The People vs Larry Flynt

I recently saw Oliver Stone's classic The People vs Larry Flynt. It's the tragic but entertaining and inspiring story of the indefatigable american porn pioneer.

One of the most memorable scenes is a speech by Flynt's lawyer, played by Edward Norton, to a Cincinnati jury:

I am not trying to convince you that you should like what Larry Flynt does. I don't like what Larry Flynt does. But what I do like is that I live in a country where you and I can make that decision for ourselves. I like that I live in a country where I can pick up Hustler magazine, and read it if I want to, or throw it in the garbage can if that's where I think it belongs. Or better yet I can exercise my opinion and not buy it. I like that I have that right. I care about it. And you should care about it too ... Because we live in a free country ... and that is a powerful idea. That's a magnificent way to live. But there is a price for that freedom, which is that sometimes we have to tolerate things that we don't necessarily like.

So go back in that room, where you are free to think whatever you want to think about Larry Flynt and Hustler magazine. But then ask yourselves if you want to make that decision for the rest of us, because the freedom that everyone in this room enjoys is in a very real way in your hands. And if we start throwing up walls against what some of us think is obscene, we may very well wake up one morning and realise that walls have been thrown up in all kinds of places that we never expected, and we can't see anything or do anything. And that's not freedom ... so be careful.

The jury wasn't convinced.

The political function of inflation

The Cobden Centre have provided a lengthy excerpt from The Theory of Money and Credit by Ludwig von Mises. It's not light reading, but it is rewarding. This passage in particular is worth highlighting:

A government always finds itself obliged to resort to inflationary measures when it cannot negotiate loans and dare not levy taxes, because it has reason to fear that it will forfeit approval of the policy it is following if it reveals too soon the financial and general economic consequences of that policy. Thus inflation becomes the most important psychological resource of any economic policy whose consequences have to be concealed; and so in this sense it can be called an instrument of unpopular, i.e., of antidemocratic, policy, since by misleading public opinion it makes possible the continued existence of a system of government that would have no hope of the consent of the people if the circumstances were clearly laid before them. That is the political function of inflation. It explains why inflation has always been an important resource of policies of war and revolution and why we also find it in the service of socialism. When governments do not think it necessary to accommodate their expenditure to their revenue and arrogate to themselves the right of making up the deficit by issuing notes, their ideology is merely a disguised absolutism.

6 May 2010

It's finally official: the general election will be held one month from today, on the 6th of May.

The Conservatives remain the least bad option, but few people will vote for them enthusiastically.

I will be spared the indignity of voting Conservative, as they don't have a hope of winning in my constituency. I am one of the millions disenfranchised by our first past the post electoral system.

I will still vote, spoiling my ballot if necessary, but the prospect of an end to NuLabour doesn't seem as exciting as it should. 5 years of BluLabour will be better, but not by much.

Our only hope is that the Conservatives have been lying to voters, and that true patriots are hiding behind those socialist, statist, europhile masks.

B&Bs and the right to refuse trade

The Guardian has reported comments by shadow home secretary Chris Grayling in a secretly recorded meeting of the Centre for Policy Studies:

"I think we need to allow people to have their own consciences," he said. "I personally always took the view that, if you look at the case of should a Christian hotel owner have the right to exclude a gay couple from a hotel, I took the view that if it's a question of somebody who's doing a B&B in their own home, that individual should have the right to decide who does and who doesn't come into their own home."

He draws a distinction, however, with hotels, which he says should admit gay couples. "If they are running a hotel on the high street, I really don't think that it is right in this day and age that a gay couple should walk into a hotel and be turned away because they are a gay couple, and I think that is where the dividing line comes."

Subsequently, according to The Telegraph,

Mr Grayling said: "Any suggestion that I am against gay rights is wholly wrong. It is a matter of record that I voted for civil partnerships. I also voted in favour of the legislation that prohibited bed and breakfast owners from discriminating against gay people.

"However, this is a difficult area and on Wednesday I made comments which reflected my view that we must be sensitive to the genuinely held principles of faith groups in this country.

"But the law is now clear on this issue, I am happy with it and would not wish to see it changed."

This level of hypocrisy would be shocking if it weren't exactly what we've come to expect from our politicians. More disturbing, if equally unsurprising, is the fact that neither The Guardian nor The Telegraph questioned Mr Grayling's muddled view of rights and freedoms.

Should the right to refuse trade really depend on whether you run your business from your home or on the high street? Is faith-based bigotry deserving of special consideration?

