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 have just been working my through a collection of essays by the noted British writer, Theodore Dalrymple, (that is not his real name, from what I can guess), who has spent much of his professional life dealing with muggers, burglars, murderers, drug addicts, the homeless, the variously abused, and other inhabitants of that twilight zone we might generalise as “the underclass”. It is a great book, full of harrowing detail, often illuminated by mordant wit and unintended humour.
Dalrymple could, I think, be fairly characterised as a social conservative. That a Britain full of grammar schools, nuclear families and draconian punishments for infractions of the law is his desired state of affairs cannot be in doubt. He subscribes to the view, unless I have misread him, that the social reforms of the 1960s, while perhaps containing some good elements, were taken as a whole a social catastrophe for the working class. But were they? Do we really want, for example, to a return to when homosexuality was a criminal offence? And has some of the loosening of old social taboos been quite the disaster he claims? I am not so sure.
Some of his targets – such as state welfare and education systems – deserve all the muck he heaps on them. But I have problems with the relentlessly gloomy tone of the publication, and this goes, I think, for a lot of commentary one gets to see from the conservative side of the cultural spectrum these days. Apart from the usual hints that we should go back to some sort of social order resembling the 1950s of myth and memory, there is very little in the way to any positive solutions to the ills on display.
What struck me about Dalrymple’s book is how different he is from our Victorian forbears. As well as setting out the problem, the generation that brought us the gospel of “self improvement” looked at the ugliness around them and said, more or less, that “it doesn’t have to be like this”. And they acted.
And it doesn’t have to be like this. We have seen, in New York for example, a dramatic fall in violent crime, due to a determined effort at proper policing.
And in that, I think, lies the point that the United States, unlike Britain, has not yet given up. If we are to deal with some of the issues Dalrymple mentions, it will not be enough merely to point out the ugliness around us from the elegant citadels of the Daily Telegraph’s editorial offices. We will need to sketch out how we get to a better place. For if we don’t, then Dalrymple will become nothing better than a very articulate bore.
In our ceaseless quest to track down fine examples of modern capitalism, I lift my hat and salute blogger Andrew David Chamberlain , who has recently returned to blogging after a haitus, for pointing out a stupendous example of modern factory design in Dresden, Germany. The new Volkswagen plant is amazing, and if you follow the Car & Driver site he links to, you can see just how far things have come.
At one stage, car factories, like factories generally, were grim, smoky and frankly ugly buildings. We all know the images from old school textbooks about the Industrial Revolution, with rows of workers grinding away in massive structures belching out smoke. (Of course the same textbooks were often written by historians hostile to free enterprise, such as R.H. Tawney and Stalinist apologist Eric Hobsbawm but that is another topic on its own).
Well, for a variety of reasons, not least the massive rise in working condition standards, the quality of surroundings in a modern manufacturing plant has moved a light-year away from the Dark Satanic Mill cliched image of old.
I find it rather amusing that Germany, not a country which gets the credit it perhaps deserves for its futuristic design skills, should have come up with this terrific building. And of course the building also prompts thoughts about how styling of buildings, even supposedly very utilitarian ones like a car plant, is now a perfectly normal feature of life, as libertarian writer Virginia Postrel has already pointed out in her recently published book, The Substance of Style.
A leading British police officer has argued that heroin should be legalised, according to this report.
To which I can only say – wow! Of course, the usual suspects in the political world and media will throw up their arms in horror, demand this officer’s resignation and so forth. But to those of us ‘loony libbos’ who have been arguing about the utter futility of the war on drugs for years and pointed out how it has massively boosted organised crime will be pleased that someone from the Boys in Blue has had the moral courage to make this point.
Let me say straight off that I recognise that this is not a straightforward issue. Some who are sympathetic to the legalisation argument will nevertheless argue that our society has been so infantilised by the modern welfare state that it would be dangerous in the extreme to legalise what are seen as the most harmful drugs without at the same time making important social reforms. There is no doubt in my mind that if heroin were legalised straight away with no other parallel changes, a lot of vulnerable people could die. Any reform of public policy has to take that into account.
But for far too long any discussion of drug policy has occured in a sort of fairy-tale land, in which a whole area of debate has been shut down in advance. I find it a sign of the times that it is now even thinkable for a senior police officer to broach the subject of legalisaing heroin in public. Ten years ago it would have been unimaginable. By the standards of British public life, that is progress.
One of Australia’s greatest golfers, Greg Norman, is among a number of male golfers who want to limit, if not resist completely, the number of women golfers playing men in top-class tournaments.
Straight off, before the equal opportunities industry kicks into gear, we should remember that however dumb and sexist many golfers are said to be (or in some cases, actually are), golf clubs are, by and large, private associations. If women are annoyed at missing out on playing golf against the best, then by all means let golf clubs be opened which cater for both sexes, but we should also resist all attempts to ban the right of clubs, however fuddy-duddy, to set their own rules.
Also, a point for Norman and his ilk to recall is this – the handicapping system. So long as the golf handicap of a man is treating equally – on a par (heh) with that of a woman, then why are the guys getting upset? After all, if you have to be a scratch golfer to make the cut at the Masters, say, then if women really aren’t good enough to play, then the handicapping system in play will expose this rather quickly.
