Current Events

A Warm Welcome

Brandon Christensen Current Events , , ,

Ladies and germs, may I present to you our newest member here at the consortium: Audrey Redford!

Audrey is currently a second year Ph.D. student in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at Texas Tech University. She also works as a Graduate Research Assistant for the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University. Audrey graduated from James Madison University in 2012 with a B.B.A. in Economics with a concentration in Political Economy.  Her research interests include Austrian economics & political economy, particularly their applications to analysis of the War on Drugs in the United States. She hails from Richmond, Virginia.

Her debut post can be found here. I’m extremely excited about having Audrey on board.

Breaking Bad Policy of Drug Prohibition (spoiler alert).

Audrey Redford Current Events, Economics, Law , , , , ,

I would argue that the only positive thing that has come out of the War on Drugs is awesome TV. From The Wire to Breaking Bad, illegal drug markets have brought us entertaining and groundbreaking television, but at what cost? As Breaking Bad has sadly come to an end, I would like to look at how things might have been different for Walter White and friends in a world without the drug prohibition. While I loved the adrenaline rush I experienced watching every episode, the violence and death highlighted in the show is indicative of a major problem.

Let’s assume for a moment that prior to the creation of the show, the U.S. government ended drug prohibition. Unlike what many paternalistic politicians would like you to think, the world would not descend into utter chaos or come to a grinding halt. How would this effect the show? Well, first and foremost, there would be no DEA (high five, hell yes)… thus Walter would have never gone on the ride-along that ultimately led him to a reunion with Jesse Pinkman. It is also likely that Walt would never consider drug manufacturing as a means to solving his money problem for cancer treatment. Why do I say this? The profit margin of the caliber in the show would not likely exist in a world outside of drug prohibition. In the illegal markets, the cost and risk associated with engaging in illegal activity and possibly getting caught serve as very costly barriers to entry. There are also sizable costs associated with self-regulation in illegal markets because the court system is not an available outlet for settling disputes. This drastically limits the number of producers willing to participate in the market.

Consider the circumstances surrounding the murder of Combo (Jesse’s friend that was shot by that young kid for selling on the wrong turf). There was an implicit contract that highlighted who could sell where, and at the urging of Jesse’s quest to build his empire, Combo started selling in neighborhoods that “belonged” to a rival drug gang. In illegal markets, how do you set an example that your turf cannot be taken? You resort to violence to make an example of what will happen to anyone who tries to disregard your jurisdiction. Furthermore, the legal recourse in a murder associated with other illegal activity is complicated. Jesse could not simply go to the police and explain that Combo’s death was a result of a drug turf dispute without implicating himself in a slue of crimes. However, if the drug prohibition component was absent from this equation, the rival gang would have not have used murder in order to solve the problem. For example, do you hear of a CVS owner shooting a new-to-the-area Walgreen’s owner for opening a new location? But even in the unlikely event that this happens, because there is not any illegal activity taking place outside of the act of murder, all parties involved can provide the necessary authorities (ideally private policing companies… but that is a blog post for a later time) the information needed to bring the murderers to justice without fear of being punished. This would allow Jesse to use the court system to punish the rival drug gang members rather attempting to murder them himself (and successfully killing them thanks to Walt’s fatherly instinct and his Pontiac Aztek).

Absent that extensive (but not exhaustive) list of costs brought on by the nature of illegal markets, many potential drug producers can move into enter the market. This forces the price of the goods sold to decrease, lessening the profits available to each drug producer. Thus, the sizable profit margin that led Walt down the road of methamphetamine production would not be as high in a world with legal production (at least on the scale of production consisting of Walt and Jesse in a trailer… However, if he started his own pharmaceutical company specializing in meth, that would be a different story… one that I hope to elaborate on soon, highlighting how ending the War on Drugs is only part of the battle).

Another situation that could have been avoided was the virtual enslavement of Walt and Jesse by Gus Fring. Once again, the hold that Gus had over Walt and Jesse (knowledge and proof of their involvement in countless felony-crimes) would be a non-issue outside of a prohibition state. The same could be said about the situation when Tuco initially refused to pay Jesse for his product. Breaking Bad is full of the issues associated with the limited ability for individuals to establish, execute, and enforce contracts. With substantially better defined property rights and access to a court system to settle disputes without fear of being punished, drug producers would not need to engage in violence to settle these disputes.

