Author: Brandon Christensen

Right-wing Marxists and the libertarian’s lament

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Daniel McCarthy, the editor of The American Conservative, has a post up on the current “liberal” (Leftist) misreadings of how politics actually works:

Politics is just magic to [Leftists]. (Some of this comes of drawing the wrong lessons from Alinsky and Gramsci—wrong lessons the activist right is now busy committing to memory.)

The “lessons from Alinksy and Gramsci” that the Right is currently incorporating into its political program are none other than the tactics Leftists used during the heyday of communism to gain political power in the West.

Unfortunately, I think the Right is making a big mistake by copying a program that has failed the Left. Has it failed the Left? Or is communism an inevitable failure and tactics had nothing to do with it?

Governance is affected by movements. Does the Right want to be the new authoritarians? They’ve always been less authoritarian than the Left, but I see this changing especially if the Right continues to borrow tactics and ideas from the communist Left.

What is interesting is to watch how this all plays out. The Left’s playbook consists of delegitimizing people rather ideas or institutions. This leads to misdirected anger and makes it easier for opposition movements to seize the levers of power. It worked in the Anglo-American world, to a large extent (look at our educational systems, for example; they’re run by Marxists), but never more than superficially. Everybody knows, for example, which institutions have been captured by the Left. They know which institutions are Left-wing and which ones are not.

Why Rightists would want to copy this failed tactic is beyond me. The strength of classical liberalism has always been the resounding truth within its creed. It is truth that we march into battle with, not cheap tricks or ploys from the gutter.

It seems to me that the Right’s embrace of communist tactics comes mostly from one influential group of people in the US: conservative intellectuals with cultural ties to the Catholic or Mormon churches. To me I find this very weird, and while weirdness is definitely something I appreciate in my personal life I truly hope these tactics don’t trickle into the intellectual wing of the libertarian quadrant.

The spectacle of conservative intellectuals mimicking their Cold War adversaries two decades after winning – outright – the war of ideas is pathetic. You know where the ‘comments’ section is!

Weekend Question: What to do about the violence in South Sudan?

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As many of you may know, the recently-minted country of South Sudan has descended into civil war. I’m going to show you how this violence was actually predictable, but first I want to point out a couple of things.

  1. Why did South Sudan get international recognition and not Somaliland, which has been a functioning democracy for about twenty years now? I’ve got two theories: One of them has to do with Islam. The peoples in what is now South Sudan are Christians and animists and the Arabs they were fighting in Khartoum were Muslims. Theory 2 has to do with Western pseudo-guilt associated with its past, state-sponsored racism. The peoples of South Sudan are black and the people running Khartoum are not.  Neither of these theories makes sense, mind you, but I think this actually bolsters my thoughts on ‘why?‘.
  2. Where did the violence between South Sudan and Sudan go? These guys were duking it out over an oil-rich region just a few months ago and now I can’t find much about the conflict. I’ll bet Khartoum’s disappearance has to do with both Western threats and the realization that it could accomplish more behind the scenes, so to speak, by playing its former enemies (various black ethnic groups) off on each other.
  3. The violence between former allies in war against Khartoum is also worth musing about, if only for a moment. A bunch of different ethnic groups were former allies in the war against Arab Khartoum and now they are at each other’s throats. I don’t think ideology, specifically ethno-nationalism, is an issue here…yet. It won’t be for a long time. Ethno-nationalism seems to be something that shows up within a society after years and years of botched efforts by elites to mold a nation out of a post-colonial state.

Ok, back to the issue at hand. I’ve blogged a little bit about secession before, and one thing I like to remind readers of is that there is an underlying concept that is much more important than case studies. For instance, you can probably get a much better understanding of what is going on in South Sudan by reading this old piece by yours truly:

In fact, the West could help to turn this disaster into something quite worthwhile: Build an international consensus and recognize the independence of the fiefdoms.  If the West does this now, there is a good chance that local players will be more agreeable in their claims on territory.  To secure independence from a Leviathan like Libya would guarantee a period of time for the local fiefdoms to regroup and rebuild what Ghaddafi had destroyed.

