Response to Josh:

Hi, Josh and everyone else!

Finally I've time enough to get through a bunch of questions Josh asked me about a week ago, in my post on libertarian ethics. He made several claims and had a few relevant questions I'd like to address. So, here's an overview and a brief elaboration on each topic.


On Moral
Josh claimed that 'moral' was misplaced as far as philosophical terms are concerned, on the grounds that "sense deep down" does not form a logically coherent argument. I am inclined to agree, but then again, what is moral if not a deeply rooted sense or conviction of what is virtuous/desireable etc? Put into context, what's stopping me from robbing my neighbour's house is not only the cost and consequence I might have to pay if the police catches me; there's something else, there's a conviction within me that stealing is inherantly wrong, and that I want to live my life according to different standards. Perhaps that's not the exact definition of 'moral' from a philosofical perspective, but that's my understanding. Feel free to correct me.

Distinction between 'force' and 'violence' 
In Josh's comment, he includes into the concept of 'force' other types of influence over people, such as persuasive, economic or intellectual. My answer is simple: such concepts are catagorically differt influences. The three of them involve a use of the agent's mind, letting him ponder advantages or disadvantages with, ultimatly leaving the choice down to rational considerations; that is, the way everything in humankind works, when we buy, consume or take up a work. When violence (or threat of violence) is introduced, that natural process in human brain is put on hold. Under the assumption that a human being prefer any scenario where he/she lives to any scenario where he/she dies, there's no barganing, there's no reasoning involved when violence is introduced. That's the essential difference between the two catagories of "force".

Now, I know whole bunch of socialist that will object that the very same conditions apply for people choosing to take up a job (that is, some kind of economical force) because if they don't, they starve and ultimatly also die. This, altough being a close alegory, carries a vital difference; that force/limit/condition is set by nature, inherent in our existence and something we cannot overlook or remove. Violence, on the other hand, is introduced by human action and is by no means a necessity for human survival.

If you'd want to walk the other concepts, persuasive and intellectual 'force', you'll end up in a confusing debate where everything eventually turns into a persuasive force (your parents, religion, legal system, cultural traditions etc), thus refraining from personal choice or freedom to form your own life. I fundamentally refrain from such a claim, but that's beside the point. Simply, the only way Josh can be accurate in his reasoning regarding this point is to refrain from all personal choice.


On the topic of Best Interest
As part of the above mentioned argument, Josh involved the concept of 'best interest'. How are such interests to be determined, especially if not by the agent himself, as Josh's reasoning requires him to? Is there any kind of divine, omniscient creature/body that could inform us about such interests? Not really. Unless you make what economists call "interpersonal utility comparisons", you cannot determine the "best interest" of other people. I'd argue that such comparisons are impossible, thus reaching the point where the best agent for your own interest always is your personal being.


Property Rights
Somehow it seems that at the bottom of whatever libertarian approach I take on a particular issue, I find property rights. I believe that's because property rights are the most essential - and arguably the only - feature we come into this world with, involved in every transaction between people. Unless you want to argue that the purpose of humankind as a whole is to be decided by some kind of divine authority who controls everything, you'd have to admit property right over our own self; the blood flowing in the body I call mine, is rightfully mine, the bodyparts connected to it aswell. Hence, the mind I use for every simple or hard task is mine to control, use, advance and enter agreement with others with.

Josh's argument here is that property right "have forced someone else not to have access to it". That's a fallacy for several reasons. First, as seen above, what my blood, mind or body is does not limit the property rights of other people's minds, bodies or blood. Secondly, when inventors invent object x, have they done so at the expense of other people who didn't invent x? If I carve a bow out of a tree, make some arrows and this invention renders me a better hunter (thus allowing me to survive to a larger extent), was this made at the expense of all those who didn't invent such an instrument? No, not at all. Hence we conclude that because my mind is my property, whatever my mind creates is also my property, free to trade with whomever I want for whatever end I find worthwhile. From that, property rights for most things can be established. That moves us to the next issue; enforcing them:


Property Rights, Enforcement and Thrid party 

"And how are private property laws to be enforced without the use or threat of force? Also, how do they resolve the conflict of two people's rights (where the two cannot come to agreement) without the initiation of violence, if not through a third party who has been designated as arbitrator?"

To resolve the conflict of property rights and costs involved in whatever transaction, you wouldn't have to go further than the simplest insurance disagreement on, say a car crash, or even regular disagreement between corporations. Because legal actions are costly in terms of money, time and effort, both parties prefer solutions that can be reached without such measures. Especially in contacts between insurance companies; they are very well aware that such conflicts will arise in the future, and court costs for every single transactions simply does not make sense. What's the bottom line here? Parties involved have strong incentives to solve issues of property rights without the involvement of courts. Thus, there's no need for external force to resolve most conflicts.

I'm currantly reading an interesting piece on just this issue, The Not So Wild Wild West, about property rights among whites and Indians in the Great Plains during the 19th century (You can find it at the Uni Library). Before reading it, I had the view that some kind of third party external force was required to maintain order. The author argues that this was not the case in the first 50 years of contact between Indians on the Great Plains and white settlers; property rights evolved on its own, they were respected by both sides and within groups, and trade flourished where Indians for example traded pieces of land for exotic good carried by the Whites. On the contrary, wars and violent conflicts between whites and Indians didn't occur until basically after the American Civil War, when the US had a standing army performing the role of a "third party". Why was this? Essentially because violence is always a negative zero-sum game, not in the interest of either party, while trade creates benefits for both parties. When the US standing army was present, however, the cost of warfare was moved from individual settles to the US government, thus reducing the transaction cost for such measure on behalf of the individual settler, making violence a viable option.

Also, property rights were upheld by mutual respects and voluntary cooperation between and within associations/tribes.

My bottom line with this is that external third party might very well be the cause of violence rather then a protector from it.


Libertarian, Minarchist and Anarcho-Capitalist Approach

This a bit of a grey zone, and I suppose Josh has a point that I perhaps mixed the concepts in my initial post. Originally, the libertarian approach involves a small state for certain ends (such as courts, police or Military; a minarchist argues the minimal state concievable (normally State involves some element of Nightwatch State, but generally not all of them) while Anarcho-Capitalist approach refrains from any kind of state. I've also heard people arguing that Libertarianism would be some kind of category including minarchist and anarcism approaches. Tricky.

I have to admit that my understanding and reasoning between these concepts varies. They all have valid points and I'm not entirly sure which one I prefer. In this sense, I'd agree with Josh, when he argues that my initial post is more inclined towards anarcho-capitalism than towards libertarianism.


