One Dead (So Far) in London Riots

The riots in London over the G20 meeting have left one protester dead. Frankly, this doesn't surprise me.

The further left you go on the political spectrum, the more violent protests usually are; and in a protest as vehemently anti-capitalist as this one, events were bound to turn violent. Violent protests, far from being a form of free-speech, are in most cases just a lot of angry teenagers and twenty-somethings who:

- have never run a business, let alone the huge businesses they've been protesting against;
-have never had responsibility for their lives assumed by other people. Most protesters are not working-class people with a genuine interest in living independently -they're usually middle class.
-turn not to principles on reality, but the arbitrary to justify their assertions ("everything's relative", "you can't prove reason's relationship with reality", "one man's freedom is another man's chains" etc)
-think their ideas are "rebelling against the system". They think they're "cool" for the lack thereof.

If the protesters are really interested in the plight of the poor, they'll engage in the most noble and greatest of all human actions: the act of production- of which their reckless violence is the opposite.

Food Crisis: Some Suggestions

There has been much hoo-haa recently around the world, especially in poorer countries, over the large rises in food prices recently.

But New Zealand, as a country, stands to gain A LOT. We have excellent farming land, advanced technology, and animals by the truckload. New Zealand could potentially make a huge deal of money out of this.

To ensure New Zealand's eventually triumph in the upcoming years in food production, here are some suggestions:

1) Remove "green" regulations to the production of food. Remove GM hysteria over food production. Invest in new technologies and capital for the most efficient food production in the world. Allow for more intensive farming. Issues such as water pollution caused by animal excrement and chemicals on the farm can be sorted out by privatizing basic bodies of water, such as rivers and sections of lakes. (This has worked very well in Scotland.)

2) Deregulate the market on a world scale. New Zealand has done very well by promoting its food products around the world, facilitated by free trade. This doesn't concern NZ, at least as much as the EU, which prevents the crucial development of African farmers from getting them to produce their food in the long term, independently. The same applies to the United States (and Canada?).

3) Slash other regulations to production. Slash limits on how much food can be produced at what price, what amount, etc. Important issues such as quality can be sorted out primarily by the market and organizations such as consumer watchdogs, with government interference only after an act of force or fraud has been committed.

There you go, some suggestions for the upcoming food crisis. Let's see whether basic principles of market economics are followed, and if not, how well the situation turns out otherwise.

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!?

Hugo Chavez NOT "Dictator Perpetuus"!

In a smart move to combat Hugo Chavez's dictatorial ambitions, the Venezuelan people have voted in a referendum against Hugo Chavez being named "dictator for life" in Venezuela. Even so, those are still his ambitions. But still, a good step away from socialism and the trash heap of the world, in a nation that prefers capitalism more than the US.

I can imagine why. With the country being the incredibly dysfunctional, corrupt and dangerous it is (its murder rate is nearly 7 times that of the US), it's just not a place you want to be.

Hitler and Islamofascism

Hitler was one of the most murderous tyrants of world history. He set off a great war that killed countless millions of people, killed innocent men and women on an incredible scale, and was the centrepiece of a philosophy -fascism- that still today continues to slaughter innocent men and women. A form of this tyranny and terror beyond words is the system that exists in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Palestine.

The similarities that exist in these countries are very similar to those of Nazi Germany:

Murderous tyrants and fanatic supporters: Hitler slaughtered millions in his day. Evil men such as Ahmedinejad still hang gays in Iran, and then boast in America about there being no gays in Iran! Another example is the recent lashing of a Saudi women for being in a car with men not related to her- and then raping her! Or the "death to Denmark, death to America" placards and riots that ensued after a brave Dane dared to publish portrays of Mohammed in a magazine. 9/11, and the Madrid and later London bombings. It all hails back to an era when Nazi supports burnt down the shops, homes and livelihoods of Jews, Poles, or anyone Hilter didn't like. And the constant excuses for carrying out murderous actions.

Evil philosophies: Islam isn't a "religion of peace" (this will be discussed later). Fascism was, and continues to be, an extreme form of statism, in which all power is given to a select few in the state. It is built on Nietzsche's concept of the superman. The Islamofascist philosophy of radical Islamists is merely an Islamic twist on normal fascism. The same goes with Ahmedinejad's theocracy in Iran, which is a cross between middle ages theocracy and modern Islamofascism. As seen in the example given above, Saudi Arabia is the same.

