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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Over at the National Review’s Corner blog, Charles C. W. Cooke has this smart observation to make about the extent governments claim they will go to eliminate risk:
No free society worth its salt operates anywhere close to the principle that a law that could save “one life” is automatically worth passing, or that “actions” that result in “only saving one life” are axiomatically “worth taking.” Holding all school classes in lead-lined, bulletproof underground panic rooms would probably save “one life” over the next few years, but that doesn’t mean we should do it; banning Ibuprofen would probably save “one life” in the next few years, but that doesn’t mean we should do it; limiting access to trousers and bananas and televisions and wardrobes and swimming pools would almost definitely save “one life” over the course of a given year, but, again, that doesn’t mean that we should do it. And so on and so forth. The question, as ever, is whether the cost is worth it. The “one life” canard is an attempt to bypass that and appeal to emotion. Depressingly enough, it’s relatively effective.
The “one life” idea is especially silly in the context of the gun debate because it can be used both ways equally productively. Almost every day, an American saves his own life — or someone else’s life — with a privately held firearm. Last week, for example, a mother in Georgia used a .38 revolver to protect herself and her children from an intruder. Taking Joe Biden’s line — which he appears to have inherited from the president — one could quite easily construct a case to issue all mothers with revolvers whether they like it or not. Wait, you object to having a gun in the house? You think that arming all of America’s mothers sounds expensive? You’re not sure that’s the best idea anyway. Civil liberties? Yes, yes, but if it saves just one life . . .
Indeed. And as he goes on to say, the UK government in the past – and still – engages in the same sort of behaviour. (Often, this is done in the name of protecting children, playing to the understandable desire of adults to protect youngsters.) Then there is that old friend, The Law of Unintended Consequences. A risk-averse society creates new risks, which of course fall on different shoulders from those presumably being protected by the measures, although often people who are supposed to be protected by bans on X or Y can suffer in other ways.
We cannot create a no-risk society, and even if we could, it would be horrifying. Indeed, the only place where humans exist without risk is in a grave.
Child attacked the very idea that one man could own another and in so doing enunciated the heart of libertarianism. “The personal liberty of one man can never be the property of another,” she wrote. “In slavery there is no mutual agreement; for in that case, it would not be slavery. The negro has no voice in the matter—no alternative presented to him—no bargain is made. The beginning of his bondage is the triumph of power over weakness…One man may as well claim an exclusive right to the air another man breathes, as to the possession of his limbs and faculties. Personal freedom is the birthright of every human being.”
These are the words of Lydia Maria Childs, as remembered in a nice article by those folk at The Skeptical Libertarian.
There has been something of a kerfuffle recently – over at the Bleeding Heart Libertarians site – about the role, or perhaps lack of involvement of – women in what can be loosely called the libertarian movement. On one level, this strikes me as a bit misplaced in terms of a concern, since I don’t really think that the circle of libertarians that I have moved in to have been particularly male dominated. And in general, the history of classical liberal thought in the 19th and 20th centuries has its prominent women figures such as Ayn Rand (even if she rejected the term); Rose Wilder Lane, Isobel Paterson, and more recently, Wendy McElroy and Virginia Postrel.
And given how women continue to be oppressed in parts of the world – such as in Saudi Arabia, to take one extreme example – I would argue that pro-liberty views ought to be particularly appealing to women, all things considered.
One new expression I have seen in recent months – ahead of and after last November’s US elections – is “low information voters”. It got my interest because it seems to be used, in the main, by right-of-centre commentators regarding what they assume are people who vote not by carefully weighing the policies and presumed philosophies of candidates such as Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, but on trivia, such as whether a candidate looks or sounds “nice” or “nasty” or suchlike. Such voters, the argument goes, hardly watch any current affairs TV or read the serious parts of the media; they prefer game shows, talent shows, chat shows, and other dreck. And the assumption is that voters have chosen Barack Obama for largely trivial reasons. (This sort of way of explaining the issue is, needless to say, fraught with the risk that the person who makes it can end up sounding like a racist.)
