Three Women Who Launched a Movement

Sorry, I missed International Women’s Day last week. So here, in a Guest Post by the Cato Institute, is a tribute to three women I guarantee the mainstream celebrations would have missed, three women whose stories don’t “fit the narrative” – three women who “saved capitalism from the capitalists” and without whom the modern libertarian movement would not exist.

This Women’s History Month, the Cato Institute pays homage to three women, who in the early 1940s unabashedly defended free-market capitalism and individualism in an age that widely considered American capitalism dead and socialism the future. In 1943, Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane and Ayn Rand published three ground-breaking books (The God of the Machine, The Discovery of Freedom and The Fountainhead), which laid the foundations of the modern libertarian movement.

Many years ago, thoughtful, well-intentioned, educated people in the United States all understood that socialism was the future. The average citizen might have retained a quaint belief in the American system of free enterprise, limited government, and individual rights, but among the cognoscenti — academics, artists, newspaper and radio pundits — it was widely recognized that the capitalist experiment had run its course. The overwhelming consensus was that the coming century would see economies managed by benevolent experts: the chaotic, dog-eat-dog competition of the market would give way to rational central planning.

History has been unkind to the old conventional wisdom. But the intellectual sea change preceded the visible collapse of socialist economies. The first real sign of the resurrection of the classical liberal idea came with the publication in 1943 of three ground-breaking books unabashedly defending individualism and free-market capitalism. Almost as unorthodox as the books’ contents, in the climate of the 1940s, were their authors — three remarkable women described by libertarian journalist John Chamberlain in his memoir:

If it had been left to pusillanimous males probably nothing much would have happened…. Indeed, it was three women — [Isabel] Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand — who, with scornful side glances at the male business community, had decided to rekindle a faith in an older American philosophy. There wasn’t an economist among them. And none of them was a Ph.D.
    I had already absorbed the message of Albert Jay Nock’s Our Enemy the State and Hillaire Belloc’s The Servile State, but it was Isabel Paterson’s The God of the Machine, Rose Lane’s The Discovery of Freedom, and Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and (later) Atlas Shrugged that turned Nock’s conception of social power into detailed reality. These books made it plain that if life was to be something more than a naked scramble for government favors, a new attitude toward the producer must be created.

Paterson, Lane, and Rand began to do just that. Each was an original thinker in her own right. But each also made a mark as a great populariser of [classical] liberal ideas. A few beleaguered liberal economists had argued, with great force, that no planned economy could match the productive efficiency of a capitalist system. Yet these economic arguments, despite their technical force, were unable to match the power of the utopian socialist vision to capture the popular imagination. These three — Lane and Paterson almost entirely bereft of formal education, Rand writing fiction in an adopted tongue — did just that.

The sweeping histories of Lane and Paterson chronicled humanity’s ascent from barbarism to civilisation in a way that uncovered the necessary links between civil liberties, stable property rights, and material progress. Even more successful was Rand’s allegorical tale of a brash and brilliant young architect struggling to maintain the integrity of his work in a profession where his independence of mind is despised and resented. Above all a romantic epic, The Fountainhead also served up a blistering satire of the day’s intellectual fads and hinted at the Objectivist philosophy of rational self-interest that she would develop in greater detail in her Atlas Shrugged.

The effect the trio had was no accident: they were frequent correspondents (and friends too, at times) who saw each other — despite quarrels over fine points of ethics or conflicting religious views — as comrades in arms engaged in a war of ideas. The odds in that war looked less than encouraging, however: even the captains of industry who were emblems of the free enterprise system had, as often as not, succumbed to the prevailing orthodoxy. Undaunted, Rand wrote to Paterson in 1945: “You were right, we can do it without their help. We’ll have to save capitalism from the capitalists.”

Surveying the disheartening intellectual climate of the 40s, F. A. Hayek wrote:

We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage…. Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in the power of ideas which was the mark of [classical] liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost.

The battle, history has since shown, is not yet lost, and this is due in no small part to Rand, Paterson, and Lane’s belief in the power of ideas. Unconstrained by conventional political categories, they savaged the collectivist economic nostrums of the left even while, in their lives and careers, they exploded the rigid gender roles seen as sacrosanct by so many on the right. In the process, they laid the foundations of the modern libertarian movement.

This Women’s History Month, on the sixty-seventh anniversary of their monumental triple achievement, the Cato Institute pays homage to three women without whom it would not exist.

• Read the series “Three Women Who Launched a Movement,” Women’s History Month Special, Libertarianism.org

Friday Morning Ramble: Edition #465

Another ramble around things I planned to blog about this week but never did…

“The trouble with socialism is eventually you run out of other people’s money.” Episode 67…
Nightmare Brown: Wants a poll tax to pay for his unaffordable trainset – PM of NZ

She’s even sharper than she looks, you know.
"Secretive and incompetent" – KEEPING STOCK

Polls are full of holes. iPredict polls no exception to the rule.
Careful What You iPredict – GONZO FREAKPOWER

“It was reported in yesterday's media that Labour is contemplating the introduction of a "digital content levy" to pay for the production of online content.  This would be the equivalent of the old radio and TV licenses that we had to pay for in order to fund the public broadcasting system.” Thank Libertarianz for getting rid of that one. Who you gonna call now?
An internet content levy? – AARDVARK

Colin Craig’s Conservative Party “are claiming that the media have 'stereotyped' their party as a religious social conservative outfit. But what about its claims to be "fiscally conservative?"”  And how does confiscating land fit with the ‘c’ label?
Clip-On Fiscal Conservatism and the Conservatives – Craig Young, GAY NZ

Yes, Giovanni Tiso is a cock.
Calling Out: Giovanni Tiso – THE LADDER

“Russia has long been a paranoid land power. It's huge, mostly flat, and wide open to invasion. Just to name a few examples, it was invaded by the Mongols in the 13th century, Napoleon in the 19th, Nazi Germany in the 20th, and has been recently squeezed by NATO expansion in the former Soviet bloc. These events seared themselves into the Russian psyche. They breathe better with buffer states.”
Pity the Vassals of Moscow – Michael Totten, WORLD AFFAIRS

