But for those of you who find discussing it a little dry, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Thanks to Glenn Reynolds and Breitbart.tv for the pointer.
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I know two people who have bought new computers lately. One, the president of my company, bought a Vista equipped computer for home use. As a result, our company will hang on to our old computers as long as possible and then consider switching to Linux. True, it’s only one small company, but I imagine this same scene is being played out everywhere. – the point being not that this is any kind of revelation, but that Hugh MacLeod, recycling the experience of one of his many commenters, is making Microsoft (with whom he is now working) listen to such stuff. October 14th, 2007 | Comments are closed
 I’m a blonde secular Jewish bisexual. That makes me very versatile. I can be secular when needed, I can be Jewish when needed, and I can flirt with anyone I need to. And it never occurs to anyone in the British media a Jewish woman might not be left of center so that was never a problem. – So sayeth an American friend of mine when I asked her how she ended up working for the BBC. October 13th, 2007 | Comments are closed
I belong to a Facebook group called “Che Guevara was a murderer and your T-Shirt is not cool”. It has 10,935 members. It’s not nearly enough. To celebrate the anniversary of his death, why not join up and get on the right side of history? – Marc Sidwell, with thanks to David Thompson for the link October 12th, 2007 | Comments are closed
My friend Patrick Crozier often writes about the harmful impact of planning restrictions on the housing market. If he has not already read this posting by Virginia Postrel, and this article of hers that she links to, he should. A key paragraph in the article, which she recycles at her blog if only to ensure that it may continue to be read after the article as a whole has disappeared behind some Old Media Wall, goes thus:
And here is the concluding paragraph of the article:
My only tentative disagreement would be to ask: unintended? If you are inclined to read this entire article, do it soon. The more I think about the Green Belt that surrounds London, the more I find myself loathing it. I agree that greenery is nice to live near, very nice (I live quite near to St James Park, London SW1, and very fine it is too. It is what you might call the Buckingham Palace front garden, which maybe it once was for real, approximately speaking). But considering how huge the Green Belt is, hardly anyone lives in or near it. That is the whole idea. Judging by what the Green Belt looks like from the train when I go to visit my mum, who lives just outside it, it consists mostly of boring fields that only farmers have anything to do with or would want to. What would be nice would be lots of big parks, like Richmond Park or Wimbledon Common, surrounded by more houses. If that makes daily commuting into London even more unpleasant than it is now, well, just put up the train and road use prices at the point of use. This would encourage people who now commute either to work nearer to home, or even to stay at home and do (more of) their work from there (maybe they could take a laptop into a nearby park). Plus it would encourage more and better railways and roads. The economy would adjust happily, if only all the economic signals were responded to rather than merely the signals that say that an ever growing number of people, from all over the world, are chasing a heavily restricted number of London houses. October 12th, 2007 | Comments are closed
Pondering some of the recent stories about changes to UK inheritance taxes (the government’s ‘cut’ is in fact less impressive than it first appears), it occurs to me that there is one fairly respectable argument for worrying about huge inheritances, namely, that if people who work incredibly hard watch as other folk sail into positions of power and business wealth through the pure luck of having a rich family inheritance rather than through merit, it can be demoralising and encourage resentment against the broader capitalist system. Hence, so the argument goes, even though inheriting wealth per se is not wrong – it is the right of X to transfer legitimately acquired property to whomever he or she wants, period – it is sensible to foster an economic environment in which people feel they get a fair shake at what life has to offer. I once was quite attracted by this idea of taxing inheritance to encourage some sort of ‘level playing field’, but I am no longer so sure. For a start, if an economy is expanding rapidly, it is hard to see how the presence of rich kids really demoralises less fortunate people. The economic process is not a zero sum game. Arguably, a sense of anger (“I’ll show those rich bastards”) may even spur the latter group to work incredibly hard to overtake the former. Rich kids may find they have to work harder, too, to impress people in certain ways who resent their wealth, and so on (I have seen this in action). If a society is a closed one and the state controls most, if not all, of the key parts of an economy, then the existence of a small but influential case of rich people able to pass on their wealth without hindrance might also be a problem, but the solution to that is not to tax inheritance, but shrink the state. A final point worth repeating over and over is the old example provided by the late Robert Nozick, the Harvard philosopher. He famously trashed egalitarian attacks on inherited wealth by rejecting the model that egalitarians use of society as a justification for their views. He said, if memory serves, that egalitarians tend to view life as a closed circuit, like an athletics track, and that if a