What can solve Britain's problems? (in light of riots and societal breakdown)

Miscellaneous Current Events
1

Coming back from the states recently to the UK, I get the feeling the country started falling apart pretty much at the onset of my return. I’m not currently in any of the “hotspot” locations (fingers crossed), but this has got me thinking, and it is something I wanted to discuss with other libertarians, as to what is causing this pretty much breakdown of British society right now. If you haven’t heard of the riots that have been occuring all over England for the last week, see here.

A lot of people, (even some left wingers!) are pointing to a breakdown of family and moral structures for a lot of the youths causing all this trouble, with others pointing to(many leftwingers again) pointing to government public sector cuts and a sizeable portion of society being disaffected. A lot of people, and I think I can understand their anger, are pointing to molly coddled youth on benefits with nothing better to do with their time than to act like jackasses looting footlocker. I’m a fan of the book Pinnochio, and I can’t help but think we have donkeys running wild here (of many ages).

My own assessment based a little on the above, is that critically the unemployment problem is critical and it is really disaffecting the youth especially from the already most neglected areas of society. I also think for the same reason maybe one of the only things that could help would be to abolish immediately the minimum wage, even though that also seems in some ways too little too late. Of course at the same time something would need to be done about the benefits system to prevent that from making abolishing the minimum wage pointless. And this goes beyond all the tirades you would face from leftwingers in the media and wider society for this.

To add insult to injury I was just watching BBC news live a few minutes ago, and the Bank of England will keep interest rates low, inspite of the fact even they now anticipate high inflation and low growth(the latter being their reason for doing so…). I mean knowing the consequences of this and where things are heading, as well as a feeling of helplessness generally and failure as to how little I’ve done myself in trying to convince people about good economics; I’ve even had fleeting thoughts that I would now leave this country for a job somewhere else if I was given half an opportunity in the future. (thb, I have kind of been anticipating this type of thing might one day appear, but not quite this suddenly and on such a wide scale)

The only good thing it seems, is that people now seem to have been forced to face a lot of problems in society, they’ve been conveniently ignoring and letting hide under the rug. The other thing is that communities are taking responsibillity for themselves for their own protection after seeing how futile the state has been at protecting their persons and property; even if this is done along sectarian lines (and this could be dangerous for the future). Indeed, the “ethnic” communities, like the Turks in North London and and the Sikhs in Southhall seem to be not bad examples of this, though there was also the spontaneous sweepers across London too.

In any case, I apologise for the panic/rant. I know there are also others on this forum from the UK. I wanted to get people’s opinions on what’s been happenning and what you think could be done to help get this country out of this mess.

Thanks,

2

The cover of today’s New York Times shows yesterday’s stock market “recovery” following the crash on Monday. Down below, it has an article titled “NYC to Make Sex Education Mandatory.” There’s your problem, eloquently illustrated on a single page. The public bureaucracies are expanding their mandates even while the entire economy is plunging into oblivion.

The simple fact is that public sector organizations are free of the discipline of profit and loss. They can engage in fiscal folly without bounds and the true extent of their waste cannot be measured. While public sector organizations do produce services of actual value, there is no way to measure whether that value even begins to measure up to the costs. The utilitarian consideration is, of course, entirely separate from the moral question of whether it is justifiable for the government to seize people’s property (taxes) to pay for things it has decided to produce, usually as a monopolist. But even on purely utilitarian grounds, the public sector model fails. The argument over whether all these new mandates are helping or hurting the economy is a war of words. There is no right or wrong, there’s just a lot of opinions. By putting the schools and many other public sector organizations back under the market discipline of profit and loss (so-called “privatization”), the war of words becomes unnecessary - right and wrong is decided by consumers, investors and bankruptcy courts.

The explosion in government employment, public outlays, public debt/deficits, taxes and the “public sector” in general in the latter half of the 20th century has coincided with the relaxation of market discipline on these lines of production. This move necessarily entails massive wastes. The only reason the government gets away with it is that it’s impossible to count how much is being wasted because most of the waste is Bastiat’s “Unseen”.

