Category: too much government

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general freedom ideological culture Popular too much government

Socialism Is Anti-Democracy

NPC, socialism, democracy, freedom

Common sense politics must peer beneath the superficial attractions of “democratic socialism.”

In “Civil Liberties and Socialism Don’t Mix,” Matthew Harwood explains why those who call themselves democratic socialists may “say they believe in civil liberties” nevertheless “will always be hostile to individual freedom.”

In this short Reason piece, Mr. Harwood starts out by showing that socialism cannot merely be “a more generous welfare state along Nordic lines.” For “socialism” to remain distinct socialists must offer a Unique Selling Proposition. You cannot plausibly push a “new” philosophy and stick to pushing the old liberal stand-​bys of private property and markets.

Their own pretensions force them back to central planning, to economic planning for all by a few.

Which is not democratic, of course. It goes far further, to anti-​majoritarian.

Actual economic planning requires micromanagement. Harwood quotes socialist economist and luminary Robert Heilbroner, who expresses this requirement as “the necessity to intervene deeply, and probably ruthlessly, into the economy in order to establish the socialist order in the first place.”  

But it cannot stop there. Once established, a socialist state must feel a “need to continue a policy of painful intervention” to adjust to “the constricting limits of the environment.”

“Democratic socialism is not freedom,” Harwood concludes. “It is authority paternalistically dressed up in the language of liberation and wielded on behalf of that fuzzy abstraction, ‘the people,’ regardless of what flesh and blood individuals want.”

Sure, democratic socialists may hope that majorities will allow their elites to plan for everybody. 

But once that handoff is made, the power obtained, then the tyranny.

Inescapably.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob

 

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Categories
First Amendment rights too much government

Burning Isn’t the Only Way to Attack Books

copyright, Sysyphus, censorship, books, law, folly

The U.S. Copyright Office is enforcing an unjust and destructive law merely because it is there.

Selectively enforcing.

Valancourt Books prints books on demand. It keeps no stocks of books in a warehouse in between orders. Even so, the Copyright Office is demanding to be supplied with physical copies of each of the 400+ books in Valancourt’s catalog.

Failure to comply means crippling fines.

Why the harassment?

Well, once upon a time the Copyright Office required publishers to submit physical copies of books in order to receive copyrights for them. Yet the work of authors is now automatically copyrighted as soon as they create it.

Of course, the government doesn’t demand printed copies of their titles from every small publisher in the country. The Copyright Office just happens to have noticed and targeted Valancourt Books.

The Institute for Justice, which is representing the publisher in court, argues that this requirement unconstitutionally forces people to give up property without compensation, violating the takings clause of the First Amendment.

IJ also argues that the law violates the right of freedom of speech protected by that amendment. “People have a right to speak and to publish without notifying the government that they are doing so or incurring significant expenses,” IJ’s Jeffrey Redfern concludes.

“Because it’s there” may be a good reason to climb a mountain. It is a very poor reason to use an old — and outdated — law to destroy the livelihood of innocent people.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Categories
folly free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture property rights too much government

Big Government Apologetics

fragile, socialism

Journalists play different roles.

Too few report. Too many engage in elaborate apologetics for favored causes.

Like big government.

Take this headline: “Venezuela’s Crisis Is Rooted In Oil Prices — and Authoritarianism.”

Guess: reporting, or bending over backwards to save socialism?

The article’s summary of the decline and fall of Venezuela is accurate insofar as it indicates assaults on liberty, including nationalizations and monetary inflation. But neither “oil prices” nor dependence on oil spawned Venezuela’s crisis.

Every industry, city and nation will experience unfavorable markets, now and then. But what’s fundamental is their “antifragility.” And, news to journalists: socialist societies are fragile in ways that freer societies are not.

Suppose Venezuela had had a free market when oil prices dropped so precipitously. People would then have shifted, however grumpily, into enterprises now more profitable than drilling for and distributing oil.

It is no blunder to specialize, to exploit comparative advantages in knowledge, skills or resources, and to engage in local, regional or international trade. It’s fine even if an economy’s production and exports ends up being dominated by just one good. What matters is whether people are free or burdened by government controls. If the latter, how hard does government make it to cope with changing circumstances?

Unhampered market prices supply the information and incentives needed to adapt to all kinds of changes. But if an economy is chronically distorted and calcified by government controls, it becomes much harder to adapt … and much harder to survive.

Today’s journalists routinely adapt facts to story, rather than adjust stories to reality. Guys, give up the ideological apologetics. Go back to reporting.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Categories
free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

More of the Same?

