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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Meanwhile, in Gotham City:
People who kill bats or destroy their roosts are to be targeted in a nationwide police campaign.
Officers are to be trained in how to investigate damage to roosts as part of Operation Bat, which is officially launched on Wednesday.
Police will also be warning builders, roofers and pest control workers that it is a crime to destroy bat roosts.
Ker-pow! Take that, you builders. Spla-tt! Not so fast, roofer-man. Ka-boom! It’s the Gotham City jail for you, pest control worker.
Conservationists hope the crackdown will help protect dwindling native numbers of the nocturnal mammal.
With the added benefit of thwarting the fiendish plans of The Joker, The Riddler and The Penguin.
Surely you do not have to be Superhero to appreciate that the very essence of private property is exclusivity. That means the owner is entitled to eject all manner of other living things regardless of the number of legs and wings they possess. Otherwise, what is the point of private property? If we are obliged to maintain our homes as wildlife sanctuaries then we may as well revert to living in forests under the shelter of banana leaves.
Never mind the ‘dwindling native numbers of nocturnal mammals’, what about the dwindling native numbers of property rights?
I just hope that these apparently well-connected ‘conservationists’ do not take it into their heads to add wasps, rats or cockroaches to their little list.
The business and economics sections of the press have been dominated by the problems of private pensions in recent months. Once a dull-as-ditchwater subject about which journalists and the public showed little interest, the state of our retirement nest eggs is now a major policy issue. Hundreds of blue-chip British firms have shut pension plans to new staff, such as those which offer to pay a benefit linked to final salary at retirement age. Some workers even suffered the torment of losing all their accumulated pension when their sponsoring firms went to the wall. All in all, it has been an alarming time for those dreaming of retirement.
But to read the media, you would hardly know that the biggest pension scandal of all is in the state system. James Bartholomew, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, pens a scorching denunciation of state pensions. He points out that we are told by the experts that retirement ages will have to rise, and, to be fair, improved life expectancy (surely a triumph of health and living standards rather than a problem) makes that a sensible option. But taxpayers who paid their national “insurance” contributions are being told that the state is welshing on its side of the bargain. If a private business operated on the same basis as the government did with tax-funded pensions, the directors would be sent to jail for mis-selling on an epic scale.
Reform of our creaking state pensions system remains one of the most intractable public policy issues of the age. The destination — a system of privately held accounts may be obvious to a free market zealot like me, but getting there is going to be very, very hard unless politicians have the sense, and the courage, to scrap all taxes on savings income and capital gains to make widespread long term private saving a reality.
The present state of affairs cannot endure.
I am going to have to find some new term to adequately describe the condition of ignorance that renders its sufferers unable to comprehend the inevitable truth that state-control means political control.
A shining example of this tragically far-too-common form of myopia can be found in one of today’s letters to the UK Times [note: link may not work for non-UK readers]:
Sir, Once again the NHS is set fair to become the filling in the Labour and Conservative policy sandwiches, and yet neither party recognises that the biggest problem besetting the service is the very political control each espouses.
Health, like broadcasting, is too important to be the political football of major parties during the first skirmishes of an impending general election. The NHS needs a charter, it needs sensitive management, it needs to value and cherish its long-suffering staff and, above all, it needs to be isolated from the political process.
The man who wrote this letter is a doctor and is, therefore, unlikely to be either dim-witted or uneducated. Yet, he passionately demands (and no doubt expects) a government-run health service that is somehow ‘isolated from the political process’.
I have penned a letter of response to the Times pointing out that the only way to get politics out of healthcare is to de-nationalise it and allow provision to be bought and sold on the free market. However, I do not expect the editors of the Times will be inclined to publicise such heretical and ‘extreme’ views.
The Barclay brothers have won the fight for the Daily and Sunday Telegraph (the leading Conservative newspapers in Britain), I welcome this victory as the leading counter bidder (at least the one that made the most noise) was the company behind the Daily Mail – a fanatically anti-American newspaper.
My attitude towards the victory of the Barclay brothers (or rather the defeat of the Daily Mail) may suprise those people who think that my doubts about the policy of war and my dislike of President Bush indicate anti-Americanism. However, a good look at the Daily Mail would show such people what real anti-Americanism is like.
