Category: Liberty

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Conflict & disaster Liberty

[2378] To impress, support tyranny

It is quite understandable why Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak wants to impress King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is an important country to Malaysia. It is the largest oil exporter in the world. It is the leader of the Muslim world by default, for better or for worse.

But when the Prime Minister decided to offer military assistance to Bahrain and back the roles Saudi Arabia had played over the course of the Arab Spring,[1] that was just a little bit too much.

The government of Bahrain has suppressed unarmed protesters with brutality. Saudi Arabia aided Bahrain in suppressing demand for democratic change, fearing the democratic change that began in Tunisia and Egpyt would spread at the expense of autocratic rulers. Najib said those efforts by Saudi Arabia were noble.

Shame.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

[1] — KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak says the country is willing to send peacekeepers to help “de-escalate tension” in Bahrain while backing Saudi Arabia’s role in resolving regional unrest.

Bahraini authorities in the kingdom ruled by a Sunni dynasty have attempted to curb violent protests in recent months inspired by uprisings that toppled Egypt’s and Tunisia’s presidents.

“Malaysia stands ready to contribute peacekeepers to the Kingdom of Bahrain, if invited to do so by the Bahraini leadership,” Najib said in a statement on Friday following a meeting with Saudi Arabian monarch King Abdullah in Riyadh.

 

 

 

“Malaysia will consider it a great honour to offer assistance in this noble effort.” [AFP. Malaysia pledges to help Bahrain. New Straits Times. May 15 2011]

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Liberty Science & technology Society

[2377] Technology, central planning and the fate of organic organization of society

There are several reasons why organic decision-making is better than central planning. The complexity of the world is one. By complexity, it means nobody has the ability to absorb all relevant information in a timely manner to react effectively. In some ways, this is the economic calculation problem. It is an argument against the communist economic system in favor of the free market, the free price system specifically.

While this particular reasoning has stood well against the test of time to defend the libertarian case, I do not think it will stand forever. It has stood well against the case for central planning because there is a limit to calculation processing.

An individual can solve his or her own problems but a central planner must solve all problems that exist in the world. The central planner has no capacity to solve for the general equilibrium. There are billions, trillions or even more variables and data points to consider. The problem of central planning has always been an optimization problem however complex it is. How many can we calculate? How fast can we calculate? Can we calculate it at all?

None in the past and at the present time has done that in a grand scale or for a long time successfully.

The date when technology overcomes the restriction will arrive. When that happens, the libertarian case may approach an expiry date.

The seeds are already here. Thomas Friedman writes in The World is Flat of a global supply chain. Detailed record of inventory is kept. The workflow is traceable. Orders, stock and production all around the world of a particular company can be tweaked easily. All relevant information crucial to production is available on the spot all the time.

It is not hard to imagine how that capability can be expanded beyond the boundary of a firm. As technology progresses to make that possible, the prospect of effective central planning is enhanced.

With technological progress, eventually, whatever superiority the organic method has can be replicated by a central planner. Perhaps, the central planner can produce superior outcome in some cases where asymmetric information is present. After all, with the relevant sufficiently advanced technology, there can be no asymmetric information problem.

This is a scary notion for libertarians. It should be a scary notion for all who believes in individual liberty. It will give birth a full and perfect information aggregator that is an omniscience state or anything that may function as a state. It will create a god none can disobey. Everything the god says is for the best. This will be the real god.

My question is, when the time comes, will the case for organic organization of society be obsolete?

After considering that, I think any case in support of libertarianism cannot be dependent on technology. Else, it puts an expiry date on the philosophy.

Whenever the expiry will be, I am inclined to believe that it is will be far off into the future, possibly making the technology-dependent argument useful still.

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Liberty

[2376] Suaram, a blind believer of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The way Suaram reasoned its position on drinking and smoking ban shocked me.

According to the group’s coordinator, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not explicitly mention the consumption of alcohol and tobacco as a human right but it does mention detention without trial is a violation. Because of that, Suaram supports drinking and smoking ban if the majority supports it. And because of the Declaration as well, the group does not support detention without trial.[1]

For a group that fancies itself as a human rights group, I expect more than an appeal to the Declaration. Any serious human rights group needs to have a more developed view on rights. Several Pakatan Rakyat politicians who are also members of Suaram have rightly condemned the group’s view as being simplistic.[2] (Now, I am aware that these politicians may be inconsistent with their views with regards to what I am about to share but let us ignore that at the moment for I want to focus on Suaram).

