In a surprisingly strong defence of free speech, The Dominion Post has come out saying race relations conciliator Joris De Bres should not be pre-emptively censoring Massey University's Professor Clydesdale over his controversial new study regarding the economic contribution of Polynesian Immigrant's to New Zealand's economy:
"Mr de Bres seems in danger of forgetting this is a democracy, in which academics have the freedom their institutions allow them to comment and critique society and newspapers have the right not only to report such comment and criticism but also to decide what prominence to give what is, by any definition, news." (hat tip: David Farrar)
What really gets me about all this is what an economic report has to do with a race relations conciliator? Are we expecting Polynesian immigrants to riot in the streets if the findings of some minor academic study paint them in a bad light? Where is the precedent for un-pc academic findings causing major racial conflict? Did Africa explode over Professor Watson's politically incorrect comment on African intelligence? Did African Americans riot over the publication of the Bell Curve? Of the few people that did get worked up about the later, most were harmless-looking middle class white guys.
If de Bres can't find any better things to do with his time, you have to wonder whether we should be forking over taxpayers money to support his role.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Print media v the Internet
In newspaper commentaries on the decline/ stagnation of newspapers, and the rise of Internet, you don't tend to hear much about the Internet's greatest strength - its capacity to act as an outlet for frank opinion, or it's greatest weakness - its lack of appeal to advertisers.
For example, in a Press opinion column from last week "There's no business like news business," (Saturday, May 24), Martin Van Beynen says the Internet is competing strongly with print media for advertising, but later in the piece claims newspapers are struggling to get any revenue from their online versions.
To the extent that newspapers have been able to survive the various threats posed by radio, television and the Internet, I'm willing to hazard a guess it's because they've got a competitive advertising niche. Television advertising is too expensive, radio advertising is too brief, and both are extremely annoying and intrusive for viewers and listeners. Internet advertising holds potential, and is similar in many respects to print advertising, but at the present time, it's pretty hard to see how it can be made to pay.
By contrast, there are numerous advantages to newspaper advertising: it's cheap to produce, not particularly intrusive, can be viewed at any time, can include lots of important details, doesn't require a computer, and can be combined with useful information in the form of advertorials. Community newspaper advertising is particularly competitive, since 'communities' can be produced very cheaply and delivered to local homes for free, providing users will access to information on local products and services in a convenient form they can view anytime.
But since businesses are reluctant to pay big money for Internet advertising, it's difficult for bloggers and independent websites to produce the kind of hard news that is the bread and butter of newspapers. Hard news requires contacts, legwork, making lots of toll calls, and accessing user- pays databases, which is hardly likely to appeal to a lone blogger working for free or the occasional donation.
So instead of trying to compete in the field of hard news, which requires too much time and resources, bloggers are striking at the weak underbelly of print journalism - commentary. While, it requires training, resources and certification to produce good hard news, good commentary depends more on intelligence, talent, courage and subject knowledge - qualities which can just as easily be found in an anonymous layman with a high IQ or a curious mind, than an over-worked professional journalist constrained by numerous editorial requirements and pressing deadlines.
Not only that, but the amateur blogger has the advantage of total flexibility in regard to time spend on a post and the frequency of his or her posting.
Most newspaper commentators are obliged to produce articles of a particular size to a regular and inflexible deadline, and almost invariably quality and originality decline over time. Thus the flexible nature of blogging means that people who have jobs in other fields, which may pay much higher than journalism, can potentially produce refreshing, quality posts on an occasional basis, and blow away their stale and frequently under-paid, newspaper competitors.
Print journalists argue that the anonymity of blogging encourages a lot of immature and malicious posting, and they do have a point - quantity and shock value, rather than quality is the norm in blogosphere. However, the sheer volume and diversity of posts means that the best of the Internet (provided people can find it) is more than a match for the stale output of most newspaper opinion columns.
For example, in a Press opinion column from last week "There's no business like news business," (Saturday, May 24), Martin Van Beynen says the Internet is competing strongly with print media for advertising, but later in the piece claims newspapers are struggling to get any revenue from their online versions.
To the extent that newspapers have been able to survive the various threats posed by radio, television and the Internet, I'm willing to hazard a guess it's because they've got a competitive advertising niche. Television advertising is too expensive, radio advertising is too brief, and both are extremely annoying and intrusive for viewers and listeners. Internet advertising holds potential, and is similar in many respects to print advertising, but at the present time, it's pretty hard to see how it can be made to pay.
By contrast, there are numerous advantages to newspaper advertising: it's cheap to produce, not particularly intrusive, can be viewed at any time, can include lots of important details, doesn't require a computer, and can be combined with useful information in the form of advertorials. Community newspaper advertising is particularly competitive, since 'communities' can be produced very cheaply and delivered to local homes for free, providing users will access to information on local products and services in a convenient form they can view anytime.
