leftlibertarian.org

The following item was originally printed on the China Election and Governance Website. They describe themselves as a "resource center for governance and election affairs and gives scholars worldwide the opportunity to study Chinese politics and offer reform measures". This is interesting since the source of this site claims to be resident within China and yet appears to be critical of state policy over there. Perhaps this is an example of intelligent ruling sources that has been mentioned on this blog before.

China's economy is moving toward a serious crisis. Although its causes have been built up in the past, the most direct reason is that Premier Wen Jiabao adopted a completely wrong approach to imported inflation. His approach was a policy of comprehensive control of prices and monetary tightening to suppress rising domestic prices; a result, China became the trough of the world's lowest prices. Were China still a closed economy like 30 years ago, Wen Jiabao's policy would not have amounted to such a big problem; however, China has become a large country highly dependent on external trade; if it becomes the trough of the world's low prices, it means that its economy is bleeding.

This in fact is the case. International oil prices have soared to more than USD 110 a barrel, while Chinese oil companies' prices are controlled at a little over USD 80. The result is that all international airlines now refuel in China. The outlook for China's grain supply and demand is most frightening. Wen Jiabao doesn't dare raise China's grain prices closer to international market levels, but fertilizer prices must increase in line with them. The result is that given the grain purchase price fixed by the government, many peasants can no longer afford to buy fertilizer. According to state television reports, fertilizer sales have sharply declined this year and a large number of farmers have switched to farmyard manure. Grain output is likely to be seriously affected as a result. On the other hand, given that grain prices are far below international market levels, a great amount of China's valuable grain stocks are in one way or another being exported overseas. To take rice as an example, China's government-set price is currently USD 300 a ton, while the international market price has risen to around USD 1,000. Attracted by such huge profits, there are of course many business people who are willing to risk the dangers of illegal smuggling, which is greatly facilitated by China's long borders. Recently, when Wen Jiabao was in Haikou he tried to guarantee the supply of cheap Chinese rice to Hong Kong. When 10,000 tons of rice was shipped there, it was sold on to other countries without even going on the market. Wen Jiabao was said to be completely at sea about this, and not long after there was panic buying of rice in Hong Kong.

Wen Jiabao's comprehensive price controls and tightening of the money supply have brought about great difficulties for the domestic economy. Some of the domestic mainstream media have broken through the controls on news and reported the rapidly deteriorating economic situation, placing Wen under pressure. On 25 April, the Economic Observer published a report entitled "Private Enterprise Tormented," which dealt with the difficulties faced by private enterprises under Wen Jiabao's strict credit and price controls [1]. Of the 5.5 million private enterprises, less than 20 per cent can get bank loans; most have to get illegal financing from loan sharks. Price controls are even more frightening: in the face of sharply rising costs, private enterprises are not allowed to raise selling prices; if they do, they are "illegal." A front-page story in the Economic Observer on 5 May reported on the difficulties faced by central state-owned enterprises [2]. Entitled "Central Enterprises Get Set for Winter," it said that due to price controls despite rising costs, 150 state-owned enterprises directly under the Central Committee were, like private enterprises, having unprecedented difficulties, and were expecting to undergo a two-year "winter." Some large SOEs are threatened with breaks in their funding chains. The report also disclosed a Citigroup report estimating that from 2002 to 2006, Chinese enterprises' costs due to price distortions had been underestimated by as much as 3.83 trillion yuan, of which labor costs had been underestimated by 200 billion, commodity prices by 1.6 trillion, and capital costs by 330 billion. And global inflation in combination with China's price controls is going to make China's economic bleeding worse.

Wen Jiabao's attempt to go against the tide of global inflation has led the Chinese economy to an utterly absurd income distribution pattern: producers subsidising consumers, the poor subsidising the rich, backward areas subsidising developed areas and Chinese subsidising foreigners. This is an unsustainable situation. There have been reports that, due to the inversion of electricity prices, electricity supplies to some power plants have virtually stopped, cutting off power in some small cities—how can the economy not be affected?

Why did Wen Jiabao adopt such a foolish policy? Why act so arbitrarily? Why could no one stop him? The Beijing Olympics are, in my view, a great mental burden for China's mediocre and incompetent leaders. Wen clearly does not want peoples' resentment at soaring prices in China to boil over during the Games. And none of the other top leaders dare correct his mistakes—they are afraid of the political responsibility for an unsuccessful Beijing Olympics landing on their heads.

The Beijing Olympics have delivered the Chinese Communists an international public relations disaster; and it seems now that they are likely to bring about an economic disaster as well. If so, a political disaster will inevitably fall on the heads of those in power in the CPC.

MINARCHIST: First let’s join forces to trim all the branches. After that, we can argue about whether to kill the root.

ANARCHIST: Since I already know I want to kill the root, why should I wait until we first trim the branches? If I kill the root now, the branches will die of themselves.

(Further elaboration, if anyone needs it.)

William Gillis rejects natural rights theory as a basis for libertarianism, on the grounds that “as a theoretical physicist I find its assumptions (like the distinction between positive and negative action) about as reasonable as golden thrones in the clouds and holy trinities.”

