Liberal Vision

GUEST POST: The Era of Laissez-Faire?

One of the established memes about the financial crisis is that it demonstrates the failure of unfettered capitalism, the dog-eat-dog, laissez-faire environment that prevailed in the West over the last few decades, all driven by the ideology of “free-market fundamentalism.” This seems to be a truism among most of the Commentariat. Of course, as pointed out repeatedly on this blog, the truth is virtually the opposite: there was never any “deregulation,” the Bush Administration spent public money like a drunken sailor, and government continued to expand as it always does. But a picture is worth a thousand words, so try these on for size. (US data; click charts for sources.)

One response I sometimes hear is “Sure, there are more regulations and more government spending, but the set of things that should be regulated and the amount of government spending the economy needs are growing even faster!” This is essentially the Krugman-DeLong view about the stimulus: it just wasn’t big enough. Or they say that financial markets were “deregulated,” de facto, because the number of regulations and regulators increased more slowly than the number of new financial instruments and new markets. I wonder, though: are these falsifiable propositions? No matter how big the government is, if there are any problems, it’s always because the government isn’t big enough!

This post is authored by Peter G. Klein, an Associate Professor at the University of Missouri and Adjunct Professor at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. He usually blogs at Organizations and Markets, where this post first appeared.

Queen’s Speech: the Libertarian Draft

What a lot of people don’t know is Her Majesty the Queen of England, is in fact a rampant libertarian. Every year Elizabeth II writes a secret libertarian draft of her speech which is quickly dismissed by courtiers. Well, this year Liberal Vision has obtained a copy of that draft and is proud to publish it here:

Merry Christmas,

What we really, really want for Christmas is the real proletariat revolution, libertarianism.

Many would not think myself or my family to be, in any way, libertarian, yet my darling Phillip has been doing his bit for freedom of speech for quite some time now.

Some may say that inheriting a monarchy and being a Libertarian are mutually exclusive. Yet our system, with a ceremonial head of state and an elected premier is less expensive to the taxpayer than the elected head of the executive also carrying out ceremonial duties. So it’s all good, bruv.

For those of you who question the appropriateness of an unelected leader in this day and age, I ask you this: “where exactly have you been since June 2007?”

I’m not too upset with Gordon, to be honest with you. He has a good heart but he is more than a little dull and clearly incompetent. Which is an easy combination to endure when you know it’ll be over soon. I must admit I am more partial to the lovely Sarah than that dreadful Cherie woman… It is important to remember that we are a nation at war. So don’t forget that they’re actually my armies, Gordo. Treat them with respect.

So I wish you a Merry Christmas and for most of you merry will mean your grandparents being high as a kite from having mixed their morphine based arthritis medicine with Tesco Value Lumbrusco or just plain drunk. But whilst you loll about in self-induced food and liquor coma, which as a Libertarian I’m all for, in everything you do and whatever path you choose, think of ways you can make this country more free.

In 2010 I wish you all a happy life, liberty and an elected premier.

Happy New Year.

Tuition Fee Festivity

Liberal Vision have received an anonymous tribute to Nick Clegg! In the name of the seasons festivities it is hereforth published on behalf of the author (who also sends their apologies to Monty Python…).

Bravely bold Sir Cleggy rode forth from Cowley Street

He was not afraid to defy, O brave Sir Cleggy
He was not at all afraid to be say no in nasty ways
Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Cleggy

He was not in the least bit scared to reverse party policy
Or to have his activists wail and his MPs rebel
To have his team resign and his popularity sink
And his expenses exposed by the Telegraph, brave Sir Cleggy

His leadership fail and his seat go red
And his column axed and his interviews stopped
And his children defect and his wife marry Chris Huhne
And his willy...
   Well that's enough music for now, lads...

Brave Sir Cleggy ran away - No!
Bravely ran away, away - I didn't!
When the FPC said no instead
He bravely turned his tail and fled - No!
Yes, brave Sir Cleggy turned about
And gallantly he chickened out
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat
Bravest of the brave, Sir Cleggy

GUEST POST: Here Comes the Digital Economy Bill – there goes the internet

Today is the last day the Lords can table amendments against the Digital Economy Bill. The Open Rights Group are running a writing campaign: click here to join in while there’s still time.

