To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good…

Alexander Solyhenitsyn whose death was announced today.

In a previous posting I asked whether the American Revolution deserved the name.  I asked, if its aim, as is so often claimed, was freedom then, when the dust had settled, what freedoms did Americans possess that Britons did not.

I didn’t get many replies.  A couple of commenters pointed out (citing the French and Russian examples) that revolutions don’t have to have anything to do with freedom to be called revolutions.  That’s a fair point but still, in what way was the American Revolution a revolution?  I often hear the claim that it got rid of the monarchy.  But hadn’t Britain already done precisely that?  Sure there was a guy called George III who was called the monarch but what powers did he really have?  It seems to me that after about 1720 (and the creation of the office of Prime Minister) the British monarchy was something of a paper tiger.

Thankfully, a chap called Maldain took up the challenge:

Well, let’s see at the time.  The average Brit didn’t have the right to free and unfettered speech.  Speaking against the crown was considered sedition and punishable by prison or death.  The average Brit didn’t enjoy a truly free press as the crown could and did shut down the press at will.

The average Brit was not allowed to keep and bear arms. 

The average Brit was required when so ordered to quarter troops in their homes.

The average Brit’s home, business and person was eligible to be searched at any time without showing cause.

The average Brit did not have the right to not speak in court.  In fact was required to give evidence against himself.

That’s much more interesting.  But is it true?  Did Britons genuinely not have these freedoms at the time?  For instance, isn’t the right to keep and bear arms enshrined in the (English) Bill of Rights?  The other thing is that Maldain’s list appears to be a listing of the amendments to the US Constitution.  Fair enough, but what the law says and what the law does are two different things.  Did Americans genuinely enjoy these freedoms after they were introduced in 1791?

...but funny.

America is a great country1.  However, it is not a perfect country.  One of the things that gets my goat about it is how Americans commonly refer to the American War of Independence (which is what it was) as the American Revolution (which is what it wasn’t)2.

So, I was rather pleased to come across this (<1MB) marvellous bit of revisionism from Russ Roberts’s EconTalk with William Bernstein. 

The Boston Tea Party as the world’s first anti-globalisation riot.

Heh.

Footnotes

1.  See America is a great country, by me.

2.  A little challenge I like to set people who think it was a revolution is to see if they can come up with ways in which after the war Americans were freer than their British counterparts.  I get a lot of mumbling and very few answers.

Yesterday, the oil giants Shell and BP announced record profits.  One oil industry analyst put it down to high oil prices.  All the oil companies were doing was watching the money roll in.  Which prompted the usual whining about “obscene/outrageous” profits etc. 

I am against this whining as I believe that profits are good¹. However, I have to confess that I am a bit stumped to say why bumper profits are so good in this case.  I find it difficult to see where the value has been created.  I suspect that the value was created a few years ago when these oil companies invested heavily in new capacity (although I really have no idea if they did or not).  The profits they are enjoying now is simply the payback for risks they took then.

If so, then they are richly deserved.

Or maybe, actually, they didn’t invest nearly enough which meant that oil demand exceeded oil supply leading to the increase in price.  Sure, that meant that their profits went up but not by as much as they might have done.

Footnotes

1.  See Profit is good or Profits in a Market Economy, Art Carden

Chinatown in London

One of the things my library membership allows me to do is to read old editions of the Times online.  This is fantastic.  I especially like looking through articles from before the First World War.  Things were so different in those days.

One of the ways things were different was that drugs were legal.  Though that was about to change.  In 1912 the Hague Convention (strangely enough opposed by Germany, Austria and Turkey) committed the signatories to banning the opium trade.  This process was halted by the First World War but the leading states re-committed themselves to the ban in the Treaty of Versailles.

The really weird thing was the motivation.  It emphatically does not seem to have been worries about the dangers of opium to the civilian population.  At least, not in the West it wasn’t.  The whole concern seems to have been with China and the prevention of its use there.

This is a point underlined by this article from the 25 November 1913 edition of the Times in which the author tours the opium dens of Limehouse.

