The Manifesto of the Live and Let Live Party

(Author’s Note: A leftist friend recently made a comment, on a thread about the forthcoming UK election, asking for “plausible and realistic ideas that can be put into action and that will appeal to ordinary working people.” Despite my strong aversion to politics as it exists today, and to politicians of all stripes and all parties, I thought it might be good to set down my best stab at exactly that. Hence this draft outline of a “party manifesto,” intended to spark thought and discussion.

I thought of several possible names for the party – the Good People’s Party, the Sanity Party, the Peace and Justice Party, perhaps even the Zero Agenda Party. But I eventually settled on the “Live and Let Live Party.”)

Introduction

For the last 150 years or so, the primary human political unit has been the nation state. There have been empires, too; but these do not seem to have been stable in recent times. The British empire, eventually, failed. The Soviet empire failed. The EU empire is well on its way to failing. And cracks are starting to show even in the hegemony of the American empire.

Most Western nation states, including the UK, have some form of democracy. But there are serious cracks appearing in democracy, too. From roughly the 1920s up to the early 1990s, power in the UK swung back and forth between two opposite poles; the Tories or the “right,” and Labour or the “left.” Those who preferred one over the other, were relatively happy half of the time, and oppressed the other half of the time. But around 25 years ago, things changed. The policies of the different parties grew closer together, and became more and more estranged from the interests of us, the good people. So today, many people face an election in which none of the major parties shows any concern for us. None of them are worth voting for; and each has something in them that is downright evil. Whoever wins in June, politics is likely to continue, as it has been doing for many years, getting worse rather than better.

This is why we formed the Live and Let Live Party. We want the party to do for everyone in the UK exactly what it says on the tin. We want everyone to have the freedom to live their own lives in their own way, free from all unnecessary restrictions. But there is a flip side to that freedom. That is, that each of us must always allow others to enjoy the same freedom in return. You cannot peaceably Live with others, unless you are willing to Let them Live in return.

From an academic point of view, there is much wrong with current political systems. You can question the ethical basis for the nation and for its state. You can question whether today’s 17th century style “Westphalian” nation states are out of date, and ripe for replacement by something better. You can question whether a nation must have borders, giving examples like the English and the Kurds. You can question whether it should have a military, and if so how big. You can question whether we need as big and active a government as we have, or indeed whether we need political government at all. You can question whether democracy has been a success or a failure, or whether it may even, over the long run, have made things worse. You can question whether forming a political party is a sensible thing to do, for those who are fed up with the system. But none of this professorial prattle actually gets anything done on the ground, where it matters.

So our party must have, ultimately, a practical focus. We have to accept, at least for the short term, the existing institutions. We have to accept nations and borders. We have to accept the need for military defence. We have to accept the parliament as it is. We have to accept the population of the UK as it is today. We have to accept, or at least to seek to work tolerably with, our neighbours and our strategic partners. And it is in this context that we, the Live and Let Live Party, are pleased to present our manifesto.

What we stand for

1. We’re for the individual. We’re for the interests of every individual in the UK, criminals and political hacks excepted. We recognize that the individual is the fundamental unit, from which all societies are built. And that every individual is different. Each has his or her own combination of needs and desires, choices and inclinations, strengths and weaknesses.
   

   Further, our social view is bottom-up. We want to empower all individuals to run their own lives in their own way as far as possible. When considering social interactions, we focus always on the individuals involved. And we do not accept that any social construct, including a political nation, is somehow superior to the aggregate of the individuals who constitute it.
   

2. We’re for the family. The family is vitally important, because it is the smallest social unit which can survive indefinitely. We understand that those, who choose to have families, have taken on a huge responsibility. But we also understand that parents must have the right and the power to choose how they bring up and educate their children. It isn’t a valid function of government to interfere with family life, unless a real crime is being committed.
   

3. We’re for peace. We recognize that, for any large nation, under the present system the possession of military force is vital. But we recognize also that it must only be used defensively, or in retaliation for an attack against us or our allies. It isn’t a valid function of government to aggressively interfere in other countries’ affairs, short of forestalling an actual attack or halting a genocide.
   

4. We’re for justice. Not for “social justice,” or “environmental justice,” or any of the other drivel that today passes for “justice.” We stand for objective, individual justice for all. Under justice, no-one deserves to be treated, over the long run and in the round, worse than he or she treats others. And it isn’t a valid function of government to go against such justice.
   

5. We’re for human rights. We recognize that every human being, without exception, has certain rights and freedoms. They include life (in the sense of not being murdered), security of person, property, privacy, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of thought and action, and many more. These rights are conditional only on respecting the equal rights and freedoms of others. If you respect others’ rights, your own rights must not be violated.
   

6. We’re for the rule of law. We believe that what is legally right, and what is considered wrong, in a jurisdiction at a particular time must be clearly stated, and made known to the public. And that it must be exactly the same for everyone; High Court judge or bricklayer.
   

7. We’re for the rule of minimal law. We believe that laws should represent only the absolute minimum of constraint, which is necessary to enable people to live together in peace and justice. And we support the traditional safeguards of public trials, presumption of innocence until proven guilty, and protection against double jeopardy.
   

8. We’re for the precautionary principle in its original, unperverted form. We believe that the Hippocratic oath for doctors, “First, do no harm,” should also apply to government. Government should never seek to harm anyone, without first weighing up the justice of the situation, its rights and its wrongs, the costs and the benefits to those concerned. And the burden of proof must always be on those who are proposing harmful change.
   

9. We’re for small, unintrusive, de-centralized government. Just as we believe the code of law should be minimal, so we believe that government itself should be minimal. Further, it should avoid intruding on our lives, unless that is evidently necessary. And as far as possible, government should be de-centralized; its services should be delivered within the communities in which its subscribers live.
   

10. We’re for the free market and for laissez-faire. We believe that, absent criminal acts, no-one should be denied the right to offer goods or services to others in return for payment. Further, we believe that those, who satisfy their customers, have the right to enjoy the rewards they receive as a result.
    

11. We’re for small business. We believe that the one- and two-man band, the family firm, and small companies in general are a vital part of our economic way forward to the future. We believe that government should never harm the interests of such businesses. Nor should government ever give favours to big-business cronies.
    

12. We’re for tolerance. We believe that no-one deserves to be pre-judged on the basis of what they are (for example, by skin colour, religion, age, gender or sexual orientation). In contrast, we believe that individuals should be judged only on what they do. We recognize that there will always exist some prejudiced individuals, and that little can be done to change them. But government itself must never act on the basis of such prejudices.
    

13. We’re for honesty, impartiality, transparency and accountability. We believe that all officials of government should be held to very much higher standards of honesty and impartiality than they are today. Further, there should be a far higher level of transparency, including a general presumption of public access to government records. And where policies are shown to have been wrong, officials at all levels should be held accountable for their share of the bad effects of these policies.
    

14. We’re for de-politicization of services, such as education and health, that are currently provided by the state. We favour the provision of such services through smaller, independent units, in which those who actually deliver the services have a considerable stake.
    

15. We’re for free, unbiased choice. We believe that, where competing means are available to achieve a particular goal (for example, cars versus public transport), then individuals should be free to choose whichever is best for them. We believe that government should not attempt to bias these choices.
    

16. We’re for international trade. We believe in “Economics global, politics local.” We favour international trade, and the facilities – such as ports and airports – which are necessary to support that trade.
    

    What we’re against
    

17. We oppose social engineering. We believe that government must be for the benefit of the governed. And it must, over the long run, be a nett benefit to every individual among those governed; criminals and political hacks excepted. Therefore we oppose all social engineering, and any attempts to mould people into obedient serfs or cogs in a machine; such as anti-smoking or anti-alcohol policies.
    

18. We oppose economic meddling. We oppose artificially low interest rates, which help the state but penalize savers. We oppose the creation by government of economic winners and losers, cronies and victims. We oppose “quantitative easing,” because it stokes up future inflation. And we see the function of government in the economic sphere as being hands off; no more than to establish the conditions under which the market can operate most effectively.
    

