The Right to Protest?

Recently in Social Studies, my class has been assigned a book called "How Many Lightbulbs does It Take to Change a Planet: 95 Ways to Save Planet Earth". The Idea is that we would chose one of the 95 different topics on all manners of leftist ideas about climate change, take notes and do a PowerPoint presentation about it.

One of the ideas in the book is "Protect the Right to Protest". Alright, but this is what the left, through its self-anointed moral supremacy over climate change, has been stifling. If you speak up against the IPCC, the climate change "consensus" or Al Gore, you are thrown out of the climate change debate in days, if not hours. Suddenly, you have all these environmental "scientists" pouncing on you, saying that you're wrong and giving no particular reason, only data that has been spewed up a million times. For proof, look at what happened to the Great Global Warming Swindle -and that's one of the nicer examples.

The right to protest hasn't been stifled directly in the political arena -indeed, it's the politcal arena that the left wants to avoid over opposition to climate change. The left, in all its talk of "tolerance" and "cultural/political/economic diversity", has to maintain a clean, public image of what it is, and what it stands for. To its credit, it has been pretty successful. You're unlikely to see quotes like this on the front cover of a newspaper:

"We have wished... for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us back into the stone age..."

or that:

"You think Hiroshima was bad, let me tell you mister, Hiroshima wasn't bad enough!"*

Admittedly, those two quotes were said a while ago. But if you were to tell any random earth-hugger on the street about those quotes, they'd just shake their head and call you a nutter. There are many more quotes like the two above, but you'd be lucky to find anyone who knows about them.

Consider this fact: the environmental movement has successfully manufactured their ideology around a natural, scientific phenomenon: human-induced climate change. To most people within and supportive of the environmental movement, it's not about the control or the end of industry, it isn't about human quality of life -it's about global warming, or climate change. These people see scientific climate change as a primary -they don't consider anything else in the ideology as a possible primary. For them, it's alright to sacrifice human industry, technology, wealth, comfort, etc to Gaia -because climate change is a primary. Even if that did nothing to the climate, it's still the primary.

It's that idea that has left possible unbiased environmentalists completely open to bombardment by the environmental movement and its theories on climate change.

Also, as it is supposedly based on scientific fact, the supposed primary of climate change is seen as an absolute -for instance, man's mind is an absolute (although his using it is not), reality is an absolute. This is how the environmental movement has made the scientists who are skeptical of climate change seem absolutely crazy. Climate change is neither a primary nor an absolute, but the marketability of it as such has been used to devastating effect.

So, the right to protest against envirofascists? Surely, it exists in the political realm. But the rather simple idea of climate change has been manipulated so much in the philosophical realm that it's crazy to challenge the idea of anthropogenic global warming. To outsiders, you're protesting against an absolute (no matter how many studies say otherwise). The environmental movement keeps its credibility by making climate change its primary -not the end of industry and commerce, and relegating productive man back into the slums.

And as I've said many times before, isn't the idea of us all pitching in to make a collective effort for the good of the planet and future generations just lovely? Perhaps not for us selfish Objectivists, or anyone else who can look behind all the environmental rhetoric, but for the common Joe New Zealander, who has already been brought up with such principles during NZ's socialist era, they sound great. After all, we will all die if we don't -climate change, according to what Joe's heard so many times before, is an absolute.

The only thing getting in the way -productive, selfish man. The man who produces instead of sacrifices himself for the "common good". Sounds like a certain book!

But this is even worse. If you think sacrifice on the altar of the "need" of other people was bad, this is sacrifice on the altar of the environment -the truly unthinking.

Luckily, as Libertarians, we have the chance to hit at (or to protest at) where it hurts. The left for decades, long before the environmental movement arrived, has been going on about the need "tolerance" and "diversity" -which developed into the ideal of "protecting the right to protest". These principles developed as a way to get leftist rhetoric into the classrooms and onto the TV screens, but they have tripped up over themselves. After all, at school, you're not going to get a flogging anymore for expressing an opinion -the teachers have to grin and bear it, at worst. After all, it is in the name of "tolerance" and "diversity" -and when opinions can be put to people so bluntly, no leftist will try to stop you.

