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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There is a fine article in The Times today (link requires registration and may not work outside UK) by Mick Hume, bemoaning the decline of belief in individual responsibility and the growing use of the word “addiction” to describe almost every form of repetitive behaviour.
As the article can only be read through registration (grrr), here’s the opening gaff:
“We are becoming a nation of addiction addicts. Our society has become hooked on the habit of blaming human behaviour on some form of addiction. Apparently normal people – doctors, scientists, politicians (normal? ed), even journalists (ditto? ed) – seem incapable of resisting the urge to inject “addict” or “dependency” into any discussion of social problems.”
Exactly. The use of the word addict is used by policymakers to assault the idea of Man as a being with free will. We are all essentially passive victims. By doing so, it opens the floodgates to authortarian control of our lives. Look at the massive lawsuits against tobacco firms. Now I hold no brief for such firms, but the idea that people become so “addicted” to X or Y that they are unable to resist is surely contradicted by evidence all around us of people quitting such repetitive habits. Millions of people have in recent decades quit smoking, for example, like the good David Carr of this parish. Many have taken the painful step of quitting hard drugs or quitting alcohol. Of course change can be acutely difficult, which is why we praise folk who take the step of leading a healthier life.
Addiction is a word in danger of being rendered useless by applying it to just about every form of behaviour which is either frowned upon or a repeat form of activity.
Come to that, I suppose I must be “addicted” to blogging. Help me nurse, I am using Movable Type again!
“But it may be that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of goodwill in the abodes of those whose lot it is to labour, and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow, when they shall recuit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened by a sense of injustice”.
– Sir Robert Peel, British statesman (1788-1850)
The quote by Peel above, coming as it does from one of the greatest of British statesmen and a free-trader who paid a high political price for his convictions, ought to be remembered as we contemplate the recent trip by President George W. Bush to Africa, and indeed the trips by numerous western leaders to the poorer parts of the world.
We live in times when we are constantly told that it is the duty of the prosperous industrial nations to help lift their poorer peers, such as in Africa, to a wealthier state. And yet nothing could be more useful in that aim than if governments, such as those which support the EU and U.S. farm subsidies, chose the path of genuine laissez faire.
Sir Robert Peel may not be a name familiar to many people today – more’s the pity. He may be mainly known as the man who established London’s Metropolitan Police (which is why our police are still sometimes called “bobbies”).
When one considers how he put the industrial future and prosperity of the masses before the vested interests of the land by embracing free trade, the dimwits who inhabit our government today look very small indeed.
After recovering from the revelries at the blogger bash, there was no better way to unwind than enjoy a trip down to Greenwich, east London, and wander around the superb clipper sailing ship in dry dock, the Cutty Sark.
This three-masted, square-rigged jewel of 19th century sailing technology was built to carry goods like Chinese tea, Australian wool and other products at high speed to London. The vessel that could moor up at the great port of London ahead of the competition would get the best prices for its produce. These great beasts of the high seas were sailed with the kind of white-knuckle speed and skill that would put a modern America’s Cup yacht race to shame. They often frequently would beat steam-driven vessels over comparable distances.
When we think about today’s rows about globalisation it is easy to assume that so many aspects of economic life are new. They are not. Our Victorian forbears already conducted trade on a vast scale. Ships such as the Cutty Sark commonly had cosmopolitan crews from countries across the world. There were very few regulations governing who could join up as a merchant seaman.
Of course, many aspects of life have improved since then. I dread to think what it must have been like to climb aloft the Cutty Sark’s mainmast in a gale to reef in a sail with the ship rolling about – and you can forget anything like safety harnesses. But these men enjoyed an enterprising life which at times makes yours truly almost feel quite jealous.
When the state of California was hit by rolling power blackouts two years ago, some commentators at the time daftly blamed it on privatised electricity generation, when of course the real cause was the partial deregulation of power in the state. There was no market incentive for power generation firms to increase production, and ferocious environmental controls and “not in my back yard” planning wrangles also crimped capacity.
Well, looks like we could be headed for a similar fate here in Britain, for the first time since the unlamented 1970s, according to this article. If we have a bad winter in say, 2006, the lights could go out for part of the time.
Not all of this can or should be blamed on the current Labour government. But there is no doubt that its determination to suppress nuclear power, its failure to genuinely liberate energy supply and production, could leave the UK facing a serious problem. The economic consequences could be disastrous.
So when you find yourself brushing your teeth in the dark, think of the insincere, smiling visage of Saint Tony.
I post this on Thursday afternoon, just ahead of the day when our American friends take a break from the office, farm and factory to commemorate the birthday of their country.