19. We oppose the green agenda. We are skeptical of the meme that human emissions of carbon dioxide are causing, or will cause, catastrophic warming on a global scale. We oppose the perversion of science, and the inversion of the precautionary principle and thus of the burden of proof, that have been done in the name of this meme. We oppose, also, those in the media that have persistently lied to us about this issue for more than 25 years.
    

    We are skeptical of the idea of “sustainable development,” which itself is already beginning to look unsustainable. We believe that the Earth is our planet, the human planet; and the UK, also known as Britain, is our land. This land and its resources are there for us to use wisely. They are our bootstrap to a better world.
    

    As to pollution, we support the principle of “polluter pays.” But, where pollution does not result from criminal activity or irresponsibility, and cannot be cost-effectively abated, we believe that the polluter should pay only the actual social cost of the pollution they cause. And this should be distributed to the victims, in proportion to the risks they suffer as a result.
    

20. We oppose the imposition of political ideologies. No-one should be forced to live under any political ideology with which they are not comfortable. Socialists, for example, have no right to force people to live under socialism if those people don’t wish to. But they do have the right to form their own communes of like minded people, and run them how they please. The same applies to other ideologies, such as religious or social conservatism.
    

21. We oppose re-distributory and confiscatory taxation. We believe that, over the long run, what people pay for government should be in proportion to the benefit they receive from government. And this benefit is, broadly speaking, in proportion to their total wealth. Therefore, the contribution to government by individuals at a particular time should be, as far as possible, in direct proportion to the individuals’ wealth at that time.
    

22. We oppose the surveillance state. We oppose the proliferation of spy cameras, and the routine interception of our communications. These are serious violations of our fundamental human right to privacy. More generally, we oppose the tendency of the state to treat us as guilty until we prove ourselves innocent.
    

23. We oppose political intolerance. We judge individuals by what they do, not who they are. But we oppose all political movements that seek to enforce some skewed kind of “tolerance” on others. Thus, we oppose political correctness in all its forms. We oppose persecution of the adherents of any religion, or none. And we oppose feminism and affirmative action, both of which are far worse than the intolerances they claim to solve.
    

24. We oppose the idea of sovereign immunity. We oppose any claim, by any government official, of any right to do something which an ordinary person would not have the right to do in a similar situation.
    

25. We oppose the European Union. We consider the formation of the EU in 1993 to have been a giant step in the wrong direction. And we consider that the European project was imposed on the people of the UK under false pretences. Following Brexit, we will seek friendly relations with individual EU member countries where in our interests, but we will have nothing to do with the EU as a whole.
    

26. We oppose the United Nations. Over the course of its existence, the UN has morphed from an organization with the potential to secure world peace and human rights, into one well on the way to becoming a world-wide, unaccountable political government. We will withdraw from all UN circles, except those concerned with its primary function of world peace.
    

    Specific policies
    

    Here are some specific policies, which we will seek to carry out. As a general rule, where similar or somewhat similar ideas have been tried elsewhere (for example, pensions systems in Chile or Singapore, or privatizations in the Czech Republic) we will fully study those examples before detailing our proposals.
    

    Some of these may well take longer than a single parliamentary term.
    

27. Borders. We will fully grant the right of EU citizens, who were already living in the UK at some suitably chosen cut-off date, to remain in the UK indefinitely. We will institute a points based immigration system, which will select both for cultural compatibility with those already here, and for economic prowess.
    

28. Economic Policies. We will cancel all wasteful, politicized projects such as HS2. And as we inexorably reduce the size of the state, we will gut its bureaucracy. We will seek to balance the government’s books as soon as we reasonably can. We will simplify and cut taxes as soon and as much as we can. Further, we will stop government meddling with the economy for its own ends. And we will set in motion, for the longer term, a plan to compensate those, whose lives have been unjustly damaged by bad taxation policies.
    

29. Human Rights Policies. We will not only retain the Human Rights Act, but we will strengthen it where necessary. We will remove the spy cameras, disband the snooping agencies and sack the snoopers.
    

30. Environmental Policies. We will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. We will repeal the climate change bill. We will ditch Agenda 21 and all other elements of the green agenda. We will establish a general principle of “polluter pays compensation” in environmental matters.
    

31. Energy Policies. We recognize that abundant, cheap energy is a necessity for a modern economy. We will, therefore, set sane and sensible policies for energy generation. For electricity, we will seek to mix gas fired plants, coal fired plants with scrubbers, and nuclear plants. We will use solar power only in those places, such as off grid applications, where it is warranted. We will halt construction of all new wind turbines, and cancel all subsidies to existing ones.
    

32. Bonfire of Bad Laws. We will seek to simplify the legal system and laws. We will identify, and repeal, all bad or unnecessary laws, including but not restricted to EU ones. And we will restore the principle of protection against double jeopardy.
    

33. Education Policies. We will de-fund all politicized departments in all universities. We will stop funding those universities which fail to measure up to the very highest standards. We will encourage schools to become independent of government, and to compete with private schools, church schools, family co-operative schools and home-schooling. We will allow schools to use alternative curricula of their choice, in place of the national curriculum, which will not be developed further.
    

34. Health Policies. We will encourage doctors’ practices and hospitals to move towards becoming independent of government. We will change the financial arrangements for health care, to ensure that older and seriously ill patients do not suffer. In the longer term, we will seek to legalize euthanasia for anyone who wishes it.
    

35. Welfare Policies. We will encourage a change away from government provision, to a mix of insurance, mutual aid and savings, with charity as a final back-stop. We will ensure that those who have already paid for anticipated future benefits are not denied them.
    

36. Pensions Policies. Through our economic policies, we will make it possible in the future for most people to save enough for their old age. And we will encourage those, with both the desire and the ability, to continue to work and to do business past the normal retirement age.
    

37. Transport Policies. We will remove the current biases for and against particular means of transport. We will allow people in individual regions and local areas to choose the forms of transport best suited to them. And over longer distances, road, rail and air transport options should all be available.
    

38. Housing Policies. We will examine the possibilities for selling off council houses to their tenants. And we will end anti-car policies in the planning of new developments.
    

39. The BBC. We will de-politicize the BBC, and sack those responsible for politicizing it.
    

40. Foreign policy. We will withdraw from all conflicts in places like the Middle East and North Africa. We will leave NATO. We will maintain UK military resources at approximately their current levels. We will set a general policy of “friendly but watchful.” We will withdraw from all international agreements, except those for mutual defence and genuine free trade. We will end all unilateral foreign aid payments.
    

41. Quality control. We will seek to achieve better honesty, impartiality, transparency and accountability in government through imposing quality control procedures. Parliament will be responsible for setting and monitoring these procedures.
    

42. The monarchy. We will establish a suitable and popular successor, among the younger Royals; so that, when the Queen dies or retires, the successor will be ready and able to take over.
    

Convivial costs

This is a brief addendum to my earlier essays on Conviviality and Good Governance.

In writing my recent paper about diesel cars, I found myself using the idea of “social cost.” The Business Dictionary defines this as “the expense to an entire society resulting from a news event, an activity or a change in policy.” Wikipedia calls it “the private cost plus externalities.” An externality from something is a cost or benefit that affects a party, who did not choose to incur that cost or benefit.

This set me thinking about how a convivial order, which includes a minimal system of good governance, would deal with such costs. (I’m assuming that an unintended benefit to others, or positive externality, wouldn’t require any action by anyone – except that the doer might choose to stop doing it.) The most obvious example of such a cost is the cost to others of pollution, such as air pollution, water pollution and noise pollution. But it can also be applied to other activities, such as the cost to innocent individuals of bad, politicized regulations and taxes. In this paper, however, for simplicity I’ll use the word “polluter” for the party causing such a cost.

In my earlier thinking, I had assumed that things like a small amount of unintentional pollution could be traded off against small inconveniences that we all cause to each other. But the example of pollution from diesel cars convinced me that it’s a little more complicated than that. Good governance will have to be able to deal with negative externalities, after all.