In truth, I suspect that Norman and his fellows probably fear that women are getting better at the game and will give them a serious run for their money.
But like I said, this issue is strictly for the clubs, the members, and the paying customer. Message to government – stay out of it.
Right, time I went to the driving range.
As any reader of this blog would have realised by now, the French political establishment is viewed with varying levels of disdain. I yield to no-one in my loathing of French President Jacques Chirac, who, let us not forget, would probably be an inmate of a jail for corruption were it not for the immunity from prosecution afforded to the holder of his office.
But as proud individualist and opponent of all attempts to lump people together under a single banner, I regard attempts to attack someone for being ‘French’ no better than doing so for being, say, American. Yet the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto does precisely this regarding Democratic wannabe Commander in Chief John Kerry. His constant snipes at Kerry for being “French-looking” are bigoted nonsense.
Well Mr Taranto, I would like to point out that many of the ideals enshrined in the US Constitution, which presumably is revered by the Wall Street Journal, originated in France. Voltaire, Montesquieu, Bastiat, Condorcet, Benjamin Constant and Alexis de Toqueville, all giants of classical liberalism, were all French.
James Taranto’s “Best of the Web” column used to be a must-read for its snappy and often hilarious takes on the various media comments of the day. Alas, he seems to be little more than a cheerleader for George Bush these days. Maybe Taranto’s talents, which are considerable, could be put to better use.
In a Reuters interview (not available yet on the Web) with Luigi Spaventa, the former head of the Italian stock market watchdog, Consob, he says stock markets should refuse to list firms such as stricken food group Parmalat whose ownership structure spreads into murky offshore centres, such as the Cayman Islands.
If a stock market is allowed to run its own affairs, then of course there is nothing wrong in it banning a would-be listed firm on the grounds of its ownership structure. But it is surely a different matter when it comes to a government regulator telling investors that a firm is so dodgy that they cannot put their own wealth into it via an exchange. Surely caveat emptor (“let the buyer beware”) applies here.
In any event, I wonder if crossed the mind of this old regulator that one key reason why so many firms domicile their business affairs in offshore centres is to avoid the crushing taxes imposed by European nation states?
I think Samizdata’s readership is ahead of me already on that one.
The growing examples of Western firms outsourcing or “offshoring” jobs, including hi-tech ones in software, to locations such as India has triggered a certain amount of bleating in parts of the commentariat as well as some excellent responses, such as at the blog Catallarchy. What this does show, however, is that those nations best able to cope with the ever-shifting sands of the global economy are those with the ability to harness skills to best effect.
For some time, we self-deprecating Brits have tended to downplay the extent to which we can still punch our economic weight in such a harshly competitive world economy. Well, this entertaining book, Backroom Boys, by Francis Spufford (never heard of him before, BTW) is a pleasurable, if sometimes maddening account of how the British scientists have pioneered or collaborated in a range of economic fields, such as the early space race of the 1950s and 1960s, computer games, the supersonic jet plane Concorde, and perhaps most significant for our present lives – mobile phones.
What I particularly liked about Spufford’s book is how he got under the skin of how scientists work and co-operate with one another. He nailed home the point that in scientific establishments, both in the public and private sector, what counts for a scientist is not necessarily big money, but the respect of one’s peers. For a scientist, you are respected as much for the ideas you share with your peers as to how many times you get your face on the front of Time magazine. In short, he says scientists operate an intellectual “gift economy” where altruism pays.
The book also shows how British scientific efforts, often “hobbled” by supposed lack of funds, often had to adapt and employ more nimble ways of research while their better-funded American rivals could just bully ahead. The best example, of course, is the contrast between Britain’s puny efforts to launch its own space programme, including the Black Arrow rocket programme, and the various endeavours of NASA. (I wonder how many readers know Britain had this programme? I certainly did not).
The story of how Concorde, a collaborative Anglo-French venture came into being and was supported by the taxpayer before eventually being drawn into the maw of privatised British Airways was instructive. Libertarian purists will, of course, blanche at the idea of such a plane being created with tax funds in the first place. I side with them, but I could not help noticing that Concorde came into its own as part of an overall business package when BA became a private business. There is a lot of interesting description in the book about the “halo” effect, whereby a luxury, loss-making entity like Concorde is kept within a business to make the whole operation more appealing. Spufford also reflects about the nature of luxury goods and how they are priced. It may seem irrational that a Concorde seat costs X times more than that of a seat on a Boeing 747, but making the seat so costly was part of the cachet, like the cost of a Rolex watch or an Aston Martin sports car.
Perhaps in a moment of rare hubris, Spufford ends his book speculating about the now-fated Beagle 2 Mars project. He dreams that a “British suitcase is on Mars”. Oh well, you cannot win ’em all.
U.S.-based music download business Napster, which is now a paid-for service after its chastening battles in the law courts against the music companies, is extending its services to European customers, according to this report. Well, when it comes to stirring up a hornet’s nest of controversy, few subjects generate more angry buzzes than the case for or against the right to download music on the net, in my experience.
