The Libertarian Alliance: BLOG

Kevin Carson’s excellent web log headed, Mututalist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism  makes for great reading. 

I have long been an admirer of the mututalist, co-operative and voluntary collective self help movements and their better intellectual advocates. Providing powerful critiques of mercantilism past and corporatism present they often provide powerful insights that chime deeply with the best libertarian instincts. 

Today’s announcement  by the so called Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell, that Manchester  is to be allowed to build a venue for more than 1,200 unlimited jackpot gaming machines might be a tiny and welcome step but it falls way short of the libertarian jackpot. For in modern Britain nothing can be voluntarily decided between entrepreneurs and their customers. Instead, everything has to be licensed and regulated by the government - usually through an endless array of front organisations such as the Casino Advisory Panel. 

Today’s announcement was propagandistically spun by government under the rubric of regeneration. In addition to Manchester, other licenses were granted so that Great Yarmouth, Hull, Newham, Middlesbrough, Solihull, Milton Keynes, Leeds and Southampton could all be regenerated.  In a libertarian world such ‘regeneration’ would of course occur in these and any other places that customers and business people desired. Moreover, the process would be accompanied by plethora of regenerative activities currently outlawed.  Perhaps the most damaging economic criminalisation at the moment is propagated by the United Nation’s International Law of the Sea. Effectively outlawing the privatisation of the sea this ludicrous body of law means that 70 per cent of planet earth is effectively rendered useless for economic development. 

Want to know more? Then read this superb paper by Walter Block.

NFR – the free market nurses group - has just published a great article on the former Labour MP Alice Mahon.

Having spent years promoting the NHS, it turns out that when
Mahon actually needed treatment and care the NHS would not actually give her what she ‘needed’. Reduced to complaining that she has “been an ardent supporter of the NHS all my life, and now feel totally let down” quite rightly concluded that she should go private. Reportedly spending more than £5,000 to get a treatment which might save her from losing her eyesight, I am reminded of something my father used to say: experience is the best teacher.

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NEWS RELEASE FROM THE LIBERTARIAN ALLIANCE
In Association with the Libertarian International

Release Date: Thursday 25th January 2007
Release Time: Immediate

Contact Details:
Dr Sean Gabb (Director), 07956 472 199, sean@libertarian.co.uk

For other contact and link details, see the foot of this message
Release url: http://www.libertarian.co.uk/news/nr047.htm

STATEMENT BY THE LIBERTARIAN ALLIANCE ON ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAWS

The Libertarian Alliance, the radical free market and civil liberties policy institute, today issues the following statement on the legitimacy of anti-discrimination laws. This statement is prompted by the continuing debate over the Equality Act 2006, which allows the British Government to outlaw discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.

Libertarian Alliance Director, Dr Sean Gabb, says:

“Every person has the right to life and justly-acquired property, and to do with his own whatever does not infringe the equal rights of others.

“From this primary right can be derived all the rights of the liberal tradition - freedom of expression and contract and association, together with security against oppressive or arbitrary behaviour by the State.

“It does not generate any right not to be hated or despised or shunned.

“It does not justify laws against discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, religion or sexual orientation, or laws against expressing or inciting hatred against any group.

“If someone chooses, for whatever reason, not to employ homosexuals because of their homosexuality - or not to rent property to them, or not to provide other paid services to them - that is his right within the liberal tradition. By such behaviour, he is not committing any aggression against others. He is merely exercising his right NOT to associate or NOT to contract. No one who is thereby refused suffers any harm that is, within the liberal tradition, to be considered actionable.

“The same reasoning fully applies to discrimination on the other grounds of race, sex and religion.

“By forcing people to associate with or contract with persons whom they would otherwise reject, anti-discrimination laws are an attack on life and property. They are a form of coerced association. They give some people uncompensated claims on others. They amount to a form of slavery mediated by the State.

“Politically correct authoritarians like to hail each new set of anti-discrimination laws as an extension of human rights. Such laws are in fact violations of the only human rights that mean anything.

“The Libertarian Alliance does not advocate or condone any act of discrimination, but defends the right of others to discriminate and to preach discrimination.”

END OF STATEMENT

The Libertarian Alliance believes:

* That the Equality Act 2006 should be repealed, together with all delegated legislation made thereunder;:
* That the Commission for Equality and Human Rights set up under the above Act should be abolished at the first opportunity, and that all its records should be destroyed;
* That the records of the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Commission for Racial Equality, and the Disability Rights Commission should be destroyed;
* That those sections of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Act 1976, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, and the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 not already repealed by the Equality Act 2006 should be immediately repealed;
* That any organisation arguing against the above should receive no public funding.