One way of interpreting this is to suggest that such voters are more rational than the wielders of the term “low information voters” give them credit for. The voters may have figured out that policy will not change much regardless of whom they vote for, and so rather than spending their non-work hours fretting about fiscal cliffs, impending societal collapse and the affordability of the Welfare State, they watch junk, worry about trivia and don’t bother much with things such as defence policy or debt-to-GDP ratios.
The problem, though, is that even the “junk” can be saturated with statist undertones. Take the “celebrity culture” – all too often, a celeb who is held up as a figure of pity or ridicule might play the “victim” card and the narratives that infuse their lives often convey a sense of life in which people are not really responsible adults, or for that matter, youngsters who want to become adults. And so the daily diet of stuff conveyed to “low information voters” adds to the sort of culture in which support for Welfare States takes hold. (This is the sense in which obesity can be seen as a sort of Welfare State consequence, not an argument you tend to hear from the nanny-Left.)
One way to combat this is to stamp your feet and complain. That seems to have limited success. Another is to try and figure out how the sort of culture that might appeal to “low information voters” can be changed in ways that encourages a rather better set of outcomes. Take the huge popularity in the ‘States of people such as Oprah Winfrey. Say what you like about her shows, but anyone wanting to connect with the public should study her success. And that surely ought to include libertarians. Hence the importance, also, of making great movies and TV shows that are fun, diverting and also positive. Yes, we can bleat about the influence of “liberal Hollywood” and its non-US equivalents, but in this day and age, with a more fractured media and entertainment world, does it really make sense to despair?
Which is why, by the way, I think America suffered a grievous loss when Andrew Breitbart died last year. Because he understood this sort of issue instinctively. But America is a Protean place – and there plenty more like him, I am sure.
So on that positive note, a belated Happy New Year.
“I just think to get under Piers Morgan’s skin you don’t tell him he’s “snooty” — he aspires to be snooty. You tell him he’s a shallow-thinking tabloid clown who’s mistaken himself for an intellectual, and someone that CNN only hired due to its own deep intellectual and cultural insecurity. He’s Jerry Springer with upper-middle-class English accent, but not particularly articulate.”
– Ace of Spades.
The blogger, who is right on substance, of course, makes the still-contested allegation that Morgan wiretapped, or encouraged others to wiretap phones. Has that been conclusively proven to the extent that Pc Plod is going to extradite this stoat from the US back to Blighty? I am not sure it has. (A recent programme makes similar claims.) Otherwise, my only other query would be the use of the word “articulate”. Being articulate is not the same as being intelligent. George Monbiot, Richard Murphy, Morgan and Polly Toynbee are “articulate”. Whether they show a command of logic, insight or respect for evidence and data is another issue entirely.
“Civilization is not just about saving labor but also about “wasting” labor to make art, to make beautiful things, to “waste” time playing, like sports. Nobody ever suggested that Picasso should spend fewer hours painting per picture in order to boost his wealth or improve the economy. The value he added to the economy could not be optimized for productivity. It’s hard to shoehorn some of the most important things we do in life into the category of “being productive.” Generally any task that can be measured by the metrics of productivity — output per hour — is a task we want automation to do. In short, productivity is for robots. Humans excel at wasting time, experimenting, playing, creating, and exploring. None of these fare well under the scrutiny of productivity. That is why science and art are so hard to fund. But they are also the foundation of long-term growth. Yet our notions of jobs, of work, of the economy don’t include a lot of space for wasting time, experimenting, playing, creating, and exploring.”
– Kevin Kelly.
The article nicely challenges the idea that the “Third” industrial revolution (the Internet and so forth) has been far less transformative and productive than the Second one (electricity, etc).
“Sports is remarkably cognitive. I think it’s underrated just how smart it is. Actually, if I had more time, I would spend more time with sports. Watching it, reading about it, I think it’s oddly underrated.”
– Tyler Cowen, being interviewed about himself and his interest in things such as where and how to find good, tasty food. As to his remark on sports, I guess that one of the benefits of watching it – say if you are into baseball or cricket – is improving your basic maths. It does not surprise me that Samizdata’s Michael Jennings is a PhD in maths and a cricket fanatic.
