While always avidly following politics and culture, James Hol was not politically active until the overreaction to COVID. In a matter of months, James gained invaluable insight into all levels of government, being heavily involved in Federal, state and local election campaigns.
Earlier this year, I described how the modern political left has largely been annexed by authoritarians, with those who would have been considered left wing not that long ago exiled from their political home and outcast as “extremists”.
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that authoritarians constantly rely on a logical fallacy known as the appeal to authority.
THE APPEAL TO AUTHORITY
According to this fallacy, relevance relies on qualifications and standing within certain entities; the merits of their argument be damned! Its reliance on authority saw a particular renaissance during the depths of the Covid tyranny.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a fallible human, was deified – considered incapable of wrong. The mere fact that Fauci made a pronouncement was sufficient reason to strip millions of their autonomy and liberty. No need to get caught up in the triviality of whether that claim was factual. Many other politicians and bureaucrats around the world were similarly granted God-like status.
Meaningful public discourse is reserved only for those properly authorised.
‘But you’re not an epidemiologist’ became the mantra of the cult of authority. The simpletons dare not question the holy doctrine of Anthony Fauci and his cadre; they are not qualified!
THE REAL EPIDEMIC
It doesn’t take much to realise this insidious logical fallacy is prevalent in nearly all areas of modern cultural and political debate.
Don’t question climate change, ‘you’re not a scientist!’
Don’t question the education system, ‘you’re not a teacher!’
Don’t question the Bible, ‘you’re not a Christian!’
The few contrarians are either excluded or have their qualifications either discounted or stripped from them.
It is so prevalent that merely being part of a certain class entitles you to greater input in debate: ‘how dare you discuss abortion, you’re not a woman!’ Indeed, the concept of the Voice to Parliament is predicated on the fallacy that only indigenous people are qualified to discuss indigenous issues.
NUANCE SHINES
Public policy development, when done properly, requires balancing various multi-disciplinary analyses based on the merit and relevance of each. We do not restrict discussions on road policy exclusively to motor mechanics. While the input of a mechanic may be useful, it would be short sighted to solely rely on it.
However, when it comes to contentious and important issues, we take a single-minded approach. For the past three years, the “success” of the Covid response was measured by one metric alone: Covid deaths. Liberty, the economy and all-cause mortality be damned: if the number of deaths in the headlines was lower than yesterday’s number, it was a win!
Politicians and bureaucrats around the world were similarly granted God-like status.
Forget about how many people died because they were turned away from routine medical appointments. ‘How dare you question the epidemiologists!’
When economists warn of the serious consequences from prolonged lockdowns, the response is: ‘They’re not epidemiologists!’
Don’t question whether subjecting free citizens to extensive home detention could possibly lead to increased mental health issues. #DonutDay!
THE FOREVER BUREAU
Every consensus opinion began as a fringe viewpoint, often propagated by a contrarian in their field – sometimes even an outsider. The insidious aspect about the appeal to authority is that it prevents this from happening, leaving us locked in perpetual status quo, much to the delight of the establishment.
The few contrarians are either excluded or have their qualifications either discounted or stripped from them. Dr. Robert Malone, often credited as being the inventor of mRNA technology, was silenced and discredited. The authoritarians said: ‘he’s not a real doctor.’ Dr. Jordan Peterson was sanctioned by the College of Psychologists for venturing outside the authorised script on gender issues.
… authoritarians constantly rely on a logical fallacy known as the appeal to authority
When you apply this logical fallacy, the merits of argument, empirical evidence and even your own personal experience becomes irrelevant. People would sooner question their own eyes than the musings of some two-bit bureaucrat. Shove someone in front of a camera and put the title ‘expert’ in the chyron and they are suddenly incapable of error.
Nothing changes. Innovation dies. Society stagnates. Dissidents are silenced. The marketplace of ideas is shut down. Meaningful public discourse is reserved only for those properly authorised. Which flavour of tyranny shall it be today? Red tyranny or blue tyranny?
Anybody is qualified to debate any topic and the value of their input must be determined by the points they raised, not the honorifics after their name.
While always avidly following politics and culture, James Hol was not politically active until the overreaction to COVID. In a matter of months, James gained invaluable insight into all levels of government, being heavily involved in Federal, state and local election campaigns.
These five quotes are from a speech delivered on 13 October 2022 in Australia by The Right Honourable Lord Jonathan Sumption, former senior judge of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
They go to explaining how our citizens invite authoritarianism, the cost of this, and what has held back despotism to date …
“In modern conditions, risk-aversion and the fear that goes with it are a standing invitation to authoritarian government”
“If we hold governments responsible for everything that goes wrong, they will take away our autonomy so that nothing can go wrong.”
“If we demand from the state protection from risks which are inherent in life itself, then the state’s measures will necessarily involve the suppression of some part of life itself.”
“The quest for security at the price of coercion and state intervention is a feature of democratic politics”
“It has only ever been culture and convention which prevented governments from adopting a totalitarian model. But culture and convention are fragile. They take years to form but can be destroyed very quickly. Once you discard them, there is no barrier left, the spell is broken. If something is unthinkable until somebody in authority thinks of it, then the psycological barriers which have always been our main protection against despotism have vanished.”
Our culture is becoming more risk-averse. Fear of risk grows. We’re apparently losing our grit, tenacity and adventurous spirit to manage our own risk. This manifests as a culture going soft with high-expectations that government will molly-coddle.
What then for us? How do we push back?
One fresh idea will be revealed on Liberty Itch this Thursday.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
As a Chinese Australian who has called this nation home for the past 11 years, I am compelled to vehemently oppose the Voice referendum. The decision, for me, feels instinctive but is rooted in principles and values deeply ingrained in my perspective as a new migrant.
In Upholding the Principle of Anti-Racism
While society, media, and certainly politicians discuss “racism” all the time, few define racism clearly and unequivocally. Racism fundamentally involves treating individuals differently based on their race, often rooted in beliefs of inherent superiority or inferiority. While the Voice is claimed to rectify historical and systemic racial disparities, it’s very crucial to scrutinise its potential unintended consequences.
… anyone who pretends the Voice has nothing to do with the treaty is either being blindly naïve or being inherently evil.
A referendum of this kind can (and may have already) sow division in society. Granting privileges to specific racial groups always leads to unnecessary racial tensions. And even if Aboriginals benefit from the constitutional changes, relying on race-based policies risks entrenching the harmful notion that these groups cannot thrive without special provisions.
Race-embedded policies, though meant to address racial disparities, can ironically perpetuate longstanding racism.
In Respecting the Gravitas of the Constitution
The constitution of a nation is far more than just another piece of written legislation. Serving as a testament to a nation’s historical foundation and its future ambitions, it is the bedrock upon which a nation is built. It has a pivotal role, designed to withstand the test of time, offering consistent guidance to each generation, helping them navigate evolving challenges while staying true to foundational principles.
Considering the profound weight the constitution carries, any proposed alterations should be approached with the utmost caution and reverence. Changes shouldn’t merely reflect temporary sentiments or transient political inclinations, but should genuinely resonate with core principles that, in my view, should be rooted in the rights to life, liberty, and property.
In Understanding the Core of the Voice
The Voice has been portrayed as a benevolent change for Aboriginal communities—a gesture of goodwill or, minimally, a harmless addition. Many Chinese migrants I’ve spoken with initially responded, “I might vote ‘yes’, as it benefits the disadvantaged.” However, a deeper exploration of the Voice’s implications reveals strong reasons to reconsider.
While the Voice undeniably stems from the Uluru Statement, it doesn’t exist in isolation. Historically, discussions about the Voice have invariably been linked with a Treaty. Noel Pearson, a primary architect of the Voice, has emphatically stated, “Treaty door is the second door. The first door is constitutional enshrinement.” He further clarified, “The first precondition to treaty is Voice, a voice to negotiate treaty, it’s common sense.” Another significant contributor to the Voice, Marcia Langton, noted, “The Uluru Statement states two broad objectives… Voice and a Makkaratta [Treaty] Commission.”
So, what does this treaty entail? What discussions surround it? And how might the “pay the rent” concept be realised? The Albanese government would prefer us to overlook the treaty, asserting the referendum is unrelated. However, anyone who pretends the Voice has nothing to do with the treaty is either being blindly naïve or being inherently evil.
Simply Put, I Don’t Give A F*ck
Australia, for millions of migrants, stands as a beacon of Western civilisation, radiating values of democracy, rule of law, and individual liberties. These values, which neither directly nor indirectly relate to Aboriginal culture and history, draw countless individuals to its shores, searching for a better life and a better future.
There were times when I found myself disillusioned with Australia, particularly during the severe and arbitrary lockdowns and mandates during the COVID era. However, on balance, Australia has afforded me more than I ever dreamed. Australia is rife with opportunities, and I’ve witnessed countless individuals, from diverse backgrounds, flourish here, be they white-collar professionals, blue-collar workers, or entrepreneurs. It’s this spirit of perseverance and ambition that should define our nation, rather than any identity politics and its policies.
Racism fundamentally involves treating individuals differently based on their race, often rooted in beliefs of inherent superiority or inferiority.
As an immigrant, I don’t give a f*ck about policies that purport to help but in fact only bloat the bureaucracy and strain the social fabric. Australia already has a heart, while numerous non-profits, businesses and churches extend aid to those genuinely in need. While assistance is needed, we must recognize a fundamental truth: nations, communities, and individuals grow not through handouts, but through resilience, hard work, and self-determination.
In summary, given all the factors mentioned earlier, casting a ‘no’ vote against a divisive and racially-biased alteration to the constitution would be the appropriate course of action.
Warren escaped Communist China a decade ago to pursue education in Australia. Now a finance businessman, he passionately defends libertarian freedoms. Vigorously opposing COVID lockdowns and mandates, Warren champions traditional Western liberties, hoping Australia avoids becoming the repressive nation he left behind.
On Saturday, before the polls closed, I correctly predicted the Victorian election result.
My forecast wasn’t genius.
I’ve just been around politics a long, long time and see the perennial rules of the game.
Knowing the result is the easy part.
Discerning ‘why’, well, that’s another level of understanding again.
TV, newspaper and social media pundits are already misconstruing the ‘why’. Even the Victorian Liberal Deputy Leader, David Southwick MP, continues to misunderstand. “Labor dirty tricks”, he blurted wide-eyed on Sky Saturday night.
It was like looking into the eyes of a shocked and hapless kangaroo being ploughed dead in a political road-kill.
I’m going to say it until I’m blue in the face.
Parties lose elections when they have no philosophical framework. From the philosophy come the policies. The policies then improve people’s lives.
To put it another way, philosophy is the rationale. Policies are practical applications of that rationale.
The Liberal Party of Australia has lost its philosophical bearings. It is adrift in the political sea, allowing itself to be washed aimlessly by the currents and tides of its enemies. It’s tried to mollify the Extinction Rebellion. It’s preferenced the socialist Greens #2 on how-to-votes. It’s participated in wokery. It’s succumbed to populist fiscal ill-discipline. It’s appealed to proto-fascist Australia One.
Who is the Liberal Party anymore?
Philosophy matters.
So, let’s do a short, sharp review of basic philosophy regularly. We’ll call it Philosophy Monday and we’ll know why it’s vital to have a weekly dose.
We can start with my favourite guy, John Stuart Mill.
In the wake of Saturday’s disastrous result when it seems Victorians are turning their back on freedom, here’s what JSM (personal aside: he only allows friends to call him JSM *smile*) says in his famous hundred-page essay, On Liberty:
Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities.
Society can and does execute its own mandates; and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression.
Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by OTHER MEANS than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them.
There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.
But though this proposition is not likely to be contested in general terms, the practical question, where to place the limit – how to make the fitting adjustment between individual independence and social control – is a subject on which nearly everything remains to be done.
As a movement of good people, we need to define the limit and enforce it.
First, we need to be crystal clear on our philosophical base.
It’s liberalism. You were born and live in liberal democracy. You’re a liberal, even if you don’t release it. Declare it. Proclaim it with muscular vigour. You’re a modern-day Whig, free-spirited independent or sleeper agent amidst Tories who can be convinced. Own your philosophy, now in it’s fourth century of application. It transformed the world. And if, like me, you’re a Christian too, rejoice! Our 2,022 year old Faith best flourishes in the freedom liberalism provides. They are a hand-in-glove as far as I’m concerned. Our free will is God’s gift to us. What we do with it is our gift to God.
Don’t retreat coddled and forlorn into that thumb-sucking emotional safe-space called ‘conservatism’. Do you honestly want to ‘conserve’ the vast apparatus of government long now installed by Labor, Liberal, National and Greens, marshalled to impinge your life, take your hard-earned money and close your churches? It needs an overhaul, a stripping back.
You need to be radical now, a buster of the collectivist status-quo, an agent provocateur: a forceful Thatcher, an illuminated Wilberforce.
No more tired Tories endlessly pessimistic about today and the future. We are in the fight of our lives and we need change!
Second, we need to work hard now on bold, innovative policies which give life to our philosophy. Where there is a friendly MP or two, we need to work together to organise.
Third, since we liberals control not one parliament currently, we must use “other means than civil penalties”. We need social tactics of our own to move the cultural needle.
To which “other means”, to what social tactics is Mill hinting?
Subscribe now and share Liberty Itch to discover what that means shortly and join the call-to-arms. Tell your friends. Spread the word. There is no time to lose.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
In my last piece, Remembering Frederick Douglass, I discussed the evils and folly of centralised wage-fixing which, amongst other things, prevented people – young people in particular – from getting a start in the workforce; a foot on that first rung of the employment ladder.
