I recently came across the ABC’s “planetslayer” website, a tax payer funded educational tool for children, and found it quite typical of environmentalist material. See, http://www.abc.net.au/science/planetslayer/greenhouse_calc.htm It has prompted me to attempt to think through my ideological concerns about environmentalism. Read more »
The media is reporting Barack Obama’s win in the Democratic primaries as a “triumph” over racism. They are wrong.
Disassociating oneself from racism involves treating people as individuals, not as part of groups.
It’s ironic then, that the media is proclaiming the “first African-American” presidential candidate is within striking distance of the White House. If the media were not racist, and race was no longer an issue, there would be more focus upon Obama’s policies and his character. Looks would be totally ignored. If bigoted voters choose to make their decision based on race, then that would be their personal business. But the fact that the media is going along with such simple-minded thinking in their news reportage shows racism has not yet been eliminated.
A guest post by Shem Bennett, of the LDP.
A lot of people seem to have some naïve views about democracy that I would like to dispel. It’s actually not that uncommon- I’ve had people in the past question the LDP’s name saying, “liberty, that’s all well and good, but why democracy? Isn’t that just mob rule and contradictory to freedom?” Well, yes and no, depending on how one views democracy. Taken in isolation democracy can be seen as to put it bluntly “two wolves and a sheep voting on what to eat for dinner”** but the reality of democracy, particular the tradition of liberal democracy seen in Western nation states is far removed from such a crude analogy. So I’d like to take some time to highlight why democracy is not just a “necessary evil” but rather a good that we should strive for. Read more »
Senior nephrologist, Dr. Gavin Carney, wants the law changed so that young Australians can sell one of their kidneys to the government for $50,000.
Trading in organs is illegal in Australia carrying a penalty of six months in jail. Last year just 343 kidneys were donated despite over 1800 people on a waiting list. Dr. Carney is exasperated at the low organ donation rate in Australia - apparently one of the lowest in the developed world at just 9.4 donors per million people.
“People just don’t seem willing to give their organs away for free.” said a frustrated Dr. Carney.
The chairman of the Renal Transplant Advisory Committee, Scott Campbell, disagrees with Dr. Carney, saying,
“There’s little doubt that you’ll get more kidneys if you offer money but it will only bring out people who are willing to gamble on adverse health outcomes in exchange for $50,000 because they are in desperate need, such as those in mortgage stress or drug addicts. Money alters perspectives on honesty and you’ll get people who do not tell the truth because they risk losing the cash.”
He is right.
Britain has the same problem. Last year the government caused outrage amongst large sections of the population by attempting to change the donation of organs to become the default option rather than a conscious choice. (ie if you don’t want to donate your organs, you have to specify so).
Neither option seems workable to me (one for practical reasons and one for moral reasons). So how do you encourage people to donate?
Update I - apparently 30% of SMH readers would flog their kidneys for $50 grand.
by Andrew Russell
One of the more twisted maladays that the concept of “Fusionism” has inflicted upon us pro-market advocates is an attitude towards markets I like to call “Punishment Capitalism” (not inherently related to the similar sounding “Sado-Monetarism”). The concept of Fusionism, by which advocates of liberty could justify noncoercion as a means to Conservative ends, was first proposed by Frank Meyer; editor of the intellectually toxic “National Review” magazine. Previously, I have discussed the problems of Fusionism, for example how it forces libertarians to justify freedom as a means (implying that freedom is not a worthy goal in and of itself), and also how it was the libertarians who provided all the intellectual ammunition and cultural assets (i.e. Mises, Hayek, Schumpeter and Friedman re-conquering academic economics for markets, Rand and Heinlein who injected the ideas of liberty into popular discourse) yet it was the conservatives that grabbed all the political power. Regardless, the ever-widening faultlines between conservatism and libertarianism are rendering Meyerian Fusionism obsolete. This article will look not at Fusionism itself, but at the attitude of Punishment Capitalism, which the Fusionists frequently carry and have spread.
Socialism and its near cousin Communism were the scourge of the 20th century and whilst its influence as an ideology is no longer as disastrous as it once was, it is perhaps more insidious today. Wikipedia in its article on Socialism introduces it as follows:-
Socialism refers to group of ideologies and political movements with the goal of a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community. This control may be either direct—exercised through popular collectives such as workers’ councils—or indirect—exercised on behalf of the people by the state. As an economic system, socialism is often characterized by state, worker, or community ownership of the means of production, goals which have been attributed to, and claimed by, a number of political parties and governments throughout history.
This definition fits with my understanding of the term. The key characteristic being that property is controlled communally not privately. In the worst case the community seeks to exert control over the very body and being of individuals. Generally it just involves pushing people around.
Lindsay Tanner writing in The Australian recently, seeks to divorce what he calls producerism from socialism. Here is part of what he says:-
Some would call this approach mercantilism. Others wrongly regard it as a core component of socialism. I see it as a distinct phenomenon in its own right that can best be described as producerism.