How Should the West Respond to Russia? – Alex Berezow, REAL CLEAR POLITICS

“Don’t be fooled by Putin’s façade; the pillars of Russian power are steadily declining.”
Russia Is Doomed – Zachary Keck, THE DIPLOMAT

“Russia is only about 2% of the global economy. They need us a whole lot more than we need them. Moreover, Putin is weak at home…”
How to Kick Putin in the Teeth – TRACINSKI LETTER

How not to do diplomacy. “Obama: ‘This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.’ Medvedev: ‘I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir…’”
Obama “After my election I have more flexibility.” Russian leader “…I stand with you.” – RIO NORTE LINE

“The world is watching – and nowhere are they watching more intently than in Beijing.”
Crimea River – RIO NORTE LINE

“The trouble with socialism is eventually you run out of other people’s money.” Episode 68…“Venezuela may have the world’s second largest oil and gas reserves, as Steve Hanke of the Cato Institute notes, but wrongheaded policies mean production has fallen considerably in the past 15 years — the Chavista era.”
Venezuela’s Economy: Two Charts Worth a Thousand Words – Fergus Hodgson, THE CANAL

This page accompanies historian Tom Woods’ video “No, World War II Did Not Help the Economy…

It describes getting Building Consents too.

This series from Dr Michael Hurd’s Daily Dose of Reason site should interest, if not provoke, a few of you…
Three Persisting Misconceptions About Psychotherapy
Don’t Rush to Label People
DSM-5: Is Psychiatry Rediscovering the Mind?
Drugs vs. Therapy: Which one works?
Bipolar: Valid Label or Excuse?
Neurologist Calls ADHD a Phony Medical Illness
Disorders are not a free pass
Emotions Are Ideas
What Meds Do and Don’t Do for Emotions
Medicating the Mind (Part 1 of 3)
Medicating the Mind (Part 2 of 3)
Medicating the Mind (Part 3 of 3)
Can DNA Kill? Part 1 of 2
Can DNA Kill? Part 2 of 2

“While there's no "typical" creative type, there are some tell-tale characteristics and behaviours of highly creative people.”
18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently – HUFFINGTON POST

Message to self:

“"To my mind, this embracing of what were unambiguously children's characters at their mid-20th century inception seems to indicate a retreat from the admittedly overwhelming complexities of modern existence," he wrote to Ó Méalóid. "It looks to me very much like a significant section of the public, having given up on attempting to understand the reality they are actually living in…”
Superheroes a 'cultural catastrophe', says comics guru Alan Moore – GUARDIAN

Would you sell your body to pay over-inflated uni fees?
Meet Belle Knox, the Duke Porn Star (As You Might Have Heard) – PLAYBOY SFW

But what about blokes who got into it to pick up posh girls? Won’t someone think of them?
History of art: it's not just a subject for 'posh girls', say teachers – GUARDIAN

"Instinctively and naturally, if you beautify your own life, you beautiful the life of everybody around you."
-Frank Lloyd Wright
(Photo of the #TaliesinWest breezeway by Claudio DiPoce, Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation)

“For the last three years I have been looking for the best way to present the body of my art online - now I am happy with it.”
Art of Michael Newberry – MICHAEL NEWBERRY ART

If you like “"Stories the way they used to be," then you should, well, like ClioStory Publishing. ‘Cos they do too, and they’re looking for your love.
ClioStory Publishing – Jeff Perren, FACEBOOK

“Everyone knows how much they struggled to get the right balance between bombast and energy on this song, and in this version you can hear Springsteen's vocals more subdued at the start (and double-tracked), but most interesting is the over-the-top string section which dominated the central passages. And the equally OTT backing vocals.
“The sound is bit wobbly, but you'll get the idea.
“If this had been released would have been a hit, or just another over-Spectorised song ?”
Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run (alternate version, 1975) – Graham Reid, ELSEWHERE

Ayn Rand Institute has a slick new website. Try it out. Easy navigation. Online courses. Cheap digital downloads. What’s not to like
AYN RAND INSTITUTE

Students at Frank Lloyd Wright’s School of Architecture continue the tradition of creating their own desert shelters in line with Frank Lloyd Wright’s ideas…

 

[Hat tips Small Dead Animals, Paul Litterick, Barbro Sörman, East of Brussels, Celia Cobo-Losey]

Thanks for reading,
Have a great weekend.
PC

PS: My beer for the weekend is 8 Wired’s Double IPA SuperConductor. Wow!
I really shouldn’t tell you Galbraith’s have a keg on…

Quote of the Day: On honouring your self

Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey decided he needed to enjoy watching his movies as much as he enjoyed making them.  So…

“I got much more selfish. I’m a fan of the word selfish. Self. Ish. When
I say I have gotten a lot more self-ish, I mean I am less concerned with
what people think of me. I’m not worried about how I’m perceived. Selfish
has always gotten a bad rap. You should do for you. I wanted new experiences.”
- Matthew McConaughey, interview with GQ

And on turning his acting around and receiving his Oscar…

When I was 15 years old, I had an important person in my life come to me and say, 'Who is your hero?' And I said, 'I don't know. I gotta think about that. Give me a couple weeks.' I come back two weeks later and this person comes up, 'Who's your hero?' I said, 'I thought about it, you know who it is? It's me in 10 years,'" McConaughey said. "So I turn 25, 10 years later, and that same person comes to me and says, 'So, are you a hero?' And I say, 'Not even close. No, no, no. My hero is me at 35.'"
    McConaughey next offered further explanation of how his hero is his future self: "You see every day, every week, every year of my life my hero is always 10 years away. I'm never gonna be my hero, I'll never attain that. I know I'm not and that's just fine with me because that keeps me with somebody to keep on chasing," he said. "So, to any of us, whatever those things are, whatever it is we look up to, whatever it is we look forward to, and whoever it is we're chasing, to that I say 'Amen.' To that I say, 'Alright, alright, alright.' And to that I say 'Just keep living.'"