We may call these places “dens” for all that they are so clean and orderly and so little withdrawn from public gaze.  We may deplore the injurious physical effects which follow overuse of the drug however small the proportion of cases of definitely traceable injury may be either to the number of smokers or the Chinese population.

...all the “dens” in these two streets together will not furnish from one month’s end to another any such spectacle of “degradation” or rowdyism as may be seen nightly in almost any publichouse.

Not exactly a problem was it?

Another classic LA pamphlet.  Another classic Brian Micklethwait LA pamphlet in which the author argues that no one ever wins an argument at the first attempt, that it’s far better to be understood than to be agreed with and by implication that intellectual honesty is always the best intellectual policy.

HOW TO WIN THE LIBERTARIAN ARGUMENT

BRIAN MICKLETHWAIT

The first rule for winning the libertarian argument is that you must have it.

That sounds fairly obvious, does it not? Yet how many times must we libertarians listen to self-styled “practical” and “realistic” comrades, who tell us that the way to argue for the abolition of income tax or the legalisation of heroin or the abolition of compulsory education is to start these arguments by arguing instead for the lowering of income tax by two per cent, the legalisation of marijuana, and the introduction of education vouchers. The idea is that having bought these mild and diluted versions of libertarianism, people will then be drawn into accepting the more “extreme” manifestations of libertarianism, as if being enticed into the back room of a pornography shop.

The error embodied in this kind of “realism” is the confusion between someone on the one hand being told an idea, and on the other hand agreeing with that idea. These are two absolutely distinct processes, and understanding this distinction is the beginning of wisdom as a libertarian propagandist. There are, to put the same point slightly differently, two ways of being an “extremist”. One consists of not only expressing one’s views with clarity but also of trying to combine this process with that of immediately being agreed with, of saying what you think and of saying why the person you are talking to has no excuse for thinking otherwise. This is obnoxious and counter-productive. Your victim will simply back away, and make a note to seek other conversational companions in the future. The right way to be an extremist is to say what you think and why, while absolutely not assuming that the person you are talking to has any sort of obligation to think likewise, and if anything while making it clear that you rather expect him not to. You think what you think, and he thinks what he thinks. And if he hasn’t told you already what he does think, then an obviously polite next step would be to ask him to talk about that. The two of you can then try to pin down more precisely how you disagree, assuming you do. It is possible to be an extremist without deviating from good manners, and that is how.

Another obvious way to present an “extreme” idea to somebody, in a form which does not grab him by the lapels and shake him around and generally spoil his day, is to present that idea in writing. Publishing is, you could say, a branch of good manners. No matter how “extreme” is the opinion I may read in a pamphlet or magazine, I am never, so to speak, at its mercy. I can stop reading it at any moment, and so in the meantime I need not feel threatened or even discomforted by it. The number one task of the Libertarian Alliance is simply to get the libertarian case spread around - especially in writing of course -to anyone who is interested in it. Whether any particular reader agrees or not doesn’t matter. The point is to spread the ideas. 

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...when even the winos can eat in style:

In the environs of Vauxhall yesterday evening, I noticed two of the local gentlemen of the road, settling down for a picnic on a random street corner near Tescos. And why not enjoy these lengthening evenings, I thought, even if it is still a bit chilly for me to contemplate an al-fresco affair. They had a Tesco bag with them and as I passed I noticed among the usual cans some little round tubs. They weren’t, were they? They were…

Yep, one of them had brought dips. Tesco value, mind you, rather than Tesco’s Finest, but dips all the same. It’s good to know they’re not spending all of it on booze. I’ve always thought that Vauxhall’s tramp population had a certain style…

Heh.

And three cheers for Tesco.

Some questions to ask next time you see a survey…

Is it measuring what it claims to be measuring? Usually, there is an input and an output eg number of cigarettes smoked and mortality.  Are both being measured accurately?  Can both be measured accurately?  I heard a report the other day that had claimed to have been able to measure self-esteem in children.  How on earth do you measure that?

Is the thing they are measuring actually as good/bad as the surveyers claim? For instance if policy initiative X is supposed to have given rise to increase in observable phenomenon Y then is Y as good/bad a thing as the surveyers think it is?  A good example of this, for instance, is museum attendance.  Good, if you like that sort of thing.  Bad, if you’re the seven-year old child who would far rather be playing Nintendo.

