Yesterday it was announced that, as part of the government’s seemingly ironical ‘Freedom Bill’, private property owners are to be banned from clamping cars parked illegally on their property. War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength.
If an unwanted someone breaks into my house I am, quite reasonably, entitled to restrain him. Few would argue that I am doing wrong, fewer still that I am interfering with his freedom. He did, after all, make an informed choice when deciding to crowbar open my window and slide into my living room.
Is it so unreasonable, then, to detain his car when this uninvited someone parks on my driveway? It is an equal trespass upon my property.
Advocates of this new ban, including Lynne Featherstone, the Equalities and Criminal Information Minister, have supported their case by highlighting that many clamped drivers were either unaware that they were parking on privately owned land or unaware of the penalties attached to their decision to park. They argue that it is unfair to hold people responsible for their actions in these cases, because they were not aware of the consequences.
This seems a reasonable position. However, even once we accept it, the proportionate solution is still not an outright ban. If clamping is unfair because people do not have adequate information, we need only mandate landowners to provide adequate information (say, in the form of a visible sign reading ‘Private Property- parked cars will be clamped’) to make clamping fair.
That this is a superior policy option is obvious. Drivers not warned of the penalties would not return to clamped cars and landowners could still protect their property against intentional trespass.
Professor Ian Gilmore, former president of the Royal College of Physicians, has said the use of illegal drugs should be decriminalized, ‘drastically reducing crime and improving health’. Contrary to the government’s view, Gilmore has commented that the present system (the Misuse of Drugs Act was introduced in 1971) is simply not working, and that there is a strong case for trying a different approach.
"I’m not saying we should make heroin available to everyone – but we should be treating it as a health issue rather than criminalizing people." Decriminalizing drugs would not mean legalization. People would not be able to buy heroin and cocaine like they can alcohol. The government would have licensing controls, and would attempt control on things like manufacture and supply. Whilst individuals would not be prosecuted for possession, trying to trade using a personal supply would be illegal.
One has to ask, why should people be punished for using drugs? In punishing someone a disability is imposed upon him. Just because an individual’s drug use may lead to ‘bad social consequences’, does not equate it with the requirement of justice to impose punishment only on one who has violated rights (of another individual). Punishing drug users suggests that an individual should be punished purely because if they are not punished, they may continue to commit the act they are being punished for. This is what makes the criminalization of drugs unique; we would not invoke that kind of rationale for a thief or murderer.
In punishing individuals solely because their actions may encourage other to do the same, the medical and mental position of that person is utterly neglected. Those who support decriminalization say it should be combined with diverting money from police to drug treatment services because criminal trafficking would dramatically decrease. The Home Office has said its priorities are clear: to reduce drug use, crack down on drug-related crime and disorder and help addicts come off drugs for good. But, many believe this is only possible through decriminalization. The government claims decriminalization sends the wrong message, encouraging young people to think substances aren’t harmful. Nonetheless, a vast proportion of drug-related crimes within the drugs market come from the fact drug sales are illegal, and medical complications such as the numerous complications that come from dirty needles and contaminated drugs (Gilmore said it was rarely the drugs themselves which caused further difficulties) originate in the illicit nature of drug taking.
Everyone will accept that drugs have bad effects – mental and physical. Arguments for the complete legalization of drugs fall foul of effectively setting out how side effects would not become massive hindrances to the individual and to others. However, to prohibit because to allow would be somehow ‘wrong’, ignores the freedoms one has with alcohol. More seriously, it means many who should be treated as patients are being branded criminals. And, the basic axiom of self-ownership is all but forgotten.
The legalization of brothels, cannabis and medically-assisted dying have formed the radical liberal agenda put to Nick Clegg by members of his own party. Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies, appealing to the half-Dutch Clegg, urged for a more ‘grown-up’ approach to such things, commenting that the Dutch seem to have fewer hang-ups than the British. Just focusing on prostitution – each topic deserves more space than one blog post, anyway – there are several points to be made.
