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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Don’t fry your food, don’t butter your bread
Don’t drink at work, don’t smoke in bed
Don’t try too hard, don’t fool around
Don’t hunt with guns, don’t hunt with hounds
Don’t be too fat, don’t be too lean
Don’t eat red meat, don’t eat fresh cream
Don’t drink and drive
Don’t smoke and drive
Don’t eat and drive
Don’t talk and drive
Don’t sneeze and drive
Don’t drive
Don’t mobile phone, don’t stare at screens
Don’t buy hot drinks, don’t wear tight jeans
Don’t play with knives, don’t make a fist
Don’t play with fire, don’t take a risk
Don’t have sex, don’t procreate
Don’t fantasise, don’t masturbate
Don’t stay up late, don’t exercise
Don’t innovate, don’t theorise
Don’t dare to dream, don’t raise your voice
Don’t make a fuss, don’t make a noise
Don’t climb mountains, don’t sail oceans
Don’t make sudden, jerking motions
Don’t play sports, don’t break sweat
Don’t play roulette, don’t make a bet
Don’t brave the storm, don’t ride the waves
Don’t get too cold and don’t sunbathe
Don’t ride a horse, don’t fly a plane
Don’t strain your heart, don’t use your brain
Don’t read a book, don’t get too tense
Don’t say a word, don’t cause offence
Don’t run, don’t jump, don’t stretch, don�t fly
And above all don’t do DIY
Don’t lust for life, don’t dance till dawn
Best of all, just don’t be born
“Two important phenomena, of the same nature but opposed, are emerging at this moment in Asiatic Turkey. They are the awakening of the Arab nation and the latent effort of the Jews to reconstitute on a very large scale the ancient kingdom of Israel. These movements are destined to fight each other continually until one of them wins”
From ‘Le Reveil de la Nation Arabe’ by Najib Azouri, written in 1905 
In an age when we all too often confuse celebrity with achievement, let us mourn the passing of a true achiever, Billy Wilder
From Sunset Boulevard to Double Indemnity to The Apartment to Some Like It Hot, everything he touched turned to gold. Thankyou for your gifts, Mr.Wilder
I found myself nodding in agreement whilst reading this snapshot analysis of the state of politics in Britain by Brian Micklethwait.
What he is really describing is the slow, but seemingly irreversible, public disengagement from politics and its traditional practices. The ever decreasing voter-turnout, not just in Britain but elsewhere, confirms it. People simply don’t want to talk about politics or politicians anymore (except to complain about both). The whole subject is boring; painfully boring. Switch channels, change subjects, let’s talk about Feng Shui instead. Or skiing. Or David Beckham. Or something. Anything. Politics is dull. Politicians are all the same anyway.They’re all useless. They’re all liars. Voting changes nothing.
Good. Disengagement from and disillusion with politicians is precisely what we want and not voting is a libertarian act. But it may not have libertarian consequences.
First of all, voter apathy is not being matched by bureaucratic or managerial apathy. In fact, if anything, the reverse is true. (I do not have any scientific evidence but there may be some correlation here). The less the public engages in political debate the more laws and regulations and policies get churned out. Take the EU (somebody, please). There is no voter engagement at all with the EU commission yet it is a sausage-factory of pointless pettyfogging decrees. It is almost as if, freed from the effort and inconvenience of actually having to argue the merits of their case(s), our political masters are free to do more or less as they please. Added to this is the damage than can be wrought by small but well-organised and energetic lobbyists (coporate and otherwise) who can pressure politicians to get their agenda imposed upon all. Meanwhile, the poor exhausted public simply rolls its eyes, tuts, grumbles and gets on with it, as if they expect this and just have to learn to live with it. There is apathy but widespread obediance and disillusion is a long way from rebellion.
Now some will say that this state of affairs cannot possibly last forever and they would be right. But it can last for an awfully long time and, currently, there is no end in sight.
Secondly, there most certainly is a huge, sucking ideological vacuum out there and nature dictates that it will be filled sooner or later. Certainly liberty is the oxygen that may well fill it but it is just as possible that it may be filled by a re-emergence of communism or (more likely in my view) tribal nationalism. Reason does not always triumph over stupidity and, let’s face it, collectivist philosophies have always had a far more visceral appeal to disenchanted and angry mobs.
