Don’t worry, I’m not gonna start any sword fights. I’m over that phase.
– Captain Malcolm Reynolds, one of the many fine characters in the television series, Firefly.
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Here is the latest Papal Bull from the European Union:
It used to be the dream of socialists and utopians of varying degrees of malevolence or stupidity to want a world state. In a world state, pesky local regulatory differences would be obliterated and replaced by a rational grid of laws from which no escape was possible. In true ‘watermelon’ fashion – green on the outside, red in the core – the Greens are embracing the instruments of a pan-national state to enforce their ideas. There is a superficial plausibility to this. Pollution knows no barriers. If a German coal-fired power station emits carbon dioxide and other things, that will not just affect the Germans living near to the station but other nations. If a Swiss chemicals firm accidentally spills toxic material in to the Rhine – this has happened – then people in Holland get affected, and so on. But what these sort of cases do is not to suggest that we need to give a centralised, international body coercive powers over people living across a whole continent. Rather, we should keep reminding people that rigorous enforcement of existing property rights, and creation of such rights in hitherto unowned resources, allied to the incentive structures of markets, provide the best route for tackling real environmental problems such as pollution. In any case, with certain emissions, it pays to remember that a pollutant for one person might be a positive benefit – or “externality” – for someone else. The global warming/pollution/generally-we-are-all-doomed agenda is a significant threat to our liberties at the moment, so I make no apologies for going on about it. February 7th, 2007 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Following on from Thaddus’s recent posting about how politicians are trying to enlist children in the Green agenda, it is worthwhile pondering why environmentalism, even the more scientifically credible sort, is often depressing, puritanical and unpleasant. Let’s face it, a lot of libertarians’ hostility to Greenery is a suspicion that the Greens are “watermelons” – green on the outside, and socialists on the inside. Socialism, in as much as it has ever been a coherent political and economic point of view, has been economically if not entirely intellectually discredited. It has been a failure, with varying degrees of nastiness, ranging from the stifling if relatively benign version of Sweden through the to mass killing fields of Mao’s China and Pol Pot’s Cambodia. So if you hate capitalism and material wealth then the Green agenda comes in very handy. There is a danger in this approach, however, and not just because ad hominem points about the motives of one’s ideological opponents often put off the uncommitted. The fact may be that the planet is genuinely getting warmer and that human activity has helped to cause that. Pollution of the air, seas and rivers is a problem for someone who is polluted. The destruction of ancient woodlands and the loss of flora and fauna is bad. So I can see why environmentalism appeals not just to anti-capitalists, but to conservatives and liberals who want to live the good life and ensure there is plenty of that good life around for future generations. There is in fact a school of environmental thought that harnesses ideas of property and markets to make its case. Another point I’d make is this: why cannot the Greens, or at least the more sensible ones, throw off the image of po-faced puritanism that so often hangs around their pronouncements. His Supreme Blogness, Glenn Reynolds, has interesting thoughts here on how technologies like electric cars and so forth should be sold not as a sort of “hair-shirt” consumer gesture but because such technologies might be fun and interesting for people. Fun – that is a word one does not hear much about when discussing technological fixes for our planet. Perhaps we should hear it a good deal more. February 4th, 2007 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
“The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder”. – Alfred Hitchcock, who was always a practical fellow. February 2nd, 2007 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have no idea whether the journalists at the Daily Telegraph make it their business to read this blog (although they most certainly should do so, naturally) but this article nicely backed up my point the other day about the economic upsurge of India. In my posting here, a number of commenters scoffed with disbelief that some jumped up rating agency should be so daft as to proclaim that India’s debt rating has improved, and that the country'[s economy is improving. “My dear boy, this is India!” you can hear them cry. And one commenter, bless him, even suggested that India is still far behind most of Latin America, a comment sure to provoke hollow laughs from any entrepreneural type hoping to prosper in Chavez’s Venezuela. Of course, as I said at the time, India is still moving up from a relatively low base. During the immediate post-war years, the East Asian economies in places like South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan powered ahead while India, influenced by those dreadful Fabians and London School of Economics types who stuffed the old colonial service, embraced socialism, planning and progressive taxes. But the fact, that cannot be denied, is that this country, with its vast, English-speaking population, relatively stable system of property rights and its admirable enthusiasm for the world’s greatest sport, is shooting the economic lights out. There is just no pleasing some people, it seems. February 1st, 2007 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
The row about whether Catholic adoption agencies should be allowed to refuse to give children up to gay couples has already caused a great deal of controversy, and there is a very, smart article on the issue at The Devil’s Kitchen blog which takes a pretty firm libertarian line on the matter. In my view, if a Catholic or any other religious organisation wishes to refuse to hand over children entrusted to it to certain sorts of people on grounds of religious doctrine, then one can certainly object to those views, but they should not be banned, in my view. The problem, however, is that such adoption organisations receive money from the taxpayer: you and me. I am not a Catholic (although my wife is) and I am not happy that I may be financially enabling people to act on views I regard as wrong. This in my view demonstrates the great dangers of encouraging charities to receive tax moneys or indeed to get involved in state initiatives of any kind. By receiving such moneys, these bodies will slowly but surely lose their autonomy. The Catholic charities that are involved in areas like adoption may choose to sever any links with the state apparatus, and I strongly urge them to do so. This government, remember, is one that regards autonomous institutions, be they businesses, charities, or any associations of people, as a threat to its power and designs. It wishes to bend these institutions to its corporatist, collectivist ends. In a sense, this is in fact a profoundly fascist government, in that it maintains the appearance of tolerating private property rights and institutions, but in fact seeks to regulate them so closely as to turn them into empty husks. I hope this whole episode drives home in people’s minds the extent to which civil society, traditionally understood, has been weakened by this government. It was the late Tory MP, Nicholas Budgen I think, who once remarked that NuLabour would no longer seek to nationalise industries. Instead, it would nationalise people. January 31st, 2007 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
The good news from India keeps coming. This week, the international credit rating agency, Standard & Poors pronounced that the “Third World” nation had become so prosperous that the risk of lending money to the country had fallen significantly.