The answer is incredibly simple. Scale back the public sector. If national governments cannot politically achieve such a simple step, then let’s break up the political unions into smaller units where local political action is again possible.

Clayton -

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Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

I wouldn’t blame the welfare programs for the anti-mankind social philosophy displayed by the rioters… but the anti-mankind social philosophy for creating the welfare program in the first place.

It’s like a virus, but intellectual, not physical. It finds ways to spread itself from one host to another.

4

More austerity is the answer for sure

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The problem is that nanny statist entitlement has become something of a culture in places like the U.K. No disrespect intended, but when the common person associates austerity with statism and believes socialism and Libertarianism are synonymous, there’s a problem.

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Forget about trying to get others, and other countries, out of any perceived “messes” that you think they might be in, it is a complete waste of your valuable time [because you will fail] - concentrate only on your own life , and your own “mess” . Let others take care of their “mess” .

The only life that you have control over is your own. Regards, onebornfree.

7

Like you, my first reaction to hearing of Britain’s youth unemployment problem was “abolish the minimum wage”, however my guess is that they’re too entitled to work for the current minimum wage and definitely not less.

8

Anybody suggesting that “white racism” is the problem?

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Torsten, what’s with the ad in your sig?

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And things will only grow worse. Hayek used to say welfare spending is somewhat akin to a bribe the most productive sectors of society pay to the non-productive and potentially dangerous to keep quiet and not cause too many troubles. And he was right. Bribing is usually much cheaper than fighting: even Byzantine military treatises aknowledged that. Problem is the bribes have grown to quite enormous proportions and the most productive sectors of the economy are struggling to keep up with the drain of resources imposed by both welfare spending and the ever expanding bureaucracies, often born to handle those same bribes and which then took a life of their own. Capital is transfered from the productive sector to the non-productive sector at a much faster pace than it can be accumulated. In short we are going broke. Hemingway said that one goes broke slowly, without noticing, then one morning he wakes up penniless. A perfect description of what’s happening to the West.

Right now everybody aknowledges drastic measures are needed if we want to survive the present generation without having to beg (quite literally) for alms from Asia. Problem is a huge part of society doesn’t want these drastic measures, even if they would benefit from them in the middle run. They want the thugs who terrorized London either appeased through larger scale bribing (higher unemployment benefits, quality free schooling, make-work projects etc) or kept in check by an even bigger police apparatus. Either way we cannot afford it, not without draining even more capital into non-productive ventures. That’s where “middle of the road” solutions, arguably the most insidious ones, will creep in: increase taxation but instruct banks to provide easier and cheaper credit as a substitute to capital, reform bankruptcy laws to allow firms to get deeper in debt, cut those “public services” the productive sector desperately needs to keep rolling but cannot get from the private sector (road maintenance, new infrastuctures) etc. These solutions may keep the ball barely rolling for a few years but all they do is aggravating the problems: QE1, the toxic assets swap etc are all perfect examples of this “kick the can down the road” attitude. When the next crisis present itself it will be uglier and there will be fewer options on the table. My favorite metaphor is an heroin addict trying to cure his withdrawal symptoms by injecting bigger and bigger doses. Sooner or later he will overdose and die pennyless in a pool of his own vomit. If you lived through the heroin epidemics of the '70s-'80s you know it ain’t a pretty sight.

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Thanks for your responses everyone.

I understand where you’re coming from, and I find it heartening to read, but I honestly think such an attitude is dangerous. I know there are limitations to what any one of us can do, given the broader causes for what is happening, but I do think spreading liberal ideas could make a difference. It’s not a fair comparison, but at least in the States there seems to be somewhat of a libertarian movement among the young! I can’t take this for granted for one second given what I know about most people’s attitudes in the UK. I saw some of the youtube videos of the rioters, and many of them are justifying their actions as attacks on the rich and out of frustration of unemployment.

These are as lame and a d hoc as they appear, but they broadly reflect wider society’s perceptions. The above poster who made a sarcastic comment about austerity, would probably be a great example of what is wrong with the present attitudes of a very large portion of the British public.