Producerism exists wherever the state implements regulatory and ownership arrangements that favour or protect particular producer groups at the expense of society as a whole. Tariffs, monopolies and other distorting regulatory regimes are the most obvious examples of the producerist philosophy at work.
So for Lindsay Tanner community control of property and wealth distribution is only socialism if it is done for the good of society as a whole. In other words Tanner believes socialism is not socialism unless it is utilitarianism. If community control of property and wealth distribution is done for narrow sectional interests then Tanner calls it producerism and regards it as a different animal to socialism. Socialism according to Tanner is something done for the greater good and if it is not for the greater good then it’s not socialism. A cynical libertarian might suggest that this is like saying that socialism is not socialism.
I don’t agree with the idea that socialism, or community control of property, is routinely good for society as a whole. However if clarifying socialism in this way allows Tanner and the ALP to conclude that we need lower taxes, lower tariffs, less corporate welfare and deregulation of markets and prices then I hope they spend quite a bit of time clarifying socialism to the mass of socialists out there.
Over in John Quiggins land of Social Democrats, resident commenter Ikonoclast takes a jab at Liberal Democracy.
Ikonoclast:-
To simultaneously support democratic government and minimalist government is a patent nonsense. I can only assume therefore that anyone espousing such a position either does not truly support democratic government or is blind to the inherent contradiction of their position.
In response I offer the following:-
Hang around libertarians and you’ll soon hear someone declare that “taxation is theft”, or that tax is money “extorted over the barrel of the gun”.
The natural rights argument against tax runs something like this:
Setting aside the logic of the above argument, let’s consider a hypothetical situation where tax is organised through voluntary contract.
The setting is Libertopia; there’s no tax and all services including the military, police and courts are provided by privately run firms. Along comes GuvCorp who starts buying land and leasing it to Libertopians with an unusual set of terms: Rather than paying a fixed rent each month, tenants are instead charged a percentage of their income. Furthermore, GuvCorp reserves the right to pass laws governing the social and economic conduct of tenants while they remain on the lease. GuvCorp stipulates that the terms of the lease may be changed at any time, provided a two-thirds majority of shareholders agree to the change. GuvCorp undertakes to provide various social services as well as to defend tenants from non-GuvCorp coercion.
Tenants may break the lease only be leaving GuvCorp land.
John Humphreys has kindly asked me if I would join the ALS blog stable – I will be intermittently posting here and at www.chrisberg.org, when the mood strikes. Briefly, I’m a Research Fellow with the Institute of Public Affairs, Editor of the IPA Review, and probably the only self-described libertarian with a column in the Melbourne Age. My research area is usually regulatory policy, but I’m also interested in history, culture and technology.
A peculiarity of critiques of modern capitalism is that it is, at least in part, an aesthetic critique. McMansions do not just create environmental and socially problems, they are also ugly. Plasma screens and home theatre systems are crass. Advertising on the scale that plasters New York or Hong Kong is obnoxious – European cities are much more refined. (The Melbourne City Council, well known for its trendy environmentalism, also has a thing against billboards.)
By contrast, libertarians tend to reject aesthetics as even a valid criteria for political criticism. If someone wants to live in a McMansions or full their house up with expensive and ugly televisions, who are we to judge? And if you don’t like advertising, go have one of those ‘sea-changes’ that the weekend papers keep telling us is the new coolest thing. Spend enough time around other liberals or libertarians and this reaction becomes instinctive – it’s none of our business; some people like some things, others like other things, etc etc etc. We just don’t like passing judgment on other people’s choices, and this rightly places us in sharp contrast with our political opponents.
Read more »
I recently had an argument on Usenet with a communist regarding an important aspect of freedom: doing what you want with what you have.
My opponent, a polite Australian communist named Fran was arguing the usual undefinable socialist platitudes: that using private property for ‘frivilous’ reasons (ie. more than what we ‘need’) is immoral as it wastes resources, keeps others in poverty, violates the rules of social ‘obligation’ and leads to an empty, meaningless life.
The final posts in the thread nicely sum up the argument that occured. I’ve posted the exchange below the cut. For the purposes of readability, I’ve played with the formatting a little. Keep in mind, this was a quickly typed series of responses, not a prepared series of debate points.
From The Australian
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story…5006784,00.html
“Church Leader Rues the Price of Libertarian Philosophies”
by Jill Rowbotham
REBUKING “a nation whose love affair with personal freedom has borne unpleasant fruit”, the Anglican archbishop of Sydney yesterday condemned its culture as “resource-rich and relationship-poor”.
Addressing the annual diocesan synod, or parliament, the Most Reverend Peter Jensen also targeted the leading political parties, which had “embraced the economic freedom which they see as essential to our prosperity”.
“They do not see that economic freedom trumps the social conservatism - or better, the Biblical principles - which sustains our values,” he said.
Product Bundling is a marketing concept. Wikipedia describes it thus:-
Product bundling is a marketing strategy that involves offering several products for sale as one combined product. This strategy is very common in the software business (for example: bundle a word processor, a spreadsheet, and a database into a single office suite), and in the fast food industry in which multiple items are combined into a complete meal. A bundle of products is sometimes referred to as a package deal.