In a convivial order, there’s no such thing as social responsibility. This is because the convivial order is logically prior to any particular society. And thus, in a convivial order there can be no such thing as social cost. But each individual in the convivial order does have a responsibility to all other individuals; not to harm them unjustly. Thus, where a negative externality exists in the convivial order, I’ll call its associated cost the convivial cost.

Convivial costs will not always lead to a requirement to compensate. Often, the amounts will be simply too small to be worth pursuing. But when compensation to the victims is justified, it may or may not be accompanied by a “cease and desist” requirement. If there is no component of intent or bad faith, then such a requirement, I think, should not be levied if the cost to the polluter of doing so would be greater than the costs at issue. It doesn’t make any sense to require scrappage of a car worth £10,000 in order to save £27 worth of pollution a year! Better to pay £27 a year to the people affected by the pollution. So, if the polluter cannot cost effectively abate the externality, the compensation may need to be recurrent.

Convivial costs are of several types. The simplest case is where there is a single polluter and a single victim. In this case, all that is needed is to estimate the cost accurately, and to determine whether, and if so how much, compensation must be made. A harder case is with a single polluter and multiple victims. In this case, it will be necessary to apportion the compensation between the individuals affected, each according to their situation. Harder still is when there are both multiple polluters and multiple victims. Not only must the costs of the pollution be assessed for every single polluter, according to his situation. But also the compensation must be apportioned between all the victims.

In practice, with a situation such as pollution from diesel cars, the polluters would be divided into groups according to how much pollution their cars produce. And the victims would be divided into groups, according to the areas in which they live and how close they are to major roads. The role of good governance in the process then becomes, as I said in the diesel cars paper, a router; making sure the right amounts are collected from the right people, and the right amounts are distributed to the right people.

In good governance, what would trigger a court to investigate a claimed externality? I expect this would usually be through some kind of “class action” suit brought by representatives of the victims. And what would the court do? One, it would identify the polluters, and group them according to their level of pollution. Two, it would identify the victims, and group them according to the level of loss – for example, an increased chance of death or illness – they suffer. Three, it would decide:

1. Whether the matter is sufficiently grave to lead to a need for compensation.
   
2. If so, for how far into the past compensation should be paid.
   
3. Whether or not “cease and desist” is appropriate.
   
4. Whether the compensation should be one-off or recurrent.
   

And the court would apportion the costs accordingly.

All this will require considerable scientific and technical expertise, which the court will have to commission. The cost of this expertise will need to be included in the costs to be paid by the losing side. But, in complete contrast to today, the process will be completely objective and apolitical. And the outputs of the technical labours, including the justifications for the numbers, will be made available to both sides in the dispute, and to the public as a whole.

Under good governance, there will be no zealots trying to hype issues such as these, or vested interests trying to block just compensation. And there will be no greedy politicians with their hands in the till. Wouldn’t that be a far, far better system than what we suffer today?

Diesel fumes: Is the UK’s witch-hunt against diesel cars driven by zealotry and greed, not science?

(Neil's Note: I've now done an updated and much re-written version of this paper. It can be found here:

http://www.honestcommonsense.co.uk/2017/08/the-social-costs-of-air-pollution-from.html

So I'm removing the old version.)

Money and Power

By the Darn-Poor Rhymer

Power and money, money and power,
Which is stronger, money or power?
Money can give you a lifetime of honey,
But power allows you to steal others’ money.

On the incident on United flight 3411

By the Darn-Poor Rhymer
(A parody of John Betjeman’s “Slough”)

Come friendly skies, and tell us how
You fell on Doctor David Dao.
No more can you evade it now;
Tell us the truth.

Good Doctor Dao had bought his seat;
All his commitments he did meet.
Why did you not your part complete?
Tell us the truth.

And when he tried to have his say,
You only thought to have your way;
So, soon you called the TSA,
Lords of unruth.

The tyrants came and broke his nose;
And everyone who saw it froze.
But what they did, as YouTube shows,
Was uncouth.

And how should we respond to these,
That treat us as no more than peas,
Without a single “if you please?”
It’s plain as day.

Let’s smash their desks of polished oak,
Let’s smash their hands so used to stroke,
Let’s stop them forcing us under the yoke;
Let’s make them pay!

Come friendly skies, and tell us why
You didn’t let the Doctor fly.
Reality strikes hard and high;
You’re the uncouth.

"Our Common Future" Revisited – how did the roadmap for the green juggernaut fare over 30 years?

(UPDATE: This essay has been re-published on the world's most viewed website on global warming and climate change. See https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/04/20/our-common-future-revisited-how-did-the-roadmap-for-the-green-juggernaut-fare-over-30-years/. My thanks to Anthony Watts for suggesting the sub-title.)

Thirty years ago, in April 1987, a new United Nations report was published. It came from the recently established World Commission on Environment and Development, and its title was Our Common Future. It was 300 pages long; and its preparation, which took two and a half years, had involved 23 commissioners and 70 or so experts and support staff. In addition, they solicited inputs from people and organizations, in many different countries, who had concerns about environmental and development issues. You can find the full text of the report at [1].

Today, most people seem unaware of this report. That’s a pity. For this is the document, which set in motion the green political juggernaut that has had such a huge, adverse effect on the lives of all good people in the Western world. The 30th anniversary is, I think, a good time to look back at, and to re-evaluate, this report. Not only in its own terms, such as asking how significant the issues it raised have proven to be, and how well these issues have been dealt with in the meantime. But also from a broader perspective, asking how well the process, both scientific and political, has measured up to the reasonable expectations of the people who have been subjected to its consequences.

Why have I chosen to tackle such a wide subject? First, because I’m something of a generalist; I seek to understand the big picture. And second, because in recent months, so it seems to me, the climate (sic) of thought on matters environmental has begun to change. Away from the log-jam of alarmism and green orthodoxy in which it has been stuck for 25 years and more; and slowly, oh so slowly, in a direction towards a more rational view. So if there is anything I can do to help this process along, I think, it’s in my interests to do it.

The report in context

Two strands of United Nations activity led to Our Common Future. One was environmentalist. The other was internationalist or globalist. One of the most significant things about this report, for me, is that it was the nexus where these two strands came together.

The environmentalist strand began in 1972, with the UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm. Olof Palme, the controversial Swedish socialist prime minister, was host. Maurice Strong, who will appear repeatedly in what follows, was secretary general. The conference produced a Declaration and an Action Plan; but, perhaps more importantly, it led to the creation of the UN Environment Programme, with Strong as its first director.

On the same strand, the World Charter for Nature [2] was a 1982 UN resolution. This contained many of the same ideas and sentiments as later UN environmental documents like the 1992 Rio Declaration. It also included an extreme formulation of the precautionary principle, stating: “Activities which might have an impact on nature shall be controlled,” and “where potential adverse effects are not fully understood, the activities should not proceed.” The Charter was passed by 111 votes to 1, with 18 abstentions. The USA was the only country voting against.

The internationalist strand began with a 1980 commission headed by German social democrat and former Chancellor, Willy Brandt; Olof Palme was among the commission members. Its report was titled A Programme for Survival [3].The general tone of the report was alarmist. And it showed signs of future convergence with the environmentalist strand. This is apparent in phrases like: “All nations have to cooperate more urgently in international management of the atmosphere and other global commons, and in the prevention of irreversible ecological damage.” And: “An orderly transition is required from high dependence on increasingly scarce nonrenewable energy sources.” The report also advocates: “A new principle for international taxation for development purposes.” “Reform of the international monetary system.” And: “Official Development Assistance from industrialized countries to the level of 0.7 per cent of GNP by 1985.” That’s a lot of money – and we’re still paying it today.

This was followed by a 1983 report from Brandt and many of the same commissioners. Its title was Common Crisis North-South: Co-operation for World Recovery [4]. Its main focus was on international financial reforms. A little earlier, a commission headed by Palme himself had produced Common Security: A Blueprint for Survival, addressing issues of war and international security. (Palme’s report, of course, was overtaken within a decade by the collapse of the Soviet Union.) Our Common Future explicitly acknowledges both these reports as its precursors.

