A few thoughts on liberty and stealing

I got into an unexpected exchange at Political Betting a few hours ago with someone who feels that a wealthy person who suffers as a result of a progressive income tax system is no longer working for himself, but is instead a servant of the state - although, curiously, this only seems to apply when he is handing over "the majority" of his income.  I pointed out that such a person is simply being expected to make a fair contribution in exchange for the services that we all receive from the state, based on his greater ability to pay.  If he feels that he's not receiving as much 'bang for his buck' as the poorer people who pay less in absolute terms, he's clearly losing sight of just how much he actually gets back from the state - most notably the enforced adherence of the rest of the society to a system that legitimises his wealth and private property rights, and by extension the advantages he enjoys over most others.  Looked at that way, he's plainly getting the better side of the bargain in this social contract.

Fairly predictably, I was then told that the contract I was describing was nothing short of blackmail or a kind of protection racket - pay up, or your property will be stolen by the mob.  But this begs the obvious question - what actually is "private property" or "theft" if you don't have the state, and consent from the rest of society, to define and enforce it for you?  It all began to remind me of the arguments I used to regularly hear from the American "libertarians".  The punitive enforcement of the rights that happen to be most important to them - ie. the right to life, free speech and property as defined simply by being left alone to defend themselves with a gun, and to retain what they already own untouched - is regarded as an absolute moral imperative, because these are all 'natural rights'.  And yet the rights that are important to so many others - the right to life, free speech and property as defined by the right to health care and shelter that will actually keep them alive and healthy, and the right to education and a financial safety net that will give them the slightest chance of actually having a voice and owning a modest amount of property - are not only deemed illegitimate, but their realisation is actually regarded as an outrageous application of "force".  It never seems to occur to these "libertarians" that the advantages that afford them the luxury of meaningfully exercising the right to life and liberty without ever having to look beyond their 'natural rights', while others have no choice but to rely on the "force" of the state, is actually directly derived from something the state has conferred on them in the first place.

Who says massive inherited wealth is 'natural', for example?  Or the advantage of a superior education that others are denied?  You only have to look around Britain today - or just around the Cabinet table, for that matter - to see that the idea that wealth inequalities can simply be explained by how hard people work or how innately talented they are is utterly laughable.  The immense advantages that some enjoy on very dubious merit are not legitimised by nature, but by the state - and by force.  If others try to nip in and grab a small share of that wealth, or of those opportunities, they'll be stopped.  That's OK because that force has democratic legitimacy (ie. the consent of society) behind it, but it's force against the individual nonetheless, in precisely the same way that the compulsory payment of taxes required to realise other democratically legitimised rights like free health care and education is force against the individual.  The American libertarians seem to fondly imagine that the force needed to protect their property rights is trivial or non-existent in comparison to the type of force they complain of, ie. that it costs others nothing to simply respect their natural rights.  Well, that's fine until the 'natural rights' of a few consume such a fantastic portion of a society's wealth that others are squeezed out to the point of destitution, with no legal access to the minimal share of the wealth they require for a merely decent standard of living.  That strikes me as being quite a significant cost.

I've said before that in many ways I consider myself to be a libertarian, which naturally the American right-wingers are either bemused by or regard as an affectation, because liberty "can't be conditional".  But of course the truth (as they occasionally acknowledge when forced into a corner) is that liberty must by definition be conditional, otherwise it can never work - if you don't curb your own liberty by respecting the liberty of others, why should they do the same for you?  So the real principle of libertarianism is that the conditions applied ought to be the minimum necessary to preserve and further liberty.  A system that offers a theoretical right to life, free speech and private property, while all the time robbing some people - by force - of the slightest chance of ever utilising those freedoms falls well below that minimum threshold.

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Also at PB this evening, a fascinating (and ultimately encouraging) article by Penddu on the forthcoming referendum in Wales on enhanced devolution.  He characterises the breadth of the No campaign in the following stark terms -

"backed by UKIP, BNP and a campaign group of disaffected Labour activists called True Wales which seems to consist of two spokesmen from Gwent and an inflatable pig" 

Not to worry, though, because Fraser Nelson manfully entered the fray on their behalf during this evening's Question Time, branding the referendum the most "boring" ever, and noting that he tended to take the view that "if you give politicians more power, you only encourage them".  Now, is it just me, or do people who call a proposed change boring, unimportant, or best of all "a distraction" usually mean that they can't actually think of a persuasive argument against it on its own terms?  (The debate on the fox-hunting ban springs to mind.)  And when they talk about not wanting "politicians" to have more power, don't they usually mean that they'd much rather if power wasn't transferred away from politicians in Westminster?

