Alan Charles Kors – Freedom Dinner 2009 Keynote from Atlas Network on Vimeo.

I’ve been extremely busy lately (meaning work until 4 am frequently, plus travel) and have been behind on some writing projects, but I am really, really pleased that I brought along on my trip to China James C. Scott’s The Art of Not Being Governed. It’s a remarkably interesting treatment (I’m only a bit more than 100 pages into it at present, so I’ve got more stimulating reading ahead of me) of the nature of “ungoverned” regions of the world, with a focus on various hill peoples of Asia. To put it in a nutshell, he argues that the traditional view of such ungoverned people is that they are holdovers from previous civilizations, or representatives of how people lived before states, etc., etc. Scott looks at them in a very different way: they live in ways that have enabled them to elude capture or domination by the state, and those ways of life (including agriculture, settlement patterns, kinship systems, religion, etc.) have been deeply influenced by the proximity of predatory states. They have, in effect, evolved in ways that elude being ruled by states. When you think about it for a few minutes, it certainly seems a more fruitful way of understanding such peoples and their ways of life than the dominant mode. And it should tell us something, as well, about the likely success of the Pakistani government in extending its writ throughout the Northwest Frontier Province or of the Afghan government extending its writ from border to border of the territory of Afghanistan. (That said, Scott’s thesis should not be confused with fantasies or romantic notions about how the most wonderful thing imaginable is to live without a state; some — not all — forms of statelessness, such as those that have emerged among groups that have avoided being captured by states, are remarkably brutal and savage, and there are some stateless populations [think contemporary southern Somalia] who are fare worse off by most criteria, including freedom, than people who live under relatively limited government.)

My long-time friend Tibor Machan with “Thoughts on Objectivism and Ayn Rand” from London.

laconf09, Tibor Machan: “Thoughts on Objectivism and Ayn Rand” from Sean Gabb on Vimeo.

My talk to the Oxford University Libertarian Society on “Anarchism, Limited Government, and Liberalism: A Modest Case for Sacking the State”:

Tom Palmer – “Anarchism, Limited Government & Liberalism: A Modest Case for Sacking the State” from oxford libertarian on Vimeo.

(I had not had a chance to listen to it before, but I think it stands up well. I can now see — or hear — from my gravelly voice how sick I was at the time. I am now recovering from a nasty upper respiratory tract infection I got on the road; maybe it was the 35-hour travel time I endured from Central Asia to Santa Barbara, followed by about 30 hours in that city, and then another 25 or so hours to get to Cairo, where I got a nasty case of food poisoning before heading to London and then Oxford.)

Tom Palmer – “Anarchism, Limited Government & Liberalism: A Modest Case for Sacking the State” from oxford libertarian on Vimeo.

It was a rather informal chat that covered a number of topics in history, sociology, political science, economics, and moral theory. I haven’t had a chance to watch through it, but I had nightmares afterwards that I had misspoken on an important matter, that is, on the absolute incomes of the lowest decile of income in the least economically free and the lowest deciles in the most most economically free. I said, I think, that the latter was something like $17,000, when it should have been more like $7,000 for the most free. That’s a big difference! (Still the lower number is a huge multiple of the incomes of the lowest decile in the least free, which was my point, but misspeaking like that is an embarrassment; I have asked the organizers to check it and post the correction. I will try to check it myself, now that I have some fast internet access.) The stats for the latest report (http://www.freetheworld.com/2009/reports/world/EFW2009_ch1.pdf ) show the percentage of total national income ranges from 2.4 to 2.6 (that is, not much difference) between the least and the most economically free, whereas the average incomes for the lowest decile in the least free countries is $896 and for the most free it’s $9,105.

Rep. John Campbell in the Orange County Register: “A right to health care?”

A little partisan, given the huge steps toward such policies under the GOP (I don’t know if Campbell voted for them, e.g., the “right” to prescription drug benefits), but a good commonsensical analysis. (I have similar analyses, but with footnotes and some high-falutin’ language, in my book Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice.)

John Stuart Mill’s influential book On Liberty is 150 years old this year. Despite my reservations about the arguments Mill advances, Happy Birthday!!