So where does this leave us? Well, it would leave us with a rather boring TV show where the most exhilarating dilemma is which daycare Skyler & Walt will choose for baby Holly. No more train heists, no more wheelchair bombs, and no more car trunk machine guns. Though I do love my fellow Richmonder’s directorial and writing brilliance (Vince Gilligan, you are the man), I would be willing to trade it any day for a freer state devoid of the devastating effects inflicted on all of our lives (directly or indirectly) by the War on Drugs.

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links , , , , , , , , , , ,
  1. Ken White has the best post of the year (so far) on free speech
  2. Angelo Codevilla on the US’s god-awful intelligence apparatus
  3. Reclaiming fairness as a precept of commerce. Bart Wilson argues that we’ve been a-travelin’ down the wrong path.
  4. Contra Dr Delacroix‘s thoughtful argument, Jon Harrison thinks the GOP is terminally stupid
  5. Imagining a remapped Middle East: Robin Wright muses about how 5 countries could become 14 (and a map for context)
  6. A ‘comments’ thread on a libertarian blog in which a lone libertarian takes on some of the neo-reactionary elements that Andrew has been blogging about.

The Federal Shutdown, the Debt Ceiling and an Extremist’s Morning After

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , , , , , , , ,

The fake government “shutdown” is already over. I hardly had time to enjoy it. I was just beginning to make a list of federal services that are “non-essential” according to the federal government itself. I was kind of hoping that the EPA, for example, would bite the dust. I does not seem fair.

The debt ceiling problem is also dealt with for the time being. It’s another expression of the same underlying problem that led to the “shutdown.” (See below.)

OK, after the crisis that just ended temporarily, it feels to conservatives like Great Britain in August 1944. The Luftwaffe rules the skies. Our few remaining pilots keep getting shot down. Our central city is bombed nightly. Everyone else who is civilized has already folded. Nightly, they are opening the Champagne in Berlin. We stand alone. It does not mean that we are wrong to stand.

Still, it also feels like the morning after. Time to look into it.

The so-called crisis is suspended for about four months. Nothing is solved. The Republicans collectively took a public opinion drubbing, it’s true. Speaking for myself, I will repeat what I said earlier: I am not attached to the Republican Party. I care only about limited government conservatism. Until now, the Republican Party was a not-so-bad vehicle for that view of the world. If it does not have the backbone to carry it further, so be it. Yes, I think that even if there is no other likely large vehicle in sight. I want to avoid pointless imaginings about my meaning by saying it clearly: What I fear most is not just another electoral defeat but a meaningless and useless electoral defeat such as the Republican Party suffered in the last presidentials. What hurts the most is the large number of nominal Republicans who just stayed home. Gov. Romney’s program was not the hill you want to die for. Gov. Romney was not the kind of commander who could induce you to die for that hill.

Here is the central conservative issue in a capsule. The phony government shutdown and the reappearing debt ceiling issue are parts of the same dark cloud:

A federal government that is deeply and routinely corrupt as well as shockingly incompetent keeps borrowing mindlessly to sustain the ordinary business of government.

It’s despotic; its’ a waste of resources; most of all, it’s immoral.

The mindless, nearly automatic borrowing is the worst part.

Myself, I think that I, my children and the federal government should only borrow under two circumstances:

  1. When the loan is to be applied directly to the acquisition of a tool that will contribute to greater earnings in the proximate future. I use the word “tool” liberally. Better freeways, for example, could easily qualify.
  2. When there is a strong presumption that we will earn more tomorrow . That’s with or without the condition in 1 above. This is separate. In the case of a country, for example demographic growth may by itself create such a presumption.

The present federal government’s borrowing fulfills neither condition. It’s borrowing to meet everyday expense. It’s as if I borrowed to buy bread for my lunch sandwich. There is also no reason so far to believe that the United States economy will grow a great deal tomorrow. (This could change the day after tomorrow if we had, for example, sudden access to new cheap energy. The Obama administration is doing its best to prevent precisely this from happening – Makes you think along dark lines, doesn ‘t it?)

