Kevin Says "Sorry"

So, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd did what John Howard couldn't today and, on behalf of the Australian Parliament, officially said "sorry to the "stolen generation" of Aborigines.

I'm not an advocate of collective "sorries" whether the person saying it committed the atrocity or not. But this one is an exception; Rudd is apologizing on behalf of the state, not the people as a whole.

And indeed, there was many instances of injustice and force used against Aborigines during the 20th Century. These acts, though, weren't committed by Australians at large, they were committed by the government, the leaders of whom should have been brought before the court. The only thing with an apology of any sort is that it won't actually do anything to change people's current situations. That can only be done by abolishing racist legislation and anything to do with race in a government, and by sheer personal effort.

Waitangi Days on "Not PC" Has Something to Celebrate

Now, for another posting of an article; but it's so good, I'll leave all the discuss to it. If you'll make your way over to Not PC, he has an excellent piece on New Zealand's national holiday tomorrow, Waitangi Day. It's a highly recommended read.

PS: Lindsay Perigo at SOLO also has released a good press release about the subject.

The Visible Foot of the State on NZ's Youth

In accordance with NZ's problem's with youth violence, ghastly schools and drug abuse, PM Helen Clark and National Party Leader John Key have both proposed solutions to these problems which include compulsory education until 18, boot camps for young offenders and pouring NZ$150 million into our education system. But will it work to improve our already failed PC public education system? Phil Howison, Libertarianz party spokesman, thinks not.

"Forcing students to stay at school until they are 18 will cause unruly classrooms, bored students, stressed teachers and an increased burden for taxpayers" says Libertarianz education spokesman Phil Howison. "It is essentially an admission of defeat for state education. If eleven years in state schools leaves most students unemployable, what difference can adding two years make?" Howison asks."

An interesting observation, at the high school I attend, is that most senior students (especially in Year 13) have already left school -and fair enough. In spite of the effects of collectivism and altruism in our education system, as I've already explained, it also provides no incentive for students who want to pursue careers in the trades -builders, plumbers, electricians, etc- to stay in school, as other institutions, such as apprenticeships, polytechs, and specialized colleges offer better courses in those careers. Many students also go into the workforce in those later years, providing more time for the less academically-inclined students to pursue their careers than they otherwise would have attending schools.

These students, who don't want to be at school for rational reasons, would put a strain in school resources, especially as students who do want to stay at school need them more. Because of the compulsion to stay at school, these students would also have an incentive to misbehave, and to simply skip school as goes on every day. Which leads to another point Phil makes:

"Forget about Key's boot camps - schools these days seem to be just as rife with violence, bullying and substance abuse as the prisons. But all teenagers, not just youth offenders, are forced to attend! Clark's scheme [to spend an extra $150 million to "clean up" public schools] will take many young people out of the workforce where they are learning to be self-sufficient and productive, leaving them with no choice but to accept government handouts."

Which is the flip side of the government's "schooling=productivity" argument. Schooling can only result in future productivity as long as the student wants to learn. For any student who doesn't want to learn, and to instead do other things with their life, education becomes a useless investment. As the returns on that investment lower, students are more likely to leave school. As public school is fundamentally an academic institution, the more hands-on students are likely to leave school earlier than the academically-inclined students.

National Leader John Key's plan, says Howison, is little better. John Key proposes army-style "boot-camp" courses for young offenders, with government pouring millions of dollars into these courses to straighten out young offenders. While I don't disagree with an army-style boot-camp solution -omitting the government-funding- for reducing the repeat offending rate, it will only lower the crime rate superficially. The real solutions lies in getting rid of the rampant NZ underclass culture of entitlement to the money of the truly productive, which destroys self-esteem and promotes youth violence, and destroys and sense of responsibility. As I said before:

"How can a man with no respect for himself and his achievements possibly have respect for others and their achievements?"

