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.
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This morning, I went along to a business conference where the subject was on the issue of pensions (eyes suddenly glaze over, loses will to live, please when can I leave? Etc). One of the speakers was a certain Adair Turner, the man who, between 2003 and 2006, was chairman of the Pension Commission, a government-created body of the Great and the Good given the task of figuring out how to sort out Britain’s creaking pensions system – a big topic.
In his comments today, Turner spent a bit of time talking about what is known as ‘behavioural economics’ and how it shows that, far from being a utility-maximising creature, Man, often as not, behaves irrationally in ways that can be corrected with a spot of gentle paternalistic direction. In the case of pensions, many people simply do not save enough money to cover their old age, even if they know they should, so the argument goes. Other things, like paying off the credit card, or refurbishing a house, or paying for a new car, get in the way. As a result, Turner says we need to compel people – nicely of course – to sign up to pension schemes so that they do not become a burden on the future taxpayer. It is an approach that has in the past been dubbed ‘soft paternalism’ because it is borne out of the idea that economists and other supposedly clever people know better than we benighted citizens how we should arrange our affairs. It is not exactly out of the Ayn Rand handbook, is it?
I have several problems with this way of thinking. First off, if we are so lazy, short-sighted or plain thick to run things like our long-term savings, isn’t that rather corrosive of the idea of a nation of free citizens with the right to vote in elections? If a person is deemed incapable of saving for his dotage, should he be allowed to decide which careerist should get the keys to 10 Downing Street or the White House? Are we not endorsing a sort of elitist model of governance in new, supposedly scientific, garb? I think we are.
Soft paternalists also perhaps lose sight of why many people are so short-sighted in affairs such as planning for retirement. Over the past century, the Welfare State, and the associated rules and regulations over the private sector, have created a pensions saving system of horrendous complexity, way beyond what should be needed. Politicians have created this monster, so they should hardly then claim that even more intervention is needed to allay the public’s fears. Even the financially savviest citizen faces a forbidding task in trying to work out the best option for savings, even before they have grappled with the latest investment ideas, such as private equity, hedge funds, or whatnot. If one then realises that private savings and the incentives to save have been eroded by things like means-tested benefits and the Welfare State, it is perhaps not surprising at all that many modern Britons are supposedly incapable of thinking about these matters, let alone acting on the calls to save.
What I find depressing about the soft paternalist mindset is how little historical perspective it involves. 150 years ago, Britain was already well on the way to enjoying a vibrant and widening market for personal saving and investment through the existence of groups such as Friendly Societies (these were the precursors of the modern mutual insurance and life firms, and some of the names still carry old historical references, such as ‘National Mutual’ or ‘Friends Provident’). This web of saving vehicles, covering even poor industrial workers in Victorian Britain, was fatally weakened by the Fabian socialist thinkers and politicians before and after the First World War. ‘Liberal’ politician David Lloyd George, and many others, fashioned a welfare and pension system that eventually drove the old Friendly Societies out of the primary business of providing for old age and sickness, or at best, to the margins.
There is a positive and negative circle at work in this area. If you stifle the ability to acquire private savings, it means that you hamper also the accumulation of a deep and rich soil of self-reliance, responsibility and individual financial know-how.On the other hand, the more that people learn how to save for old age and see their parents doing this, the more confident they become, the less they fear independence and hence resist the easy charms of Big Government. The social and cultural consequences of Victorian mutualism and the subsequent decline have been well-documented by writers such as Ferdinand Mount, David Green of the Institute of Economic Affairs, and James Bartholomew.
So the next time you hear a policy wonk or newspaper writer chiding the feckless ordinary Briton for not saving enough, remember that Victorian statesmen like William E. Gladstone were so moved by the thrift and savings culture of industrial Britain that they became convinced that the humblest factory worker was entitled to run their own affairs. A bit of Gladstonian wisdom would not go amiss now. Soft-paternalism may sound nice and cuddly, but the long-term side effects are a steady weakening of positive financial habits.
There is nothing much these days, in the realm of public affairs, that excite me or provide any material degree of enthusiasm. Hence, I take my little nuggets of pleasure wherever I can find them. Occasionally, an exquisite irony will do.
