Andrew Norton's support for the budget's changes to higher education repayment thresholds (Age Online, 10/5) makes no sense for those who have received little or no benefit from their studies.
Nobody is entitled to free money from taxpayers. However, it undermines fairness to penalise, for example, unemployed law graduates who cannot get a job because the government – in association with legal professional bodies – do their best to minimise competition in the industry. (For example, by setting up barriers to registration as a lawyer, requiring extensive formal study when there are flexible and cheaper internship-based options to convey knowledge.) At the same time, MPs and bureaucrats enjoy luxurious perks and pensions. Why not go after the most marginalised in society last, after the elites have had their generous salaries cut? (Published in The Age, letters to the editor, 12 May 2017)
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In spite of the mass murder perpetrated by the governments of the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and many other “revolutionary” societies, socialism continues to have many real world adherents. So deep is the faith that even India’s former finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, in an interview with TIME magazine in 2005, professed that “Socialist goals remain valid. What we are trying to do is devise and invent better means to achieve those goals”.
For socialists, the standard retort is that none of the societies that we traditionally consider as socialist were socialist. Rather, they were “state-capitalism”. Even if that were true, the dictionary definition of socialism doesn’t inspire much confidence either. Would you be in favour of an economic system in which it’s assumed that the government owns everything, including your body? Because that’s what socialism is – “government ownership and control of the means of production”. The “means of production” are land, labour and capital. Under socialism, individuals (labour) are mere cogs in the government’s machine; their sole function is to obey dictates from the central authorities. Socialism is merely a variant of what used to be called feudalism. Before the advent of democracy, kings would demand complete obedience from their subjects, usually by appealing to superstition and religion. In this way, the elites cemented their power and exploited the population. Of course, eventually the people decided to revolt: the French and the American revolutions ushered in the idea that all human beings have a right to their life, liberty and property without interference from the government. After these revolutions, the intellectual climate changed, and the lies of the monarchy no longer worked to the same extent. Thus, the rulers were forced to give up some of their power – and the end result was democracy, in which citizens freely elect their representatives. But unfortunately, the constant struggle between those who wish to wield power and those who are victimized by it (ordinary folk like you and me) hasn’t ended. Democracy may allow us to choose our leaders, but it doesn’t guarantee that they won’t abuse private property rights while they’re in office. The lies of the elites are still being propagated, although it’s a lot more subtle. One of the biggest lies is that we “need” government to commit theft against productive citizens in order to provide services such as healthcare, education and defense. Convincing the public to believe this has been a primary objective throughout history. Government, according to the parasites that live off taxpayer money, simply must exist. Nothing could be further from the truth. When it comes to education and health, there is ample evidence that the private sector could provide these services cheaper and at higher quality. But what about defence? Do we need a government to provide security? Two brilliant theorists – Murray Rothbard and Hans Hermann Hoppe – have argued that we do not, and I tend to agree with them. Whether Rothbard and Hoppe are right or wrong is a debate for another day. My point is simply this: socialism is an historical regression towards feudalism, under which we are all slaves of the government. The soft-socialists of today – social democrats – would do well to take note. “War is liberty’s greatest enemy, and the deadly foe of economic progress”.1 - Leonard Read An essay in Policy by Edwin van de Haar (Autumn 2009) does a great job of explaining how libertarian principles apply to international relations. According to Haar, libertarians are opposed to international organisations, treaties and foreign aid. They also advocate free trade as a means of increasing cooperation between nations and reducing the likelihood of conflict. And although Haar does not say this explicitly, libertarians are also hesitant about intervening militarily. In Australia debate on issues of foreign policy is dominated by conservatives and social democrats, both of whom favour intervention overseas. The only difference between the two mainstream ideologies pertains to the particular instances on which they would intervene. Social democrats tend to be sympathetic towards so-called ‘humanitarian interventions’, while conservatives favour ‘police actions’ such as in Iraq. But the libertarian rejects entirely the mainstream consensus surrounding intervention. Rather than assuming that states have a right to intervene and then quibbling on where and when, the libertarian draws upon the great tradition of non-interventionism, or neutrality, in foreign affairs. Non-intervention was the hallmark of American foreign policy for nearly a hundred years, and has the advantage of avoiding all wars not essential to the territorial defense of a country. The logic behind non-interventionism derives from a fundamental axiom of liberal thought that no person may aggress against another unless in self-defence.[2] It becomes apparent then that all State wars are unjust, for they are financed through coercively acquired taxes, which are itself an act of aggression - and therefore forbidden. But we need not go this far to a pure libertarian position to understand why non-intervention is beneficial. For libertarians the key rationale behind opposition to war is encapsulated in Randolph Bourne’s famous dictum that “War is the health of the State". It is during times of war that the government grows most swiftly. Thus it was liberals such as Richard Cobden, not those of the ‘left-wing’, who were among the first to rail against imperialism and colonialism. There is a contradiction between claiming to support laissez faire on the one hand, and approving of foreign policy adventurism on the other. Self-described classical liberals who support war are actually going against the very philosophy they claim to espouse. Even if the cause is just, and even if one emerges victorious, the end result of war is usually a permanent increase in the size and scope of government.[3] [1] Cited in Murray Rothbard, The Betrayal of the American Right (Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2007), 112.
