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I have a lot of time for Chris Anderson, the top editor at Wired. His book, The Long Tail, ought to be on the reading list of anyone who wants to understand how the massive reduction in the costs of searching for stuff online has changed the economics of businesses as varied as retail to travel. But in his latest essay on how businesses are moving to give stuff away for free, he over-reaches.
Here’s this paragraph:
Milton Friedman himself reminded us time and time again that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But Friedman was wrong in two ways. First, a free lunch doesn’t necessarily mean the food is being given away or that you’ll pay for it later – it could just mean someone else is picking up the tab.
But if someone else pays for my lunch at my favourite pizza joint, it is not free. It has not mysteriously come out of the sky.
Of course, Anderson makes a lot of great points about how the structure of how things are paid for has been massively changed by technology. He is also right to emphasise how a lot of businesses “give away” goods and services for free as gifts, but they still charge for their output at some point. Otherwise, what Anderson is talking about is not business, but philanthropy.
Sorry, but Friedman’s, or Robert Heinlein’s logic is unbreakable. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
CityAm, the freesheet newspaper in London, has this cracking scoop:
Shire Pharmaceuticals, the FTSE 100 drugs giant that focuses on treatments for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, is to re-register its head office outside the UK for tax reasons.
The group, which is valued at around £5bn, has been consulting the accounting group PriceWaterhouseCoopers on the merits of a move and is set to inform investors today. Shire’s headquarters are currently near Basingstoke. The news will come as a further blow to the UK economy.
The story ends with a quote from Matthew Elliott, head of the lobby group, The TaxPayers’ Alliance:
“This disastrous news confirms that Britain’s competitiveness has suffered a series of blows from misguided tax hikes.”
I am glad to see that the influence of CityAm’s newly-appointed editor, Allister Heath, who has written on the flat-tax issue in the past for the Taxpayer’s Alliance and at the now-defunct weekly, The Business, is making itself felt. Far too many journalists at places such as the FT, for instance, seem to operate in a corporatist cocoon. Allister will not make that mistake.
“The background to this method of policing is that NuLab became increasingly irritated with the police detecting crime. This tended to militate against the working classes (few question the link between poverty and crime). Being so unutterably incompetent, NuLab were were unable to tackle poverty (unless by increasing it, they can claim to be tackling poverty). One solution to this was to make crime detection a more egalitarian process. By criminalising “anti-social” behavior that was more likely to committed by the middle classes (speeding, hunting etc), then issuing directives for police to ramp up their response to such infractions, the thinking was that this would highlight how criminality was not the preserve of the put upon working classes.
On top of this, there existed a situation whereby the number crunchers claimed that the fear of being a victim of crime far outweighed the reality of being a victim of crime. Hence the emphasis shifted away from tackling crime i.e oppressing the working classes, to tackling the fear of crime. This had a cheap solution: high visibility policing. It is this thinking that lead to the introduction of those decaffeinated police officers known as “PCSOs”, along with the requirement for high visibility vests worn with officers. This type of thinking also results in situations such as the Forest Gate incident, whereby the number of officers present seems to far outweigh the threat and the inclusion of the press in high profile operations. All of these things are designed to tackle the FEAR of crime, not crime itself.”
From one of our readers, “Fed_Up”, commenting on my recent encounter with the police. Thanks for the comments. The one here raises the issue of class. It is sometimes said that these days, the cops, or at least some of them, are the “paramilitary wing of the Guardian newspaper”. This represents a significant shift in the cultural/political standing of the police over my lifetime.
Consider this: there is no doubt that during the 1980s, when the Conservatives were in power, some of the police powers used at the time got on to the statute books with relatively little complaint from what I might loosely call “the right”. Not everyone was complacent, of course. Libertarian Alliance Director Sean Gabb and the LA’s founder, the late Chris R. Tame, were early in pointing out at the time that no consistent defence of liberty makes sense if it is confined purely to economics, a point that some Tories to this day don’t seem to grasp. While coppers were pinching Rastafarians in Brixton and hitting coalminers on the head in Yorkshire, a lot of the middle classes were happy to look the other way. As an unashamed middle class Brit with mortgage, happy marriage and decent job, I am the sort of person, I suppose, that has in a certain way been radicalised by the CCTV state, or “parking warden culture”, as one might call it. It is important to understand, however, that the sort of petty exercise of power has been going on, sometimes unremarked, for years. So I certainly don’t feel sorry for myself. I am, more than anything else, depressed at the fatuity of “security theatre” policing. It must, at one level surely, gnaw away at the morale and self respect of decent coppers. But there is no doubt that the role and status of the police has changed and so has the type of person that might be attracted to making a career in it.