So it's on this different set of ideals -originally enlightened ideals from the enlightenment, before having a post-modern spin put on them- that we need to protest to combat leftist ideals. Ironically, what were, and still are some of the most attractive ideals of the left can be used against them. Not just in environmentalism, but everywhere.

*Both quotes from The Free Radical no. 73, page 27.

Chinese Olympics: No Boycott

As you may have seen recently, there has been a load of debate on the NZ libertarian blogosphere as to wherever the 2008 Olympics should be held in China, due to its totalitarian government and human rights abuses, including mobile execution vans*.

I agree that China does have some serious problems with its totalitarian government, still communist in many respects. But it's for those reasons that I'm NOT for the boycotting of the 2008 Olympics; they could be ideal in shedding light on the current regime in China -just what it's been doing recently.

Up until now, commentators on both the left and right have been largely ignoring China's totalitarian aspects, instead focussing on China's recent economic boom, which has had a great effect in creating a Chinese middle class and getting many Chinese out of poverty. Most of this phenomenon occuring in China, however, has been largely concealed to the Exclusive Economic Zones and big cities. Outside of these growth-magnets, many Chinese still live in squalor, under an oppressive government that, despite the lift of regulations and introduction of some property rights since the 1980s, is still essentially communist, especially in social and political terms. Many of these people go to live in the cities to work in the factories, with very little money.

So, hopefully these Olympics will shed light on the plight of Chinese people who haven't been able to escape to the glitzy, Capitalist cities. It all depends, however, on whether the world wants to watch.

And while China's government is a concern, I wonder if it is the primary reason behind John Minto and other figures of the far left organizing protests and raising lefty "awareness" of the situation in China. Many of these people -whether in London, Paris, San Francisco or NZ- were wearing Mao badges 30 years ago, and not just because it was "the thing". China was FAR WORSE back then. I suppose they just hate the Capitalist elements that have been introduced since then, and the fact that a big, evil bourgeois class has been created.

But, at the end of the day, the only nation that can tame the tempered Chinese Dragon is the United States. Luckily, they, unlike Europe, actually act on their values and beliefs.

*Ever wondered why China's imprisonment rate is less than in the US!?

Government Destruction of Small Business

More socialist destruction of business -small business, not "evil" big business has come out from the government today. From Stuff:

"changes to be made to the Employment Relations Act:

* Someone working a standard eight-hour day would be entitled to a minimum of two 10-minute paid rest breaks and a half hour unpaid meal break throughout the day. The breaks would have to be fairly timed so a meal break was taken as near as practicable to the middle of the work period. If an employment agreement had more generous entitlements, then these would apply.

* Employers would be required to provide, where reasonable and practical, facilities and breaks for employees who wished to breastfeed. A code of employment practice would guide employers on how to uphold the obligations."

This little piece of legislation got me thinking: who is really hurt by Socialist taxes and regulations? Big business, which is supposedly the great morass of evil, or small business, set up by poor or middle class people, with a small clientèle?

The answer, almost without exception, is the latter. Rich people and corporations can afford to pay taxes and follow regulations. Small businesses have a lot less money, and less productive capability -and as thus, much less power to abide by governmental regulation. A big business may be able to provide breastfeeding stations, as laid out in the law changes, for its female employees at a small cost of total expenses. Even if a small business' breastfeeding stations aren't as clean and safe as a big business' equivalent, and there are less of them, the new stations create a much larger dent in the budget.

For a small business, having to provide such services amounts to little more than instant gratification on the employee's side. By having their perks now, the money that was supposed to be used for production and business growth, and as thus, more competition for labour, goes to these short term benefits, which may, at worst, put a small company out of business. Long term thinking and benefits are sacrificed to short term whim.

