Feudalism - A Good System?

Today Feudalism is a system mainly associated with the Middle-Ages, primitivism, and serfdom. It is true that in some cases of looking at feudal society serfdom appears to be present, but it is not this aspect that distinguishes feudalism from other political systems (After all serfs also existed in highly centralized Tsarist Russia and to some extent in Communist regimes, where agricultural workers were not permitted to relocate themselves to other areas.) An important aspect of the Feudal system was rather its decentralized character. The concept of lords, vassals, and their contractual voluntary relationships makes Feudalism unique. A Feudal-based Monarchy is something I would advocate (whereas I would certainly NOT advocate any sort of totalitarian rule through absolute Monarchy). True enough, feudal lords often expanded their realm by conquest, but it was not commonly the case. A landlord would usually swear fealty to a more powerful lord or a King because the latter offered him a high degree of security and protection. The King (or lord), in turn, offered the vassal protection of liberties and property for some sort of earlier agreed fee (perhaps a tax, tribute, or a form of military service). Thus the vassal's rights were fully protected - he could at any moment break the contract and join another lord or become independent. No taxes were superimposed on the vassals - they had to be agreed to by the people being taxed. These are hugely important rights which none of us have today (in a supposedly "free" democratic system). Apart from those advantages (protecting regionalism and individualism), Feudalism also allowed many voluntary bonds to be created and many non-governmental institutions to prosper. One of these great institutions was the Catholic Church and its Monastic system - to which our society owes a tremendous debt (I highly recommend the book How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.).
I think it is imperative that we all rethink our stance on Feudalism - which was a more natural and less corrupt system than we live under today.

Public Healthcare revisited...

On a funny note, I am going tell a little anecdote I am borrowing from the ever-wise and genius Janusz Korwin-Mikke:

Imagine three horses, two donkeys, and one zebra being harnessed to one carriage. The driver then proceeds to take his seat, invites the passengers in, and sets off. Now this carriage is never going to be able to travel properly! Even if all the animals are well trained and work their best, it's not going to work. The physical differences between them are just too vast.
Now - who is the person responsible for this abysmal failure? The amiable and hardworking animals, the helpless passengers, or the idiot why put this whole venture together?

The responsibility is, of course, borne by the politicians (the people who arranged the whole system) not by the medical professionals or the customers forced to act within the unworkable system. This is pretty much how every government venture works, whether it is the railways, the hospitals, or the education system.

Births and Deaths...

Today is Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth II's birthday! I wish her a sincerely happy 84th and many to come! I have already mentioned on this blog that the British Monarchy is a bit of a farce, bot nonetheless the royal blood should be honored. Who knows, maybe someday people will come to their senses and we will see the House of Windsor enjoy some proper rule and respect again.

On a more sad note, today we say goodbye to Anna Walentynowicz, a founding member of Solidarity and great fighter against Communism in Poland. She was 81 and died in the Smolensk disaster last week. May she rest in peace!

Socialism, Sensationalism, and Scaremongering

The socialists have done it again! Mr. José Manuel Durão Barroso, the President of the European Commission (i.e. the EU Politburo), has announced that there will be an investigation and "emergency talks" about the volcanic ash cloud over Europe, which at present is hampering air travel all around the continent. This is of course just a bunch of nonsense and another way to take our money and put it to their ridiculous uses. The EU have to be seen doing something about everything, a tactic well employed by Communist regimes in the former Eastern Block as well as Fascist governments (Mussolini famously declared "battle" and "war" on every problem he attempted to solve). Thus they try to keep us all scared. First of Global Warming (now rebranded "climate change" - since there is no warming...), then Swine Flu (the UK government wasted billions of pounds on unused flu shots), now - THE VOLCANIC CLOUD! The Earth attacks! Fire, ruin, airplanes falling out of the sky at will of the mighty beast! The truth is that over 99% of the cloud is water vapour from the melting glacier and the particles thrown up by the eruption, although some can be harmful to jet engines, are mostly miniscule and not dangerous at all. However, when I watched the BBC News last night I got the impression that the end of air travel in Europe was imminenet and that any airplane would crash minutes after take-off after being overwhelemed by dangerous fumes. If that is the case, then how come the airport in Reykjavík, the capital city of ICELAND(!), is functioning normally? Also, Ireland, the country closest to the eruption (aside from Iceland itself) has ceased all restrictions on air travel. I find this whole business highly reminiscient of the previous scares which proved to be hoaxes. The governments (both EU and national) have to be seen as protecting people. Meanwhile, they are causing massive damage to the economy - what a time to be doing that!

There is no better time than this to remind ourselves of a great saying by a famous man, Stefan Kisielewski - "Socialism is the system under which people bravely combat problems not present under any other system!" (My own transaltion) He couldn't be more right! Ash cloud or not, we need to be fighting something, eh Comrades? And I thought Don Quixote was a fool to battle windmills!

