Drugs: Is moral corruption our best hope of freedom?

Russia and its dominions are now plagued by an entirely new wave of drug crime. It’s a fascinating subculture, based on the dark Web and full of its own new argot with terms like kladmen, seagulls and dead drops, all designed to get around the old models of illegal buying and selling.[1] This superb article by Max Daly of the Guardian explains all. First, a confession. We freely confess that not only do we have the greatest intellectual difficulty in understanding how all this works, but also in grasping how it can possibly exist in a totalitarian, utterly regulated society like Russia, where absolute obedience is prized above all.

The answer is that an outward show of absolute loyalty buys many freedoms. A totalitarian state can brook no challenge to its legitimacy. Yet those who cheerfully profess unswerving fidelity can go about their daily business virtually untouched, It’s a truth that western admirers of the old Soviet Union found hard to grasp: how could there be so many gangs and so much corruption in a Socialist Society? But there was: outfits like the Tambov Mafia gave more than one aspiring dictator their start. The biggest threat to a totalitarian system is not the dissidents, who can be quickly arrested and crushed. It is the loyalists whose activities slowly creep up, deviating the purpose of the State until it is rotten from within. It is the same everywhere: who can be more loyal than a policeman, dedicating his life to maintaining social order? Well, read this {2] about the alleged misdemeanours of a certain Oscar Sanchez Gil who was until recently head of the economic crimes unit of the Spanish National Police, and who allegedly had about 20 million euros in cash stuck inside the walls of his house. (of course, we stress that at this stage these are allegations. The Courts may yet prove Snr. Gil to be a fine upstanding citizen of impeccable character and honesty) But it’s the sort of case that illustrates our point.

Corruption may indeed be a bit naughty. But what is it really except the classic operation of a free market rushing to supply an immediate need? One thwarted by acres of state regulation and red tape? Back in the 1990s, we always laughed at card carrying Conservatives who grew hysterical about immigration and illegal drugs. Surely, we reasoned, this was just their free market operating to the laws of supply and demand? Of course one may make a judgement about what are real human needs. But that is a moral issue, not an economic one. If free market theory is correct, then it must be one of the best descriptors of human nature yet found. And ultimately, it will bring down every system, however cruel.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/14/russia-rise-of-powerful-darknet-drug-industry-dead-drops-punishment-beatings

[2]https://uk.news.yahoo.com/spain-arrests-anti-fraud-police-113717604.html

#russia #dark web #drugs #spain #corruption #free market #immigration #soviet union

Smoot Hawley Revisited four years on. The same old Fine Mess another four year old post

Today we revived a post about the Roman Scholar Cassiodorus, or part of it. We did so because we thought his life might be relevant to the folly of our own times. While we shuffled through the process of writing, posting and so on, we noticed that a reader had picked up on another four year old post about the infamous Smoot Hawley Tariff. And so, without further ado, we reproduce below The Smoot Hawley Tariff:Another fine Mess…… Because we think it’s more relevant than ever. Thank you, that reader

It is the year 1930, and Republican Herbert Hoover is in his second year as President of the United States. Outside the White House, popular tunes on the radio include Embraceable You, by George and Ira Gershwin, and Ten cents a dance by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rogers. In cinemas Laurel and Hardy have made their transition to talking pictures with shorts like Hog Wild and Another Fine Mess. These would have supported new feature films such as Hells Angels and The Dawn Patrol, both evoking strong memories of the recent World War.

In May 1930 Hoover was a very worried man. In the previous autumn, the Wall Street Crash had sent shares into meltdown, triggering an avalanche of company closures and layoffs. By March 1930, US unemployment was already at 1.5 million. Now there was even worse news. On his desk lay a Bill called the Smoot-Hawley Tariff-and he, as President, was expected to sign it.

The Bill had been introduced into both Houses by Senator Reed Smoot (Rep, Utah) and Representative Willis C Hawley (Rep, Oregon). It was a response to cry from Republican heartlands to protect American jobs for American workers-and especially American Farmers. To this end, it introduced high tariffs on a vast range of imported manufactured and agricultural goods. Now it had passed both Houses of Congress, and so only needed the President’s signature to become law.

