in pasta-sphere time, for some minor surgery. I thus had some quality “digger time” yesterday afternoon which is as good a substitute as can be found for the 7.05am Haslemere-Waterloo express, upon which I used to do most of my cogitation (45 mins each way per day) before moving to easier-on-the-eyes Northern Tuscany.
It struck me as to the appositeness (or otherwise) of our antecedents. For instance, many moons ago I used to be a broker at Lloyd’s – a job something akin to a pirate on the Spanish Main. Well blow me over with a wafting feather, if I didn’t discover after a while that a couple of my fellow-travellers around the floor of Lloyd’s sported the names Kidd and Morgan, and yes, they were both direct descendants of the eponymous pirates. Genetic programming or pure coincidence? Or just a couple of boys having some fun at the expense of their ancestors? Who knows… Perhaps we should ask Adriana Cronin or Perry de Havilland, if they are led by the ancestral star. Me, well, I’ve been traced back to a family of itinerant and impoverished flour millers of 17th century Britain. QED. Anyone else sporting an interesting past?
Tony Millard, Tuscany, Italy
So he’s gone. Stephen Byers, formerly Secretary of State for the Department of Local Government, Transport and the Regions has resigned. And just when I thought he’d never go. You just can’t tell.
Now, all the speculation is about who should replace him. Should it be invisible Charles Clarke? Or should it be Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon? Neither is about to set the world alight. Of the two, Hoon, would seem to have the best credentials to step into Byers’s shoes: not only can’t he manage the news, but I understand he’s rapidly buggering up the armed forces.
But I have got a much better and simpler idea. One that will almost certainly solve our transport problems.
Abolish the Department.
It only goes back to 1919. Before then we had the best railway in the world. We had already built most of the tube. Electric trams, taximeter cabs and motorised buses plied the streets of the capital looking for trade.
And then Transport got a Ministry and a Minister: Eric Geddes. It got off to a bad start – forcibly re-organising the railways and hamstringing their profits. So started their steady decline. And after the bad start things just got worse. London Transport was nationalised halting development in its tracks. Not satisfied with that they then decided to nationalise the whole railway. The decline just gathered pace. And so on and so forth.
Luckily the Ministry’s incompetence was masked by the growth of road transport. But even there motorways were built too late and in insufficient numbers.
Almost every move the Department has ever made has made things worse: expanding the railway, then cutting it; expanding the road network then slamming on the brakes. They couldn’t get nationalisation right. They couldn’t even get privatisation right.
Politicians are not part of the solution: they are part of the problem.
Patrick Crozier
Alice Bachini has some views about Brian Micklethwait’s article Which way did your pram face?
It’s not just outward-facing prams that are new; what about all those carriers and backpacks that allow babies to view the world from a user-friendly height? I think a social change is very definitely afoot, and a libertarian change for the better as well. But I don’t think all this is just the result of parents consciously trying to encourage more outgoing interactions for their offspring. Nor do I think that it contradicts with the kind of intimate mother/baby relationship Brian associates with the National Childbirth Trust. I think parents are just being more sensitive about what kids actually enjoy doing, and the result of this is inevitably good.
It’s much more fun to watch the world from Dad’s shoulders than to be stuck in a pram with only a row of plastic bunnies for company. Although even if you do have plastic bunnies nowadays, they are likely to be all-singing, all-dancing electro-bunnies which recite the alphabet in fifteen languages at the press of a button, the real world is still very often more fun than the gimmicky or “educational” toys that adults seem to think babies will enjoy.
Kids, including babies, want more, more, more, and capitalism with all its mind-blowing array of baby entertainments and transport machines, meets more and more of their wants. And parents know this is good for their development, because they can see how happy they are and how much they are learning from all that interesting stuff. Whereas in the 1950s little Billy would have spent all day in his pram, his cot or his playpen, nowadays he gets to go to exciting places and meet interesting people with fun toys. So things are getting better, in a pro-human beings, libertarian direction.
But mostly, we just aren’t inclined to leave them screaming in boredom if putting them somewhere more stimulating cheers them up. As this represents good parenting, it doesn’t detract from the mother/child stuff so much as adds to it. Happy people tend to get on better with each other, and you’re not walking round town all day; sometimes you are sitting together at home on the sofa, watching the “Super Duper Sumos” and drinking “Sunny Delight”.
Alice Bachini
… Paul Staines does not think so!
British Chancellor Gordon Brown’s recent splurge on the National Health Service was supposed to be supported by a bouyant economy, but first quarter figures (just released) are terrible.
Manufacturing output tumbled by 1.5 per cent, leaving it 6.5 per cent down on the same time last year ÷ the biggest annual decline since the recession of the early Eighties. A further slump in exports, by nearly 7 per cent, also took a heavy toll.
On the plus side that means mortgage rates are very unlikely to rise near term, but taxes may be more likely to rise as the economy stagnates – unless you think New Labour would actually consider reducing state spending?
As the graphic shows we have slipped from first to last in the G7 growth league – as the other G7 countries voters all shifted rightwards.
Things are going to get more difficult for Brown, sooner rather than later.
Paul Staines
Paul Marks takes a rather more jaundiced view of Dubya than David Carr
I agree that the enemies of President Bush tend to be rather evil. However, that does not mean that the Bush Administration is very good.
As far as I know they have not even tried to cut (let alone abolish) any Welfare State program or get rid of any major regulation – they seem to be just marking time before the Democrats take control of the White House again.
Still this better than the first Bush Administration (the Bush with the “Herbert” in his name). That Administration increased taxes and added lots of new regulations (such as the infamous Americans with a Disability Act).
Paul Marks
Paul Marks read David Carr‘s article and points out that one can regard the remarks being made by the leaders of the EU…rather differently!
The honesty of Mr Prodi and Mr Chris Patten should be welcomed.
It saves a lot of time if, instead of going through a big debate on whether the E.U. is aiming at setting up a superstate and crushing as much liberty as it can, leaders of this organization stand up and boast of their ambitions.
If the only the Chancellor in the latest Star Wars film and been so honest. Picture the scene – he stands before the Senate and says “I am a Lord of the Dark Side of the Force – I am behind both sides in this new war. I plan to use the war to place the whole galaxy under my heel and grind it into the dirt”.
Real life is often odder than fantasy.
Paul Marks
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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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