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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One reason for the limited output of bloggage from some of us tonight was that several of us went to an extremely well attended party. This was hosted by the Adam Smith Institute in order to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the start of the Thatcher Revolution. The event at the Oxford and Cambridge Club in London.
It is easy today to look back and scoff at what went wrong in those days, but those of us who lived through the steady economic and social collapse wrought by the likes of Jim Callaghan, Harold Wilson and Ted Heath, I have no hesitation describing what Thatcher presided over, which was nothing less than turning the tide of socialism, as a glorious revolution.
We are older and wiser now and all too aware of the missed opportunities and wrong turns of that era, but credit where credit is due. The future could have been very much darker indeed without Margaret Thatcher.
Update: More pictures on the Adam Smith Institute blog
I am in my kitchen, reporting on one of my last-Friday-of-the-month meetings. It is still in full swing. Most of the London events you read about on Samizdata are booze-ups at Perry’s, and at my meetings, there is also booze. From 9.30 pm until around midnight the drink flows and the conversation bubbles merrily, and I can hear it bubbling now. But there is also, always, an agenda. Starting at 8 pm, and proceeding until 9.30 pm, there is a speaker lead discussion.
I have been hosting these things since the late 1980s, and there a moment, a few years back, when I was finding them something of a drag to organise. Only the enormous inconvenience that would necessarily have continued, every last Friday of the month, even if I had stopped holding these meetings, in the form of regulars knocking on my door and demanding entry to a non-existent event and then having to be diverted (which might not be much fun) or told to go away (which might not be wise or kind), persuaded me to persist with these events. But then along came email, to the point where even I had it, and now they pretty much run themselves. I fix a speaker, email everyone on the list on about the Tuesday telling them of exactly who will say approximately what on the Friday, and of any other future meetings that have already been fixed. (Speakers for July and November are now settled, but nothing else is certain as yet, other than that someone will speak.)
 Tonight, Sean Gabb spoke about “Demography and History”. He is the second from the right in the picture, with our own David Carr lending an ear in the foreground. The guy in the corner is Bruce, a real photographer, who would have done a far better picture, but with him as with me, you get what you pay for, photographically speaking.
When Sean speaks about current affairs, he is always interesting, but so are most of us. We all have worthwhile opinions about what is happening now. But when it comes to speaking about the whys and wherefores of the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire in the Sixth Century or for that matter about the history of Eastern Europe in the years before the outbreak of the First World War, Sean is, in the London libertarian scene, in a class of his own. Not being burdened with false modesty, Sean was recording his talk, on his laptop computer, and I understand that it will be available on the Internet. He had to leave promptly at 9.30 pm to catch his train down to the South Coast where he now lives, so I can not be sure of the details of this, but I will supply a link to his talk as soon as I can, and maybe some more comment on it. → Continue reading: Of meetings and plagues
I have been to a marvelous party and now I am back.
The marvelous party was the CNE Capitalist Ball, held at the Belgian Stock Exchange in central Brussels.
Now before I go any further here, I have a confession to make. Two confessions, in fact. Last Thursday, I referred to Brussels as the ‘Heart of Darkness’. Well, I was wrong about that. I also suspected that I was going to find myself in Brussels amid a room full of musty, fusty academics plus a few corporate types and policy wonks. I was wrong about that too.
In fact, my travelling companion and fellow Samizdatista Antoine Clarke and I found ourselves in sumptuous surroundings with hundreds of European, British and American glitterati and illuminati from the worlds of business, finance, politics, journalism and academia. In other words, lots of clever, interesting men and lots of clever, interesting and head-turningly lovely women. They were smart, young, chic, funny and sexy.
The belles are ringing for capitalism → Continue reading: I love the smell of glamour in the morning
Bjørn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist gave a lecture this evening (this was posted after midnight but still that same evening – ed) at the Adam Smith Institute in London. A number of the Samizdatistas were there. Lomborg’s arguments are familiar to those who have read his book, but it was a rapid, powerful, to the point speech in which he demolished many of the arguments of the “The world is facing impending environmental collapse” school of Greenery with ruthless efficiency. His ten minute demolition of the case for the Kyoto accord was particularly impressive.
Lomborg walked on stage wearing a pair of jeans and a polo shirt, and looked just like the thirtysomething Greenpeace member and quintissential Nordic person of more traditional environmentalist views he once apparently was. He spoke with a rapid intensity, clearly wanted to get a lot out in the relatively short time he had for the lecture. And perhaps the rapidity of speech was covering up a certain natural shyness, but if so this was mixed in with what was clearly a burning desire to get his message out.