The trouble was that the whole rest of the world depended on trade with a thriving American economy. America was the only healthy economy left of any size after the Great War. A rise in US Tariffs would mean a collapse in trade for everyone else; and even the possibility that they might retaliate. 1,028 leading economists signed a petition asking the President to use his veto. The head of JP Morgan begged the President to reject this “asinine” legislation. Henry Ford spent an evening with the President in a last- ditch attempt to persuade him to use his veto. It didn’t work: Hoover knew that he needed the support of his Republican Party to govern at all. Not to have signed would have sparked a civil war inside the party. And so on 7 June 1930, the Smoot Hawley Tariff became Law.

The economic consequences unfolded at once. Over the next three years US imports decreased by 66%, and exports by 61%. An economy estimated at $103.1 billion in 1929 had fallen to $55.6 billion by 1933. The collapse in farm and other commodity prices brought starvation to the farming communities who had so strongly pressed for the Bill. In December 1931 US unemployment reached 9 million. By December 1932 it was 13 million.

The international consequences were disturbing. Led by Canada, all the major trading countries began putting up their own protectionist tariffs. Any hope of the world trading its way out of depression vanished. Unemployment rose to vertiginous heights, especially in Germany. There were consequences. In 1928 the Nazi Party had 12 seats and 2.6% of the vote. By 1932 they commanded 230 seats and 37.3%. Most worrying of all was Japan, which in despair abandoned the world community. Instead they looked for resources and markets by seizing Manchuria from China, initiating the eastern half of a war that would last until 1945.

What can we learn from all this, ninety years on? Never underestimate the power of ignorance and stupidity in human affairs. That nations have a right to defend their interests, but need to be very, very thoughtful about how they do it. And that the Talkies were here to stay.

By 1934 the new President, Democrat Franklin Roosevelt, was already starting to lower tariffs again. But the damage had already been done. Japan was by now so committed to China that only military defeat would get them out. In Germany, Hitler was consolidating his power by becoming Fuhrer. Some years of peace lay ahead, but the lines that led to war were already laid down.

Perhaps we should leave the last words to WH Auden, who wrote these memorable lines on 1st September 1939, as Germany marched into Poland, and the most terrible conflict in history got under way

Accurate scholarship can/Unearth the whole Offence/from Luther until now/That has driven a culture mad……………………….I and the public know/What all schoolchildren learn/That those to whom evil is done/Do evil in return

we apologise for being unable to find a royalty-free image of Messrs Smoot and Hawley

Hugh Brogan The Pelican History of the United States of America penguin 1985

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot–Hawley_Tariff_Act

https://poets.org/poem/september-1-1939

#tariff #donald trump #republican party #world war

From American Decline to World Government: fasten your seatbelts for a bumpy ride

When did America’s Decline end, and the Fall begin? Although future historians will debate, Tuesday November 5th 2024 will be as good as any other point to start from. For it was on this date that a concatenation of forces-economic, political, social-produced the re-election of Donald Trump, and all that was to follow. These forces included an irresolvable racial rancour dating back to slavery; a deep pollution of information in the public sphere; a chronic failing in public education and the ethos to support it. But above all it was the worship of money, and the catastrophic, merciless social and economic inequalities that this engendered, that brought everything low. Writing for The Nation, Tom McCoy details these rather well in the first part of his article [1] (Don’t read the second bit until we say you can) To cut a long story short, we could call this obsession with cash NeoLiberalism.

