Liberty, Nationalism and Patriotism

I listened with interest to the first two videos[1][2] in the recent series “Chris Tame from Beyond the Grave,” in which Chris discusses immigration. David McDonagh’s dissenting view[3] I also found most interesting.

Unfortunately, there are no transcripts of the videos. So, for the first one, I’ll copy the notes I made on it. “Chris likens immigration to an invasion. The invaders are not acclimatized to, or may even be hostile to, liberal (American readers: libertarian) values and liberal civilization. They might – or might not – assimilate quickly if this was a free market society; but it isn’t. He concludes by describing this immigration as an act of ‘national murder.’” For the second video, I hope David won’t mind me quoting his summary: “Chris says the national state has been justified and he says mass immigration will lead to totalitarianism, to a low wage economy, that mass immigration is not free anyway as we have the welfare state, that it is more like an invasion than mere immigration, as the newcomers are hostile to British culture, that the ruling class has organised this to cow the native workers on low wages and that despotism will be the result.”

I confess I didn’t know until now that Chris near the end of his life had taken such a strong nationalist and anti-immigration stance. At the time he made the video (late 2005) there had indeed, in the previous year or so, been the start of a huge influx of immigrants into the UK. But a high proportion of immigrants at that time were Polish. Maybe some of these Poles, having only recently been freed from communism, were in a sense not acclimatized to liberal values. But at least going by the Polish people I know both here and in Poland, I don’t think the accusation that they are hostile to liberal civilization stands up to scrutiny.

As to Muslims, Chris may perhaps have been on somewhat firmer ground, with the terrorist attacks of July 2005 still fresh in people’s memories at the time. (Since I started writing this, further atrocities have happened in Brussels, which also may well prove to have been the work of Muslims). But I still think it’s wrong to cast aspersions on all Muslims just because some Muslims behave badly. Granted, Islam isn’t a very nice religion. But then, as anyone who has ever read the bible cover to cover will know, Christianity isn’t very nice either.

Chris describes the immigration as an “invasion.” But any invasion must be planned. And that means someone must have planned it. Actually, I think Chris was right on this one. It was planned. And he even knew who did it; for he talks of an enemy class, seeking to destroy our liberal values and our civilization.

My own reading of the entrails is that, sometime around 2000, Blair and co realized that without major change, their welfare state was going to come totally unstuck; and soon enough that they would still be around to face the fall-out. Like any Ponzi scheme, the welfare state requires a constant supply of new useful idiots to survive. With an aging population and a falling birth rate, there were not going to be enough young working people domestically to take up the strain. So, they decided to import the useful idiots they needed from outside. They made coming to work in the UK attractive to potential immigrants. Get enough of them in, they probably thought, and the welfare state might last another generation or so. Long enough, very likely, for them to be safely in their graves by the time shit hits fan. And damn the consequences to the social fabric, or to anything or anyone else; that’s just “collateral damage” from a politician’s point of view.

And more recently, Cameron and co, despite promises to the contrary, have not merely maintained the nett inflow of immigrants, but actually increased it significantly. That’s rather suggestive, no?

Be all that as it may; for me, the most important point in the discussion was made by David McDonagh. That was, “Nationalism and what is now called libertarianism clash.” Or, to put it another way, liberal values are incompatible with nationalism, with the nation state and with its politics. I think David is spot-on correct here.

David simply states this as a fact. I’ll try to add two arguments to support it. One, a society based on liberal values will be a bottom-up society, always upholding the rights of individuals. Such a society will be for the benefit of the individuals who comprise it, not the individuals for the benefit of the society. But nationalism is a top-down ideal. Under nationalism, the nation is everything and the individual, ultimately, is nothing. And democracy – as I’ve explained elsewhere[4] – only makes things worse. Eventually, any state based on nationalism will degenerate into the kind of mess we suffer today, in which a criminal ruling class and their hangers-on claim a “divine” right to do anything they think they can get away with.

The second argument is historical. From the 1820s onwards, in Britain at least, liberal values were in the ascendant. This lasted until about the 1870s, when the rot began to set in; for example, with the state getting its mitts on education, and the introduction of strict liability in criminal law. It was around the same time that nationalism on the Continent really got going, for example in Italy and Germany. The gradual but inexorable decline of individual freedom has been contemporaneous with the period in which the nation state has become the primary political structure worldwide. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

If we agree that liberal values and nationalism are incompatible, and if we want to live in a society based on liberal values, then we are driven to a conclusion which some will find highly unpalatable. That is, that we must reject nationalism and the nation state.

And further; those that are hostile to our liberal values are our enemies. And that is so whether they are native born, foreigners or immigrants. Blair is our enemy. Cameron and May are our enemies. Islamist terrorists are our enemies too, of course. But we must never, ever, compromise ourselves by allowing one set of enemies to play us off against another. And we must never, ever give our support to any state policy or action designed to harm innocent people; nor to any increase in state power that can enable it to increase the harm it does to innocent people.

I myself have indeed come to these conclusions. And so for me “Britain,” when used in a political rather than a geographical sense, is a dirty word (as is “America”); and I want nothing of it. This is perhaps the biggest single issue which divides me from Sean Gabb and most of the other denizens at the Libertarian Alliance. I’m disappointed to find that Chris Tame also seems late in life to have moved over to the dark side on this issue. I can only presume that the ideas he presents in these videos were ones he was still mulling over and had not yet fully thought through; in that case, he would have been able to correct his mistake had he lived longer.

And yet, and yet... Where did those liberal values, by which we set such great store and which were so much in the ascendant for half of the 19th century, come from? The short answer is, they came from the Enlightenment. And where did the Enlightenment come from? The very short (and over-simple) answer is; it came from England and Scotland.

Recently, I wrote a humorous “Brief History of England” in verses of the common metre. One side effect I felt from the process was a strengthening of my feeling of Englishness. Make no mistake; English history, like all political history, is violent, bloody and full of dishonesty and injustice. But I felt myself almost shouting for the very few (relatively) good guys. For King Alfred and Good Queen Bess, for example. For Charles II, who tried hard in an impossible situation; and William III, who was a good guy as long as you were a Protestant. Lack of time prevented me from even mentioning my favourite monarch of them all, William IV. (I think it no coincidence that several pubs in my area are named after him!)

