A terrific resource

We like to be positive around here, and I would say that one of the most crucial tasks for libertarian activists is to ensure that youngsters, such as university undergrads, get exposure to the great works of classical liberal thought. This has not always been easy, since some great books are frequently out of print. Sometimes a university lecturer, either out of conscious bias or ignorance, will not bother to recommend a classical liberal author like a Smith or Spencer to his students. Fortunately, these guys do terrific work in publishing the classics, bringing often obscure gems out into the light of republication, and increasingly are doing so in a way that is affordable to students. Liberty Fund, we salute you.

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The nutty professors

Interesting piece in the Telegraph about how many people continue to view scientists as oddballs in white coats or guys with crazy hair trying to create Frankenstein monsters. I guess that in our still anti-reason culture this is to be expected, but it is a bit depressing nonetheless. You, gentle reader, are right now taking advantage of the intellectual heroism of scientists who defied prejudice and inertia to expand boundaries of knowledge.

Science does not need an image makeover. We need a wholesale philosophical fight for rationality and respect for the pursuit of truth.

The A(rse) List?

On a more hello sailor vibe is the latest news on Dave’s top 150 candidates list. Nice to see that nightly news was able to show one of A-list dancing naked in a pop video. It is, however, good to see that Howard Flight is on the list; we are fans of the man who was so badly knifed by Michael Howard.

I just have to wonder what members of the list who got booted off, for merely being white, straight, well-educated and successful will think when they see many of the johnny-come-latelys on the list. You know the ones who busted a gut in rain, sleet & snow leafleting and canvassing for the party whereever they were needed.

A clever man who did a lot of harm, but coined the odd decent phrase

J.K. Galbraith has died at the ripe old age of 97 (some of these economics fellows rack up some good scores). A scourge of laissez faire, private property rights and mocker of concerns about liberty, Galbraith is one of those superficially plausible, clever-sounding “grand old men” who for a while were revered by the makers of TV documentaries. His greatest impact came in the late 50s and 60s when he mocked big business (not always unjustly) for its supposed similarities to government (he had a point there, but Adam Smith spotted this 230 years earlier), the “boom and bust” cycles of business (more the fault of delinquent monetary policy), and advertising. The latter point illustrates both the pluses and minuses of the Galbraith method: a telling insight that many of our wants and desires can be partly shaped by ads, but also the arrogance of assuming that ordinary people have to be “guided” or protected for their own good against Evil Big Business.

Galbraith, a man of Scottish descent and a puritanical streak, I think was a good example of a kind of man who rose to eminence and held great power in the ministries and academies of 20th Century America and Britain: patrician, urbane, scornful of the benefits of mass affluence for the unwashed masses, blind to the horrors of collectivism, and all too convinced that “the man in Whitehall knew best". It may be bad form to use harsh words about a man who has just died, and I don’t doubt that he was a fine person in many respects but for all that one can acknowledge his influence as a writer, his delusions and bad ideas should not be ignored.

It is a positive thought to hold that Galbraith, and much of what he stood for, has been decisively trashed in the battle for ideas, however hard poor old Paul Krugman, John Gray or Will Hutton gamely try. Adam Smith and his intellectual heirs are winning.

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Blue Book of Freedom

A worthy project and now an audio version whose sales will go back into PR for the book.

Well done Douglas

This from today’s Telegraph on the problems with local government and its ineffectiveness. It seems an ole’ mucker of mine, now an MP, Douglas Carswell MP is touting a rather libertarian idea.

So the solution is obvious. Give councils the power to set VAT locally and to collect the receipts. Or rather (and this is the bright idea of Douglas Carswell MP), abolish VAT and replace it with a local sales tax (LST) - far easier and cheaper to administer than a tax on “added value". It would be a flat tax and a fair one, for those with the largest disposable incomes would pay the most.

Yes, granted, taxes are all evil to liberatarians; but until we come up with an alternative a flat local tax then we need to support Douglas’s idea. No doubt bureaucrats would hate this idea as much as it hates any other method of making tax fair and simpler.

What has sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll come to?

I see that one of the organisers of the Glastonbury annual rock festival is insisting that folk who attend carry – wait for it! – identity cards with their photos on. Well, given that no-one is forced to attend the festival, I cannot see a principled stance on liberty grounds although it does appear symptomatic of a broader obsession with ID these days (as if we needed reminding, Ed).

Not very rebellious, is it? My kid brother, many years ago while a student, spent several happy, half-stoned days in the mud accompanied by the music of Van Morrison, the Undertones and many others, while all the time enjoying the ministrations of 6 lovely young female undergraduates of a similar outlook on life.

Now they want to turn the whole thing into what: a frickin’ traffic wardens’ convention?

The magic of money

I am gradually coming to the end of Neal Stephenson’s magisterial “Baroque Trilogy", reading through the third in the series called The System of the World. I actually like the third book the best, with the first being pretty good and the third fairly good although a little hard-going at times. As well as being a rattling good yarn, chronicling the lives of Whiggish scientist Daniel Waterhouse, vagabond Jack Shaftoe and Sir Isaac Newton himself, what else is there to like about the books?

Among its many plusses is the treatment of money and trade. Stephenson shows how the supposed alchemy of finance developed in the late 17th Century – when the Bank of England was formed – giving arise to institutions such as shipping insurance (Lloyds); futures markets, bills of exchange, and so forth. Stephenson captures how bizarre all this must have been to people, such as French aristos, who thought wealth could only be real if it was physical, like land or gold.

And if you think about it, that is pretty much what a lot of folk still think about wealth. Entrepreneurship, speculation, etc, are still terms of reproach in the mouths of some people. The other day I was walking with a distant relative who bemoaned the fact that “we don’t make anything anymore", as if wealth could only be wealth if it is something you hit with a hammer and put a Union Jack on it.

Stephenson is no free market preacher. Like the best novelists, his points, if there are any, are implied rather than rammed down the throat. If you want a thought provoking series to engross, delight, and occasionally move, then this is a wonderful trilogy. I hope Stephenson has much more to follow.

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The value of religious holidays even if you are a non-believer

Jason Dixon, a fan of Ayn Rand – who was a strict atheist who said some fairly uncomplimentary things about religion – has a nice piece here about why even agnostics or non-believers should value certain types of public holiday, including Good Friday, one of the most important days in the Christian calendar. Nice sentiments. I sometimes think that non-Christians, in going out of their way to mock certain events like Christmas, give the impression that theirs is a rather joyless view of the world. Dixon’s article is a reminder that celebrating goodness is a, well, good thing.

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