[2] Murray Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty (New York: New York University Press, 1998). [3] This has been shown in Robert Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). Mark Krikorian has stated that out of the 48 al-Qaeda operatives who committed crimes in the US between 1993 and 2001, 12 of them were illegal immigrants when they committed their crimes and seven of them were visa overstayers (including two of the conspirators in the first World Trade Center attack, one of the figures from the New York subway bomb plot, and four of the 9/11 terrorists). Vice Chair Lee H. Hamilton and Commissioner Slade Gorton of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States commented that of the nineteen hijackers in the September 11, 2001 attacks, Two hijackers could have been denied admission at the port on entry based on violations of immigration rules governing terms of admission. Three hijackers violated the immigration laws after entry, one by failing to enroll in school as declared, and two by overstays of their terms of admission. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, illegal immigrants within the United States have attempted to carry out other terrorist attacks as well.
Three of the six conspirators in the 2007 Fort Dix attack plot—Dritan Duka, Shain Duka, and Eljvir Duka—were ethnic Albanians from the Republic of Macedonia who entered the United States illegally through Mexico with their parents in 1984. Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, an illegal immigrant from Jordan who remained in the United States after the expiration of his tourist visa, was arrested in September 2009 for attempting to carry out a car bomb attack against Fountain Place in Dallas. In the case of Rasmea Odeh, she was convicted of immigration fraud in 2014 for concealing her arrest, conviction, and imprisonment for a fatal terrorist bombing in Israel. Such anecdotal evidence, while not statistically significant, is important to consider. Unlike the American founding fathers, who were classical liberals, those who helped bring together the Commonwealth of Australia were social liberals.
From the very beginning of Australian history, utilitarianism was the dominant philosophy. Economic liberty, while seen as important, was never viewed as an inviolable freedom derived from natural law. Rather, private property could be abrogated whenever the “national interest” – as defined by the government – demanded it. Yet despite its Bill of Rights and widespread ideological resistance to Big Government, the American experiment has reached approximately the same position as Australia. Both America and Australia are now social democracies with large welfare states. In America, there is also a gigantic warfare state. A country founded on libertarian principles has reached the same place as one founded on utilitarianism and expediency. What conclusion are we to draw from this state of affairs? The most obvious would seem to be that limited government doesn’t work. The State always has a tendency to grow in size and scope. A piece of paper known as ‘the Constitution’ cannot halt the growth of government. The American constitution is a relatively libertarian document. Yet it has proved ineffective in preventing the concentration of power. I think it is clear, therefore, that constitutions are not what keeps government in its place. Only ideology and a commitment to liberty amongst the people can prevent government from growing, not pieces of paper that have been largely ignored by the judiciary anyway. I find it hard to think of any innovation in taxation - any new form of taxation, any new way of collecting taxes - that was not brought into being as part of a government scheme to pay for war. – Robert Higgs, “Death Fuel”, 2009 What has caused the growth of government in the 20th century? Historical analysis can provide the answer to this question. In particular, it is essential to study the history of warfare. The State grows during times of war -- to the detriment of individual liberty. As Randolph Bourne famously said, ‘War is the health of the State’. In Australia, it was the World Wars that set the fiscal, institutional and ideological precedents that allowed for the rise of big government. The wars legitimated Keynesianism by allowing social democrats to speak lovingly of the wonders of central direction of the economy. World War I, in which nearly 60,000 Australians died, saw moves towards centralization of political power over the individual. As Neil Barnwell points out, the nationalist sentiment brought about by the “Great War” has been adeptly harnessed by governments ever since: Large scale government involvement in [World War I] paved the way for further government involvement in the economy, culminating in the period of extensive public ownership and regulation of industry after 1945. Government industrial and organisational initiatives in marshalling and managing resources for the war effort helped erode argument that markets and private ownership were the best promoters of economic development. Additionally, the repatriation of returned soldiers led to government involvement in social programs on a scale never before anticipated or expected. Thus the First World