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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I am writing these few words in the island of Malta, having spent the last week and a half enjoying the sights, sounds, and particularly, the culinary tastes, of this splendid island. This is now the second time that I have spent Christmas here and I strongly recommend it as a place to enjoy the turn of the year. The weather is currently warmish and sunny, with the thermometer around 17 degrees C. The locals celebrate Christmas with the unapologetic gusto of a strong Catholic country, laced with a mix of influences (Arabic, British, southern Italian). The front windows of shops and private homes often carry brilliant decorations and Nativity scenes. Most balconies – there are a lot of balconies – have plastic Father Christmases attempting to scale the side of a house. There are pleasingly few signs that planning officials tell people what sort of decorations to put up.
Malta is noisy. Maltese people love fireworks with a passion that rivals that of the Chinese. Any excuse to set them off will do. And we are talking about seriously loud, bright fireworks. The great safety panic that seems to have stifled so much enjoyment in Britain, the USA and elsewhere is still held at bay – mostly – in this island of about 500,000 souls. There have been some bad accidents in the fireworks factories but the enthusiasm for the things is undimmed. Perhaps having survived the terrible bombings during the Second World War, the Maltese are not going to be frightened by a few rockets set off in the garden.
I have visited this place more than a dozen times, got married here, drunk far too much red wine than is good for me here, watched several theatre plays here, sailed here, swam here, but more than anything else, eaten myself silly here. One of the finest dishes you can get is Lampuki Pie, which is made from this particular fish. I have just consumed a rather large part of one.
I need to go for a lie down.
Well, that is the view of this guy, anyway. I must say I never got very hung up on elaborate theories as to why bits of sheep in tanks or rows of rubber tyres were not, in some profound sense, “art” or not. There are almost as many theories of what art is as supposed art objects themselves. For me, art has to enhance my imagination in some way and has to appeal to my emotions as well as my rational faculties. I like my art to be strongly stylistic but also grounded in some kind of reality (I am a sucker for 1950s comic art, for example).
This writer, David Thompson, is obviously not impressed by the incoherence of those who defend or propound much that goes under the title of modernism:
If some readers find it hard to believe that academia has actually been churning out people who can no longer distinguish between coherent argument and vacuous patois, it’s worth casting an eye over some of the more fashionable quarters of art theorising and cultural study. A cursory scan of Mute magazine (issue 27, January 2004) revealed the following nugget, from an essay titled Bacterial Sex written by Luciana Parisi, a teacher of “Cybernetic Culture” at the University of East London: “This practice of intensifying bodily potentials to act and become is an affirmation of desire without lack which signals the nonclimactic, aimless circulation of bodies in a symbiotic assemblage.” If you think you misread that sentence, try reading it again.
Thanks to the website of Stephen Hicks for the link.
Anyway, that is pretty much me done for 2007. Off to Malta with Mrs P at the weekend, assuming the fog does not interfere with the flights. Wishing everyone a great Christmas and prosperous New Year. I’d like to thank Perry and the other members of the Samizdata gang for taking this blog through to its fifth year. Now for the sixth!
Signs of technical advancement from Britain’s own constitutional monarchy.
The latest edition of The Onion has some invaluable advice on avoiding being “irresponsible” when it comes to drinking booze this Christmas.
God, I love that publication.
“Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy”.
Groucho Marx (the Marx who actually had intelligent things to say about money).
Reason magazine’s Brian Doherty (he of Burning Man fame) has written a nice piece looking at the controversial role the late Milton Friedman played in advising economic reforms to the government of the late, and not-very-lamented, Augusto Pinochet of Chile.
The New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis declared in 1975 that “The Chilean junta’s economic policy is based on the ideas of Milton Friedman…and his Chicago School…if the pure Chicago economic theory can be carried out in Chile only at the price of repression, should its authors feel some responsibility?” Such attitudes haunted Friedman to his death and beyond.
The reaction of some of the usual conservative suspects to Pinochet’s death didn’t help debunk this unfortunate association. Since he was a pro-American autocrat, who ultimately honoured a plebiscite and stepped down, portions of the American right have always had an unhealthy affection for the general. National Review ran both a symposium and a stand alone piece by former editor John O’Sullivan marking Pinochet’s passing, neither of which were much outraged about his crimes. O’Sullivan explicitly said , in the sort of bizarre moral prisoner exchange that partisan squabbling generates, that sure, Pinochet should suffer for his villainy – but only if Castro and Allende’s associates do as well.