I must say I am still stunned by the open admission of one commenter on my earlier posting that random searches are good for “fishing expeditions”. We were not very kind to him on the previous thread. Justifiably.
For a good take on what has been going on with policing in the US, Gene Healy of the CATO Institute think tank has a sharp analysis. Several US readers expressed their horror at what is happening here in Britain; I am afraid that things are not so great in parts of the US, either. And as for France, etc…..
Random searches of Britons going about their business are now established features of life in this country. The old refrain – “It could not happen here”, no longer applies. On Saturday, while driving along the side of the Thames towards Westminster, passing by the Tate Gallery, I was flagged down by a policeman.
Officer: “Could you show me your driving licence? This is a section 41 search” (at least I think that is what he said).
Me: “Section 41 or whatever of what?”
Officer: “The Terrorism Act”
Me: “Why have you pulled me and my wife over?”
Officer: “We are doing searches of vehicles in the area.”
Me: “Well obviously you are. Is this a random thing?”
Officer: “Yes. Please hand over your driving licence and we want to search the car.”
They searched the car, called up the driving licence authority, and were able to their enormous satisfaction confirm that I was whom I said I was. I was then asked to sign a document stating that the search had been carried out as it should have been. The officer gave me his name, rank and police station number and address. When I signed the form, he asked me how I wanted to classify myself as there were about 15 options, including “White British”. He was polite. My treatment was fine. The officer and his colleagues told me they were on duty, searching vehicles, for the rest of the day and into the evening.
Now I will spare you a rant about the impertinence of this. You can, gentle reader, assume as a matter of course that I regard such random searches of members of the public as impertinent. What makes me wonder, though, is what on earth the supporters of such searches expect? Do they honestly, really believe that would-be terrorists will be deterred, frightened off or caught? Unless the police put up roadblocks across London, at god-knows what disruption and cost, I do not see how doing this on one of many major roads will cause a blind bit of difference.
This is what has been called “security theatre”: lots of action signifying little. Even the copper who carried out the search had the good grace to look slightly embarrassed.
Update: One commenter has complained that I am getting all upset for no good reason and has used the argument that this sort of behaviour is okay as it can act as a “fishing” expedition to unearth potentially other crimes. It is hard to summon breath to deal with such a brazen argument in favour of abolishing the idea that one is presumed innocent until otherwise.
Update 2: a reader asked for further details on the search. From the time I was pulled over to being let on my way, the process lasted 15 minutes. The police officer’s colleague called up the driving licence authority to give them my licence registration number and the authority took about 10 minutes to get back. An officer opened the car boot, rummaged around some bags and luggage – I was travelling up to Cambridge with my wife – and had a look inside the car. They also inspected my clothes and checked my footwear. They did not ask me to open the glove compartment of the car. They also did not look under the car with a mirror or anything similar, or look under the bonnet.
Matthew Parris makes an eloquent argument that Gordon Brown is an empty shell. Strip away the bullying, the glowering, “oh god just how wonderfully serious I am” pose, the desk-thumping assertiveness, you have very little. Parris argues that there is no organising philosophical principle that animates this man. As Margaret Thatcher might have put it, he has no anchor.
Parris’ argument is quite persuasive. Outside the MSM, bloggers, such as ahem, yours truly, have been unimpressed for years by this man’s supposed towering intellect and grasp of facts. But, unlike Parris, I do think there is a sort of core philosophy that Brown has. The problem, however, is that this “core” philolosophy is just too awful to dwell upon for very long. He is a worshipper of the state and its power to bring about his vision of an egalitarian, puritanical, work-for-work’s sake country. It is not a totally bleak vision: no doubt Brown believes people will be happy in such a country – I just cannot believe he is so malevolent up as to actually want people to be miserable – but the blessings of such a state of affairs are not immediately apparent.
That said, it is easy to wonder why people might wander whether much goes on of very great interest inside Brown’s head. Take the recent deceit of the UK electorate over the EU Constitution, sorry Treaty. As a result of signing this Treaty, a wide number of powers will be transferred to the EU and away from parliament. Now the likes of Brown crave power and although they may hope to join the EU gravy train eventually, that hope may not come to pass. So why are British politicians, even Scottish ones with a historical grudge against England, so keen to sign away such large chunks of influence and power? What, in short, is the point?
