Tag Archive for 'capitalism'

How to Talk Libertarianism with the (European) Left

Written by Colin. Published on August 12, 2009 ago in Essays, Philosophy and Politics. 8 Comments

I have been in Europe a year now and one of the greatest benefits of being out of the US is that I tend to have complete control over how much American politics comes into my life. I feel like I can breathe. Americans (and I am one) are opinionated – and they tend to get riled up over some of the silliest political points. The media in the US is in your face – cable news will beat a story to death, every hour of every day. American journalists continue, year after year after year to say dumb things like this – calling lower state budget increases: “budget cuts.”

Anyway, having a year out of this has been great. Really great. But I have been in political conversations over in England. And they are generally rather relaxing – people listen to each other. They aren’t trying to figure out whether you are a conservative or a liberal – and this determines whether they will ignore you or agree with you (in both instance, without listening to you, of course).

In talking with Europeans, I have found that I am able to communicate my points by listening to what they are concerned about first, and then offering a solution that actually takes into account their view of the problem. If we agree about the problem, then were working together, rather than talking past each other.

Capitalists need acknowledge that this mess isn’t our fault. In fact, we should be more upset than the left right now because not only is this a statist problem, but we’re getting the blame for it! Let people on the left know that you are not happy with greed, corruption and the secret deals going on in the present system.

I have gotten favourable responses from people when I have then added that these problems are not going to go away by giving more power to the state. After all – it has been with the help of the state (and the power and authority the state represents) that these measures have been taken. By increasing regulation (and hence, creating more power to abuse) we are merely setting ourselves up for future exploitation.

The European left gets this. They see the corruption of power a lot more easily than Americans do (many Americans live in a bubble, where the costs of their government’s policies are externalised onto the rest of the world in foreign wars, debt and other interventions).

What the European left lacks is the libertarian and capitalist framework to explain it. For the past century, they have primarily had Marxist framework to express their dissatisfaction with the state. But if this is worked through, then it is clear that many of the objections of the European left are actually libertarian in origin. There is strong support for civil liberties here, principles of innocence before guilt and even private property. But these concepts have to be discussed in “European language” and often with leftist framework.

Rather than saying that I am for “free-trade,” I left people know that I support the free movement of people and goods and cultural exchange. These are goals that the EU is supposed to support, and people have generally seen the benefits of an economically integrated Europe. I talk about the correlation between trade and peace, and how trade can cause people who otherwise hate each other to act cooperatively.

Rather than saying I am for “deregulation” or “privatisation” (words which have come to mean cronyism and exploitation) I explain that I am for regulation – but not regulation that creates increased power in the hands of government (and the corporations that are closely allied with it).  The kind of regulation I support is from consumers, customers and local communities – even the voluntary actions of unions and other groups using legitimate means to accomplish change. These are decentralised ways to check the greed and avarice in human nature without creating bigger problems of government largesse.

I have also has a lot of success talking about our equality as individuals. That as people, we should acknowledge the same rights in others that we see in ourselves. Europeans like equality as a concept, but often they haven’t thought about the inequality of attempting to legislate equality. It is far more constructive to talk about the natural equality of people as an inherent value – rather than as a value we can only obtain from an external authority: e.g. the state making us equal.

Again, it comes down to listening, and learning. This is the most important thing. Preaching talking points at people belittles them and is insulting. But offering real libertarian strategies for people’s actual problems can go a long way.

Free Markets Require Unanimity

Written by Colin. Published on July 15, 2009 ago in Essays, Philosophy and Politics. 4 Comments

In part, this piece is a response to these posts written a couple of months ago, to which I never fully responded in the comments.

Describing Government in Anarcho-Capitalist Terms
Where Anarchists Respond Wrongly to Government

But it is also meant to be a stand-alone argument for why coercive force is never “free market” regardless of the purpose, intents or motivations of those advocating or initiating force.

Government Arising From Anarchy?
Before I believed that a purely voluntary society was at least possible in theory, I took the position that governments were a natural creation of “anarchy” sometime in humanity’s past, and therefore were, at least in an empirical or pragmatic sense, legitimate. I may not have liked the way in which any governments work (none of them do “work” in any imaginable sense of the word) but it seemed that a lack of government had its chance and governments are obviously as inevitable as death and taxes.

But governments are not free market or capitalistic in any way because they are not voluntary. Any “government” that is voluntary ceases to be a government – that is a coercive monopoly on force. If a “government” does not prevent other agencies from providing services, individuals to provide their own services – than it is no longer a government.

Freeriders
The first argument that then comes into play is the freerider. This person benefits from defence services either directly or indirectly without paying for them. But the freerider is not aggressing against the service provider in order to steal service, rather he his being gifted this service by the imprecision of the provider.