I must gently point out that if an idea is inherently crazy when it shows up in the premises, it cannot suddenly become okay when it shows up in the conclusion (even if the conclusion is now derived from different premises). Or, equally, if it is okay in the conclusion, then it can’t be inherently crazy in the premises. In other words, when an idea (such as the distinction between positive and negative action) is all-pervasively presupposed in one’s policy proposals, one cannot coherently reject the distinction as part of the basis for those proposals.

Incidentally, I don’t know what the grounds for William’s skepticism of the positive/negative distinction are, but some critics of the distinction argue that if one’s decision (be it a decision to “kill” or a decision to “let die”) is part of the overall constellation of circumstances that is sufficient for someone’s death, then there is no interesting metaphysical (not just ethical) distinction between the two cases. I think this argument is confused; here’s a story from Fred Miller that’s useful therapy for such confusion:

A and B are hitchhikers who catch a ride with C. C drops A off in D-town and B off in E-town. In D-town, A sees F standing near the edge of a cliff; A pushes F off the cliff; F falls into the river and drowns. In E-town, B sees G standing near the edge of a cliff; G falls off the cliff on his/her own; B could save G, but instead stands and watches G drown.

Now in order to claim that there is no interesting metaphysical difference between A’s relation to F’s death and B’s relation to G’s death, one must in strict consistency also claim that there is no interesting metaphysical difference between C’s relation to F’s death and C’s relation to G’s death; C either makes a causal contribution (and we’re not talking about moral responsibility, just causal contribution) to both deaths or to neither. But no one (presumably) will seriously make such a claim. Obviously C makes an (inadvertent) causal contribution to F’s death but not to G’s. (To deny this, I maintain, is to fail to recollect the grammar of the concept of causation.) Hence there must also be a difference between A’s relation to F’s death and B’s relation to G’s death, QED.

Here’s some remarks from an apparent California leftist (progressive, whatever) that I noticed at Davis Wiki while looking up some unrelated information on Chipotle’s corporate history.

The quest for authentic ethnic food is a noble one in this day and age of capitalistic homogenation. Once the corporations get ahold of a a food category, they subvert it to be as palletable (bland) as possible so people in the midwest will eat it.

Because, you see, once people in the Midwest eat something, it’s not authentic ethnic food anymore. You’ve got to remember that white people in the Midwest (Poles, Germans, Swedes, Irish, Scots, English, etc.) don’t have an authentic ethnicity; they are far too bland for all that. Only spicy, colorful people have ethnicities, let alone authentic ethnic food.

See also:

• GT 2006-02-04: Whiteness studies 102: Intended audience
• GT 2006-01-26: Whiteness studies 101: Ethnicity

As soon as a new party springs up and begins to show signs of success, a lot of political tramps are immediately attracted to its ranks. These men possess a certain amount of influence. They are trained politicians, well versed in the art of packing conventions and proficient at counting the ballots. When they come to the new party with crocodile tears of repentance coursing down their cheeks, it is too weak to refuse their aid. It opens its arms and kissing away their repentant tears, places them in the front rank where glory awaits them. The result of this is a large gain in votes and sometimes success at the polls. But this victory is only gained at the expense of principle, and the last state of that party is worse than the first.
Francis D. Tandy, Voluntary Socialism, ch. 13 (1896)

Two hundred twenty eight years ago, delegates from the thirteen British colonies which later became the United States of America gathered in a small room in Philadelphia, unanimously approving the Declaration of Independence, the rhetorical masterpiece which declared the colonies separate from and no longer under the rule of the British Empire. Lest we forget the revolutionary roots of this country, let us review some of the most radical passages of the historic document. (My emphasis.)

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is in the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.

— Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

Thomas Jefferson also considered the British parliament a foreign power with no jurisdiction over the colonists.

[King George] has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation

— Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

Perhaps we can make a comparison to today's situation, as Jeremy Weiland has noted in the past.

We might also remember Jefferson's remarks about the usefulness of a little revolution from time to time.

A little revolution now and then is a good thing; the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

— Thomas Jefferson, Letter to W.S. Smith, November 13, 1787

I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

— Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787

These words contained in the Declaration of Independence are as relevant today as ever. The Founders considered government necessary to secure Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, but if history shows that government is consistently "destructive of these Ends", then perhaps we should reconsider the idea altogether.

Other revolutionary insights:

• Rad Geek
• Roderick T. Long

5 July 2008

Late last month I was musing about the state of the discipline of ethics, and noting that while there is a lot of attention given in that field to what ethics means and how to go about discovering correct, intelligible, and consistent ethical principles, there doesn’t seem to be much attention given to the problem of how one goes about becoming someone who makes ethical decisions. How does one avoid the many temptations to do evil? How does one recognize good and evil alternatives amidst the camoflage they often use? How does one develop a good character so that ethical decisionmaking becomes second nature?

It seems to me that there ought to be some sort of discipline that covers this ground. I imagine maybe going to an ethics dojo to get a black belt in being good.