A parallel can be drawn to the velvet divorce of the Czech Republic and Slovakia just after the collapse of the USSR.  What made the divorce “velvet” was international cooperation.  When the international community doesn’t play the game smart, however, divorces look more like Algeria, Indonesia, the Congo basin, the Balkans, and, of course, Somalia.

If the West is to “do something”, and I think it should in most cases, then pursuing diplomatic relations that focus on decentralized governance and international trade are a good way to start.

Can you see how this works? Just replace ‘Libya’ with ‘South Sudan’ and ‘Ghaddafi’ with ‘Khartoum’ and you have the right parameters in place for what needs to be done in regards to making secession in failed states work (I blogged a little bit more about these parameters in South Sudan here as well).

Here is the relevant map for our weekend question:

This is a map of South Sudan’s ethnic groups. It looks like Switzerland, to be honest, but unlike Switzerland South Sudan does not have the same institutional structures in place. Nor does this new country have the full support of the international community. There are plenty of condescending Leftists “monitoring” the country inside and out, but that’s about it.

If the West wants to play a role in helping to avert a violent downward spiral, then it would do well to quickly recognize the futility of South Sudan’s existence and start acknowledging the legitimacy of the fiefdoms. You know where the ‘comments’ section is!

The Iranian Nuclear Deal: An Agreement for All

Brandon Christensen Current Events, History, Politics , , , , , , , , , ,

[Editor’s note: the following is a short essay by Payam Ghorbanian. Payam was born in Tehran, Iran. He got his bachelor of science in Engineering from Zanjan University in Zanjan, Iran. He has been participating in liberal political activities and he was involved with some think tanks in Iran. He is doing research in the field of international relations and Iran’s foreign policy as an independent activist. He is now living in San Jose, California.

I cannot endorse this essay, but I am excited to post it because of its potential as a conduit for intercultural dialogue and exchange. I have left his essay largely intact, but did break up some of his longer paragraphs for clarity’s sake. Thanks to Payam for taking the time to write this.]

On November 24, Iran and the P5+1 group have reached to a historical deal on Tehran’s nuclear program at talks in Geneva, Switzerland. We might have difficulty to understand this process, the process which turns out the agreement to be real, so we must particularly take a look around to the real position of this group of countries plus Iran. It’s one of the Iranian’s attitude and way of thinking to say what they wanted to get and what they really ended up to.

In Iran, Hassan Rouhani was elected as a president on Jun 15, 2013. He is also known as one of the three people who talked to McFarlane in the Iran-Contra affair in 1985 about buying weapons during war between Iran & Iraq. During campaign for presidency, he said an extremely hopeful statement about nuclear program. He said: “It is good for nuclear centrifuges to operate, but it is also important that the country operates as well and the wheels of industry are turning.”

After he got elected, he put his faith in the right person and chose Mr. Mohammad Javad Zarif to be the minister of foreign affairs with the complete authority in action. Mr. Zarif was the permanent representative of Iran to the United Nations from 2002 to 2007. He is really familiar with the international policy regulations and the United States’ policy. Therefore, he was chosen to precede Iran’s nuclear negotiations and it was decided that the entire process would be carried out solely within his team.

It was one of the toughest situations for Iranian policy even though the middle class, especially the people who are living in the large cities, are incredibly united and hopeful for solving this nuclear issue; however, the extremists criticized any approach to any kind of agreement. For several years people of Iran have been feeling how sanctions can really cripple their destiny, economy, and their society structure. As a result of these effects, the rates of unemployment, bankruptcy, addiction, divorce, and prostitution have increased without any official and governmental justification. Therefore, we can consider the November 24th, 2013 as a distinguished and remarkable day in Iran’s modern history.