Today, we look at centralized wage-fixing’s partner-in-crime – tariff protection. The other side of the micro-economic coin, if you like.
It was Bert Kelly (1912–1997) who once said, ‘The really bad ideas never go away’.
Bert Kelly. Member for Wakefield (Lib, SA). Leading advocate for free markets.
Along with centralised wage-fixing, protectionism is another of those really bad ideas.
The Australian settlement of 1900 was based on five key principles – two were economic, two were social and one was the imperial benevolence of the mother country.
The two social principles were the White Australia Policy and State Paternalism.
The two economic principles were regulated labour markets and tariff protection. These two went hand in hand. As centralised wage-fixing delivered arbitrary pay increases, thus increasing the cost of production, the price of the goods rose commensurately. As a result, imported goods became more competitive. In response, an import tax – a tariff – was placed on these imported goods to ‘protect’ Australian jobs from competition.
By the late 19th century, NSW had prospered under its free trade regime and had overtaken protectionist Victoria, becoming the continent’s leading colony. Following the collapse of the gold-rush, and to sustain its economy, Victoria borrowed heavily in the British capital markets but soon found itself impoverished and losing population – the consequences of 30 years of protectionism. NSW political leaders such as George Reid speculated that Victoria was desperate for federation so that its economic problems could be shared with the other colonies!
By the early 1920s, the newly-formed Country Party under Earle Page – influenced by the rural export industries of wool, meat and wheat – was officially opposed to protection, yet supported the Scullin Government’s belief that tariffs on imports would help restore employment during the Great Depression (1929–1932) by handing out tariffs virtually on demand. It didn’t work.
In 1930, Australian historian Keith Hancock had published his book Australia which contains this memorable reference to protectionism in Australia:
‘Protection in Australia is more than a policy: it is a faith and a dogma. Its critics, during the second decade of the twentieth century, dwindled into a despised and detected sect suspected of nursing an anti-national heresy. Protection is interwoven with almost every strand of Australia’s democratic nationalism. It professes to be a policy of plenty, but it is a policy of power.’
Bert Kelly arrived in Federal Parliament in 1958 as the Member for the South Australian seat of Wakefield and from then until he left the Parliament in 1977 fought a long and often bitter campaign against protectionism – first against a very powerful Deputy Prime Minister and Country Party Leader in John ‘Black Jack’ McEwen, and then against the strongly-defended populism of ‘protecting Australian jobs’.
Bert Kelly was opposed to protectionism because, like centralised wage-fixing, it was not only economically foolish, it was also morally wrong. It was wrong, he said, because it created a situation in which governments granted favours to some, who became greatly enriched, at the expense of others, who were at best impoverished and at worst, ruined.
On a parliamentary delegation to India, Bert visited a factory making bed sheets which wanted to sell in Australia but was unable to do so due to the high tariff (import tax) placed on imported bed linen. It was the same at an Indian shirt factory.
For example, a shirt made in Australia cost $50 to buy. An imported shirt $20. By imposing a $30 tariff on the imported shirt, consumers were told they had to pay $50 for a shirt to ‘protect Australian jobs’. If there were no tariff, however, and consumers were able to buy a shirt for $20 instead of $50, that would give them Bert argued, $30 to spend on something else. And it is that something else that is the catalyst for emerging industries.
Tariffs support declining industries, free trade supports emerging industries.
Bert also learned that Indians were desperate to buy Australian milk powder for their children but did not have the foreign exchange – Australian or US dollars – due to the insurmountable tariff on their textile goods entering Australia.
Thus, both India and Australia suffered. To quote Bert Kelly:
‘Australian dairy farmers can’t sell their skim milk powder, Australian families have to buy expensive ‘Australian-made’ sheets and shirts, Indian children don’t get milk and Indian factories can’t make textiles. A lose-lose situation if ever there was one. All this brought to you by our good and wise government’.
At the same time, Australia was giving aid money to India.
Bert spoke frequently in favour of Community Aid Abroad but against aid being given with no strings attached. ‘Trading with poor countries is a far better way to help them than giving them aid,” he argued.
With the union movement’s new friends in Canberra, expect to see more on the wages/tariff front.
Bob’s contribution to the Australian community has been reflected in a wide range of appointments including National President of the Housing Industry Association, Co-Founder and Inaugural President of Independent Contractors of Australia, Director of The Centre for Independent Studies, and Senator for South Australia.
If you look at the evolution of the political landscape over the last few decades, you’ll notice some things just don’t seem to add up.
Not that long ago, populism was at the heartland of left-wing ideology. Occupy Wall Street, fighting ‘big pharma’ and ending the military-industrial complex were the biggest political and social movements of the 2010s – all of them were considered left-wing.
Now even the slightest criticism of Pfizer will have you labelled a ‘RWNJ’ and shadow banned on most social media networks.
But something changed, or has it?
The reality is that nothing has changed, you have just been viewing the political landscape from the wrong direction. Left versus right; conservative versus progressive; Labor versus Liberal. These are meaningless terms and wasted battles. What exactly does it mean to be left-wing in modern society? What exactly are conservatives conserving? And what values do either the Labor or Liberal parties stand for, exactly?
We have been programed to view politics through a false dichotomy of ‘left’ and ‘right’, yet very few can accurately define those terms. Fascism is often considered as the extremity of the right-wing, yet many right-wingers would consider small governments and free markets integral to right-wing ideology. This plainly cannot gel with fascism.
SHIFT YOUR PERSPECTIVE
Instead of viewing politics through a left-right dichotomy, let’s add another axis: libertarian versus authoritarian. While some may be familiar with the political compass consisting of authoritarian-left, authoritarian-right, libertarian-left and libertarian-right, this too does not quite cut it.
The extremities of each quadrant are simply not possible. How could you sit in the extreme bottom right-hand corner? Drug-law reform and extreme right-wing ideology is a circle that cannot be squared. The same applies to all corners. Instead, let us rotate the compass 45 degrees and change some titles.
NOT ANOTHER LIBERTARIAN PURITY TEST
Now this makes sense: to fully pursue liberty, you must trade your conservative or liberal tenets. This does not mean you cannot sit somewhere between conservative and libertarian. However, it does mean you cannot simultaneously be a radical libertarian and an extreme conservative.
I am not saying all of this to prove just how libertarian I am and prohibit libertarian-leaning people from unifying under the banner of liberty, precisely the opposite. We must know the true battleplanes in order to know where our friends and enemies are coming from.
WE HAVE FRIENDS ON THE LEFT
There seems to be a growing narrative that libertarianism is a right-wing ideology. I detest this narrative. It is plainly untrue. I, myself, came to libertarianism from the left. Growing up, the concept of criminalising victimless crimes never made sense to me. So, naturally, I considered myself to be left-wing.
When I was old enough to realise the importance of the economy, I applied the same philosophy: people should be free to direct their capital however they see fit, so long as they are not hurting anyone else, with minimal government interference. If we should not govern people based on subjective morals, then we should not be looting and pillaging people’s resources via taxation.
As it turns out, I was not left-wing.
So where have all the left-libertarians been hiding for the past three years?
During the height of COVID restrictions, governments heavily interfered with markets: shuttering businesses, slashing interest rates, employing quantitative easing and deploying abundant welfare. Yet we did not see a more egalitarian outcome, as many on the (authoritarian) left so often claim.
In fact, instead of wealth inequality easing, we saw the largest redistribution of wealth from the poorest to the richest people. Rich, laptop-elites with large property and share portfolios saw their net worth skyrocket, while middle- and working-class people were given scraps and are currently seeing their purchasing power plummet.
So where were all the socialists decrying this?
‘The left’ was long ago infiltrated and annexed by authoritarians. Socialists are not true socialists; progressives are not truly progressive; and liberals are far from liberal. ‘The left’ wants nothing more than government to grow and dissidents to be quashed – a far cry from the socialism of decades gone. There are countless examples of left-wing castaways who are now often called ‘right-wing’ or even ‘far-right.’
Joe Rogan is a man who campaigned with a self-described democratic socialist, Bernie Sanders. He is now considered far-right. Russell Brand, who publicly advocated for socialism, has been exiled from his left-wing home since he started criticising the COVID response. Even self-avowed British socialist Jeremy Corbyn expressed some criticism of vaccine mandates. Somehow, he managed to escape much of the backlash.
The libertarian-left hasn’t been hiding for the past three years, they have been un-personed. Castaway from their ideological home and called ‘far-right extremists’ – just like the rest of us.
They are not our enemies; they are our friends.
It is incumbent upon us to welcome them under the tree of liberty.
WE HAVE ENEMIES ON THE RIGHT
We are nearing the peak of woke leftism’s cultural hegemony. But as all pendulums swing, it will come back the other way – and hard. Despite my veneer of youth, I am old enough to remember the days of conservatives demanding an end to Marilyn Manson and ‘violent’ videogames. It may seem foreign to some, but the right-wing can just as easily prosecute free speech and advocate censorship.
The trappings of a return to morality-based governance are already there. It is not a stretch to see how the pendulum returns to hard-line drug laws and a ‘war against degeneracy.’ It is imperative we do not allow this to happen.
While the political right does seem to be largely on the correct side of the culture war (for now), it is important we do not simply add to the choir of conservative voices.
Provide nuance and always advocate the values of liberty.
While always avidly following politics and culture, James Hol was not politically active until the overreaction to COVID. In a matter of months, James gained invaluable insight into all levels of government, being heavily involved in Federal, state and local election campaigns.
When consuming the day’s news, I bet you first respond by gut feel.
Everyone does. Human are instinctive beings. Shoot first, ask questions later.
The problem with that was illustrated by the Great Pandemic Overreach of 2020-2022. Fear was weaponised and the world community fell for it.
Some people try to think. As a subscriber of Liberty Itch, you are most likely a disciplined, libertarian thinker. We fight against our natural urges to ‘let rip’ in our political response. We are principled. This sets us apart.
For libertarians to believe in a life free from coercion; to live and let live, and to respond with our minds rather than a gut-based thought-bubble, we need a tool that:
identifies all the sources of power operating in our society;
clarifies the methods they use to erode our liberties;
shows how our freedoms can be protected when a power centre is neutralised by another centre; and
exposes how our liberties are lost when the power centres collude or are weakened.
I have that tool. It’s an infographic. I call it The Coercion Wheels.
Wheel 1 identifies the culprits: the power centres which will coerce you if given half a chance. There are ten culprits operating under two categories.
The first category is government, under which there are five sub-categories:
International;
Legislature;
Executive;
Judiciary; and
Forces.
The second category is non-government, also with five sub-categories:
Business;
Media;
Community;
Crime; and
Individuals.
You will see that the ten sub-categories are further divided into forty coercion culprits. These are the people or groups of people who seek to impose their will on our life and limit our freedoms. They range from the United Nations to our siblings.
To examine the detail, I recommend you print the infographic. It is written from an Australian perspective but subscribers from other countries can substitute their local equivalent for what is represented.
Forty power centres in a liberal democracy like Australia! Forty coercion culprits, each pressuring you with differing amounts of control over your life. Any one or combination of them can curtail your freedoms.
Wheel 2 shows the same sub-categories but with the coercion method used against you and your family. There are a surprising number of them, from Appropriation Increases to Denial of Child Custody, from Wire Taps to Asset Seizure, from Ostracism to Trolling. I’ve listed 103 methods used to impinge upon our rights and freedoms.
Liberal democracies like Australia work best when each power centre is subject to checks and balances by others. This neutralising effect leaves you and me less likely to be subject to coercion.
Here are examples of the checks and balances working:
Various churches were plagued by reports of child sexual abuse but could not reform themselves. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the investigations and final report resulted in criminal proceedings and conviction of priests, and led to structural changes in the Church. On Wheel 1, this is shown as Old Media (24), Federal Ministers (6) and State Judges (14) checking the abuse of power by the Church & Religious Organisations (26).
When former CEO of James Hardie Limited was banned from acting as a director for 15 years for failing to provide a duty of care with respect to asbestos diseases, this is State Judges (14) holding Large Corporations (22) accountable on Wheel 1. Another check and balance success.
When Political Parties (28) vie for election to the legislature as Federal MHRs and Senators (3) or State MLAs and MLCs (4), each party acts as a check on the others and helps ensure there is a balance of opinion. There are no one party states in a liberal democracy.
Sometimes though, a segment of society may be weak or unwilling to act as a check and balance. At times, a number of power centres collude. This was evident during the Great Pandemic Overreach of 2020-2022:
When State Agency Officers (11) and State Police (18) forced the Church and Religious Organisation (26) to shut. Australian churches simply rolled over, such was the force against them. No check or balance, with freedom to worship crushed;
When Old Media (24) acted as propagandist for Federal MHRs and Senators (3), State MLAs and MLCs (4), Federal Bureaucrats (8), Federal Agency Officers (9), State Bureaucrats (10), State Agency Officers (11) and State Police (18), and with no power centres in support of our rights, we lost the right to assemble, protest and earn a living. Checks and balances failed.
These are just some examples.
If liberal democracy feels like it’s on the slide, it is because there is a blurring of interests and collusion between these traditionally separate power centres.
But there is hope.
What is Liberty Itch if not New Media (25) holding the other 39 power centres to account in a freedom-oriented, intelligent way?
Next time you consume the news, rather than rely on gut feel, use The Coercion Wheels to think and analyse. Which power centre is doing the coercing? On whom? How are they doing this? Which power centre needs to balance the coercion so you and your family are not vulnerable?
