The Pin Factory Blog

My colleague Geoffrey Taunton-Collins argues that nationalism is a force for good, as the loyalty and fellow-feeling it generates are necessary to create high trust law-abiding societies. He says that examples of atrocities committed partially in the name of nationalism—the Rwandan genocide, the second world war and Holocaust, strife in the middle east—are all better explained by ethnic tribalism or religion. I disagree. Firstly I'm sceptical that successful modern societies are driven by nationalism, secondly I think it's impossible to disentangle the nationalist element in many of the terrible occurrences he lists, and thirdly I think that nationalism underlies some very bad policies adopted by many modern societies.

Why does an individual obey the law? One obvious reason is that the penalties for disobedience, weighted by the likeliness of their being incurred, often outweigh the benefits from breaking the law. A second reason, is that individuals believe there is some sort of justice in the laws. This is why people give "because it is against the law" as a reason independent of any further explanation for why a course of action ought not to be followed. Anecdotally, the arguments people give for the duty to obey the law—if these can be taken as also being the reasons they actually do obey the law—seem to go against Geoff's claim, centring on reciprocity, universality and fairness. And the cases where people disobey the law appear to go with my analysis. Consider illegal downloading: some estimates say PC games are illegally downloaded as many as 20 times as they are bought legally. People seem unswayed by the laws—brought about by the authority of the nation state they are supposedly loyal to—requiring them to buy games (or films, television programmes, music) legally. Because others are not following the law, and because the likelihood of punishment is low, they don't themselves.

Can nationalism and ethnic strife be disentangled? Certainly Hitler's regime looked no more favourably on the many proudly German Jews who had served the Kaiser honourably in the first world war than they did on any with Jewish ancestry. And certainly Nazism was centred on the idea of a Volk—a people—united despite the borders of Weimar Germany. But the purest form of an ideology is rarely what gets through and propagates throughout society, and the Dolchstosslegende—the idea that Germany didn't really lose the first world war, but was stabbed in the back by a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy—was a vital part of the Nazis' appeal. I think the general bleeding of racialist, ethnic and religious ideas into nationalism and national identity is inevitably tied into Middle Eastern conflicts and the two major central African genocides.

And finally, look at the policies nationalism produces. True, as Geoff points out, there is no necessary reason why nationalism should exclude anyone born outside the country, if they are willing to switch their loyalty to their destination nation, but in practice we know that's what happens. Taking the UK as an example, the tide of anti-immigration feeling has been rising and rising since Gordon Brown's 2007 pledge to provide "British jobs for British workers", culminating in the rise of UKIP and Tory policies like the 99,999 or less net inward migration pledge. Surely it can't be denied that a sense of nationalism, that the UK is collectively owned by only its current inhabitants, a sense of insider and outsider, is intimately connected to this ethically indefensible and economically incompetent trend?

As far as I can tell, actually-existing nationalism is not responsible for our generally law-abiding society, cannot be disentangled from many gross moral horrors, and is responsible for bad policy. Therefore I conclude that nationalism is a force for bad.

The nation state is—in its fundamental nature—a free and tolerant political system. National loyalty requires only fondness for a geographical location (and its history) which can be acquired by anyone who moves to a nation, as well as those born and brought up there. In principle national loyalty requires no significant revision of values, nor does it exclude people on the basis of their family, colour or any other unsavoury criteria. It is, taken on its own, a remarkably benign form of attachment.

Loyalty is necessary for political institutions to uphold their laws. Laws protecting private property, free speech and so on do not hold sway because they have been written down by a legislator but because those subject to them believe they are authoritative. This requires general acceptance of their content and the body charged with enforcing them, which in turn requires a loyalty and trust for that body and for other citizens. In non-nationalistic countries such as Kazakhstan trade can rely on its participants' having particular reason to trust one another. Nationalism avoids such pitfalls by enabling a trust of a pool of strangers – something which characterises flourishing societies.

