Randomly Selected Article or Link

In "Let Our Cities Breathe" earlier I wondered whether there was a mechanism that could make it financially feasible to redevelop whole neighbourhoods of private housing to cope with the post oil-age and climate and demographic change without any existing resident losing any of their existing equity value and whilst making space for fifty per cent more bedspaces in configurations more closely suited to current housing market needs and still sell the additional units and below market value.

So I set about to try to prove it on paper, and there is a spreadsheet now that purports to show it is possible. Go here to find out more about how Commmunity Land Trusts and Mutual Home Ownership could make a community led and owned "Wren-esque" grand plan for redeveloping any area a possibility.

Technorati Tags: affordable housing, climate change, community land trusts, localism

Now, I understand the arguments in favour of a smoking ban on public and employee health ground but over at Freedom and Whisky in Only following orders David Farrar highlights that the smoking ban is also an erosion of private property rights.

You know by now that I can get Land Value Tax into almost any discussion! And here is an apt one for those that tell me that real estate is absolute property and therefore not something the state should tax. Yet in the smoking ban the government of Scotland (and the rest of us soon enough) is removing a property right - the right to decide who you allow onto your property and what they can do there.

So far as I am aware, smoking is not, yet anyway, illegal. Yet the powers that be are able to prevent you doing perfectly legal things in your own property. Real property is not absolute property, but a bundle of rights that can be altered, in modern times at least through democratic processes, which is at least better than for most of human history where they have most often changed by force or diktat.

In fact the only absolute property one has is, as John Locke pointed out, property in oneself. Assuming you are not a slave, the only thing you ultimately have which is absolutely yours is yourself. Indeed this is why slavery is itself such an horrific practice. This is one of the philosophical bases behind the argument that land tax is better than income tax. Income is the fruits of your labour, the efforts of the only thing you absolutely own, yourself. Land rights are utterly contingent on the society and jurisdiction of which it is a part, so the profits on land ownership are, as Adam Smith said, a better specie on which to base tax.

I recently discovered Tom Papworth's blog. I was browsing his recent posts and one in particular struck a chord:

In The error of labelling he tells of a friend who, having got a little bit interested in politics, had veered off to the "left"...

I have begun to realise that I made a tragic mistake this year. I took to criticising one of my friends for being too "left-wing".
...
I took issue with some of his more radical views, notably what I perceived as anti-Americanism and anti-globalisaiton. Unfortunately, in looking for a short-hand to define his views, I fell to pigeon-holing him as a member of the loony-left. I think this has backfired. It certainly has not help dissuade him. Instead, it has given him a focus for his views. He has begun to identify himself with the very left-wing factions into whose orbit I was most worried that he would be drawn.
...
I fear that as a result he is likely to begin to link himself with opinions and views that perhaps he might otherwise have approached with a more open mind.
...
I hope I've learnt a lesson. By labelling him, I have driven him into the very camp I was criticising.

Funny really, my journey seems on the surface to have been quite the opposite. A few years ago, when I was a Lib Dem councillor in Oxford, people would, by and large, have characterized me as being the Trotskyite wing of the Lib Dems...:) It was a bit of a standing joke. I actually can't think why this could have been the case. Thinking back, I tended to be of the opinion that if only things were properly managed, public provision could be just as good, just as efficient and, importantly, make money for us as a community organization.

You know, the constant price rises of the bus fares we had to pay for free bus passes for pensioners were precisely because they were privatized and the quasi-monopoly locally allowed those organizations to fleece us with impunity, and the solution was to give them competition by having a top notch public sector managed competitor. That kind of stuff. (I now know this quasi-monopoly fleecing the public purse as "rent seeking" - just as execrable as protectionism and not at all part of "free trade").

But it has always sat slightly uneasily on me. Public School educated I realize that my school was a place of refuge for me, the first place I could call home in a near nomadic and latterly "broken" family. I could never support policies, for example, that might destroy that option of refuge for many people. And my family's background was definitely "protestant work ethic" style despite my innate laziness.