[Hat tip Objective Standard]

The end of Pax Americana has implications

Like most of his comments, this is too good to waste, so I’ve pulled out this comment by Liberty Scott for a Guest Post…

…the key point is that the US, particularly the Obama Administration (although Bush wimped out over Georgia) has withdrawn from the world.

Putin effectively annexed two parts of Georgia, he frightened the US into not implementing a missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic (despite both countries being members of NATO and wanting it), and now he has taken part of Ukraine.

China is watching because it wants to see what would happen if it took the Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands, or the Spratlys and Paracels. It will see that for the next two years at least, the US is led by a President who will say a few words but do nothing. The implications for this will be considerable.

NATO, once led by the US, is paralysed as it is split between its Members. The UK, which was ready to act on Syria had been kneecapped by the appeasers in its backbenches and the Marxist now leading the Labour Party. France feels, rightly so, that it has been doing enough in Africa to deal to Islamists that it isn't going to lead on Ukraine. Germany is terrified of being portrayed as replaying WW2, and so is impotent on any of this.

The EU, eager to replace NATO as a foreign policy instrument, is trying to be oh so earnest, but can't deliver either.
Meanwhile, Japan is watching, and considering repealing its wartime constitution because it fears it wont be protected by the US - despite paying the US for its bases for the past 20 years. South Korea is sufficiently armed to the teeth to feel confident it can take on the north.

Obama, by extending his peacenik opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and belief in US guilt for many of the world's ills, is engaging in isolationism unseen since before WW2¹. It's popular mind you, Americans are war weary and the mainstream view in much of the West is cynically anti-American.

However, if people weren't so happy with Pax Americana, wait till they see Pax Bruxellis, Pax Russia and Pax Sinica.

* * * *

1. But isolationism this time in the context of a US that had previously made ongoing commitments to protect various places around the globe -- not least the Ukraine, peacefully disarmed of its nuclear weapons after the breakup of the Soviet Union on the basis that the US and Britain would continue to protect it. In this context, withdrawal of these commitments in the disintegrating manner Obama has done and is still doing (as Scott points out also in the case of Japan) leaves a power vacuum aggressors are eager to exploit. – Ed.

Quiz Question

What’s missing from this photograph?

Answer below the fold.

Click here to read more ... >>

ECONOMICS FOR REAL PEOPLE: No history of ideas, please, we’re economists

Our friends at the Auckland University Economics Group are starting up again for the year, with the first session tomorrow night, Thursday. Here are the details…

No history of ideas, please, we’re economists

The events of the past six years have given us grounds to rediscover the lessons of the past. Yet many economists consider that studying the history of economic ideas is an indulgence that, while potentially interesting, is nothing more than a distraction from the real issues facing the world today.

But aren’t those who understand history better equipped to avoid repeating it?

This Thursday, our guest presenter will look at the history of economic ideas and specifically at  the events that led to ideas of Adam Smith – and argues that a sound grasp of these ideas matters immeasurably today.

This fascinating multi-media presentation will set the scene for many of the topics that will be covered during our seminars in 2014. Don’t miss it.

    Time: 6pm-7pm
    Date: Thursday 6 March
    Location: Uni of Auckland Business School, Owen Glenn Building, Grafton Rd, Level 0, Case Room 1

All welcome!

Ukraine: It’s the only news story this week [update 2]

There’s only one real news story this week, and it’s not the bumblings of David Cunliffe or the trial of a South African sprinter.

The only story that matters is what Russia is doing in to the Ukraine, and what western “leaders” are doing in response.

Not that any of them are obliged to respond. Few, if any, have any directly selfish reason for responding at all – but their reactions, or lack of them, betray the weakness that Putin obviously thought he could exploit.

The weakness is everywhere, from David Cameron’s message that if this continues, he will set the IMF on Ukraine; to John Key’s, that if it carries on he will stop NZers selling Russians trees; to the weakest and most bathetic of them all, John Kerry’s dangerous plaint (made direct from Kiev, thereby putting a US secretary of state in a firing line his commander in chief is unprepared to defend) that Putin’s aggression is like something out of the 19th century, not the 21st.

Nice try, John.

Message to John, and to everyone else who thinks simply wishing for peace will deliver it: telling someone their behaviour is ‘inappropriate’ might stop that behaviour in the kindergarten sandpit or university common room, but as Putin has demonstrated in the real world, sometimes aggressors just want to aggress. (And, note to everyone wrongly assuming America is always the world’s hegemonic aggressor: not every world aggressor is American. And America’s recent embarrassments in Syria, Benghazi and with Iran et al have demonstrated to aggressors everywhere that if aggression is begun then the US will probably do nothing about it.)

So what does Putin hope to achieve by exploiting the west’s weakness? What’s his motive? Not wanting to sound like Hilary Clinton here, but what does it matter. It could be gas. It could be control of a pipeline to Europe allowing him to tweak Europeans’ smugness towards Russia. Or, as many have surmised, it could just be the old imperialism that “great leaders” have always thought makes their country and their leadership “great”: the pursuit of Empire.

An old saying is that Russia without Ukraine is a country, but Russia with Ukraine is an Empire. But Russia already had influence in Ukraine, and had effective control of Crimea.  As Richard Cohen points out, his aggression is likely to turn Ukrainians away from the Russian Bear, not towards it.

Putin has badly played his hand [says Cohen]. He lost his influence in much of Ukraine and won, really, what he already effectively had -- Crimea… It was an easy [conquest]-- followed, as it will be with Putin's, by a lifetime of anguish.

And as Britain discovered with its own Empire (and Japan discovered in its attempt to build one of its own), in an age of free trade you don’t need conquest and killing to get others resources, you simply need trade and the ability to deliver your own produce as payment.

So Putin’s motive is probably just self-destructive self-aggrandisement. He wants to be seen to have an Empire even if his actual influence there is weakened thereby.  And western weakness let him think it would be any easy win.