With the above introduction, let’s go through the text of the agreement for some details. It has been said:

“ … from the existing uranium enriched to 20%, retain half as working stock of 20% oxide for fabrication of fuel for the TRR. Dilute the remaining 20% UF6 to no more than 5%. No reconversion line…Iran announces that it will not enrich uranium over 5% for the duration of the 6 months.”

Although Mr. Zarif announced that according to the agreement, enriching uranium under the 5% is now acceptable and claimed it as a big win for Iran, the majority of the people in Iran really do not care about this subject. They expect the removal of all sanctions and this was the reason that they were following the negotiations and they remained awake up until the agreement came out, which at that time was really late at local time in Iran.

After all these trials and tribulations, now you can find out how hope for the future can make our nation more united. The people clearly understand that it is not the end of the negotiations and it is just the start of long way and they are looking forward to the next 6 month. For the people, it is not just about nuclear program; it is more about their life and their children’s future. President Rouhani is now in the right place and with the supports of Iranians. We hope his social policy would be more flexible as well and we can see more freedom in the society.

We are not going to discuss here the Europe United’s policy during this long term negotiation with Iran. They always want to reserve the important positions for themselves; however, they usually get to every negotiation which others have already accepted. For the people of Iran, the Europeans are best known as those trying to prolong every issue.

On the other hand The Europeans always push the solution to the curb and then try to get back to the first step and ultimately get to the agreement and to take one step further. With flopping back and forth, the conclusion usually would never come out. People of Iran had been disappointed of this kind of policy. From Iranian’s point of view, France should be responsible for the last unsuccessful talks on November 9th. Unfortunately they are unreliable partner for this region.

After all these, it is now time to shift our focus to the president Obama’s foreign policy about Middle East during the last year. Not that far ago, Syria used chemical weapons and crossed the red line, which was mentioned by president Obama before. Moreover, United Nation confirmed that there was no doubt of such use of chemical weapon from Syrians regime. However, instead of taking military action, president Obama decided to follow Russians in this crisis and he still tries to solve this issue through the UN. As a fact, it is clear that in order to go through the UN path to solve this crisis, United States has to deal with Russians and Chinese, since they have the authority to block international actions through the Security Council.

It is a fact that the Syrian’s people have been killed during the last three years. However, it seems that this fact is going to be ignored and denied. On the other side, Obama’s policy in this case would let the conservative countries like Qatar or Saudi Arabia to take part in this eternal disaster.  They can easily get rid of their extremist religious groups by allowing them to attend in this catastrophic war in Syria. Also due to the fact of this important unsolved problem in Syria, the pressure of human rights activities and other internal problems in their countries would be neglected. With this aspect of Syria’s crisis and also the failing of Arab spring, having an agreement with Iran is essential for Obama’s policy to get through these consecutive unsuccessful affairs. However, Israel’s prime minister tries to call this agreement as a historical mistake.

Great Britain has recently announced that they are concerned about total failure in Iran because of sanctions. After Great Britain evacuated all embassy staff from Iran in November 2011, now it seems that they are going to open relations with Iran following the election of President Rouhani. Undoubtedly they know the Middle East region much better than anyone else. They know this failure can affect Afghanistan, Iraq and the entire Middle East region. As a result, Britain has consecutively tried to help Iran and U.S. to approach to the final steps of negotiations.

On the other side, China is known as fatal mistake in economic partnership for Iranians during the last 10 years. Chinese took advantage of unjust situation of Iran and also destroyed industries in Iran are caused by importing cheap Chinese products. They have initially accepted the UN sanctions and have blocked about 50 billion dollars of Iran’s money in their banks; however, they ultimately should be happy of this agreement which definitely will moderate oil price and open up the gate of Iran’s market for Chinese investments.

Clearly with their foreign policy being so close to Iran, it is just a pose for Chinese in order to help them to precede their policy in southeast Asia using Iran’s threat for pushing away Chinese threat. Couple weeks ago they extended “air defense identification zones” which it seems will be accepted by United States. There is a common trend for all nations which can be written in this way that you are not going to consider as a powerful country if you just want to please yourself.

