Too cold to get warm, or too warm to get cold?

[..] Europeans should be happy that the EU is not pursuing Kyoto with the necessary strength. If it did so, their only hope would be global warming, so that warmer temperatures makes it less necessary to burn fossil fuels to heat their houses. (#)

The problems with Kyoto are many, big and unsolvable. Maybe the reason is the lack of its need to exist?

Color of money should be all that counts

Western societies fight a number of problems that in one way or another all come down to one thing: The color of money. The poor want money to improve their lives, the rich want money to sustain their lifestyles, the student wants money to buy beer, the mother wants money to buy diapers, and the illegal immigrants want money to survive. The lack of money can result in bitterness because those who have money are envied. It can result in racism because the rich look at immigrants like they are beggars asking for hand-outs. The two genders, male and female, can become enemies if an individual of one gender suspects an individual of the other gender of receiving a higher pay for the "same" job (and there are plenty of groups out there that make that claim!). Lack of money creates many problems, and an obvious solution to them could then be to increase the amount of money available to everyone!

But what increases the amount of money available? Some claim that there's plenty of money to go around and suggest that it's distribution should simply be altered. This solves nothing because a system of money-distribution brings problems of justifications, regulations and administration. A system of money-distribution (the so-called welfare-state or socialist-state) cannot be operated without violating the rights of the individual. It cannot be supported with facts and experience either. "Groups" which are classified as "needy" and therefore have the "right" to receive social-support usually remain needy. This goes for families with children, immigrants, handicapped and all others considered needy by public officials. High taxes must be collected to fund the money-distribution, which again can lead to a system where it is hardly worth it to work harder or longer, seek promotions or take risks in hope of benefiting later. Money-distribution is clearly a bad solution to the lack-of-money-problem.

Another approach to the distribution-problem is to "ease" access to the jobs that pay the good wages. A familiar approach are all kinds of laws that say that "discrimination" is forbidden in a way that keeps employers from choosing the job-candidates they choose and instead forces them to hire and pay according to the will of some public officials. Minimum-wages are an example of that, and they have the familiar effect of reducing the amount of jobs available for those who are in the salary-scale around the minimum-wages amount. Another example are laws that tackle the "problem" of gender-discrimination. Those kind of laws have not only fueled a bitter relationship between opposite-sexed individuals competing for jobs, but also lead to the expansion of the State in the field of supervision and administration of the hire-and-fire processes on the market. A costly and bureaucratic development with no chance of being "successful". The problems stay as long as someone gets paid to solve them.

What does work?
But what is then to do to make sure as many have as much money as possible? How can we tackle discrimination, poverty, hate, anger and bitterness and other problems largely related to the lack of money for some people and not other? The answer is pretty straight forward: Make sure the society is as flexible as possible so individuals have as many possibilities as possible to seek their own fortune without stepping on the toes of others (by themselves or via the State). This means in practice that the State should hold itself back as much as possible and not be tempted by new and new offers to regulate this and that, give money to this and that or tax this and that.

The State discriminates with respect to gender, color, age and many other factors - that is, the State discriminates according to individual traits that cannot be changed. Companies discriminate with respect to skills, education, talents, grades, work-will etc. - that is, companies generally discriminate with respect to traits that individuals can in most cases improve or find use for somewhere on the market. The only color companies have interest in is the color of money. That is why a "helping" State is usually a lot less helpful than an absent State.

Societies that follow the path of regulation and taxation will stagnate at some point. The Soviet Union did it in relatively few years, the big countries of Western Europe stagnated a long time ago and perhaps the trend in the USA is also to regulate and tax more, eventually leading to the same result. The flexible societies have rich people and poor people, but the rich and poor individuals have a lot more opportunities to improve their lives in the absence of too much "help". And isn't that more important than statistics?

Predicting the unpredictable - again!

A must-read about Kyoto and the subject of global warming and climate change. A little story taken there from:

It is tempting to draw a comparison with the experience of mathematical models in economics. Their use was the subject of discussion in the first half of the last century between pro-market economists on the one side and pro-planning economists on the other. It was one of the most crucial debates that has ever taken place in economic science. It was conducted between Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek of the so-called Austrian school on the one hand and Oskar Lange and Abba Lerner on the other. The central question was whether it was possible to make economic calculations in a socialist-planned economy. Lange was a proponent of market socialism with state ownership of the means of production, as embodied in the Soviet planned economy.