Libertarians tend to assume that because we are right we will prevail. Dangerous, very dangerous.
Yes, I think that’s what they call it: being ‘ahead of the curve’. In this case, the ‘curve’ that I am ahead of is The Times in an article warning of the dangers of the Proceeds of Crime Bill, the UK government’s grand apparatus in the already-discredited war against ‘money-laundering’.
The writer adopts a more conservative (some might say measured) tone than I did. The piece reeks of unctious solicitude much in the manner of a senior Civil Servant advising a Minister that his decision is ‘courageous’ but it does taper to a fine point:
“The legislation needs to be framed in such a way that it does not deter honest businesses from consulting their professional advisers on grey areas, where they may need clarification of their position in order to be able to rectify it. Otherwise the very professional confidentiality that has created a healthy climate of compliance in the UK will be undermined. This is likely to lead to more criminality, not less.”
Precisely the point I made (among others) nearly a year ago(1).
Still, my natural desire to gloat must be tempered by my satisfaction that some serious people in serious places are starting to get the message and, more importantly, are broadcasting it.
(1)= (link requires Adobe Acrobat Reader which can be downloaded for free)
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Academy of Drivelling Idiots is proud to announce its award for Best Writer in a Terrorist-Supporting Role. And the nominations are:
Ted Rall for How We Lost Afghanistan
“The principal goal of this adventure in imperialistic vengeance, it seems obvious, should be to install a friendly government in Kabul. But we’re winning neither hearts nor minds among either the commoners or the leadership of the current regime apparent”
Robert Fisk for The Awesome Cruelty of a Doomed People
“And then how easy was our failure to recognize the new weapon of the Middle East which neither Americans or any other Westerners could equal: the despair-driven, desperate suicide bomber.”
John Pilger for Inevitable Ring To the Unimaginable
“Far from being the terrorists of the world, the Islamic peoples have been its victims – principally the victims of US fundamentalism, whose power, in all its forms, military, strategic and economic, is the greatest source of terrorism on earth”
Susan Sontag for The Disconnect
“The unanimity of the sanctimonious, reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by American officials and media commentators in recent days seems, well, unworthy of a mature democracy.”
And the winner is…..(rustle, rustle, rustle)…..ROBERT FISK
(Whoops, cheers, wild applause)
FISK: Thank you. Thank you. I am not worthy of this award. I am not worthy of being so honoured. For I, too, am guilty. I, too, am an opressor (wipes way tear). Save your awards and your honours for all the hapless victims of global capitalism and American imperialism. They are the real heroes and I accept this award on their behalf. I thank you
(More whoops, cheers, wild applause, standing ovation)
Anyone opened a bank account of late? Transferred an account? Dealt in cash? Sent money abroad? Have you been sent half-insane by the form-filling and ID checking it involved?
If so, then please point an accusatory finger at people like Jonathan M. Winer a former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State International Law Enforcement who has written a rather plaintiff article in the Financial Times exhorting the entire world to join him in his campaign against what he calls ‘dirty money’.
The anti-money laundering regime, in which doubtless Mr. Winer was instrumental, sought to scupper international terrorists and drug-dealers by imposing a regulatory regime on all financial institutions requiring them to act as investigators and policemen on the state’s behalf. I have witnessed the absurd results of this first-hand as lowly pensioners from Essex are told to hand over their passport when signing a loan agreement just in case they are really Osama Bin Laden in deep cover.
Added to the humiliation of treating people like criminals, the cost-burden on financial institutions are awesome and let us not forget the many small countries which have been bullied into surrendering their banking secrecy and legal safeguards of anonymity which are the only comparative advantages they possess.
After all that, it is more than a little galling to hear Mr. Winer say:
“Long before September 11, many other victims of wrongdoing have found that global evil-doers are better at taking advantage of the financial infrastructure of globalisation than the world’s police and regulators are at catching them”
Is it just me, or does that sound suspiciously like an admission of failure? I cannot say that I am surprised. I (along with many others) predicted long ago that these regulations would do nothing to stop or even slow down determined terrorists or drug-runners. People who are ruthless enough to fly aeroplanes into buildings are hardly going to be phased by having to practice some sleight-of-hand with a bank teller or two.