Routine even legal, systemic federal government corruption: The widow of (wealthy) Senator Lautenberg received $174,000 from Congress because her husband took the trouble to die while in office. (WSJ 10/18/13, p. A12)

Federal Government incompetence: See the health insurance exchanges, in preparation for four years! Enough said! Note: I am not sure whether I am more afraid that its implementation will succeed or that it will continue to fail in exemplary fashion.

Mindless federal borrowing: It has become an integral part of the culture that the government must borrow to live. I said “integral part of the culture.” Below, an illustration I could not invent if I wanted to.

Larry Fink is the CEO of BlackRock, by some defensible measure, the largest investment firm in the world. Mr Fink said 10/16/13 or 10/17/13 (WSJ):

I have been in this business for 37 years. For 34 years I did not know there was such a thing as a debt ceiling.

Our point exactly! One of the highest placed business executives in the land takes government borrowing so much for granted that he does not know it’s subject to Congress-imposed limitations. He even sounds incensed when he learns the truth.

That’s what makes us conservatives, “extremists.”

Why do I care? I care because, unless there is another wave of fast economic growth lasting for several years, we are guaranteeing that our children and grand children will live in poverty. It’s wrong; it’s immoral.

And then, there is the growing phoniness of the public discourse including discourse by the mainstream privately owned press.

During the two days following the cessation of the pretend-government “shutdown,” the main media are eager to pretend that the multitudes feel great relief. They talk as if the average folks out there had experienced tremendous suffering because federal non-essentials were furloughed. I, for one, feel no relief at all. I don’t know anyone who does. (Agree, it’s an unsystematic sample but it’s a sample.) This is all the media’s deliberate exaggeration or a misplaced identification with federal public servants. It’s becoming more and more obvious that such public servants are overpaid and that they enjoy too many unearned privileges. (State public servants also, in some states, such as mine, California.) I don’t identify. It pisses me off. The more I know, the more pissed off I am.

They, the mainstream media, echo dumbly the noises coming from the administration about the alleged “costs” of the “shutdown” to the national economy. No one takes the trouble to do a net calculus, even to raise the issue of a net calculus. Isn’t it true that for each day certain federal bureaucracies are unable to do their job, some of the main producers in the nation are better able to produce? Again, the EPA comes to mind. And the IRS, of course. And a number of federal agencies whose names I don’t even know.

Besides, it’s an empty formula, a truism that (theoretical) wealth that fails to be produced usually is not regained, as the administration says gravely.

N. S. ! That’s what happens with Columbus Day and with Presidents’ Day, for example. (When only public servants and bank employees don’t work. When nearly the whole private sector keeps on producing wealth.) Why not cancel both holidays if non-production is a cause for worry? Why not make federal public servants come to work on both days if the president is worried? He only need issue an executive order. Bet you, he won’t even mention the possibility. And why do I have to state the obvious? Why aren’t the media doing their job? Have they been hypnotized? And, I almost forgot: if the president loses sleep over the missed production of federal employees, he could imitate the French in reverse and institute the federal forty-four hours work week. Would anyone notice?

Something else does not add up in the media’s discourse. For days, during the so-called “shutdown,” both administration officials and supposedly independent pundits threatened us with a world economic abyss because of number of non-essential federal employees were prevented from going to work. (I am not making this up; I am not exaggerating that we were told this ad nauseum; go back to those recent days, you will be amazed.) Yet, the day he current agreement is announced, the day we jumped form the edge of the supposed abyss, the markets reacted limply. The Dow Jones Industrial gained a lackluster 175 points that day. Now, that’s nice; it’s a gain for sure. However it’s no more of a gain than happens, for example, when the international price of the oil barrel comes down by ten dollars. The next day, the Dow Jones was flat. Trouble over; no big deal after all. Forget what we said yesterday. Forget the alarm. We were just kidding!

The Republican cave-in saves us from falling into the Grand Canyon and the market gives us a small hot dogs party by way of celebration! Does it make sense?

President Obama’s deftness never ceases to amaze me. No mistake seems to stick to him. On the day of the agreement, he declared that the new debt ceiling is not really debt. No one in the mainstream press questioned this absurd statement. Let me repeat, by the way, that I don’t think he is lying. He really does not know better. Academia is overflowing with his type of intelligent ignorance.