Anyone who likes the internet, or just has a passing fondness for due process and parliamentary oversight, should care about stopping this trainwreck of a bill. Here is a greatest hits compilation of the reasons why:

“tell every Briton you know. If we can’t stop this, it’s beginning of the end for the net in Britain.” – Cory Doctorow

“the Secretary of State may compel any ISP to do anything at any time and for any reason he likes. No awkward laws need to be passed, there need be no tedious debate in Parliament, there need be no uncertain vote to take.” - Devil’s Kitchen.

“people can be cut off from the internet without a trial, without a jury and without proving they committed any offence at all” - Charlotte Gore

“the death of public Wi-Fi, closed as well as open” – Lilian Edwards, professor of internet law

“could give the government the right to spy on UK internet users.” – Google

“expands government control over the internet” – Dominique Lazanski, digital consultant.

“We mustn’t let Mandy do this WRONG thing” – Stephen Fry

“This Bill has some really bad stuff in it that if it gets adopted will affect everybody in the world.” – Don Tapscott, author of “Wikinomics”

More details from the Open Rights Group.

You can also join the Facebook group, Against the Digital Economy Bill.

And sign thepetition HERE.

Marc Sidwell

GUEST POST: at Copenhagen, beware “green” protectionism

With all eyes on the UN summit at Copenhagen this month, keen observers are wondering whether collaborations are possible to mitigate climate change. Yet some proposals would do more harm than good, with “green” protectionism the most dangerous of all.

These are proposals to permit trade restrictions on the grounds that they will help to prevent climate change–a sadly misleading theory, which has predictably gained support already from uncompetitive industries and other vested interests have jumped on the bandwagon.

In our petition against these measures, the Freedom to Trade campaign explains:

“Trade enables specialisation, which results in the development of new technologies and leads to the creation of wealth. In the past two decades, trade has enabled over a billion people to escape poverty. Trade is the most powerful weapon in humanity’s armoury to fight poverty and environmental ills, including climate change. Trade restrictions are not desirable, nor are they an effective means of addressing climate change.”

Ongoing health disasters that some fear will be accentuated by climate change are already a reality today for millions of people–as a result of poverty, imbedded by oppression and trade restrictions.  Every thirty seconds a child dies of malaria, an entirely preventable and curable disease.  Seventeen thousand people in poor countries die every day from respiratory or diarrhoeal illnesses.

To instil today’s disasters by encouraging barriers to trade that are already preventing people in poor countries from lifting themselves out of poverty is madness. Please sign our petition against this phoney cure, and send a message to the politicians in Copenhagen that trade and wealth are our best weapons to adapt to a changing climate.

SIGN THE PETITION HERE: http://bit.ly/1mu46P

Alec van Gelder is Project Director of the Freedom to Trade campaign and writes on trade for publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Sydney Morning Herald.

Anonymous dedication to David Howarth

Liberal Vision has received an anonymous dedication to David Howarth MP, who is standing down at the next General Election. We’re more than happy to publish it here:

Most aptly called ‘Rumpolian’ by Quentin Letts, David Howarth, to the dismay of many, announced on Thursday that he will not be seeking re-election, in order to concentrate on his other life as an academic.

In the week that saw the dismissal of a government advisor on drug use by a Home Secretary more wedded to spin than science, David Howarth’s words have never been truer:

“Liberals still believe in what is fashionably called the ‘Enlightenment Project’. Not only should everyone be capable of participating in political discussion, but also, reason and knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, should form the basis of that discussion. Liberals instinctively reject the reliance on traditional authority and the cynical manipulation of myth and superstition which are fundamental to conservatism, including its modern ‘communitarian’ forms. Critics say that the Enlightenment Project has led to arrogant and ultimately disastrous attempts such as Marxism, to claim to apply scientific methods to politics. But Liberals have never claimed, as socialists did, that they possess knowledge that authorises them to reconstruct society. They claim instead that a society is rational to the extent that its members debate the future in a rational way” *

Rationality, absent in the current policy-making era, is a Howarth trademark. He uses it to great rhetorical effect when an opponent is making a simply absurd statement or policy, and it informs the stance he takes on almost every issue. It doubtless will inform the lectures and legal insights David makes in this other life.

