Students for Freedom

One of the third-year economics modules here at UCL is called ‘Economic Policy Analysis’: a hotch-potch of nonsense and various lecturers’ frivolous hobby-horses rammed together into what the university hopes is a coherent package.  It is, of course, nothing of the sort.  So far, we’ve examined five ‘policy areas’:

• The economics of social welfare programmes (no justification as to why they should exist at all…).
• The economics of abortion (who decides to have an abortion due to the local gender ratio?!).
• The economics of immigration (something I can actually like!).
• The economics of addiction to smoking (as if anyone doesn’t know the harms of smoking).

The first topic this term is ‘Reforming the tax system’.  “Yes”, I cry, “Finally, a lecturer that agrees that taxation is unjust!”  Sadly, it was not to be.

Instead, we heard a very simple model of optimal taxation: eat the rich.  The role of the tax system should be to exact the maximum amount of revenue from the rich, and give it to the poor.  The rich ‘exist simply to generate tax revenue’, according to the lecturer: a certain Richard Blundell CBE, head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, former President of the European Economic Association and Econometric Society.  At the end of the lecture, the professor told us, “We hear a lot about taxation from politicians.  But this model is simple.  And everyone can agree with it.”  Not so sure about that.

Blundell is an econometrician: someone that uses mathematical and statistical tools to identify economic relationships.  The problem with econometricians is they usually prefer using said tools to common sense.  Maths works because it’s based on assumptions like 1 + 1 = 2.  Econometric models are often based on ridiculous assumptions.  Such as, for example, that the rich have no rights, but exist only to pay for the largesse of other people (who, by definition, therefore, do have rights: not just to their own property, but to other people’s!).

Is it any surprise that the country is going down the pan when even those that are most educated in economics - the people that are supposed to apply critical thinking to our economic woes, hold those prejudices with regards to their own subject?

Greetings once more.  Sorry for the hiatus - the winter break was an extraordinarily busy time for me personally.  Now that university work is under control, I can return to blogging!

Of course, there wouldn’t have been a gap in service if it weren’t just me writing at the moment.  Anyone that wishes to contribute to the Students4Freedom.com, and air news and views from different perspectives is always welome to do so.  As for most enquiries, email chairman@students[numeral four]freedom.com.

The Libertarian Party’s leader, Ian Parker-Joseph, has outlined the principles by which the Libertarian Party will decide whether legislation and policy is appropriate for the United Kingdom’s needs according to their aims:

Test 1 is the Liberty Test.
Q: Is this policy or legislation really for the benefit of the individual in the UK, or is it only in the interests of Corporations or Government to the detriment of the individual.
A: It must fulfil the first part or it is not good law for the UK.

Test 2 is the Stalin Test.
Q: Would Stalin have found such a policy or legislation useful in furthering his state control apparatus.
A: If so, it is not good law for the UK.

Test 3: Rule of law
Q: Does the policy/legislation respect the rule of law and basic rules of English jurisprudence?
A: If not, it’s not good law for the UK.

All of which are sound enough.  However, they are all also superfluous, particularly point 2. Yes, we get it, Stalin was a bad guy. Who doesn’t already know that? But the fact he was a bad guy wasn’t because of his very nature, but because of the policies he followed: which would be proscribed under any conceivable blueprint for sensible legislation.  We might as well proscribe all of Gordon Brown’s actions, given he is similarly an enemy of freedom.

If it is a matter of pure libertarian, there should be one rule: hard and fast, without any dallying around the point, without referring to judgment of historical figures’ intentions or designs, and without appealing to one’s folkish affections for the legal system of this country.

Test 1: Protection of freedom
Q: Does the proposed policy/legislation extend and enhance the defence of the individual’s rights to life, liberty, and property, whilst not abrogating any of the above rights of that individual and others?
A: If not, it’s not a good law for the UK - or anywhere else.

If so, we can talk.