But since businesses are reluctant to pay big money for Internet advertising, it's difficult for bloggers and independent websites to produce the kind of hard news that is the bread and butter of newspapers. Hard news requires contacts, legwork, making lots of toll calls, and accessing user- pays databases, which is hardly likely to appeal to a lone blogger working for free or the occasional donation.
So instead of trying to compete in the field of hard news, which requires too much time and resources, bloggers are striking at the weak underbelly of print journalism - commentary. While, it requires training, resources and certification to produce good hard news, good commentary depends more on intelligence, talent, courage and subject knowledge - qualities which can just as easily be found in an anonymous layman with a high IQ or a curious mind, than an over-worked professional journalist constrained by numerous editorial requirements and pressing deadlines.
Not only that, but the amateur blogger has the advantage of total flexibility in regard to time spend on a post and the frequency of his or her posting.
Most newspaper commentators are obliged to produce articles of a particular size to a regular and inflexible deadline, and almost invariably quality and originality decline over time. Thus the flexible nature of blogging means that people who have jobs in other fields, which may pay much higher than journalism, can potentially produce refreshing, quality posts on an occasional basis, and blow away their stale and frequently under-paid, newspaper competitors.
Print journalists argue that the anonymity of blogging encourages a lot of immature and malicious posting, and they do have a point - quantity and shock value, rather than quality is the norm in blogosphere. However, the sheer volume and diversity of posts means that the best of the Internet (provided people can find it) is more than a match for the stale output of most newspaper opinion columns.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
John Gray - a post liberal realist for the mainstream market
While there are quite a few realist intellectuals roaming around the wild west of the Internet, Britain's John Gray is arguably the only one who gets a fair hearing in the mainstream media.
Last weekends Press for example, has a prominent, and sympathetic portrait of Gray, and a review of his latest book, the provocatively titled Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia.
I haven't had a chance to read his latest work, but I like his previous books Straw Dogs, and Al Qaeda: what it means to be Modern, which attack utopian ideologies such as Marxism, and the anthropologic nature of western liberalism and environmentalism.
In regard to modern environmentalism, for example, Gray echoes realist demographer Thomas Malthus in saying:
He sides with mainstream scientific opinion on global warming, but unfashionably believes there is little humans can do about it other than prepare for the worst. Gray isn't afraid to attack liberals on the economic front either, getting stuck in to both Marxists thinkers such as Terry Eagleton and pro- free market organisations such as the IMF, saying the reality of peak oil contradicts one of the free market's founding myths - that where there is supply there is demand.
His latest book, apparently takes off from where he left off in his Guardian essay The Atheist Delusion, where he gets stuck into the "evangelical atheism" of right liberal aetheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, who consider aggressively imposing liberalism on the Muslim world.
Admitedly, taking the piss out of Francis Funkayama's The End of History, or Richard Dawkins, human-biology-free The God Delusion, is pretty much standard fair on your average nationalist or paleoconservative weblog, but Gray is about the only mainstream print media public intellectual allowed to aggressively critique utopian aspects of liberal ideology.
There are of course caveats though- he's conspicuously fuzzy about topics like multiculturalism and immigration, and you get the suspicion that some of his ideas come from the European Right, but he's too afraid to say so. For example, on the topic of non-western immigration in Europe, Gray advocates "cultural pluralism," and envisages nation's states modeled on modernized versions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (It could be my over-active imagination and hazy memory, but isn't that an idea of an an earlier thinker, new right luminary Alain de Benoist, who is pretty much shunned by the mainstream media?).
Anyway, despite these shortcomings, he remains one of the more interesting intellectuals writing for mainstream newspapers, and reading his articles and books has certainly opened my eyes to a lot of views that aren't usually expressed in the mainstream press.
Last weekends Press for example, has a prominent, and sympathetic portrait of Gray, and a review of his latest book, the provocatively titled Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia.
I haven't had a chance to read his latest work, but I like his previous books Straw Dogs, and Al Qaeda: what it means to be Modern, which attack utopian ideologies such as Marxism, and the anthropologic nature of western liberalism and environmentalism.
In regard to modern environmentalism, for example, Gray echoes realist demographer Thomas Malthus in saying:
"Green thinking has many utopian, and even apocalyptic features...Greens are hardly ever violent but they share the apocalyptic view that the world is doomed unless vast changes occur in human institutions and human society.
I have some problems with that - it's a very anthropocentric view. It puts humanity at the centre of things, which it isn't. Whatever happens to humans, humans won't kill the planet. We won't end life on Earth - humanity simply hasn't got that much significance. The planet is much more powerful than humans and will kick back, and that's happening."