Finally, Russia should be indeed considered as the biggest winner of this agreement as well as the Middle East situation. Moreover, with the intent of being leader of the entire world, they forced other countries to accept their decisions on Syria’s crisis and by having this virtual confidence, now they really have plans to ruin all aspects of the free world. On September 12th, President Putin decisively took an issue with president Obama. His article was about United States people and he mentioned: “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional.”

However, president Obama decided to ignore this article and show respect to the new Russia. I believe working with Russia about Syria’s crisis and choosing non-interventionism for Ukraine crises would be one of the Obama’s failures in the U.S. foreign policy. Now this agreement would help Russia and obviously president Putin to take the rein of power more and more. At the end if Russia and China find out that there are not any obstacles around, they will never ever conceal their ambitious points.

From the Comments: Iran, Nationalism and Satire

Brandon Christensen Comments, Current Events, History , , , , , , , , ,

Siamak helps to clarify some things about contemporary Iranian culture that have been mischaracterized or misunderstood in the West:

Great article. About Iran part I wanted to leave a comment about two things. Fernanda Lima’s facebook page issue was so insulting and shameful. But it’s not like that Iranians are really blaming her for not having hijab. It was a sarcasm of state-run media. It was like now that we don’t have any hope for state TV to stop censorship you why didn’t you wear a better clothes. State-run TV does show foreign eomen with no hijab in movies, news, etc. But those beautiful breasts…! :-)

You should recognize the Iranian culture to know what I mean. Although it was insulting and shameful but they’re not really blaming her. It was a sarcasm of Iranian media.

The second part goes to the Iranian Nationalism. You’re right. After the Islamic Revolution, Islamic republic was completely against nationalists. That time most of the political groups were Islamic groups or Radical communists and socialists. The only liberwl group were called Nezhat Azadi (Liberty Movement) which were Moderate Liberal Muslim Nationalists. After the revolution Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic groups were completrly against nationalism. They were thinking that Islam should be the common thing between all Iranians. After 1998 that president khatami came this was going to change and Nationalism was again advertised by the government. Extreme nationalism in Iran is sourced from these two events: showing disagreement with the Islamic Radicals and the great history of Iran which has made Iranians extremely illusory about themselves.

Me myself think I’m a nationalist. But there’s a bit difference. Nationalism is not a goal for me. It’ just a medium or instrument for me. I completely believe in globalization and Peter Singer’s globalization is one of my favourite books. But I think nationalism is a medium to get closer to modernism. That’s it.

I suspect Siamak’s nationalism is a lot like the American libertarian’s patriotism.

The political Left and violence: An uncomfortable, subconscious symbiosis

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Politics , , , , , , , ,

I recently set up a Twitter account (you can follow me here; you can follow Notes On Liberty here) and after a couple of days of using its newsfeed I’ve decided to tally up the number of tweets from Leftists that either call for outright violence or allude to violence against their political enemies. Now obviously these guys are joking and I don’t think that any of them actually mean what they say, but the fact that this project even struck me as something to do is flabbergasting.

I think the fact that there are so many allusions to violence – against political enemies – in my newsfeed, combined with the recent labors of the media to rid the Colorado school shooter’s political leanings from the narrative of that particular story, has put me at unease* and made me particularly sensitive to the culture of ‘high’ media.

The allusions to violence harbor an authoritarian tendency that I think often goes unnoticed. I didn’t notice anything until a couple of days ago. Yet they are there, in plain sight. You can find these appeals and allusions to violence on the Right as well, but not from the people and organizations I follow on Twitter.

For example, I don’t follow rednecks or Party activists but rather professors, journalists, wonks and publication outlets that I think provide great, in-depth insights into the world around me. Most of these individuals and organizations are Left-leaning, and I have yet to ever (ever) see an appeal to violence coming from an intellectual conservative or libertarian organization. I see it from the intellectual Left so often that I am now going to start tallying such outbursts.

