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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The USA will possibly face the most punitive trade sanctions in the history of the World Trade Organisation if the European Union is granted the right to act on a WTO ruling that US tax breaks for exporters are a violation of global trade rules.
This is entirely a self inflicted wound for the USA. Unlike the vast majority of the rest of the world, the USA claims tax from companies based on their global activities. Quite apart from the fact this is manifestly iniquitous, it is also pretty damn stupid economically. Although EU nations do not attempt to tax globally, the European states tend to subsidise their favoured companies in various ways (which is also stupid from a macro-economic perspective). This in turn has lead the US to deduce for the last 31 years that certain businesses operating in competition with subsidised EU companies should be given tax breaks to help them compete more evenly. There is just one problem with that: making special cases in that manner violates WTO treaty rules.
The solution for the US is of course simplicity itself: just abolish all US taxation at the water’s edge like the rest of the world does… no special cases therefore exist. Result? American businesses overseas flourish without the absurd and wildly expensive accounting gymnastics needed to avoid actually paying very much tax to the American IRS on corporate operations in Mongolia (or wherever).
The fact is, of the medium and small businesses I know of run by Americans overseas, the reality is that they successfully shelter the vast majority of their operations from the US tax man. So why not just recognize that there is no justification for this very hard to enforce ‘taking’ by the IRS… what reasonable pecuniary interest does the US state have on economic activity beyond its shores? Scrap this extraterritorial intrusion and not only is justice served, the WTO problem simply disappears with a loud ‘poof’!
Reader Martha Lane e-mailed me to ask what was a typical libertarian position on ‘hate speech’ in a free society. I referred her to In Defense of Hate Propaganda (Sort of) by Pierre Lemieux (pdf format: requires Acrobat reader or similar).
I often recommend stuff found in the Libertarian Alliance archive of publications. It has over 650 mostly short and to the point pamphlets from a wide range of genuine libertarian view points. The Libertarian Alliance does not have a manifesto or a single ‘party line’, choosing instead to showcase the full range of libertarian views, from anarcho-capitalists to minarchists to Old Whigs to libertarian-conservatives… and everything in between.
Pierre Lemieux’s two page article that I recommended above is typical of most of the LA’s on-line publications, which is to say brief, easy to digest and free.
Suman Palit over on The Kolkata Libertarian has been prognosticating with considerable plausibility on various nightmare scenarios for the Indian sub-continent. His view on where some of those scenarios could lead are:
In 2050 A.D., Sudan and Botswana surpass the Indian GDP, organize pop-rock concert to deliver food aid to Calcutta.
Not vastly optimistic then, Suman?
Brian Linse ponders the nature of monopoly and capitalism on his blog AintNoBadDude. Rather than answer him directly, I will give him my modern Austrian school economics influenced perspective on the nature of markets and monopoly.
The nature of modern capitalism is significantly different to that of, say, capitalism in the 19th century. The vastly enhanced flow of information and the global nature of enormous pools of fungible capital means that market mechanisms that worked sporadically in years past now work more smoothly and with tidal inevitability when allowed to. The larger the pool of possible market entrants and participants, the more liquid and inexorable the markets become.
Thus paradoxically, there is only one method by which monopoly and oligopoly can really occur for extended periods in a ‘harmful’ form, and that is in market niches protected from globalization. That is why Microsoft is so obviously only a transient ‘problem’ rather than a market ‘failure’ as its market position is not the result of adapting to regulation and protection. As big as Microsoft is, it is dwarfed by the pool of global capital looking for alternative uses. There is a good reason that in spite of its huge market share that MS products are really not that expensive. New entrants are impossible to keep out: if MS were to create ‘excessive’ profit margins, they would be quickly faced with hordes of new competitors as the software market does not require huge start up costs to enter. Thus the MS ‘monopoly’ is of little concern in reality. Apple products are actually more expensive and yet no one is accusing them of abusing a monopolist position. The reasons for that are not so hard to understand. In essence, the only way MS can remain a near monopoly is by not acting like a monopolist. Multi-billionaire Nelson Bunker Hunt thought he was ‘bigger than the market’ and it ate him alive because he was trying to mess with a truly global commodity market. Bill Gates is under no such illusions.