He sides with mainstream scientific opinion on global warming, but unfashionably believes there is little humans can do about it other than prepare for the worst. Gray isn't afraid to attack liberals on the economic front either, getting stuck in to both Marxists thinkers such as Terry Eagleton and pro- free market organisations such as the IMF, saying the reality of peak oil contradicts one of the free market's founding myths - that where there is supply there is demand.
His latest book, apparently takes off from where he left off in his Guardian essay The Atheist Delusion, where he gets stuck into the "evangelical atheism" of right liberal aetheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, who consider aggressively imposing liberalism on the Muslim world.
Admitedly, taking the piss out of Francis Funkayama's The End of History, or Richard Dawkins, human-biology-free The God Delusion, is pretty much standard fair on your average nationalist or paleoconservative weblog, but Gray is about the only mainstream print media public intellectual allowed to aggressively critique utopian aspects of liberal ideology.
There are of course caveats though- he's conspicuously fuzzy about topics like multiculturalism and immigration, and you get the suspicion that some of his ideas come from the European Right, but he's too afraid to say so. For example, on the topic of non-western immigration in Europe, Gray advocates "cultural pluralism," and envisages nation's states modeled on modernized versions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (It could be my over-active imagination and hazy memory, but isn't that an idea of an an earlier thinker, new right luminary Alain de Benoist, who is pretty much shunned by the mainstream media?).
Anyway, despite these shortcomings, he remains one of the more interesting intellectuals writing for mainstream newspapers, and reading his articles and books has certainly opened my eyes to a lot of views that aren't usually expressed in the mainstream press.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
New Zealanders better off, but at what cost?
With unemployment in low single digits for some time now, it's not surprising living standards for most New Zealanders have been increasing. According to Infometrics economist Chris Worthington, most New Zealander's real incomes have increased continuously since 1992, despite high interest rates and the recent surge in fuel and food prices.
What's not mentioned in the article though, is what's been sacrificed to achieve this income increase, and whether such 'live for today' economics is sustainable.
Take transport for example. During the country's last boom period, in the 1950s and 60s, investment in transport was enormous- thousands of kilometres of roads were built, along with hundreds of bridges and tunnels. By comparison with the frenetic infrastructure development of the past, transport spending over the last 15 years has been pathetic. No major bridges have been expanded or replaced, attempts to solve Auckland's traffic bottlenecks have been put in the two hard basket, and not a single stretch of two-lane highway has been converted into a proper motorway. The Otira Viaduct stands out as the only significant infrastructure development of any note in the last 20 years.
There's also been no investment in a better route for the inter-island ferry, which still takes as long to connect the North and South Islands as it did 40 years ago.
We may have the unemployment level of a Scandinavian country, but we sure don't have the transport infrastructure.
Between the Reserve Bank and the Labour government with its focus group-based scientific populism, the consumer has been crowned king and the producer relegated to a lowly serf. The high exchange rate has protected motorists from the impact of rising fuel prices, and kept the overgrown retail sector purring like a kitten, while manufacturers, sheep and cattle farmers, horticulturalists and the forestry and fishery sectors have all been wilting under the double whammy of crippling interest rates and the ever rising dollar.
Judging by the fact that it's our biggest employer, the government seems to worship the retail sector, but doesn't factor in the obvious point that most of it's earnings come from money earned elsewhere in the economy.
Meanwhile, the spector of the complex Emissions Trading Bill casts yet more gloom over the horizon for manufacturing and farming.
Spending on research and development has improved slightly in the last few years, from a very low base, but the government still seems lukewarm about giving tax incentives to address the low level of r and d spending by the private sector, which is one of the lowest in the OECD. In line with this neglect of r and d, there has been little research into our conspicuously low productivity rates, which are also at the lower end of the OECD table.
Then of course there's the country's pitifully low defence spending. As possibly the only western nation with over a million people which doesn't have a squadron of fighter planes, we are now totally dependent on the charity of our shunned former Anzac partners Australia and the US. But putting it bluntly, why should they come to the aid of a sanctimonious free loader like us? - certainly we have no means to come to and assist them.
Typically, those vote-winning essentials, health and education, have been reasonably-well catered for, but as far as long-term development goes, the country's probably no better off than it was in the recessionary early nineties, and back then it didn't have quite such a large population to plan for.
What's not mentioned in the article though, is what's been sacrificed to achieve this income increase, and whether such 'live for today' economics is sustainable.
Take transport for example. During the country's last boom period, in the 1950s and 60s, investment in transport was enormous- thousands of kilometres of roads were built, along with hundreds of bridges and tunnels. By comparison with the frenetic infrastructure development of the past, transport spending over the last 15 years has been pathetic. No major bridges have been expanded or replaced, attempts to solve Auckland's traffic bottlenecks have been put in the two hard basket, and not a single stretch of two-lane highway has been converted into a proper motorway. The Otira Viaduct stands out as the only significant infrastructure development of any note in the last 20 years.