And may these words stand, forever, as the guiding principles of the greatest nation on this planet.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
PS. Could we have the tea back from Boston, please?
PPS. Could we borrow this when it comes time for Britain to leave the EU, please?
The American food giant, Kraft, is taking a number of steps to ward off the threat it may be sued by obese folk claiming its foodstuffs made them so big. This comes in the wake of threats by an American man to sue various fast-food chains for making him so big.
Kraft, of course, is fully entitled as a private company to adjust its products as it wishes. It is probably a wise move. In the U.S., and sadly, increasingly also here in the UK, the idea that the consumer should adopt the posture of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) is on the decline. We are increasingly told that we are all victims, passive suffers of the blandishments of big, evil, and mostly multinational corporations.
The idea of taking responsibility for your actions is dying out. We are on the way to all being treated like naughty little moppets in a creche.
And of course if we do still sneak into a fast-food joint for a big burger, there’s a chance our state nannies will want the evidence recorded on CCTV.
As part of my continuing vow to be as nice as humanly conceivable towards our neighbours in France, I refer the readers of this blog to the following news item, purely for the purposes of conveying information, and not out of any desire to gloat over, denigrate or otherwise annoy the French.
Harry Potter has cast such a spell over the French that they are snapping up JK Rowling’s latest book in English, rather than waiting for the translation.
[…]
“It’s not exactly going to please the anti-globalisation movement,” noted literary magazine Livres Hebdo, which compiles and publishes the bestseller charts.
Heh. 
“The truth about market liberalisation and economic growth is not that it increases inequality, nor that it hurts the poor: just the opposite. Rather, the truth is that some large parts of the poor world are pulling themselves out of poverty while others are not.”
– The Economist
The quote is taken from an article in the Economist marking that publication’s 160th birthday. The Economist, even though it occasionally annoys me with its smart-ass tone, has been a fairly consistent voice of pro-free market liberal good sense since it first went to print in the Victorian age. It is worth clicking on the link and looking at the related articles in a whole series which the Economist devotes to celebrating liberal ideas.
And by “liberal”, I mean the word that would have been worn as a badge of pride by William Gladstone, Adam Smith or Milton Friedman, rather than those collectivists in drag in the U.S.
Happy Birthday, Economist!
Interesting interview in the Daily Telegraph today with the 21-year-old Sabine Herold, the French student who has startled Frenchmen and women with her passionate advocacy of rolling back the state, reining in the unions, and cutting taxes.
I have no idea how this lady will fare in the future, and what effect the views of such young people will have on French national life. But she offers a glimmer of hope for those of us, who while revolted by the cynical Chirac, nurse a deep affection for that country.
She is an avid fan of Edmund Burke, Hayek, and the English classical liberal tradition. She is also – ahem – quite an eyeful.
I am in love.
The German police, it seems are every bit as concerned about protecting the welfare of you and I as the British bobby, so it seems according to this article.
Good to know that in an age where we are threatened with global terror, soaring violent crime and property crime, police have such important things to do.
Most defences of globalisation, as far as I have seen, have focussed on the essentially economic benefits of free trade, the free movement of goods, services and people. To date – and I may have missed something – there has not been much in the way of a cultural defence of globalisation. So I was delighted to come across this book a while back by noted culture and economics writer Tyler Cowen
He makes the important point that far from crushing local cultures and imposing a blanket of bland pap on us all, globalisation has often spawned a great deal of what we would think of as “traditional” culture. Using examples as varied as Navajo textiles to Caribbean music, Cowen nails the idea once and for all that globalisation means that the entire planet is going to turn into a MacDonalds fast-food joint.
What I particularly liked about this book was its positive, thoughtful tone. He spared us any tiresome ideological hominems about capitalism and the market. Instead, he shows how trade stirs up cultures worldwide, often producing marvellous and dazzling results.
A key theme also emerging from Cowen’s study is that globalisation has in some ways vastly increased, not reduced, the diversity of cultural forms on this planet. When anti-globalistas like John Gray, for example, berate it, what I suspect they want is for the status quo to be preserved in the ways they like. They are often not all that interested in diverse cultures, more in a form of nationalism. What Cowen does is show the enormous benefits of modern fast communications, technology and speed of human contact.
I recommend this book very highly.
Biotechnology may offer some relief to long-suffering sufferers of hayfever, according to this report.
The advance of summer is always slightly spoiled for me by this allergy. My eyes go red, I sneeze violently and have to take medication to keep the symptoms at bay, which for a son of a farmer from East Anglia is not very helpful.
So if the men in white coats can figure out a way to reduce this blight on my summers, here’s to them. Is modern technology great or what?
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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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