Islam is a religion. As has been said on SOLO (and this goes for all religions), it is a "stinking superstition". Although the adjective "stinking" can certainly be used to mean events happening under Islam's name as we speak, the "superstition" part applies to all religions. Because religion - belief in what may be true to guide us in life - is in direct contrast to knowing what is true, to guide our life on this Earth. Islam, in its current post-enlightened state (the Islamic "enlightenment" of the Middle Ages was achieved by men acting in their self-interest to advance their life on Earth) resembles Christianity during the Middle Ages. Or the worship of Hitler during WWII.

Pragmatic Supporters: The great majority of Muslims, both in the West and in the Middle East, are good people. The problem with these people - and admittedly there are some people who do speak out against the atrocities committed in the name of their religion - are pragmatists. They live their lives, follow their religion, and don't think twice about Islamofascism. The same was true with the Germans in under Hitler. Although it's hard for Muslims to speak out against a regime that terrorizes them, and the same was true with the Germans, what annoys me is the lack of speaking out by free Muslims, in the West. Instead, they're too preoccupied with yelling about Mohammed cartoons, or refuting claims like mine that Islam can lead (and often will lead) to evil regimes and tyrants.

It's this pragmatism that refutes the claim that Islam is a religion of peace. If that were so, there would've been demonstrations all over the world in response to 9/11, and Ahmedinejad would've been long overthrown. It wasn't until after WWII that the Germans saw Hitler's evil. Under a true "religion of peace", that wouldn't be the case just over the horizon.

Western Appeasement: I'm not one of those people who believes in going and blowing up Iran now. But then again, Hitler hadn't invaded anyone until what, 1937? Just two years before WWII started.

However, what was disgusting during WWII was the West's complete inability to do anything. Even when he started invading, no one was smart enough to stand up to his reign of terror until Churchill came around. America didn't enter the war until it got bombed itself. This appeasement allowed Hitler to take half of Europe in weeks. There should be no such appeasement toward today's Islamofascist regimes, and if they do attempt to invade, the West should be on it in minutes.

And the other part of Western appeasement is the PC attitude towards it all. The West should have no fear in denouncing Islam and Islamic regimes, for what they have created where they have been tried. And if anyone's offended... too bad! Free speech includes the right to be offended!

It's these four things that have contributed to the barbarism committed under Islam in the Middle East today. And unless these issues are dealt with in a consistent, objective manner, things will only get worse.

The Death of the Death Penalty?

I see that Helen Clark is throwing herself behind a UN resolution which would have the death penalty banned internationally (at least in Western countries; I don't see how, for instance, African or Arabic dictatorships would abide) Although the resolution isn't something I am overly concerned about, I don't support the death penalty for the same reason as Sus at Sus's Sound-Bites: I simply don't trust the government with that much power, and mistakes can always be made.

One of my concerns though is that the US will use its veto power in this instance. Despite the fact that most American states have abolished the death penalty, Texas, which is the state George W Bush was once governor of, executes as many people as Iran (which is stupid and downright inhumane in a Western society). At least they're not for political reasons, even though the American Justice System seems more content at putting a black man in jail for a crime they have no proof he committed, than a white man who did commit the crime.

The death penalty debate is reminiscent of the slavery debate a few hundred years ago. This time, however, hopefully Americans are too civilized to start a civil war over the death penalty.

Ironically, Venezuela was the first country to abolish the death penalty about a century and a half ago. It'll probably become the latest to re-enact it, as well.

And with all the general Leftist bias, I wouldn't be surprised if they counted Cuba as a nation which has abolished the death penalty, despite the obvious claims to the contrary.

Ahmedinejad was Right

It turns out there are, in fact, no gays in Iran. From the New Zeal blog:



..."over 4,000 lesbians and gay men have been executed since the Ayatollahs seized power in 1979. Altogether, an estimated 100,000 Iranians have been put to death over the last 26 years of clerical rule". Lovely man, Ahmedinejad.

White House Surrenders

US President George W Bush has been pleading to Lefties around the world, putting an image out that "we're with you!", for the obvious reasons (GWB isn't the most liked man in the world) instead of putting a rational thought in about the issue.

George Bush hosted a big international conference with delegates from most parts of the world turning up to hear his call of surrender, and even said that industrial society is the cause of AGW. Still, it's not enough for the controlling UN and Europe, despite setting aims to cut carbon emissons to half the present day levels by 2050, which was suggested by the Japanese. How that is meant to work in sync with development in the Third World, I don't know. Maybe they can just keep on starving for another century?

Once again, no rational thought has come out from this tide of feel-good environmentalism.

To Be or Not To Be?

I must congratulate the brave Buddhist Monks who are defying the totalitarian military rule of Myanmar in its capital city, Yangon. It's not easy standing up against a government who would slaughter you on the spot, even if you are an important religious figure in the country.

