Tag: libertarianism

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Politics & government

[1948] Of the next big step is a small Cabinet

Skepticism comes naturally with broken promises. Due to disillusionment among far too many individuals under the previous administration, the words of a Barisan Nasional-led administration are close to worthless nowadays. It is, therefore, not hard to prove that the window for sloganeering for the new Prime Minister is extremely narrow. What really matters now is action, and the first step in breaking that skepticism is by assembling a Cabinet worthy of trust.

The window for sloganeering should have been shut completely if not for the role of slogans in clarifying any agenda. While catchy slogans still have a place, the agenda must first be set straight and right. In this era of extreme skepticism, doing otherwise invites disaster.

Questions on the slogan will be raised and convincing answers will not be forthcoming exactly because the slogan lacks substance. That will create disappointment, reinforcing pre-existing skepticism. Mixing skepticism with further disappointment is a surefire recipe for cynicism.

Being a skeptic, it is not hard at all to turn myself into a cynic, especially with the mainstream media acting the way they do at the moment. The mainstream media — the major printed and broadcast media — are obviously oblivious to the reason why they lost their credibility in the first place. Their coverage of the three just-concluded by-elections continue to prove that they are nothing more than individuals typically found in the dark back alleys with scant ersatz clothing soliciting for clients of dubious taste.

So early in days of the new administration, there are little clues to the actual agenda of the new Prime Minister, save an unclear slogan with no concrete definition.

”One Malaysia”, for instance, is amazingly opaque despite the untrustworthy mainstream media parading the slogan as a sign of change. Change is not about slogans but the mainstream media would have all of us believed otherwise.

There appears to be some effort by the Prime Minister to elaborate on that slogan on a piecemeal basis but, so far, it is all wishy washy. It is there in the air, warm and fuzzy but nobody can really see it. The new Prime Minister clearly has not communicated his message well.

This has made his slogans open for a gamut of interpretations, making blowback a real possibility. Already ”One Malaysia” is seen by some as a repackaged Malaysian Malaysia, striking fear in the hearts of conservative Malays. On the other side, ”One Malaysia” suggests intolerance for civil dissents and a return to Asian values where unity is promoted at the expense of liberty.

In absence of clear message, one has to look somewhere else to ascertain the agenda of the new administration. The opportunity to do just that is coming with the expected formation of a new Cabinet. The size and the membership of Cabinet will shed light on some of the new prime minister’s agenda.

The size of the new Cabinet will indicate whether the same path of big, ineffective and wasteful government is the order of the day. Under the Abdullah administration, there were 33 individuals with a seat in the Cabinet by virtue of being ministers; there were 27 ministries of various kinds.

It is easy to digest how the number of the ministries translates into a big government. The greater the quantity of ministries is, the greater the requirement for civil servants. Tremendous resources are required just to keep a bloated government running.

A large number of ministries not only suggests the large size of government. It also suggests that the role of government is wide; wide enough to smother the life of private citizens, not only with respect to civil liberty, but also in the areas of business where multiple permits and licenses are required by different ministries, as each ministry tries to justify its existence.

At the back of my head, there is a nagging feeling that these ministries were created to satisfy political demand for positions and power rather than accommodating national needs.

At the very top, having 33 decision makers in the Cabinet makes the decision-making process cumbersome. In a country with limited empowerment as evident through the lack of local elections and in effect unresponsive local government, far too many decisions eventually go back to the top. When such top-down statist set-up is coupled with a cumbersome Cabinet, it is little wonder that the government is ineffective.

Adoption of organic — or bottom-up — approach can solve that problem. One example of that is by returning the power of local government to the people through reintroduction of local government.

With active local government, many functions of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government can be made irrelevant as the decision-making path length is shortened. Greater democratization itself can eliminate the need for the Ministry of Federal Territories completely.

Regardless of democratization, what exactly does the Ministry of Federal Territories do that the local authority, like the City Hall of Kuala Lumpur, cannot?

