A certain sadness, yes, but really we should celebrate

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Ian Jack's got a nicely done piece over at The Guardian about the decline of the British milk producing industry. Yes, of course, there's a sadness at the idea that the very embodiment of Stout British Yeomanry, the independent farmer, is being driven out of business. I'm also a little surprised that mention isn't made of the way that the milk quota regime imposed by the EU is deliberately skewed against said Stout British Yeoman.

But there's one little line in there which is the reason we should really be celebrating.

Years of genetic engineering and dietary supplements mean increased milk yields and fewer cows;

Fewer cows of course means fewer farmers needed to tend to them. This is really the story of increasing efficiency, increasing productivity, in farming. Something that we really should be celebrating, for it's the key to this whole civilisation thing. A society where everyone has to work full time in the fields in order to keep that society fed is really not much of a society. In order to develop anything other than just that peasant farming, you know, things like libraries, the NHS, symphonies, jet travel, absolutely anything other than a pure subsistence lifestyle, it is necessary that farming become more productive. That one person working upon the land can produce the food for 2 people, or 49 (as it is in our own, with some 2% working upon the land) or even 1.001 people's food.

It is only if there is this sort of surplus production over and above the necessary food for those doing the labouring that we can develop and build a society of any real sort.

So while we might indeed be sentimental about the disappearance of part of Ye Olde Englande, we really ought to be celebrating the process which has been going on for some10,000 years now, the ever increasing producivity of farming. For it's to that that we owe the rest of this wonderful world we see around us.

Scotland's fiscal powers

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Last week the Calman Commission reported on extending fiscal devolution to Scotland. They suggested the following:

• Scotland would set its own income tax rates, with10p from the standard and upper rates being deducted by the UK Treasury.
• Stamp duty and land taxes could also be devolved to Scotland, along with landfill tax, air passenger duty and aggregates levy (whatever that is).
• The Barnett formula for allocating revenues would be kept, but Scotland's grant would be cut to reflect their new tax raising powers.

In short: a dog's breakfast. Like every other part of the devolution process, the Calman Commission's report is an almighty fudge, creating as many problems as it solves. If this was the best they could come up with, you have to wonder why they bothered at all.

The principle behind any reform should be a very simple one: each level of government should themselves be responsible for raising the revenue they spend. That would encourage fiscal responsibility and rational policymaking, and strengthen the accountability of politicians to their electorates. It would also lead to a great deal more autonomy at each level of government – a healthy antidote to Britain's relentless centralization.

What this adds up to is fiscal independence for Scotland. There are plenty of ways it could be done – see this excellent paper from Reform Scotland for a thorough examination – but my preferred option would be to have National Insurance and VAT set and collected by the UK government (to finance non-devolved matters like defence and social security), split North Sea Oil revenue 60/40 in Scotland's favour, and then leave everything else to the Scottish Parliament. The sums more or less work out.

Would such an arrangement undermine the Union? Maybe, but who cares? Besides, you could just as easily argue that fiscal autonomy for Scotland would weaken the nationalist case for independence, by addressing the resentment that is presently felt both sides of the border. Whichever way you look at it, fiscal autonomy is good policy.

The war on drugs is wrong

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Blog Review 1000

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Using Adam Smith to explain why a £6 tax per phone line to extend broadband is a bad idea. Although, to be honest, you could probably use Marx, Edward Lear or Barney the Dinosaur to explain why a £6 tax per phone line to extend broadband is a bad idea.

More Smith, this time about the difference between selfishness and rational self interest.

There's something not quite right about this idea of having a criminal trial without a jury.

What would you prefer to have? No Smokers or a Navy?

Worth remembering who helped get rid of the draft: that would have been enough for fame and glory, forget the Nobel and all the rest.

Yes, these plates in the road to use the cars to power the lights: it's perpetual motion flimflammery again.

And finally, crazed bailout economics.

And really finally, Netsmith bows out having reached the M mark. Been fun etc.

Toodle Pip!

Well, sort of Ms Phillips

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We shouldn't be all that surprised that the Head of Natural England thinks that we should, of course, be using natural methods to be dealing with problems such as climate change, coastal erosion and all the rest:

Protecting and working with nature makes economic sense and can be done now. Continuing to rely on undeveloped technologies as a safety net for climate change would be a disaster.

