Tag: private property

Categories
Economics Politics & government

[2617] Is the Selangor state government being a hypocrite by owning a stake in IPPs and highways?

Member of Parliament for Rembau, Khairy Jamaluddin yesterday repeated the accusation he made at a forum organized by Chevening alumni association last week. He said that Pakatan Rakyat is being hypocritical about its criticism of government policy regarding highways and independent power producers. As he pointed out, PR opposes these policies to the point that they want to nationalize those highways and power plants but at the same time, the Selangor state government holds shares in those private companies which operate the assets in Selangor. So, the state government enjoys dividend from the investment.

First off, I oppose government involvement in these matters and I balk at nationalization. At the same time, I dislike monopoly. These two concerns force me to adopt a gray area because while these highways and power plants are now operated by private companies (the definition private is increasingly blurry these days with state funds owning significant shares of these private companies), they were granted excessive monopoly power or overly generous concession at the expense of consumers, especially in terms of electricity generation in the past.

So, I do not want the government, state or federal, to nationalize highways or power plants, and I do want to see those monopoly power granted by the government curb. So, I am stuck. On these matters, I will bark at both both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat’s policy. The former is responsible for granting the monopolies and perpetuating the status quo with limited improvement possibly because of political entanglement with the business community and the latter trying to do too much to overcome those monopolies with too much state power.

And I do not really trust BN in fighting PR because BN has proven to oppose PR’s proposal only in words but in action, they would do what PR proposes anyway. Proof: the Eastern Disperal Link in Johor which the government took over and abolished the toll. The EDL has another disturbing dimension to it: it is really a bailout of MRCB by the government. MRCB was in trouble because the government did not have the political will stick to its words. This by far is not the only example.

But, on the issue at hand, I am unsure if it is hypocritical of the Selangor state government to hold a stake in companies operating the same highways and power plants that PR proposes for the government to take over, as Khairy accused.

Would it not be wise for the Selangor state government under Pakatan to own interest in these power plants and highways in Selangor so that the state has a say in the respective companies’ board of directors?

One has to remember that the reason PR proposes to take over these assets is that PR claims that the companies or rather the arrangements which allowed these companies to profit in the first place are burdensome to Malaysians. PR claims that nationalization is a cheaper option to the status quo. As far as I understand it, it is not really about some socialist dream. It is really a matter of which is cheaper, which I think is a technocratic approach. Technocratic in the sense that it is number driven.

I actually am swayed by that technocratic argument but not to the point of nationalizing those private assets. I say so because nationalization is not the only conclusion to that technocratic argument. I am sure if we sit down and think about it, there are multiple ways which any party can achieve so.

One way is to have a say in the Board of Directors of those companies. The state government can voice its discontent over any possible revision to prices charged to consumer. This has its own conflict of interest issue—if one is profit-driven, then the state itself may want to optimize its returns; in this sense, Khairy is right—but like I wrote, it is also a way to influence companies’ decision from within towards the objective of reducing burden to Malaysian consumers.

Is that hypocritical?

On the net, maybe yes, maybe not.

Now, I do not know whether the Selangor state government has a seat in the Board of Directors or if the state does, then whether that rep’s voice is in line with PR’s rhetoric. If Khairy’s accusation is to be credible, I think he has to go one layer deeper to the dynamics of the Board of Directors.

Categories
Liberty

[2436] Bellamy mistook public-private dichotomy as the universe

In Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy, which is kind of the ideological polar opposite of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, there is one particular argument that denies the legitimacy of private property in favor of public property.

Bellamy believed that a person uses all of his or her knowledge and experience to produce a good or a service. All of those knowledge and experience were derived from past thinkers and inventors, through interaction with society. All those goods are public properties said Bellamy, produced by humanity and none can privatize it.

Since any further inventions or innovations will necessarily use those goods defined as public properties, new inventions and innovations will continue to be public properties. The usage of public property as an input is sufficient to classify a product as public property.

The inventors and innovators have no moral right to appropriate the products of public property as private properties. It belongs to everybody, so Bellamy held. Just as a person used all these public goods for free, the person must repay it back to the owner of these public properties, which is the society or more practically, the government. As you can see, it is a pretty collectivist idea.

This idea is set within a thought complex where money does not exist and a central planner is all-knowing in terms of productive and distributive efficiency. The central planner assigns all labor based on needs and capability into an “industrial army” and the problem of scarcity has been solved. More generally, the central planner manages all input of production. The whole book was decidedly painted by the statist version of communism all around.

This line of thinking is attractive for those who are against the idea of private property, never mind the impracticability of the matter. In the book, the idea was practical only because of the existence of an omnipresent government that does everything and can enforce the status of a good as a public property. But I am not really interested in its practicality, or impractically rather. I am more interested in its morality, and its origination, which Bellamy based Looking Backward on, despite its elaborate description of Bellamy’s prefered economic system.

The problem with this kind of thinking is its initial state assumption. Bellamy assumed past knowledge is the product of humanity and a person that uses that product owes humanity something in return. In short and more clearly, if you use it, you must return it back. It assumes collective ownership of all things and it preserves collective ownership regardless of circumstances. It is an effort at drawing a perfect circle that goes round and round.

But going back to the first men when none owned anything, or rather without making any assumption on ownership, consider the first state when men were beasts far back in history. The question is who owned what in the very first state of affairs?

Did the first men own the lands, the air and the water, or did these resources were not owned?

If they owned these resources, did they own it privately or collectively?

Bellamy necessarily assumed that these resources were owned collectively by the first men. The mere use of these resources make these resources public property.

I differ. I refuse the relationship between usage as a sufficient condition to turn a good into ownership, hence turning the good into either private or public property.

