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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Is there some sort of pathological term for people who simply cannot resist the overwhelming desire to fiddle with and meddle with and corrupt everything around them? If not, we need to invent one and fast.
Another draft Directive is formenting in the cesspit of Brussels and this time it’s pensions< that they are pawing at with their oily little hands.
“Spanish officials were trying to insert a clause that would limit the amount of equities that pension schemes can hold. The EU directive could become UK law within as little as two years.”
British pension funds typically invest some 70% of their funds in equities and, if this law passes (Did I say ‘if’? I mean ‘when’) they would have to drastically reduce this figure to bring Britain into line with many European countries where such investment in strictly limited by national law.
But this is not madness, it is cold, hard method. The main alternative to equities in funded pension scheme portfolios are long-term financial instruments such as government bonds and, by a simple extension, EU bonds.
Thus the desire of Eurocrats to control constituents’ economies by means of Frankfurt interest rates and fiscal harmonisation can be consolidated: Euro-peons will be forced to tie their destinies in retirement directly to the success or failure of EU-wide economic hegemony. The law will have the effect of making it impractical for most employers to run their own schemes and will therefore channel billions of funds into the hands of a few crypto-statist financial institutions which are easier for Brussels to push around (behind the fig-leaf of ‘co-operation’).
After a working life governed by EU regulations about hours, conditions, pay rates, vacation entitlements, coffee-temperature, leisure time and just about every other aspect of human interaction imaginable, our descent into a longed-for tranquility of old-age will be managed (and mangled) by those same ubiquitous, inescapable Eurocrats.
I am beginning to hope that there is no such thing as a life beyond death otherwise the buggers will find a way to torment us there as well.
Just say NO to superstatism!
Do politicians really say what they think? Or is their language forever circumscribed by the weight of office, the delicacy of diplomacy and the sensitivities of a fickle public?
If that is true, then maybe ex-politicians find they are invested with a freedom of thought and action denied to them during their careers. Vide the loud and clear message from Baroness Thatcher in her latest book ‘Statecraft’.
“The preliminary step, I believe, should be for an incoming Conservative government to declare publicly that it seeks fundamental renegotiation of Britain’s terms of EU membership.”
We all know what she said and we all equally know what she means. ‘Fundamental renegotiation’ is a polite term for ‘withdrawal’. I say this not because I am in the business of second guessing Baroness Thatcher but because there is no way to ‘fundamentally renegotiate’ the rigid terms of EU membership without excusing yourself from the club. Can we exclude ourselves from the ‘Acquis Communitaire’? If so, we are out and that’s that.
She is not the first person in Britain to suggest full withdrawal from the EU but, to my memory, she is the most high profile. Despite possessing nothing now except an honourary title, Thatcher’s legacy and image loom large over the British psyche for both those who loved and those who hated her. This book will not herald any change in current government policy but it is still important because there is a certain power in simply saying the unsayable. It is like prising open a rusty, bolted door so that others can all begin heaving against it in unison. Up until now, debate in Britain has revolved around whether or not we should adopt the Euro. Now the debate can legitimately move on to our entire place in the EU. Thatcher has said it, so others can say it too.
It may not be the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end but the cracks are starting to show, as evidenced by all the urgent scurrying (deliberate use of metaphor) around by various media, government and political poobahs to condemn, deny, rebut and dismiss her remarks.
So get your crowbars out, boys and girls, we’ve got some cracks to work on.
Given my long and strongly held reservations about the European Union (EU) and my enthusiasm for most things Internet and World Wide Web, I felt considerable discomfort reading an Accenture paper The euro and eCommerce: Bringing Europe closer to a single market. The reason for my discomfort, apart from the source of the paper, was its argument that ‘the interaction of a single currency and e-commerce will forge powerful synergies across the euro zone, enhance European competitiveness and accelerate the emergence of pan-European capital market’. So does Bad [EU] plus Good [e-commerce] equal an enhanced Good [capital market unification and its benefits]?