The commissioners

The report relates how the commissioners were selected. In 1983 the UN secretary general, at the time Javier Perez de Cuellar, appointed the commission’s chairman and vice-chairman. The chairman was Gro Harlem Brundtland; Norwegian social democrat party leader, formerly (and again later) prime minister of Norway, and a vice president of the Socialist International. The vice-chairman was Mansour Khalid, a former Sudanese foreign minister with long time links to the UN. The two of them then selected the remaining commissioners, under the condition that at least half of them had to be from the developing world.

But not all the commissioners they chose came from the third world. There were two Canadians among them; one was Maurice Strong, whom I’ve already mentioned. Starting in oil, Strong had a scandal-ridden business career alongside his many projects at the UN and his environmentalist activism. And in 1997 he articulated his disdain for our civilization, as follows: “Frankly, we may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse.” The other Canadian was Jim MacNeill, one of the first career environmentalists, and a long time associate of Strong. There was an American, too: William D. Ruckelshaus, first director of the Environmental Protection Agency, and another Strong associate.

Here are brief bios of the other commissioners. A German social democrat politician and former minister of transport. A member of the Italian Agnelli family who control Fiat, also a centre left politician. A Japanese economist and politician, executive committee member of the Club of Rome and chairman of World Wildlife Fund Japan. A Saudi engineer. A Mexican sociologist, who resigned from the commission before the report was published. A Zimbabwean politician with strong UN connections. A Côte d’Ivoire military man and politician. A Hungarian scientist and environmentalist, later associated with Mikhail Gorbachev’s activist Green Cross International. A Chinese professor with “more than 40 years' experience in ecological and environmental research and education.” A Colombian environmentalist. An Indian judge at the World Court. A Brazilian environmentalist, head of the first federal environmental agency there. A Guyana politician, who
had earlier been on Willy Brandt’s commission. An Algerian diplomat with a long UN connection. An Indonesian politician, who had held a succession of environmental posts. A Nigerian diplomat and former agriculture minister. A Russian zoologist, described as “one of the pioneers of the Russian environmental movement.” And the last president of Slovenia before the fall of communism; another with a long history at the UN.

What connected these commissioners to each other? A strong, deep seated environmentalist conviction was common to many of them. A long connection with the UN was also shared by several. Socialism was a third connecting thread. No less than four of the commissioners came from communist countries; two more, including the chairman, were social democrat politicians.

Moreover, everyone on the commission was a beneficiary of big government; and therefore would tend to favour anything that expanded it. And the third world commissioners would surely have had, at the backs of their minds, a desire to use this opportunity to screw as much wealth out of the West as possible.

Who was there, on that UN commission, who both would and could stand up for us honest Western business and working people against socialism and deep green environmentalism? I can’t see one. Can you? Worse; the commission was ripe for group polarization [5], which can lead a group to reach a more extreme position after discussion than they would have done as individuals before it. Brundtland herself says: “As we worked, nationalism and the artificial divides between ‘industrialized’ and ‘developing’, between East and West, receded. In their place emerged a common concern for the planet and the interlocked ecological and economic threats with which its people, institutions, and governments now grapple.”

The issues raised

Here’s a list of the main environmental issues, on which Our Common Future raised alarms 30 years ago. (1) Desertification, notably in the Sahel area just south of the Sahara. (2) The clearing of forests, particularly in the tropics. (3) Loss of species and of biodiversity. (4) Acid rain, resulting from pollution, and killing forests, lakes and soils. (5) Catastrophic global warming caused by CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels. (6) Depletion of the Earth’s ozone layer. (7) Loss of coral reefs. (8) Military proliferation and the threat of nuclear war. (9) Toxic and nuclear waste disposal. (10) Increasing incidence of disasters.

Interestingly, scarcity of fossil fuel resources, while mentioned in the report, was not seen as a major issue in itself. It was the consequences of using those fossil fuels, CO2-caused global warming and to a lesser extent pollution, that the commissioners saw as major problems.

Opining that “Environment and development are not separate challenges; they are inexorably linked,” the report also raised alarms on: (11) Population growth. (12) Poverty. (13) International economic inequality. (14) The interests of future generations. It is in this last context that the report introduced its novel and central concept of “sustainable development.” Such development, it says, “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

No doubt, some of these concerns were both real and apparently pressing back in 1987. But what the commission did was, in effect, to mix them all up and turn them into a single giant bogeyman. From there, it wasn’t hard to move on to demanding that Action! be taken against this bogeyman. That Action! had to be political. And it had to be taken Now! So, the report calls for “sustainable development by the year 2000 and beyond.” And it abounds with phrases like: “We call for a common endeavour and for new norms of behaviour at all levels and in the interests of all.” “Development involves a progressive transformation of economy and society.” And: “We are serving notice... that the time has come to take the decisions needed.”

Furthermore, the Action! the report demanded was intended, all along, to be very painful to ordinary business and working people in the West. Maurice Strong may well have been licking his chops at what he and his fellow commissioners had in mind to do to us and to our Western civilization. The phrase “The industrial world has already used much of the planet's ecological capital” gives the game away. As does: “Many of us live beyond the world's ecological means, for instance in our patterns of energy use.” And: “The transition to sustainable development will require a range of public policy choices that are inherently complex and politically difficult. Reversing unsustainable development policies at the national and international level will require immense efforts to inform the public and secure its support.”

Thus was born the green leviathan.

Some low-lights

I couldn’t resist quoting a few assorted low-lights from the report.

On global warming, we have: “This 'greenhouse effect' may by early next century have increased average global temperatures enough to shift agricultural production areas, raise sea levels to flood coastal cities, and disrupt national economies.” Well, here we are, a sixth of the way through that next century. And how much have global temperatures risen? From satellite measurements, the rise from 1987 to 2015 (stopping there to avoid the perturbations caused by the recent El Nino) looks to be about 0.3 degrees Centigrade [6]. And how much sea level rise has there been? In most of the world, sea levels are rising between zero and 3 millimetres per year [7]. And in several coastal cities with long and reliable sea level records, levels are rising 1 to 2 millimetres per year, without much change in the rate since the early 20th century [8].

Then: “There is a growing scientific consensus that species are disappearing at rates never before witnessed on the planet.” That’s over the top, particularly since it goes on to say: “The world is losing precisely those species about which it knows nothing or little.” And later: “We have no accurate figures on the current rates of extinctions.”

In the area of energy, the report discussed a number of alternatives to fossil fuels, including solar and wind. It claimed that wind power in California “may possibly be competitive with other power generated there within a decade.” But it failed to mention the intermittency of both solar and wind power, and that because of this they need to be backed up by other sources of power, which must also be paid for. Was that, perhaps, lying by omission?

Chernobyl is cited as a disaster which “appeared to justify the grave predictions about the human future that were becoming commonplace during the mid-1980s.” The report acknowledges that the cause of the explosion was “a series of infringements of the official safety regulations.” But despite this, it generally plays up the risks of nuclear energy, while downplaying its benefits.

As to transport, you can see in embryo the arguments about fuel economy and air pollution, which environmentalists and politicians have since used to demonize cars and car drivers. But the report focused in this area mainly on third world countries and cities. The agenda of forcing drivers in the West out of our cars and into public transport seems to have come along later. And interestingly, Our Common Future doesn’t mention air transport at all. Nor even does Agenda 21, which followed it five years later. Hatred of the aeroplane is another skein of the neo-luddism, which greens have continued to develop during the last 30 years.

Consequences of the report

Just as Our Common Future represented a convergence of two strands of UN activity, so it subsequently provided impetus in several different directions. Most notably, at the Rio “Earth Summit” in June 1992, whose secretary general was Maurice Strong. (Him, again!)

At that conference, a number of proposals were agreed. They included a binding “Framework Convention on Climate Change,” which led to the yearly “Conference of the Parties” meetings. These meetings included those in Copenhagen (2009) and Paris (2015), both of which set out to reach binding agreements to keep global temperatures below some completely arbitrary limit.