Andrew Norton, an old friend from Australia, has a very elegant appreciation in the magazine Policy from the Centre for Independent Studies: “On Liberty at 150.”

As Andrew insightfully notes,

Classical liberalism is less rationalistic and individualistic, but more pluralistic, than Mill’s liberalism. Classical liberals support the freedom to conduct ‘experiments in living,’ as they support entrepreneurship in business. Innovation is necessary to progress but error-prone; only some social and commercial experiments will prove themselves to be better than the status quo. So classical liberals take a more benign view than Mill of custom and established social practices, which offer template ‘plans of life.’ People’s lives are not second-rate just because they are derivative rather than original. Nor should civil society be attacked by the state for not supporting individuality, as modern left-liberals do in using anti-discrimination law to enforce Millian ideals of personal autonomy on conservative religious institutions. There are diverse ways of living a good life, and governments should not try to reduce their number.

I am in general agreement with Andrew’s take, although I do not blame Mill as much for the decline of classical liberalism (that’s a complex subject for another occasion).

I also would add that I find the book that inspired On Liberty, Wilhelm von Humboldt’s On the Limits of State Action, is in many ways a more interesting book, but mainly influential through its influence on such thinkers as Mill.

You can find On Liberty online here.

From Forbes: “It Wasn’t A ‘Coup’”

Article 239 says that any person who has held the office of the presidency cannot be president or vice president again. Furthermore, it states that the officeholder “that violates this provision or proposes its reform, as well as those who support such a violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years.”

I added the italics for emphasis. Note the use of the word “immediately.”

Also, the Honduran constitution stipulates that the only mechanism through which it can be amended is by two separate votes in Congress by absolute majority (two-thirds). However, Article 375 states that under no circumstance can the constitution be amended to allow for presidential re-election.

The purpose of such congressional power and limits on presidents remaining in office beyond one term was and is to keep out dictators, tyrants, caudillos, “strong men,” and coup leaders, such as Zelaya, who initiated a military coup when he ordered the military to use force to override the decisions of the electoral court, the supreme court, the congress, and the attorney general that his plans were illegal. Zelaya was, accordingly, removed. Whether it was the best way to remove him is certainly debatable, but that he was removed legally, after an arrest warrant from the supreme court, is not in doubt.

“Democracy” is not about following mad leaders who seek power forever, but about, in Jefferson’s phrase from the Kentucky Resolutions,

…free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power: that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go; …. In questions of powers, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.

My book Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice will soon be available in a Kindle edition and can be pre-ordered now. (Note: I love my new Kindle DX.) Amazon.com has also put up a searchable “Look inside this book” option for Realizing Freedom.

BBC: “Gay sex decriminalised in India”

The position of the Roman Catholic Church is disagreeable, but compatible with civilized treatment of others:

Father Dominic Emanuel of India’s Catholic Bishop Council said the church did not “approve” of homosexual behaviour.

“Our stand has always been very clear. The church has no serious objection to decriminalising homosexuality between consenting adults, the church has never considered homosexuals as criminals,” said Father Emanuel.

“But the church does not approve of this behaviour. It doesn’t consider it natural, ethical, or moral,” he said.

I disagree with the priest’s views about sexuality, nature, ethics, and morality, but in a free society, we tolerate the beliefs of others, no matter how odd or eccentric or unfounded, so long as they do not use force. As members of a great society, the leaders of the Catholic Church could have done better: they have agreed not to object to liberty (rather than endorsing the freedom, while criticizing the behavior), when they should have been insisting on liberty, just as I would demand liberty for them to preach their views without any hindrance. Freedom is a fundamental right for everyone — those who disagree with us no less than those who agree with us.

The response of one (and I should note that that does not mean that it is the view of all) Indian Muslim was very different. Note the strangeness of referring to the repeal of a prohibition as itself a law that he would not “accept”:

The head cleric of Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque, criticised the ruling.

“This is absolutely wrong. We will not accept any such law,” Ahmed Bukhari told the AFP news agency.