The solution to the freerider is not to charge everyone because it is most likely that they benefit anyway. This is the provider’s problem – not the freerider’s.

The TVLA as an Example
In England, television is a public good and is paid for by a licence fee – about $240 per year. the TVLA is a corporation that has been empowered by the state to collect licence fees and also to investigate people who are “stealing” tv. Because tv is broadcast rergardless of payment, the TVLA has had to use draconian measures of intimidation, deception and fraud in order to seek out an prosecute non-licence payers.

All people in living in England are expected to prove that they are innocent of watching tv without a licence. Until they satisfy the TVLA, they are subject to constant harassing visits, letters, threats and searches.

But the fact that the tv is broadcast so widely is the government’s fault, not people who do not break any ethics by buying a tv, a box to receive tv and subsequently watching it. These freeriders are benefiting for free -but the fact that the government is losing its services and people are “salvaging” it from the commons is perfectly defensible.

The solution to the freerider problem is not a presumption of freeriding by all people until they prove they are not. Rather it is for the provider of any good or service to make explicit contracts with individuals and enforce those contracts accordingly. If a good or service cannot be profitable because of insufficient technology or infrastructure to handle freerider problems, then the solution is not to substitute force for this lacking – it is to abandon the service.

On Contracts
Regardless of the freerider problem, the basic ethics of voluntary society do not change. Contracts cannot be “presumed” or “implied” they must be explicit. Contracts with a large amount of people or a collective group, must be unanimous – otherwise they are not valid.

Llysander Spooner, great abolitionist, labour advocate and criminal for his daring to compete with the US Post office declared:

These facts are all so vital and so self-evident, that it cannot reasonably be supposed that any one will voluntarily pay money to a “government,” for the purpose of securing its protection, unless he first make an explicit and purely voluntary contract with it for that purpose.

It is perfectly evident, therefore, that neither such voting, nor such payment of taxes, as actually takes place, proves anybody’s consent, or obligation, to support the Constitution. Consequently we have no evidence at all that the Constitution is binding upon anybody, or that anybody is under any contract or obligation whatever to support it. And nobody is under any obligation to support it.

For a contract to be valid – regardless of whether it is verbal, written or even implied – there must be consent from all parties of the contract. For example, four of my neighbours could not all sign a binding contract giving them shares in my property if I do not sign it. If they brought such a contract and attempted to enforce it – I would be legitimate in protecting myself despite their “contract” or the democratic principles behind their action (four”votes” out of five).

However there are examples of purely voluntary contracts for millions of goods and services all over the world. Wal-Mart doesn’t bring me baskets of products without my asking – rather, they advertise their contracts and I only become responsible for the goods when I consent to purchase them. Just as Wal-Mart can’t force me to buy their groceries, I cannot stand guard outside of Wal-Mart all night, even defending it from thieves and vandals, and then expect that they must pay me the next morning.A government, of course, could make a contract with every single one of its citizens – but it has to be consented to unanimously for it to be valid. Every new immigrant or birth in the country would also require a new contract.

To my knowledge, there is no government on earth which has done this, and there never will be. This is because government, by definition, uses aggressive force. Its very existence breaks the non-aggression axiom (regardless how small or limited it is). Government is hardly “free market.”

Describing Government in Anarcho-Capitalist terms

Written by Atanamis. Published on February 18, 2009 ago in General. 31 Comments

I have recently become convinced that modern governments are in fact consistent with Anarcho-Capitalist ideals, they just don’t understand it. To demonstrate this, I will describe government in terms familiar to anarcho-capitalists:

Assumptions:

1) Anarcho-capitalists allow groups of people to form corporations, which can own property.

The concept of a corporation is essential to understand modern governments. In a corporation, many owners collectively fund and own a company. The company can then act in many ways as a person, owning property, producing products, entering contracts, etc. It is the corporation that has customers and liabilities. In many cases, stock holders in a corporation may also be customers of that corporation. The key elements for this article are that corporations can own property, and that corporations pursue whatever goals are desired by the owners of the corporation (who generally can vote on the goals of the corporation and the corporation’s board of directors who select the top positions in the corporation).

2) The owner of a property  is allowed to set the price of rent, and to evict people who do not pay rent, even if that person was born on the property.

A primary complaint of anarcho-capitalists is that people to not “opt in” to government. This is categorically not true though, since most Western governments provide full freedom for people to leave their countries. If I own a property which I rent to a tenant, the fact that the tenant has a child while on that property does not obligate me to give free housing to the child. Particularly if the child becomes an adult and their parent dies, I have no obligation to give the child “free housing” or to help them find another place to live if they can’t or won’t pay rent. In fact, I have a right to seek compensation if they continue to use my property without paying rent.

