Tag: minarchism

Categories
Liberty Society

[2401] No to the Ministry of Non-Muslim Affairs, again

I am a secularist. I strongly believe in the separation of the state and religion. At the very least, the state should not interfere in personal belief within libertarian constraint and religion should not influence the state to the extent that it transgresses individual liberty.

Although there are other concerns I have written throughout this blog of mine, my primary concern here contextualized within the latest development on the issue revolves around negative individual liberty.

Religion and other personal beliefs are private matters. As long as these beliefs do not contradict individual liberty, the state should get out of the bedroom so-to-speak. Recall the base function of the liberal state: the protection of individual negative liberty.

The separation between the state and religion prevents religion from hijacking the state, and the state from controlling any religion. At one fell swoop, the separation goes a long way in guaranteeing freedom of religion and other individual rights that might come into conflict with religious beliefs.

This is not just some academic concern. It is a real worry in Malaysia. Existing institutions apply highly corrosive effects on individual rights granted through individual liberty. There are religious police in Malaysia.

Within Malaysian context, the roles of Islam in the state are repulsive. Before I am being misconstrued, I am referring to the relevant religious institutions in Malaysia, not the religion itself.

There is a need to reduce the prominence of these Islamic institutions that exert unduly coercive influence on liberty. The state controls Islam and the Islam as in the form sanctioned by the state and through apparatus of the state exerts suffocating stranglehold on individuals who refuse to bow.

The latest news has it that Roman Catholic Church in Malaysia will lobby for the formation of a non-Muslim affairs ministry, again.[1] I wrote again because it has been raised since as early as 2007. This should be seen in parallel to the state of Islam in Malaysia.

Will non-Muslims be forced to fit the mould of certain religion they identify themselves with? Will the government try to interfere in how non-Muslims practice their religion?

Even if the answers are no, it will give the state a piece of the pie. The Church and its merry men, which themselves have not-so-impeccable reputation as far as individual liberty are concerned, will have to share that pie of tyranny.

For an illiberal government eager of telling individual what to believe in, perhaps the formation of that ministry is consistent.

Yet, an illiberal government is not the ideal government for me.

I oppose the formation of the ministry. The formation will give greater legitimacy to moral policing within Islam. It gives legitimacy to the division and compartmentalization of society to coerce free persons. We already have two laws in this land, one for one group and another one for another. One is free, and the other is not as far as libertarians are concerned. The establishment of non-Muslim affairs ministry will strengthen that illiberal dichotomy.

Religion should play less significant roles in the state. That ministry will only enhance the roles of religion, and at the same time, the scope of the state. There should be less government, not more. There is already a lot of room for tyranny in the state. Why should more space be made for tyranny?

A certain somebody a long time ago said the era of government knows best is over. Now is yet another chance to prove whether that statement was made in good faith or not. Prove it by not dictating private individual beliefs. Prove it by rejecting the religious lobbyists out right.

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

[1] — KUALA LUMPUR, July 26 — The Roman Catholic Church here will lobby for a non-Islamic affairs ministry now that Malaysia has formalised ties with the Vatican, says Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur Tan Sri Murphy Pakiam. [Debra Chong. Catholic Church plugs for non-Muslim affairs ministry. The Malaysian Insider. July 26 2011]

Categories
Politics & government

[2302] Of 1Malaysia and corporate suck-up

The 1Malaysia campaign has been around for at least two years now but it was not until recently that I fully realized how extensive the campaign is. Passing through the expressway that connects the Kuala Lumpur International Airport to the city, the term 1Malaysia assaulted me eyes endlessly. The billboards were full of it. I felt as if I was in a totalitarian country where the government controls information and the government wants to brainwash me. Believe in 1Malaysia, believe in 1Malaysia, believe in 1…

Except that, the country is not a totalitarian state and except that it was not the government that was directly promoting the term 1Malaysia on those billboards along the expressway. Not most of advertisement on the billboards anyway. Most of the billboards with 1Malaysia written on it were hired by entities with business concerns.