Using mathematical models and computers, the planned economy was supposed to be able to imitate the market and thereby solve the problem of economic calculation, according to Lange. Mises and Hayek believed that such a system could never function satisfactorily. They emphasized the importance of private ownership, in particular of the means of production, as a necessary precondition for price formation. Without personal property, there are no markets. If there are no markets, there is no price formation. And if there is no price formation, people lack the information to act in an economically rational way, with large-scale waste of resources as a result.

Thanks to the collapse of communism with its central planned economy, the debate was settled in the late 1980s in favor of Mises and Hayek. But, before that time, even many western economists had great confidence in the forecasting value of economic models. They recognized that these were not yet perfect, but believed that the shortcomings at that time could be remedied through further development of statistics, econometrics and the use of powerful computers. However, especially during the stagflation of the 1970s, economic models demonstrated that they were less and less able to explain and predict economic reality. This made economists increasingly aware of the fundamental limitations of the model-based approach to the economy. Will climatologists eventually also come to the same conclusion?

A truly brilliant analogy! When will man accept his limitations when it comes to predicting the unpredictable? The socialists of the 20th century didn't. The believers of global warming can't today, and all real data works against them. What is left is the simple belief that the world must in some way be coming to an end, and that it's man's fault.

I must repeat: A must-read.

...and to prevent any misunderstanding: That of doubting the need for today's Kyoto and the existence of any significant man-made global warming is not doubting the need to take care of the environment and monitoring behaviour in Earth's climate. However, a drop of blood doesn't always have to mean an open-heart surgery! Sometimes a plaster is enough.

Two myths faced with facts

Myth 1: The globe is warming up, and mankind is to be blamed for it!
What is this myth based on? Certainly not data! Certainly not facts! It's based on predictions.

Weather satellites have been measuring global temperatures since 1979, but have shown no climate warming - contrary to all expectations. According to computer models cited by the U.N.-sponsored science advisory body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a substantial warming of nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit should have occurred during this 18-year period. (#)

Already during the Renaissance-period scientists learned that godly theories and philosophical predictions are useless in the real world if facts, experience and reality don't confirm them. This lesson must be learned again, it seems.

"Since 1940, there has been a 35-year-long cooling trend and not much warming in the past quarter-century, according to global data from weather satellites." (#)

Theories, which don't take facts into consideration, should be abolished.

Myth 2: A universal, national, single-payer health-care system is better than a system based on privately-insured and -paid medical-treatments.
This myth is hard to get rid off, despite the evidence of its flaws. The following was said about the single-payer Canadian health-care system:

"Many patients on non-urgent waiting lists are in pain and cannot fully enjoy any real quality of life. The right to life and to personal inviolability is therefore affected by the waiting times." (#)

A number of myths about single-payer health-care systems are discussed and undermined here by using hard data and facts. The final-words of that discussion are:

Advocates of national health insurance would do well to look at how countries like Germany, Sweden, and Australia are choosing free-market reforms to alleviate the problems of their national health systems. Through painful experience, many of the countries that once heralded the benefits of government control have learned that the best remedy for their countries’ health care crises is not increasing government power, but increasing patient power instead.

Of course this author realizes that many myths can be attacked with biased data and by selecting the right facts and not the wrong ones. However, anyone is welcome to offer rebutting evidence and prove that the fore mentioned myths are in fact the reality.

Blame freedom and you're wrong!

Warning - a completely un-structured thought only to be read with a good cup of fresh coffee in the blood!

The free market is the only justifiable form of communication-structure between individuals, their companies and State-rulers. It's core principles - individual freedom and protected private property rights - should never be interfered with, as long as these rights of one don't reduce the same rights of another. This is the free market as far as this author is concerned.

But in the public debate it's not enough to justify something - it also has to be supported with experiments, data and pragmatic reasons, such that the free market has proved to be the most beneficial tool to eliminate poverty of any other the human race has come up with, and that early measurements of economic freedom compared with life expectancy, health and wealth show that the more economic freedom a country has, the better the lives of its citizens.

This line of argument creates no problems for the supporter of the free market. Not only can the free market be justified with pretty clean abstract logic but it can also be argued for with extensive experience and data. However, when using the latter approach some problems come up in the debate, because the amount of different data available creates the possibility of arguing for everything based on some number or another.

Those who oppose the free market have realized this a long time ago. They can therefore dig up a number of different data-sets to "show" that the free market does more harm than many think, and in that way argue for the increased need to control it with regulations and taxes. Fortunately it can be shown in most cases that the problems of the free market are not related to its freedom, but its lack thereof. A few examples now follow:

Minority groups
Many groups are considered "vulnerable" in the free market society, and discrimination, poverty, ignorance and white people are blamed. Therefore most Western countries have implemented a broad variety of special helping-regulations and social support to "help" groups like women, immigrants, handicapped people and older individuals (to name a few!). The State-supported help involves, for example, regulations which make it hard to fire certain "vulnerable" individuals. This creates incentives to fire individuals who look like they are becoming "vulnerable", and to not hire those who are. Also, those the State is trying to protect begin to look at the State as its savior from hard conditions, which again decreases their incentives to fight on their own terms with their own competence as a weapon.

