Slavish mind-set

An excellent point:

If only one be tactful enough not to name the hated names of Socialism, Bolshevism, Communism, Fascism, Marxism, Hitlerism, or what not, one finds no particular objection to the single essential doctrine that underlies all these systems alike — the doctrine of an absolute state. Let one abstain from the coarse word slavery and one discovers that in the view of many Americans — I think probably most of them — an actual slave-status is something that is really not much to be dreaded, but rather perhaps to be welcomed, at least provisionally. Such is the power of words.

And how true!

A Dreadful development

I seems that a dreadful development is taking place. The powerful globalization that has been taking place for the last 25 years or so, liberating hundreds of millions of people from poverty, is now loosing its momentum! It seems that the Leftist-green is gaining the upper hand. Free trade and open markets are being replaced with "fair" trade and protectionism in many areas of the world. South-America is falling for socialism, Africa is stuck in its usual place of poverty and disease and the West is regulating and taxing itself to economic drowsiness in the name of environmental issues and social "justice".

This is a horrible development indeed. Milton Friedman died without an obvious successor in the public debate, while the Left produces men like Al Gore and Michael Moore, who make propaganda look like science and George W. Bush look like some kind of a symbol of the Right. The result is as expected: Liberty looses ground, globalization is put on hold and hundreds of millions of people get stuck in poverty and disease.

How to fight this? How to fight the Left that in many ways controls the public debate, has a firm grip on the ever-expanding State and has falsely managed to paint itself as the guardian of the environment and "public" health? For myself I can see no other way out than the one which created the freedom momentum 25 years ago: Tireless criticism of the statist popularism, preaching of the unpopular rational thought and recycling of the works of the great minds of libertarian thought (who I see as Rothbard and Mises and to some extent, Milton Friedmand and Hayek). Or is there another way?

A convenient truth

The "debate" over man-made climate change has, for a long time, not been about science, potential threats to the environment or anything of the sort. The debate has instead turned into a fierce battle over political intervention on the free market. Leftists pick those science data and speculations that indicate that man is having devastating effect on Earth's climate, and use it to suggest a bigger government, heavier taxes and stricter regulations. Those to the right play the opposite game, also plucking those science research and speculations that fit their cause - that of a smaller State and freeer market.

As uninteresting as this is, I sometimes feel myself forced to enter the "scientific" debate about potential human-induced climate change to fight the statist propaganda. One tool to help me do that are reports like these, Positive Environmentalism: A Convenient Truth:

Wealth is vital if we are to adapt, and help poor countries adapt, to climate change if that becomes necessary. And wealth is also essential to the development of those new technologies that truly have the potential to set us free from environmental danger.

The tone of the report is not the one of unlimited optimism or denial of "potential" climate change. Instead, the approach is this: If any climate change is on its way (or already in progress), then the correct way to handle it is not to keep mankind down with regulations, taxation and other State interference, but to focus on that which will allow mankind to become wealthier and in that way give a bigger proportion of mankind the necessary means to survive and be comfortable in the new, upcoming climate.

It's not my favorite thing in the world to argue for freedom on these terms, but I guess it is useful while the Leftist-environmental movement is slowly being exposed as the statist-movement it is, and its agendas exposed as just another way to expand the State and strangle the free market.

Why Socialism/Statism is popular

Why is it that not everyone is a freedom loving libertarian? How is it that many choose to support Statism, Socialism, Conservatism and other forms of the (democratic/autocratic) rule of the many over the few (and the other way around)? Is it because the arguments of libertarianism are faulty? No (then this would have been demonstrated). Is it because some people enjoy paying taxes and giving away their liberty and property to a few elected individuals? No (or else people would just give money to the State and follow moral codes similar to State-law, instead of just obeying when the tax-collector comes by). The reasons for the popularity of Statism are simple: Everyone thinks they know better on behalf of others, or is out to grab others property for either selfish reasons or their own "noble" reasons.

This can be explained with a hypothetical example: Suppose Mr Jones, a Leftist, believes "everyone should have equal access to higher education". Mr Jones will claim that this is a "human right", and a natural demand to make. He will present results from studies, which clearly indicate that education is a good investment for the student and "the society", and that poor individuals should not be stopped from educating themselves for "financial reasons". No, the Leftist says, education should be "free" and open to "anybody" who wants to seek it.

But how will the Leftist plan to accomplish his wish? Will he ask people to donate money, which in return will be given out as scholarships to students, for example poor ones? No. Will he donate money himself to support those who wish to seek higher education? No. Will he do anything which, in a voluntary way, eases access to universities for the few and the poor? No.

