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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An article in the Sunday Times today suggests that Tony Blair is exasperated that his wish to see a major deployment of ground troops to Afghanistan is being ignored by George Bush.
Meanwhile, Blair has had no support from America in his efforts to increase the coalition forces on the ground. He is said by military sources to have become “utterly frustrated” that the US “cannot see that it can achieve its tactical goals more quickly is the military, humanitarian and diplomatic strands of this operation run in tandem”. Washington is “myopically focused on Bin Laden and the Taliban”, the sources said.
Sorry Tony, but whilst you and your new best friend George make a fine couple at photo opportunities, there is no disguising that there are two fundamentally different world views at work here.
Tony Blair is the leader of a reformed socialist party who regards it as axiomatic that the role of the state is being ‘my brother’s keeper’. By extension Blair wants to take up ‘The White Man’s burden’ in Afghanistan. He wants stout and resolute British soldiers to prevent those messy Afghans from sliding into barbarism in the post-Taliban order. He presides over a nation which has a realistic view of the realities of war and has fought its last few rather well. As a result, the general British public has quite a high tolerance of combat casualties.
George Bush is the leader of a corporatist capitalist party with a significant anti-corporatist and anti-interventionist wing. He has support for a war of retaliation and the destruction of Al Qaeda and anyone who stands between the USA and Al Qaeda. Bush presides over a nation which has a rather squeamish view of war, at least with regard to American casualties, and very little interest in open ended military commitments. Whilst images of women in Kabul walking unmolested without burqas causes Americans entirely justified satisfaction, few seriously think that is why their airforces and special ops teams are killing people in their names.
Blair is not just wrong, he is dangerously wrong. An absolute prerequisite for coherent military operations is having clear and unambiguous goals. The Americans have set themselves exactly that: the destruction of Al Qaeda and any who give them succour. What Tony Blair is doing is applying his fuzzy socialist logic to a very simple strategic question and attempting to turn clarity into ambiguity. This is not a peacekeeping operation, it is not a nation building operation, it is not a humanitarian operation, it is a war against Taliban/Al Qaeda in reprisal for the mass murder of civilians in America: to think anything else is just a dangerous distraction. As I have been saying, we simply have no business trying to civilize Afghanistan at bayonet point, not only it is wrong, it simply will not work. Fortunately it seems that Bush and his advisors are able to see that too.
News can be a remote, impersonal thing. We see stories about outrages in some far off land and we are duly outraged… and then we move on to the the next thing. Although I live in London at the moment, I used to work in the World Trade Centre and I was there briefly last June, so I must say I took the events of 11 September rather hard, but for others who actually witnessed it, the experience must have been altogether more appalling. My ex-girlfriend lives in New Jersey and watched the entire horror unfold from her bedroom window. But even so, eventually life moves on. Jay Zilber on Mind over what matters writes a thoughtful little personal reflection on this subject along with a dramatic photograph that does indeed put it all into perspective.
It seems the reporters in Afghanistan have decided to start a little war of their own. As in all wars, a very high proportion of the correspondents are British and they seem to be itching to take digs at each other. Has someone been denying these guys their early morning cup of tea or something?
John Simpson has naturally attracted more than his fair share of flak after claiming he and the BBC liberated Kabul ahead of the Northern Alliance. Of course Lara Logan from GMTV had actually been in Kabul for some time before Simpson’s portly frame rumbled into town.
And speaking of the truly delectable Lara Logan, ITN’s sour puss Julian Manyon accused her of “exploiting her God-given advantages with a skill that Mata Hari might envy” to get interviews with General Babajan.
But note he does not criticize her reporting, which has been just as sound and professional as Julian Manyon. Time for a reality check: if you were General Babajan, who would you rather chat with, Lara Logan or Julian Manyon? Sorry Julian, no contest.
Somehow I suspect that if it had been Lara skinny dipping in the Salang Gorge rather than Manyon, the locals would have taken a considerably less hostile stance.
And of course, the Guardian cannot resist a little sniping either:
Speaking of Kabul. Has Lara Logan, the GMTV correspondent stationed outside Kabul had her Clarins drop yet? Don’t know about the US airforce plans, but the French cosmetics company is on the case already.
Journalists are a bitchy lot.