The likes of Putin (and Assad, and the mullahs, and Kim Il Sung) can sniff weakness – and since the backdown in Syria, the disgrace in Benghazi, the giveaways in the Iranian and North Korean negotiations, the failure to back protest in Iran, the bumbling over the ‘Arab Spring,’ and umpty-tum other signs of direction-free cowardice, the stench is easy enough to detect. As you’d think western leaders might have learned from Alsace-Lorraine, the Saar, the Sudetenland, and even from the American ambassador’s easy conversational giveaway of Kuwait to Saddam Hussein¹, the uncomfortable truth is that firmness in response to small aggressions is a message to those contemplating bigger aggression not to start.

That’s the real reason for a decent defence. Not because you want warfare, but because you don’t. It’s the willingness to defend that nips many plans of aggression in the bud before they start – and the admission you won’t that encourages them.

Look more closely for example at John Kerry’s latest windy response to Putin thumbing his nose at every diplomatic nostrum of modern life:

“The Russian government would have you believe that Russian actions are legitimate,” says Kerry

The Russian government cares no more now for legitimacy than they did in 1968 when Khrushchev sent tanks into  Prague on the pretext of some hockey riots, or in 2008 when they rolled into Georgia on the pretext of protecting ethnic Russians. (Sound familiar?²)

“The larger point is that diplomacy, not force, can solve disputes like this in the 21st century,” says Kerry.

Yet as Putin is aware, if no-one else is, every dispute this century has shown if anything the opposite.

“The United States would prefer to see this de-escalate,” says Kerry.

But wishing will not make it so.

“[But if Russia continues this path, the US] will isolate Russia politically, diplomatically and economically,” says Kerry.

And despite his presence in Kiev, I’m sure that Kerry himself is aware that the only word in that litany that would make an actual difference is the one word he dare not say: “militarily.”

His commander-in-chief’s unwillingness to use that word to back up his previous “red lines” means any threat now would just be laughed at.

I say above that the west, particularly the US, has no selfish interest in the Ukraine. But it might have once. It might have once in the sense of protecting what might be (but possibly isn’t) a move by Ukrainians towards freedom – or in the sense of protecting some sort of principle.

But as Mona Charen argues, that is long gone.

When Assad flamboyantly hopscotched over Obama's red line and received no response, the world rocked on its axis. Though the Obamaites couldn't see it, every small, peace-loving nation in the world was instantly made more vulnerable. Perhaps now, with Russian ships and tanks aiming at Ukraine, they are beginning to understand how international relations work. ("It's not some chessboard," the president asserted recently, displaying his continuing confusion.) No, the game isn't chess; it's more like boxing, where the winner is the stronger one.
    The Ukraine crisis flows directly from the Syria debacle, as Vladimir Putin, like Assad, has taken Obama's measure.
    Its important to draw the right red lines. Not everywhere, just the ones that matter. Draw them. And then defend them.

Like Neville Chamberlain in Poland, by sitting in Kiev Kerry is now drawing a sort of pinkish line in a place he can’t defend because he allowed an earlier red line to be ignored in a place he could.

I welcome your thoughts, if you have them.

* * * *

1. From Wikipedia: On 25 July 1990, the U.S. Ambassador in Iraq, April Glaspie, asked the Iraqi high command to explain the military preparations in progress, including the massing of Iraqi troops near the border.
    The American ambassador declared to her Iraqi interlocutor that Washington, “inspired by the friendship and not by confrontation, does not have an opinion” on the disagreement between Kuwait and Iraq, stating "we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts."
    She also let Saddam Hussein know that the U.S. did not intend "to start an economic war against Iraq". These statements may have caused Saddam to believe he had received a diplomatic green light from the United States to invade Kuwait.^[24][25]
    According to Prof. Richard E. Rubenstein, Glaspie was later asked by British journalists why she had said that, her response was "we didn't think he would go that far"

2. It’s not just familiar as a pretext in Georgia, and was no more justified there than it was in Hitler’s occupation of the the Sudetenland to “save” ethnic Germans – but as Putin would have learned from that occupation, it worked. Perhaps Ukrainian leaders, if it were a live issue and ethnic Russians really did want to leave could have done as Vaclav Havel did in modern-day Czechoslovakia by splitting the country peacefully into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which avoided any tinge of the sort of conflict that was then inflaming the Balkans.

UPDATE 1: This isn’t the only weakness spotted by the Russian Bear.  Said Russian presidential advisor, Sergei Glazyev, before Putin's detente press conference early this morning:

"We hold a decent amount of treasury bonds – more than $200 billion – and if the United States dares to freeze accounts of Russian businesses and citizens, we can no longer view America as a reliable partner,” he said. “We will encourage everybody to dump US Treasury bonds, get rid of dollars as an unreliable currency and leave the US market.”

And

Moscow might be forced to drop the dollar as a reserve currency and refuse to pay off loans to U.S. banks…
Russia could reduce to zero its economic dependency on the United States if Washington agreed sanctions against Moscow over Ukraine, politician and economist Glazyev said, warning that the American financial system faced a "crash" if this happened.

That’s a fairly large Achilles Heel America has created for itself ….

UPDATE 2: Cartoonist John Cox does John Kerry’s portrait:

7 maps to help understand what’s happening in Ukraine

Ukraine’s language divide:

From the Washington Post, “It's not just that Ukraine has two halves that predominantly speak different languages. They have different politics – and different visions for their country. Check out this composite of four maps: the top two show the language and ethnic divide, the bottom two show the election results for the 2004 and 2010 presidential elections. The lines are identical!  (The Russian-speaking, eastern half of Ukraine tends to be, big surprise, more pro-Russian. Yanukovych is from that part of the country, has most of his support there, and did not even speak Ukrainian until he was in his 50s.)”

Top left: Ukraine's Russian-speakers in blue. Top right: Major ethnic and linguistic groups. Bottom left: 2004 presidential election results. Bottom right: 2010 presidential results. The western half of the country voted overwhelmingly against Yanukovcyh; that's also where, until very recently, most of the protests have been. Source: Washington Post, “9 questions about Ukraine you were too embarrassed to ask”

Original locations of Russian military in the Crimea.

Recent movements of same.

Location of gas pipelines through Ukraine to paying customers in Europe.

