A Capitalist Carol, Stave 7

The story so far: The politician Ed Splurge has been visited by two spirits who have shown him the error of his high-spending ways; and now he is expecting the third.  

In the darkness, Splurge remembered the prediction of old Adam Smith, and, lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him. It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand.

“Are you the Ghost of Freedom Yet to Come?” said Splurge.

“You are about to show me shadows of things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us?” Splurge persisted. The spirit’s garment moved, as if the phantom had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received.

“Ghost of Freedom Future,” exclaimed Splurge, “I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. I am resigned! Lead on!”

He followed the spirit’s outstretched hand, and found himself in his old office in Downing Street. But now it was full of the strangest equipment. Splurge realized he was looking at it in some future configuration. A group of people sat around a circle of computer screens, deep in discussion.

“Next item: report from the Minister of Truth,” said the figure at the head of the circle. Splurge surmised that this must be a Cabinet meeting of the future.

“Excellent progress, Prime Minster,” said another. The last of the nation’s CCTV surveillance cameras have been completely decommissioned and recycled.”

“Well, that at least is welcome news, spirit,” said Splurge. “Freedom is not yet completely extinguished.” But in an instant he realized that he had formed this conclusion too soon.

“Excellent indeed!” said the first, gleefully. “Now that the entire population has been microchipped, we can trace everyone’s movements with far greater precision and reliability. Crime will soon be a thing of the past.”

“But how can this be justified in a free society?” exclaimed Splurge.

The figures round the table did not respond. Splurge knew that they were but the shadows of things that would be, and that they were unaware of his presence, or that of the ghost.

Yet it was almost as if they had heard his question, for they all said in unison, in a sort of mantra, “Only the guilty have anything to hide.” Much mutual congratulation followed.

The first spoke again. “And thought crime…?”

“Quite unthinkable,” said the first, now that all computers are configured to prevent the use of banned words, phrases and concepts. Already this is leading to a measurable fall in criticism of the government.” There was much self-satisfaction again.

“Oh, no! I did not want this to happen,” wailed Splurge. “I just wanted to make people safe. To cut crime. To spare people from upsetting others.”

But the shadows of this dark future carried on with their business…

Plus ca change, c'est la meme chose

A little bit of interesting history. We used to have, here in the UK, an official of the Royal Household who determined what might be shown to us proles on the stage. The Lord Chamberlain's office included the responsibility to:

so that he could only prohibit the performance of plays where he was of the opinion that "it is fitting for the preservation of good manners, decorum or of the public peace so to do".

Of course we did away with all that fuddy duddy nonsense with the Theatres Act of 1968. The Earl Peel now has no such responsibility or power.

Yes, of course we did away with all of that fuddy duddy stuff, there's no one able to limit what the proles may see upon the stage or screen:

Seventies comedies would not be allowed on television screens today because they were so racist and offensive, the outgoing head of Ofcom has said.

Ed Richards, who stands down as chief executive of the media watchdog at the end of this month, said programmes from a previous generation were no longer suitable for today’s more enlightened audiences.

What it is that we proles may be shown seems to have changed a little, the August Personage who gets to decide it seems to have changed, but it does still seem to be that the bien pensants of the day get to decide what may or may not be shown to the populace.

Haven't we all had such a radical expansion in freedom and liberty, in cultural expression?

Not that we're in favour of racism, sexism or whatever, particularly. It's just that we can't help thinking that an actual free market in these things would work rather better. If people didn't like what was being shown then they wouldn't watch it and it would quickly fail and be taken off the air. And at least in the Lord Chamberlain's day they were very clear about this: you may not show these things because people would like them too much. The modern censorship is making the opposite argument: you may not show them because no one would like them. But if that is so then we don't need the censorship, do we, because something that no one likes won't survive. We thus suspect that the censorship survives precisely because those censoring know that the populace does not share their views.

How very liberal, eh?

A Capitalist Carol, Stave 6

The story so far: The second of two messengers sent by Adam Smith is showing the big-government statist Ed Splurge the dismal results of his policies….  

“Spirit!” wailed Splurge. “What is this miserable place to which you have brought me?”