A small business, as well as having to abide by such governmental legislation, also needs, as a percentage, more money to spend in other areas. For instance, a large factory may have a lot more automation, and a much higher output per worker than a smaller factory. The smaller factory mightn't afford the extra cost of automation, and thus its output per worker is lower. However, the small business still has to provide the same services to its employees as the big business. This means less money used on increasing production (by means of either machines or workers).

Add to that the fact that big business has the power to "get into bed" with government. With a government which couldn't put a myriad of regulations over the economy (or any sector of human life for that matter), there'd be no incentive for businesses to lobby politicians to introduce legislation to crush the competition.

By regulating businesses in this way, government hurts who it claims to protect -poor, lower-class people looking to get ahead in life, both workers and businesses.

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.

Suggestions For America, the UK, and NZ on Crime

In the light of all the recent ugly spates of shootings going on the United States in the moment, I have compiled a list of suggestions for tackling crime, with special regards to violent crime such as murder and rape, where the US easily tops the developed world. The same suggestions also need to be implemented in Britain, where criminals can get away from almost any non-violent crime (and which tops all other nations minus Australia for total crime), and New Zealand, the country with the highest number of sexual assaults, property crimes and gang membership per capita of any country in the world.

End the "War on Poverty". Cancel any new government housing projects, and gradually destroy the old ones. The huge government housing projects in, for instance, New York during the 1960s led to the formerly wealthy neighbourhood of the Bronx, to the North-east of Manhattan, to become one of America's worst neighbourhoods, which helped New York reach over 2,200 murders a year in 1989 (without being much better for 30 years before). By placing these huge behemoth buildings full of poor people indiscriminately around the city (in which crime skyrocketed as opposed to the neighbourhoods these people used to live in), wealthier people moved out, out to the suburbs* -hence, the "white flight" which destroyed many good inner-city neighbourhoods. These new government projects also destroyed many older neighbourhoods in which poor people used to live in, which would've been very lively -and safe- neighbourhoods before people got lumped in together, and crime boomed.

As in New Zealand, the War on Poverty created an "entitlement culture" in which poor people, rather than working for the great American Dream, demanded it. The American Dream was/is about personal responsibility, and pride and rationality in one's self and actions. The "entitlement culture" of the 1960s onwards demanded the results of the American Dream. Then there is the lack of pride in one's self and achievements which led to this "entitlement culture", which led to the destruction of belief in one's self and actions -which led to crime. Like every other time in history, this period of US history when the sacrifice of others was used to justify the sacrifice of one's self had negative consequences, in this case leading to a surge in crime -which is actually one of the better outcomes throughout history.

The War on Poverty was also the time in American, -arguably world- history when the most money was poured solely for the purpose of defeating poverty -perhaps only rivaled by the New Deal. However, consider the effects on America's economy and its poorest people had that costly trillion dollar investment not happened. Consider instead, the employment of millions of America's poor, instead of having those same people commit crimes like armed robbery to pay for drugs, alcohol, women and gambling -with true values, such as family, work and self-esteem coming last. Consider how much better America's manufacturing industry would have fared, and how smoother the transition to a service-sector economy would have been, if the American government didn't spend that money, and thus Detroit could have survived better. Also, it should be considered that during Clinton's welfare reforms, putting limits on welfare, crime in the US dropped dramatically, and the murder rate was sliced in half.

Note that many African-Americans and African American families were moving up, economically, until this time despite segregation. The end of this trend, as well as events that affected African Americans as a whole, is one of the reasons for race riots and racist attacks and crime during the 1960s and following decades.

Slash regulations on employment, business transactions and business regulations. Many poor people are unskilled workers, who have very little chance of getting what most people in developed countries would call a "decent job". But even a very cheap, dangerous job is better than not being employed at all -and business regulations, such as, most infamously, the minimum wage, destroy employment, by cutting out all workers from the economic ladder who produce less value per hour than the minimum wage demands you be paid. Because of this, studies in the US have stated that 100,000 people are out of work when the minimum wages goes up, even by a few cents. Cutting off the bottom of the economic ladder doesn't magically make them all richer. If so, we should theoretically raise the minimum wage to $1,000,000 dollars.