If libertarians are about freedom from coercion, The Coercion Wheels are a great tool for identifying the power centres which can act against us, the tactics they use, and why we must have them focus on each other and not us.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
I’ve said it before a hundred times. I’ll say it again.
Political philosophy matters.
There’s no point telling me that philosophy is for intellectuals only.
No!
Philosophy is the bedrock on which policies are created.
Everyday, regular Australians instinctively know this even if they’re not philosophy wonks.
Here’s the proof.
When the Liberal Party of Australia publishes Our Beliefs, it just doesn’t sound right. It feels like a part time-capsule of classical liberal aspiration, part welfare state socialism, part nod to the Greens, and actually quite a lot of word salad.
It’s certainly not consistent philosophy.
And this probably explains their disastrous election results of late.
Politicians, made timid from the comforts of entrenchment, have wobbled on philosophy and been weak-kneed on policy. The Party of entrepreneurship is now devoid of a policy innovation of its own.
Without the firm foundation of philosophy, the Liberal Party edifice is collapsing.
There are many fine members within the Liberal Party working towards an undiluted classical liberal reset. If the Party is to survive, it’s these people who’ll do it.
Others are turning to conservatism but simultaneously bemoan the loss of culture, institutions and once-safe seats. These people aren’t thinking clearly. Conservatism is nothing more than maintaining the status quo. Today, the status quo is with the social democrats, the welfare state advocates and the Marxists.
Conservatives are really classical liberals who don’t know they’re not in control anymore. You end this foggy thinking by sharply critiquing your belief system, your philosophy.
So, let’s do that together now.
I’ve reproduced Our Beliefs of the Liberal Party and added footnotes to show just how far they have strayed from their classical liberal foundation.
***
We Believe:
In the inalienable rights and freedoms of all peoples (1); and we work towards a lean government (2) that minimises interference in our daily lives (3); and maximises individual (4) and private sector (5) initiative (6)
In government that nurtures (7) and encourages its citizens through incentive (8), rather than putting limits on people through the punishing disincentives of burdensome taxes (9) and the stifling structures of Labor’s corporate state (10) and bureaucratic red tape (11).
In those most basic freedoms of parliamentary democracy (12) – the freedom of thought (13), worship (14), speech (15) and association (16).
In a just and humane society (17) in which the importance of the family (18) and the role of law and justice is maintained (19).
In equal opportunity for all Australians; and the encouragement and facilitation of wealth (20) so that all may enjoy the highest possible standards of living, health, education (21) and social justice (22).
That, wherever possible (23), government should not compete with an efficient private sector (5); and that businesses and individuals – not government (24).- are the true creators of wealth and employment.
In preserving Australia’s natural beauty and the environment for future generations (25).
That our nation (26) has a constructive role to play in maintaining world peace and democracy (27) through alliance with other free nations.
In short, we simply believe in individual freedom (28) and free enterprise (29); and if you share this belief, then ours is the Party for you (30).
***
FOOTNOTES
(1) “freedoms of all people”, unless you were covid unvaccinated;
In short, when Alfred Deakin was PM, government expenditure as a percentage of GDP was 5%. When PM Scott Morrison left office, it was 45%. Not lean!
(3) “minimises interference in our daily lives”, except that it steals your wage earned on Monday and Tuesday each week, 10% of everything you buy to survive, plus 24 other taxes,
plus stops you leaving your house during covid, crossing state borders, leaving Australia, returning to Australia, forces you to apply for permission to protest, spies on you during those protests, collects your mobile phone texts, records your conversations, arrests you for social media posts et al;
(4) “maximises individual initiative”, how? Many OECD countries are more entrepreneurial;
(5) “private sector”, a term used primarily by people from the public sector to contrast themselves with the other side, a dead giveaway that this screed has been written by a career bureaucrat. The millions who work in small business don’t talk like this;
(6) “initiative”, the Liberal Party of Australia is responsible for more laws than any other party. Each time legislation is passed, either widespread initiative is crushed or monopolies are created or both;
(7) “government that nurtures”, no classical liberal government would ever think it could nurture free people. The government is not your mother. Nurturing happens within the sanctity of the family unit not a bureaucratic department;
(8) “encourage its citizens through incentive”, no. Any philosophical liberal knows you don’t manipulate the market. Citizens are most encouraged when the market is free;
(9) “burdensome taxes”, good grief. See The Long, Long, Long, Long List of Taxes here
(10) “Labor’s corporate state”, you want to see the corporate state grow over 120 years? See footnote (2);
(11) “Bureaucratic red tape”, it was the Liberal Party that forced every business owner in the country to double its role as a tax collector when the GST was introduced;
(12) “Basic freedoms of parliamentary democracy”, except when it joined Victorian Labor in blocking three MPs from taking their rightful place in parliament because they demanded to know the MPs’ private health details. Shame Liberal, shame;
(13) “Freedom of thought”, except that its government departments regularly force job applicants into group-think over Acknowledgement of Country and the efficacy of vaccines;
(14) “freedom of worship”, except that it shut churches during covid and regulates their charitable status;
(15) “freedom of speech”, except if you are a member of the Liberal Party of Australia, in which case you are prohibited from talking to the public;
(16) “freedom of association”, but not with your dying grandmother during covid;
(17) “just and humane society”, well, well, well. This is a new inclusion since I was a member in the 1990s. This doesn’t sound like freedom-loving liberalism to me! This sounds like the Labor Party, the Australian Greens or the Animal Justice Party;
(18) “importance of the family”, except of course that under successive Liberal Party government policies family break-up and depression have increased, schools can undermine parental authority and courts stack custody against fathers;
(19) “law and justice maintained”, well yes. Police powers have increased dramatically;
(20) “facilitation of wealth”, what? There is no classically liberal government which would ever think it is in the business of facilitating citizens’ wealth. No. Not a government role. Off track;
(21) “highest possible standard of education”, the Liberal Party endorsed Labor’s National Curriculum. Far from being the Party of the individual, the Liberal Party has adopted a collective, one-size-fits-all approach. Stifling;
(22) “highest possible standards of social justice”, well, well, well! The Liberal Party aren’t liberals but social democrats now! This was not a belief of the Liberal Party in the 1990s. No. Off track. Menzies would turn in his grave. Centre-right parties should have individualism and freedom as their philosophy;
(23) “wherever possible”, but Liberals often endorse government agencies doing what privately-owned companies could do. NBN is a good example. Many other examples;
(24) “businesses and individuals, not government”, if they believed this, they wouldn’t allow the trend described in Footnote (2). Why is the Government’s ABC competing with Fairfax and News et al?;
(25) “environment”, well, well, well, a new inclusion. Straight from the Australian Greens playbook. This was never a core Liberal tenant in the 1990s;
(26) “nation”, capitalise it to Nation! Have some pride;
(27) “world peace and democracy”, perhaps. Alliances are important for a country the size of Australia. But the Liberal Party has neither been stellar building our deterrent defence forces nor limiting our economic concentration on China, a glaring geopolitical risk. These failures damage our capability to remain free;
(28) “individual freedom”, a joke. They slowly crush individual freedom from tax file numbers to police security cameras. The Liberal Party are actively installing police state surveillance cameras and tracking software in the City of Adelaide, as one of many examples;
(29) “free enterprise”, a joke. Very few Liberal politicians have owned an employing business. Name ten in the Federal Parliament;
(30) “Party is for you”, well no. Rather, the Liberal Party is a net minus for civil liberties and economic freedom.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
This is Part 2 of my 3-Part series on geopolitics.
5 Ways To Maximise Peace In The World is Part 1. There, I gave you a menu of options for handling international politics. If you haven’t read it yet, you’re missing an important point. Read that first.
WHERE WE’RE UP TO
I’ve taken you inside the minds of the world’s leading geopolitical advisors, where I cover the five approaches to foreign affairs that policymakers use to make sense of the world. If you’re a true libertarian and classical liberal, you’ll love three but find one alarming.
As explained in Part 1, they are:
The Democratic Peace Theory
The Economic Interdependence Theory
The Liberal Institutional Theory
The Human Nature Realist Theory
The Structural Realist Theory.
THE GHOSTS OF PHILOSOPHERS PAST Let’s check in with the ghosts of classical liberal and libertarian philosophers past:
Locke says man has natural rights of life, liberty and property, and that these can be better protected by forming a government under a social contract. This idea of free people cooperating for mutual benefit is consistent with the Economic Interdependence Theory and the Democratic Peace Theory.
John Locke
In “A Few Words on Non-Intervention”, John Stuart Mill advocated for international cooperation and diplomacy as a means to prevent conflicts. He stressed the importance of peaceful resolution to disputes between nations and the establishment of international norms to govern relations between states. This sounds like the Liberal Institutional Theory.
You could almost say that Adam Smith was the founding philosopher of the Economic Interdependence Theory. In “Wealth of Nations”, he suggested each nation state has a certain comparative economic advantage and that, not only would they become more prosperous by specialising in that advantage, but interdependence between nations would proliferate. The idea was that nations with economic ties have a vested interest in each other’s well-being, making peace more likely.
Britain had extensive economic interdependence with India, Canada, Australia, the United States and, yes, Germany. Yet, conflict between Germany and Britain occurred.
In “Economic Harmonies”, Frederic Bastiat suggested free markets and voluntary exchange create a natural harmony of interests among individuals and nations, creating the conditions under which they are less likely to enter into conflict. Again, this is support for the Economic Interdependence Theory, one purpose of which is to maximise peace and prosperity.
If you look closely at the later philosophers, Hayek was against central planning and authority so would have been horrified by the Structural Realist Theory. Like John Stuart Mill, Rothbard was anti-imperialist and would have been very cautious about the Human Nature Realist Theory because it relies on coercive foreign intervention.
Friedman too famously supported free-trade and the ideas behind the Economic Interdependence Theory.
Milton Friedman
MY OPINION For my part, I think no single approach is foolproof. I’ll take each in turn.
There are case studies which show the Democratic Peace Theory doesn’t always work. For instance, the United Kingdom and Argentina were at war over the Falkland Islands in 1982. Both India and Pakistan are democratic but have clashed repeatedly, with open conflict in 1999. In 1974, Greece and Turkey were fighting over Cyprus. Both those countries were liberal democracies.
But wars between liberal democracies are rare. It’s therefore a worthwhile pro-peace strategy that more liberal democracies exist.
When it comes to the Economic Interdependence Theory, again it doesn’t always work. Just prior to World War I, Germany had deep trading ties with France, Belgium, Austria-Hungary and, yes, the Great Britain. Britain had extensive economic interdependence with India, Canada, Australia, the United States and, yes, Germany. Yet, conflict between Germany and Britain occurred.
But wars between economically interdependent nations are less likely. So, this too is a worthwhile strategy to adopt for maximising peace.
When it comes to the Liberal Institutional Theory, I’m unashamedly in the camp of international cooperation. If you sense a “but” coming, I can’t help you.
nations with economic ties have a vested interest in each other’s well-being, making peace more likely.
However, a friend of mine was a general counsel of the United Nations. Among his duties was the writing of official minutes at UN Security Council meetings. He has a lot of insight into the effectiveness of the United Nations and is pessimistic.
A relative of mine helped found the United Nations in 1945. It was a noble endeavour, has served us well on occasion, but it is time it was overhauled. This idea that the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France are forever permanent members of the Security Council was a built-in flaw.
What we need is a United Nations 2.0 and I’ll share some ideas with you in a future article. As for the Human Nature Realist Theory, I am cautious on this. I believe libertarians should have no problem with a balance of power approach, but the moment foreign interference occurs we must be on alert. I concede many will regard this as naïve. My response is that much damage has been caused by intervening in the affairs of others.
Finally, what do I think about the Structural Realist Theory. As a diehard classical liberal, I’m having an allergic reaction. The phrase ‘binding world government’ is a huge red flag for me. Nothing could sound more tyrannical or authoritarian. I therefore cannot agree with John Mearsheimer’s position. Inevitably, he discards freedom for security. Not for me.
YOUR COMMENTS As a classical liberal or libertarian, do you share my instinct that we need multiple approaches?
Do you agree that philosopher after philosopher reinforces the validity of the Economic Interdependence Theory, and do you agree with Adam Smith here?
And do you agree that the Human Nature Realist Theory is a slippery-slope and that the Structural Realist Theory is no-go territory?
Share your responses in the comments section below.
And in Beware! This Article Channels The Ghosts of Locke, JSM, Friedman and Other Pugnacious Thinkers, this article, we’ve double-checked the leading thinkers of our classical liberal-libertarian movement.
In the third and final part in this series on geopolitics, 3 Wacky Crazy Ideas Creeping Into International Politics, I’m going to bang on the head some of the most unsupportable thoughts coming out of the commentariat.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
Philosophy #1: Living On Other People’s Money Is Unwise
When reading the news and opinion, I am frequently mindful of the idea of other people’s money and the perceptive words of French economist Frederic Bastiat, who wrote that “The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.”
I thought of Bastiat when reading a recent opinion column by Ross Gittins, the Economics Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. There really needs to be a better lexigraphy to reflect the differences between the economic writings of Bastiat and Gittins. After all, we don’t call plumbers aquatic surgeons.
Philosophy #2: Exploiting Other People’s Money Is Good
In Gittins’ latest, he again advocates for higher taxes, because “… paying tax is good and, for better government, we should pay more”. Evidence be damned, that ever more expensive government has delivered ever worse outcomes – from education, to health, to defence. But for some, it is axiomatic that we must tax other people’s money more.