How can it be, I mused, that I, who reject the nation state called Britain, can yet feel a strong sense of connection with England (and Scotland too), and with their culture and their history? The answer I found was this: although I reject nationalism, I do not reject the idea of patriotism.

Nationalism and patriotism are often used as synonyms for each other; I suspect that the confusion is often deliberate. But in reality, they’re quite different things. Nationalism is a feeling of love or respect for a political community; whereas patriotism is a feeling of respect or love for a land or country, a culture and a heritage. It’s no contradiction to reject the first, while accepting, even eagerly accepting, the second.

Consider: When Welsh people sing “Land of my Fathers,” they aren’t talking about some bunch of politicians in Cardiff. They are singing of the hills and the valleys, the sheep pastures and the coal fields (not to mention the rugby fields), and the people who live, and have lived, in the country called Wales. Even more obvious is the difference between nationalism and patriotism for Jews. Before 1914, many European Jews were fervent nationalists for whichever country they happened to live in. Yet for a Jew, the homeland is and always has been the Holy Land, the land flowing with milk and honey. That is why, when Israel was created, it was sited there.

Back to immigration. The way I look at the issue, a state cannot have any right to set borders to keep people out (or in), because the only valid borders are those set by property owners to exclude unwanted people from all or part of their property. So there cannot reasonably be any barriers to individual migration. However, the deliberate planning and fanning of mass migration is an entirely different matter.

Apart from a very few scoundrels, it isn’t the immigrants themselves who are the problem. At worst, they will merely remain useful idiots, or eventually they may leave. At best, many of them will learn to embrace our liberal values, and can become potential allies for the future. The real problem lies with the politicians and cronies that, for their own selfish reasons, ordered (and Chris was right to use the word) an invasion of migrants. They are “people traffickers.” They are the ones that should be rejected by all right thinking people, and punished for what they did.

Let me suggest – tongue only half in cheek – a solution to the immigration problem. All economic migrants who wish to come to the UK, whether from Iraq, or Syria, or Libya, or Poland, or anywhere else – should be accepted, unless they have criminal convictions or are reasonably suspected of involvement with terrorism. But for every immigrant who arrives, we should deport a politician or a bureaucrat to wherever the immigrant came from. Blair should be the first to go – to Iraq, for the same treatment as Saddam Hussein got – and Cameron the second, to Syria to experience the bomb-the-hell-out-of-them policy at first hand.

To sum up: Liberal values are incompatible with nationalism. But liberal values are perfectly compatible with patriotism. Indeed, these liberal values are themselves part of the culture and heritage of the people of England and Scotland; and likewise, of the cultures which are derived from them. So, seeking a society based on liberal values requires rejecting the nation state and the current political order; but it doesn’t require rejecting your sense of country, culture or heritage. You can be a good patriot without having to be a nationalist. And that, I think, has some relevance and application to the matters at hand.

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[1] http://thelibertarianalliance.com/2016/03/16/chris-tame-on-immigration-multiculturalism-and-western-civilisation/
[2] http://thelibertarianalliance.com/2016/03/18/chris-tame-on-immigration-class-analysis-and-the-labour-market/
[3] http://thelibertarianalliance.com/2016/03/18/david-mcdonagh-on-chris-tame-a-dissenting-view/
[4] http://thelibertarianalliance.com/2015/11/03/community-what-community/

Why the Welfare State is a Fraud - Part 3

Part 3

It is plain that something is seriously wrong with the societies we live in today. Welfare is only one part of a bigger problem. What is that problem? I think I can tell you what it is.

But I must approach the answer in a roundabout manner. Long ago, at school, I studied history like everyone else. I did not get on with the history master. Which was very fortunate for me; for it meant that I learned almost nothing of school history, except the dates of the kings of England. When, then, as an adult I came to read a little about history, I was not saddled with preconceptions.

What I found, in my reading of history, was essentially this.

Firstly, human institutions, when they meet the needs of their times, rise and flourish. When they cease to meet the needs of their times, they decay and die. Secondly, there are periods of history when there is tension between an old way and a new. These times are characterized by, on the one hand, great progress, and on the other, chaos, war, repression or a combination of the three. And thirdly, we're in one of those times right now.

It is fashionable among the most forward-thinking people today to say that the political state, the top-down structure of institutional violence that has been the model for human societies for thousands of years, is out of date. And for me, these thinkers are dead right. The state has passed its last-use-by date; and we're all feeling the effects.

There was a time, a little less than two centuries ago, when we were moving in the right direction. The state was losing its charm. The old ruling class were losing their grip. People were demanding a bigger say in how the societies they lived in were run. Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution was beginning to spread, and to deliver its promise of better living standards for all.

But then – as I understand it – something went badly wrong. What should have happened is that the two new classes of the time – the capitalists, the brain-power of the new industrial age, and the workers, its muscle-power – should have banded together to bring down the old, corrupt ruling class. There should have been a class war, leading to the destruction of the top-down, violent state.

But that didn't happen. Instead – and by what devious trickery I do not know, though I am sure it must have been devious trickery – the ruling class contrived to turn the workers and the capitalists against each other. This had three bad effects. One, the Industrial Revolution was rendered far less effective in raising the quality of human life than it should have been. Two, the ruling class and their political state managed to wriggle out of the trap set for them. Three, when Karl Marx and his friends came on the scene, they ignited class war all right – but it was war between the wrong classes. No wonder Marxism failed so badly!

From that time, the remnant of the ruling class have done everything they can to expand their own power, and the power of the institution they feed off, the state. They and their henchmen have set themselves up to be a political class, a new ruling class, albeit ruling more subtly than the bad kings of old.

And there has been little opposition to the political class and their scheming. For most people have been fooled into accepting, even into supporting, the political class and their state. Having established the sham called democracy, and the fiction that democracy makes morally right whatever sufficiently many say they want, the political class set out to hoodwink as many working people as they could into thinking that the state, and so the political class, was on their side.

They carried off the deception for quite a while, didn't they?

* * *

What does all this have to do with welfare? When you put it into context, you see that the welfare state is merely an underhanded attempt by the political class to make people think that the political class are on their side. The welfare state is, and always has been, a giant fraud, committed by the political class against everyone else, especially the productive.

