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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French cricket, to an Englishman, means a game played with a cricket bat and a tennis ball, where you stand vertically, using your bat to hit the ball and protect your legs, which double up as your stumps. When trying to hit the ball you may not move your legs. A hit equals a run. If you miss, and it then misses your legs, you aren’t allowed to change the position of your legs on the ground, so if you miss and it goes behind you, you have to twist around rather than just turn around, which makes it much harder. If you hit, you can then turn around and face where it’s coming from, which is from where it lands, so good fielders can get very close, and then defeat you. A catch is, well, a catch. If it hits your legs you’re out and it’s someone else’s turn. I think. It’s decades since I’ve played this ancient English game.
But now comes this:
It’s the quintessential English sport, often dismissed as a pastime for eccentrics with its origins dating back centuries, but now cricket is being taken up by one of the most unlikely nations of all: France.
Children across the country are slowly taking up the sport thanks to a government pilot project aiming to introduce the sport to around 200 schools over the next eight years.
Amazing. And it’s a Franch government project. Proof if ever you needed it that governments are packs of traitors.
I am always struck, whenever I take the Eurostar train to Paris, as I did this morning, at how much graffiti there is on the walls near the railway tracks and on the sides of the often ugly buildings that sit next to the tracks near Gare du Nord. Some of the graffiti is in fact rather well done, even rather amusing. Here is a collection of the sort of stuff you can come across in the French capital.
Of course, graffiti is an assault on property – the assault is part of the thrill for those who do it – so beyond issues of whether the daubs are ugly or not, it is something that a liberal respectful of property and boundaries will be interested in. Even if I see a clever piece of graffiti, it makes me angry that someone’s property, on which attention might have been lavished, has been defaced. In the case of privately owned property, the offence is clear and obvious: spraying graffiti on the side of your house, say, is the same, in terms of the assault on what is yours, as spraying paint on your face. With public buildings paid for by taxpayers, my view is that taxpayers are entitled to expect that, assuming they have to be forced to pay for buildings at all, that the buildings are respected and kept in good condition, and not disfigured. I suppose some folk of an anarchist type might feel that defacing public buildings is a way of protesting against such things, although I have never seen a piece of graffiti with any slogans on it that might have appealed to an individualist anarchist like Lysander Spooner or Benjamin Tucker, say. If I see an item of graffiti saying that “taxation is theft” or that “the state is not your friend”, I’ll be sure to try and photograph it.
On a related point, I have to say that the Eurostar terminal at King’s Cross St Pancras in London knocks the spots off its Paris counterpart. What a magnificent building. For once, old London town has its French rival beat when it comes to sheer architectural magnificence.
Here is an article on how the UK-based artist, Tracy Emin, wants to leave Britain because of the upcoming new 50 per cent top income tax rate. It kicks in by the start of next April and once changes to pension and national insurance are taken into account, the effective marginal rate is nearer to 65 per cent. The tax will be on annual earnings of 150,000 pounds and above. That sounds a huge salary to someone like yours truly, but the sort of entrepreneur we need to fuel an economic recovery is likely to make that sort of money if things go well. A marginal bite of 65 per cent is likely to force such entrepreneurs to cut back on the necessary risk-taking that such ventures require. And as the article I linked to suggests, the additional revenue that officials claim will be raised will be just 2.5 billion quid – and arguably, the disincentive effect of the tax hike will reduce revenues. And never mind just the utilitarian arguments against steeply progressive taxes. As FA Hayek memorably put it in the Constitution of Liberty, there is no objective rule that would allow anyone to decide why a person who earns, say, X per cent more than the median income should pay, for example, 50 per cent on earnings, or 60 per cent, 70 per cent, or whatever. One might as well toss a coin. The “principle” of progessivism should be seen for what it is: legalised looting.
It tells you everything you need to know about Britain’s plight that people are now thinking of going to live in France because its taxes are, at least in some respects, lower. Given all the other benefits of living in France, such as the greater land area and fabulous food, the idea of heading south across the English Channel has a lot to recommend it. And I am typing these words in Malta, where the weather is – mostly – miles better than in England, although ironically we had a massive storm on Thursday evening – the same one that has hit southern Italy. But the place is economically quite lively now, judging by the sheer racket from the construction sites everywhere.
Oh, by the way, my blogging activity has been slack these past few days but I have the excuse of having done my PADI scuba course, which was successful. We haven’t yet worked out how to blog under water. Not even scuba enthusiast and internet maestro Glenn Reynolds seems able to do that.
There are lots of bridges in Normandy – like this elegant beauty of civil engineering – but in this very pleasant region of northern France, few such constructions carry more historical significance and reminders of the costs of war than this one. I visited the Pegasus Bridge museum during a very enjoyable trip to the region last week on holiday. I also went to Arromanches, which has an excellent exhibition about the Normandy landings. You can see the remaining bits of the old Mulberry harbours that were used by the Allies to land their equipmment before the main ports along the French coast were eventually captured.