I saw this on Natalie’s blog and it was just too good not to share:
Now I know what “safe mode” is for. An illegitimate code-baby popped out just then, but the tachyonic prophylaxis of blogger software lets me pop it in again. Do not try this in the real world
Congratulations to Steve Bennett on the unmanned test flight over Britain of his 38 foot (11 metre) Starchaser rocket. The launch took place at Morecambe Bay in Cumbria.
Bennett described the launch as being “85% successful” due to the fact that two of the three parachutes became entangled, causing the expended reusable rocket main body to return to the mud flats of Morecambe Bay rather faster than hoped for. The unmanned passenger capsule detached and landed perfectly however. Despite having many detractors, Bennett intends to be the first passenger once the rocket is ready for its maiden manned flight.
This is yet another indication that privately built and funded manned spaceflight is drawing ever closer. I wish Bennett and all the other pioneers of non-governmental spaceflight the very best of luck… for they are the very best of us. Per Ardua ad Astra
There is a splendid little article about Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) by Gary M. Galles which give a good overview of what the man was all about.
I have always though modern anti-statists would do well to emulate Bastiat, because as well as being extremely coherent, he was a very witty satirist (for example his Petition of the Candlemakers for state protection against the unfair competition of the sun). Nobel Laureate F.A. Hayek called him a “publicist of genius.”
Walk for Capitalism: IMPORTANT REMINDER
A reminder to all fellow ‘capitalist running dogs’ that the Walk for Capitalism will be happening in over 100 cities worldwide on Sunday 2nd December 2001.
Annoy a luddite and be there! You know it makes sense.
There will be a Walk for Capitalism in the following countries:
Albania
Argentina
Australia
Bangladesh
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
China
Costa Rica
Czech Republic
Denmark
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
India
Italy
Korea
Lithuania
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nigeria
Norway
Poland
Romania
Russia
Slovakia
Spain
Sweden
UK
USA
Venezuela
Yugoslavia
Here is a selection of cities in which a Walk for Capitalism has been organised in Australia, UK and USA but for details of the walk in your town and a full international listing , visit the Walk for Capitalism website
Australia
Adelaide
Brisbane
Canberra
Melbourne
Perth
Sydney
UK
Bath
London
Manchester
Southampton
USA
Amherst
Annapolis
Atlanta
Austin
Binghamton
Boston
Burlington
Carson City
Chicago
Cocoa
Columbia
Dayton
Denver
Detroit
El Paso
Honolulu
Houston
Indianapolis
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
Louisville
Miami
Montgomery
New York
Olympia
Orlando
Portland-Or
Sacramento
Saint Louis
Salt Lake City
San Francisco
Saratoga Springs
Seattle
Silicon Valley
Spokane
Syracuse
Tucson
Washington
Westminster-Md
(http://www.walkforcapitalism.org)
With thanks to Transterrestrial Musings for pointing out this top notch P. J. O’Rourke article in The Atlantic in which he ‘puts the boot in’ to all the usual suspects with his trademark clarity and viciousness. Excellent.
All libertarians need to remember that capitalism eventually leads to liberty but Capitalism is not a synonym for Libertarianism. Once a society introduces a degree of capitalism, it starts to produce more wealth and more knowledge than it previously did. As this society trades amongst itself, competition occurs and comparative advantages start to emerge between businesses. This produces an imperative for the owners of these businesses to change the way they function in order to minimise competitive disadvantages and exploit comparative advantages…and to do that they must be free to make decisions.
It is this that is the truly subversive thing about capitalism: in order to make it work, people with the knowledge of running the business (the ‘owners’) must be allowed to actually use that knowledge to directly implement changes in a dynamic manner and people must be allowed the choice to purchase what they produce. This of course means that the owners of the business/knowledge and the people who decide to acquire what they produce, are the ones who cause things to happen, rather than the force based state… but states like more wealth they can tax and so allow the wealth creators to create yet more wealth by their own efforts. The paradox is then that for the state to accumulate more resources and grow in size, it must allow power to pass from its hands. The economy gets larger and wealthier, the state gets larger and less relevant. If the state tries to rein in the capitalists, once the economy has become globalized, their ability to do so decays rapidly as capital itself is no longer captive.
