May I Present

Brandon Christensen Current Events, History ,

…the estimable Kyle Dix:

Kyle Dix (personal homepage) was born in Miami and raised in the mountains of North Georgia.  He graduated from the University of Georgia in 2010 with dual degrees in Spanish and Management.  Kyle currently resides in Philadelphia, PA where he works and attends class at University of Pennsylvania, studying history with an eye on entering academia.  Between UGA and Penn he worked in a welfare-to-work NPO in North Philly, teaching job skills, career planning, and basic English.

The historical questions Kyle asks are largely rooted in his experiences: What is the nature of the discourse between individuals and government?  How do ideologies guide institutions as they grow and change?  How do globalization and modernization act as drivers for this discourse?  Kyle seeks to offer answers to these questions from the historical context of US-Latin American relations and via over-eager observations of current events.

Check out his introductory post at Notes On Liberty here. Welcome him accordingly!

Ukraine: The Diplomatic Solution; the Conservative Blessing in ObamaCare!

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

There is a distinct preference out there, for solving our differences of opinion with the Putin gangster state “through diplomacy.” An elementary explanation is sadly in order here.

Diplomacy refers to one party explaining to the other with polite words how much harm it could do to that other party. And then, the second party takes its turn explaining to the first how much damage it could do to it if it really wanted to.

Once everyone understands concretely the other party’s capacity for evil, the parties get together to arrive at a compromise that minimizes the evil that  either party does to the other. That’s in successful diplomacy. Diplomacy often fails however. In 1939, Hitler and the Brits were talking to each other until the exact eve of the invasion in the west.

So, in this case, diplomacy only has a chance of  succeeding if doing severe harm is on the table in a credible manner. No perceived credible threat, no diplomacy.

Does anyone really believe that you can talk softly, talk sweet reason to Putin and that he will come to his senses and begin acting nice at last?

Another thing: As everyone knows, Obamacare is foundering. I am beginning to believe it’s a blessing in disguise. Whole young generations who really needed it are learning why Big Government is bad even when it’s trying to act nice. One of my young liberal friends is in the process of making a U-turn, I think. I don’t give myself the credit, much as I would like to. Mr Obama did it. My friend has a new bumper sticker on his car that says: “Obama- Dick-Dick.” That’s in Santa Cruz County so, it takes some courage. At least, he does not care a bit if his car is scratched! (My, that’s was evil and sly; I already feel a little ashamed!)

The Obama administration is not releasing figures the citizenry has a legitimate interest in knowing, such as: How many who signed up are also paid up? How many of the new sign-ups were without health insurance before? What is the net gain – if any -in insured  people who did not join publicly supported health insurance?

Refusing to divulge these figures has only one purpose. It’s to impede the opposition. That’s already Fascism. Not gathering these figures when you can and when you know some part of the public wants them is also Fascism. (Fascism is not an epithet, it’s political description. (See:  “Fascism Explained” and others on this blog. )

ObamaCare was a dishonest venture from the first. If it had not been, its first act would have been to make all health insurance available across state lines so as to maximize competition between insurance companies. If any Republican lawmakers had resisted, it would have been a blood feast for the Democratic Party. Large-scale buddy capitalism is also part of a  classical Fascist program.

Another Warm Welcome

Brandon Christensen Current Events , , ,

I’ve got exciting news: Notes On Liberty is finally going to have an international relations specialist on board. Without further adieu:

Edwin van de Haar is an independent scholar who specializes in the liberal tradition in international political theory. In the recent past he has taught international relations at Leiden University and Ateneo de Manila University. He is the author of Classical Liberalism and International Relations Theory: Hume, Smith, Mises and Hayek (2009) and Beloved Yet Unknown: The Political Philosophy of Liberalism (2011, in Dutch).

His most recent publications are a chapter entitled ‘Adam Smith on Empire and International Relations’ published in the Oxford Handbook on Adam Smith (Oxford University Press, 2013) and a chapter entitled ‘David Hume and Adam Smith on International Ethics and Humanitarian Intervention’ in Just and Unjust Military Intervention: European Thinkers from Vitoria to Mill(Cambridge University Press, 2013). He also published articles and numerous other pieces on Smith, Hume, and the wider liberal tradition in political thought, among others in The Review of International Studies, International Relations, and The Independent Review.

Van de Haar works and lives in The Hague, The Netherlands. With Lucas Grassi Freire and a number of other scholars he runs the Facebook group ‘Libertarianism and IR’. He received a M.A. in Political Science from Leiden University, holds a M.Sc in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science and got his Ph.D in International Political Theory from Maastricht University.

Not too shabby, eh? Dr van de Haar’s article in the libertarian journal The Independent Review can be found here if you want to become more acquainted with his work before he starts blogging.

Dr van de Haar, coupled with Mike, Kyle, and Dave, will give the blog a number of new voices and perspectives on what liberty is and what it means. Stay tuned, and keep those ‘comments’ coming!

Undercover Occupants

Brandon Christensen Current Events, 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 am excited to post his thoughts because of their 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.]

One of the worst Persian attitudes, which really makes me upset, is that we really like make everyone feel pleased and at the same time we are trying to make our friends, our families member, and finally ourselves feel proud. This seems to be just wasting of time and even sometime more than wasting. It really holds us back from being flexible and being more focused just on our life.

The fatal mistake in terms of power games is taking one step back because of pacifying your enemies. I remember these fatal mistakes occurred during Mr. Khatami presidency (1997 – 2005) and it seems that it is going to happen again. During that time reformists tried to please everyone. Liberals, communists, and extremists could fit in themselves in what they portrayed for future of Iran. The goal of “let’s get together” is just useful for the specific action and in a limited time not for unstable country like Iran. We are not taking the issues for the country like Switzerland. In fact, you cannot just chant when your enemies are ready to die for their sinister goals.