How is it possible that something as centralising and anti-competitive as the euro can provide such a fertile ground for e-commerce, a symbol of non-regulated and most free market business model? At first I could not fault the paper’s conclusion or even its argument, but then I realised that a dose of ‘meta-context’ analysis is needed to understand what are the underpinning ‘world views’ at work here.
The EU debate (a civilised term for the battle between the strongly opposing camps) seems to be conducted on a simplistic utilitarian level, an argument that cannot get beyond the second-tier logic and with a short to medium-term horizon. It consists, at least in the media, of collecting examples and anecdotes of beneficial or damaging effects the European project will or might have. The EU supporters put forward the positive results of their efforts and EU opponents strive to point out their negative impact. Although consequences are an important measure of success or failure, this approach rarely addresses the fundamental premises from which both sides launch their campaigns.
An EU supporter would use the paper’s conclusions to point out that the positive impact of the euro, as enhanced by e-commerce, makes the justification of monetary union more powerful. The euro together with e-commerce further breaks down the barriers between the nations and moves us closer and more rapidly towards the ‘glorious day’ of pan-European capital markets. This also:
- reduces currency exchange risk and cost.
- through the Growth and Stability Pact limits the size of public-sector deficits thus indirectly increasing private sector access to capital by reducing ‘crowding out’ by public-sector borrowers,
- encourages growth of the European corporate bond market that is now widely seen as being able to match the dollar market,
- in combination with information and communications technology enables more fluid and efficient payment processes and settlement systems,
- enhances competition and creates greater price transparency.
There you are – all of the above worthy of any libertarian, or indeed common sense, endorsement. Why would we want the UK to forgo such lovely things, which is what will happen, if we don’t join the €uro?
To me the issue is not about centralisation and efficiency versus free market and disorder. The successful coupling of the euro and e-commerce has a straightforward explanation – the euro provides, by default, a transparent standard for transactions. E-commerce, e-business or any e-prefixed interaction cannot reach its full potential without it. The issue is about the distinction between standards (good) and uniformity (bad) – uniformity as an objective, out of context and without regard for the long-term consequences (if we are to play the utilitarian game) does not sit comfortably with the pursuit of freedom. The distinction between inefficiency (bad) and variety (good) – although a certain degree of inefficiency may have to be the price we pay for variety. It seems to me that the EU has been designed and promoted by the kind of mind that does not value variety and freedom as much as it values uniformity and supposed efficiency.
I believe that the truth about the EU lies in understanding and exposing the true objectives and motivations of its supporters. An understanding of the unintended consequences of market and human interactions will have to play an important role. Therefore I call for a meta-context based examination of the EU debate that reveals the actual view of the world its supporters would have us accept instead of wasting our adrenaline on specific EU horror stories.
Tomorrow, the EU parliament will vote on a Directive that will ‘harmonise’ the sale of vitamin and mineral supplements right across the EU.
The effect in Britain will be to remove some 90% of currently commercially available vitamin and herbal remedies from the shelves of British shops.
“Many people believe these supplements are vital to them. This is heavy-handed legislation which I believe should be withdrawn but all we may be able to do is a damage limitation exercise.”
Britain has always been very relaxed about alternative health remedies and self-help as have countries like Ireland and Holland. But this is all to the great and deep displeasure of the German Pharmaceutical industry whose oily fingerprints are all over this bit of contemptible mischief and are now using their political marionettes in the EU Commission to legislate their competitors out of existance.
As per usual the justification is health and safety:
“Manufacturers will be able to make a case for supplements to be put on the list if they can prove their efficacy and safety, but many small companies do not have the resources for this kind of research trial.”
Even a child knows that nobody ever died from eating vitamins or herbal supplements.
There is widespread and angry opposition to this and not just from Britain but from all over Europe. Millions of e-mails and letters have been sent to the EU Parliament from angry and frustrated people. Sadly, it is likely to avail them nought . The vote will most likely be a rubber stamp by the Teflon Technocrats. The Parliament is just a fig-leaf to give Europeans an illusion of democratic accountability while the Commission agenda is waved through.