Much has been said about David’s achievements as a stalwart defender of civil liberties, the right to protest, on the environment, and many of his successful campaigns, but he was and is also quite simply an excellent MP on the ground. A man from a working class background in Walsall, David went to Cambridge and Yale. He is a tall poppy even in the intellectual hothouse of Cambridge, yet because of his background, or his affable manner, or his earnest desire to make things better, he transcends class and is able to engage on any level in a way that is friendly and unceremonious but dignified and proper. He understands the importance of local democracy and localism.

In a year that the expenses saga engulfed parliament, he is someone with probity and integrity. Although entitled to go by First Class he travels Economy and his ad hoc surgeries start the minute a constituent recognizes him boarding the Cambridge train and continues, as other people join in, all the way to Kings Cross; more like a one-stop MP shop. Few people have wisdom, the dignity, and the good sense to walk away from a desired career at the height of their powers (although intellectual heights last a long time). If David suffers from anything it is being a polymath, in an era where democratic politics seem to require people who are full time professional politicians with, apparently, few other interests or capabilities.

One of David’s legacies on the ground is a buoyant local party which had an injection of new blood in the years since he left local government with continuing success at local level. A highly professional team of councillors runs the City Council and there was a good showing in the County Council elections too. More seats were contested and won by the Lib Dems than ever before in Cambridge elections in one go and they were jubilant at the count. The next stage will be to spread out into Cambridgeshire where the County Tories, seemingly lacking intelligent life form, are perplexed by the more cerebral but down-to-earth Lib Dems.

Selections can be dangerous territory though. Witness the Tory debacle in Bedford where, without taking detracting from Dave Hodgson’s great victory (Lib Dems majority of over 2,000 votes) their ‘open primary’ left the Tories with a candidate who could not garner full support, and a local party that felt patronised by High Command. Witness also the current Tory comedy of errors about Ms Truss as the hapless ‘no-one in Norfolk knows how to Google’ locals try to explain their distress to the dismissive aristocrats of Notting Hill.

A held seat is an attractive option for most would-be candidates. What is important for the local party now is to make sure that those short-listed next month work flat out to lay new foundations, for the City of Cambridge, to again be the winner by having another Lib Dem MP. Whoever follows will be different but the biggest tribute to H’s leadership in Cambridge is the legacy of continuing strength in local government and the large number of excellent potential MPs for what will doubtless be a hard fought, intellectually rigorous but good natured selection process – classic Cambridge.

* full text available here: http://www.csld.org.uk/

And here is a Red Balloon - I think of you and let it go.

The invisible link: For a real stimulus, let’s invade Europe

Over at the ASI Tom Papworth has been taking on economist Paul Krugman.

Below is the opening para, to whet your appetites and lure you in. Click here or at the bottom for the whole article. Take it away, Tom…

Here is Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman on how to bring a major recession to an end:

It took the giant public works project known as World War II — a project that finally silenced the penny pinchers — to bring the Depression to an end.

The lesson from FDR’s limited success on the employment front, then, is that you have to be really bold in your job-creation plans. Basically, businesses and consumers are cutting way back on spending, leaving the economy with a huge shortfall in demand, which will lead to a huge fall in employment — unless you stop it. To stop it, however, you have to spend enough to fill the hole left by the private sector’s retrenchment.

I’ve read a lot about World War II, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it described as a “giant public works project” before.

To understand why any “giant public works project” will fail to stimulate the economy, continue reading.