I would pride myself, though, in being to the "lower left" on the Political Compass test - south west of Ghandi and Tony Benn so to speak.

I don't know what changed me really. Probably Conrad Russell (pbuh!) and his "Intelligent Person's Guide to Liberalism". It was probably the first time I had seen a sort of a "time line" of Liberalism, and being able to link, in my mind, the ideas of the Levellers, Locke, Smith, Paine with those of the Rochdale Pioneers, Mill, Hobhouse and Lloyd-George. In particular, for the first time, having been conned into believing that Adam Smith was all about power to the richest by the likes of the Adam Smith Institute whom I closely associated in my mind with Thatcherism, realizing that these political-economists were much more complex than their later political acolytes wanted us to know about.

One quote, though not its source (except that it was a late 19th century Liberal woman), sticks in my mind - that "any attack on the trade unions is an attack on the free market" made me feel that there could be some kind of fusion between concern for the poor, and empowerment of individuals to reach their potential, and the freedom to pursue the accumulation of wealth. And the medium for this fusion, also first really introduced to me by Conrad, is the "level playing field".

I can agree with the basic principle that in theory both sides in any voluntary trade, because of the price mechanism, benefit equally. In practice, without that "level playing field", I don't believe that all trade is that voluntary (especially in the practice and still necessity for the vast majority of people of selling their labour to someone else). I'm still incredibly ill-informed about all this. Wealth of Nations is far too daunting a read, as is most of Marx (though I can understand his and Engels' diagnosis of some of the problems in the Manifesto), I've never read any Hobhouse, and have but dipped into Hayek, Keynes and Friedman.

So if there is any great Liberal commission, it is in my mind to try to ensure that "level playing field" exists. That monopoly and monopsony are attacked so that competition is fair. And that government interferes as little as possible in peoples' choices. There are two great monopolies (well, at least quasi-monopolies) that governments of either political hue have done little to address - the creation of credit and the enclosure of land and other natural resources that human labour and capital do not create. And doing something about either or both of them would significantly level the playing field at a shot.

The twentieth century has a lot to answer for in political-economy. There was surely a need at the beginning of the century to redress centuries of democratic deficit and powerlessness on the part of the majority. But now we need another revolution, based on the realization that we do not want to live in an increasingly authoritarian state, where public services are a byword for inefficiency precisely because they cannot possibly measure their own worth if they are protected from competition. This does not mean wholehearted endorsement of things like GATS - I believe that forcing someone to invite tenders from the other side of the world is as much protectionism for big multi-national corporations - if they want into my local market, let them come and court me, not force me to go to them and save them the effort. And of course if the service concerned was not publicly run and financed it would not be an obligation - it's only because state money in involved that GATS says it must be hawked around the globe to compensate for the "advantage" of state subsidy - if we ran a Friedman-esque cooperative PTA run voluntary school system it would not be demanded of it.

Friedman and Hayek railed just as much against corporate welfare as they did against social welfare - we should remember that. Just as much as we should remember that Robert Owen was no socialist about to give his factory or his wealth away to his workers as part of some great dream of worker ownership - he treated his workers better than anyone else in the business because, he realized, that they would work better for him if they were better fed, better educated, better rested and had a better chance at a family life.

The middle road is liberalism. The aim is economic freedom (on a personal level the ability of all to live without being forced to sell themselves, and is based solely on the accumulation of income producing assets to enable one to survive without working - assets that are not well distributed to be sure at present, and getting if anything possibly more polarized) and personal freedom to live as one chooses. How either of these are anathema to either "right" or "left" somewhat escapes me - except that tribally, they contain some core tenets of both sides and are therefore part of the "other".