Regulations on who a business can hire, and safety regulations, also cut off the poorest from entering the workforce. This is because such regulations, like the aforementioned minimum wage, require that a worker has to produce above the total net cost of the regulations, as well as other costs and wages. If a business is forced to have certain regulations in place, an unskilled worker has less chance of entering the workforce, because he can't produce as much as his skilled colleagues, and can't cover the cost of his employment. Obviously, an unskilled worker may need to sacrifice safety for wages, or wages for safety, depending on what he needs and values. But keep in mind that he can still choose his employer, and that creates competition even amongst him and his future employers, because he's now part of the labour market.

Other regulations that prevent unskilled workers entering the workforce are the affirmative action and equal employment laws. Because all businesses, regardless of wealth, have to obey this law, a company may have to forgo the employment of an unskilled man because they're forced, to hire a woman, regardless of her skills, to meet their requirements. And because there's no objective way to determine whether a company hires on the basis of race or productivity under such laws, more productive people will have to forgo employment, because a person of different gender/race is needed, regardless of how productive the two prospective employees may be.

When someone is out of work for a long period of time, even if it is because of genetic qualities that can't be controlled as discussed above, the lack of respect for the self -and others- disappears, and someone with no such respect won't spend the money he does have to properly improve his situation -he only acts on the expediency of the moment, which leads to drug violence, gang violence and impulsive actions, regardless of the consequences.

Get back to the traditional punishment-and-restitution system of imprisonment. Let the prisoners know that what they did was WRONG. The softening of the jail system, in both America and other parts of the world such as Britain and New Zealand, led to a massive surge in all crime types of crime -ranging from theft to terrorism- in the 1960s onward. Beforehand, America's murder rate in 1960 was at half of what it was in 1934, and would be very low today if that trend continued, and the same applies to NZ and Britain. Why did the murder rate soar so dramatically during the 1960s?

One of the main reasons, as well as the ones already stated, is that the jail system, instead of the traditional and effective system of punishment-and-restitution that characterized jail systems in all three countries and made Britain revered as a very safe place, was replaced by a system where crime was never quite your fault, and prisoners had the luxury of not needing to know what is was that they did wrong -which is a deep philosophical issue. Restitution was replaced by rehabilitation, -except how can you be "rehabilitated" if you don't know what you did wrong. Rehabilitation, without restitution, is useless, and it is one reason why 80% of American jailbirds are repeat offenders. The process of correction begins with knowing what one did wrong, and setting out to rectify it. But as recent events have shown, it's impossible to have the latter without the former. To be thrown in jail for murder, without a proper moral understanding of what murder is and why it's wrong, is to be unable for the moral consequences of committing murder, no matter how many times it's committed. Not to mention, it's very easy to get past rehab by simply lying your way through, and concealing your trues thoughts and feelings of it. This philosophy on criminals, which spurred from the relativism of the time, Removed any need to know why murder is wrong, and thus got people thoroughly annoyed when they were thrown in jail for reasons they don't know. Thus, prison riots.

Observe the hopelessness and worthlessness of those committing crimes. To commit a crime is fundamentally an act of self-hate; it is the clearest expression of the belief of worthlessness of one's self, and the lowing of one's self to the level of an animal, that he must destroy the values of other people, which are also his means of living rationally -to harness values- and that no one should be above his level. To commit a crime is to declare that one's self is lower than an animal, and that his values that he finds in other people, plus their own values, are worthless, and that no one else, all being equal, is above him. Of course, the scope of this expression ranges from the smallest theft to the largest murder.

Observe the irrational mentality of a serial killer. He is a man without hope and self-esteem, a man who puts self-doubt, neglect and abuse above any value. A man with such a low esteem of himself, and can't find values in oneself, also can't find values in another man; he is alien to the concept of rationality and self-esteem He sets out on a process of self-destruction, mixing together the worst elements of society to form a concoction fully expressive with his view of humanity. First, he may turn to drugs, than to guns and destructive concepts (such as with the Columbine High Murderers), and then to murder. With this mentality, he has no idea why murder is considered wrong, but he is displaying it.

