Without the state

Reconstruction of Dublin

I found this site tracking back another item in the referrer log. It describes the various major projects under way in Dublin. I found it a little over-designed but it is still well worth a look.

Dark Ages Ahead - Jane Jacobs

One referrer to this blog came on the back of a google search on "We are all very near despair." I just couldn't work out why until I ran the search and came on this interview with Jane Jacobs about her new book. The phrase in question is part of the quote at the beginning of Death and Life of Great American Cities I mentioned here.

Left and Right Libertarianism - guest post

Not all my investigations and enquiries into aspects of libertarianism were fruitless. Following up a comment on a website led me into e-mail correspondence with decnavda of Decnavda's Dialectic - a 'neo-georgist' blog. With permission I have edited that correspondence into the post below which sets out a particular, personal perspective on libertarianism.

***
Continental European libertarianism is vastly different from libertarianism in what I will unfortunately refer to as the Anglosphere. While it does tend to be "left", it also tends to be socialistic, and frankly I do not understand it very well. When I use the term "Left Libertarianism" I am referring to an approach to libertarianism most recently developed by Hillel Steiner and Peter Vallentyne. Also important is Henry George, the 19th century American philosopher most closely associated with the idea of common land ownership in a free market economy. As for my own beliefs:

1. I accept libertarian ideas of individual self-ownership.

2. I accept that freedom is best secured through strong property rights.

3. I accept the labor theory of property. That is, you should have absolute ownership of what you create through your own labor.

4. I accept the free market as (generally) the best way to produce and distribute goods and services.

At this point, most liberals and leftists think I have given away the store. What is left for equality? Plenty. The three biggies:

1. Land, including location and natural resources. No one made them, so everyone has an equal right to use them. Private ownership is most practical, so it should be allowed, but only with compensation at full market value. This is done by having the landholder pay full rental to the community.

2. Inheritance. Self-ownership gives you ownership of yourself to the limits of yourself in all dimensions. You exist in three spatial dimensions, and one temporal dimension. The labor theory of ownership is based on self-ownership. You don't own yourself after you die, because you do not exist to be owned. Without self-ownership, you cannot own things beyond yourself. A society where the living must obey the dictates of the dead is not free. Therefore, there should be a 100% tax on inheritance.

3. Corporate existence. Corporations do not exist in nature and are not created by individuals. They are chartered by the government. This means that:

a. Society should "tax" corporations at a rate designed to maximize revenue. Essentially, we are providing a service in allowing corporate existence, and like any service provider in a free market, we should charge for this product whatever will maximize our profits on a supply and demand curve.

b. Society can create whatever governing rules for the corporation we wish. Shareholder are not owners, they are investors. Corporate boards should be elected by both shareholders and employees, as well as in some cases consumers, and there should be board members appointed by the government/community as well.

There are a lot of other potential areas of community revenue in a left libertarian state, but those are the most dramatic.

What the government should DO with the money is less clear, although most left libertarians support replacing the welfare state with a basic income grant for all citizens as a type of "citizen's dividend". Non-anarchist left libertarians support paying for police, courts, military, etc. Most left libertarians (not me) agree with right libertarians that infrastructure spending should be left to the free market. However, William Vickrey, a Nobel-prize winning Georgist economist, once wrote a paper demonstrating that in a Georgist state, some infrastructure spending by the government could be SELF-FINANCING. He analyzed a few cases of public transportation spending and showed that the increase in rental value of near-by land directly attributable to the new transportion was greater than the cost to the government to build and maintain the transportation. So a Georgist state could sell bonds, build the transportation infrastructure, and pay back the bonds with the increased rental revenue.

Finally I also suggest visiting the entry on Libertarianism in the Stanford Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy, written by Peter Vallentyne, which gives an excellent description of the differences between Right Libertarianism (what most Americans just call "Libertarianism") and Left Libertarianism.

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Criminal Representation for terror suspects

If this report is correct, and if the case against the lawyer concerned is succesful, the so-called Patriot Act could make it illegal in the US to defend anyone suspected of a terrorist offence.

