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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Cameron Carswell discusses the role of the World Trade Organization in promoting free trade.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) draws wrath from people of all sides of the political spectrum. There are those supporters of globalization who oppose it on principle, saying that while free trade is a desirable goal such an organization implies it needs to be “managed”. It makes sense to be sceptical of the idea that economic liberalism and free trade can be imposed from the top down – for an excellent and balanced view of this by Dr. Razeen Sally see here.
There are those who oppose globalization and see the WTO as advancing the very process others see it as hampering. The question is, does the WTO genuinely advance free trade (with all the associated benefits), or is it merely a vehicle for special interests and rent seeking?
There are some elements of the WTO rules which do seem at odds with the goal of free trade – Chinese clothing exports are currently limited under special WTO rules. However it could equally be argued that this was merely a practical measure to prevent further trade barriers being set up.
The WTO is designed to promote free trade but by its nature as an international organization is open to politicisation. If it is the case that trade barriers are reduced as a result of the pressure it exerts then all the better. On the other hand, unilateral moves toward freer trade are invariably good things, and it would appear that this is the most likely route for the goal of free trade, once again with China leading the way.
James Waterton of the Daily Constitutional sees the need for more hardcore activists to spread the word for classical liberal values… and he also sees the need for more people to read his excellent articles. We agree with him on both counts
I was having a chat today with two friends about the nature of a market society. Both guys are intelligent, open minded and lacking ideological zeal. After talking about this and that, the discussion turned into me defending the free market of commerce and culture. Neither of them are heavily interested in politics, however they both articulated their positions with cognisance and we had a good discussion.
Because of the above discussion and the assumptions my friends held of the free market, I came to realise that – as enthusiasts of the free market – we do very little to actively promote the cause and its benefits. We hope our continually improving lives do the talking for us. Trouble is, these benefits can be twisted by people who do not agree with us. We are getting rich, says Green Left, at the expense of those in the third world and/or in our underclass. This is rubbish, of course, but it is an easily grasped concept, no matter how misguided. A group like Resistance goes out to a lot of schools to talk to students about the beauty of socialism. It is rich pickings for them there, because the simplistic truths of socialism appeal to minds that are neither sullied with the realities of human nature nor self-supporting adults. It is not hard to make a teenager feel bad about our society. Ask them if they lead a comfortable life. Show them a few pictures of starving African children. Let them join the dots. Child’s play. → Continue reading: We need a classical liberal ‘Resistance’ movement
Matt Devereux sees reasons to be cheerful in the land of the Rising Sun
Statist hero of the week? On Monday Japanese premier Junichiro Koizumi announced that he would make plans to privatise the national postal service his key election pledge. After losing the privatisation motion to the House of Councillors (upper parliamentary house), Koizumi decided to call a snap election to ask the Japanese public “whether they think the same way.” Early indications show that the strategy might well have paid off, with the Prime Minister’s approval rating rising 9 points thus far on the back of this single issue. In practical terms, the privatisation process will be long and hard.
Japan Post is far more than just a stamp and mail operation. Its $2.9 trillion held in savings and insurance effectively make it the world’s richest bank. With approximately 8,000 more post office outlets than in the UK, the prospect of opening the Japanese state monopoly to market forces make our plans to privatise Royal Mail pale in comparison. It’s not the statistics that impress, however. It’s the extent to which Koizumi has dared to stake his future on a subject recently lacking in North Atlantic political relations.
Take the 2005 Conservative Manifesto – the word “privatise” does not appear once. This despite Michael Howard’s half-baked promise to allow private treatment at NHS prices (and standards) for those willing to pay. It’s as if ideas of free trade and free enterprise have abandoned mainstream UK politics altogether. It’s been left to us crazies on the sidelines to remind the public that high taxation/high spend is not necessarily the only policy.
President Bush fares a little better, though even in the US the semantic goal posts have changed. Pre-election, Bush actively used the term “privatisation” in relation to his proposed shake up of Social Security. It was, he said, a “top priority”. Then, when the election campaign took full swing, privatisation became “reform”. The top priority of Social Security became no priority in Bush’s victory speech. Iraq was everything. Democrats picked up the “p” word as a term of disgust for the administration’s strategy and continue to run with it. The most recently published Rose Garden press conference transcript proves the extent to which Bush is careful not to mention the “private” in relation to the “social”.