Perhaps the moves of the government should be applauded. Indeed, when it comes to prostitution, the state takes a neutral moral stance. Prostitution per se is not illegal, but almost every ancillary trade that facilitates it is. Stemming from the ‘in private’ element of legislation on sexual activity, the illicit nature of the sex trade as a whole germs far worse things: human trafficking, protection rackets, etc.
It might be sensible for those calling for the three legalizations to think about drugs and prostitution in general. It cannot be ignored that the prostitution industry of today is deeply linked to drugs. The Ipswich serial murders in 2006 provided anecdotal evidence that, to a first approximation, all prostitutes are drug addicts. And, those who are victims of trafficking more often than not turn to drugs. A drug habit is extremely expensive, too expensive for the majority, and certainly too expensive for those who are already addicted. Crime and prostitution are the only ways to fund such a habit.
Ideally, there would be no public spaces, in particular streets, only private ones. It would be for street owners – who would normally be collectives of owners with properties fronting them – to decide whether or not prostitutes could operate. Soliciting and brothels would be decriminalized.
Under market forces, it would be likely that there would be certain streets where prostitutes operated, both in terms of soliciting on the street and premises. These would be secure; they could either be gated or patrolled by private police firms funded by the prostitutes collectively. This type of scheme would mean safer working environments; prostitution could operate there free from the drugs trade, human trafficking or protection rackets.
Sexual mores is a subjective matter for the individual. In a truly free market, where everyone’s individual position is accommodated, other areas, where those with objections to prostitution could happily reside, would see no prostitution, either on the streets or in premises.
The wholesale privatization of streets is a long-term project, and not one Clegg or any other major politician is going to be contemplating. However, private enterprise and secure ‘red-light’ areas could be established tomorrow if there was decriminalization of ancillary trades.
It may seem well-meaning, but Cameron’s ‘localist’ approach still has ‘statist’ written all over it. After all, a local authority is still the state, just at a local level. His support for ten Greater Manchester councils’ plan to pass bylaws addressing public disorder and health problems caused by binge drinking would, he said, complement a localist approach – a good idea then. The bylaws would include a law that each unit of alcohol must cost at least 50p. Bylaws, enacted by single councils, could be challenged under competition rules, commented Cameron, as surrounding areas would be selling alcohol for less. There must also be serious doubts about the powers of local authorities to legislate in this way.
These measures would be fundamentally anti-free-market and must, therefore, be wrong in principle. Even leaving that aside, there is little reason to expect that restrictive measures on pricing will curb alcohol abuse. In the United States, prohibition infamously led to a black market and gangsterism. A clamp-down on heavy drinking in Scandinavia has done nothing but maintain a high incidence of alcohol-related issues.
Where the state has not restricted or limited, but enabled, thing appear to be a lot better. In the Netherlands, for example, the providing of ‘disco buses’ to ferry people back after nights out has drastically reduced fights and other forms of public disorder over the 23 years it has been running. Yes, approaches should, of course, be tailored to suit individual areas, but restricting does nothing more than force people to act illicitly.
Furthermore, the state has no reason to get involved unless adults, who have chosen to stay up late at bars, nightclubs and pubs, cause harm or nuisance to others. In a Libertarian world, of course, it would not be the state, but private, more effective groups invested in by individual communities; true ‘localism’, if you like. Restriction would be replaced with exclusion, and the default position would be one of freedom.
The Department of Health’s comment that we need a better understanding as to why people drink does raise a good point; many people may drink too much, and they drink unthinkingly. But whose job is it to deem this to be the case? And then to act on it in a way they consider will lead to a ‘better’ outcome?
"The British Policing Model is built upon the twin foundation of operational independence and local accountability." So said Sir Hugh Orde, President of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), but his organization proves to be a little more challenging when it comes to transparency and accountability.
As from October of this year, this publicly-funded private ‘‘club” (it is a not-for-profit private company, limited by guarantee) will be included in the Freedom of Information Act. Or will it? There remain serious legal obstacles. The FoIA only covers public authorities, which ACPO is not. But therein lies the point.
