New Zealand reflections
4 years ago
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
6. Child Labor
I just came accross this in the book titled "The Incredible Bread Machine" a book published by "World Research, Inc." in 1974:
"Child labor was a particular target of early reformers. William Cooke Tatlor wrote at the time about these reformers who, witnissing children ar work in the factories, thought to themselves: 'How much more delightful would have been the gambol of the free limbs on the hillside; the sight of the green mead with its spangles of buttercups and daisies; the song of the bird and the humming bee...'
But for many of these children the factory system meant quite literally the only chance for survival. Today we overlook the fact that death from starvation and exposure was a common fate before the Industrial Revolution, for the pre capitalist economy was barely able to support the population. Yes, children were working. Formerly they would have starved. It was only as goods were produced in greater abundance at lower cost that men could support their families without sending their children to work. It was not the reformer or the politician that ended the grim necessity for child labor; it was capitalism."
"Child labor was a particular target of early reformers. William Cooke Tatlor wrote at the time about these reformers who, witnissing children ar work in the factories, thought to themselves: 'How much more delightful would have been the gambol of the free limbs on the hillside; the sight of the green mead with its spangles of buttercups and daisies; the song of the bird and the humming bee...'
But for many of these children the factory system meant quite literally the only chance for survival. Today we overlook the fact that death from starvation and exposure was a common fate before the Industrial Revolution, for the pre capitalist economy was barely able to support the population. Yes, children were working. Formerly they would have starved. It was only as goods were produced in greater abundance at lower cost that men could support their families without sending their children to work. It was not the reformer or the politician that ended the grim necessity for child labor; it was capitalism."
Friday, September 19, 2008
5. Darkness Descends
1. Feature Article
A real electricity market will rapidly end blackouts
by Eustace Davie
SA's public enterprises, like Eskom, are remnants of an earlier age. They have survived from a time when many politicians and economists contended that the most important services should be in government hands.
Proponents of government ownership and control of the commanding heights of the economy believed that "only governments had the resources to finance such large enterprises" or they were "too important" to leave in the hands of the private sector or because they were considered to be "natural monopolies", they would be safer in government hands. The apartheid government clung to the state enterprises as part of its grand plan to make SA self-sufficient and so insulate the country against what it saw as a "total onslaught" against its racist regime.
Experience has since shown that none of these arguments have any validity. In fact, the opposite has proved to be true. It has been found that all business undertakings of the type currently in government hands provide more efficient, lower-cost services when they face open competition and have no statutory protection such as barriers to entry that keep out alternative suppliers. A fully functioning market is nothing more than voluntary exchange between individuals free of third party intervention.
Without a real market for a product or service there is no way of knowing whether resources are being utilised efficiently. Potential suppliers in such a market must face no barriers to entry and the consumers must determine prices.
Through buying, or refraining from buying, consumers control production and prices. Their cumulative activities send signals to producers telling them what to produce, when to produce and how much and when to invest. If consumers embrace a new product or service, producers can change patterns of consumption through innovation and gain handsomely. But if consumers do not take to a new product or service, producers can lose, sometimes heavily.
Governments have a bad habit of interfering in the functioning of markets ostensibly "in the public interest". They manipulate prices, tamper with the right of new producers to enter markets, or monopolise production in particular markets. Such interventions are generally portrayed as being efforts to protect consumers from the machinations of "greedy" producers, who without the interventions would supposedly exploit the helpless consumer. What they actually do is deprive consumers of their sovereignty; take away their power to compel producers to provide the goods and services that they want, in the form, time and place in which they want them. SA's electricity blackouts are a consequence of all three of the above-mentioned misguided interventions.
Electricity transmission may appear to present arguments for what is called vertical integration, which means having various processes under the control of a single owner. However, on closer examination we find that even the electricity grid, which consists of the high voltage transmission lines that carry electricity across the country, can have multiple owners as long as there is sound management to prevent the integrity of the grid from being compromised. In plain language that means to prevent someone from doing something irresponsible, negligent or stupid that causes an electricity blackout. The integrity of the North American grid, which has a multiplicity of owners and covers the entire US, Canada and a province of Mexico, is maintained by a private/public non-profit organisation called the North American Electricity Reliability Corporation (NERC).