What is it that has forced this anti-privatising doublespeak onto the Western political right? Perhaps if our leaders were more eloquent in their defence of the things we hold dear we’d vote for them again. By making a free trade issue central to his election campaign Koizumi is asking for a mandate to dismantle a state monopoly. In this at least the Japanese PM deserves our respect. Now, Mr. Koizumi, about Kyoto…
Paul Staines says Sony should welcome Brits buying Playstations before their UK release.
European video-gamers who buy the Sony Playstation Portable (PSP) will be surprised to find out that Sony is suing the retailers who sold it to them.
Not yet formally launched in Europe, the eagerly awaited PSP can be bought online from Hong Kong dealer Lik-Sang.com, a leading online retailer for videogame systems. Sony, in an aggressive tactic borrowed from Big Pharma’s lawyers, is suing the parallel trader for breach of trade mark and seeks a court order that would prevent Lik-Sang.com from selling or offering systems, games and accessories to customers in the UK and the European Economic Area (EEA). Sony claims “Lik-Sang’s sales are an unlawful interference with Sony’s economic interests.”
Pascal Clarysse, Marketing Manager for Lik-Sang.com says:
This is the most aggressive move against its own customers that a console manufacturer has ever taken in the 30 year history of videogames. Sony wants to completely cut hardcore gamers away from items released in Japan or anywhere else outside their own country. A very active part of the gaming community has been enjoying Japanese gaming culture for over two decades, and that’s what the Empire is now willing to destroy.
The lawsuit comes as a total surprise to Lik-Sang.com, given that the laws of Hong Kong are clear when it comes to parallel trade. Hong Kong’s legislation is based on the fact that allowing parallel and free trade will restore natural competition and benefit consumers with lower prices. Hong Kong, one of the pioneering countries respecting worldwide exhaustion of trademark rights, allows free trade once an item has entered the market for sale.
Sony wants to control its products even after it has sold them, but that is not how the globalized world works today. Sony should be pleased that the demand from UK customers is so great. Instead of acting against its fans’ interests, they should welcome the early demand.
Matt Devereux has some very sensible views regarding the clamour in the media about the latest notorious computer game
The recent US furore over Rockstar Games Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas serves to expose the real agenda behind moralist media censorship in the 21st Century: sex. On July 27th it was announced that 85 year old Florence Cohen of New York is taking the games manufacturer to court over a hidden modification for the game entitled “Hot Coffee”. The file, downloadable over the Internet, inserts a new element into the game allowing players to have graphic sex, including a variety of positions. Cohen claims that this new element is unsuitable for her 14 year old grandchild and therefore contravenes the terms on which she bought the game. The insinuation is that had she known the game contained sexual material she would never have bought it in the first place.
Yet this is a game in which shooting innocent people in the head is actively encouraged. Drug dealing, prostitution, stealing, criminal damage, assault and affray are all part and parcel of all three GTA games. As any self-respecting GTA aficionado will tell you some of the most enjoyable activities include decapitating police officers and repeatedly driving over the elderly. How can it be that this sort of material is acceptable for a 14 year old whilst sex (in which no-one is harmed) is frowned upon? Hopefully, the District Court will see the irony.
Furthermore, the file needed to unlock the pornography was illegally hacked and distributed over the internet. In other words Ms. Cohen’s grandchild would have had to have voluntarily downloaded the unsactioned file in order to access the sexual material. If she really wants to protect her young relative she might more sensibly start by checking his internet history. Predictably, Congress has jumped on the outrage bandwagon, issuing statement after statement brandishing Rockstar as “pornographers” and “out of control.” On July 15th the Federal Trade Commission announced it would investigate the “Hot Coffee” modification.
Who is spearheading this investigation? None other than Hilary Clinton – the woman whose husband is largely responsible for the words “oral sex” being introduced to every American living room. In reality, this is just another case of business and the media being blamed for poor parenting and parental control. Rockstar Games are not responsible for keeping kids in check. Neither is the government. Do we really want our choices to be taken away by people who can not control their own children?
