The Vanishing Point

Notorious leftist Jesse Larner has a great piece on Hayek on notoriously leftist Dissent Magazine today. Larner primarily reminds us, and especially the left, that Hayek was hardly the ardent free-market fundamentalist he is often portrayed as. Of course, anyone who has ever read Hayek, especially “The Constitution of Liberty” knows this. The article also reveals that Larner is hardly a classical socialist, of the marxist tradition, but more like a social-liberal/social-democratic intellectual. I agree with much that Larner says in the article, especially the well-founded criticism of Michael Moore that he has managed to coalsece with the general (quite moderate) point of his article. My biggest problem with Larners article is that he, to me, is a bit to “nice” in his critique of socialism in general, when he attempts to narrow down Hayeks concept of socialism: (more…)

I am currently reading Jonah Goldberg’s new book “Liberal Fascism - The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning”. The book is definitely recommendable to anyone who is interested in learning about the history of the concept of liberalism as well as american politics (and political figures) in general, but I will probably write more about it later. Reading the book, however, made me curious as to what the connection is between ones political position on the economic scale (individualism/free markets vs. collectivism/state centralization) and ones position on the broader “civil rights” scale, which refers to more “immaterial” values such as freedom of speech, tolerance etc. I know, some people deny that there exists any meaningful ways of dividing freedom into different dimensions, as they are inextricably entwined (some degree of private property is, plausibly, a necessary requisite to have freedom of speech, for example). I still think the division is interesting though, if only for analytical purposes. (more…)

“The quintessential liberal fascist isn’t an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade-school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swathmore.” - From the cover of “Liberal Fascism - The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning”, 2008.

Kinda funny, and even more relevant in Denmark than in the US, the country to which this quote refers. Just replace “liberal” with “socialist” and “Brown or Swathmore” with “Blaagardsseminariet or BUPL” (no you can’t have a degree from BUPL, but its my impression that this place is one of the largest hatcheries of authoritarian radicals in Denmark.).

At the moment nurses, child care and other social workers are striking in Denmark, with the goal of achieving higher wages. Many of these workers are in a quite strong bargaining position, because of the stranglehold they are able to exert on the Danish population, in the case of a strike – they deliver vital services that, with the design of the Danish system, are hard to obtain on the private market. Hence, most of them have already gotten part of what they came from. Some of them, the child care workers, are still not satisfied however, even though they have been promised the largest collective wage increase for their profession in history. As the child care workers are calling to arms for yet another stand-off, I cannot help wondering: will we really get better service as a result of these wage increases?

I decided to subject the problem to a common efficiency wage framework, the Shapiro-Stiglitz model – well a simplified model, at least (more…)

180grader har i dag en rimeligt interessant artikel om en 16-årig pige der, efter eget udsagn, har forladt ungdomshuset. Den er mest interessant i forhold til min forrige post om modkultur, der handlede om Dennis Nørmark og Ungdomshuset. Jeg indvendte at der var noget særdeles hadefuldt over ungdomshusets kultur, selvom de nægter at indrømme det.

“Jeg aner ikke noget om dem. Det er kun nogle af deres navne, jeg kender. Vi snakkede ikke om, hvor vi kom fra. Vores samtaler handlede kun om vores had til samfundet og de koncerter, der kom i weekenden,”

Det er svært at vide om pigen taler sandt - jeg bliver altid lidt skeptisk overfor genfødte “afhoppere”, ligesom Ruth Evensens datter. Men hendes udsagn stemmer i hvert fald ret godt overens med min opfattelse af kernen af den autonome bevægelse (og det minder i øvrigt lidt om Blekingegadebanden, bare knap så organiseret, og forhåbentligt ikke så voldeligt eller morderisk). Bemærkede i øvrigt en ting mere:

“…Det er et lortesamfund. Anders Fogh er et svin, og vi skal ikke have nogen regering. Vi skulle bestemme over os selv.”

Ofte tænker jeg at de autonome nemt kunne finde fælles fodslag med anarkokapitalister - de nægter bare, af uransagelige grunde, at anerkende den private ejendomsret. Og så er det jo lidt svært at få lov at bestemme over sig selv…

“Can money buy Happiness?”, this author asks himself. The article is pretty interesting, even though it predictably concludes that money can indeed not buy happiness. Unless it is used to alleviate dire conditions, more money does not make people any more happy. What really brings happiness is success - and succes is reaching your goals.