You can see, too, why they created the welfare state when they did. In the 1940s, people had had a sharp taste of what political states are really about – violence and war. No wonder the political class wanted to be seen to give people what must have looked at the time like a sweetener.

The answers to some of the questions I asked earlier now become blindingly obvious. The welfare state hasn't ended poverty, because it was never intended to end poverty. Indeed, for the political class to keep up their pretence of being on the side of the poor, poverty has to be perpetuated, not ended.

The reason why many welfare proponents don't practise what they preach about giving to the poor and needy, is that they don't have any compassion for the poor and needy. That's all a front. Instead, they have a hatred of people who earn an honest living. They hate us for being productive. They hate us for being good at what we do. They hate business. Business, to them, is money-grubbing, and is beneath them. So, welfare is just a convenient excuse for them to take as much earned wealth as they can away from productive people.

The reason why we good people don't get any thanks or appreciation for all that we pay and have paid, is that the political class are stealing from us far more than just money. For, to whom do the unthinking welfare recipients give their thanks and their respect? Not to the people who earned the wealth they are living off, but to the political class that re-distributed it in their direction. The political class steal from good people, not only our earned wealth, but also the appreciation and respect which we deserve.

The reason why the politicians all want to throw more and more money at the welfare system, is just that they want to take more and more of our money. Oh, that was an easy one! And the reason why there is no stigma attached to receiving benefits, is that the political class actually want to encourage people to take their bribes and feed at their trough. They want as many of us as possible to become dependent on them and their welfare state.

This is the same reason why the political class don't worry too much about the existence of the underclass. Hell, if they can haul enough people down into dependency, then the votes of the dependent, in the sham called democracy, could keep the political class in power, and their welfare state in continued existence, for ever.

The reason why, despite all the technological progress and hard work, many people today are worse off than their forebears were fifty years ago, is that today there's a huge dead weight holding down the economy. That dead weight is the weight of the political class – and it is increasing and increasing.

Isn't it a clever trick that the political class have played on us? Invent a scheme that takes earned wealth away from people, but fool them into thinking they are benefiting from it. Some of them will be dragged down into poverty. How great! You can use that as an excuse to take away more and more wealth from everyone! Meanwhile, you and your political-class cronies can enjoy popularity, power and spending other people's money. Not to mention the pleasure of hurting the productive people you hate and despise so much.

So, what is it, this bigger problem I referred to, of which the welfare state is only one part? The answer is now before us. The political class are the problem.

A Brief History of England

A Brief History of EnglandFrom 871 to the Present(To be sung, by those with stamina, to “While shepherds watched their flocks by night”)By The Darn-Poor Rhymer
King Alfred first did codify
The English common law,
Which does to everyone apply;
To rich as well as poor.

The men of Wessex ruled the lands,
The forests and the plains.
But then, along came raiding-bands;
So next, we tried the Danes.

Wise King Canute said to his moot,
While sitting by the sea,
“My friends, you may give me the boot
If one wave touches me.”

But English history has a tide
That’s predisposed to tangles;
Canute’s descendants were off-side.
So next, we tried the Angles.

King Harry nearly did manage
To stave off relegation;
He won away at Stamford Bridge!
But then he lost the nation.

That bastard William fought his way
Through ditch, and bog, and trench;
An arrow ended Harry’s day.
So next, we tried the French.

The Domesday Tax, the Rufus Stone,
Are Norman monuments;
King Henry, too, made people moan,
All at their own expense.

King Stephen’s reign was anarchy,
And monstrous were his debts;
We needed change, as all could see.
We tried Plantagenets.

To John, the barons would not cede;
Submission? A non-starter.
They forced him, thus, to Runnymede,
To sign the Magna Carta.

King Edward did expel the Jew,
And taxed haves and have-nots.
The Welshmen first he did subdue,
Then hammered the poor Scots.

At Crécy did the longbows twang,
Poitiers and Agincourt.
Again, again, the arrows sang
For England; ’twas fine sport.

Alas! The century long fight
Was by mad Henry lost.
And soon the Red Rose and the White
Were warring, at great cost.

Bad Richard’s hopes of governing
In Bosworth’s mud did squelch;
No nail, no shoe, no horse, no King.
So next, we tried the Welsh.

King Henry Eight six wives did wed;
Divorced, beheaded, passed
Away, dismissed, gave up her head,
But one did him outlast.

Soon Bloody Mary did the land
With martyrs’ gore bespot;
And Good Queen Bess remained unmanned,
So next, we tried a Scot.

King Charlie’s reign was full of tears,
The people up were fed;
So Henry Burton lost his ears,
But Charlie lost his head.

An Interregnum then ensued;
Our lives got rather gnarly.
So, as the military argued,
We tried another Charlie.

The new king tolerance avowed;
Our hopes had ne’er been higher.
But Protestants and Catholics rowed,
And we had plague and fire.

When James came king, ’twas quite a jolt.
We didn’t like it much;
There was rebellion and revolt.
So then, we tried the Dutch.

King William bred no Orange men;
Beset by many doubts,
We briefly tried the Danes again,
And then we tried the Krauts.

But England was no more. Alas!
In 1707,
An “Act of Union” they did pass,
Abolishing our heaven.

Three centuries we’ve had since then;
Mixed fortunes, hopes and fears.
Yet, more and more, we Englishmen
Have been reduced to tears.

Now Silly Lizzie sits astride
A throne that’s but a token,
There’s no more justice, no more pride;
Society is broken.

King Dave, King Tony, Drongo too,
Have given us no quarter;
They’d like to flush us down the loo,
Had they sufficient water.

King Alfred, if he came again,
Would likely douse the floor
With tears, at seeing evil men
Corrupt his common law.

Yet honest Englishmen, I know,
On England’s soil still roam.
And Alfred would be pleased, I trow,
That England’s still our home.

Why the Welfare State is a Fraud - Part 2

Part 2

Even a decade ago, I used to ask myself serious questions about the welfare state. One, why hasn't it ended poverty? It's had plenty of time to do it. Two, why do many welfare-state proponents fail to practise what they preach about caring for the poor and needy? Why don't they put their money where their mouths are?

