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]
|
Reader Martha Lane e-mailed me to ask what was a typical libertarian position on ‘hate speech’ in a free society. I referred her to In Defense of Hate Propaganda (Sort of) by Pierre Lemieux (pdf format: requires Acrobat reader or similar).
I often recommend stuff found in the Libertarian Alliance archive of publications. It has over 650 mostly short and to the point pamphlets from a wide range of genuine libertarian view points. The Libertarian Alliance does not have a manifesto or a single ‘party line’, choosing instead to showcase the full range of libertarian views, from anarcho-capitalists to minarchists to Old Whigs to libertarian-conservatives… and everything in between.
Pierre Lemieux’s two page article that I recommended above is typical of most of the LA’s on-line publications, which is to say brief, easy to digest and free.
Suman Palit over on The Kolkata Libertarian has been prognosticating with considerable plausibility on various nightmare scenarios for the Indian sub-continent. His view on where some of those scenarios could lead are:
In 2050 A.D., Sudan and Botswana surpass the Indian GDP, organize pop-rock concert to deliver food aid to Calcutta.
Not vastly optimistic then, Suman?
The British government has promised to tackle Britain’s underachieving railway system head on and build a brand, spanking, new, spiffy, super-duper, hi-tech, luxurious, efficient rail network for the 21st Century
According to HM Government this miracle of modern transportation will be so generally splendiferous and commuter-friendly that, not only will the trains run on time, they will actually call at your house, wake you up, get you dressed, make you a cup of coffee and kiss your kids goodbye before whisking you off to your destination in hitherto unimagined levels of opulence and comfort
Sounds great, doesn’t it? There’s only one teensy-weensy little snag: er…there’s no money to build it. Nada. Zippedy-doo-da. Not a bean, a sou or a red cent
See, you can forget all the guff you may have heard about the alleged privatisation of Britain’s railways. The railways were never privatised. They were leased off on state franchise and bound hand-and-foot by regulations. A few years down the line (scuse pun) and the government is shocked, SHOCKED to discover that the main operating company, Railtrack is running at a huge loss and promptly takes it into receivership
Now the government is saddled with responsibility for rebuilding a decaying transportation system, mollifying an angry public and dodging lawsuits from even angrier Railtrack investors who have lost all their money. Boy, do these guys know how to make a rod for their own backs or what??!!
Still, ever mindful of the next election, the government has promised the above-mentioned whizz-bang new railway system with the money that they ‘hope’ to raise from private investors
Fat chance!! After watching the government send the Railtrack investors home with nothing except a kick in the pants, I know what my response would be if the government asked me for my money. I can’t print it here but it would consist of two words the second of which would be ‘off’
So, this weeks competition is to find a solution to this problem: How can the British government build an envy-of-the-world, state-of-the-art railway network for the 21st Century with no money whatsoever?
Please send your answers to:
The Right Honourable Tony Blair PM
10 Downing Street
London SW1
The winner will have the honour of having his or her idea credited to the aforesaid Tony Blair for PR and re-election purposes
FARC off
Colombia’s marxist rebel army has meekly agreed to dismantle its checkpoints, vacate its strongholds and return to negotiations rather than face an onslaught from the Colombian Army
Do these people imagine that they are geniune, bona fide marxist rebels? They’re nothing but a bunch of lily-livered, yuppified, namby-pamby WIMPS!! Now I remember the days when marxist rebels really were marxist rebels and could be counted on not to stop fighting until they were streaming up the steps of the Presidential Palace shouting Viva La Revolucion!!!, pouring El Presidentes finest single malt whisky all over the cobblestone streets and waving his mistresses silk panties on the ends of their bayonets
I don’t know. Marxists just ain’t what they used to be
Osama Bin Laden has all but admitted responsibility for the GWB attack in a grainy video partially released by the FBI
On the tape, Bin Laden can be heard boasting to colleagues that “…We have thousands more pretzels willing to die..”
Security forces worldwide have been put on high alert for a new wave of terror which could include Banzai Bagels and Kamikaze Canolies
It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right
– Winston S. Churchill
Brian Linse ponders the nature of monopoly and capitalism on his blog AintNoBadDude. Rather than answer him directly, I will give him my modern Austrian school economics influenced perspective on the nature of markets and monopoly.