It is ironic that left wingers and protectionist paleo-conservatives who fret about ‘monopolists’ are the same people who create the conditions for them to flourish by hampering the progress of continuing to globalize ownership, and by raising the cost of market entry with vast teetering towers of regulations designed to prevent precisely what they are in fact enabling. Capitalist ‘conspiracies’ that the left are so fond of fretting about inevitably come to nothing if the pool of capital and potential entrants is larger than the ‘clique of conspirators’ can in reality control, which in the case of truly global markets is the norm rather than the exception.
Given that ‘Samizdata Illuminatus’ has been posting Churchill quotes lately, it is only matter of time before someone else thinks up this Churchillian reference:
The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, bloggery and the lash.
Sorry.
I was watching the news on the television this afternoon when Bono, the Irish singer for U2 came on to opine on issues of third world debt, AIDS and trade, with reference to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Blantyre, Malawi.
For one brief shining moment I thought that a universal law of thermodynamics (that when entertainers talk about anything other than the entertainment business, their voices can be heard to emanate from their posteriors) was about to be spectacularly falsified. He remarked that it was appalling that Africans are denied access to US and EU markets due to disgraceful protectionist measures and how this was crippling the entire continents’ ability to develop economically… well, that certainly made me sit up: a singer who actually understands real world economics and genuine liberty? Surely not!
Alas cruel reality quickly reasserted itself. He then went on to rail against how banks were putting ‘profits before people’ because of the crippling levels of debt in Africa. Naturally he did not mention that this debt was not forced on Africa’s governments at gunpoint but was freely entered into by the purported leaders of various African nations. Somehow the actions of African borrowers of money result in Western banks ‘putting profits before people’. Interesting. I wonder if Bono also takes a neo-colonialist view that as African leaders are presumably not competent to make sound economic decisions, they should not be allowed to borrow money in the first place? Just curious.
And then, Bono deliverers the rhetorical coup de grace designed to impress upon the Western viewers how urgent the situation is:
After September 11, people cannot just ignore Africa any more. This is a problem that must be dealt with now by America and the West
Now please, will someone out there correct me if I am mistaken, but I was not aware that anyone from Zambia or Congo or Nigeria or Burundi or Mozambique or Senegal or Zimbabwe or Angola or Ghana had hijacked some American airliners and crashed them in to the Pentagon and World Trade Centre towers. What the hell does September 11th have to do with African poverty?
Perhaps someone should point out to Bono that the way the US responded to September 11th was not to shower Afghanistan with largess but with an earth shaking hail of 2000 lbs laser guided bombs and the forceful destruction of the Taliban government.
Then again…
…given that most of Africa’s economic problems are clearly derived from government malfeasance, perhaps my fleeting first impression of Bono as an astute observer was correct after all and that is indeed what he wants for Africa’s ghastly kleptocratic regimes: obliterate most of Africa’s governments, remove all Western trade barriers to African goods and services, declare victory and then go home to leave the formerly oppressed African man-in-the-street to get on with their lives unhindered by the likes of Robert Mugabe or Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
Cool, that works for me.
It seems curious to me that many of the people who were pouring scorn on the US insistence that it was fighting a ‘war’ against Al Qaeda, rather than just treating September 11th as a criminal matter, are the same people now howling about treatment of captive Al Qaeda fighters. So let me get this straight: this is not a war but these pundits want the captives to be treated according to the Geneva Convention?
Interesting. Next time I get pulled over for speeding, I will refuse to pay the ticket on the grounds I was not treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention. That should work.
Also I saw one talking head after another on the television tonight, usually ‘Professors of Middle Eastern Studies’ that I have never heard of before, declaiming that “this treatment of Al Qaeda prisoners is going to ‘inflame the Arab street’ like never before!”. Ah, the good old ‘Arab Street’ again. Earth calling all ‘Professors of Middle Eastern Studies’: no one in the Western world who actually matters gives a damn about the mythical ‘Arab street’. Perhaps these ‘Professors’ need to take a sabbatical and do some ‘American Studies’ before they get in front of a camera and have the opposite effect on US opinion they were probably hoping for.
When the average westerner (i.e. not Robert Fisk) hears these people’s warnings followed by a clip of a street full of chanting Arab and burning American flags, what is going through their heads is not “Oh… we’d better get Alan Dershowitz out to Guantanamo Bay pronto to represent those poor Al Qaeda guys.” No, they are thinking “Gee, I wonder how many of those fuckers in that ‘Arab street’ I’m looking at on the TV a single cluster bomb would take out if dropped right about…now.”