Three, in exchange for the large sums of money which have been taken from me over the years, why have I never had even a single word of thanks or appreciation from any welfare recipient? Not even from one of them, not even once. Ungrateful bastards.

Four, why do the politicians all offer the same solution to the problems of the welfare system – to throw more and more tax money into the pot? Five, why isn't there a social stigma attached to receiving benefits? Why isn't failing to pull your weight in the economy looked on as shameful?

Recently, my questioning has become more radical. What, I began by asking myself, is the moral basis, which justifies expecting people to help those in need?

I can see three possible answers to this question. The first is mutual aid. Accident, illness or disability can hit anyone, as can unemployment. And old age hits everyone who doesn't die young. I see no reason why people should not invest in schemes of mutual aid or insurance, which provide benefits, in proportion to their contributions, to those who need them when they need them. Such schemes existed before the welfare state – for example, the friendly societies. And, by and large, they worked reasonably well.

But if a scheme is set up in such a way that the dishonest can take out more than they are entitled to, it is no longer a mutual aid scheme. It is simply a mechanism for re-distribution of wealth from the honest to the dishonest. Nor can any scheme be mutual aid, if it requires some to pay more than others for the same level of benefits. Yet this is exactly what has happened with the welfare state. So the basis of the welfare state, whatever it may be, is not mutual aid.

The second possible moral basis for helping the needy is solidarity. But solidarity with whom? Plainly, I should feel solidarity with those who share my culture and my values. But what of those that don't share my values? And what of those that behave in ways I disapprove of, or even do things actively hostile to me?

Surely I have no obligation to show solidarity with, or to do anything to help, those that behave as my enemies? Particularly if they despise the things I hold dear – like individual freedom, civil liberties, independence, honesty, common-sense justice, tolerance, work ethic, earned prosperity, dynamism, human progress and striving for excellence?

Why, indeed, should I care about those that don't even try to earn an honest living and to be a nett benefit to me and to other good people? Why should I waste my resources on those that are nothing but a drain on me? And why should I give anything to those that dishonestly milk the system?

I can be sympathetic towards those who cannot earn because of old age, or disability, or accident or illness, or if their opportunities to earn are limited for reasons outside their control. But not if their failure to earn is due to laziness or dishonesty. Nor, indeed, if they are hostile to business. From where do those, that hate and despise honest business, get any claim to any of the wealth it creates?

What of those that have supported re-distribution of my earnings towards others – or towards themselves? They have taken from me without asking me. They have not shown me goodwill. They have not behaved as my fellows. So why should I have any solidarity with them? They owe me compensation; I don't owe them anything.

And what of those, that urge or approve of political policies that annoy or inconvenience me? If, for example, they call for or support draconian speed limits on the roads? Why should I give a single penny to any bastard that wants to slow me down or try to catch me out? Or if they support Labour's bad "law" called IR35, designed to ruin my career and the careers of tens of thousands of other independent consultants? Why should I feed those that bite my hand?

Come to that, why should I help anyone that takes part in any kind of politics? Politics is a dirty game, that no self-respecting human being should ever attempt to play. Why should I help those that don't share my disgust for politics and politicians?

I feel no solidarity with the lazy, with the dishonest, with the political, with business-haters, with those that favour re-distribution of my earned wealth. And yet, the welfare state forces me to pay for all of them. So I must conclude that, whatever roots the welfare state may be based on, solidarity is not one of them.

The third possible moral basis for helping people in need is charity. When people's lives are devastated by an event outside anyone's control, such as the Asian tsunami of December 2004 or Hurricane Katrina in 2005, then it makes sense for all of us to do something to help them. It is very reasonable to give enough to help them back to their feet, back to their independence. And that is the end of the matter.

But the welfare state doesn't stop when people have been helped out of the worst of their troubles. Quite the opposite, in fact. The welfare state offers incentives for people to become dependent on it. It sucks people down into dependence. It sucks them down into permanent trouble.

No, the welfare state isn't based on charity, either. Which leaves me scratching my head, with the question: If the welfare state isn't about mutual aid, or solidarity, or charity, then what in hell can it possibly be about?

Why the Welfare State is a Fraud - Part 1

(From the archives - September 26th, 2006. This is another three-parter)

Part 1

In 1942, in the depths of war, William Beveridge authored a report. There were already state schemes in Britain for pensions, health and unemployment insurance. What Beveridge proposed to do was bring these all together into one giant, all-encompassing combine – the welfare state.

Many people liked Beveridge's ideas. They liked the idea of a safety net to prevent them becoming poor. They liked the idea of financial security in their old age. They must have thought they were getting something for nothing. But they didn't stop to think about the long-term costs. They didn't think about the burden they would be storing up for people in the future.

Labour politicians, spying a chance to get themselves power, jumped on Beveridge's scheme. Worn out by war, the people were conned. They voted for it in droves. So, the British welfare state was born.

By 1948, most of the welfare-state proposals had been implemented. Although some thinkers, even Beveridge himself, were already starting to worry what kind of monster he had sired. Since then, many other countries have set up state welfare systems, following the British model more or less closely.

In Britain at least, it isn't just pensions, health and unemployment insurance that are provided by government, and financed through taxation. There is subsidized housing. There is "free" education. Even bus services are subsidized. The whole system is like a giant whirlpool, in which some of the money taken from us through taxation is eventually returned to us in one form or another – but a lot of it just disappears.

So, what effect has the welfare state had on our lives? Today, after almost sixty years, has it ended poverty? Has it made us all better off? Has it provided us with financial security in our old age?

The answer to the first question is clear. The welfare state hasn't ended poverty. Far from it. It has, so the sociologists tell us, created an underclass. With no desire to work for a living, and in many cases with criminal tendencies, the underclass are unemployed, unemployable and dependent on the state for their very existence.

And it is not just in Britain that welfare has failed to end poverty. I quote from a recent article by Michael D. Tanner of the Cato Institute about welfare in the USA:

"Despite this government largesse, 37 million Americans continue to live in poverty. In fact, despite nearly $9 trillion in total welfare spending since Lyndon Johnson declared War on Poverty in 1964, the poverty rate is perilously close to where it was when we began, more than 40 years ago.”