The agreements in Rio also included a “Convention on Biological Diversity,” Agenda 21 [9] and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development [10]. I recommend a quick read of the latter, if you have a sick bowl handy. It talks of living “in harmony with nature,” but it never mentions human nature. It fails to recognize that this is our planet, our environment. It fails to uphold our freedom to use our creativity and dynamism to make our planet a better place – a warm, comfortable home and a beautiful garden for humanity. Instead, it sets out a series of politically correct platitudes, which amount to awarding politicians and bureaucrats powers to micro-manage all our lives in the name of the environment.

As to Agenda 21, I don’t recommend reading it. It consists of 350 pages of bureaucratese, in which the word “women” occurs more than 250 times. And it takes up where Our Common Future left off. “Significant changes in the consumption patterns of industries, Governments, households and individuals.” Recycling as a religion. “Favouring high-occupancy public transport.” A “culture of safety.” And much more. But the clever thing about Agenda 21 – another Strong brainwave, I guess – is that it is to be implemented at the local government level. So, because it wasn’t seen as a national political issue, it passed under many people’s radar.

Who signed up to all this stuff? It was your (and my) supposed “representatives.” And it wasn’t only socialists that were eager to sign up. President George H.W. Bush signed for the USA. And the UK prime minister at the time was John Major, a Tory. I find it hard – no, impossible – to believe that they did these things by mistake. No; knowing what they were doing, they sold us all down the Rio.

Misuse of the precautionary principle

The most egregious of all the enviro abuses, however, is a more abstract one. That is, the misuse – indeed, inversion – of the precautionary principle.

In Our Common Future, the relevant words are these. “How much certainty should governments require before agreeing to take action? If they wait until significant climate change is demonstrated, it may be too late for any countermeasures to be effective against the inertia by then stored in this massive global system.” And, later in the same paragraph, it recommends: “the development of internationally agreed policies for the reduction of the causative gases.”

What is the precautionary principle? In its original form, it’s usually put as “look before you leap.” Though some go further, and equate it with the Hippocratic oath for doctors: “First, do no harm.” All this is very sensible advice. Before they put a new product on the market, for example, sane business people will test it thoroughly to check it has no bad side-effects. If they don’t do this, and something goes wrong, they will face lawsuits, and perhaps worse.

An important characteristic of the principle is that the burden of proof must always be on those who want to make change. But over the years, green and big-government activists have contrived to pervert the principle, and reverse the burden of proof. A brief article written back in 1999 by the Social Issues Research Centre [11] shows how they did it.

Our industrial civilization has existed since the late 18th century – longer than most of the world’s nations, and way longer than the UN. And it has brought us – all of us – huge nett benefits over that time. Therefore, the burden of proving the case, that human CO2 emissions would cause severe environmental damage, had to be on those seeking change; that is, on the accusers. However, their clever reversal of the burden of proof leaves those of us, who dispute their accusations, in the impossible situation of having to prove a negative. As the SIRC article points out, it’s like being required to prove that there are no fairies at the bottom of your garden.

Those that sought to pervert the precautionary principle also used another, very dishonest, sound-bite. This was an aphorism attributed to Carl Sagan: “Absence of evidence of risk is not evidence of absence of risk.” But this statement, while true in a strict sense, is very misleading. In reality, absence of evidence of something is evidence towards the non-existence of that thing. Absence of evidence that there is an elephant in your living room doesn’t, indeed, prove that there is no elephant in your living room. But, particularly when the search is repeated many times with negative results each time, it suggests that there very probably isn’t.

Imagine, if you will, the judge in a murder trial telling the jury: “Absence of evidence of guilt is not evidence of absence of guilt.” Would a jury, believing this, convict the defendant even if there is no evidence against him? That would go against all sane norms of justice. And yet, that is how they wanted us to think.

Activist misconduct

To top all this, the activists and their politician and media friends have not behaved well in their dealings with us.

At the scientific level, as those who follow the facts will know, they have doctored evidence, such as past temperatures. They have presented chicanery like Mann’s hockey stick as if it was science. They continue to claim that their models are “robust,” even when their predictions repeatedly fail. They call those who disagree with them nasty names like “deniers.” They have tried to stop publication of scientific papers that disagree with their agenda; and they have persecuted scientists who have opposed it, like Willie Soon.

Furthermore, the politicians and activists are hypocrites, trying to coerce us out of cars and planes while they themselves continue to use them. Their media spout a torrent of propaganda, with a new, unfounded scare every few days. And they use bait and switch tactics, for example in the recent UK diesel scandal; having created incentives for manufacturers to make, and for people to buy, more polluting cars rather than less polluting, they then slap heavy “toxin taxes” on these cars. If these are the “new norms of behaviour” Our Common Future was calling for, I think we’d all be better off without them.

To return to the murder trial analogy. Not only has the court inverted the burden of proof. But the prosecution have presented false evidence, committed perjury, and – increasingly – failed to produce hard, factual evidence of their case. The judge has forbidden the defence to call its most expert witnesses. The prosecution have insulted and libelled those defence witnesses who do manage to testify, and the judge has allowed them to continue doing it. It is as if the court is set up to reach only one possible verdict: Guilty. Such conduct would be unacceptable in a murder trial. How much more reprehensible, then, is it when the defendant in the dock is our entire civilization? When the prosperity and the freedoms of everyone on the planet are at stake?

So, how did we do?

Now, I’ll look at the current status, as far as I can work it out, of each of the accusations against us. Correction of any misapprehensions, or provision of further details, will be much appreciated.

(1): Desertification. The Sahel has recovered from the droughts of the 1980s [12]. On the wider scale, NASA publishes an animation [13] of world-wide vegetation activity over the period 2000 to 2016. While there’s an obvious yearly cycle, I would expect any areas suffering desertification to show less and less vegetation as the years go on. There are good years and bad years; but I, at least, don’t see any particular trend.

(2): Forests. Tropical deforestation halved between 1980-95 and 1996-2010, and loss of temperate forests is now very small [14].

(3): Species loss. It’s difficult to find hard data on this. Even the number of species on the planet is hugely uncertain; the best estimate I could find is 8.7 million “eukaryotic” (multi-cellular) species [15]. As Our Common Future admitted, there were no accurate figures on extinction rates in 1987. Nor have I been able to find any today. So, this accusation cannot be substantiated or denied without far more specifics. At least down to the level of individual species, with proof of their former existence, proof of extinction, approximate date of extinction and evidence that proves, beyond reasonable doubt, that humans caused it.

(4): Acid rain. The cause of acidification seems to have been oxides of sulphur and nitrogen in the atmosphere. Emission of sulphur oxides from coal fired power has been cured by technology [16]. Nitrogen oxide emissions from vehicles have been greatly reduced, first by unleaded fuel, then by catalytic converters, and in diesel engines technologies like exhaust gas recirculation and soot traps. The fix to the problem is in.

Of course, green activists never let any excuse for alarm go to waste; they have now re-badged the problem as one of air quality. And there is a particular difficulty with vehicle emissions in the European Union, where it seems that as soon as manufacturers catch up to one set of standards, the EU significantly tightens them again.

(5): Catastrophic global warming due to human CO2 emissions. To those who look at the facts with an unbiased eye, this accusation is no longer scientifically credible. The issue is now entirely political. This makes it more important than ever for those who understand the facts to communicate them as best they can. I do think we’re starting to make a tiny bit of headway; but there’s still a long way to go.

(6): Ozone depletion. In my own mind, I’m not sure whether this really was caused by CFCs, or just part of a natural cycle. But as of 2016, the problem – if there was one – is said to be all but solved [17].

(7): Coral reef depletion. Here also, I found quantitative information hard to find. Back in the 1970s, estimates of total reef area were about 600,000 sq.km. More modern estimates are in the 250,000 to 350,000 sq.km. range. With this level of uncertainty, any claim of loss is unverifiable. However, the statement in Our Common Future that “Coral reefs ... are being depleted at rates that may leave little but degraded remnants by early next century” has clearly not been borne out.