“In the UK, vitamin and mineral supplements are now a huge market worth £376 million in 2001. Direct sales are estimated to add £60-£70 million to this total.”
So yet another thriving British industry is executed by fiat and yet another chunk of our choice and independence is chipped away.
‘Harmony’; such a seductive word. We all want ‘harmony’ in our lives. We long for ‘harmony’. Who could possibly object to ‘harmony’?
Like many who walk the cutting edge, I have friends in the cryonics field and have my little Alcor freezer dogtag hanging about my neck. Well, to be honest, it’s void at the moment as entrepreneuring in Belfast is a better way to end up in the poor house than the cryostat but that is another story. A lot of stories actually.
Needless to say, I found this bit of eurofascism both troubling and astounding:
“A French couple who were frozen when they died in the hope that medical advances would one day revive them are facing a thaw at the hands of local authorities,” the BBC reports. When Monique Martinot died in 1984, her husband, Raymond, put her on ice. Last week he died, and his son stuck him in the same fridge. “What has been done is outlawed in France,” a prosecutor tells the BBC. “In this country, bodies must either be cremated or buried.”
The BBC notes that “many European countries have legislation in place restricting the preservation of dead bodies in such a way.”
In my book the prosecutor will be guilty of a double, premeditated homicide if he goes through with this. Some of you are now thinking: “Huh? But they’re already dead!”
To paraphrase a former American president (and beat you with a dead cliche): it depends on what you mean by “dead”. Cryonics exists on the premise that so long as the brain and memories are intact, a technology will exist at some arbitrary time in the future capable of both undoing the cause of death and repairing the damage caused by freezing. I think most would agree there is at least a possibility of resuscitation.
What we have here are Schroedinger’s People, neither alive nor dead, suspended in a quantum world of chance. So our French prosecutor will be a quantum murderer if he opens the box. He will intentionally kill two people and extinguish their chance to once again walk a Riviera beach side by side.
Note: I was led to this story by the Opinion Journal e-mail news.
The EU has decided to set minimum levels of tax on alchololic drinks and no prize for guessing which way that will move prices for consumers. We have been saying that EU tax ‘harmonisation’ only ever moves up and this is a case in point.
The European Commission argues that the proposals should be good for health, limit tax fraud and reduce wide differentials in rates, which have caused an increased cross border smuggling.
But why not reduce taxes downwards for everyone? Help consumer, retailers and producers? Oh, silly me. This is Europe we are talking about, what was I thinking?
I was fully expecting Steve Thoburn and the other ‘Metric Martyrs’ to lose their appeal before the Lords today. That they did, however, still resulted in my spending almost the entire day in a bug-eyed rage. I spent the afternoon doodling designs for giant siege engines that we could use to surround Brussels and reduce it to brickdust.
But, upon examining the actual rationale behind the verdict, the veins in my head have stopped throbbing with quite such gusto. I am forced to examine the small-print as both a Libertarian and a lawyer and I find myself largely agreeing with Brian Micklethwait below.
The application of EU Directives in British Law is, in fact, governed by British Law, namely the European Communities Act 1972 which rendered all British law as being subject to override by European Community Law. However, the Communites Act itself is a Constitutional Act. As such, it cannot be side-stepped by any subsequent legislation but it can itself be amended or even repealed by the British parliament.
There is a way out of the EU; all that is required is the parliamentary will.
I will disagree with Brian, though, that the Lords ruling is an implied ‘Declaration of Independence’. That ‘Declaration’ can only be made by a sovereign British parliament and, given the near-blanket commitment of our current political class to the EU project, the manifestation of that ‘will’ is still along way off.
I followed the link Perry gave us re the Metric Martyrs case, and read the piece by Helen Szamuely with interest, indeed fascination.
Now I realise that nothing involving the EU is ever quite what it seems, but my understanding of Helen Szamuely’s understanding of the case is not that the EU now rules Britain, but that the EU now rules Britain on British sufferance, which can, any time we like, be unsuffered. The basis of EU rule in Britain is that Britain switched it on with a Parliamentary Statute, and Britain can switch it off. The British Parliament is and will always remain sovereign.