I agree with pretty much every word of Doherty’s analysis, and his punchline is good:
Undoubtedly, Friedman’s decision to interact with officials of repressive governments creates uncomfortable tensions for his libertarian admirers; I could, and often do, wish he hadn’t done it. But given what it probably meant for economic wealth and liberty in the long term for the people of Chile, that’s a selfish reaction. Pinochet’s economic policies do not ameliorate his crimes, despite what his right-wing admirers say. But Friedman, as an economic advisor to all who’d listen, neither committed his crimes, nor admired the criminal.
Those leftists who nitpick at the late economist for his role in advising the Chilean regime have only the tiniest of legitimate reasons for bashing Friedman, I think. Considering that he was a man who made the case for abolishing the draft, decriminalising drugs, promoting school choice and so forth, his credentials as a pro-liberty guy were pretty much impeccable.
“Progressive taxes do not redistribute income. They redistribute taxpayers.”
George Gilder, one of the early evangelists for “supply-side” economics, which is a fancy way of saying that he thinks people respond to incentives, considered a wild-eyed idea by some people.
The only way to view the present, imploding Labour government as it fights over the cash-for-peerages issue, is like a bunch of street rats at each others’ throats. This story in the Sunday Telegraph states that Tony Blair is willing to let one of his top cronies and fund-raisers, Lord Levy, take the hit for the scandal.
In many ways, what strikes me as so distinctive about this government and its ministers is that the big bust-ups, the big fights, were not on issues of principle. At least the Tories, for all their manifest faults, fell out over things like the euro and the Maastricht Treaty, which were serious, major issues. But then the Tories were once a grown-up party, with grown-up people in it like Margaret Thatcher, Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson. Say what you like about these personages, but their rows were over issues of major substance.
It seems an awfully long time ago.
I had the pleasure of meeting U.S. blogger Stephen Green, of the excellently entitled Vodkapundit, a few months ago at a party in London. Stephen has been ill, lost a lot of weight, and I must say I got quite concerned when he stopped posting. He now explains what has been going on. It looks as if the fella is going to be all right, which is terrific news for him and his wife and child. Feel free to nip over to his site and give him your best wishes.
I am looking forward to the Colorado Scribe posting up more of those cocktail recipes again. Mine’s a gin and tonic.
Considering that investment bankers at places like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are paid the sort of money that sounds like a respectable cricket score, economics writer Arnold Kling asks the question: why is the supply of people to do this job not rising in response to a very juicy lump of money? It is a good question to ask. For the sort of money on offer, even a maths dunce like your humble scribe might want to learn to do the job and start figuring out the the clever-dick arts of hedge funds, credit derivatives and leveraged buyouts. So why is the supply not rising? I think some of this may be caused by a lack of talented folk coming out of our education system, but that cannot really explain it over the long-term. It may be that getting the level of experience to do these jobs is quite high, raising the scarcity and hence the massive rewards. Of course when these guys get fired for failing to perform, this rarely bothers people who get upset about the big salaries.
These guys have a rather, er, different take on the matter.
I am just about to go out to nail some final Christmas shopping but if anyone is feeling all warm and generous, they can always buy me one of these. I promise I will send a very fulsome thankyou card.
“Stunning” does not even come close to describing how magnificent the new Aston Martin is. No wonder the makers of the Bond movies keep going back to the marque. Isn’t rampant capitalism just great?
P.J. O’ Rourke has a book on Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. This looks like the ideal Christmas gift to give someone who might be undecided politically, has an open mind and can be moved by the wisdom of a man who persuades with wit rather than the blunderbuss of masses of statistics or over-preachy bromides. I must say I really enjoyed O’Rourke’s little gem “Eat the Rich”, which is still available and which came out a few years ago. He may have veered away from the uber-hilarious form of books like Parliament of Whores, Republican Party Reptile or the Batchelor Home Companion, but it is good to see that O’Rourke is still writing and making people think and laugh at the same time. His is a special and all-too-rare talent.
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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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