Is the sample big enough? We’re getting into some fairly heavy duty statistics here.  Or, at least we could be, but an awful lot of surveys have pitiful samples.  My rule of thumb is ignore it unless it involves at least 500 people (assuming it’s a people survey).

Is there a control?  Was it done properly? For instance, one of the earliest smoking surveys pitched a random group of smokers against a group of non-smoking doctors (or so I am told).  Not surprisingly the smokers had shorter lives.

Does correlation prove causation? If you increase X and observe an increase in Y that does not mean that X causes Y.  Something else might have.  Indeed, Y might cause X.  Look for a time lag.  If X changes and then Y changes maybe there is causation.  Also, look for other likely causes.  Has the survey factored all of these out?

Is it being reported correctly? Tell tale phrases like “up to” and “as much as” are dead giveaways that the reporters are trying to dramatise things.  Also, is what the report says what was said actually what was said.  Similarly, if the combination of survey and reportage seems to be leading you to a ready-made conclusion (especially one to do with state policy) be very suspicious.  For instance, the other day I heard one claiming that children who wore ethnic dress to school had higher self-esteem.  Conclusion, let Muslim parents foist hajibs on their daughters.  Just a bit too convenient isn’t it?

The most important thing to bear in mind is that scientists don’t always get it right and reporters certainly don’t.  Don’t ever take these things at face value.  It’s also worth bearing in mind that there’s a whole branch of the public relations industry dedicated to raising clients’ profiles and one popular way is by releasing surveys purporting to demonstrate a need for the client’s product or service.

By the way, this is just a list of things that came off the top of my head.  Does anyone out there have some other examples?

Yet another classic LA pamphlet rescued from the purgatory of pdf and brought into the sunlight of html.  In “The Tyranny of the Facts” Brian considers how minds are actually made up and how facts are not nearly as important as is normally assumed.

The Tyranny of the Facts
Brian Micklethwait

I was asked a year or two ago by a free market policy institute to do a piece about museums. My commitment to the project was cemented at a free lunch at which Kingsley Amis was also present. The meal was delightful and Kingsley Amis his usual genial self, full of wisdom about The Arts, and about how the Government should stop giving The Arts money.

But as the meal progressed I already began to have misgivings about the project, and these became crystalised in my mind when finally, months later than I had promised, I sat down to write the thing. My problem was that the institute’s boss, Sir Alfred Sherman, had said that I ought to deploy “the facts” about museums. These “facts” were supposed to prove beyond doubt that our collective view of the museums issue was the correct one. 

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Now, I am not really interested, here, in the normal response: “Oh, we all do.  It provides, education, health, law enforcement...” Libertarians know this to be nonsense and there’s no point in rehearsing those arguments here(1).  I am more interested in what we libertarians tend to say:

“Oh well, lots of people: welfare beneficiaries, civil servants, politicians...”

But the point is: do they?

I mean, take Tony Blair.  There he was, Prime Minister for a decade, but was it really worth it?  Sure, you can dwell on the trappings of power: the fame, the central London address, the foreign trips, all those people being nice to you, ruining perfectly decent people just because you can etc, but you’ve also got to remember the hours spent in boring meetings and tramping the streets, having to say things you don’t really believe in and, in the end, the public revulsion.  Oh, and I might add having Gordon Brown as a neighbour.

OK, so what about the ones at the bottom of the food chain - the welfare junkies?  Now sitting on your arse and getting someone else to pay for your housing, food and everything else sounds like a pretty good deal.  But the state extracts its pound of flesh condemning you to a neighbourhood full of chavs with an anti-work culture and a crap local school.  What if there were no state?  Sure you’d have to work for a living but you’d almost certainly end up better off, living in nicer surroundings and with better education options.

Well, if top and bottom are rubbish, what about the middle: the civil servants?  Rubbish pay, good pension.  You might manage to wangle some cushy number with next to no work but you might not.  There are plenty of civil servants who have to work pretty hard.

So, who does win?