person inherits a fortune, it is like an athlete starting a race 10 yards ahead of his fellows. But there is no fixed end to which people in society are racing, as they are in a 100m sprint. Instead, society is simply the short-hand term we use to describe the network of relationships between people exchanging things with each other to get what they want. To say that if I inherit my father’s dashing good looks or wealth means I have an “unfair” advantage over X or Y is meaningless in the context of an open society. There are many practical, utilitarian reasons to object to inheritance tax (although other taxes are arguably even worse). But the moral case against it also needs to be made and the collectivist, zero-sum assumptions on which anti-inheritance views are made also need to be challenged for the errors they are. We cannot expect that job to be done by George Osborne. (Update: over at the left-wing blog Crooked Timber, a contributor argues that the focus for inheritance tax, which is regarded as a good thing, should be on the beneficiaries, not the bequesters. But of course; if you are an egalitarian, it is natural to want to push the focus away from the right of people to dispose of their property to those that receive it. But the comment makes no reference whatever to why inequality that may arise from inheritance is in and of itself a bad thing. Such inequality is just assumed to be a bad thing, period. No actual argument, from first principles, is given as to why). October 11th, 2007 | Comments are closed
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.” – General Charles Napier expresses a nineteenth century view of multiculturalism, quoted by Douglas Murray in the course of explaining that the West’s values are better. October 10th, 2007 | Comments are closed
As Brian pointed out recently, when the Tories proposed raising the threshold at which Britons pay inheritance tax on an estate to £1m from the current £300,000, it would be denounced by the usual suspects as grossly unjust, etc, and once the initial furore had died down, the Labour government would copy it, up to a point. So it has. This proves a general sort of point that David Cameron, the Tory leader, should now pursue with all due vigour (although I doubt many of us crusty cynics will be convinced that Cameron has suddenly turned into Nigel Lawson, not that Cameron gives a damn about what a blogger like me thinks). It will have proved a general point that arguing for tax cuts, even supposedly middle class ones, is smart election strategy and can force the government of the day to respond. Frankly, if a politician like the Chancellor, Alastair Darling, acts cynically but it means people do not have to go through contortions to avoid paying some tax, that is progress.The government’s financial plans come with costs: the government intends to get rid of some old reliefs for capital gains, which could hit private equity, but at least it has simplified the tax code somewhat, which has become one of the longest and most complex in the western world. Real progress, of course, will come when inheritance tax, along with other taxes, are reduced or in some cases, hopefully eliminated. And the situation will really improve when the next stage comes along – a general shrinkage of the state and the vast payroll of people living on public funds. Well, we can all dream, can we not? October 9th, 2007 | Comments are closed
I agree that there is nothing iDave could say that could convince me to vote Tory apart from “I resign”. – commenter Nick M October 9th, 2007 | Comments are closed
I have just come across this interview with Bjorn Lomborg, the Danish statistician who has rained on the parade of eco-gloomsters to memorable effect, but it is worth a read despite this rather sniffy sign-off:
I imagine he looked “startled” because the suggestion is such utter crud, to be blunt about it. Lomborg does not, as far as I can tell from his writings, contest the idea of man-made global warming as an issue, nor does he dismiss concerns about such things as some pro-capitalists are wont to do (although I can see why they do so). What Lomborg keeps banging on about is that if we use or sacrifice resources to combat such threats, then those resources cannot be used on other things, which might be just as important from the point of view of human wellbeing, such as clean drinking water, sanitation, health care, etc. Lomborg has had the temerity to remind people that resources are scarce and they have alternate uses. Nothing remotely utopian about that. Appleyard also refers to the late Julian Simon, the economics writer, as a “right-wing” thinker. Oh please. So to be a broad optimist about technology and Man’s ability to deal with supposed terrors like population growth is now “right wing”, is it? It shows how one almost misses those old-fashioned socialists of the Eastern bloc with their posters of smiling factory workers standing in front of a building belching out smoke. What Appleyard and others don’t seem to quite grasp – or perhaps they do and are not letting on – is quite how reactionary a lot of the Green agenda is. Here’s Lomborg’s latest book, Cool It. I like the title and have ordered a copy. October 8th, 2007 | Comments are closed
Whether or not freedom is the desire of every heart, I think it is abundantly clear that most people are indifferent or hostile to their neighbor’s freedom, which is why a mere democracy, unencumbered by principles of limited government, is assured of devolving into some sort of Total State in short order. But the inimitable Mr. Steyn is not content with observing that most people think of freedom as “fine for me, but not for thee.” No, he has in mind the apparent eagerness of so many to give up their own freedom.