The strongest ties among humans have proved to be religious, tribal-ethnic and national. They are typified by attachment to that which is familiar. The first two of these however, when elevated into political form, are intolerant of differing values and of differing bloodlines. The conflict between family love and religious obedience has characterised some of the worse strands of the Middle-East's history. In Africa tribal loyalties have underpinned devastating atrocities – in the 1994 Rwandan genocide for instance the Hutu people massacred the Tutsi (a group seen to have different physical characteristics). Twenty-two years earlier the Burundi Genocide had seen a reversed tragedy. Similarly fascism is not an extreme form of nationalism but an extreme form of tribalism—members of Hitler’s Aryan race were identified by their appearance and bloodline, not their attachment to a particular nation. We would do well to celebrate our often mocked pride for the rolling hills. Other attachments have proved much less tolerant of our differences and freedoms.

Another reason is philosophical. Where we happen to have been born and brought up is certainly arbitrary from a moral point of view – but this is no good reason to rule it out as mattering. Which mother we happen to have been born to is arbitrary, and yet no one claims we should shun her on that basis. Similarly we come across our friends arbitrarily, even if they have been chosen carefully from those we’ve met. My point is not that we should consider important all aspects of our lives that aren’t up to us, but rather that their being arbitrary shouldn’t be a reason not to think them important. In other words, arbitrariness should give us no reason to feel uneasy about the benefits that national attachment brings.

The Left should back the ASI's objection to having the state make decisions for working class people under the claim that it knows best what is good for them.

The ASI opposes the paternalistic notion that working class people in Britain are incapable of making their own choices.  People in authority, including many involved with the medical profession, often take the view that they know better than ordinary people and are therefore entitled to impose their choices.  They seek both laws and punitive taxes to constrain people into living the lives that 'experts' think they should live.  They ban indoor smoking and hide packets from view, and call for plain packaging and ever higher taxes, and justify all of this on health grounds.  The ASI view is that people are entitled to do unhealthy things if they wish, and while it is acceptable to warn them, the choice must be left to individuals to make.

The same applies to high taxes on alcohol and calls for minimum pricing and restriction on its advertising.  Again, health grounds are adduced, even though Britain is among the low consumers among EU members.  If people feel they derive sufficient pleasure from alcohol to justify any adverse consequences, that is a decision they can freely make.  It is no function of the state to treat them as children incapable of making choices for themselves.  Such an attitude is patronizing.

This is also true of foods deemed by experts to be unhealthy, including fats, salt, sugar and fizzy drinks.  There are proposals for fat taxes, for taxes on fizzy drinks and limits on the salt and sugar content of foodstuffs.  Labelling is acceptable so that people know what they are doing, but measures to force them into diets favoured by 'experts' demean and diminish the values of ordinary people.  These 'experts' never seem to consider that ordinary people, especially low-income people, might find that tobacco, alcohol and appetizing foods add interest and satisfaction to their lives.  These might be what some regard as unwise choices, but they are for people to make as adults, not as the protected wards of an over-mighty state.

5. The ASI opposes official surveillance and secret powers.  The Left should welcome the ASI's opposition to snooping and surveillance by authority and its support for an open rule of law.

It is not a legitimate exercise of authority for a state to spy on its subjects.  If they go about their peaceful business, their activities are no concern of government, and government has no right to intrude into them. Government is our servant, not our master, put in place by the people to protect them and to safeguard their liberties.  Using the excuse of monitoring possible terrorist acts, government has resorted to quite illegitimate surveillance measures into the lives of its law-abiding citizens.  The ASI has opposed the extension of these powers, and the use of CCTV cameras by local authorities in quite trivial cases such as improper parking, putting out rubbish for collection at the wrong times, or to monitor whether parents live at the addresses claimed in their school applications.

The cry that "only the guilty have anything to fear" has been used to justify the oppressive intrusion of tyrants throughout history.  In fact the innocent have a great deal to fear from governments which demand the right to read their mails, to eavesdrop on their conversations, to record them on camera, and to monitor their movements.  These things are no legitimate concern of governments. 

The ASI supports the rule of law, done openly and subject to public scrutiny.  It opposes secret courts and secret powers, and supports the right of accused persons to trial by jury and full public scrutiny of the judicial process.  Where there is legitimate cause for concern about public safety, and surveillance is indicated, there should be separate application each time, judged on its merits by a magistrate, rather than an automatic and general right to conduct it.

