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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Samizdata quote of the day

“Governments over the years have ruined many successful domestic industries. Interference in football could well have the same doleful effect. We have enough problems for the government to sort out before it interferes in yet another area of economic and social life.”

– Professor Len Shackleton, IEA Editorial and Research Fellow, and author of the report Red Card. The quotation came from a press release I received today from the IEA.

12 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • Paul Marks

    Governments, for example the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States, have indeed destroyed many domestic industries – by such things as Anti Trust laws (which, for example, undermined the American aluminium and shoe making machinery industries), high taxes, giving powers to Trade Unions (a British fetish for almost 150 years – see W.H. Hutt “The Strike Threat System” for how the whole system is based on government interventions such as the Acts of 1875 and 1906), and now high energy costs.

    With governments destroy domestic industries on purpose I do not know, I can not see into their souls, but certainly their policies have this terrible effect.

    As for Association Football – I do not know about it, so I will leave this specific case to people who understand Association Football.

  • Paul Marks

    On the matter of “Independent Regulators” – they have done terrible harm in many areas of economic and cultural life.

    The idea of an “Independent Regulator” whose will has the force of law, rather than fixed (and known) rules of just conduct, is an abomination.

  • Subotai Bahadur

    I admit to not being a fan of British football, which we call soccer. But then again, I am not a fan of American football either, especially since it became Leftist politically correct as a first priority. And I have given up my sole interest in college football, the military service academies, because our military is now as politically correct as the professional teams.

    However, from my limited knowledge of British football I am under the impression that the level of . . . involvement and fanaticism . . . is far beyond ours. And I suspect that if your government tries to run football with the same level of skill as they do the National Health Service; that I may be watching something equivalent to the Wars of the Roses from across the Atlantic.

    Subotai Bahadur

  • Phil B

    @Subotai Bahadur – in the UK, Football is a potent blend of tribalism, religion and Mogadon for the masses. Don’t try to understand it, just accept it for what it is.

  • X Trapnel

    I’ve spent a lot of my adult life – even more recently, as the temples grey, and the kids grow – watching live top-level football. A poor humour, sir, but mine own.

    As the authors of the IEA piece state in their article’s bullet-points, professional football is unique in industry terms in retaining the majority of the existing players in the field from 100 years ago. This might suggest in ordinary terms a strong whiff of artificial sustenance from outside of market forces. How else could Blackpool FC, or Stoke City, or Huddersfield Town, have survived commercially far beyond their periods of commercial dominance – how else could have they shrunk, yet somehow not have sunk?

    That sustenance is not from market forces alone. The reasons I follow my team, and not another, are not irrational, but rather non-rational reasons. Followers of professional football are both consumers of commercial products and – somehow, strangely – not. Market forces apply, but not exclusively. The 21 year-old who follows Sheffield Wednesday up and down the land wishes the Owls win every game, and knows they probably won’t. He’s not irrational in his commercial choices – he is non-rational, and as wise as the Owl itself.

    Regulation seeks to control chaos, to rationalise the non-rational. It will fail.

  • X Trapnel

    I’ve spent a lot of my adult life – even more recently, as the temples grey, and the kids grow – watching live top-level football. A poor humour, sir, but mine own.

    As the authors of the IEA piece state in their article’s bullet-points, professional football is unique in industry terms in retaining the majority of the existing players in the field from 100 years ago. This might suggest in ordinary terms a strong whiff of artificial sustenance from outside of market forces. How else could Blackpool FC, or Stoke City, or Huddersfield Town, have survived commercially far beyond their periods of commercial dominance – how else could have they shrunk, yet somehow not have sunk?

    That sustenance comes not from market forces alone. The reasons I follow my team, and not another, are not irrational, but rather non-rational reasons. Followers of professional football are both consumers of commercial products and – somehow, strangely – not. Market forces apply, but not exclusively. The 21 year-old who follows Sheffield Wednesday up and down the land wishes the Owls win every game, and knows they probably won’t. He’s not irrational in his commercial choices – he is non-rational, and as such as wise as the Owl itself.

    Regulation seeks to control chaos, to rationalise the non-rational. It will fail.

  • bobby b

    Over here in the US, we don’t have your football. We have urban gangs instead.

  • As a long-time Bayern Munich fan (my German relatives were astonished when they came over for my sister’s wedding in 1988 that I knew who Franz Beckenbauer was), I can’t wait for the financial bubble to pop and make a bunch of the EPL teams wind up like Leeds of the early 2000s. The rise of the big-spending foreign owner has meant that whichever US outlet gets football rights only cares about the English clubs when covering the CL and treats everybody else as though they don’t exist.