The nature of modern capitalism is significantly different to that of, say, capitalism in the 19th century. The vastly enhanced flow of information and the global nature of enormous pools of fungible capital means that market mechanisms that worked sporadically in years past now work more smoothly and with tidal inevitability when allowed to. The larger the pool of possible market entrants and participants, the more liquid and inexorable the markets become.
Thus paradoxically, there is only one method by which monopoly and oligopoly can really occur for extended periods in a ‘harmful’ form, and that is in market niches protected from globalization. That is why Microsoft is so obviously only a transient ‘problem’ rather than a market ‘failure’ as its market position is not the result of adapting to regulation and protection. As big as Microsoft is, it is dwarfed by the pool of global capital looking for alternative uses. There is a good reason that in spite of its huge market share that MS products are really not that expensive. New entrants are impossible to keep out: if MS were to create ‘excessive’ profit margins, they would be quickly faced with hordes of new competitors as the software market does not require huge start up costs to enter. Thus the MS ‘monopoly’ is of little concern in reality. Apple products are actually more expensive and yet no one is accusing them of abusing a monopolist position. The reasons for that are not so hard to understand. In essence, the only way MS can remain a near monopoly is by not acting like a monopolist. Multi-billionaire Nelson Bunker Hunt thought he was ‘bigger than the market’ and it ate him alive because he was trying to mess with a truly global commodity market. Bill Gates is under no such illusions.
It is ironic that left wingers and protectionist paleo-conservatives who fret about ‘monopolists’ are the same people who create the conditions for them to flourish by hampering the progress of continuing to globalize ownership, and by raising the cost of market entry with vast teetering towers of regulations designed to prevent precisely what they are in fact enabling. Capitalist ‘conspiracies’ that the left are so fond of fretting about inevitably come to nothing if the pool of capital and potential entrants is larger than the ‘clique of conspirators’ can in reality control, which in the case of truly global markets is the norm rather than the exception.
Sky and Telescope is not where one would normally expect an editorial on government waste. Mostly it covers more important issues like “what is the fastest way to cool down my Newtonian’s primary mirror?” or “are Type II supernovae assymetric?” But if there is one topic that unites astronomers of all persuasions from the most casual amateur to the greyest Chaired professional, it is science literacy. So it should not be surprising when The Boston Globe announced “Heavens smile on astrology school: It’s accredited”(1) your average astronomer was mildly upset, as in “I was mildly upset the wife emptied the house and took my dog and pickup truck and the good Dobsonian when she walked out on me”.
I first heard of this yesterday morning when I read Dr. Rick Feinberg’s scathing January 2002 editorial on the subject. He did a bit of research into the story. It all just gets better. Not only did the The Astrological Institute of Scottsdale, Arizona become accredited by the US Department of Education in August 2001; the Kepler College of Astrological Arts and Sciences in Seattle, Washington, was granted the right to award Batchelor’s and Master’s degrees in June 2001. Now I have nothing against people who want to throw their own money away on supernatural claptrap; but as Dr Feinberg points out federal grants and loans can be awarded to students to help pay tuition. That’s right. All of you in America are now paying taxes to ensure your local gypsy fortune teller has a Diploma hung on her wall.
I strongly agree with Dr. Feinberg’s suggestion that Americans call the Office of the Inspector General’s hotline for fraud, waste, and abuse involving federal student aid funds. The number is: 1-800-MIS-USED (1-800-647-8733) or email at oig.hotline@ed.gov
(1)The article is no longer available on line at the Boston Globe, but a copy may be found posted here if you search well down the page.
How appropriate that, with the end of January almost upon us, and so many are struggling to complete their tax returns, we get a little lift from the EU Commission who have hinted that they may relieve of this onerous duty. Instead, it is suggested that, in future, we simply remit our hard-earned direct to Brussels
What I like is the assertion that this new idea appears in a confidential letter sent by EU Commissioner, Michaele Schreyer, to her fellow EU Commissioners. Yes, the letter was so confidential that it has been splashed all over the front page of the EU Observer. As if we have been treated to a tantalising glimpse of the goings-on behind the Chocolate Curtain
Nothing of the sort. This is an administrative trick. The decision by the EU to tax direct has already been made and this little pantomime is to test public and media response. The European equivalent of running it up the flagpole and seeing if anybody salutes (or balks)
But what matter really? Balk away. Its on the cards regardless
Given that ‘Samizdata Illuminatus’ has been posting Churchill quotes lately, it is only matter of time before someone else thinks up this Churchillian reference:
The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, bloggery and the lash.