A new Cabinet must address the problem of big government that has been strongly identified with the past administration. The new administration has to forcefully break from the past. Or else.

Inevitably, that means embracing a limited but effective government led by a small but capable Cabinet.

Functions of ministries need to be streamlined to address the problem of overlapping turfs, ministries have to be merged to reduce the scope of government, and excess positions within the government need to be removed to address more than a decade-old fiscal deficit; the deficit is an indicator of the size of government.

These actions, to me, will produce a very strong signal indicating a change from the malaise Malaysia suffers. That will help in convincing me — and probably others, too — to cut down on my skepticism and to give the new administration a fighting chance.

Unfortunately, elimination of excess positions within an already bloated government might not happen. The mini-budget specifically called for absorption of the unemployed into the government. Past promises are tying the new Prime Minister’s hand.

Nevertheless, reducing the size of government cannot be done in a day. It has to be done in a gradual manner. Yet, gradualism is not a luxury the new administration can afford. Given the urgency and the gravity of the need for change, the only quick big punch to the prevailing skepticism relates back to the size of Cabinet and eventually, the size of government.

Size however is not the only consideration. The composition of the Cabinet is as important as the size. Still, even the question of composition necessarily leads back to the question of size.

The reason is that the pool of Members of Parliament available to the new Prime Minister contains a limited number of qualified individuals with intact credibility. A large Cabinet will more likely than not absorb individuals who do not command confidence from the public in times when confidence is exactly what the new administration needs badly.

If the new administration wants to earn confidence from the masses, a large Cabinet is not an option.

Having said that, it must also be stressed that a small Cabinet does not guarantee a smooth ride for the new administration. The size is a mere symptom of the agenda and a lean Cabinet only suggests that the agenda is on the right track. It says nothing of the agenda itself.

A failure to form a small cabinet will, however, make the years of the Najib administration a hell for Barisan Nasional.

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 April 8 2009.

Categories
Economics

[1937] Of Brown, Obama and permanent interest

Libertarians typically have no reason to protest the typical annual meeting of Group 20 (G20). G20 is of course the grouping of the richest and most influential countries in the world. This year’s meet up in London however is not a typical gathering. It is extraordinary because of the global economic turbulence we are witnessing at this very moment. In trying to address the problem, both the Obama and the Brown administrations are advocating large spending and they will likely call for others to do the same at the G20. This call — probably made for the first time in recent memory — gives libertarians a reason to join the protest against the G20, particularly, against the US and the UK.

Both administrations have been building the spending momentum for weeks, if not months now. Indeed, both countries are leading the way in economic stimulus with government spending as a major pillar. Much has been spent but both English-speaking countries — especially the Obama administration — content that too many are not spending enough. The idea is that the problem is not spending too much. Rather, it is about doing too little.[1]

In Malaysia, the Finance Minister Najib Abdul Razak has unfortunately embraced that idea. With as much as RM67 billion worth of stimulus plan with another RM5 billion injected into the equity market with much opacity by the Malaysian government, the credential of the expected next administration of Malaysia — the expected Najib administration — as a big spender is not in question. This is by no mean that Malaysia is following the footstep of the US and UK. Indeed, the current administrator of Malaysia is gloating by the fact that they did it first during the Asian Financial Crisis when the US was dead against it. The Malaysia’s administration takes the current trend as a justification of their past action.

Momentum or not, both Obama and Brown administrations’ effort to lobby for more spending from other countries is meeting resistance, especially from Europe and Latin America. For regions not known for their love for free market, this is certainly refreshing when the traditional advocates of free market are taking steps in the wrong direction.