Most of the folk in France last week were enjoying the usual August holidays without a care in the world. I like to think that is what the men who fought so brilliantly to liberate the Continent would have wanted us to do: have a good time.
I am not quite sure how robust this report is in terms of its data sample, but it does rather undermine the standard complaint that the British are the worst tourists. I am still not entirely convinced, but still:
PARIS (Reuters Life!) – French tourists are the worst in the world, coming across as bad at foreign languages, tight-fisted and arrogant, according to a survey of 4,500 hotel owners across the world.
They finish in last place in the survey carried out for internet travel agency Expedia by polling company TNS Infratest, which said French holidaymakers don’t speak local languages and are seen as impolite.
Blimey.
“It’s mainly the fact that they speak little or no English when they’re abroad, and they don’t speak much of the local language,” Expedia Marketing Director Timothee de Roux told radio station France Info. “The French don’t go abroad very much. We’re lucky enough to have a country which is magnificent in terms of its landscape and culture,” he said, adding that 90 per cent of French people did their traveling at home.
Yet we Anglos are not that great at speaking foreign languages either. I mean, I speak passable French, German and a few phrases in Italian, but most French folk I have met abroad do speak English of varying degrees. To a certain extent, such a finding might depend on the type of tourist and the places they go to: most French tourists or expats living in London will tend, I find, to be pretty keen to find out about where they are and so will learn the language a bit.
The report concludes:
“But French tourists received some consolation for their poor performance, finishing third after the Italians and British for dress sense while on holiday.”
Touche!
In France a group of MPs has said that France ought to investigate the possibility of banning the burqa.
In Britain, ‘More than 700 “controlled drinking zones” have been set up across England, giving police sweeping powers to confiscate beer and wine from anyone enjoying a quiet outdoor tipple.’
If you want to keep your freedom to drink what you please on the public street then fight for the freedom to wear what you please on the public street.
But what about public drunkeness, then, and the fear and misery of those whose nights are blighted by drunks fighting at their windows and pissing in their gardens? And what about the cloth-entombed women, projecting an image of both slavery and Islamic aggression, who may or may not have chosen to wear the black bag?
My answer is substantially the same to both social problems: as a society we have chosen to deny ourselves the very tools of private social action (no, that is not a contradiction in terms) that could make things better.
For decades we have denied ourselves disapproval. For decades we have denied ourselves property rights. For decades we have denied ourselves the right to free association, which necessarily includes the right not to associate.
These tools are the ones we have the right to use. They are also the right tools for the job. They, unlike the tools of coercion, will not turn in our hands and cut us.
Bad form to quote oneself, I know. However it saves writing time, so tough. Last time I wrote about this sort of thing I said:
In general, I would say that strong private institutions are a bulwark against the type of creeping Islamification – or capture by other minority groups – that concern many of the commenters to this thread … Contrast that with the position of state institutions, which includes state laws. These are a much more realistic target for capture by determined minorities. If, say 3% of the population feel really strongly about some issue and 97% are apathetic it is actually quite a realistic proposition for the 3% to get laws passed to steer things their way. Much easier than out-purchasing the other 97%, certainly.
And
However that brings me back to the main point of the article: the best (perhaps only?) long term defence against unfair treatment by “the authorities” is to keep the authorities out of our daily lives.
The President of France is threatening to walk out of the G20 gabfest this week if the countries cannot agree on stricter regulation of the world’s financial markets. Of course, Mr Sarkozy buys into the fantasy that what has happened shows the failure of “unregulated capitalism”. If only he would walk out of the conference, which is likely to involve further layers of largely useless and counter-productive rules and meaningless communiques, not to mention disrupt London, provide a focus point for tens of thousands of anti-globalistas, and cost Londoners a ton of money in policing and disruption.
Go on Sarko, do it for les enfants.
The French love English so much that they have established a prize to celebrate the encroachment of a global language, tying humanity together and promoting virtues of their revolution: liberty, fraternity and equality. Some have won this prize for demonstrating solidarity with their fellow European citizens and sacrificing the chance to speak in their most honourable and ancient tongue in order to facilitate communication:
But topping the poll for grave disservices to the mother tongue is France’s higher education minister, Valerie Pecresse.
Her crime: proclaiming to the press that she had no intention of speaking French when attending European meetings in Brussels, because, she said, it was quite obvious that English was now the easiest mode of communication.
The name of the prize is the Prix de la Carpette Anglaise, a mouthful that appears to indicate talking English is equivalent to lying back and receiving the droit de seigneur. If you are rewarded with this honour, it means that you have displayed fawning servility towards the Anglosphere. So if you politely speak English in a meeting when everyone else does, this is enslavement by an imperialistic tongue, rather than politely accepting the majority language of your colleagues.