Minimum-wages are designed to help those who land the lowest-paid jobs. However, minimum-wages cause unemployment because employers are being forced to overpay certain jobs so they hire fewer employees than they would else had, again leading to an over-supply of workers which again will drive wages down.

The groups that remain behind, for example young or middle-aged white men, are left to fight on their own on the free market for market-wages and in market-controlled job-conditions. Individuals in these unhelped groups realize that the State can not be used to promote themselves and that the only way to succeed is to fight. Therefore it's usually the unhelped ones - those who receive no special attention from the State - that are the ones who get all the "good" jobs, which again encourages the politicians to increase help to the "vulnerable", thereby closing the circle.

In short, the lack of freedom on the free market could explain why the free market seems to show tendency towards rewarding certain groups more than others with the best and highest-paid jobs.

Environmental protection
Many think the free market can't be left on its own when it comes to environmental issues. It is said that companies, in their reach for bigger profits, show no regard for natural resources, natural wildlife and basically everything related to nature and environment. Experience shows, it is claimed,that companies have been accountable for many environmental disasters, and show no signs of changing their attitude despite all talk about the necessity of good treatment for nature.

But where does this experience come from? It doesn't come from developed countries. Some might say that regulations are to thank for that, but the reality is that private property is to be thanked. Private property means responsibility. A person or a company that pollutes my water supply must compensate the damage, just like sabotagers are sentenced to compensate for damage they make on buildings and other property of others. In the developing countries the prime reason behind companies chopping down rare tree-species and bulldozing rain-forests in the name of cow-production is the lack of private property rights. No company spills its property without taking steps to insure future income from its resource as long as possible - preferably forever. Exceptions are few at best. However, both companies and individuals gladly spill or over-use resources they have no direct relations to. A government that "hands out" a resource for a limited number of years, while always having the option or removing the license, is in fact encouraging the destruction of the resource.

Why would a company destroy nature and its wildlife? Isn't it a source of great negative publicity? Isn't tourism one of the biggest growing industries in the world? Wouldn't an unspoiled land go for a huge price on the free market to organizations that claim they want to protect the environment and nature as a whole? A company that destroys beautiful nature by chopping down forests and pushing rare animals to extinction is clearly working against its own interests, but then if there is no property in private-ownership that is being decreased in value, then there is hardly anyone who looses, so to speak.

So once again, the lack of freedom in the free market can be related to bad performance of many companies/individuals when it comes to protecting the environment. Where the freedom does exist, nature flourishes. That is the black-and-white lesson Europeans learned during the Cold War and its Iron Curtain of clean-West versus filthy-East.

The richer become rich and the poor become...?
Many have the misconception of thinking that in the free market the rich become richer and the poor become poorer. While the former is true, the latter most certainly is not. The free-er the market, the bigger the number of companies competing on it. The fewer the regulations and trade-tariffs, the fiercer the competition and the harder the price-wars. Sometimes huge monopolies arise. Lets name Boeing and Airbus as examples - both protected with regulations and sponsored with tax-money. What else? Wal-mart in America is pretty big, but can anyone say that it's because of lack of competition? Lets name another example - Microsoft. It has been hammered with a bad reputation among the self-acclaimed know-it-alls, smashed with fines and regulations and constantly faces competition from strong competitors like Apple and countless "open source" ones. Has the State-interference helped the consumer in even the tiniest little way?

No-one, I repeat no-one can logically or empirically demonstrate that competition law has done any good. A proof of otherwise is very welcomed! However, State-operated institutions that can without restraints dictate companies, their product-prices, their mergers and split-offs, and so on, have done a huge amount of damage. Companies haven't been able to price according to the laws of supply and demand, not been able to merge to cut costs to the consumer, and the list goes on.

If competition-law has ever done good, then that good can in no way match the bad they have done. How come international companies (outside the European Union) are not posing a great risk to consumers? Do the United Nations need to establish an international competition-court? Answer: No, because international competition flourishes in the absence of such a court. Globalization makes sure the local, vote-seeking politicians can't get too regulation-greedy in their attempts to suck up to lobbyists who are trying to protect their own skin by imposing restrictions upon others.