Germany called United Kingdom Prime Minister Brown’s method as crass Keynesianism.[2] Although eventually capitulating by increasing its spending but still short from what the Brown and the Obama administration had hoped for, Germany was unhappy at what they saw as them bailing out imprudent others. Germany had worked hard to keep its accounts in order and it despised the idea of spending their money to correct others’ mistakes, while undoing Germany’s successes.[3]

Czech Premier who also holds the presidency of the European Union went as far as calling Obama’s call for greater spending as the road to hell. He has been reproached by other European leaders for the harsh words but nevertheless, it exhibits the sentiment of the member states of the European Union.[4]

In Latin America where Brown and later the Vice President of the United States Joe Biden flew down earlier, both faced similar but more politely put opposition. The hero of the moment was Chile, as President Michelle Bachelet, an economic left, practically rehashed argument forwarded by the Conservative Party led by David Cameron in the United Kingdom to Brown.[5]

Judging from the results of these meetings, both Obama and Brown are likely to meet heavy resistance at the table of G20 when it comes to how to address the global economic crisis.

In all likelihood, the reversal of roles probably has little to do with philosophical difference and much to do with the fact that the economic crisis has unequal effect across the world. In Europe unlike the United States, far more comprehensive social safety nets are in place. The automatic pervasive mechanism as advocated by economist John Taylor is already in place.

Germany meanwhile had saved enough in good times that they believed that the country was able to ride on the wave safely. The same argument is applied by Chile when Bachelet effectively said no to Brown’s call for support for greater spending, which he is expected to repeat at the table of G20.

For Asian countries especially for the export-driven economies, while the pain is undeniable, it is unlikely to go as bad as in the US. And indeed, the different nature of economic crisis in Asia demands different solutions. What the US and the UK are asking is but only a one-size fit-all policy.

Also, there is a sense of the often used German word which has found its way to mainstream English language: schadenfreude. Schadenfreude means pleasure derived from watching others’ misfortune. The latest prominent leader seemingly to enjoy the scenario is the Brazilian President when Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. He reminded all that this crisis was caused by “white people with blue eyes.”[6] This schadenfreude however has become excessive lately and risks of becoming masochism.

For libertarians, the opposition mounted against the US and the UK is something to be supported of, even when the causes of opposition differ. As it goes, there are no permanent allies and no permanent enemies. There are only permanent interests.

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

[1] — In this crisis, doing too little poses a greater threat than doing too much. Any sound economic strategy in the current context must be directed at both creating the jobs that Americans need and doing the work that our economy requires. Any plan geared toward only one of these objectives would be dangerously deficient. Failure to create enough jobs in the short term would put the prospect of recovery at risk. Failure to start undertaking necessary long-term investments would endanger the foundation of our recovery and, ultimately, our children’s prosperity. [Obama’s Down Payment: A Stimulus Must Aim for Long-Term Results. Lawrence Summers. Washington Post. December 8 2008]

[2] — Mr Steinbruck questioned why Britain was “tossing around billions” and closely following the high public spending model put forward by 20th Century economist John Maynard Keynes.

“The switch from decades of supply-side politics all the way to a crass Keynesianism is breathtaking,” he said. [Germany questions UK rescue plan. BBC News. December 11 2008]

[3] — German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a speech to Germany’s parliament on Thursday that her government was doing more than most to support the world economy through higher spending and lower taxes. Germany’s stance could come under pressure from financially weaker countries within Europe as their economies sink deeper into trouble, economists say.

Struggling EU countries range from Ireland and Spain, where housing-market bubbles have burst, to Hungary and Latvia in the continent’s post-communist East, where capital flight has forced governments to seek IMF aid.

Although Germany is in its worst recession in 60 years, Europe’s biggest economy has relatively strong public finances and enjoys the trust of capital markets.

That means Germany could be doing more to raise its domestic demand through higher government borrowing, say critics. Germany’s reluctance to do so means its neighbors’ recessions will be worse than necessary, says Julian Callow, European economist at Barclays Capital. [EU Rebuffs Calls to Increase Fiscal Stimulus, Aid. Marcus Walker. Adam Cohen. Wall Street Journal. March 20 2009]

[4] — BERLIN, March 25 — The president of the European Union on Wednesday ripped the Obama administration’s economic policies, calling its deficit spending and bank bailouts “a road to hell.”