END OF COPY

Note(s) to Editors

Dr Sean Gabb is the Director of the Libertarian Alliance and edits its journal Free Life. His book, Smoking, Class and the Legitimation of Power, is available at Amazon. His other books are available from Hampden Press at http://www.hampdenpress.co.uk.

He can be contacted for further comment on 07956 472 199 or by email at sean@libertarian.co.uk

Extended Contact Details:

The Libertarian Alliance is Britain’s most radical free market and civil liberties policy institute. It has published over 700 articles, pamphlets and books in support of freedom and against statism in all its forms. These are freely available at http://www.libertarian.co.uk

Our postal address is

The Libertarian Alliance
Suite 35
2 Landsdowne Row
Mayfair
London
W1J 6HL
Tel: 0870 242 1712

Associated Organisations

The Libertarian International - http://www.libertarian.to - is a sister organisation to the Libertarian Alliance. Its mission is to coordinate various initiatives in the defence of individual liberty throughout the world.

Sean Gabb’s personal website - http://www.seangabb.co.uk - contains about a million words of writings on themes interesting to libertarians and conservatives.

Hampden Press - http://www.hampdenpress.co.uk.- the publishing house of the Libertarian Alliance.

Liberalia - http://www.liberalia.com - maintained by by LA Executive member Christian Michel, Liberalia publishes in-depth papers in French and English on libertarianism and free enterprise. It is a prime source of documentation on these issues for students and scholars.

Recently, the drug crystal meth has been reclassified as a class A substance which means that people who now use it will face up to seven years in prison and an unlimited fine.  Although this drug has as yet not taken root in the UK, this change in the law will now greatly encourage its promotion.  We can be as sure as day follows night that this criminalisation will not only encourage its trade from the supply side but its consumption will spread down the age range.

I have read a lot over the years on the criminalisation of drugs and still find this paper by Paul Anderton  to be one of the best.

The sad thing in all of this is that politicians really don’t learn from their mistakes. When politicians outlawed all kinds of fire arms it was obvious then that
Britain would soon become awash with illegal guns and gun crime – as is now the case.

Yesterday evening – 17 January 2007 - I had the great pleasure of addressing the
Oxford Hayek Society  - a scholarly society that is now in its twentieth year. The meeting took place at HarrisManchesterCollege  and was attended by some thirty members of the society. I spoke on ‘the relevance of libertarianism’.

As with most student groups, while the formal membership of the society are around 200 the active membership is probably only 10 per cent of that figure.

Nevertheless, it was a great evening and I found the audience to be particularly knowledgeable and engaging when it came to free market ideas and the usual texts. Hayek, Rand, Mises and Rothbard were all mentioned at various points in the proceedings.

On Wednesday the 17th January 2007, I took part in a debate organised by a
grammar school in Kent.

The question was whether Britain should leave the European Union.

I was speaking against a former Member of the European Parliament.

I won the debat by 97 to 87 votes.

You can hear a sound file of the main part of the debate by going to:

http://www.libertarian.co.uk/multimedia/2007-01-17-europe-sig.mp3
http://www.libertarian.co.uk/multimedia/multimedia.htm

Tomorrow’s LA Putney Debate with
Antoine Clarke on The Long Tail by Chris Anderson will no doubt be interesting. If you are interested in attending then call me on 07956 969523 or email me at tim@libertarian.co.uk

The first Putney Debate of the year, 2007 marks the 20^th anniversary of these monthly meetings.

On Friday 12 January, I shall be presenting the first of the Putney Debates for 2007.
My topic will be “The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson, what it means for business and libertarians.”

I think “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More” by Wired editor Chris Anderson, is the best economics and business book written in the past 10 years.

If there is one book that everyone trying to sell things or ideas today should read, this is my pick. The whole Web 2.0 concept contains elements of the Internet boom and bust, but this time there is a lot more substance to the excitement.

For one thing, in 1999 someone would have set a website selling real estate, which some merchant bank would value as if no one else could enter the market for a few hundred pounds. Gullible investors would then buy shares in the property website valued at hundreds of times actual earnings.