Whoever owns the grid, its operation needs to be separated from the generation and distribution of electricity. In SA, such a separation would immediately open the way for competitive electricity generators to enter the market without prior government approval or the necessity of coming to an agreement with a monopoly entity such as Eskom. The generating company would merely have to follow the rules for safe operation of the grid and pay the cost of transmitting its electricity to purchasers.
Under current conditions of electricity shortage, aluminium smelters, mines and property developers would be able to search for electricity generators to supply them with the electricity they desperately need at a mutually agreed price. The generating company would feed the electricity into the grid and the purchaser would draw it off the grid, allowing for some loss in transmission.
Paying a higher price for the extra 10 per cent or so of electricity could prove very worthwhile. A loss of 100,000 ounces of platinum production due to power blackouts would convert, at $1,950 per ounce, into $195mn or about R1.47bn, a real incentive to find alternative electricity suppliers if it was not blocked by law or official discretion. Sugar producers, with their existing plant, could generate power and sell it to the aluminium smelters on their doorstep. Desperate property developers who have been told that they will have to place their multi-million rand projects on ice because of power shortages would possibly pay an even higher price for some of the electricity.
In the interim, all companies that currently have the capability to generate electricity should be given access to the grid for the purpose of transmitting electricity to customers. Access should naturally be dependent on meeting standard procedures to ensure that the integrity of the grid is not jeopardised but such procedures should not be stricter than those applied internally to Eskom generating plants. The additional power generators should not be compelled to sell their electricity to Eskom and should not be subjected to unreasonable transmission charges.
This is not a time for government to cling to archaic ideas about the supposed benefits of government ownership. It would also not be wise for labour unions to oppose the introduction of competition into power generation; surely any new power generator will be bidding up the price of skilled labour - their labour. This is a time for government to display economic policy management skills and immediately allow competitors into the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity.
Author: Eustace Davie is a director of the Free Market Foundation. This article may be republished without prior consent but with acknowledgement to the author. The views expressed in the article are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the members of the Foundation.
A real electricity market will rapidly end blackouts
by Eustace Davie
SA's public enterprises, like Eskom, are remnants of an earlier age. They have survived from a time when many politicians and economists contended that the most important services should be in government hands.
Proponents of government ownership and control of the commanding heights of the economy believed that "only governments had the resources to finance such large enterprises" or they were "too important" to leave in the hands of the private sector or because they were considered to be "natural monopolies", they would be safer in government hands. The apartheid government clung to the state enterprises as part of its grand plan to make SA self-sufficient and so insulate the country against what it saw as a "total onslaught" against its racist regime.
Experience has since shown that none of these arguments have any validity. In fact, the opposite has proved to be true. It has been found that all business undertakings of the type currently in government hands provide more efficient, lower-cost services when they face open competition and have no statutory protection such as barriers to entry that keep out alternative suppliers. A fully functioning market is nothing more than voluntary exchange between individuals free of third party intervention.
Without a real market for a product or service there is no way of knowing whether resources are being utilised efficiently. Potential suppliers in such a market must face no barriers to entry and the consumers must determine prices.
Through buying, or refraining from buying, consumers control production and prices. Their cumulative activities send signals to producers telling them what to produce, when to produce and how much and when to invest. If consumers embrace a new product or service, producers can change patterns of consumption through innovation and gain handsomely. But if consumers do not take to a new product or service, producers can lose, sometimes heavily.
Governments have a bad habit of interfering in the functioning of markets ostensibly "in the public interest". They manipulate prices, tamper with the right of new producers to enter markets, or monopolise production in particular markets. Such interventions are generally portrayed as being efforts to protect consumers from the machinations of "greedy" producers, who without the interventions would supposedly exploit the helpless consumer. What they actually do is deprive consumers of their sovereignty; take away their power to compel producers to provide the goods and services that they want, in the form, time and place in which they want them. SA's electricity blackouts are a consequence of all three of the above-mentioned misguided interventions.