Take the predictable storm over the comments of Jack Straw concerning the Islamic veil, the incidence of which is widepsread and growing on these shores. To my mind his observations are both fair and reasonable:
In his interview with the BBC’s Today programme, he said it is important in face-to-face meetings that both sides can see each other.
A plausible practical explanation. But what has much broader political impact is his belief that veils which cover the face are a “visible statement of separateness” that is “a barrier to social integration”.
Speaking for myself, I would go further. I find the veils (and particularly those black ‘tent-jobs’) rather sinister and creepy. That may not be the intention behind them but that is what they communicate to me and, while others may take a different view, I submit that not by any stretch of a sane mind could either Mr. Straw’s or my views be regarded as racist.
However, we do not live in sane times and, not a few nanoseconds after Mr. Straw’s words left his mouth, a whole troupe of the usual suspects were hopping up and down yodelling the ‘R’ word at the top of their lungs. Indeed, it took only a few hours Grievance Machine to get its gears in full spin:
The first sign of a racist reaction came in Liverpool on Friday when a man snatched a veil from a 49-year-old woman’s face after shouting racist abuse. Yesterday, protesters took to the streets of Mr Straw’s Blackburn constituency to vent their anger.
A ludicrous and hysterical response one might think, yet it is a response which has been nurtured, fostered and actively encouraged.
Seven years ago, and following on the recommendations of the Macpherson Report, the government instructed the police to adopt the recommendations into a formal set of guidelines which defined a ‘racist incident’ as:
“any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.”
That interpreation is so wide as to amount to a form of administrative intimidation, designed to deter people from making the kind of remarks, even in private, which Mr. Straw has now made quite publicly. Surely the government of Western liberal democracy would insist on some degree of objectivity, no? Er, no:
In his Action Plan on the Report, the Home Secretary said that the Home Office would “ensure that the Inquiry’s simplified definition of a racist incident is universally adopted by the police, local government and other relevant agencies”.
And who was that Home Secretary? Yes, of course, it was the very same Mr. Jack Straw.
So here is some advice for you if you happen to be among the League of the Outraged: march yourself off to the nearest cop shop and report that you perceive Mr. Straw’s views as racist. The police are then obliged to record it as such. I doubt very much whether it would go any further than that but, who knows, word of it may just reach Mr. Straw.
If he not to be quite hoist by his own petard then, at least, his petard can be picked up and wielded like a wet fish to slap around his stupid head.
I have been keeping an eye on David Cameron’s videoblogging efforts since I was alerted to Webcameron by Thaddeus. It is providing an interesting depiction of the modern Conservative party. Take the entry where Cameron brags over the success of the recent Tory conference. He proudly declares
We had debates each day; should we ban advertising to children? Is it time to end cheap air travel? Are companies a force for good or not?
That Cameron thinks the first two questions are worth debating confirms he’s the statist grub most here labelled him long ago, but when the final ponderance was mooted, someone really should have jumped up and declared the affirmative answer beyond question, and if anyone wants to debate this further then here’s what they need to do to resign their membership of the party. Completely disregarding the outcome of this debate, I find it absolutely jaw-dropping that the Tories would hold a discussion over whether companies are a beneficial force in society. Unbelievable.
Muslims in Britain should start taking a good look at the auguries. Windsor, a town known for its genteel (and tourist infested) tearooms, has been playing host to low level riots and violence by enraged English youths for several nights now, sparked by Muslim thugs attacking a mother and daughter and by aggressive demands for a mosque to be built in the overwhelmingly non-Muslim town.
At the same time, Leader of the Common Jack Straw has been saying publicly that he would rather that Muslim women not wear veils as it is deeply divisive socially.
The Blackburn MP has come under fire after he said the veil could be seen as “a visible statement of separation and difference” […] Writing in yesterday’s Lancashire Telegraph, Mr Straw revealed he had asked Muslim women visiting his surgeries to remove their veils because he values “face-to-face” contact.
He is not calling for state imposed dress codes (which I would strongly oppose) but he is making a self-evident statement about Muslim non-assimilation. Quite rightly he has not made this a broader contention as I have yet to hear anyone voice concern over Hindu women wearing saris or Chinese women wearing cheong sams (I should think not!), because although some Chinese and Hindus choose not to assimilate (but of course many do), they are not calling for their cultures and beliefs to be legally off-limits from criticism or ridicule. It is only Muslim non-integration in the UK that is really a problem because of an apparently widespread Muslim unwillingness to reciprocate tolerance for tolerance.
