North West Libertarians September Meet Up

An informal meeting of libertarians in the North West will take place at the famous Lass O'Gowrie pub in Manchester: http://www.qype.co.uk/place/153967-Lass-O-Gowrie-Manchester Expected topics of conversation will include discussion of the new Independent Libertarian Network, as well as bidding fairwell to one of our brethren who is relocating to the dreaded South. Everyone's welcome - unlike the squalid gang of con men and conspiracy theorists who seized control of the old Libertarian Party, we don't do closed meetings. Come along if you feel like it, have a beer, have a chat, make friends and set the world to rights. See you there.

Elites and governing elites

The reason that efforts to promote liberal democracy and western style government in the Middle East have failed is simply because they have been thwarted by interest groups, elites, within and part of western society and for whom liberal democracy is not, actually, on their agenda.

Totalised control, that operates free of any need for accountability to the controlled, is their ultimate aim and so in fact the medieval totalist philosophies and political systems that currently rule in most of the mid east are actually more in line with what they are seeking to achieve.

There are those in the governing elite of the West who genuinely do desire to promote and establish freedom. However it seems they have been outwitted and strategically bested by those working within the liberal social structures who seek to achieve coercion and control by an elite as the norm.
The governing structures of the European Union are  examples of systems tending in that direction.
Whether such coercion and control is through nazism, socialism, fascism, islamisim, corporatism, communism, ba'athism, atheism or witchcraft is not important to them. What is important is the principle that the elite directs and everyone else obeys.

In fact if one presumes this is the basis for many of the seemingly strange things that go on, such as David Cameron's incomprehensible attitude and actions regarding the EU, they begin to make sense.

This requirement for the principle of dictators and dictatees is the reason that such unlikely bedfellows as communists and islamists find common cause.
The need to control what is done and what is not done is the critical requirement; the principle to be established.
An interesting line from a Mises letter expressed the spirit of this attitude as evidenced by the US internal revenue 'service':  "Everything not forbidden is compulsory."

Individual freedom and individual responsibility is anathema to such people. It is positively dangerous.
But without that freedom and responsibility there is no hope for the human race.
We will stagnate and start slipping backwards, as, in many ways, we have and are.

Which spirit will prevail?

North West Libertarians Meetup 28 July

Libertarian Meetup (North West)

The Dee Hotel, 44 Grange Road, West Kirby, Merseyside, CH48 4EF
 Saturday, 28 July 2012 - 13:00 - 16:00

Libertarians in the North West are meeting to discuss the Independent Libertarian Network and other issues of current interest to libertarians.

For more information or advice on car parking, contact Malcolm Saunders on malpoet@hotmail.co.uk.

The Independent Libertarian Network

Gavin Webb's efforts over the last few months have started to come to fruition and he has a new Libertarian political party formally registered with the Electoral Commission. The emphasis is very much on supporting local activism. It's early days yet, but I think it has potential. Visit the website, have a look at the constitution and see if it's the kind of setup you might be interested in getting involved with:

http://www.independentlibertarians.com/

Some Things Never Seem To Change

So there I was at an antiques fair in Stockport, looking for potential stock for my fledgling business when this bit of ephemera caught my eye and I just had to have it for my own interest. I admit that I collect some odd things, and I've been in the habit of accumulating political literature since my days as an activist with the former Libertarian Party – this may be the oldest example of an election leaflet that I've ever seen though:

 

It seems even in the 1880s local politicians were screwing the citizenry into the ground with excessive taxes!

The Failure of the Modern Political Class

The unemployment rate stands at over 8% of the population. Millions of the remaining 92% are underemployed, eking out a living with part-time and temporary work, relying on the state to pick up the slack. The economic future rests on a knife-edge, dependent on the decisions of politicians and bankers in other countries. Children who have not yet been born are expected to pay for the living costs of people alive now. People alive now, whose ancestors may have lived in the same place for generations, are expected to pay for the living costs of people who have only just arrived here. Basic personal freedoms are left unprotected and unvalued, while the financial, political and social elites are able to act with impunity, regardless of the detriment to others. This is not some kind of apocalyptic vision, this is Britain today. Who is responsible?

Our Leaders

Ordinary citizens cannot be blamed for our situation. While they may contribute to it, the ability of the people to determine their own destiny has been stripped away over the years. The people are, and feel, powerless. Those on both the traditional political left and right are equally to blame for our current situation. No-one in power genuinely challenges the state and its role; some may tinker around the edges, but they do not address the debate in terms of the relationships between the state and the individual. They address it in terms of how the state can make changes to the way things work. That is where our political class fundamentally fails, and is likely to continue to do so. To the political ruling class, we need to add the economic ruling class, as the two are heavily linked. Our economic system is heavily corporatist, working in the same way as the government does to entice people in to a sense of false confidence in rulers, and leaving them unable to do anything for themselves. Just as the government paralyses people with tempting promises of cradle-to-grave welfare benefits, so the banks do with offers of money back credit cards. These things benefit people financially in the short term, but in the longer term, they leave them unable to exercise their basic personal freedoms, as they are trapped in dependence, taxation and debt.

What Can Be Done?

Libertarian politics does not (unlike many forms of political thought) offer a quick fix. What it does offer, is a return to real, human values. Free from dependence on the state, people would be free to rediscover their ability to help themselves and to co-operate to help each other. As humans, our nature is to help each other on a local scale. This can be seen all over the world from cooperation to hunt and farm land to groups trying to invent solutions to environmental problems and intervening on behalf of a stricken friend to help them turn their life around.