Mr. Rohani and his consultants during last month just tried to convince the middle class people that they are so preoccupied about what he has promised during his presidency campaign.  Rohani also said: “… I have never forgotten what I had said to my people but you should understand; there would be a prolonged way with unforeseen obstacles that we have to pass it through together…”. However, this is not the way that people of Iran are thinking and believing at this time. The fact is that the imprisonment of leaders of green movement has been lasting up until now and there are still so many political prisoners in prison. In fact the pace of executions is still through the roof and opposition can be called easily sedition.

All of these issues just mean that the new government and the new goals of basis changes have not been acknowledged by the powerful organizations that live in the parallel world of responsibility. These groups of extremists can take any action whenever they want without taking any obligation and no one has the authority to prosecute them. They are not supposed to be questioned and on the other hand, no one knows who they really are. I call them “Undercover Occupants” which means obviously they are connected to somewhere but where exactly this department of power is remains the question that no one has the answer of. There are always lots of rumors which they are the members of Basij militia or some religious departments but it is still in denial.

Four years age, in 2008, during the rebellious days of Tehran, these undercover occupants attacked The University of Tehran. So many students were injured and finally the supreme leader commanded the “Supreme National Security Council” to get involved and back them off. They also tried to condemn in public during the chairman of Islamic parliament (Ali Larijani) speech. In fact Ali Larijani is so close to the supreme leader! These undercover occupants were also involved in occupation of the embassy of the Great Britain in Tehran, which caused the big collapse of foreign policy for Iran. I can count thousands of these nonsense and non-logical movements which sometimes caused the supreme leader’s reactions. Occupants recently confronted president Rohani and actually went up against him after he got back home from New York. They criticized him that he was not authorized to talk to president Obama and that he put country down.

They are just like the people who think the mission of possessing of sacred goal is on their shoulders, no matter what would be the responsibility. When they think there is a threat they just interfere. I heard some of them are the presidents of the industries who occupied the manufacturing companies of Iran after the revolution and also the business men who could take advantage of governmental economic rent during these 35 years; therefore, they should be concerned about their positions when the wind of change flows.The undercover occupant groups really remind me of the Nomenklatura category inside the Soviet Union

Obviously President Rohani has decided to discard his goals about his domestic policy for a while until the nuclear issue and sanctions are still on the table. He really thinks being triumphant in talks between Iran and 5+1 can help him precede his domestic policy inside the country. However and on the flip side, the extremist members of the Islamic Parliaments and some members of the Revolutionary Guard put their total vigor to not let him proceed. The upcoming parliament’s election and economical situations will be so important for the players of this poker table. The supreme leader has not taken a side yet which is so meaningful in Islamic Republic of Iran. As I have heard, during this year the economic situations in Iran are getting better. The hope of better future has still long way to be cultivated but people are still hopeful to upcoming talks. These are all proofs that show us having better relations with powerful countries will help you to have better chances. We are not living in the separate worlds and our planet is so combined that being isolated just deprives you not anyone else.

Last month, foreign ministers of European countries and especially Mrs. Ashton had several meetings with foreign minister Zarif. Mrs. Ashton recently went to Iran and talked in person with Mr. Rohani. She had also a meeting with some political prisoners and their family members, which dragged the undercover occupants to the front of the Austria Embassy where that meeting had occurred. They were claiming who let her to talk to the “Fitna” followers, the name which they have been using for naming oppositions in Iran during election in 2008. After while the extremists in parliaments called up Mr. Zarif and the Minister of Intelligence and Security. They asked the same question that undercover occupants had asked before.

One of the recent issues which might partially help the extremists inside Iran for improving their positions is the issue of Ukraine. The commander of IAF (Iranian Armed Forces), Hassan Firuzabadi, clearly shows respect to what Russia has done inside the Ukraine and Crimea. He also said the vandals just pulled off the coup and it was not the process of legitimate transactional and transformational leadership. Now they believe the most newest powerful country just pops up and subsequently the consolidation of 5+1 is fragile right now so there is no need for retreating at this time which I think it could be somehow the fact that the United States and the NATO don’t want to respond literally to the Russia and president Putin in order to force them back. Finally the internal battle inside Iran would go on and this battle would demonstrate the balance of political groups, the supreme leader and the Revolutionary guard. It could be one of the effective occurrence for Iranians.

A Reverse Crimea in the West: Kaliningrad

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, History , , , , , , , , ,

Look at the Kaliningrad Oblast. It used to be Prussian Koenisberg, an important detail: Many Germans still feel for it, like Russians for Crimea. This is one part of Europe toward which the Germans might loose a little of their current prudent cool and cooperate.

Find Kaliningrad on the map.

Source: BBC
Source: InKaliningrad.com

It’s a small Russian exclave on the Baltic. It’s entirely sandwiched between two NATO members that are also members of the European Union, Lithuania and Poland. It must have some military value because it’s the headquarter of the Russian Baltic Fleet.

Kaliningrad has no direct land links to the rest of Russia. Sea links are along the shores of unfriendly to very unfriendly countries. I don’t see why it would be difficult to apply an on-and-off siege to that territory. I don’t mean that the West or the US should actually attempt to starve its about one million people. I am thinking cutting off the water intermittently, for example. Perhaps a few US warships could cruise off Kaliningrad with all guns carefully covered. We should be able to cause enough unpleasantness there to stampede part of the civilian population. We might just let Russian sailors there lead lonely and even more drunken lives than they do now.

After the gobbling up of Crimea, making it difficult for Russia to staff its isolated western outpost would be a worthwhile goal. Even giving high Kremlin officials a few bad nights of sleep would be better than nothing. Letting bullies get away with anything is always a bad idea. It’s like asking for more bullying in the future.