Politics is not really a realm these companies should typically be in. And so, something is going on.

I tried to rationalize why do these companies meddle in politics.

Are these companies government-linked?

Not so. At least not most of them. If most of them were, then it would be easy to understand why. It could have been a directive from the companies’ shareholder, which is the government.

Most of them seem to be private companies.

I was thinking, maybe these companies truly believe in the 1Malaysia campaign introduced by the Prime Minister, Najib Razak. Maybe there is some kind of altruism at work.

I do not believe in altruism. I do not believe that it exists. I consider the altruist case as improbable.

What is likely going on is that these companies in many ways are depended on the goodwill of the government of the day. Either their businesses are extensively connected to the government, or that the leadership of the companies are politically connected to those in power.

To put it more bluntly, there is corporate suck-up.

Corporate suck-up does not have to exist if the market is largely free from government meddling. In many ways, like has been written, government intervention in the market is so wide that these businesses are dependent on the goodwill of the government. To gain favor of the government that controls so many aspects of business, these businesses have to ingratiate itself to the government of the day.

Nobody ingratiates to the weak but the government is not weak. The size of the government is big.

Categories
Economics

[2294] Of favoring the fat over the fit

The prime minister has said it so many times. His administration wants to turn Malaysia into a high-income country.  One of several initiatives that the administration believes can help in that direction is the introduction of minimum wage through the establishment of the National Wage Council. In promoting its supposedly market-friendly and market-driven policy, the federal government embarks on central planning without even flinching at the contradiction. For others, they will do more than flinch because as with any effort at central planning, there are side effects. One of them is the creation of an uncompetitive market.

In the free market, some firms have more market power than others do. That is inevitable due to various factors that are only too natural. Some are just larger than others are and they may have better access to resources and may be able make use of it more efficiently than others do, thus allowing them to sustain their prominence in the market.

That, however, does not prevent smaller firms from competing against their larger counterparts in the same industry successfully. There is enough flexibility in the free market to enable smaller firms to succeed. That flexibility creates free competition and that competition in the free market exacts punishment on mistakes made by anybody, even by larger firms. It gives others the opportunity to rise up.

This competitive force may no longer be true if the wage council dictates wages. The focus here is not the minimum wage itself but rather, the mechanism at which the council dictates the wage.

Consider the possible composition of the wage council. For it to be truly representative, it has to have all stakeholders in the labor market represented. This includes firms of all size and industries. There will be representatives from the labor unions and the government as well.

Consider now the interest of each side given an industry. The government wants to turn Malaysia into a high-income nation and believes the introduction of minimum wage can help. The labor unions want higher wage for its members and are strong advocates of minimum wage. The larger firms do not like competition and can afford higher wages. Finally, the smaller firms do not like competition as well but unlike the larger ones, they cannot afford to pay the kind of wages that the larger firms usually can.

One can see that at least one aspect of interest of the government, the labor unions and large firms coincides and then competes directly against the interest of small firms. Given this setup with the wage council, smaller firms are likely to lose out.

What begins as a problem of low wages or wage stagnation — what has been the rationale for the proposed formation of the wage council and the introduction of minimum wage in Malaysia — that is partly caused by unequal bargaining power between employers and employees is transformed into something else. It turns one problem into another.

While it attenuates the difference between employers and employees, the council amplifies the bargaining power differential between firms. The incentive mechanism of the free market is tweaked, or rather mangled, to give more leeway to larger firms to make mistake and less for smaller ones.

To put the implication more starkly, the wage council encourages the creation as well as the continuance of monopolies in the market. It creates an uncompetitive market, on top of the inflexibility created by the minimum wage policy.

What makes this all the more unpalatable to those who actually believe in market-driven policy is that many pre-existing monopolies in Malaysia are government-linked companies while the smaller companies are likely to be privately held. And when the monopolies are not government-owned, many of these monopolies came to being not because they were competitive, but because of past government policies of lemon socialism that privatized profits but socialized losses.