Martyrdom Disease

As Lech Kaczyński was buried on Wawel Hill today (in the tombs with Poland's greatest heroes, Kings, and patriots) a certain era has ended. Firstly, Mr.Kaczyński is now regarded as a "saint", and secondly, he has become (instantly in the moment of his death) a great hero of the Polish People. You can see these crazy beliefs all around in Poland; my homeland is sadly very susceptible to the syndrome of the cult of personality. Now, Lech Kaczyński, as I wrote earlier, was a good man, but certainly NOT a good president. He singed he dreaded Lisbon Treaty and thus sentenced Poland to the great European "Anschluss". Poland as a country pretty much no longer exists (not as a sovereign state anyway) thanks to President Kaczyński. There is absolutely nothing a good Pole ought to be thanking that man for. For some reason, however, whenever this gets mentioned other Polish people just tend to accuse the speaker of being such a horrible person he deserves a life-time in jail (again this is a symptom of the cult of personality growing around Kaczyński for the simple reason he died while "on duty"). This applies to a lesser degree also to other people who dies in the Smolensk airplane crash. I cannot help to draw a parallel here with US history. There are two US Presidents who I consider absolutely horrendous, not to use the word evil who are subject to the same treatment as President Kaczyński. One is Abraham Lincoln and the other J.F.Kennedy. Both of these men were plain nuts (Lincoln was literally crazy; he took large doses of mercury-based anti-depressants throughout his life). Lincoln slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Americans (including civilians in Nazi-like tactics) in the bloody War to Prevent Southern Independence. JFK was a socialist and warmonger who, without provocation or cause, invaded Vietnam and started the bloody war there. However neither of these men can be touched so to speak, their reputation is thought to be untarnished by the average American. Why? Not least because they died while "on duty", both assassinated...

O tempora, o mores! How can we, rational human beings, ever be this stupid?

The Big Debate

My blog has been silent for a respectful week after the tragic death of many Polish officials in Smolensk, Russia. Now it is time to return to the mundane business of everyday politics. And already a big subject is looming: the UK pre-election debate. The Three Stooges participating were Gordon Brown (the Commie), David Cameron (the wimpy Conservative), and Nick Clegg (the Populist). Voters are going to have to go for the lesser Evil on this one I think. What really surprised me is the debate verdict I saw on the news last night; people seem to think that Clegg actually did well and that the LibDems are a good choice! This is a ludicrous point of view! I have heard (on numerous occasions before this election debate) the Liberal Democrats contradict themselves most of the times they discuss important issues. Take spending, for example - it is definitely true that massive government spending cuts will be necessary to revive the UK economy and curb socialism. Among the three main parties only the Conservatives have said they will do this (and even they not to the extent I consider necessary). Labour, as usual, just want to enlarge spending! Any Labour rhetoric about cuts is plain nonsense, they have never cut any spending in any way since they first got into power in the 1920's. I don't know even one respectable economist (or political theorist for that matter) who would say that the governments of Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson, James Callaghan in the 1950, 60's, and 70's as well as the "New Labour" under Blair and Brown, were anything but DISASTROUS! Labour is famous for initiating socialist and welfare state policies which systematically bankrupt the British Government and the British People themselves. The Conservatives are always voted into office to fix and patch things up, and they have done quite well at it (especially under the immense Baroness Thatcher!). The LibDems, however, have said that they will deliver sweeping spending cuts, and on other occasions I heard them say "all spending cuts will have to be agreed to by the people who we cut money from." This is blatantly ridiculous. It is apparent that NOBODY will agree to have money taken from them, so there will be NO spending cuts. Also, the LibDem rhetoric of "fairness" and punishing the rich sounds distinctly Leninesque. "You are rich - you need to give us your money in the interest of fairness and equality you bourgeois dogs!"
Thirdly, the Liberal Democrats have never been in power at all. Supposedly this is to work to their advantage (I don't see how...). Nick Clegg's message is basically this: "The other two have already messed things up and had their chance, now give me a crack at it!". Of course in this sense I could also apply for the job of British PM, I've never tried it either... Who knows, maybe I'd do well? I daresay I would definitely do better than Nick Clegg! But this is how democracy works - even the most loony populists can get power if they can somehow appeal to the people (it doesn't matter how much they lie in the process).
All in all, I see something very disturbing on the horizon in Britain (and I don't mean that giant volcanic cloud...). I am in no way endorsing the Conservative Party, however. I sincerely hoped that more political parties would be invited to the debate, including UKIP, the Scottish National Party, or the BNP. The British have to make up their mind on who to vote for, and they really need to get it right this time!

Our National Tragedy

The death of the Polish President is only the tip of the iceberg in the events of yesterday morning. Lech Kaczyński, though not the best of presidents in my opinion, was certainly a good man - a real Polish patriot. He never collaborated with the Communist regime, he wanted to reveal and punish those responsible for the atrocities of the Polish People's Republic, and he was a stout warrior in the battle against corruption. God rest his soul. There were, however, over 80 other top government officials killed in the crash, in addition to members of the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox clergies and other patriotic organizations. The list includes 3 Senators and 15 Members of the Sejm (One of whom, Zbigniew Wassermann, I had the pleasure of meeting back in 2006). Critically, also all the Chiefs of Staff of the Polish Military (Army, Navy, Air Force, Special Forces, and Warsaw Garrison) were killed, something that has never happened in any war in Poland's long history. They all died in the service of their country. Hopefully this tragic loss is not one that has destroyed Poland's Elites entirely, but we'll see how our remaining political leaders deal with the situation from now on.