They stood in some kind of a prison, though much more dismal a prison than any of Splurge’s imagination. It heaved with abject members of humanity. Yet even though the place already seemed to be bursting at its seams, more new inmates were arriving.

“What vile country, spirit, treats people so?” he inquired.

“Yours, Splurge,” responded the Ghost of Freedom Present. “The more laws you have passed, the more criminals you have created out of honest men and women.”

“Are there no proper facilities for their accommodation, their education, and their rehabilitation?”

“You know well, Splurge, that spending on such things buys you no votes,” answered the ghost. “So you choose to spend public money on much more visible causes.”

Splurge was downcast in shame; he knew it was true.

“You, Splurge, spend it to buy off the vested interest groups. You take money from those who work hard and use it for your own political advantage.”

“Oh, spirit! Such Public Choice Theory realities pain me! Take me away from this place!”

“There is yet more to see,” said the ghost. “Let us visit some of these criminals that your bulging statute-book has created.”

Splurge and the ghost passed down an endless corridor of bulging prison cells. “These unfortunates,” it explained, pointing to the first, “are victims of your anti-terrorism legislation.”

“But we must have such laws!” objected Splurge.

“There were already plenty,” growled the ghost. “And each new law you passed cast wider than the last, until near any action could be punished in the most dire way. This woman was arrested merely for walking along a cycle path. This old man, for heckling a politician at a party conference. This couple, for a silent anti-war demonstration.”

“This was not meant to be,” pleaded Splurge. “The police must have exceeded their powers.”

“You gave them those powers,” replied the ghost. “Did no one tell you that power corrupts?”

“This man” – it pointed to another wretched inmate – ”is here simply for insulting someone else. This other, for proclaiming beliefs that some find unwelcome. These, for selling fruit in non-metric measures.”

It turned to Splurge. “It is evident, is it not, that in this country you have created, freedom exists only in name?”

“Oh, no,” said Splurge. “This was not meant to be! Kind spirit, say that human freedom will survive.”

“If these shadows remain unaltered, none other of your race,” returned the ghost, “will find freedom in any action.”

Splurge hung his head, overcome with penitence and grief. A sudden tiredness came over him, and all turned dark.

Zoe gets horribly confused about the difference between charity and taxes

An alternative headline for this would be since when did Zoe Williams become a libertarian? For she's managed to get herself horribly confused over the difference between charity and taxation.

It is impossible to devise good tax policy on the basis that reasonable people don’t want to pay it and have to be either coerced or conned into doing so. .... You cannot collect tax unless you believe in tax; likewise you cannot pay tax gladly unless you love it, not for the useful stuff it might buy but in itself. This is seen as a political impossibility. But why? Tax is no more and no less than an investment in the future.

What is being described there is charity, not tax. And any good libertarian would rub their hands with glee at the idea that we should all be paying only what we voluntarily wish to pay for the good of our souls and of the society at large. And it's also a goodly part of the classical liberal point that if taxation were lower then there would be more charitable giving as we all gladly would alleviate the suffering of our fellows.

Quite how this got published in The Guardian I'm really not sure. For she really is insisting that we should be forking out only that amount that we love to: and let the coercive aspects of the State demanding money from us go hang. At which point, if that really happened, quite a lot of us would have to pack up and go home, job done.

Think of it another way. I'd certainly be happy enough to pay, voluntarily, for, say, food banks which feed the hungry in their time of need. Come to think of it, where I actually live, I do (and the fire and ambulance service in fact). It's the paying for the State professional class that reads The Guardian that I'm not so keen on the State forcing me to do. So, let us bring on Zoe's system forthwith! Tax is only what we will voluntarily pay, as with charity. All we're left with now is the thorny question of what on earth Zoe would do for a living....

A Capitalist Carol, Stave 6

The story so far: After meeting the first of Adam Smith’s heralded three messengers, the high-spending enthusiast for statism, Splurge, prepares for the second…  

Awakening in the middle of a loud snore, Splurge felt that he was restored to consciousness for the especial purpose of conferring with the second messenger dispatched to him through Adam Smith’s intervention.

