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.
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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.
A close friend who recently bought a lovely property down in Cannes, France, invited Mrs Pearce and yours truly down for Christmas. How can one refuse? We did not. I rather like the old seaside town, with its 19th Century Belle Epoque hotels and small side-streets. The place is pretty civilised over Christmas: unlike the Film Festival season or the various financial services conferences held there during the year, the place was mostly filled by locals and there was a merciful lack of beer-swilling Brits. France likes to pride itself as being far more grown-up in its approach to alcohol than the British, and I think this is mostly accurate, having been to France many times to see the locals in action of an evening. This item, however, says the French go pretty “British” in their drinking habits over the New Year.
Meanwhile, France is of course joining the puritanical Anglosphere by banning smoking in all cafes and restaurants from next February. A shame: although I dislike tobacco smoke intensely, if I choose to enter a bar where the owner of said private property allows it, it is my problem, not his. I can choose to leave. No-one forces me to work in a bar or drink in one at gun point. One of the things I quite like about France is that despite it being a more bureaucratic nation than Britain in many ways – although that is passing – the French have always struck me as a fairly tolerant bunch on certain social issues (the Catholic influence, maybe, I am not sure).
It will be interesting to see whether the ban is enforced in all French premises. I rather doubt it.
I wonder what conclusions French voters will draw from this:
Down in the Pays Basque, the young natives are disconsolate. Immobiliers (estate agents) with sharp English marketing techniques are sprouting like radishes in the towns. In the markets, one hears three languages: Basque, French and English. And, astonishingly, in a nation so protective of its culture, some houses this summer had signs advertising them For Sale instead of À Vendre.
It was my French niece who saw them, out on her travels as a veterinary surgeon, and she came home to her small, rented house and dropped her handbag with an exasperated clunk on the table. What hope do we have of ever being able to afford a house, she said, when the Brits are paying crazy prices and we can’t compete? It’s just so depressing.
Partly this is a story about French economic decline. Economic decline often happens without you realising it. And then, suddenly, you do realise it. That factory you thought you had a safe job in for life gets abruptly closed, because the government has decided that the subsidies to keep it going are becoming too huge. You suddenly realise that private education for your kids is going to be forever beyond you, that where you live state education is actually getting worse, and that also you can not afford to move to where it is any good. Multiply little dramas like that by a million, and you have an entire country in economic decline. Thus, economic decline often impinges upon an electorate not in the form of rather meaningless statistics moaned about by journalists even as life goes on happily, but rather in the form of dramatic vignettes like this one, of vulgar English people invading the formerly idyllic French countryside.
Another French vignette of decline is of clever sons and daughters, nephews and nieces, who can not seem to get jobs worthy of their obvious talents and superior educations, unless they go to vulgar England. Even there, they will have to start out as waiters and waitresses, but at least they’ll have a chance of better things soon. In France, education is obviously far better than in vulgar England, but in vulgar England, for some reason probably involving evil America, more stuff is actually being done.
Another force which I think France is on the receiving end of here is the enormous difference that the internet, e-mail, etc., has made to the nature of life in the formerly deep countryside, of which France has a great deal, but England relatively little. (In Scotland it is different.) Simply, you can now do a lot more with your life when physically cut off from everything than you could twenty years ago. Did Engels say something about the “idiocy” of rural life? Some smug townie did. Well, now, country life is not nearly so idiotic as it was. Outsourcing is not just taking work from Europe to India, it is taking it from European cities jammed with commuters to European rural escape havens. The big thing they now sell in the countryside of places like France is not what the countryside grows, so much as how beautiful and nice it is to live in, provided you don’t have to scrabble about in the rural mud for a living. Thanks to email and the internet, organising the switch from suburb to country has also got a lot easier.
Or, to put it another way, the suburbs just got a lot bigger.
So, will France’s voters try to make the symptoms of economic decline and of the new super-suburbanisation illegal? Probably. Good luck with that, mes amis. You will need it. A smarter attitude would be to stop fretting about these changes and to start profiting from them, as many French people are already doing, of course, not least by selling their rural shacks for silly English money.
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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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