This is worrisome for a bunch of reasons, but three stand out to me:

  1. Joking about violence is not very funny; Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert don’t do it, and now we know why
  2. The hypocrisy coupled with the veiled and not-so-veiled threats against political enemies is nothing short of barbarism
  3. It convincingly shows just how shallow Leftist thought has become; resorting to violence in an argument is, as we all know, a sign of defeat

Added together, these three major reasons make a solid foundation for a fascistic political movement. Look at my most recent ‘favorited’ tweet, from an assistant editor for The New Republic:

“If I were running Bloomberg View…the thing I would most want would be for Bloomberg to get hit by a bus.”

Ha. Ha. This is hilarious, right?

These are the same people who, in the wake of many mass shootings, have claimed that one of Sarah Palin’s campaign websites was indirectly responsible for senseless acts of violence (because of animated target signs that hovered over a map).

Disgusting, and yet there is a definite silver lining in all of this. Reason #3, as outlined above, is largely responsible for the intellectual Left’s impotence and fetish for domestic political violence.

Violence and the lust for power have gone virtually hand-in-hand with Leftism since the mid-19th century, of course, and this is largely because their plans for humanity are simply not feasible. And these plans, in turn, are not feasible because they are not congruent with reality.

Let me see if I can illustrate my point by digressing for a moment. Benito Mussolini was a Leftist his entire life. National socialism for German workers was a child of the Left. Maoism and Leninism were Leftist to the core. All were violent. All failed miserably and yet I see the underpinnings of these philosophies – these worldviews – in the rhetoric of the present-day American Left.

Not good. Nor is it good that the present-day Left denies its own bloodlines. Conservatives and libertarians are often quick to fess up to any historical misdeeds done in the name of their ideologies. Not so with the Left. I think this may have to do with the fact that while Leftist regimes were responsible for hundreds of millions of unnecessary deaths in the 20th century alone there are very few historical misdeeds perpetrated in the name of classical liberalism.

At any rate, I’ll keep you all updated on my tally. In the name of justice I will also keep a tally on tweets of violent fantasies that go out in the name of libertarianism or conservatism. My sampling size is small, of course. I only follow intellectuals and publications that give voice to intellectuals. This will be interesting.

* The fact that an evil person’s political views have been marginalized is not what is important. I think such views (if any) should be, as there is obviously something other than a shooter’s political leanings that is responsible for the horrific violence. What is important is the fact that if this shooter had been a self-identified conservative or libertarian it would have been plastered all over the news and it would still be getting air time as you read this.

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links , , , , , ,
  1. The media’s shooting bias. An excellent take on the hypocrisy of the media. (read David Henderson’s take, too)
  2. Conservation Native American style (grab a cup of coffee)
  3. The mission to decentralize the internet; interesting argument, though I don’t think the internet is as centralized as the author makes it out to be.
  4. Doug Bandow on North Korea’s ongoing purges
  5. Blast from the past: What did Marxism look like in Mozambique in the 1980s?

Somebody wake Dr Delacroix from his midday, wine-induced nap

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For the first time in 112 years, snow has fallen in Cairo, Egypt. I haven’t been to that side of the Mediterranean yet. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to, but I can’t believe it’s snowing there. It seems like it’s been cold everywhere over the past couple of weeks.

Dr Delacroix, if he weren’t off somewhere sulking, would be ecstatic. (h/t Aliens in the Family)

Middle Eastern Musings: Why I Blog

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The news from Syria seems to have dwindled to nothing in the last couple of months. The hawks have focused their continued, never ending ire on the peace process between Tehran and Washington that the Obama administration has courageously initiated. The lack of news is too bad, of course, since the (quite unintended) consequences of Western meddling in the region are now beginning to be felt by everyday Syrians. PRI (“you’re listening to The World”) reports on the misery Syrians are now forced to endure:

It’s been a trying week for Syria. The United States and Britain suspended providing even non-lethal aid to the country. A prominent Syrian opposition leader has gone missing. And now winter has brought snow and cold weather.