Messrs Gittins and Keating: you are welcome to voluntarily pay higher tax. But until you do, please don’t demand that others are forcibly required to do so.
As long as it is other people’s taxes. The funny thing is that those who advocate higher taxes never seem to volunteer to pay higher taxes themselves. No doubt, the ATO would accept voluntary contributions, but that is not the game. Higher tax advocates don’t want to pay higher taxes themselves. They just want other people’s money so that they can “live at the expense of everyone else” as Bastiat predicted.
Call To Authority
Gittins starts his case with a call to authority saying that “former top econocrat did something no serving econocrat is allowed to do, and no politician is game to do: he set out the case for us to pay higher, not lower, taxes.” That former econocrat is Michael Keating (unrelated to Paul Keating) and he delivered his remarks at the Australia Institute’s revenue summit at Parliament House in Canberra. That’s the Australia Institute that has never found a tax or regulation they did not like.
Keating and Gittins are reflecting what is known as bureaucrat logic: that increasing input delivers better outcomes.
Classical liberal economist, Frederic Bastiat. He cautioned frugality with other people’s money.
Permit some definitions:
Inputs are resources going in – such as dollars.
Outputs are things that are produced with the inputs – such as patients treated or students graduated.
Outcomes are the results – such as healthy citizens and kids who can read.
But for some, it is axiomatic that taxes must be increased.
No Linear Relationship Between Inputs and Outcomes
Bureaucrats, econocrats and many politicians seem to believe that, despite evidence upon evidence to the contrary, there is a linear relationship between inputs and outcomes. Increase education spending and you get more literate kids. Huge increases in Gonski funding delivering worse education outcomes is just a bump in the road. Even more is required.
Messrs Gittins and Keating: you are welcome to voluntarily pay higher tax. But until you do, please don’t demand that others are forcibly required to do so.
As American writer Harlan Ellison said: “The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.” There seems to be a high concentration of both in Canberra.
Dimitri Burshtein is a Principal at Eminency Advisory and a former government policy analyst. He is a contributor to The Australian newspaper, Spectator Australia magazine and various libertarian blogs. Dimitri has also appeared on SkyNews and 2GB radio.
Word on the street is that the Liberal Democrats are searching for a new name.
Malcolm Turnbull and the Greens forced it upon them. It was his parting gift.
It is now the Eleventh Commandment.
“Thou shalt not use any English word of an older party’s name in your own.”
So, despite being named the Liberal Democrats for 21 years, the Liberal Party government took the Liberal Democrats to court and won. The Liberal Democrats challenged the decision in the High Court and lost.
And just like that, the Liberal Party owns a monopoly right to the word ‘liberal’ despite being one of the most illiberal governments in existence today.
The amazing development is that Friedrich Hayek himself has come back from the grave and offered a suggestion for a new name!
Hard to believe, right?
And yet, here he is in black and white pondering the very same question about an appropriate party name for classical liberals.
In his famous 1960 essay Why I Am Not A Conservative in which he affirms the clear differences between socialists, conservatives and liberals, he wrote:
“In the United States, where it has become almost impossible to use ‘liberal’ in the sense in which I have used it, the term ‘libertarian’ has been used instead. It may be the answer; but for my part I find it singularly unattractive. For my taste it carries too much the flavour of a manufactured term and of a substitute. What I should want is a word which describes the party of life, the party that favours free growth and spontaneous evolution. But I have racked my brain unsuccessfully to find a descriptive term which commends itself.”
Having eschewed the word ‘libertarian’, he then strikes upon an idea.
“We should remember, however, that when the ideals which I have been trying to restate first began to spread through the Western world, the party which represented them had a generally recognized name.
It was the ideals of the English Whigs that inspired what later came to be known as the liberal movement in the whole of Europe and that provided the conceptions that the American colonists carried with them and which guided them in their struggle for independence and in the establishment of their constitution.
Indeed, until the character of this tradition was altered by the accretions due to the French Revolution, with its totalitarian democracy and socialist leanings, “Whig” was the name by which the party of liberty was generally known.
The name died in the country of its birth partly because for a time the principles for which it stood were no longer distinctive of a particular party, and partly because the men who bore the name did not remain true to those principles. The Whig parties of the nineteenth century, in both Britain and the United States, finally brought discredit to the name among the radicals.
But it is still true that, since liberalism took the place of Whiggism only after the movement for liberty had absorbed the crude and militant rationalism of the French Revolution, and since our task must largely be to free that tradition from the over-rationalistic, nationalistic, and socialistic influences which have intruded into it, Whiggism is historically the correct name for the ideas in which I believe.
The more I learn about the evolution of ideas, the more I have become aware that I am simply an unrepentant Old Whig – with the stress on the ‘old.’ ”
The long history of the Whigs is rich and worth exploring. The ‘Old Whig’ phrase was coined by Edmund Burke who best reflected its views. Famous Whigs have included or been influenced by John Locke, Adam Smith, former British Prime Minister William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, after whom the grand city of Melbourne is named, and most of the pre-revolutionary American patriots.
You adhere to the principles of Whiggism. You are Whiggish in your philosophical leanings.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
In his famous three-volume masterpiece, The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described the frozen wastelands of Siberia where political prisoners and dissidents the Soviet state considered dangerous were held (for their speech, not their actions). A gulag was a Soviet prison; an archipelago is a string of islands; hence the term ‘gulag archipelago’ – a string of camps, prisons, transit centres, secret police, informers, spies and interrogators across Siberia.
Today, people are frozen out of society in more subtle ways. The authorities no longer bash down your door and haul you off to a gulag for espousing the ‘wrong views’; instead, they silence and freeze you out of existence in other ways.
No-one describes the current situation better than Scottish commentator Neil Oliver in his Essentials of Life video clip here. More about that shortly.
Divide and conquer
As we know, the Left’s chief weapon is division. Unite the disaffected groups and those with grievances, and then ‘divide and conquer’ the rest of us. Divide along racial, generational, sexual, religious or economic lines. Any line will do.
What may have started as ‘the workers vs the bosses’ – ‘the proletariat vs the bourgeoisie’ – and ‘supporting the poor’, became just a ruse to gain power. Workers and the poor have long since been abandoned by the Left who now find other ways to divide and conquer.
In his excellent book, Democracy in a Divided Australia, Matthew Lesh writes:
“Australia has a new political, cultural, and economic elite. The class divides of yesteryear have been replaced by new divisions between Inners and Outers. This divide is ripping apart our political parties, national debate, and social fabric.
Inners are highly educated inner-city progressive cosmopolitans who value change, diversity, and self-actualisation. Inners, despite being a minority, dominate politics on both sides, the bureaucracy, universities, civil society, corporates, and the media. They have created a society ruled by educated elites – that is, ruled by themselves.
Outers are the instinctive traditionalists who value stability, safety, and unity. Outers are politically, culturally, and economically marginalised in today’s graduate-dominated knowledge society era. Their voice is muzzled in public debate, driving disillusionment with the major parties, and record levels of frustration, disengagement, and pessimism.“
For over a hundred years, Australia fought to remove race from civic considerations. Yet now we are being asked to permanently divide the nation by entrenching an Indigenous Voice into our Constitution. By the ‘Inners’, of course.
In the workplace, politicians are still treating workplace behaviour like a game of football. Australia’s employers (‘the bosses’) are on one team, and Australia’s employees (‘the workers’) are on the other. The game is then overseen by a so-called ‘independent umpire’ called the Fair Work Commission. But of course, this is not how workplaces operate at all. The ‘game’, if you even want to call it that, is played not by two teams of employers and employees, but by hundreds, even thousands of different teams, competing against hundreds and thousands of other teams of employers and employees.
Mark Twain observed, “Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example”.
Here’s one – the infamous Dollar Sweets dispute where unions were picketing Fred Stauder’s confectionery business. Other confectionery businesses were approached to support Fred but were rebuffed saying, “Why should we care if Dollar Sweets goes down? It will mean more business for us.” So much for ‘bosses vs workers’.
While paying lip service to free markets, property rights, personal responsibility, self-reliance, free speech, lower taxes, the rule of law and smaller government, the Liberal Party in Australia has all but abandoned these ideals in practice. As has big business, which, truth be known, was never on the side of free markets. Corporations have always wanted markets they can dominate, and to eliminate the competition. If that means aligning with the Left or doing the government’s bidding, so be it.
Which includes – and here we return to our ‘new gulags’ theme – closing a person’s bank account, destroying them on social media, or excluding them from employment. Business is right on board with this.
The Left will keep pushing its woke agenda until it is stopped. And it will not be stopped with facts, figures, logic, evidence or reason. It doesn’t care about any of that. It will only be stopped with political power.
Holding conferences, writing opinion pieces, producing podcasts and YouTube interviews in the hope of persuading people have, I’m afraid, had their day. The ‘Inners’ now rule.
Stopping the relentless march of the Left will require political power. Seats in parliament. Which means like-minded people and parties forming alliances and working strategically and tactically together to win seats.
In Neil Oliver’s video clip, he says, “When it comes to the state, that which it can do, it certainly will do” and “What can happen to anyone, will soon happen to everyone”.
So, if you belong to a think-tank, lobby group or centre-right political party, and want to stop the woke Left further ruining our country, then please encourage your organisation to place less emphasis on winning arguments and more emphasis on winning seats – as previously outlined here and here.
Bob’s contribution to the Australian community has been reflected in a wide range of appointments including National President of the Housing Industry Association, Co-Founder and Inaugural President of Independent Contractors of Australia, Director of The Centre for Independent Studies, and Senator for South Australia.
Welcome to Part 1 of my 3-Part series on geopolitics.
If you haven’t listened to the Lex Fridman podcast, do.
Its long-form interviews with notable guests are fantastic, covering topics ranging from the nature of God to developments in bioengineering, from the essence of motivation to world politics.
In Episode #401, Lex interviews University of Chicago international relations scholar, John Mearsheimer.
Mutually beneficial trade between nations creates a reciprocal reliance which neither would wish to disrupt. Thus, peace is maximised.
Mearsheimer is a controversial figure in the world of international strategy. He is viewed with suspicion among the Washington power elite for his position that the United States itself caused the Russia-Ukraine war by pushing for Ukraine’s admission into NATO, thus creating an aggressive, common border with Russia.
The hawks hate this interpretation!
But I’d never heard John Mearsheimer speak himself, so I listened to the podcast and was transfixed.
John Mearsheimer
International politics is really about keeping the peace; he described five main strategies for achieving that.
Three are liberal approaches.
LIBERAL APPROACH #1: DEMOCRATIC PEACE THEORY This is the idea that democracies are relatively transparent and that competing democracies can see the geopolitical intentions of the other. This instils trust and is reinforced by pro-liberty values. Thus, peace is maximised.
LIBERAL APPROACH #2: ECONOMIC INTERDEPENDENCE THEORY This approach says that mutually beneficial trade between nations creates a reciprocal reliance which neither would wish to disrupt. Thus, peace is maximised.
LIBERAL APPROACH #3: LIBERAL INSTITUTIONAL THEORY Here, the theory says that if we create voluntary, cooperative international bodies, nation states can participate in decisions affecting them and build practical relationships with their counterparts for mutual benefit. Bodies like the United Nations and UNICEF, so peace is maximised.
Running like a thread through these approaches to keeping the peace is that the nation state retains its autonomy, while prosperity is the goal to which to strive.
Competing democracies can see the geopolitical intentions of the other. This instils trust and is reinforced by pro-liberty values. Thus, peace is maximised.
After the liberal approaches, there are two realist schools of thought:
REALIST APPROACH #1: HUMAN NATURE REALIST THEORY This school of thought is sometimes also called Defensive Realism. The idea is that, in order for peace to be maximised, a geopolitical balance of power must be maintained. It could mean some countries will maintain their strength and play the role of world policeman. Think America. And other countries could be denied advancing their geopolitical strength because it would tip the balance. Think Iran securing nuclear weapons. Also think of the example of America and the Soviet Union and their mutually assured destructive nuclear arsenal. If the balance between superpowers is maintained, so the argument goes, peace is maximised.
REALIST APPROACH #2: STRUCTURAL REALIST THEORY This approach is also called the Offensive Realist Theory. It looks at the world as a competition for security. It starts with Hobbes who said that, in the state of nature, man has to confront anarchy. Here, don’t think of anarchy as a free-for-all riot. Anarchy here is the opposite of hierarchy. Hobbes’ solution in the Leviathan is the nation state. Man gains his security over nature by forming a government. The Structural Realist Theory then suggests this simply moves the competition from individuals to the nation state. To eliminate war, which is the ultimate competition for security, the Theory says we need a world government with binding rules, to which all nation states are forced to comply. This removes competition for security, and thus war.
This is John Mearsheimer’s position, and you can see now hints at why he is controversial.
The two Realist schools are pragmatic and have a strong emphasis on multinational enforcement and have a built-in tendency to authority.
As a classical liberal or libertarian, which of these appeals? Which ones don’t you like?
Let me know in the comments section below.
Next up, let’s find out what the great classical liberal and libertarian leading minds said about this subject. You’ll be able to compare your responses to theirs.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
Whether to oppose or support the Voice referendum is an easy decision for me. The proposal is fundamentally racist, and I’m a libertarian. Racism is a collective concept and simply incompatible with libertarianism.
Libertarians see people as individuals, not as members of a group.
The proposal is for people of the Aboriginal race to elect members of the Voice, which will have the right to give advice to the government and executive. Non-Aborigines will not have a vote for the Voice, and will have no comparable means of giving advice. Australians will thus be divided into two groups – Aborigines and non-Aborigines, with Aborigines having rights that non-Aborigines do not have. Moreover, by being in the Constitution, the Voice will have a status not held by any other advisory body.