What he will do is say: "Dear politicians, please raise taxes on people's income and capital savings and use the proceeds to finance State-run schools so that every interested applicant can attend the study of his or her choice."

He will also say: "People are selfish and greedy and won't support students who want to seek higher education but have tight financial means to do so. Therefore, you must listen to my noble and just plan, and force it on everyone else, and never even try the voluntary way."

So, what does this teach us? How come Leftism is so popular? Because, either Mr Jones is himself a student in some higher education and wants others to subsidize his choice of investment/consumption, or he believes his opinion is so noble and so just that no-one should really have the right to protest in any meaningful way. And this is why Leftism enjoys wide popular support in many groups in society (notable the intellectuals and those who want to grab from the rich and bring to themselves).

Why Socialism is evil

In my last entry I said, with very little backing up, that Socialism is evil. I will now spend a few more words than last time and explain what I mean (and didn't explain earlier).

Socialism can be described in the following way:

[A] broad array of doctrines or political movements that envisage a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to social control.

The key concept behind this system is the abolition of private property (everybody owns nothing). In theory this applies only for property rights over material things. In practice, and inevitable so, the individual's self-ownership is also abolished ("society", "community", "the collective" and other such words always refer to many individuals, and each individual by himself is therefore not an entity in a system of Socialism).

Some people say that Socialism is a "beautiful" or "charming" thought. Individuals who hold this opinion say, or think, that individuals can become "equal" in some respect (for example monetary income) if "society" (for example the State) is placed higher than the individual. Everybody would then become less greedy, more equal and happier. Envy would become extinct. No-one would have lots of money and no-one would be desperately poor. Or so the Socialist says.

But Socialism is not a beautiful thought. Socialism is the system of ants - of a society where each individual is no more than a slave to "society", and whose talents, ambitions, preferences, interests, needs and cravings are no different from any other. Ants live for "the colony" - for the physical well-being of one queen - and each individual is therefore worthless as long as others can take its place. No ant suffers from envy because all are the same. No ant har more or less talents than the next. No ant gets business ideas and takes risks while implementing them. No ant discovers new and improved methods in hope of profits and wealth. No ant has any value by himself. All are equal. None is special.

How an individual, with a free mind and having a recognized self-ownership right in a free society, can call Socialism a "beautiful" thought is beyond me. The beauty of humanity is the diversity of its individuals, be it in talents, tastes or looks. A system based on enforced "equality", be it in monetary income or something else, does not see the individual, and denies him as a basic "unit" in society.

Socialists want to abolish the private property right (that can actually not be done, but at least they want to outlaw it). At the same time they often deny that they want to outlaw the individual's self-ownership right. This is the same as to say that a person can own a car, but the "society" decides where and when it should be driven. If the individual owns his own body, but cannot apply it the way he sees fit (for example, sell labor to a factory-owner or keep the apples he picks from the "public" trees), then the term self-ownership is worthless and meaningless.

Socialism is not a system suited for a society of individuals, and every attempt to impose Socialism is un-humane (if logic doesn't tell us that, then history sure as hell does). Socialism is State-enforced slavery, and evil.

How to beat the evils of Statism

Some people believe socialism is a "beautiful thought", but a very difficult one to implement. The same applies for all the little bits of socialism we discuss everyday: Socialized medicine, socialized schools, socialized roads. Of course this is nonsense. Socialism is not a beautiful thought in any way, and the right way to beat it is to show why that is.

Here is a useful quote:

So long as people believe that socialized medicine is a noble plan, there is no way to fight it. You cannot stop a noble plan -- not if it really is noble. The only way you can defeat it is to unmask it -- to show that it is the very opposite of noble. Then at least you have a fighting chance. (#)

This is an important lesson. Never allow a Leftist to catch you agree with his notion of a "beautiful thought" or "noble idea". Socialism is pure evil, designed to mold humans into little packages of equal monetary income and destroy individual liberty. Humans are not equal, but different in every single aspect (talent, intelligence, will, preferences, etc). A system designed to equalize individuals is therefore un-human, and a horrible, evil idea.

To demonstrate that is the way to beat the evils of socialism.

Update: This entry has been picked up by an Icelandic Leftist. So far, not good, but hopefully that will change (with the next entry).

Unions decrease the quality of living for everyone

Unions are a dreadful thing in any society. No, not the kind of unions which, in return for dues, simply provide legal service and help people save up for holidays and bridge the financial gap between jobs, but the kind which is sheltered by the State and is legally, although immorally, allowed to use force and violence against employers.