The Idea of a Social Contract

Josh argues that since I'm part of a society, I implicitly agreed to the rules set up by such society. If I'm not mistaking, that idea comes originally from Rousseau, though I'd argue to refute it entirely on the follow grounds:
For contracts to be of any value, there has to be internal and external elements; that is, someone/-thing is included in the contract, and if not applying to some conditions, they are excluded. This normally involves a choice on the part of the individual. A contract (may it be letting, selling goods, taking up employment etc) may be broken, and I can choose to walk away from such a contract. That's the core of it. For such a contract to exist within a society, there must be the option of opting out of it, that is leave and not live under the conditions such a contract puts forward. Does that exist?
Simply, no. The moment I leave the domains of UK State, I enter some other State. While within those states there are no options for me to leave the conditions, refrain from state benefit and not paying taxes etc. There simply is not a choice, thus you cannot argue the case of a social contract. 

_________

I probably forgot some elements of these questions, but I'm fairly certain this is long enough for most people to opt out of reading it, anyways. Further questions will hence have to be dealt with in other posts. 

Addressing the comments I had on the Immigration Post

So I got a few objections to my post on UK Immigration the other day, and I'd like to address them in a more structured manner than just plainly answering in the comment field.

Here we go:

Short answer: you're not making sense, any of you.

"1You're comparing Isa to a criminal in prison, saying that even if the laws are wrong, someone who's not complying with them should not be released. You realise he's not a criminal, right? He hasn't broken any laws, and he's not in prison - he's in an immigration detention centre, a place where the UKBA can send any asylum seeker at any point in the asylum process at their own discretion."  - Kit's comment here.

1) Isa's asylum application has been denied, that is, he was deemed not to fill the criteria needed to get british citizenship. Without a citizenship or a visa, he is then not allowed on British soil, thus as far as the law is concerned, yes, he is a criminal to be removed from this country. I don't particularly agree with those laws, but nevertheless by being here without a visa/citizenship he violates them, thus making him a criminal. You can't argue with that.

"2. You're completely trivialising the whole concept of hunger strikes - you realise he's not the first person to refuse food as a form of protest, don't you? Do you think it would have been acceptable for the government to just let the hunger-striking suffragettes die because "they made a choice not to eat"? Hunger striking is a legitimate form of protest and the detention centre's decision to ignore it and let him die is a hugely unethical thing to do." Kit's comment here.

2) Right, so you're mixing apples and pears here. Whether or not he's the first person to refuse food, or if such protests are "legitimate" ways of protesting is beside the point. The detention centre has no responsibility to act according to some ethics where certain actions would result in certain effects. Hunger striking is a personal choice, a protest anyone is allowed to participate in, but it does not change any moral aspects of this debate. Such actions carries consequences, something Isa's fully aware of. What if we'd carry such an idea further? What you're essentially saying is that because hunger is a legitimate form of protest (wait, who's even to determine what ways to protest are legitimate and what ways are not?), he is to be released from whatever law he's found not to comply with. If that is the case, I believe we'd have quite some hunger strikes going on in British prisons, and you'd have a hard time distinguishing Isa's right to be released over theirs.

"3. No-one is "blaming" Virgin Airlines for taking him as a passenger - Virgin are being petitioned because they have the ability to refuse to accept him as a passenger. If you had been involved in any anti-deportation campaigns before, you would know that this was a very valid and useful method of helping people at risk of deportation. Yes, there are other airlines the UKBA could put him with, but because his flight is booked THIS WEDNESDAY on a Virgin flight, their refusal to take him would mean new removal arrangements would have to be made with a different airline, buying him extra time in this country. Other airlines would then also be more likely to refuse to take him if they knew that Virgin had already refused." Kit's comment here.

Thanks for reducing my experiences in earlier campaigns, and no, such measures have had very little success from what I've seen.
Two things. First, yes you are "blaming" Virgin Airlines, trying to "lobby" them and persuading them to on ethical grounds obstain from providing a service the British State pays them to do. Second, why would other airlines refuse? If indeed you would create large enough a public demand/critique against moving him, there'd be other airlines or transport methods that would comply. That's how choice works in a voluntarily-based market. Your only valid point here is that enough protest could possibly buy him some marginal amount of time. Question is, is the effort and time you invest in that tiny amount of time worth the tradeoff? No improvements have been made to its actual cause, and British Immigration laws will produce more Isas in the future, thus making your actions rather futile. Beside, you have very little hope of actually save Isa from deportation - only prolong it, as you yourself admitted.

"Also, I'm pretty sure he's been declared medically unfit for detention, which means the government are breaking their own laws by keeping him prisoner. He actually is seriously ill, even above and beyond his hunger strikes - he has a range of other, preceding conditions including severe depression. 
Trust me when I say we ARE fighting the state on these issues, but allowing companies to do disgusting things just because the state is ultimately to blame is like allowing someone to shoot people just because they didn't make the gun!" Katie's comment here.

Again we come back to the criteria for which someone is allowed to stay in this country. Both of you are arguing that medically unfit people are to be deemed in a less severe manner because of this condition. I don't know the details of the UK Asylum process in this aspect, and you're welcome to enlighten me. I can, on the other had, object to the logic of such claim. The idea of an Asylum process is to only allow citizenship to those who are found complying with certain criteria, that is to filter some other people out of it. If there then is outside pressure (and the Home Office somehow unlikely would take that into consideration) that some criteria (medical condition) is more important than others, that would mean the proccess is somewhat undermined. Not a complete waste of time, I'd say, but it is based on the assumption that such a proccess is justified to begin with and that it only has to be mended where it fails. I refuse such an assumption, whereas you, by arguing medical condition, actually comply with it.

Katie says that we ARE fighting the state. I'd love to see where and how. All I see is some socialist-based critique against companies for performing services the State payed them for. That's not very "fighting the state", is it? Besides, you analogy is halting; shooting someone is an aggression against someone, while making a gun is not. That is, if we'd follow your analogy considering it correct, that'd mean the State (for making the gun/deciding to deport) is innocent and the Companies (for shooting/actually deporting) are to blame.

Frankly, it's the other way around. Virgin airlines provide a service that is usefull and demanded by lots of people; quickly transporting someone or something from one place to another. That is and can be used for a variety of reasons (just like a gun); their action is not inherently "evil" or unethical. Whereas the State's actually is. Deporting someone cannot be morally justified, and it's here the actual unethical action occurs.

___

So, thanks for your comments, but yes I do have a fairly good idea about this issue and I still suggest you to reallocate time and efforts towards the real enemy; the state and it's laws about limiting people's movement within whatever territory it claims to belong to it.