But that's only half the story. If these Monks were to succeed-and lets say, for the sake of argument, that they did-what would it be replaced by? Socialist/religious rule, based around collectivist principles (which lead to the current mess)? Or would the Monks think beyond that, and instate rational individualist principles?

To Be or Not To Be, That is the Question.

Common Fallacies about Capitalism II

There hasn't been a great deal to write about over the past few days, with life going on as usual. Because of that, I've decided to write a new "Common Fallacies about Capitalism". This one will consist of only 5 fallacies, but they'll be just as good as before. The original article can be viewed here. Also, it should be noted that this is the 100th post on my blog.

5) Capitalism is the Reason why the Third World is Starving, and why the Rest of Us are so Rich. 20% of the World's Population Consumes 80% of its Resources.
Two of the three arguments presented here are indeed correct: first, that Capitalism is the reason why the rest of us are so rich; and secondly, that 20% of the world consumes 80% of it's production, But there's a catch-22 here: 20% of the world (the people who have a free-market economy) PRODUCE 80% of its resources. Capitalism has been able to make use of resources-both natural and artifical-better, more efficiently and greater than any other system. The 20% of the world's population who consume 80% of the worlds (useable) resources do so because they have the means to do so, and are doing so more efficiently than at any other time in history.

The reason why the Third World is starving is because they have no freedom-and thus no incentive-to go out and produce for themselves. They have no property rights to protect what's rightfully theirs, and produce. However, it is correct when we say that the First World is a burden on the Third World, we have tarriffs and protection a plenty in the first world, wherever you go. Aid also has a negative effect on the Third World, by simply providing an incentive to rely on the First World. Observe that in the countries that have received the most aid, the economies have been shrinking.

4) Capitalism causes Excesses in Some Places and Depletion in Others.
Capitalism doe not cause excesses and depletion. Instead, there is a simple market mechanism to prevent this: if one man had a whole lot of computers he needed to sell to buy a helicopter he wanted, he would try and sell all his computers to people who want/need them at a low enough price that they'll be bought, but high enough to buy a helicopter (in which case it would be a boon to people who want computers for him to have more, so the market price would go down). If he sold enough computers to buy his helicopter, he would buy what he wanted, all the while diminishing his excess to people who want/need computers. The very fact that having one thing by itself is worth more than having two, three, 10,000 etc to any one person is how the market prevents excesses. If our man who wanted a helicopter made neither a profit nor a loss from selling computers and buying a helicopter, he would still have the same net worth after his enterprise, but there would be no more excess.

3) Capitalism is Responsible for Immoral Behaviour.
Capitalism is the system of non coercion, aka voluntary interaction between people. Because of this, Capitalism-in its proper meaning-can NOT be held responsible for people's decisions. Capitalism is an economic system that requires the seperation of economy and state. It does not force morality or a particular lifestyle upon people.

2) Capitalism Leads to the Depletion of sometimes Precious Natural Resources.
Many years ago, the developed nations were very much dependent on coal as their main source of energy. Oil was just some black liquid with no value that came up from the ground from time to time. But as time went on-as more and more coal was used-the devolped nations, and the developing nations also switched to oil, once useless, as their main source of energy. Coal didn't run out, as more and more competition meant that sources were hard to get hold of. Suddenly, uses were invented for oil, and low competition for the resource meant more companies extracting oil.

Nowadays, the same situation has happened for oil. High-tehc companies are developing more and more ways to use "alternative" fuels. Even the oil companies are looking into ways to develop these fuels. As with coal, oil will eventually take a back seat to new fuels and extraction methods.

1) Capitalism=Profits Before People.
There is a simple reason why, under Capitalism, this is a big lie: under Capitalism, all interaction is voluntary. To make a deal with someone else, you first must agree to their terms. Force is illegal, and any force is inherently anti-capitalist. The employee must agree, through a process of discrimination, to work for the employer. The employer must offer reasonable conditions if the employee agrees to work for him/her. Therefore, a business must consider the interests of their employees, as the employees can, as always, choose to leave if they want to.

Because of the fact that forced work-slavery-is inherently anti-capitalist, all work under capitalism is voluntary. Therefore, a company-or any organization-must offer whoever decides to work for them a good deal, or else fail and go under.

Recent Riots in Venezuala Just the Beginning

More joys of Socialism have unravelled themselves in the recent riots in Venezuala against shutting down a TV station. As usual, Hugo Chavez is leading Venezuala down the wrong path. Under his reign, the Venezualan economy collapsed-it was once a fairly rich land by comparison to today-and Chavez is ruling by decree, making his country essentially a dictatorship. He is now cutting into his citizen's rights to free speech, and, if this madman continues in Venezuala, the country is just experiencing the calm before the storm.