Hat tip to Matt Wardman (also posted on Liberal Conspiracy ) for highlighting this CiF piece by Richard Reeves of Demos wondering whether the internet might be killing off the rationale for think tanks. I'm not so sure. If anything the web has made such organizations more visible. Their ideas, more readily available to as many of us who can be bothered to read them, expose the poverty of policy discussion within the established political parties. For those of us who are somewhat tired of the choice between the behemoths that are our mainstream political parties who produce manifestos attempting to cover every area of life and with which, when it comes time to vote, we probably only agree with parts and have to hold our noses over their other policies, the think-tanks offer a more focussed discourse.

However, Reeves does have something of a point; in many cases the higher profile think-tanks are the ones as closely connected as charity law will allow to the political parties. The CiF article quotes a Facebook piece by Jim Knight MP where he says that think-tanks are "ultimately very elitist top-down institutions populated with very bright people who politicians sometimes seem to sub-contract their thinking to." Now, aside from the fact that I'd probably rather have "very bright people" making policy than generally self-important electoral spin driven politicians with psychopathic power seeking traits, this does undermine the independence from electoral considerations that think-tanks ought to be able to enjoy.

I am a great fan of the concept of the "Overton Window" which is a strategy of policy development mostly used by US right wing think-tanks but which can be applied by any. What happens is you take a spectrum of views on some issue and you will find opinions and thinking that is "way out there", unthinkable, at one end of the Overton Window and ideas that are actually policy being implemented at the other end of the window. To start shifting policy in a particular direction you "push" that window. You start looking at even more moon-bat ideas that make the previously unthinkable seem a little less scary. You do that again and again and the original mad idea becomes acceptable, then mainstream, then actual policy that gets implemented.

The Wikipedia entry on the Overton Window describes the steps as "Unthinkable" → "Radical" → "Acceptable" → "Sensible" → "Popular" → "Policy".

Think tanks occupy a part of this space. Previously I suspect they have prided themselves in thinking the unthinkable or at least the radical. It is true that in the UK they have tended to be less aggressive, and have perhaps seen themselves less working the Overton Window than "planting seeds" for development and further discussion and eventually policy drops out the bottom of the electoral parties (often literally I suspect!). But the point is that if they are not seen as linked to a party they can work the Overton Window more effectively because their lack of a party identity means nobody in electoral politics has to get all defensive about them.

Now, it may be that the think-tanks are moving away from really radical thinking and are becoming the "policy sub-contractors" Jim Knight writes about, maybe now occupying the "sensible" part of the spectrum. Those with party links are probably trying to move the discussion from "Sensible" to "Popular" so that "their" electoral party can then work up "Policy". And this is where the other internet players - bloggers especially perhaps - can fill a gap. Not only may we not have formal party links (and in any case as individuals we can always disagree with our chosen parties' ideas on issues with some impunity) but we also don't have to have any "responsibility" to anyone for our thoughts. People can ignore us. Even in our own parties. We can therefore indulge in flights of fancy that even the think-tanks, who have to raise the money to pay their way for example, could not contemplate. If there are enough of us out here spouting similar "Unthinkable" or "Radical" ideas then a think-tank may pick it up and develop them a bit more into "Acceptable" or "Sensible".

Perhaps now then it is the blogger that is on the far end of the Overton Window. That and things like the "Global Ideas Bank". Which, to me, is exactly how it should be. Ideas have to originate somewhere. Individuals now have a mechanism, via the internet, for publicizing our ideas, however outlandish, and I'm sure we all hope that one day party policy will spring spontaneously from one of our "good" ideas. But at the very least, we can hope that someone, perhaps a think-tank, will pick up on what's being said out here in the vastness of cyberspace and develop some of those ideas.

Actually, I'd like to see the think-tanks replace the political parties - how's that for "unthinkable"? Break down the behemoths into more specific policy area groups whose ideas we the voters can vote for directly. No more would the unreconstructed socialist have to hold their nose and vote for the amorphous electoral blob spanning neo-liberal eocnomics and authoritarian imperialism that is New Labour.  Nor the radical liberal the squidgy semi-left Lib Dems.  No longer the social conservative for the policy free New Con Party.  There would be something that really represented our opinions on different issues for which to vote and only once in parliament would they coalesce into functioning groupings of roughly like-minded groups. 