ACPO is a private company (nothing wrong with that per se – far from it) but it behaves and is treated like a public authority. It has the badge of a police force and its President is styled, and wears the uniform of, a Chief Constable. Before 1997, ACPO was, indeed, little more than a private club but then New Labour struck a deal with it and the Home Office has been funding it ever since.
Last year the Mail on Sundayrevealed that ACPO earns £18 million a year, funded by £32 million of public money every two. Even under New Labour, alarm bells were ringing (following the Mail’s revelations) that ACPO was getting out of hand. Where the money was going and where it was coming from?
And ACPO is said to have been the driving force behind much of New Labour’s authoritarian policing regime.
As an association, ACPO claim to provide invaluable guidance for forces, providing the country with such initiatives as the ‘Community Safety Accreditation Scheme’. The purpose of this particular scheme (which is one of dozens) is to, ‘assist forces in introducing CSAS, thereby reducing the need for individual forces to develop their own policies… The guidance is not prescriptive and forces may diverge from it on points of detail. They should, however, have clear reason for doing so.’
So where does all this cash go? Between 2006 and 2009, the public funded the £515,000 ‘Park Mark Safer Parking’, a scheme that ensures “safer environments” are “created” in car pars throughout the country through police vetting. More useful perhaps was the £16 million payout to set up Regional Intelligence Units, which purport to give ‘meaningful’ intelligence maps of organized crime groups – a high-tech spying device.
It would seem that the Home Office are doling out public money to a private group of glorified cops. They were the backing behind the 2008 notion to equip police officers with 10,000 Taser guns, and rather than “acting as a voice” for the force, they increasingly seem to be shouting out over the public. Whilst each force becomes a replicating machine for these ill-posed and ill-defined schemes, the public unknowingly funds them.
But, even subject to the FoIA, ACPO will not be properly accountable. If it were a public authority, it would also be subject to the Human Rights Act (for all its faults), some form of democratic accountability, and a complaints procedure, as a police force is.
Could ACPO usefully get the chop in these cash-strapped times? Would British policing be worse off without it? Well, if we are opposed to all forms of central planning as a matter of principle, the answer must be a resounding “cut it!”
Economist Peter Leeson has come out with another compelling and fascinating example of private law in his essay “Gypsies.” Gypsies, as Leeson writes, use their superstition as a means of substituting the public law and order from which they exile themselves.
Gypsies’ religious views, such as the belief that “the lower half of the human body is invisibly polluted, that supernatural defilement is physically contagious, and that non-Gypsies are spiritually toxic” are foreign and strange to most. But they are the glue of sustainable order for the Gypsy community. For example, the idea that non-gypsies are toxic makes the threat of exile more severe. Leeson explains how it creates an inherent cost to disobedience and an inherent base for laws. The beliefs may seem primitive to some, but they nearly perfectly engineer a set of incentives to deter unwanted behavior for a society. The paper goes through how the superstitions and belief system creates a self-enforcing rule of law and system of community organization.
All of Leeson’s work expertly analyzes in an informal and nontraditional manner. It deters from mainstream analysis to reveal how people interact without institutions we see as vital and non-substitutable. Research such as this opens the discussion for alternative policies and methods of social coordination by understanding how groups so different than the norm can have such order. By understanding the dynamics and cost-benefit situations of various different forms of community structure, we can then understand how existing formal institutions work and can be improved.
This essay is interesting for anyone with even a hint of curiosity about human interaction and coordination. Leeson has a knack for making economic analysis peculiarly intriguing.
This week, the ACS (Association of Convenience Stores) has welcomed the Government’s decision to review the ban on tobacco displays in retail stores and warned that the proposed reforms would cost £1,800 per store to introduce. Although it’s not guaranteed that the ban will be overturned, if the government does decide to do so they will send out a clear message that they are serious about reducing regulatory burdens and allowing greater personal and business freedoms.