This isn't the first time there have been large scale riots and demonstrations since Chavez's reign of terror-that's what it has become-started. It looks like another country is going to go through Socialist Hell in years to come.

Oh well.

"Globalization is Good"

If you have Sky Digital or Satellite here in NZ, I suggest you watch the documentary "Globalization is Good" on the Documentary Channel (074) on Thursday, 9pm. It is hosted by none other than Johan Norberg, one of the world's leading advocates of Globalization.

Be sure to tune in on Thursday, 9pm.

If You're a Reporter, stay away from these Men

"Reporters Without Borders have released their new list of "Free Speech Predators".


Funny how they're all leaders of the poorest nations in the world (except for ETA in Spain).

Go to the Reporters Without Borders website for more information.

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.

Globalisation, Islam, and the Skyscraper

Up until only about 20 years ago, the only places in the world where you might see a proper skyscraper were America, parts of Europe and Australia. The Asian tiger economies-Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong had managed to firmly put skyscrapers on Asian ground. But now, with the accelerating pace of Globalisation, we are starting to see the affects of skyscrapers on the worlds second largest religion-Islam.

Anyone who has been reading this blog from the start will be familiar with the construction boom in Dubai. Dubai has been reaping fantastic profits from selling oil around the world. But until very recently, it was a rarity indeed to see a skyscraper anywhere in the Middle East. Combine the Middle Easts skyscraper boom with that of ever-greater China, and the speed-up construction of tall buildings in traditional centres-Chicago, New York, and more recently, London-and, you will see that the world is just at the start of a new skyscraper boom, which has the ability to overshadow that of any past construction boom.

Let me introduce me to the Abraj Al-Bait, a 485 (take a bit of time to process that number) in Mecca. Yes, Mecca:

That's only one of the supertall (400m+) towers going up in the world today. There are huge towers planned for traditional cities, like New York, where the 517 metre Freedom Tower is eventually going to go up, and Chicago, where the 600 metre Chicago Spire is going up.

Yet you will also see towers going up in totally bizarre places. There is a 500m+ tower going up in Moscow at the moment, called the Federation Tower. Istanbul is building plenty. London is starting its skyscraper boom. Jakarta is getting new supertalls, as are several cities across Asia.

Soon, we could be living in a world where supertalls are a norm in many cities. The record for new world's tallest building could be changed in a matter of months for years on end. Even Australia is considering a 1000 metre tall "Solar Tower".

So what does this mean for the world? And for the religion of Islam?

Many Arabic countries have grown incredibly rich thanks to oil. But traditionally, these nations have been hostile to the rest of the world, and very closed and secretive. But what this means is that Arabic countries-like the UAE-are opening up to a world of globalisation. A world where everyone has a choice of where to go in the world. The Sultan of the UAE has certainly made it no secret that he wants the UAE to be a world center for tourism, commerce, industry, and almost everything, it may seem.

For the rest of the world, it means that people are no longer afraid to continually keep pushing the boundries of our buildings. Cost is, seemingly, a barrier no more. People are no longer afraid to be creative. Most importantly, it means that, in this new century, we will once again be an entrepreneural world. The only difference being that the word "world" actually applies to the entire world.

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.

"Money doesn't buy you happiness". Or does it?

"Money doesn't buy you happiness" is a common catch-phrase used by members of the left. It is used to (supposedly) tell people that money is never ever going to make you happy.

I partially agree with that. Money, by itself, is a worthless material. However, this worthless material is currency in every nation in the world. Therefore, money can be used to buy goods, services, and probably most importantly when it comes to happiness, experiences.

So, because money can buy you these goods, services and experiences, it is a necessary, if worthless, material. You need money to travel the world. You need money to buy the beautiful house on the hill. You need money to do just about anything.

Because you need money to do these things that make us happy, money does actually buy us happiness.

Also, another stupid part of their argument is the belief that people in the Third World-people that literally live in cardboard boxes, eat off the ground, and have to walk a total of perhaps 20 miles a day just to get water for their families are just as happy, if not happier, than us in the Western World. Yet, it is the left that runs most of the campaigns for more aid to the Third World. How are they happy if they need money? The thing that doesn't help at all for getting a better life?

Therefore, the left contradicts their policies of aid to the Third World and welfare to the poor in the West when it makes this argument. They are only contradicting their other worthless policies and beliefs (it is well known that production, not aid and welfare, is better at getting the poor out of poverty, amongst many smart people. The left completely ignores this in their policies of aid and welfare).