At the heart of the EU project is the claim that once you’re in, you can’t leave. Not so, say our judges.
The Metric Martyrs lose, not because the EU says so, but because the EU says so and we say, for the time being: okay. But in the future, we could decide to say: not okay. Britain is not yet a province of the European Superstate, according to these judges. It would be complicated to unravel, very complicated, and it would require a great and highly self-conscious, so to speak, Parliamentary convulsion, in the manner of, say, contriving a new amendment to the US Constitution. But, say Their Lordships, we could unravel it if we chose to, and declare national independence again.
Which means that, in a sense, they just did.
It is a small matter really, just a trivial case involving some grocers who sold some fruit using Imperial rather than metric measurements. Yet the implications are staggering for the entire structure of British life.
Don’t co-operate in your own repression
If the Americans want to continue to be a Great Power then they must surely adopt European methods.
In order to be a feared and mighty force in the world the EU:
“…should become a great power that will not take up arms at any occasion in order to defend its own interests”
When will these arrogant, unilateralist Americans learn to grow up and stop using military power in order to defend their interests? Doh!
Dale Amon, from Belfast, reports on the daft new regulation to limit decibels to 83db. Are the EU mad? Who is really going to enforce this? I can imagine the first time some little dweeb from the EU directorate goes into a death metal gig in Sweden. The venue is full of leathered, iron spiked and generally cranky death-metal fans. Is the EU bloke going to ask these nutters to turn down their music, and expect to live? Just look through the pages of Brave Words and Bloody Knuckles or Terrorizer to find examples of death metal types. Never mind the fact that most death metal fans I meet are huge, well built hard men who look like they could be vikings. Is it a co-incidence that extreme/death/doom/speed metal is very popular in Scandinavia and Germany? I don’t think so. Sorry to tell you Dale but punk rockers are wimps compared to these guys.
May I suggest we send Chris Patten to Wacken or maybe the Inferno festival? Someone needs to convince him to announce from the stage at about 10pm what his intentions are. “Excuse me fellow Europeans, I am here to inform you that this venue must turn down the music to an EU-approved 83db. The EU is only concerned for your hearing and well-being.”
Well good thing about this new db rule, it will turn anyone who likes loud and heavy music against the EU in an instant. What I would love to see is an army of leather clad insensed metal-heads decending on Brussels for a huge protest.
Oh yes and Dale, there have been several songs written about the EU. One, whose name I forget, mentions the great line: “another doomed utopian ideal…” You are also mistakened if you think all musicians are socialists. The loud-mouthed ones might be, but there are many a band whose lyrics speak to a libertarian mind-set (especially in the heavy metal/hard rock genres). Of course, I know of major bands who are Tory voting, all of whom think their being ‘outed’ would hurt/kill their careers.
Lagwolf
Rockers Outraged At Regulation (R.O.A.R.) arise against fascist EU state!
I think Tom Burroughes is far to genteel with his treatment of EU Commissioner Chris Patten‘s remarks in the Financial Times.
My answer is not that the unilateralist urge is wicked but that it is ultimately ineffective and self-defeating.
Here is the core of the crypto-socialist beliefs of purported conservatives like Chris Patten. Only the collective approach works.
The attacks of September 11, in which citizens of more than 80 countries lost their lives, brought home in a terrifying way the vulnerability of the US and the rest of us to the actions of extremists plotting from safe places in failed states such as Afghanistan.
Indeed. That is why the ‘failed state’ which harboured and succored Al Qaeda was overthrown by force of arms and replaced with one more to America’s liking.
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, it seemed that the US had rediscovered its need for allies to confront this common menace. The stunning and un-expectedly rapid success of the military campaign in Afghanistan was a tribute to American capacity. But it has perhaps reinforced some dangerous instincts: that the projection of military power is the only basis of true security; that the US can rely only on itself; and that allies may be useful as an optional extra but that the US is big and strong enough to manage without them if it must.