As anyone who has taken out a personal loan or mortgage will know, getting a stronger credit rating is a big deal. India is now ahead of economic basket-cases such as Argentina or Venezuela, and has got there by a programme of economic liberalisation. I keep banging on about the vigour of the Indian economy – notwithstanding the still-grinding poverty in parts of the country – because it is probably the most positive economic story of our times. It shouts, loud and clear, that markets work. Market economics is doubly potent when combined with a relatively robust civil society, protection of property rights and the priceless asset of an international language like English. Meanwhile, India-based Tata Steel has sealed its purchase of UK steelmaker Corus. January 31st, 2007 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
“I think we should take Iraq and Iran and combine them into one country and call it Irate. All the pissed off people live in one place and get it over with.” January 30th, 2007 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
“It is my settled opinion, after some years as a political correspondent, that no one is attracted to a political career in the first place unless he is socially or emotionally crippled.” January 29th, 2007 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
Today is Milton Friedman Day. Interesting selection of links to events marking the great man’s life over at Virginia Postrel’s blog. Here is the main event link. January 29th, 2007 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
On a Sunday afternoon, when recovering from a close friend’s birthday the previous evening – in the Dover Street wine bar – god help my liver and I – there is no better way to resume some semblance of humanity than to listen to this woman. I first chanced upon one of Diana Krall’s CDs about a decade ago and she has held a firm place in my music-playing selection ever since. Her version of “Face the Music and Dance” was my choice of first musical piece at my wedding last year, taken from this CD. Norah Jones is great, Peggy Lee was wonderful and Ella Fitzgerald could charm the birds off the trees, but Krall is as good as any of them – not to mention rather easy on the eye – and hopefully will be around for a long time yet. No wonder Clint Eastwood went nuts when he saw her playing in a local Carmel bar before she became a megastar. My hangover is fading already.  January 28th, 2007 | 29 comments - (Comments are closed)
The other night I glanced at the television to see an advertisement for a smooth-looking new car by Hyundai. All very clever with a sort of liquid metal effect – due to the wonders of computer generated technology – but absolutely nothing at all about the car. There was no description of how fast the car could go, what sort of gearbox it had, how many seats, how much it costs, what its fuel consumption is. Nothing. It was about as informative as watching a North Korean press release. The reason, I think, why modern car advertisements are like this is because of a campaign by the UK authorities, with bodies like the Advertising Standards Authority, to remove all reference to the idea that a car is desirable because it goes fast. One must not offend against the Gods of Health and Safety by implying, stating or otherwise celebrating that this or that set of wheels goes like a rocket. No sir. One must not lead the gullible British public into the sin of speeding and other naughtinesses. What we therefore have are adverts that are self-indulgent eye candy, of no more import than a nice piece of modernist artwork. Here is an example of what I mean. It is, I suppose, a reflection of the society in which we live that advertisements, like old Tom and Jerry cartoons, get bowdlerised or otherwise influenced by the desire to remove all risk from life. But life is not free from risk, and risk is actually one of the ways that you know that you are alive rather than dead. On a brighter note, Richard Hammond, “The Hamster” as he is known to his Top Gear TV colleagues, is back to the screens this Sunday after recovering from a stunt that went badly wrong. What I continue to love about that show is that you know, you just know, that the serried ranks of the do-gooder classes cannot abide this programme. Go Hamster! January 27th, 2007 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
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