Footnotes

1.  But if you would prefer to have those arguments rehearsed see What I believe and Why I am a libertarian.

Academic, Dan Todman has produced a graph showing cumulative British deaths in the Second World War.  Interesting, if macabre, stuff.

I got a shock the other day.  I was reading the online Telegraph when I came across this:

In case you find this a little confusing it is, in fact, a map of the United Kingdom in which every parliamentary constituency is represented by a hexagon.

And the occasion for the shock?  Well, take a look at this:

Which is also a map of the United Kingdom in which every parliamentary constituency is represented by a hexagon.  A map I drew up over 10 years ago just before the 1997 general election (that’s why there’s so much blue.) They even both have a hole in Ireland to represent Lough Neagh.

What’s even odder is that the Telegraph was the only paper I ever sent a copy to. 

I wrote to the Telegraph pointing out the similarities between the two maps.  They wrote a nice email back denying any connection - and to be fair, it’s far from implausible that the similarity is entirely coincidental - lots of people have come up with similar ideas over the years. 

Having said that, it’s an odd, and not entirely pleasant experience, having one’s memory jogged like that.  Drawing up that map hurt.  The idea had been knocking around my head for years but I’d (and I know this sounds funny) never plucked up the courage to actually do it.  When I did, I sweated blood but I am very proud of it.

The fact that years later the Telegraph has taken up my idea and done more or less all the things I wanted to but couldn’t is very flattering.  Clearly, I was ahead of my time.

I’ll try to hold on to that thought next time I find myself wondering whether the Filing Cabinet is really worth it.

”...Women’s Studies as a distinct undergraduate discipline will disappear this October.”

What is a girl to do? 

For years the only man in town was Gates the Geek, William of Washington, the Seattle Straight.  OK, so his mane was mangey and his clothes didn’t fit but you kind of knew where you were with him and his Blue Screen of Death.  He was Old Unreliable.  But there was one thing you could count on: you’d be compatible.

But now, things seem to be going wrong.  Vista’s Vista seems to be no better than Vesta’s Vista.

Time to check out other suitors?

Well, the’s always beeen Mac.  He’s pretty, he works hard but he’s a bit like the Church of Scientology: culty and expensive.

Step forward Linux - the Finn to Win.  He’s the exact opposite of Mac: he’s culty and inexpensive.

And yours truly is nothing if not a skinflint. 

So, one brave morning, I decided to give Linux a try.  And after a few days I came to one clear and indisputable conclusion. As far as Linux is concerned:

NOTHING FUCKING WORKS

Oh, it claims all sorts of things about itself but getting it to work can only be described as “interesting”.

In the Chinese sense.

For instance:

• It wouldn’t load onto my disk despite there being plenty of space.
• When it did finally load the resolution was so poor I couldn’t see the OK
buttons
• The screen had an atrocious flicker
• I couldn’t connect to the internet
• I couldn’t get Opera to install
• I couldn’t get Flash to install on Opera
• The search facility doesn’t work
• WINE crashes the whole computer
• Actually, lots of things seem to crash it.  And they complain about Windows.
• The text rendering is poor
• In fact, all the graphics are a bit naff.

Now on the last few points, I shouldn’t really criticise: these are amateurs and it is possible I’ve got a duff version.

But there were a sufficiently large number of problems to make me suspect that it’s going to be a good while yet before Liunux is a true competitor to Windows

I see there is some uncertainty over whether the Chancellor’s “green” taxes are really green taxes - designed to prevent or mitigate environmental damage - or bad old non-green taxes dressed up in green clothes.

There is a simple enough test.  Will the money raised be used to compensate the victims or not?  Because if it is you’ve got yourself a green tax and if it isn’t you don’t.

OK, there may be no victims as yet (just when is Tuvalu going to sink under the waves for heaven’s sake?) but that’s no reason not to put the money into a fund for a non-rainy day. 

See Also
How to deal with Global Warming

So, the news blackout on Prince Harry’s deployment in Afghanistan has been broken.  But, I wonder, should it ever have been there in the first place?

The argument seems to be that if the Taliban knew that he was there they would make a special effort to try to kill him and that, therefore, his men (who are apparently much more important than him) would be put at risk.

How thoughtful.