Nelson's column

As ever, I'm grateful to Ezio for pointing me in the direction of a Nat-bashing article I might otherwise have overlooked, this time by Fraser Nelson in the Spectator Coffee House. I must say I'm not so much angered by the piece as...well, bemused. The general thrust of it seems to be that unionists should be dismayed to note that, a decade into devolution, no-one is now surprised by the fact that the Scottish government routinely speak out on issues of concern to Scotland, such as the tragic death of aid worker Linda Norgrove - as if Alex Salmond was "the spokesman of the nation", Nelson adds with evident distaste. But, quite honestly, if anyone had been surprised by such a thing even ten days into devolution, they would have been missing much of the whole point of the exercise. The Scottish Parliament, for example, was always intended (even by its unionist 'founding fathers') to be a comprehensive national forum - the standing orders allow for debate on subjects well beyond the institution's defined powers. By extension therefore it would be utterly extraordinary if, at this moment of tragedy, the First Minister did what Nelson presumably feels would be more seemly, and responded to media questions by saying - "It is not appropriate for me to comment on this matter, or to extend any sympathy to Ms Norgrove's family. Please understand that I am charged merely with certain limited aspects of the administration of this country, I do not in any way speak for it. Perhaps David Cameron will have a view."

Would it have occurred to Nelson to tell the humble MP for Cleethorpes that it isn't his place to comment on the death of one of his constituents in a foreign land, simply because he isn't Foreign Secretary? Somehow I think not. We hear a great deal about 'narrow nationalism', but the fact that Nelson could even begin to imagine that 'First Minister of Scotland sends condolences over Scot's tragic death' is, should be, or ever could have been a story of note, let alone a matter of controversy, is extraordinarily revealing of the narrow-mindedness of his own British nationalist zealotry.

To deal with some of his other specific points :

"He didn’t say that, when a Libyan murderer wants to be released, the SNP can use this to thumb their nose at Wicked America and posture on the world stage. Any excuse to make Scotland seem distinct from England, and themselves as spokesmen for a country."

I'd be quite interested to see some hard examples of the SNP (by which I mean the party leadership, not the likes of Christine Grahame) being in any way critical of the United States at the time of Megrahi's release, let alone "thumbing their nose". Indeed, Alex Salmond went on to show the patience of a saint with Senator Menendez and co, and their clownish attempts to set up a McCarthyite show-trial over the affair.

As for any suggestion that the decision over Megrahi was being used to differentiate Scotland from England, the way to do that would have been to treat Megrahi differently from Ronnie Biggs, not to release him on an absolutely identical basis.

"But I cannot see why Salmond needs to release a statement about a woman who has not really lived in Scotland since she left Aberdeen University."

This is really quite telling - Nelson evidently regards Scottish identity as such a weak thing that it is totally negated by time spent outside the country. To him, Scotland is simply a place where people live, not somewhere to which it's possible to have a broader sense of belonging. But does he similarly regard Ms Norton as no longer in any meaningful sense British because of her time spent abroad? Of course he doesn't. Little more needs to be said.

"As First Minister, Salmond is in charge of about half of government spending in Scotland - and as a unionist, I'd like him to confine his comments to the provision of public services."

And how precisely does Nelson propose to enforce this principle? It's perfectly legitimate to restrict a minister to commenting on his own responsibilities inside parliament, but if you try to enforce the same rule outside parliament it becomes censorship, plain and simple. Now, if Scotland had actually shared Nelson's preference for a shrinking violet First Minister who left the grown-up stuff to his betters in London, we could of course have elected one. (In fact we might be about to, so Nelson shouldn't despair just yet.)

"The misleading phrase 'Scottish government' is routinely used to describe Salmond's administration."

What exactly is misleading about calling a body that governs a "government"? Wouldn't it be considerably more misleading to call it anything else - specifically an "executive", the use of which for eight years left most people utterly baffled? All right, so Nelson is getting at the fact that the Scottish government doesn't control all of the administration of Scotland - but let's turn that on its head. The fact that it does control some of the administration (and the same applies to its counterparts in Wales and Northern Ireland) means that, by definition, David Cameron and his ministers do not control all of the administration of Britain. Does that mean it's also misleading to describe them as "the British government"? Presumably it must be.