A word on UK Immigration Debate

Good evening!

In this blog I have never been very polite to my ideological opponents. That's not the purpose. Here and here, for example, I have been outright offensive to those whom I see deserve it. Arguably even for logical reasons. Often the inspiration for such posts has come from anger over inconsistencies or logical fallacies in my opponent's reasoning or arguments, without consideration for just whom I might hurt.

Tonight, I'm writing about a few friends of mine. After all, perhaps I don't even want them to see it. What will they think of me?

But for some reason I can't resist. Ok, enough apologies. Here we go.

Tonight's topic is immigration. Let me just first remind any reader of this blog that I am a libertarian; I don't recognize the state's power to decide who's allowed to live within a certain geografical area; the state has no property right to my land, and thus no saying in who happen to be there. I particularly don't accept the deportations done by UK and other countries, and I can feel the anger bursting inside of me whenever I see the letters "FRONTEX", or hear about anti-immigration laws. In fact, one of the reasons to why I became a libertarian in the first place was because I favoured free migration. Bottom line: remember, I'm a libertarian, and I favour free migration.

Having that said, I have quite a large issue with the entire Isa Muaza thing. For the last few days my friends have filled my facebook feed with links about the issue, urging me to take part in a petition for his freedom, demonstrating against the Home Office or against Virgin Airline for transporting him.

So, the guy refused eating some months back, in protest of the Asylum system and the way he's been treated. Now this action has rendered him seriously week, on the brink of dying. And the petition and demonstrations demands his freedom on medical grounds; simply, he is very ill, and holding him in custody is inhuman. Thus the anger towards the Detention Centre for holding him, Virgin Airlines for transporting him, and the Home Office for refusing to give him citizenship (if my understanding of the issue is correct).

Ok, we have a few things here. First, the UK Asylum system is riddiculous for several reasons. The way migrants are treated within it is absolutely preposterous. And I share as much anger over it as any of my friends or the NGOs involved in this matter. BUT. A person not complying with the laws of a country, (however faulty the laws) cannot and shall not be released on medical grounds. Put to the test, asking for his release becomes quite eerie. Should that apply to other violators of the law aswell? Abuse, robbery, theft? Released because their health is weak? Lack of logical coherence there.

Second of all, he wasn't taken ill suddenly by some mysterious disease; he refused food for political reasons, knowing what consequenses that might bring. That is, he made a choice, fully aware of what that choice eventually would lead to.

Thirdly, a petition for Virgin Airlines "not to be involved in this clear violation of the most basic of human rights.". A regular company, providing a service the State believe is necessary and payed for by taxmoney (that is, stolen money). And my friends put the blame on the company? Seriously. First the state robs you of your property in order to pay for whatever ends they find suitable, secondly they use that money to deport migrants. And you accuse the company? The obvious culprit, the blame, the bad guy, in this case is the State. Times two. Squared. Times a million.

Besides, what would happen if Virgin Airlines magically decided not to provide that service? I could name countless other airlines that would. Putting up petitions for those too? Every single one of them? Are you really willing to spend all that time, effort and resources trying to stop companies of performing the service the Bad Guy demanded? It would be like accusing the Shopkeeper for selling a pack of cigaretts to the Bank Robber, and then running around town trying to stop EVERY shopkeeper from selling anything that could be used in a robbery. Even in the highly unlikely event that it'd work, there are other non-aircraft ways to transport people. That is, we're all wasting our time with such efforts.

Come on people, I share your anger over the Asylum system, but you're completly missing the target here. The companies performing whatever service the State pays them to perform are not the Bad Guys. I do believe you are aware of this, but for some reason forgot about it.

 As the Hunger Games have it; Remember who the real enemy is . Now, let's stop wasting our time on accusing companies, making pointless petitions and instaed blame the State for what it's doing.

An Austrian Economist reads the news

As fellow students are very well aware of, waking up is not the hardest part of starting day; getting out of that bed actually is. This unfortunate morning I spend little over an hour reading the news. Not snapchatting like my flatmates would do, not mindless facebooking. Doesn't seem too bad, right?

Turned out, reading the news from an Austrian's perspective (here's a quick overview to how we approach Economics) could be detrimental to your mental health. Gosh. Here's a brief review of today's catch. Apologies for Sweden-biased.

ECB Considers Negative Interest rate

A Swedish article regarding a piece of news from last week. (Eng:Bloomberg, Swe: SvD).

Right. The Keynesian conviction of controlling and governing the economy through the almighty power of injecting/extracting money from the economy with by means of Interest Rate doesn't seem to be enough. Negative interest rate essentially means that someone is paying you to take up a loan; not only would the European Central Bank be giving away loans for free, now they're supposed to pay others for taking up loan. The Keynesians are becomming restless. Their front figure Paul Krugman occationally calls for extended measures, such as negative interest rates etc. Essentially, the Keynesians believe in AGGREGATE SPENDING, and during recessions everything needs to be done in order to increase such spending. Whatever that might be. 

Problem for an Austrian Economist is that we use the theory of Business Cycle , that is up- and downturns in the economy are NOT an inherent feature of the free market; they're created by central banks through increased money supply. Low interest rates makes investments (predominately those in a far off future) seem profitable while they weren't at a higher interest rate. This creates a whole lot of additional investments right now, which is exactly what the Keynesians are looking for. Problem is, once interest rates are stabilised or normalised, one after another investors will realized that investments made actually don't pay off. All they've done is destroying resources in what we like to call malinvestments. 

So, when I read "Negative Interest Rates", that is BELOW 0 interest rates, this is how I feel:

Prominent Swedish Journalist: "Are European Politicians Stupid?"
That's a claim I'm not going to dispute, but for completely opposite reasons. Andreas Cervenka accusted the EU politicians in favor of austerity measures stupid yet again referring to Krugman. Why? They reduce spending while in a recession, because of too high national debts. 

Yet again the Austrian asks themselves, WHY have these countries run up such debt? In the case of Greece, Spain and Italy yet again it comes back to the Business Cycle; way too low interest rates gave birth to completely brainless investments, that eventually unfolded themselves (and banks, governments etc took over such debts, spend taxpayers money to save bad investments, not solving any problems, and additionally multiply government debt). 

*sigh*

Politics should be STATE-FUNDED!

Steve Richards in The Guardian says political campaigns are threatened unless they're state-funded. 

Really. 

Everytime I see "X should be State-funded", "Taxpayer should pay for Y", I slowly want to strangle myself. A simple 'no' would suffice; If any state at all is justified, its tasks involve upholding private property rights, possibly a military force or court system. Except for that, there's no justifcation.