(8): Military proliferation and nuclear war. Some progress has been made here; the collapse of the Soviet Union helped a lot. And, despite the wars in the Middle East, statistics do seem to show that deaths in war are gradually going down. But consider this: It isn’t ordinary people who start wars, but politicians. The problem is theirs, not ours.

(9): Toxic and nuclear waste disposal. Progress on this one seems to be very slow; the delay to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility is a case in point [18]. There is also opposition to deep landfills for the storage of toxic waste. But it’s curious that much of this opposition comes from the very same quarters that have been touting the problem. To accuse us of causing a problem, and then to seek to block proposed solutions, seems to me to be a glaring case of bad faith.

(10): Increasing incidence of disasters. As far as natural catastrophes go, including flood and drought, deaths fell from the 1920s through to the 1990s, and have been roughly flat since then [19]. As to human caused disasters, there has been nothing even near the scale of the Bhopal chemical leak of 1984. Trawling Wikipedia’s list of disasters for human-caused civil disasters with over 1,000 deaths since 1986, I could see only one building collapse, three shipwrecks and two crushes during the Hajj pilgrimage.

(11): Population growth. This has been greatly lessened, particularly in the West. According to the CIA World Factbook [20], in 2016 only 105 countries out of 224 had fertility rates above the replacement level. The overall world fertility rate was 115% of replacement rate.

(12): Poverty. We’re making progress here. According to the World Bank, “The world attained the first Millennium Development Goal target—to cut the 1990 poverty rate in half by 2015—five years ahead of schedule, in 2010.” [21]

(13): International economic inequality. This is a difficult one; since in most poor countries a major reason for the poverty is government corruption, which makes it hard for people to do business and to lift themselves out of poverty. However, what can be said is that exports and imports of developing countries have seen good growth. According to the World Trade Organization, “Between 1980 and 2011, developing economies raised their share in world exports from 34 per cent to 47 per cent and their share in world imports from 29 per cent to 42 per cent.” [22]

(14): The interests of future generations. It’s now 30 years since Our Common Future was published; more than a generation. During that time, the bulk of the costs of its recommendations have been borne by Western people in the productive part of their lives. So, haven’t we done our share – and far more? Isn’t it time that someone else started picking up the tab?

To sum up

After 30 years, each of the issues raised in Our Common Future is either fixed, well on the way to fixing, only a problem because standards are being relentlessly tightened, unverifiable, no longer credible as a problem, or Somebody Else’s Problem. I think we’ve done rather well – even looking at the matter in the politicians’ and environmentalists’ own terms. Isn’t it now, therefore, time to call off the dogs?

Instead of hounding us, will the green activists now shower us with the thanks we have earned? Will their politician friends stop tightening the regulatory noose with which they are strangling us, and get rid of all regulations that damage our environment? Will their media stop bombarding us with scary falsehoods? Will they all apologize to us, and compensate us for the waste of our money on all the green projects that failed to improve our environment? Will they censure the politicians that signed up to an agenda they must have known was against the interests of those they were supposed to represent? Will they denounce those that have corrupted and politicized science, and those that have persecuted, and suppressed the voices of, the experts who would speak up for us? Will they condemn those that perverted the precautionary principle, and those that have sought to pronounce us guilty without even a semblance of due process?

I think I hear a deafening silence.

---

Links:

[1] http://www.un-documents.net/our-common-future.pdf

[2] http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/37/a37r007.htm

[3] http://files.globalmarshallplan.org/inhalt/psu_2.pdf. (Al Gore is credited with inventing the idea of a “global Marshall plan.”)

[4] http://files.globalmarshallplan.org/inhalt/coc_2.pdf

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_polarization

[6] http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/

[7] https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends.html

[8] https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/03/29/recent-sea-level-change-at-major-cities/

[9] https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/Agenda21.pdf

[10] http://www.un.org/documents/ga/conf151/aconf15126-1annex1.htm

[11] http://www.sirc.org/articles/beware.html

[12] http://www.thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/mueller-sahel.pdf

[13] https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/GlobalMaps/view.php?d1=MOD17A2_M_PSN&d2=MOD13A2_M_NDVI

[14] https://ourworldindata.org/forest-cover/

[15] http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110823/full/news.2011.498.html

[16] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flue-gas_desulfurization

[17] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6296/269

[18] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository

[19] https://ourworldindata.org/natural-catastrophes/

[20] As reported by Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

[21] http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview

[22] https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/wtr13-2b_e.pdf

Good Governance – Part 2: The Area of Good Governance

This is the second part of a two part essay on good governance. You can find the first part at [4].

For brevity, I’m going to invent an acronym: “AGG” for Area of Good Governance. An AGG is a jurisdiction which has acquired, or is in the process of acquiring, good governance. That is to say, a region of the world, in which the political state has been or is being dismantled. And in which that state has been, or is being, replaced by governance which maintains peace, defends the rights of civilized people, justly resolves disputes, and does no more.

Some may dismiss the ideas I put forward here as Utopian. To them, I say: No radical idea can be realized, until it has been communicated to those who stand to benefit from it. And no vision can be passed on to anyone, unless it has first been articulated. That is my purpose today; to offer, as best I can, my vision of how an AGG might be constructed.

The starting point

I don’t want to spend a lot of words on what a mess world politics is today. We all know that. Nor do I want to talk too much of the anger and disdain, which good people are more and more feeling for the political system and its ruling classes. Except to say that the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump are, I think, signs of a growing dissatisfaction that goes far deeper than any day to day politics, and well beyond differences of “left” or “right.” Early signs of a resurgence of the human spirit after a period of recession, perhaps?

So, I’m going to start from a situation in which many, many people in an area are ready for a shift to a better kind of government. To government that is smaller, more honest, less wasteful, less violent and aggressive, more responsive, and far, far more respectful of us human beings. To government which works for us, not against us.

Furthermore, I’m going to assume that the will is there, and the way is clear, for action to reform government so that it becomes a nett benefit to good people, not a drain on us and a danger to us. How we get to that point is another matter; and a major one. But my focus today is on things we, the builders of the new way, might do once in a position to create good governance.

These ideas are radical. Inevitably, some of them won’t work; others may work in principle, but not on the scale that will be necessary. Yet others may aim to solve problems that don’t eventuate. What I’m trying to do here is give a feeling for the kind of actions that will be necessary to make an AGG work. Others may, and I hope will, come up with suggestions far better than mine. And for that reason, the details of what happens may differ substantially from what I say here. But the outline, I hope, will not.

Where might it happen first?

I expect that the pressures for change, of the kind we’re interested in, will become strongest first in Western democracies. Firstly, perhaps, in Europe, in places where both the European Union and national governments are becoming increasingly unpopular. And secondly, in regions of other countries – such as a state, or a group of neighbouring counties, in the USA – where many people have become fed up with the political system and with big government.

Therefore, I’m going to put forward my ideas in the context of Western democracy. And, in particular, in the context of a post Brexit England, perhaps including Wales too; an area which, I think, has as much potential to become an early AGG as anywhere in the world.

The start of the process

First, a general point. The changes we make must be evolutionary, not revolutionary. We must take care not to throw away the lessons of the past. So, it isn’t part of our task to raze potentially workable institutions to the ground in order to clear space for a brand new system. Rather, our task is to de-politicize governance, and to make it work as it should. This means that we must seek to preserve the best traditions, customs and institutions in each place. Our primary focus should be on re-purposing institutions to make them work for us.

Thus, at the outset, the institutions of an English AGG won’t be much different from today’s. There will still be elections to a parliament. There will still be courts, judges and juries. There will still be police, and even prisons. There will still, regrettably, be for a time a need for borders. The military won’t be reformed overnight, though they will be quickly withdrawn from all foreign conflicts. There will still be diplomats, although their jobs will be reduced in scope and scale. And even the monarchy will continue, albeit re-purposed.

Reforming the parliament

The place to start our reforms must be the parliament. We must reign in its excesses, and make it start working for good people, as it should have been doing all along.

