Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Ziggy Stardust Bucks

Josiah Warren Time Store note for Three Hours Labor

When times get tough, the tough . . . switch currencies.

A fascinating report in The Atlantic tells of the upswing in “local currencies.” In the United Kingdom, the Brixton Pound is being floated, engraved on its paper notes the likes of “David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust era.” Pegged to the British pound, it serves mainly as a scheme to promote local business and trade, though maybe it’s a tad more than mere boosterism.

Bavarians are also “enthusiastically using the local currency as a protest” — the local currency being the Chiemgauer. And “similar currencies have popped up around the world,” including in Canada and the United States.

The Atlantic story also mentions the idea of a “time bank,” a one-step-up-from-barter method based on labor hours and (in some cases) accounting for a variety of skill levels. Such “systems are in use all over the world . . . though the organizers are careful to make sure that the time is never given a specific value in a hard currency, which would open the door to taxation from governments.”

That caveat shows how barter and labor time exchanges might seem the more “revolutionary,” from, say, an establishment point of view. It’s worth noting that the idea’s greatest early proponent was Josiah Warren, America’s genius utopian experimenter and theoretician of “individual sovereignty.”

Less of a radical, Rep. Ron Paul echoes eminent monetary economist and Nobel Laureate F.A. Hayek by promoting the “denationalization of money,” arguing that government policy should allow all currencies to float, getting rid of all taxation on trade amongst currencies as well as repealing all legal tender laws.

For my part, I would greatly enjoy spending a Ziggy Stardust banknote.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Thought

Adam Smith

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”

Categories
Today

NYSE formed, Brown v. Board of Ed, Watergate on TV, Mass legalizes gay wed

On May 17, 1792, the New York Stock Exchange was formed.

On May 17, 1954, in a major civil rights victory, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, ruling that racial segregation in public educational facilities is unconstitutional.

On May 17, 1973, the U.S. Senate’s televised hearings into the Watergate scandal began.

On May 17, 2004, Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage.

Categories
political challengers

Ron Paul Switches Gears

The day before the official debut of Brian Doherty’s Ron Paul’s Revolution — the new book on the man, his crusade and his many enthusiastic supporters — Ron Paul slipped his 2012 presidential campaign into neutral:

Our campaign will continue to work in the state convention process. We will continue to take leadership positions, win delegates, and carry a strong message to the Republican National Convention that Liberty is the way of the future.

Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted.

Ron Paul Revolution
The BBC puts Ron Paul’s delegate count at 104, with frontrunner Mitt Romney 178 short of a lock on the nomination — but that’s at present, before the upcoming primaries. As the BBC concisely summarized Dr. Paul’s campaign, he had some successes in “several contests, in states such as Maine and Nevada,” gaining “some delegates and sometimes a significant portion of the popular vote. But he was viewed by the Republican establishment as a candidate outside party orthodoxy, and he did not manage to win a single primary election.”

Talk to a Ron Paul organizer, and you can hear harrowing tales of how the Republican establishment treated Paul’s supporters as outsiders. Despite such ill treatment, chronicler Brian Doherty compares Ron Paul’s future influence on the party to that of the past influence of Barry Goldwater. “His fans understand that Ron Paul is not just out to win an election.”

Dr. Paul’s near-term influence, though, is less obvious. In his 2008 outing he was shut out, and held his own very successful parallel rally. What he hopes to accomplish at the upcoming nominating convention remains to be seen. He concludes his letter with promise of further elaboration of his campaign’s delegate strategy. But his main thrust, in this letter and elsewhere, has been to build a long-lasting movement.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Today

Voltaire imprisoned, Warsaw Ghetto ends, Sedition Act passes WWI, Cultural Revolution begins

On May 16, 1717, writer Francois-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, was imprisoned in the Bastille for nearly a year when his epic poem, La Henriade, infuriated the government.

On May 16, 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising ended. During the uprising, some 300 hundred German soldiers were killed, while thousands of Warsaw Jews who perished. Virtually all the former ghetto residents who survived the battle were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp and were murdered by the end of the war.