But from an Austrian perspective, this is quite useless on the ground that taxes raised for whatever purpose takes away resources that could and would have been employed elsewhere. That is, such mearues restricts the investments that could have been made by those individuals, thus moving resources from private to public. Not exactly beneficial for an economic system, moving money from productive to unproductive sectors such as political campaigns.   

Housing Market!

Le Grand Finalé!

Swedish socialist got media attention with their article of "how to solve the housing crisis" in one of the largest nespapers. Just like the debates had throughout the UK, Rent Control, Collective Measures and State Intervention are the natural solutions at the core of such reasoning. Let's all blame the market and those filthy capitalists for what they've done!

Problem is, blame is to be put elsewhere. As always, the socialists forget a lot of things, particularly what is causing a housing shortage/crisis. 2 major lines of answers here; 

1) by restricting rent levels, profits gained from letting your property is reduced, necessarily resulting in less capital willing to construct such houses/less amount of people willing to let some of their properties. They can simply find better use for those resources than let them for housing. So, by restricting rent levels you'll have LESS homes available for letting.

2) state interventions, building permits, restrictions and bureuaucracy involves costs in terms of money, time and opportunity costs. The process of actually constructing a house, not to mention an entire complex of apartments, is ridiculous. This is mainly in regards to the Swedish situation, but from what I've learned it applies fairly well in the UK too.

So, calling for more State Interventions to solve the problems caused by the State's last Interventions?   I've heard that before...   Brilliant reasoning.

________

Sometimes I think I should watch a cartoon, draw a painting or simply ignore these awful ideas put forward in the media or everyday life. They never cease to surprice me. 

The Perverse idea of 'Relative Poverty'

The idea of "Relative Poverty" is normally put forward as a useful indicator and an evaluation of whether a government policy was successful or not. Especially by leftist organisations and debators, claiming that absolute poverty is not relevant, but it is relative poverty (that is, income in relation to others) that actually matters. In this post I'll explain to you just how perverse such a nonsensical idea is.

The commonly used definition of Relative Poverty is "60% of national median income", used by the EU and the UK Government. As the UK median income is something around £420/week, the relative poverty line would come down to £250/week.

The intention is to show poverty in relation to neighbours, friends and others around you. The underlying assumption is that, even if you are far wealthier than poor people in absolute terms (that is, below $2/day), you still feel poor, because everyone around you earn more than you do (adding various social implications etc).

Needless to say, this is absolute rubbish. With this definition, holding everything constant, (including my earnings, prices etc), if we'd give the poorest person a million pounds in income, so he ends up on the upper scale of the income distribution, the median income would increase, thus pushing some other person below the 60% of median income. Bottom Line: If some random people would see increased incomes, YOU'D become poorer. The fallacy is unbelievable.

Now I have a chart for you to illustrate this a whole lot better. Since New Labour came into power in 1997, they have more or less aimed for reducing poverty (Blair even commited to "Eradicate Child Poverty" at some point). Below I added numbers from the UK Institute for Fiscal Studies, showing the development of Median Income in UK and the percentage of the population at that point falling below the 60% "Relative Poverty Line".

The Red Line shows median income, referring to the right axle of £.
The Blue Line shows the Proportion (in %) of the population falling into the catagory of "Relative Poverty", referring to the left axle of %.

The proportion of the population living in relative poverty initially fell, then increased to its peak around 2007. That is, whatever the UK Government done during this period it had effects both on reducing and increasing Relative Poverty by small amounts (+-1% point).

However, when the financial crisis hit in 2007-2008, throwing the world economy into a crises (with lower wages and unemployment), the median wage consequently fell. The perverse effect then is that the proportion of relative poverty ALSO fell - from almost 19% down to 16% of population. Why? Because the line is tied to median income; when median income falls, the crucial amount earned to fall below the defining line of relative poverty dropped, resulting in less proportion of the population being catagorized as in "Relative Poverty".

That is, focusing on "Relative Poverty" meant that the effects of a global financial crisis did a lot more to help UK people to escape relative poverty than did the UK government in the decade leading up to it. An absolutely perverse effect, and an outrageous claim.

Needless to say, whenever you hear someone talk about "Relative Poverty Line" or "Poverty Increasing in the UK", you know it's a load of rubbish. It has no relevance to actual poverty.

_________________

Seen on a global scale, however, the median income is £10, resulting in a "world relative poverty line" of £6. Bottom Line: barely NOONE in the UK falls below the world relative poverty line, using the fallacious definition of 60% of median income. That's about how useful the idea of "Relative Poverty" is.

Funtime! UK Government Budget for 2013

Oh, the glory of Public Policy! They provide you with sweet charts, straight down your University Email!

Budget Deficit for 2013:                £108 bn

National Debt:                              £1,23 trillion (that is: £1 230 000 000 000)

National Debt/GDP 2013               90%

Today we're going to have some fun. If you're allergic to numbers - don't worry, I'll explain core issues as well as I can. I know that £108 billion, for example seems like a VERY large number to most people, but we're talking about a country with some 64 million inhabitants; numbers add up quickly. 

My best tip: treat it as any other amount you're used to spend; £1,50 on bread at Waitrose, a can of milk at tesco for £0,49 - or your Mobile Phone Pay Plan for £25/month. It's like your own economy, just a whole lot bigger and with some pecularities.

Budget
A budget is a plan for the future. That is, the exact numbers for the year are not available, because 2013 isn't over yet. That is why I'm using the Government Plan, i.e the budget.
Government Budgets are normally made on yearly basis; the chart above refers to the UK budget for 2013. It includes all the spending the UK Government is responsible for during a year; police, health care systems, schools, military etc. 

Essentially, they're like any other budget; large international companies, households, the small conveniece store down the road. Money coming in, Money going out. 

The above chart is ONLY money going out (Government Revenue will be addressed later). For now, it'd suffice saying that the Money coming in is £612 billion. The attentive reader notices that the numbers don't add up: That leads us to Deficit.

Deficit

What is it? More money going out than money coming in. Typically, those numbers never do add up for governments. Either there's a surplus or there's a deficit - it's a hard work hitting the exact equilibrium. In itself, this is not a problem as long as it is balanced with surplus other years, or if they're generally small. Whenever there's a deficit, the Government sell UK Bonds (that is: taking up loans) to investors, pension funds etc to finance that deficit; likewise, when there's a surplus the Government pays off parts of the national debt.

National Debt

The National Debt is the total sum of all surplus and deficits had going back in time. Every year with a deficit adds to the debt; every year with a surplus reduces it. The UK national debt is currently about £1,23 trillion, or about £20 000 for every citizen. Here's an illustration for you. 