Common Fallacies about Capitalism

It's not often we meet Socialists who can debate about economics in a rational way and without referring to the Utopia that they want. But for all you who need a bit of a primer for debating with them, I've made a list of common arguments you may hear from the Socialists about Capitalism (and Globalization) and how to combat those arguments in an effective way, which will leave them with something to think about. These are the top ten arguments (and what to do about them) you'll hear:

10) Capitalism encourages Racism.
This is a very common misconception. Capitalism favours people on their productivity. This is true throughout the entire market. In a Capitalist economy, it doesn't matter who owns the house-be it a Communist, Nationalist, Mexican, Asian, Gay, Lesbian-but what condition the house is in. Similarly, a business hires people on the basis of their productivity. Racism becomes a waste of money in a Capitalist society. Productivity, not race, sexual orientation, political beliefs or gender matters in the Free Market.

9) The Market fails to provide essential services like Healthcare and Education. It also fails to provide welfare for poorer citizens.
Many people wonder why the healthcare and education services in almost every country in the world range from bad to abysmal. Here in New Zealand, the government reports surplusses of up to $7,000,000,000 yet much of our school system is underfunded and the healthcare system is in a huge mess. It is true that private schools and hospitals are expensive. But that's because there is no-or at least a small amount of- competition, so the owners can keep their prices high. But in the competitive free market, schools will be suject to the law of supply and demand, so consumers can and will choose the best school for their children to attend. Schools will have to lower their costs whilst raising their quality to attract customers. To keep quality high, schools will employ only the best teachers, and keep them happy-and productive-with generous wages and benefits. As with all workers, there will a market for teachers, a lot greater than today's market.

Socialists point to the American healthcare system as proof that a free market in healthcare doesn't work. The problem is that America's system isn't a free market. It is a third-party system (aka, employers more often than not have to provide discounted insurance) and is strangled with regulations. Americans are infamous for litigation, which further raises prices. The healthcare system in America is far from being a free market.

As for welfare, in a free market welfare is supplied vountarily by private charities. These are a far better alternative to government-provided welfare because these charities have genuine compassion for the people they're helping. And as I'll discuss, Capitalism increases wealth for all people by increasing production.

8) In a Free Market, the poor keep getting poorer, as machines introduced will keep lower-paid workers out of jobs.

As machines keep getting more advanced, workers don't get out of work, but instead work in different sectors of the economy-this is a natural process in the transition from an agrarian to industrial and then from an industrial to a service-sector economy. The transition is beneficial to workers in the fact that most service-sector jobs are a lot cleaner than industrial-sector jobs. It also means that instead of working manually to produce, we can instead make ultra efficient changes in the way we produce-for instance, by inventing machines that do jobs faster than humans, that can be hugely beneficial to a society. The machines mean that workers can instead do other, less dangerous tasks while production still stays at a high level. Notice how unemployment rates in the Western world aren't too different than what they were, say, 100 years ago.

7) In a Capitalist society, businesses will just employ who works for the lowest pay. The Market will also keep wages as low as possible.
In a free market, businesses will not employ who works for the least money, but instead they'll employ who they feel is the best value for money. This is the reason why IT businesses are outsourcing not to sub-Saharan Africa, but to India, where the IT workers are the best value for money. Workers are an investment. Companies will always seek out the workers who provide the most "bang for your buck"-so if that means paying them $100,000 a year, the business will likely do so. This is also why, in a free market, wages and productivity ultimately go hand-in-hand. Any outside attempt to artificially raise wages will end up raising the unemployment level, as they cut out the less productive workers.

An often ignored fact about treatment of workers under Capitalism is that Capitalism provides competition in the labour market. In the high-growth economy that Capitalism creates (because the incentive to start a business is so much greater), workers have a variety of options they can work for. Companies have to compete for these workers, and as thus need to make the incentive to work for them all the more greater. No one is forced to work for anyone, so workers need to agree to work for a company, in order for that company to employ them.

In the ideal Capitalist society, the employer and the worker would decide together what conditions the worker would work under, his pay, his benefits, etc. This automatically gives the worker an upper hand when deciding what he wants out of a job.

6) The market is responsible for the creation of monopolies.
In a Free Market, there is only one way to become a large company and/or monopoly: to offer products superior to that of the competition. If the monopoly continues to offer better products as it did when competition was around, no harm is done. But if a monopoly raises it's prices and/or lowers the quality of it's products, the monopoly has just left the door wide open to competitors to offer better products. Competitors, attracted by the potential for greater profits, will then enter the market with better products, and consumers will start buying from the new business. The monopoly will either better the quality of its products to stay a monopoly, or try and buy every new market entrant out-not an easy task considering the profits that can be made by offering products better than those of the monopoly.