“The upshot: If you and I feel equally successful but you make four times as much as I do, we will be equally happy about our lives. Of course, successful people make more money than unsuccessful people, on average. But it is the success—not the money per se—that is giving them the happiness. I have no doubt that some people do get pleasure from lording their higher incomes over others. But the evidence says this is not the biggest reason that having more than others gives us happiness.”

(more…)

Amartya Sen, an economist that can hardly be characterized as a free-market fundamentalist, is at least willing to admit this basic truism:

“To be generically against markets would be almost as odd as being generically against all conversations between people (even though some conversations are clearly foul and cause problems for others - or even the conversationalists themselves). The freedom to exchange words, or goods, or gifts does not need defensive justification in terms of their favorable but distant effects; they are part of the way human beings in society live and interact with each other (unless stopped by regulation or fiat). The contribution of the market mechanism to economic growth is, of course, important, but this comes only after the direct significance of the freedom to interchange - words, goods, gifts - has been acknowledged.”

- Development as Freedom, 1998, p. 6.

The analogy of conversations has become no less relevant with the advent of the knowledge-economy where words can be worth much more than physical goods.

Det her kommer måske lidt sent, men jeg har været i Sønderjylland hele Bededagsferien. I anledning af Foghs 10-års jubilæum som formand for Venstre har Politiken bedt deres læsere tilkendegive deres mening om ham. Det kommer der meget underholdende rasen og sprutten ud af. Ikke overraskende kunne Politiken få dage efter konstatere at deres læsere “dumper Fogh“. Som Politikens journalist selv bemærker virker mange af kommentarerne “bitre, vrede og hadefulde”. At de er så¨følelsesladede medfører naturligvis også at der regelmæssigt bliver draget nogle paraleller der er helt ude i hampen, ofte med associationer til folk og regimer vi ikke ønsker at sammenligne os selv med eller you-know-what. Nogle af de argumenter der hyppigst anvendes til at defamere hans person er: (more…)

This column by Thomas Sowell deserves to be read by even the most ardent Obama supporter, whose primary argument is that Obama can transcend partisan differences and ”bring America together”:

“However inconsistent Obama’s words, his behavior has been remarkably consistent over the years. He has sought out and joined with the radical, anti-Western left, whether Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers of the terrorist Weatherman underground or pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli Rashid Khalidi.”

Calling Obama a “Living Lie”, though, may be a too harsh verdict in my opinion. After all, he is a politician, and flip-flopping and spinning is part of the game, as this incisive little piece demonstrates with clarity and elegance: “In 1988, when George H.W. Bush was portrayed as a preppie wimp, he changed his image by drinking beer and pitching horseshoes in public. (After he was elected, he returned to martinis and golf.)”

This article by Peter Wehner puts forth more examples of Obama’s inconsistency:

“Increasingly, Barack Obama appears to be the Candidate of Illusion. He presents himself as post-racial — which is harder to accept than it once was, given his intimate, longtime relationship with a pastor and church that harbor deep and obvious racial anger toward whites. Obama presents himself as post-partisan — even though in his time in the Senate he has done nothing to bridge the partisan divide, which explains why he has been endorsed by the rabidly partisan MoveOn.org. Obama presents himself as post-ideological — even though he was named the Senate’s most liberal member in 2007 by the respected National Journal. Obama is a public critic of free trade — yet his chief economic adviser is quoted by a Canadian official as saying that Obama’s position on NAFTA is politically motivated and insincere. Obama speaks about the importance of religious faith in his life and the life of the nation — yet when speaking to a group of rich liberals, he implicitly denigrates people of faith, pairing them with people who have “antipathy to people who aren’t like them” and who harbor “anti-immigrant sentiment[s].” He paints religious believers as folks clinging to crutches to better deal with their desperate lives — only to insist last night that his words were actually a tribute to people of religious faith. So sayeth Barack Obama, “healer of broken souls.””

Til trods for at de autonome har fået stillet et hus i sigte nu, med særdeles konkrete løfter om overdragelse, til de nuværende brugeres store fortrydelse, kan 180grader alligevel berette om autonom uro og nye planer om besættelser. Jeg er ret overbevist om at antropologen Dennis Nørmarks karakteristik af de autonome som en modkultur er rimeligt rammende og beskrivende for deres adfærd. For de autonome er det formentlig ikke så meget selve målet der er interessant, som det er selve processen at arbejde imod og tilstanden af at være imod og føle sig undertrykt og marginaliseret. Det er naturligvis ren og skær motivanalyse, som man sjældent kommer langt med i en diskussion, men jeg har meget svært ved at se hvorfor det skulle hjælpe at give de autonome et hus. De har haft et hus i mange år, de tyede alligevel regelmæssigt til vold. (more…)