Had the timing of her actions been different, Stewart could have been charged with violating a little-noticed provision of the PATRIOT Act that makes it a crime to provide "expert advice or assistance" to a terrorist group. Although the Justice Department cannot use that provision against Stewart -- and a California federal judge recently limited its reach -- the department’s court submissions in her case take the position that legal representation of alleged terrorists is a crime under the PATRIOT Act if the lawyer can be portrayed as acting under "the direction and control" of a foreign terrorist organization. The law does not require any intent to further illegal activities, and the Justice Department contends that there is no exception for "good faith" or "bona fide" legal representation.

Hiatus

Sorry for the hiatus in posts, I've been ill. It's likely to be a day or so before things fully recover.

Censorship at the Adam Smith Institute (2)

Yes I know its trivial but the trackback from my last post on this hasn't shown up either.

UKIP and the BNP

Regardless of the source (who obviously have an interest in discrediting the UKIP), these allegations are very serious. The regular traffic of members between UKIP and the BNP revealed here should be worrying to all of us but especially those who voted for UKIP in the European elections.

It would not be the first time UKIP members have appeared under a 'flag of conveneience'. I know of at least one District Councillor elected as an Independent who then revealed himself as a UKIP member. That would be fine if he felt that district council work should not be a matter of party politics, as many honourable Independents do. In this case however he used his position to make anti-EU speeches and tried to get the council to refuse to pay for its memberhip of the Regional Assembly on the basis that was an EU front.

UPDATE: Broken link fixed - I hope since when i edited the post the link was shown correctly. Just in case here is the URL

http://www.britainineurope.org.uk/inyourarea/eastmidlands/news/UK%20Independence%20Party%20Links%20with%20the%20BNP%20should%20worry%20residents%20in%20the%20East%20Midlands

Shock Horror: Censorship at the Adam Smith Institute

This post on the Adam Smith Institute Blog is presumably trying to argue that the jobs referred to are in some way not real jobs, especially since they are for a government funded project. I don't know for sure thats what they mean but I guess the tabloid phrase 'amazing jobs proliferate' is a good clue.

My attempts to post a comment having been 'moderated' away (twice - so it isn't just a glitch) I'm repeating it below. I can't be sure it is the exact words because I haven't reached the levels of paranoia which would make me keep every two line coment.

Weblog writer is a new job title too. It is inevitable that new jobs will be created. We cannot stay with a nineteenth century economy.

Thats all folks! Not sure what the 'moderation' issue is - lets be charitable and call it an oversight.

Mongolians need surnames!

Apparently Mongolians don't use surnames but following a change in teh law, they are all calling themsleves after Ghengis Khan.

On a related point, I read somewhere that Belgians have to choose from an approved list when naming their children. I can find no evidence on the web to support this so is it another anti-European myth?

Land Labour & Capital - Henry George

The Factors of Production

Land, labour and capital are the three factors of production. If we remember that capital is thus a term used in contradistinction to land and labour, we see at once that nothing properly included under either one of these terms can properly be classed as capital.

Land

The term land necessarily includes not merely the surface of the earth as distinguished from the water and the air, but the whole material universe outside of man himself, for it is only by having access to land, from which his very body is drawn, that man can come in contact with or use nature.

The term land embraces, in short, all natural materials, forces, and opportunities, and, therefore, nothing that is freely supplied by nature can properly be classed as capital. A fertile field, a rich vein of ore, a falling stream which supplies power, may give to the possessor advantages equivalent to the possession of capital, but to class such things as capital would be to put an end to the distinction between land and capital, and, so far as they relate to each other, to make the two terms meaningless.

Labour

The term labour includes all human exertion. Hence human powers whether natural or acquired can never properly be classed as capital. In common parlance we often speak of a man's knowledge, skill, or industry as constituting his capital; but this is evidently a metaphorical use of language that must be eschewed in reasoning that aims at exactness. Superiority in such qualities may augment the income of an individual just as capital would, and an increase in the knowledge, skill, or industry of a community may have the same effect in increasing its production as would an increase of capital; but this effect is due to the increased power of labour and not to capital.

Capital

Thus we must exclude from the category of capital everything that may be included either as land or labour. Doing so, there remain only things that are neither land nor labour but have resulted from the union of these two original factors of production. Nothing can be properly capital that does not consist of these; that is to say, nothing can be capital that is not wealth. But it is from ambiguities in the use of this inclusive term wealth that many of the ambiguities which beset the term capital are derived.

Henry George Progress and Poverty, Chapter 2