One of my favourite books is this one, Creative Destruction, which Cowen published a few years ago now.
Two men dressed as Oompa-Loompas – characters from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory – are being sought by police in Norwich after an attack in the heart of the city.
The Daily Telegraph.
Look, I know that folk from East Anglia – where I come from – are used to being abused for being “in-bred” or having “webbed feet” and other silly nonsense, but to be accused of trying to commit crimes while dressed as Willy Wonka’s employees is a bit much. (Just in case anyone wonders, I am not making light of what might be a serious crime.)
Mind you, Norwich did used to have several chocolate factories. Oh well, it makes a change from reading about the US “fiscal cliff”. I promise to be a bit more productive on this site than I have been in recent months. 2012 was effing busy.
“England has 39 police forces, headed by 39 chief constables or commissioners. In the past 18 months, seven have been sacked for misconduct, suspended, placed under criminal or disciplinary investigation or forced to resign. That is not far off a fifth of the total. In the same period, at least eight deputy or assistant chief constables have also been placed under ongoing investigation, suspended or forced out for reasons of alleged misconduct. No fewer than 11 English police forces – just under 30 per cent – have had one or more of their top leaders under a cloud.”
– Andrew Gilligan
The Tories are re-learning the point that unionised organisations tend, over time, to pursue their self interest in ways that, unless subjected to the rule of law, will be destructive. This conduct is some way off from the ideal as set by Sir Robert Peel.
This is not a story likely to dominate the airwaves, but hey, it is almost Christmas, and people think about things such as toys this time of year:
“Buckyballs, I soon discovered, are toys for the mind. They are a thinking person’s toy. How can you play with them and not wonder about the chemical nature of rare-earth metals (something about which I know hardly anything), and the nature of magnetic forces, and the sheer technological genius that goes into producing these little balls?”
“Obviously Buckyballs are adult toys, and Maxfield and Oberton emphatically warns users not to give them to children, eat them, inhale them, or place them near objects (such as pacemakers) that are sensitive to magnets. However, for those who use Buckyballs with common sense and due care, they are reasonably safe—just like countless other objects in or around the home from hammers to knives to sugar to prescription drugs to firearms to bicycles to automobiles.”
“What has been the government’s response to Buckyballs? Has it been to recognize the outstanding productive achievements of the company that makes them? To leave the company in peace to conduct its business? Of course not. The government has put Maxfield and Oberton out of business so far as Buckyballs are concerned. The sets I ordered are among the last that will be produced, ever.
– Ari Armstrong
Now that the US has been saved from the Buckyball menace, I am sure people in that country can sleep easier in their beds.
“We are about to start reaping the fruits of the 2012 election. They’ll be bitter. I think we’re about to see a full and overt assault on the Bill of Rights and on those who support individual liberty. I hope I’m entirely wrong. But don’t bet on it.”
– Charles Steele
Read the whole thing: it is packed with links to discussions about these issues. I don’t think he is exaggerating.
“To some extent the problem is too much rather than too little imagination. With fiat money, and a discretionary central bank, it’s always theoretically possible to have the money stock (or some other nominal variable) behave just like it ought to, according to whichever macroeconomic theory or model one prefers. In other words, a modern central bank is always technically capable of doing the right thing, just as a chimpanzee jumping on a keyboard is technically capable of typing-out War and Peace.”
– George Selgin, as quoted at the excellent Cafe Hayek blog.
“And may I say that the exaggerated outrage over the “phone hacking” scandal is particularly hypocritical given the culture of pervasive surveillance of citizens that the British government — ahead even of our own — has established over the past decade or two. Those criticizing the press here are in no position to complain about invasions of privacy.”
Glenn Reynolds weighs in on the the Leveson Report’s recommendation to regulate the UK media. Being a good American living in a land that has a First Amendment – not always well observed – Reynolds is distinctly unimpressed by Leveson. And we Brits should well remember how, if the UK media – or bits of it – are subjected to control, how this will lend some encouragement to authortarians the world over. (This is a fact that some members of the present government, such as William Hague, the foreign secretary, have grasped).
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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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