Left Outside

Its delightful when an Anglican clergy man finds himself fighting for the same cause as someone called PigDogFucker. But this is the situation in which we find ourselves when the subject turns to shop lifting. Father Tim Jones has said it is entirely justified for those in his congregation to steal if they find themselves in genuine need. He goes on to argue that theft from large national firms is more easily justifiable than theft from small family businesses. In a similar vein, PigDogFucker approvingly quotes the CEO of  Iceland trying to sound sarcastic but failing:

Petty shoplifting has been decriminalised – it’s not really a crime at all, is it? No one suffers, the shop can afford it. It’s victimless.”

While it is clearly controversial to claim that it is moral to shoplift, philosophically speaking it is not particularly difficult to justify. It all comes down to property, who has a right to control what, and whether or not that right is absolute.

The archetypal (or should that be archaic?) justification for private property comes from Locke.

Labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to. As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property.

However a number of problems flow from this argument for property rights. First of all, Locke argues that the world is at first ours in common because God has granted it to all of us. By mixing our labour with part of the world we come to own part of it. This a priori assertion is thoroughly unsatisfying in the search for a rational basis for private property.

As Locke was writing in the 17th Century vast swathes of untouched land were being discovered, and England was still a patchwork of common land, conurbations, crown and private estates, [1] so he added another proviso to his “mixing labour” argument. He argued that the acquisition of property is only legitimate if “enough and as good left in common for others.”

While this would have been a possibility in Locke’s time, in a world of 6 billion souls, and in a medium sized island like out own this proviso is much harder to realise. Therefore, in order to justify private property some mental gymnastics are necessary. Between the 17th century, when Locke was writing, and our own time private property has become firmly entrenched, and it would be somewhat churlish to argue that the explosion in wealth, prosperity and comfort which we have seen since then is just a coincidence.

So, although enough and as good has not been left in common for others, the increase in wealth which has followed means that we are all better off as a result, even though – perhaps exactly because – private property rights have meant that there is not as much or as good left in common.

This then brings us to the subject of shoplifters. There are a lot of reasons to shoplift; hunger can lead the homeless to steal for a hunk of bread to eat, but addiction can lead others to steal because they need something to sell for a rock of crack to smoke, others steal because it is an addiction in itself.

In the case of the homeless you have to weigh the rights of one party to property against the rights of another to freedom from hunger. It is possible to argue, and some have, that the homeless should indeed go hungry and starve if they cannot find someone to give them food, because property rights are sacrosanct. Although the homeless person is worse off – i.e. dead – if property rights are enforced in this way, he is no worse off than if he lived in a state of nature where his life would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

That this idea repulses us is a fairly good indicator that we may have some across a formulation of property rights that is untenable in the real world. This example illustrates that we must accept property rights are far from absolute, and that in fact it is a just outcome for you to be separated from your property.

However, our priest said society’s attitude to those in need “leaves some people little option but crime.” His was not just a justification for taking just what is needed to secure a life free from hunger, but as a way to extract what is justly theirs as members of a liberal society. This is why he prompted those in need to steal from national chains and not small businesses.

By taking what is needed from large businesses the costs of those crimes get recycled back to us in the form of higher prices. Rather than the beggars, our priest’s call was to “people are released from prison, or [those] find themselves suddenly without work or family support.” These are people who have been let down by society but who are not in imminent danger of expiring.

This leads us to an altogether more difficult set of moral dilemmas. For example, the support that those who leave prison get is derisory, and certainly counter-productive, but this unilateral socialisation of the costs of this failing is not just on the terms described above.

Society has failed some people, the idea that the costs of these failings should be socialised not by state support or voluntary associations but by theft is not justifiable. Although “need” must be understood as something more complex than mere physical subsistence – for example, nappies, bathing products, warm winter coats – the people this is aimed at can never get the support necessary through theft alone.

Our priest wants to argue that these people must get the support they need by hook or by crook it is not possibly to steal counselling, or to steal a stable home or steal full time employment, and these are things is that those in need probably need most. Although it is possible, and easy, to justify some theft the help this priest wants to provide will never come of it. The answer is more state support for those who leave prison, and not knee jerk “crack downs”, the answer is a proper drugs regime where addicts can access clean needles when they need it, and counselling and support when the need that too.

