Man vs State

The politicization of economics

Another superb article from Detlev Schlichter.

The political urge to superimpose some unifying ‘national interest’ on all citizens runs counter to everything the decentralized spontaneous market order stands for. The whole point of a market economy is that it is based on private property and voluntary, contractual exchange. And voluntary, contractual exchange works so well because two parties frequently have different interests or tastes or preferences. If I sell you one of my old vinyl LPs for $2, it doesn’t mean we agree that this record is worth $2. We disagree. You value the LP more than $2, I value $2 more than the LP; otherwise we wouldn’t trade. By trading we have both improved our position.

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The market economy is precisely so powerful because it is a highly efficient way of human cooperation that does not require ‘common interests’ or ‘single goals’. To the contrary, it thrives on differences and still achieves peaceful cooperation. That is precisely its strength, and that is also what sets it apart from politics. The diversity of human talents, interests and preferences that is simply a fact of life does not have to be suppressed and curtailed to fit into the dumb tribalism of politics, which is always about ‘the Greeks’ need this but ‘the Germans’ want that.

As usual, the article is well worth reading in full.

Hayek on democracy

I've finally found some time to make progress with The Road to Serfdom. This paragraph from the end of Chapter 5 (Planning and Democracy) seemed worth highlighting:

It cannot be said of democracy, as Lord Acton truly said of liberty, that it "is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. It is not for the sake of a good public administration that it is required, but for the security in the pursuit of the highest objects of civil society, and of private life".

Democracy is essentially a means, a utilitarian device for safeguarding internal peace and individual freedom. As such it is by no means infallible or certain. Nor must we forget that there has often been much more cultural and spiritual freedom under an autocratic rule than under some democracies -- and it is at least conceivable that under the government of a very homogenous and doctrinaire majority democratic government might be as oppressive as the worst dictatorship.

Time will tell what sort of democracy results from the "Arab Spring". We'll know the result of the Egyptian presidential election soon.

Our mythical margarita culture

I'm grateful to the ever-brilliant Christopher Snowdon for highlighting this article from The Telegraph:

The Shadow Public Health Minister, says new alcohol figures lift the lid on some of the problems around the ‘cocktail and business card culture’ She said:

It is good that more women are out in the workforce and are enjoying social life in pubs and bars. But these disturbingly high figures reveal women’s drinking patterns have changed in a generation, reflecting a silent, middle class epidemic. The problem is not just young “ladettes”.

These figures reflect the rise of the British ‘Margarita culture’, and some of the surrounding problems.

And the easy availability and low price of supermarket booze have led to more housewives to drink to excess at home.

Sounds scary. What are these "new alcohol figures"?

Figures from the Office of National Statistics show that in 2010 women in professional and managerial positions consumed an average of 9.2 units a week compared with 6.2 units a week for women in routine and manual jobs.

They say '11.2' earlier in the article, but 9.2 units a week is the correct figure from the ONS report.

Either way, that's well under the government's recommended limit of 14 units a week (which was "'plucked out of the air' by a committee that met in 1987"). It's about 100ml of 13% wine a day - less than a small glass.

And the source for the "new" alcohol figures is of course the "General Lifestyle Survey, 2010", published on the 8th of March (and previously blogged here). Not so new, then, and not news either - here's what the ONS's General Household Survey 2002 Edition had to say:

Weekly alcohol consumption and household socio-economic classification

The relationship between weekly alcohol consumption and socio-economic classification was similar to that shown earlier in relation to daily amounts. Average weekly consumption was highest among men and women in large employer/higher managerial households, at 19.9 and 9.4 units respectively.

Apart from the high consumption in that particular group, there was no clear socio-economic gradient in relation to alcohol consumption among men. Using the three-category classification, average consumption was 17.3 units a week among men in managerial and professional households, 17.9 units among men in intermediate households and 16.8 units among those in routine or manual households.

The pattern among women was slightly clearer. Average weekly consumption was highest, at 8.3 units, in the managerial and professional group, and lowest (at 6.5 units) among those in routine and manual worker households.

So for at least a decade, British women have been drinking hardly anything, and the "managerial and professional group" has been drinking slightly more than the "routine and manual" workers.