There's also been no investment in a better route for the inter-island ferry, which still takes as long to connect the North and South Islands as it did 40 years ago.
We may have the unemployment level of a Scandinavian country, but we sure don't have the transport infrastructure.
Between the Reserve Bank and the Labour government with its focus group-based scientific populism, the consumer has been crowned king and the producer relegated to a lowly serf. The high exchange rate has protected motorists from the impact of rising fuel prices, and kept the overgrown retail sector purring like a kitten, while manufacturers, sheep and cattle farmers, horticulturalists and the forestry and fishery sectors have all been wilting under the double whammy of crippling interest rates and the ever rising dollar.
Judging by the fact that it's our biggest employer, the government seems to worship the retail sector, but doesn't factor in the obvious point that most of it's earnings come from money earned elsewhere in the economy.
Meanwhile, the spector of the complex Emissions Trading Bill casts yet more gloom over the horizon for manufacturing and farming.
Spending on research and development has improved slightly in the last few years, from a very low base, but the government still seems lukewarm about giving tax incentives to address the low level of r and d spending by the private sector, which is one of the lowest in the OECD. In line with this neglect of r and d, there has been little research into our conspicuously low productivity rates, which are also at the lower end of the OECD table.
Then of course there's the country's pitifully low defence spending. As possibly the only western nation with over a million people which doesn't have a squadron of fighter planes, we are now totally dependent on the charity of our shunned former Anzac partners Australia and the US. But putting it bluntly, why should they come to the aid of a sanctimonious free loader like us? - certainly we have no means to come to and assist them.
Typically, those vote-winning essentials, health and education, have been reasonably-well catered for, but as far as long-term development goes, the country's probably no better off than it was in the recessionary early nineties, and back then it didn't have quite such a large population to plan for.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Foolish anti-producerism from Labour as per usual
Rio Tinto Alcan, the primary owners of Southland's Tiwai Point aluminium smelter claim the Government's emission trading scheme could mean the end of the smelter and the loss of 3500 jobs.
The company's regional president, Xiaoling Liu, warns that such a move could force the operation overseas, threatening the jobs of 900 smelter workers and 2600 indirectly employed workers.
Perhaps the most galling thing about the government's enthusiasm for imposing heavy financial and administrative costs on manufacturing, in the name of reducing harmful emissions, is that manufacturing is the only sector of the economy or society to significantly reduce its carbon emissions over the last couple of decades. The Tiwai smelter has reduced emissions by over 40 percent since 1990, and operates one of the most efficient aluminium smelters in the world using a clean and renewable energy source.
Furthermore, if the smelter were to close, Rio Tinto would merely move production to a poorer country with much weaker pollution regulations, resulting in a probable increase in global emissions, and the loss of thousands of jobs and millions of dollars of vital export revenue (in the last 15 years for example, China has opened 15 new aluminium smelters).
It's very easy for urban liberals to impose heavy financial regulations on industry as so few of them are employed in this sector, and it deflects attention away from the real sources of rising emissions - things like population growth and their own profligate lifestyles. Since it highly unlikely wealthy urbanites are going to stop driving around in gas guzzling "soft roaders," or give up buying power boats, emissions trading is going to have little positive impact.
There's certainly no point in sabotaging the economy on the alter of lower emissions, particularly since New Zealand's contribution to global carbon emissions is so pathetically small that there's little point doing anything drastic until China, Russia and the US start taking the lead. And since even the most environmentally conscious European countries seem unable to meet their Kyoto obligations, that could be a long time coming.
The company's regional president, Xiaoling Liu, warns that such a move could force the operation overseas, threatening the jobs of 900 smelter workers and 2600 indirectly employed workers.
Perhaps the most galling thing about the government's enthusiasm for imposing heavy financial and administrative costs on manufacturing, in the name of reducing harmful emissions, is that manufacturing is the only sector of the economy or society to significantly reduce its carbon emissions over the last couple of decades. The Tiwai smelter has reduced emissions by over 40 percent since 1990, and operates one of the most efficient aluminium smelters in the world using a clean and renewable energy source.
Furthermore, if the smelter were to close, Rio Tinto would merely move production to a poorer country with much weaker pollution regulations, resulting in a probable increase in global emissions, and the loss of thousands of jobs and millions of dollars of vital export revenue (in the last 15 years for example, China has opened 15 new aluminium smelters).