Let’s just jump across the Atlantic for a moment to say goodbye to Larry Elliott who quits his post at the Guardian after 36 years {2] He too is eloquent on the many things he has witnessed. Among them is this observation on this same cocky, self-satisfied NeoLiberalism

…… the free-market experiment has failed, as some of us said it would all along. Wealth did not trickle down, and instead the gap between the haves and the have-nots widened. The workers laid off when the factories closed in northern England and the US midwest did not find new well-paid jobs but were either thrown on the scrapheap or found low-paid insecure work …………

Financial speculation ran rife once controls on capital were removed, but growth rates in the west were slower than in the postwar heyday of social democracy. Warnings of trouble ahead were ignored until the world’s banking system came close to collapse in the global financial crisis of 2008. [2]

Producing an alienated and impoverished group of vast voting power) which was impervious to the imploring of reason, fact and education. And who could blame them? The exalted free markets have produced such insecurity that a nationalist backlash was inevitable. It is now tearing down every shibboleth that the neoliberals held dear. Low tariffs, free movements of capital and labour, cultural and intellectual exchange are going to the wall, and we can see nowhere that this process can now stop..

Except one. Because while Larry’s article closes with a final nod to the re-emergence of the Nation State, Tom’s goes further and look to the future.(OK, click on his article again) The problem with the Nation State is Pride. It is national Pride which will cause Donald Trump and his friends to start drilling for oil again. By which means all combined attempts to prevent global warming will collapse, as each nation looks to its own interest. Runaway global warming will produce such desolation that any economy and any body politic will become unsustainable, probably as early as the next decade. The resulting chaos will make a world Government essential for human survival. And tom details how this may come about, perhaps in the sixties or seventies.

The American hegemony is now certainly over, How ironic that this was hastened by an arch nationalist such as Trump!

[1]https://www.thenation.com/article/world/american-hegemony-climate/

[2]https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/nov/10/from-thatcher-to-trump-and-brexit-my-seven-lessons-learned-after-28-years-as-guardian-economics-editor

#global warming #economics #climate change #donald trump #neoliberalism #free trade #protectionism

It’s an interconnected world, or: How we learned to stop worrying and love Donald Trump

President Trump Postlaunch Remarks (NHQ202005300037) by NASA HQ PHOTO is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

Two days out from the US Presidential Election. For weeks now, our anxiety has been growing. Are they really going to elect That Man? Again? After all he did to their security, alliances, economy, health? Has Democracy itself failed? The mere fact he has got so far suggests Democracy is very, very poor at solving its problems.

And then the lightbulb moment saved us. We were listening to a BBC piece on Radio 4 about the attempts of various UK Governments to control illegal immigration. Onto the show they tipped an expert who warned “any attempt to control the people smuggler gangs will fail, because their leaders live mostly in the Middle East.” In other words people smuggling is a multinational business. Like IT, oil, fashion, fast food, transport, automotive manufacture. Some of these many giant businesses operate within the law(most of the time, anyway) Some like drug dealers and people smugglers tend stay outside it. But the economic and technological forces driving them are the same. The world is a very small place thanks to modern technology, and the rules of supply and demand are infallible. Economies of scale evolve that are far beyond the jurisdictions of nation states.

Which brings us back to the US elections. The people who will (probably) elect Donald Trump are not bad, mad or stupid. But they are frightened and bewildered. Because the very concept through which they view the world (the nation state) is now utterly inadequate to contend with the problems we face. Things like global warming, pandemics and the mass migrations of people are so obviously beyond the competence of even the largest national entities as to make their individual policies irrelevant. Suddenly a vote for a President, Prime Minister or whatever becomes like gripping the gear lever on a failing car. Whatever you do, it suddenly makes little difference. In that sense, the rise of Donald Trump is a sure and infallible signal of the utter failure of national politics everywhere. It states more clearly than anything that the time has come to look long and hard for an alternative. And, as that truth, it should be welcomed.

#donald trump #us elections #global warming #nation state #world government

If Keir Starmer wants to grow the UK economy, he needs to play the Research

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party came to power on a pledge to clear up Britain’s economic mess and, above all other things, create growth. But how to do it? It is a question that has bedevilled British Governments since the country first began to fall behind in the late Victorian era. And no amount of reforming government has ever halted the inexorable decline, which feels supporting like a football team slowly slipping down the leagues. Remember Manchester United?