Lack of freedom is the suspect
This author will go so far as to say that everything negative about the free market is because of lack of freedom. Of course there's nothing perfect - not even in peaceful, volunteer communications between individuals and their companies, but that is not enough reason to implement something even more imperfect, namely a regulation-market dictated by politicians and based on forced communications on State-terms.

They understand it, but then again they don't

The free market is a concept that many find hard to understand. Those who have a negative attitude towards it see it as an inhumane machine of money-making and profit-obsession. Others see it as a venue for free people to exchange ideas, products and services according to the taste and wantings of each individual and/or his companies. Some see it as an instrument of evil where the weak and the unfortunate get crushed in a ruthless competition of the few and strong. Others see it as the best instrument ever to have existed where everyone can be successful and find happiness on his or her own terms (a very pragmatic view and not a justification for the free market as such, but a useful one in the often very pragmatic-oriented debate).

This author belongs to the more positive team and has a hard time figuring out why the typical anti-free marketer (or anti-capitalist) can enjoy a game of football but have a negative view of the free market. Sports are all about competition and the will to succeed. No-one wants Tiger Woods to be chained down by anti-trust laws (competition laws) just because he wins 10 tournaments in a row. No-one suggested that Venus Williams should be fined for, at that time, having a seemingly unbeatable edge over her opponents. Maria Sharapova has, so far, not been accused of playing unfairly just because she's a stunning beauty and a good athlete.

When it comes to sports it seems everyone understands that those who stand out are not inflicting harm upon anyone else, but simply raising the standard so others can follow. When it comes to the free market the attitude is often reversed and those who stand out, win the public or stay number one for a certain period of time are considered cheaters and bullies which have to be punished with existing laws or new ones.

Coming up short

This text might get longer/shorter or in others ways be reviewed, edited or changed during the next few days, as long as this text stays.

In an interesting article, Why the Ideas of the World Bank Come Up Short, a former economist at the World Bank, Robert E. Anderson, asks why the World Bank has been less successful in the developing countries than expected by its owners and the world community. He says:

For example, economic growth is the most powerful way to reduce poverty, and the World Bank recognizes that a healthy private sector is the only way to increase growth. Thus, the Bank advises poor countries to improve their business environment.

But the World Bank too often recommends the sophisticated policies found in rich countries without seeming to recognize that poor countries cannot successfully implement them. The result is often a worsening of private-sector performance. Instead, the Bank should take into account the institutional weaknesses typical of developing countries: low skills, corruption, and the influence of special interests.

Then he goes on to name a few examples, and finally make a few suggestions for improvement, in short saying that the World Bank needs to allow the laws of the free market to rule over the laws of politicians.

Of course Mr. Anderson gets it right. The World Bank is an institution operated by individuals from developed countries who grow up in free societies of law and order, capitalism, protected private-property and freedom. The views of such individuals on the world are naturally influenced by their own background and environment. Unfortunately, that environment is not the same in developing countries. That's perhaps the source of the World Bank's many misjudgements.

But this could easily be corrected. Like Mr. Anderson says: "Instead, the Bank should take into account the institutional weaknesses typical of developing countries: low skills, corruption, and the influence of special interests." This simply means that a few lines in the World Bank's working-procedure should be changed and the problem is solved. Another issue, not so easily corrected, is the attitude of the opponents of capitalism, free trade and globalization.

The anti-capitalists
The anti-capitalism movement is a collection of many different groups and individuals with many different goals and ideas. However, they have a common goal: To delay, stop or push backwards the process of globalization leading to more open markets and a free-er flow of people, capital and jobs across the globe. The anti-capitalist movement is mostly known for demonstrations during meetings of world leaders, destruction of public and private property in the name of publicizing its agenda, and foamy talk about the poor and how the rich are exploiting them in the name of bigger profits, regardless of the human and environmental cost.

The "intellectuals" of the anti-capitalistic movement silently support the actions of the masses, but officially they preach their cause differently. They talk about "fair trade" as an option to free trade. Fair trade can seemingly not be defined, but an idea of what it's about can be given by quoting the view of the fair-trader on free trade:

Free trade is well hyped today. It doesn't say much about fair trade, though...

Many trade pacts and agreements seem to conveniently ignore social aspects such as the rights of workers, leading to possible conditions like sweat shops, encouraging such low wages that one cannot live on them and forcing children into harsh working conditions. Some of these agreements do not do much to help developing nations, but do a lot to help large corporate profits. Environmental degradation is another concern.

Accountability is a major issue in all of this... It is often the case that large corporations can make profits but socialise the costs (i.e. get the tax payer to pay for any cleaning up of problems). (#)

Of the supposed problems are more or a result of a lack of private property rights and a phenomenon mostly related to the lack of capitalism - namely poverty. But regardless of that, the intellectuals claim the corporations are entirely to blame.