The cause of suspended aid? Why, the fact that the anti-Assad national socialists have lost out to the Islamists militarily, politically and economically, of course. Instead of letting the anti-Assad national socialists fight it out with the pro-Assad national socialists and the Islamists – which would have produced a quick winner and thus reduced the suffering of Syrians – the West remained content to heavily arm the least prominent faction involved in the fighting (the anti-Assad national socialists). The result, of course, has been the continued bleeding of Syrian society as a war that could have ended years ago continues to drag on.

In Iran, a mild brouhaha has emerged over the censorship of most of the World Cup draw in Brazil (Iran’s national soccer team made the World Cup, and the draw – a huge deal in most of the sporting world – was held in Brazil, which is hosting the event next year). According to PRI, the state-run media in Iran had to censor most of the draw’s coverage due to the lack of coverage on Brazilian supermodel Fernanda Lima’s big, beautiful breasts.

While the effects of the state-run media are fairly straightforward, I find the cultural implications of this episode to be most fascinating. PRI reports:

The Islamic Republic doesn’t allow women deemed to be dressed immodestly on television, so every time the camera focused on Lima, the picture was dropped on Iranian TV.

This made for terrible viewing for Iranian soccer fans waiting to find out who Iran was going to be playing at the World Cup.

So, who do Iranians blame for this debacle? Lima or FIFA? The many abusive messages left on Lima’s Facebook page seem to suggest they are blaming her.

Comments ranged from insults to suggestions she should have worn a hijab, so everybody around the globe could watch the draw.

The abuse got so bad Lima had to take down her Facebook page. But then, a lot of Iranians started to apologize for the abuse, saying Iranians are not really like this. This, in turn, triggered posts by Brazilians saying, not to worry, Iranians are still welcome in Brazil.

Nationalism is prevalent in Iranian society, but so is a yearning to open up to the world. In my anecdotal experiences, I have found this nationalism to be very common among all young men in the non-Arab Muslim world. I suspect this nationalism is also prevalent in places like the Balkans and Arab Mediterranean world as well. I have no reason for suspecting this, except for the fact that in each of these parts of the world, relatively young states exist but nations are still being defined.

In Western Europe and, to a lesser extent Japan and South Korea, states and nations have long ago melded together through wars, policy battles, trade and sophisticated diplomacy. Along the peripheries of these areas the narrative of nation and state has not occurred, and may never occur (this type of nationalism is altogether absent from the New World republics for a number of fascinating-but-digressing reasons). I think the factions that encourage this narrative, national socialists all of them, are just as bad for their respective societies as are the conservatives (Islamists in the Muslim world, monarchists in other parts, Confucianists-cum-communists in China, etc., etc.). Only liberalism can bring about peace and prosperity to these societies.

The people apologizing for the actions of their fellow Iranians are a natural fit for liberalism’s humble creed. Unfortunately, I think the national socialists and the conservatives know this, and therefore advocate for policies that will keep their societies insular (and apart from the world of ideas that only liberalism has produced).

This brings me to a final thought for the day: What can I do about this, if anything? The regimes that hawks wish to destroy are bad guys, to be sure, but I have yet to see a regime that has been destroyed by an outside power give way to a regime that is benevolent and just. In fact, often these new regimes are worse than those they have replaced. The battle for ideas can only be won with the pen, and wars will only ever be won by ideas.

This realization, I think, is why I continue to write and to blog. Thanks for reading and, more importantly, for adding your thoughts to my own in the ‘comments’ section.