The strategy is most successful when:
* there are economies of scale in production,
* there are economies of scope in distribution,
* marginal costs of bundling are low.
* production set-up costs are high,
* customer acquisition costs are high.
* consumers appreciate the resulting simplification of the purchase decision and benefit from the joint performance of the combined product.Product bundling is most suitable for high volume and high margin (i.e., low marginal cost) products. Research by Yannis Bakos and Erik Brynjolfsson found that bundling was particularly effective for digital “information goods” with close to zero marginal cost, and could enable a bundler with an inferior collection of products to drive even superior quality goods out of the market place.
Online technology could make citizen-initiated referendums much easier, and change the way we make law and govern ourselves.
While ancient Greek democracy did not permit women or slaves to vote, in one way their democracy was still in advance of ours: their system provided for each voter to be able to vote on each proposed law, which ours does not.
When you think about it, if it were practical for the entire electorate to vote on any given law, what would justify the continued existence of politicians or parliaments? Their whole justification is, or was, that they are needed to ‘represent’ the people in law-making. But Parliament itself is a kind of information-processing system, albeit a very clunky one, and prone to the institutionalised miscarrying of the people’s will. It is a system developed when the only practical way of getting input from people spread out over the countryside, was for one of them to physically get on his horse and go to some central place, and represent the others of his district.
… by which I mean should Athiests actively seek to convert God believers to non-belief?
I have recently read two books that were quite evangelical on this issue. They were in order of reading:-
“The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins.
“Infidel” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Both authors discuss the ways in which religious indoctrination creates a condition in which the mind is not free to pursue rational thought. Read more »
Friends,
Most of you reading this already believe in the efficacy of freedom, or at the very least are sympathetic to the arguments in favour of freedom. However a belief in and of itself can be little different to a golden idea that sits lost in a dusty book on an obscure shelf in an old library. Ideas and beliefs only make a difference when they are translated into tangible actions. Throughout history it has been beliefs put into action that have shaped destinies and changed the world.
Read more »
I first wrote about a “libertarian taxonomy” back in 2003 when I drew a distinction between (1) rights-based v utilitarian libertarians (2) anarchists v minarchists v moderate libertarians; and (3) isolationist v pro-war libertarians. I still think that analysis is helpful, but in the context of the modern Australian libertarian movement I think there is perhaps an more simple distinction between three broad groups.
For sake of argument, I call these groups the radicals, moderates and right-wing. My point in identifying these different groups is not to create a battle between them, but to try and explain the broader movement and perhaps help to build bridges between the different groups by helping them to understand each other better.
I would like to make a recommendation for the film “Mine Your Own Business.” The film’s site can be found at www.mineyourownbusiness.org and has been the subject of some controversy. The film exposes the misanthropic philosophy at the heart of the Environmentalist movement.
The documentary displays how rich western environmentalists oppose economic development, on the grounds that for a poor rural village to develop and progress would destroy its “quaint” culture.
This is what Wikipedia has to say about subsidiarity:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity
Subsidiarity is the principle which states that matters ought to be handled by the smallest (or, the lowest) competent authority. The Oxford English Dictionary defines subsidiarity as the idea that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level. The concept is applicable in the fields of government, Political science, Cybernetics and Management. Subsidiarity is, ideally or in principle, one of the features of federalism.
The word subsidiarity is derived from the Latin word subsidiarius and has its origins in Catholic social teaching. The concept or principle is found in several constitutions around the world (see for example the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution).
It seems to me that it is a principle we should hear a lot more about in the context of political discourse. And given that within the hierarchy of society the lowest competent authority for most matters is in general the individual, is it is a principle for which I think libertarians should find much affinity.
There are three main types of ideas. We can call them Type I, Type II and Type III. What differentiates developed countries from Third World nations is that large numbers of Type III ideas have been trashed in favour of the scientific method. Each generation and place must derive different truths (that is, Type I ideas).
For instance, 18th century thinkers would have written against monarchy. But in the 21st century, Type I ideas would aim at clarifying misconceptions about capitalism, because it is already understood that kings and queens are not appointed by God. After a hundred years, capitalism might be understood as being fundamentally good, and the truths which will need to be communicated will become different. By then, we would have understood more about Type I and Type II ideas. Some ideas might transfer from Type I to Type II. That is how the world progresses: by trashing its bad ideas.
Interesting article in the Daily Telegraph today:
‘Australian women in full-time jobs earn $100 a week less than men, a union analysis of recent figures reveals. The Australian Council of Trade Unions analysis, based on recent Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, shows full-time female workers earn on average 10 per cent less than men. Released ahead of International Women’s Day today, the figures also show real wages of female workers have fallen 2 percent in the past year. ACTU president Sharan Burrow said the research showed women in the workforce suffered the same gender pay gap they did in 1978.’
It is interesting how the gap between men’s and women’s average earnings has persisted, despite the fact that employment discrimination on the ground of sex has been illegal in Australia since the 1970s. What’s going on?
