Liberty Alone

Tim Worstall at the ASI on John Lewis and markets in ownership models.

He points out that free markets are not capitalism, capitalism is a system of ownership. John Lewis is an example of a cooperative, a different form of ownership and this example is doing very well.

He echos my sentiments, people should be free to live as they like. If you want to work for a capitalist corporation then fine, if you’d prefer to own your own business, best of luck to you. If you want to be part of a cooperative, great, go ahead. If you want to live in a yurt in Wales, good for you if that’s what you want.
We should let people try all this, lets see what works best. I’m sure for different people the answer will be different and in different markets the most successful will probably vary.

Of course, the problem is that we don’t have much of a free market in this. The government, through law and regulation, biases the system towards large corporations. Through legal instruments such as limited liability and through regulation with prohibitively high compliance costs for small businesses, the market is skewed towards big corporations. Perhaps the natural market position would be the same, but we cannot know for sure until we try.
So regulation must be removed, subsidy and tariffs repealed and the legal landscape must be made level. Then we can have competition and even more choice.

In the meantime, well done to John Lewis. They have obviously developed a successful business model. In this instance cooperative ownership is obviously successful, long may it continue to be so.

Tim Worsall wonders if he’s gone insane.

Unfortunately not, its just that we’re ruled over by idiots.

The point of vocational education is that not everyone is suited to an intellectual education, so you tailor education towards the individual.
You let the nerds (like me) do our thing, study maths (or english, or history). Its what we’re good at. Let others study those things they’re good at - like my brother and his design and jewelery. Its not any lesser or greater in the grand scheme. To the individuals involved however the value of being able to pursue their own talents is huge.

Of course, forcing people to pursue vocational studies no matter what they’re good at is to be expected from a party of micromanagers with an ideological commitment against individual excellence.

Absolutely.

That is for a certain definition of left-wing which is based on left-wing meaning socialist and anti free-market.

Just more of the absurdity and idiocy of these broad political labels which allow people sharing similar opinions being on different wings of the political spectrum…

Of course, if we take the political compass of left-right economics and authoritarian-libertarian socially, fascism and communism would coincide, they just differ on what differentiates people and what determines their actions - communists take class, fascists take race, blood or nationality…

The future is not, as Orwell forecast, a boot stamping on a human face, forever. It is our masters and rulers, grinning wildly and slightly sweaty, bansturbating madly.

Sounds about right…

Whilst perusing Tim Worstall’s blog I came across a great comment in a post about one of those little spats which occur in the blog world. This part of the comment has little to do with the spat specifically, but it is a great call to abandon the old left/right spectrum in political debate:

Could not the bloggers finally put an end to the use of Left and Right to describe politican thought or position. Is a system with Hitler at one and Stalin at the other really something to use on a daily basis to describe how one should live or think?

There are many reasons people dislike the council tax, not least the absurdity of paying tax twice for improvements you make to your own home and the intrusion of the government into your home which this necessitates.

Tim Worstall has come up with another reason the council tax is ill thought out, one which affects us all.

Taxing improvements on our homes is not simply a tax on luxury, but a tax on improving the environmental impact of your home. Especially given the very high number of old buildings in the UK this has a very bad effect on our efforts to reduce our environmental impact.

So, there you have another reason to abolish the council tax and replace it with a sensible tax (which of course should be locally determined)