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]
|
I am not quite as vexed by the writings of former Living Marxism (a bit of an oxymoron, Ed) writers such as Brendan O’Neill, Mick Hume or Claire Fox as Stephen Pollard is – life is too short for such intellectual eye-gouging – but I kind of get Stephen’s general point. Those of us who have toiled away exposing the idiocies of Big Government for decades and plugging the case for free markets, etc, find it a bit hard to take for a bunch of Marxists to claim to be such libertarian souls, when in fact they are just as hostile to the market economy as they ever were. No-one has ever proved to me that you can have a liberal, open society without property rights. O’Neill, writing in this week’s edition of The Spectator, rather confirms Pollard’s suspicions in what was quite good rant against modern “anti-capitalists”:
Of course, Marx wanted to destroy capitalism because he thought it didn’t go far enough in remaking the world in man’s image and organising society according to man’s needs and desire. Today’s sorry excuses for Marxists and anti-capitalists think capitalism has gone too far in its development of the forces of production and encouragement of consumerism. I’m with Marx. Let’s replace capitalism with something even more dazzlingly cocky and human-centric. But let’s first deal with the luddites, locavores and eco-feudalists who have given anti-capitalism a bad name.
The problem, of course, is that the “dazzlingly cocky and human-centric” shiny sort of Marxist future is never spelled out. What would it look like? Does it come with a tester? Are there examples on eBay? Seriously, given the manifold failures of state central planning, and the various incoherent attempts by some thinkers to fashion “market socialism” (another oxymoron), it is not really quite good enough for a chap like O’Neill to pose as some sort of hip and clever critic of anti-capitalists, then to claim that he is still a Marxist, but then to leave a bloody great black hole of explanation of what his sort of society would look like. Consider, the various theories associated with Marx have been more or less destroyed, both by practical experience and logical argument: the labour theory of value (which ignores the value of ideas in wealth creation); the theory of the inevitable clash between the “workers” and the “bosses”; the historical “inevitability” of the collapse of capitalism, the immiseration of the proletariat, etc. While some of Marx’s arguments about class had some interesting points, pretty much all of the central tenets of the Bearded One’s ideas are plain wrong. I mean, as intellectual defeats go, this is the equivalent of a village pub football team being annihilated 10-nil by Manchester Utd. There’s no way back.
Mark Mills, makes some pretty outrageous comments about Ayn Rand in the course of how he prefers to defend free enterprise. I have often wondered what is worse: the cultish “official” Objectivists who cannot deal with the slightest criticism of the woman, or those who claim, with little plausibility or evidence, that she contributed nothing valuable apart from an assertion that it is fine and proper to be happy. I came across this piece of nonsense at a link mentioned at the Adam Smith Institute blog:
According to Rand morality is an illusion and truly great individuals act solely in their own interests without giving thought to their impact on others.
Nonsense. The fiction and non-fiction works of the late Miss Rand, which are widely available, such as Atlas Shrugged, are absolutely rammed with discussion – sometimes to the shrill point of tedium – about morality. One may demur about Rand’s version of said, but to claim she had nothing to say on morality is so jaw-droppingly wrong as to wonder what Mr Mills has been smoking. Her view of morality, a code of values, was that morality was essential to the pursuit of life and human flourishing. Her ethical egoism was a kind of progression from the views of Aristotle and an attack on the idea, which stems from the dualism of certain religions, for example, that happiness on this earth and goodness are at war with one another. Rand said this dualism was fatal to both happiness and morality. There is now a large and growing literature on Rand’s views on morality and the importance of it in all aspects of human life (an example is here).
As to the point that her morality gave no thought to the “impact on others” of certain actions, what on earth is he driving at? The pursuit of long-range self interest means that one does not aggress against others, hurt them, rob them, etc. Quite the opposite: as Adam Smith realised, it means serving the wants of others through voluntary exchange in the market makes sense because doing that makes you happier in the long run, gets you friends, riches, etc. Mills statement is bizarre. Of course, Rand was an early sceptic about the environmentalist movement and tended to dismiss worries about pollution, etc, but then there is nothing in her body of ideas as such that would mean that a supporter of her would be blind to the problems of pollution, which can be thought of as a property rights problem.
People will recall that when the USA was founded, the Founders spoke about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. It says something about the state of ideas when a so-called defender of liberal capitalism regards a woman who championed the pursuit of happiness and attacked statism as some sort of nutcase. Oh well.
The immense majority of our people consider economic freedom as radically immoral. It scandalises them in the fullest sense of the word.
– Daniel Villey, “Economique et Morale”, in Pour une Economie Liberee (1946), quoted in Economics and Its Enemies, by William Oliver Coleman. The latter book is an astonishingly good piece of scholarship. Its passages on the persecution of economists in the former Soviet Union are harrowing.
