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It has now been twenty years since the release of chemicals at a Union Carbide plant in the Indian city of Bhopal killed thousands of people, and today I heard that Dow (which took over Union Carbide three years ago) has announced an multi billion aid package.
With all the anti-American and anti-big business stuff in the media it is hard to get at the facts of the case. But the following are the facts as I understand them. If I am mistaken I am open to correction. I have no great love for the business model of ownerless corporations (or rather enterprises where most of the shares are owed by institutions), but some counter balance to the tide of abuse in the media seems to be in order.
Union Carbide built the plant because of the taxes on imports then in place in India, it did not build the plant in order to avoid following American safety standards of production.
Due to the regulations of the “Permit Raj” the plant was under the control of an Indian subsidiary of Union Carbide and the American parent company had little control over day to day operation of the plant.
The local State government went back on promises not to allow people to squat near to the plant – this may have increased casualties.
A Union Carbide investigation of the terrible incident reported that it may have been caused by sabotage and that the person responsible for the sabotage may have been a local employee (not an American at all).
Union Carbide paid, in full, the damages awarded by an Indian court.
Union Carbide officials have tried to avoid visiting the site because when the President of the company did so he was arrested, and was only able to return the United States by ‘skipping bail’. It was fear, not cruelty, that kept them away.
After the terrible incident the local State government took over the site and this site is still in a terrible state to this day. It is in the interests of local politicians and officials to blame ‘American big business’ in order to cover up their own failure to clean up the site in the many years they have controlled it.
I repeat that I am open to correction on any of the above. It would not greatly surprise me if Union Carbide were to blame (as I have said I am not a great lover of ownerless corps), but that is not the situation as I understand it.
Like many libertarians I often attack the BBC. I doubt that it is actually more statist in the opinions it supports than ITV and C4, or, perhaps, than ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN in the United States – but with the licence fee (the tax on television owners that goes to the BBC) it hurts more to experience the endless blather about Welfare State spending being the ultimate good and the solution to every problem being another government regulation.
However, the BBC does sometimes get things right. Yesterday, when reporting yet another Chinese coal mine accident, the BBC reporter said “and this makes 7,000 deaths over the last year in the state owned Chinese coal mining industry” and pointed out that there were claims that the Chinese government had cut corners on safety in order to boost production (shades of Stalin’s “war on the limiters”).
In reporting the large numbers of deaths (i.e. that the accident was not an isolated incident) and that the industry was state owned (i.e. that the deaths were not caused by wicked businessmen), the BBC showed a depth of reporting and a fairness that should be praised.
Rather oddly for British politicians Mr Blair and his New Labour associates have heard of libertarianism. This is known because Mr Blair and co often sneer at and attack libertarianism. This is logical enough. After all the present government (like so many governments) has increased taxes and state spending, produced endless new regulations and shows contempt for the principles of law (or ‘civil liberties’ as the modern way of saying this goes).
However, Mr Blair and the rest of New Labour also talk about their support for ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’. This would seem to show a contradiction in that New Labour attacks freedom and shows contempt for libertarianism (i.e. the non aggression principle which seeks to limit the threat of violence to the defence of persons and their possessions) and yet claims to stand for freedom.
Normally at this point I might be expected to examine, in detail, the dispute in political philosophy between ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ freedom. But I think only a brief examination is needed. ‘Negative’ freedom is basically ‘hands off’, and ‘positive’ freedom has mutated from an old belief (going back to Classical times) that true freedom was control of the passions by reason (i.e. freedom as moral self improvement), to a belief that “positive” freedom is material possessions – in short the more money someone has or the more services that are open to him the more free he is.
I would then carefully explain that it is a false choice, as the state can not develop the moral responsibility of individuals by imposing lots of regulations (indeed such a state undermines the moral development of people) and nor can statism (more regulations, higher taxes and so on) promote prosperity or reduce poverty (again statism undermines prosperity and, in the long run, increases poverty over the level it would have otherwise have been). In short the way to advance ‘positive’ freedom (however one defines it) is to advance ‘negative’ freedom.
However, as I said above, I do not believe that a detailed examination is needed here (although I admit that the ‘positive’ freedom people have much more to say, and ‘negative’ liberty, on its own, may not be enough to advance the control of reason over the passions).
The reason that I do not think a detailed examination is needed is that I do not believe that Mr Blair is thinking of “positive liberty” as an alternative when he is sneering at libertarianism. Shocking as it may sound I believe that Mr Blair, when he uses the word ‘freedom’, just means the freedom of the government to do as it likes. Certainly he means a democratically elected government (a nondemocratic government will not do).
But a democratic government should do what it likes as long as it does not undermine the democratic process itself – that is “politics is freedom” as the political philosopher Bernard Crick (much admired by Mr Blair) said in his In Defence of Politics (first published back in 1962, but many editions).
It is the political process that is freedom to Mr Blair, not the freedom (‘negative’ or ‘positive’) of individuals.
