Jock's Place - liberalism - Comments

I didn't blog on this one

Auberius — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:22:17 +0100

I didn't blog on this one (because let's face it, in matters of Lib Dem energy policy I'm something of a heathen) but I quite agree, it's an terrible verdict and one that will invite even more dangerous acts.

It could be worse ...

David Gerard — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:33:26 +0100

... maybe. http://notnews.today.com/?p=36

Thanks for all that...

Jock — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:16:57 +0100

...if you don't mind I'll have a think about your comments - I've actually just got stuck into rebuilding a server onto which I need to move this blog before next weekend so my head is in Linux virtualization land!

My first *impression* though is that you are being unduly pessimistic about the ingenuity of innovations and overly protective of the need for the state to mandate things "by force of law" so to speak.

You are right that there is a tension between liberalism and democracy. Personally I don't like being ruled by the "tyranny of the 22%" if that's what we are calling democracy - I realise of course there are routes to reform to make that less of a problem, but whilst there seems no appetite to change a very broken system I'd rather see how much we can do outside that system.

I am a mutualist. Monopoly is anathema to me too. And what you seem to be describing is how monopolies are enabled and protected by the state mandating things.

But let me get back to you on the specific issues you raised with my two examples.

Than the former, even.

Miller 2.0 — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:04:38 +0100

Than the former, even.

My view, I suppose, is that

Miller 2.0 — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:03:51 +0100

My view, I suppose, is that liberalism often conflicts with democracy, and that I find the latter, despite its many failures, to be less flawed than the latter.

Corporatisation v privatisation

Miller 2.0 — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:02:35 +0100

Hi Jock, firstly, thanks for your comment at my place.

I would like to take you up on this admittedly rather unclipped argument:

"real privatisation, so called "liberalisation" of government functions, should mean the state divesting themselves completely from interference in that policy area. For example, just because DVLA contracts out its computer systems and administration does not mean the registration and licensing of vehicles and drivers has been "privatised". Not bothering with a DVLA at all and allowing insurance companies to work out ways of ensuring the drivers and vehicles they are prepared to insure comply with what they consider to be safe would be. i.e. a different way of working, free from government entirely, and open to proper competition where new ideas and ways of achieving similar ends can be developed. Finding new structures, free from the dead hand of government to do the things we need, rather than what politicians think we ought to need."

Firstly, I'd like to ask why private provision of services formerly provided by public institutions is not privatisation if it happens to be a monopoly? Surely the passing from public to private makes this a privatising process regardless of whether the outcome is monopolistic or not? Isn't privatisation about whether property and services are owned privately or not, rather than on the basis of whether or not they truly compete? In any event, this argument is largely a semantic one.

You make the point that the state should completely divest itself of responsibility for given policy areas, rather than just 'outsourcing' them. But at the end of the day, competing DVLA type providers would, competing or not, still have to provide a service which is both mandated and required by force of law. Competing or not, they still perform a politically necessary public function.

For me, the argument is not about whether privatisation or 'corporatisation' will provide a 'better' service, but which will provide a better service within the constraints of what people actually want from it. At this level, the debate, rather than being about ownership, is in fact about control, and is essential to the understanding of contemporary socialist argument. Do we, the public, and/or stakeholders involved, seek to control a measure democratically, or do we seek to do so as individual and isolated customers? Especially, given the nature of this function, when the safety of the public and civil society (rather than exclusively isolated individuals) is at stake, and when market mechanisms cannot necessarily provide wider social imperatives which may exist of be politically desirous, such as progressive pricing mechanisms for driving licenses?

Public or private, these remain important questions, because of the possible different outcomes. In my view, more often than not, market mechanisms put users of services into 'prisoners dilemma' type situations; take selection of schools by families, and selection of families by schools.

Your passport idea seems to me to be a good example of why this would have to fail. The state would only be able to recognise a given set of ideas that conform to publicly acceptable standards; some competing passports would immediately be eliminated from the game, and those which survive would have a strong incentive, and perhaps the revenue, to lobby government to further deregulate, removing public accountability from a process which only existed in the first place to provide a public benefit. Further, there would be collapses, which would disbenefit many ID holders, and where there were not collapses, there would be takeovers, allowing a monopoly to eventually build up.

In my view, the building of such monopolies must be the ends of the competitive process from a director's point of view.

The result, of course, is extortion, which could be circumvented by letting the state fulfil the function under the control of publicly raised political imperative.

One may as well privatise policing (which is in my view consistent with the logic of libertarianism, but capitalism in any sensible guise would not allow itself to become incapable of effective authoritarianism, despite its urge to deregulate and privatise things not totally necessary to guarantee its own continued survival).

I perhaps ought to say that

Jock — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 11:44:45 +0100

I perhaps ought to say that I know quite a few current and former Thames Valley officers on first name terms and I have always had respect for them and what they do. So I really hope that this one guy in particular is one of a "few bad aples". But if that was my experience of contact with the police I would feel the same.

It is amazing that we

Stephen — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 10:20:41 +0100

It is amazing that we prevent as many terrorist attacks as we do with utter plonkers like thesde 'protecting' us. I have no doubt that as a law abiding person in 2008, I would consider the police to a significant threat to my well being.

Thanks Mike - I am sure, as

Jock — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 04:52:54 +0100

Thanks Mike - I am sure, as your comment implies, that the "Fourth" is being abused, and that things like the Patriot Act are severely testing its very existence. At least you've got one though, and in theory, a judicial branch that could uphold it. We have neither. Or at least any judge who would would be condemned as an "activist judge" rather than one fulfilling their constitutional role!

4th Amendment

Mike Haubrich, FCD — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 03:52:40 +0100

If you were to have the likes of our 4th Amendment I would only hope that you would put it to better use than we have.