In the case of England, the parliament currently governs a territory, and a population, larger than just England (and Wales). So here, as in other places where an AGG is smaller than the state from which it sprung, we must first split the parliament. So, it will say adieu to those members, who do not represent people in the region of the AGG. And it will cordially invite them to form AGGs in their own areas, if they wish. Further, the House of Lords, which in recent times has become no more than an echo chamber for establishment groupies, will be abolished.

Now, we begin the reforms which will turn political government into good governance. First, we must dramatically increase the quality of the individuals in the parliament. Part of this will come through increasing their financial rewards significantly, as long as they do the work honestly, objectively and without bias; and have no conflicting interests.

But more importantly, we will test all the parliament’s members, as objectively as possible, for suitability for positions of power in an AGG. This will include both looking at their past conduct and voting records, and psychological tests. All those that agitated or voted for aggressive war, or supported policies designed to harm innocent people, or have psychopathic tendencies, or are too dishonest to be fit for power, will be removed from their positions, and suitable replacements elected.

Second, the parliament will withdraw the AGG from all international agreements, other than those for genuine free trade. Though it may, if necessary, establish mutual defence treaties with suitable parties, particularly with other AGGs if there are any yet. It will leave NATO. It will finally sever any remaining entanglements with what is left of the EU. And it will leave the United Nations, and ditch all its agendas, including Agenda 21 and the “humans are causing catastrophic climate change” fraud.

Third, it will repeal all the bad laws, with which it has saddled us over many decades. At the same time, it will manage the process of specifying and agreeing the rights the AGG will defend, and the obligations necessary to effect respect for those rights.

Having completed these tasks, I envisage that the parliament will be reformed into a quality control organization. At this point, the “sovereignty” that the political state has claimed over the territory of the AGG, and the extraordinary rights and immunities which that claim implies, will have ceased to exist. Thus the state itself will also have ceased to exist within the jurisdiction.

The parliament will no longer have any power to make legislation. It will, however, manage the process in the (very rare) event that a change to the code of rights and obligations might become necessary. But its main role will be to ensure that the other departments of governance, such as judges and police, both keep within their remits and do their jobs to the very highest standard. To this end, it will order and publish independent, objective reviews of governance.

A second level of quality control

Our AGG will need, I think, a second level of quality control, to minimize the chance of corruption taking hold in the parliament. In some places, a second parliamentary chamber may be able to take on this role; in others, an organization may need to be created from scratch.

But in those countries with monarchies, in which the monarchy is generally popular – and England is one – I think that the monarch (above and beyond the obvious ceremonial role) will be ideally placed to take on the job of quality controller of the quality controllers. He or she will commission, periodically or as needed, impartial audits of the parliament and of its work. Thus providing an answer to the age old question: Quis custodet custodes? Who guards the guardians?

Financing good governance

Observant readers may already have asked: “But how will good governance be paid for?”

One thing is clear. The imposition, by political fiat, of systems of taxation that are complex, unjust, redistributive, predatory and easily vitiated, must not be allowed to continue. Instead, what each individual pays for good governance must reflect the value of good governance to that individual. Reduced to economic terms, each individual’s contribution ought to be in direct proportion to his or her total wealth in the jurisdiction. As John Locke observed [5]: “It is true governments cannot be supported without great charge, and it is fit every one who enjoys his share of the protection should pay out of his estate his proportion for the maintenance of it.”

Here’s a wild idea, which I think could be made to work. The AGG will retain one holdover from the state; a currency. And it will be mandatory to use that currency for all transactions within the AGG. To pay for the institutions which implement good governance – courts, police, the military, and the necessary support services – the AGG will be authorized to inflate that currency by a small, pre-agreed percentage each year. Or, perhaps, an equivalent amount in smaller steps. The money “created” by this will be the entire budget for governance.

In an AGG smaller than the state from which it sprang, this will require a currency split first. But this has been done successfully before – for example, with the Irish pound in the 1920s.

This approach, if properly calculated and quality controlled, seems to me to have several advantages. It’s fair to everyone. It can’t be used to redistribute wealth. It requires no bureaucrats and no form filling. And there’s no possibility of individuals being unable to pay their share.

Dismantling the state

The dismantling of the state apparatus of surveillance, predation, oppression and cronyism will, inevitably, cause some disruptions and dislocations. But it’s absolutely necessary in order to reduce, and in the end to eliminate, the burdens that the state imposes on good people.

The “first, do no harm” principle does, however, mean that the state must be dismantled in an orderly fashion. And those that have misused power, or have profited from the state and its noxious activities, must be granted an opportunity to compensate their victims. It’s not out of kindness that we will allow this; for those that used the state for nefarious purposes have, by their conduct, forfeited all possible right to concern or compassion from good people. Rather, we will do it because – as always – the rights of the victims must come first.

To that end, the first step must be to establish the conditions for a prosperous economy. That is: A totally free market, with no unjust restrictions on business. A reasonably stable currency. Interest rates set by the market, rather than for the state’s benefit. Tariff barriers eliminated as far as possible. An impartial, objective system of law and justice. And an end to all political agendas.

Good governance can provide all these conditions. So, it will unleash for all good people the power of honest business. No-one will be left destitute, who is willing to develop their skills, and to work to provide goods or services for which others are voluntarily willing to pay. But for those too lazy or dishonest to do these things, what happens to them will be their own look out.

With a free market economy in place, the dismantling of the so called “public sector” can begin. First, the past conduct of all state employees will be reviewed, and any instances of misuse of power catalogued. This will apply to employees of both central and local government, as well as to the military.

Beyond this, state employees will be divided into three groups. First, those – such as judges, court officials, police and the military – whose jobs when properly done are core functions of governance, will be individually tested for their suitability for positions of power. These tests will be similar in kind to those used for members of the parliament. But the less the power of the position, the less stringent the tests will be. Depending on the results, these employees will either offered new contracts with our AGG, or sacked.

If, through this process, some core functions of good governance become understaffed, individuals may be promoted internally, or recruited from outside. Or individuals, who failed the test of suitability for the power they had, may be allowed back in at a lower level. In all cases, those taking on positions must pass tests appropriate to the level of power they will have.

There are also processes which, while not functions of good governance, will have to continue for the short term at least. The most obvious of these is border control. For it will be necessary to stop troublemakers from outside the AGG coming in and trying to de-stabilize it. And as to immigration, there will be many, many people wanting to flock into the AGG to enjoy the new freedom and prosperity. Thus, to avoid disruption, some kind of control is, regrettably, needed. There’s no totally fair way to decide who may come to live in an AGG and who may not. But some kind of points system would seem to be the least of several evils.

The second group are those employed directly or indirectly by the state, who supply services others are willing to pay for. These include people like teachers, doctors and nurses, and those who maintain roads or empty dustbins. These people will transfer their services to the free market. Where their work requires physical assets like schools, hospitals or power stations, that are currently owned by the state, they will continue to make use of them. However, I envisage that ownership of these resources will pass to the people in the AGG. For example, where a business such as a school is spun off from the public sector, individuals in the AGG might receive shares in those businesses.

Where a state organization – such as the BBC – has a function which is potentially commercially viable, but has been run in a dishonest, politicized way, it will be disbanded. Those responsible for the bad conduct will be sacked. The remaining employees will be allowed to transfer to the free market, in a similar way to teachers and others like them.

This is a complicated process, which will require much forethought and effort. It’s important that we mustn’t allow crony capitalists or oligarchs to seize riches they don’t deserve. And one particularly difficult aspect, I expect, will be transitional financing. The users of services like schools will need time to adjust to the new market. Thus it will be necessary to allow for a transition period, during which the financial burden is passed from taxpayers to users. However, this transition period must be kept as short as possible. If only because every penny taken in tax from an individual, that was not used for that individual’s benefit, must in due course be repaid. And the earlier the better.

The third group consists of those state employees that fail to supply either a core function of governance, or a service viable in a free market. This group will also include those responsible for bad conduct while in positions of power. These individuals will simply be sacked, and their pensions cancelled.