The bigger point here is, of course, not that Jack Straw personally thinks it is unwise that Muslims make themselves so visibly separate from broader British society but that the Leader of the Commons should feel it appropriate to say something that was obviously going to upset a body of Muslim opinion in the UK. This was not an off-the-cuff remark and moreover, he has repeated it and elaborated on the point.
I would say that elements of the political class are starting to notice that increasing numbers of the fifty eight million non-Muslims in Britain are growing a great deal less tolerant of intrusive Muslim demands on their tolerance. There comes a time when people start to think enough is enough. In the end, democratic politicians stay in business by positioning themselves to be on the right side of that sort of ‘mass market’ issue and that is something Muslim ‘community leaders’ would do well to ponder when they do a little projecting into the future, assuming they actually want Muslims in Britain to have a future.
A Muslim police officer has been allowed to refuse to guard the Israeli embassy in London.
A spokesman for Scotland Yard said Sir Ian had ordered a rethink of the service’s policy to consider special dispensations on moral grounds
A ‘rethink’? When ordered to carry out his job and protect a location within the United Kingdom from unlawful attack, PC Alexander Omar Basha took the view that it would be immoral to protect that place (in other words, he refused to enforce British law regarding possible acts of violence because of who the potential target was). The only ‘rethink’ needed is why was he not fired on the spot? I wonder… has a Jewish policeman in the UK attached to the Diplomatic Protection Group ever refused to guard the embassy of a Muslim country in Britain?
So tell me, if a policeman who was a member of the BNP refused to protect an African embassy, do you think the Metropolitan Police would need even ten seconds for a ‘rethink’?
It is hard for us (as libertarians) to understand just how radical even freezing government spending in real terms is. The UK Independence Party policy on government spending is, by modern standards, very radical [pdf document].
The UK Independence Party will tomorrow (3rd October) announce a 33 per cent flat rate income tax for all, including National Insurance contributions, as part of a sweeping tax policy review. The review includes increasing the level that can be earned free of tax to £9,000, scrapping the loathed inheritance tax altogether and reducing Capital Gains to 33 per cent. Party Leader, Nigel Farage MEP, will throw a challenge to Tory Leader David Cameron by setting a clear tax cutting agenda that will attract many members of the Conservative Party.
[…]
UKIP Economic spokesman, John Whittaker MEP, said: “The country does not accept the argument that improvements in ‘front line’ public services require ever-increasing Government expenditure. Huge sums of money have been poured in but have not improved services proportionately to the amount taxpayers have paid and have a right to expect
The last time there was anything like this was 1976-1977 when, under IMF orders, the brakes were put on UK government spending. The situation by the time of the next General Election will be similar (vast government spending and an exploding (13.7% ‘broad money’ growth at the moment) money supply, or in ‘modern’ language an ‘expansive fiscal and monetary policy’, having undermined the economy) – so the UKIP is being farsighted. Clearly they think that economic breakdown can still be avoided (and in technical terms they are correct – although the culture may have decayed to such a point that avoiding collapse is not ‘practical politics’).
As for unifying the income tax and ‘national insurance’ systems – Australia and New Zealand did this long ago. National Insurance is a tax, it is not a ‘contribution’.
A flat rate income tax makes good administrative sense and getting rid of the top rates of income tax would indeed stimulate the economy and benefit everyone bar tax lawyers. Getting some poor people out of the tax system would not boost revenue – but it is a political price one has to pay for getting rid of the 40% rate. Of course I would like to see a lower overall rate than 33% – but one must remember that there would be no ‘national insurance’ tax anymore. Also, if the poor no longer paid income tax, there would be no excuse for Mr Brown’s wildly complex and expensive ‘tax credits’.
Getting rid of the inheritance tax is a logical move already done in Canada and other nations. Inheritance tax just encourages people to spend their capital (and then live off the state) – rather than invest for the long term in the hope that their children will see the benefit.