Suaram’s view will not stand any liberal test. Consider this appalling case: if detention without trial was not mentioned in the Declaration, then Suaram would have supported detention without trial. There is no two-way about it. The Declaration is the document of reference for Suaram after all. Or maybe, I should just say that it is the view of the coordinator.

Such is the inadequacy of Suaram or the coordinator’s reasoning.

A more respectable human rights group would have derived its position from the first principle instead.

I want to say this rather forcefully because I think the point on first principle is crucial.

Any libertarian will reject the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The rejection is due to the categorization of liberties and rights into negative and positive.

Negative liberties and rights refer to absence of interference by others to a person action that does not necessarily or dangerously affect others (after reading Nozick’s State, Anarchy and Utopia, I have a little bit trouble defining this but you know what I mean). Freedom of expression is part of negative liberties.

Positive liberties and rights refer to obligation by others to aid the person to achieve the person’s positive rights. The supposedly right to employment is an example of negative rights.

Libertarians reject positive liberties. Only negative liberties are accepted and these negative liberties are simply referred to as individual rights. Libertarians, or maybe at least me, understand negative liberties as individual liberties. Because the Declaration contains positive liberties, libertarians reject the Declaration.

This is my first principle: negative liberties. All rights originate from those liberties. Most of my positions are derived from that first principle. And you can see how my position on drinking and smoking come from; it comes from that first principle of negative liberties.

Drinking and smoking ban interferes with individual action as defined above. Hence, libertarians reject the ban, whether or not it is mentioned in the Declaration.

(If there is conflict of rights there, then Coase theorem is there to save the day. If it involves private property, then the owner’s words are supreme.)

But the libertarian view does not matter as much here.  What matters is the first principle. You can see where the libertarian — my — position on drinking and smoking ban is derived from. Suaram lacks such rigorous reasoning.

Another angle demonstrating the inadequacy of Suaram’s view is this: if all liberties and rights are derived from the Declaration as understood by Suaram, then the Declaration is utterly inadequate to function as the document of reference in a liberal society. Many negative liberties simply would not exist and that is an unpalatable scenario for any liberal, and I use the term liberal here in the widest of all sense.

Now, here is something more insidious than naïve thinking.

There are many negative liberties unmentioned by the Declaration. Now, left-leaning individuals and entities claim to embrace a more comprehensive view of liberty. They accept both negative and positive liberties and rights.  The crucial point is that a left-leaning entity accepts negative liberties as well, notwithstanding the areas where positive rights prevail over the negative ones. It is safe to say that any person who confesses belief in liberty however it is defined at least subscribes to negative liberties.

For the negative liberties unmentioned by the Declaration, by deduction, Suaram believes the majority has the power to decide whether a person should be stripped of his or her negative liberty.

The discretionary leeway is despicable for one reason: it is the tyranny of the majority. For a self-proclaimed human rights group to see no wrong in tyranny of the majority, that is shockingly disappointing.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

[1] — KUALA LUMPUR, June 7 — A human rights group today will support a ban on alcohol consumption or smoking should the majority of Malaysians favour it.

Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) said, however, that the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows for detention without trial, was exempt from public opinion.

“The right to drink and the right to smoke is not explicitly spelled out in the UDHR (United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights), but the right to fair trial is,” Suaram coordinator Hasbeemasputra Abu Bakar told The Malaysian Insider today.

In a statement sent last night, Hasbeemasputra said “the state has the responsibility to make laws that regulate society and has a duty to ensure the wellbeing of the people, and gazetting no-smoking zones helps to fulfil these two roles.”

When asked why Suaram now supported the smoking ban in Malacca but opposed the ISA, the human rights activist insisted that the ISA ran contrary to the UDHR. [Boo Su-Lyn. Alcohol, smoking ban if majority wants it, says Suaram. The Malaysian Insider. June 7 2011]

[2] — SHAH ALAM, June 7 — Two members of Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) rejected today the human rights group’s backing of bans on alcohol consumption or smoking as long as a majority favour it. [Boo Su-Lyn. Pakatan reps slam ”˜simplistic’ Suaram over alcohol, smoking bans. The Malaysian Insider. June 7 2011]

Categories
Liberty Politics & government Society

[2370] Is longer national service the solution?