On May 16, 1918, Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1918, making criticism of the government a criminal offense. Specifically verboten was the use of “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the U.S. government, its flag, or its armed forces or language that could cause others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt. Those convicted of violating the act received sentences of imprisonment for 5 to 20 years. The act was repealed on December 13, 1920.

On May 16, 1966, the Communist Party of China issued the “May 16 Notice,” beginning the Cultural Revolution.

Categories
Thought

Voltaire, imprisoned in the Bastille on this day in 1717

“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”

“God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.”

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”

“When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.”

Categories
free trade & free markets local leaders

A Very American Bridge

Severe flooding forced Polihale State Park on Kaui, Hawaii’s fourth most famous island, to close in December. The needed repairs to a bridge were estimated to run $4 million, and yet state government lumbered along, spitting out no funds for the project. So local businesses got together and did the job themselves.

One of the organizers of the private-enterprise repair job, a local surfer, noted that the two years the state could take to do the job meant a summer or two without the attraction that local businesses depended upon, and that, “with the way they are cutting funds, we felt like they’d never get the money to do it.”

A businessman named Ivan Slack (no slacker, he) said his kayak business utterly depended upon the park — “tourism is our lifeblood; it’s what pays all our bills” — so he was more than willing to get the job going sans taxpayer dollars. His business’s survival depended upon it. He couldn’t just “wait around for a stimulus check.” So his company donated resources — as did others. The community provided its own stimulus.

And the job was completed in eight days.Alexis de Tocqueville

This is what used to be the norm in America. When Alexis de Tocqueville toured the country, he noted the amazingly prolific community organizations and associations that abounded in what was then a “new country.” If the people saw a problem, the people fixed it.

If there’s a bright side to the current economic depression, surely it’s stories like this.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Today

Soviets leave Afgh, Wallace shot, NWSA formed, Okinowa returned to Japan

On May 15, 1988, after more than eight years in Afghanistan, Soviet troops began their withdrawal. The event marked the beginning of the end to a long, bloody, and fruitless Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

On May 15, 1972, Alabama Governor George Wallace, the Democratic presidential candidate with the most total votes, was shot at an outdoor rally in Laurel, Maryland, by 21-year-old Arthur Bremer. Three others were wounded, and Wallace was permanently paralyzed from the waist down. The next day, while fighting for his life in a hospital, he won major primary victories in Michigan and Maryland. However, Wallace remained in the hospital for several months, bringing his third presidential campaign to an end.

On May 15, 1869, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association in New York.

On May 15, 1972, the island of Okinawa, under U.S. military governance since its conquest in 1945, reverted to Japanese control.

Categories
Thought

Susan B. Anthony

“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputations . . . can never effect a reform.”

Categories
First Amendment rights general freedom too much government

A Caricature Worth 25 Lashes?

One hallmark of a free society is the legal right to make fun of our leaders. Several times per week I engage in ridicule as well as argument against the folks who think they know what they are doing when they attempt to rule us.

We should wear this freedom to ridicule like a badge.

Iranians, alas, can’t say the same.

Mahmoud Shokraye was tried and found guilty for insulting Nameye Amir, a member of parliament. Shokraye drew a mildly funny caricature of Amir, in a colorful post-Nastian style (the kind most major papers now fall back on), and for his trouble got 25 lashes.

Heroically, a number of cartoonists have upped the ante and created even less flattering caricatures, as you can see at the Cartoon Blog. (I sample some of them, here.) Amir got more than he bargained for. I hope it stings — more than 25 lashes’ worth.

There are several lessons to draw from this.

First, “taking offense” is not the basis of any legal action. Or any violent action. In the west, we’re centuries away from duels and other deadly fights of “honor.” The Islamic east is, alas, still embedded in old honor cultures. The faster they can shuffle off that obsession and move to a rule of law, instead, the better.

Second, as Thomas Jefferson put it, governments should fear the people, not the other way around. That’s part of what it means to live in a free society.

Politicians who don’t like it are free to seek a less public job. Really.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.