The comments by Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek of the Czech Republic, which holds the E.U.’s rotating presidency, startled some U.S. and European officials, who are preparing for President Obama’s visit next month to several European cities, including Prague, the Czech capital. [E.U. President Blasts U.S. Spending. Craig Whitlock. Washington Post. March 26 2009]

[5] — Gordon Brown suffered another setback over his diplomatic offensive yesterday, as the Chilean president inadvertently echoed Conservative attacks on the prime minister’s handling of the economy. [E.U. President Blasts U.S. Spending. Craig Whitlock. Financial Times. March 26 2009]

[6] — Mr Brown’s decision to use the South American leg of his trip to call for a G20 $100bn (£70bn) deal to support world trade was overshadowed when Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian president, blamed the financial crisis on “white people with blue eyes”. [E.U. President Blasts U.S. Spending. Craig Whitlock. Financial Times. March 26 2009]

Categories
Liberty Politics & government Society

[1917] Of revisiting the roles of government and other matters

Friend Ho Yi Jian[1] currently at the National University of Singapore asks several questions pertaining libertarianism. One question asks what many have asked: how small is a small government? The second question is about wealth inequality. Third, is there a way to overcome speculation associated with the operations of free market?

Let us explore the three questions one at a time.

The hardest question is the first. How small — or big — should a small government be?

There is no objective way of measuring the size of government but there are principles. In no way however these principles are universally adopted throughout the schools of libertarianism.

In the famed Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, Judeans were against Roman rule and there were multiple resistance groups. They however just could not agree with each other. In the classic comedy, the Judean People’s Front and the People’s Front of Judea seemed to hate each other more than the Romans though both groups shared a common goal of ridding Judea of Roman presence. The same is applicable for libertarianism.

Different strains of libertarianism have their own idiosyncrasies which one libertarian may disagree with each other. I therefore cannot provide an answer to represent all libertarianisms. But I can present my version of libertarianism and that is green libertarianism. This is the green-blue alliance that is probably currently seen in form of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom under the exciting David Cameron.

In this kind of libertarianism, the purpose of the state defines the boundary and hence size of the state. The purpose in my libertarianism — with regards to this particular purpose — is uncontroversial in common libertarian circle because it is the universal truth in libertarianism. The first and foremost purpose of the state is the protection of individual negative liberty. This is further enhanced with rights egalitarianism: all are granted the same negative rights as long as the person respects others’ same rights.

As first formally rationalized by Isaiah Berlin, negative liberty is the freedom from interference. This definitely includes protection from coercion and fraud. This freedom is mostly bounded by the non-aggression axiom.

Sidetracking, the non-aggression axiom does not eliminate force as an option. It merely prevents libertarian from initiating force. If coercion was initiated by the other, then by all means pick up your arms and fight. The state motto of New Hampshire describes it all: live free or die.

I would like to think I am a Friedman libertarian to a certain extent. This is mostly because while preferring for a small government which at the very least defined by protection of individual negative rights and non-aggression axiom, the government has a crucial role in education. A liberal society as in libertarian society requires an educated society and education is the sculpture of society. Without education, individuals would not be empowered to take destiny into their hands and that would bring the downfall of a liberal society. Its importance can never be overemphasized in sustaining a liberal society.

While we are at it, allow me to answer Jed Yoong’s question posed much earlier[2] and answer Yi Jian’s second question too.

Before we begin, it is crucial to point out of problematic label liberalism as utilized by Jed. It is problematic because of the inconsistency of her usage of the word, which is probably due to her unfamiliarity with US politics. The title of her entry betrays that fact. She carelessly uses liberalism to describe the free market sort by including me and John Lee[3] as adherents of liberalism in the same line as the US liberals — more accurately the Democrats. This is a misuse of label because in US tradition, the liberals are the social democrats and I am definitely not a social democrat. Admittedly, libertarians in the classical liberalism sense may support the Democrats but that is due to employment of pragmatism and nothing more.