Sometimes, the stupidity of government is expected.  At other times, words fail - and the proposed bail-out of Jaguar falls into that category.  The bail-out of the car industry in the United States is retarded enough - but at least that money would have come out of the amount already earmarked for the absurd bail-outs to banks.  This, on the other hand, is in addition to them, and compounds the woes of the taxpayer.

Despite ruling out a succession of bail-outs of other doomed metal-bashing enterprises on the grounds of “responsibility to the taxpayer”, Mandelson justified pillaging the very same taxpayer with oblivion to the obvious of which our old Viking king Canute himself would have been proud:

The car sector - car manufacturing - is a centre of real excellence and competitive strength in our country.

Pah! Jaguar certainly isn’t.  If it were ‘excellent’, ‘competitive’, and ’strong’, it would not need bail-outs.  By definition.  A competitive industry can compete with the cheap and superior cars being imported from abroad, not bought out by Indian car giant Tata Motors, who own Jaguar and thus will be the recipients of this bail-out (funny that).

Mandelson is right that the car industry as a whole is somewhat more competitive - and not on its knees by a long chalk.  Who are the largest car producers in the country?  Nissan (350,000 at Sunderland), Toyota (280,000 at Derby), Honda (240,000 at Swindon), BMW Mini (238,000 at Oxford).  Land Rover, the profitable arm of Tata’s UK holdings - and one that will, consequently, survive without government subsidies - comes in fifth.  It’s simply the old marques like Jaguar that have lost their profitability.  And good riddance to them.

That shows that the parts manufacturers are not screwed by the bankruptcy of Jaguar any more than the bankruptcy of Woolworth’s will make Keeley Hazell unemployed; many people will be more than happy to buy her 2009 calendar elsewhere.  Car part suppliers can and will find alternative companies to which they can sell their parts.  I apologise for being a philistine, but a car factory is a car factory, and by bailing out Jaguar, the government is only guaranteeing what sort of car is made and who makes them, not that cars will be made at all: pronounced Lada or Rover, it’s all the same, and amounts to a gross exercise in state control of tastes and choice, as well as finances.

Allowing the old Jaguar plant at Solihull and Knowsley to convert to producing new, profitable, models - rather than subsidising the old failing cars, will save the workers, save the suppliers, and save the taxpayers.  The definition of a profitable model is decided by the market, and that’s something that not even Mandelson’s epithets and edicts can change.  The economic tides will always go in and out - King Mandelson trying to hold them back does nothing to change that fact: but will mean that he will condemn the taxpayer to drown.

The European Parliament has voted to force the UK to adopt the Working Time Directive: which mandates a maximum 48-hour working week.  Although the government is opposed, if the EU gets its way (and it always does eventually: just ask the Irish), it will be illegal to work longer than 48 hours in a week, whether one works it or not.

This is at the same time as unemployment has jumped again, thanks to the socialists’ credit crunch, to 1.9m, and youth unemployment has headed past 14%.  The TUC has praised this as an “early Christmas present” from the EU.  As always, the TUC is a good guide to what the right answer is: the exact opposite.

This move ignores the people that matter the most: the employees.  They choose to work those hours.  Noone can force them (that would be slavery and has been illegal for 236 years).  New graduates choose to work long hours, because it gives them a chance to get a foot on the employment ladder: whatever the reason an individual gives, it must be for the best for her, because she decided it.

But there’s far more to it than that.  Nowadays, far be it from it being the impoverished and downtrodden working long hours, it is the well-paid and very highly-skilled that work far longer hours: lawyers, engineers, bankers, but foremost amongst them, doctors.  Is it any coincidence that the British Medical Journal has made the WTD its bête-noire?

They need to work long hours because it costs a lot to train them, and because their skills are rare.  They are, in essence, impossible to replace.  They work those hours because they choose to do so, and that’s because their employers need the doctors working long hours to provide employment for the bureaucrats other key public-sector workers.

If a hospital can’t pull new doctors out of its arse, it will be forced, in actuality and by law, to shut down services.  So, if the government tries to limit their work, with the ridiculous Marxian make-work argument that it will create another job for an unemployed person, there will be one result: no work (or hospitals) for anyone.  My, what a principled position and just what we need to get us out of the recession.