Mr. Winer goes on to remind us of just how evil money-laundering can be but, rather hilariously, cites economic woes in countries such as Argentina, Mexico and Albania as proof, while forgetting to mention that these countries were hardly paragons of financial virtue to begin with. But, this aside, there is some refreshing frankness in the article. Mr. Winer admits:
“In practice, even the most sophisticated and best-regulated financial centres have proved incapable of adequately overseeing the global enterprises they license”
You’d think that Mr. Winer might have considered this beforehand because it is screamingly obvious. Asking bankers to become policemen is not only a good way to ensure that policemen get lazy but it is also an attempt to get banks engaged in an activity that is diametrically in conflict with their primary function, like asking a cat to bark.
Mr. Winer goes on to suggest a better method for bringing these terrible terrorists and drug-runners to their knees:
“But imagine instead a white list, to make compliance a profit centre, rather than a burden on a bank. A white list – and a reward for being on it.”
This ‘white list’ is something which banks all over the world could apply to join once they have satisfied all the states criteria of compliance to the very highest degree. Then they could proudly advertise themselves as ‘the best of the best’ and all their competitiors would rush to join for the kudos it would give them. Mr.Winer expects this to be a ‘race to the top’.
This is an idea born of hope rather than judgement and is likely to be as successful as his last good idea i.e. a total dud. Complying with the standards required to get on this ‘white list’ would cripple any bank with unendurable profit-eating costs and any that were stupid enough to try would slide dolefully into liquidation while their competitors died laughing.
I am quite pleased that the likes of Mr. Winer are pinning their hopes on this because it is further confirmation that they have lost. That’s what the whole article smacks of really; an almost pathetic, desperate attempt to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. This may be futile but it is, from Mr. Winer’s point of view, understandable because the ‘anti-money laundering regime’ is not really about drugs or terrorists at all, it is a sordid attempt at self-preservation. The global movement of capital represents a grievous threat to national tax bases, particularly those that demand up to one-half of their citizens earnings. But that little game is up if the citizens in question can move their money beyond their local tax inspectors reach.
All this chaffe about drugs and terrorists is really a vehicle by which the public sector can try to defend itself against the vigour (or what they see as ‘virulence’) of the free market and, in doing so, they are quite happy, indeed almost compelled, into press-ganging every bank clerk and accountant into their fight. But no laws that Mr. Winer can pen will upend the immutable laws of physics and, sooner or later, the international money-laundering regime will be buried in the Graveyard of Grand Schemes.
Mr. Winer’s article is not so much a helpful analysis or even a plea for help so much as notice of his intention to go down fighting.
Italy is becoming interesting
Or, should I say, more interesting because Italy has always struck me as an intriguing place: exotic, sexy, creative, appealing and yet byzantine, noisy and chaotic.
Italy is notorious for its instability. It has had some ridiculously high number of governments since World War II all of which are coalitions of social democrats, christian democrats, communists, fascists and probably a few mafiosi. All of them collapse after a couple of years or so in an orgy of self-destructive conflict and raucous bickering. Corruption is famously rife and state regulation is so labrythine and ridiculous that something like 50% of the population earn their living in the ‘black economy’.
Despite this (or, more likely, because of it) Italy remains a prosperous country but it is clear that Silvio Berlusconi recognises that it will not remain one unless it liberalises its fossilised labour laws which, at present, guarantee a job for life.
“The protesters fear that workers’ rights will not be as well protected if the new laws come to fruition.”
The massive protest in Rome has been billed as a protest against terrorism following the assassination of government adviser Marco Biagi but let nobody be fooled. This was planned long before as a message to Berlusconi that the left are aiming to thwart him. The left and the public sector in Italy (as in the rest of Europe) is well-organised, stridently militant and relies on a hair-trigger willingness to adopt street confrontation as a tactic to defeat reformist politicians who, thus far, have lacked the cojones to face them down.
Berlusconi is talking tough:
“Nobody is going to stop us going ahead with our reforms,” he said. ” Terrorists and street protesters won’t stop us.”
Can he succeed where so many others have previously failed? If so, he will be leading Italy down the road of ‘Thatcherite’ revolution.