Anthony Batty asks if we really need the Competition Commission to promote competition between UK supermarkets.
In the news recently, the UK’s Competition Commission has been flexing its muscles in the area of supermarkets. Somerfield may have to sell stores, after buying what Morrson’s did not want after acquiring Safeway (a one-time subsidiary of the American supermarket company).
Do these people really feel that by virtue of the fact a supermarket has two stores within some arbitrary distance they have a monopoly? Or are able to raise prices and earn large profits? For starters the barriers to entry for say Iceland to open a new store are simply planning permission. If they feel customers would use the shop I am sure at least one of the major players would open up a store. Not to mention continuous competition from supermarket home delivery, local shops and the fact people may just drive another few miles if they do not like the selection they are offered. Supermarkets are one of the most competitive areas in the modern economy, if a company does not keep pace with the efficient supply chain, changing demand (such as the low carb craze that swept through the UK) it will find itself the target of a takeover bid, or in administration. This is not because of the work of government departments; rather it is the free market at work. Only through this competition can we find which stores give us what we want, at a price we are prepared to pay. If one firm is not performing we go elsewhere, if prices are too high we use an alternative retailer. There simply is no need for bureaucrats to be in charge.
I do agree however, with the basic premise of more competition. For this reason I find myself reverting to a point made by the late Screaming Lord Sutch, why is there only one Competition Commission? (In his day, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.) Surely in the interests of competition we should have several. By allowing new entrants and getting rid of the protected monopoly that exists at present, firms can choose between different conclusions and suggestions. Lower administration costs and fewer worries about whether or not an action will be allowed, means lower prices for consumers. In that way we will have free and fair trade, without the diktats that are not in the interests of firms or consumers.
Robert Alderson writes about what Islam really needs and has an interesting idea how to nudge things along
In some ways Islam is at the stage that Christianity was centuries ago. Religious texts and debates are in classical Arabic, a language which most Muslims can not understand – just like medieval European peasants could not understand Latin but were still expected to live by the Latin version of the bible.
I have not read the Koran or the Bible but from excerpts and quotations I have seen it would be perfectly possible to justify anything you wanted with selective quotations from either work; suicide bombings, slavery, non-tolerance of homosexuality, wearing a veil, whatever. The Christian Bible has at least been translated into most European languages and interested parties can refer to the source text and argue things out. The Koran has, by and large, not been translated into local Arabic languages and is therefore beyond the practical understanding of the ‘Arab Street’ The interpreters of the Koran are those scholars who have taken the time to learn classical Arabic and therefore may tend to have a different outlook on life than people who have to earn the money that pays for them.
The other point is that Koranic scholarship still regards the Koran as the literal word of God, no metaphors, no allusions – straight word of God no dispute allowed. This type of fundamental literalism was abandoned by mainstream Christian theologians a long time ago.
The West could do worse than translate the Koran into local dialects and publish it on the Internet or even drop it from airplanes! We need an Islamic Martin Luther to open up the religion.
This appeared in the comment section of the previous post, writen by Michael Taylor. It is just too interesting to leave as a comment:
One thing we in the online community can do is to work to ensure transparency and accountability is brought to this process. We need to find out who has been pressing this scheme from its infancy: that doesn’t just mean finding the Labour Party hacks who’ve embraced it; it does not even just mean finding the Whitehall Committees which pushed it.
It means finding the details of the people who sat on that committee: it means getting their names and track records out in public. I want names and reasons and track records. Where possible, I would want those personal details which they would collect from us out there on the web for all to see. It also means tracking every single hardware and software supplier who is bidding for the work – again, we need personal names not company names. And then these people need to be monitored closely, and lobbied intensively. There needs to be absolutely no place for these securocrats to hide: there must be no secrecy, no privacy for them.
Let us also make sure we use the Freedom of Information Act aggressively to get this information: swamp them with requests for every detail of every person’s career who has ever been on any committee which has recommended any part of this scheme. If nothing else, such an intensive and personal campaign of transparency gives opponents of the scheme the best possible chance of keeping these people on the back foot.