National debt is normally compared to GDP levels, resulting in a % of GDP. In Britain's case the debt of GDP is something around 90%. US, whose debt crisis is appearant is around the same levels, as are the European counterparts France and Spain. Greece, Portugal or Italy are even worse with numbers of 110-130% of GDP. On the other end of the spectra we have Estonia with an astonishing 9% of GDP and more normalized levels in Scandinavia with 38-45%. The Economist has a nice tool to look at. 

Pretty straight forward. Just like a normal guy's economy, but with a whole lot larger numbers.

A lot of numbers. SO WHAT?

Interesting stuff happens when you start comparing such numbers. The discussions you might hear about in media revolves around the question of just how large the debt can become before it actually is a problem. Some, like the infamous Paul Krugman and other post-Keynesian says that there is no such problem. It is customary for countries to take on debts in recessions, with following surplus in good times, all in according with the almighty Keynesian economics.

But let's take a good look at other posts in this budget. A good half of it goes straight to health, care for the elderly, disabled, low income etc. That is, every 2nd £ you pay in taxes is either put into health care or redistributed to the poor/elderly/disabled. I strongly oppose such measures, but that's beside this post. Interest rate pays for having the national debt, equals that of police, courts and housing, or more than half of all money spent on education. Or, interest payed for this gigantic loan equals roughly £800 per citizen each year. And every year, this gigantic deficit produces a higher debt, that's passed on to the future. Meanwhile, those £800 is growing exponentially. What will happen once interest-rates are normalised, you reckon?

Have a look around, compare numbers and see what's going on in other countries. You can learn a whole lot about what the government is doing with the tax money it steals from you each month. Here you've got a brief overview. 

Libertarian ethics apply to all!

This morning I found a contemporary writer completely new to me. Sheldon Richman, vice-president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. In a blog post a few days ago, he describes the case that the essence of Libertarianism contains judgements held by all. We'll have a look on that!

If so is the case, he argues, it would be a lot easier for other people to grasp the libertarian viewpoint if they already agreed with its fundamentals! Conclusion: let's prove that they DO agree with libertarian viewpoint.

He writes:

Libertarians believe that the initiation of force is wrong. So do the overwhelming majority of nonlibertarians. They, too, think it is wrong to commit offenses against person and property. I don’t believe they abstain merely because they fear the consequences (retaliation, prosecution, fines, jail, lack of economic growth). They abstain because they sense deep down that it is wrong, unjust, improper. In other words, even if they never articulate it, they believe that other individuals are ends in themselves and not merely means to other people’s [the] ends. They believe in the dignity of individuals. As a result, they perceive and respect the moral space around others. - One Moral Standard for All

Q: If most people agree with Libertarians that force, violence or threat of violence is wrong, what sets libertarians apart from non-libertarians?

A: Libertarians are consistent in applying this ethic. Non-libertarians are not.

Solution: The State. Non-libertarians tend to rely on the institution of State for certain responsibilities (in a declining scale from everything in a communist view to nothing in an anarchist view). Non-libertarians, essentially, say that initiation of force indeed is wrong, but when the Institution of State initiates force, that is morally acceptable. Why? Because we voted for a government with certain responsibilities, i.e majority contracted certain rights to be performed by third party institution.

The fallacy in this argument is the following. If I don't have the right to initiate force against other people, and they don't have the right to initiate force against other people, HOW can we delegate such right to a third party? We simply cannot. Non-rights cannot be delegated, because non of us had them to begin with.

Put in a deductive reasoning scheme the idea would be something like this:

          P1:          Initiation of force is morally injustified
          P2:          Contradictions cannot exist 
=          No initiation of force can be morally justified.

That is, to be successful/coherent in their reasoning, non-libertarians have to refute either the initiation of force or the existence of logic.

Unfortunately, they chose denying logic.

A reassessment of Public Policy

I have run up the somewhat exhausting habit of expecting the worst from every single encounter with the Public Policy course. Up until today, all of my lectures and most of conversations had in tutorial sessions have been greatly biased towards socialism, as seen in earlier posts. 

The current unbeatable record of time before blaming Thatcher and/or NeoLiberalism for most evils in the modern history of UK stays at 4 minutes. A standard has emerged for how those lectures took place - until today!

The first series of lectures in any particular field is always interesting, because it says something about the topics and an introduction to how the lecturer approach them. Today, as any other day, I didn't expect a record but no more than 15-20 minute before Thatcher ruined the show. To my surprise the entire 50 minute lecture elapsed without any charge against neither the former president nor her political convictions.

Instead the lecturer showed us fascinating numbers on British Public Expenditure - astonishing numbers that I'll go into at some future point. And I only percieved one tiny violation of math, and I even suspect it was unconciously done in passing. That is, my post on Social Scientists to learn math was uncalled for.

Thatcher-relating topics was mainly reduced to displaying the following quote, as a bridge to tomorrow's topics. As true back then as it is today. Enjoy!

"The Problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money" - Margaret Thatcher

Maybe I judged the entire staff of Public Policy lecturers at Glasgow a bit too severe. After all, some of them need to justify their salaries! We'll see about that tomorrow.

UK 'Help to Buy', or just a regular party at Uni?

After a first turbulent decade of the new century, with artificially-low interest rates, Subprime crisis and housing booms you'd figure Governments around the world learned a thing or two about what just happened.

As perhaps a few students have experienced over the years of University life, curing an awful hangover with more booze might work for a day or two (or weeks, as Fresher's Week taught us), but the nasty, horrible hangover will return - worse than before.

"The Hangover is not the problem. The Party was." - Johan Norberg

What a bum, saying yesterday's epic party was the problem! How dare he? Luckily, he's referring to the economy and its crisis witnessed over the last few years rather than your fabulous party.

The US government created the largest financial crisis for generations by lowering interest rates, the economic equivalent of free shots to everyone. The political purpose of 'every american a home owner', made sure the government buddies Fanny & Freddie bought every mortage loan available, no matter how risky or insecure that mortage was (that is, book U2 and Green Day for your livingroom party - someone else's dad will pay for it). On top of that, we had the issues of foreign currencies streaming into the US, that is; invite everyone you know. All set for an epic party, right?

When we all woke up from that heavy hangover of ours, we found ourselves in a weird situations; our economies didn't work properly. We had debts all over the place - and nobody to pay for them. Clearly, that bum's dad didn't pay U2 enough, now we're all screwed!