There is worse. Fifty years ago, one working parent could support a family. Now, it takes two – and even two incomes are often not enough. Buying a home, too, has become an increasing strain for working people. How can it be that, despite the enormous advances we have made in technology in fifty years, and despite the fact that many people work harder than ever, overall we are worse off, not better?

There is yet worse. Unless there is radical change, most people now in their 50s or younger will never get pensions sufficient to live on. If we save, our savings will become worthless the next time the politicians debauch the currency, as they did in the 1970s. If we don't save, there will be nothing left in the pot for us, no matter how much we have put in. The so-called compact between the generations, which was supposed to assure us of pensions, has failed.

The confiscatory tax burden on us has risen steeply in the last half century. Both direct aid indirect taxes have gone up and up. And the yield from these taxes is used now for purposes way beyond pensions, health and unemployment insurance, even beyond "free" education and subsidized housing. Many of these purposes bring no conceivable benefit at all to those who pay the costs. For example, it was recently revealed that a quarter of the "council tax" we pay in England – supposedly for roads, parks, police and the like – actually goes on pensions for state employees.

And those in power are for ever looking for new excuses to take our resources away from us. For example, new "green" taxes, or empowering themselves to confiscate our homes if we leave them empty for more than a few months.

Claiming to represent "the community,” the politicians, national and local, use money taken from us to seek popularity. A recent proposal to offer people regular "health MOT checks" is a good example of this. The politicians encourage people to clamour for the benefits they offer, while not thinking about the costs, or about who will be expected to pay them. And increasingly, what is taken from us is used on dubious schemes that provide for no-one's needs, but merely reward political correctness, such as grants to install solar heating.

The re-distributive welfare state has also caused moral decay. Many people now show no shame about taking as much as they possibly can from the trough, even if they don't either need or deserve it. If I don't take it, they say, someone else will. It is not surprising that, if people are encouraged to behave badly like this, you get a bad society. And the virtues of independence and self-help have been all but forgotten.

We have also lost what I call the passive sanction. When people behave in a way we don't like, we should be able, non-aggressively, to tell them so. We should be able to choose the severity of our sanction as the situation demands, from the raised eyebrow right up to outright ostracism. We should certainly have the right to deny financial help to those that behave badly towards us. But the welfare state has taken this right away from us.

And it is not just in Britain that there are problems like these. I quote Tanner again: "Government welfare programs have torn at the social fabric of the country and been a significant factor in increasing out-of-wedlock births with all of their attendant problems. They have weakened the work ethic and contributed to rising crime rates. Most tragically of all, the pathologies they engender have been passed on from parent to child, from generation to generation."

However, some have greatly benefited from the welfare state. It has given the politicians a chance to appear generous and compassionate, while all the time spending other people's money. And it has brought about an enormous increase in bureaucracy, with the arrogance, incompetence and waste that go with it. Those in control of the welfare state, and those that have found nice little niches in it, have done very well out of it, thank you. At our expense, of course – at the expense of the real working people.

Anarchism, justice and a vision for the future

This essay began as a comment on Keith Preston’s “The New Anarchist Movement is Growing,” published here[1]. Soon, though, as I explored some of the ideas of various anarchist sects, it turned into something much wider. It became an attempt to answer, from my own highly individual perspective, four questions:

1. In what sense or senses am I an anarchist?
   
2. Which anarchist groups could I comfortably work with?
   
3. Is the idea of an anarchist movement a sensible one?
   
4. What might the world look like, if anarchist ideas were to be put into practice?
   

Am I an anarchist? – Part One

Webster’s definition of an anarchist is: “1: a person who rebels against any authority, established order, or ruling power.” It’s fair to say that includes me.

For example, I regard re-distributory taxation as theft. And worse; for not only does it take resources fairly earned by honest, productive people, and transfer them to the lazy and dishonest, but it allows the politically rich to take a huge cut on the way. I regard aggressive wars, for example in Iraq or Syria, as acts of terrorism. I regard those that lobby for, make or enforce bad laws as criminals. I take the same view of those that support policies, such as smoking bans, to cramp people’s lifestyles. And I regard any violation of human rights like privacy, however small and whatever excuse may be offered for it, to be a crime.

I feel no attachment to any political nation. I hate the state with its claims of immunities and moral privileges for its functionaries. I loathe the EU and the UN. I’m angered by the babel of lies and propaganda emitted by the media. I feel repelled by today’s popular culture. And I’m sick and tired of those that want to tell me how I should live. I’ve been more than 60 years on this planet, and I know what works for me and what doesn’t, thank you very much. Thus, I feel no sense at all of political community; indeed, I’ve come to regard politics as a dirty word.

As to left and right, I’m what Keith calls “neither fish nor fowl.” As an individualist, I detest the political left for their collectivism. As a lover of freedom, I detest the political right for their claims of sovereignty and their authoritarianism. And I detest the “centre” as much as either; for they seem to combine the worst features of both. But most of all, I have contempt and loathing for the entire corrupt, dishonest political process[2] and for all those that take part in it.

And I see democracy for the failure and the sham it is. Not only does it enable majorities to victimize minorities. But it also allows the political class to play people off against each other, and rule over everyone without concern for anyone but themselves and their cronies. I regard a vote for any political party as an assault against all those who are harmed by the policies of that party. So, I haven’t voted in almost 30 years now, and won’t vote for any politician ever again.

All this said, I don’t self identify as anarchist, for reasons I’ll come to later. Nevertheless, some of my friends do so identify; and many of them are happy to consider me as one of theirs. I even use a personal logo based on the anarchist flag. Though I prefer burgundy, the colour of wine, to the more usual red, the colour of socialism, blood and the US republican party.

So, yes; on the philosophical level at least, I’m an anarchist.

An anarchist vision? – Part One

Keith says that anarchists seek to create “decentralized societies with diverse and self-managed communities.” I can certainly buy into that idea. Part of my vision for the future, indeed, is that those who so wish will live in communities of like minded people, each on its own private land. Each such community will have its own rules for its members and for visitors, and its own sense of identity binding its members. In this, I’m not far away from Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s “private law societies.”