Lomborg told the familiar story of how he found himself in this position. → Continue reading: Bjørn Lomborg at the Adam Smith Institute.
I’m hoping to enter the Hastings Weekend Chess Congress at the first weekend after the New Year. I have never previously been to the entry point to the UK of Perry de Havilland’s marauding ancestors. They were among the (so far) most successful gang of 11th century “asylum seekers”.
In order of Anglosphere fame I suppose Hastings ranks as:
- The place where the Norman Conquest happened. And since I spent much of yesterday enduring endless processions of fairweather English rugby fans parading around central London, pretending they know what a three-quarter line is, and I lost money on France to win the rugby world cup, I remind Anglo-Saxons that the battle was the most decisive result between the two countries.
[I feel better already!]
- Captain Hastings, the nice but dim sidekick of Agatha Christie’s fictional Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The main problem being that most Belgians I have met are either extremely racist (so would not live in London), or have not got as many grey cells as Hastings between them. Or both.
- The site of the most famous chess tournament ever – the 1895 Hastings Christmas Tournament, and the scene of one of the all-time classic matches: former world champion
Wolfgang Wilhelm Steinitz versus Curt von Bardeleben. On Black’s 25th move, von Bardeleben, in Prussian fashion, realising that the situation was lost, is said to have got up without a word, put on his hat and walked back to his hotel, leaving his clock to run down and lose on time default. I enclose this link from a Brazilian web site still raving about the game over 100 years later. I googled 295 references to this one game.
My immediate concern is to get my entry in before the late entry penalty and to find a bed and breakfast to stay in Hastings on the two nights of January 2nd and 3rd. Any advice gratefully accepted.
After that it will be time to prepare some tactical plays for the tournament itself: and exhausting schedule of one match ending on Friday night at 11pm, then three matches on Saturday running from 9.30am to 11pm pm, and another two matches on Sunday that I haven’t even begun to worry about.
No kidding: I shall be doing some weight training over the next few weeks just to help with my stamina. (I can hear Adriana sniggering already) I shall also be re-freshing my familiarity with a few opening sequences. My nightmare would be a repeat of a 1995 match in Mill Hill against the then London under 8 year old champion, a certain David Ho. My favourite win posted online to date is this one, a tough positional game against a Minnesota amateur.
The conference of the Libertarian Alliance and Libertarian International will be in London starts tomorrow and it is not too late to come if you wish. It last from Saturday 22nd to Sunday 23rd November 2003. It is possible to register and pay on-line.
The speakers include fellow Samizdatista David Carr and serial Samizdata commenter Paul Coulam.
I hope to meet up with a few of you there.
The European Conference of the Libertarian Alliance and Libertarian International will be in London from Saturday 22nd to Sunday 23rd November 2003.
The speakers include fellow Samizdatista David Carr and serial Samizdata commenter Paul Coulam.
Tonight many of the Samizdata.net, White Rose and the Big Blog Company bloggers will be attending a seminar about blogging being hosted at the Houses of Parliament in London.
It will be interesting to meet fellow members of the Blogerati in such a different context.
In case some of the people attending did not get the message, the time has been changed to slightly later (now 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm), and the venue is now the Grand Committee Room in order accommodate the larger than expected demand for seats. Entry as before will be via St Stephens Entrance, Houses of Parliament.
Q: What is the difference between a social democrat and a socialist?
A: A social democrat is a socialist who has realised the socialism doesn’t actually work.
A perfect illustration is provided by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, the very model of a modern social democrat, who has announced that things must change:
If we want to generate growth and jobs, we must lower those costs that eat into take-home pay.
Financial constraints are not the only driving force behind our reform programme. The reform of the welfare state is also a precondition for the success of future generations. In the past, the main topic of welfare politics was the redistribution of wealth. First, we must remember that wealth can only be redistributed once it has been generated. Second, we should note that redistribution has limits, beyond which mere monetary transfers encourage dependence. Third, elaborate systems of redistribution tend to produce “side-effects” in opposition to the desired results.
Do my eyes deceive me or is this doyen of the ‘Third Way’ demanding tax cuts and warning of the dangers of a dependence culture and unintended consequences? No, I think I am reading it right and if Herr Schroder keeps this up he might find himself being invited to write for the Samizdata one of these days.
And neither is this manful attempt to grapple with common sense a breaking of the ranks or a solo frolic in the fields of sanity because I could not help but notice that it follows hot on the heels of this rather more nebulous and ill-defined attempt from Peter Mandelson to say something along similar lines.