The social scientists and psychologists have devised all sorts of interesting experiments that have revealed a variety of quirks and deficiencies in human ethical reasoning and decisionmaking — could we not also devise clever defenses against them and practice them to get better?

It’s as if we had a society full of biologists, epidemiologists, chemists, anatomists and the like, all of whom had developed tremendous insights into the causes of the physical maladies with which we are plagued, and yet we hadn’t gotten around to inventing the discipline of medicine or building hospitals or manufacturing medicines.

I’ve been reading through an abridged version of The Nicomachean Ethics and I note that to Aristotle:

…[T]he branch of philosophy on which we are at present engaged differs from the others in not being a subject of merely intellectual interest — I mean we are not concerned to know what goodness essentially is, but how we are to become good men, for this alone gives the study its practical value…

What happened? Where did this variety of ethics go?

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The debate about the place of agorism in the life of a freedom-loving person continues over at The Freedom Symposium and I was invited to chime in, which I did in a comment that I’ll also include here.

There’s a subplot to the debate that has to do with whether paying taxes is “voluntary” (and if so, in what sense), and whether it’s ethical, and whether tax resistance is appropriate or a waste of time.

Here’s what I had to say:

I’ve been following this debate, or bits and pieces of it anyway, but haven’t put my two cents in yet. This is partially because I’m not sure I understand what the core point of disagreement is.

It seems to be something like this: do we need to be vigorously attempting to build protocols and structures in which people can engage in transactions free from state interference in order to begin to build a free world inside the shell of the decaying state, or, are we better off submitting to the fact that the state will remain a dominant force in our lives for the forseeable future and concentrate on building satisfying lives within that limitation while trying to spread the good word of liberty and seeking out the company of like-minded people?

It seems to me there’s plenty good to be drawn from both positions.

I agree that if the state were, through our efforts or through its own bumbling, to collapse today, the fact that the statist mindset is so ubiquitous would mean that people would assemble something just as bad in no time at all just out of habit. So education is essential.

On the other hand, agorist transactions and structures can be a vivid part of this education. Seeing an utterly anarchist festival thrive in the midst of state hostility — the Rainbow Gathering — was a real eye-opener to me about the possibilities of organization without coercion. A bunch of hippies in the woods creating something strikingly well-organized without any leadership hierarchy to speak of, without any coercion, and in direct defiance to a hostile state, did more to make the possibilities of anarchism come alive to me than any theoretical texts.

As tax resistance is my Big Deal, I’ll say a few things about it specifically.

Tax resistance today is no threat to the government. One way I know this is that I can refuse to pay my taxes, blog about this day after day, publicly encourage other people to do the same, attend conferences of other resisters, publish books and other writings on the subject, and so forth, and at no time do I feel like I have jack-booted thugs breathing down my neck. They don’t give a damn. We are barely an annoyance, much less a threat.

Tax resistance can be a powerful method of resistance, but it requires a much larger and well-disciplined set of resisters than we have at present. Such resistance would have to come at some point after a majority or at least a very significant minority of people had given up their allegiance to the state and were sufficiently frustrated to be wiling to go into risky confrontation with it.

This leaves tax resistance today as some other sort of tactic. In some people, it’s just self-interest — more frequently called tax evasion and just designed to hold on to more money. In some people, it’s a variety of protest that takes the form of civil disobedience as a way of emphasizing the strength of the protester’s convictions. A third form is tax resistance as conscientious objection — not paying taxes because you find contributing to the government to be something that offends your sense of ethics. That’s more what I have in mind when I resist. I don’t want to voluntarily contribute to the state.

This brings up the whole “what’s voluntary about it?” question.

The government says that if you earn income you must pay FICA (for instance). This is a demand, not a request, and they have an enforcement apparatus that includes violent coercion to back that up.

But I don’t mean voluntary as opposed to coerced, but as opposed to involuntary.

If the government knocks down my door and makes off with something valuable they find in my house, they have taken this thing from me, and to the extent that I’ve given it to them, I’ve done so wholly involutarily. But if they come to me and say “give me your stuff or else…” then it is my voluntary decision whether to choose what’s behind door #1 or door #2.

Now certainly there are some circumstances where you look at the alternatives and choose to fork over the loot rather than choose a very unpleasant alternative.

But for me, tax resistance means asking “or else what?” each time the demand is made, and then deciding whether the alternative is really any worse than putting my time and energy (fossilized into money) into supporting the state.

About 40% of Americans live under the federal income tax line, which is to say that they pay no federal income tax at all because after credits and deductions and such their income isn’t high enough. I decided I’d rather become one of them than earn more income and therefore pay income tax.

There are consequences to earning more and paying income tax, and there are consequences to earning less and not paying them. I picked the ones I preferred. In doing this, I put less value on money than a lot of people do, and more value on not supporting the state than just about anybody does, which is why I came up with a decision that’s rare enough to be remarkable. I think the world would be a better place if more people had values a bit more like mine, but I guess I’m not alone in having such feelings.

(I also evade other taxes in other ways, some legal and some illegal. And the process of trying to work out a good balance of living well and minimizing my support for the state is an ongoing one for me.)