However, as the rest of the article continues, English is a second language and stripped down to the bare essentials for aiding communication: a development that is called Globish. A rather clumsy term as I would not wish to call the speakers of this stripped down argot, Globs. There then arises the doubtful anecdote that the native speaker cannot follow anyone else, since he is used to nuances, humour, wordplay and so on. And a chap wrote a whol ebook about this, setting out grammar and rules such as avoid jokes, metaphor and anything else that may serve to confuse (or add life to the proceedings).
In a meeting with colleagues from around the world, including an Englishman, a Korean and a Brazilian, he noticed that he and the other non-native English speakers were communicating in a form of English that was completely comprehensible to them, but which left the Englishman nonplussed.
He, Jean-Paul Nerriere, could talk to the Korean and the Brazilian in this neo-language, and they could understand each other perfectly.
But the Englishman was left out because his language was too subtle, too full of meaning that could not be grasped by the others….
Globish has only 1,500 words and users must avoid humour, metaphor, abbreviation and anything else that can cause cross-cultural confusion.
They must speak slowly and in short sentences. Funnily enough, he holds up the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as an excellent exponent.
If this story is true, which I doubt, then all of the group were sitting with Tim nice but dim. But when sees the object of the book: set rules, curb growth, plant boundaries, one begins to wonder. Is this just another dastardly French plot to curb the spread of English by attempting to create a simple, unfunny version? Rather similar to the new brain that the mice would have given to Arthur Dent with useful phrases and the ability to enjoy a nice cup of tea. .
As I suggested yesterday on the immigration issue, a danger during harsh economic times is that political leaders play the nationalist card, not just on the immigration – or emigration issue – but also on the purchase of so-called national “champions” by foreigners. It was the protectionism of the early 1930s in America, copied by many other nations, that helped transform would have been a relatively short, if unpleasant, recession into a global slump.
It appears that Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, has learned very little about this episode. He wants France (ie, the benighted French taxpayer) to create a national fund to prevent French firms from being taken over. So if cash-rich Middle East, Asian or other businesses want to invest in say, an under-capitalised French firm, then Sarko would rather the French state owned it instead. Quite how this squares with the European Union’s single market rules is unclear. But then, ever since the credit crunch, whatever “free market” credentials the EU project ever had would appear to be totally dead.
There are times when, in one of my less admirable moments, I pray that certain politicians suffer a grisly end. It is not big of me, I know, but boy it is hard sometimes.
I used to visit the South of France as a kid and one day, walking down the beach in St Tropez, yours truly, then a pretty wet-behind-the-ears lad from Suffolk, espied a whole row of lovely French women lying on the beach with nary a stitch on. Mon dieu! After my silly childish embarrassment wore off, I thought nothing of it after a while.
It appears that for health and fashion reason, though, that the lovelies of Europe are covering up. One of the main factors may be a concern about skin cancer. Also, I notice that in France, a lot of the men and women’s skin gets very lined and aged if they sit out a lot in the sun, so for reasons of vanity or beauty – depending on your point of view – it makes sense to cover up. I have to watch it in the sun as I am pretty fair-skinned.
I did sort of half wonder whether any of this story from France has something to do with the large Muslim immigrant population in the South of France that takes a dim view of baring any female flesh at all. It does make one wonder. I hope not.
Well, why should the English-speaking world have all the fun when it comes to a banking disaster?
Société Générale, France’s second-biggest bank, has revealed that one of its traders in Paris had committed a 5bn euro (£3.6bn/$7.1bn) fraud.
3.6bn quid. However one looks at it, that is a lot of money. The Telegraph story I linked to has named the guy who is alleged to have perpetrated the fraud; the meltdown easily surpasses the collapse of Barings, the blue-blooded British bank that went down due to massive losses incurred by derivatives dealer Nick Leeson back in the mid-90s.
What early conclusions can one draw? First of all, it is not possible to argue that the more heavily regulated banking systems in continental Europe are inherently superior to those wild, anarchic Anglos. At the very largest banks operating out of Paris, New York or London, it seems that human venality, incompetence and dishonesty is no respecter of cultural differences. What investors need to realise is that banks contain human beings with all the weaknesses, as well as virtues, humans have. Regulatory zeal has not prevented frauds; and yet every time there is a fresh SNAFU, a chorus goes up demanding some new set of regulations – “something must be done”. In the end, the only course is to catch the wrongdoers, lock them up or force them, if possible, to repay the folk they have swindled.
To say that 2008 has started badly in the financial markets is an understatement; with banks like Citi taking huge losses linked to the falls in the US housing sector, this latest, Gallic twist of bad financial news is the last thing that investors needed. Jobs have already been axed in the City; it is likely to get worse before it gets better.
Here is a list of recent monster banking frauds.
Interesting story at Bloomberg saying that despite the blandishments of President Sarkozy, who is currently diverting the celebrity pages of the press with his amorous adventures, Frenchmen and women living in Britain do not want to return home to a land still hobbled by taxes and regulations.
They certainly cannot be staying in Britain for its weather.
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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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