Perhaps, I am not grasping what’s going on, culturally. Perhaps, the reservoir of white American guilt concerning the long atrocity that was slavery, concerning racial segregation and discrimination also, is far from exhausted. Perhaps, the president can write checks on this for a long time to come. Or maybe, as Rush Limbaugh suggested, he struck a giant chord with the millions by giving them a chance to see themselves as victims. If you are a victim, almost any grotesque behavior is permissible. Soon only my wife, our grown children and I will be the only non-victims left in America. It will be a lonely existence. And, I wonder how long we will be able to support the victims because two of us are long retired (thus mirroring American demographics to come).

At one point one of Mr Obama’s servants referred gravely to the global reputational damage the shutdown has caused to the United States. (I don’t remember exactly who or when but I heard it with my own ears.) The “red line” in Syria about using chemical weapons does not in any way affect the credibility of the US, I suppose. The hundreds of civilians who died from chemical weapons died and all is forgiven. In the words of Pres. Obama’s former Secretary of State, “What difference does it make now?”

The day after the agreement the president gave another speech in which he advised those who don’t like something to just win elections in order to be able to change the something. I don’t think it was mistake. It was Freudian slip. President Obama does not believe that tea party Senators and Representatives who oppose him so tenaciously were just as elected as he was. It sounds familiar to me because I know history rather well and French history very well. The weakling tyrant, Louis-Napoleon, the Emperor Napoleon the Third (there was no Second) was initially elected. His supporters really thought that if you were elected by a sizable majority, you were morally allowed to do anything. They thought that was democracy. (There is a very nice readable piece by my old buddy Karl Marx on this topic for your reading pleasure where and when it rains: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, Abstract of Chapter I.)

Thus do we drift fast toward a one-party state. I warned about this a long time ago, before Mr Obama was even elected. (See also on this blog: “Fascism Explained“)

The unspeakable Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said after the agreement was reached: “This is a time for reconciliation.” I don’t think so. I hope not.

Про политику народных волнений в России

Evgenii Grigorev Current Events , ,

С недавних пор в России стала очень популярна новая форма диалога с властью, которая получила название “народный сход”. В последнее время подобные акции случаются все чаще и чаще и носят все более спонтанный характер. Как правило, это несанкционированные митинги, которые зачастую переростают в погромы и столкновения с полицией. Буквально несколько дней назад в Москве прошел такой народный сход на волне резонансного убийства одного из местных жителей мигрантом с Кавказа.

Не буду рассказывать про толерантность, терпимость к незаконной миграции и засилью приезжих с Кавказа. Местное население устало, правительство считает, что “все нормально”. Другое дело, что градус эмоционального накала уже настолько высок, что достаточно малейшей вспышки, чтобы произошел взрыв. Район, в котором произошло убийство, славится своей овощной базой, которая по мнению местных жителей является центром этнической преступности. Не сложно догадаться, во что вылился народный сход: погром овощной базы, перевернутые автомобили, столкновения с полицией, 400 арестованных и так далее и тому подобное.

Убийцу-то поймали в конечном итоге. Но самое интересное не в этом. После народных волнений началась массовая проверка приезжих и незаконных мигрантов, несколько полицейских чиновников лишились своих мест…

Неужели власти надо каждый раз давать пинок под зад, чтобы она поняла: у населения кончается терпение. Как осел – пока не повесишь морковь перед носом, он никуда не пойдет. В данном случае роль морковки выполняют народные сходы. Это грустно.

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links
  1. Generation Libre: a French libertarian website (why don’t you have Google’s Chrome yet?)
  2. eigentümlich frie: a German magazine modeled after Reason
  3. Contrepoints: a French magazine modeled after Reason!
  4. Consortium of Defense Analysts: a new blog with lots of great maps
  5. The Umlaut: an American blog with a German-sounding name

In case you are wondering, many non-American libertarians refer to themselves as ‘liberals’ rather than libertarians because once upon a time, American libertarians were actually liberals. The American Left stole (surprise, surprise) the term ‘liberal’ and began to use it as their own. In response, Americans dedicated to individual freedom became libertarians. Hayek talks about the peculiarity of the term ‘liberal’ in the American context in his book the Constitution of Liberty.

