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You know who you are. Those liberals (in particular) who always claim that "libertarian free markets" will result in a corporate plutocracy, or that the current turmoil in world financial markets (yes, it's still going on you know!) is a result of "libertarian free markets". Here, especially for you (but of interest to others I hope too), is a brilliant explanation of how this mutualist understands that free markets benefit people, not corporations.

CORPORATIONS VERSUS THE MARKET; OR, WHIP CONFLATION NOW

by RODERICK LONG - LEAD ESSAY - November 10th, 2008

Defenders of the free market are often accused of being apologists for big business and shills for the corporate elite. Is this a fair charge? No and yes. Emphatically no—because corporate power and the free market are actually antithetical; genuine competition is big business’s worst nightmare. But also, in all too many cases, yes —because although liberty and plutocracy cannot coexist, simultaneous advocacy of both is all too possible.

Read the rest...

...but I didn't speak up because I was not in jail.

(with apologies to Pastor Martin Niemoller)

Now it seems "mens rea" is at risk in the British legal system. In a case highlighted in the British Journal of Photography an academic at Sheffield University who ran a legitimate business in his spare time creating artsy photographs of models and children to make them look like fairies by superimposing images on each other (I know, I can't quite imagine it either, but presumably to make them look ethereal - and he has exhibited such work in local art shows and so on) has been convicted of making indecent photographs of children and sentenced to 150 hours' community service.

Parents of two girls commissioned the work and were in the studio with them most of the time, and were happy with the work, but he was shopped by staff at the film processing company, his home raided and his computer confiscated. Even the judge told Dr Marcus Phillips that he had 'always acted perfectly properly', adding that it was clear Phillips 'had no base motive, no sexual motive and there was not any question of deriving sexual gratification' from the work. The Judge also commented that the parents of the children were 'perfectly law-abiding, sensible people who cared for their children'.

You can read the rest of the story at the BJP website.

Now, apart from being a stark reminder of the over-hyped panic over photographing children that has meant people are scared even to take photos of their own kids' important moments such as school plays and sports, I always thought that there was a test called "mens rea" in English Law in which the intent of the perpetrator of an action was taken into account - you have to intend to commit a crime as well as actually carry out the criminal act. Also, I thought we had a sentence available called an "absolute discharge" which it seems to me from the judge's comments would have been more appropriate in this case. Have both of these concepts gone? Where? And when?

It seems you no longer have to intend to commit a crime, let alone know that your actions could be criminal, to be convicted and sentenced, and no doubt with a case like this involving children, have your reputation and possibly career torn to shreds. Which seems to me to be a pretty serious erosion of our legal rights.

Earlier this evening I found a quotation by Clement Atlee about Habeas Corpus on the Total Politics political quotations database:

"The real test of one's belief in the doctrine of Habeas Corpus is not when one demands its application on behalf of one's friends but of one's enemies."

It must be even more important to preserve our right to be judged by our intentions; there are all sorts of situations in which people could be committing a crime unknowingly and harming nobody in the process.

Hat Tip to the Libertarian Alliance Yahoo Groups mailing list.

On Monday, Chancellor Gordon Brown in his pre-budget statement announced that he was going to consult on what he calls a “planning gain levy”. On top of existing arrangements for taking 50% of land subject to planning permissions for much needed affordable housing, he is now wanting another 20% of the land value increase as a windfall tax.

I hope councillors from all over Oxfordshire, and especially Oxford City where reusing land efficiently is most important, will stand firm against this when they are consulted. Labour governments over the past 80 years have tried this tax three times already, most recently as the Development Land Tax of the seventies’ Labour regime. It has been abandoned each time because as a transaction charge it puts landowners off seeking planning permission for the sort of change of use we rely on to provide housing development land.

Nothing has changed since the ill-fated attempt thirty years ago. Far from providing pots of money for councils to spend, it will make it very much more difficult to entice owners to bring forward land suitable for housing, which we desperately need. It will encourage sprawl and inefficiency. Unused land will lie idle and be a focus for anti-social activity.

The big housebuilders have enough land and enough planning permissions to keep them busy without new supplies for a good while, until this tax is repealed yet again. The only people this will really hurt are those without adequate housing at present.

There is a far better solution, however. We should base property taxes on only the land value of a site and not the buildings and improvements on it. And to make it payable even when a site is vacant or underused. This way owners paying taxes on underused land will be encouraged to bring it up to the most efficient use.

The previous County Council voted twice to support Land Value Tax and carried out a pilot study in the Vale of White Horse. Oxfordshire is therefore in the perfect position not only to oppose this ill-considered development tax but to prove the effectiveness of Land Value Tax as an alternative. Missing this opportunity may simply switch off housing development in Oxfordshire for years.

It's an interesting day from drugs policy news. Here's another one:

Call for ecstasy to be downgraded

Someone at the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs is suggesting the reclassification of ecstasy and LSD from class A to class B. They also want to...

...examine whether more could be done to reduce the harm caused by the drug, which is taken by an estimated 500,000 people a week.

I can tell them how to do that of course: legalize it. Allow the brewers and pharmcos to sell it, regulated and safety tested. The very fact that it is estimated that half a million people a week take it and there are so very few medical incidents involving ecstasy is already proof that it's nowhere near as dangerous as, say, alcohol use, short or long term.

The biggest problem with ecstasy is that nobody actually knows what they are taking. Because it's criminal, and especially since it's not so lucrative as it once was, it's cut with all sorts of things of which the user has no knowledge and certainly no control. That's the real danger. That and the urban myths about how to behave while you're on it - you know, the sort of misinformation that killed Leah Betts (can any one reading this name anyone else who has allegedly died of ecstasy by the way?)