The Republican party is normally presented by the media and academia as the anti Welfare State party – the ‘liberal’ (i.e. statist) establishment denounce the Republicans as the party of cuts in government spending and wicked deregulation.
And yet when the Republicans win an election, most libertarians are not very pleased. Of course we are happy to see the media people upset or the academics in despair, but we do not really expect the Republicans to roll back the entitlement programs or slash and burn the mass of regulations. The reason for this, many libertarians tell themselves, is that Republicans are no good – they talk the language of freedom, but when put to the test they fail the voters who supported them.
However, there is another point of view and this is that most voters (including many people who vote Republican) just do not support liberty and would turn against the Republicans if they ever seriously tried to roll back government. → Continue reading: Why we should not expect to much from the Republicans: Or the lessons of 1936
Business enterprises are often attacked for selling people ‘junk food’ and not telling them about the health benefits of vegetables.
Well recently ASDA (the British arm of Walmart) labelled its vegetables, explaining that people who eat certain types of vegetable have a lower chance of developing certain forms of cancer.
ASDA was promptly prosecuted and punished. It seems that ‘making health claims’ is not legal in Britain.
Oh well, back to selling junk. The state is not your friend.
It has been a couple of hours since I watched The Power of Nightmares on BBC 2, the first programme in a major new BBC series. I put off writing about the program so I could decide whether I really wanted to get into what, I suspect, will be a can or worms. However, the issues this program raised are too important to be ignored.
Many libertarians will find the thesis of the programme attractive. This thesis being that a group of statists called ‘neo conservatives’ (inspired by the philosopher Leo Strauss) has created a series of imaginary threats to the United States, myths, to justify government power and to (in their own view) give the mass of ordinary people meaning and purpose in their lives. The Platonic ‘noble lie’ of our time. I can see in my mind the joy of (for example) people at the Ludwig Von Mises Insititute and the joy of people in the Libertarian Party, and the joy of old style Conservatives.
And I must say that have great respect for many aspects of the people in the above paragraph. I too dislike neocons (a neocon on BBC Radio Four’s Start the Week show on Monday defined neoconservatism as acceptance of the Welfare State, of deficit finance, and of a positive duty for the United States government to spread democracy all over the world – and I oppose all those beliefs). I also questioned the Iraq war (and got attacked here for asking what the war was supposed to be about – although I accept that once Britain and the United States are at war with a bunch of terrorist scum it is too late for opposition “I would not start from here” directions are not very good). → Continue reading: Nightmares about Nightmares
The new President of Indonesia likes to be thought of as a man of intellect. Recently he held an event where a film was shown which contrasted the view of two thinkers on the role of government.
When asked which thinker he agreed with, the now man now elected President declared that his view was “somewhere between the two”. A typical politician’s reply, so why do I think this man represents ‘progress’ in the political world?
Well the two thinkers in the film were not (say) Karl Marx and J.M. Keynes – the two thinkers shown in the film were J.M. Keynes and F.A. Hayek.
Believe me, in the context of politics, this is progress.
On this day when the prize for private space flight was finally won I tuned in to the Conservative Party Conference – the Conservative Party is (at least since the Liberal party was taken over by radicals like Harcourt in the 1890’s) the closest thing we have to a party of private property and free enterprise in Britain.
Dr Fox (the Chairman of the Conservative Party) made the first speech. “We must reclaim the colours of the national flag from the extremists [I believe that Dr Fox meant the BNP], we must reclaim the Red, White and Blue” said Dr Fox whilst pointing to the great board behind him.
Unlike some people, I rather like this patriotic stuff (indeed I type this in sight of my own little Union flag). However the great board to which Dr Fox pointed was not Red, White and Blue – it was a blue board with black writing on it.
Now I have nothing against blue and black, they are the colours of the Estonian flag (a nation I much admire) and, in heraldry, blue and black are the colours of loyality and constancy (steadfastness) – things that the Conservative party lost in 1989 and is now (I hope) trying to get back to.
However, to the television viewers, Dr Fox and the people who cheered him in the conference hall seemed to be either colour blind or insane. I can only assume that what was seen by the people in the conference hall was different from what was seen by the people at home.
Perhaps the great board was a screen and at a key moment the Union flag appeared on it, and the television cameras did not capture the key moment… a plot by the BBC?. But it was all very odd.
BBC Radio Four (indeed any part of the B.B.C.) is not where one would expect to find support for liberty, but a few a days ago I heard, on the Radio 4 Today Program, a report on medical care.
According to the report private hospitals in India (including in Calcutta) offer British people medical care at least as good as that provided by the NHS, and in wonderful conditions (marble floors, everything clean rather than the dirt, and decay one finds in British government hospitals – thousands of people die every year in Britain from infections they pick up whilst in government hospitals) and at a small fraction of the cost of the (highly regulated) British private hospitals.
The Labour MP Frank Field (a man known for his honesty – hard to believe in a politician, but it is true in his case) came on to the program and claimed that a constituent of his was being left to go blind by the NHS, people are normally left to rot for long periods of time by the government medical service, but his sight was saved by sending him to an Indian hospital.
