analysis

Italy strikes over spending cuts

From the BBC:

"Millions of Italian workers are taking part in a one-day general strike against the economic policies of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

"Travellers face chaos and hospitals are only providing emergency services.

"Trade union leaders are furious with $8bn in public sector spending cuts in next year's budget, pushed through last week by Mr. Berlusconi.

"The European Commission had warned Italy to reduce its public debt, which is the third largest in the world."

Laski and Mises agree: There is no "middle way"

From a December 15th, 1945 speech given by Harold J. Laski:

"We have come to the boundaries of the final dividing line between liberalism and socialism. We are choosing between institutions which assume that freedoms must be won by the few and institutions which assume that they must be planned by the many. Either we must have power in the hands of men who use scarcity as the means of compulsion, or we must give it to men who find abundance is the instrument of freedom. There is no middle way. Free enterprise and the market economy mean war; socialism and planned economy mean peace. We must plan our civilization or we must perish." 

The Welfare State We're In

While it is not yet available in the US, I heartily recommend buying James Bartholomew's new book, The Welfare State We're In. It is one of the finest critiques of the welfare state since Charles Murray's Losing Ground. Mr. Bartholomew, a journalist and former editorialist for the British Daily Telegraph, chronicles the rise of government welfare. More importantly, I believe, he discusses the vast and inspiring amount of voluntary charity that was indicative of the 19th and early 20th centuries. From Friendly Societies to church organizations, compassion for the less fortunate was thought of as one’s moral duty, hence its effectiveness. Although catered to a British audience, the historical lessons from Mr. Bartholomew’s book are a virtual parallel to our own history.

The Mongolians Are Coming!

While there certainly are positive signs of economic liberalization in China, the country's continuing attempt to shut off cultural freedom continues unabated. The latest example comes from the New York Times:

"China built the Great Wall more than 2,000 years ago to keep out invaders from the north. But the Chinese are having a harder time repulsing modern interlopers like these: long-haired Mongolian men in black, whose office décor features a wolf pelt, a portrait of Genghis Khan and a music store poster of Eminem.

"So the Chinese police got nervous when they heard that Hurd was crossing the Gobi Desert, coming down from Mongolia, 600 miles to the north. With their new hit CD, "I Was Born in Mongolia," Hurd, a heavy metal, Mongolian-pride group, was coming for a three-day tour, culminating Nov. 1 with a performance in Hohhot, capital of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region."

"'The morning we were to get on the train, the translator guy called and said 'Your performances are cancelled,'' Damba Ganbayar, Hurd's keyboardist and producer, said glumly as he lounged in a white plastic chair. 'He said, 'I will call with details.' I never got the details.'"

The extreme paranoia of the Chinese government is as comical as it is tragic. Most taxi drivers in Beijing preach a more subversive message than Hurd ever will. While I think it is folly to compartmentalize liberties, for the sake of argument cultural freedom will follow economic freedom. While the government still attempts to block access to internet sites, the average Chinese citizen has a degree of freedom not seen for 70 years. Oppression exists to be sure (think Falun Gong, for example), but China as a whole is moving in the right direction.

analysis morning edition

• Britain unveils plan to issue national ID cards (NYT).
• Two studies show that fighting leads to poverty in Israel and Palestine (NYT).
• China's Lost Generation raises its own Coddled Generation (WP).
• Wal Mart approves unions in China (BBC).
• Man breaks calculation record in under 12 seconds (ABC News).
• Breaking News: Federal Government spends millions on pork (ABC News).

The Tyranny of Goodness

While I was in England this past weekend, several pieces of legislation were brought to the fore that reminded me of paternalism's deleterious effects on both sides of the Atlantic. The first was a ban on smoking in all "public" areas. This is something Americans can surely identify with. The sight of smokers huddling in the cold outside a bar is an all to common (and despicable) sight.

Next, the House of Commons invoked the rarely used Parliament Act of 1911 to ram through a ban on fox hunting. Few things evoke the heritage of England for Americans like the sight of a horse-mounted, red-jacketed squire galloping across the countryside. While the ban was nominally about animal welfare, most acknowledge this was about class.