There are times when I almost feel sorry for conservatives and their confusion over libertarian positions on issues and why those positions appear to shift from time to time.
Our position does not actually change though… we just give pragmatic support to one group or another according to what we perceive is the current greatest threat to our principles. There may be disagreements and even splits amongst libertarians over “what should we be doing right now?” These are temporary because the disagreements are over strategy and tactics and fine points of philosophy, not the goals.
A conservative may look at the support of our particular faction of libertarians (Samizdata and friends) for the war and believe we are fellow travellers. They do not understand we see al Qaeda and the mad mullahs as such a grave threat to liberty and individualism in the world that we temporarily find common cause with the State. Defense is one thing most (not all) libertarians agree is a function of even a minimalist state.
There is a certain pragmatism summed up in the old Arab saying “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. The Islamic faction which clothes itself in blood and the Koran are most certainly something we can not ignore. The longer you leave them alone, the bigger the war will be in the end. It is easier to cut out a tumor than to go after a metastasized cancer.
That does not mean these fruitcakes will always be number one on our anti-hit parade. As their threat subsides libertarians naturally turn their attention to the long term enemy of liberty: The State.
I am ecstatic (guardedly) to see things working out in Iraq. Because of that, I too can turn my attention to the State.
The State has done much to undermine freedom over the last decade, all in the name of ‘protecting us’. They really believe it. Sadly, they do not seem to have the same love of liberty we do. This has been brought home to me recently by conservative commentators who have denounced critics who took stands I consider obvious and courageous.
One woman wrote she would rather die in a terrorist attack, even see her child do so than give up their liberties. She did not like the surveillance state that is being put together in the US (and which is a nearly completed edifice in the UK) in the name of ‘protecting’ her.
Some years ago, not long after 9/11, I said pretty much the same thing to a CIA guy I once chatted with over beers. I told him I would rather die under a nuclear fireball than give up one tiny bit of my liberty. I stand by that. Those who fought and died in our wars did not do so for safety. They died to defend liberty and the essential character of America from foreign ideologues who hate individualism, hate liberty and hate the very idea of limits on governance.
I sometimes wish I could agree with the anarchist wing that we could completely do without a State. My decades of personal experience and historical reading say otherwise. We need that monstrous ravening beast on occasion. Our problem is how do we keep it starved, chained and caged in the interim? That is a question the founders of America wrestled with. All things considered, they did about as well as could be hoped. It is indeed as they said: the defense of Liberty is the work of every generation.
Our job now is to wrest freedoms back from the beast that were taken in the name of defense. (Am I the only one who thinks we should have a Department of War and make it damn clear what it is for?) I consider that excuse tedious and just plain wrong. Defense to me means going over there (like we did) and kicking the crap out of the enemy on their home ground. It also means people at home must defend their liberty by risking their lives on a day to day basis. They must take a personal responsibility for stopping terrorists or at least making them appear failures.
People who whinge and cry into cameras for The State to ‘protect them’ are simply weak and contemptible. One expects that from dependent children: not from free adults. An adult stares coolly at the distant watching enemy and shows them that killing a few thousand of us will accomplish nothing except get us pissed off and the enemy and his next of kin and entire way of life very dead.
As Heinlein said: “You can never defeat a free man. The most that you can do is kill him.”
There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.
– Sam Harris, rebutting the daft charge that a denial of belief in the afterlife or a supreme being must open the doors to hell on earth.
I started off wanting to cheer this article – an angry denunciation of the rich folk who often back Green causes – but I then began to wonder whether I was falling for what amounts to an ad hominem argument, and felt rather ashamed of myself. To be sure, it is true that many greenies are extremely well off, or comfortable members of a middle class that feels guilty about material wealth – the legacy of all kinds of crap cultural and political ideas – but is it really a killer argument that a cause X or Y is backed by rich folk like Zac Goldsmith or Peter Melchett? What counts in the end is are their ideas right or wrong? For instance, Bjorn Lomborg is a sharp debunker of eco-cant and I think his take on the more extreme forms of greenery is accurate, but what does it matter whether Lomborg is a middle class Danish academic, heir to a massive fortune, or a humble shop worker?
There is a broader point here. At the Libertarian Alliance conference last weekend, I could not help reflecting on the many posh, incredibly rich folk who were old fashioned liberals (or Whigs, as they used to be called). The walls of the National Liberal Club – a fine institution – are adorned with wonderful portraits of gentlemen in frock coats and women in elegant dresses, or stern-looking 19th century businessmen and industrialists. One of the benefits of having an independent income is that it gives a group of people time to think about certain issues that cannot be done by someone working long hours for a salary and who has to please a boss; independence of means also can encourage independence of mind.