The imbalance in power, population … and gas.

And finally, as Bernard Darnton notes, “Like most unfixable conflicts, the dividing line is on an ancient map”:

Hat tip Ed Matthews and Scott Powell.

Minimum Wage: Who Speaks for the One Third?

It’s time to put a stake through the heart of the RMA–and time a politician finally said that [updated]

“When the productive have to ask permission
from the unproductive in order to produce, then
you may know that your culture is doomed.”
- Ayn Rand

It’s taken twenty years for a mainstream politician to finally say this:

ACT wants to repeal the Resource Management Act, new leader Jamie Whyte told the party's annual conference in Auckland.
    Mr Whyte said if  part of the next government, ACT would try to scrap the 826-page law, which he says infringes on New Zealander's ability to use their property…
    "People have tried to fix it, fix it, fix it - but it is inherently an ill-conceived piece of legislation."
    The only justification for law of its kind would be to address a serious market failure and if there was no remedy through the common law, he said.
    Details of what regime would replace the RMA were sketchy.
    There needed to be environmental protections in the law, but they shouldn't violate property rights, Mr Whyte  said…

It’s not just details of the regime to replace the RMA that are sketchy – so too are details of Jamie Whyte’s speech delivered Saturday. (Old ACT would have had the speech up on their party website even before it was delivered; not so New ACT, who have still not got speeches posted at the time of writing [and have at the time of this update posted the wrong speeches.]

But on radio this morning, Whyte was outlining his view that the replacement for the twenty years of failed RMA law – law that has delivered property rights abuse, greater local government control of land and sky-rocketing land and housing prices – should be the several hundred years of common law laws of nuisance.

Glory be! A politician finally acknowledging that!

So if you’ll excuse me quote myself from the Free Radical of 2004:

The real problem with the Act is not that it is unclear, restrictive or has ‘gone beyond its original intent’ – although all of this is true. The real problem is that its intent is anti-property rights, and anti-human-life; at the heart of the Act is the basic idea that trees, rocks and mud puddles all have rights - but human beings don’t. In all its 456 pages the phrase ‘property rights’ does not appear at all; not even once! Instead of the idea of property rights that made common law so successful for over seven hundred years, at the heart of this Act are the ecobabble of ‘sustainable management’, ‘kaitiakitanga’ and the dangerous lunacy of so-called ‘intrinsic values.’
    The Act also, of course, contains the obligatory Tiriti-babble. You are counselled by the Act that when doing anything more aggressive than mowing your lawn you ‘shall take into account the principles of the Te Tiriti o Waitangi’ – and to this day the country has yet to find a court willing or able to explain precisely how that might be done…

To continue quoting myself, this time from the Herald:

The fact is the RMA does not protect property rights [as a multitude of cases demonstrate]. Neither does it protect the environment, as cases like the polluted Rotorua lakes and Tarawera River show.
    It gives money and power to planners and consultants while destroying both property rights and the environment.
    Without protecting property rights, you cannot protect your environment. That realisation has resonated through the common law. Sadly, with the introduction of the Public Works Act and the various town planning regimes, [culminating in the RMA], it has been largely ignored for nearly half a century.
    Where we once observed the common law limit for nuisance that "one may not use one's property in such manner as to injure that of another", the RMA declares we may not use our property except with the express permission of the state.
    You may do only what a council district plan [or new Auckland Unitary Plan] considers you should be allowed to do. With that, a basic legal and constitutional protection is overturned: that people could do anything they liked unless it was illegal, whereas the government could do nothing at all unless they were empowered by law to do so.
    That basic concept of jurisprudence has been turned on its head; local governments may now do anything they like (expect, of course, build infrastructure), whereas in respect of the RMA we ourselves can only do on our own property what a plan says we can do.

Or, again, from the Free Radical:

Property rights [are] nowhere to be found in this Act despite earlier assertions to the contrary by [supporters] like
Owen McShane and [ACT’s Ken Shirley].
    Sober and sane environmentalists like Canadian Elizabeth Brubaker have long known that the concept of property rights underpins any truly sustainable environmental protection and that it was the recognition of property rights that quickly put an end to the ‘tragedy of the commons’ – indeed, she wrote a book expressing exactly that view.
            [Her book] draws on cases from England, Canada and the United
    States, showing how the common law of property has for centuries been
    a force for environmental protection, while contemporary statutes 
    have allowed polluters to foul private lands and public resources alike. It
    argues that individuals and communities should be entrusted with the task
    of preserving the environment and that, with stronger property rights
    they would regain the power to prevent much harmful activity.
    The common law of property has over seven hundred years of sophistication in dealing with environmental problems[i] – something for which the RMA has barely a dozen years, and an abundance of signal failures.
    It’s time we abandoned the RMA, and began urgently drawing up transitional measures to reinvigorate the common law protections that were so precipitately buried by the various planning statutes of the last half-century.

What would these transitional measures looks like? Well, to quote myself again, from my blog (sheesh! why hasn’t someone else been saying this all these bloody years!):

For all the high-profile RMA horror stories that hit the news, as former Federated Farmers president Charlie Pederson observed, "it's little, not large, that suffers most RMA pain." So let’s start there. Let’s start by freeing up the little guy so he doesn’t have to stand around cap in hand waiting for a pimply-faced graduate of some planning school to decide if your carport extension is “a sustainable use of the earth’s resources”—which is exactly what happens now.  And let’s start in the place that will have the most impact on making new New Zealand houses affordable: by removing the delays and uncertainties involved in smaller more affordable projects.
    Here’s how it could be done.
    First, enact a codification of basic common law principles such as the Coming to the Nuisance Doctrine and rights to light and air and the like.
    Second, register on all land titles (as voluntary restrictive covenants) the basic “no bullshit” provisions of District Plans (stuff like height-to-boundary rules, density requirements and the like).
    Next, and this will take a little more time, insist that councils set up a ‘Small Consents Tribunals’ for projects of a value less than $300,000[ii]  to consider issues presently covered by the RMA and by their District Plans. These Consents Tribunal should function in a similarly informal fashion as Small Claims Tribunals do now, with the power to make instant decisions.
    This would mean that instead of talking to a planner about your carport, about which he couldn’t give a rat’s fat backside, you decide for yourself.  And, if your carport would violate one of the covenants, you then talk about it to your neighbour—with whom you and he would have plenty of negotiating room.  And once you (and your neighbour if necessary) have made your mind up, The Consents Tribunals would consider your small project on the basis of the codified common law principles, the voluntary restrictive covenants on your title, and the agreements (if necessary) you’ve negotiated with your neighbour(s). Simple really.
    You should be able to reach agreement in an afternoon, and have your title amended the next day.