I don’t know why no one is talking about it, not the Obama administration, not the Republican opposition, not the supine press.

Are we that pathetic or merely ignorant?

Towards a Free-Market Global Climate Treaty

Fred Foldvary Current Events, Economics, Liberty ,

An article in the 19 March 2014 “NewScientist” featured Catherine Brahic’s interview of Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. She is leading a project to create a Global Climate Treaty in December 2015. A draft agreement is scheduled to be delivered to all country governments in May 2015.

A previous U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen in 2009 failed to achieve an agreement. Christiana Figueres points out that while in 2009 there was doubt that countries would adopt policies to curb emissions, more than 60 countries now have climate legislation that apply to 90 percent of global emissions. There has been more investment in renewable energy. But this progress is much less than what is needed to reduce air pollution to a sustainable optimal level.

A major technological obstacle to the use of renewable energy is the expense of storing electricity in batteries in order to have a steady supply of power on grids. Another technology that is needed for emission reduction is carbon capture and storage.

Unfortunately this interview did not delve into the economics of climate policy. Economists are in wide agreement that the most effective policy to reduce widespread pollution is full-cost pricing, to make the polluters pay the social cost of the damage. The charge is passed on to the buyers of the products, who buy less. The firm either installs methods of reducing the emissions or else pays the fee and reduces pollution by producing less of the product.

A pollution charge or tax is more efficient than command-and-control restrictions, because the tax lets the polluter respond according to its particular costs. In contrast, when government dictates particular methods such as gasoline additives and engine technologies, these may not be the most effective means, and the mandates and restrictions may not encourage innovations.

There is much talk about carbon taxes, but carbon exists in both the inputs and outputs. A tax on the gasoline input does not create an incentive to capture the carbon and other emission outputs, and the tax imposes an excess burden on cars that have already reduced their pollution. A tax on the emission output does induce technology to capture the carbon, and avoids the excess burden.

The executive secretary talked about carbon neutrality, such that each factory, building, city, and vehicle has very low or zero carbon outputs. But the most effective policy is not to regulate and micro-manage, but to set an overall goal and an emission charge per ton of pollutant, and then let each person, enterprise, and facility adjust according to its own costs and benefits. If the cost of carbon neutrality is greater than the social benefit, then such neutrality is bad for the environment, because it wastes resources.

Unfortunately, governments are moving towards regulations rather than pollution taxes. The government of Australia is seeking to replace the carbon tax, enacted by a coalition of the Green and Labor parties in 2012, with a subsidy to industry and an emission permit trading scheme. On 20 March 2014 the Australian Senate voted against repealing the carbon tax, but the prime minister continues to seek repeal on July 1.

While emission permit exchanges are more efficient than regulations, the increase in the price of permits is a gain only to the permit holders, and the price of the permits may be different from the social cost of the pollution. A pollution fine, charge, or tax, however it’s called, enables the government to enact a “green tax shift” to replace market-hampering taxes on income, sales, and value added, with payment for emissions that not only reduce pollution, but also prevent what would otherwise be a subsidy to polluters by not having them pay the full social costs.

Economists and their journalist followers should be in the forefront of promoting a green tax shift as the best policy both for the environment and the economy. Even the skeptics of global warming should embrace the green tax shift, as pollution is harmful trespass regardless of climate change, and the shift promotes greater economic freedom along with productivity.

If the 2015 Global Climate Treaty is based on pollution levies, it will succeed. If instead the Treaty calls for “command and control,” it will doom the planet to yet another failure of central planning, and the result will be both a worsening global economy and a backlash against the tyranny of regulation strangulation.

More regions contemplating independence?

Adam Magoon Current Events, Liberty, Philosophy , , , , , , , , ,

The historically great city-state of Venice is contemplating independence from Italy. “Over two million residents,” nearly half of the total population, “of the Veneto region took part in the week-long survey, with 89 percent voting in favour of independence from Italy.” The  Indipendenza Veneta party believes that the centralized Italian government is unable “to stamp out corruption, protect its citizens from a damaging recession and plug waste in the poorer south.” Venice joins Catalonia and, for better or worse, Crimea this year in considering breaking away from it’s central government. Catalonia’s request for an independence referendum denied by the Spanish prime minister while we all know how long Crimean independence lasted.  All is not lost however.

These types of referendum must be celebrated by libertarians throughout the world. The further decentralization of governments is a goal that can directly lead to a freer, more libertarian society and will serve as a siphon weakening governments worldwide. To quote, as I do so often, the great Murray Rothbard:

“Once one concedes that a single world government is not necessary, then where does one logically stop at the permissibility of separate states? If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as in a state of impermissible ‘anarchy’, why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighbourhood? Each block? Each house? Each person?”

Why not indeed.

Warm Welcomes Please

Brandon Christensen Current Events , ,

Hello loyal readers (all four of you). I’ve been AWOL for the last couple of weeks, but I do have some great news. We’re going to have a guest blogger, Dave Nielson, here with us for the next three or four months. Here is his profile:

Dave Nielsen was born and raised in Saint George, Utah, and currently resides in Rexburg, Idaho. Dave is a 24-year old undergraduate student of web design at Brigham Young University – Idaho, a Mormon, a member of his campus Young Americans for Liberty chapter, and a contributor to a few blogs. He feels overshadowed by the achievements of his fellow contributors, but feels privileged by their association. He describes himself as introverted; he is a thinker whose ideas get squashed by his fear of recognition. He finds fulfillment in his faith, his liberties, and his family. Passion for civil liberties and economic freedom is what drives him to fight in the liberty movement. He was brought into the realm of libertarian philosophy by his father, but became enveloped by it when he began listening to Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, and by reading Bastiat’s “The Law”. He was married to someone out of his league in July 2012. His wife puts up with his political rants over dinner, and lovingly supports him in his participation in the local liberty movement where he resides.