Maybe, maybe, but should the Taliban rise to the bait wouldn’t it put their men at risk too?  And isn’t getting the Taliban to bend their whole strategy out of shape exactly what we want?

For all those interested in the travails of Newcastle United I rather liked this piece by James Hamilton.  He reckons it’s being teed up for a sale.

I’ve been enjoying the free-market wonk tag-team ambush of Fairtrade Fortnight as evidenced by the efforts of the ASI and the Globalisation Institute’s Alex Singleton.  OK, so it smacks of co-ordination and planning - precisely the sort of things that free-marketeers are not well known for - but, still: heh!

However, one really shouldn’t laugh.  Alex’s piece in the Telegraph inspired this comment from Henry Cave Devine:

I was the acting Chief Exective of the largest independent coffee and tea trader in the world in the early 1990’s and found all that you have mentioned and even worse to be true. I want to highlight some of your points toward the end of your article to make clear that the mega-growers also ship and sell their lower quality beans into the Fairtrade markets through brokers and receive the subsidized “charity price” from the “socially responsible” rather unquestioning public. This is exactly what was meant to be avoided, and it is done in huge volumes.

Which he then followed up with this:

Three of my field agents were killed in 1991 because they tried to track down illegal shipments. It is a nasty business at times.

Titter ye not.

Ho hum.  There’s been a big media campaign7 on this this week.  They seem to want some sort of restriction on the sale of alcohol - although whether this involves higher taxes or a higher age limit I really don’t know.  My guess is that Tesco is simply jumping on the bandwagon before it’s too late - although it must be said this seems a tad out of character for Tesco - usually they’re pretty keen to keep out of politics.

Now as a libertarian I tend to be rather against this sort of thing.  In principle6 I would like to see no restrictions on the sale of alcohol8 at all and in theory I believe that this would make the world a better place.

What’s interesting is the coalition of motivations that’s been assembled.  On the one hand are concerns about public order - teenagers getting legless and causing trouble3 - and on the other worries about an “epidemic”1 of alcoholism.

The second point is easy to deal with.  My health is none of the state’s business.  Except, of course, that it is - by virtue of the existence of a state-funded NHS whose casualty wards groan with the results Chateau Laffite abuse.  For me that’s just another reason to abolish it2.

On the point about public order, well, this is not a simple one.  My guess is that a lot of the problems are caused by the welfare state combined with compulsory education4.  However, I’m not immune to the idea that underneath the surface the British aren’t all that civilised and that drunkenness is simply what they do5.

Notes

1. “Epidemic” indeed!  What a misuse of the English language.  Now that’s something that ought to get added to the list.
2.  Yes, that’s the NHS that should be abolished not Chateau Laffite. See Against the NHS.
3.  Yeah, I know, if they’re truly “legless” they’re not really going to be in a position to cause trouble but you know what I mean.
4.  See Brian Micklethwait’s Abolish the Welfare State and restore some Respect.  See also The Trouble With Child Labor Laws by Jeffrey A Tucker which is sort of related.
5.  My understanding is that England was for a long time an astonshingly violent society and that the low levels of crime recorded in the century before 1970 were something of an aberration.  Think Gin Lane in the 18th Century - no welfare state, cheap booze, mass disorder.
6.  See Why I am a Libertarian
7.  In both senses of the term
8.  I think most of the same arguments as used in the drugs debate would apply here.  See Sean Gabb’s A Neither Profound Nor Original Article on Why the Sale and Use of Recreational Drugs Ought Not to Be Illegal.

This pamphlet by Axel Davies (see here for original PDF) is one of my absolute favourites.  Coming at a time when political correctness (can someone think of a better term?) was at is height it was a breath of fresh air, doing exactly what it said on the tin. Is that a mixed metaphor?

THE INEVITABILITY OF PREJUDICE

AXEL DAVIES

You see, Sir, that in this enlightened age I am bold enough to confess, that we are generally men of untaught feelings; that instead of casting away all our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable degree ... we cherish them because they are prejudices; and the longer they have lasted, and the more generally they have prevailed, the more we cherish them. ... Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, sceptical, puzzled, and unresolved.1

— Edmund Burke

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You can find football fans in the oddest places

Am I the only one(3) who finds the idea of Premier League teams playing regular season games abroad rather fun?