3) The owner of a property has the right to demand payment for the use of services provided on their property

If I own a piece  of property and provide security guards to protect those on my property, I have the right to demand that those coming on to my property pay a fee for that protection. That fee can come in the form of a one time payment, or I can charge a certain percentage of the person’s profits in exchange for the service. If the person does not agree to my terms, they are free to leave my property. If they do agree and then later refuse the determined payment, I have a right to seek compensation for the unpaid services.

Conclusions:
I’m sure everyone reading this sees where it is going. Using anarcho-capitalist definitions,  modern governments “own” all land in they control. Like any corporation, they claimed unused land, and can buy or sell that land as they see fit. They could choose to sell land to individual buyers, but historically have only “truly” bought/sold land to other “governments” (corporations which sell the use of force). Anyone choosing to live in one has a moral obligation to respect the property rights of the government as a corporation and to pay rent if required. Any business choosing to organize under that government’s legal structure is also a customer deliberately seeking the services offered by the government.

The US government is also a corporation, owned by the citizens who get to choose the goals and leaders of their company. Like any land owner, the US government has the right to evict anyone for any reason it chooses. Like any seller of services, the US government must provide a satisfactory service to its customers (renters and corporations), or it will see them seek out competitive alternatives. Like any service provider, it has the right to charge fees on any calculation it chooses (profit taxes or payroll taxes). Like any owned entity, it has to report to its owner regarding its goals and leadership (elections).

The US is the epitomy of anarcho-capitalist ideals. Their only real complaint is that the US as a corporation chooses not to sell its land to individual buyers, but since anarcho-capitalism holds sacred the rights of a property owner to do as they wish with their own property they have no moral right to criticize what “US Government Incorporated” chooses to do with its assets. As partial owners, they have every right to suggest redistribution of assets, but the corporation MUST listen to the decisions its majority stockholders define. If as customers (taxpayers) they wish to find a new landlord, they are free to do so. Like any property owner, the US enlists arbiters to determine property damage cases with neighboring countries. If we damage Canada with pollution, we end up paying “Canada Incorporated” for the damage to their property, and vice versa.

“Anarcho-capitalism” is not a reaction against infringement of individual liberties, it is either a semantic argument (only governments “own” property in the anarcho-capitalist usage of the word) or it is a rejection of free market ideals regarding ownership of property and the rights of corporations. If they want to run a territory on different rules, they must first purchase some land (from a government under the clear contract that the property will no longer be governed by the selling government, a “real” sale not a “rental agreement” which is normally referenced as a sale in modern usage). There is nothing stopping a government “owned” by a single person. In fact, this is exactly what a dictatorship is! Buy a group of dictatorships, and structure your free association of independent property owners however you see fit.

Claiming a government lacks the right to own and oversee land or charge rent for its usage is simply an attack on the rights of a corporate group of people to own property, and has nothing to do with the rights of an individual to life, liberty, and property. (Obviosuly the above does not apply to a government that refuses to allow its citizens the right of liberty and property to take their person and wealth out of the country. Since they do not actually own the land though in the anarcho-capitalist sense of the word “own”, they cannot take their property only sell their lease on its usage and the rent obligation that comes with that lease.)

The Roots of Statism

Written by Colin. Published on February 16, 2009 ago in General. 13 Comments

Typically, those who are opposed to “pure” libertarianism – which is generally articulated as some form of anarchy or decentralised society – do so on the grounds of 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes (whether intentionally or not). This includes all statists, from obvious ones such as Marxists or socialists; moderates such as republicans or democrats and even minarchists like libertarians and objectivists.

The Hobbesian view is that man needs a government in order to prevent a “war of all against all.” That without a referee (namely a government monopoly), men would be unable to figure out the rules of the game, so to speak. But more than that, they would break any rules that were established and society would quickly degenerate into complete chaos.

But there are numerous illustrations available to show that this construct is actually not workable (empirically) and not logically consistent (axiomatically). Government intervention does not empirically do what it is supposed to, and the axiomatic legitimizations for it have yet to be shown as water-tight. As government increases, wars and rule-breaking don’t decrease. In fact, the state itself becomes the largest aggressor and rule-breaker. It doesn’t use it’s monopoly on force – and it’s exemptions from the rules the rest of society must follow – purely for good. Not surprisingly, it uses these exceptional powers to favour the agendas of those who wield them – whether it is world domination, trade or environmentalism.