The free market has pushed down working hours over the past hundred years dramatically.  That doesn’t require government regulation.  It requires the free market leaving employees free to work however long they want, key businesses staying open by paying them well in return, and living standards increasing.  To try to limit working hours is economic illiteracy writ large, not just crass Keynesianism but crass Marxianism, and will lead to an exacerbation of this crisis and the creation of a new crisis in future.

There is, of course, one group of highly-paid workers that does currently work long hours that cannot be put out of a job by this, and thus must be singing from the rooftops: politicians.  What a surprise.  Who would have thought that politicians would be self-serving?

Having counted them all by hand, trudging in and out of polling stations across Manchester, it’s clear: more people voted in yesterday’s referendum on the Manchester commuter congestion charge than voted in the 2005 general election, and it would have constituted the safest seat in the entire country based on yesterday’s results!

Across the ten boroughs of greater Manchester, 1,026m people voted in the general election three years ago, whilst 1.033m voted in the referendum on whether to accept the government’s congestion charge bung.  Yesterday’s vote was therefore, by a comfortable distance, more legitimate than the general election: and the 78.8% that voted against the congestion charge would be safer than the 75.5% vote for Labour in Bootle: the safest seat in the country!

Incidentally, the 1.026m that voted in 2005 returned twenty-two Labour MPs and three members of the Cabinet: Hazel Blears, Andy Burnham, and James Purnell.  Effectively, Greater Manchester is Labour’s power base - and, yesterday, it stuck two resounding fingers up at the government’s plan to bribe them!

The University of Sheffield Union Council has rejected by a large margin an attempt to ban the Officer Training Corps on campus.  A proposal to ban the OTC entering union property or organising at union events (including freshers’ fayre) was rejected by 27 votes to 10, with only two abstentions.

This is a victory for students everywhere.  The motion stated that the OTC promotes “the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan” and that it “recruit[s] young people to fight and die in these unjustifiable wars”.  This, of course, is bullshit.  Officer cadets are not required to join the army, are not required to serve on operations of any sort, and are not contributing factors to any wars of aggression: even if that’s what you think the Army is up to.

Instead, the OTC offers training, leadership skills, experience, and fun activity for its participants.  If it didn’t provide a service that students want, nobody would join it!  UCL Union banned the OTC at a farcically partisan and politically-motivated AGM last year - and the result was that the number of students that have joined the OTC has declined precipitously.  That’s fewer students doing what they want to do and fewer students getting vital skills that they want to accumulate to distinguish themselves in the competitive job market.  Bravo, lefties.

We may not like what some societies do.  I don’t think it’s even a matter of opinion that Labour Students help promote the fascistic and totalitarian government that we have.  But it’s supposed to be a democracy run for students - and so long as students are allowed to sign up to Labour’s jack-booted authoritarianism (which is funded by unions), they should also be allowed to sign up to the OTC’s life-enhancing skills and training programmes (which is funded by the Army).

Sheffield struck a vital blow for freedom last night, but the fight is still on elsewhere.  Whatever people think of the Army, that’s no reason to discriminate against students, and no reason to make their university experience any less fulfilling than it should be.

A good day for motorists today, as residents of Greater Manchester overwhelmingly rejected the government’s attempt to bribe them into introducing a commuter congestion charge for the city.  On a turnout of over 50%, a majority of 4-to-1 voted against the scheme, with large majorities in all ten boroughs of the county.

If you look at previous opinion polls, it’s hardly surprising that the plans were rejected by so large a section of the population.  When asked in March 2007 the big headline question - “Do you think congestion charging is a good idea?” - the noes won by 64% to 36%.  Even when asked if it was a “price worth paying” to secure £1bn of central government transport financing, the ayes only narrowly scraped in by 55% to 45%.  Overall, 76% thought the scheme would have a negative effect in their neighbourhood.