But wait, there’s more…

Setting up such tribunals should be sensible, relatively simple, and politically achievable. And at a stroke you’ve made lower-cost housing easier and more attractive to build.
    And at some point it should become clear to most land owners that these restrictive covenants on their titles are not vague prescriptions coercively mandated by statute, but instead are ‘voluntary’ in the sense that (as with basic common law principles) they are covenants in favour of neighbouring landowners–i.e., covenants that protect your neighbours’ legitimate rights.
    Furthermore, these are things over which you don’t need to go cap in hand to a planner to change. Instead you may negotiate with your neighbours to add to them, amend them, or remove all or any of them--making any reciprocal deals you may imagine. (And you’re negotiating with people whose business it really is.)
    Here’s how these examples could work out in practice.  If for example you like my tree, and I like my view over a particular corner of your section, then we can negotiate at our leisure and have these interests registered on our titles as a covenant and an easement respectively. That’s how the whole process starts. With simple voluntary agreements like this.
    Over time we should slowly see emerging a network of reciprocal covenants built up between neighbouring properties reflecting the voluntary agreements over land that neighbours have freely negotiated—a network reflecting not a planners’ commands, but a network of legitimate rights, interests and values.  And in time, as more of these agreements are negotiated between neighbours, the former District Plan provisions(stuff like height-to-boundary rules, density requirements and the like) would become increasingly unimportant, and it will be these voluntary agreements on which the Small Consents Tribunals will be adjudicating…
    At a stroke too it should free up the Environment Court and council offices for more important projects than these small ones, and depoliticise many neighbourhood disputes. Everyone kicks a goal.
    Who could possibly object?

Anyone? Anyone at all, apart from this fellow?

---

[i] For examples, see Common Sense & Common law for the Environment by Bruce Yandle; The Common Law & the Environment ed. Roger E. Meiners & Andrew P Morriss; and The Common Law: How it Protects the Environment ed. Roger E. Meiners & Bruce Yandle. All available from www.perc.org – with the title essay for the last being a free download.

[ii] Since writing that piece the cost of building has gone through the roof, due in large part to the insidious influence of the RMA. The number might now need to be closer to $500,000.

Friday Morning Ramble: The McCarten Edition

If Matt McCarten’s organisational genius is overrated, his easy identification of a phony is not. And this is on the money in any language, “"Everyone talks about the centre ground as if it actually exists. The policies are actually what wins an election.  There's a million New Zealanders who didn't vote last [election] or didn't bother to enrol, they're disengaged in the political process at the moment, and they've got to do it."” Would that some other parties (ahem) understand that. [Pic from Whale Oil, who reckons: “The Chief of Staff title fools no one…we all know that Labour are flat broke, and this is the only way to fund a full time campaign manager. It is the pledge card fiasco all over again,” and who links to Chris Trotter, who reckons this election could be the one when “all that is worth fighting for on the Left will go down to defeat .. for the foreseeable future.” Fingers crossed, eh.]

Topical Message for the Week:

"Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding
death. Joy is not the absence of pain."
- Ayn Rand

We need to find meaning in the news of tragedy. As humans, we must.
     The search for meaning  in Charlotte Dawson’s suicide has reached Britain, with contributions from Julie Burchill -- “If you're tough enough, there's nothing more bracing than an online bitch-fight” – and Spiked’s Brendan O’Neill – “no sooner had it been revealed that Ms Dawson had died, most likely by her own hand, than these Torquemadas of the Twittersphere were insisting she was ‘killed by trolls’ and were ghoulishly marshalling her corpse to their campaign for tougher laws against offensive internet chatter.”
The joy of online hatred – Julie Burchill, SPECTATOR
Trollhunters are a menace to the internet – Brendan O’Neill, SPECTATOR

And the great Oliver Sacks, on an utterly unrelated topic…
The Joy of Old Age. (No Kidding.) – Oliver Sacks, NEW YORK TIMES

Mainstream media is finally, if belatedly, realising the Auckland Unitary Plan is a a disaster. (Message to mainstream journos reading this, Let me point you to some clients who can tell you stories…)
Aucklanders facing extra building consent fees - TVNZ

The news is now virtually mainstream, even as the effects (and their causes) get worse.
How cheap money and expensive Councils have affected affordability in Auckland and Wellington housing zones – David Chaston, INTEREST.CO.NZ

“I wish that Monster-Shouting didn't sell papers.” Or create policy.
Alcohol Healthwatch Is Making Stuff Up, Again – Eric Crampton, OFFSETTING BEHAVIOUR

If you enjoy trawling through Jamie Whyte’s online columns looking for arguments about incest, you’ll love trawling through his columns at the Cobden Centre looking for arguments about abolishing central banks…
Columns by Jamie Whyte – COBDEN CENTRE

Fair Go has started up again for another season. Former Fair Go presenter Brian Edwards speaks for its victims.
It’s time to even the odds for the victims of Fair Go – BRIAN EDWARDS MEDIA

Explain this: “Once one of the most open economies to FDI, New Zealand’s net foreign direct investment position has moved into negative territory between 1995 and 2012.” [Source, NZ INITIATIVE’s Graph of the Week]

Great news for “a Northern California couple out walking their dog on their property stumbled across a modern-day bonanza: $10 million in rare, mint-condition gold coins buried in the shadow of an old tree.”
Calif. couple strike $10 million gold-coin bonanza – CNBC