Great (new?) resource for historical economic data

Brandon Christensen Economics, History, Links , , ,

UC Davis’s Global Price and Income History Group has a new website up (at least I think it’s new) and it’s got a lot of really, really good data. (h/t again goes to contributing editor Claudio Shikida)

Around the Web: Globalization, Racism and Surfing

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links , , , , ,
  1. Check out this fascinating reddit thread on ‘blackness’ in the US and the UK. As somebody who has spent a fair amount of time outside of the US, and who is interested in ethnicity from a scholarly perspective, the answers were nothing new to me, but it’s always nice when the streets confirm your suspicions.
  2. A beautiful photo essay on surfing in Liberia. I wish there were a traditional essay to go along with the photos, but it still suffices.

I think there are too many people in the world who don’t think hard enough about the benefits of globalization (i.e. world trade). As populism continues to gain traction here in the US (and elsewhere I presume), I fear that the everyday beauty a more globalized world gives to us will be thrown under the bus in the name of The People.

Is the European Union “socialist”?

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The short answer is ‘no’, but first, Justin Raimondo writes:

The EU is a failed socialist experiment that exists to fund a huge (and hugely arrogant) bureaucracy and impose a bloodless ideological abstraction over and above the authentic nationalisms it seems to subsume. It is deeply authoritarian in that it provides no mechanism for member states to withdraw, and its super-centralist model is a prescription for tyranny if ever there was one. When a referendum is held on EU membership, and the results aren’t to the pro-EU side’s liking, the election is simply ignored and the Eurocrats mount yet another campaign until the “right” result is achieved.

I thought I’d highlight this paragraph for a couple of reasons:

1. It explains the tensions inherent in the EU from a nationalist viewpoint (as opposed to the internationalist view most often espoused on this blog), and the tensions between defining the place of centralized and decentralized power in a society. Although Raimondo’s hyperbole might cause some of us to blush, I think it actually adds to the depth of the nationalist argument as it better captures the sentiments of these factions. That is to say, I think the nationalists in this debate are a bit more boorish than the internationalists and as such Raimondo exemplifies their arguments despite being an American.

2. It shows why facts are important and in the long run much more valuable. Socialism, by definition, is the state ownership of the means of production. Is there anything about the EU that suggests it wants to “nationalize” industry? Anything at all? Of course not, which is why you often find populists – even of the “libertarian” kind – to be hyperbolic, arbitrary and vague in their arguments (for a better treatment of populism, see this old piece here at NOL). In the long run getting these definitions right is important. Slandering a faction or an organization you don’t like as ‘socialist’ (or ‘bourgeois’) may earn you a couple of brownie points from the peanut gallery, but you are very likely to steadily lose influence in the arena of ideas by peddling such drivel.

The EU is a confederation of states (much like the pre-Civil War US) and entry and exit are entirely voluntary. The EU, more than any other institution save for perhaps the US military, is responsible for the unencumbered peace throughout Western Europe since the end of World War 2. To suggest that the EU is somehow ‘socialist’ not only confuses younger, more susceptible readers but it also weakens one’s own arguments. If, for example, Raimondo is going to label the EU as ‘socialist’ when it clearly is not, what should I think about his arguments when he labels Israel as ‘fascist’ or Russia as a ‘defender of national sovereignty’?

Foreign policy is an important component of libertarianism, and if we continually allow our arguments to be defined by populist organizations like Raimondo’s antiwar.com then I fear libertarians will continue to be (rightly) ignored in the more traditional venues of foreign policy discussion.

Free Trade in Asia

Brandon Christensen History, Links , , , , , , ,

When you get the chance, check out this working paper on market integration and Asia during the 19th and early 20th centuries by David Chilosi and Giovanni Federico. The abstract:

This paper contributes to the debate on globalization and the great divergence with a comprehensive analysis of trends, causes and effects of the integration of Asia in the world market from 1800 to the eve of World War Two, based on a newly compiled data-set. The analysis finds that: most price convergence occurred before 1870, with only little disintegration in the inter-war years; market integration was determined to a large extent by the fall of Western trading monopolies; it implied significant static welfare gains and emerges as a major cause of substantial improvements in the terms of trade.