Here is a useful quote:

"Those who tell you of trades unions bent on raising wages by moral suasion alone are like those who would tell you of tigers that live on oranges." The result of union activity, therefore, is to reduce the number of jobs in an industry and to raise the money wages of union labor, while at the same time relegating many workers, driven out of this line of work by the decreased quantity of labor demanded there, to other lines of work, whose money wages must decrease as a result of the greater supply of workers now forced to compete for them. (#)

This shouldn't be a mystery to any rational thinking person. Unions are a kind of price control, distorting the relationship between supply and demand. By increasing the price of one group of workers, they decrease the price of everyone else. By using law and State-force to uphold a manipulated price of one kind of work-labor, thereby decreasing the demand for it, all other workers must suffer with lower prices for their labor, since it is now artificially higher in supply.

The lesson? Abolish State-protection of union-activity, and returning to the time when "real wages in manufacturing climed an incredible 50 percent in the United States from 1860-1890, and another 37 percent from 1890-1914", and that's it.

The State is Not a Market Player

The Trouble with "Just Compensation" - Mises Institute:

Even when a state buys assets from willing private interests, it cannot be said to be paying 'just compensation,' since the ones doing the compensating — the taxpayers — are not themselves acceding to the transaction voluntarily.

Heyr heyr!

Politics in USA

I think the following is a pretty clever description of politics in USA:

In general, elections come down to contests between two groups. The first consists of public-sector bureaucrats, unions, the elderly who are protecting their government checks, minority groups who cling to special privileges, the winners in the welfare-state lottery, and marginalized oddballs of all sorts who resent cultural impositions by bourgeois America. That group is also known as the Democrats.

They are not all bad because they tend to fight against policies that do not benefit them, such as those policies that help the other group.

And that other group consists of large corporations who seek mercantilist privileges, the commercial class of small and medium-sized merchants who rightly want fewer impositions from government, the Wall Street elite who favor a form of free enterprise that is compromised by loose credit and socialized protections against loss, middle-class producers and consumers who demand rising portfolios through any means possible, and the religious bourgeoisie who are always up for a good war against evil (drugs, moral deviancy, Islam, or whatever). That group is also known as the Republicans.

Full article.

Two small (seemingly unrelated) quotations

Stern und Drang (about the so-called Stern-report, the latest/hottest of doomsday predictions): "The Review takes the A2 family of scenarios as being the baseline. This is what he bases all of his subsequent calculations upon and he calls it the 'business as usual' model or BAU. Furthermore, he adds to the effects, puts in a few feedbacks that the IPCC certainly doesn't include, extends matters out for a far longer period of time, uses those very low discount rates and......aieee! But it is made very clear indeed in the SRES that A2 is not the baseline, it is not the business as usual case. All forty of the scenarios are equally likely and all forty of them contain no mitigating actions at all. That's actually in their very definitions: so to choose one of them only is, as far as all of the other climate science that's going on, simply wrong."

Have We Outgrown Recessions? (context very clear after reading the following): "Recessions, which are set in motion by a tight monetary stance of the central bank, are about the liquidations of activities that sprang up on the back of the previous loose monetary policies. Rather than paying attention to the so-called strength of real GDP to ascertain where the economy is heading, it will be more helpful to pay attention to the rate of growth of the money supply."

Why Do You Decide?

It truly is a strange stand in politics (and in general) to expect that everyone can agree on something. It is rarely so. Two persons who buy the same toothbrush could perhaps agree that the particular kind of toothbrush is the toothbrush of choice, but perhaps their reasons for it are completely different. One was going for the price, the other for the color. One was thinking about the design of the toothbrush, the other just wanted a blue rubber handle.

The same applies for everything else. Lets say two people want to live in a neighborhood guarded by trained security guards. Does that mean they both want the State's Police force to stand the guard? No. Do they request protection from the same security firm? Maybe and maybe not, and perhaps or perhaps not for the same reasons.

It would be safer to assume that no-one agrees on anything rather than assume that some people agree on something for the same reasons. Indeed, no-one can agree on anything for completely the same reasons. We are individuals, all with our own preferences, budget, taste and whims. No-one can solve our conflicts and expect everyone to be satisfied. This is why we need a free market - in everything! A free market where everyone will simply purchase (or not) what they want, and make producers of services and products compete for our different tastes and preferences.

And for this reason and many others, the State must be abolished. Because we don't agree on the purpose and role of this monopoly industry.

Insane Welfare

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Perhaps that's something to keep in mind the next time we hear a call for more welfare spending.

Neatly said and something to actually keep in mind.