Hans Hoppe explains this conundrum in The Myth of National Defense:

The quarrel is only with the Hobbesian solution. Given man’s nature as a rational animal, is the proposed solution to the problem of insecurity an improvement? Can the institution of a state reduce aggressive behavior and promote peaceful cooperation, and thus provide for better private security and protection? The difficulties with Hobbes’s argument are obvious. For one, regardless of how bad men are, S —whether king, dictator, or elected president— is still one of them. Man’s nature is not transformed upon becoming S. Yet how can there be better protection for A and B, if S must tax them in order to provide it? Is there not a contradiction within the very construction of S as an expropriating property protector? In fact, is this not exactly what is also—and more appropriately—referred to as a protection racket? To be sure, S will make peace between A and B but only so that he himself in turn can rob both of them more profitably. Surely S is better protected, but the more he is protected, the less A and B are protected from attacks by S. Collective security, it would seem, is not better than private security. Rather, it is the private security of the state, S, achieved through the expropriation, i.e., the economic disarmament, of its subjects.

The Hobbesian philosophy essentially demands that larger and more powerful groups of thugs be in charge of smaller groups of thugs because people obviously seems to just want to commit random violence against each other like animals and require a big group of thugs with sticks to keep them in line. Government is empowered in this manner because otherwise, what, a government will develop? In reality, the argument against anarchy is that “a big group of thugs will come unless we have a big group of thugs.” Is the circular reasoning not evident here? We don’t want the world to devolve into chaos where a big group of thugs can run wild and enslave us – so enstead we enslave ourselves to a big group of thugs which then creates chaos to justify it’s perpetual dominion (wars, economic crises, social crisis, national emergencies, etc…).

The Burden of Proof
I put the emphasis on statists (whether they are libertarians or Marxists) to justify their argument for why the initial natural order requires a government (which no matter how complicated or advanced it is – is based on the philosophy of the strongest thugs and bullies running the show – this is its axiomatic argument, despite platonic motives attached to it) to be superimposed on it. The intervention requires justification – not nature. The protection racket or group of thugs needs to demonstrate a) that their ideas will work and b) that they even have a legitimate right to force their will on naturally free people.

Even if the natural state of man is chaos, it is the responsibility of those who would put it “right” to justify their actions – even with the best motives. If they refuse to do this, and hope to just beat men into submission “for their own good” – they are no better than the men they are trying to reform and put to order. They are using the same methods.

Some Criticisms
Of course, the anarchist’s alternative is not that suddenly without a state everyone is going to hold hands, obey common laws and never fight with one another. There are still going to be wars, crimes and disorder. In addition, many men, even if purely free to do so, will not do what’s best for them. If drugs were legal and freely available, for example, of course more people would use them – and this would not be a good thing.

In fact, if this is true (which I think it is), that man is not always going to do what’s best for him, then the case for government breaks down very quickly (much more quickly than an anarcho-capitalist system) – as man doesn’t magically become “rational” when given a monopoly on force over other men. He doesn’t magically become a philosopher king. If anything, he abuses his power. The Hobbesian case for government presumes a miracle – that a man will suddenly find a conscience if he is given power over other men.

In other words, if we allow a group of thugs to regulate our behaviour, even for good, why do we think that this group will now be so morally consistent and superior as to enforce this justly?

Another set of criticisms is empirical. I saw a bunch of socialists protesting at a mall the other day, handing out editions of the Morning Star showing a photo of bankers with the headline: “Capitalism has failed.” However, the banking sector is hardly free market. If capitalism – or the purest form of capitalism: market anarchy, is to be critiqued, it needs to be done logically, not empirically.

I think a strong logical argument can be made that monopolies and class-gaps are not created in a free market. The fact that these things happen empirically does not invalidate pure freedom (or anarchism). In fact, it probably means that laissez-faire wasn’t taken purely enough – that is close enough to the axiomatic ideal where it proves to work perfectly. Again, this is the same case with communism. Did communism fail because of empirical or axiomatic flaws with Marxism? I think communism is best criticised by criticising the logical flaws in Marxism, not from taking data from Soviet Russia – which never really was “communist.”

Inevitable Thugs?
This still leaves the problem of the big group of thugs. Presuming Hobbes is right, if we don’t put one in power, how do we still prevent them from rising up anyway if we let nature take it’s course?

As to why big groups of thugs would be discouraged in a anarcho-capitalist world – Hans Hoppe explains his vision of how this might work out in The Private Production of Defense. He argues that thugs would turn into non-aggressive insurance companies pretty quickly.