It is sad that the absurd Capital Gains Tax is to stay – cutting it is good, but it is a mad (and hard to administer) tax that causes great harm.
Converting the wildly complicated and open to fraud VAT into a sales tax is a good idea (and they are correct that this is not lawful under EU law). However, making the new sales tax a local tax would mean an end to the Council Tax (which would be popular) and one could get rid of all national government subsidies to local government as well (which would allow a reduction in the combined income and social security tax).
Overall a ‘good as far as it goes package’ – certainly vastly better than the increasingly ironically named ‘Conservatives’ whose shadow Chancellor said on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that it was “unlikely” that he would put UP taxes… but would consider it.
The Daily Telegraph ran a story titled Blow for Cameron as poll lead is slashed, with this as the leader article on the front page. However the analysis struck me as very strange indeed.
The poll will increase the pressure on Mr Cameron to use his conference, which opens in Bournemouth tomorrow, to counter charges that he is “all style and no substance”.
[…]
YouGov says that 54 per cent agree with the proposition that “it is hard to know what the Conservative Party stands for at the moment”, while 60 per cent agree that Mr Cameron “talks a good line but it is hard to know whether there is any substance behind the words”.
That makes little sense. Dave Cameron has been both consistent and explicit about what he stands for and anyone who thinks “it is hard to know what the Conservative Party stands for at the moment” must be hard of hearing. It stands for regulatory statism, high taxes and Euro-Federalism. In short, if you want to know what the ‘Conservative’ Party stands for under Dave Cameron, you have but to look at Britain for the last nine years under ‘Tony’ Blair. The Tory Party stands for continuity with Blair-ism, just with a fresh set of managers with their snouts in the trough hands on the helm.
If you like what Blairism (or ‘radical centrism’ if you like) has done to Britain but want a fresh Blairite in control, Dave Cameron has made it crystal clear that he is your man.
David Cameron is at home and he is as horny as hell:
David Cameron will today unveil radical plans to harness the power of the internet by reaching out to a blogging generation that is disaffected and disconnected from mainstream politics.
At the heart of the initiative, which is designed to make the Tories one of the most technologically progressive parties in Europe, is “webcameron” – a website for video blogs by their leader. Mr Cameron will provide regular clips with him speaking direct to camera, as well as written blogs and podcasts.
Dave ‘Boy’ Cameron is in his bedroom and he wants to play. He is ready to fulfill all your fantasies. Anything goes. Features include:
- Tory leader undresses in his bedroom, reveals 7″ uncut
- Anonymous access
- Free registration
- Live sex chat
- The 3 ‘G’s – Girls, Guys and Goats!
- Meet hot and sexy Tory singles for erotic chat and more
- Cheapest cam rates on the web
So join now for hot, horny, sexy live action with Tory leader. Everything turns him on. Whatever you like, he is into.
I have just added Bryan Appleyard’s blog to my personal blogroll, here, this being one of several recent reasons why:
He has been the greatest politician of his generation and a truly awful Prime Minister. This distinction can be made so clearly in his case because he has so successfully separated the acquisition and sustenance of power from its exercise. Having made his crucial mistake – not sacking Brown – ten years ago, Blair has effectively been unable to do anything domestically. Brown has blocked or wrecked every initiative. Meanwhile, New Labour’s management ineptitude has produced one financial catastrophe after another – the NHS computer, tax credits and so on. This has driven Blair to undertake foreign adventures and to redefine politics not as what actually happens but as a combination of what is said and the tedious, personality-driven soap opera of Westminster. …
As for Blair’s recent Labour Party Conference fairwell triumph:
Blair’s speech was, thus, a cosmetic masterpiece – piss and wind, basically – and no more. …
I don’t know if Blair has “done up Brown like a kipper”, as is earlier proclaimed in the paragraph quoted from above. Time will tell. But separating “the acquisition and sustenance of power from its exercise” is central to understanding Blair and the Blair era.
However, the essence of the Blair message throughout has been “I’m not like those appalling Conservative gits”, and now that the Conservatives seem to have found their own version of Blair, similarly ingratiating to the voters, similarly obsessed with getting power and similarly indifferent to doing anything worthwhile with it, Blair may be leaving the stage at just the right moment.