Under the flawed definition, she asked, how egalitarian will your (here, I take it as me. Others can answer that question for themselves; the two other names mentioned were John Lee and Nik Nazmi) NEP-free Malaysia truly be?

A loaded question with flawed assumption is hard to answer. She fails to understand the libertarians are not quite concerned with wealth egalitarianism. Instead, libertarians are firm believers of rights egalitarianism. Libertarians are not supportive of and oppose to any effort at achieving equality of outcome.

This is why libertarians or classical liberals are the great philosophical enemies of communists and socialists.

The question of endowment does disturb me however. Here, my concern is poverty and not wealth inequality.

In my opinion, poverty has greater propensity to create instability than wealth inequality. Proof: supposedly equal communist state always without fail, fail. Less communistic and socialist state and more capitalist countries have proven to outlast communist state, so far. But of course, there is no absolute capitalist state in the world at the moment. What are there are states on a spectrum sitting close to capitalistic end, vis-à-vis the other end in a simple two dimensional spectrum.

Take note of my concern for poverty. I hold that poverty is the problem, not wealth inequality. I also hold that a lot of people accidentally mixed the two concepts together without realizing it because the two concepts are similar on the surface. Below the skin, the difference cannot be missed.

It is that endowment question, or if your will, the question of poverty, that led me to rationalize the need for government’s active role in education. It is education that is capable of breaking the cycle of poverty, the great machine which provides equality of opportunities. Education may also create a more wealth egalitarian society, but only as a side effect, not as an expressed goal.

But if — and that is a damn big if — affirmative action is a must, I prefer it to be inclusive, not exclusive, need-conscious affirmative action.

Coming back to the first question, one final factor in defining the size of government is market failure. While market is the superior form of social technology in its class — and definitely far more superior than socialism — it does suffer weakness and that is market failure. Many libertarians, especially the minarchists of minarchist somehow choose to ignore this but market failure presents both theoretical and practical problems.

It is important to define market failure, lest others misconstrue losses caused by corrections made by the market for bad decisions made by actors as market failure. Bad decisions made by actors are actors’ failure, not market’s. This is applicable to bubble bursting, from tulips, to dot com, to housing. In those cases, the market is merely turning around and saying, hey, you made a mistake and you have to pay for it.

Market failure here is in the line of tragedy of the commons. The problems associated with pollution and harvesting of public goods in situations where there is consistent and systemic divergence of social and private costs called externality, especially negative externality are market failure. In this, the government has a role to narrow wide gap between social and private cost. This can happen through introduction of Pigovian taxes — of special interest is the informal Pigovian Club founded by economist Greg Mankiw — or issuance of permits.

Finally, the third question: speculation is a problem, what can we do about it? Here, he qualifies speculation as over-speculation.

In answering the question, I would like to begin from the top. Is speculation a problem?

The question, much like Jed’s question of egalitarianism, is loaded. I do not accept that speculation is a problem. What I consider as a problem is incomplete information or more accurately, asymmetric information. It is especially so when it is associated with fraud. Does the government have a role to play in that?

Yes. Refer back to the first purpose of government: protection of individual negative rights.

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

[1] — [Labour Politics, Libertarianism and Business Cycles. Thoughtstreak II.V. March 6 2009]

[2] — [Liberalism In America + Malaysia, 1968 vs 2008 Jed Yoong. January 3 2009]

[3] — John Lee blogs at Infernal Ramblings of a Thoughtless Mind.

Categories
Liberty Society

[1915] Of free press is fair press

Ownership of the press by political parties is a contentious issue especially among urban and educated section of Malaysian society. Underlying the debate of ownership is a desire for objective press. The concern is understandable: it is quite reasonable to expect the press to exhibit political — sometimes rabid — bias if it is owned by political parties. While I do consider excessively biased content as angering, I do not believe the question of press ownership should be a call to legislate it. Rather, a far more important issue at hand is freedom of the press.