…defense is a form of insurance, and defense expenditures represent a sort of insurance premium (price). Accordingly, as Rothbard and the Tannehills in particular would emphasize, within the framework of a complex modern economy based on a worldwide division of labor the most likely candidates for offering protection and defense services are insurance agencies. The better the protection of insured property, the lower are the damage claims and hence an insurer’s costs. Thus, to provide efficient protection appears to be in every insurer’s own financial interest; and in fact even now, although restricted and hampered by the state, insurance agencies provide wide-ranging services of protection and indemnification (compensation) to injured private parties. Insurance companies fulfill a second essential requirement. Obviously, anyone offering protection services must appear able to deliver on his promises in order to find clients. That is, he must possess the economic means —the manpower as well as the physical resources—necessary to accomplish the task of dealing with the dangers, actual or imagined, of the real world. On this count insurance agencies appear to be perfect candidates, too. They operate on a nationwide and even international scale, and they own large property holdings dispersed over wide territories and beyond single state boundaries. Accordingly, they have a manifest self-interest in effective protection, and are big and economically powerful. Furthermore, all insurance companies are connected through a network of contractual agreements of mutual assistance and arbitration as well as a system of international reinsurance agencies, representing a combined economic power which dwarfs that of most if not all existing governments.

Again, it is not hard to see illustrations of these basic ideas – that people are incentivised to cooperate and work together for mutual benefit. It’s easy to see this applied in some areas: churches, charity, trade, small businesses, civil disobedience, book clubs, families and so on. Why defence and policing is somehow taboo doesn’t make sense. Cooperation and mutual benefit are not exclusive only to certain kinds of human behaviour- but it is a natural incentive in humanity itself.

The Economy is Recovering In Spite of Bailouts

Written by Colin. Published on February 4, 2009 ago in General. 10 Comments

The New York Times published an article the other day, and the AP has followed, declaring that consumers are now beginning to save more and spend less. Finally, after years and years of unsustainable debt-spending and other atrocious family budgeting practices, Americans are biting the bullet in the short-term and are doing what’s best for them. Of course, the NYT and AP see it completely different:

Putting away money and paying down debt may be good for one family’s kitchen-table economics, but the broader economy suffers in the short term when millions of families do it… A dollar saved does not circulate through the economy and higher savings rates translate into fewer sales and lower revenue for struggling businesses. As Congress considers an $800 billion package of tax cuts and spending plans, policy makers said that the most effective stimulus was money that would be spent quickly.

The solution to our economic problems is staring everyone in the face, even beginning to happen, and yet officials and bureaucrats feel the need to subvert it by artificially low interest rates, easy money and interventions to increase debt – the exact reckless policies that got us here. The solution is an increase in capital to liquidate debt and reinvest in profitable, sustainable industries – which comes from, what? Savings.

Short-term bursts of new money, funded by debt, invested in industries and sectors of the economy that have proven themselves to be worthless is suicide. The media, of course, is completely ignorant of basic economic principles and instead relies on pundits and politicians to tell them what to write:

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates to stimulate growth, and Americans took advantage of easy credit to finance trips to the mall, remodeling projects and new cars. Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of growth.

Good idea! We can pretend that we aren’t tens of thousands of dollars in debt per person and take a quick trip to the mall. Going shopping always makes us feel good! The prevailing wisdom is that we should all act like those irresponsible people we all know with three maxed-out credit cards, a high mortgage and two cars who still will go buy overpriced retail goods at the mall. See, this is just “kitchen table” thinking – we need the experts to tell us that really we should continue to spend money we have no way to pay back – for our own good.

The problem here is that mainstream economics teaches that the laws that govern economics on the individual level are completely different on a larger scale. We all know that families who increase their debt-spending while raking in less money will go broke very quickly. But somehow governments can engage in the same behaviour, by increasing spending and lowering taxes, and it will be good for all of us? Incredible!

The fact is that industries and investments which never should have happened are being wiped out. This is a good thing! We don’t want any more resources being wasted on stuff no one wants to buy. The economy needs to shift and invest in new technologies, goods and services that are more reliable, cheaper, faster, more productive and so on. This, by definition, has to be done responsibly from the beginning – with real capital: savings. An increased rate of savings is the first sign of rebuilding. Real capital with real wealth that has been earned and saved provides incentives to invest wisely and patiently in sectors of the economy that have more reliable returns.

Quite frankly, I’m shocked. I did not expect American to rise to the occasion. I figured they would keep buying cars, boats and consumer crap even while their houses were getting repossessed and their creditors harassing them. If the politicians will get out of the way for a moment and stop trying to “help”- maybe we can make it out of this one.

Links: Creative Capitalism

Written by Colin. Published on December 5, 2008 ago in General. 2 Comments

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett Discuss “Creative Capitalism” Creative capitalism is Bill Gates evolving theory on how corporations can use a profit motivation to engage in charitable and world improving work.

SWAT team enters bank…discovers cardboard cutout.