Dividing people into groups, whether it is race, gender, ethnicity, religion or sexual preference, is collectivism. It might be appropriate on occasions for statistical purposes, but it is not acceptable as a basis for government policy. The only legitimate approach, to libertarians like me, is to treat people as individuals.
That does not mean we lack concern for the welfare of Aborigines. Like Australians generally, we are distressed at the pathetic improvements revealed by the Closing the Gap surveys. Indeed, the third world conditions of Aborigines in remote regions is a national disgrace that I railed about regularly when in the Senate.
And yet, there are plenty of Aborigines who participate in Australian society on the same terms as other Australians. They have jobs, are not poor, their children attend school, and they are not involved in substance abuse. Moreover, there are plenty of non-Aborigines who do not have jobs, are poor, abuse drugs, and neglect their children.
Treating all Aborigines differently because some are poor and disadvantaged makes no more sense than treating non-Aborigines differently because some of them are poor and disadvantaged. The problem is that these issues exist, not the race of those who suffer them.
Libertarians see people as individuals, not as members of a group.
We share Martin Luther King’s dream, in which he hoped that one day his four little children would be judged on the basis of their character, not the colour of their skin.
Racism is a collective concept and simply incompatible with libertarianism.
Collectivism, which includes defining people by their race, is rejected. If someone is poor and disadvantaged, the appropriate response is to overcome the disadvantage that keeps them poor. This is true irrespective of the race of those concerned, or indeed any other collective characteristics with which they might be defined.
Voting no to the voice referendum can be justified on several grounds, including the fact that it will seriously compromise the role of parliament once the High Court gets its hands on it. But for libertarians, the simple fact that it is based on racism is sufficient.
David Leyonhjelm was an Australian Senator from 2014 to 2019 representing New South Wales for the Liberal Democratic Party. Notable for his libertarian consistency, David’s work in Senate Estimates attracted acclaim worldwide for its forensic examination of government
waste. Professionally, he is a veterinarian and agribusiness consultant.
I’m a liberal in the 18th and 19th Century British sense of the word.
I believe in free enterprise, laissez-faire economics, democracy, free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free movement, the individual, human rights and freedom to live life as the individual sees fits as long as another individual isn’t harmed in the process.
As with people like Ron Paul, my mind cannot fathom a universe without God. I’m hard-wired that way. And I believe God gave Man free will to act and be judged when God so chooses. See, freedom at every turn, as God intended.
I believe there is a role for government insofar as it protects – as Locke put it – the right to life, liberty and property. That it should be strictly confined to the bare essentials of parliament, a small executive, the judiciary, the police and a strong military to protect it all. Beyond that, you’d have to make a compelling case for more government as far as I’m concerned.
This is what a liberal believes.
In the 1980s, that’s what we called someone with this outlook in life. In the 1960s too. And the 1940s, 1920s, turn of the 20th Century and … back through the Enlightenment … and, because historians can see a clear movement in the West of unleashing human flourishing as we emerged from the Middle Ages, we’ve come to identify the birth of liberalism as 1689 with John Locke.
As a Western philosophy, its inextricably linked to our Christian roots. Liberalism thrives best when Christianity is in its full flourish, when citizens are practicing Christians AND liberals, side by side, the first informing the second.
Not conservatism. I’ve never described myself as a conservative.
Why?
Conservatives seek to conserve. At the same time, if you listen carefully to conservatives, there’s a tendency towards pessimism, a kind of bemoaning at things lost. Well, to this I say, if we have lost the schools, lost the universities, lost the boardrooms, lost the public service, lost the media, lost the churches, lost the very institutions of society and even the culture, what’s left to conserve? You can’t conserve something that’s lost!
So, as far as politics goes, I’m an unabashed ‘liberal’ and I claim the word because it describes my politics. Freedom. For me, it’s personal. It’s mine. I’m not giving it up.
I’m not budging even though American social democrats at the time of the New Deal skewed its meaning, twisting it into the opposite, something more like big government, centralised control and social welfare. In my weak moments, I’ll helpfully say ‘classical liberal’ for an American but I see the word classical as redundant.
Liberal. That’s it.
I’m not shifting from this policy even though Australia’s very own Liberal Party of Australia has long ago ceased to embody the philosophy. Despite it’s name, the Liberal Party of Australia is now illiberal in their actions and policies. I concede, at the present time, they’ve tainted the word.
I ran a Twitter poll recently, asking people what words they use for the beliefs of a liberal. The results were:
Liberal – 10% Classical Liberal – 17% Libertarian – 73%
Liberal Party of Australia, a pox be on you!
Still I persist. Liberal, with a small l.
I’m not relinquishing the word because young Australians watch too much US television and YouTube clips, thinking that ‘liberal’ means what Americans say it means.
No.
And I’m definitely not giving-up the word in favour of an alternative. Sure, I relent sometimes – like here in Liberty Itch – and call myself a ‘libertarian’ to avert misunderstandings by Americans, young Australians and those quick to judge me a member of the Liberal Party.
So, yes, I sometimes allow myself to be described ‘classical liberal’ and ‘libertarian’ unchallenged.
Before either of those two terms came about, a person with my beliefs was called a ‘liberal.’
So that’s what I am and perhaps you are too.
A liberal.
Own it. Say it aloud unashamedly. Reclaim our language. Use the word without qualification.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
Some thirty plus years ago, a fellow by the name of Kerry Packer appeared before a House of Representatives Inquiry into Print Media.
Kerry Packer. Appeared in the House of Reps Inquiry into Print Media in 1991.
The context of the inquiry was that the owner of the main metropolitan newspapers and classifieds, Fairfax, had gone broke. And with Fairfax having gone broke, Packer was trying to buy into the re-floated business.
This was a time before the Internet, when newspapers actually made money and lots if it from their classifieds business. Fairfax’s classifieds business was referred to as the ‘rivers of gold’.
There is a tale to tell here around Malcolm Turnbull who was previously Packer’s in-house lawyer and who, by this stage, had moved on and was representing the junk bond holders of the broke Fairfax. But that is for another time.
Businessman Kerry Packer with future Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull.
For his masterclass in its entirety, see the video at the end of this article.
There are some much younger looking folk in it, including one Peter Costello. However, this is not to delve into the issues of media, but rather the diversion that took place late in the piece when Packer spoke about the risk to Australia from the constant meddling of Australian parliaments and the risk to investments into Australia. It was a Packer masterclass and should be shown in every school and every parliamentarian induction session.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
Highlight 1 – when Packer says to ALP curmudgeon John Langmore:
“You seem to be completely unaware of the Constitution of Australia.”
Highlight 2 – when Packer points out that in his lifetime, tens of thousands of laws had been passed but that Australia was not a better place for all those new laws. He also suggested that for every law passed, another law be repealed. Packer said:
Every time you pass a law, you take someone’s privileges away from them.
Highlight 3 – again when Langmore accuses Packer of minimising his tax. To which Packer replied:
I don’t know anyone who does not minimise their tax. If anyone in this country doesn’t minimise their tax, they want their heads read, because as a government, I can tell you that you’re not spending it that well that we should be donating extra!
Which brings me to superannuation wars 2023 when Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones flagged yet more changes to superannuation taxes.
The proposal is couched in fairness, but the truth is that like drug addicts, the government is in desperate need of more money.
A retiree earning $100,000 a year in super fund investment returns typically pays no income tax, whereas a wage earner receiving the same amount pays $23,000 tax
This is neither fair nor just. But the Government’s problem, as with the same problem for the Coalition, is that they have no credibility when it comes to tax changes and tax reforms. This because they won’t do the work of demonstrating that what is currently being spent is being spent efficiently and effectively.
Instead, piles of money and political capital are being expended to generate what will likely be less than $1 billion per annum of additional taxes.
Talk about perverted priorities.
There is much wrong and distortionary with the Australian tax system. It is a train crash. But until government does the fundamental and hard work of spending reform, tax reform will be seen for what it is. Just an attempt to pump more water into a leaky bucket.
According to the ABS, for the 12 months to June 2021, the 3 tiers of Australian government managed to generate $810 billion of revenue. But they spent $970 billion or near half of GDP generating a combined deficit of $160 billion.
Our governments don’t have revenue problem. They have a spending problem. Message to Labor, Liberal, National and Greens governments, as Kerry Packer said quite well and clearly:
“you’re not spending it that well that we should be donating extra!”
Dimitri Burshtein is a Principal at Eminency Advisory and a former government policy analyst. He is a contributor to The Australian newspaper, Spectator Australia magazine and various libertarian blogs. Dimitri has also appeared on SkyNews and 2GB radio.
Although commonly attributed to Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, the expression “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” long predated him.
In fact, it described the practice of saloons (bars) offering a “free” lunch to patrons who purchased at least one drink. The luncheon was generally high in salt (cheese, salted crackers, nuts), enticing patrons to purchase generous volumes of high-priced beer. If you weren’t paying attention, and fell for the trap, you wound up paying much more for the “free lunch”. The exploitation of a cognitive bias leads to over consumption (eg cheap and poor quality food) and over payment (eg through purchase of excess beer).
Which brings us to Australia – the land of the free and home of the expensive. Not free as in freedom, but free as in government delivered services including healthcare and education that are perceived to be free. And as with the salty food, there is over consumption and excessive cost. Like the free lunch, Australians do not get free healthcare or education. Every single one of us pays; just in a different way.
Healthcare is funded through the Medicare levy and general taxes at the State and Commonwealth level, including income tax and GST. So, whether you are a billionaire or on welfare, you are paying taxes that fund healthcare. And because healthcare is presented as “free”, there is inevitable overconsumption and waste.
Prof. Milton Friedman
Referencing Milton Friedman again, he observed that there are essentially four ways to spend money:
You can spend your own money on yourself.
You can spend your own money on someone else.
You can spend somebody else’s money on yourself.
You can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else.
When you spend your own money on yourself, you are very careful because you are looking for value. You won’t be as careful when you spend your own money on someone else, but you will look for value.
When you spend somebody else’s money on yourself, you are more interested in making your life comfortable than achieving value, but you will at least expect to gain a benefit.
Healthcare falls into the fourth category, of spending other people’s money on somebody else. There is no incentive to pursue value at all.
While we pretend healthcare is free, in reality it is bureaucrats in offices spending other people’s money on others. That includes finding new ways to expand their domain.
Consider the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care. According to its 2021-22 annual report, at 30 June 2022
It employed 5,154 persons – up from 4,450 the year prior,
These staff cost $697 million – up from $559 million the year prior, and
Its operating expenses were $1.3 billion – up from $1.1 billion the year prior.
All this and yet the department did not operate a single hospital or aged care facility.
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (a government body), in 2020-21, total health spending in Australia was over $220 billion of which over 70% was government (Commonwealth, State, and Territory). That does not sound very free.
A government commissioned review also found that perhaps 10% of the Medicare program was subject to waste and fraud. Why? Perhaps because governments are spending somebody else’s money on somebody else.
This is not to suggest that there would be no government health expenditure if this charade of free healthcare was ended. It might however lead to a much more responsive and cost-efficient system. Consider how much lower taxes could be, or how much higher pensions might be, but for the inefficiency and waste of Australia’s “free” healthcare system.
We are told by Professor Duncan Maskell, the Vice-Chancellor (CEO) of the University of Melbourne, that “one of the most important radical changes that could be made to facilitate this would be once more to make education free to the Australian domestic student”. Australia already has an over-production problem of university graduates, and Maskell’s proposal would make it even worse. Why? Because universities would be spending somebody else’s money on somebody else.
To make university education “free to the Australian domestic student” would require someone else to pay for it, including those who do not and will never attend university. It wouldn’t be free; it would just be paid for by someone else.
If Professor Maskell, who is reported to be on an annual salary package of $1.5 million, really wants to make university cheaper and/or free for students, he should first look in his back yard. According to the Melbourne University annual report, in 2022 it had approximately 53,000 students and employee related expenses of $1.6 billion. That’s approximately $31,000 per student. It would certainly make the cost of education much lower if Professor Maskell and all his staff worked for free.
Dimitri Burshtein is a Principal at Eminency Advisory and a former government policy analyst. He is a contributor to The Australian newspaper, Spectator Australia magazine and various libertarian blogs. Dimitri has also appeared on SkyNews and 2GB radio.
Who would have thought that quacking geese could help save the Roman Republic from a Gallic horde in 390 BC?
It prompts the question: could a stirring speech on liberty help save Australia from its government in 2023 AD?
The Roman Republic was born when a warrior gathered his family from the ashes of Troy and founded a city destined to become one of the greatest civilisations in history. But its emergence was not without repeated struggles.
Grappling with rapid growth and accumulated power, the Republic was in danger of being crushed by Gallic invaders. Rome had conquered most of her neighbouring Italian lands, but chronic infighting among the Senate and Tribunes distracted it from the rising threat outside the empire.
The ancient historian, Livy, in The Early History of Rome, wrote of a warning which was ignored because it came from a plebeian of no consequence.
“The Gauls are coming!”
And they were. Gallic armies decimated vast swathes of Roman territory.
In a final siege to sack Rome, Gallic troops climbed the Citadel wall, which was minimally defended as an exodus to neighbouring provinces had occurred. The people slept. Not even the dogs were alerted; it took the screeching of sacred geese to wake the people from their slumber and quickly act to repel the enemy.
Australia in 2023 is facing its own enemy at the gate. It goes by the name of Government.