This time the focus is more on how the markets are actually shifting. For example, in the UK we have a property boom and estate agent offices are closing down, because about two thirds of all customers are using the Internet to search for properties and contact agents. Some web-based businesses are and will continue to be overvalued and will collapse in spectacular fashion. However, I think we are moving from the era of experiment (like the early days of the motor car) to the era of business (where recognizable brands emerged).

The Long Tail though, is about the way that economies of scale have been utterly transformed in the production process and how consumers are increasingly able to become producers too. If the Marxist concept that the individual is defined by his belonging to an economic class has any meaning, then Web 2.0 really throws up a lot of questions for the cleavage “producers/consumers.” Entire business models are now obsolete, in particular the way in which intellectual property is defined and exploited.

For Libertarians, there is the satisfaction of discovering that the Long Tail is the apotheosis of the sovereign consumer, with the explosion of niche markets. There is also the warning that the tools for intellectual debate have been revolutionised, and we have, so far, been missing out.

For details of the Putney Debates and how to get there, etc, email tim[at]libertarian.co.uk.

you can hear the BBC interview I did on the smoking press release at:

http://www.libertarian.co.uk/multimedia/multimedia.htm

Free Life Commentary,
A Personal View from
The Director of the Libertarian Alliance
Issue Number 157
3rd January 2007
postCount(’flc157′);Comments| postCountTB(’flc157′); Trackback

More on the Persecution of the BNP
by Sean Gabb

One of my duties as Director of the Libertarian Alliance is to defend the right to free expression of people whose views I do not share. I do not perform this duty as often or as effectively as I might wish. But I begin the new year with another of my comments on the persecution of the British National Party.

Just before last Christmas, a journalist called Ian Cobain published a series of articles in The Guardian newspaper, revealing how he had joined the BNP and been made its Central London Organiser. In this capacity, he got hold of the Party’s membership list. His articles were essentially a listing of names of middle class members. Further news reports in the same newspaper and in others detailed the actual and suggested persecution of these members.

The most widely discussed member has been Simone Clarke, a leading dancer at the English National Ballet. She was quoted by Mr Cobain as saying that immigration “has really got out of hand”. The ENB is a body funded by the taxpayers, and it has a duty under the Race Relations Act 2000 to “promote good race relations”. The funding body, Arts Council England, insists that funded “organisations have to make sure that they promote cultural diversity as a clear and central part of all their work”.

Not surprisingly, there have been calls for her to be sacked. Lee Jasper, Equalities Director for the Mayor of London and Chairman of the National Assembly Against Racism, said:
 

The ENB must seriously consider whether having such a vociferous member of an avowedly racist party in such a prominent role is compatible with the ethics of its organisation. I seriously doubt that it is and that should lead to her position being immediately reviewed. I think she should be sacked.

He called on funders and David Lammy, the Arts Minister, to intervene.

Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said people had a right to their private political views but added:

This will taint the ENB in the eyes of many minority communities. Questions need to be asked about how someone in that position can be allowed to abuse that position to promote the BNP.”

 

I could move to my analysis of the agenda behind Mr Cobain’s articles. But I cannot resist a brief digression on Mr Bunglawala. He is treated in the coverage of this story as if he were a political moderate, righteously shocked at the “political extremism” of the BNP. In fact, his own opinions appear quite as alarming as anything alleged against the BNP.

Take his statement that people have a right to their private political views. That may be the case in some benevolent oriental despotism. In England, it has long been accepted that we have a right to express our political views in public. Such, at least, has always been my understanding.

Turning to his comments on the ENB, it is worth asking what possible further taint he thinks the organisation can receive through its association with Miss Clarke. He appears to believe that western classical music is a sinful indulgence, and that listening to it is inconsistent with Islam. He makes a point of rejecting the more purist Islamic position, that

Listening to music and singing is a sin and cause for the sickening and weakening of the heart. The majority of the scholars of the Salaf are unanimous that listening to music and singing and using musical instruments is Haram (prohibited).

 

He says instead that:

We accept music but would frown on disco-going, or concerts where alcohol is served or where there is unrestricted mixing of the sexes. That would be opposed by Islamic scholars.

 

But where is the difference? While in Bratislava last month, I attended a performance of La Traviata. The plot centres on the relationship between an unmarried man and a high class prostitute. There was shameless mingling of the sexes in the audience. There was alcohol served in the intervals. During Act 2, Scene 2, the ballerinas showed their legs most immodestly and contorted their bodies in ways that might have given Mr Bungawala a seizure.