Unfortunately this stuff does not come cheap and this cost must be socialised, luckily, rather than shoplifting we have a state that can do all that.

[1] That’s how it was seen at the time. The Amerindians, Indians, Aborigines, Bushmen and Inuit did get in Locke’s way somewhat but he skirted around this. In any case, they soon died of flu and syphilis and freed up space, so all’s well that ends well.

Dan Hannan has a dreadful top ten reasons to leave the EU (H/T Thomas Byrne). As indicated above, I hold no love for the EU but I hold Dan in even deeper disdain. This list has not changed my mind.

1. Since we joined the EEC in 1973, we have been in surplus with every continent in the world except Europe. Over those 27 years, we have run a trade deficit with the other member states that averages out at £30 million per day.

• Correlation is not Causality. Perhaps, just perhaps, not being in a free trade area with other European states would have lead us to run a worse deficit with the rest of the world. Perhaps, just perhaps, allowing UK Governments to protect inefficient UK firms would have lead us to run smaller surpluses with other continents. I certainly don’t know; evidently neither does Dan Hannan.

2. In 2010 our gross contribution to the EU budget will be £14 billion. To put this figure in context, all the reductions announced by George Osborne at the Conservative Party Conference would, collectively, save £7 billion a year across the whole of government spending.

• To pretend that it is possible to work out the exact gross contribution of the UK to the EU is to ignore all the economics you might have ever learned. You would have to map the workings of a continent-wide multi-national economy. Dan Hannan doesn’t believe any state planner can do that (and they can’t) and I don’t believe he can (and he can’t).

3. On the European Commission’s own figures, the annual costs of EU regulation outweigh the advantages of the single market by €600 to €180 billion.

• The fact that this figure is so different to the one above suggests that, rather than working from a coherent set of beliefs, Dan is picking whatever Euroskeptic statistics catch his eye.

4. The Common Agricultural Policy costs every family £1200 a year in higher food bills.

• Probably true actually. I’ll let Dan have this one (how magnanimous of me!). The CAP is an interesting bugbear of just about everyone on the left and right and if Dan Hannan could provide some sources – which he hasn’t done – he may even be able to prove the figure given is accurate or at all relevant.

5. Outside the Common Fisheries Policy, Britain could reassert control over its waters out to 200 miles or the median line, which would take in around 65 per cent of North Sea stocks.

• And yet, we would still be faced with a situation where fisherman are fighting for the right to overfish their waters. The EU is dreadful at managing its fisheries, but Dan has provided us with no reason to convince us that the UK in a condition of anarchy could do better. Although its entirely possible to manage natural resources by voluntary arrangement, important matters also lend themselves to global or regional governance too.

6. Successive British governments have refused to say what proportion of domestic laws come from Brussels, but a thorough analysis by the German Federal Justice Ministry showed that 84 per cent of the legislation in that country came from the EU.

• No! For Christ’s sake he can’t believe its fair to compare one analysis of Germany’s legislative position with our own?! Oh, propaganda you say? Well that’s fine then, continue!

7. Outside the EU, Britain would be free to negotiate much more liberal trade agreements with third countries than is possible under the Common External Tariff.

• Possibly, but would we have? Before joining the EU we were still set on a semi-Imperial trajectory. Dominions, colonies and the common wealth gained preferential treatment and our post 1930s Ottawa Conference world may not have given way to our free trade heritage as Dan Hannan fantasises.

8. The countries with the highest GDP per capita in Europe are Norway and Switzerland. Both export more, proportionately, to the EU, than Britain does.

• What?! Nor-massive Natural Gas reserves-way and Switzer-banking hub-land? Once again, I think Dan is confusing correlation and causality.

9. Outside the EU, Britain could be a deregulated, competitive, offshore haven.

• The idea that we are not an already heavily deregulated economy is a little silly. We are far from the ideal Devils Kitchen or Charlotte Gore might want to see, but compared to the actually existing capitalist world we are not overly burden by regulation (I’m a little lost as to how Dan thinks leaving the EU will make us more offshore than we already are).