...and I thought all London

Jock — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 20:42:17 +0100

...and I thought all London policemen eventually moved to Goathland!

That is absolutely

Peter Mc — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 20:24:34 +0100

That is absolutely astonishing and infuriating. (Glad I live in North Yorkshire where we see a policeman and assume he's lost.)

I'm very glad it was not

Jock — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 19:33:51 +0100

I'm very glad it was not me. It can take hours to verify my address because of perpetual cock-ups and confusion over the electoral roll and my landlord's propensity for changing my address o a whim. I have, however, just in case, taken any ID with an address on for me out of my wallet and will not be carrying them on me any more.

That reminds me - that Fourth Amendment is the thing that's used to stop US officials rummaging through your bin rubbish like the bin spooks in Britain are doing isn't it?

The Effect of Introducing LVT

David Chester — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:13:55 +0100

Much as I appreciate all the comments in support of this inovation, I always find it strange how much people can comment about a subject which they don't really understand. To properly understand how any change is going to affect the macroeconomy at large, one needs to first understand how such a system actually functions. This involves a simulation of the complete system. All of us can find out what macroeconomics is, but there are very few explanations about how it works and in particular the effects on making a change to the method of burdening the population by taxation.

As a researcher who has been examining this problem over many years, I have managed to develop such a means of providing a true explanation. It is essential to model the closed system as a set of functional entities (which allows for a lot of simplification due to collection of various operations into groups), connected by all of the kinds of macroeconomic activities. I find that but 6 entities are needed with 19 mutual money/goods connections only.

As a semi-retired engineer, I use this presentation within an extremely logical and scientific approach (which incidentally allows macroeconomics to now be regarded as an exact science), and I find that the short-terms effect of introducing LVT compared to that of increasing income tax by the same total amount, is to stimulate the economy. The income tax also stimulates the economy but when LVT replaces it, the amount of stimulation is 3 times as much. This is a discovery that is provable by theory and analysis, using George's two axioms, some high-school mathematics (no computing) and a Leontief type of model for the whole of the macroeconomic system.

Over the long-term other factors come into the picture including the reduction of landed monopolies and the greater opportunities available to entrepreneurs. My model has not yet been applied here.

Further Reply

Paul Lockett — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 23:25:15 +0100

Tim: "If you are a homeowner and the value of land goes up around you, LVT may well force you to sell up at a time not of your chosing. Can you not see how that is, frankly, an obscenity?"

No I don't. If the value of fossil fuels goes up, somebody living in a larger property may have to down size to reduce their bills. That is the effect of a free market in natural resources and I don't find is especially obscene.

"Land does not ask not to be bought and sold. Land is inanimate. A slave wants to be free and is denied freedom."

A freed slave would also want access to natural resources. Take his freedom or take his ability to access the natural world without paying tribute to somebody else - the result is much the same

"LVT as you describe will force land to be put up for rent, but the State will be taking 90% of the earning potential of that land"

No, as I described it, the value would be paid out to the electorate in equal shares. You seem to be throwing in the word "State" like a McCarthyite shout of "Communism" to invoke a sense of horror to mask the argument. I'm afraid that doesn't work for me; I'm not a complete anarchist. I'm perfectly happy to have a limited state which upholds the rule of law and basic rights, of which I consider equal rights to use natural resources to be one.

"Sorry, could you repeat that please, for I could not quite hear it over the sound of hairs begin split"

Freeholders have secure tenure, not absolute ownership. Hence freeholder, not owner.

"Answer - end the Crown ownership angle, not make it worse by replacing it with the State."

So your suggestion is to extinguish the legally recognised ownership of land in order to defend ownership of land?

"why don’t you just say you want to nationalise land instead of using LVT as a back-door mechanism?"

Because, from my perspective, nationalisation involves state control of a good or service. LVT would not increase the state's ability to control land in any way; in fact I'd like to see a weakening of that control through a scaling back of the planning system. One reflects an equal right to land, the other a collective right to land.

Mortgages end. Your LVT will follow people to the grave."

So does rent if you aren't able to buy. So for that matter do food costs, heating bills, transport costs, etc. Again, that's a free market for you.

"Land value is high when surrounded by well built and maintained houses. It is fantasy to think that you can separate the two in a country like Britain where we value old buildings and the condition and nature of our neighbours and neighbourhood"

Your original point was about somebody not be able to exploit the value of their own house. This point is about somebody having the ability to exploit the value of somebody else's house. The value of a plot of land is what that land would be worth with nothing on it. Hence, the value of the buildings on it would be ignored, but not the effect of buildings on plots of land around it (or for that matter, roads, schools, etc.).

"LVT as you portray it would reduce the scope for the little guy to retain land far more than the big guy. Think about that implication - it should not take very long"

I think that is completely wrong and with a little thought, I'm sure you'll see why. At present, the big guy just needs to gather enough capital to buy a plot and he can then sit on it and wait for the value to rise. With LVT, holding that land would be costly and would give no gain from increasing land values. Sitting on land and not using it would be money down the drain. The big guy would have to put the land to work, or pass it on to somebody who would. The little guy doesn't tend to be in a position to hold land just for speculative gain, he usual just hold lands that he has a use for. Think about it; who is more likely to off-load their land, Mr Average in his average house who would be paying the LVT but getting a chunk back, or the owners of Battersea Power Station, who have been sat on a valuable plot of land for years enjoying land value gains without facing significant costs and would suddenly be faced with paying the market rent for that land.

"but as a means to end private landholding it is another."

Complete straw man. Nobody is suggesting an end to private landholding. Anybody privately holding land would continue to be able to do so.