The fact that people think it’s a price worth paying proves that the £1bn is a bung.  If it weren’t, people would think it was a good thing per se.  That is clearly not borne out by the research, which shows increased congestion, negligible revenue, and a nightmare for London’s businesses.  Instead, they think it’s a disastrous idea, and voted as such yesterday.

That’s the case wherever people get a vote on such things.  The people of west London rejected the expansion of the congestion charge by 63% to 37%, but were told by the despotic then-mayor Livingstone that ‘a consultation is not a referendum’.  For that, read what government’s stock answer to everything is: “I don’t give a shit what the people want - I’m the one in charge.”

The past few months have been better one than motorists have been used to under this government.  Boris Johnson’s victory in May paved the way for him to scrap the £25-a-day envy tax on large cars, a more democratic consultation than Ken’s led to the announcement that the western extension of the London congestion charge is being removed, and falling oil prices have given hope that petrol will fall to a reasonable level.  In the face of all this, the government has done all it can to undo this progress: by slapping yet another 2p a litre on fuel duty.

Fortunately, by rejecting the bung Labour has tried to throw the city, Mancunians have stood up for the forces of common sense.  Congestion charging hasn’t worked in London, wouldn’t work in Manchester, and is a downright dirty thing for the government to foister on the people in the face of the government’s recession.  This time, let’s hope they listen.

Thanks to Phil Donohue for sending me this link to Ron Paul’s speech criticising the bail-out of the American auto industry.

It’s good to see him calling the socialists out: and righly calling this nationalisation.  Government does not exist to manage car companies.  Government does not exist to own hauliers, travel agents, or pubs in Carlisle: all of which used to be nationalised in this country.

In Marxist-Leninism, heavy industry, banks and insurance companies, transport and utilities are the key to the economy.  Lenin called them the ‘commanding heights’, because they connect and sustain all the other sectors and provide universally-demanded goods and services.  Once they’re taken over, the rest of the economy will follow, and we can kiss goodbye to our hopes of one day living in a free society.

The recently-elected new Kiwi government, including the classical liberal ACT New Zealand, have scrapped their ‘Buy New Zealand‘ campaign to promote buying local produce:

The suspension of the Buy New Zealand Made campaign by the new Government has saddened one of the policy’s architects, Green MP Sue Bradford. Minister of Economic Development Gerry Brownlee said yesterday that no more money would be committed to the campaign, unless a review showed it to be effective.

Boo hoo.  Whereas the Greens may be sad for their own unfathomable reasons (it’s no doubt related to hemp, but not in a cool way), I couldn’t be happier.

If you ask people their preferences for buying produce, everyone always says that they want to buy local.  The more local the produce the better, until the thought of a turnip grown in one’s garden is as exciting as the thought of Jessica Alba in one’s bed.

The truth is very far from that: as illustrated by recent research into the scheme.  And I’ll bet my bottom New Zealand dollar that the same result would be replicated here.  Actually, most people want good quality produce at a low price.  For students, low price is pretty much the only criterion.  For those that do have a choice, buying as much of a good product as possible as cheaply as possible, they can take more time off work, lead happier lives, and conserve more resources (so good news for our crying Green friends!).

But capitalism isn’t about forcing people to value low price above everything else, just as it isn’t about forcing people to value anything over anything else.  People aren’t forced to work a certain job or purchase a certain product.  People aren’t forced to think or act a certain way.  People aren’t forced to be selfish or charitable.  And people aren’t forced to buy the cheapest or the most local.  Capitalism is the freedom to choose between those and a thousand other values, too.

Campaigns like Buy New Zealand are plentiful in the UK and every other supposedly capitalist country in the world.*  However, their existence - making taxpayers fund a misguided attempt to force people value something that they wouldn’t otherwise - is an affront to the basic principles of capitalism: and the very soul of our freedom to set our own values and live our own lives.

Bye, bye, Buy New Zealand.  Noone will miss you.

* Am I the only one that thinks the EU-funded “Scotch Beef: Great Quality of Life, Great Quality of Taste” ad that adorns the Tube was written by a thirteen-year-old on work experience?