I am quite unsupportive of effort to bar political parties or any entity for that matter from owning the press, be the press falls under the mainstream media category or in other less formal groupings because such action clearly violates a person or an entity’s right to property, one of several concepts central to the idea of liberty.

I hold liberty sacred. Hence, I am unprepared to trample upon liberty for the sake of giving birth to an objective press, as much as I am unprepared to kill a person merely because the other person holds views that I consider as unpalatable.

Objectivity nevertheless is a noble idea to adhere to, especially for those active in the field of journalism. Honest journalists must reports an event without value judgment and as it is with equal weight to the subjects mentioned. Yet, even those who place the ideal of objectivity on the highest pedestal suffer from biases.

Why?

Each and every one of us is a victim of history. Our experience shapes our perception of the world. Our values, however fluid it may be, arise from our perception and we live our lives by our values. By this alone, none of us can truly be neutral in living our lives. Even when a person dedicates himself to neutrality, hidden beneath it all is a subtle hint of bias. Unless somehow we are able to make decisions without falling back to our experience, to be truly neutral is an impossible act to commit in my humble opinion, especially in an environment of diverse values.

Compounding the impossibility of neutrality is perhaps the possible diverse definitions of objectivity and neutrality that exist. Absolute neutrality will require the definition of the very idea to be synchronized across differences of values.

To make it worse, it cannot be denied that there are those who cry for neutrality and objectivity only when it suits them. To these individuals, the only neutral views are views which conform to theirs. Effort to synchronize their definition will prove problematic.

The inherent bias that we all maintain deep inside ourselves is exactly the reason why the act of barring political parties from owning part of the media does little to create objective press. Even without having connection to any political party, editors and reporters the world over are capable of holding personal views. These views could sway to any direction without any encouragement from their employers, whomever that may be.

I confess however that while absolute neutrality is impossible, a society or groups within the society with some shared values does acknowledge a certain level of acceptable objectivity. Any entity that works at that level will escape the accusation of being impartial within local context.

Objective or not, expressing biased views, however distasteful these may be, is part of freedom of expression. To coercively prevent an entity from expressing his, her or its biases is a transgression of free speech and expression. Such transgression is plainly wrong. To coercively prevent the same entity from utilizing his, her or its property to express the biases is a transgression of right to property. Such transgression is doubly wrong from libertarian point of view.

For those who are truly concerned with the objectivity of the press, there is a better way to resolve the issue. The solution involves not the suppression of liberty but rather, the enhancement of liberty. It revolves around the idea of competition of sources.

If there truly is demand for objective press however impossible the idea of absolute neutrality is, then the practice of free press will work to satisfy that demand without relieving anybody from their rights.

The market will correct the situation, if there is demand. Those concerned with objectivity of the press have to be mindful that grossly and consistently impartial and unfair press will quickly lose credibility. To a large extent, the mainstream media closely associated with Barisan Nasional, especially Utusan Malaysia, Berita Harian and New Straits Times did suffer credibility loss when they clearly were not objective and at times printing questionable materials without facts. They have yet to recover whatever credibility they had in the past.

In place of these channels, other less-than-mainstream media have taken over roles of the traditional players as sources of public information, with many actively and continuously successfully challenging the truthfulness of information originating from the so-called mainstream media.

With this cognizance, for an aspiring liberal society, the quest for objectivity should be pursued as part of a larger quest for liberty. What is required instead is a consistent demand to unravel the unholy shackles placed around all forms of press. The issuance of licenses for printed press should be liberalized, book banning should be outlawed and efforts at censorship backed with coercion should be fought against; all that and more in the name of competition of sources.

If objectivity is of value to most, then just like in mechanism of free market, competition is the most efficient manner of bringing objectivity up front in the open above the noise of biases and propagandist shouting matches.

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 March 3 2009.

Categories
Books, essays and others Liberty Photography

[1734] Of The Constitution of Liberty

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