If the record companies ever thought that Napster would vanish without trace, they were deluding themselves. Personally, while I have my questions about the intellectual property right aspects to Napster-style downloading technology, there is no doubt that it has thrown traditional business models into the dustbin. But does it mean the death of music recordings, orchestras, book authors and film-makers? I don’t really think so.
As a related point, there is an interesting article here on the website of science fiction publishing house Jim Baen, making a good point about how downloading can, in the medium to long run, raise rather than cut book sales. I suppose that the argument works for music and possibly films as well.
I suppose it had to happen. Italian legislators, no doubt hoping to look useful in the wake of the near-collapse of Italian food group Parmalat, say they need new laws to prevent the kind of abuses that have dragged the firm into the mire.
Yep, that’s the spirit. What we need is a “overhaul”, a “sweeping new set of powers”, a new super-agency with “wide-ranging” powers to prevent such things happening again.
They never learn, do they? If the public authorities had been doing their job in the first place, ie, enforce the laws preventing fraud and theft, then Parmalat would be chiefly known for its milk cartons, and not as a firm which is doomed to be known as Europe’s Enron. But I guess where there’s muck, there’s brass, as we Brits say. The firm may be teetering on the brink, but at least politicians can see the bright side and pass some impressive new laws and bolster their wonderful reputations.
This book has been out for a couple of years, but such is my backlog of reading material (it seems to be common problem among us libertarians) that I have only just got round to reading this enthralling and at times harrowing account of how a group of dare-devil British mountaineers, inspired by the challenge of the Himalayas, mixed high-altitude adventure and spying activity against the Chinese during the mid-1950s. If you love books on central Asian geo-politics, mountaineering and some appallingly good rude words, you will like this story.
Sydney Wignall, a Welsh mountaineering enthusiast, very nearly died from maltreatment at the hands of the Chinese PLA after he and his fellow mountaineers were kidnapped at gunpoint during an expedition to Tibet. Without giving away any essentials, the book, written in a sort of Kiplingesque style, rams home the utter horror of what has happened in Tibet and against its people as a result of the Chinese incursions since the end of the Second World War.
This book is a timely reminder of what a disgusting thing communism is and what it can do to people. It also tells, however, tales reflecting the very best of human character and spirit, not least among ordinary Chinese people caught up in the collective madness of Mao’s totalitarian order. It also makes me want to visit the Himalayas one day.
The trial of American businesswoman Martha Stewart is shortly about to get underway. I am, on the basis of what I have read about the charges brought against her, unconvinced she was guilty of insider trading, and in fact deeply disturbed that prosecutors have chosen to go ahead with this case on the basis of what looks like thin evidence, as described in detail in this article in Reason magazine.
I have a problem with insider trading as it is defined by lawmakers in the United States, Europe, and in certain other parts of the world. In all too many cases, insider trading is so loosely defined that any entrepreneur with a quick dialing finger and fast ability to spot information – surely a praiseworthy thing – could, according to some definitions, be found guilty of insider trading. Insider trading has become rather similar to anti-trust in this regard, in that capitalist-bashing lawmakers can use it to cut down the successful.
I do not see any relief coming soon from our legislators. Insider trading is often a way for politically ambitious legislators and public prosecutors to make a name for themselves. And even in those cases where a chief executive or other senior business person has acted wrongly, one usually finds that the act in question amounted to fraud, theft or some other crime already covered in company and in our existing Common law. For example, if say, CEO Fred Smith uses information obtained in secret and in a way that violates his own company’s rules, he should be sacked for breaking company rules and the terms of his contract. No broader insider trading law is necessary.
Also, there is no reason why, for example, a market like the Nasdaq exchange could not stipulate that all listed firms adhere to certain standards of corporate behaviour. Exchanges which let companies do what they want may have to pay a “reputational price” in that some investors will choose to migrate to more upright exchanges. This happens to a certain extent already, because stock exchanges in countries with loose regulations and opaque reporting standards – as has been the case in parts of Latin America, for example – lose out to exchanges like the Dow Jones our own FTSE. In fact, globalisation is forcing a “race to the top” in terms of corporate behaviour as stock market leaders around the world seek to attract capital. The market wins again. (By the way, the collapse of Italian food group Parmalat has helped underscore the reputational damage to a whole country – in this case Italy – when a firm is thought to have behaved wrongly).
On a more economically theoretical basis, insider trading, even if one could definite it clearly, usually poses no actual “harm” either to the broader investor if one accepts that capital markets are typically highly efficient in these days, when price anomalies are usually exposed in seconds in this electronic age.
Time to put insider trading laws under the spotlight, and hopefully, in the dustbin.
He was not a ‘show biz personality’. He did not appear in Hello magazine. He did not share his view with us about the case for toppling Saddam, and as far as I am aware, has not greatly troubled the front pages of the world’s newspapers with drunken antics. He was, boringly, one of the finest, toughest sportsmen of the age. And boy, could he use a cricket bat.
Steve Waugh, cricketing colossus, has finally quit the field.
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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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