Steal me away, Firefox

If you get spam on Facebook, blame Canada

Banks are giving away money to “help” the economy

Walmart Employee Dies after being trampled to death during Black Friday:

“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, `I’ve been in line since yesterday morning,’ ” Cribbs said. “They kept shopping.”

Postcard from England: Our Government Housing Story

Written by Colin. Published on November 24, 2008 ago in Essays. 9 Comments

An international move is almost always stressful – especially the problem of housing. Most people have “on the ground” knowledge of the neighbourhoods in their cities, the kind of amentites that come standard in their country, the prices and all kinds of information that is aquired over time. Moving to a new country completely removes this familiar knowledge.

Our move was no exception. We were very nervous about finding a place to live before leaving the US. The most immediate information that plagued us was the cost – we were looking at around $1,000 a month for a one bedroom apartment. Our current house (which rented for $700 a month) would probably have rented for around $2,000 in Bristol, UK.

The Promises
Thus, when we were offered furnished housing from one of the top universities in the UK, we were thrilled. It radically reduced the stress associated with our move as the University, which delivers some of the best education in the country, surely could do something as simple as manage a property. We had to take this reasoning on faith – as the university had no pictures of the flat we were offered, nor could we visit the flat because of the limited time they had to clean and prepare it for us. But, we accepted this, as the rent was about half the price as private flats in the neighbourhood, and we felt we could trust the university.

I have a lot of knowledge about economics, and I know that government housing is bound to be a failure. But even I was allured by the siren song of government’s ability to possibly improve my situation at least – even if I knew that this was theoretically bankrupt.

A “Furnished” Apartment
When I finally got the keys to the apartment – I was faced with the beginning of a long and increasingly worsening revelation of problems. This began, innocently, with the condition of the “furniture” that was waiting for us. The bed was stained and mouldy – with the previous tenants sheets still on the bed. The table was plywood as were a couple small bookshelves – warped from past water damage. The chairs were those plastic, utilitarian models that fill public school classrooms, and a couple of hospital waiting-room style ones, fabric torn and stained. Moreover, these were all just stacked against the wall.

Fortunately, when people from our church saw our situation – they gave abundantly the furniture out of their own houses to supply us. We stacked the government furniture against a wall in our bedroom and waited four weeks before someone finally came to remove it.

When we tried to cook something on our stove, it began to fill the room with smoke. The layer underneath the range had been burned to a crisp and was not cleaned. We attempted to turn the oven off and it would not go off. We found that the wiring was faulty. It took four weeks, citations of violated health codes and threats of legal action before we recieved a “new” stove – that is an old one, also dirty, but that was wired correctly, at least.

Our lights still do not work correctly. An electrician came around after two months and checked them – he agreed that the wiring was faulty and that someone would be around “within a few weeks” to fix them.

Our bathroom sink was unusable, as the pipes in the back had completely split and were just dumping water on the floor. We shaved and brushed in the kitchen. This had caused significant damage to the floor, which was peeling around the edges and the bathroom had a terrible odour.

“One night it was so awful that I slept in the car out on the street…”
Soon we found that we began to get sick whenever we spent more than a few hours in the apartment. I was especially affected, as I would wake up on the middle of the night – every night – unable to breathe. I would have to quickly run into the kitchen and throw a window open and stick my head outside to catch my breath. I then would spend about thirty minutes cyclically boiling water, breathing it in until it was cold, then repeating. Five nights we slept head to feet on the couch when it was really bad. And one night it was so awful that I slept in the car out on the street. I kept a pot or bowl near my bed every night – as a woke up multiple times with copious amounts of phlegm in my throat that I had to cough out in order to swallow and breathe.

This was the routine every-night for my first three weeks at the university. We contacted the government almost daily about the problem. They would promise to fix it within a few days – or to check the problem – but never followed through. Finally, after finding that our entire bathroom floor was infested with toxic black mould underneath – we again petitioned for the university to act. They finally sent someone to fix the floor, who, upon tearing it up, showed me the spouts that had literally mushroomed up from the years of mould that had grown in the floor. As of now, the floor still has not been repaired – there is merely damp and rotted wood, with nails poking through, which we have to traverse in order to take a shower or use the toilet.

Visitors in the Night
A few nights ago, we received an email from the government informing us that some flats in our building had reported mice, and that something was being done to fix the problem. We were relieved, that we at least did not have this problem.

That night, we awoke to several mice in our bedroom, crawling under our bed, in our garbage, darting under our doors and along the walls. When we sleep at night, we hear them running through the walls and in the ceiling, and do our best to ignore them – hoping to get enough sleep to accomplish our goals for the next day.

There Be No Shelter Here
In all of this, we deal with constant cold – as our windows have not been updated in a hundred years. They are single pained and allow the cold to freely enter our house. I am typing this right now in three layers of clothing in my own house. We can see our breath at night.