By the way, the Daily Mail is not a socialist newspaper (at least not in the way the word ‘socialist’ is normally understood) it is part of a different tradition of statism.
David Smith, the economics editor for the Sunday Times, has a splendid article on his personal blog, Economics UK, about why the Eurosceptic approach is the economically rational one.
Britain’s unemployment rate, on a comparable basis, is 4.8%, against 9.4% in France and 9.8% in Germany. Unemployment stands at under half the EU average. Per capita gross domestic product in Britain, according to a new report from Capital Economics, is higher at $30,200 (£16,440), than Germany’s $29,200 or France’s $28,500.
The economic momentum is with us. Britain has been growing continuously for 12 years, during which time other EU countries have suffered at least one recession and in some cases two. The sick man of Europe has made a remarkable recovery.
Of course the economic argument for Britain being in the EU (as opposed to some EFTA-like agreement) was always tosh. Switzerland anyone? It is now highly visible tosh.
Here on Samizdata.net we may decry the regulatory idiocy of the Labour government but clearly things are even worse in Euroland, and at least if more sovereignty is maintained at the UK level, more of the damage can be undone at the UK level rather than locked in by remote stasis oriented Europe wide institutions. All the EU has to offer is corruption, stagnation and regulation. No thanks.
I am glad to see I am not the only one who thinks the frequently reported ‘sharp exchanges’ between Blair and Chirac (or Shröder) are a phoney as a three pound note. Some of the commenters here on Samizdata.net seems to have taken a similar view as has the Daily Telegraph opinion leader article.
At EU summits, there is always a row and always a deal – and the European constitution negotiations did not disappoint. Tony Blair’s spin doctors did not quite say, “Gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here,” but he was, apparently, battling like Henry V against the French and also the Germans. But he signed the constitution anyway, even though last week’s election results clearly show he had no mandate to do so. There was something distinctly phoney about the row.
Indeed. The fact having ‘rows’ with the French and Germans is good for the standing of a British leader hardly needs explaining. Yet the fact is that regardless of the acrimony, the deals still seem to get signed. ‘Red line’ after red line gets laid down, acclaimed by both supporters and people who should know better: “Thus far and no further!” cries our plucky Leader of the Day. Which of course really means “only thus far this time“. Just wait a year or two and the process can be repeated yet again and a little more agreed, once the ‘red lines’ of yesteryear have vanished down the memory hole.
Forget the rhetoric, if you want to know the truth, just look for the signatures on the treaties. The rest is just so much verbal fart gas.
We recently marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of the 19th century free trade reformer, classical liberal and ardent anti-interventionist politician, Richard Cobden. Cobden rose from conditions of poverty that would have crushed lesser spirits to become one of the greatest advocates of laissez faire capitalism and globalisation to have ever lived. Along with fellow liberal John Bright, Cobden created the anti-Corn Law League, one of the most successful pressure groups in British history. The Corn Law protectionist measures were eventually swept away by Tory Prime Minister Robert Peel in 1846, helping to set the stage for the mid-century industrial boom. (Peel is also one of my few historical political heroes). Cobden opposed protectionism and explained the benefits of free trade with a passion and energy that puts our timid politicians of today to shame.
So it was rather fitting to have just spent a most enjoyable evening listening to live jazz and sipping champagne in one of London’s oldest private member clubs, known as The Cobden Club. Located near the Paddington area of west London, and founded as a working man’s club in the Victorian age, it has now morphed into a comfortable bar and restaurant complete with a separate dance floor for those inclined. I like the way that the Victorian architecture has been retained, with wonderful tall ceilings and fittings, combined with plenty of modern touches and colourful prints on the walls. The atmosphere is very ‘chilled out’ and relaxing. I love its big comfy armchairs into which you can sink while sipping a coffee or brandy in the company of friends. It is also unpretentious and lacks the stuffy atmosphere one finds in some of the clubs around Mayfair, for example.
I like to think that the spirit of the great man would have smiled at the thought of a Samizdata blogger carousing in the club that bore his name, since I very much doubt whether 90 percent of its clientele have ever heard of Richard Cobden, and his standing as a magnificent advocate of classical liberalism.