Update: I had to edit the hell out of this post, mostly for grammar.

Separation of Church and State (More Islamophobia!)

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Law, Religion , , , , , ,

…Malaysia’s appeal court ruled Monday [10/14/13 – JD] that a Roman Catholic publication can’t use the term ‘Allah’ to refer to the Christian God, despite its widespread use among Malay-speaking Christians.

…
The dispute dates back to 2007. After Syed Hamid Albar, then the home minister, prohibited the church’s Herald newspaper from using the word ‘Allah’- arguing it should be solely for Muslims….

From Gangopadhyay and Fernandez in WSJ 10/15/13, p. A13.

Technical note: “Allah” is a foreign word to all Malaysians. It’s an Arabic word. All Malaysians’ native tongues are unrelated to Arabic.

Yes, there may be more there than meets the eye. So? Try imagining a US court – state or federal- or a French court, ruling that Calvinists may not legally use a given foreign word, that the particular word is reserved for the use of Roman Catholics!

Not that the court ruling in Malaysia is that unfamiliar. They used to do stuff like that in Europe. It was some time ago, a long, long time ago, actually.

Financial Armageddon; Hello Mongolia; Hello, Uganda!

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Economics, Law, Politics , , ,

Today, this blog has had a hit from Mongolia and one from Uganda. I have no way of knowing whether any of these hits correspond to someone actually reading an item. WordPress, the sponsor of this blog, does not keep this kind of numbers. And, perhaps, it’s just as well. Visitors from outside North America are very welcome on this blog. They are also welcome to make requests. And I prize their rare comments.

This is the Nth day of federal government so-called “shutdown.” The American Left, the Obama Administration, various international pundits, have been predicting world financial Armageddon because of the shutdown and because of the budget battle that will probably follow. Instead the most common stock index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, was up 62 points today. That’s not much but it’s not nothing. It’s up, not down. It’s not quite half a percentage point up (.42%). The French CAC40 was also up. Up is not down, no matter how you look at it.

The coming federal budget showdown (don’t confuse with “shutdown”) is about the executive branch borrowing money. It’s not borrowing money because it’s facing some extraordinary expense. It’s become routine. The belief that the federal government cannot operate within its financial means has become deeply anchored without ever being presented to the people for a vote or even for a talk. Conservatives object.

Many conservatives affirm that government borrowing should never occur except under dire and exceptional circumstances. Me, I am a wishy-washy moderate conservative. I could be convinced that federal borrowing is virtuous but I want the discussion to take place in the open. We are working on it.

There is a small technical thing that bothers me around talk of government “defaulting.” Perhaps, something can help me with this. Suppose I own government debt; suppose I own a Treasury Bond for $1,000 coming due on October first. If the federal government fails to give me my money on October 1st but, instead hands me on an IOU confirming it owes me $1,000 that it will pay soon, how worried should I be? Is my landlord not going to accept the IOU? Is the bank going to toss it into the waste basket?

And would the executive branch of government do something illegal, unconstitutional by issuing such an IOU?

La Fermeture du gouvernement fédéral

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , ,

Le gouvernement fédéral est fermé, enfin, en partie, enfin, un peu. C’est arrivé parce que les deux grands partis n’arrivent pas à se mettre d’accord sur le budget a venir. Jusqu’ici, on prend encore au sérieux ici la disposition constitutionelle qui fait du parlement la seule institution capable de décider du budget fédéral. Le Président peu tonitruer et pleurnicher tout ce qu’il veut; il n’est pas encore prêt à violer la constitution aussi visiblement.

Le gouvernement fédéral a été obligé de séparer ses fonctionaires entre les “essentiels” et les “non essentiels” pour décider qui mettre temporairement à pied. C’est un pas en avant pour le jour ou on fera vraiment le ménage.Il y a beaucoup trop de fonctionnaire fédéraux et ils sont trop payés; ils possèdent aussi trop de privilèges économiques inexpliqués.

Au raz du sol, la vie continue comme d’habitude sauf que le parc national du Grand Canyon a été fermé pendant quelques jours. La Bourse, elle, a haussée les épaules malgré les avertissements de Fin du Monde de l’administration Obama relayés et amplifiés par les presses étrangères aussi ignorantes que bebêtes.