He says he accepts music. Has he ever seen The Rite of Spring? Is he aware of the double orgasm portrayed in the Overture to Don Giovanni? Does he know the score of Tristan und Isolde? Would he recommend Moslems to attend any of these works? So long as she refrains from lecturing the audience between pirouettes, does it add to the infamy of a performance if Miss Clarke holds opinions of which he disapproves?

But enough of Mr Bunglawala. I turn to the main agenda.

We have in this country a ruling class committed to political, economic and social globalisation. While some parts of this are consistent with libertarianism, others are not. Much of the consequent association of peoples takes place in a market systematically rigged by taxes and regulations. Much is nakedly coerced through equal opportunity laws and censorship. But whatever libertarians might think of what is going on, large and increasing numbers of people dislike it all.

Since both main political parties are agreed, opponents have a choice between not voting at all and voting for one of the smaller parties. Many are voting for the BNP. There is a chance that many who do not vote will also vote BNP once it can prove that it is a credible political force. Therefore, the BNP must be destroyed.

The gentler forms of destruction involve lies. Undoubtedly, the BNP grew out of a national socialist movement. But it does not appear now to be a national socialist organisation. So far as I can tell from its website, the BNP believes in a mixed economy welfare state, with some regard for traditional civil liberties. It also believes that the alleged benefits of this should be largely reserved for English-speaking white people. This is not something that I find particularly attractive. Nor however is it the same as wanting a totalitarian police state plus gas chambers.

Since lying about the BNP does not work very well in the age of the Internet, the gentler forms of destruction are being supplemented by stronger. Its leader has just been acquitted after a trial for speech crimes that did not exist when I was a boy. Its known members are losing their jobs in public bodies up and down the country. It has trouble getting its material printed. Banks are being persuaded to close its accounts. The legal machinery is in place to deny it access to the ballot in elections.

Mr Cobain’s articles must be seen as part of this attempted destruction of a political party. Let it become known that middle class supporters will be named and have their careers destroyed, and party membership will not proceed far beyond the working classes. Let it be made effectively impossible for any middle class person to stand as a BNP candidate, and the only candidates will be criminals and fools, who can then be held up as a reason not to vote BNP.

Much of this would be happening if there were a Conservative Government. But the intensity of the persecution faced by the BNP is peculiar to Labour. There has been a strain of antinomianism in our politics since 1997 not seen in centuries. From Tony Blair down, the Ministers believe passionately that they can and therefore must turn England into some kind of multicultural love feast. Their vision of a transformed England is not very clear. But, as with an impressionist painting, vagueness of detail is compensated by vividness of colour.

These people cannot imagine that anyone of good will could fail to believe as they do. Therefore, all opposition is evil, and may rightly be put down without regard for traditional norms of right and justice and common decency. See, as an example of this, how Peter Hain defends as a Minister police state measures that he used to condemn when used by the South African Government. To the Saints of New Labour, all things are lawful.

It helps that most of these people used to be Marxists. They no longer seem to believe in the positive doctrines of Marxism, but they retain its assumption that the traditional norms are mere “bourgeois legality”.

We can, therefore, look forward to much more of this. Sooner or later, our ruling class will shut down all electoral dissent. The only possible opposition will then be on the streets.

Now, I am able to say this from a position of safety. Neither I nor the Libertarian Alliance expect to suffer in any measurable degree from this shutting down of debate. We live in a potemkin democracy, where only limited diversity of opinion is tolerated. But even so, there must be some opposition.

I am fortunate enough to find myself in the licensed opposition. I face no official discrimination that I can see. I am allowed to work in state universities. I am allowed regular appearances in the media. I am not obviously under surveillance. This may be because our ruling class does not regard libertarians as much of a threat. It may be because someone outside the ruling class has to be tolerated, for the sake of keeping up the pretence of liberal democracy. Whatever the reason, we do not operate under any of the disadvantages that the real dissidents of the BNP must take as facts of life.

This imposes a duty on me and my friends to speak up in defence of the dissidents. Unlike the other “rights” organisations, we believe in freedom of speech with no exceptions. We do not enquire into the substance of a person’s views before defending his right to express them.

We denounce the persecution of the BNP. Though I do not expect them to pay any attention, I call on Liberty and the Conservative Party to do likewise.