Notes On Liberty is also getting another permanent blogger, the anthropologist Mike Reid. I first came across Mike’s work at the Mises Institute and have been following him closely since. It’s rare to come across a libertarian anthropologist so I was very excited when Mike first burst onto the scene. When I won the Freeman‘s blog contest I choose Mike’s essay “Culture in a Cage” to riff off of. Mike was kind enough to send me a congratulatory email and I figured it was now or never and asked him to blog with us here at NOL. He was gracious enough to accept my humble offer. Here is his short bio for the blog:

Mike Reid teaches anthropology at the University of Winnipeg. His writing on news, anthropology, and history has appeared in the Freeman, Whiskey and Gunpowder, Heartland’s FIRE Policy and News, the Mises Daily, and Ontario History. Mike also manages publishing projects for libertarian clients at InvisibleOrder.com.

Stay tuned readers. Things at Notes On Liberty just keep getting better and better. You’ll also notice that Kyle Dix has begun blogging here at the consortium. I’ll introduce Kyle to you guys properly as soon as he gets me a short bio of himself!

The Internet Needs a Multitude of Firm Guiding Hands Like I Need….

Jacques Delacroix Current Events , , , , ,

The Internet is an American invention depending on a specifically American vision of society. It was built with American seed money. It represents the best about the way we used to do things: Tell the folks what you want; spring a little money on them; most of it produces nothing; some of it turns out to be the very best investment of the century, perhaps even the best investment in history. Let it run itself as much as possible. Refrain from giving it a captain.

Other countries are utterly incapable of doing anything like this. How do I know? None but one even tried, France. Its government-managed (Post Office owned) Minitel was even accessible to the general public earlier than the Internet. The French closed it about two years ago. It had ceased to serve any purpose side-by-side with the Internet. That was as clear a case of competition between two ways of doing things as might be devised in a real scientific experiment.

The French Minitel (which I used) did good service for many years as an electronic phone book and address finder and it housed a prodigious amount of porn. I almost forgot: It was also a prime venue for prostitutional dates. In spite of these attractions, it was to the Internet as Wisconsin blue cheese is to real, cave-aged French Roquefort (not the stuff they put on your salad, the $26/lb stuff). The main fault in this comparison, of course, is that American cheese makers can only improve their act. Non-Americans are not going to catch up on items such as the Internet because they lack the vision thing.

Other countries claim that they have a right to co-manage the Internet because their citizens use it. That’s it! So, if I clear a path in the bushes for my own use and I let the nice guy next door use it, and also the child molester two houses down, it’s not my path anymore?

Note that this sharing in the name of the often-poisonous concept of sovereignty need not happen, even by their own argument. Other countries’ governments can always block it if they wish. They can and do occasionally deny access to their citizens and take the blow-back. In many countries, the blow-back is also indirectly a blow for freedom.

Letting other countries have a say over the management of the Internet is likely to produce no improvement that I can think of. (But I keep an open mind; please, instruct me.) It’s extremely likely to facilitate despotism in many countries. Try a mental experiment: What’s Vladimir Putin, or the Chinese Mafia masquerading as people’s party going to contribute? The tyrants simply want to do their best to close the windows that let in any fresh air at all.

In other parts of the world, the desire for partial control of the Internet is motivated by cultural jealousy. That would be the case in France, in Spain and in much of Latin America, also to an extent, in China. But governments in those countries don’t need more power over the Internet to combat their citizens’ regrettable proclivity to listen to American music and to buy primarily tickets for American movies (in spite of prodigious government subsidies for the national cinema in France and in Spain). They already have full power to put anything they want on the Internet. I mean loads of bad French movies, even erotic movies where the naked women are pointedly vaguely repulsive. (See my piece “French Movies, Sex, and the Welfare State” [and also “Can Protectionism Ever Be Respectable?” (pdf) in the Independent Review – bc]). The Spaniards are free to place on the Net four or five Spanish-made movies each year and even to try and charge admission. And the government of the so-called “People”, so called “Republic ” of China is always welcome to transmit live on its blog the full sessions of the Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party, for the pleasure of all.

There are plenty of ways with the existing Internet arrangements to combat the poison of American Cultural Imperialism. Best of luck to them. (For God’s sake, with a handful of major exceptions, even our disasters are better than theirs!)

You can count on the fingers of one hand the number of countries where moderate government involvement and decentralization are understood by any significant fraction of the populace. Others don’t know how to do anything decentralized, won’t know for years or centuries.

The worst case scenario is also the most likely, I think: Following the Obama administration’s capitulation, the Internet will end up being “managed” by a UN-like international body run by faceless, brain-dead bureaucrats.

What bothers me in yet this other American retreat at the hands of the Obama administration is its sheer mindlessness, its obvious abandonment of common sense. Contrary to may other conservatives, I don’t think Mr Obama is evil. He is acting pretty much as you would expect from a man who had never accomplished anything in his life before becoming president. I said this during his first campaign in 2008 (but I am too lazy to look for the relevant link . I said it many other times since, including this one).

It’s not that President Obama is bad or even stupid; the problem is that he is ignorant and lazy, including intellectually lazy. And he and his wife sure like their vacations at public expense.

Yeah, I must be a racist: “lazy” is just another racial stereotype, after all. See if I care!

And I am a little ashamed of the dig about the presidential family vacations. I mean his wife was severely deprived for 250 years; she is only catching up. He was not that deprived himself though. His name indicates a coastal origin among the slaving tribes on his father’s side. On his mother’s side he comes from reformed and moderate hippie stock. Hippie like me.