You might, for example, have socialist, mutualist, Catholic, Muslim, libertarian and traditionalist communes near each other, without any of them interfering in the others’ business. (Though, I suspect, members of some of these groups might accept invitations to the others’ parties!) But in addition to communards of different stripes, I envisage that many people will choose to live as they do today; as singles, as couples or in Western style nuclear families.

I’d also expect there to be economic communities of different types. Capitalist businesses, workers’ co-operatives, the one or two man band and the family firm are obvious examples. Some of these would be coterminous with communes in which people live; others not.

With me so far?

Flavours of anarchism

Keith’s essay is mainly concerned with introducing and describing a number of different anarchist sects. I found the beliefs of these sects so widely spread, even mutually contradictory, that it’s hard to imagine them ever working together. Which raised the question: which of these flavours of anarchism can I be comfortable with? I’ll aim to work upwards from the worst for me to the best for me.

I’ll start with green anarchists and primitivists. It seems to me that green anarchism is an oxymoron. For the green religion – the worship of the planet Gaia – is a militant one. Its acolytes won’t be satisfied until everyone in the world has been converted and “re-wilded.” And how anyone can do that without exercising a ruling power, I don’t know.

Besides which, the greens’ views are anathema to me personally. They want to dismantle Western civilization. They hate industry and technology. And they’re led by hypocrites like Al Gore and Prince Charles, whose stock in trade is to demand “sacrifice from thee, but not from me.” No, sorry; the green and black can’t be my friends.

On to feminists. Now individuals’ gender, like their race and birthplace, isn’t under their control. And therefore, in my view, it shouldn’t count against them. Thus far, feminists have a point; for there has, in the past, been oppression of women by men. And, in the Muslim world, there still is.

The flip side of that view is that people’s gender shouldn’t count for them, either. But feminists disagree. What they’ve done is ally with the ruling class to get their own interests favoured. So, Western women today can make false accusations of sexual harassment against men, or seek inflated divorce settlements; and they usually get away with it. Because of this, as long as feminism rules the roost, no Western man can enter into a relationship with a woman without the risk of being, to use a cliché, “taken to the cleaners.”

So, I find anarcha-feminism almost as self contradictory as green anarchism. Thus, the purple and black are no friends of mine, either.

Next come collectivists and communists (with a small c). My main issues with them are:

1. I’m an individualist. I see any society as being for the benefit of the individuals in it. But collectivists and communists take the opposite view.
   

2. They reject private property. But I regard property rights justly and honestly obtained through work and trade as not only valid, but vital. For me, property is life.
   

3. They reject private ownership of the means of production. But my means of production is my mind. No-one but me can own my mind. Right?
   

4. They agree with Marx’s dictum, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” But I prefer my own version: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his deserts.”
   

5. It seems to me that, in terms of wealth distribution, they’re trying to solve the wrong problem. They see inequality as the problem; whereas for me, the problem is unjust wealth distribution. And they don’t even seem to see the underlying, and far bigger, problem; that unjust distribution of wealth is caused by unequal (and unjust) distribution of political power.
   

That said, I do recognize that it’s possible for people of a collectivist mind set to be genuine anarchists. So these people aren’t my enemies, as long as they don’t try to force their ideas on to me; but I still can’t work with them.

A little further up the food chain, but sporting the same red and black colours, are the syndicalists and trade unionists. I have, on a few occasions, worked with people of this stripe, particularly in the civil liberties area. They can be fine and amusing people. And they’re often enemies of my enemies. But they still aren’t really my friends.

Consider that when trade unions were first formed back in the 18th century, they were a great idea. They were set up to defend the rights of working people against the ruling establishment; so it’s hardly surprising that they were illegal until 1824. I also admire the workers who organized themselves to fight against fascism, particularly in Italy and Spain, in the first half of the 20th century. But against these, I can remember Britain in the late 1960s, when the trade unions ran the country. The result was a mess. As soon as they ally with the ruling élite, the power of trade unions becomes a negative to honest working people, not a positive.

Onwards and upwards to the orange and black, the mutualists. I do have a gripe or two with them. For one, they support the labour theory of value; I don’t (see here[3] for why). For two, their views appear, at least on the surface, to preclude any possibility of an individual building up a surplus of justly earned wealth, to be used on future projects or for a rainy day. But there’s one thing they and I agree on whole heartedly. That is, the economic free market. So if, ultimately, the difference between their philosophy and mine is that they prefer workers’ co-operatives while I prefer small scale capitalism, I can live with that.

Next come gay anarchists, the lavender and black. I myself have no homosexual tendencies; the best part of a decade in single sex boarding schools knocked any such leanings out of me. But I’m sympathetic towards gay people. For example, my barber is gay. Alan Turing, the seminal computer scientist, was gay – and was hounded to death by the state for it. And I have worked, in the industry he founded, with many fine people who also happened to be gay.

Like women, gay people have been victimized for something that is outside their control. But the big difference between gay people and feminists, as I see it, is that gay people are only demanding their basic human right to live as they wish; whereas the feminists demand power. So, while I reject feminists, I see no reason why gay anarchists shouldn’t be my friends.

Next I place the anarcho-pacifists, the white and black. My one major issue with them is that, though I consider pacifism to be a great idea in a perfect world, when taken to its extreme it’s impractical against the kind of vicious, criminal, statist slime we face.

At the same level as the pacifists I put a group Keith doesn’t mention, the Christian anarchists. I was brought up in a Protestant tradition, but lost the religion at the age of 16. Nevertheless I admire those Christians, whose attitude to the statists is along the lines of: “I obey God’s laws, not yours.” Personally, I prefer to put the argument in terms of natural law – the law natural to human beings – and so avoid any need to invoke a deity. But either way, we’re close. (As an aside, where are the anarchists of other religions? Muslim anarchists? Buddhist anarchists? An interesting question.)

To the top of this particular tree, the gold and black, the “an-caps” or anarcho-capitalists. I myself am economically a one man band, a highly skilled worker more than an entrepreneur. And I suffer for it, because the politicians keep on trying to declare my livelihood to be “illegal.” But I appreciate what honest capitalism – not crony “crapitalism,” forsooth! – has done already for Western civilization, and know it can do far more in the future. So, while I’m not strictly an-cap myself, they’re my friends.