I suspect in fact the US actions were based on the quaint notion that a dead enemy tends not to plan further attacks against you and that time was of the essence, given that attack by Al Qaeda was not just a possibility but had actually occurred. Expeditious action was unlikely to have been served by waited for the participation of Belgian, Portuguese and Greek para-commandos. How long did it take for the Europeans to acquiesce in the tepid military action against the Bosnian Serbs who had been randomly shelling civilians in Sarajevo? Is that how long Patten expected the Americans to wait after September 11th?
I hope those instincts will not prevail, because I believe them to be profoundly misguided. The lesson of September 11 is that we need both American leadership and international co-operation on an unprecedented scale. It is in the world’s interest, as it is in the interests of the world’s greatest power, that leadership should be exercised in partnership.
The US said ‘you are either with us or with the terrorists’, which sounds like leadership to me. They then proceeded to blow seven shades of crap out of Afghanistan… at which point nations such as Syria, Sudan and Yemen started ‘co-operation on an unprecedented scale’ with the US. Sounds like leadership and co-operation to me. The problem lies in the Islamic world and this it is the co-operation of the relavent bits of the Islamic world that matters. If the people who flew the aircraft into the WTC were mostly French and German, no doubt there would be more of an imperitive to secure French and German co-operation. Of course partnership is pretty much the antithesis of leadership so quite what Patten means by leadership should be exercised in partnership is unclear to me.
Why is that so? Let me offer five reasons. First, every day makes us more aware of the interconnectedness of the modern world: a world in which America is at the centre of an increasingly integrated web, in which modern technology is corrosive of national boundaries and national jurisdictions. That makes it all the more important to work with those who share your values in order to protect them.
Exactly. Which is why the US worked with the UK and not Brussels. The US and the UK share values. The US and the EU do not.
Second, while globalisation – the combination of open trade, capitalism and technology – creates unparalleled opportunities, it also has a dark side. The European Union symbolises the ability of countries to come together to tackle common problems.
The ‘dark side’ of globalisation is creating global capitalist wealth generating networks which stasis based institutions like the EU and repressive regimes everywhere have great difficulty controlling. The ‘common problems’ Patten refers to are common to trade unions, subsidised farmers and protected national industries. The ‘problem’ they have is that they are trying to sunbathe and finding themselves in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. Patten said a few days after September 11th that the attack was ‘due to globalization’. So presumably if we restrict trade to within national borders and subject all economic activity to state regulation, Al-Qaeda would not have attacked the USA. Here is an alternate thesis: if for the last 50 years the EU and other trading nations had not protected their markets from Third World/Middle Eastern people trying to trade with them, the Islamic world would be far more prosperous and secular and integrated into the world economy and thus much less of a stagnant swamp of repressive governments and epistemologically crippled civil societies than they are now.In short, the September 11th attacks happened because people like Christopher Patten have limited globalization by trying to only let it happen on controlled statist terms.
Third, the international institutional architecture – from the United Nations to the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organisation – owes more to the genius of American statesmen than to any other source. But these institutions are under threat. Their rulings are challenged with increasing truculence and impunity. They lack democratic legitimacy, which fuels the muddled movement against globalisation. They need to be nurtured or they will lose their authority – and we shall all be the poorer for it.
The UN, IMF, World Bank and WTO are idiotic institutions. Not because they are not ‘democratic’, which is just another way of saying ‘politicized’ , but because they are statist, which is to say, they are based on the premise that trade occurs between states rather than people and free associations (companies). Legitimacy does not come from democracy, it comes from non-coercion and free choice. And so does prosperity. Left to their own devises and without layer upon layer of regulations and tariffs, would companies trade more or less? Obviously more, and as more trade means more wealth is created, the problem is not how can states facilitate companies trading but how can companies prevent states and the whole alphabet soup of state-based organisations they create, from getting in the way.
