Thoughts on Freedom

Socialism has been tried a few times before. The Soviet Union & Eastern Europe gave it a go. So did China, Vietnam, Nth Korea, Cambodia and Laos. Many African, Middle-Eastern, South Asian and South American countries have pursued some sort of socialist agenda. Unfortunately for all of these people, these experiments have all failed — and resulted in poverty and the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of millions of people. Opps!

Some would say that we should abandon socialism. But other people insist that we need to give it another go and just try a little harder. In that spirit, I suggest that we try out socialism in Australia. After all, we’re blessed with an army of leftists with good intentions. Surely that is enough!

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According to the following report John Howards Federal Government will now:-

1. Enact alcohol prohibition laws.

2. Ban non-violent sexual erotica that shows sex between consenting adults.

3. Tell people how they are to spend money.

4. Apply these “reforms” largely on the basis of peoples race.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/06/21/1182019253560.html

There is no getting past the fact that there is a real social problem motivating these “reforms”. That does not mean that they are wise or reasonable. They look somewhat like more of the same - paternalism.

Sometimes it seems that the more race-based laws and government schemes we have in Australia, the worse the outcomes that persist for people on the receiving end. Should we really be surprised?

Such schemes necessarily assume that Aboriginal people are, by virtue of their race, dependent helpless victims of circumstances beyond their control, unable to satisfy the ordinary standards of responsibility that apply to all other human beings. This notion is both plain wrong and offensive. It should be rejected and condemned.

But ‘he who robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.’ Similarly, the ‘experts’ who owe their comfortable middle-class existence to these schemes can be expected to solemnly intone that the solution is more and more governmental action of the kind that just happens to chronically coincide with the problem.

Many of the rural Aboriginal communities marked by disadvantage of every kind are the remnants of nineteenth century religious missions and twentieth century government control centres. Their tribal economy and prospects are no more. Being remote, the people there have little or no opportunity for gainful employment or business. The main reason the people are there is because the welfare state continues to subsidise them to live there, in a condition of isolation and dependence.

What you subsidise, you get more of, and what you tax, you get less of. The welfare state actively subsidises unemployment, relationship and family breakdown, and poverty. It is not a coincidence that many people with a drug and alcohol lifestyle live on welfare. Work would restrict the option of living like that. In the overwhelming majority of cases, welfare is what makes it possible.

On the other hand, the welfare state, by taxation and regulation, actively discourages employment, savings, and business, as well as legal or de facto marriage.

At the same time the state brags from the roof-tops about how it is promoting indigenous ’self-determination’. The millions and billions of dollars poured into these schemes never seem to decrease the problem.

The reason is because the welfare state actively destroys the only sustainable system of social security solution which erodes and exploits, and has nothing to put in its place.

The way forward is the increased health and happiness that come from gainful employment (not fake government make-work schemes), legal or common law marriage and family (not subsidized relationship and family breakdown), savings, home ownership, business, and the dignity and personal independence of private property. That is why middle class Australia has better health outcomes than Aboriginal Australia – not because they have more welfare services!

‘There is no future in the past.’ The current race-based welfare schemes will in time come to be regarded as official abuse on a vast scale, as the Stolen Generations are regarded now. the time is coming for all Australians to realise that race-based schemes and certificates for Aboriginal people, however well-intentioned, are destructive, and are the modern equivalent of infected blankets and ‘King Billy’ nameplates.

Under Australian law all minerals in the ground belong to the state or federal governments. If you own land you do not own any petroleum or minerals buried within the land and the government can force you off your land (with compensation) in order to access the minerals buried below. Owning land in Australia merely means that you have a right to use the surface, not what is buried below.

Australia is not unique in this regard. In fact only one nation on Earth (the USA) aligns general land ownership with ownership of mineral rights. As a result the USA has half of all the worlds oil wells. Ownership of mineral rights is a primary motivator for exploration and extraction in the USA.

Aboriginal Land Rights are an exception to the rule. On aboriginal lands the mineral rights often belong to the aboriginal collective that owns the land.

It is an open question as to whether Australia is under performing in the minerals sector due to government ownership of mineral rights?

In 1968 identifiable federal government spending on indigenous affairs was $10 million. In 2004, this figure was nearly $3 billion. Even taking inflation into account the increase has been tremendous. Despite this additional spending – brought about by political parties out-bidding the other during election campaigns – we have not seen the drastic improvements needed in indigenous health, education and housing.