Hence even a totalitarian state like China can introduce a tiny sliver of capitalism and, in the short term, the Communist power structure is seen to benefit from increased wealth and knowledge. Yet this early capitalism is a distorted creature, as much of the entrepreneurial talent being freed is still being largely diverted from wealth creation by the time required to navigate the endless maze of regulations and state imposed obstacles.
Similarly, many of the ‘new capitalists’ will be creating wealth not by filling dynamically derived market needs but by finessing obscure and often contradictory state regulations.
However the new capitalists will inevitably start exerting pressure for a relaxation of a regulation here, a redrafting of a law there, and thus the virus of liberty is spread. Capitalism is nothing less than the impersonal and unintentional carrier wave of liberty.
But it does show that capitalism can coexist with profoundly unfree states for a considerable amount of time… and in the meantime, capitalists in that state will try to profit from the state’s apparatus of repression as well as free themselves from its effects.
So every time you see the leering face of Larry Ellison on television pushing for the national ID cards that will make him millions of dollars, remember that just because a person is a capitalist, that does not automatically make him a friend to the broader liberty of society. Next time you see Larry Ellison or an Oracle product, just change the channel: he has plenty of competitors.
Wired magazine reports that the nuclear bomb documents found by Times journalists in an abandoned Al Qaeda house in Kabul might be spoof plans published by some gonzo pranksters several years ago.
This is indeed hilarious and it should now be clear to all that Al Qaeda are downloading everything on the Internet with the word ‘thermonuclear’ in it because they too are just misunderstood pranksters. We must stop bombing Afghanistan forthwith as it must now be clear that flying airliners into the WTC was just a good natured jape that got a little out of hand.
Similarly, the only reason they have been sending anthrax through the post is a simple linguistic misunderstanding: they were told to send Andrex (a brand of toilet tissue) but as English is not their first language, they got a little confused…hey, anyone can make a mistake!
Any day now, intelligence sources report we will soon hear that Osama will be calling on Bert from Sesame Street to replace slain Al Qaeda number two, Muhammed Atef, as Chief Deputy Prankster.
Christian Michel’s high quality libertarian site LIBERALIA has some new papers well worth reading:
Oneworldism: The Leviathan strikes back by Alberto Mingardi
Immigration: controversies, libertarian principles & modern abolition by Ken Schoolland
Down with the EU by Martin Stefunko
What should we do with the rich? The welfare state and the question of poverty by Christian Michel
The LIBERALIA website is one of those ‘must visit’ places on the Internet for libertarians. If you ever get the opportunity to hear Christian in person, he is an engaging speaker and a most congenial gentleman. Highly recommended.
All the papers on the LIBERALIA site are available in English and French.
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
– Rudyard Kipling (extract from ‘The Young British Soldier’)
For more Kipling verse, see everypoet.com.
The Americans have the right idea: get involved with the enemies of our enemies, and make it clear to them all we want to do is kill said mutual enemies, not mess in their internal affairs. Offer them money by all means but to even contemplate ‘peacekeeping’ or ‘stabilisation forces’ is utter madness.
The West, no, who are we kidding…the USA and to a lesser extent the UK, can play a constructive role by tying ongoing aid to more moderate behaviour by the future rulers in Kabul. But for goodness sake, realise that the victorious army we have backed hates Taliban/Al Qaeda because they allowed large numbers of armed foreigners into the country (Arabs, Pakistanis, Chechens etc.). It is absurd to suggest large numbers of British troops are going to be any more acceptable.
It is obvious that the anti-Taliban/anti-Al Qaeda forces are more than happy to work with small scale deployment of special forces, but to suggest 6,000 regular British soldiers will be seen the same way is a grave misjudgement. A brigade sized British force would be there for only one reason: to act as a counter balance to the various local armies. From the perspective of the ‘Northern Alliance’, what possible good could that serve other than to dilute their hard won gains?
Let’s keep our eyes on the ball people. We are in this ghastly hell hole called Afghanistan for one purpose and one purpose only: to destroy Al Qaeda and just incidentally to destroy the Taliban because they stand in the way of that objective. Sure, lets help them form a stable society that suits not just their interests but also our own by removing a breeding ground for terrorist vipers… but leave the armed aspect of politics and the ‘peacekeeping’ to the locals. We can give wise counsel but to suggest we could forcibly keep this armed-to-the-teeth society from fighting amongst themselves if they are determined to do so is ridiculous.
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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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