In parallel with all this, reviews will be conducted of all nominally private organizations, to which the state has been providing funding. All projects with political agendas will be terminated. All projects and contacts with politicized “non-governmental organizations” and “quangos” will be ended. And those at or near the top of these organizations will be reviewed, in the same way as equivalent state employees. Companies, that lobbied for subsidies or for laws to harm their competitors, will also be investigated, and their directors reviewed similarly.

All subsidies for particular forms of transport, such as buses and trains, will be quickly phased out. Planned major construction projects, for example HS2, will be either sold off to private companies or cancelled. Subsidies for “renewable” energy, such as wind and solar power, will also be withdrawn. Some transitional help may be allowed to smooth the path back to cheaper and more reliable forms of energy, such as coal, gas and nuclear.

Other economically viable or potentially viable organizations, such as universities, will also have their funding withdrawn. And all support for projects or institutions outside the AGG’s jurisdiction will be terminated.

Lastly, all assets which the state has misused, such as spy cameras and catch-you-out speed cameras, will be removed, and either sold (if an appropriate use can be found) or scrapped. Similarly, for example, with computers used for spying on Internet access. Other state assets, such as buildings and land neither required by core functions of good governance nor to be transferred to spin-offs, will be put up for sale. Subdivided, where necessary.

Dealing with wrongdoers

The state, by its nature, attracts bad individuals into its ranks. Politics tends to attract psychopaths, because it offers them opportunities to force their agendas on to others; if not also to become rich. Jobs with power over others, and lack of personal accountability, can attract bullies and jobsworths. And lack of financial accountability spawns waste and function creep.

All this means that, beyond the quantifiable damage the state has caused to innocent people, it also harbours many that, in reality if not in “law,” are criminals. And worse; crony corporations, politicized academics, and other organizations and individuals close to the state, have also been able to commit, and get away with, damaging or criminal acts. Such as promoting agendas that harm good people, lobbying for laws to damage their competitors, or demanding subsidies.

Thus, there are two aspects to dealing with these wrongdoers. The first is restorative justice to their victims. Those, whose lives have been damaged by misconduct by the state or its cronies, by predatory or redistributive taxation, or by other bad policies, deserve compensation for what they suffered. We want our lives back! And the perpetrators must pay, each in proportion to the damage they caused. This will be a big programme; worth an essay in itself. So I won’t say more about it here.

The second aspect is retributive justice; punishing those wrongdoers that deserve it. What good governance can do to help this is to publish, and to index, accurate factual summaries of the injustices each of them has done. This will include acts such as intercepting the e-mails of innocent people, even if those acts may not necessarily have caused any quantifiable damage. All this will enable individuals to make their own decisions about how to treat each wrongdoer. In most cases, I expect that this, on its own, will provide sufficient punishment

I do, however, want to see one group singled out. That is, politicians that agitated for aggressive wars in places like Iraq or Syria. What they deserve is to be deported for justice at the hands of the people they aggressed against. I expect that an AGG, bearing in mind its commitment to peace and in the longer term to an entirely peaceful world, will always be open to requests for the extradition of such individuals to face trial.

Dealing with state debt

From the point of view of an AGG, the state (or what is left of it) is a criminal organization. All contracts with it are therefore, on principle, null and void. These include any expectations of future payments from it, and interest or repayments on its financial instruments. Thus our AGG has the right to repudiate all the state’s debts and, in effect, to wind it up as bankrupt both ethically and financially.

The “do no harm” principle, however, means that an AGG must not allow innocents to suffer unnecessarily. We don’t, for example, want to de-stabilize the banks, in which good people hold what little wealth the state has allowed them to amass and keep. Therefore the process of dealing with state debt must be an ordered one.

We must also not lose sight of those, particularly pensioners, who are expecting to receive from the state payments for which they have contributed in the past (and may well have paid many times over). These payments will continue, as if they were an advance repayment on the excess of the taxes they paid over the benefits they have received.

Societies

Good governance, as I said in the first part of this essay, is logically prior to any particular society. It provides a framework, in which people can form whatever societies they wish, and run them in their own ways. Thus in an AGG, I envisage, there will be a very large number of different societies.

Each individual will be a member of many societies. People within a particular society will interact according to the constitution of that society. Interactions between societies, and between individuals from different societies, will be governed by the obligations of civilized people towards others of their kind, including the obligation to respect their rights. And these are precisely the rules our AGG has been granted the authority to uphold.

Further, these societies will be of many different types. Voluntary societies and business companies, of course, will continue to operate as they do today. But new types of society will evolve, too; and old ones will be revived.

For example, societies will be formed to take on specific projects, such as to build a new road, a new nuclear power station or a new runway at Heathrow Airport. Another example is a private welfare system. I envisage this as having three main components; insurance, mutual aid and savings. Some will prefer insurance to mutual aid, or vice versa; though in general, insurance works better against low probability catastrophes, and mutual aid against less serious but more likely contingencies. In the absence of a predatory state, saving will be far easier than it is today. And non-politicized charity will always be available as a backstop.

There will also be societies of people who share a cultural bond. For example, societies to celebrate English (or Welsh) culture and tradition, or some particular aspects of a culture. Other societies will also allow those, who find it important to restrict their close cohorts to – for example – a particular nationality, or racial group, or religion, to do so without impacting anyone else. While the rest of us can simply join whatever societies we like and will have us. We won’t be concerned about the race, religion or geographical origin of their members.

No-one will be compelled to join any particular society. This, indeed, is a basic human right. And specifically, those to whom politics is anathema will be free to stay out of societies run by or for the politicized. On the other hand, those who so wish can form societies based around political ideologies. For example, those with green leanings can buy a forest, and hug its trees. Those who like socialism can make societies based on socialist ideals. And lovers of big government can live in communes ruled over and watched over by their very own Big Brother.

But in an AGG, no political society has any right to force any ideology on anyone else. Nor will the capitalists up the road be able to force others to practice capitalism. Thus, no-one will be compelled to live under an ideology they don’t like. Although, of course, all societies will have to be economically self sufficient. This, I expect, will go a long way towards removing the causes of the injustices and conflicts so prevalent in political societies today.

The longer term

As I look further ahead, my “crystal ball” becomes increasingly opaque. But because of the great benefits it can bring to all good people, I think the AGG or a similar idea – Utopian though it may seem to some – has a decent chance. And as AGGs take over more and more of the world, increasingly we will find the borders, the weapons and the militias to be unnecessary. Even before that, I expect, AGGs will be working together cordially, for example to deal with problems in which pollution crosses AGG boundaries.

There may, of course, be setbacks on the way. For example, it’s not inconceivable that some rogue state might try to attack one or more AGGs. Another risk is of a displaced political class trying to restore their state. A third possibility is corruption within the AGG, or among the quality controllers. All these are issues to be addressed.

Given my age, I may not live to see it; but I’m confident that we human beings can make it through to a better world. A world in which there are no political states, no politicians, no political agendas, no political borders, no bad laws, no predatory or redistributory taxes, no oppressions and no wars. In which the free market, personal freedom for all, good governance and objective justice are the norms. In which the rights of those, who do not violate others’ rights, are not violated. And in which all governance everywhere, if it fails to keep strictly within its remit, will lose its custom and be superseded by better governance.

To sum up

I’ll end with what I hope you’ll find an amusing little ditty. It’s based on the end of term school playground song, “No more Latin, no more French.” For the avoidance of doubt, I’ll say again that “AGG” stands for Area of Good Governance.

In a few years, how will things be,
When England is an AGG?
No more taxes, no more wars,
No more scheming behind closed doors.
No more lies or propaganda,
No more “justice” without candour.
No more politician prats,
No more bossy bureaucrats.
No more weasel words from moanies,
No more cushy jobs for cronies.
No more barriers in the way
Of those who want to earn good pay.
No more stealing of earned wealth,
Whether obvious or by stealth.
No more cameras all about,
Spying on us to catch us out.
No more tracking of our bytes,
No more trampling on our rights.
No more stops without good cause,
No more bad, politicized laws.
When England is an AGG,
Then all its people will be free.

---

[4] http://www.honestcommonsense.co.uk/2017/03/good-governance-part-1-functions-of.html

[5] Second Treatise of Government, §140.