Peace will come to earth when the people
have more to do with each other
and governments less.

Anybody with any knowledge of economics should feel uneasy at the sight of a country where half of recorded economic activity is conducted by the state. Are such semi-socialist societies operable, and if so, for how long?

Read the article via Deceits and delusions – Some thoughts on the euro-crisis and democracy.

Here’s the growth of the British Government to over half of GDP:

The growth of the British Government

We can escape this mess towards sustainable prosperity, but that escape will require substantial reforms towards sound institutions of social cooperation: honest money, strong property rights, freedom to contract, an end to trade barriers and lower, simpler taxes.

Occupy London 6 by Nathan Meijer (click for source)

As CNN reports, the V for Vendetta-style Guy Fawkes mask has inspired Occupy protesters around the world. CNN points out:

Ironically Fawkes, far from being the anti-establishment hero he has come to be seen as in the years since his death, was a monarchist who merely wanted to replace the Anglican king with a Catholic queen.

A transcript of his trial with co-conspirators is available here. It’s hard reading for one not accustomed to 17th century English but, in relation to the matter of the conspiracy:

As concerning the second, which is the Matter conspired; it was,

First, To deprive the King of his Crown.
Secondly, To murder the King, the Queen, and the Prince.
Thirdly, To stir Rebellion and Sedition in the Kingdom.
Fourthly, To bring a miserable Destruction amongst the Subjects.
Fifthly, To change, alter, and subvert the Religion here established.
Sixthly, To ruinate the State of the Commonwealth, and to bring in Strangers to invade it.

It’s all far from an answer to the contemporary corporatism which oppresses and impoverishes the majority of us and yet Fawkes inspires those who protest the obvious failures in our present system. Having visited the protest, I believe most protesters are peaceful.  I shouldn’t think they are volunteering for the punishment decreed for Fawkes and his conspirators: it included, amongst other things, having their genitals cut off and burnt before them.

The protesters’ use of Fawkes masks is surely far less to do with Fawkes himself and far more to do with the fantasy of revolution against state tyranny that is V for Vendetta.  The film, like the protestors, errs in eulogising Fawkes, a traitor and terrorist, but it is not without wisdom.

In particular, in his broadcast speech, V says of the dystopian state of Britain:

How did this happen? Who is to blame? Well certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again, truth be told, if you are looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

And so we should. Each of us, over several generations and with the best of intentions, has voted for parties which offered doctrines of state power, not freedom.

If the banks and other large corporations oppress us and manufacture injustice (and they do), it is because they enjoy privileges granted by the state, privileges which – like deposit insurance and bank bailouts – were meant to protect us. Corporations do not have coercive power: states are territorial monopolies on the use of force. The privileges granted to corporations and the consequent injustices are the tragic result of attempts by democracies to provide what people want: security and prosperity.

In the mid-nineteenth century, Alexis de Tocqueville set out the kind of despotism democratic nations have to fear:

Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?

And so the Government worries about wellbeing in a thoroughly technocratic way and brings you Mindspace: Influencing behaviour through public policy. The state today spends over half of GDP: can anyone seriously believe that this is limited government and a free society? Communist China spends less: 2010 GDP was $5.93 trillion and state spending $1.33 trillion – 22% of GDP .

In The Road to Serfdom, Hayek explained that technocratic government would crush Parliamentary democracy, just as it has done, and lead to tyranny through its own failure. In Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Schumpeter made the case that the success of capitalism, in the context of democracy, would lead to corporatism and the fostering of values hostile to entrepreneurship. Capitalism would be replaced by some form of socialism through a tendency, which we have seen, of electorates to return parties of social democracy. Schumpeter believed the intellectual trends of society would destroy the capitalist structure.

And so it has come to pass. In Living with Leviathan, David B Smith writes (as I have blogged before):

New Labour’s so-called ‘third way’, and the prevalent economic paradigm in much of ‘Old Europe’, appears to correspond to none of these categories [free market, socialist and 'Butskellite' mixed]. Instead, it appears to be a system under which the private sector maintains a nominal legal control over its capital and labour, but the returns on these factors of production are so heavily influenced by tax and regulation that the public sector ends up effectively controlling such returns. This sham form of mixed economy, which needs to be distinguished from the British mixed economy of the 1950s, has traditionally been associated with fascist regimes – for example, the gelenkte Wirtschaft (supple or ‘joined-up’ economy) that Goering implemented in Nazi Germany in 1936.

The awful truth for many who protest our present social system, calling for greater democratic control over more extensive state power in the general interest, is that we already live in the system which is the inevitable, predictable consequence of their demands. It is that statist system which is manufacturing injustice, eroding freedom and impoverishing us today.

In the film, V says,

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

Indeed, and when people demand liberty over licentiousness and security, their freedom from state power and the dignity to determine their own destiny within a fixed moral framework, no doubt politicians will arise who will give it to them.

I look forward to the day.