There is a very interesting little article in the Moscow Times by Robert Ware contrasting US success in Afghanistan with Russian military failure in Chechnya.
After the attacks, the United States acted with careful deliberation. Initial efforts were dedicated to diplomatic finesse that addressed the fears of foreign leaders and consolidated international support. The following weeks saw similar public relations efforts within Afghanistan. Millions of leaflets were dropped assuring Afghans of U.S. protection and offering them a clear choice if they abandoned their militant leaders. When the U.S. attack finally came, it was targeted to avoid civilian casualties and was accompanied by food drops.
Moscow did none of this. The failure of Russian policies in Chechnya began before its troops re-entered the republic when it failed to explain the reasons for its military campaign to the international community and the people of Chechnya.
Ware points out that the contrast is not just one of military success but also of the hugely different political approaches taken. He also correctly highlights the points of difference that make the analogies dangerous in some ways. Nevertheless, there is much to be learned from the vastly different outcomes of these two struggles against extremist Islamic fundamentalism. Fascinating stuff.
Lets hope that the importance of the political and social issues to the results so far in Afghanistan are not forgotten if the US decides to get involved in Somalia, as many pundits are predicting. In Somalia the clan based society is not alienated from its leaders and Al Qaeda, if they are even present, are not being supported by a central government (there is no real central government in Somalia) and thus picking a fight with the regional clans serves no purpose other than guaranteeing a fight likely to look more like Northern Ireland than Afghanistan.
In a nauseating opinion piece by authoritarian paleo-socialist Dea Birkett, writing in The Guardian (naturally), the state is urged to use force to abolish private education altogether in Britain. Birkett wants people to be deprived of even having the possibility of privately educating their children. We are told society must have a common purpose and once private education is made illegal, presumably socialist education police will start locking up people who dare to set up underground schools or educate at home. Birkett urges nothing less than universal forced backed nationally planned state education for all, regardless of what a family actually wants, in order to further national socialist goals.
But such a tiny minority holding on to such an outdated view on the right to exclusivity would increasingly appear absurd, as redundant as the royal family. Once private schools were reduced to such insignificant numbers, they could be easily, quietly closed down. The benefits would be enormous.
[…]
Education would become something we all shared, equal stakeholders in its quality and worth. Education could be effectively and efficiently planned on a national basis, in the knowledge that every child would go to a local school.
[…]
It’s no longer any good just offering carrots. It’s time to reach for the stick.
Will someone please remind me which side won the Cold War? Natalie Solent has described the equality and sense of common purpose Birkett demands as the equality and common purpose of galley slaves. If that ever comes to pass, Birkett and her ilk need to be shown that they are not the only ones who can reach for the stick.
“Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing on others, he has a right to do for himself… all men have equal rights; but not to equal things.”
Edmund Burke was born 273 years ago today.
A Reuters article has claimed that eating over 400 Euro notes could prove toxic due to the ink… but what I want to know is how do they know that? I will not believe them until someone holds down Romano Prodi and forces 400 Euro notes down his throat (ideally using European Commissioner Chris Patten‘s head as a ramrod).
If Prodi croaks, I will freely admit that perhaps I should not always be such a sceptic.
It is simple really… less, not more, public sending helps the economy. What is so hard to grasp about that? When the government taxes, it allocates resources in a way that would not have otherwise have occurred (and if it would have occurred like that, then why is that aspect of what government does being done by government at all?). If the government had not taken those resources and allocated them, the capital would not have just sat under a mattress… it would have gone elsewhere: that is what capital does.
So when the government proudly points to some wonderful things it has built and the alleged economic benefits they will bring, what you do not see is what that self same capital would have done if the state had not appropriated it from its previous owners… what they would have done, what they would have built.
So when Gerard Baker at the Financial Times says Bush may have harmed the US economy with his tax cuts, rather than saying he may have harmed the economy by not reducing spending, he is in effect saying that it is only deficits, rather than government spending itself, that hurts economies. By saying High-Tax-Tom Daschle has better economic policies, that must mean that government spending is actually better for an economy than private spending. How does that work? That must be why the many nations whose governments appropriate more of their national resources for spending are wealthier than the United States, you know, nations like…er…um…ah…
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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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