As for markets being the reason corporations are "big and scary" to many Leftists, that's hardly an effect of the market, but instead of government intervention into the market-which will be discussed later.

5) Market Forces are the reason behind many of today's Wars.
The Free Market is not responsible for today's wars-governments are. The Market is based on a policy of non-coercion. Instead, the Market will seek out the most peaceful road to prosperity, as no one likes to be caught in the crossfire of war. Pursuing a policy of free trade with other nations is how the market handles foreign economic issues. The Free Market, not war, brings prosperity and freedom to nations. After all, how many wars are there today between nations that have a policy of free trade towards one another?

4) Capitalism causes Inequality, between person and person, country and country. Because of this, Capitalism also causes Isolationism in societies.
Although it is true that under Capitalism you have ultra-rich people like Bill Gates and John D Rockefeller, Capitalism doesn't create nearly as bad inequalities as it may seem. The good majority of people in the Capitalistic societies of today are Middle Class. When arguing about inequality, many Socialists point out to the percentage of Americans currently living below the poverty line (12%) as proof that Capitalism makes the world a more unequal place. In reality, only 1/3 of the people below the poverty line in the States stay there for more than two years. 2/3 are in "temporary poverty", meaning that they stay in poverty for less than two years. In fact, the median time below the poverty line in America for people in "temporary poverty" is only four months.

Contrary to Socialist rhetoric, the ultra-rich contribute to making the world a more equal place. For instance, if Steve Jobs of Apple Computers invests $1,000,000 towards expanding his company in India by employing 1,000 more people, he has just put those 1,000 people on more equal terms with the rest of the world, by providing them with an income they can use to raise their standard of living.

Capitalism does not cause isolationism, as man is free to do whatever he wishes to and with other people-providing he doesn't commit an act of force or fraud. A man can gain huge values living with his peers, such as knowledge, trade and mediation. Capitalism doesn't force people to be isolated. In a Capitalist society, living alone from other people only works to man's detriment.

3) As businesses in a Capitalist society only care about profits, they'll willingly destroy the environment if it means more profits.
This argument ignores the basic institution of a free market, that being property rights. Property rights give people incentives to protect their property from pollution, as it'd be in the owner's best interests to keep their property in tip-top condition when selling time comes around. It also makes you seem respectable to other people, which is many cases is incentive enough to look after your property. In a Capitalist society, older, more polluting technology is less productive and more prone to faults than newer, cleaner technology, meaning that, over the course of industrialization, many countries will actually become cleaner than what they were before, as man can become more independent of the environment. For instance, (Capitalistic) America is regrowing it's forests. To most Socialists, this should be unthinkable considering the American impact on the environment. But it's happening, because businesses don't need to rely on forests for resources as much as they did 50-100 years ago anymore.

Under Capitalism, Property Rights coupled with continuing development ensure the cleanliness of the environment. We have now seen from history the huge impact on the environment when Property Rights have been removed. The USSR was going through an environmental crisis just before it decipitated.

2) In a Free Market, Government always favours big Business more than the "little guy". Government essentially "gets into bed" with big Business.
Corporate Welfare is not a thing of the Free Market. Instead, it is an error of the government. The Free Market doesn't give any exemptions to big businesses from the law as under a Free Market, the same laws are applied to everyone. Capitalism states that no one can commit an act of coercion against another, and that applies to big business just as much as everyone else. As, under Capitalism, economy and state are separated, corporate welfare and governments favouring corporations are a sign of government intervention in the economy, not an effect of the Free Market.

1) Capitalism is based on Greed. It is just about profits, profits, profits. Even if everyone but a small elite get left behind, that won't matter in the mind of the Greedy Capitalist.
One thing is correct here; Capitalism is indeed built on self-interest. But here's where it differs from all the other socio-economic systems in history: Capitalism bans all acts of force and fraud against other people. You can not, therefore, go out and steal your car from someone else. In a Capitalist society, you have to produce to get ahead of everyone else and pursue your self-interest. Voluntary trade is also an option, but ultimately won't get you ahead as in a society with a standard of value, aka money (bartering is useless because material values change from person to person, and makes economic calculation impossible), your overall net worth can't increase by merely trading-unless you rip your trading partner off by selling above the market rate. Production is the only way to increase wealth.