Fourth, Europe cannot hope to match US military spending – nor should it even aspire to do so. Like Lord Robertson, the secretary-general of Nato, I feel strongly that European governments should increase their national military budgets, shouldering more of the burden for their own defence. But “security” is a wider concept. The EU, with its member states, is a massive provider of development assistance. We provide about 55 per cent of total international assistance and as much as two-thirds of all grant aid. That too is a contribution to international security. No one disputes the need for tough military action to destroy the al-Qaeda network and its bases. But if we are to deny al-Qaeda, and other networks, the territory from which to plan future atrocities, we have to do all we can to bolster weak or failing states and prevent them falling into the clutches of the bin Ladens of this world.
By providing “55 per cent of total international assistance and as much as two-thirds of all grant aid”…TO STATES the EU underwrites 55% of the problem, not the solution. It takes money confiscated from EU taxpayers and gives it to kleptocratic regimes across the world, who allocate the money on socialist-statist principles. Far from adding to global security, the EU undermines it. Far better would be to take that ‘aid’ money, which only aids the very regimes which lock-in the self reinforcing doom loop of politicized economics, and leaving it with the individual EU taxpayers to whom it belongs. If the EU insists on stealing it however, they would do a hell of a lot more for global security by spending the money on aircraft carriers rather than supporting flawed third world governance.
There is a final point. I need hardly say that as well as affection and admiration for America around the world, there is also fear and resentment. As the world’s only superpower, the US carries a particular responsibility to maintain moral authority for her leadership. Do your own thing and everything seems clear and purposeful; but there is a cost in terms of legitimacy and long-term effectiveness. That cost accumulates over time.
Almost invariably when someone says “I need hardly say that as well as affection and admiration for America around the world” it means nothing could be further from the truth and they are about to say something that proves quite the contrary. Patten represents a fundamentally illegitimate organisation which even by his own standards of advocating legitimacy-by-democracy is illegitimate. Who elected EU Commissioner Chris Patten.
So where does this leave us? It leaves me, at least, uneasy. I look to America – as I have always looked to America – to engage with a complex and dangerous world. There is much that is evil in that world. But to brand a disparate group of countries as an “axis of evil” did not strike me as the finest phrase ever produced by the president’s speechwriters. Of course we must oppose what is evil. But we must also build on what is good – and on what offers hope of a better future.
And what exactly is the good that ‘we’ must build on in North Korea, Iraq and Iran?
In Iraq, for example, we must redouble our efforts to get the inspectors back in and to support the opposition to Saddam Hussein. But in Iran? When some in Washington say that European policy in Iran has failed, my immediate reaction is that we need to find new ways to support reform there, not that we should put up the shutters.
Militarily crushing the entire political and military apparatus of Iran and Iraq would be pretty much an unmatchable way of ‘supporting reform’. That is no more ‘putting up shutters’ than the manner in which the US and UK interacted with Nazi Germany. We did not remove the ‘problem’ of Auschwitz and Belsen by prevailing upon the Nazis to allow inspectors to visit. If Iran and Iraq do indeed pose a clear and present danger, then it must be made clear to them in no uncertain terms that such actions will lead the USA to pose a clear and present danger to them. Publicly calling them part of an ‘axis of evil’ seems to achieve that pretty well.
In the case of North Korea, the sunshine policy of Kim Dae-jung offers the best prospect in years of bringing real change. In the Middle East, we need dialogue, not isolation and further radicalisation of the Palestinians.
Patten ended up by quoting Henry Kissinger:
“America’s challenge is to transfer its power into moral consensus, promoting its values not by imposition but by their willing acceptance in a world that, for all its seeming resistance, desperately needs enlightening leadership.” That sentence is not mine but the final paragraph of a recent book by Henry Kissinger. Is it overly candid of this friend of America’s to say that I agree with every word?
Finally I agree with Patten… or more accurately, with Henry Kissinger. Although the US should not seek to impose them, the sooner the US realises its policy of benign neglect is a mistake the better: it does indeed needs to encourage the willing acceptance of its values… by Europe.
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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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