Yet how did Britain first rise to inordinate wealth and power in the Georgian period.?(let’s leave the constitution for another day) The answer is that, by luck or design, Britain took full advantage of the scientific and intellectual advances of the Enlightenment, more so than any other country. [1]The result was the Industrial Revolution, which provided an absolute step change in human productive capacity. Sadly for Britain, other countries quickly learned the lesson, better and more thoroughly than the British pioneers. And here we are today.

Yet there may be a way out of this trap. We have long tried to sing the praises of research and development as the real drivers of economic growth. But candidly admit-we’ve struggled. Now a most erudite yet readable article from the Guardian by Andre Gein and Nancy Rothwell makes the case with levels of data back up we could never match [2] Get this for a killer quote:

It is recognised as having a much higher rate of return than average for capital investment across government spending lines (every £1 of Higher Education Innovation Fund investment at research intensive universities delivers £12 to the economy).

Starmer and Reeves should ignore the groans of the terminally old and selfish. Real patriotism would embrace tax rises, if these are then invested in the long term future of our universities, And the network of schools that feed them of course. It’s time to play a big card, and this is a gambit that will work.

[1]Enlightenment Roy Porter Allen Lane 2000

[2]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/26/scientific-research-needs-robust-government-backing-not-treasury-penny-pinching

#universities #research and development #economics #industrial revolution #britain #enlightenment

UK Riots: is Capitalism eating itself by the tail?

The jury’s been out on the UK summer riots. But now it’s back. And the verdict is grim. The causes are clear, and demonstrable. Most of the rioters were not outside agitators. They were locals. And the places local to them are rotten with deprivation, bad health and unemployment. The findings are laid out for all to see in this pooled report from Guardian writers. [1] Their findings make grim reading for everyone, of whatever political persuasion. But sackcloth and ashes most of all are reserved for those who believe the antique slogans about untrammelled free markets, economic liberalisation, risk takers and free movement of goods and people being best for society.

Because what they forgot to tell us was that there are far more losers than winners in such a set-up. That whole communities would whither away into stagnation and despair. In such circumstances people do not make rational, considered judgements. They just get angry and resentful. Is it so surprising some of them riot? A free market purist would argue that nothing is more capitalist than immigration. Who takes more risks than an immigrant, by tearing up their roots and starting again in a new country? But clearly the natives don’t take such an objective view. Their riots are a sign of something much deeper.

Across the world, a massive reaction to the free movement of people has begun. Naturally, it extends to goods and services, as trade tariffs rise again, and local sourcing is everywhere preferred. Powerful demographic forces are making sure that free movement, markets and migration are coming to an end. The very forces unleashed by liberalism have ensured their own demise.

We at LSS do not believe that communism or faith-based economics are the answer. This is a Whig website, not a socialist one. We think the answer lies in a different model of Capitalism, In the next blog or two we will make suggestions as to what these may look like. These suggestions will be tentative, and humble. But unless we learn to think in different ways, and soon, even the educated will end up joining the others in final despair.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/sep/25/local-left-behind-prey-to-populist-politics-data-2024-uk-rioters

#economics #politics #racism #milton friedman #jm keynes #uk riots #populism

Trump Assassination Attempt-Is this another John Brown moment?

The American Civil War which began in 1861 did not come out of nowhere. Tensions between the two sides had been growing for almost four decades. Yet the war was not inevitable. History buffs will recall the efforts of moderates on both sides to pull the extremists back. Things like the Nullification Crisis, the Wilmott Proviso, the Missouri Compromise, now either despised or forgotten, delayed the bloodshed or tried valiantly to buy time to think again. What tipped the balance and allowed the hotheads to say “we were right all along” was John Brown and his terrorists’ raid on the Harpers Ferry Federal Arsenal 0n 16 October 1859. Read this from Hugh Brogan’s Pelican History of the United States [1]

“…the impression made on the South was too deep. Here it was at last, the nightmare come true. The abolitionist appeal to the slaves to rebel, now naked and apparent, in spite of the endless disclaimers of Northern Politicians, of Southern Moderates. The fire-eaters instantly took command.

From John Brown onward, the march to war began.