War paved the way for an expanded role of government in industry and society once the war was over. The Second World War left similar legacies. As the authors of The Oxford Companion to World War II observe (p. 82): War traditionally gives governments increased powers. For Australia the Second World War shifted the balance of power away from the states and in favour of the federal government, with the permanent move of the powers of taxation to the centre. Moreover, the federal government’s increased controls over goods and services, including manufacturing and transport, gave it confidence to experiment with a planned mixed economy. Judicial interpretations during Australia’s major wars send a clear message. The cases have favoured centralisation over federalism, and have tended to grant government virtually unlimited scope. Courts have upheld a military draft – arguably unconstitutionally - as well as a variety of regulations very indirectly linked to defence. Wage and price controls, food rationing, the detention of Japanese Australians; these and many other interventions rode roughshod over liberty.
Those who favour free-markets should re-think their attitude towards war in light of the above. Historically, politics and lies have mixed so frequently that both sides of politics in Western democracies now find it fairly easy to ignore fresh allegations, especially if they can depict the allegations as unlikely or remote. Nevertheless, the whistleblower as a figure holds immense public interest.
Although it’s worth remaining sceptical of those who shed doubt upon the official story, acknowledging their possible accuracy (especially if they’re an insider) is worthwhile too. Since February 2002, Tony Kevin — a former diplomat who served in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade — has focused on investigating the circumstances surrounding the sinking of an asylum seeker boat named SIEV X. Despite what has been written and said, Kevin is not throwing accusations in his book, A Certain Maritime Incident. In fact, he is asking questions, the sorts of questions some would say needed an airing anyway. His book explores in detail the boarding of SIEV X, its sinking and the subsequent investigation. By writing this book, it was Kevin’s intention to keep the issue of SIEV X alive. Save for Sydney Morning Herald journalist Margo Kingston, Marg Hutton and a handful of others, Kevin is all but alone in his campaign for a comprehensive judicial inquiry to clear what he believes are murky waters surrounding SIEV X, the Government’s disruption programmes and the intelligence failures that may have led to the deaths of 353 men, women and children. But his questions have left him “effectively marginalised from the governance-centred society in Canberra” to which he “once comfortably belonged”. In early January, Senator Rand Paul reintroduced the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, and Representative Thomas Massie introduced companion legislation in the United States House of Representatives, thereby continuing the "Audit the Fed" movement started by then Congressman Ron Paul.
The Paul-Massie bills are part of a push to impose greater accountability upon the political class responsible for the value of the American dollar through their monetary policies. Their argument is, essentially, that human beings are fallible, and the more eyes watching over momentous decisions, the better. If the Republican Party truly value small government and fiscal responsibility, then now is the time to use their majority in Congress to audit the Federal Reserve System. The Audit the Fed movement offers an alternative to the prevailing regime of secrecy. The Paul and Massie bills, which are identical in wording, would expose the Fed's international transactions, especially those undertaken with foreign governments or central banks. They would also look into monetary policy deliberations by the Fed's Board of Governors and the Federal Open Market Committee's transactions. Specifically, the proposed legislation directs the Government Accountability Office to complete, within 12 months, an audit of the Federal Reserve Board and Federal Reserve banks. The Fed is a creature of Congress, which alone holds constitutional authority to coin money and regulate its value, and democratic accountability demands oversight. A Bloomberg national poll taken in 2010 suggests that 39 percent of Americans want to hold the Fed more accountable, while 16 percent would abolish it altogether. And a 2013 Rasmussen poll found that 74 percent favor greater transparency by the Fed. Moreover, at any moment, the Federal Reserve system can introduce an exogenous shock into the economy. Actions in the monetary policy realm can ruin the livelihoods of millions and deserve scrutiny. Many believe, for instance, that the recession beginning in 2007 was the fault of the Fed, under its chairman, Alan Greenspan, holding interest rates too low for too long. Previous attempts to audit the Federal Reserve have already proved illuminating. When a diluted version of Congressman Paul's preferred audit was passed in 2010, it revealed contradictory elements of monetary policy. The one-time auditshowed that during the Great Recession of 2007, the Fed