Sorry.
I’m new to bloggery, so please everyone bear with me while I get the hang of it.
Guns. Much is made by libertarians of mass civilian gun ownership, and this does matter, especially politically. But with crime, the mere right of civilians to own a gun, even if most of us choose not to exercise that right, is, I surmise, critical.
If you are thinking of becoming a career criminal, then the difference between a world in which just a few civilians are weird enough to own guns and crazy enough to use them against intruders, and one in which such people are so rare as to be for all practical purposes non-existent… is all the difference. It’s the difference between being shot on about your hundredth robbing expedition (i.e. quite soon), and not being shot ever.
The difference between half the population being armed and all of it being armed is, in contrast, not much of a difference. So, you get to do about one unmolested robbery before the hospital or the morgue beckons, instead of no robberies at all. Not a big distinction.
I sense that we in Britain have perhaps – what with all the new restrictions following the Dunblane massacre – moved from the first of these two gun-worlds to the second.
For decades, the number of robberies you could hope to get away with before getting seriously hurt has been climbing steadily, but you still had to be very short-sighted to become a robber. That didn’t stop everyone, but it did stop most. Gun wimps like me could live safe from most potential robbers, because the robbers didn’t know for sure that we were all gun wimps.
Now, everyone’s a gun wimp. Now, I surmise, robbers can reasonably hope to rob for life.
I have a personal stake in this. On the radio a couple of years ago I announced that there was a big increase in violent crime under way, not because I knew this to be true, but because for the sake of my argument I needed it to be true. (I wasn’t expecting a gun argument, and hadn’t been attending to recent crime news properly.) Sadly, it seems that I was right.
I was watching the news on the television this afternoon when Bono, the Irish singer for U2 came on to opine on issues of third world debt, AIDS and trade, with reference to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Blantyre, Malawi.
For one brief shining moment I thought that a universal law of thermodynamics (that when entertainers talk about anything other than the entertainment business, their voices can be heard to emanate from their posteriors) was about to be spectacularly falsified. He remarked that it was appalling that Africans are denied access to US and EU markets due to disgraceful protectionist measures and how this was crippling the entire continents’ ability to develop economically… well, that certainly made me sit up: a singer who actually understands real world economics and genuine liberty? Surely not!
Alas cruel reality quickly reasserted itself. He then went on to rail against how banks were putting ‘profits before people’ because of the crippling levels of debt in Africa. Naturally he did not mention that this debt was not forced on Africa’s governments at gunpoint but was freely entered into by the purported leaders of various African nations. Somehow the actions of African borrowers of money result in Western banks ‘putting profits before people’. Interesting. I wonder if Bono also takes a neo-colonialist view that as African leaders are presumably not competent to make sound economic decisions, they should not be allowed to borrow money in the first place? Just curious.
And then, Bono deliverers the rhetorical coup de grace designed to impress upon the Western viewers how urgent the situation is:
After September 11, people cannot just ignore Africa any more. This is a problem that must be dealt with now by America and the West
Now please, will someone out there correct me if I am mistaken, but I was not aware that anyone from Zambia or Congo or Nigeria or Burundi or Mozambique or Senegal or Zimbabwe or Angola or Ghana had hijacked some American airliners and crashed them in to the Pentagon and World Trade Centre towers. What the hell does September 11th have to do with African poverty?
Perhaps someone should point out to Bono that the way the US responded to September 11th was not to shower Afghanistan with largess but with an earth shaking hail of 2000 lbs laser guided bombs and the forceful destruction of the Taliban government.
Then again…
…given that most of Africa’s economic problems are clearly derived from government malfeasance, perhaps my fleeting first impression of Bono as an astute observer was correct after all and that is indeed what he wants for Africa’s ghastly kleptocratic regimes: obliterate most of Africa’s governments, remove all Western trade barriers to African goods and services, declare victory and then go home to leave the formerly oppressed African man-in-the-street to get on with their lives unhindered by the likes of Robert Mugabe or Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
Cool, that works for me.
|
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.
|
Recent Comments