  • Peter MacFarlane

    “Over here in the US, we don’t have your football. We have urban gangs instead.”

    It’s a reasonable comparison – especially if you live in Glasgow.

    “Football is a potent blend of tribalism, religion and Mogadon for the masses.”

    This too.

    For a more reasonable approach to sport, have a look at tomorrow’s Calcutta Cup rugby game between England and Scotland – an ancient rivalry perceived (in Scotland, at least) as by far the most important clash of the tournament. It will be passionately supported on both sides, but somehow we manage to do so without descending to violence, or even the threat of it.

  • X Trapnel

    I’ve spent a lot of my adult life, and recently most of my spare cash, watching football, and following one team in particular. A poor humour, sir, but mine own.

    As the authors of the IEA piece state in their article’s bullet-points, professional football – especially in the UK where it largely began – is unique in industry terms in retaining the majority of its existing businesses from 100 years ago. Relatively few fold. Some even return from apparent oblivion, borne aloft by supporters who refuse to transfer allegiance elsewhere when the business fails. This might suggest in ordinary terms a strong whiff of artificial subsidy from outside of market forces. How else could Sunderland (league champions 6 times, but most recently in 1935-36), or Sheffield Wednesday (4, 1929-30), or Huddersfield Town (3, in successive seasons in the mid-1920s), have survived commercially far beyond their periods of commercial dominance – how else could have they shrunk, yet somehow not have sunk?

    That subsidy comes – as I’ve suggested above about phoenix clubs – from something richer and stranger, and much nearer religious faith than market forces, and is both necessary and sufficient for the clubs’ continuing existence. The reasons I follow my team, and not another, are not irrational, but rather non-rational ones.

    Regulation would sign the permanent death-warrant of clubs whose business side has failed. Regulation seeks to control chaos, to rationalise the non-rational. It will do more harm than good. That the egregious Gary Neville advocates it should be sufficient to kill the idea stone-dead, but the rational side of my brain detects the throb of tribalism behind that response. The article says it better.

  • TomJ

    @X Trapnel: Loyalty, whether rational or not, is not something outwith market forces; it is a market force. The tradition, the feeling of belonging, of spiritual ownership; these things have value, attract ticket sales and, indirectly sponsors. Not for nothing is “goodwill” a standard entry on asset sheets.

  • Paul Marks

    The ignorance of the international establishment is astounding.

    For example, in the latest edition of the Economist magazine they are trying to pose as free market, anti regulation types – but the example they pick is it taking ten years (because of regulations) to link a “Green” project in Wyoming to California.

    Leaving aside the absurdity of such “Green” projects (Wyoming has oil, coal and uranium – yes it has also has lots of wind, but there are better ways of getting power) – Wyoming is hundreds of miles of California, send electricity down wires from Wyoming to California and you will lose much of the power before it ever reaches California, making the “Green” idea even more absurd than it was to start with. California has plenty of space, and plenty of resources – it should have its own power stations, and if they do not want electricity in California, well that is their choice. “But Paul, California is already importing lots of power and the Federal government will….” – yes, I know, and it is all insane.

    I “get it” that the international establishment do not understand science (they believe in “The Science” which has nothing to do with real science) and engineering – but can they not, at least, read a map? Wyoming is hundreds of miles from California.

    They seem to know as much about geography as I do about Association Football.

    I am told they do not even mine lithium, or “rare Earths”, in the United States any more – even though it has plenty of both. This “Green Revolution” idea was stupid to start with (no, Economist magazine cretins, it will not “save the planet” – and C02 is a good thing, if CO2 levels had not risen many people would be STARVING as crop yields would be much lower) – but they seem to be sabotaging their own idea, if they are planning to import all the lithium (for the batteries) they are even more crazy than I thought they were.

    As for the British establishment with their “Independent Regulator for Association Football” – they most likely think that Californian energy policies are sensible.

    They already have Californian style taxes.

    Why not Californian style energy (sky high prices and blackouts) and transport (“high speed rail” and a ban on petrol powered cars from X date) policy?

    And why not the full Frankfurt School of Marxism (not Classical Marxism – Karl Marx and Fred Engels would not have gone along with the madness) of “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” of California as well?

    Why have any limits on government intervention at all?

    Tell everyone playing Association Football that they must have their legs sworn off, because the “Independent Regulator” says so, why not?

    And all funded by money created from nothing (nothing but lights on computer screens – no Real Savings, no money that is anything that people would voluntarily choose to value) and dished out to the politically connected by institutionally corrupt banks and other institutionally corrupt financial entities.