Look, for example, at how angry the govt has got with the LSE’s report. That should be only the merest footfall, the tiniest ripple of administrative inconvenience and distributed informational opposition they must face. Do this, and we will win.
Michael Taylor.
Ian Grey urges people to read the fine print when Greeks politicians come bearing gifts
Through a remarkable coincidence of timing, families are being encouraged to save lots of money on childcare courtesy of that benevolent Labour Government of ours, launched and promoted during the General Election.
Within the Grey household, we are fortuitous enough to have both a private and a public sector employer providing our household income stream and both of them have decided to jump on the employee benefits bandwagon of offering childcare vouchers.
The way it works is that an employee agrees to take some of their salary as vouchers (to a maximum of £2,600 a year, i.e. £50/week) and this sum is free of Tax and NI. (The incentive to the employer is that it is free of Employer NI as well). The vouchers can be paper or electronic, they are given or allocated to the carer who redeems them without penalty to the parent and everyone is happy. Or are they?
Well, I am not. I have read the forms and there seem to be some ambiguities in the process, which is somewhat convoluted. What happens if I want residual money back because I do not need childcare any more? Not covered. What if I want to pay some on one and some on the other? In theory yes, but the forms I have will not cope with this scheme properly. What happens when the third party scheme management Company makes a pig’s ear of the payments to my son’s nursery (and they will, think every other Government IT project managed by third parties)?
What is even more interesting are the online calculators provided by the service providers, the two of which I have looked at being SodexhoPass and Accor.
Supposedly, the scheme is simple. To quote Accor,
You will save £816 per year if you elect to take £50 per week with paper or electronic Childcare Vouchers and are a standard rate taxpayer. If you are a higher rate taxpayer you will save ££1,066 per year
Sounds good, yes?
However… → Continue reading: Election bribes
by Taylor Dinerman
Taylor passed this article about the falling dominoes of the Middle East on to me late last night his time and in the wee hours Zulu here on the right bank of the pond. Articles by Taylor appear here from time to time as well as in a few other publications like WSJ. – ed
Last year I was having a drink with a space guy from the Pentagon and we started talking about the Middle East, Iraq etc etc. He made some comment about the need to ‘stabilize the region’. He is a great guy and definitely on the side of the angels but I had to tell him. The strategy is the opposite. Bush wants to destabilize the area. It is the only way there will be change. Stability is what brought us 9/11.
With what has been happening, with elections in the PA, in Iraq, and now in the instability in Lebanon; with the governments of Egypt and Syria floundering about and grasping at straws, the US strategy is beginning to work. It is going to be a long hard slog as our Rummy put it, but there is a sense that the corner has been turned.
You have to give Bush and the neocons credit, after the attack my first instinct was to say that these people deserved to have self government taken away from them. The administration chose the opposite path, they were going to try and inflict real self government on the Muslim and Arab world.
It is an imperfect and messy process and democracy by itself is not necessarily a friend of liberal human rights. Over time, if they keep it up they will soon find themselves practicing some form of grown up politics. That process will eventually dry up the pond of paranoia and rage which the terrorist scum have thrived on for the last three or four decades.
We, less than perfect human beings, make progress in the oddest and least likely ways. The bombs in Tel Aviv and Hilla are not going to stop this process. For the moment give Wolfowitz and the neocons credit, they did not let their anger after the attack blind them to the essential humanity of the Arab and Muslim people. Reagan used to hammer home the idea that Americans and Russian wanted pretty much the same thing, the giant Communist stone was in the way of the Russian people getting it.
The realist move would have been to get even deeper into bed with the Arab and Muslim despots: instead they chose to take a big chance and bet on democracy and on the people. For a while it looked like they would over reached and gone too far. They certainly have got a long ways to go. Today however they deserve a pat on the back.
Bravo Zulu.