How Collectivism still survives

A nice little observation by Rothbard:

I do not believe it an accident that Karl Marx is considered one of the great hermeneuticians. This century has seen a series of devastating setbacks to Marxism, to its pretensions to "scientific truth," and to its theoretical propositions as well as to its empirical assertions and predictions. If Marxism has been riddled both in theory and in practice, then what can Marxian cultists fall back on? It seems to me that hermeneutics fits very well into an era that we might, following a Marxian gambit about capitalism, call "late Marxism" or Marxism-in-decline. Marxism is not true and is not science, but so what? The hermeneuticians tell us that nothing is objectively true, and therefore that all views and propositions are subjective, relative to the whims and feelings of each individual.

In short, Marxists and other opponents of the successful, wealthy societies in the world cannot resort to reason and logic anymore. They are forced to rely on a kind of "philosophy" that denies truth, facts, correct, wrong, true and false. They must rely on a state of mind that refuses to be wrong - and right! For them, "A" is not necessarily "A" if someone claims that "A" is "B".

I wonder if me claiming I have lots of money actually makes it be so, or if objective, physical reality is still among us somewhere?

Take that, Greenies!

"The environmental movement maintains that science and technology cannot be relied upon to build a safe atomic power plant, to produce a pesticide that is safe, or even to bake a loaf of bread that is safe, if that loaf of bread contains chemical preservatives. When it comes to global warming, however, it turns out that there is one area in which the environmental movement displays the most breathtaking confidence in the reliability of science and technology, an area in which, until recently, no one—not even the staunchest supporters of science and technology—had ever thought to assert very much confidence at all. The one thing, the environmental movement holds, that science and technology can do so well that we are entitled to have unlimited confidence in them is forecast the weather—for the next one hundred years!"(source)

An excellent point

Today I sat a lecture with Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe on behalf of the Copenhagen institute. The topic was Private Law society, e.g. a society without a State. In such a society, law is enforced by individuals, private protection agencies and insurance companies (that is our idea today anyway - who knows what individuals in a free society will come up with to produce security and protection?).

As always when this topic comes up, all kinds of questions arise from those who cannot think outside the box (before today, I was more or less one of those).

The following question was raised, which goes something like this: Could not the mafia (or a mafia-like organization) decide to make its area of dominion a mini-State so that no-one else can operate there in the field of protection?

Hoppe's answer was brilliant and goes something like this: Are we afraid to give up the State because there is a theoretical risk of a mini-State arising? Then why not give up the State to begin with?

This answer should more or less eliminates all what if-questions about the anarcho-capitalist ideology of a State-free society. If people accept the argumentation that declares that no State can be justified, then the next step should be clear: Drop the State altogether, because the worst thing that could happen is for a State to arise again! Don't refuse the cure because you might get sick again. A lesson learned now.

Education: Free and Compulsory - Mises Institute: "Savagery is uniformity. The principal distinctions are sex, age, size, and strength. Savages … think alike or not at all, and converse therefore in monosyllables. There is scarcely any variety, only a horde of men, women, and children. The next higher stage, which is called barbarism, is marked by increased variety of functions. There is some division of labor, some interchange of thought, better leadership, more intellectual and aesthetic cultivation. The highest stage, which is called civilization, shows the greatest degree of specialization. Distinct functions become more numerous. Mechanical, — commercial, educational, scientific, political, and artistic occupations multiply. The rudimentary societies are characterized by the likeness of equality; the developed societies are marked by the unlikeness of inequality or variety. As we go down, monotony; as we go up, variety. As we go down, persons are more alike; as we go up, persons are more unlike, it certainly seems … as though [the] approach to equality is decline towards the conditions of savagery, and as though variety is an advance towards higher civilization…."

Production must come before consumption

The Left doesn't get many things right. Sometimes it's the complex things the Left misunderstands, for example the effects of taxation on society, the importance of free trade for growth and the effects of excess money printing by the State. But it's not only the complex things the Left doesn't understand. For example, the Left does not in any way understand that production must come before consumption.

The reason the Left is in the dark when it comes to this is that the Left is focused on the division and manipulation of present wealth, and completely ignores the fact that wealth must first be created before it can be divided.

A Leftist will often say that he wants to improve society or the lives of the poor by removing wealth from its rightful owners and hand it out to others. How does the Leftist expect wealth to be created when the creators of wealth continually get robbed? How does the Leftist think that wealth can increase when the sources of wealth are continually being drained of incentives and liberty? Clearly, none of this concerns the Leftist. He will focus on present wealth and its distribution among different groups of individuals (for example, those likely to vote for the Left), and demand that rightful owners give up their property to satisfy the grand visions of the Leftist, where nobody earns according ability, but according to whims of society-shapers.

What if Freedom and Justice wouldn't work so well?