London's pubs may soon be protected from demolition or conversion after Boris Johnson agreed to list them as 'community assets'. What this means is that any pub which is so listed becomes considerably more difficult to sell. A selling pub landlord will be required to:

• notify their local authority;
• wait for the local authority to notify any “interested parties;” and
• “if local groups are interested in buying the asset they (will) have 6 months to prepare a bid to buy it before the asset can be sold,”

…helped along by government-funded “pre-feasibility grants of up to £10,000 and feasibility grants of up to £100,000” drawn from a £30 million social slush fund.

The Daily Mail reports that “every week 25 pubs close,” with the attendant loss of thousands of jobs, “never to reopen, victims of... cheap supermarket booze, heavy duty on beer and the smoking ban.”

Supposedly, listing “helps to see off the property developers who are the main reason pubs go down.” But are they?

Industry publications further point out that taxation on alcohol is “eight times greater” than in France, which combined with increased input costs “of barley, malt, glass, aluminium and energy” squeezes margins such that “the major UK brewers have seen profits plummet by almost 80 per cent.” Changing tastes and squeezed budgets have contributed to beer sales falling to their lowest levels since the Great Depression.

Many pubs are now more valuable for the land on which they sit than the pints they pull, resulting in their being “demolished or converted to other uses such as residential and retail services which radically alter community spaces and change the tone of the high street.”

This is no bad thing. The father of Austrian economics, Carl Menger, wrote that “if, as a result of a change of tastes, the need for tobacco should disappear completely,” there would be no doubt that tobacco would lose its utility entirely and the services of tobacconists, importers, traders, pipe-makers, tobacco-farmers, and “the specialised labour services of so many people who are employed” in the trade would “cease to be goods.”

This should not mean permanent destitution for those involved. A free market can redeploy its resources towards more profitable purposes. “Many tools and machines used in the manufacture of tobacco products,” Menger wrote, can be “placed in causal connection with other human needs even after the disappearance of tobacco.”

As in many other occasions in life, where goes tobacco, so goes beer. Times, and tastes, have changed. [ ] Yesteryear's East End labourers are now hipsters and carb-conscious yuppies, and City types are more likely to hit the gym at lunchtime than ‘roll down the pub’.

The problem is exacerbated by the smoking ban, the high burden of business rates, VAT and excise taxes, and falling household incomes. Additionally, in the midst of a housing crisis, the human need for housing is considerably more pressing than the human need for drinking in connection with the land on which “our” pubs have been built. One should not therefore be surprised that pubs have become increasingly valuable as property, rather than business, assets.

This is not to say that the Austrian approach is entirely fatalistic on the issue. We can, and should, announce “last call” on government intervention in this sector of the economy – freeing pub business from regulation so it becomes more competitive and liberalising the housing market will reduce the cost to society of both entertainment and places to live, while not interfering one whit with the property rights of pub owners. Listing pubs as “community assets,” however, achieves virtually nothing.

As part of our continuing series, Madsen Pirie discusses some common ground between libertarians and the left.

4. The ASI backs the cause of personal liberties.  The Left should welcome the fact that the ASI is firmly libertarian in its outlook, taking the side of those who express a right of dissent, or who choose to follow alternative or minority lifestyles.

The ASI takes a libertarian approach, believing that people are the best judge of what suits their lives.  They know more about themselves and their circumstances, and should make the decisions about how they prefer to live.  We think people should be entitled to live their own lives, rather than being forced to conform to someone else's idea of how they should live.  Provided they do not harm others or seek arbitrary restraints on their liberties, people should live as they choose.

The ASI does not support imposed conformity.  It recognizes that people differ in their views of what constitutes a family, or marriage, and supports their right to live by different values.  It opposes using state power and state finance to back only certain types of relationship, believing that such choices should be outwith its jurisdiction.

The ASI backs free speech, including the expression of ideas that some might find offensive and insulting.  We might prefer to see people exercise courtesy and restraint, but these are not things that the law should impose.  A free press will at times overstep the boundaries of taste and decorum, but only a free press uncontrolled by politicians can expose their machinations and follies and therefore restrain their excesses.

Recently, Kier Martland produced an article in The Libertarian attacking Sam Bowman's take on immigration, suggesting an alternative libertarian view on the issue – using Hoppe to back up the position. I think this view is entirely mistaken. Indeed, Anthony Gregory and Walter Block take apart Hoppe's position here and Block again here.

