Bat-shit crazy libertarians
Oh dear, so much for libertarians valuing free speech, disagreement and discussion eh? Old Holborn, a blog I was getting into enjoying, is shutting down because an idiot decided to:
post my name , address, email address, business address, photo of me and my children on the web. Because he was angry with me over my stand on Israel.
…
Many people now know where I live, where my children go to school, how I earn my crust and I will not put my family at any further risk.
How remarkably unsurprising. This kind of behaviour on blogs is frankly outrageous.
Basic income: good in Namibia, bad in Libertopia
Namibia is piloting a Basic Income Grant, in which every Namibian citizen gets N$100 per month until they are eligible for the state pension, with no conditions and no strings attached, paid for through higher taxes on those in need or not in poverty. It seems to have been very successful, helping progress towards all eight of the Millennium Development Goals. It helps people pay their school fees and healthcare fees, and contrary to what critics suggested, hasn’t led to people sitting around doing nothing.
So why not, as many people on here and elsewhere, from both the right and the left have suggested, introduce a Citizens’ Basic Income in the UK? After all, no one believes that the current welfare system and society, with its bureaucracy, means testing, high levels of poverty and great cost, is perfect.
continue reading… »
Why I am not a Libertarian
Recently, there appears to have been an influx into the Liberal Democrats of Libertarians. This is typified by the members of ‘Liberal Vision‘, which is in turn part of a Tory organisation called ‘progressive voice’ (essentially a bunch of Objectivists).
Now, in many ways I agree with libertarians on many subjects – which is, of course, why we can be in the same party – I am all for more personal freedom, for a lack of government interference in people’s lives, for the restoration of recently-lost civil liberties and so on. But libertarians seem, to me, to have two big holes in their thinking, both of which are summed up by some recent comments by Nick in this thread on Liberal Conspiracy (scroll down).
‘Nick’ is following the libertarian ‘party line’ almost exactly: the government should not interfere with the workings of the market when companies are failing. Not only should they not spend any money bailing out the companies (a reasonable, debatable position) or on retraining the workers so they can get jobs elsewhere (a much less reasonable position in my view) – they should not even pay unemployment benefit to the people who lose their jobs, because the money would be better allocated by the market.
Now, there are two distinct errors here.
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Misunderstanding economics
Guido has done us all a favour by exposing the innumeracy of some Tories. He accuses the Chancellor of making “fantasy forecasts” and quotes a correspondent querying Darling’s forecast that the economy will grow by 0.75% this year:
Now, when the chancellor stood up at the dispatch box, three quarters of 2008 GDP growth were known:
Q1 0.3%
Q2 0%
Q3 -0.5%
In order to hit the forecast 0.75%, the economy has to grow at feisty 1% in the fourth quarter. Has the Chancellor been outside recently?
This is just drivel. Let me explain.
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Creating a more ‘responsible’ drinker
I was thinking recently that our approach to regulating the sale of alcohol has an uncanny resemblence to that whack-a-mole game my brother & I used to play in amusement arcades; one second you think you’ve smashed the problem of alcohol abuse, and the next it rears its head somewhere else.
Back in the day, the argument behind liberalising the licensing laws was that in order to ‘large it up’ or whatever, people were trying to cram their drinking into a pretty short period of time, and that was causing the apparent rash of mass leglessness you’d find in towns centres across the country. So, the theory went, extend the amount of time they’re allowed to drink and you might see some reduction in the ‘down it!’ culture that induces half the country into synchronised vomiting every Saturday night.
We need a different system of schooling
A few weeks ago, an article in the FT criticised the current proposals for the so-called choice agenda in public services.
Interestingly it doesn’t seem to be a criticism from the left (i.e. that there should be no market in public services) but from a more libertarian perspective – that the choice isn’t a real one.
Those on the traditional free-market right would have “choice” in public services no matter what happens to equity. The argument goes something along the lines that choice would drive up standards everywhere benefiting all. Those of the traditional social democratic/socialist persuasion think equity is too great a thing to be sacrificed in the name of choice.
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Liberals should be fighting Tories, not Labour
I am going to make a prediction – the Liberal Democrats are going to lose the next election.
Now, this may not strike you as one of the great feats of prognostication. The Liberal Democrats have never won an election and the Liberals last won an election before the first world war. Even though in the council elections and the Henley by-election we came in second place, I don’t think there’s a single person in the country who actually believes we’re going to win a General Election in the near future.
But I don’t mean we’re not going to gain the majority of seats; I mean we’re actively working against our own interests. The decisions being made are going to actively damage the party – and, more importantly, damage the chances of getting some of our principles put into practice.
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Hysterical outrage roundup
Mmmmmm. Is there a daintier dish than jerked right-wing knee? The Bishop of Stafford writes an article about climate change and rather unwisely uses Joseph Fritzl as an example of human selfishness. Watch the right-wingers hitch up their skirts and squeal like the housekeeper in the Tom and Jerry cartoons.
It could be argued what the Bishop said took the argument to the acceptable limits of taste. So. without further ado, let he who is without sin cast the first stone…
Seasteading, libertarians and internet millionaires
Rich American Libertarians are planning to live on huge metal platforms out on the ocean. Which is good news. Now if only all of our problems could be got rid of so easily.
Executives from Google and Paypal are financing the creation of new independent ’seastead’ states which will be anchored out in international waters. Once built, anti-social millionaires fed up with those tiresome duties of having to obey laws and pay tax, can sink their millions into the project and rust their days out on the high seas.
Of course founders Patri Friedman and Wayne Gramlich don’t quite put it like that. In their manifesto: Seasteading: A Practical Guide to Homesteading the High Seas they write of new sustainable communities that will serve as models of ‘open source’ government.
continue reading… »
We’re watching you Boris
This piece of news is too delicious not to write about. Bruce Anderson says Boris is a libertarian. And yet the Sun says London’s new mayor is planning to ban consuming alcohol on the tube.
Extreme porn to become illegal
A bill outlawing the possession of “extreme pornography” is set to become law next week. But many fear it has been rushed through… Stephen has more thoughts.
Obligations and privileges
I’m holding fire on the oath swearing nonsense. I mean, if you think that’s bad how about a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, a Green Paper on which is apparently due in the next few months.
This Bill will set out the rights we enjoy and the responsibilities we owe as members of society.
A Bill of Rights is a constitutional document. Constitutions can be more or less permissive in the rights they afford the citizen. Most have a mechanism by which more rights can be added, or which override previously accepted rights. Offhand, I can’t think of a constitution which sets out obligations to the state as a basic condition of citizenship, on which the enjoyment of rights is conditional.
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What good did funding the arts ever do?
So, who wants to hear a joke?
Q: What’s the difference between libertarianism and anarchism?
A: Under anarchism, the poor people get to shoot back.
Boom, boom. I guess that’s more a caricature than a joke, as such. Anyway, I’m not here for the standup. What I want to address is the arts, partly by way of reply to Chris’s post here last week, specifically the estimable libertarian objection to arts funding. In libertopia, arts funding is for private individuals. “There is no such thing as society” (some of them really write stuff like that, non-ironically), so spending on the collective is wasted. Immoral. Theft. In any case, the Dead Hand of the State (10,300 Google hits for a phrase I’ve never heard anyone actually speak) can only have a pernicious impact on private interaction, and what could be more private than art?
Let’s look at some evidence. continue reading… »
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