What sort of politician could claim that "women’s drinking patterns have changed" to "disturbingly high" levels associated with a "Margarita culture" and a "middle class epidemic"? Our favourite blubbery bigot, Diane Abbott.

What's her proposed solution?

This government needs to bring in a radical new, long-term alcohol strategy including – but not limited to – a minimum price for alcohol.

I'll hand over to Christopher Snowdon at this point:

How depressing it is to be reminded that no matter how draconian the Conservative-led coalition is on this issue, there is always the spectre of a Labour-run Department of Health, led by this grossly overweight, self-confessed hypocrite, to make things still worse

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We seem to have reached the point at which any statistic related to alcohol can be used to call for "radical new" legislation even when, as routinely occurs, the statistic shows that Britons are drinking much less than the media narrative requires.

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For the anti-drink lobby, as for useless politicians like Diane Abbott, there can be no good news. For them, the problem is not with how much we are drinking—alcohol consumption has been falling sharply for a decade—but that we drink at all. These figures show us nothing except that women, on average, are drinking a frankly medicinal amount of alcohol, and yet the decision has been made that the government must clamp down on drinking, just as it clamped down on smoking. The fact that the statistics do not support the mythology of Booze Britain is not seen as an inconvenience. The data are either ignored (as the drop in consumption has been ignored), or incorporated into the narrative of panic in a tenuous way (as here).

Regardless of the evidence, the public health lobby made its mind up several years ago that drinking was next in the firing line. There is nothing we can do to stop it.

Update

Medical Editor Rebecca Smith doesn't say how many units she'd consumed when she wrote this title:

Ineptocracy

Received by email yesterday:

Ineptocracy - A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

Austerity or growth

A recent post by Martin Durkin nicely captures my thoughts on the phony "austerity vs growth" debate:

What’s all this nonsense about ‘austerity’? I listen to the news and I feel like I’ve stepped into George Orwell’s 1984. Apparently ‘austerity’ means sacking some public sector workers, who are paid for out of taxation. ‘Growth’ means hanging onto them and maintaining high taxes.

Whose austerity are we talking about here? Let’s be clear. All ‘government money’, no matter whether it’s raised from direct taxation, borrowing, or printing money, ultimately comes from us (by ‘us’ I mean tax producers in the productive economy). All public spending means higher taxes. There is no magic pot of gold. No public spending can be paid for, other than by moving funds out of the productive economy. The government cannot conjure up resources from nowhere. The choice is simply, are those resources better left in the productive economy, or are we be better off with more social workers and climate change liaison officers? Which, do we imagine, will lead to more real economic growth?

The absurd, topsy-turvy framing of the ‘austerity or growth’ debate clearly shows that the tax consumers (publically-funded intelligentsia, the BBC & Co) dominate public discourse in this country. Where are the opposition voices?

There aren't many opposition voices, but Daniel Hannan is one:

The new French President is an unapologetic Socialist of the kind we haven’t known in this country since Michael Foot. François Hollande wants wealth taxes, stimulus spending and a massive expansion of the state payroll.
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Hollande summarises his programme as ‘growth, not austerity’. Gosh. Who knew it was so easy? Why has no one thought of that before?

The truth, of course, is that France has already pushed tax-and-spend to its limits. The government accounts for an extraordinary 56 per cent of the economy, and the French budget was last in balance in 1974. If state expenditure really had a stimulus effect, France would be the wealthiest country in Europe.

The beginning of the end?

It seems the long-anticipated euro collapse is imminent.

Daniel Hannan explains what the Eurocrats are doing about it:

Greeks are withdrawing 700 million euros a day from their banks. Sixteen Spanish banks have been downgraded by Moody's, raising the prospect of a bank run across the Mediterranean. Barack Obama has joined David Cameron in pleading with eurozone leaders to take action commensurate with the gravity of their predicament.

How is the EU responding? What are the issues at the top of its agenda this week? A financial transactions tax, a common definition of homophobia, new rules on the fishing of bluefin tuna and gender quotas on company boards.

When the world lurches beneath our feet, when old certainties crumble, we often withdraw into the familiar. In their panic, Eurocrats and MEPs have reverted to what comes naturally: proposing more regulation.

I suppose we should be grateful that they're not trying to tackle the serious problems. Their cure would surely be worse than the disease.