So Brendan O’Neil is wrong on this occasion, although I share his skepticism on green scares 100%. I do not give a monkey’s whether Jonathan Porritt is posh or not; it is his reactionary ideas to roll back the glories of modern industrial civilisation that bother me very much.
He could have taken his article to this conclusion but perhaps he thought the baggage that would come with it would distract from his intended points. In order for my ‘friendly amendment’ to make sense, it is important to understand what “multiculturalism” really means. Multiculturalism is not a recent ideology. Only the name is new. Most of you are far more familiar with it as “separate but equal”. Wikipedia says:
Multiculturalism is an ideology advocating that society should consist of, or at least allow and include, distinct cultural and religious groups, with equal status.
Separate but equal … segregationism. Multiculturalism as an ideology is diametrically opposed to integration and assimilation. Some have noted a difference in the formation of terrorists in America as compared with Europe but without necessarily attributing it to America’s still comparatively high cultural emphasis and expectation of newcomers to assimilate.
The absence of significant terrorist attacks or even advanced terrorist plots in the United States since Sept. 11 is good news that cannot entirely be explained by increased intelligence or heightened security. It suggests America’s Muslim population may be less susceptible than Europe’s Muslim population, if not entirely immune, to jihadist ideology. In fact, countervailing voices may exist within the American Muslim community.
So what does this have to do with Richard Miniter? → Continue reading: Richard Miniter stops short
Jim Henley has kicked off a fair old discussion buzz on the blogs in asking the question: do animals have rights? My short answer right away is they do not as the term rights only makes sense applied to humans because humans, being actually or potentially rational creatures, need freedom to exercise that rational faculty, which is not automatic, and hence doctrines of rights have evolved. Humans, by their nature, need liberty to survive and flourish because of how our minds work. Dogs and bunny rabbits do not.
Well, that is what I have thought for a long time. But the fuzzy bits that you get with these sort of broad claims have started to bother me. A dog, for example, does not have a ‘volitional consciousness’ in the same way that a human being does, but the dog can respond to signals and its environment; it may not be able to form complex plans, but it can change its behaviour ever so slightly. So a dog needs an element of freedom to survive, too. So if rights are necessary for the furtherance of life, then perhaps they also apply to some other sentient creatures besides we humans. I still think the answer is no, since rights also entail the capacity to respect the rights of others: a vicious dog is not bothered about such things, let alone a white shark or even – may Perry forgive me – a hippo.
And then of course, if we start to cut off the application of rights for any creature that does not fully fit the Aristotelian concept of a ‘rational animal’, where does that leave the mentally handicapped, or very young babies that have not yet formed a rational capacity? I think the in the former case, we regard the handicapped as having lost or never acquired something that humans normally would have, but our sheer sense of solidarity and compassion for the frail means we treat the handicapped with respect and care and rightly so. But of course we do not allow severely handicapped people to perform potentially dangerous jobs and in practice, such people tend to be placed under pretty serious constraints about what they can do. The same goes for very young children, or aged people suffering from mental deterioration to do with age.
But I must admit that our attitudes towards animals are strange at times. I do not shoot or hunt animals for ‘sport’ – if it was sport, they would be able to shoot back – and I despise factory farming, think people who are cruel to animals deserve to have their gonads removed, and think that cruelty to other species diminishes us as human beings. But the problem is, I really, really feel in the mood for a big cheeseburger.
Tibor Machan, the libertarian philosopher – and thoroughly nice chap – gives the standard classical liberal argument for why animal rights do not exist. I strongly urge commenters to take a look at the links on Jim Henley’s post I have linked to above.
Is there an afterlife or is death the end?
When Perry referred to the recent comments of US Presidential hopeful Barak Obama, we had another example in the ensuing comment thread of how people lazily refer to the idea that healthcare should be ‘free’. Of course, unless Obama is a total idiot – and I doubt that – he realises that health care, like roads, clean water, defence or food is not free in any sense at all that matters in a world of scarce resources that have alternate uses (such scarcity and the fact they have alternate uses is a classic element of what economics is). Healthcare is not free – it must be paid for, paid out of the time and trouble of other people. The problem, however, is that a lot of people, not just socialists, think that some things in life ‘ought’ to be free although one often finds they are at a loss to say why. Indeed, if you challenge a person by asking, “Why should health, clean water or defence be free”? they will either change the subject, or go bright red with anger, or fail to understand the question at all.
To attack the idea that certain services and resources should be ‘free’ is not, alas, all that easy in today’s politically dumb climate. However, I think I have a partial solution in how to frame the point. If you ever encounter a person who says that healthcare should be free at the point of use, and it should be a ‘right’, then point out that this means that someone else has a corresponding duty to be a doctor, a nurse, a hospital orderly or an administrator. Unless people can be forced to perform these roles, then all talk of health as something that ought to be free is meaningless. Of course, at this point the socialist will blather on about incentives and so on, but what if no one wants to be a doctor or a nurse, regardless of pay? Does this mean that anyone who shows an inclination to like medicine should, at an early age, be conscripted into a hospital like a draft for the Army?