An EU Constitution has been agreed, sort of, and now a powerful section of the political establishment will begin the process of spinning it as ‘a great victory for Britain’ because it will not immediately wipe out the ability of British people to have at least a little influence over the laws under which they live. And in other parts of Europe, the same constitution will be spun as ‘moving Europe closer to complete union’. It is like a vast edifice growing ever taller by the year, a great movable siege tower surrounded by a fog of graft and corruption and expense accounts.
But it is a constitution quite unlike the more famous US one. The EU constitution will incorporate, amongst other things, the essence of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which requires not that the state refrain from making laws in many areas of life but that laws be mandated to ensure ‘rights’. This includes such wonders as the ‘right to education’ including the phrase “this right includes the possibility to receive free compulsory education” (which is of course not in fact free at all and suggests we have a ‘right to be compelled’). And wonders of double talk such as:
Equality between men and women must be ensured in all areas, including employment, work and pay. The principle of equality shall not prevent the maintenance or adoption of measures providing for specific advantages in favour of the under-represented sex.
So the much awaited document will prohibit discrimination between men and women… unless it is decided to pass laws requiring discrimination between men and woman. Clearly the Charter of Fundamental Rights which the new EU Constitution will aim to enforce is nothing less that the ‘right’ to require all European states to maintain regulatory welfare states. The much vaunted priests of democracy want to make sure that the constitution ensures that all you can vote for is who gets to regulate you rather than whether or not you will be regulated at all.
It is not too late for Britain but the last bastion is indeed the one on which the battle will be fought. Perhaps, just perhaps, when comes time for the UK referendum, that vast and growing tower will be struck by lightning and come crashing down.
I have known for quite a while that the hierarchy of Roman Catholic Church in England has decided that it no longer wishes the Church to be a force for moral suasion but would rather simply act as a political lobby, seeking to use the force of the state to compel behaviour it approves of rather than allow moral choices to remain in hands of thier parishioners (or anyone else for that matter). It is good to see articles in the mainstream press saying much the same thing and holding them up to a spotlight.
I would hope that Roman Catholics who view the political secularisation of their church do not just meekly sit in their pews and listen to the advocacy of coercive statism without a murmur. If the Church wants to act like a political organisation, people should have no compunction treating them like nothing more than that… and there are few ways better to get an institution’s undivided attention than starving it of funds.
If the leaders of the Church in England want the state to take your money regardless of how you feel about that, rather than bending their efforts to urging you to give it to charitable works of you own free will, then might I suggest to Church-goers that they remember that when the collection plate comes around during mass… but do not just decline to part with your funds, tell your priest that you will not do so and why.
If you meet Liberal Democrats trying to claim that after the local government elections that Britain now has three-party politics, tell them that after the European elections it actually has four-party politics; and their party is fourth.
I have long thought that Liberal-Democrats deserved to be rounded up and kept in high security prisons. However, a friend suggests a more useful alternative. Why don’t we use genetic engineering to breed a four-headed hydra with the likenesses of Hayek, von Mises, Friedman and Reagan? It could seek out Liberal Democrats, wrap itself around them, and suck the collectivism out of them. The discarded husks could then be shredded and recycled as packaging for the fast food industry.
The story of the next general election is one of three party politics
Charles Kennedy, Liberal Democrat leader
Sure, Tories, Labour and… UKIP? 
The UKIP has just become a significant force in British politics. Will it last? I have no idea. But the fact is that the UKIP is now a major player in the European Parliament and allegedly gained almost 16% of the vote where they stood.
And yet this appearance of a new political force in Britain seems to be almost a footnote in most of the articles in the press. Oh, it is being covered, but the fact this upstart party is being examined in such muted matter is itself quite worth pondering. Although I am hardly an uncritical admirer of the UKIP in many ways, I do share their antipathy to the EU and I think that their success does show that a deep vein of disaffection is beginning to come to the surface even amongst Britain’s typically ovine electorate.
And the fact the sensationalist British press is not treating this into a sensation is itself rather interesting.
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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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