Requiescant in pace

I would also like to say that I appreciate the efforts of the Russian Government, who, for once, seem to be taking a matter of Polish tragedy seriously.

Socialist Economy vs Normal Economy

There is one key difference between the two - their final goal and objective.

In a normal (free, voluntary, capitalist) economy, the goal is to reduce the overall amount of labour. In other words, capitalists want to completely eliminate useless labour and also decrease necessary labour as much as possible. This is done through elimination of inefficiency and reduction in costs of production or increasing output (through mechanization or other means). Thus time people spend working decreases and they have more time for leisure and other activities (because they are so productive!). For the best detailed discussion of this phenomenon I recommend parts of Ludwig von Mises's Human Action.

Meanwhile the goal of the socialist (coercive, centrally-planned, governmental) economy is to create jobs and keep people employed. This is probably the second most absurd notion in socialism (second only to the phenomenon of "Robin Hoodery" - see here). Socialism achieves its goal by "creating" useless jobs. This is why socialist take-over is always combined with a huge increase in bureaucratic positions and functions which are completely unnecessary in a normal world. In the USSR and other socialist nations of the Eastern Block bureaucratic governmental committees oversaw everything from the manufacture of spoons to the recipes in cook books - literally everything. Socialist governments also tend to fund economically unviable ventures as long as they provide jobs, thus the creation of so-called "public works programs". Thus socialists make everyone perpetually perform repetitive and dull activities which serve no real purpose, and then claim to be saviours of the economy. For an example of such socialist action I highly recommend reading Bastiat's Candlestick makers' petition here.

With all this well known and documented, can somebody tell me why so many people still trust socialism to be good for anyone?

Band of Goodnatured Thieves

Evil always manages to hide itself behind something Good. The ultimate conservative credo (in my opinion) is - The ends DO NOT justify the means. Every person must be principled and follow the rules of common law and morality, even if it appears to him that he could do more "good" by not following the rules. It is more important to not harm others and do evil, than it is to do good and help the needy. A classic example of this is the "noble thief", Robin Hood. He stole from the rich (mostly landlords who collected rent and dues for using their fields) and gave to the poor (the peasants who worked for the landlords and also other simpletons). This is largely how today's average Western-style government functions and justifies its actions. "The rich" are the people who earn money in a free capitalist society. "The poor" are the people who by some misfortune or fault of their own don't earn as much. The government always promises to take some of the successful people's money and distribute it among the poor - after taking a fair provision for its criminal work of course! The government uses the stolen money for "good" causes, i.e. helping the poor and disadvantaged. But the process itself - stealing - is inherently evil. This is why tax-collectors were usually treated as sinners and thieves in ancient and medieval time. They had (and have) no right to the property they were taking, but they took it nonetheless (with the use of force if necessary).

Jesus and Matthew the Evangelist - His Disciple and former Tax-collector. God himself has proven to us that the taxman can be converted onto the right path, why not try to persuade our own taxmen?

Happy Easter!

Alleluia Alleluia! It's Easter Sunday, the most important day of the year for Christians, and I want to wish everyone a very happy Easter. However, no blog post of mine is complete without bashing some evil thing. Today - taxes. Just have a short think about why Jesus is famous for converting and dining with "sinners and tax collectors", could something link the two? More on this soon-ish.

Neo-Con, Neo-Lib?

It is no accident that the first people who called themselves neoconservatives (see Irving Kristol) were Trotkyites and the first neoliberals (see John Maynard "The Beast" Keynes) were Marxists. These people come from the Lefty end of the spectrum - politically, morally, and economically. I would argue this is perhaps the main problem with today's politics. There is no more right-wing! People tend to think Hitler was a far right-wing politician! They couldn't be more wrong... Adolf Hitler was known for being a Nazi (German: Nationalsozialismus) which means National-Socialist. I do not agree with any definition of "far right" or "right-wing" which includes socialism. Socialism is in fact the essence of the left! The real far right is clearly represented by anarcho-capitalists like Murray Rothbard. Mr.Rothbard was one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th Century and his works (although I have only had time to study a minuscule fraction of them) have left a clear imprint on my own thought. He argued, as do all real far right radicals, that statism is always absolutely evil. How can such thought be at all related to Hitler? It seems to me to be the opposite of what the Nazi doctrine was. Similarly, today's "right" is not really on the right. It is simply a sub-section of the left (today's entire political spectrum from the greens and communists all the way to the fascists and neo-nazis IS in fact on the left). There are a few rays of light that shine through this "leftness", most notably the figure of Congressman Ron Paul in the USA. Although he believes in constitutional authority and is a moderate proponent of democracy (on a limited scale) he is as far right as we can hope for from politicians today. Being surrounded, however, by neocons and neolibs, he doesn't have much power to change anything...