Coincidence? No, I don’t think so. Nor is it due to mere fickle fate that both of these portentious editorials appear in the pages of the Daily Social Worker where messages like this are about as common as gay bars in Riyadh. Now, I’m taking a calculated guess here but I’d say this is all part of a cunning plan to prepare the ground ahead of a big summit on ‘Progressive Governance’ (subtitled: ‘Oh Christ, we’ve been rumbled. What do we do now?) to be held here in London this coming weekend.
Could all these ominous warnings and pleas for an open-mind from the likes of Herr Schroder and Mr.Mandelson be a means of softening the ground for heavy blows ahead? Because to the extent that anything at all emerges from this gathering of professional pick-pockets and incurable busybodies, it is bound to be triumphal, shiny ‘reform’ and ‘new deal’ initiatives of the kind that pretty much herald an end to the welfare-state settlement.
If I am right (and that remains to be seen) then it is obvious that some of the brighter stars in the left-wing firmament have seen the writing on the wall and they know only too well that carrying the 20th Century state-socialist models into the 21st Century is a guaranteed one-way ticket to palookaville.
Wouldn’t it be fun to watch them emerge from their smoke-free rooms next week and jointly announce to their tax-consuming constituents that the booze has all run out, the snacks have all been eaten, the guests are all tapped out and that the party is definitely over.
I don’t know whether the annual Glastonbury Music Festival is the world’s longest running or the world’s most famous music festival or whatever but it always attracts great heaving mobs of students and twenty-somethings.
For our enemies, this is a target-rich environment:
Bands play above a huge Greenpeace banner on the main stage, there are notices about Third World water supplies inside the toilets and organisers want every single person to sign a petition for fairer international trade laws.
On top of that, Tony Benn got a rock star’s welcome, a Palestinian group has brought an inflatable tank, Columbian trade unionists are planning to stage mock kidnappings of comedian Mark Thomas and singer Billy Bragg, and the Drop the Debt double decker bus is offering its bath to a lucky competition winner.
Depressing, isn’t it. Mind you, there’s always the risk of overkill:
“You notice it a lot but I don’t really take much interest it,” said Lisa Rush, 28, from Colchester.
Come the day we see a ‘Hayek Stall’ at a rock festival, we will truly know that we have turned a corner.
And that is about how long I had to get just a little bit of classical liberal thinking out into the more mainstream airways last night.
Though, actually, rather less in view of the fact that I was sharing a platform on the ‘Richard Littlejohn Show’ with two other protagonists. One was a chap named Jay Lee who is an activist in the British National Party (and who has been expelled by his Trade Union because of it) and the other was Kevin McGuire a journalist with the Guardian.
I was placed in the middle in the ‘Mr.Reasonable’ seat which, as it turned out, was not ill-judged. Mr.Lee insisted that the Union had no right to expel him just because of his political views and Mr.McGuire insisted that the Union had an obligation to expel him because of his political views. Applying the voluntarist principle I maintained that Mr.Lee was perfectly entitled to his views, regardless of how stupid and vile they may be, but that the Union, as a voluntary organisation, were free to make any rules about membership that they damn well please and it was nobody else’s business.
Perry, who was watching from home, tells me that the BNP guy actually made a pretty decent fist out of casting himself as the persecuted victim (with just the right degree of indignant self-pity) and that Kevin McGuire came across as an intolerant ranter. I like to think my libertarian message got across as well but it is always so difficult to know for sure amidst the soundbitten and somewhat chaotic nature of TV debates. I think it fair to say that I hit the right chord with Richard Littlejohn but then, as he quietly admitted to me afterwards, he is rather sympathetic to our ideas. It certainly helped that he clearly wanted my voice to be heard. I think we have an ally out there.
So that was that. No resolution of course but these things are seldom solvable and I was content that, aside from nearly melting in the stifling heat of the TV studio, I had managed to emerge unscathed. I was a little frustrated at being unable to get in a plug for the Samizdata so that will have to wait until next time (assuming, of course, that there is a next time).
It looks as if I am going to be a ‘talking head’ on UK satellite TV tonight. I have been asked to appear on the ‘Richard Littlejohn Show’ to discuss the case of a train driver who has been expelled from his Trade Union because of his membership of the British National Party.
In other words, it’s ‘freedom of association’ stuff.
The show will be broadcast live at 8.00pm UK time on the Sky News Channel.
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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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