The price of his medical care (not including the cost of flying to India, I admit) was £50 – in Britain the medical care would have cost (according to Mr Field) £3000.
So the choices were – go to a highly regulated British private hospital (if you happen to have £3000), rely on government medical care (and go blind), or go overseas.
Being a Labour MP Mr Field wanted the NHS to pay to send people to private hospitals in India (they put administrative barriers in the way of this [“it is too far”] – although they are willing to spend far more money sending people to European hospitals), but this was the closest I have ever come to hearing both the BBC and a Labour MP condemn statism in health care.
In yesterday’s Daily Telegraph, Janet Daley refers to a major opinion survey. When asked the question of how they would help poor people with £200 pounds (about $360) only one per cent of the survey went for the option of giving the money to local government (even though this option said that that local government would have to spend the money on trying to help the poor) and ZERO per cent went for the option of giving the money to national government (even though, again, this option said that the government would have to use the money to try and help the poor).
The British public overwhelmingly opted for directly helping the poor themselves, or for giving the money to a private charity.
I know one can not trust opinion surveys, but it is possible that most British people are not really as collectivist as they sometimes seem.
For an organization that boasts that it does not carry advertisements the BBC seems to carry rather a lot. There are the adverts for how wonderful the BBC is and for various books and other products that the BBC produces, and there are the endless trailers boasting of the wonders of various BBC shows.
Two recent trailers (both trailers were often repeated) on BBC Radio Four caught my attention. One was for a standard communist comic – not someone with any great grasp of Marxism of course, just someone who makes various anti-British comments (such as that Gibraltar should be under the control of Spain) to a standard BBC studio audience of Guardian reading scum – who hoot their agreement. The United States is (as always with such folk) an evil power that controls British policy (more hoots of agreement).
The other trailer was for a series on the history of the Arts Council (the government body that hands out art subsidies). This trailer declared that the creator of the Arts Council, J.M. Keynes, was a ‘brilliant economist’. Lord Keynes being the man who argued that the way to create prosperity was for the government to issue money and spend it (perhaps by giving it to the banks and borrowing it back – or perhaps directly). Any government spending (including having men dig holes and fill them up again) being “investment” and this ‘investment’ stimulating the economy via the magic of the ‘multiplier’ (a concept used by cranks long before Keynes).
We were also told that before the Arts Council the only thing people in Britain could do was ‘go down the pub’. The vast network of activity in the world of the arts before World War II (both supported by mutual aid – as in the literature to be found in Working Men’s Institutes, or the voluntary theatre groups) or by charitable giving (as with the art galleries to be found in every major British town) being totally ignored.
I do not know if the series is as bad as the trailer – such was the impact of the trailer that I could not bring myself to listen to the series. And such was the impact of the trailer for the communist comic that I could not bring myself to listen to his show (perhaps he has lots of witty lines that did not get into the adverts – I will never know).
Well it seems advertising does have some power. Due to the BBC adverts I will never listen to these programs.
Perry de Havilland has pointed out previously that film critics seem to regard it as safer to sneer at films than to praise them.
Praise a film (at least praise a serious but non knee-jerk leftist film) and you run the risk of being considered weak minded. Sneer at the film – and you are a sophisticated person who is not taken in by commercial tricks.
The film critic of the Daily Telegraph is one of the sneering school of critics (that a Conservative newspaper allows its cultural coverage to be dominated by the standard knee-jerk crowd is, sadly, normal). In his review of The Village he duly sneered at the film – and, for good measure, sneered at The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable as well.
Well this got my attention (which, I suppose, is the point of a review) as I liked both of these films. Many people got to see the Sixth Sense – but, and in my opinion unfortunately, most people followed the far stronger and more unified critical attacks on Unbreakable and did not see the film.
Recently Unbreakable has been shown on British television and many people have said to me that they thought it was a good film. “Did you go and see Unbreakable when it was on at the cinema?” – “No, because the critics said…”
It seems to me that what the critics really hated about Unbreakable was that it was not ‘tongue in cheek’ or a ‘good romp for the kids’ but also did not make any ‘serious’ (i.e. leftist) political points. Unbreakable was essentially a non political but serious film which examined the question of what if a man really did have ‘special powers’, why would he deny them – and what would make him not deny them.
Of course one could say “Of course old Paul Marks liked the film – the hero is a bald security guard” as I am a bald security guard. However, the film stands up in the view of most people who have seen it (and most of these people are not bald security guards).
As for The Village itself:
Well yes, I liked the film (so thank you to Daily Telegraph reviewer for sneering at it – otherwise I would not have gone to see it). There are a couple of twists in the film (one fairly mild another more radical), but the film is well made, does make sense (and the more you think about the film, the more sense it makes that certain things happen the way they do) and was a good film to watch.
If you go to see the film (because of what I write here) and do not like it – well I am sorry to have badly advised you. However, at least I am giving my honest opinion – not just sneering to seem hip.
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