Today's Wall Street Journal has an excellent op-ed by Lionel Shriver in which identifies the mindset behind these legislative acts "the tyranny of 'Goodness'":

"...Europe in general is suffering under the tyranny of Goodness. The same impulse to legislate virtue drives the anti-smoking lobby. Hate-crime legislation levies additional jail time on criminals not for what they did, but why. And recycling is embraced as an intrinsically virtuous idea, whether or not its economics or even its environmental merits add up. Thus Goodness is not about doing good but affecting it, and about telling moral inferiors what they may or may not enjoy. In sum, the hunting ban is about vanity.

"Urban Labourites are welcome to be as vain as they like so long as they do not employ the powerful arm of the state to squelch one of the few pleasures remaining to a beleaguered minority. Government should only constrict individual liberty when the case for interference is iron-clad. (Indeed, had the U.K. a written constitution, Thursday's law would probably be struck down by the courts. But parliamentary democracy allows for the triumph of unprincipled bullies, so long as they marshal the clout.) The case for banning foxhunting -- vulpine anxiety, human emotions that are unattractive -- is breathtakingly slight."

analysis morning edition

• JAMA calls for a new regulatory agency to police the FDA (NYT).
• The CDC overstated the health impact of obesity (WSJ).
• The dollar is expected to fall even further (USA Today).
• 200,000 demonstrators protest Ukrainian elections (WP).
• Bush promises Columbia $3 billion to fight drug trade (BBC).
• Canadian officials say Canada "cannot be the drug store of the United States" (AP).

Anarchy in Somalia

Now that some citizens of Somalia have "formed" a government, anarchy in that country is getting some press. While most of the coverage is negative (and much of it rightly so), two recent pieces highlight the positive coordination that occurs in the absence of government coercion.

The World Bank's, Anarchy and Invention comments on the (relative) success of Somalia's entrepreneurs in finding solutions to a whole host of problems, including telecommunications, electricity, internet provision, roads, and even the monetary system. It concludes, "...Somalia boasts lower rates of extreme poverty and, in some cases, better infrastructure that richer countries in Africa."

The BBC also reports on the success of the telecommunications industry:

"The government post and telecoms company used to have a monopoly but after the regime was toppled, we were free to set up our own business," says Abdullahi Mohammed Hussein, products and services manager of Telcom Somalia, which was set up in 1994 when Mogadishu was still a war-zone.

“’We saw a huge gap in the market, as all previous services had been destroyed. There was a massive demand.’

“The main airport and port were destroyed in the fighting but businessmen have built small airstrips and use natural harbours, so the phone companies are still able to import their equipment.

“Despite the absence of law and order and a functional court system, bills are paid and contracts are enforced by relying on Somalia's traditional clan system, Mr Abdullahi says.”

Whether one finds the news in Somalia promising depends largely on how one views anarchy to begin with. Many have been quick to point out the faults of a stateless system. Yet these same people would not give up their belief in Government simply because it can be shown time and time again to have failed. With that in mind, I think we must view Somalia as a success. While it may be in shambles compared to the US, I would rather be a citizen of Somalia than of Zimbabwe. Given the short period of time in which anarchy was prevalent, I think that's all we could ask for.

analysis morning edition

• Growth in health care costs slow for employers (NYT).
• Air inside Churches is worse than major roads (BBC).
• Amtrak infrastructure in shambles; socialism not indicted (WP).
• Bush increases control over Washington bureaucracy (WP).
• FDA says it's "virtually defensless" (ABC News). 

• Arafat's nephew believes his uncle was poisoned (Reuters).

From the Vault

Albert Jay Nock was the original editor of The Freeman, running the magazine in the early 1920's.  In Vol. VI No.131 from the 13^th of September 1922, discourse surrounds democracy.  Eighty years later we continue to hear comments about "our democracy" but rarely acknowledge that we do not have a democracy but a republic.   In fact, many people who use the term "democracy" may not even be clear as to what the term means. 

From Nock's concluding remarks in The Freeman, Sept. 13, 1922:

"It never does any harm to throw ourselves and our mentors--especially ourselves--back upon definitions; and as I read these essays, I could not help thinking what a difference would have been made if some one had stood at the writers' elbow, continually saying, But what is democracy?  Tell us this first, and then we shall have a clear road ahead."