“This time around is not about looting, is not about kicking Chavez out, it is about a country that sees a devastating economic crisis ahead and the implied final loss of hope…”
The question here is who is most adrift in Venezuela today, the regime or the opposition? – VENEZUELA NEWS & VIEWS
The week Venezuela awoke to its ruin - VENEZUELA NEWS & VIEWS

“… the most effective public relations department on earth.”
The Truth About Che Guevara – Michael J. Totten, WORLD AFFAIRS

“Back at the negotiations in Vienna, observe who’s shaping the terms and tracing out  a red line.”
In nuclear talks, Iran turns the tables – Elan Journo, VOICES OF REASON

“Would you be willing to give up what Edward Snowden has given up? … Hopefully people will carefully consider what he has tried to share with the world.”
27 Edward Snowden Quotes About U.S. Government Spying That Should Send A Chill Up Your Spine – Buddy Huggins, THE BUDDDHA

“The proof is in the numbers: Australia is not being swamped by asylum seekers. Now is the time to put politics aside and work together to prevent more deaths.”
Why I'm calling for an end to offshore detention – Anna Burke, GUARDIAN [hat tip former-PM Malcolm Fraser]

Some people may still be moaning about the loss of Australia’s car making industry, but let’s get one thing clear. Hardly any Australians bought locally made cars.”
Australia Doesn’t Need Car Manufacturers, It Needs Innovators – Shae Smith, MONEY MORNING AUSTRALIA 

Former Australian Labor leader has been reading Ludwig Von Mises.  “The wonder of Australian car manufacturing is not that it’s closing down; it’s that governments wasted so much public money ($30 billion since 1998) on unsustainable jobs in an unsustainable industry.”
Mark Latham at his finest – CATALLAXY FILES

What Bob Hawke started, his successors tragically failed to finish.
Deregulation: past successes and failures; future bonfires? – Alan Moran, CATALLAXY FILES

“Videos showcasing the unsustainable nature of China’s construction-led economy are nothing new… Earlier this week, the BBC screened another video report (below) entitled How China fooled the world, showcasing why China’s economy could be in trouble, with its growth and epic construction drive built on ever-rising debt…”

“Patrick Moore, a Canadian ecologist who was a member of Greenpeace from 1971-86, told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee environmental groups like Greenpeace use faulty computer models and scare tactics in further promoting a political agenda,
Greenpeace co-founder says ‘no scientific proof’ humans cause climate change – WASHINGTON TIMES

“This is why I treat scientific claims about global warming with such skepticism: I would give them a lot more credence if I thought anyone was allowed to come up with a different answer. As I observed in the Mann vs. Steyn case, if it is a sin to doubt, then there is no science.”
The Original Sin of Global Warming – Robert Tracinski, THE FEDERALIST

“I can see how we are having trouble getting people to pay attention when half of America thinks that Astrology is scientific…”
Astrology as a Science – Steven Milloy, JUNK SCIENCE

“Growing up… I only learned one thing about fossil fuels: they were causing global warming… Oh, and one more thing: that this was a matter of scientific consensus.”
The Unscientific Consensus – Alex Epstein, FORBES

Warmist tries realism.
Energy Realism Amid Climate Alarmism: James Hansen Rides Again – MASTER RESOURCE

"Profit denotes the conservation, and
loss the waste, of scarce resources."
- Paul L. Poirot

“…it's not entirely clear why some people—mostly very rich clients—haven't picked up on this yet.”
Frank Gehry Is Still the World’s Worst Living Architect – GIZMODO

What happens when Gehry’s children spill their blocks…

Last few years of (anaemic)  US economic growth: Was it real? Or was it capital consumption?  “We as a nation are consuming our seed corn in great gulps, and there will be precious little left in a decade to pass down to the next generation…”
Eating Our Seed Corn: How Much Of Our "Growth" Is From One-Time Cashouts? – Charles Hugh-Smith, ZERO HEDGE

It’s not the end of the world. But is it the end of Bitcoin?
Bitcoin virtual currency is on verge of collapse – L.A. TIMES
Bitcoin has theory and history on its side – DETLEV SCHLICTER

“…when I say that the national debt cannot be paid off, it’s not a political forecast; it’s a statement on the flawed nature of the dollar.”
The U.S. National Debt Cannot Be Paid Off – KEITH WEINER ECONOMICS

“A central-bank induced boom cannot continue forever. The piper must be paid.”
The High Price of Delaying the Default – Thorstein Polleit, MISES DAILY

Yes, he’s back!
I am back! – An update. – DETLEV SCHLICTER

Cows don’t read Ricardo (see pic below).
Cows are incredible: They might just keep producing more milk forever – WASHINGTON POST

What did Keynes know? Ask Hayek: “He makes very strong claims that Keynes was blissfully ignorant of economic theory, monetary theory, economic history, and the history of economic thought

Turns out you can re-invent the wheel.
Israeli Company Reinvents The Wheel – Literally – NO CAMELS

It can only be called envy-driven spite at excellence – the latest example.
Zero-sum economics? J. K. Rowling edition – STEPHEN HICKS

Could be anywhere in Grey Lynn? “The filthy, disorganized apartment shared by three members of the Amherst College Marxist Society is a microcosm of why the social and economic utopia described in the writings of Karl Marx will never come to fruition, sources reported Monday…
Marxists' Apartment A Microcosm Of Why Marxism Doesn't Work – THE ONION

“Not satisfied with on-going crusades against alcohol, cigarettes, sugar, and just about anything else that people derive enjoyment from, public-health officials have now turned their attention to the damaging effects of crime dramas.”
Psychiatrists go mad over Midsomer Murders – Ed Cottingham, SPIKED

Is there something terribly wrong with political insiders liking “a popular TV serial that grills them and shows them to be callow, avaricious, and without public spirit?” Yes, says former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan.
The Irony of the Elite – HANNAH ARENDT CENTER

Or perhaps …
Gene Healy Says the Evil 'House of Cards' Characters Are Too Competent To Be Believable – HIT & RUN

