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]

“Don’t let them suck the blood out of New South Wales!”

The England cricket team, having been utterly smashed in the first test match at Brisbane last week, is now being broken into even smaller pieces by the Australian second eleven, prior to heaven knows what humiliations in the rest of the test matches. England are also now being hammered by Australia in the rugby at Twickenham (oh, hang about, England have scored sixteen unanswered points and now lead by 32-31 with ten minutes left – so forget that) but, the Old Country – sorry, make that “Ancient Enemy” – is still the one dishing out the punishment where it really matters. Take a look at this:

  • The Mont Pelerin Society is a secretive, elite group;

  • It has less than 500 members worldwide;

  • It was founded in 1947 as a cult which worships the free market.

  • It designed the policies of financial deregulation, privatization, Competition and free trade. These policies have wrecked Australia and other countries around the world.

  • Mont Pelerin is directed from the highest levels of British Intelligence.

Although whoever wrote all this tries hard to dress up the Mont Pelerin Society (whom we have listed on our links page for ages) as an ultra-secret conspiracy, he actually ends up describing how it has operated really quite well.
My favourite chapter heading is the one I use for the title of this posting, number 21. But I actually took a look in chapter 8, which is entitled “The end of nation states: Lord Harris SPILLS THE BEANS“. In this, we learn about the modest Lord H, long time boss of the Institute of Economic Affairs and one of the world’s leading experts in the ancient art of telling things in a way that no one believes a single single word you’re saying.

“I don’t claim to be controlling everything,” Lord Harris continued, “but the only reason I got a peerage the year that Thatcher got into power, I have been Lord Harris since 1979, there is no question that that was her way of acknowledging that that group of thinkers, that “This is the group that I favour,” and of course a lot of my pals are now “Sir Peter this,” and “Sir John the other,” Hayek himself became a Companion of Honor Which is amazing. The Queen makes one companion of honor. There are only 60 at any one time in the entire Kingdom.

Hayek, born in Viena [sic], a naturalised British subject in 1936 and 1937, suddenly made a Companion of Honor! That was Thatcher saying, “These are my people, they are one of us.” Or, “We are one of them!”

Not that any of these gongs to Harris and his pals meant anything to him personally, you understand. The team is the thing.

Lord Harris then sketched the philosophical outlook of the Mont Pelerin Society and how that spread:

“So the Institute for Economic Affairs comes along with Adam Smith, and David Hume and David Ricardo, the great classical economists of the Eighteenth Century, who invented political economy, we draw on all that stuff.

So we revived all those old principles and we clothed them with modern examples and analogies of (the privatization of) the energy market, transport market, and all the rest of it. This created Thatcherism as an idea. I mean when I went to Australia back in 1990, I was greeted everywhere as a missionary from this new Thatcher idea, free markets, laissez-faire, and all that.” —

One day, idiot Australians will write stuff like this about us. Having spent the next twenty five years trying to get millions upon millions of people to read Samizdata, but having been carefully and relentlessly ignored by all our big-media-connected enemies, we will nevertheless get through to enough sensible, powerful, influencial people, quality people – people who know what’s what and who’s who – in short people like you dear reader, to alter the course of history in our preferred direction. Our enemies will then accuse us of not having told anybody about what we were doing. Well, I mean, a blog! That’s not telling anyone, is it? That’s “secretive” that is. That’s an evil conspiracy. They will then solemnly “reveal” what we’ve been trying to get them to notice for the last quarter of a century, in a manner suggesting that we are still trying to stop them finding out about it.

Before someone else comments about it, the writers of this stuff do make some good points, about how privatisation is sometimes rather hard to distinguish from predation. But why is that? It is because the only way the free market can catch on is for some people to profit mightily from the switch. And why is that? It’s because the existing Guardians of the Public Good won’t give the free market the time of day, let alone introduce it themselves in a way that spreads the benefits and the costs around more evenly. They make the introduction of free market reforms into a bloody political battle, and then when they start to lose big time they blame their free market enemies for the casualties. Tossers.

And, England hung on to win 32-31 at Twickers. Hurrah!! Have a nice week end.

5 comments to “Don’t let them suck the blood out of New South Wales!”