This is in contrast to a productive man, and his pursuit of values. A productive man may not be as rich as the man above, poverty doesn't necessarily equate crime; but instead, the productive man is able to pursue his rational values, which moves him up in the world, and his self-esteem -and as thus, the way he treats others- increases. This isn't a possible concept to the man who seeks out on self-destruction, unless the remnants of rationality that he locked up can see the world he created for himself, and set out to change it.

(One place where the destructive mentality sets in is at school, as I've discussed, but that's a whole different story.)

Promote gun ownership amongst law-abiding people. American gun-haters yearn for a place where they can escape to, free of guns. Luckily for them, such a place exists in America; it's called Washington, DC. Similarly, they should hate any place where everyone has a gun; such a place exists, it's called Switzerland.

A gun by itself, can't murder people; it needs to fall into the hands of the irrational to do that. But observe that, as any murder case shows, irrational men don't abide by the law - if guns are banned, they'll happily buy a gun off the black market, or smuggle one in. If a gun is what he wants as his murder weapon, a gun's what he gets. Only rational men abide by the law, which serves to disarm innocent civilians in a murder. He could carry a less lethal weapon around with him, such as a knife, but throwing a knife at a man 10 metres away will likely do nothing.

In Edwardian London, the crime rate was only a tiny fraction of what it is today; similarly, it was common that, if a crime was committed, for a policeman to use a civilian's gun to stop a criminal. A murder was really, really big news, and the fact that everyone owned a gun was a good thing, and so it was. A similar case exists in Switzerland, and there, they get their guns free of charge from the military!

Contrast Edwardian London, or Switzerland, to Washington, DC. Soon after the city's gun ban went into effect, the murder rate skyrocketed, and to watch crime as it took place on the street was common. Even though Washington has come a long way in combating crime, the murder rate is still spiked. The result was that murderers still got their guns, and civilians had to get them from out-of-state or the black market, possibly resulting in jail time. Many similar laws are in place in America's most dangerous cities, which keep crime high in the ghetto, no matter how far other neighbourhoods have come.

As a final point on guns in America, observe that less than 1/4 of Americans actually own a gun.

Finally, DON'T become Europe. Somehow, pointing to the more peaceful (even though this is only half the truth) societies in Europe seems to justify the Left's position on crime. In fact, Europe, even with less violent crime than the US, actually has more property crime and fraud, in which Germany is King. Also, go into, for instance, a poor Parisian suburb -most of whom are just as bad as their counterparts in US cities. Although I don't have proof to say so, a lot of the difference in crime can probably be put down to differences in what is a homicide, and differing views on violent crime.

Even if the differences can largely be explained by difference in reporting, there's still the fact that Europe had to endure division, two world wars, and near complete destruction at the hands of the Nazis in the 20th Century. America never had to endure such destruction, and there were few lessons to be learnt in the World Wars, compared to what Europe endured. Perhaps having this lesson shoved down their throats in the World Wars is the reason why European societies seem to be peacefully, compared to the US.

But if all else fails, Europe was just as, if not more, peaceful during its years of laissez faire before the events of the 20th Century came along.
____________

Those are the six issues America (and the UK and NZ) have to tackle if they want to cut crime permanently, and as it happens. To combat crime, the "entitlement culture" and culture of hopelessness in the ghettos need to be replaced by the self-esteem and rational thinking of the original immigrants, from the statist regimes of Europe. Gun ownership should be promoted among law-abiding citizens, and imprisonment should be based on the old system of punishment and restitution. To build self-esteem, productivity is needed amongst the poorest people of society, and to do that, regulations on business, employment and trade need to be scrapped. Only with these reforms, can the US, the UK and NZ go back to the level of safety before the 1960s, when most of the reforms and legislation that raised crime levels were introduced.

Power-Rationing

The Labour Government has recently rolled out its rather extreme plans for curbing carbon emissions (in effect, industrial production) which, as the MSM has said, "will touch the lives of every New Zealander". Perhaps by far the most significant way the Labour Government will be about the rationalization of production is its long-term plan to ban fossil-fueled power plants.