+ Lord Rennard cleared on a technicality +

Lord Rennard has been cleared of any wrong doing on a technicality…

An intelligent anonymous commenter on Andrew Reeves blog made the observation:

It’s interesting on a number of points. First he’s been cleared of something very specific, breaking Parliament’s rules, according to the way Parliament choose to interpret them. And that clearance has been given by an Officer of Parliament, not an objective third party. That then is no more significant legally or ethically in regards to whether a fraud has been committed than the MPs fees office turning a blind eye to tax-dodging, flipping, or claims for capital repayment on mortgages.

Rather the Clerk has now given licence to every peer to buy a second home for the purpose of maximising their income.

How definitive that is may cause further confusion. Has he for example licensed Taylor of Warwick to claim for a phantom home, or Uddin for a real one she didn’t use… not clear at all… On giving licence to ‘clocking-in’, that is not a surprise. Short of someone following a peer around all day it could never be proved whether or not someone was doing any work for the House or signing on like a benefit cheat. You may choose to believe Rennard was working as hard for the House as the Party, I can only salute your uncritical loyalty.

I agree further this matter is probably be over for Rennard, but is not certain. Sunlight could take this ruling to the Parliamentary ombudsman, or the Police, or private prosecution. Any of these could assess whether ‘main residence’ has a legal meaning not examined by the Clerk, such as for example living in one place more than another, and whether Rennard has provided sufficient evidence to qualify.

From the full report it is only clear he can prove he owns a second property and uses it on occasion, something never in contention. That may be good enough for Clerk and Liberal Democrats, I question whether it would stand up to much scrutiny externally. Sunlight might also issue another complaint based on his claims in 2002/03 where he was using his old home in Wokingham as the basis for £22k of allowances. Odd they chose not to put that in the first complaint.

So in regards to your demands for an apology from the few people brave enough to stand up to this odious man and his questionable personal conduct, whilst you and your party did nothing… All that is clear so far is that Rennard has successfully gamed the system for personal gain a way most other Lords chose not to do. His only defence for that behaviour was that it was “within the rules”, something Parliament has now confirmed.

Not that it was right, necessary, proper, or ethical, but that he could get away with it.

That doesn’t make him a saint or innocent, it makes him a successful chancer, an analysis that could be applied to most of his career with the Party. Your hero still makes many of us sick, and knowing he’s just another oily cog in a slippery system does not improve matters much. What does though is that he felt he had to resign. He must be spitting teeth about that, particularly now he’s apparently made a miraculous recovery from his previous career-ending ill-health in under 4 months.

Maybe he should get an apology from his doctor…

GUEST POST - Does debt forgiveness prop up despots?

Congo (Brazzaville) is one of the poorest countries on earth and fares badly on most measures of human well-being.  It also has enormous natural resources, particularly oil wealth which could, if used for the benefit of Congo’s citizens, provide the government with revenue to build schools, hospitals and roads.  Yet Congo’s political leadership has captured that oil wealth for their personal enrichment and use it to stifle any opposition.  As this documentary on Al Jazeera explains (see below) Denis Sassou Nguesso has robbed Congo and spends lavishly on himself and his family while ordinary Congolese starve.

This might sound like yet another story from the region - yet as Al Jazeera explains Congo’s corrupt elite have new friends in the US.  Hard lobbying in the US has ensure that some Congressmen are now backing plans to limit secondary debt markets that would allow companies that have bought defaulted Congolese debt to make Nguesso pay.  It is thanks to the legal action by these secondary debt traders that details of Nguesso’s corruption have emerged and stopping this action simply enriches the elites further while betraying the people of Congo.

The UK is now considering similar legislation which would require the forgiveness of all debt to countries like Congo, Sudan, Guinea, Chad, Ethiopia and Eritrea - all of which have awful human rights records and are economically unfree.  Lord Peter Baur once wrote that donor aid is the process of transferring wealth from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.  The same could be said for debt forgiveness and stifling the secondary debt markets to the venal and kleptocratic governments that in no way deserve forgiveness.

Richard Tren is a director of Africa Fighting Malaria, a health advocacy group.