(I won't deny that a company that pollutes the environment and offers children unsafe working-conditions have a fault, but I guess everyone knows the temptation of breaking the law when it's known that there is no police on the way or anywhere in the neighborhood. It's not an excuse, but the temptation is only for the strong to resist.)

The point is that those elements of the World Bank's strategy that cause the many failures of its plans are the elements which the anti-capitalists fight for when they promote "fair trade", namely more worker/working-environment/minimal-wages regulations (while assuming the poor countries have the necessary institutions to impose them) and stricter environmental-codes (while assuming that starving, desperate people care more about rare animal- and plant-species than the whereabouts of their next meal). The voice of the anti-capitalists is a reflection of the weak sides of the World Bank and its strategies.

The world needs more free trade, less of the so-called "fair trade" (a.k.a. regulation-trade), more respect for private property rights and above all more globalization. Everything else is just a direct or indirect delay towards the goal of a unified world market where wars are raged between companies on the free market, but not between governments on Battlefield Earth.

A few thoughts

A short list for those who are considering taking up socialism:

Thought 1a: "We need a society of equal distribution of wealth. Let the rich pay high taxes which then go to aid for the poor." Effect: Fewer feel the urge to become rich. Few want to break their backs to become rich when punished with higher and higher taxes on their way up the income-ladder. Those who are rich flee the system. The burden which was meant to be carried by the rich is now carried by the middle- and low-income groups, and the biggest financial-baggage for most people becomes the tax itself.

Thought 2a: "The system must prevent the rich, or their taxable wealth, from fleeing the system, so they or their wealth can contribute to the State like planned." Effect: No wealth is created, and old wealth vanishes. Only a few friends of the system are allowed to enjoy wealth, for example the leaders of the ruling communist-party.

An even shorter list for those who are considering taking up liberalism (in the classic meaning of the word):

Thought 1b: "We need a society of justice and freedom which is not based on who owns what and how much." Effect: The State does not interfere with incomes or wealth on the base of the magnitude of income and wealth. Having little money or a lot of money does not affect the level of taxation. Wealth becomes a goal to strive for. More try to become rich, and more succeed. The individual proportional tax-burden does not change, but the absolute individual tax-burden increases. Fewer have need for aid, and the State has more resources to give aid to those who need it (if that's the State's intention at all!).

A few notes on immigration

A small discussion here on MajorityRights.com has thrown a few thoughts in my face worthy of a few words on my behalf: Immigration - how to handle?

The ideology is simple and clear on the subject: Open borders across the world! Free flow of people according to the laws of supply and demand! No restrictions for law-abiding people in search of jobs and happiness!

That being said the reality-check comes with full throttle and questions are asked: What about ethnic backgrounds? Do I not care about the color of my skin? Am I not threatening the very society I live in by opening up its borders to people from other cultural and religious areas? Have I not read the statistics where it shows that young criminals are more often than not people with other ethnic backgrounds than the native one?

The reality-check is not a shocker for the ideology. As an Icelander living and working, and previously studying, in Denmark I see two very different social-systems ("welfare"-systems as some call it) work in two very different ways. The Danish have from the very start pushed social-checks into the pockets of immigrants of all backgrounds, gathered them into special housing-projects, put restrictions on them when it comes to seeking jobs, and hoped for the best. The obvious result: A large group of relatively isolated first, second and third generation immigrants who hardly speak the language after 30 years of staying in the country, with crime-committing teenagers and oppressed, cloak-wearing women at the mercy of their husbands.

Iceland has no such problems even though it also has a large percentage of its inhabitants today with another origin than Icelandic/Nordic. Iceland does not have the generous social-system of the other Nordic-countries. Iceland has a flexible hire-and-fire job-market which has hardly seen unemployment in many years. The thousands of immigrants in Iceland know the only way to survive in Iceland is to work, and that's about it. A couple of groups of trouble-making teenagers with yellow skin have been used as an example for the need to restrict more, but that's not convincing. A couple of examples of arranged marriages within the Muslim-society of Iceland has also been used as a reason to restrict, but still not convincing. All in all the immigration of non-white immigrants runs smoothly in Iceland. Seeing the situation in Denmark does nothing but confirm that notion of mine.