This is what makes being a small-government libertarian so frustrating. Our patron saint should be King Canute, for it often seems like we are standing on the shore, trying to stop the tide. The reply to Mr. Steyn, if it is not couched in shallow democratism (“we are just giving the people what they want”) is usually couched in terms that imply that freedom is not possible, or at least can not be enjoyed, without material security provided by the State. This inversion of real freedom (the freedom of self-ownership) was perhaps best catechized by FDR, the man most responsible for freeing demagogic democracy from the strictures of the constitutional republic, as “freedom from want.” FDR’s heir is Hillary Clinton, and she is pushing (again) for nationalized health care in America. The battlecry this time is that there are “45 million uninsured” (or whatever spurious number is trotted out). My first response is “so what?” Anyone in America can get health care simply by walking into the nearest hospital, as all hospitals are required to give an exam and emergency treatment regardless of ability to pay. But, as always, one should not let the factual assertions of the advocates of the Total State go unexamined. Mr. Steyn continues:
At a conference on health law last week, I predicted (only half in jest) that Hillary would be signing the bill nationalizing health care at the beginning of her second term. The more I think about it, the more likely it seems. The tide of the Total State never sleeps. October 7th, 2007 | Comments are closed
Richard Dawkins is someone whom I generally admire in the field of science. He is on the right side of the argument, in my view, in excoriating attempts to portray ‘intelligent design’ (creationism) as science; much of what he says about religion is true and he is a sharp, lucid commenter about scientific issues. But alas, that does not mean his grip on reality is particularly strong when it comes to other matters. Take his recent comments about the supposedly enormous influence of Jews on US foreign policy, which have already provoked a lot of comment. My own take on all this is as follows: Dawkins is not anti-semitic and it would be pretty outrageous to suggest as such; I don’t think he is trying to say that Jews totally control the foreign policy of the world’s most powerful nation, only that they have a lot of influence in proportion to their numbers. But what Dawkins plainly does not consider – assuming his remarks have been reported accurately – is how the ‘Jewish lobby’ is not some sort of undifferentiated mass. Also, consider some of the main policymakers in Washington: Dick Cheney and Condi Rice. They are not Jews; neither, as far as I know, is Don Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, etc. Nor do I think that the policy of the US/other major nations has necessarily favoured Israel vs other Middle East countries. Arguably, if the Jewish lobby was as powerful as some say, then the US would have sanctioned the ability of Israel – which certainly has the means – to reduce its foes to radioactive dust. Anyway, a desire to protect the state of Israel from annihilation – a threat that is all too real if one takes the ravings of Iran’s leadership seriously – is a noble one. Israel is, with all its faults, one of the few functioning liberal democracies in the Middle East (that is partly what drives its Islamic foes nuts, of course). Even if one subtracts the beneficent impact of foreign aid, Israel’s domestic economic success is a standing rebuke to the theocracies that surround it. If Dawkins wants to press the claims of atheists, fine (as an atheist myself, I count myself an admirer of what Dawkins has done to challenge religious superstition). But he does himself no favours by repeating the tired mantras about the vast influence of the Jewish lobby. October 6th, 2007 | Comments are closed
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