USMCA, NAFTA, Trump, free trade, harbor scene, protectionism, tariffs,

For those who hated NAFTA, and have supported Donald Trump in his complaints about “the very bad deal” that the North American Free Trade Agreement [allegedly] has been, I ask: what was bad about NAFTA that isn’t in Donald Trump’s new version, the United States-​Mexico-​Canada Agreement?

Actual question. I am not in the least bit interested in gotchas, here. I am willing to celebrate USMCA when (a) I can make sense of it and (b) it proves not just more of the same.

The thing I liked best about NAFTA was that it had “Free Trade” in the title. I like free trade. Trade is good; freedom is good. It is not generally bad to trade with Mexico and Canada — for Mexicans, Canadians, and Americans. I simply have trouble believing that politicians and their aides (along with overly-​friendly lobbyists) know better than market competition what the terms of those zillions of deals should be.

But I freely admit, what I didn’t like about NAFTA was that there was more “free trade” in the title than in the agreement itself.

NAFTA was managed trade. 

As far as I can make out, so is USMCA.

Oddly, I just heard two of the three Daily Wire guys* praising USMCA for setting quotas on how much of what can be produced where.

Quotas and mandates and the like are not free trade.

“Managed trade” is just another way of saying “protectionism.” Savvy politicians don’t even like calling it “managed trade.” They call it “fair trade.” 

Free trade is fair enough. Politicians’ “fair trade” isn’t free enough.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Andrew Klavan and Michael Knowles, recent podcasts: dailywire​.com.

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Illustration: Dutch free traders in Harbor Scene by Abraham Storck  (1644 – 1708)

 

Categories
First Amendment rights ideological culture too much government

Censorship for Unity

British Labour MP Lucy Powell, censorship, UK

“Social media has given extremists a new tool with which to recruit and radicalise,” writes British Labour MP Lucy Powell in The Guardian. 

And just where are people “being exposed to extremist material”?

On Facebook!

“Instead of small meetings in pubs or obscure websites in the darkest corners of the internet,” she explains, “our favourite social media site is increasingly where hate is cultivated.”

Sharing ideas that she opposes is dangerous because they quickly spread. But her main ire is directed against private “Facebook groups,” an environment she argues “normalises these hateful views” because “critics are removed from the groups.”

Apparently, the problem with Facebook is that it is open — and that it is closed. Facebook is something new and dangerous because everybody uses it. Yet, because it allows closed groups, it is something very much like … “small meetings in pubs.”

Ms. Powell has, naturally enough, proposed a bill. “The responsibility to regulate these social media platforms falls on the government,” she asserts. “I believe we can force those who run these echo chambers to stamp out the evil that is currently so prominent.”

Like any politician, she talks up unity, of course. She demands the government prevent social media from “being hijacked by those who instead wish to divide.” 

But remember, she is a member of a political party that opposes other parties. She is trying to suppress divisions that exist. The implication of her agenda is a one-​party state, where opposition is suppressed.*

By censorship.

A word she somehow neglects to use.

Online extremism, she writes, “is something we are frighteningly unequipped to deal with.”

I’d say she is frighteningly equipped.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Social media critic Dave Cullen notices that MP Lucy Powell admits that there is a huge personal element here: she is a politician who doesn’t like criticism.

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Illustration by JG

 

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Retreat to Atlanta

California, Yamaha, brain drain, business, escape, taxes

“California is the place you oughta be” — or so sang Jerry Scoggins for The Beverly Hillbillies. That may still hold true, if you are an oil millionaire retiring to a pleasant climate.

But if you are trying to make your fortune, the direction is outbound.

Take, for example, the case of Yamaha Motor USA.

The company’s big bike sales — motorcycles 500cc and up — went way down during the last dozen months, 19 percent. And since Yamaha’s operations are in California, hits to revenue like that intersect alarmingly with ongoing hits to the cost of doing business. 

Which explains the decision to move the company to “just outside of Atlanta, Georgia,” as reported by Jensen Beeler in Asphalt & Rubber.

“It should be an obvious statement that California is an expensive place to operate a business,” Beeler explains. “The state isn’t known as being a tax haven for corporations, the property values are high, which means buildings are expensive, and the standard of living for Los Angeles is one of the highest in America, which means that employees have to be paid a premium as well.”

And Beeler’s report does not even mention the state’s regulatory burden.

Problem? Southern California is “where the bulk of the motorcycle industry resides,” and Yamaha will face some difficulty being so distant from its industry’s major talent pool.* But there are a few automotive and motorcycle companies in Georgia, so Yamaha is not alone.

Indeed, if politicians continue to wreak havoc on their business sector, the Golden State bike industry will lose more than just Yamaha.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The company will keep “a small cadre of Yamaha employees” behind in Cypress, California, focusing on testing and racing.

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Illustration by JGill (running silhouette from Max Pixel)