Under the guise of tackling youth smoking and the burden that smokers place on the NHS, the past government had set into motion a ban that would prove both anti-competitive and excessively punitive for small businesses. Worse still, the ban has little justification: in Canada, the introduction of a display ban led to the closure of many convenience stores and no change in youth smoking habits. Hiding the brands and presence of tobacco in shops will not cut down on the amount of underage smokers, and instead fuel the growing market of contraband cigarettes. So there is no factual justification that removing the display of tobacco will reduce youth smoking, but from Canada, clear evidence that the aims of the ban will not be met and will damage small businesses.
Without doubt this ban should be overturned. Amongst the Coalition MPs, approximately a third have a background in business. This is good news: we need a government that supports small businesses and that seeks to remove the heavy load of laws and regulations brought in by the past government. But going further than that, we need a pro-freedom government as well as a pro-business one. We need the end of a nanny state, which seeks to bring in ‘fat taxes’ and hide fag packets from the consumer. And an end to governments telling us what to eat and how to treat our bodies, using damaging legislation and wasteful initiatives to enforce their dictates. The issue of tobacco control and public health is an area that has long been overdue for an injection of proportionality and common sense - let’s hope we see plenty of it in this review.
The Economist’s website is hosting a debate on the legality of gambling. While both those in favour and against make interesting points, Radley Balko’s approval of legal gambling is most compelling.
Balko points out that criminalizing consensual activities does little to stop the actual acts. People like to gamble and bet. Whether it is an informal wager with friends or blackjack at the casino, it’s inevitable. People take value out of betting whether it’s to a healthy extent or not. Companies that “exploit” the so-called sick and twisted addictive lifestyle of gamblers are really no different that any other company. Groceries, after all, exploit our most basic need for survival. Moreover, when we are starving from not eating all day, we exploit Tesco by paying only a few pounds for a very valuable (to us) meal. The idea of exploitation is misleading, especially when applied to emotionally loaded topics such as gambling.
There is also no external harm in gambling. In private gambling firms, no one outside the transaction is harmed. Dissenters may cite the harm to families and friends of the gamblers. There is no denying that addictive gambling can ruin relationships. Many things can do this. Drinking, depression, illness, etc can break a home and hurt loved ones. Very few argue for prohibition of alcohol, or punishing unhealthy lifestyles. Why should gambling be different?
Balko also points out that a heavily regulated gambling industry is more dangerous than gambling in a free market. Not only does it put tax dollars to waste, it ruins competition in the industry. Gambling may have no virtue, but there’s no need to criminalize it. The UK luckily has a relatively liberal approach to most breeds of gambling. The fundamental issue here, as Balko argues, is the encroachment on personal liberty.
Free societies are those in which government minimizes its intrusion into the lives of its citizens, intervening only to protect individual liberty. Such government makes no effort to use the force of law to impose upon individuals whatever system of values or concepts of morality it may happen to espouse. The British public is generally accepting of this doctrine of non-interventionism, most perceptibly in areas of civil liberties; the swarm of criticism of the recent French law restricting the Islamic niqab, along with Damian Green’s prompt rejection of such an “un-British” law in the United Kingdom, is merely one example of the persistent acceptance of diversity of belief and expression in this nation.
Yet even in the United Kingdom, such tolerance has stiff limits. It does not extend to economic freedoms, as the government regularly pushes us to live our lives in a manner more amenable to the opinions and beliefs of the majority. The British government accomplish this sly form of paternalistic regulation through the imposition of a number of sumptuary taxes that seek to discourage the purchase and consumption of goods that society considers to be undesirable, such as alcohol and tobacco products. The taxes are a popular way to raise revenue, as they are targeted at behaviour considered either unhealthy or otherwise disapproved of by the majority of the public.