Extremist Republicans Did the Right Thing

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Liberty, Politics , , , , ,

There is a poll suggesting that the Republican Party is taking a public opinion thrashing for provoking a government so-called “shutdown.” I don’t think there is much of a shutdown. And I don’t think a single poll means anything. If there were four convergent polls showing the Republicans being blamed, I would still support Republican e “extremists”, including Ted Cruz.

We will not get Obamacare defunded. That was hardly ever in the cards. It was just a good time to draw the American’s people attention to the abnormality that it the federal government. It’s a good time because its own actions right now illustrate both its pettiness and its gross incompetence. Keep veterans out of veterans’ monuments and fail just about 100% on the implementation of a vast ambitious program legislated on a completely partisan basis.

In addition, thanks to the crisis, many young people will be astonished to discover that, like them with their credit cards, the Federal Government cannot pay its bills to Peter without borrowing from Paul. Nothing new here; its’ just that many citizens don’t know this simple fact.

I don’t buy the argument that, of course, there was going to be technical glitches with Obamacare. Implementation of Obamacare is a big big project, of course, but it does not involve any novel technical challenge. And they had four years. And they could have asked Facebook, for example, to take charge. The federal government rarely does a small trivial thing well. There was no reason to believe it could do a big important thing well.

The main things Pres. Obama said four years ago about reforming health care turn out to be wrong, false. I don’t think he was lying then. I believe he and his advisers never had any idea of what they were talking about. They still don’t.

I am glad there were members of the Republican Party in Congress who manned up enough to point to the obvious.

If the Republican Party suffers as a result of the present crisis, I think it will have been worth it. Personally, I am not much invested in a Party that’s a little of everything and of anything. It’s conservatism that matters, the conservative perspective on the world. It’s the perspective that says that the best government is that which governs least. It used not to be a radical thought.

Yesterday, we buried my friend Filip. I had only known him for a few years but his departure leaves a hole in my mind and in my heart. At first, he was just a needed financial adviser. Then, we became friends around conservative politics and braised sweetbreads. We had both in common because we were both immigrants. We both detested authoritarianism and we both liked earthy foods. I was reared in France. My earthy food talents are good. Filip was reared in Communist Romania. His authoritarianism detector was superb. We were complementary.

Misunderstanding freedom of the press

Tibor Machan Current Events, Law, Liberty , , , , ,

Katherine Rushton of The Daily Telegraph wrote a column trying to embarrass those in America, like Republican lawmaker Kieran Michael Lalor, who oppose bringing in Al Jazeera television on to the American television news market. Ms. Rushton feels such opposition is a kind of ethnic prejudice, not sound journalism. Dubbing Al Jazeera “Al Jihad,” such efforts may well be over the top but not necessarily.

Suppose Americans had opposed making room for Pravda and Izvestia in America or some Nazi or fascist broadcasters in the past. Would this prove them to be prejudiced, unfair, biased? I personally object to NPR (National Public Radio) and PBS (Public Broadcasting Service), not at all because I am prejudiced but precisely because I consider it dangerous to treat government funded and supported “journalism” and “entertainment” as if it were just like some private outfit such as HBO, The New York Times or Time magazine.

When governments fund news outfits, they go astray in several ways. They take money by force from citizens to support what those citizens may well not want supported! They enjoy a competitive advantage as against those who do not use taxpayers’ resources. And when it comes to Al Jazeera, there is no other government-owned – it is owned by the Qatari government(!) – service pretending to be journalists instead of propagandists. (Not everything on Al Jazeera has to be tainted by government bias for one to be justified in being suspicious of the content of its broadcasts.)

Frankly, even the venerable BBC is a misguided institution and its reputation rests mainly on its traditional commitment to straight newscasting, not on its official restraint. Ms. Rushton complained that “Meritocracy is all well and good for certain ethnic minorities.” But evidently not for those with Middle Eastern or Islamic ties.

Maybe not so. Maybe what bothered Kieran Michael Lalor has nothing to do with ethnic ties but with evident enough efforts by Al Jazeera to cast jihadists in a favorable light. I don’t know this for sure but if so, that would certainly justify skepticism about Al Jazeera’s credentials and a bona fide news-broadcasting organization. Whenever I check out Al Jazeera, I sense that jihad is treated with kid gloves.