Today, in 2013, we're still deep down in debts. Most Western governments run major budget deficits (Pay for the booze with your credit card), and the UK Government figured they'd do something about the expensive Housing Market. Clearly, those venues for your crazy party ideas are a bit too expensive, are they not? Earlier this year, Help To Buy was introduced, as a way of "helping young people onto the property ladder" - by providing them with free loans for the first 5 years, and taking on responsibility for 20% of the mortage value.

Absolute rubbish! How do you think we got into this mess to begin with?

A Crisis caused by too low interest rates, perverse government intervention and mortgage loan for everyone, CANNOT be solved by LOWER interest rates, MORE government stimulus and MORE mortgage loans. 

Ask any student if more drinks will solve that horrible hangover. I guess even governments like to keep partying.


__________________

Financial Times has a nice run-through of the Help to Buy Scheme.

I absolutely recommend Johan Norberg's book. It will blow your mind

UK Money is distributed from the Government? Now wait up.

A few weeks ago I had a lunch with a some fellow students of mine. A discussion of socialised health services came up, among a large variety of topics. Especially the idea that everyone should be entitled to health care according to needs, but financed through taxation. Typical socialist idea, abominable to most people in say shoe-making industry or food production - but for some reason health care seems to hold a particular position in the minds of people who wouldn't call themselves socialists.

BUT, that's beside the point. A friend of mine made a glamorous remark; that money is distributed from the government through the minimum wage. Wait, wait, wait. How did you even come up with that? How would such a thing even be possible? Right. The fascinating stuff is that after publicly displaying such ignorance of economic events, she effortlessly continued on criticising some economic policies being carried out by the UK government.

I am not blaming her for lack of knowledge in a particular field - how could anyone? That's natural. After all, our interests differ, we pursue different things. What I do blame her for, though, is making judgements on events in that particular field. Economics is a specific subject, and knowledge in its field is in no way compulsary. But putting forth economic policies, how they ought to change or what is to be done, with no prior knowledge of such is something completely different.

I mean, if I visit my GP because of a foot injury, she runs some tests and conclude that I have a bone fraction, I am in no position to convince her that the real issue actually is an infectious stomache disease. Or if I turn in my car to a mechanic, am I to instruct him how to swap tires? Tell oil-rig workers how to drill for oil? Bottom Line: know thy limitations.

But for some reason, economics or economic policy is open for any laymen to criticise. Well, ok, there will be gray areas and at some point I suspect this will be held against me or economists, when we establish claims on society or other sectors, altough I'd argue that be a bit different. The event is fascinating; why is Economics an acceptable target for events of this sort, while medicine or engineering is likely not to be?

I believe Murray Rothbard said something clashy on the topic, but can't find the quote. Anyone?

Seminar Time - And the tendency of intervention

As I take the introductory course of Public Policy here at University of Glasgow, I also attend the weekly 1-hour long tutorials in the course. To be fair, put aside all the obvious objections I have towards this subject, its lecturers and the ways in which  it is taught, the Tutor of my neat seminar group is great. She openly displays her opinions and always let us discuss freely our own ones. Shame time is such a scarce resource.

Naturally, as most of the group consists of sociologists or students of other social sciencie, the tendency is very much towards an intervetionist "The State Will Fix Everything" kind of idea. And, yet as natural, whatever comment I make disrups the status quo of allowable opinion, at times producing a war in that little room of ours.

Todays subject; Health Inequality. Appearantly, the percieved and measures "Inequalities" in health related areas in Glasgow are particularly interesting to sociologists due to the fact that they are heavily correlated to geography within the city. It even has given name to the international phenomenon of WHO.

Our tutor gave us the task of suggesting Policies to Solve this Problem (a future post will be dedicated to explain why it isn't even a problem to begin with). What types of policies did my wonderful group come up with?

1) Regulations
2) Tax on unhealthy food
3) redistribution of income

It's gotta be a good life these keen supporters of public policy have. The answer to EVERY question is STATE INTERVENTION or STATE REGULATION. It's a bit like listening to Keynesian Economists, their magic trick being INCREASED SPENDING.

It's a funny world we live in.

________
Oh, btw!

During this mornings lecture (Time of first Thatcher critique: 22 minutes) we were fed the faulty socialists' concepts of transforming correlations to causality; Health in Glasgow, we were told, are appearantly determined by 1) Race, 2) Gender, 3) Social Class 4) Geography and OF COURSE the almighty Income (and Income inequality). Funny that, I had the impression determinism was long ago considered a bit out of fashion, if you'd like. That individuals make choices, preferes DIFFERENT THINGS was of course readily discarded as some black magic Mumbo Jumbo. Funny.

Why Social Scientists need to learn math

Obvious statement: math is useful for a lot of things.

Yesterday morning I had an infamous lecture of Public Policy. It's interesting in the sense that you can predict the kind of socialist ideas that'll come out of it;

1. Thatcher was bad, 
2. Critique of Neoliberalism, 
3. The horrible effects of market economy

Yesterday was a special day in that the third was arguably not even included. However, the Professor did give a good start, critizising neoliberalism ideology after a mere 9 minutes of speaking. Even better, I think he set some kind of record; 4 minutes into the class, his first severe charge against Thatcher was laid. Impressive.

Not to say that this example means anything in particular, but I suppose it's fair to assume that Public Policy at University of Glasgow foster a rather strong hatred towards anything non-socalist, especially if it can be connected to Thatcher & Co.

Enough, what I wanted to convey today was the surprising lack of math insights and how that cripples the social scientists. This was his example:

Amount of UK Labour force in Manufacturing employment:
1978      28,5%
2009      10%

Conclusion; only a third of the people who worked in manufacturing 30 years ago, remain in that industry today.

Wait. Read that again.

Ok, well, no. First of all, people change jobs. They can change occupation/exit or enter industry, especially over a 30 year period. Second, a fair share of the people employed in 1978 will have moved on to enjoying a life of retirement by now. But 10/28,5 = 0,35, so the math still works out, doesn't it?

Math issue: between 1978 and 2009 the population (and the distribution of people in working age) have changed significantly. Thus, if inputs in a %-figure changes, the output changes. That is, 10% of the Labour force in 2009 is most likely not 1/3 of 28,5% of the Labour force in 1978.

Additionally, I've even stopped being suprised of the cases where people misuse Percentage for Percentage Point, ending up with completely flawed conclusions. My point here is that social scientists tend to have a limited understanding of math and what affects the numbers (especially regarding %). And, as they use statistics and math in describing their field, they inevitable end up with flawed or unsupported conclusions. That's a serious issue, heavily diminish the value of their study, should this be a theme for a larger part of social scientists. Let's hope it isn't.

If you're to use math or statistics, you need to understand what comprice and influence them. If you don't, you'll end up misinterpret data. Some kind of "know-thy-limitations" argument, I guess.