Ideology and the Alliance for Progress: Charting the Boundaries of the Welfare State

Kyle Dix Liberty , , , , , , , , ,

This Fall I took a course on the history of the Welfare State at Penn. I also used to work “in the system,” teaching English and job skills to Spanish-speaking TANF recipients at an NPO in North Philadelphia, so it was a nice complement to that experience. Overall the course was great given the volatility of the subject and the difficulty of understanding an abstraction like “welfare.”  I thought the course fell short in contextualizing the welfare state within the broader scope of government, so I wrote a paper about how the welfare state and foreign aid interacted in Kennedy’s policy and rhetoric.

The perils of globalization and modernization have largely been attributed to “neoliberalism” and neoliberal American global hegemony, which I think has some merit. The American welfare state has historically been such a strange beast that it’s really difficult to point fingers–few nations have seen a clash between principles of general welfare/security and personal liberty on the scale of the USA. Yet today it seems that “foreign development” (generally taking place under neoconservative, globalist institutions) and “domestic” or “community development” (generally taking place from the American “left”) are at odds with one another. The consensus on foreign aid at best rests on our duty to help the global have-nots and at worst is a less-risky way to build global security in the post-911 world. But both of these reflect a Bismarckian idea of State building to me… So is there a historical link?

My paper looks for answers in JFK and his Alliance for Progress. This project was a foreign analogue of the New Frontier that got Kennedy elected and seemed to be the future of the American Welfare State until his untimely assassination. Due to resistance at home, the Alliance for Progress was much further along than any New Frontier domestic reforms, despite complementary rhetoric and Kennedy’s constant comparison of the two. The Alliance provided millions in aid to Latin America in the name of developing economy and–as many historians neglect to mention–society. It died out by the mid-70s (largely due to neoliberal push-back and underfunding, or so the story goes) but what was the ideological basis of the reform? What did Kennedy want out of the millions he was lobbying to send abroad?

Overall, the Alliance was multifaceted: It sought to strengthen perceptions of America, grow international political ties, and generally create a buffer against the Cold War Communist threat. But these aspects were presented as international extensions of domestic policy by both outward rhetoric and by internal Congressional and diplomatic correspondence. Agrarian reform (ie, away from communal landholding, especially in Mexico), income redistribution, and a more just hemispherical society were also included as benchmarks.

The program eventually aimed to directly map Tennessee Valley Authority river basin development on top of Colombian valleys, hoping to make a Tupelo or Knoxville out of Cali or Buenaventura. The founder of the TVA, David Lilienthal, won a contract to develop Colombia under the Alliance for Progress after abortive plans to similarly shape the Mekong Delta and the Nile. And while big business was the engine running the machine, rubber met road with promises of social reform, workforce development, and increased social equality for the poor, uncivilized masses susceptible to Communist dogma.

While globalization’s detractors cry capitalist overreach, authoritarian power grab, or something in between, proponents of foreign aid still need to explain why hunger, malaria, and TB are so prevalent given global wealth–and be honest about the beginnings of these international institutions. I can’t make prescriptive calls to action, but I can say that the foundation of the current international aid regime was laid by the example of domestic welfare state-building, by ideals of a strong state guiding a “free” market to achieve affirmative social outcomes

If you want to read the paper: Here’s a full (18 pp. with references) and 10-page version.

Le Contrôle des armes aux Etats-Unis ; l’essort économique français

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Economics , ,

Un membre de la legislature de l’état de Californie est accusé par le FBI de traffic d’armes massif, des fusils d’assaut militaires, pour être précis. C’est un élu de San Francisco, ville notoirement de gauche. Il est bien connu pour ses campagnes bruyantes en faveur de la restriction du port d’arme (garanti par le Second Amendement à la Constitution des Etats-Unis adopté en 1789). Il va être mis en garde à vue incessamment. Il y a des brebis galeuses partout, après tout. En tous cas, a contrario, aucun élu notoirement favorable a ce droit constitutionel n’a jamais été accusée de quoi que ce soit sur ce plan-là.

Le slogan principal de ceux qui, come moi, désirent un population armée:

“Quand les armes sont hors-la-loi, seuls les hors-la-loi sont armés.”

L’évidence même!

Economie française: Selon l’administration américaine spécialisée*, le désert campagnard francais renferme 4 milliards de mètres cube de gas de schiste. Milliards! Ils sont tous fermés à l’exploitation à cause de l’influence des écologistes (dont le parti arrive rarement à percer aux élections). Il n’y a pas de travail pour les Français; c’est donc exactement le bon moment de garder bien enfermé à clef  un outil de travail essentiel! L’élite politique française agit comme si elle vivait en 1978 avec, devant elle, des possibilités infinies d’essort économique.

Et puis, il ne faut pas chagriner Poutine!

*US Energy Information Administration

Polystate – book 3

Rick Weber Books, Law , , , , , , , , ,

This is my nth response to Polystate and covers the third and final portion of the book (for the 1st through n-1th responses see here, here, and here).

As a quick reminder, the purpose of this book is to consider a possible political structure where individuals choose their own government (“anthrostate”) and these governments operate in the same geographic area (under a “polystate”). This is in contrast to the current system of geographical monopolies on coercion (“geostates”).

Book three attempts to identify insoluble problems with the idea of a polystate. The first problem is the potential for bureaucracy explosion (no, not that kind). A greater (which is to say any) degree of customized service in our current government would surely come with increased costs. There may be technological solutions to this problem, and competition between anthrostates would surely add pressure to get around these costs. In any event, the administrative questions are actually quite interesting. I suspect that many government services would end up moving back into civil society and private markets and the result would be lower monitoring costs in the case of civil society (e.g. for social security through mutual aid societies), and greater use of specialization and innovation in the case of market goods (e.g. for safety standards).