That there were moderates on both sides in contemporary America, including the Republican Party, we had no doubt, right up until today. But now expect the MAGA extremists to unleash a firestorm of social media. Blaming Biden; blaming the Democrats, blaming the Deep State, the Secret Service, CNN, the New York Times…..anyone. That there were reasonable people, who believe that Statecraft is to address several issues at once, will be forgotten. As in 1860, the lines between those who honestly believe that Race and its attendant hierarches are the most important matters in human affairs, and those who honestly do not, are firmly drawn. If we are wrong, you may laugh at us.

But if we are right, the future is dark indeed. Expect a closely contested Presidential Election. with repeated outbreaks of lethal violence. And that neither side honestly accepts the result. The Constitution of the United States is thereby vitiated. There will then be a short descent into a bloody and protracted Civil War. The United States will cease to exist as a meaningful power. Any political entities which emerge in its former territories will be dark and authoritarian, whether of Right or Left. China and its allies and satellites will become the dominant force in world affairs. They will quickly buy the strongmen and media allies to snuff out the last vestiges of freedom in the small nations of Europe , Canada and the others. And Thomas Matthew Crooks was the man who finally tipped the whole thing into motion. May his soul be cursed in Hell forever.

[1] Hugh Brogan The Pelican History of the United States of America Penguin 1985 pp 317 et seq

[2]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cljy6yz1j6gt?post=asset%3A7a474ec3-efd2-4dac-9721-2e38d573c1f9

thomas matthew crooks #john brown #harpers ferry #butler, pa #US Civil War ~donald Trump #MAGA

UK Election: we predict a narrow win for Labour

_{Note for overseas readers:The UK election will be decided in a single day, July 4th. 650 Parliamentary constituencies will each elect a single MP on a one-adult, one vote system. Hence 326 seats are enough to ensure a simple majority in the new Parliament}.

Ok, this is a shot in the dark. But we have always been suspicious of opinion polls (we’ll explain why below) If you have been following the UK general election, and tracking the polls, you might be forgiven for thinking this election will result in a very large majority for the Labour Party. [1] as this link and story from the Guardian might suggest. This is why we think that those predictions are wildly inaccurate

1 The Labour lead has been shrinking If you look at link one in this post you’ll see it peaked just after the disastrous Premiership of Liz Truss. Whatever other mistakes the Tories have made, she has been carefully kept out of the campaign by both the Party and mainstream media, which is largely Tory owned and dominated. Memories have faded: and Liz’s days as recruiting sergeant for the Left are well and truly over

2 Shy Tories If you were an ordinary decent person, with a strong awareness of the last 14 years, would you admit to being a Tory, especially of some earnest faced young pollster is bearing down on you with a tablet computer? Perhaps not, in public. But old loyalties flood strong and hard, particularly in the privacy of the polling booth. England (not Scotland nor Wales) is a deeply Conservative country, where strong memories of Empire linger in many corners. Don’t be surprised for a strong showing from this quarter, as happened in 1992.

3 Don’t know/undecided Much as above, especially for the cultural reasons we have alluded to. Even if this group break several ways, it’s still quite a reservoir of Tory votes

4 Returning Reformers /Shy Reformers Despite an early strong showing by Nigel and the boys, there are signs that their vote is fading. This time. It’s possible that at the last moment loyalty to the Squire and the traditional hierarchy will cause many to cast their lot in with the Tories, rather than let in a Labour government. However, if the Reform vote does hold up, it may well bite deep into Labour [2]

5 The Tory Media Newspapers like the Mail and the Sun do not circulate as well as they used to. Gone are the days when the could simply whistle up 150 Tory seats. But the right wing news ecology, incredibly well-oiled and funded, has simply shifted to social media and outlets like GB News. The last few days have witnessed a hysterical and well co-ordinated attack on Starmer and all things Labour. Expect this to sway more than a few of the voters in the groups above.

So, perhaps a bit unscientifically, with one finger in the wind we predict

Labour 350 Conservative 208 Lib Dem 20 SNP 40 DUP 7 Sinn Fein 9 Reform 3 Plaid Cymru 2 SDLP 1 Other/Speaker 10

By Friday morning, you will know.