The concern for lemon socialism and privately-owned monopolies aside, the dynamic of the wage council is stacked against privately-held companies in favor of larger as well as government-linked companies. The role of the state in the market increases with the establishment of the wage council.

This is an example of Najib administration’s supposedly market-driven policy.

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

First published in The Malaysian Insider on December 28 2010.

Categories
Economics Liberty Politics & government

[2235] Of hitting the brakes of subsidy liberalization

I am generally in favor of subsidy cuts in Malaysia. Yet, I hesitate to support the recent liberalization.

The economic rationale for liberalization is clear. Public discourse on this front has seen enough progress that liberalization is a popular position to take in Malaysia.

Let us recap the most commonly cited arguments.

Firstly, the subsidy program has an opportunity cost, as with all policies. If a government spends on one particular program, it necessarily means not spending money on others. Moreover, blanket consumption subsidy is probably the worst of all policies in terms of opportunity cost.

Secondly, there are better policies — cash transfer or tradable quotas for the needy are two examples — compared to outright subsidy. These alternative policies can address welfare concerns more efficiently.

Thirdly, the subsidy program has to be financed. That means taxation. While taxation is required to maintain a government, the level of taxation can be controlled to accommodate other concerns. There are various reasons why a low-tax environment is favorable. A bloated subsidy program does not help in this aspect.

Finally, together with a subsidy program, multiple suffocating supply and demand control regimes typically exist to support the program. As a result, the market becomes inflexible as more and more controls are set in place. The inflexibility causes hardship to more individuals than necessary.

The subsidy cut appeals to these arguments. If these were the only concerns, I would wholly support the liberalization exercise.

But it is not.

Two pillars form the basis for my support for liberalization. One is economic concerns. The other involves concern for freedom. Specifically, it is the idea of small government.

The weight I put on these two factors changes from time to time according to situation and the situation has changed since the last time subsidy liberalization took place. The size of subsidies and the drag these place on government finance are less of an issue today compared to a year or two ago. That convinces me to place more weight for freedom vis-à-vis economic concern, although the two concerns are not mutually exclusive most of the time.

While liberalization satisfies the economic side of the balance, the desire to see a reduction in government size is unmet.

Take the Prime Minister’s Department, for instance. Member of Parliament for Bukit Bendera Liew Chin Tong shared recently that the size of the department has more than doubled in less than a decade. The statistics regarding the size of the civil service and the government as a whole are more harrowing. All this contributes to the structural fiscal deficit that Malaysia suffers from.

The deficit caused by rocketing expenditure is an indictment of a fat old man called the government. The current government has announced its intention to reduce it, presumably by reducing government expenditure. Whether the plan will be successful is another matter altogether.

Amid the liberalization and other government initiatives that include the formation of new government-linked companies, I have a disturbing narrative at the back of my mind: Effort to free up resources is aimed at merely funding government expansion in other areas.

It is hard to predict the net effect but experience does not encourage much hope. One possible outcome is a scenario where the areas of expansion require a more active government hand compared to the one where the government retreats.

Already, government supporters are using the opportunity cost argument eagerly to justify the recent cuts. They say the government will put the money in good use. Good use or not, they are setting the ground to use the retreat as a justification to expand the other sides of government.

The opportunity cost argument is not exclusively used by government supporters. Opposition sympathizers and others do have ideas on how to spend the money. Politics may create a trade-off between economic concern and freedom in the end.

I fear that, and that fear is holding me back from supporting the recent liberalization.

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

First published in The Malaysian Insider on August 4 2010.

Categories
Politics & government

[2218] Of wanted: political capital and will

There is mutual frustration between those in government and those who identify themselves as ordinary citizens in Malaysia. The frustration originates from the incapability of both to understand the other side’s challenges. This makes the gears of a huge machine — the government — stuck. It needs to work again.