NB—Sean Gabb’s novel The Column of Phocas (£8.99) will be withdrawn from sale in the next few months, prior to its reissue in February 2008 by a multinational publishing group. Buy copies of the first edition while you can from http://tinyurl.co.uk/z31v or via Amazon: http://tinyurl.co.uk/2cnw

You can download the first three chapters free of charge from: http://tinyurl.co.uk/kkl4

 NEWS RELEASE FROM THE LIBERTARIAN ALLIANCE
In Association with the Libertarian International

Release Date: Tuesday 2nd January 2007
Release Time: Immediate

Contact Details:
Dr Sean Gabb (Director), 07956 472 199, sean@libertarian.co.uk

For other contact and link details, see the foot of this message
Release url: http://www.libertarian.co.uk/news/nr046.htm

“NO AGE LIMIT ON BUYING CIGARETTES”, FREE MARKET AND CIVIL LIBERTIES THINK TANK TELLS BRITISH GOVERNMENT

The Libertarian Alliance, the radical free market and civil liberties policy institute, today condemns the decision by the British Government to raise the age limit for buying cigarettes from 16 to 18.

Libertarian Alliance Director, Dr Sean Gabb, says:

“We note with some amusement that in Tony Blair’s New Britain, a man may sodomise a schoolboy in a public lavatory, and the police must look the other way; but if he gives the boy a cigarette afterwards, he will soon be committing a criminal act.

“The Libertarian Alliance actually welcomes the first of these situations. We do not believe it is the right of the State to regulate the lifestyle choices of persons who are or ought to be regarded as adults. But it is on the same principle that we denounce the second situation.

“The Problem with the Blair Government’s legislation in areas of lifestyle choice is that it is driven entirely by the desire to placate special interest groups. It has abolished most of the restrictions on homosexual acts not because it shares our belief in the rights to life, liberty and property, but because it wants the support of the gay lobby. It is oppressing smokers because it wants to create still more jobs for an army of lifestyle regulators whose votes and general support it finds useful.

“The Libertarian Alliance believes in freedom with no exceptions. This includes the right to smoke. If young people are to be considered fit to make potentially disastrous choices in the area of sex, they should be considered equally fit to decide in other areas.

“The War on Smoking is a war on freedom. It is not the business of the State to tell adults what substances they can and cannot put into their own bodies. Arguments about the alleged harmfulness of these substances are beside the point. It is our right to do as we please with ourselves. To deny us this right demeans us from human beings to farm animals. A farmer will keep his cattle from harming themselves because they are his property. We are not the property of the State.”

The Libertarian Alliance believes:

* That all laws banning the promotion of tobacco products should be immediately repealed;

* That all laws banning the use of tobacco products in public should be immediately repealed;

* That, without any increase in the burden of taxes elsewhere, the excise duties on tobacco should be reduced to match the lowest level in any of the other 26 member states of the European Union

* That any organisation arguing against the above should receive no public funding.

END OF COPY

Note(s) to Editors

The Libertarian Alliance receives no funding from the tobacco industry, but would welcome any offered.

Dr Sean Gabb is the Director of the Libertarian Alliance and edits its journal Free Life. His book, Smoking, Class and the Legitimation of Power, is available at Amazon. His other books are available from Hampden Press at http://www.hampdenpress.co.uk.

He can be contacted for further comment on 07956 472 199 or by email at sean@libertarian.co.uk

Extended Contact Details:

The Libertarian Alliance is Britain’s most radical free market and civil liberties policy institute. It has published over 700 articles, pamphlets and books in support of freedom and against statism in all its forms. These are freely available at http://www.libertarian.co.uk

Our postal address is

The Libertarian Alliance
Suite 35
2 Landsdowne Row
Mayfair
London
W1J 6HL
Tel: 0870 242 1712

Associated Organisations

The Libertarian International - http://www.libertarian.to - is a sister organisation to the Libertarian Alliance. Its mission is to coordinate various initiatives in the defence of individual liberty throughout the world.

Sean Gabb’s personal website - http://www.seangabb.co.uk - contains about a million words of writings on themes interesting to libertarians and conservatives.

Hampden Press - http://www.hampdenpress.co.uk.- the publishing house of the Libertarian Alliance.

Liberalia - http://www.liberalia.com - maintained by by LA Executive member Christian Michel, Liberalia publishes in-depth papers in French and English on libertarianism and free enterprise. It is a prime source of documentation on these issues for students and scholars.