Consequently, when the bell struck One, he was not surprised to find himself enveloped in an eerie light, the source of which seemed to be in the adjoining room. He rose softly and shuffled to the door.

The moment Splurge’s hand was on the lock, a strange voice bade him enter. “Come in! And know me better, man!”

The spirit that introduced itself gave every appearance of one who had known better days. It had a weak, sickly pallor. “I am the Ghost of Freedom Present,” it explained. “Touch my robe!”

As Splurge did so, the room vanished instantly, and he found himself standing, in his night-gown, in the city streets. As before, there were people about, all wishing each other good-day. But many of the shops and ale-houses seemed to be closed and shuttered.

“It must be Christmas morning,” ventured Splurge, as he sought to explain the evident lack of commerce.

“It is,” said the spirit, “but that is not why all these enterprises are closed. He pointed: “This ale-house, for example, shut two months ago, unable to bear the cost of all the regulations – on planning, on its product, and the terms on which it employs its staff. Like thousands of others, it was driven out of business.”

“The young people you see,” it continued, “a million of them, are not in the street for exercise and enjoyment,” – Splurge wondered why anyone should think they might, given the coldness of the air and the light snow that was falling – “but because they have been driven out of work by the minimum wages that employers cannot afford to pay them.”

“Oh, no, spirit!” exclaimed Splurge. “These laws were meant to protect workers! To guarantee a fair deal to the poorest, to the young, to women, to minorities and the vulnerable.”

“…The very groups who employers stop hiring,” said the ghost, “when times are most difficult. As they are now. Thanks to you."

“That was the bankers!” Splurge insisted.

“No!” replied the ghost. “It was the easy credit and loose money you created, in the attempt to create an economic boom. But it was a fake boom, which inevitably turned into a bust – a bust deep and damaging, for these wretched individuals and the businesses that, in a more liberal age, once sustained them.

“Spirit! I cannot endure these Austrian visions!” cried Splurge. “Do not torment me with the unintended consequences of my policies! Take me away from this place!”

“Touch my robe!” answered the ghost; and in an instant, the scene dissolved again.

A Capitalist Carol, Stave 5

The story so far: After meeting the first of Adam Smith’s heralded three messengers, the high-spending enthusiast for statism, Splurge, prepares for the second…  

Awakening in the middle of a loud snore, Splurge felt that he was restored to consciousness for the especial purpose of conferring with the second messenger dispatched to him through Adam Smith’s intervention.

Consequently, when the bell struck One, he was not surprised to find himself enveloped in an eerie light, the source of which seemed to be in the adjoining room. He rose softly and shuffled to the door.

The moment Splurge’s hand was on the lock, a strange voice bade him enter. “Come in! And know me better, man!”

The spirit that introduced itself gave every appearance of one who had known better days. It had a weak, sickly pallor. “I am the Ghost of Freedom Present,” it explained. “Touch my robe!”

As Splurge did so, the room vanished instantly, and he found himself standing, in his night-gown, in the city streets. As before, there were people about, all wishing each other good-day. But many of the shops and ale-houses seemed to be closed and shuttered.

“It must be Christmas morning,” ventured Splurge, as he sought to explain the evident lack of commerce.

“It is,” said the spirit, “but that is not why all these enterprises are closed. He pointed: “This ale-house, for example, shut two months ago, unable to bear the cost of all the regulations – on planning, on its product, and the terms on which it employs its staff. Like thousands of others, it was driven out of business.”

“The young people you see,” it continued, “a million of them, are not in the street for exercise and enjoyment,” – Splurge wondered why anyone should think they might, given the coldness of the air and the light snow that was falling – “but because they have been driven out of work by the minimum wages that employers cannot afford to pay them.”

“Oh, no, spirit!” exclaimed Splurge. “These laws were meant to protect workers! To guarantee a fair deal to the poorest, to the young, to women, to minorities and the vulnerable.

“…The very groups who employers stop hiring,” said the ghost, “when times are most difficult. As they are now. Thanks to you.

“That was the bankers!” Splurge insisted.