And as the statement stands itself I'm not sure I would argue all that much. But what is inherent in there is given that the necessary or required technologies are as yet undeveloped, therefore we must use only natural methods. Which is of course nonsense.

If we don't have tried and trusted technologies to do something that we wish to do then we'd better get on with developing them and then testing them so that we can trust them. This is after all how civilisation has advanced, someone spots a problem or a desire and then creates some technology to solve or satisfy it.

As an example that Ms. Phillips would probably agree with, we do not yet have a properly developed and economic method of turning the abundant sunlight we get into the electricty that we desire. Which is exactly why there are tens of thousands of people around the world working on developing, testing and thus allowing us to trust a system that would do just that. Solar PV at cheaper than coal, the thing we are promised is now only a few short years away.

So with any other such problem. If we've not developed the required technology as yet, better get on and do so really, rather than just throw up our hands and say that nature must take over.

I like tax competition

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My thanks to Cato's Dan Mitchell for drawing my attention to this comment by Finland's prime minister:

The overall tax rate will have to rise as well over the longer term. In some areas that can be done without much consultation between the countries. For example, property taxes or inheritance taxes can largely be determined at the national level without adverse economic consequences. But such taxes will not raise significant amounts of revenue. Only changes in value added tax, various excise taxes or taxes on earned and capital income can make a real difference. However, raising such taxes can have detrimental effects on economic activity. This is especially so when a country acts on its own: capital and people can respond by migrating to jurisdictions with lower rates. Deeper co-operation is therefore necessary if tax revenues are to be increased in a way that truly helps fiscal consolidation.

In other words, if we don't prevent tax competition, we won't be able to raise taxes as high as we want to. In order to make big government even bigger, we need to establish a tax cartel so people have no choice but to cough up. As Dan says, this idea is nothing short of an OPEC for politicians.

Still, at least the Finnish prime minister is being honest about his intentions, which is a lot more than you can say for Gordon Brown. He tries to tell people that we need to crack down on tax competition in order to make everyone's savings "much safer". And that, quite frankly, is laughable.

I favour tax competition for the same reason that most politicians oppose it: it puts a limit on how much of our income they can get away with stealing, and forces them to think about the effect that higher taxes are going to have on the economy. It's a blunt instrument, sure, but it's one of the few that taxpayers' have got. If anything, governments should be extending tax competition to different areas within countries, not attempting to curb it through international stitch-ups.

Think like a dandilion

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What we can learn from those pesky perennials.

Blog Review 999

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Yet more evidence of Laffer Effects. The income of small business owners (who have more opportunities for changing behaviour of course) is twice as responsive to tax rate changes than the incomes of employees.

Not quite zero tolerance, but if you crack down on silliness when it's still silly then you'll not get the larger problems.

Could someone please create a similar guide to right wing zealous artcle writing? Then we'd all know what to avoid.

Argument Against Democracy No. CCVII.....there are at least 18 people who should not have the vote.

Argument Against Democracy No. CCVIII....look at the naivety of those who actually get elected.

Explaining Dani Rodrik's Capitalism 3.0.

And finally, another face/palm moment.

The Adam Smith Institute on YouTube

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We have just created a YouTube channel. See below for the first part of our Dan Ikenson Seminar. Click here to watch the rest of the Ikenson Seminar and subscribe to our channel. The Deepak Lal event will be up soon.

Mandelson's expensive empire

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Back in Gordon Brown's first reshuffle as prime minister, he turned the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) into the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR). He also created a new Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills (DIUS). And according to the Evening Standard's Joe Murphy, this did not come cheap:

The Business, Enterprise and Regulatory, and Innovation, Universities and Skills departments were created in 2007 at a cost of £7million, including £218,063 on rebranding at BERR including emails, a website and headed stationery...

Two years later, and Gordon has been at it again, merging BERR and DIUS to create a new Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS). The estimated cost of this rearrangement is £3million.

Maybe it's a better arrangement than old one. Or maybe it's worse. Or maybe it made more sense when we just had one department for 'trade & industry', one for 'education', and one for 'the environment' (instead of having BIS, DECC, DEFRA, DCSF, and DCLG all tripping over one another). Who knows?

And to be honest, I don't much care. But the waste, inefficiency and duplication that all these rearrangements engender does make me wonder if we wouldn't be better off with the American system, where primary legislation is required to create new departments and delineate their responsibilities. Perhaps then prime ministers would think twice about playing departmental musical chairs (at our expense) every time they got bored.