Does that mean that he will go and punish with force gay people on his own?

Here is the legal decision.

P.S. Sorry for the slightly garbled version first posted. I was rushing to write it in the Mexico City Airport and then had to go to board my flight.

The media discussion of events in Honduras is remarkably confused. Here’s CNN:

The president of the U.N. General Assembly scheduled a noon session Monday to discuss the situation in Honduras, following a military-led coup that ousted the sitting president.

and

Micheletti, the head of Congress, became president after lawmakers voted by a show of hands to strip Zelaya of his powers, with a resolution stating that Zelaya “provoked confrontations and divisions” within the country.

….

The coup came on the same day that he had vowed to follow through with a nonbinding referendum that the Honduran Supreme Court had ruled illegal.

Imagine that George Bush, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan or some other American president had decided to overturn the Constitution so that he could stay in power beyond the constitutionally limited time. To do that, he orders a nationwide referendum that is not constitutionally authorized and blatantly illegal. The Federal Election Commission rules that it is illegal. The Supreme Court rules that it is illegal. The Congress votes to strip the president of his powers and, as members of Congress are not that good at overcoming the president’s personally loyal and handpicked bodyguards, they send police and military to arrest the president. Now, which party is guilty of leading a coup?

This is another example of populist, dictatorial, anti-democratic thought parading as “democratic.” I discuss the issue in my recent lecture on enduring democracy in New Delhi.

On the road I’ve re-read Carl Schmitt’s most interesting challenge to liberalism, The Concept of the Political, which will be discussed at a conference I’m organizing in France later this summer. It’s a maddeningly strange book at times, but presents one of the best full-frontal assaults on liberalism (well, on civilization, in my opinion) I’ve ever read. (To get the full sense of what Schmitt is about, I also recommend reading Ernst Jünger’s In the Storm of Steel, which presents a gritty glorification of militarism and “the Ideals of 1914.”)

Another very interesting book, which I read in preparation for my talk in New Delhi on “Enduring Democracy and Limited Government,” is Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s insightful, daring, and highly intelligent The Burden of Democracy, which offers an economically, sociologically, and psychologically rich discussion of liberal democracy, with special attention to the context and history of India. Mehta’s short and very readable book (I warn that you will have to ask Mr. Google or Mr. Yahoo for help with some of the Indian political references) reminds me of the better sociologically-oriented essays of Joseph Schumpeter.

I got a little example of what Vijay Dandapani describes: a very short flight from Delhi (maybe half an hour) to Pakistan took me more than 11 hours, via Dubai.

I got in to Delhi last night and was met at the airport by my friend Barun Mitra and my friend and colleague Jude Blanchette. After a good Indian meal and conversation and some moderately helpful sleep, I’m working on my lecture for this evening’s Julian L. Simon Memorial Lecture, hosted by the Liberty Institute and the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung on “Enduring Democracy and Limited Government: The unbreakable partnership.”

In a Washington Post article about a potential candidate for the Supreme Court (”Supreme Court Prospect Has Unlikely Ally:Friendship With Thomas May Complicate Chances for Left-Leaning Georgia Judge“; registration may be required), the reporter informs us that a mere personal friendship between two judges may disqualify one from consideration for the Supreme Court. Why? Because the court is not seen as dispensing justice, but as “representing interests.”

But if the choice does turn out to be Sears, the nation’s first black president would be nominating someone whose closest friend on the court is the very person civil rights activists have accused of failing to represent African Americans’ interests.

That neatly tells us what is wrong with the approach to jurisprudence pioneered by theorists of positive rights, who have effectively replaced rights with interests, and even state that rights simply are interests. Judges, accordingly, are supposed to decide cases as representatives of interests, not on the grounds of justice. (I explore the issue in some depth in my essay “Saving Rights Theory from Its Friends” in my very soon-to-be-released book Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice.)

….from the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy

Read their final report: “Drugs and Democracy: Toward a Paradigm Shift”

It is long past time to end the destructive, wasteful, and unjust policy of prohibition. It fuels terrorism, empowers and funds the most violent criminals, and ruins the lives of millions of people. Enough!