Peter Cuthbertson has some pretty clear views about those who would control us for ‘our own good’
Any Brit who turns their television on to ITV or Channels 4 or 5 now will sooner or later see a vile new National Health Service advertisement, funded by their own tax money. Showing a young man running around bars and shopping centres spraying foul smells into the air and onto the clothes of others, it literally urges people that just as they would not tolerate anyone who does that, they should fight against the freedom of smokers to light up in bars and pubs. An obvious prelude to the government’s campaign to stop restauranteurs and landlords from allowing smoking on their own property, it is no doubt hoped the advertisement will edge public opinion in the nannying direction.
It is difficult to fathom the petty, narrow mind of the sort of otherwise unemployable bureaucrat who came up with this one. But one comes to understand the idea of people feeling aliens in their own country when one sees such things. What a profoundly un-British little broadcast it was. What a sickening way to impose the morality of the elite’s stateless global citizen onto a country whose famous tolerance and fair-mindedness is probably what left-liberal nannies feel necessitates such propaganda – sorry, such a campaign of public education – in the first place. One can only hope enough independently-minded people are emboldened by such spiteful nonsense to take stands on behalf of smoking, one of the few remaining mass activities that genuinely is not in some way anti-social, in an age where it seems few Britons can enjoy themselves in a group without being obnoxious to others.
Somehow worse than this, however, one sees explicit use of taxpayers’ money to campaign for one side on politically controversial areas, over behaviour that is perfectly legal and normal. This is a precedent that should worry everybody.
In any reporting on a quasi-tyranny, the state’s control and use of the media is usually cited to show that a country cannot be a genuine liberal democracy. Chile’s slide into dictatorship in the early 1970s is exemplified by Salvador Allende’s decision to eliminate criticism of his regime by nationalising the press. Today’s Russia is now widely described with the euphemism ‘managed democracy’ to a considerable degree because so much of its television is under state control: the elections themselves are free, but the state-run television stations campaigned strongly for Vladimir Putin in advance of last March’s Presidential election.
It’s because the use by the state of the media to advertise its own virtues and ideals is so symbolic of a wider lack of freedom that it is such a good indicator of the health of a society. The state is effectively limitless in its power to take by taxation anything people earn and produce. When it also feels free to use that money to take political stands, often stands opposed by the very people who pay these taxes, that is a signal of an overmighty government, wherever it exists.
When the state, as distinct from any political party, takes on the role of encouraging people to have the correct views and oppose the right habits, the liberty of everyone is made immediately more precarious. There is a very great supply of petty nannies with a favoured cause, and altogether more dangerous authoritarians and social engineeers with their own pet projects, who would love to get their hands on the power the NHS is now abusing. Rest assured, they will find ways of doing so if the precedent now being set is not reversed.
Seamus Heffernan takes Richard Gere to task.
It has become the unfortunate reality of all things political: celebrities love to chip in with their insights and opinions on the Big Events of our time. Following Yasser Arafat’s death, this weekend the Palestinians are holding elections. As a result, they have been treated to this television ad in an attempt to rouse them into voting, which starts with:
Hi, I’m Richard Gere and I’m speaking for the entire world.
Excuse me?
We’re with you during this election time. It’s really important. Get out and vote.
Wait – the entire world?
What is about being left-leaning and famous that makes most people so grossly overestimate not only their intelligence, but also their relevance? Does Gere really think that there are hordes of Palestinian girls out there getting all weepy over An Officer and a Gentleman?
Indeed, most Palestinians greeted the ad with a shrug.
But many voters, already struggling with the labyrinthine politics of the West Bank and Gaza, say they have never heard of the actor.
“I don’t even know who the candidates are other than Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), let alone this Gere,” Gaza soap factory worker Manar an-Najar told Reuters.
It is too bad that Manar is not more familiar with the Gere canon. Surely he and his fellow Palestinians would just love to take political advice from an actor perhaps most famous for his role as a degenerate, imperialistic tool of American capitalism who falls in love with a prostitute. Or perhaps he would be more interested in hearing the views of Gere’s co-stars in the ad, one of whom has gone on record as saying:
[T]he Jews are destined to be persecuted, humiliated and tortured forever, and it is a Muslim duty to see to it that they reap their due. No petty arguments must be allowed to divide us. Where Hitler failed, we must succeed.
Nice work, Rich – the Dalai Lama would be proud.
(Hat tip to Little Green Footballs.)
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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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