“No!” replied the ghost. “It was the easy credit and loose money you created, in the attempt to create an economic boom. But it was a fake boom, which inevitably turned into a bust – a bust deep and damaging, for these wretched individuals and the businesses that, in a more liberal age, once sustained them.

“Spirit! I cannot endure these Austrian visions!” cried Splurge. “Do not torment me with the unintended consequences of my policies! Take me away from this place!”

“Touch my robe!” answered the ghost; and in an instant, the scene dissolved again.

The doctors are on the rampage again

We've a letter in the BMJ signed by some thousands of doctors over plain packaging of cigarettes:

The government is heading for an explosive new year showdown with doctors who fear it is in danger of giving cigarette companies a late Christmas present by pulling out of a major anti-tobacco initiative.

Nearly 4,000 health professionals, including the presidents of many of the leading royal colleges, have signed an open letter to the prime minister and the health secretary, published on Sunday on the British Medical Journal website, expressing alarm that plans to force cigarette manufacturers to sell their products in plain packs may not be introduced before the general election, as had been expected.

The number of doctors signing the letter – 3,728 – is five times greater than the number who recently signed an open letter supporting a ban on smoking in cars, a health initiative the government has confirmed it will introduce. The thousands of signatories underscore the strength of feeling about the issue within the medical community.

We've indicated here before our suspicion of the emergency with which this particular question is being addressed. The government says that it must follow EU rules about consultation, the doctors are saying damn that and do it now. But why now? Our suspicion is that they want it enacted into law before the evidence that it doesn't actually work becomes more widely appreciated:

Australian Bureau of Statistics' data show that there has been a secular decline in the chain volume of tobacco sales since the 1970s, but this began to go into reverse in the first year of plain packaging (see graph below). In three out four quarters in 2013, sales were higher than they had been in the last quarter before plain packaging was implemented. This unusual rise in tobacco sales only came to end in December 2013 when a large tax rise on tobacco (of 12.5 per cent) was implemented, thereby leading to a fall in the following quarter.

Screaming that we've a major problem that requires action is sometimes valid. Whether you think that plain packaging is such is up to you. But it does boggle the mind that so much effort is being given to the implementation of a policy that doesn't actually achieve its predicted result. It's rather like the similar public health campaign for minimum alcohol prices. They seem to have got the bit between their teeth and thus be completely incapable of seeing that they're proposing something that is just a terribly stupid way to try and achieve that stated goal.

What really worries here is that we're really quite sure that you've got to be reasonably bright to train as a doctor. So why is it that when it comes to these public health campaigns they all seem to have left their brains at home?

A Capitalist Carol, Stave 4

The story so far: The high-spending, big-government enthusiast Ed Splurge has been visited by the Ghost of Freedom Past…  

Although they had but that moment left Splurge’s apartment behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city. The noise was tumultuous, for there were adults, and more children there than Splurge in his agitated state of mind could count, all talking, singing, dancing, and generally enjoying what was obviously Christmas Day.

They continued, the ghost and Splurge, to a large house. They went across the hall, to a door at the back. In a melancholy room, lined with books sat an old man with a long white beard, quill in hand, writing earnestly, obviously unaware or unmoved by the joy and bustle going on outside.

“Why, it’s Charles Dickens!” cried Splurge. “I did my dissertation on him, and how he exposed the evils of the factory system!”

“Your eyes, and his,” said the spirit, “were clouded by bile and ignorance. “Before the Industrial Revolution, most people were condemned to life in abject poverty, destitute and starving, toiling outdoors in all weathers for an uncertain harvest. They thronged, willingly, to the factories exactly because of the security, income and opportunity that the towns afforded.”

“But the work was still harsh,” objected Splurge, “and the upper classes lived far, far better.”

“Bah!” replied the spirit. “The upper classes prospered by extracting favours and monopolies from the political authorities. Have you not heard that power corrupts?"

“The hours for those without political cronies,” it continued, “were long because this was yet a poor country – until production, exchange and investment made ordinary people rich.”