So, in order to increase wealth, the Capitalist must produce. The problem is that while his mind can lead to production on a massive scale, his own two hands can't accomplish much. He must employ other people to work for him, and as we already know people must agree to work for him, in order to work for him. Once this is done, production is greatly increased. But still, this is relatively minor compared to machines, which I've already gone over. The production brought about by the "greedy" Capitalist leads to tremendous creation of wealth-which disperses itself, as people voluntarily buy his products-the fruits of his labour. Money will then go into production, and then voluntarily disperse itself again in the form of products.

So yes, Capitalism is built on greed. But Capitalism uses greed to hugely increase the quality of life anywhere in the world wherever, whenever it has been tried.

Socialism, poverty, the class system and Democracy

It is often widely cited by Socialists, many Communists and other idiots from the far left that Socialism and Democracy are a harmonious pair of ideologies, made for each other, grown up with each other and naturally work well together. Despite the hundreds of examples from the past which show the exact opposite, the far left-and indeed, the left in general-continues to believe that Socialism and Democracy work best together. I am going to prove that that is not true.

A Socialist society, like any society, needs a group of individuals-the government-to do certain tasks, like provide certain services. In a Socialist society, this group does far more than it'd otherwise do. The main task the government undertakes would be ensuring complete "equality", using processes such as compulsory income redistribution and government handouts. "Equality" and compulsory income redistribution are contradictory of one another. Compulsory income redistribution, the means to the "equality", is immoral, as it is theft.

As it is compulsory, the income redistribution is theft, as it is forced out of your pockets and your salary for those who are supposedly "less fortunate" than the rest of us. A better desription would be "because Billy is less 'fortunate' than Harry, Billy automatically has a right to a percentage of Harry's money".

The "equality" in the Socialist state would mean that just enough money would be taken from Harry to make Billy equal with him, on top of Billy's income.

But, consider this: how are people "equal" if someone get taxed more than someone else? How are people "equal" if someone is forced to cover two people's expenses when someone else only has to cover half of someone else's expenses?

The (easy) answer: it's impossible. Although Billy and Harry would have the same amount of money after tax, all other expenses excluded, Billy was treated better because he was poorer. He was, in terms of treatment by the state, higher up the class ladder. He got money from the state and Harry's money got taken from him. Therefore, there was ultimately no equality at all.

The result from this can only be one thing: the incentives to work are destroyed. The economy slows down, stops and starts reversing. Jobs dwindle and the nation gets poorer. Then the benefits gradually get smaller, the government can no longer keep up, and eventually collapses.

Most people will say we are a far cry from this nightmare scenario. Although what they say is true, we are, quite clearly, in the first stages. We also seem to be moving at a faster and faster pace as we go along.

Now for the second part of my post.

Put frankly, in a Socialist society, Democracy can't exist. The majority making the decisions is dangerous to equality, especially in Presidential elections, as the current Socialists could be voted out and replaced by a band of, say, racists. The whole idea of equality would be turned on it's head. A solution put forward by Socialists (and yes, I am sick of saying that word) is similar to the solution put forward by Libertarians to protect freedom: a constitution.

However, let's face reality. A Constitution is really only a piece of paper with a few words written on it. It's only useful if it's abided by. Given the opportunity, people will disobey the constitution for their own ends (look at the government of the USA).

An argument by Socialists at this point could be that the ideas of equality and Socialism could be passed down from generation to generation, ensuring the state keeps to those ideas. Those people could then run for President.

Although that is a possibility, there is another problem with Democracy in a Socialist state. It is the fact that other non-Socialist advocates could run for President. Because of this threat, the state must at least surpress these people, or prevent them from running for President. If that were so, all candidates would be Socialists. There would be no real choice.

These political conditions, coupled with the economic effects of "equality" I have posted above, can only result in one thing: dictatorship.