It is a widely accepted axiom that our memory plays tricks on us. I beg to differ; it does not play tricks, it is just pitifully unreliable.
Technology is always a good indicator as to the truth of this. Many of us are rather wary of ‘new fangled things’ when they first appear on the market. But enough of us adopt them to make them viable. Then more of us adopt them and, before long, they are universal.
I bought my first mobile phone (cellphone) back in 1994 and have had one ever since. I was in the minority then. Now I am just a part of the crowd. More than that I can barely remember how I managed to cope without my mobile phone. How on earth did I ever get along without the convenience it provides? But I know that must have done.
A similar phenomenon applies to state regulatory regimes. Governments enact them to initial responses of suspicion and confusion but, applied vigourously, in a few short years they become a part of the social fabric and nobody can imagine living without them nor how we all coped beforehand.
A perfect example of this is Britain’s planning and building control regime which requires all new building (and even alteration of existing buildings) to be approved by a committee of local bureaucrats who, in turn, are answerable to central government.
Now, it will come as a surprise to nobody to learn that I think the whole mountain of legislation in this area should be scrapped; placed on a bonfire and burned to ashes while we all dance wildly around till dawn. I have good reason for wishing it so and I am not reluctant to broadcast this view.
Yet, whenever I do, I am greeted with almost uniform blank incomprehension.
Don’t be ridiculous. How could we live in a civilised society without planning laws? How would buildings be planned? Who would control land use and building quality?
My answer is, of course, nobody. The first planning laws were not enacted until 1949 amidst the post-war euphoria for sovietisation and when bureaucratic planning of every aspect of modern life was considered by all to be the wave of the future. Yet the vast majority of Britain’s towns and cities grew and prospered without the benefit of such mandates.
But how would I stop my next-door neighbour from opening an all-night discotheque? How would we stop greedy developers ruining our country with monstrosities and eyesores?
Valid concerns but long before we handed over responsibility for them to our elected officials, they were more than adequately dealt with by private treaty and mutually enforceable land covenants. Indeed, they are still in use today only now they are subordinate to the wishes of state-appointed officials who minister for our alleged good.
But what about architectural quality? How would this survive were it not for the state intervening?
In my view, it would not only survive but true architectural achievement would undergo a rebirth. Britain is fortunate to still retain so many buildings from its glorious past; the kind of buildings that inspire Hollywood movies and which tourists travel from all over the world to marvel at and photograph. All of them were built before 1949 and just about every soul-destroying eyesore and ugly edifice of urban blight in this country has been built since 1949.
It would not be right to say, though, that the dead hand of planning regulations have no effect because they do. They have the effect of suppressing innovation, reducing available housing stock and unnecessarily inflating the cost of the housing stock that does exist.
Yet, everybody believes that we would be lost without them despite that fact that we fared far better without them and within living memory.
The analogy with my mobile phone ends here because I can dispense with my mobile phone if I wish to. However, it benefits me both professionally and socially by facilitating communication at a reasonable price. Therefore it improves the quality of my life and I choose to keep paying for that.
Would that I could exercise such freedom of judgement when it comes to building a home.
The EU parliament has indicated its warm support for a new draft Directive which will regulate conversations between EU citizens.
The new Directive, which is the brainchild of French MEP, Bertrand Maginot will provide a legislative framework to ensure democratic oversight of all conversations which take place within the EU.
“This law is both overdue and necessary” said Monsieur Maginot. “At present there are absolutely no controls over the things people say to each other. This is dangerous and unacceptable”
British Commissioner, Sir Crispin D’oilly-Gitte also gave his full-hearted support to the new legislation.
“We must protect our citizens from being exposed to inaccurate or dishonest things”, he said. “This law is an important step forward to a safer and more democratic Europe”
Dismissing the concerns of civil liberties groups, he added:
“These people are just wreckers. This law will increase freedom in Europe. Everyone will be able to converse with confidence; safe in the knowledge that they are not being exposed to wrong ideas and bad information”
The new law will require any EU citizen wishing to have a conversation with another EU citizen, to first send a draft text of their proposed conversation to a Conversation Monitoring Officer (CMO) who will be appointed at national level. The CMO will check the text for honesty, accuracy and consistency with democratic European values.