“Oh, spirit!” cried Splurge. “You mean the capitalist system I decried was the very salvation of these poor wretches?”

“Yes; and what gave them opportunity for self-improvement. Come!”

Suddenly they were at the door of a grand building, proudly declaiming itself “Institute of Education”. People – ordinary mill workers, Splurge surmised – crowded past them, each heading for rooms in which different activities were going on. In this, it was a concert in which they played string or brass instruments. In that, a lecture on Mr Darwin’s new theories. In another, a class teaching reading and writing to adults and children alike.

“Factory owners were fully aware of the benefits of a fulfilled and educated workforce,” explained the ghost, “and made these facilities available. And the workers themselves combined into friendly societies, to make provision for their own welfare needs, without needing the powerful – and corrupt – state that you deem so essential.”

“But you,” it scowled, “would have denied them that every opportunity, and condemned them to starvation on the land.”

“Oh spirit!” begged Splurge. “Take me from here. I can no longer bear these memories!”

He was conscious of being exhausted, and of being back in his own bedroom; and had barely time to reel into bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep.

Someone's got a very dark sense of humour concerning Cuba

Much chuntering about the fact that Broadway musicals have returned to Cuba for the first time in 50 years. And whoever it was that put this package together they've a very, very, dark sense of humour:

In the play, the setting is New York: the East Village, in the early 1990s, with a bohemian, artistic crowd trying to make ends meet over Christmas.

In real life, the setting is Havana – with a disparate group of actors, trying to put on a musical, to show over the festive period.

Because for the first time in 50 years, a Broadway musical is transferring to the Communist island, and – in a case of life imitating art – a play whose first scene opens on Christmas Eve will raise its curtain on December 24. Rent will then open to entertain crowds of curious Cubans, most of whom will never in their lives have seen a musical on that scale.

"Getting permission to bring the show here was extremely challenging," said Robert Nederlander Jr – producer of the show, and the third generation of a Broadway dynasty. "It took us well over a year to negotiate."

Our best guess is that we should congratulate Mr. Nederlander on that sense of humour.

Rent is a story (loosely a story, a collection of songs loosely nailed to a story might be a better description) detailing the travails of various people of interesting sexuality, their struggles with being HIV positive, the threats of becoming so, and how they cannot find secure and decent housing.

To take this to an island that, until recently, would lock up in isolation camps those who were HIV positive, distinctly demonise those of interesting sexuality and where there hasn't been decent or secure housing since the socialist revolution is, well, it is humorous, isn't it?

Well done Mr. Nederlander, well done, our caps are raised in admiration. We are left wondering though who, other than you and ourselves, is going to get the joke.

A Capitalist Carol, Stave 3

The story so far: Haunted by the ghost of Adam Smith, high-spending, big-government enthusiast Ed Splurge is expecting the first of three more visitations…   

When Splurge awoke, it was dark. Smith’s ghost bothered him exceedingly. It had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled One – which it now did, with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE.

Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn – drawn aside by a hand. Splurge found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am to you now.

It was a strange figure – like a child: yet more like an old man viewed through some supernatural medium, which diminished it to a child’s proportions.

“Are you the spirit, whose coming was retold to me? Asked Splurge.

“I am the Ghost of Freedom Past”

“Long past?” inquired Splurge: observant of its dwarfish stature.

“Your past. Your ideology’s past.”

But the strangest thing about this apparition was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using a great extinguisher of a cap, which it now held under its arm.

Perhaps, Splurge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him, but he had a special desire to see the spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.

“What!” exclaimed the ghost, “would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the lamp of liberty? For that is the light I give!”

Splurge reverently disclaimed all intention of doing that. He made bold to inquire what business brought him there.

“Your reclamation!” replied the apparition, in a voice soft and gentle. It clasped him by the arm. “Rise! Walk with me!” And it made toward the window.

“I am mortal,” Splurge remonstrated, “and liable to fall.”

“Bear a touch of freedom,” said the spirit, laying his hand upon its heart, “and you shall be upheld in more than this!”

As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall. The city had entirely vanished. It was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon the ground.

“Good Heaven!” said Splurge. “I know this place!”