The pure and simple fact is, "renewable" energy is expensive-perhaps with the exception, surprisingly, of forms the Environmentalists don't like (hydroelectric, nuclear and even wind jump into mind here). Trying to convert NZ's power stations to renewable sources will have serous consequences on thousands of poorer New Zealanders, who simply can't afford to buy anything else. Fossil-fueled power stations are, at the current moment, the best option for New Zealand economic growth-the outcome of which will be, as technology advances, a lot more cleaner industry. Labour's current plans throw all that into jeopardy.

It will also result in power-rationing, as, thanks to the current RMA, any new power plant whatsoever will cost about $5,000,000 more than it should. Black-outs would become a usual occurrence in NZ's sparse and poorer areas-small towns folk can't pay millions of dollars more for "clean" power, let alone NZ's largest cities!

The consequences of the ban on fossil-fuel plants? As always, blackouts, rationing, price hikes and the strangling of industial production.

Kiwi Apartheid

Few people seem to realize how racist a place New Zealand really is. To go over a few laws and legislation:

-First off, the Treaty of Waitangi. The single document responsible for the PCization of NZ politics and culture, and the primary reason why Kiwi law is so racist.
-Two electoral roles. What really is the point in having two electoral roles, other than the division of the voting population.
-Maori land rights taking precedence over everyone else's. Maori people are no more or no less people than anyone else. Howcome their right to property-which is directly related to their right of life-is more important than anyone else's?
-Thanks to Political Correctness, Maori people also have more government devoted to them than the rest of the population. For instance, would Land Transport NZ pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to divert a whole road away from a mystical animal's hiding place if the white population said it was important to them?
-The fact that when a Maori person, or a minority person in general, does something bad like murder or rape, it's everyone's fault. Of course, this is never true amongst the white population.

Many Maori people are part of a large NZ "underclass" of people who beat their wives, get drunk regularly, and let their children join gangs and get themselves hurt or even true. Colonialization back 100 years ago was hardly the best policy of the European superpowers, and did treat indigenous peoples as second-class citizens. But that was 100 years ago. Maori people can go out and success in life just as anyone else can. But many don't, and statistics for Maori people are quite shocking. The reason for this is that many Maori fall victim to the belief that they're part of a victimized culture that needs eternal reparation. But Maori, just like everyone else in New Zealand, are responsible for their own actions and wellbeing, not people who lived 150 years ago.

Colonialism=bad. Tribalism=worse.

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.

National Roles in Today's World

This very intriguing graphic has got me thinking about the roles nations play in the world today, about recent wars, and about how all-encompassing force of Globalisation is reshaping national rolls in the turbulent world we live in today.

In the graphic, some pictures are shown of American cemetaries in France, where soldiers died in both World Wars. In both, America had an isolationist policy of "don't get involved unless completely necessary".

-In World War I under President Woodrow Wilson, America stayed neutral to the conflict until 1917, when it decided to get involved, on the side on the Allies against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the war, America along with member of both sides decided to sign the "Peace Treaty of Versailles". Because of the Treaty, Germany had to pay reparations. An armed force was banned and much of Germany's former territory was lost. America was one of the founding members of the League of Nations.

-In World War II, America once again had a neutral position (although it was widely believed that President Franklin Roosevelt was looking for a justification to enter). In the end, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and it was Hitler who declared war on America, not the other way around. Just as in World War I, America decided to join France on the Western Front, while also fighting the Imperialist Japanese in the Pacific and in Asia. Once again, Germany was on the losing side.

The two World Wars had something very, very similar. In both, the nations in Western Europe-particularly France-were losing out badly to Germany. America, which remained Isolationist well into both wars managed to change all that. By no means is America wholly responsible for winning both World Wars. But if America had decided not to get involved, France would've been far more destroyed the Germans than what it was, on two different occasions.