The Malaysian Defense Minister said that the national service might be extended.[1] He reportedly said that three months were too short a duration to develop noble character and sense of patriotism. The suggestion to extend the program is not new. The then Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak himself suggested in 2007 that “one year is most ideal, but two years would be better.”

Implicitly, the effort by the government to extend the duration suggests that the program in its current form has failed.

When it was first introduced, it was described as if it was a panacea. But a panacea it is not.

After 18 years exposed to the Malaysian reality, it is hard to believe a 3-month make-belief, propagandistic summer camp will undo what some perceived as unwanted behaviors and worldview shaped by the society by much, never mind that the government itself partly contributes to the problem through the mangled education system. Those in the government know this. Else, they would not have wanted to extend the duration.

While there are reasons to believe by stretching the duration longer may make the program more effective for better or for worse — for me, it is the worse — it is easy to parallel this to the sunk cost fallacy. A program fails and somehow by investing more into it, it will work. If indeed a longer program will fail just as it has failed in its current form, that would mean more public money wasted. Already the program is costing more than RM500 million per year according Khairy Jamaluddin.[2]

If the extension would improve the program, I would still oppose it. I oppose the program on principle, not because of its duration or its general farce.

While the current Malaysian national service is a misnomer — especially when compared to proper program that exists in Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea that has militaristic aspects — the Malaysian version is still conscription. It is a draft. Extending the duration only makes the draft worse, never mind that for many, it is an interruption to their education plan.

Never mind the deaths associated with the program. Having a program that runs more than 3 months will increase the likelihood and the cases of death in the program. For a summer camp that is not really part of the national defense force, it is deadly farce.

The national service is unneeded. All of its objectives and modules — in its website, the four modules are physical training, nation-building,  character-building and community service[3] — can be done in schools. Or better, voluntarily in or outside of schools.

Did you not do all these things while in elementary and high schools? Oh wait, even if you did, it was within a largely Malay environment, a largely Chinese environment, etc. And the government is supporting that system.

The fact that the national service is considered necessary by the power that says something about the public education system: it is defective. One would expect the solution is to improve the system.

But no. To some, the solution is to introduce another compulsory program that has shown to fail.

A failed program to augment a defective education system.

What a policy.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

[1] — KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – The National Service training programme’s three-month period may be extended, said Defence Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

He added that the ministry was studying the possibility as three months was too short a time to develop noble characters and foster a sense of patriotism.

“The matter will be discussed at a meeting of the National Service Training Council,” he told reporters after the presentation of 2010 National Service Training Department Excellent Service awards at the ministry here yesterday. [NS term may be extended. The Star. May 27 2011]

[2] — Khairy sebelum ini meminta kerajaan mengurangkan pembelanjaan untuk program yang dikatakannya kurang berkesan dan menelan belanja yang besar contohnya Program Latihan Khidmat Negara (PLKN) yang memakan belanja RM560 juta setahun. [Tempoh Latihan PLKN Mungkin Dipanjangkan – Zahid. Bernama. May 26 2011]

[3] — See Training Module at Jabatan Latihan Khidmat Negara. Accessed May 28 2011

Categories
Liberty Politics & government Society

[2365] Should action be taken against Utusan Malaysia? A libertarian perspective

Utusan Malaysia recently alleged that Malaysian Christian heads were conspiring to make Christianity the official religion of Malaysia. The conservative Malay daily cited two blogs of questionable credibility to back its front-page report. For a society highly conscious of  ethnicity and religion issues, the report caused uproar and tension between various communities.

Assuming the allegation is false which is likely the case, should action be taken against Utusan Malaysia for reporting it and in effect, spreading falsehood?

Our incentive system is imperfect to say the least. It is not at all surprising to have somebody spreading falsehood, lying or deceiving someone else to get what he or she wants in general. To complicate the matter, those acts might not by wrong all the times. There are times when those acts might be necessary to protect the innocents.

Even when those acts are wrong, unilateral public action through state authority might be out of the question with the principle of free speech in place, along with other typical individual rights.