lent nearly $5 trillion to foreign governments and central banks, even though some of those were declared enemies. It was found that in 2008, the Fed had helped prop up the Libyan government through loans to a bank substantially owned by the Central Bank of Libya, even though President Barack Obama would in 2011 start a war aimed at toppling Moammar Gaddafi's regime. Expect more such revelations if the Paul-Massie bill is passed. The main lobby group opposed to an audit is, unsurprisingly, the Fed itself. It has been suggested by officials at the Fed that an audit of the sort proposed by Paul and Massie would compromise its independence from the executive branch and Congress. Yet this objection would be easily overcome by putting in place safeguards, such as time lags between an audit and release of the information to the public. Even if the public has delayed access, members of Congress and the executive, being elected representatives entrusted with constitutional responsibility for oversight, should obtain the information immediately. Paul and Massie may have an ally in President Donald Trump, who hasdemonstrated support for auditing the Federal Reserve, writing on Twitter that "[i]t is so important to audit The Federal Reserve[.]" While it is an achievement that politicians now feel they must pay lip service to checks and balances, it is doubtful that the president meant what he said, since his choice for treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, has been ambiguous on the issue. If arguments based on logic do not persuade, then the politics of the situation might. Republicans should pass an audit so they are not remembered as the party that favored the bankers at the expense of the average American, and so that when the next financial crisis hits, they are not blamed. President Trump's promise of achieving three- to four-percent annual economic growth is a worthy ideal, and auditing the Fed is a crucial step toward that objective since it would provide a better understanding of America's real assets and liabilities. Originally published at the American Thinker. The United Nations is far removed from the daily grind of domestic politics, where seemingly more pressing ‘bread and butter’ issues are debated.
Its relative immunity from oversight can be attributed to a brilliant strategy of enshrouding itself in a veil of do-gooder spirit. Publicity campaigns routinely proclaim noble objectives such as substantially reducing poverty by 2015, helping achieve world peace, and bringing about inter-cultural dialogue. Being sceptical about the U.N. is similar to questioning the worth of Mother Teresa – decent, politically correct people just don’t do things like that. But when it comes to international stability, the cumulative effect of the United Nations is a disastrous one. Far from promoting peace, the U.N. is used by power elites to sow the seeds of conflict. If Australians are serious about keeping their country out of needless wars, they need to pressure their representatives to withdraw from the entangling alliance that is the United Nations. How does the U.N. ensnare Australia in conflicts that don't affect our interests? Simply put, it's through adherence to the interventionist doctrine of collective security. The doctrine posits that if there is an act of aggression anywhere in the world, all member-states are expected to respond as a united force. Whenever there is an obscure conflict in a far-away land, Australians, who would have otherwise enjoyed a state of peace, and perhaps a reduction in tax-coercion, may be called upon to sacrifice. Take for instance, Australia's involvement in the Korean War. Why should Australia have spent blood and treasure settling a border dispute that has no direct impact on our national security? Few, if any, of the U.N.’s missions have been related to questions that affect Australia's interests. The 1991 Gulf War, for example, was geographically removed from our threat zone. Iraq, a third-world nation with a run-down military, posed no substantial threat to Australian security. Yet instead of letting neighbouring Arab states deal with Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, we joined a US-led UN coalition instead. Collective security has never worked as intended. Under the Charter, collective security was supposed to be a coordinated effort, with a Military Staff Committee composed of generals from Security Council countries meeting to make decisions. In practice, all major collective security actions have been under American command. Moreover, since the permanent members of the Council possess a veto power, it’s a sure thing that if one of the permanent members or its friends commits an act of aggression, no disciplinary action will be taken. Hence, the Security Council focuses its wrath disproportionately upon less influential "pariah" states and downplays actions taken by politically powerful governments. The time has come to stop placing our faith in world bureaucracy to forge a durable peace. As Ludwig von Mises wrote: For only $89 get a year's subscription to the best online university for learning libertarian philosophy and free-market economics. Members get access to all this:
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