There are two consistent positions in this debate. According to one, all citizens have a right to purchase goods and services, and the state should enforce this universally. My own view is that financial transactions should always and everywhere be voluntary.

This means that hotels, as well B&Bs, should be free to refuse anyone, for any reason. I might be inconvenienced by a policy of "No whites, heterosexuals, or libertarians", but the proprietor's right to freely manage his property and direct his labour trumps my desire for accommodation.

Tim Carpenter of LPUK considers the four possible restrictions on voluntary exchange:

Is it right to force someone to take/pay for a service? No. That is a form of extortion, racketeering. It is coercion.

Is it right to prevent someone seeking a service? No. This is oppression. Witness the great wrong in preventing girls gaining an Education under the Taliban.

Is it right to prevent someone offering a service? No. This too is oppression.

Is it right to force someone to deliver a service against their will? No. This is oppression and coercion, i.e. a form of Slavery.

There are many well-meaning people who view interpersonal relationships not according to universal principles of right and wrong, but instead through subjective, historical perspectives of weak and strong. Without fundamental principles, the rule of law degenerates into victimhood poker. Can a restaurateur refuse to admit dogs? What about seeing eye dogs? What if the restaurant owner is a Muslim?

Carpenter gives another case to consider:

imagine if the B&Bers were Prostitutes. Now revisit your stance on the right to refuse trade.

It didn't occur to me that drugs would be nice

Dr Max Pemberton made an appearance on BBC News this morning, after writing an article for The Telegraph on his experience with mephedrone.

The segment isn't available on iPlayer, but there was a memorable line from the good doctor, who had hitherto avoided drugs (besides alcohol and tobacco): "it didn't occur to me that drugs would be nice".

As he puts it in his Telegraph article

I'd love to be able to tell you that I had a hideous time when I took mephedrone but the truth is, I didn’t. It was a lovely feeling and I can completely understand why people would use it.

He goes on to explain his stance on illegal drugs:

My prohibition on taking drugs until this point had been because they were illegal. I think that people should be free to make choices about their lives and that, providing they are aware of the consequences, this includes doing things that might damage their health. I am not a complete puritan – I smoke and drink. But my problem with illegal drugs is the human suffering that surrounds this market. Gun crime, prostitution, murder, extortion, burglary. It ruins lives and communities, and that’s not something I want to buy into.

It is an obvious point, but one that rarely surfaces in the mainstream media: most of the problems associated with drugs are not intrinsic; they are the inevitable consequences of prohibition. Equally, those risks that are intrinsic could be much better managed if the sale and use of drugs were legal.

Pemberton expresses concern about the potential harm caused by synthetic drugs, but he recognises the futility of the current approach:

There may come a point in the future where we tire of this cat-and-mouse game and accept that there is a need for a legally sanctioned stimulant. Perhaps it will be safer in the long term to restrict the use of these substances to adults, and license their sale and enable information to be gathered about their side effects, long-term health implications, dosing and risk minimisation.

Writing for The Guardian, sacked government drugs advisor David Nutt explains the several reasons for mephedrone's popularity:

Mephedrone is sold as the pure substance, so users know what they are getting. This contrasts with current street supplies of ecstasy and speed, which are often very low quality after being cut with inactive agents and may even contain some other, more dangerous, drugs such as methylamphetamine. Another reason for its popularity is that it is legal, so can be purchased without having to make contact with drug dealers who may pressure buyers towards other drugs, and currently there is no risk of a criminal record from being caught with it. In contrast, being caught in possession of MDMA and other class A drugs means one risks up to seven years in prison, and for amphetamines [class B], five years. Users see benefits in avoiding the limitations to their careers that a prosecution for drug possession would bring. Prior to the rise of mephedrone, another stimulant known as BZP was popular, but the government has recently made this a class C drug, which may have displaced users to mephedrone.

He suggested a fourth class:

Last year, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) suggested that new drugs of uncertain harm might be put into a holding class – such as the "class D" approach adopted by New Zealand several years ago to deal with BZP with some success. Drugs in class D are allowed to be sold in limited quantities to adults, with appropriate warnings of health risks and advice on safe use. Manufacturers are licensed, provided they comply with quality control of manufacture and report sales on a regular basis.

That would certainly be an improvement on the status quo.

My own view is that prohibition is never justified. Government has a role in preventing the sale of dangerous substances to children, but adults should be free to choose their own risks. Reputable businesses have no interest in poisoning their customers, and free people will naturally seek out the safest drugs that give the desired effect.