We know that Liberty is not only the only justifiable state of things, but also a very practical state (the far most practical for those who don't have politicians as friends and business-partners). No State can be justified without violence (which again can't be justified if we admit the self-ownership of individuals). No coercion and aggressive attacks against individuals and their non-aggressive communities can be justified. No tax is justifiable. No forceful legislation can be justified. No non-aggressive actions of individuals can be outlawed.

But justifying is sometimes not enough. Sometimes you also need examples, especially when trying to convince the masses of the ideal of Liberty. Thankfully, examples are in plenty. Empirical data, flawed that it is, is overwhelming when it comes to show how Liberty is superior to the State and its applications. Free economies blossom while socialist economies fade into stagnation and decay. Taxes decrease wealth and prevent individuals from earning their way up in standard of living and well-being. Regulations hurt companies and growth and create unemployment and result in relatively lower incomes (average income can be high or on the rise in a socialist economy, but only compared to its own previous norms).

However, when it all comes down to it it's not about the number of examples and empirical proof. It's about Liberty and it's friend, Justice. It's about supporting a free society of free individuals and fighting for its creation (re-creation in relative terms). Because what if Liberty would create poverty and aggression? What if Liberty would have the same effects socialism has on society? Of course it could never, but a thought-experiment is perhaps worth the while. Would we sacrifice Justice and Liberty if they created poverty and aggression? We haven't when it comes to socialism, but would we in the case of Liberty?

In the end all the statistics and data doesn't matter when choosing right from wrong. Thankfully, Liberty and Justice have all the evidence on their side (besides the logic of course), but that is the wrong focus to put on things (although a very practical when arguing with the Left).

Can Justice combine with Reality?

The State is an entity of force and legalized violence. It cannot be justified without justifying violence and coercion, and that cannot be done if we admit the self-ownership of every man over his own body (only by denying such self-ownership can a person be logically consistent when justifying the State; no further details about that offered at this point).

So given that a person owns his or hers own body, how are we to accept the presence of the State? And if we don't, does it make sense in reality? Isn't State coercion necessary to keep the peace among individuals and groups of them?

One approach is to say: I don't accept the State as a justifiable entity, but I don't imagine we can live without it.

Conservative and minarchist-libertarian criticism of anarchy on the grounds that it won't "work" or is not "practical" is just confused. Anarchists don't (necessarily) predict anarchy will be achieved - I for one don't think it will. But that does not mean states are justified. (#)

Personally, I think is a short-cut to a peace of mind. If the State can't be justified, but we can't live without it or imagine we can achieve its absence, then there must be a flaw in the argumentation (if libertarianism is so logically consistent and correct, why would it not win in the long run?). But there is no flaw in the argumentation (given acceptance of the individual exclusive ownership of his own body), so the proposal that anarchy won't work is simply wrong.

And when it comes to achieving it, we must not forget that a few hundred years ago everyone was considered a property of kings and queens and everything else was considered unthinkable. How would modern times look like if all hope of improvements were considered impractical and impossible to achieve in the minds of early libertarians philosophers?

Another approach to "tackle" the problem of Justice versus Reality is to accept the argumentation for a no-State society as logically consistent, but deny its consequences and simply accept the State as a necessary practicality. Any injustice can be "argumented" for by using this kind of reasoning. The State could for example hire men to purposely cause car-crashes because that would force people to use seat-belts, which is a very practical thing to do. Violence is then used as a tool to force people to protect itself from it. Un-justifiable State is then used to show the practical necessity of the State. This is a ridicule.

The only consistent policy is to deny the presence of the State and go head-on with those who wish to uphold it. The practicality of this action is immense. We remove dictators and violent men from the streets without hesitations, and don't have any problems with dealing with the resulting relative freedom from violence. The same applies for the violence of State-coercion.

Difference in acceptance

We are so used to an incompetent State that we are more or less willing to accept whatever it does or does not do for us and to us. No-one really blames the State for its incompetence. It's simply accepted as a natural phenomenon.

A different story can be told about people's tolerance for private companies. People expect service and products at the wave of a hand. This is of course a very natural demand and the foundation for private companies to build increased productivity and service improvements on. Those who fail to meet the consumer's demands fade away into bankruptcy. Others blossom.

People accept a waiting period of months for an operation at a State-run hospital or a piece of paper from the local authorities and know there is nothing to do about it. High taxes have been paid, services have been promised, but no-one expects a reasonable waiting period or expedient service (let alone quality service at a reasonable price). But when it comes to ordering an internet-connection or the services from a bank the coin is flipped. All wait is too long. Any delay is met with angry phone calls to customer services. All price hikes are given skeptical response.

Violence is clearly acceptable when the State does the beating.