Further reading

• Where I stand
• Why government spending is hard to cut
• Posts on liberty
• Five videos which explain our predicament
• Detlev Schlichter on the Second Crisis of Socialism
• Relevant reading: book reviews, bookstore

Over the past few days, many constituents have written to me expressing anger and dismay about the riots, policing and justice. I share this anger and dismay.  As I said in my article on Wednesday, we must establish that the state’s duty is to protect the law-abiding and their property first and foremost and that the police do not require the consent of rioters before acting with reasonable force.

The Prime Minister has said that we will do whatever it takes to restore law and order and to rebuild our communities. His statement yesterday may be found here.

As the Prime Minister has said, too few police were deployed and their tactics did not work. They faced widespread, simultaneous looting, not concentrated public disorder.

More police have now been put on the streets, more people have been arrested and more criminals are being prosecuted.  No phoney concerns will get in the way of publicising the faces of those wanted for crimes.  The police are already authorised to use baton rounds (“rubber bullets”) and there are contingency plans in place to make water cannon available at 24 hours notice.  The Government will give the police the power to remove face coverings under any circumstances where there is reasonable suspicion that they are related to criminal activity.

The Prime Minister also announced measures to support victims and to tackle the culture of criminality which has grown up in our country. There is a difference between right and wrong: a culture which glorifies violence, disrespect and irresponsibility is unacceptable. The Government is setting out to do those things which will change our broken society.

I was glad that the Prime Minister yesterday reasserted the old principle that the public are the police and the police are the public. Given that people are entitled under law to use reasonable force in defence of their lives, their property and their communities, it is important that the public are given appropriate guidance. I will be writing to the Home Secretary seeking that guidance.

Similarly, the police should be guided by the principle of reasonable force. Occasionally, an individual police officer has used excessive force in a difficult atmosphere but, over the past few days, the police have not used that force which it appears the majority of the population would have endorsed. I personally do not approve of ‘kettling’ peaceful demonstrators. We have to recognise that the police are in an extremely difficult position in this area. However, Parliament and the Government must ensure that the police are able to use that force which is reasonable in the circumstances, even if that includes the use of baton rounds, water cannons, tear gas or other tactics which may cause serious injury or even death.

We now face the problem of inadequate sentencing. I will be writing to the Justice Secretary on that subject.

All in all, I believe we now see clearly the legacy of a century of misguided statism and surrender of basic human values. The police have not drawn the correct distinction between policing legitimate demonstrations and intervening in criminal riots: unreasonable force has sometimes been used where none was appropriate and reasonable force has not been used where it was required. That must be resolved.

How so many people have come to be so reckless, irresponsible, immoral and downright criminal will be a subject for discussion over many years. I am reminded of the warnings issued by C S Lewis in The Abolition of Man and by Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote in the 19th century of the dangers of the nanny state:

Subjection in minor affairs breaks out every day and is felt by the whole community indiscriminately. It does not drive men to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, till they are led to surrender the exercise of their own will. Thus their spirit is gradually broken and their character enervated [...]. It is in vain to summon a people who have been rendered so dependent on the central power to choose from time to time the representatives of that power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity.

It is my view that many in our society have sunk to the present level because, for generations, we have progressively surrendered ourselves to the embrace of the state. It is past time that we rediscovered the classical English values of liberty under the law, which means responsibility. That would include building a straightforward system of justice based, not on the state’s attempt to shape the individual’s character, but on the protection of life, liberty and property.

However, on the positive side, I have been deeply heartened by the way communities have come together to defend themselves and to clear up the mess created by those who have betrayed their fellow man. Moreover, the young people I meet in Wycombe schools and during their work experience unfailingly lift my spirits with their sincerity, good intent and earnestness. Our young people are, on the whole, a cause not for despair but for hope.

The disgraceful events of the past days contain many lessons for us all. We should now strive to build a better society based on personal and social responsibility and those values which have sustained every civilisation, foremost of which is this: do as you would have others do unto you.

I’ve had a varied couple of days working for my constituents in Parliament – see theyworkforyou.com – but most interesting is what I have confirmed about the media.

On this blog, I described various aspects of the political situation as a “pantomime” we should move past. That was picked up by the national media. Two news channels wanted to interview me. The BBC quoted me online, until a colleague said something more combative and less supportive of coalition.

While government and business in Parliament are proceeding with very little conflict between back-bench members of the governing parties, that doesn’t suit the news. They want sensation and they will maximise any hint of it.

Perhaps this is nothing new but now more than ever I begin to understand the existence and conduct of the “Westminster Bubble”. I hope the development of new media bursts it.

For a very long time, it has seemed perfectly natural that governments could and should borrow – to finance expensive wars or infrastructure projects, for example. Keynesian economists saw the occasional deficit as an important way of managing the economy. But once you give politicians the power to borrow, a huge moral hazard arises. It becomes just too tempting, and too easy, to borrow for the purposes of current consumption, rather than future benefit. More expensive schools, rising healthcare standards, more generous pensions, more police, social workers and officials, even bailing out the banks – all can be packaged as an ‘investment’ in the future. But in fact the principal beneficiaries are we today, who enjoy all these improvements. The losers are the next generation who find themselves bearing the cost.

Read the rest of the article at the ASI: Government should be banned from borrowing.