In all conflicts America has gotten into until the Iraq war, America had been on the defensive. In the Korean war, and in Vietnam, America had always been defending the attacked nation. One of the reasons for this is the fact that the Cold War was on. America and the USSR had been locked in a rivalry for superiority. Neither wanted to be destroyed, so neither-with the exception of Soviet involvement in Afghanistan-neither nation dared lift a finger.

The Cold War is over. There is no more rivalry between Capitalism and Communism. Communism was destroyed. Millions of people across the world were liberated. Great deals of them rejoiced.

However, with Communism destroyed, a new problem arised. It was not Al-Qaeda, which, with some serious effort on the West's behalf, could be stomped out. It was the fact that there was only one remaining superpower in the world. I'm certainly not anti-America, but America, being the only state in the world today that is a superpower, is, as its latest actions in Iraq have shown, can be dangerous. I refer to Ayn Rand's famous quote on government's relation with human rights:

"A government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights; it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims."

That applies not only to government power at home; governments can be just as tyrannical overseas.

A solution to the problem of only one superpower is to create another superpower, to become a Pluralist world again. This could potentially work well if one keeps the other in check and both respect Civil Liberties. However, there is no other nation in the world today that could fulfill that role sucessfully. The EU might be a candidate. But do we really want a continent that has been been through two world wars and will do, ultimately, do little to keep the world in order as a superpower?

The Libertarian solution is to create a Constitutional Amendment restricting government power overseas, not just in America but in all nations. And war, isn't the best way to create countries. Instead, nations should focus more on developing markets in once restricted economies. Capitalism, as history has shown us so many times before, is best at getting a country out of poverty, its government in order, and for it to introduce more Civil Liberties and Liberal Democracy. War only makes a nation go backwards. American intervention in Iraq has shown that. And I'd be willing to bet that the Iraqi people will be controlled by another dictator in 20 years time.

Aid time again!

World Vision has launched their annual 40-hour famine again, and the money is (supposedly) going to help people in the third world.

Although World Vision is a charity and the 40-hour famine is a voluntary inititive, so I have no moral objection to it (unless the money goes to fund some tyrannical government's regime), the money actually does very little to actually help people in the third world. The reason being that, although the money provides for basic needs in the short term, it doesn't teach self-dependence for a higher quality-of-life in the long term. An advertisement for Oxfam here in New Zealand a few months ago said "give a man a fish, feed him for a day. But give him the means to catch his own fish [where the saying would be different from what it'd be in the first world] and feed him for a lifetime". The saying is absolutely correct. After all, why don't we hear about the fantastic sucesses of nations in the third world who developed off aid money?

Governmental-provided aid is simply welfare for entire nations. Like welfare in the first world, it does nothing to get people out of poverty, and never will-by teaching the recipients dependence on other people. To get those people out of poverty, we need to teach them to be dependent on themselves. Only then, and it has been proven countless times, will the poverty cycle be broken, and people prosper.

Smacking ban will only lead to more crime

It's probably to late, but I need to have a rant about the smacking ban MP's have been debating about today. A smacking ban is not only anti-choice, it will also lead to more crime in the future.

A smacking ban is essentially saying this to children: Look, your parents can't do so much as (literally) touch you when discipling you, you can run around and do whatever you want, your parents can do nothing about it". After all, what do most teenage kids these days care about being shouted at?

I'm no advocate of beating children which encourages violence later on in life, but if parents can't smack their children-a reasonable smack, not a big slap-children will suffer from lack of discipline, and therefore crime-especially youth-related-will increase. And that trend will continue, as later generations are taught the same thing from the people of today.

We're already seeing the results of little to no discipline in the suburbs of South Auckland today. We're also seeing what happens when the state provides you with a whole lot of stuff provided for by stealing off the taxpayer, and giving it to these people, which is fostering a very much self evident "we don't give a crap about what the rest of this godforsaken country thinks of us, we still get to live off them anyway!" attitude.

Perhaps get these people to actually work and provide for themselves and their families-which fosters a sense of self responsibility-and we'll see attitudes change.

And until then, a smacking ban won't make New Zealand any better a place to live in for any children. The beatings and murders will continue.

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.