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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Samizdata quote of the day Most people believe that poor people should be free to trade with each other, and they should be free to buy and sell from us in the West. If people want to buy cheaper goods from abroad, and spend the money they save on food or medicines, they should be free to do so. Saving a few cents when buying a bag of rice makes little difference to you or me, or to the rich elite in poor countries. But to a poor family it could make the difference between eating at night, or going without.
– Andrew Mitchell MP, Shadow Secretary of State for International Development, speaking Monday at the Globalisation Institute.
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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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But the exchange rates are rigged and so, a non-wealthy self-employed person in the west struggeling to make a living whilst paying the taxman and for everything else that makes living in the west expensive is unfairly disadvantaged too, and many of us are on the breadline because we have to compete with companies who do not care a fig about health and safety and just pay their workers pennies. The UK with it’s tax credits has the longest doleline in the world — think about why that is.
How do you figure the exchange rates are rigged? And struggling to pay the taxman is an argument against taxes, not trade.
Then maybe you are too expensive and your work should be done somewhere else.
Say what?
I wish I had been there to hear the man say this.
Heat and breathing problems kept me away.
“poor people should be free to trade with each other…”
What about rich people ? Are they second class citizens, that do not deserve that government bestow on them the privilege of free trade ?
What’s this idiotic association of free trade with poor people or Africans? To hell with the poor, I’m sick and tired of hearing how everything is for their sake (and for the children).
Can’t you advocate anything without coating it in a hypocritic “for the poor” justification ?
Er, Jacob, it’s because the opponents of free trade say that it’s OK for the rich, but that poor people should be protected.
MP Mitchell is exactly right, but this also explains why so many statists and nanny staters are against free trade, as well as any right to choose by the poor: health care providers, schooling options, social insurance investment options, etc. Keeping the poor entrapped in poverty is mandatory to assemble a voting bloc to engage in politics of class warfare.
I would agree in an ideal world, but the fact is British business is made uncompetitive by taxes and regulations.
The government can’t be allowed to tax and regulate ‘us’ out of business and then advocate we buy from countries who don’t have taxes and regulations. Thats just ridiculous.
The government might as well just pin us down and let the ‘foreigners’ give us a kickin.
Yes to free-trade! but at the same time we must have a freer working enviroment for British businesses so we have a chance to compete as well!
Dave,
Seems like you are saying that taxes and regulations should be standardized before we have free trade. Sounds like a global superstate.
Free trade is beneficial in all circumstances. It may not be beneficial to the producers but it is beneficial to consumers.
One company that stands to lose millions of pounds of business from foreign competition will kick up a lot more stink and grab the attention of politicians a lot more readily than the millions of consumers who stand to benefit by one pound each from the lower prices of the foreign producer.
Alien, I don’t know how you come up with global superstate from my comments… Quite an imagination you got there.
I don’t give a shit about taxes and regulations in the rest of the world. What I am saying is that Britain is not competitive and if we had totally free trade British business would lose out.
All I am calling for is for Britain to have a more competitive business enviroment at the same time as freer trade! and I don’t think its fair to have one without the other.
British consumers are far from innocent in forcing stupid regulations in British business. Remembering the livestock export protests that forced the agricultural industry out of that sector, not helping the animals at all because the Europeans just get them from somewhere else.
There as gotta be a limit to free trade, what if a country allowed legal slavery and used that slave labour to produce cheap produce, if we buy it we are supporting it. Is that ok if its good for consumers?
No, it is an inevitable consequence of your position. As regulations will never be completely harmonised between sovereign states, by your logic there should never be free trade as everyone will have to protect their regulated businesses from ‘unfair’ competition. As a result the only way to have ‘free trade’ is to have a single regulatory authority… a global superstate. QED.
So? Why should British consumers lose out in order to subsidise British businesses if they can get what they want cheaper elsewhere? In any case it is an argument for less regulation, NOT less trade.
Like China, where they have used prison labour you mean? It should be up to the person making the purchase to decide if it is ‘ok’, not the government.
“…opponents of free trade say that it’s OK for the rich…”
Yeah ? Fine ! Give us free trade for the rich if it is ok.
I wish we had that !
Of course, statists and lefties oppose free trade because it will force them to roll back taxation and welfare, especially the welfare of the bureaucratic class.
It is neither businesses nor consumers they try to protect, it’s only their own hides.
I agree it should be upto the individual not the state but often the people have no idea how something is produced let alone by whom, they just assume the government controls these things, some people ‘want’ the government to take the decisisons out of their hands when they got other things to worry about.
Is it or is it not unfair for the British government to force crazy regulation and standards on British farmers for example and then advocate buying from the 3rd world who don’t have anything like the same standards?
And yes I know subsidies are unfair and I don’t support them..
1) The exchange rates are rigged in the sense that one day of work here does not equal the same effort elsewhere. There is no fair exchange possible and no matter what we do, we can be undercut.
2) Why should I do something else? And how often do you think I should be prepared to change and start a new career as all sorts of jobs are being outsourced nowadays? How about the people who undercut me start paying the same taxes, rents, health & safety costs etc as I am? I don’t mind competition, but dumping by people who are subsidised to the hilt is impossible to beat.
3) Britain has the longest dolequeue in the world — an amazing amount of people who work full time are getting tax credits because they do not earn enough to keep them and their family honourably in bread, but they have to come begging for handouts instead.
I think that point 1 & 2 are strongly linked to point 3…
…an amazing amount of people who work full time are getting tax credits because they do not earn enough to keep them and their family honourably in bread, but they have to come begging for handouts instead.
Not quite. An amazing number of people who work full time are getting tax credits because they can get some money that way, by filling in a form. Household incomes of up to £58,000 a year are eligible if only one partner works and there are children. Gordon would much rather take your money first and make you fill in a long form to get it back. Tax credits count in the public accounts as negative taxation, too, so that’s a bonus – he can both tale your money and pretend he doesn’t.
That doesn’t mean the poor have it easy. There can’t be many other countries in the world where income tax is payable on the minimum wage. And there are lots of subsidies (unavailable to “illegal workers” of course) to be lost by taking paid employment, which helps to explain the dole queues.