Brendan O’Neill:
In much of the coverage of the torch relay, commentators have talked about the ‘supine’ British government and the ‘cowardly’ Bush administration which are failing to stand up against the brutes from the East, while cheering the French protesters and the Australian government for taking the Chinese on. As in the past, the driving force behind this outbreak of China-bashing is a perception that the West is in political and social decline, and the East might take its opportunity to snuff out ‘our’ civilisation once and for all. That 15 men in tracksuits could give rise to such an hysterical, out-of-control, fin-de-siècle, prejudicial debate reveals so very much more about contemporary Western fear and irrationalism than it does about Chinese wickedness.
Hmm. I think he has a decent point, even though his article does rather soft-play the whole Tibet issue. There has been something a bit, well, off-key about the venom directed against China, but then one should remember that for all its economic reforms, the grip of the Chinese Communist Party, an organisation responsible for some of the greatest mass murders in history (the Cultural Revolution, etc), does have rather a lot to live down. So for all that some of the demonstrations leave a sour taste, I think that most of those who object to what China is doing are on the side of the angels.
I have linked to Tim Worstall quite a bit lately and make no excuses for doing so again. He has a good piece about the current economic issues and ponders whether the latest risk factor is that of carbon-reducing measures worsening the economic outlook. It is afactor to consider, for sure. If the EU or other groups of countries slap tariffs on “naughty” carbon emitters, it could have quite a severe impact.
Former UK Chancellor Nigel Lawson has a new book out on global warming issues. For all that he made some errors during his time at 11 Downing Street, his sharp analytical brain is rather more impressive than that of the current office-holder. This looks like a good study of the subject.
David Selbourne is one of those intellectual figures who swims in similar currents to that of John Gray: mixing a sort of gloomy, conservative (small c) dislike of much modern culture and public life; a sort of grumpy dislike of the inevitably messy impact of individual liberty combined with a sort of authortarian desire for those in power to somehow rein in all this terrible individualist excess and take us back to say, 1950. Tim Worstall, well known around here, subjects his latest article to a fairly gentle fisking.
Here is the original piece by Selbourne. It follows a similar, arguably even more incoherent rant in the Spectator last week (sorry, I could not get the link to work, so you will have to trust me). Here he goes:
To expect the fulfilment by the citizen of his or her duties is no impertinence. It is essential to liberal democracy. Indeed, government ministers today speak hesitantly of a need for “constitutional renewal” or for a more “contractual” relationship between citizen and state. Under it, the performance of civic duties would be made a condition for the gaining of rights, many of the latter now routinely and shamelessly exploited by rich and poor alike.
As Tim puts it:
To return to a feudal system in which I owe duties to My Noble Lords in return for whatever rights they might see fit to grant me? Fuck that quite frankly.
Quite. Feudalism is actually a polite word for what this character wants to impose. A society in which freedoms are handed over like sweets in return for the prior performance of duties might be known as something rather ruder, like fascism.
Or maybe the problem could be more easily solved if Selbourne was honest about what he understands the definition of “rights” to be. In the classical liberal sense, a right is nothing more than a prohibition on the initiation of force against a person and his or her property; under socialism, the term “right” has been debauched into a claim on things such as the “right” to “free” schooling, which means that someone else be coerced into paying for the latter. The former negative definition of a right implies no such zero-sum game.
Selbourne must surely have heard of Isiah Berlin’s famous attempt to unscramble this confusion.
Hollywood illiberals such as George Clooney and Michael Moore made a career of sneering at the ageing Charlton Heston, which was almost enough to make me join the NRA. True, many of Heston’s conservative views might be as dated as his movies. But a willingness to take up arms for human freedom is one reason why we still don’t live on the planet of the apes.
– Mick Hume, reflecting on the stance on the right to bear arms that was taken by the late, great Charlton Heston. Here is a wonderful tribute to Heston by the US actor, Richard Dreyfus. Dreyfus is a ‘liberal’ in the American usage; his comments show real class and generosity of spirit.
This appeared in the Daily Telegraph today, in an article describing the tensions inside the UK Labour government, assailed from its own ranks over issues like taxes on alcohol, imprisonment without trial and other matters:
Behind the scenes, things are even worse. With no clear direction from above, Cabinet ministers are at each other’s throats. I am reliably informed that, after one recent Cabinet meeting, Jack Straw threatened to punch Ed Balls during a row about who was responsible for youth crime. The Justice Secretary came back to his department fuming that he had never been spoken to so rudely by a colleague in public and that he was not going to put up with it.
Fistfights in the cabinet? Well, if you elect thugs, thuggery will break out eventually.
Obama’s speeches frequently include passages that flatter their listeners who aren’t quite intelligent enough to realize how shallow his thinking actually is into thinking that they are more intelligent than they are.
– Stephen Bainbridge. Ouch.
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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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