____

This lecturer also gave me some idea to why there are so many socialists in University environment - and what happens to them afterwards. Well, in his case, some of them seem to remain at Uni, teaching Public Policy (or some other fluffy subject like sociology).

Disabled people in a libertarian society

In some earlier post I promised to write about disabled people in a libertarian society.

To begin with, the historical background would be useful.

It all started with a change of idea of government's responsibilities in society. In other countries, similar events took place, transferring the responsibility for certain tasks from the individuals to the State. In the UK this happened through the Factory Acts of 1833, where the first step towards state intervention in the workplace took place. Through these series of acts, the amount of hours children were allowed to work in factories was gradually reduced. Although such changes might not have had large effects on overall life, it is widely regarded as a watershed; the first time a UK Government took responsibility for the "well-being" of its citizens. From that on, through countless of acts in different areas such as the school reforms, liberal reforms in late 19th century, old age pensions, national insurance, the modern post-war Welfare State emerged, with features of redistributions and NHS recognizable to most UK citizens of today.

A fascinating development in many aspects. Simultaneously, the idea of freedom, self-reliance, providing for oneself, one's family and those one cares about became less recognized as a task for the individual. We more or less forgot values of the past and relied to a larger extent on the state (that is, other people's money) for a bunch of crucial services.

What we need now is another revolution, another watershed like the one in early 19th century. We need to grasp the idea that WE are in charge of our lives. WE are responsible for the our well-being and the well-being of those we care about. And the means to which we could accomplish this is naturally different; some might chose to hire someone to look after their children, other might want to spend time with their parents in the latter stages of life, some might dedicate their entire careers at taking care of other people, starting voluntary organisation that provide such care or businesses in a marketplace. Financed through voluntary interaction, donations or market-based solution. Non-coercive, voluntary, consistent with the libertarian ideas.

I actually wanted to tell you the story when I first realized that such a way was plausible, even desirable. My mother and I had been visiting my 95-year-old great-grandmother. An amazing woman, whose lifestory I have wanted to write an extensive piece about for quite some time. Her eyes have given up long ago. She is severely limited in her communication, she is very depressed, cries a lot and calls for the Lord to take her away. She stays at a home for elderly people where she is been treated fairly well, I suppose - and has so been for the last 10-15 years.

Visiting her is often not a joyful experience, but it always brings me fascination over her life - and raises questions about our relation to our elderly. Why do we put them away like that, visit them once a month to talk about nothing for half an hour and then leave, feeling that we upheld some social duty?

So I asked my mother about it, and she told me that she'd much rather take care of granny herself. Much, much rather would she have her live in our house, mum being able to take care of her, support her and actually spend time with her in our own home.

- Why don't you?, I asked, curiously. What's stopping you?
- I can't afford it, she said, the household needs two incomes.

Essentially, if our household had an even larger income, or if tax levels would come down sufficiantly, her desire of spending time with granny at home might be a real option. In the Welfare State of today, taxes naturally fund a lot of different things, from elderly care to schools and road constructions. But what if those areas wouldn't be the responsibility of the State? And that we'd be accustumed to pay for the services we use, rather than arbitrarily pay for all services somebody else deem crucial for a State to perform?

In a society where the responsible of taking care of the elderly isn't alienated, recognised as somebody else's task and payed for by a tax-funded government, individuals can actually make that kind of decision themselves. Now the financial incentives distort such options. It would come down to money and percieved value - just like any other market transaction. At some point I suppose my mum would quit her job, rely on 1 income only and take care of her elderly relative. It could also be done through hiring somebody for those hours when my mother is at work, or through a voluntary society, a church association or helpful neighbours. The possibilities are endless - but it seems we've all forgot about them.

Ok, so I was gonna answer the topic of disabled people and ended up telling you a story of my great-grandmother. Not heads on, but the same ideas applies for disabled people. We don't need a tax-funded government to take care of our loved one. We can do that ourselves.

Swedish Union presents its demands; Citizen fee & increase ALL taxes!

This morning, a think-tank of LO, one of Sweden's largest unions  (respected and reknown for mindless strikes and other craziness), published a report on how to reform Swedish tax system. The title in the largest newspaper:

"This is how we get a smarter and more just high-tax society"

Well, my dear union, are you familiar with the concept of Oxymoron? It has very little to do with an actual 'moron', altough you certainly are approaching that concept aswell. Oxymoron is an inherent contradiction such as 'bittersweet', 'a warm coldness' or something or the sort. Or, in this case, "just high-tax society".

First of all, taxing is ALL but just. It might actually be the most injust principle I know of. Normally taxes are directed at incomes, sales or property, crucial parts of economic transactions and as such taxes WILL inevitable have an effect on those areas. But more importantly, all of these features (income, sales, property) is created by productive, enterprising and thrifty induviduals pursuying self-interest by serving consumers. Whatever these individuals created is the fruit of their work, entirely belonging to them. Taxes enter this domain by robbing such individuals of their reward. In what universe can such an action be named just?
(Imagine the Usain Bolt situation; An insane amount of training, strict diet, discipline, and after countless hours improving that body of his, the Government steps in and redistribute half of it to less-abled contestants. A just, fair system? Not even close).

The underlying assumption of its entire report, is that high taxes are harmless to the economy, if they're made "in a good way". Such a claim requires an additional post, and I'll focus on that idea at some other point.*

The background for this report is that tax levels have come down in Sweden during the last decades, since the record of 51,5% of GDP (that is, more than every second unit the economy produces was taken in taxes) to some 45%. Appearantly, this has produced a revolution in the lines of Swedish leftists; we lost the unglamourous position of the country with the world's highest taxes. Clearly, something had to be done.

What the creative brains of leftist forefront came up with is the following;

• The Government transforms a healthy surplus in public finances (one of few in Europe) to a 3% deficit of GDP, that is approaching the Spanish deficits, leveling the French or Italian public deficits
• Flat tax reform on income as well as capital gains. Altough, the tax on income would suffer an increase of 10% to current average levels, capital gains of +16% increase of tax rates. 
• 10% increase of employer pension deposit, with accompanied increased state pensions
• Increased employment tax
• A 18 000 SEK/year (Equivalent of £1700/year) Citizen Fee with fussy intentions
• Increase all VAT levels to 25% (that is raising the VAT levels of books, food and restaurants from 6%/12% to 25%)

So, after increasing virtually every tax in the Swedish tax system, they add that corporate tax will be abolished. Woah, I thought, an actual useful thing coming out of a leftist... BUT, replaced by a 'tax on commercial property' unspecified. I assume whatever benefit an abolished corporate tax would bring is ofset by such 'commercial property' tax.