Again. the whole paper is worth reading. I think I might be more interested in it because of my own work on Dutch colonialism in southeast Asia and the collapse of the Dutch East Indies Company (a state-sponsored monopoly). With that being said, the paper is one of those “big picture” reads that folks of all disciplines ought to be interested in.

One of the most interesting aspects I found in the paper had to do with foreign trade. It has become popular nowadays to focus on institutions within a society for explanations on why some nations are rich and others are poor. This paper suggests that while institutions may be important, it is just not institutions that are careful to include domestic factions that are important for prosperity. The institutions that are created to deal with foreign affairs (mostly trade and diplomacy) also play an important role in the health and wealth of societies. (h/t goes to co-blogger Claudio Shikida)

The Tyranny of Ambiguity: “Hate Speech” laws in Japan and subtle Western imperialism

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Politics , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Economist Tyler Cowen linked to the following report in the Washington Post about a supposed increase in enmity between Japanese citizens and Korean expats in Tokyo’s Koreatown. Setting aside all of the hyperbole on the part of the Post concerning rising tensions, and setting aside the interesting fact that there is a Koreatown in Tokyo, and setting aside the fact that there seems to be an increase in nationalism throughout the developed world, I’d like to focus on the Post‘s advocacy of “hate speech” laws. The Post reports:

“Japan is right now at a crisis point,” said Yoshifu Arita, a [Left-wing] lawmaker who is campaigning for new laws to regulate hate speech. “A situation like this — people getting so publicly hostile — never happened in the seven decades after the war until now.” […] In 1995, Japan did accede to the United Nations’ convention to eliminate racial discrimination, including hate speech, but its parliament has not passed legislation to enforce that treaty commitment. Its reluctance, experts and politicians say, stems from a separate war-era legacy — the wholesale suppression of anti-government dissent. Japan created free-speech laws to prevent a repetition of that censorship, and many still oppose the idea of regulating speech, said Kenta Yamada, a media law professor at Senshu University. The Japanese government’s hope, Yamada said, is to reduce hate speech with education and enlightenment, not with new laws.

Now I think we can all agree that ethno-nationalism is a bad thing, and there has been a rise in ethno-nationalism throughout the world since the 2007-2008 economic crisis began. However, I hope we can all equally agree that squelching free speech in the name of an imposed tolerance would be a much, much worse outcome.

“Hate speech,” of course, is ambiguous and invites arbitrary censorship. The fact that the Leftist politician pushing for the assault on free speech is employing the language of crisis does nothing to relieve my suspicions of her intentions.

This piece brought up three more quick thoughts in my mind:

  1. The report states, in the above quoted passage, that Japan created free speech laws after the war. This is all well and good for the most part, but I’ll never tire of reminding people that the right to free speech cannot be created by government. Free speech is a natural human right, and as such it is impossible for governments to create free speech. For example, what would happen if Japan had not created free speech laws after the war? Would free speech not exist? It’s possible, but this could only be true if governments had laws in place prohibiting free speech.
  2. Is it just me, or did the reporter – a Western Leftist – come off as sounding a bit imperialistic in his subtext?
  3. Imagine what a federal incorporation with the US would do for ethnic relations between Koreans and Japanese.

College Football Blurb

Brandon Christensen Current Events ,

Ohio State versus Florida State for the national championship? What a joke. The national championship should be played between the SEC and PAC-12 champions. These champions play the toughest schedules in the nation by virtue of their conferences, and it is ludicrous when the shot at a title is awarded to schools that are not in these two conferences. Remember last year’s “championship” game between Alabama and Notre Dame? Just imagine what would’ve happened if Alabama had to play Oregon instead. There might’ve been a game to watch.

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links , , , , , , , ,
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  2. Persuading the Scots in regards to secession from the UK
  3. The prospects of Scottish secession from the UK
  4. The waxing and waning schools of economics: Chicago, Vienna and San Francisco
  5. Cooperation Emerging: Institutional diversity and the history of the West