If the public sector bore the brunt of cuts

Tom Paine writes

In my exclusively private sector world of late, friends have lost their jobs or their businesses; some at a time of life when it will be hard to recover. Companies I have worked with (and for) have gone broke. My own firm has made redundancies. Only one of the students who graduated with my daughter last year has found a paying private sector job. The private sector bore not merely the brunt, but the entire effect of the downturn. Just as (with the transfer of almost a million jobs to the pubic sector under Labour) it took the biggest hit in the upturn - paying ever higher taxes to fund public sector jobs (or pay increases) for Labour's captive voters. People who should not, in a just society, even be allowed to vote - given the obvious conflict of interest they have with the taxpayers.
...
So when Brendan Barber, Grand Panjandrum of the Trades Union Congress, threatens political strikes against a future Tory government;

...if the public sector bore the brunt of cuts...

I can only utter a hollow laugh.

Labour has inflicted a new aristocracy on our country. A diminishing number of workers in the productive economy now work for half their year to support a whole class of parasites, many almost entirely idle and almost all (apart from the frontline workers Labour likes to focus on) entirely unproductive. They enjoy a higher standard of living, greater job security, more perks, less stressful working lives and pension entitlements beyond the dreams of the private sector workers whose children will be taxed to pay them.

It is difficult to see how this can end peacefully. We live under the tyranny of the subservient.

The counterproductive effects of labour laws

Jamie Whyte's latest article, written for the Cobden Centre, considers the European Court of Justice's strange interpretation of "entitlement", and explains why unions support restrictions on working hours [hint: it's not concern for the welfare of workaholics].

In 2006, the European Court of Justice ruled that the Department of Trade and Industry has misinterpreted clauses 3 and 5 of the Working Time Directive. Clause 3 states: “Member states shall take the measures necessary to ensure that every worker is entitled to a minimum daily rest period of 11 consecutive hours per 24-hour period”. Clause 5 says that workers are additionally entitled to at least one uninterrupted rest period of 24 hours every week.

The tricky word here is “entitled”. The DTI interpreted it to mean entitled. They instructed employers that they must allow, but need not require, employees to take these rest periods. According to the ECJ, however, “entitled” actually means obliged. Employees may not choose to take shorter rest periods, and employers must not give them this option.

The European judges are surely correct on the matter of interpretation. If the words of European legislators are open to several interpretations, then deciding which was intended is simple; it must be the one that most restricts freedom of choice. And if you think that obliged is not a possible interpretation of “entitled”, then there is much you could learn from the judiciary about post-modern semiotics.

If not surprising, the ruling may still seem unfortunate. British employees already enjoyed the right to these rest periods. When it suited them, however, they were free to take shorter breaks – perhaps to earn overtime or to negotiate a longer break for another occasion. This option was surely valuable to them. Why should the manufacturing union Amicus have asked the ECJ to eliminate it? And why should the TUC have welcomed the ECJ’s ruling?

To see why, note that in the labour market employees are the suppliers and employers are the consumers. Employers buy the labour offered for sale by workers. The Working Time Directive, as now interpreted, is a regulation about the kind of service workers may offer for sale.

Product regulations usually impose minimum standards. When it comes to labour, however, we get maximum standards. The ECJ’s ruling means that, with respect to the flexibility of hours worked, employees may not offer a product exceeding a certain quality. And that is precisely why unions support this interpretation. Maximum standard regulations are required by suppliers attempting to fix their prices above the market price.

I thoroughly recommend the whole article.

Whyte concludes with a clear articulation of one of my recurring thoughts — in a welfare state, why do we need labour laws?

Labour laws are intended to protect employees from employers. But no such protection is needed. Feudalism ended long ago, and the labour market is not a monopsony (a market with only one buyer). No one is forced into any particular job. Indeed, unemployment benefits mean that no one need work at all. Labour laws merely distort the allocation of labour and arbitrarily bestow costs and benefits across the population. They should not be interpreted more stringently; they should be repealed.

There is much to dislike about our current welfare state, but a properly crafted safety net can set us free. Welfare means that nobody need tolerate workplace abuse, or unwanted advances; it allows dangerous work to be safely refused; and it removes any moral justification for crime — nobody is forced to choose between stealing and starving.

Guaranteed a certain basic standard of living, people should be free to work as much or as little as they like, for whatever wage they are prepared to accept, in any employment that does not infringe upon the rights of others.

It is insane at all times, but especially in the midst of a recession, that our government creates barriers to employment, and discourages work.