I ask these rhetorical questions because I think that when we try to frame our arguments, it is sometimes easy to lose sight of the fact that actual flesh and blood human beings are involved in talk about “the right to free health care”. Most people these days oppose the idea of military conscription so it ought to be possible to make the case against medical conscription. If we can point out that medical conscription would be a bad thing, then it would be a step in nailing the nonsense that healthcare is a ‘right’.
Here is a book I highly recommend about the whole noxious doctrine of ‘welfare rights’ and how they erode respect for the original, far more coherent rights doctrine of classical liberalism.
Following the brilliant ‘straw man’ quote below, I thought I would list a few regular straw man arguments that I come across in the comment threads of this blog as well as in the wider media/public world where the ideas of liberty, defence policy or the free market are mentioned:
Free marketeers do not believe in law and rules of any kind
This is often posited as a fact, when in fact law and liberty are necessary for each other. Without laws defining property rights, for example, much peaceful intercourse is impossible.
If you are against the invasion of Iraq, you are a peacenik
This boils down to a form of argument by intimidation. Even though many opponents of the operation to overthrow Saddam are stupid, evil or possibly both, quite a lot were against it for prudential reasons.
If you are in favour of the invasion of Iraq, you must be a warmongering lunatic
Many people from all parts of the political spectrum thought overthrowing Saddam, who was a bloodthirsty tyrant, invader of neighbouring nations, sponsor of terror, user of WMDs, was a humanitarian and necessary act.
If you are a skeptic about global warming and other alleged environmental terrors, you care nothing for future generations and might also be in the pay of Big Oil
This is not a start of an argument, but an attempt to shout debate down. It betrays the fact that Greenery is becoming a religion with its own notions of heresy. If anyone plays this gambit, refuse to take it up.
Libertarians believe in the idea that humans are born with a mental “blank slate” and hence pay no heed to inherited characteristics of any kind
I often see this argument made by bigots as well as more benign folk. In fact it is possible to believe that many human characteristics are inherited but also changeable. And just because we are influenced by genes, it does not mean were are driven in a deterministic way. Free will still exists. The more knowledge we have about human nature etc, the more power it gives individuals, not less.
For capitalism to work successfully, everybody has to be obsessed with making money all the time
All that is necessary is that human economic interaction is based on voluntary exchange, not force. How much people want to get rich or not is irrelevant.
Libertarians are uninterested in preserving certain old traditions and cultures
In fact, a free society is often much more able to preserve certain traditions, not less so.
Libertarians tend to be loners and discount the importance of community life
This is rubbish: liberals value communities so long as membership is voluntary and further, co-operation is a consequence of liberty, not its opposite. An individualist can enjoy group activities as much as anyone, such as being part of an organisation, club, football team, whatever. The key is that such membership is freely chosen.
I am sure that other commenters can think of a few more…
I am quite a fan of the fiction and some of the non-fiction of Ayn Rand, but I am the first to concede that some of the people who call themselves Objectivists are an assorted bunch, to put it politely. I have little time for some of the “official” Big-O Objectivists, like Leonard Peikoff, although I enjoy the writings of Tara Smith very much. The group of folk who liked Rand’s broad ideas but detested the narrow-mindedness and paranoia of some of the “official” group broke off, under the leadership of Dr. David Kelley, to form groups like The Objectivist Center. I like the TOC crowd and have corresponded with a few of them. I subscribe to The New Individualist, the monthly journal edited by the great Bob Bidinotto. What is so refreshing about it is that one does not get lots of shrilll lectures or dense philosophical treatises, but an engaging and assertive writing style coupled with an often impish sense of humour and enjoyment of the good things in life. It is a cracking read, in fact. Bob is also addicted to thriller novels, which puts him in the same bracket as me.
Okay, enough creeping from me, now for the nasty part. In the April print edition – the web version does not appear to be up yet – there are two articles that struck some decidedly jarring notes. The first, by Roger Donway, argues that basically, the late Milton Friedman was not a good advocate of capitalism and individualism, and in fact he used arguments that play straight into the hands of socialists. (I am not making this up). The second article, by Bidinotto, includes a defence of the use of torture in ’emergency’ situations, although Bob does not define ’emergencies’ very clearly and leaves begging the question about who gets to decide such matters. But I have pretty much argued on this torture issue before and will not repeat myself here. So I will focus instead on what Roger Donway has to say about Friedman.
To try to make this point, Donway argues that Friedman’s attack on the idea that firms have “social” responsibilities itself rests on a sort of utilitarian basis. Does it?
→ Continue reading: Sometimes, even a superb magazine gets it very wrong
|
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.
|