It's very easy for urban liberals to impose heavy financial regulations on industry as so few of them are employed in this sector, and it deflects attention away from the real sources of rising emissions - things like population growth and their own profligate lifestyles. Since it highly unlikely wealthy urbanites are going to stop driving around in gas guzzling "soft roaders," or give up buying power boats, emissions trading is going to have little positive impact.
There's certainly no point in sabotaging the economy on the alter of lower emissions, particularly since New Zealand's contribution to global carbon emissions is so pathetically small that there's little point doing anything drastic until China, Russia and the US start taking the lead. And since even the most environmentally conscious European countries seem unable to meet their Kyoto obligations, that could be a long time coming.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Dysgenics from Labor?
Although I'm a keen supporter of means testing for pensions, I don't see what's wrong with a little subsiding of the upper-middle classes when it comes to having children, especially since they tend to have so few of them.
Therefore it's disappointing to see Australia's new Labor government restricting the state-funded baby bonus by making it means tested. Getting the rich to have more kids is one of today's most pressing demographic problems, so an across the board subsidy which includes an incentive for the wealthy, as opposed to just low income earners, makes sense from a eugenic perspective.
Apparently the bonus has been criticised by economists as being a very expensive way to encourage people to have more children, and perhaps other types of fiscal incentives could be used, but at least it sends out the right message, and the results have been promising - the bonus was first introduced in 2004 and by 2006, the number of births reached 265,922 - the highest level for 30 years.
Sadly though, it now appears that Peter Costello's audaciously conservative initiative must be sacrificed for transgressing the reigning equalitarian orthodoxy that EVERYONE HAS EQUAL POTENTIAL.
I was however, pleasantly surprised by this rather un-pc quote from Liberal politician Wilson Tuckey, regarding Labor's watering down of the bonus:
"I've been in the racing business for many, many years and we tend to look at the high achievers as those that should have foals.
"When you start discouraging people who are high achievers, even if it's a limited discouragement, then I think that's not wise."
As another prominent Aussie might have put it :"That one's going straight to the pool room!"
Therefore it's disappointing to see Australia's new Labor government restricting the state-funded baby bonus by making it means tested. Getting the rich to have more kids is one of today's most pressing demographic problems, so an across the board subsidy which includes an incentive for the wealthy, as opposed to just low income earners, makes sense from a eugenic perspective.
Apparently the bonus has been criticised by economists as being a very expensive way to encourage people to have more children, and perhaps other types of fiscal incentives could be used, but at least it sends out the right message, and the results have been promising - the bonus was first introduced in 2004 and by 2006, the number of births reached 265,922 - the highest level for 30 years.
Sadly though, it now appears that Peter Costello's audaciously conservative initiative must be sacrificed for transgressing the reigning equalitarian orthodoxy that EVERYONE HAS EQUAL POTENTIAL.
I was however, pleasantly surprised by this rather un-pc quote from Liberal politician Wilson Tuckey, regarding Labor's watering down of the bonus:
"I've been in the racing business for many, many years and we tend to look at the high achievers as those that should have foals.
"When you start discouraging people who are high achievers, even if it's a limited discouragement, then I think that's not wise."
As another prominent Aussie might have put it :"That one's going straight to the pool room!"
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Big business and the liberal left
After reading through this article by the Capital Research Center about corporate contributions to left wing causes (hat tip: Inverted World's Ian Jobling) it stuck me just how far the liberal left has become part of the furniture of the mainstream corporate establishment.
Not only does the liberal left dominate the public sector and many aspects of the legal system, but it also has a strong influence over the private sector through its impact on corporate public relations.
Back In the 1920s, the liberal left was a genuinely cash-strapped outsider movement, shunned by mainstream business and media and totally dependent on the energy and idealism of its supporters to gets its message across. In those days, it did genuinely focus on improving the life of the working class, and it's supporters led grime and decidedly unglamorous lives, as chronicled by the American inter-war writer John Dos Passos in his USA trilogy.
By contrast, today's left liberal activist is probably more at home sailing around the high seas chasing after Japanese whalers, or siting around a board room talking to corporate CEOs about their affirmative action programmes or donations to the WWF. In this modern kind of left-wing politics the gnarly idealistic activist of yesteryear, has been replaced by the extroverted affirmative active lawyer, as Engels and Marx make way for Jesse Jackson and Michael Moore.
One of the reasons why the left has been so successful in being accepted into mainstream politics has been it's decision to abandon its commitment to economic equality and instead promote social and environmental causes. Whereas Economic Marxism directly challenges corporate power, through union and government intervention, cultural Marxism and environmentalism do not pose such a direct threat to business and can be used by corporations as marketing tools to develop new products and attack competitors.
The Cultural Marxists established a strong following in the 1950s through French and American universities, while the modern environmental movement seemed to take off in the early 1960s following, among other things, the backlash against the over-liberal use of DDT and the hydro dam boom.