Our hot water often goes out – leaving us to shower in lukewarm water – in a bathroom where the ventilation is literally a hole in the side of the wall that goes directly outside. It is the coldest room in the house.

Worst of all – we are trapped in this house for a year. We are paying roughly $1,000 a month for this nightmare (not including utilities) and I expect that if we want to leave, we will have to pursue legal counsel. Our contracted rights have been violated numerous times, but naturally the government arbitrates it own contracts. I should have realised the folly of trusting the government – especially with everything I know. Hopefully we’ll be able to get out of here within a few weeks. If not, it is going to be a long winter

Postcard From England: Thank God for Capitalism (somewhere)

Written by Colin. Published on October 15, 2008 ago in Essays and Politics. 23 Comments

Just months ago back in the US, I was so used to capitalism-hate coming from many people who were benefiting tremendously from it. Wal-Mart was the biggest target in my part of the country – with many cities in my state issuing bans on “big-box” stores and trying to prevent the evil of low-prices and jobs from taking hold of their budding leftopias.

In the UK, however, I have not heard a single bad word about Wal-Mart (represented here by their UK counterpart ASDA). In fact, many people are tremendously grateful for ASDA – which has come into cities and towns across the country and offered prices, especially on food, at around 1/5 of major brands.

But ASDA (and other large retailer TESCO) have been allowed here to do much more than food. While the US has rejected the system of free commerce which made it great,the UK has allowed these companies to offer about everything: internet, finance, car insurance, phone, credit cards, fast-food – you name it. I remember how angry people were in the US when Wal-Mart just contemplated doing some basic finance.

We are dirt poor in the UK – poorer than we have ever been. We have rent coming up and I have no idea how we are going to make it. For the first time in my life, I have had to go into debt. But it would be much worse without these major corporations which have been allowed to be built either here or abroad.

We’ve got our car insurance through TESCO, for example, which has given us a quote about $200 lower than we paid in the US, and about $1000 under the nearest competitor. We (will) have our internet and phone through Virgin Media, which is an amazing company,  at half the price as the US with twice the speed. I have multiple options for internet and phone here, as opposed to one local monopoly given by local government. Virgin is literally going to come to my house, build a line to my house as well as a jack whereever I want – and this included in my monthly cost.

Lately, I have been entertaining the though of what this country would look like without these major companies. Because Britian’s socialism is very unfavourable to a middle class and small businesses, these large companies are all this country has, quite frankly. The government here is pretty worthless – taxing everything, multiple times (no protections from double taxation here) and is generally a huge obstacle to anyone becoming anything other than working class. The government has created a fairly permanent-feeling class system – with a ceiling just above working class and a very high threshold to finally emerge in an upper-middle/wealthy class. Safety nets for the poor in education, healthcare and pension have developed into walls that keep people dependent on a hand out – honing their skills for begging and victimhood rather than for adding productive value to the economy (which would be sucked up fairly quickly by the high taxes anyway).

The Free Market Prevents Monopolies

Written by Colin. Published on July 30, 2008 ago in Essays and Politics. 5 Comments

Perhaps the moment where I was convinced of the validity of capitalism as a completely sustainable and self-regulating system was reading this article by former colleague of Ayn Rand Nathaniel Branden. My largest objection to the unfettered, and unregulated free-market, had been my concern that the greed and selfishness that capitalism uses for public benefit would eventually create a monopolistic society with large companies unable to be stopped. But as Branded wrote:

The question is often asked: What if a large, rich company kept buying out its smaller competitors or kept forcing them out of business by means of undercutting prices and selling at a loss—would it not be able to gain control of a given field and then start charging high prices and be free to stagnate with no fear of competition? The answer is: No, it would not be able to do it. If a company assumed heavy losses in order to drive out competitors then began to charge high prices to regain what it had lost, this would serve as an incentive for new competitors to enter the field and take advantage of the high profitability, without any losses to recoup. The new competitors would force prices down to the market level. The large company would have either to abandon its attempt to establish monopoly prices—or else go bankrupt fighting off the competitors its own polices would attract.

There are many other remedies the free market has to bring about equilibrium – and shift market power away from large companies: defection.

Imagine for a moment that you are working for a widget company which, because of innovation in production, enjoys a 90% share of the market. You are getting paid $200,000 a year and you basically run the widget making system. If those above you begin to profit at a greater and greater margin than your work profits, then at some point you will decide it is worth the risk to defect and either start your own widget company or join the 10% competitor.