Another big one is the importance of “sacred locations.” If we had always lived in a polystate, Jerusalem might be considered a state of mind. But in the world we live in, it’s a geographical location, and different groups want it for themselves. A market with private property allows these groups to express the importance of this location by outbidding others for its purchase, but such a system is likely not good enough for some members of the relevant groups, and it’s plausible that violence could be resorted to. At the risk of sounding like an insensitive social Darwinist… maybe that’s not the worst possible outcome?… But certainly still a bad, though the root problem is the beliefs of those people; determining which political structure (all of which have costs and benefits) is “best” is an interesting question.

I think the biggest area of potential contention (by non-libertarians) is demonstrated by the issue of gun control. One anthrostate’s gun control is meaningless if it coexists with another that doesn’t have gun control. In other words, a polystate is less polycentric confederacy and more anarchist default plus an odd contract structure for particular firms. This leads to the final problem: transition.

The epilogue discusses the “issue” that the proposal is for a minimal polystate. We can think of this as a contemplation of federalism. This is a thought experiment in radical federalism that is so far down the spectrum of possibilities that it puts the onus of governance on the individual. In many ways, discussions by libertarian political economists can be thought of more as discussions of federalism than discussions of liberty; I think it’s worth thinking about the connection between federalism and freedom, as well as different potential forms of federalism.

Here are my overall thoughts: The book presents an interesting thought experiment and the author does an excellent job of providing well thought out analysis without going overboard. There is plenty to think about, and plenty more discussion to be had (note: read this book with friends and discuss it over beers). ZW had a choice of going into more detail and making a stronger case, or going into less detail and leaving more of the thought experiment to the reader. I think he perfectly balanced these two goals.

Note: an ungated version of that last link is available here. The article is “Afraid to be free: Dependency as desideratum” by James Buchanan.

Great Adaptation of Harrison Bergeron

Adam Magoon Liberty

Youtube video Located Here.

For those of you who don’t know Harrison Bergeron is  a fantastic short story by Kurt Vonnegut, an author near and dear to most upstate New Yorkers.  How many other authors set anything in the city of Schenectady?  The general plot of the story is a description of a world where everyone has been made equal, both physically and mentally, by the “Handicapper General” of the United States.  Full text available here.

Polystate: Book 2

Rick Weber Books, Economics, Law , , , , , , , , ,

This is my third entry on Polystate and will cover book 2 (entries one and two covered book 1). This section covers a thought experiment in polystates and begins immediately with the flattering implication that macroeconomists can make speculative predictions about complex systems. This is typically where an Austrian would say “the world is too complex to make speculative predictions which is why  we need a flexible system.”

Quick reminder: a polystate is a state that contains non-geographical anthrostates. Anthrostates have rules relevant to their members, while polystates have rules relevant to the interaction of anthrostates and their members.

My first qualm with ZW’s conception of anthrostates is that there are local spillovers in governance, culture, etc. that would likely lead to enclaves. ZW addresses this now with rule number one of polystates being that no anthrostate may claim territory. My general feeling on federalism is that the higher units will have rules that are more universally accepted, so that a nation will have prohibitions on murder, while regions of states/provinces may have fairly uniform rules on abortion, drug use, etc., individual states have their own traffic laws, and cities have their own rules on neighborly conduct. Polystates are a radical form of federalism, but in order for them to work adequately, they must start with fairly uniform basic rules on property rights over land.

Rule two is that individuals choose their anthrostate annually (by birthday). The specific interval is fairly arbitrary but it seems obvious that it should be neither too long (in which case anthrostates gain monopoly power) or too short (in which case they can’t credibly commit to govern in difficult situations such as collecting taxes or enforcing punishments). The alternative to a time-based restriction would be a social-stigma based restriction which has pros and cons of its own but I’m tempted to think would be more effective (though with some very important caveats that warrant further discussion!). The birthday rule is interesting as it staggers political change leading to greater stability than having “global revolution” at each shift; we face a similar problem in today’s world of election days.

Rule three is where things get tricky: anthrostates that take territory lose their government status under the polystate order. This creates a collective action problem among other anthrostates as enforcing this rule won’t be free and won’t have uniform benefits to others. ZW recognizes this, but the problem still stands. This is essentially the same as the national defense problem. This is really the big one: are geostates unnecessary but inevitable? Essentially this book is considering a special form of anarchy and so belongs in the same category of other classic thought experiments.

It obviously isn’t statelessness, and so it isn’t quite anarchy, but I’m not so sure anarchy is quite anarchy either. Even the sort of state imagined by David Friedman has coercion, it’s just decentralized. Likewise, polystates specifically allow anthrostates to act coercively, but it subjects them to competition. In essence, the polystate proposal is to increase competition among governance structures by allowing them to be geographically diffuse.

An interesting institutional feature of polystates is that anthrostates are no longer bound to seek something like an end state. Where as the USA tries to set up a system for the median voter who is expected to be there for life, an anthrostate could specialize in particular stages of individuals’ lives. There could be a state for students and one for seniors (… I wonder what a world with AARP running an anthrostate would look like…).

ZW doesn’t mention this, but if individuals can be members of more than one anthrostate (of course, based on the rules and enforcement of those rules by the relevant anthrostates) then it is conceivable that government services not be so horizontally integrated. This raises an interesting line of inquiry: is a polycentric polystate possible?