A number of recent books like Bobos in Paradise have done an excellent job of highlighting the commercialization of the 1960s counter culture and its absorption into middle class life, but perhaps there hasn't been enough investigation into how much big business has bought into social and environmental causes to clear the playing field of smaller competitors.
According to the Capital Research Center article on corporate donations, for example, two giant timber companies, International Paper and the Weyerhaeuser Foundation, actually donated funding to anti-logging causes:
It's likely there are other types of big business strategies which are partly related to keeping small business in check. For example, why is it that big companies in most western countries aren't more opposed to GST and VAT, even though it places such a big administrative burden on the business sector as a whole? Could it be that big business can deal with all the administrative hassles of indirect taxes better than small business, and perhaps welcomes the opportunity to knock over smaller businesses that are no longer able to compete?
One thing's for sure, whatever big business's tactics in supporting or appeasing the liberal left, there aren't many old school socialists and populists still around to keep an eye on it.
Not only does the liberal left dominate the public sector and many aspects of the legal system, but it also has a strong influence over the private sector through its impact on corporate public relations.
Back In the 1920s, the liberal left was a genuinely cash-strapped outsider movement, shunned by mainstream business and media and totally dependent on the energy and idealism of its supporters to gets its message across. In those days, it did genuinely focus on improving the life of the working class, and it's supporters led grime and decidedly unglamorous lives, as chronicled by the American inter-war writer John Dos Passos in his USA trilogy.
By contrast, today's left liberal activist is probably more at home sailing around the high seas chasing after Japanese whalers, or siting around a board room talking to corporate CEOs about their affirmative action programmes or donations to the WWF. In this modern kind of left-wing politics the gnarly idealistic activist of yesteryear, has been replaced by the extroverted affirmative active lawyer, as Engels and Marx make way for Jesse Jackson and Michael Moore.
One of the reasons why the left has been so successful in being accepted into mainstream politics has been it's decision to abandon its commitment to economic equality and instead promote social and environmental causes. Whereas Economic Marxism directly challenges corporate power, through union and government intervention, cultural Marxism and environmentalism do not pose such a direct threat to business and can be used by corporations as marketing tools to develop new products and attack competitors.
The Cultural Marxists established a strong following in the 1950s through French and American universities, while the modern environmental movement seemed to take off in the early 1960s following, among other things, the backlash against the over-liberal use of DDT and the hydro dam boom.
A number of recent books like Bobos in Paradise have done an excellent job of highlighting the commercialization of the 1960s counter culture and its absorption into middle class life, but perhaps there hasn't been enough investigation into how much big business has bought into social and environmental causes to clear the playing field of smaller competitors.
According to the Capital Research Center article on corporate donations, for example, two giant timber companies, International Paper and the Weyerhaeuser Foundation, actually donated funding to anti-logging causes:
"...the foundations of the timber giants International Paper and Weyerhaeuser fund many groups that support the endangered species act, which has imposed drastic restrictions on the use of forests claimed to be the habitat of alleged endangered species..."
It is likely that International Paper and Weyerhaeuser are annoyed by laws restricting their use of forests. But they have the legal talent to fight these policies in a court or broker special deals with government regulators. Restrictive forest use policies hurt small businesses far more because they cannot pay what it takes to fight a government regulatory onslaught abetted by environmental advocacy groups."
It's likely there are other types of big business strategies which are partly related to keeping small business in check. For example, why is it that big companies in most western countries aren't more opposed to GST and VAT, even though it places such a big administrative burden on the business sector as a whole? Could it be that big business can deal with all the administrative hassles of indirect taxes better than small business, and perhaps welcomes the opportunity to knock over smaller businesses that are no longer able to compete?
One thing's for sure, whatever big business's tactics in supporting or appeasing the liberal left, there aren't many old school socialists and populists still around to keep an eye on it.
Friday, May 09, 2008
The "Sinicizing" of the South Pacific
With China now making its presence felt in Africa and South East Asia, it's easy to overlook the expanding Chinese presence in the more lightly-populated South Pacific.
In a region traditionally dominated by France, Australia, America and New Zealand, China is now the the main source of both immigrants and outside money. Mineral resources such as Copper, Zinc, Nickel, Manganese and Cobalt are luring Chinese companies to Papua New Guinea and the Solomons, while East Asian entrepreneurs are increasingly taking the place of Indian businessmen in Fiji, and dominating the retail sector in Tonga and Samoa.