Many innovations in industry have come about because of this market-made incentive. In fact, Google is about to face new competition from within their own ranks:

[Anna] Patterson instead intends to upstage Google, which she quit in 2006 to develop a more comprehensive and efficient way to scour the Internet… Cuil had kept a low profile while Patterson, her husband, Tom Costello, and two other former Google engineers – Russell Power and Louis Monier – searched for better ways to search. …Patterson believes that’s at least three times the size of Google’s index, although there is no way to know for certain. Google stopped publicly quantifying its index’s breadth nearly three years ago when the catalog spanned 8.2 billion Web pages.

As Google grew larger, and made more and more money (by fulfilling customers wants and need at a better price and with better quality) their threat from competition also grew. That’s right, as a company comes closer and closer to monopoly, they will have a harder and harder time maintaining it – just the opposite of what many who support anti-monopoly legislation proclaim.

This offshoot of Google will be three times the size of its brother company, and possibly obtain even more profit. All of this to the benefit of consumers who can basically sit back and watch while the dollars stay in their pocket (from cheaper prices) and the products are made in greater abundance and with a higher quality.

Capitalism, if left to its own devices, with no regulation from government, will constantly move towards balance and fairness in business transactions. That even includes one of the greatest spectres invented to promote government intervention: monopolies.

Global Warming: Markets or Socialism? Part III

Written by Colin. Published on April 10, 2008 ago in Essays, General and Politics. 2 Comments

Presuming that global warming is indeed a pending crisis caused by pollution, we began (Part I) by looking at the two approaches one can take to solving this issue – a socialist solution, where resources protected, controlled, managed, utilized and/or distributed by the state as common property; or a capitalist solution, where resources are homesteaded as private property and managed through economic law.

It was then argued (Part II) that we have been attempting to solve environmental problems with socialism for some time, and capitalism is the only way out of the mess we’ve created via unintended consequences. In fact, global warming is an unintended consequence of socialism.

“Don’t Crap Where You Live”
The primary problem with the socialist solution is that there is no incentive for a person to “regulate” themselves on common property. I have seen this, for example, in every single one of my employer’s company kitchens. No matter where I work, there is always problems with the cleanliness of the corporate kitchen. People leave out dirty dishes and make messes for others to clean up – no one is responsible because “everyone” is responsible.

Private property, on the other hand, is someone’s capital asset. They need it to make profit of some kind – that could mean money, but it could just as easily mean psychological, moral or charitable profit. The point is that it is an asset to them rather than a dumping ground – it has real value. There is a principle hard-wired into many of nature’s creatures: “don’t crap where you live.” Private property would force polluters to “crap where they live.” Allow what is public and common to be “where someone lives” and they wont “crap” there.

The solution is to use the natural state of man – self-preservation, territorialism, value maximization, to harmonize with nature. The atmosphere is no different than any other part of nature, in that no one will care about it unless someone is using it. As soon as it is homesteaded, private property laws will apply like anything else. Just like you can’t go and dump your trash on my lawn, companies and individuals won’t be able to let their carbon go to the atmosphere.

Ideas for Implementation
Let’s look at some practical ways we can introduce these ideas.

Use the Court System - The first step is to go back to where we were in the 1860′s – people were allowed property rights in the air they homesteaded for breathing, sunlight, rain, etc… Lawsuits over pollution damages should not be laughed at and should instead be upheld and huge fines should be levied. The next time someone blows smoke in my face, I should be able to sue them (even for a nickel) on principle. If just one of the biggest polluters, such as the US, actually enforced their constitution and prosecuted all their factories, autos and so on that are damaging everyone’s air, then it would at least be started.

Allow Airlines to Homestead Air Tracts – Another possible way of “propertizing” would be allowing Airlines to homestead tracts of air. They would jump at this because the efficiency of running Rhumb Lines makes certain tracts of air very valuable. The airlines running these routs would now have a vested interest in not polluting their own airspace, because moving to other airspace costs in fuel, time, wages, etc…The point is that airlines themselves would have an incentive not to pollute in their air and they would be sued if they polluted in some other airline’s air.

Allow “Airfills” for Extra Carbon - What if we simply allowed companies to homestead tracts of air for storing pollution and carbon. There would likely be a rush for them. These “airfills” would fill up pretty fast with pollution, no doubt, and there’d be less and less air to fill. Meanwhile, every unit of fill would drive up the value of clean air as it becomes more and more scarce. Now there is a profit motive for cleaning air! Air cleaning companies may arise and create technology to purify old “airfills.” Just like water now: there’s no problem with water in more capitalistic countries. The market consistently generates profit signals in producing water, using water, then cleaning it again. It’s not even hard to imagine this with air. Moreover, maybe that technology allows weather stabilization, or ozone rebuilding or some other unintended good?
Continue reading ‘Global Warming: Markets or Socialism? Part III’