I differ because unlike Bellamy, I hold that these resources were not owned by anybody. It was a common owned by none. Consider this: if I used the water from a free-flowing river owned by none, would I automatically own the river?

No.

Furthermore, if I used the water and others used it as well, would it automatically mean all the users collectively own the river?

No.

My point is that usage does not translate into ownership, privately or publicly. Bellamy assumed otherwise.

More importantly, lack of private ownership does not automatically suggest public ownership. Within the realm of property ownership, there is a dichotomy between private and public property. But within the universe, there is a dichotomy of ownership and absence of ownership.

Bellamy, I think, worked within the dichotomy of private-public ownership and mistook that as the universe.

But this relates to physical resources. How about something intangible, like calculus?

It is true that knowledge, like calculus, is the product of contribution of hundreds or thousands of men and women throughout the ages. Without any exaggeration, it is a product of humanity. But although it is, it is not owned by humanity. The discoverers of various laws, theorems, rules, lemma and anything that has logical value in the case of calculus made it free for society to use. But free does not automatically translate into ownership, just like physical resources. None own it but they are free to use or learn it.

Recall the universe and the place of ownership dichotomy within the universe.

Categories
Liberty Politics & government

[2155] Of damage to sanctity of right to private property, undone

Assume that I own an item. Somebody impersonates me and pretends to be the rightful owner of the item. The impersonator then sells the item to another bone fide buyer. To me, that transaction is clearly illegal. It violates rights to the idea of private property, one of the main pillars of libertarianism. But one does not need to be a libertarian to understand that that is utterly wrong. Fraud is always wrong. But a certain judge, Eusoff Chin, in 2000 ruled otherwise.

Roger Tan Kor Mee wrote an insightful article at Loyak Burok on the matter:

Briefly, in Adorna Properties, a Thai, Boonsom Boonyanit, who resided in Thailand was the registered proprietor of two lots land in Tanjung Bungah, Pulau Pinang (”the said lands”). An impostor, one Mrs Boonsoom Boonyanit, claiming to be ”Sun Yok Eng @ Boonsom Boonyanit” had affirmed a statutory declaration on June 18, 1988 that she had lost the original title to the said lands. The impostor then managed to obtain a certified copy of the title from the land office.

On April 6, 1989, the impostor affirmed a second statutory declaration declaring that the names Mrs Boonsoom Boonyanit and Sun Yok Eng @ Boonsom Boonyanit in the title to the said lands were one and the same person, that is Mrs Boonsoom Boonyanit (impostor) with a different Thai passport number. With this declaration, the impostor managed to register the transfer in favour of Adorna for a sum of RM 12Million.

Boonyanit then sued for the return of the said lands. The High Court Judge of Penang, Justice Vincent Ng Kim Khoay, ruled in favour of Adorna (judgment dated April 25, 1995). On appeal, the Court of Appeal, comprising Gopal Sri Ram, Siti Norma Yaakob and Ahmad Fairuz, allowed the appeal in its judgment dated March 17, 1997. Adorna then appealed, and the Federal Court comprising Eusoff Chin, Wan Adnan Ismail and Abu Mansor Ali allowed Adorna’s appeal in its judgment dated Dec 13, 2000 and pronounced in open court on Dec 22, 2000 (”main judgment”), but by then Boonyanit had passed away in May that year. [Can landed property be validly transferred land using a forged instrument? Roger Tan Kor Mee. Loyar Burok. January 20 2010]

But even if the law actually justified the year 2000 ruling, then the law has to be deeply flawed and repulsive to the notion of justice. It practically legalizes robbery. Is such law deserving of adherence?

It is therefore highly comforting for me to learn that the Federal Court today overturns that despicable ruling, restoring ownership of the land to its rightful owner.

PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court on Thursday departed from its judgement nearly 10 years ago in the Adorna Properties Sdn Bhd vs Boonsom Boonyanit case, plugging a loophole in the law to thus allow landowners who lost their land through fraudulent means to redeem their right to the property.

In its landmark unanimous ruling, the five-man bench led by Chief Justice Zaki Azmi held that land transferred by fraudulent means will no longer be legally accepted. [Federal Court reverses its decision in landmark land case. The Star. January 21 2010]

Alas, the rightful owner is already dead.

Still, it is righting a wrong and it preserves the sanctity of right to private property. That, is something to celebrate for.

Categories
History & heritage Poetry

[1005] Mengenai Rumah Bok

Jalan-jalan Jalan Ampang,
ada ternampak rumah besar,
rumah agam di tanah lapang,
di mata kasar, masa kasar.

Jalan-jalan Jalan Ampang,
tiada lagi rumah besar,
tiang tidur di tanah lapang,
di mata kasar, manusia gasar.

Fair use. Copyrights by The Sun, Malaysia.

Menurut The Sun, Rumah Bok sudah tiada:

KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 15, 2006): The legacy of Bok House or Le Coq D’Or on Jalan Ampang came to an end Thursday, with it crushing all hopes and fervour of heritage activists.

Burning questions now await the authorities that be for allowing something so beautiful and beloved to be forever erased.

The building’s roof tiles were the first to be taken down on Thursday morning and hoarding on the Jalan Ampang frontage was put up from 6pm that day. Friday saw the destruction of sturdy pillars which held up the house.

Walau apapun, Rumah Bok adalah harta peribadi. Pemilik berhak menentukan masa hadapan hartanya, walaupun tindakan pemilik itu sungguh menjijikkan.

Saya telah menyumbangkan satu rencana pendek tentang Rumah Bok kepada Wikipedia Inggeris, takut-takutkan saya terlupa sejarah bandar ini di suatu masa.