While we don’t suffer from screeching geese in our parliaments – albeit some may like to draw a comparison – our representatives are in a prime position to sound the alarm.
The government’s surveillance tentacles are reaching so far into our lives that we soon may not be able to breathe without its consent. Citizens are facing censorship of their thoughts, speech, and actions with the impending ACMA Misinformation and Disinformation Bill, a direct threat to our democracy.
In the Parliament of New South Wales, on 28 June 2023, one newly elected MP laid down the stakes for liberty, delivering a rousing endorsement of the natural rights and abilities of the people, and a scathing assessment of government interference.
In his maiden speech, John Ruddick articulated the essence of free market capitalism:
“We believe in the inherent morality of capitalism simply because, that is what people will spontaneously do when left alone. The worst atrocities of history were not the result of drought, flood, pestilence, or plague but of big government throwing its weight around like an elephant stomping on ants.”
One would think such a passionate defence of liberty would be welcomed in a democratic nation.
Alas, YouTube swiftly took it down.
Was it the mention of “anarcho-capitalism” that offended the senses of the censorship tzars? Perhaps too radical an idea for our modern and progressive world to embrace. Sadly, this term is misunderstood. Where it is demonised as being violent in meaning and action, it is really the opposite.
As Mr Ruddick said:
“Anarcho-capitalism has a favourable view of human nature and an unlimited belief in our potential. I am increasingly attracted to the view that we will tap humanity’s highest potential via a government-free voluntary-based society.”
Great speeches won’t save a nation from ruin, but they can affect how people begin to consider the world around them.
Livy tells us that “Destiny had decreed that the Gaul’s were still to feel the true meaning of Roman valour.”
Let our citizens record that the enemy of liberty is still to feel the true meaning of Australian spirit and enterprise.
Sacred geese did not prevent Rome from being invaded by the Gauls, but their screeching put Romans on notice.
Perhaps Mr Ruddick’s speech will serve as a warning for Australians in the face of monumental government overreach, reminding them of the value of our inalienable individual rights and freedoms, and how voluntary associations and agreements are by far the preferred mode of human interaction.
Gerardine is a Roman historian, with specific interest in Rome’s foundation up to the end of the Republic. She advocates that history gifts us with wisdom for the mind and nourishment for the soul, and keenly defends the ancients’ legacy of civic society, law, and government.
Well, it was mischief-making in the sense that I like to sharply define the line between liberal and conservative and then, with all the goodwill in the world, provoke people to think and explore these differences.
There is a difference, you see.
So I posted a video clip between American commentators Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro. They had opposing views of how to handle inevitable job losses caused by driverless trucks. It illustrated the difference eloquently.
Then I challenged you to vote whether you agreed with Tucker Carlson or, by inference from his question, Ben Shapiro.
The results are in:
37% Tucker Carlson; and
63% Ben Shapiro.
If you agreed with Tucker Carlson, you are a conservative.
If you agreed with Ben Shapiro, you are a liberal.
As I repeat ad nauseum, conservatives wish to conserve. Here, Mr. Carlson would be happy to conserve current industry development rather than advance it. He’d be happy to keep truck drivers in jobs for which technology has a more efficient solution, the driverless truck.
By inference from his question, Mr Shapiro would prefer to let the free market take its course, permit the technology and have truck drivers migrate into related freight work or even redeploy into other industries.
There’s a big difference in approach.
Liberals and conservatives are not the same.
You’re an optimist if you’re a liberal (or if you must, a classical liberal or libertarian, they all mean the same thing!) You believe in people, in their ability to innovate and in their ability to adapt to change. In the case of driverless trucks, you fully embrace this new technology and you want to encourage the creators of that innovation by allowing it to be unleashed on the market. No restrictions. And you have faith truck drivers, given appropriate notice, are more than capable of finding new work. You are confident they aren’t simply going to sit and bemoan the loss of one type of occupation. Rather, you know they’ll have to find other work to feed their families, as we all do.
You’re a pessimist if you’re a conservative. You believe, as Mr Carlson even said, that you don’t want high school educated men let loose on society without a job. He assumes that high school educated men would suddenly become helpless and even dangerous. That’s the inference.
Blimey!
Talk about loss of faith in our fellow citizens. It’s a nanny state attitude. What evidence is there for this? None that I can find. On the contrary, there is plenty of evidence high school educated men are adaptable.
Take 1980s Newcastle. A city bustling with blue collar men busily working the steelworks. Now look at 2020s Newcastle, a lifestyle, health and university town. What happened to these steelworkers? Was Newcastle ravaged by idle high school educated men wreaking havoc across the city? No. Some of these men were due to retire, some moved to the Wollongong works, some stayed in Newcastle moving into value-add niche industrial enterprises, some stayed in the large industrial companies but worked from home as the companies left, some started their own businesses using their skills in new ways, some simply moved into new industries altogether, some retrained, some took early retirement to enjoy life.
Take my grandfather. He grew up and apprenticed as a wheelwright at the tale-end of the old wooden spoke and hub horse-drawn carts. Then as his career developed, wood gave way to steel spoke and hub wheels. Then steel plates came in. What a transition!
Further, when a conservative says ‘let’s restrict technology’, what does that signal? It’s the same as saying to every inventor and innovator, every scientist and engineer, to every entrepreneur and free thinker that their fresh, new ways of solving old problems are unwelcome.
As I say, conservatism’s tendency to oppose change can be helpful. However, if that’s all we on the Right do is oppose and conserve, we end up sliding to the Left. Opposition and conservation are insufficient to fight the Left.
We must treat our innovators with respect and let them advance society. We must not be conservative and stand in the way.
We must treat our fellow citizens with respect, have confidence in them that they can cope with change. We should not mollycoddle them.
Don’t be a conservative like Mr. Carlson.
Be a classical liberal like Mr. Shapiro in this debate.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
In Australia, conservatives and libertarians tend to get along. Neither has sympathy for the woke, neither declares their pronouns, chooses their gender, or seeks to cancel those with whom they disagree. They both believe in things such as equality before the law, the presumption of innocence, parental responsibility, religious freedom and democracy. Indeed, some conservatives tend to think that libertarianism is merely conservatism under another name.
That is not the case though; libertarianism and conservatism originate from quite different places. It is worth understanding those places so that when they do diverge, it is not unexpected. It also helps those who are unsure of their own position.
Libertarianism is a political philosophy based on individual freedom. Before the Americans corrupted the word it was once synonymous with liberalism, but now it’s also known as classical liberalism. Some people prefer to call themselves classical liberals to avoid being mistaken for members of the US Libertarian Party, but there is no difference.
John Locke. Early Enlightenment philosopher who advocated for the right to “Life, Liberty and Estate”
The origins of libertarianism can be traced to the Enlightenment philosophers, particularly John Locke, and to John Stuart Mill’s harm principle, which says that people should be free to act however they wish unless their actions cause harm to somebody else.
Conservatism is not a political philosophy but a preference for the status quo. Edmund Burke described it as an “approach to human affairs which mistrusts both a priori reasoning and revolution, preferring to put its trust in experience and in the gradual improvement of tried and tested arrangements.”
That it is not a philosophy can be seen from the fact that in the former Soviet Union, those who lamented the fall of communism (the status quo at the time) were also conservatives. Obviously, in that case they had nothing in common with libertarians.
John Stuart Mill. Philosopher who conceived The Harm Principle
Libertarians tend to have a view of what an ideal society should be: one in which the government is kept small and limited to a narrow range of functions, such as national defence, criminal justice and the protection of private property, with everything else subject to free markets. Conservatives might acknowledge some change is justified at the margins, but they generally regard current institutions as worth preserving. Libertarians advocate low taxes; conservatives oppose increased taxes. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, is a conservative sentiment.
“Taxation Is Theft”, a libertarian idea. “No Tax Increases”, a conservative idea.
Where coercion is involved, the two can part company. This was illustrated by the debate over same sex marriage. Libertarians supported the change because it removed state intrusion from the choice of a spouse. Conservatives resisted the change on the grounds that marriage is a longstanding and revered institution.
It is similar with illicit drugs. Conservatives tend to disapprove of them and are happy they are prohibited. Libertarians argue that, although they might disapprove of them, it is a matter of personal choice unless others are being harmed (and concede that can occur in some circumstances).
Libertarianism and conservatism originate from quite different places.
Conservatives and libertarians generally agree that personal choice can be important. Libertarians support it in principle (the nanny state is anathema to them) while conservatives support it because it is the status quo. But this disguises a significant difference: libertarians believe personal choice is never the government’s business unless others are harmed, except for those unable to take responsibility for their choices (eg children). Conservatives believe some people make poor choices and may need saving from themselves, or that certain choices lead to additional cost to our socialised medical system (which is the status quo). This can lead to different positions on issues like drinking, smoking, gambling, sugar and bicycle helmets.
Things get interesting with firearms. Obviously, these have the potential to harm others if misused, but that is true of other things. For libertarians, the problem is that gun control invariably only applies to civilians, not the police or military. Laws are ultimately enforced by people with guns. As the saying goes, when government fears the people there is liberty, but when the people fear the government there is tyranny.
Conservatives tend to have a more benign view of government and are reluctant to concede that it might ever be necessary to fight against or overthrow it by means other than elections.
Of course, there are libertarians who take a conservative approach on some issues as well as conservatives who have libertarian tendencies. Upholding principles can be challenging. It is easy to rationalise spending other people’s money on something close to your heart.
Conservatives tend to have a more benign view of government.
It is nonetheless a good idea for both libertarians and conservatives to periodically consider the reason for their views. Are they based on principles, or do they reflect a preference for the status quo? Are they consistent or hypocritical?
Libertarianism and conservatism are different, though they have much in common. But libertarians and conservatives also need each other, so understanding each other is important.
David Leyonhjelm was an Australian Senator from 2014 to 2019 representing New South Wales for the Liberal Democratic Party. Notable for his libertarian consistency, David’s work in Senate Estimates attracted acclaim worldwide for its forensic examination of government
waste. Professionally, he is a veterinarian and agribusiness consultant.
This open letter assumes the reader has also read the Australian Financial Review column by Alexander Downer dated 4 Dec 2022 found here . Start there and follow with this Open Letter.
As a former State and Federal Executive member of the Liberal Party, as a former Young Liberal of the Year and participant in 72 pre-selections, I agree with much of what you wrote.
The fact that the Liberal Party has lost its philosophical mooring and is now drifting wherever the political currents take it was the very reason I left and joined the Liberal Democrats in South Australia.
They stand for fiscal restraint, individual freedom, rule of law, freedom of speech, entrepreneurialism, freedom of worship, free trade, equality before the law, innovation and science, the very things the Liberal Party have abandoned and seem unable to clearly articulate.
As an example of just how unable even Liberal Party senators have become to hold true and firm to these beliefs, see here Senator Andrew Bragg from NSW on ABC’s Q&A:
It’s not only the Liberal Democrats who provide fresh competition. There are good people in other parties who share these values but do not see the Liberal Party as their natural home any longer.
Nowhere was the Liberal Party’s drift more evident than during covid overreach. And it’s with that in mind that I turn to your column.
You wrote, “In South Australia, the public was on the whole supportive of the state government’s termination of traditional civil liberties.”
As you know, public opinion can be manufactured. When you say leadership was required rather than managerialism, nowhere was that needed more than during covid.
You wrote further, “The values of selfless individualism and individual freedom and responsibility are timeless. The Liberal Party shouldn’t allow them to be cast as anachronistic.”
You can see my emphasis in both these quotes.
I’d therefore like to ask you a simple question in an effort to reconcile those two quotes from your column:
Do you agree it was a mistake for the recent SA Liberal Government to have terminated traditional civil liberties at the expense of our timeless value of individual freedom?
This open letter is published on Liberty Itch, which boasts current and past MPs as well as current party leaders and activists as subscribers.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
In my last two articles, I showed how George Orwell’s 1984 seems to be coming true, how the size of government grows ever larger and how rent-seekers are not only doing what they’ve always done but are getting much better at it. How this happens without sparking a popular uprising, I invoke the fable of ‘the shrinking forest’. I also explained why our fellow citizens are so disengaged from politics and what they can do to start the fightback.
I’d now like to discuss how we’ve reached this position – specifically how our opponents have attacked classical liberalism and libertarianism by first undermining Christianity. You may be sceptical of this. You make not even see a link. But history reveals all and lessons from the past illuminate what our opponents are doing today.
Modern Western democracy was founded in Christianity and in the family. It’s why Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the co-authors of The Communist Manifesto, were determined to undermine both. Marx and Engels knew faith and family were the enemy. They did not like what families and people of faith talked about around the dinner table.
In his brilliant book, The Subversive Family, British writer Ferdinand Mount argued that marriage and the family, far from being oppressed by the ruling class, were in fact the chief bulwarks against authoritarianism. Family, faith and freedom are without doubt the best bulwarks against division and authoritarianism.
As for faith, removing Christians from the public square seems to be the unstated aim. ‘Net zero Christians by 2050’, quipped by Rebecca Weisser.
“Every citizen is equal before the law.”
I would argue that the Christian is the model libertarian.
Knowing that one day they will stand before their Creator and give an account of themselves, Christians aim to be the personification of personal responsibility. Endowed with a free will to choose right or wrong, Christians cannot blame anyone else for their actions. It follows therefore, that if God is going to hold people responsible for their actions, then God would give them the right to decide how they conduct their lives.
For example, taking away from someone the right to decide for themselves how much they are willing to work for, is to deny them a God-given right to work. People do things for their reasons, not yours, and people constantly make trade-offs depending on a range of factors known best only to themselves and their families.