My thanks to Stephen Pollard for alerting me to the Appleyard blog.
The media are going all out to boost Mr David Cameron (the leader of the British Conservative party). The Daily Telegraph newspaper has a front page story about how people are paying tens of thousands of Pounds to have lunch with Mr Cameron or one of his associates and how this proves that Conservatives are becoming popular (this is in the face of a declining party membership, only a quarter of whom bother to vote on the meaningless documents that are put in front of them, and opinion polls that state that about 38% intend to vote Conservative – out of the just over half of British voters who are likely to vote at all).
The Economist runs an editorial about how Mr Cameron should strip local Conservative members of what little choice they have left in choosing candidates, and how he should give up even his token policy of removing Conservatives from the ultra pro-EU European People’s Party group in the ‘European Parliament’ and totally submit to the EU in all things – oh sorry, how Mr Cameron should seek ‘influencei in the EU.
The Spectator magazine has, as its cover, a drawing of Sentator John McCain crowning Mr Cameron as King (which might interest the Queen) and, as its main story, how Senator (death-to-the-First-Amendment aka ‘Campaign Finance Reform’) McCain supports Mr Cameron.
And (of course) the BBC is still boosting Mr Cameron at every opportunity. Today Mr Cameron was given air time to explain that members of Parliament should be stripped of the power to set their own pay, and how elected governments should be stripped of power to give out honours (all those CBEs, OBEs, Kighthoods and even membership of the House of Lords) – both tasks should be done (according to Mr Cameron) outside of politics (i.e. most likely by the ‘great and the good’ who would, no doubt, give MPs even more money and make sure that no non-statist ever got an honour of any kind – certainly it would be an end to the chances of those free market types that Mrs Thatcher sometimes put into the House of Lords).
Whilst no fan of MPs getting paid lots of money (I would have been against the 1911 move to pay them at all) and no fan of how governments (especially the government led by Mr Blair) are alleged to sell honours in return for campaign money – I do find it ironic that Mr Cameron was flanked by ‘Ken’ Clarke when he launched his attack on democratically elected people deciding such things. Mr Clarke is Mr Cameron’s man in charge of producing policies to make democracy stronger and (especially) to restore power to the House of Commons.
This is ironic in its self – as Mr Clarke has a fanatical hatred of the powers of the House of Commons (of which he is a member) and wishes as much power as possible to go to the European Union.
But then Mr Clarke has just been put in charge (by Mr Cameron) of finding ways of carrying out the plan to strip elected people of both responsibility for the pay of MPs and for the honours system.
And Mr Cameron himself (with the strong support of the Economist) is busy destroying (in the name of democracy) what little democracy there is in the Conservative party and has already failed to carry out his leadership election promise to pull out Conservative members of the European Union Parliament out of the (pro-EU and anti-British House of Commons) European People’s Party group.
I can only conclude that Mr Cameron has no sense of irony.
Last month, it was this:
A report published by the government predicts more than 12m adults and one million children will be obese by 2010 if nothing is done.
And this month, there is this:
Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell has called for “stick-thin” models to be banned from the catwalks during London Fashion Week…
Ms Jowell said “stick-thin” models pressurised girls to starve themselves.
Damn these wretched sheep! Can they not get anything right? One minute, they are stuffing their ovine faces with calories and the next minute they are starving themselves. Have they no pity for the suffering of the Nagging Classes?
That the BBC can earnestly report, almost simultaneously, two flagrantly contradictory agenda-driven hysterias is symptomatic of the fact that we have too many paid worriers with too little to worry about.
I am sure that ours is not the first civilisation to undergo spasms of a sociological St. Vitus’ Dance nor will it be the last. But have there ever been so many popular hobgoblins surrounding the subject of food and eating? Could it have something to do with the fact that ours is possibly the first (or maybe second) generation that is more than one rainy season away from famine? Is it all just a part of the struggle to find a cultural narrative within which to fit this apparently easy abundance?
Who can say? But the sheep will graze on regardless.
Moonbat Media have some good pictures from Saturday’s demonstration in Manchester by the usual suspects… plus some coverage of an incident where Reza Moradi and a friend were removed by Stop The War organisers because they staged a counter-protest, interrupted Tony Benn’s speech. Check it out.
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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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