According to Asia Times journalist Bertyl Linder, in an aptly titled article "The Sinicizing of the South Pacific," the vacuum left by westerners in mineral and timber rich Papua New Guinea is now being filled by the Chinese, who are willing to put with the anarchic conditions prevailing there:
However, while local elites may been keen on attracting Chinese businessmen, many ordinary Papuans and Solomon Islanders aren't quite so keen on Asian immigration. For example, in 2006 there were widespread anti-Chinese riots in the troubled Solomon Islands, which were contained by Australian police forces.
It isn't just in Melanesia though, where the Chinese are clashing with locals, two years ago rioting also occurred in the Tongan capital Nuku' alofa, in which at least eight ethnic Chinese were killed and numerous Chinese businesses destroyed. At present the Chinese own about 30 percent of businesses in the Tongan capital.
Being a successful market dominant minority, the Chinese are generating resentment among the less commercially orientated South Sea Islanders. As Linder points out:
"The business acumen of Chinese entrepeneurs stirs intense rivalry in the South Pacific, where initiative is often stifled by the custom of having to share profits with your extended family."
In a region traditionally dominated by France, Australia, America and New Zealand, China is now the the main source of both immigrants and outside money. Mineral resources such as Copper, Zinc, Nickel, Manganese and Cobalt are luring Chinese companies to Papua New Guinea and the Solomons, while East Asian entrepreneurs are increasingly taking the place of Indian businessmen in Fiji, and dominating the retail sector in Tonga and Samoa.
According to Asia Times journalist Bertyl Linder, in an aptly titled article "The Sinicizing of the South Pacific," the vacuum left by westerners in mineral and timber rich Papua New Guinea is now being filled by the Chinese, who are willing to put with the anarchic conditions prevailing there:
"There is nothing particularly unusual about the food at Ang's Chinese restaurant. In fact, the roast duck served there is excellent and the Lonely Planet guidebook assures you that its hot-and-sour soups are especially tasty. Rather, it's the eatery's ambiance that is a tad offsetting. The yard is surrounded by high walls topped with razor wire and surveillance cameras. Two security guards watch the entrance and open the sliding gate only if the callers appear to be genuine dining customers. Those allowed entry are met by another steel door guarded by more watchmen, who not only shut but lock the door behind the restaurant's guests. Only then may they enjoy Ang's oriental fare in relative peace.As in Africa, Chinese success is being aided by their no-nonsense, pragmatic approach to business and politics which isn't lumbered by western concerns for ethical governance and business transparency. Currently it's estimated there are around 10,000 Chinese immigrants in Papua New Guinea, although the number may be greater since local politicians are assisting many Chinese to enter the country without valid visas.
Welcome to Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea - and, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, the worst place to live among 130 world capitals and major cities. Major hotels advise their guests not to venture out on foot - even in broad daylight in the poshest downtown areas.
Unemployment rates here hover anywhere between 70% and 90% and crime has become a way of life for gangs of young men born into a culture where tribal warfare, vendettas and violence are deeply ingrained. Add the easy access to firearms in urban areas, and it's not surprising that most of Port Moresby's homes resemble high security prisons and that the 50,000 Western expatriates who lived there when independence was achieved from Australia in 1975 have since dwindled to a few thousand.
But, as the chatter in Ang's restaurant indicates, newly-arrived mainland Chinese migrants are fast filling the gap as the impoverished country’s leading businessmen, contractors and import-export dealers. Throughout history, Chinese migrants have shown a willingness to endure harsh living conditions to prosper economically in new countries - and the Chinese in Port Moresby are no exception."
However, while local elites may been keen on attracting Chinese businessmen, many ordinary Papuans and Solomon Islanders aren't quite so keen on Asian immigration. For example, in 2006 there were widespread anti-Chinese riots in the troubled Solomon Islands, which were contained by Australian police forces.
It isn't just in Melanesia though, where the Chinese are clashing with locals, two years ago rioting also occurred in the Tongan capital Nuku' alofa, in which at least eight ethnic Chinese were killed and numerous Chinese businesses destroyed. At present the Chinese own about 30 percent of businesses in the Tongan capital.
Being a successful market dominant minority, the Chinese are generating resentment among the less commercially orientated South Sea Islanders. As Linder points out:
"The business acumen of Chinese entrepeneurs stirs intense rivalry in the South Pacific, where initiative is often stifled by the custom of having to share profits with your extended family."
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Crime and cameras
Surveillance cameras may be a pervasive site in many cities these days, but according to an article in the Daily Mail, most CCTV footage is useless for identify criminals.
Quoting Scotland Yard's surveillance chief inspector Mark Neville, the Mail says only 3 percent of crimes in Britain are solved using CCTV footage, and they have have had little, if any, impact in reducing crime.
It would be interesting to know if this also applies to the CCTV cameras used on public transport.
As a regular user of public transport while living in the North of England, I was told by drivers that CCTV cameras were installed on most buses, and this meant that trouble-making young "scallies" on public transport could be easily identified and dealt with later by the Police.