The position taken by Hoppe is that nobody should be able to make a claim on the state without 100% consent from those paying for it, including for goods such as roads. The issue is that the state does exist, so long as there is government we should seek to ensure a policy of least damage done. By having high costs or even bans to hire migrants, the state would be taking away people's right to freely associate and make contracts. Further, by increasing the cost of labour, and doing other such damage to the economy as described in Bowman's article, restrictions on immigration do damage to the taxpayer. Hoppe's “second best” position simply doesn't hold true.

If one group in society objects to immigration, that does not mean migration is wrong because they pay a small percentage of the cost (even though, again, immigrants are a net positive for the tax collector). Indeed, the same argument would hold true for economic nationalists or greens who wished for only local goods to be sold in the economy. By importing foreign products, one would be initiating trespass on the roads by transporting goods unwanted by third parties. The same could be said of any good transported that an individual disapproved of, whether alcohol, meat products or any other “vice”. Similarly, Christian Scientists or others who disapprove of modern medicine might insist that taxpayer roads not be used for transporting any related materials. The position is ridiculous, you cannot support absolute rights to reject immigration whilst not supporting the same absolute right to reject other goods and services people might disapprove of.

By suggesting an increase in government control of migration, both Martland and Hoppe are going the wrong way on this issue – it is not about defending the taxpayer. Increasing the scope of the state, and the cost to taxation in policing it, as the Hoppeans propose, is damaging. What about those who pay taxes that DO want immigrants to use government services such as roads? Are their rights lesser than those who are for government restriction? Even if the costs and size of government are larger to be more restrictive? Should they be forced to fund border forces in this way? The Hoppean position on immigration is illogical; you do not reduce the scope of the state by increasing it and the number of tasks it undertakes. We should be looking at ways to limit the damage and cost of government now, and not sit in ivory towers trying to fudge a philosophical position that takes away the right of free association.

There's a lot to like about the Reason Foundation's new report, "The Argument for Equal Marriage". Its basic argument is:

1. Marriage has changed enormously over time.
2. Same-sex marriage is just another change, and on the scale of possible changes that can be made to "marriage", it is far less significant than changes that have already been made to the status of women.
3. "Traditional" marriage as defined by the monotheistic traditions has treated both women and gay people badly, and it is therefore not wise to use it as a basis for law or public policy.

As the report says,

"Marriage has been put through the laundromat of the Enlightenment, two waves of feminism, and the civil rights movement: what we have now would be unrecognizable to Bracton or Blackstone or Jesus, and this is a good thing. If one were to isolate the greatest change in the definition of marriage over time, it would come down to a choice between the enactment of unilateral divorce (with its attendant effect on murder, suicide, and domestic violence rates) and the ending of coverture, granting women property rights in marriage and separate legal personality. Compared to these definitional shifts, equal marriage is peanuts."

Read the whole report. Last month I wrote for The Guardian that marriage, gay or straight, should be taken out of the hands of the state.

Libertarian regulation theory shows us how state power, apparently used for benign purposes, ultimately results in the exploitation of consumers and the misallocation of resources. Of the two great threats to our economic progress and liberty - state spending and regulation - I would argue that it is regulation that is the greater threat.

State spending is often contested and its results are at least clear to see (although the fact that state spending in the UK is vast and growing should not be forgotten). Regulation, on the other hand, is a far more subtle threat and seems to gain approval across the political and public spectrum. The corporatist pseudo-markets created by regulation in banking, energy, rail and so on are decried as evidence of the failure of capitalism when they are anything but.

As we have a current example of new regulation, it is interesting to apply the theory and see what might be the result. Regulation* is often introduced when there is assumed to be a case of 'market failure'. Broadly, the impact of regulation is to create barriers to entry which protects existing market players and tends to promote consolidation within the industry. Small and more innovative firms, which would otherwise enter a market where large profits are to be made, are thus excluded. Existing players are thus able to dominate the market and drive up prices or prevent innovation. 'Government failure' is thus ignored but it is the consumer and the society at large which suffers.