It is also why the Bible tells us not once, but twice, “Do not favour the poor in court”. This is real justice, not ‘social justice’.
Favouring one group of citizens over another based on socio-economic or racial grounds is not only immoral, it also foolish. It always ends badly – especially for the favoured group.
Note, this is not to be confused with obligations we have towards each other in a personal capacity. ‘Who is my neighbour?’ Jesus was asked, in the famous ‘good Samaritan’ parable.
In this, the Christian has no difficulty with public policy, that is ‘what is sinful vs what should be unlawful’. Sin is personal, the law for everyone.
And then there’s family. There has been a relentless push to replace father and mother, male and female, with something else. A village perhaps? There was that leftist trope – ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ As one wag responded, ‘Yes, and it takes a village idiot to believe that.’
More troubling is the breadth of the battleground.
Just look at the global coordination achieved by the Left with respect to Black Lives Matter, Roe v Wade, transgenderism, climate and Covid. Notice the activists all seem to read from the same script. It’s formulaic for sure and almost robotically applied globally regardless of where the original issue occurred.
The Covid response was near uniform globally and we are only now seeing the effects with little to no accountability. There were protests in Adelaide with pictures of George Floyd – a police excessive-use-of-force issue in faraway Minneapolis USA. The US Supreme Court then ruled that abortion should be a state matter and, out of nowhere, the rapid response pro-abortion rallies were rolled-out city by city in Australia, each jurisdiction of which had abortion laws already in place. Go figure.
Whatever you think of these issues, my point is that the global coordination is chilling.
There is no doubt Australia has economic and social problems that it is going to have to solve – inflation, rising interest rates, high mortgages (forcing both parents out to work), high cost of living (educating and raising children, power prices, water prices) – and social ills caused by the rupturing of family relationships due to mental health and addictions of various kinds.
Our nation also has economic and social goals it wants to achieve – increased productivity, affordable housing, lower crime rates. However, looking to politicians, bureaucrats and regulators to solve these problems and achieve these goals seems to be a lost cause.
As for free markets, property rights, personal responsibility, self-reliance, free speech, lower taxes, the rule of law, and smaller government, these have all but been abandoned.
Major party MPs seem more interested in making friends across the aisle than looking for ways ‘to improve the life of the ordinary citizen’ as described by Charles Taylor in his book, The Affirmation of the Ordinary Life.
Once elected, MPs are easily captured. They like being Members of Parliament and they like being liked – including by members of other parties. They also love socialising; they don’t want to be ostracised or booed on the ABC for making a stand or championing a cause. On issue after issue, they seem weak. They have lost both their philosophical bearings and religious convictions.
Take away religious conviction and classical liberalism becomes less grounded.
One flows from the other.
I would argue it is not possible to ‘break through’ all this. We have to ‘break with’. We have to force the major parties’ hands through the brutal reality of balance-of-power politics.
Next week I would like to flag a ground-breaking idea for change. Something practical. An innovation which I trust will bring hope and optimism.
Bob’s contribution to the Australian community has been reflected in a wide range of appointments including National President of the Housing Industry Association, Co-Founder and Inaugural President of Independent Contractors of Australia, Director of The Centre for Independent Studies, and Senator for South Australia.
To those who know, this question is rhetorical. It is a secret ‘handshake’ among fans of Ayn Rand and her seminal work, Atlas Shrugged.
Reading Atlas Shrugged profoundly changed the way I viewed life, society and the world. It was like a stranger had tapped me on the shoulder, pointed out that I was sitting on a pile of jigsaw pieces, and helped me put the pieces together. Afterward, instead of being confused by the variety of pains in my ass, I was contentedly gazing at a beautiful picture of the world. It changed my life.
… the Covid sham of 2020 was Atlas Shrugging
The climax of Atlas Shrugged could be summarised as: civil society devolved because the government kept ratcheting up its abuse and extortion of the most productive and competent people in society, based on the socialist argument of “needing” to “help” the ever increasing “needs” of the “needy”. So the productive people left.
This is relevant today because the Covid sham of 2020 was Atlas Shrugging. We all felt the earth move. If you have read Atlas Shrugged then you know where the story goes, and you know what the smart people do. We leave.
So I left.
The obvious question, then, was where to go? Again, Atlas Shrugged proved instructional. The protagonist and her friends did not leave one declining socialist kleptocracy to go to another declining socialist kleptocracy. They built a new society from scratch. They did not run away; they ran toward opportunity.
Galt’s Gulch. A new society for the productive and competent
Fortunately, escaping government suffocation no longer requires living on an island like Robinson Crusoe. There are numerous countries where you might be surprised to find a superior quality of life to Australia, at a lower cost, with palpably more freedom.
Consider the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as an example. The UAE is a not a liberal democracy. It is run like a business. The rulers explicitly want successful, talented and wealthy people to move all of their wealth and business there. So they built cities with everything that their target market wants: zero tax, no crime, spotlessly clean, mind-boggling architecture and world class banks, hospitals, schools, facilities, activities, food etc. They then made immigration easy: register a company and self-sponsor your residency. It costs just a few thousand dollars.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
The UAE offers a unique solution to the libertarian dilemma of how to balance individual freedom with security and societal order. Instead of a contrived internal democratic process, living in the UAE is a voluntary transaction. You do not have a right to free speech, to protest or to vote. Your money and your feet are your voice and vote. Your rights are: take it, or leave it.
One of the most freeing factors in the UAE – especially for anyone who operated a business in Australia – is the absence of fear of Government extortion. The income tax rate is zero. No tax means no criminal tax avoidance. And that eliminates government treating tax residents like criminals.
Other countries have taken notice of the success of the UAE and Dubai, and are rolling out the red carpet to entrepreneurs. For example, the small nation of Georgia in eastern Europe offers an entrepreneur’s visa, with residency and a paltry 1% tax rate on earnings up to $AU375,000/year. The capital, Tbilisi, is a beautiful, classically European city. It is objectively safer than Australia, and with a cost of living around 1/3rd, or less.
Tbilisi, Georgia
Dubai and Georgia are just two examples among numerous countries that offer extraordinary advantages, along with a quality of life that belies their reputations of 10-20 years ago. Globalisation and the commoditisation of technology means that western nations no longer have a monopoly on modern living. Friendly people, sealed roads, modern homes, fast internet, good coffee and Gucci stores are everywhere, including most “emerging” or “developing” nations.
So I left.
The factor determining the viability of leaving Australia, for most people, is money. If you have no assets, no education, and expect $200,000/yr to hold a road sign, Australia is probably the only country that will work for you. But if you, like me, are able to generate an income from anywhere – or if you have made your money already – you have an array of options to increase your freedom, improve your lifestyle, eliminate or reduce taxes and escape Marxism. Just exclude Canada, the EU, UK, US and New Zealand from your shortlist.
Australia is an extraordinary country with extraordinary potential. But it is hard to argue that it is heading in the right direction politically or economically. The natural inclination is to want to fight for the rights and freedoms that the West has always been so justifiably proud of. But there is an alternative: you can leave. It is another way to scratch your Liberty itch.
Damon is the founder of the National Recomposition Institute and creator and founder of the Recomposer software system. He was also formerly the Australian Ambassador to the International Society of Sports Nutrition, president of the World Powerlifting Congress Australia and an Australian Champion in Bodybuilding and Powerlifting.
Libertarianism is all about the freedom of individuals from coercion. Libertarians believe the proper role of government is defined by JS Mill’s harm principle: ‘The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.’
Within a country this is relatively straightforward – reductions in tax and increases in liberty are supported, increases in tax and reductions in liberty are opposed.
But things can get complicated when it involves matters outside the country. How is libertarianism affected by national borders? Can it apply to relationships between sovereign states?
To what extent should Australian libertarians seek to oppose coercion in other countries?
In his 1801 inaugural address, US President Thomas Jefferson declared that the US should consider its external military alliances to be temporary arrangements of convenience to be abandoned or reversed according to the national interest. Citing the Farewell Address of George Washington as his inspiration, Jefferson described the doctrine as “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliances with none.”
Thomas Jefferson. 2nd President of the United States. Author of the Washington Doctrine of Unstable Alliances.
Known as the Washington Doctrine of Unstable Alliances, this thinking dominated US foreign policy right up to the Second World War. And although America now has longstanding alliances with many countries, including Australia, the doctrine remains influential in some political circles.
In particular, many libertarians support it. In their view, a country should not invest blood and treasure in squabbles beyond the country’s borders unless there is a clear threat to the country and its ability to engage in trade and commerce. It should certainly not maintain military capabilities in excess of what is needed to defend the country.
This is rationalised in terms of libertarian values. History has repeatedly shown that a standing army is a threat to liberty. Moreover, maintaining a military force capable of more than simply defending the country is expensive, necessitating higher taxes than if the Washington Doctrine applied.
They point to wars such as Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, where it is difficult to show any enduring benefits from military involvement by America or Australia. They also criticise current support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, inspects an Australian Bushmaster armoured vehicle
There is a problem with this thinking though: nationalism and national sovereignty are actually collectivist concepts. They are not libertarian and, Jefferson’s other qualities notwithstanding, neither is the Washington doctrine.
What that means is there is no libertarian justification for doing nothing about coercion merely because it is occurring in another country.
Coercion should always be our concern, wherever it occurs.
That does not necessarily mean rushing military aid to those subject to coercion in other countries. There are many reasons why that might not be possible, practical or advisable. But it is perfectly legitimate for libertarians to consider whether there is anything they can do, militarily or otherwise.
Some interventions have made a major difference. But for America’s entry into the Second World War, for example, Germany and Japan would have imposed their dreadful dictatorships on most of the world. But for America’s intervention in Korea, the people in the south would now be suffering the same miserable fate as those in the north. And but for Australia’s intervention in East Timor, the country would be suffering under Indonesia’s heavy-handed military rule, now obvious in West Papua.
Australian Peacekeeping Handover of East Timor
There are also some current examples to consider. One of the consequences of the climate change panic, for example, is that around 40,000 children in the Democratic Republic of Congo work in appallingly inhumane, slave-like conditions in cobalt mines. The cobalt is used in lithium-ion batteries required by electric vehicles.
In China, the government has imprisoned more than a million Uyghurs since 2017 and subjected those not detained to intense surveillance, religious restrictions, forced labour, and forced sterilisations. Forced labour is used to produce solar products.
It is estimated that China has 98 percent of the world’s manufacturing capacity for photovoltaic ingots; 97 percent for photovoltaic wafers; 81 percent for solar cells; and 77 percent for solar modules. Many of the largest global producers of photovoltaic ingots and wafers, solar cells, and solar modules directly source polysilicon from entities believed to use forced labour in its production.
Even a boycott of products associated with such coercion would be more consistent with libertarian values than doing nothing based on the “no entangling alliances” idea.
JS Mill was also an advocate of utilitarianism in addition to classical liberalism. This philosophy, generally attributed to Jeremy Bentham, is often summarised as seeking the greatest good for the greatest number. For libertarians, it should mean the greatest liberty for the greatest number.
David Leyonhjelm was an Australian Senator from 2014 to 2019 representing New South Wales for the Liberal Democratic Party. Notable for his libertarian consistency, David’s work in Senate Estimates attracted acclaim worldwide for its forensic examination of government
waste. Professionally, he is a veterinarian and agribusiness consultant.
Niccolo Machiavelli wrote that if a republic is to live long, it is necessary to draw it back often toward its beginning.
“For all the beginning of sects, republics, and kingdoms must have some goodness in them, by means of which they may regain their first reputation and their first increase. Because in the process of time, that goodness is corrupted, unless something intervenes to lead it back to the mark, it of necessity kills the body.”
It is now time for Australia, and all modern western democracies, to be led back to the starting point, less necessity kills our body politic.
No political system has ever been immune to corruptible processes.
Now, the concept of going “back” will raise the ire of progressives. It could even unnerve libertarians, the thinking being that any hint of the status quo or traditionalism is the sole purview of conservatives. But I would remind them of what Thomas Paine said, that when government “operates to create an increased wretchedness in any of the parts of society, it is on a wrong system, and reformation is necessary.”
Thomas Paine
We could argue over the difference between Paine’s reform and Machiavelli’s drawing back to the beginning, but as a historian, I stand by the view that unless one contemplates how a thing starts, the solution to improving it can be neither understood nor solved.
A searing reminder of how far Australia has fallen from political grace can be seen in the erosion of habeus corpus, articulated brilliantly by Jaimie Stevenson in her article, Imprisoned with Zero Charges, noting that this “unchecked authority fundamentally challenges the principles upon which our democratic society is based.”
Surely, this one issue alone requires us to be drawn back to our beginning. But if we need more reminders of the importance to look in the rear-view mirror, it can be found in Kenelm Tonkin’s explanation of the Tocqueville Matrix.
When government operates to create an increased wretchedness in any of the parts of society, it is on a wrong system, and reformation is necessary.
It is not new, this thing known as recovery of freedom. In 509 BC, Lucius Junius Brutus rescued Rome from the corruption and pride of kings gone bad. After two hundred years the monarchy had degenerated into vileness at the hands of one man vested with too much power.
It is not a stretch to draw parallels with life in Australia from 2020 – 2022 under the direction of Scott Morrison as Prime Minister, who set up an unconstitutional National Cabinet, continued to this day by current leader, Anthony Albanese; and who allowed unrestricted power to state premiers for carte blanche hard-line rule over their populations. Daniel Andrews’ iron fist in Victoria demonstrates that it is all too easy for one man to think himself a god. Though he was not alone in his authoritarian bent, he was by far the most brutal of all the state’s leaders.