The overall effect on State Budget would be 30% Increased Government Spending, turning a healthy public surplus into deficits and fussy so-called 'improvements' in areas ranging pensions, equality and welfare.

This absolutely knocks US budget quarrels, makes the British disagreement on fiscal policies look like a harmless little poodle and surpasses anything I could even have expected from Swedish leftists. What is a mere 1-5% tax increase US taxpayers suffered from early 2013 budget drama? Swedish leftists absolutely SMASHED anything concievable by their UK or US counterparts.

Yep, that's Sweden for you!

All in all;

Conclusion from the Unions of the land of promised welfare;

it doesn't really matter WHAT you aim to do with funds from taxing population (or the consequence), as long as you raise them to world-record levels, previously unrecognizable by anyone.



___

*It seems that for every post I make, 2-3 more are required. Not too unfamiliar with how an institution such as a state works, by the way. I will probably expand this topic with a post for why every single reform they have suggested are seriously detrimental to swedish economy, to individual property and standard of living.

Socialists' Objections: October

Right!

Here we go with last month's report in terms of objections, insults and other non-founded arguments to why libertarianism is evil, capitalism is awful and I, as an advocate of both is obnoxious in every way.

OBJECTION #1

"I really hope that one day you'd change your view on the value of other people. Otherwise I fear that you will live a very, very lonely life. Nobody wants to be around someone that only cares about themselves and doesn't have any understanding of other people."

That sounds like a valid claim for an overall hateful person. What did I do to provoke this effect? Am I really guilty for such severe charges?

Found in a facebook debate, I had been explaining the idea of self-interest as Yaron Brooks interpret Ayn Rand. That is, that we all pursue our self-interests, strive for more personal satisfaction, through illustrations of what's going on in the market place; a farmer sells me a litre of milk for 1£ because he prefers 1£ to a litre of milk (his satisfaction goes up with the trade). I buy the litre of milk, because I prefer 1 litre of milk to £1 (my satisfaction goes up). Also I had expressed my wish not to pay taxes for what the government does.

For some reason, that played out as a "you-hate-all-non-white/wealthy/males-and-what-about-the-disabled-you-horrible-prick" kind of argument. Deep down I suppose they're fair accussations, and I'll come back to the topic of disabled people in a free, libertarian society.

We pursue that which gives us highest satisfaction. As satisfaction differs between people (and over time within same person), the outcome will necessarily be different. That difference is what creates a value of trade, a way of getting something I value at the expense of something I value less. That is what self-interest is about, and it doesn't make anyone an awful person. Nobody is hating disabled people, and admitting to ideas of pursuing self-interest does not make people ruthless, cold, unfeeling etc. It's a way of describing market activities. No more, no less.

OBJECTION #2

"Without taxes we wouldn't have anything. No infrastructure, no schools, no health care. Basically nothing!"

Right, after explaining that taxes essentially and for all intents and purposes are a violation of property rights (namely, theft), a commenter laughed and explained to me all the beautiful things tax-funded, public services provide. As if I for some reasoned had missed out on state interference throughout my life.

All of those examples above are build and made because they're demanded by individuals. Not because we have taxation. There's a proper misuse of causality here. Furthermore, if nobody in a welfare society would want any schools, few (or any?) politicians would decide to spend tax money on such things. They are in existence because we demand the goods or services they provide. In a libertarian society (without, or with a very limited state only) that demand would still exists - and will be satisfied accordingly. Through trade or voluntary effors of individuals who pursue their self-interest. Also, the statement assumes that such things can only exist under a tax-funded government. Nonsense, such activities are perfectly able to be held by private individuals, enterprises or voluntary societies. Ye, I think I made my point now.

OBJECTION #3

"You cannot be taken seriously. You are so obsessed with your money that you'd rather see people succumb without the social protection, before paying taxes."

Ok, so this is a typical example of where someone else is trying to tell me about my opinions. Again, libertarianism has very little to do with obsession about money or preference to someone's death. It has to do with justice; a government, at the point of a gun, can never justify stealing property from private induviduals, whatever the cause, however noble the cause might seem, as the statement implies.

And, as oppossed to general leftist ideas, libertarians normally refuse to believe that people merely 'succumb without social protection'. A society without an interventionist state will have other ways of organisation social protection, ways set up voluntarily by acting individuals. History has given us examples of workers' societies, where medical care was at the centre of cooperation. Solutions can be arranged through business on a free market. Charitable societies can freely devote themselves to such issues, should they wish to.

There's no reason to believe that people would 'succumb' without a state-based social protection.

Socialists' Objections

Today I though I was going to assert some socialist claims I've had experienced over the last few weeks.

And I'm making this a monthly report. Every month I'll gather objections, responses, attempts of counterarguments, insults and charges that I have had pointed at me (or seen in debates/media) - predominantly in regards to libertarianism. To be honest, the amount of horrible statements people (in my experience often on the left-flank) can come up with, really fascinates me. I think my favourites in terms of insults would be the ones attacking me as a person, or perhaps the ones trying to tell me what I really, deep down, actually think. That's funny!

Ok, so the objections will be taken from different sources (facebook, real-life arguments, texts, academic discussions etc) and as far as possible within context. If the comment was made in a different language than English, they'll be translated as best as I can. In regards to anonymity I'm still undecided. Maybe I'll include the source at some point, maybe not.

We'll see. You can expect comments and ideas that'll blow your mind, make you laugh hysterically or yawn at humanity. Entertainment promised!

All 'Socialists' Objection' can be found here.

Welcome to Libertarian Uni!

Hey!

Welcome to the Libertarian Uni blog!

As a first entry I'd like to describe what will be the future of this blog. I am a libertarian writer, originally from the country held as 'the Heaven of Welfare', and I am strongly opposed to socialism. Travelling and languages marvel me, if such personal desires are interesting enough. I study Economics and Economic history at the University of Glasgow and I'm fairly new to the UK life. Fascinating in many ways!

Enough mumbo-jumbo. This is a blog about libertarianism. It involves some economics, most likely influenced by the Austrian School of Economics to which I belong, and a whole lot of socialist 'welfare state' ideas. It came about a few weeks ago, when I had been bumping into socialist anti-capitalism ideas, calls for the government to do this or that, media articles about rent controls, regulations and overall student ideas.

After certain events, I found that I needed to channel the reactions I had from such experiences. Upset Facebook-posts only go so far. All in all, this is how I channel the everyday socialist, interventionist and plainly weird ideas University Life gives me.

Enjoy!