But, if CCTV cameras are as ineffectual as this article claims, then all they're likely to achieve is to discourage people from dealing with anti-social activity themselves. Certainly the presence of cameras on buses has made me think twice about clouting the odd little darling busily engaged in abusing and spitting on hapless pedestrians.
However, spitting on innocent citizens barely registers as anti-social behaviour in the rougher parts of Britain. Non-violent youth crime has apparently got so bad in some parts of Manchester for example, that locals have had to resort to semi-vigilante-style neighborhood watch groups to maintain any semblance of law and order.
Mmmm, I wonder, if this DIY citizen policing will ever take off among the besieged citizens of trendy Islington?
Quoting Scotland Yard's surveillance chief inspector Mark Neville, the Mail says only 3 percent of crimes in Britain are solved using CCTV footage, and they have have had little, if any, impact in reducing crime.
It would be interesting to know if this also applies to the CCTV cameras used on public transport.
As a regular user of public transport while living in the North of England, I was told by drivers that CCTV cameras were installed on most buses, and this meant that trouble-making young "scallies" on public transport could be easily identified and dealt with later by the Police.
But, if CCTV cameras are as ineffectual as this article claims, then all they're likely to achieve is to discourage people from dealing with anti-social activity themselves. Certainly the presence of cameras on buses has made me think twice about clouting the odd little darling busily engaged in abusing and spitting on hapless pedestrians.
However, spitting on innocent citizens barely registers as anti-social behaviour in the rougher parts of Britain. Non-violent youth crime has apparently got so bad in some parts of Manchester for example, that locals have had to resort to semi-vigilante-style neighborhood watch groups to maintain any semblance of law and order.
Mmmm, I wonder, if this DIY citizen policing will ever take off among the besieged citizens of trendy Islington?
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
The western media's obsession with democracy
Zimbabwe might be one of the world's poorest and most internationally irrelevant countries, but that isn't stopping CNN and the BBC from giving round-the-clock coverage of it's elections.
Since today's Zimbabwe is of little economic interest to the West, and western elites don't seem to care much about the displaced white farmers, then we can only assume it's the battle for democracy that is pushing CNN's buttons.
Nothing seems to excite the western media more than a political battle between an aliberal, ethnocentric dictator and an educated, pro-western liberal democrat.
Not surprisingly, CNN's reporters seem to spend most of their time scouring the globe for potential democracies-in-the-making and then moving on once the evil dictator who stands before his people and electoral freedom has been vanquished. Notice for example, in 2004, during the Ukrainian elections, that photogenically battle-scared democrat Victor Yushchenko was always in the news, yet since the election, he may as well have ceased to exist as far as CNN is concerned.
Here in the South Pacific, are lust for democratic drama is periodically supplied by Fiji and its politically incorrect, but largely harmless generals, whom our politicians and media pundits enjoy ritualistically denouncing whenever they get the chance.
And its not as if there haven't been plenty of other potential stories of interest going on over the last decade.While the West media has been focusing on politics in places like Zimbabwe, Fiji and Myanmar, a massive continental war has been and gone in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in which at least 5 million people have been killed or displaced. There has also been little coverage of all the interesting developments in oil and gas exploration, and the economic, political and environmental pros and cons associated with the various pipelines going through areas like Turkey, Central Asia and the Baltic Sea.
Since today's Zimbabwe is of little economic interest to the West, and western elites don't seem to care much about the displaced white farmers, then we can only assume it's the battle for democracy that is pushing CNN's buttons.
Nothing seems to excite the western media more than a political battle between an aliberal, ethnocentric dictator and an educated, pro-western liberal democrat.
Not surprisingly, CNN's reporters seem to spend most of their time scouring the globe for potential democracies-in-the-making and then moving on once the evil dictator who stands before his people and electoral freedom has been vanquished. Notice for example, in 2004, during the Ukrainian elections, that photogenically battle-scared democrat Victor Yushchenko was always in the news, yet since the election, he may as well have ceased to exist as far as CNN is concerned.
Here in the South Pacific, are lust for democratic drama is periodically supplied by Fiji and its politically incorrect, but largely harmless generals, whom our politicians and media pundits enjoy ritualistically denouncing whenever they get the chance.
And its not as if there haven't been plenty of other potential stories of interest going on over the last decade.While the West media has been focusing on politics in places like Zimbabwe, Fiji and Myanmar, a massive continental war has been and gone in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in which at least 5 million people have been killed or displaced. There has also been little coverage of all the interesting developments in oil and gas exploration, and the economic, political and environmental pros and cons associated with the various pipelines going through areas like Turkey, Central Asia and the Baltic Sea.
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