Genuine freedom of the press has no government involvement of any kind. Competition among newspapers, broadcasters, magazines, etc. arises from the initiative of entrepreneurs! Otherwise we are back to Pravda and the like, which should not be treated as agents of a free market of newscasting.

US Foreign Policy in 2013: An Assessment

Brandon Christensen Current Events, History, Links , , , , ,

Of course our parallels to Britain’s scaling back are far from exact. But the decade’s intervention in Iraq alone shows the idiocy and expense of social engineering in alien cultures and societies. None of this deflects the interventionists. Recent debates over Libya, and then over Syria, have summoned the same odd couple onto center stage—both liberal humanitarian interventionists and conservative neocon empire-builders stand ever ready to use killing force to chastise others.

Behind this lies, just as it did in Britain, a sense of mission civilisatrice and inflated exceptionalism. It’s all there even further back in history. All empires have succumbed to their siren call. Now it’s our turn to approach an inflection point.

This is from James Clad and Robert Manning, writing in the National Interest. I haven’t finished reading the whole thing, which is not that impressive so far, but this summary of American foreign policy as it stands on October 8 2013 is outstanding.

Imperialism or Federalism: The Occupation of South Korea

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

A recent op-ed in Foreign Policy highlights South Korea’s very successful rent-seeking campaign in regard to US military services:

When it comes to taking charge of coalition forces here on the Korean Peninsula, South Korea has been a little gun shy. South Korea and the United States this week are celebrating the 60-year anniversary of an alliance forged after the Korean War; there were two parades, a big dinner, video retrospectives, and a lot of talk of katchi kapshida (“we stand together”). But after decades of confidence-building joint exercises and billions of dollars in military assistance, it’s time for the South Koreans to step up and assume what’s called “operational control” of all forces stationed here if war should break out. The problem is, the South Koreans aren’t quite ready.

This brings out two interrelated but distinct trains of thought in my mind. First, it destroys the arguments, found on the hard Left, about a brutal US imperialism in the region. Seoul has made a US military presence on its soil a top priority for sixty years now. This has been the case during the autocratic period and it is now the case for the democratic one as well. A state cannot have a brutal presence in another state’s territory if the latter state continues to make the former’s presence a top priority.

Second, this is not to say that the US is not imperialistic. Here is how Merriam-Webster online defines imperialism: “the policy, practice, or advocacy of extending the power and dominion of a nation especially by direct territorial acquisitions or by gaining indirect control over the political or economic life of other areas.” With this useful definition in mind, South Korea’s rent-seeking necessarily brings up anti-imperial arguments from the center and the Right; namely, that South Korea is taking US taxpayers for a ride (the Cato Institute has done some especially good work on this topic).

So here are the relevant circumstances: the US military is currently on the Korean peninsula, and it is fairly entrenched, and the South Koreans overwhelmingly want it there, and US citizens don’t seem to mind all that much the presence of their military along the 38th parallel. So what exactly is the problem? Why is Foreign Policy, a traditionally interventionist publication, highlighting South Korea’s rent-seeking now? The answer, I think you all know, is government gridlock. Notice first how gridlock is not necessarily a bad thing. It forces Americans to reassess their priorities and to make tough compromises.

Libertarians have long called for Washington to withdraw its troops from South Korea (and correctly so). Among their grievances are the aforementioned rent-seeking tactics of the South Koreans, the unnecessary expenses that accompany such arrangements, and the fact that a US military presence causes unnecessary problems with China and North Korea.

Given the costs and the unnecessary dangers associated with occupation, I am in full agreement with libertarians. However, given the four circumstances mentioned above, I think there is a better way to go about pursuing a more just situation: federate with each other. By federate I do not mean that Seoul should send two senators and X number of representatives. That would be extraordinarily unfair. However, if the 17 provinces in South Korea each sent two senators and X number of representatives, justice would be achieved.

The objections to such an idea are numerous. They include political, cultural and economic angles, and none of them ever hold up to scrutiny. But what exactly is wrong with the status quo? What’s wrong with a complete military withdrawal? My answer to the first question is simply that the status quo is unfair. The South Koreans are ripping the Americans off. My answer to the second question is a bit more complicated.