The period immediately after the March 8, 2008 was supposed to be an opportunity for major reforms. The machine was supposed to work again after years of abuse that exhausted its credibility. The filters were supposed to have been washed, even if partly. Rusted wheels replaced. The joints, oiled.

That was not enough, apparently. Skepticism against the government — or perhaps more generally, against the state — not only persists but also grows. It has grown so much that it is disconnecting the government from the people, and the people from the government. It is threatening the idea that the government is the people, and the people are the government.

Given the record of the Barisan Nasional federal government, however, that skepticism is justified. In fact, skepticism against the state is a good thing to have. It is the first line of defense against tyranny.

Yet, skepticism is healthy only up to a certain dose. If there is too much skepticism, the central functions of the state cannot be carried out. Too much skepticism erodes the reason for a state. And there are signs that skepticism has become a monster in Malaysia, devouring too many regardless of agenda.

In the current political and economic climate, that skepticism has grown to a point that no reform can take place. The size of government is big so that it needs to be cut down so that there is less opportunity to repeat abuses of the past. Unfortunately, efforts to reduce it and put public finance in order are widely seen by many as a deliberate attempt to short-change citizens.

The problem of a big government is very real. Its effects on individuals and society are observable. Its growth over the years in Malaysia is something that cannot be missed. The Abdullah administration committed gross gluttony while the supposed benefits of big government were unseen. Something has to be done now, but nothing moves. Loud popular opposition stands in the way.

Part of the reason is that the challenges associated with big government are far removed from the ground. Public finance, for instance, means little to men and women on the streets. Individuals do not directly face it and hence, they do not see it as problems to solve, at least not soon.

Incapability to see it does not mean all is fine and dandy. The tragedy is this: Efforts to solve it inflicts relatively immediate pain while its benefits will only come relatively later. Furthermore, benefactors of big government will obviously defend it. Coupled with those is the fact that most of us enjoy the idea of instant gratification, so the loud popular opposition is not a surprise.

In justifying their opposition to initiatives to cut the size of government, they do raise very pertinent questions. What about corruption, what about leakage and what about inefficiency in the public sector? These are among the questions many have asked. Why should we pay for their excesses?

Recent allegation by the civil servants’ union, Cuepacs, that nearly half of civil servants in the country were suspected to be involved in graft does not instill confidence. The size of the civil service suggests that the government is uninterested in cutting down its expenditure seriously. Purchases of overpriced defense equipments suggest unwise spending. The investigation of the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) is going unsatisfactorily, if there is any progress at all. Recent large losses of enterprises linked to the government exacerbate the image of the government of the day as incompetent.

Slammed with the idea of a goods and services tax along with the withdrawal of subsidies, rightly or wrongly, taxpayers get the perception that they are picking up the tab for somebody else’s mistake. As far as critics are concerned, the government is swimming in excesses, disconnected from the concerns of the masses.

The boilerplate answer to this two-way disconnect is commitment to democracy: Voters should till the land. Get a completely new captain and crew to staff the bridge.

It is an attractive solution as it removes one disconnect. As with any boilerplate argument however, it is insufficient. A libertarian fear revolves around this: Such a democratic solution solves only one part of the equation. It may build the trust that is required to run the machine smoothly again. What it may fail to do is to address the problem of big government.

The alternative in the form of Pakatan Rakyat has not demonstrated their grasp of the issue. They are happy with mere populism so far, such as promises of free water and bigger subsidies.

They really cannot be blamed for that. It is only expected. The truth is that Pakatan Rakyat needs to run a populist campaign to enter Putrajaya.

That does not negate the fact that economic populist policy tends to run a country down. That does not negate the fact that unpopular moves are required to solve the problems. Clearly, political capital is required to run unpopular policy.

But who has the political will? Who has the political capital?

Putrajaya, so far, lacks at least one of them.

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

First published in The Malaysian Insider on June 14 2010.