Stripped of the need to do so by the state, we no longer do so. A system based on local economics, real free markets and devolved politics, rather than the faceless part-corporatist, part-socialist system we have now would not suffer the kind of collapse we are seeing now. The current economic failure is a failure of corporate capitalism, not a failure of free markets. It is also a failure of our elites to recognise the dangers inherent in their own system, and to protect us from them. While promising to help the people and keep them from harm, they failed to work to prevent it.

What Will Be Done?

The EU and national governments continue to work to try and limit the damage their policies have caused. The difficulty is, the cause of a problem is rarely the solution to it. It is looking increasingly likely that Greece will have to leave the Euro and default on its debts. That could cause a domino effect, with other hard-hit countries including Ireland, Spain and Italy possibly following suit. It is difficult to see how the currency could survive given that scenario. There may well be more bailouts, with the rotten system we have being further propped up with the tax money of ordinary people. This may be an opportunity for new ideas to spread, as people begin to get angry. In Greece, all kinds of smaller parties have emerged in the wake of the crisis. There is not yet a coherent libertarian movement there, but the appetite could be there, as it could be in the UK. There is a real need for genuine alternatives to be presented to the people, so that the people can begin to determine their future.

Europe: Anti-Austerity and Extremism at the Ballots

The global recession has put pressure on governments all over the world. We have seen incredible rises in unemployment and poverty, while seeing huge declines in industry and production. There has been civil unrest the world over as governments try to tackle the economic downfall in various ways. The European Union has not been immune to these problems and while individual countries have been shaken, the EU has for most part kept relatively strong. Over time though, cracks have begun to appear all over and it seems the EU gets shakier by the day with no solution in sight. In countries across the entire bloc, populaces have fought while governments have stayed their course, but with elections across a number of countries some of these governments are no more. What does the future hold for Europe? With the rise of extremists parties on both sides are we seeing a repeat of the economic instability of the 1930s or is this just a passing phenomenon that a more unified Europe will brush off over time?

Nicolas Sarkozy

Since the 16^th of May, 2007 France was run by Nicolas Sarkozy and the Union for a Popular Movement (French: Union pour un Mouvement Populaire, UMP) party. By the 15^th of May 2012 he will be gone. He became the first one-term president since Valery Giscard d'Estaing was defeated in 1981 (d'Estaing was also beaten by a Socialist, Francois Mitterrand). The person that will replace him is Francois Hollande, the Socialist Party candidate. The final vote was incredibly close. Hollande won by just 3.26% with a voter turnout of 80.35% (a slight increase on the turnout for the first round of votes). What we had here was a very pro-austerity candidate kicked out in favour of one who wishes to end austerity. Hollande isn't too radical though. He has no plans to make rash changes, but he made an effort to be clear that he will be moving away from austerity from the start. It is unsurprising that he got the edge in the vote as it is clear to see across Europe that people are fed up with cutbacks and the lack of immediate results they are giving.

What is also interesting is the results of the first round of votes. Here we saw, as in the second round, Hollande just poke ahead of Sarkozy (by 1.45%), but neither of them got over 30% of the vote. What we did have though was Marine Le Pen's far right party, the National Front (Front national) get a staggering 17.9% of the total vote. The far left party, Left Front (Front de gauche) also gained a decent sized 11.1% chunk of the vote. Just five years before these parties were not getting anywhere close to that. The question is though, is whether this swing to the extremists is ideological or purely in protest against the government. At this time it is hard to tell, but with upcoming regional elections in France the picture will become much clearer. It could very well be that the National Front and the Left Front will make up nearly 30% of the government.

Greece has also recently seen elections, but has had a lot more internal conflict than France due to the EU bailout that was accepted by the government of the time. The Greek people have not been happy with protests and violent riots being a regular occurrence. There have been days where cities have been so ill-affected, that even picking up a parcel would have been impossible due to the traffic gridlock and protesters blocking the roads. Greece has also seen its citizens commit self-immolation in protest. It has been a country of serious turmoil for some time and it seems their elections have reflected that. The two parties that have been running the country since the 70s have been decimated. Both of them are in support of the bailout, while the left-wing bloc, Syriza, are opposed to it and ended up doing extremely well. At this time though there seems little hope of any party being able to form a viable coalition to run the country. If no solution can be found then a new election will be held. We saw in this most recent election extremists again gaining ground with communists getting more support and also the party Golden Dawn getting a 7% share. This neo-Nazi party who sieg heil each other is a sight that has caused worry to many people. They are the extreme of the extreme and have now been given political legitimacy.

There are varying views of what all these elections mean. Some see it as the 1930s repeating itself, with extremists on both sides taking advantage of a bad situation to further their aims. This is a common occurrence when things aren't in a good way, but it seems this time that it may have a significant effect. It is likely, if the recession is to continue and the EU zone face more peril, that countries will begin to lurch to the left or right. This will threaten the entire structural integrity of the EU zone itself. It is hard to say how all of these effects may pan out. We could just be seeing populaces letting off steam with protests votes, or we could genuinely be seeing a mass move towards extremists politics. Either way, a close eye has to be kept on the European Union as it seems the next few years may shape it for decades to come.