I'm an immigrant!
Being an immigrant in Denmark is an interesting experience. I had to learn the language in order to get a job outside the cleaning-sector (and I very much wanted to do that, having a degree in engineering and all). I had to find a job to be able to pay off student-debts, rent etc. (social-checks don't cover such expenses in my case). Sure, someone might say that in my case everything is different because I'm a Nordic-person who likes the domestic beer and knows that women are equal to men by law. But if I hadn't learned the language I would have been forced to isolate myself to other Icelanders in Denmark, sharing entirely what they have to offer, and settled for a job in the service-industry. Me and Abdul from Iran are not any different in that respect.

But what about opening up all borders tomorrow and let anyone who wants wander into the land of riches? That should be the goal, yes, but as long as the system is a system of free social-checks and high unemployment, no such goals can be reached. Helping the poor of the world become rich should be step number one. Rich and free people are more reluctant to leave their families and friends behind than the poor and desperate. Few Icelanders care to move to Denmark and look for a job (me being a rare exception). Few Germans care to move to Sudan. The stream is in the other direction and that should be a lesson to learn.

Europe vs. USA?

Europe was displeased with the USA for leading a war against Saddam Hussein and his regime of homicides and tortures. Europeans accused Americans of working "unilaterally" (along with most of the other Anglo-Saxon states of the world, Japan, several states in Europe and several others). The French and the Germans wanted the United Nations to give the thumbs up on attacking Iraq. The United Nations has never taken any action in any situation at any time, and that on top of the French's promise to veto everything in the United Nation's Security Council says that the United Nations would never have approved of removing Saddam Hussein and his Baath-party from the palaces of Iraq.

In short, the Europeans where not too happy about Americans making a decision about something without full consent of the world-community, even though that decision was something the world-community had been saying needed to be taken at some point if Saddam wouldn't stop his threats against people of the free world.

The opposite of this disagreement is the Kyoto-protocol. There the Americans are saying the Europeans are trying to force a decision down their throat that harms more than it benefits. The Europeans sail their path of state-controlled pollution-reductions and the Americans refuse to take part, rightly stating that it does more harm than good (we all know rich people pollute less than poor, and that the Kyoto-protocol harms the economic-growth of its participants, which again keeps people from becoming rich and thereby polluting less). The Americans could rightly say that the Kyoto-protocol had to be agreed by the United Nations as international law before it can be forced upon individual members of the U.N., just as the Europeans say that to remove a blood-thirsty dictator from power needs the approval of "everyone".

Its a battle of the bureaucrats and no-one wins. The world needs less politics and more freedom, and that's the lesson to be learned.

Getting rid of the Minority

A society is a group of individuals with different opinions on different issues. Many want cheese on their bread, others don't. Many enjoy American movies, others don't. Many enjoy the sun-set, others don't. All in all there is no way of saying everyone agrees on this and that or likes the same or even similar things. A tattoo on one person doesn't mean another person should get one. Heavy-metal music in my neighbor's stereos puts no pressure on what I put on mine.

This is a free society where each individual's choice is his and his alone to make or reject. Another kind of society is the unfree one. In an unfree society the opinions of the minority are sacrificed in the name of common will (which, by the way, is a tricky one to define). My taste for violent movies becomes an issue for politicians - should violent movies be allowed for everyone or no-one? My taste for a beer follows the same path, and the same goes for cannabis, sky-diving, boxing and what else there is to have a taste for.

As soon as politicians make it their business to "discuss" a certain hobby, food, chemical or opinion, the risk is that some new laws and regulations come to exist. Those new laws will then define when what is okay and when not, and usually it means the Minority which enjoys, likes or not-dislikes something is pushed to the side. When a politician is handed an issue to tackle he will more often than not sacrifice the Minority to please the Majority.

Don't we have a good definition of State-interference then?

Freedom has proven itself.. more or less!

Freedom is the path to justice, peace and prosperity in all its forms. Those who limit freedom limit human well-being in all aspects. This has been proven, more or less, for most areas of, for example, the political debate. Freedom decreases poverty, lengthens and improves lives, creates an effective market of technological improvements and shrinking prices on essentials, and so on. This is indisputable and can be shown with facts, logic and reason.

However, there is another list of areas where freedom has also shown its great power, but has yet to be presented in a way which eliminates the resistance to freedom. It is clear to most people that freedom decreases pollution, encourages people to care for the poor and the sick, helps the poorest to rise in living-standards and leads to improvements in the lives of the socially worst-off. Facts and logic can verify all this, but the existence of a Left proves the presentation has been lacking something.

How can this be? Didn't Milton Friedman make himself clear enough? Aren't the economics of the Austrian economics speaking in plain language? Don't the graphs and plots from the Index of Economic Freedom speak for themselves? Isn't the success of the liberalized Asian- and Eastern Europe-countries effecting enough? Also the opposite - doesn't Africa teach us anything when it comes to having a shortage of freedom?