An anarchist movement?

In his essay, Keith says much about an anarchist movement. But the problem with a movement is that it must have something to move towards. So, what is the vision which anarchists share, and can agree on with a fair degree of unanimity?

I gave my best understanding of how part of such a vision might be in the section “An anarchist vision? – Part One” above. But those are just my interpretations. Where are the definitive statements of where today’s anarchist movement wants to go, written by the anarchists themselves? And how are they going to get there?

Another question in the same area is, how does the movement plan to bring people on side with their vision? How do they plan to show that the idea is practical? How will they persuade people to buy into it – enough people actually to make change happen?

Am I an anarchist? – Part Two

I said earlier that I don’t self identify as an anarchist. Why is this? I see four reasons:

1. Anarchists still have a bad reputation, because of the violence used by some of their 19th and early 20th century comrades.
   

2. The anarchist spectrum is too wide. For any individual’s political views, there will always be anarchists diametrically opposed to those views. My dislike of greens and feminists, and lukewarm view of collectivists and syndicalists, are enough to persuade me that I couldn’t join an anarchist movement as at present constituted.
   

3. Anarchists don’t seem to be able to articulate a shared vision of where they want to get to. Even if they could, the strategy for getting there seems unclear.
   

4. It’s all very well to get rid of the state. But what happens then? In particular, do anarchists support a justice system, or not?
   

It’s this last issue which is the clincher for me. Suppose we had a society of communes, like the one I described earlier. Suppose there is commune of primitivists, who (rightly or wrongly – but that’s a separate issue) believe that human emissions of carbon dioxide cause catastrophic global warming, so must be stopped. And suppose that, close by, there is a capitalist work commune, which manufactures cement for builders. Now, cement production generates a lot of carbon dioxide; that’s a fact. Would the primitivists, then, be justified in raiding the capitalists, burning down their factory, and dumping their machinery and all their cement in the lake? If not, how do you prevent them? And if so, would the capitalists in their turn be justified, during a hot dry spell, in giving Nature a helping hand by setting fire to the primitivists’ forest? Anarchism, it seems to me, fails to answer these questions adequately.

What I say next may sound like a terrible pun. But: If anarchism can’t satisfactorily answer the justice question, then anarchist societies can only descend into anarchy.

Because of this, I self identify as a “minarchist.” But unlike some who use the same label, I don’t want a minimal state or a night watchman state. I’m as much against the state as any anarchist; I don’t want rulers. However, to deal with issues like the one I raised above, I’m happy to accept a minimal set of rules. The libertarian non-aggression obligation might be one such rule. And, in order for such rules to be generally respected, there must be some form of coercive apparatus which can, at the very least, enforce compensation by breakers of the rules to the victims of their offences.

So, the question I’m going to try to answer in the final section is: How can we have rules, without having any rulers? Or otherwise put, how can we have law and justice without a state?

An anarchist vision? – Part Two

I’ve already published a fairly detailed “Blueprint” for a society which includes justice and a code of law, but has no state or other central point at which power can collect[4]. But this is very much a work in progress. So today, I’ll step back from the detail. Instead, I’ll try to give a few of the key ideas, and to justify some of them.

Before there can be any system of justice, people must first agree on what justice is. My concept of justice – objective, individual justice, or as I like to put it, common sense justice – is, at its root, the flip side of Confucius’ Golden Rule. Confucius says: Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t like done to you. (Or, closer to the point, don’t do to others what they wouldn’t like done to themselves). So, I see justice as the condition in which each individual is treated, over the long run and in the round, as they treat others. If you don’t do harm to others, you shouldn’t have to suffer harm being done to you. And conversely, if you do harm others, you can hardly complain if others get together to harm you in return.

This idea is sure to make me enemies on both the political left and right. The left will ask, what happened to social justice? To which I’ll reply: If you fancy a particular flavour of social justice, go live in a commune that implements it! As to the right, they’ll fulminate darkly about its effects on their “heroes,” like the soldiers that invaded Iraq or the bureaucrats that intercept our e-mails. To which, I’ll shrug and say, “criminals deserve punishment.”

Unlike some libertarians, by the way, I do make a distinction between civil and criminal justice. Civil justice provides restitution to victims, whereas criminal justice can impose additional punishment where there is significant intention to violate rights or to do harm, independent of how much harm is actually caused. The planting, by an incompetent terrorist, of a bomb which fails to go off, is an example of an act which causes little or no damage to specific victims, but nevertheless deserves to attract heavy criminal law punishment.

The second fundamental idea, on which I base my vision, is the concept of moral equality. The way I put this is: What is right for one to do, is right for another to do in similar circumstances, and vice versa. This concept is, quite simply, one in the eye for the state. For the idea denies any right for anyone to tax people, make laws to bind people, make wars or do any of the other heinous acts politicians and state functionaries are so fond of, unless each and every individual has a balancing right to do similar things back to the perpetrators of those acts.

Why should I think that all individuals are morally equal? Well, what’s the alternative? If individuals aren’t morally equal, then some must be, in Orwellian phrase, more equal than others. So those, who want to deny the principle of moral equality, must answer three questions. 1: Who, exactly, deserves to have moral privileges that others don’t? 2: Why should those particular individuals be so privileged? And 3: Why should those, that deny moral equality for all, not themselves be thrown down to the very bottom of the heap?

From this common sense idea of moral equality, it follows that there exists a minimal moral code of what is right and wrong. And this is independent of time, place, culture, or the social status of an individual. In the Blueprint, I call it the Code of Civilization. To show that this code exists, I use a thought experiment with two large sheets of paper, one labelled “Prohibitions” and the other “Mandates.” On each sheet, the experimenter simply lists all acts and circumstances in which the acts are, respectively, wrong to do (so should be prohibited) and wrong not to do (so should be mandated). After a long time and severe depletion of the world’s supply of quills and ink, voilà! There is our Code.

This approach tells us that such a code exists; but it doesn’t tell us anything about what it actually is. To do that, we need to use a more conventional moral approach. Like the Mandelbrot set, the Code we seek may be complicated around the edges. But I, at least, think that a goodly chunk of it can be encapsulated in a few simple rules.