In the meantime, substance abuse and sexual violence has continued. With such massive amounts of money being spent on indigenous affairs, Helen Hughes and Jenness Warin suggest (PDF file) the funds are not reaching their intended destination. But as with all aid monies the effects have been minute when compared with what the market system could have achieved. The market encourages self-sufficiency, whereas aid encourages dependence.

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The indigenous struggle for legal concessions favourable to traditional customary law and culture is encapsulated in the quest for land rights. Aboriginal society is inextricably interwoven and connected to land. In Mick Dodson’s words, “Removed from our land we are literally removed from ourselves.” Noel Pearson concurs, noting that for Aborigines the loss or impairment of land is “not simply a loss of real estate, it is a loss of culture.”

It is important to note two competing versions of justice. One version of justice, espoused by Mick Dodson and Diana McCarthy in this recent paper, sees communal title as the norm until government consults with indigenous people to see if their cultural beliefs permit something different. The other version, which I prefer, places property rights in the broader developmental context. I would suggest Mabo (No.2) has had a detrimental effect on indigenous policy as a whole for the simple reason that it has legitimised communal title as a worthy ideal.

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THE NATIVE TITLE ACT AND SPONTANEOUS ORDER:
HOW LEGISLATING IN PLACE OF THE COMMON LAW HAS UNDERMINED FORMAL EQUALITY AND THE RULE OF LAW

I ABSTRACT

Australia is a country where legislative solutions to social problems are very popular. ‘Someone should make a law against it’ and ‘they should do something about that’ are oft-repeated mantras on all sides of politics. They’re even commoner among ordinary citizens, who — as F A Hayek argued some sixty years ago — soon get used to authority taking personal choice out of their hands. Legislators pass more (and more complex) laws, laws under which the rest of us are supposed to live.

One of Hayek’s great insights was his understanding that governments are bad managers, especially when they seek legislatively to micromanage every possible outcome. The Road to Serfdom concerned the totalitarian abuse of power, but Hayek leaves us in no doubt that ends-directed, teleological legislation — even in a democracy — ultimately shares some of the same fascistic tendencies.

The ‘impenetrable thickets’ of the Native Title Act — as memorably described by Gaudron J — exhibit many of the qualities about which Hayek warned in The Road to Serfdom and Law, Legislation and Liberty. As an important contributor to classical liberal economic and jurisprudential theory, Hayek remained concerned throughout his life with formal equality, the dangers of arbitrary legislation and the risk that arbitrary legislation would derogate from the rule of law — and with it the formal equality he so prized.

In this paper, I argue that the NTA derogates from the formal equality that underpins all liberal democracies, and the manner in which it does so is arbitrary. This arbitrariness undermines the rule of law. Before turning to the Act, I outline Hayek’s evolutionary theory of law, particularly his discovery that the common law manifests the characteristics of a ‘spontaneous order’. Read more »

I had the great fortune, in my life, to know writer and Aboriginal activist Lisa Bellear.

 Lisa died two days ago, in her sleep, causes - as yet - unknown. She was 45. Lisa was a stolen child, a child written off by the powers that be in her youth as an automatic failure… yet a woman of many gifts, a lover of cricket and of life. She struggled to achieve and make a difference all her days. A skilled writer, she published a book of poetry, Dreaming in Urban Areas with University of Queensland Press. She also graduated in Social Work from Melbourne University and worked for Radio 3CR, running popular interview segment Not Another Koori Show. She made a difference, something hard to do in these days of cynicism.

My enduring memory of Lisa is seeing her working the crowd at a local comedy night. Her terrible personal history in hand, she went about making a mostly white, middle class audience laugh at themselves and their suppositions. Then watching her afterwards try to hail a taxi… none would stop until a couple of us went outside and stood with her. Then we were just a few girls out on the town. Then all was okay. And we got home all right.

Like me, Lisa was a country person, someone who had a gift for the Australian vernacular, who was a great talker. She was one who treasured the experiences of those who did not have the power to speak for themselves. Like many of Australia’s black people, she died young, but I think her legacy will live on. I’ll leave you with one of her poems, a personal favourite of mine.

Hanover Street Brunswick 3056
(On a bright sunny afternoon)

Cruisin’ - on my way with a keen
sense of purpose: milk (full cream),
toasting bread, cigarettes, papers
…a woman’s day

Sensor rays connect with a thirty
centimetre ‘white’ child who sits
joyously on a three-wheeled
plastic bike

I feel safe enough to share
my smile

As we check each other over
with carefree knowing smiles -
his parents raise their heads
through the pruned rose bush

In twenty years time will
he remember this warrior woman?
I wonder