A complete withdrawal implies that South Korea is not paying its fair share. Indeed, that it is not paying its share at all. A complete withdrawal also implies that foreign occupation creates unnecessary dangers, and it is indeed difficult to imagine a nuclear-armed North Korea without the presence of the US military along the 38th parallel (would Beijing or Tokyo stand for that? Would there be two Koreas? Korea today, without the war, would look like Vietnam).

A withdrawal also implies that the US no longer cares about the South Korean people. Only the hard, fringe Korean Left wants the US out. It’s not the threat of China or North Korea I’m concerned about (only demagogues are concerned about that), but rather the lost opportunity to enhance liberty and equality under the law in both the US and South Korea.

A federation would go a long way toward tackling these problems. South Korean provinces would suddenly find themselves paying their fair share. Two armies would become one (that means soldiers from the province of Jeollanam would be fighting in Afghanistan and not just patrolling the 38th parallel). The propaganda about American imperialism coming from the socialist paradise of North Korea would be rendered obsolete. A new peace – based on consent and equality – would begin to arise. My inspiration for these thoughts comes from a segment of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (pgs 681-682; bottom of 779-794 in the Bantam paperback edition), musings from Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom (223-236 in the definitive, paperback edition) and Mises’s fascinating argument in Liberalism (105-154 of the paperback edition from FEE; here is a pdf of the book from mises.org). I’d even go so far as to claim that it is a more libertarian position than the calls to withdraw from the region. At any rate, it would certainly address the problem of rent-seeking that the US now finds itself facing (which in turn proves that the libertarians were correct all along).

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links , , , , ,
  1. How to use sex like a Russian spy
  2. East German socialists created their own 10 Commandments
  3. Chinese tourists warned by Beijing not to urinate in public (put on your anthropologist cap)
  4. Ralph Raico on Wilhelm von Humboldt, Germany’s most infamous classical liberal
  5. The persistent appetite for orthodoxy; one of the best indictments of collectivism I’ve read in a while

An Exemplar of Governance: The United States and Chinese Citizens

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Law, Liberty, Politics , ,

I’ve briefly pointed out the penchant of Chinese citizens to look to the US as a role model for governance before. As Dr Foldvary has argued, it’s about governance, not government. Foreign Policy‘s Passport blog takes a look at how the recent government shutdown in Washington is viewed by citizens of the Chinese state:

[…] both China’s state-run and private-but-state-supervised mainstream media outlets have thus far reacted with restraint. Meanwhile, users of the country’s bustling, often candid, often profane social web have found a silver lining in the political paralysis that would surprise many Americans […] In Chinese social media, meanwhile, the government shutdown became an opportunity to criticize the Chinese government […]

Some veiled their critiques. Xu Jilin, a professor of history at East China Normal University in Shanghai, wrote, “The government has shut down, but the country is not in disorder — now that’s what you call a good country where people can live without worry.”

The gridlock itself, decried by most commentators in the U.S., struck many Chinese as a sign of lawfulness. As one user remarked, “A government that can shut down, no matter how big the impact on everyone’s lives, is a good thing. It shows that power can be checked, and the government can’t spend money however it wants.” […] Others took more direct aim at their own government. As one user noted, “Comrades, no need to worry that the same thing will happen in our country!  In any event, delegates in our National People’s Congress [China’s […] legislature] cannot cast dissenting votes, haha.” Another wrote, “I wish China’s government would shut down and let corrupt officials have a taste of it.”

I think these admittedly anecdotal reactions are simply a testament of the age-old, distinctly human problem of confusing society with state. The Chinese people themselves don’t have beef with the US or its people. The American people themselves don’t have beef with Beijing or its people. However, both governments are engaged in a power struggle, and as a result, people suffer. Perhaps the most heartening development can be found in this statement:

The growing connections between China and the United States mean that no issue is strictly domestic for either country.

While some no doubt view the growing interdependence of the two societies with unease, I cannot help but see a future of peace, prosperity and harmony. This does not mean I see an absence of conflict, but only that such conflict will be handled according to rules and procedures that have been laid down in the past and that can be altered so long as it is done so in a manner conducive to yet another round of rule-following and procedures.