Confucius’ Golden Rule is a sure starter. To that, I’ll add a few others. The libertarian non aggression obligation (though, in my view, this may be broken if specifically necessary to bring someone to objective justice). An obligation to keep to contracts you freely enter into. Respect for others’ human rights, including fundamental rights such as life, liberty, property and privacy, rights of non-impedance such as freedom of opinion, speech, movement and association, and procedural rights such as presumption of innocence until proved guilty. An obligation to be always truthful and honest in dealing with others. And ultimately, a presumption of freedom. That is, where no other rule applies, individuals may do as they please.

As to how such a justice system might be structured, I’m quite certain that there can’t be any kind of legislative. Once the Code is agreed, it can of course be adapted to new situations through case law. But the only way in which the Code itself can be changed is through the acquisition of new knowledge on what is right and wrong. Any such change ought to take, at least, generations to work through and to be agreed by all affected. No more bad laws!

As to the executive, this one’s easy too. Anyone, subject perhaps to some reasonable qualifications like full age and no criminal convictions, has the right to bring a suspect to justice. This idea is hardly rocket science. Indeed, the idea of citizen’s arrest goes all the way back to Anglo-Saxon times.

Such a system will need judges; and I see no alternative to their being specialists. How to make, and keep, the judges honest, is an interesting question. I see three parts of a possible solution. First, free market competition between courts or, as I call them, “justice providers.” Second, a sane appeals procedure. And third, a general presumption among the population that anyone with any kind of power over others, such as a judge, must meet exceptionally high standards of objectivity, honesty and integrity, and deserves public censure as soon as they fail to do so. The latter condition will also apply to the replacement, which I call “quality reporters,” for today’s politicized and dishonest media.

And there are, of course, many, many gaps still to be filled, and issues still to be addressed, in such a vision.

In conclusion

I really do hope that these ideas will interest many people unhappy with the current political system. And I look forward to constructive feedback, not only from established anarchists like Keith Preston, but also from those thinking about anarchism as a potential candidate for a way forward for the human race.

---

References:

[1] http://attackthesystem.com/2015/12/22/the-new-anarchist-movement-is-growing/

[2] For more from me on these matters, see http://thelibertarianalliance.com/2015/06/20/the-unholy-trinity-collectivism-sovereignty-corruption/

[3] http://thelibertarianalliance.com/2016/01/25/the-beauty-of-entrepreneurship/

[4] http://thelibertarianalliance.com/2015/07/12/a-blueprint-for-human-civilization/

The beauty of entrepreneurship

I thought it might be good to offer something a little bit up-beat for a change.

I’ve been contemplating the so called “labour theory of value.” That is, the idea that the value of an individual’s work depends only on the amount (and, in some interpretations, also the quality) of the labour put into it.

Now I’m no economist, but even I can see that the labour theory of value is a crock. The argument I use is to adapt the well known proverb, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” In my version, this becomes “Value is in the mind of the buyer.” That is to say, what matters isn’t the amount or even the quality of labour the seller has put into the product, but the value to himself which the potential buyer perceives in it. The greater this value, the more the buyer will be willing to pay.

The labour theory of value is, nevertheless, a very popular idea. Many, many people seem to resonate to phrases like, “A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.” Crock though it may be, the idea isn’t going away any time soon. How can this be, I thought?

Park that for a moment. Another thread I’ve been toying with is the idea commonly called “capitalism.” Now, I define capitalism as “the condition in which no-one is prevented from justly acquiring or justly using wealth.” And I see it as an unashamedly good thing. Some libertarians, however, particularly west of the pond, see capitalism as something very different and negative. For example, I ran across the following quote from Kevin Carson: “[i]t is state intervention that distinguishes capitalism from the free market.” So when Kevin and others like him use the word capitalism, they mean what I’d call crony capitalism, or – to use a word popularized by John Stossel – “crapitalism.”

This led me to the thought, what actually does a capitalist do? (An honest one, I mean, not a crony). Well, he pays other people to labour to make stuff, and puts it together into a product, which he then sells. And he pockets the difference in value.

At which point, I said to myself: Hey, there’s another word for what this guy does. One not loaded with all the bad baggage that goes with “capitalist.” That word is “entrepreneur.” Literally, the word means “between taker.” And that’s exactly what he does. He sits between the workers and the buyers of their products. He takes responsibility for the quality and fitness for purpose of the products. And he takes the profits when they accrue.

That sounds like a pretty good deal for him, doesn’t it? So, what does our entrepreneur actually do in return for his profits? What does he have to bring to the party?

Then the thought struck me, that what the entrepreneur actually does is take on a large element of the risk. Not only does he invest in providing places and equipment to enable his workers to create the products. But he also insulates his workers from the full reality of the marketplace. He enables those of them, who are averse to risk, to live their economic lives as if the labour theory of value, which they love so much, was the truth.

Entrepreneurs are, by their nature, risk takers. And the best among them have an instinct for knowing which risks are good risks. If the risks our entrepreneur takes are good ones, and the value perceived by the buyers is more than the cost of creating the products, then all is well. The workers are OK; sometimes better off than that. And the entrepreneur becomes a (more or less) fat cat.

But if, on the other hand, he takes a bad risk and things go wrong, the worst that will happen to the workers is that they lose their jobs, and have to find another entrepreneur to work for. But for the honest entrepreneur himself, the worst is total financial disaster. A dishonest, political entrepreneur, of course – a crapitalist, forsooth! – may be able to manoeuvre himself out of trouble in the style of Donald Trump. But the honest entrepreneur has only one course of action open to him; take his punishment, learn his lessons and start again.

Entrepreneurs are a funny lot. I have to say I don’t always find them very engaging as people. In the eye of this beholder at least, they tend to be too emotionally driven, too unpredictable and too unreliable. But I’m in no doubt that what entrepreneurs do – honest ones, I say again, not crapitalists – is beautiful.

By delivering products which people want, entrepreneurs perform a great service to the economy. But their social value is even greater. They create an environment which approximates to the labour theory of value. And so, they enable many people – and most of all, those who are not self starters or risk takers – to share in the benefits of honest capitalism.

And so, when an honest entrepreneur gets rich, he deserves every single penny he has justly earned.