Provided the text meets the required standards, the applicant will be given permission to hold their conversation with such other person or persons as are identified in the initial application.
“It is a simple safeguard”, said Monsieur Maginot.
Whilst the new Directive is not expected to be opposed, there is some concern at the dispute about exactly how the new regulatory regime will be funded. Swedish Social Democrat MEP, Helena Hankart has proposed that the CMO service be free to all applicants and funded out of general national taxation. However, Greek Commissioner Taxis Mitopisis is campaigning strongly for all applicants to pay a fee which will be charged according the applicant’s income.
“We have several committee meetings planned and I have no doubt we will achieve harmony on this issue”, said Ms.Hankart.
The new Directive is expected to be in force by January 1st 2003.
When economist and law professor, Marco Biagi began advising the Italian government on reforms to Italy’s ossified Labour Laws, the Italian left sprang into immediate action. Using the rationale of marxist production theory and by the rigourous employment of dialectic method, they planned to confound Biagi by convincing him of the systemic contradictions of free-market ideology.
But that didn’t work so they just shot him.
“Investigators said flatly Wednesday that they had no doubt Biagi was slain over his controversial efforts to help Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right government rewrite Italian labor law in a way that would make it easier to fire workers. The unions, and the left in general, vehemently oppose any challenge to the current labor law, which effectively guarantees many workers lifetime job security.”
We have seen this in Europe before. In the late 60’s and early 70’s a number of marxist terror gangs starting springing up as the cracks in the heads of their own ‘intellectuals’ began to show. But, they were assuaged as Europe embraced the ‘Third Way’ and thus cocooned them from the chill wind of Reagan/Thatcher capitalism.
Only now, the cracks are starting to appear in the ‘Third Way’ as well and they know it. Having nothing else to offer, the die-hard disciples must resort to terror and murder. What else can they do when they have invested so much of their lives in a bankrupt philosophy that fewer and fewer people wish to buy or even browse? Like their apprentices in the anti-globo movement, they seethe within the spiritual prison cells of their own incoherent minds.
“An intelligence report to Parliament last week had warned of the risk of terror attacks in response to the conservative government’s policies.”
The article makes it clear that we are not dealing with Islamic radicals here but, in a sense, we might as well be. The same flat-earth mentality is at work; an identical impotent rage in the face of better people and better ideas. Wahabbism and marxism are merely two sides of the same psychotic coin and it is entirely predictable that they are undertaking a congruence of method.
The poor Mr.Biagi deserves better then to be a chilling portent of things to come. Tragically, though, that is exactly what he might be.
Is there some sort of pathological term for people who simply cannot resist the overwhelming desire to fiddle with and meddle with and corrupt everything around them? If not, we need to invent one and fast.
Another draft Directive is formenting in the cesspit of Brussels and this time it’s pensions< that they are pawing at with their oily little hands.
“Spanish officials were trying to insert a clause that would limit the amount of equities that pension schemes can hold. The EU directive could become UK law within as little as two years.”
British pension funds typically invest some 70% of their funds in equities and, if this law passes (Did I say ‘if’? I mean ‘when’) they would have to drastically reduce this figure to bring Britain into line with many European countries where such investment in strictly limited by national law.
But this is not madness, it is cold, hard method. The main alternative to equities in funded pension scheme portfolios are long-term financial instruments such as government bonds and, by a simple extension, EU bonds.
Thus the desire of Eurocrats to control constituents’ economies by means of Frankfurt interest rates and fiscal harmonisation can be consolidated: Euro-peons will be forced to tie their destinies in retirement directly to the success or failure of EU-wide economic hegemony. The law will have the effect of making it impractical for most employers to run their own schemes and will therefore channel billions of funds into the hands of a few crypto-statist financial institutions which are easier for Brussels to push around (behind the fig-leaf of ‘co-operation’).
After a working life governed by EU regulations about hours, conditions, pay rates, vacation entitlements, coffee-temperature, leisure time and just about every other aspect of human interaction imaginable, our descent into a longed-for tranquility of old-age will be managed (and mangled) by those same ubiquitous, inescapable Eurocrats.
I am beginning to hope that there is no such thing as a life beyond death otherwise the buggers will find a way to torment us there as well.
Just say NO to superstatism!
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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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