A big problem is the “inherent goodness” of imposing rules on people who don’t want them. It’s easy for libertarians to say that drug laws are dumb (because they are), but as Ryan Murphy surely writes somewhere, where people see value/justification in imposing their views on others we run into problems. We’re pretty much all cool with prohibiting murder, but what about less clear cut issues? If I saw veganism as having the same moral weight as murder (“I don’t think humans should be treated like that.”) then I would be morally justified in striking down with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers with icky lentils. The best solution would be for me to stay the hell away from Berkeley. Again, we’ve got local spillovers in governance. We also have tribalistic barriers to the sort of integration economists want to see for the good of everyone.

In the final section on war ZW raises an interesting point regarding the possibility of war-mongers self-selecting into aggressive anthrostates. This is a troubling notion, but such behavior is expensive. North Korea is aggressive, but manageable because Kim Jong Un isn’t wealthy enough to pose a more drastic threat to NATO. With self-sorting, a North Korean anthrostate would lose many of its productive people and be even less of a threat. But ZW doesn’t raise the question of nuclear weapons…

The example of Kidnappocracy drives home the point that ultimately coercion underlies any system of governance. Rights are as rights are enforced. Political structures are created to resolve rights disputes in an amicable (sort of) fashion, and polystates will still need means of resolving these disputes. Even in a geostate, some people are willing to fight and die for their views, but the institutional change to a polystate seems somewhat orthogonal to such issues. Anthrostates will serve as focal points, and having more disparate focal points may increase the possibility for conflict. But mostly it would just be a different sort of federalism; if we don’t see violence between people from different states, and if effective institutions emerge quickly enough, this problem may be small and quickly swamped by other benefits.

Ultimately the resolution of problems between members of different anthrostates would require that 1) their disputes are matters of honest disagreement that can be resolved with arbitration, 2) interactions that may lead to such disputes are minimized by a general refusal to interact, or 3) there is a strong and near universal support for (this sort of) federalism such that people are willing to resolve differences to support the overarching system. The second seems most likely, supporting the hypothesis that geostates will typically be more successful even if they will be less prosperous.

I come away increasingly convinced that perhaps the most fundamental aspect of governance is geographical sorting. I don’t like geostates (I don’t think many people truly do), but I think geographically localized governance is effective because it reduces interaction by people with contradictory conceptions about good behavior and so reduces conflict while supporting order. I think ZW’s ideas are largely influenced by a sort of a sci-fi view (that I’m highly sympathetic to) which reflects the sort of governance we see on the Internet. 4chan is a very different place from Facebook and every subreddit has it’s own unique culture. In such a world, “geography” is a different matter; it takes a different form, but it’s still there.

Secession and libertarianism – Ukraine Edition

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

The most basic rule of schoolyard behavior is this: Don’t challenge the school bully if your knees are buckling under you. Mr Obama keeps ignoring the rule, with predictable results: One tyrant, one despot after another receives his confirmation that the USA is no dangerous, no matter what you do. Thinking the US in not dangerous is very dangerous for the world. I keep challenging the ones and the others, including mainstream libertarians, to say what will, or should replace the pax americana that has given us relative peace since 1945. No one cares to answer.

This introduction, not by way of beginning to argue that the US should have gone to war over Crimea. I don’t believe it should have; I don’t even think the US should have risked war ever so little because of Crimea. I think rather that Mr Obama should have been absent, with a pass for the nurse’s office, for example. Neither am I being pathetically “realistic,” here. Mine is a principled position. Let me explain.

Anyone who has any libertarian fiber but who maintains his criticality should be instinctively in favor of secessions. Two reasons.

First if being governed is an assault on individual liberty, being governed by those who are unlike you in some fundamental way is a doubly liberticide. Fundamental differences include, but are not limited to, language. That’s because your language largely determines the way you see the world and your sensitivities, what’s important to you as a person. Governors who have different beliefs, who operate on the basis of different assumptions, who nurture different dislikes than you are bound to commit slow rape on you every day of your life. That’s true even if they harbor zero hostile intention toward you. And that’s unless you volunteer, of course, as many immigrants like me – do.

I wish good luck to the Catalan independentists and to the Scottish autonomists. I would even if you proved to me beyond the shadow of a doubt that powerful economic interests undergirth their efforts. It’s true that Catalonia is more prosperous than the rest of Spain. It does not prevent Catalans from feelings how they do. They probably would, if they were less prosperous. I don’t know if the Scots would like to split from the UK absent North Sea oil but, if they do, they do, and that’s it. I believe, of course, that the Tibetans have had a solid claim for secession for all the time they have been under Chinese rule. (And, yes, it may well be that the objective quality of their lives has improved under Chinese Communist Party dictatorship.)

Am I saying that it’s better to be oppressed by those you think of as your kin?

Yes.

The Crimean population overwhelmingly wanted secession from Ukraine. Without the presence of Russian guns, the referendum would have been, maybe, 76 % in favor rather than 96%. The final result would have been the same. It’s not difficult to entertain this double thought: Putin is a gangster and the Crimeans would rather be Russian citizens.

Speaking of Putin: The fact that he used exactly the same arguments as Hitler in 1939 does not logically imply that he did something like dismantling and gobbling up independent Czechoslovakia. The Czechs and the Slovaks, were not volunteers the way most Crimeans are. The annexation of Crimea by Russia changes little to all this. (See below.) Crimeans did not feel Ukrainian, overall and they were tired of being very poor under the Ukraine. They would rather be moderately poor as Russians. It’s not hard to believe either.

The second reason for libertarians to favor secession instinctively is that rational people cannot treat the boundaries of nation-states as if they were sacred, the way most governments pretend to do. At best, one could argue that that fiction contributes to world stability. (I doubt it but it’s not a stupid position.) Rather, the borders of existing nation-states are often the result of centuries of sometimes successful wars (France), or of recent shameless robbery of one’s neighbors (the US), or of colonial bureaucratic insouciance (Iraq). In some cases, the tracing of boundaries looks like a joke: Take for example the long penis-like extension of Afghanistan into China in the eastern part of the former country. The mapmaker, probably a junior English officer must have chuckled with relief in his loneliness.

