There are 3 essays on this page, which were published earlier, including:

• Libertarian Essay Number 1
• Competition Essay
• Scottish Referendum

Libertarian Essay Number 1

Mercifully I am released from party politics no place for non conformists or those with serious conviction, I knew my days with UKIP were numbered when I heard the phrase 'we cannot sell that on the doorstep'. This from a party which came to prominence by being different, a cavaliers ' approach to political correctness,disdain for the metropolitan press elite. The party has now abandoned any pretence at libertarianism.Ask the leadership for a view on fractional reserve banking, hard currency, legal tender laws,regulation, central banks, QE,market interest rates etc. The response will be ' er kick out Johnny Foreigner Drinks all round!' James Delingpole correctly label UKIP as Liberal Democrats with a Eurosceptic bias. Last year I gave a lecture to the Institute of Economic Affairs predicting a lost opportunity in politics, I did not want to be proven right. Having said that they are streets ahead of the other lot who would like a political commissar in every parish. A wonderful opportunity has arisen though , freed from party political work to get on with more important matters.Not the least of which was completing Gibbon's Decline and Fall. This provoked some research outside my usual sphere of economics and military history. I also found time for a few holidays . On with the fell boots and away on creaky knees to the Welsh and Cumbrian mountains. From the peaks we could see that testimony to man's folly offshore wind turbines, too many to count.

This came as a shock as we live in rural East Yorkshire , the scale overwhelmed us. There is no serious economic or scientific assessment which has not condemned this crony capitalistic scam, exposed by no less than the retired chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schroeder by this , whose country is so threatened by this 'green' absurdity. But I wanted to dig deeper, none of this is new.Any horny handed son of the soil at my local pub is on to the wind scam,yet now they see landowners add to their monstrous single farm payment rent for pipelines to carry CO2 out to sea whilst their neighbours growing tomatoes and cucumbers buy machines to manufacture it to assist production.The local power station,Drax, burn wood chippings from Canada and local grass which takes thousands of acres out of food production. Old age pensioners struggle by on a pittance in the local towns and the greenies claim the moral high ground! So where does Gibbon come into all this? Well I have been investigating the conversion of Constantine , the emergence of Jerome, St Augustine and Ambrose. These early Christians craved martyrdom, the equivalent of a second baptism ,fully atoning for past sins,a gateway to paradise if you will. Notwithstanding we now live , at least in the west, in a secular society martyrdom is obviously something some members of humankind need. The paradox is the modern greenie is always well heeled. Mummy and daddy are often loaded so offsprings Barnaby and Polly can sail around the world on the Greenpeace yacht with none of the angst they would feel on uncle Ted' s boat in the Med. Ironically this modern martyrdom is pain free to them,those who suffer are the poor who cannot afford electricity or food and have seen their jobs go to the Far East. If you doubt me check " athletes of god" . Particularly the Stylites who lived in the Eastern Empire in the Fifth century they lived on top of poles! There were Holy Fools who rejected normal social conventions and behaved as though they were insane. These ascetic ideals are difficult for most of us to understand as we live lives of quiet desperation under the iron heel of the state. But these people are today a strong political force albeit small in number. As ever their counter party the crony capitalist hovers like the Griffin Vulture ready to gorge on the carcass. Even the Holy Fool and his money are soon parted.

Competition Essay 

Let us assume for the purpose of argument we were hosting a competent, experienced management consultant from another galaxy with an in depth knowledge of planet earth’s economic history. He has, of course, no cronies, no axe to grind, he is dispassionate, he is most certainly not an intellectual or academic. He is not part of any political dogma or machine. He has no cronies and no personal financial interest. Indeed he returns to his own galaxy on completion of his report. What would this ice-cold individual recommend driven by pure common sense? 

I believe he would summarise the industrial economies of planet earth very simply. ‘Government is your problem not your solution’. The United Kingdom is an ideal example but much the same could be deduced from any European or American economy to a greater or lesser extent. 

What is the role of government? At the beginning of the second British industrial revolution, at the risk of being mildly over simplistic, one could argue it was defence of the realm and keeper of the Queen’s peace. There were many other secondary minor roles, the main understanding of the responsibility was generally accepted. Taxes were raised to maintain a navy to protect trade and an army to keep a European balance of power. Borders were open, passports were non existent, revenue was, by modern standards a very small percentage of GDP. (Incidentally GDP is a very poor reflection of an economy but here is not the place to expose its frailties).

The second industrial revolution, arguably the period between 1815 and 1913 was a direct result of the enormous strides made in technical innovation. The advances were not peculiar to the United Kingdom. France enjoyed its ‘Belle Epoch’ and the United States was emerging as a major industrial power as was the new united Germany. Although major advances in medical science came later and social deprivation was rife, life for the average British subject improved dramatically over that one hundred year period. There were social advances promulgated by the great philanthropists of the age, Titus Salt, Cadbury and Rowntree. Some of the great societies came of age The Royal Society, Geographical Society, various medical institutions, particularly the great teaching hospitals. There was the birth of a Police Authority whose mission statement was the prevention of crime. Indeed the Victorian age was a testament to man’s initiative, certainly not government’s.

What else facilitated this unprecedented advance by humankind on this small island? Perhaps the most important catalyst for this was sound money. The British formally adopted the gold standard post Napoleonic Wars. The gold standard simply prohibits governments from degrading the currency. Victorians understood, unlike their successors in the 20th Century that money is a medium of exchange. It is not wealth in its own right. Interest rates therefore reflect the true cost of money. Governments could not over borrow or ‘print’ money. The concept of ‘time preference’ was the cornerstone of the medium of exchange. This stability ofmoney meant that the staple diet of the common man remained constant for nearly ninety years. A phenomenon inconceivable to 21st Century man. This meant that the massive advances in science and technical methods of production were passed straight to the citizen. Thrift was rewarded, the individual could make provision for his family. The equation should be how far did man progress in relative terms from 1815 to 1915 to 1915 to 2015. Why in the last seventy years has the national debt exploded to totally un-repayable levels yet the nation has been at peace and significant scientific advances continue to be made. Why in the last ten years has the advance in living standards of the ordinary family stagnated?

Let us examine for a moment the extraordinary expansion of the role of government much of which is relatively recent. Perhaps one might pause here for reflection on political systems. Two main political systems of the twentieth century have been communism (the ownership of production) and Fascism (the control of production). Incidentally too many commentators on the political scene use the term fascist in a simply pejorative and abusive term not as an established system of government for better or worse. Such people usually expose their lack of a traditional education. Both systems failed abysmally and are no longer expounded by politicians seeking election. Yet, paradoxically these systems live on. They are alive today in Europe.

Today politicians advocate a ‘mixed economy’. What does that mean? Well, in the words of Lewis Carroll its whatever they want it to mean. To use an old fashioned term the United Kingdom today has a mercantile system, in modern parlance ‘crony capitalism’. It is desperately unfashionable in academic circles to point out that no European or North American economy has been run on laissez-faire capitalism for over 80 years. The only pocket of real capitalism was post war Hong Kong. Perhaps the most successful economy since the renaissance city states. Observe if you will the support of this view to our intergalactic consultant. In the UK the following dynamics are controlled by government, much but not all significantly from the European Union. Energy, agriculture, fishing, employment legislation, health and safety, food labeling, transport, national health, education, the list is endless. Indeed it is difficult to find any aspect of our lives not controlled by government through some form of enforcement agency. Often using regulation in direct contradiction of the principles of English law.