While the ability to raise revenue and simultaneously achieve some communal goal such as improved public health may be appealing, sin taxes must be recognized as the social engineering projects that they are. Governments should not seek to discourage or encourage any activity, save for those activities that interfere with the rights of other individuals. If an individual voluntarily chooses to engage in a non-offensive activity, such as enjoying a glass of wine, the government should respect their preferences and refrain from “nudging” (or, after Alistair Darling’s 2008 dramatic sin tax hike, “shoving”) the individual to make a decision desired by the state. Writing a tax code that discourages the consumption of a particular good based on the sole virtue that one is considered “undesirable” is a dangerous step for any society to take, as it imposes communal values upon the individual. In the United States, for example, the discussion of sin taxes has gradually extended from alcohol and tobacco to dietary habits and pornography.
It would be quite controversial for the government to levy a special tax on the sale of the niqab, in order to discourage its use. Similar resistance to behavioural revision should be applied to sumptuary taxes on alcohol and tobacco, as well.
Operation Trident, to quote its website, is “an anti-gun crime operation that was set up in 1998 to help bring an end to a spate of shootings and murders among young, black Londoners”. Despite it being in effect for 12 years, on the 13 April Agnes Sina-Inakoju, aged 16, was shot by mistake in the neck and subsequently died. The current approach towards gang crime is evidently not working and conventional logic is equally at fault. What is clear is that a radical new approach is necessary. Conventional logic would increase CCTV or place ASBOs on people, a totalitarian solution that has failed, where a liberal one may succeed.
Much violence is based on a desire for respect and in reaction to perceived slurs in gang dominated sections of society. Outside these gangs the same problems are dealt with entirely differently, however this was not always the case. Medieval knights, noblemen and royals would do anything to be seen as courageous and to preserve their honour, and as is the case with modern city gangs were prepared to die defending that image. The system that was established is that of duelling.
Strict rules were in place for how grievances should be redressed. These came in a variety of forms subject to locality, ranging from the Lex Alamannorum dated 712-730 AD to The Code of Honor; or Rules for the Government of Principals and Seconds in Dueling published in 1838 America. All duels would be fought in isolated locations, which would in the tragic case above have saved the life of one 16 year old girl and countless more. Before a duel could take place an apology or redress would be sought, both by the parties involved and by neutral third parties, again, likely to save lives lost in vain to misunderstandings.
It ought to be a right that people can do with their body exactly as they wish. The UK courts do not appreciate this as the case of R v Brown [1994] illustrates, however, one can risk death participating in boxing, a conflict fought one to one. It seems logical that by legalising duels that are properly organised, after arbitration has been tried and other means of redress dismissed, many aimless deaths could be avoided as well as increasing individuals’ liberties to engage as they wish in regards to their actions, thus increasing their liberty.
Yesterday it was 
Professor Ian Gilmore, former president of the Royal College of Physicians, has 
The legalization of brothels, cannabis and medically-assisted dying have formed the radical liberal agenda put to Nick Clegg by members of his own party. Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies, appealing to the half-Dutch Clegg, urged for a more ‘grown-up’ approach to such things, commenting that the Dutch seem to have fewer hang-ups than the British. Just focusing on prostitution – each topic deserves more space than one blog post, anyway – there are several points to be made.
"The British Policing Model is built upon the twin foundation of operational independence and local accountability." So said Sir Hugh Orde, President of the 
Economist Peter Leeson has come out with another compelling and fascinating example of private law in his essay “
This week, the ACS (Association of Convenience Stores) has 
The Economist’s website is hosting a 
Free societies are those in which government minimizes its intrusion into the lives of its citizens, intervening only to protect individual liberty. Such government makes no effort to use the force of law to impose upon individuals whatever system of values or concepts of morality it may happen to espouse. The British public is generally accepting of this doctrine of non-interventionism, most perceptibly in areas of civil liberties; the swarm of criticism of the recent French law restricting the Islamic niqab, along with Damian Green’s prompt rejection of such an “un-British” law in the United Kingdom, is merely one example of the persistent acceptance of diversity of belief and expression in this nation.