I might choose to vote for IEA economic policies, for Progressive Vision 's health policies, Liberty 's justice policies and so on. As I said, if an "elite" is going to claim the ability to rule over us "top-down", I'd probably rather it was the "very bright" elite of Jim Knight's comment rather than the populist psychopathic politicians. For the moment though, I guess we have to accept that for the vast majority of the voting public they currently seem to need those policies all packaged up into broad ranging manifestos and sound-bites they can vote for.

I have frequent run-ins with a particular individual who, like me, calls himself libertarian. He takes the view that libertarians have to be able to compromise to get libertarian ideas heard, and indeed they are launching such a compromise "lobby group" within the Lib Dems at the forthcoming conference (Liberal Vision - at the conference fringe, Monday 15th September, 1pm at the Marriott Highcliff Hotel). But to me that misses the point. It is the party itself, when adopting policy, that has to make the compromise along the spectrum of opinions put forward in the preceding debate on an issue. If the radicals themselves "water down" their message before the party hears it, it will not impact on that compromise. So for me, I'd far rather remain at the far end of the Overton Window and hope that my unadulterated , radical and sometimes even unthinkable ideas get taken into account when the debate is held and the compromise based on it.

It's sounding increasingly likely that there will be only two or maybe three candidates for the Lib Dem leadership election. The Guardian is reporting that despite having secured verbal support from enough MPs to allow him to stand, Steve Webb is likely later today to rule himself out. This leaves, at the last count, just Chris Huhne, Nick Clegg and probably John Hemming prepared to join battle.

Now, it's not because my loyalty to Chris is in question, but I do believe this is bad for party democracy and was a big part of the questioning of the leadership of Ming over the past 18 months. It is true that the far too short timetable mitigates against a broad based debate and one has to question why FedEx made such a peremptory decision - worries about an attempt at a "coronation" spring to mind.

We have consistently positioned ourselves as the party of plurality and our voting system creates ample opportunity for people to prioritise from a wide field and shift our choices in a a multitude of different ways, but this only works with a decently large field to choose from. Which is why I much favoured the 1999 leadership election to the 2006 one. And why, despite not giving Charles any preference on the ballot I had a greater feeling then that he was the choice of the party as a whole than I ever did with Ming.

C'mon, more than two/three of you must have something to say about the future of our party and policy and the confidence to say it?

If you whittle it down to two or three before the membership has a say, are we any better than the Tories? At least the Tories had ballots amongst the MPs so we could all see which way support was shifting - you're all likely to stitch up the ballot paper in complete secrecy. And in the process, you give the lie to the notion that we are about devolution and local choice, and instead will have shown that as Westminster insiders believe you are above everyone else.

I am sure, for example, that those who have called on Steve Webb to stand would have different opinions about who to vote for as second choice to Steve, yet effectively Steve makes that choice for them if he "throws in his lot with Nick Clegg" as the Guardian are suggesting.

So, MPs, if any of you feel you have something, anything, to say on policy areas or party direction and priorities that might not be said by just two or three runners with their own priorities, please throw your hat into the ring so those ideas can get an airing, can prompt those who might win to take them into account, and give us a leadership that has assimilated the opinions and preferences of the whole membership. We might like the "Two Horse Race" for town hall seats up and down the country, but it is not appropriate here!

And those who don't want to stand in any event, you are the ones that can make or break this since every candidate needs seven of you to support them; please consider nominating outsiders if they ask. The last thing we want in my opinion is a race dominated by two people with twenty odd MPs backing them and none left over for anyone else to stand. We had what, 46 MPs when Charles was elected, and six candidates whittled down to five. Now we have 63 MPs, I'm sure more than two of you would like to have a say.

We complain that two party democracy is bad for the nation. I contend that a two candidate leadership ballot is likely just as bad for the party.