I think it maybe because I see it as a way that capitalism can win over nationalism.  Up to now the ultimate stage has been the World Cup, an event that seems to do little other than serve up sub-standard football, put the process of male evolution into reverse and squander the talents of greats like George Best, Kevin Keegan and Liam Brady.  What if the ultimate stage was something that was actually quite good and something everybody, regardless of origin could buy into?  And it would give FIFA a well-deserved slap in the face - surely something we can all get behind.

If I have one complaint it is about the way the Football Association has chosen to sell the idea.  It is all corporate stuff like “promoting the brand” and “exploting new markets”.  Had it never occurred to these guys that exploiting new markets and hence making more money is a good thing in itself(1) and that therefore the thing to do is to stress the benefits?  Why not: “This will give millions more fans the chance to see their football teams.  It will allow the Manchester United fan in Bangkok, the Arsenal fan in Sydney and the Watford fan in Bangalore the unique experience of seeing their favourite team in the flesh.”

One of the crazier arguments against this scheme I heard over the weekend was the one that very few ordinary fans (as in, from the place after which the team is named) will be able to get to see their team when it plays abroad.  The irony seemed to be lost on these people.  This was the very weekend when people were commemorating the Munich disaster - a consequence of the pioneering spirit of Manchester United in entering the European Cup and playing in the oh-so-accessible Belgrade(2). 

Notes
1.  See Profit is Good.
2.  I haven’t looked up the sums but I would guess that is probably easier for the average Manchester United fan to travel to Sydney now than to Belgrade back then.
3.  See my friend Johnathan Pearce for an example of the vitriol this has induced.

You know that Filing Cabinet I was talking about?  Well, it hasn’t gone away you know.  In fact I’ve even gone to the trouble of re-jigging it (well, creating another one) so that one entry equals one post - previously, one post could contain multiple entries.

Anyway, I’ve started filling it up. I haven’t quite got round to migrating everything over from the previous version but I guess I’ll get round to that eventually.  One article that justified an entry was an old Libertarian Alliance pamphlet by John Hibbs.  Unfortunately, it’s one of the rather annoyingly large number of LA articles that’s only available as a PDF (aargh!) Anyway, annoyed at this I stumbled across a way of converting it to HTML relatively quickly.  “Ah!” I thought, “Sean will be so pleased.” But then I thought, well, it might not be in exactly the format he’s looking for and, anyway, why don’t I publish the thing myself - at least that way it’ll get out there. So, here goes...

Town Planning versus the Plans Of The People

John Hibbs

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Buffy (in case you didn’t already know)

The other day Michael Jennings and I sat down to talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the American TV series, which ran from 1997 to 2003.

Here are some highlights.

Michael is in the enviable position (in that I envy him) of having watched the series when it was first on while I am very much a Johnny-come-lately.  Not that it matters much - we both love the show - as you may be able to tell.

Warning: there be spoilers.  Though I guess anyone who hasn’t watched it yet probably never will.

Dream house

This is sad. Bloke wants to build his dream home. The government says no. He hides the construstion site behind straw bales (wonder what that must have looked like(1)) builds his dream home and moves in.

A few years later he removes the bales. The government demands the building's demolition. Bastards(2). He may get away with it. Let's hope he does.

Notes
1. Actually, I don't have to wonder as there's a photo of the straw-bale castle accompanying the article.
2. As far as I am concerned they shouldn't be able to. See Against Planning. Also see the Filing Cabinet page on Planning.

Heh.

The evil that is Toblerone

Hamish McRae: "One of the great things about Independent readers is their loyalty".

Peter Briffa: "Indeed. The same is often said of people who watch films on Betamax..."

Someone at the Policeman's Blog writes about the Garry Newlove case. This was the man who was kicked to death on his own doorstep after asking some youths to stop vandalising his wife's car.

Looking for root causes he says:

For four decades now, we have been living in a test tube while the liberals conduct a huge social experiment with our country.

Which is true enough. Whether it is the whole truth is another matter. I suspect that (as Brian says) the welfare state has a lot to do with it.