Electricity transmission may appear to present arguments for what is called vertical integration, which means having various processes under the control of a single owner. However, on closer examination we find that even the electricity grid, which consists of the high voltage transmission lines that carry electricity across the country, can have multiple owners as long as there is sound management to prevent the integrity of the grid from being compromised. In plain language that means to prevent someone from doing something irresponsible, negligent or stupid that causes an electricity blackout. The integrity of the North American grid, which has a multiplicity of owners and covers the entire US, Canada and a province of Mexico, is maintained by a private/public non-profit organisation called the North American Electricity Reliability Corporation (NERC).
Whoever owns the grid, its operation needs to be separated from the generation and distribution of electricity. In SA, such a separation would immediately open the way for competitive electricity generators to enter the market without prior government approval or the necessity of coming to an agreement with a monopoly entity such as Eskom. The generating company would merely have to follow the rules for safe operation of the grid and pay the cost of transmitting its electricity to purchasers.
Under current conditions of electricity shortage, aluminium smelters, mines and property developers would be able to search for electricity generators to supply them with the electricity they desperately need at a mutually agreed price. The generating company would feed the electricity into the grid and the purchaser would draw it off the grid, allowing for some loss in transmission.
Paying a higher price for the extra 10 per cent or so of electricity could prove very worthwhile. A loss of 100,000 ounces of platinum production due to power blackouts would convert, at $1,950 per ounce, into $195mn or about R1.47bn, a real incentive to find alternative electricity suppliers if it was not blocked by law or official discretion. Sugar producers, with their existing plant, could generate power and sell it to the aluminium smelters on their doorstep. Desperate property developers who have been told that they will have to place their multi-million rand projects on ice because of power shortages would possibly pay an even higher price for some of the electricity.
In the interim, all companies that currently have the capability to generate electricity should be given access to the grid for the purpose of transmitting electricity to customers. Access should naturally be dependent on meeting standard procedures to ensure that the integrity of the grid is not jeopardised but such procedures should not be stricter than those applied internally to Eskom generating plants. The additional power generators should not be compelled to sell their electricity to Eskom and should not be subjected to unreasonable transmission charges.
This is not a time for government to cling to archaic ideas about the supposed benefits of government ownership. It would also not be wise for labour unions to oppose the introduction of competition into power generation; surely any new power generator will be bidding up the price of skilled labour - their labour. This is a time for government to display economic policy management skills and immediately allow competitors into the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity.
Author: Eustace Davie is a director of the Free Market Foundation. This article may be republished without prior consent but with acknowledgement to the author. The views expressed in the article are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the members of the Foundation.
Friday, September 12, 2008
1. Wikipedia on Liberty
Helvetius expresses this point clearly: "The free man is the man who is not in irons, nor imprisoned in a gaol (jail), nor terrorized like a slave by the fear of punishment... it is not lack of freedom not to fly like an eagle or swim like a whale."
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
1: The Talk by Jean-Pierre De La Porte: Reverse Engineering Freedom: 2
The result of the talk was much less impressive than the content of this award-winning talk at the 24th Libertarian Seminar held at Golden Gate 5-7 September 2008. He did a great job inspiring us to read Dennett - and explore the kinds of freedoms worth having.
A great seminar organised by Frances Kendall.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Self-detemination: 1
The right of self-determination in regard to the question of membership in a state thus means: whenever the inhabitants of a particular territory, whether it be a single village, a whole district, or a series of adjacent districts, make it known, by a freely conducted plebiscite, that they no longer wish to remain united to the state to which they belong at the time, but wish either to form an independent state or to attach themselves to some other state, their wishes are to be respected and complied with. This is the only feasible and effective way of preventing revolutions and civil and international wars.
To call this right of self-determination the "right of self-determination of nations" is to misunderstand it. It is not the right of self-determination of a delimited national unit, but the right of the inhabitants of every territory to decide on the state to which they wish to belong. (Von Mises – Liberalism)
To call this right of self-determination the "right of self-determination of nations" is to misunderstand it. It is not the right of self-determination of a delimited national unit, but the right of the inhabitants of every territory to decide on the state to which they wish to belong. (Von Mises – Liberalism)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