National boundaries may be useful or even indispensable (to control entry, of undesirables, for example) that makes them a necessity, or a necessary evil. Nothing confers on them a status above critical thinking: Sometimes, the violation of existing borders should not be countenanced; sometimes, such violation deserves only a shrug.

Note with respect to the present annexation of Crimea by Russia following this secession, I am saying nothing about the ensuing strengthening of the Russian kleptocracy. The encouragement of tyrants inherent in the Putin impunity also belongs in another essay.

The fact is that the prevention of secession has always produced tons of mischief, most of it violent, much of it an affront to basic human decency.

Hitler used the existence of a sizable German minority in a strategically important part of Czechoslovakia, of smaller Hungarians-speaking and of Ukrainian-speaking smaller minorities elsewhere to start World War II. It’s possible, even likely that Hitler would have used another excuse absent this one. But linguistic minority aspirations gave a cover of semi-legitimacy to his aggressive action. Without such legitimacy, it is quite conceivable that British and French public opinions would have demanded that Hitler be stopped while it was still possible. (The whole sorry story of Western passivity and vacillation in 1938-39 is recounted in minute, hour-by hour detail in William Shirer’ s classic: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.)

In more recent times, we witnessed violent and massive ethnic cleansing in Kosovo , the three-year long siege of a large city one hour flight from Rome, Sarajevo, and the starvation and daily bombing of its civilian population, and the massacre of thousands of men and boys, also in Bosnia. Most of these horrors could have been avoided by finely wrought enough secessions, even at county level if necessary.

A contrario examples abound of the healthful, virtuous nature of secession as a solution to intercommunal tensions. Some come from the most unlikely places.

The dissolution of Czechoslovakia – a radical form of secession – in 1993 was so peaceful that it went almost unperceived . The resulting Czech and Slovak Republics have since continued separately on their fairly prosperous paths. They maintain sound relationships as good neighbors (as very good neighbors, more or less like the US and Canada).

Paradoxically, today’s Iraq offers a striking example of the virtuousness of secession. The world follows with a tired eye Iraqi Arabs eviscerating each other along communal lines. That is, the Sunni Muslim Arabs there and the Shiite Muslim Arabs there are slaughtering each other every day, same as when the presence of Americans was said to cause all the murderous civil strife. Many Sunnis and many Shiites consider themselves members of existentially different groups. They do so for reasons that are probably difficult for Westerners to understand (except those who remember the Wars of Religion in Europe, of course, between 1520 and 1648.) It matters not; as far as they are concerned, those are reasons worth killing and dying for. Keeping them bottled up together, forced co-habitation, is not likely to attenuate these sentiments. (Think of ill-matched college roommates.)

In the meantime, you hardly ever hear of the Northern third of the same country, bloodied Iraq. I refer to “Kurdistan,” still formally a part of the Iraqi republic. Kurdistan, which does not exist officially, is people mostly by Kurds, a group with a distinctive language unrelated to Arabic. They comprise both Sunnis and Shiites. As far as the facts on the ground are concerned, Iraqi “Kurdistan” has achieved secession from its bloodied mother country. No shot was fired in spite of the quick-trigger violence of the Middle-East. The Kurdish area is so prosperous and so peaceful that others go there on vacation. The vacationers are first of all, Arabs from other parts of Iraq seeking relief from incessant violence in their part of the country. Second, Turks are crossing their southern border in increasing numbers for the same purpose . (May of those Turkish tourists are probably themselves ethnic Kurds.)

And we should not lose track of the fact that the 25 years of Saddam tyranny over all of Iraq, accompanied by internal massacres and two wars he started deliberately found what legitimacy it possessed in the supposedly sacred duty to keep Iraq unified. (Keep in mind that the Saddamite regime utterly lacked traditional legitimacy and religious legitimacy, or the political legitimacy that comes from winning fair elections, or any other source of legitimacy.)

Had Iraq broken up earlier into a Kurdish north, a Sunni center and a Shiite south, the world and, especially, the martyred Iraqi people, would have been spared enormous misery. It’s not too late to achieve this end.

I am speculating that many people’s unexamined attachment to the general concept of national border harks back to an earlier time, a time when they were coterminous with economic boundaries and with information boundaries. Not long ago, French citizens ate almost only French food, they wore only French-made clothing (there was even a lively traffic in illegal, smuggled blue jeans), and heard and read only news originating in France in French. All was produced almost entirely with French capital. National boundaries were then the very containers of our existence defined in the most concrete ways. None of this is true anymore for most countries. Borders are porous to most things including words (if not yet to people). Many people are thus ready to fight for a reality that disappeared quite a while ago.

A major more or less unintended effect of this pursuit of ghosts is that it easily turns to bloodshed, domestic and international. So, many Spaniard are resisting the threatened secession of Catalonia as if it would become a catastrophe of sorts for them. There is still little realization that nations that perceived themselves as homogeneous (for whatever reason) are spared major conflicts, including civil conflict. Homogeneous Denmark, with a similar level of development, is more peaceful than bi-community (linguistic communities) Belgium. Either a Walloon or a Flemish secession there would improve the lives of both Walloon and Fleming.

Secession is usually a good thing overall, for peace, and for individual liberties. Let them go and they will lose the ability to stab you in your own kitchen with your own kitchen knife. They may even become your friends, after a while.

N.B. I still have not heard anyone, or heard of anyone saying that he regretted voting for Obama. Amazing!