The answers point to one direction: People are not getting the picture, and that is to be blamed on those who preach freedom as the path to prosperity. There is no use blaming the opponents of freedom - they have always existed and spoken loud - but their numbers can only be decreased with education and information, and that is up to the spokesmen and -women of freedom to provide.

Sustainable what?

The Leftist is the one who most often uses the phrase "sustainable development" when he suggests this and that State-interference with the free market. He says we must have encourage development "that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (#), but while this all sounds well and good is a grossly misunderstood term in a free market society where the needs of today can in no way be predicted to be the needs of the future. Further details on that here

But the sustainability is not in general something the Leftists cares much about. The Leftist does not want companies to be sustainable. A sustainable company might be defined as a company that runs today without compromising the ability of future owners/shareholders to run it in the future. In other words - a company that makes profit! The Leftist is all the more keen on companies being in the hands of the State, and not necessarily making a profit because the Leftist has few objections to State-sponsorship to selected enterprises (health care, education, regulation, supervision, monitoring).

In short - those who decorate themselves with the word "sustainable" do so only when it suits their fight for a bigger State and more regulation. Isn't that strangely consistent for a statist? ..and yet so inconsistent for a person.

The Limits of Government - helping the poor?

Libertarians and liberals (in the classical meaning of the word) are people who want limited government and unlimited individual freedom (as long as no one else's freedom is being limited). The general idea, based on some experience, extensive logic and many facts, is that a Minimal State is the only fair and just form of state, and that the State's main function is to stop violence, make sure contracts are enforced and protect lives of individuals along with their property...

...and make sure that the poorest in the society are helped with some kind of a security net funded with taxes and operated by the State (either directly administrated by it and funded with taxes, or just the latter).

Or what?
The last statement bothers me. Is it really the State's responsibility to make sure the poorest of the poor have somekind of safety-net? I admit that the thought sounds right, and this is what I've heard from even the most liberal of libertarians (excluding anarcho-capitalists of course). But still the statement bothers me.

The Problem
The State is in an awkward situation when it comes to defining those who need help, and those who don't. Also, the State cannot allow access to tax-collected funds to just any-one who makes a strong enough case and does a good job convincing the social servant of some needs for help. The State must treat everyone equal and that means making general rules which again means putting different individuals with different problems into similar boxes which get similar help.

This is not what the hungry, the sick or the unlucky needs to improve his or her situation. Those who need help need it on individual basis. They need help - not welfare-checks or forced institutionalization. Only private charities and organizations can meet the individual needs of the individual because they don't have to follow a general set of rules which have to treat everyone the same.

The States responsibility
That being said I must say I oppose State-supported welfare-programs, even those only intended for the most poor or the most sick. However, this is not to say I oppose that it is the societies responsibility to make sure no-one dies on the streets from diseases, hunger or whatever it is. I think it's the societies responsibility to take care of those who need help, and show understanding for the individual's individual circumstances!

To the Socialist: Aim on poverty!

A very strong line in the Leftist's ideology is "protection" of this and that. The national socialist wants to "protect" his race from "mixing" with other races. The economic socialist wants to "protect" local jobs from competition in a globalized world. The green socialist wants to "protect" the environment from changes by human activities (usually calling it pollution or destruction).

How are these protections to be implemented? The socialist has tried just about everything which he can use the State for: Tariffs, border control, regulations, special projects of all sizes and shapes, taxes, executions, and God knows what. However, the solution is simple: Increased poverty is the tool which the socialist needs!

What happens when a country is poor? No-one wants to move to it and no-one can afford to leave it so the national socialist should be happy. No jobs exist which can afford to use modern technology to be efficient and competitive so there is very little risk of someone wanting to steal them, and therefore the economic socialist should be happy. The people can't afford cars, electricity or warmed up houses so the need for energy is little. Also, no-one has the money to invest in new powerplants or buildings so disruption of land should be at a minimum. This decreases "pollution" in all its forms, hopefully to the enjoyment of the green socialist.

It seems to be obvious that the socialist has to put poverty at the top of his priority list if he's ever to see his goals fulfilled.

The Non-Promise

Politicians promise. We all know that. They promise more funds to this and that, tougher laws on this and that, lower taxes, more freedom, higher taxes, less freedom, and God knows what. The result is usually a bigger State today than yesterday, a less flexible society and so on. The politician means well in most cases - he wants to make sure he stays in office so his favorite groups of voters can have a brighter future, and fuck the rest.