We can ruminate on our demise, or we can each do something to regain the goodness which has been corrupted by time. This is a process in itself; documenting what is wrong by looking back to what provided the foundation upon which democracy was built. And it does not require the commanding presence of public figures.
It is now time for Australia, and all modern western democracies, to be led back to the starting point, less necessity kills our body politic.
In Cicero’s dialogues between past heroes of the Roman Republic, Scipio Africanus said of Lucius Brutus:
“No one is a mere private citizen when the liberty of his fellows needs protection.”
For those who question the relevance of being drawn back to beginnings, I urge you to consider the increase in dystopian and futuristic writing and ask yourself why it is occurring.
John Goddard writes fast fiction; dystopian ponderings, often with a question as to what went before. In a recent article entitled Mephistopheles, his dystopian character questions the relevance of old-world heroes, that they have “no place in our modern mythology.” It is a hellscape scenario in which to question anything significant from the old world would be to bring down the wrath of the state upon oneself.
That people lament the absence of old heroes; or sound the alarm about the deterioration of valued democratic safeguards like habeus corpus; or feel compelled to encourage us moderns to look back to invigorating figures like Alexis de Tocqueville, surely tells us that the past does hold significance in the quest to understand ourselves and our societies.
No political system has ever been immune to corruptible processes. And now it is our time to act. It may even require a “going to the mattresses” approach, not as a physical war, but as an intellectual war between the people and those we put in office to represent us.
Gerardine is a Roman historian, with specific interest in Rome’s foundation up to the end of the Republic. She advocates that history gifts us with wisdom for the mind and nourishment for the soul, and keenly defends the ancients’ legacy of civic society, law, and government.
A non-illustrated guide to where conservatives continually fall short on a key pillar of liberty…
Libertarians and conservatives might be friends on certain issues, often shoved into the same corner by the ‘progressive’ left, but it’s time we libertarians took a hard stance on free speech.
James Hol’s recent commentary regarding the proposed ‘misinformation’ bill reflected an attitude towards freedom of speech and expression that is generally shared across the entirety of the centre-right.
However, conservatives are not yet ready to defend the speech and expression of those they don’t agree with. Purporting to pick and choose who has access to free expression is a dark pathway to liberty.
Free speech is very easy to defend when you agree with the speech that is being censored – the true test of principle is to defend all speech, regardless of your personal view on what is being expressed. Yet apparently Yumi Stynes’ ‘graphic’ book titled Welcome to Sex should be ‘wrapped in black plastic’ and sold in a restricted manner akin to a pornographic magazine according to the self-confessed ‘conservative patriot’ Senator Ralph Babet.
Comments from Stynes that she would be ‘comfortable’ with an 8 year-old child reading the book, and its availability in major retailer chains, have sparked community outrage at the supposed accessibility of such material to children. Yet what does it say about the rights of parents if conservative commentators feel entitled to decide what is suitable for other people’s children? It raises questions on our perceptions of the role of parents too – is it their job to manage what their child has access to, or is that the job of government and society at large?
You have to wonder at what point any more restrictive approach by government towards curating children’s material could be weaponized against conservatives. This of course is the fundamental weakness in the conservative take on this issue: the lack of foresight as to how restricting the speech and expression of one group weakens it for us all in the end. Furthermore, all the attention and furore over the content of the book led to it becoming a bestseller.
Controversial book ‘Welcome To Sex’ attracted conservative calls for it to be banned
It’s not the first time so-called ‘freedom friendly’ MPs have actually sought to curb the rights of those they disagree with. In February, Liberal Senator Alex Antic introduced a private member’s bill that sought to impose harsh criminal penalties on ‘incitement to trespass, cause property damage or traffic disruption’ (paraphrased). This was clearly an attack on extinction rebellion type traffic protests and the activities of animal rights protesters at slaughterhouses.
Yet it doesn’t take much imagination to see how the same laws could easily have been imposed on leaders of protests against vaccine mandates. This bill was yet another reactionary, populist thought bubble that demonstrates the folly of conservatism as a philosophical vehicle to protect individual rights and reduce the size of government.
As seen by the impact of boycotts and negative PR directed at companies such as Anheuser-Busch, Gillette, Target and Big W, it is much more effective to fight bad ideas and bad speech with consumer action as opposed to legislative action. It is also fundamentally moral – the market will ultimately determine the social licence companies have to comment on social or political issues by rewarding or punishing them via consumers.
Good ideas don’t require force, and bad ideas don’t require banning. As libertarians we must fight both progressives and conservatives who seek to censor or ban speech they dislike.
They will invoke the innocence of children, the plight of minority groups or the collective ‘harm’ caused by disinformation, but history tells us that those doing the censoring are never the good guys.
The only role politicians have with regards to free speech is to protect it, and the best way to protect free speech is to amend the Australian constitution, enshrining the right to freedom of speech, religion and assembly.
Max Payne is the Australian Program Associate with Students For Liberty, a global non-profit that spreads the values of libertarianism on campus. He is also a twice former candidate with the Libertarian Party and maintains a keen interest in Austrian economics, classical music and organic gardening.
He believes we are creatures playing out compulsive, repetitious behavioural cycles like any other animal and, like them, we just don’t realise it.
Except for him.
He knows what none of us can see, apparently.
He has elevated himself above the primal, it is suggested we acccept.
Forgive my skepticism.
On the contrary, I see ‘free will’ exercised daily, at life’s inflection points and in our beliefs.
We are free agents, individuals making an individual’s decision, not some kind of habitual, near-clone automatons.
‘Free Will’: individuals’ ability to decide independently of evolutionary reflex
Daily ‘Free Will’
We exercise ‘free will’ daily in the decisions we make: walk across the road now or when the cars come, read a chapter of a book now or later or not at all, compliment a person or not. This is obvious.
‘Free Will’ At Life’s Inflection Points
We exercise ‘free will’ at great inflection points in our lives when long-lasting, significant decisions are made: a marriage, a move overseas, a decision to start volunteering for a charity for the next ten years, the ascent of a rugged mountain.
When a child is born, is it preordained that this individual would go on to a life of crime or become a Rhodes Scholar? No. A million choices are made along life’s path to reach that point.
Daily and at life’s inflection points, ‘free will’ is exercised.
So too with our belief systems.
‘Free Will’ In Our Beliefs
The more counter-intuitive our belief systems, the more likely we are to be free agents and individuals making an individual’s decision.
It’s easy to follow the herd. Not much ‘free will’ in that.
The more unusual or challenging the ideas we embrace, the less likely we are some kind of habitual, near-clone automaton and the more evidence there is that we are NOT creatures playing out compulsive, repetitious behavioural cycles like any other animal.
The harder to understand or more complicated our beliefs, the less likely our adherence to them is an evolutionary reflex. Unusual or radical ideas have to be formed, absorbed and finally proactively accepted. This all takes prodigious helpings of ‘free will’.
Let me give two examples of counter-intuitive belief systems which prove ‘free will’ is in play.
First, in the political realm, classical liberal and libertarian principles.
Adam Smith. Classical Liberal.
In a world of predictable, herd-following progressive versus conservative debates, our views are counter-intuitive and don’t fit their narrative. Our ideas take discipline to apply. We have to constantly think to hold true to them. We are exercising ‘free will’ just to maintain philosophical consistency. In a Left-Right world, we are thinking outside the box and reshaping the political landscape as an Authoritarian-Libertarian world.
Does this sound like the product of an automaton in a matrix, or thinking individuals weighing a fresh and exciting political philosophy?
It smacks of individual thinking and ‘free will’ to me.
Second, in the religious world, Christian faith.
Do you want an example of a mind-bender of a belief, a counter-intuitive thought which takes all of our ‘free will’ – all of us – to absorb and embrace?
OK. I’ll give you one, timely since today is Good Friday:
“For God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son, that whoever shall believe in him, shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Tell me that doesn’t take a large dose of ‘free will’ to accept! Let’s call this idea what it is: über radical! There’s nothing automatic or mundane about this concept. To truly accept the idea, there can be no coercion, only free-thinking and a big leap of faith, individuals making an individual’s decision on a concept well outside the norm.
As I meet more and more classical liberals and libertarians, I become less and less surprised that so many happen to be Christians in their private lives. Of course, you don’t have to be a Christian to be libertarian. The former is a personal moral code, the latter a political one. But, wow, there are a lot of Christian libertarians. Start with the most famous: Ron Paul.
Ron Paul. Christian Libertarian.
None of us should be shocked by this.
Libertarian and Christian ideas are for the free-thinker. Both are challenging to apply. Both respect the dignity of the individual. Both call for personal responsibility. Both respect those who’s lives we touch. Both require the exercise of ‘free will’ and both will be judged on the decisions made with the ‘free will’.
This is a very different person from a conservative who trades on Christianity with words like “I am a cultural Christian. I believe in Judeo-Christian values” but doesn’t even believe let alone go to church on Easter, the singular most important day on the Christian calendar.
No, in my experience, libertarian Christians not only have a parish church and attend on Easter Day, but are actually in the leadership groups of their local church. No virtue signalling over it. Just belief and quiet action. They work hard in their local communities and volunteer because, as one of many reasons, the act of charity is authentic not the act of being charitable with other people’s money.
The inherent tension built into the idea that you should live freely as long as you don’t harm another, John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle, mirrors the ‘free will’ Biblical narrative from the consequences of free choice in Eden to the consequences of choosing to submit in Gethsemane.
These are not ideas for mere creatures playing out compulsive, repetitious behavioural cycles like any other animal.
Rather, these are daring, challenging ideas for the enlightened free-thinker.
Sam Harris is wrong. ‘Free will’ is everywhere and Easter service awaits you this Sunday.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
Should we legislate to stop a government offering indemnities to vaccine manufacturers?
This was a matter which came before the Senate last week in a private members bill.
Some of the reasons given for the Bill were:
“Companies work for shareholders first and it is profits that motivate their decision and actions. People should always be put before profits”;
“Indemnification has created an incentive for risk-taking in the pharmaceutical industry which is not aligned with the fundamental principles of medicine. Where indemnity exists, it is human nature to take larger risks, whether it be a conscious decision or subconscious, the outcomes are poor”; and
“The pharmaceutical industry has a taste for your money.”
Vivid language for the impressionable mind!
The most amicable and well-meaning of senators championed the cause with a rousing speech. A personal friend of mine adroitly negotiated it behind the scenes. It was a case study in politicking, and even attracted the support of one Libertarian state division.
Then with the support of all but Labor, it went to committee for investigation and so will become news again soon. Yes, the centre-right crossbench attracted the Greens and even Senator Thorpe for a moment.
What is not to love?
Against such a juggernaut of consensus, this simple libertarian fig farmer has his misgivings. Have sympathy for me. It’s in my DNA to search for a principle.
We libertarians are fond of paraphrasing John Stuart Mill’s 1859 Harm Principle with phrases like “live and let live, as long as you don’t harm others.”
We are not so persistent in reminding our parliamentary friends that the Harm Principle requires that we ‘weigh such harms.’
The great horror of the last 3 years was that our leaders did not do this. Ignore psychological damage to infant school children plastered with a mask. Ignore the cheap, unhealthy food on the dinner table of a family with dual incomes lost to mandates. Ignore the evaporated life savings of ‘non-essential’ small business owners. Ignore the suicides and mental health flair-ups caused by lockdowns. Ignore the business collapses.
It was one flu-like covid-19 harm, all other harms be damned!
One must weigh the harms.
The problem with the Bill is that it applies a blanket ban and fails to weigh harms.
Just say the next virus is more potent. Let’s say it’s Ebola or something with a 50% mortality rate!
In the end, we need politicians who apply John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty in full. Live and let live as long as you don’t harm others. When there are competing harms, weigh them and choose the least harmful option.
I want our government to have the same commercial tool as any private sector party. Indemnification, or the transfer of risk, is used by outdoor adventure operators, mining equipment hire companies, and many others. Why ban the government?
As a libertarian, I prefer my government to be able to transact like the private sector.
As a libertarian, I prefer my government to be ready to act in the case of genuine pandemic threat. As established, I want the government to potentially offer indemnity to vaccine providers in the case of emergency.
And as a libertarian, I want politicians who’ll use skilled negotiators so offering indemnity won’t be necessary.
Further …
As a libertarian, I’m unimpressed by populist attacks on free enterprise, especially pharmaceutical companies which keep us alive. As a libertarian, I’d be more curious to know why anyone believes a vaccine company should absorb near sovereign-level risk for a government intent on releasing vaccines before they pass the government’s own safety standards. As a libertarian, my focus is on that government maladministration, not the vaccine company.
As a libertarian, I’d prefer my government weren’t both umpire, with its TGA vaccine approval processes, and player, being the acquirer and dispenser of vaccines. I’d prefer to eliminate this conflict of interest.
As a libertarian, I’d like to rollback government from healthcare delivery, replace tired old public hospitals with private hospitals, and to protect charities which run hospitals.
And as a libertarian, I’d prefer our allies in parliament did not run adrift philosophically into the dangerous and choppy waters of the anti-capitalist. I am left in little wonder why the Greens and Senator Thorpe kept the Bill alive.
I believe the correct approach for a libertarian here is to vote against the Bill. In our current system, the Government needs to make it easy for vaccine production to occur in the event of a genuine calamity.
Our government already has one hand tied behind its back running a socialised system. Let’s not tie the other one by banning the free-enterprise bargaining chip of indemnities.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