And this is our firm and unshakeable pledge: if we are wrong to any substantial degree , we will buy the office cat a tin of the finest tuna, to dispose of as he wishes

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2024/jul/02/uk-general-election-opinion-polls-tracker-latest-labour-tories-2024
[2]ttps://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/03/labour-expects-surge-of-shy-reform-voters-in-some-northern-and-midlands-seats

#general election #united kingdom #parliament #opinion polls #shy tory

Time to Tax the Billionaires?

Imagine that every country was so prosperous that there was little need for migration. That the climate crisis was fixed, with wind turbines and electric cars in every land you visited. New drugs for every conceivable illness were not just freely available, but there were active substitutes for each of them waiting in laboratories. There were no hungry children at all, and everyone in the world had an old age pension. Would about $250 billion* a year about cover it?

That’s what could be obtained if there was a single world effort to fairly tax the planet’s 3000 or so billionaires, according to a report by Gabriel Zuchman, helpfully written up for us by Larry Elliott of the Guardian [1] At the moment this gilded class pays about 0.3% of their income in tax, which compared to most of us is nugatory indeed. But we’ll let Larry’s article cover the details-(you must read it), and instead riff on a theme of our own. The case for tax is not moral, nor Marxist nor religious, nor based on Natural Justice . It’s actually historical, and its about survival

The 18th century, or Enlightenment, or whatever, was full of learned economists who preached the gospel of lower taxes as the source of the wealth of their nations. The country that really put this in to practice was Imperial China, then the world’s largest economy. But the western barbarians-nations like England, Portugal and so on, kept their taxes high, despite all the domestic preaching. The result? Huge fleets and armies, able to dismember poor China’s attenuated defences, and open them to the enlightened benefits of trade. The chief result of which was a mass opium addiction. The moral? You need taxes if you are going to survive. remember that next time you read a bit of propaganda from a billionaire think tank or news outlet.

*in these pages billion=10⁹

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/news/article/2024/jun/25/international-scheme-to-tax-billionaires-wealth-technically-feasible-study-finds

#china #opium war #tax #billionaire #G20 #Gabriel Zuchman

Why the UK has ended up like Manchester United

Followers of football often discuss the fate of Manchester United FC. A once hugely-successful club, awash with money that is now desperately underperforming, despite an endless stream of new mangers and fresh starts. Some compare it with the fate of Rome (the Empire of that name, not the football club). But there may be an another comparison, more recent and much closer.

Why is the UK so desperately underperforming? Why is the state of its mental health so very poor, when compared to other countries? Why have peoples hopes and expectations stagnated? Why is the health service so bad? Housing so squalid and insecure for so many? Especially as all the terrible social and economic problems were tackled so ably, especially in the years between 1945 and 1975? One intriguing set of ideas has been presented by George Monbiot. [1] [2] Intriguing because they link together so many disparate observations. Refreshing, because they challenge existing orthodoxies of Right and Left. For George, the culprit is Neoliberalism, which he defines as a cultish ideology based on a relentless cutting of the state, privatisation, low taxes and the freest possible flows of taxes and people. (the latter certainly explains why we couldn’t see the pictures in the Uffizi galleries in Florence)

Of course, it’s a contribution, not a panacea. But it touches on the same sort of themes as Thomas Piketty, Wilkinson and Pickett, Hutton and others whom we have referenced on these pages from time to time. That the endless competition by individuals for wealth and status will end up by leaving all of us poorer. Except the very rich, who own all the media by which we are told what a great idea all of this is. And as for the UK and poor old Manchester United? Perhaps both of them need to take a very long, cool look at the fundamental causes of their unhappy states. Before worse happens.

[1]https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/other/why-is-britain-s-mental-health-so-incredibly-poor-it-s-because-our-society-is-spiralling-backwards/ar-BB1m8tVR?ocid=msedg

[2]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/10/britain-mental-health-society-neoliberalism-politicians

#neoliberalism #finance #wealth #mental health #housing #inequality