Now available for advance purchase from Amazon.com and soon from Laissez Faire Books. Here are some evaluations from people who know the book:

“The libertarian conception of individual autonomy is often attacked as fostering narrow and selfish individuals who take scant notice of the larger world around them. Tom Palmer’s great contribution in this collection of essays is to set those misconceptions to rest. He shows how autonomous individuals use their powers to promote exchange and cooperation, which enrich all facets of social life. He exposes the cultural imperialists whose high-falutin’ rhetoric is all too often the prescription for economic protectionism and social stagnation. He reminds us yet again that individual liberty is our most precious social good.”

–Richard Epstein, University of Chicago School of Law, author of Simple Rules for a Complex World

“Tom Palmer has been long involved in fighting the battle of ideas, in confronting collectivism, extensive government intervention and suppression of human freedom and economic prosperity. This book should be read by all who do care about freedom. It is important to remind each generation that freedom can never be taken for granted. Collectivist, anti-libertarian ideologies did not cease to exist in the moment of the fall of the Iron Curtain.”

–Václav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic

“Tom Palmer has been one of liberty’s most eloquent and learned spokespersons for many years. It is a joy to have so many of his lucid, readable, and trenchant essays, written over most of those years, between one set of covers. The essays range from very specific to the very broad and basic. Palmer’s work is distinguished by its historical literacy — few can cite relevant events from the world’s history, as well as specifically American and British history, so virtuosically as he. The essays are independent of each other, enough so that you can sit down and read one here, one there. I guarantee you a good read. Oh, yes, and there’s a long, hugely useful paper toward the end, plus some reviews, always sharp and to the point, and in many appropriate cases, lethal. Here, in short, is one of those books that really do belong on every shelf — at least, if the shelf in question has any concern for human freedom.”

–Jan Narveson, University of Waterloo, author of The Libertarian Idea and You and the State: A Short Introduction to Political Philosophy

“Tom Palmer has the ability to make the complex understandable and to go to the heart of the most difficult problems. He is a valuable resource for journalists and others in search of historical and economic scholarship and philosophical insight, especially about the impact of government intervention and the reasons for respecting the freedom and responsibility of individuals.”

–John Stossel, ABC News, author of Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel – Why Everything You Know is Wrong

You can pre-order your very own copy today.

I’ll speak this afternoon at the Fórum da Liberdade (which had a really amazing opening session last night, with speeches by former a remarkable lineup of speakers) on the topic of freedom of the press. The Fórum is an astonishing libertarian event. The gigantic auditorium was packed last night with thousands of attendees. (It was followed by a remarkable evening at a very fine Churascurria in Porto Alegre.)

My talk will cover such topics as why you don’t need a special “press law,” why an independent media (not dependent on advertising from state firms) is important, and the presumption of liberty in relation to speech and the inversion of that presumption in contemporary “bills of rights,” that list permissions granted to citizens, against a background of powers to coerce.

GM chairman to leave US car maker

The chief executive and chairman of troubled US car maker General Motors will step down at once, at the request of Barack Obama.

I was so happy to see the back of George W. Bush and his administration, with their disregard for the Constitution, foolish and unnecessary war, attempt to subvert habeas corpus, reckless spending, and overall arrogance and disregard for limits on power. His successor has decided to follow even more carefully the examples set by Benito Mussolini and Vladimir Putin, and has sacked the head of a company. That is a decision for the shareholders of a private firm to make, not for the head of state. What next? Will private firms end up in the hands of friends of the president? Will the White House Chief of Staff serve simultaneously as head of a major state-directed company? Will journalists who criticize the president end up shot in the head in elevators?

Bankruptcy would have allowed for new management to replace the incompetent management at GM. Instead we get bailouts, corruption, cronyism, and the public arrogance of a man who wields coercive power — the power to jail and kill — thinking he knows best how to manage a car company. How utterly disgusting.

Sign the petition to stop protectionism and economic nationalism and the economic disaster, loss of freedom, and diplomatic and military conflict it brings in its train. Hundreds of economists and others from around the globe have signed. Please add your voice.