Individual rights do not include the legitimization of fraud. Any action based on lies and falsehood that adversely affects individual rights cannot be condoned by the state or any authority invested with the powers to protect individual rights. It just cannot be let go off the hook.

One example is this: in a transaction, one party lies about the state of a good for sale to a person. If the person bought the good while supplied with false information, then the lying seller has obtained the money wrongly, with money being a private property of the purchaser. The right to private property is an individual right and the transaction based on deceit violates that right. The lying seller has to be punished by the state — unilaterally — since the prime rationale of the establishment of the state is the protection of individual rights according. The punishment is important not just for the sake of principle, but also for a very pragmatic reason. It is imposes a cost on such act and so discourages such fraud from recurring in the future.

Within the context of Utusan Malaysia and its recent controversial report, was there any violation of rights?

I cannot answer it in the affirmative. Therefore, I cannot to support unilateral state action against Utusan Malaysia. The best I can come up with is that the falsehood affects reputation. Yet, individual rights do not include reputation.

This of course does not mean individuals involved in the reporting — meaning the one reported involved the conspiracy — cannot seek redress against the Malay daily. Conflicts between private parties have always happened and a trustworthy third party can and has always been appointed to resolve the conflicts. The third party here is usually the state. The third party’s judgment then is enforced to resolve the conflict as civil as possible.

In the case of interest, the group accused by the Malay daily can bring their grouse to the courts. If Utusan Malaysia did spread falsehood and that the falsehood adversely affected the reputation of the group, then the daily should be compelled to compensate the group or be fined. The fate of the two bloggers should be the same as the Malay daily.

I like this route the best because it is clean. It makes the issue as a conflict between two private parties and makes the concern of unilateral state action against Utusan Malaysia merely academic if indeed Utusan Malaysia did spread falsehood (which, again, I do not doubt that is the case).

By making it private, it does not mean that there is no public interest in the case. There is but it is hard if not impossible to account for that interest and its very public effect without resorting to discretion.

If unilateral state action has to be taken — which I will contest its legitimacy — there may be a mechanism for that. Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia may have a mechanism that can be modified to justify unilateral state action against Utusan Malaysia. Be warned that I am taking the idea in a very restricted sense. Nozick is concerned with a much larger issue than that which I am focusing on now.

Early in the book, Nozick demonstrates how various insurance and compensation arrangements will address threats and actual transgressions of rights. Insurance and compensation arrangements here are simply different terms used for protection provided by an entity, which can be the state, a private security firm, a gangster group or other entities capable of provide that service. Meanwhile, threat is not simply some kind of warning or a menacing declaration that something will be done if something else is not done. Rather, it is the possibility of something bad happening. The chances of a pedestrian being hit accidentally by a car is one of such threats. The chances of a person makes good of his threat to break your leg is another example of such threats.

Nozick describes how a general open threat creates fear among the threatened. Depending on the credibility of threats and the level as well as the spread of fear the threats create, it will disrupt day-to-day activities of the person or even the society. In order words, there are costs imposed on society by the threats, regardless of realization of the threats.

I think this parallels concerns regarding lies and falsehood. It gives the qualification why some lies and falsehood should be punished. When lies and falsehood creates widespread public anxiety, then there is a case for unilateral state punishment. Under this line of thinking, the priority is fear minimization, or in the parlance of Malaysian political discourse, sedition or incitation of hatred. In the end, Utusan Malaysia clearly must be punished, if this method is adopted.

The question is how widespread before punitive unilateral state action should be taken?

This may require some kind of discretionary powers, which like any discretionary powers, are open to abuse.

The need of discretion is one reason why I do not like this method, on top of the fact it does not follow from the first principle aimed at the protection of individual rights.

Discretion tends to create dissatisfactory judgment. It will inevitably be inconsistent and in the end, ruin the reputation of the third party wielding the power to punish. Discretionary powers will lead to abuse.

The wielding and the exercise of the discretionary powers have caused troubles in the past. Some newspapers have been punished for publishing controversial material while others have been let go. Indeed, Utusan Malaysia has been let go off the hook by the government despite its controversial report of unverified truth. If reported by other newspapers less friendly to the government, that newspapers would have been punished.

So, long story short, no to unilateral state action against Utusan Malaysia but yes to making the case a private conflict between two parties involved.