In the case of Press regulation, many of these features may occur. We cannot call the print media a 'free market' but it is freer than, say, the broadcast media which is dominated by the BBC and bound by tight regulation on objectivity. An instance of perceived 'market failure' in the form of phone hacking was used to justify regulation, ignoring the fact that phone hacking was illegal under existing laws. We can already see how regulation might drive out small players who are currently undermining the profits and market share of the established Press.

The position of small internet bloggers and innovative media news outlets is jeopardised - will the Pin Factory blog be forced to sign up to the press regulator? What influence would we have there? What if the new regulator imposed punitive fines on us?

In many markets, it is the large occupants who welcome regulation and - in fact - connive at its introduction. While they have to sacrifice some control to regulators, they are guaranteed a protected market share and healthy profits whilst avoiding the trouble of innovating against and out-competing small rivals. Further, large firms often have a 'revolving door' to regulators and are able to undertake expensive lobbying to further protect their positions.

Some portions of the Press are opposed to the new regulation, a condition which probably stems from an ideological position unique to this industry. However, it is clear that, under the system of state regulation, it is the large, extant players who would dominate the regulator and be in a position to use this power against potential rivals. In many industries, the emergence of corporatism would be unfortunate. In the case of the Press it threatens to be fatal to liberty.

*We must take care to distinguish 'regulation' from 'law'. Regulation is intervention designed to control the size and shape of a market, prices and quality. Law is (or ought to be) solely concerned with property rights. 

If asked which groups posed the greatest threat to individual liberty in modern Britain, I would unhesitatingly cite two groups. These groups are, broadly, the medical profession and those who are generally called 'celebrities' - pop stars, film stars and so on. You may think that I am being somewhat tongue-in-cheek (and in some ways I am), yet there is a serious set of issues at stake here.

Firstly, the medical profession. Hardly a day goes by without some group of doctors or medical scientists calling for a ban on this or some sort of government intervention in that. The latest example seems to be the attempt to set a minimum price of alcohol sales, a terrible idea which, hopefully, has failed. Consumption of tobacco, salt, sugar, fat plus associated advertising are all deemed dangerous and suitable subjects for medics to attempt to ban or circumscribe via price increases . Medics also see fit to spend public money to instruct us how to live our lives and what choices we ought to make.

Some of the rationale for this comes from the doctor's protective monopoly, the NHS. As the health costs of unhealthy lifestyles are born by the state, it seems quite justified for doctors to call for bans and price hikes. Naturally, this simply demonstrates the lunatic incentive structure that state-provision of healthcare creates, especially free-at-the-point-of-delivery healthcare which externalises the costs of unhealthy behaviour. However, the chief threat from doctors lobbying stems from their apparently impartial and expert position as guardians of health and security. Unfortunately, most of their calls ignore the Public Choice and Knowledge Problem implications of the state interventions which result.

Celebrities have an even less programmatic threat to liberty, unsurprisingly for such a diverse group. They usually adopt a single-issue approach. For a long time we have had Bob Geldof and Bono calling for state spending on international aid. The greatest current threat stems from Hacked Off's campaign against a free press. Celebrities will often lead opposition to reductions in public spending or state activity such as Arts Funding. They have a powerful ability to rally strong public opinion for or against a cause, no matter how strong the case against - whilst Joanna Lumley's campaign to allow Gurkha's to settle in the UK hardly represents a major threat to liberty, although it has had some unintended consequences for Aldershot, it serves to demonstrate the power without responsibility that celebrities wield.

In distinction to the recent past, where ideological opponents of liberty tended to possess a coherent ideological programme of state intervention and control, these groups are far more pragmatic and opportunistic. Thus, in many ways, they are far more dangerous because they cannot be so easily shown to be a threat. It must be said that both groups 'mean well' - they cannot really be accused of a malign plot to oppress people. However, both represent a serious threat to liberty.

Regulations and public spending, once in place, are rarely repealed and tend to expand as they crowd out private responses. Innovation is prevented and alternative solutions are foregone. Bans and prohibitions create black markets and often serve to create other problems without solving the first (viz. recreational drugs). Whilst everyone has a right to free speech, those lobbying for state intervention need to be aware of the consequences and problems created by their support for the insidious expansion of the state into yet more aspects of our lives.