10. Oh, and we’d be a democracy again.

• This seems somewhat at odd with point 9. The great deregulated, competitive offshore havens tend to be fairly undemocratic. Whether it is illiberal but tidy Singapore, wealthy but undemocratic Hong Kong or sponsored by Lord Ashcroft Belize the “deregulated, competitive, offshore haven[s]” Dan describes are rarely democratic. I know I’ve harangued Dan for his confusion of correlation of causality but there are lots of reasons to suggest that liberal economics and democracy are not particular compatible.

Contrary to what you have read Dan Hannan is an intelligent man, and he must surely know that some of his Top Ten reasons to leave the EU are based on distortion and outright speculation. He knows that even those that are based on actual facts are so augmented by guesswork and historic counterfactuals that no one could seriously consider them for inclusion in any sort of Top Ten.

This post was about firing up a base of Euroskeptics who will believe almost any anti-EU propaganda fed to them. Sadly it appears that Dan Hannan is far more interested in being popular than in being accurate.

Rage Against the Machine have secured the Christmas Number One, narrowly beating X Factor winner Joe McElderry’s The Climb by 50,000 copies.

However, the fact remains that 450,000 copies of McElderry’s dirge were sold. Its things like this that make me despair of the General Public and forces me to read Brecht and think, yeah, dissolve the people!

After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had thrown away the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

• A Very Public Sociologist has a look at when blogs die.
• Five Chinese Crackers lets us all know how to write a Christmas is Banned story.
• Giles Wilkes tries to inject some sense into our inflation debate.
• The Heresairch writes the post I wish I’d written on Liam Donaldson, but was too insensed to.
• Lenin; Copenhagen – Nopenhagen.
• Mark Reckons say “Fuck you, I won’t buy what you tell me” to Simon Cowell.
• The Daily Quail finds The Daily Mail’s readers are remarkably consistent. Consistently twats.

I was going to title this with an expletive but I couldn’t.

This sign, which has become a symbol for the cynical torture of all those murdered at Auschwitz, was stolen between 0330 and 0500 local time on Friday.

There’s not much to do but watch what develops, and hope those involved are caught.

I’ve finally bought Capital! And I got 70% off at Borders. Take that gale of creative destruction and put it in your centralisation of capital pipe!

I also bought 9 other books totalling about £40 so I’m a happy bunny. Got Eric Hobsbawm’s Age of Capital, Empire and Extremes, Paul Krugman’s Conscience of a Liberal and The Return of Depression Economics, Keay’s China: A History, Stiglitz‘ Making Globalisation Work, Dostoevsky’s The Idiot and the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

So I’ve a pretty good Christmas ahead of me once I finish Lolita (which is written even better than I expected but which is dragging a little) and  Schwartz‘ States versus Markets I will be diving in to this lot.

And recommendations on where to start?

Once again I find myself in broad agreement with Dave Semple. I would very much like to see the court ruling which has barred BA staff from striking, but from the outset it looks as though democracy has been damaged by a technicality.

Also of note is that Peter Tachell has stood down as Green Candidate for Oxford East. I was aware that he’d suffered some injuries while on marches and protests but I had no idea that they might stop him campaigning and fighting. I wish him a peaceful christmas and a recooperative 2010.

Anton Vowl on “The Greatest Newspaper in the World” The Daily Express:

It’s like the Mail, but worse. It’s as if someone had seen the Mail and thought: “That looks quite entertaining, but can we possibly make it less good, more racist and more comically awful to look at? Let’s really go for it!”

His post would normally go in my “Top Blogging” but this post deserves a little accolade all of its own.

• Paul Cotterill thinks Moody’s are predicting a riot.
• Paul Sagar sets up a duel between Simon Cowell and Joseph Schumpeter.
• Claude has more on the attack of Berlusconi and what it means for freedom of expression in Italy.
• The NEF have produced a frankly disappointing (actually not disappointing, lamentably predictable) report. Giles Wilkes has more.
• Unity continues to patiently, and occasionally impatiently, point out why Global Warming is real, and why its man made, and why we might want to do something about it.