“On the question of whether men desire more sex partners than women... well …” Gender myths and more debunked. (Or, the problems of static studies in a dynamic world.)
What We Know (That Isn't Necessarily So) About Sex – VILLANOUS COMPANY

“The philosophy behind compulsory education is that students need education in order to become responsible citizens. If some do not understand the value of an education, according to this way of thinking they should be made to see its value through time spent in the school system.”
Unlearning Individualism: The Lessons of Compulsory Education – Thomas Duke, THE UNDERCURRENT

Despite being zealously enforced, compulsory education policies cannot force students to learn

The problem for capitalist conservatives.
Ayn Rand And The Argument From Depravity – Don Watkins, LAISSEZ FAIRE

“Why feeling strapped for time leaves you blind to the future.”
How Always Being Busy Makes You Dumber – FAST COMPANY

“The brains of jazz musicians engrossed in spontaneous, improvisational musical conversation showed robust activation of brain areas traditionally associated with spoken language and syntax, which are used to interpret the structure of phrases and sentences. But this musical conversation shut down brain areas linked to semantics -- those that process the meaning of spoken language…”
The musical brain: Novel study of jazz players shows common brain circuitry processes both music, language – SCIENCE DAILY

Essential information for home-brewers and would be beer critics (note to self: “no banana in Pilsners, no banana in Pilsners…”
It's the Beer's Fault – BEER IQ

Thanks for reading
Have a great weekend!
PC

[Hat tips Kiwiblog, On Liberty Street, Marginal Revolution, Small Dead Animals, Thinking Machine Blog, I Love Fossil Fuels, Sarah Reynolds, Fabrizio Goria, John Shepard, Screwed by State, Walter Russell Mead]

Perkins House, by Richard Neutra

Artist Connie Perkins loved this aesthetically charged corner of her small 130m2 Richard Neutra home so much that she moved her bed into the lounge so she could wake up with it every morning.

Now that’s love.

Can you see where it appears in the house?

[Photo by Julius Shulman. Plan by Barbara Lamprecht.]

Down To The Doctor's: On Returning to Christmas Island

As a whistleblower on Australian refugee detention facility Manus Island argues, "It's not designed as a processing facility [for asylum seekers], it's designed as an experiment in the active creation of horror to deter people from trying in the first place," * Dr Richard McGrath heads back to help handle medical care at the sister facility at Christmas Island. But not before penning this guest post…

Last evening the building which houses the general practice where I work part-time was damaged by fire, not as extensively as some early reports claimed, but bad enough to close us down for a few weeks. Thankfully no-one was injured, and all staff and patients were evacuated without incident. The roof space was extensively burnt but several of us were able to walk through the place a few hours later and see for ourselves the relatively unscathed state of the consulting rooms. The central treatment bays and nursing clinic areas were the worst damaged by heat, water and smoke. The fire service believe it was probably caused by an electrical source of overheating – I really don't know. (Maybe it was all those lamps I had up in the ceiling over the cannabis plants, though I guess it's too early to tell yet.)

Thanks to those people who sent txt messages and emails of support and sympathy. As it happens, I will miss much of the rebuilding at Masterton Medical because I'm returning to Christmas Island in the next few weeks to assist in the care of refugees and asylum seekers there. This blog's editor likens the Australian immigrant detention centres to concentration camps. There is a grain of truth in that but the situation is complex, and I believe the Abbott government is not doing too bad a job.

In general, libertarians believe in open borders and free association, and so anyone who wants to immigrate to Australia should be allowed to do so. But should adherents of a death-cult religion (whose stated aim is to overrun infidel countries and claim them for Allah) be permitted to pour in freely until they form the majority of the population? I believe they would, given the chance.

And, having landed on Australian territory, should asylum seekers then be allowed to hook straight into the Australian welfare system?

In a libertarian nation, social welfare would be a voluntary act of compassion, and so these refugees would become recipients of charity. The state-run welfare system, on the other hand, relies on terrorist organisations such as our own Inland Revenue Department and the Australian Tax Office to fund their redistribution projects, and so the flow of money is involuntary rather than charitable.

One of the gripes I have with those who have landed on Christmas Island seeking settlement in Australia is that many of these people appear to be quite comfortably-off members of the middle class. They are seen by many across the ditch as queue jumpers, hoping to push in ahead of others who also wish to settle in Australia and are pursuing this objective via the normal channels.

Admittedly, many of these asylum seekers hail from countries where the state takes an unhealthy interest in the private lives of its citizens (Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan) or they are part of an ethnic minority targeted for violence (Sri Lankan Tamils). I believe many of them could make a good case for political refugee status. Others, I feel, are less deserving. Australia's Department of Immigration and Border Protection are charged with sorting out who the genuine political refugees are. I don't envy them their job, as some of the stories told by the asylum seekers of their maltreatment back home are not easy to listen to.

I believe fundamental reform needs to take place in Australia before the libertarian ideal of open borders could proceed peacefully. Firstly, there should be an end to state-run and coercively-financed social welfare. Secondly, the rule of law should be enforced firmly and equally, so that immigrants who break the laws are treated like anyone else and made to compensate their victims. Thirdly, there should be constitutional protection to maintain Australia as a liberal Western democracy, and prevent it becoming an Islamic Republic, or parts of it becoming Islamic ghettos where women are second-class citizens, gay people are hunted down and killed, and police officers fear to tread (as has happened in certain parts of the United Kingdom).    

How do readers feel about the situation on Christmas Island, where the Australian navy is now turning refugee boats back to Indonesia, and where the detention centre population is being gradually shipped out to Manus Island (part of PNG) and to Nauru?

At the end of my first six-week deployment to Christmas Island I put my name next to those of several medical colleagues at the bottom of a ninety page document outlining concerns we had at the quality of medical treatment for some of the asylum seekers. Dr John-Paul Sanggaran deserves special mention as the lead author of this document, which was leaked to the press, who then used it to challenge cabinet minister Scott Morrison. Hopefully, changes have occurred since I left which will make the treatment of our patients there more humane and ethical.

I will report back upon my return in April.

Doc McGrath

[Pics from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC)]