This approach is completely wrong as far as this author is concerned. The endless flood of promises has many negative effects on the voter. The voter begins to think all problems are the politicians to solve. He begins to think the individual contribution means nothing because the State is so much bigger and stronger. The voter, in short, hands more on more of his independence and initiative over to the State, which is in all respect bad.

Anti-promise
Instead of making a promise of doing something, this author believes a promise of not doing something is a more fruitful approach for the politicians and the society. What happens if the politician promises he will not increase funds to development-aid in Africa? What if the politician promises he will not start State-operated programs meant to cure the obeast, give riches to the poor or free addicts from addiction?

What will happen is that people will understand that it is not the State's job to heal every single disease or change every single out-of-the-normal behavior in the society. The result is increased private-initiative, more generous donations to private charity foundations, more care for the hungry and the tired, and a bigger personal responsibility in a society of humans.

We need politicians who promise not to do things. Everything else is an illusion.

Convergence to libertarianism

The biggest left-winged political party in Denmark is the Social democrats. It's an old party - at least over a 100 years old - and has experienced a lot of changes in the political landscape. At first it preached democratic socialism - a system newer tried out yet but still lives in the minds of some people. The party wanted to nationalize the means of production in the society. It wanted socialism in all its horrible beauty.

Time went by and the Iron-curtain fell. Texts about nationalization and State-owned means of production were removed from the manuscripts of the party. The party gets into government and implements old-fashioned methods to revive the economy. When the local economy collapsed in the international bubble-burst of 2000-2001 the party was out of government and could blame the conservatives then in charge.

When the Social democrats lost their second election this year their leader resigned - a leader with a red past and a fear for the new, globalized world of free competition and cooperation across the globe. Instead a young, "liberal" woman became the leader. This young woman had only been in office for 2 weeks when the ultra-Left began to call her liberal and a leaner to the Right. She has said she is willing to look into social-reforms of the soon-bankrupt welfare-system and hasn't promised any tax-increases yet.

Looking at the whole picture the trend is clear: The Social democrats have moved from Marxism to conservatism, and the process goes on towards liberalism - even libertarianism. It can probably never be expected that a party like the Social democrats fully appreciates the values of the Right, but it's moving there nice and slowly. The same can be said about its sister-parties in all of Scandinavia.

Politics converge to libertarianism with time. Ain't that a beauty?

Makes no sense

The newest "hot topic" among the European Left now is the European Union's support to agriculture in Europe. The Left, rightly, says that the support to European agriculture undermines agriculture in the developing countries - it gives European farmers and unfair advantage over the poor peasants in Africa and South-America and maintains poverty where poverty is the most. All of this is true and everyone, including the Left, should join in fighting State-supported agriculture. This has been a battle which the Right has had to fight alone for decades but now the Left joins in and that can only be positive.

The EU's agricultural program is being used by the Left to fight against the new European constitution. Now comes a strange part: Another issue being used to fight the constitution is it's emphasis on increased liberalization and privitization in the EU member states. This makes no sense. Removing State-support to agriculture and thereby giving farmers of the developing countries a better chance to enter European markets is a clear case of liberalization - it liberates farmers from the State and replaces support, regulations and tariffs with market-laws and competition on level grounds. The Left must realize this. Still it fights the constitution based on its emphasis on liberalization!

This makes no sense.

Bush pleases the Left, right?

Everyone knows G. W. Bush's method to implement democracy, peace and prosperity in the Middle-East: First, he removes the dictators. Second, he pumps billions of dollars into big "reconstruction programs" like building of roads and telecommunications-networks. Third, he holds elections.

The second part we all know: It's Keynesian economics, shortly describable as extensive State-action to push for economic growth. This should please the Left very much. The Left is all for State-initiative in every field, and especially when it comes to promoting growth and employment. However, the American and European Left is not happy with Bush - not in his own country nor in the Middle-East. He's being called a war-monger and accused of butting in where he's not needed. This makes no sense but that's I guess how Leftist-propaganda usually appears to me.

History and Milton Friedman teach us that economic freedom paves the way for political freedom. How about using the lessons of history next time we give advice to the leaders of the world?

2 Questions - 1 Answer

Q1: What markets have the toughest competition, the fastest technological evolution and the fastest price-decreases on the latest breakthroughs?

Q2: What markets evolve and move so fast that governments haven't, so far, been able to regulate them to any extent above other markets (e.g. with competition-laws), tax them with special "monitoring" and "supervision" taxes or stop them from moving back and forth across boarders and regions in search of the best and cheapest workers, resources and raw materials?

The answer: The markets of internet, mobile phones and computers.

Coincidences, or is the connection between market-efficiency and State-interference simply this clear?