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Why did the industrial revolution occur?

Frequently in online debates I see Marxist’s or Market Socialist’s as they like to be known these days debating free market advocates on economics and wealth creation thinking that they have won the debate. With this post I hope to as accurately as possible layout the Anarcho Capitalist’s empirical, logical arguments. As someone who has spent at least the last decade familiarizing and educating myself on different theories, schools of thought and scientific principles I believe that by starting from nothing but first principles, and using those first principles as a foundation to build an argument from, that I am able to rationally assess argumentation.

When you ask an academic what they believe was responsible for the sudden spike, and subsequent exponential explosion of economic output in wealth created through the industrial revolution their answer is usually:

“The industrial revolution is responsible for the wealth created.”

Annoyingly most people seem to be happy with this or similar circular arguments or don’t even realise the none answer. Saying that the industrial revolution is responsible for the wealth creation is a tautological argument. It is no different than saying god created the universe. As you are then left with the infinite regression of well what created god? What created what created god? Etc. The name industrial revolution is a label given to the effect or occurrence of the significant sudden wealth generated not the cause.

Or they will say that wealth is created through labour. Such a ridiculous answer can easily be discounted by pointing out the fact that humans without doubt worked quite considerably harder in the preceding millennia to the point that in fact in some cases they irrevocably damaged their bodies. So, Labour alone is not responsible for the industrial revolution either. If you want to explain the source of human wealth, your answer cannot be a commonality of what occurred prior to the industrial revolution. Your theory must describe what has changed, in other words what had to happen for the industrial revolution to occur. The cause.

Why did the industrial revolution occur?

There are 4 key elements that were needed to change for the industrial revolution to be possible;

We needed a small government to allow the free market to flourish – which brought about a meritocracy, rule of law and rule of contract.

We needed mercantilism to end – a separation of the state and economy.

We needed the abolition of slavery.

We needed an excess of foods.

The underpinning of each is Ethics.

What is Mercantilism?

Definitions

Economics: Is the study of the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services.

Mercantilism: A system of political and economic policy, evolving with the modern national state and seeking to secure a nation’s political and economic supremacy in its rivalry with other states.

Mercantilism is the economic equivalent of absolutism; the market is completely controlled by a central authority who decide the wants and needs, how to produce and distribute goods and services for the entire country. Believing they know what you want better than you do, believing they could understand intimately the intricacies and inner workings of every business big or small. Every individual treated as a small part of a collective.

Historically, such policies frequently led to war and instigated and subsidised continual colonial expansion through the socialisation of the entire economy in the pursuit of supremacy over other states.

During the mercantilist era it was often believed that the principal benefit of foreign trade was the importation of gold and silver. It was believed that the benefits to one nation were matched by costs to the other nations that exported gold and silver, and there were no net gains from trade. For nations almost constantly on the verge of war, draining one another of valuable gold and silver was thought to be almost as desirable as the direct benefits of trade.

Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776 to criticize mercantilism, which was the primary economic system at the time. Under mercantilism, it was believed that wealth was finite. Prosperity could be increased by keeping gold and silver whilst tariffing goods from other countries, similar to what goes on today.

Abolition of Slavery

Slavery is an ancient institution, common to all cultures throughout human history, from pre-history up until the 19th century. The British abolitionist movement successfully fought the British government and the aristocracy to end slavery as a moral crusade. Slavery was ended through the attacking of slaver ships, and agitating for the removal of government support for slavery.

In 1787, William Wilberforce wrote in his diary: “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of society.” For the rest of his life, William Wilberforce dedicated his life a a Member of Parliament to opposing the slave trade and working for the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire.

On 22nd February 1807, twenty years after he first began his crusade, whilst in the middle of Britain’s war with France, Wilberforce and his team’s labors were rewarded with victory by an overwhelming 283 votes for to 16 votes against in the House of Commons. The motion was to abolish the slave trade. At the time the British Empire covered one third of the globe.

In 1815 an International Treaty was signed by all the European powers for the abolition of the slave trade. In 1825, Britain passed a bill making slave trading punishable by death. The Slavery Abolition Act, (1833) later came to pass. Following on from this slavery became universally known as unethical and demonstrable in the 20th and 21st century worldwide.

People became slaves by becoming insolvent through debt problems, sold into slavery by their parents or captured by slave raiders and pirates. The trade and enslavement of slaves was a fully accepted practice throughout all of human history, unopposed by religion and state, in fact always supported and maintained.

The ancient Greeks responsible for many aspects of Western culture, art, music and philosophy were themselves utterly dependent on slaves. Under Roman law if a slave owner was found to be killed under suspicious circumstances all of their slaves would be put to death. It is estimated that half of the population of the Roman Empire were slaves. Three quarters of the population of Athens were slaves. Up to half or more estimates suggest of the arrivals in the American colonies from Europe were in fact slaves.

Slavery is often portrayed as a free market phenomenon that had to be ended by governments. But the reality is that there were only two countries in the history of the world that found it necessary to end slavery through a civil war. The USA and Haiti. State patrol statutes socilaised the costs of policing slavery and recapturing runaway slaves by drafting non-slaveholders into slave patrols. State statutes also prohibited manumission (the release) of slaves. If you didn’t participate in the patrols or carry out organising responsibilities, this would result in a series of escalating fines.

There was no industrial revolution in the ancient would because slaves were the driving force of the economy, the cost of slaves was socialised and the continuation of the slave trade was controlled by the state through state force. This destroyed the incentives required for investment in automation processes, because that would have eroded the value of the slave labour and created massive uncertainty. The industrial revolution occurred in a post slavery society, it could not happen any other way. Slavery throughout human history kept us all from realising our full potential.

18th Century fiscal policy

In the 18th century, the structure of taxation was quite different to what we have today. An unusual feature of the tax was that it was administered not by government officials, but by unpaid local ‘commissioners’, gentry who were nominated by Parliament and whose names were included in the annual Land Tax Acts. Those who collected the tax were usually local men of modest means, such as farmers or tradesmen.

Tax was only paid by the owners of land or property according to the size of their landholdings. This tax was paid by the most affluent sections of society, from the wealthiest duke to the business owners. In the 1690’s the tax brought into the Exchequer some two million pounds was approximately 35% of the national revenue at the time. Because the quotas never went up, and the rate became fixed at four shillings in the pound, over time it became a smaller proportion of the revenue, some 17% in the 1790’s, and as low as 11% by the 1820’s.

Agricultural revolution

Definitions

Free Market: Voluntary trade and negotiation, the respect of property rights and the non-initiation of the use of force.

Without an excess of foods cities are simply not possible. Without the cities there are no urban factories for the proletariat to work for their wages. Because of this you would of course expect a free market to effect production levels from land prior to free market effect on capital goods, which is exactly what happened. The free market, through the respect for property rights allowed for the first time the most economically productive to take control of the land through voluntary competition and trade. This led to an increase in production of up to 20 times from the same land which was previously controlled by the state or monopolised through state intervention.

But the industrial revolution occurred everywhere uniformly

False.

In the period 1760 to 1830 the Industrial Revolution was largely confined to Britain. Aware of their head start, the British government forbade the export of machinery, skilled workers, and manufacturing techniques. The British monopoly could not last forever, especially since some Britons saw profitable industrial opportunities abroad, while continental European businessmen sought to lure British know-how to their countries. Two Englishmen, William and John Cockerill, brought the Industrial Revolution to Belgium by developing machine shops at Liège (c. 1807), and Belgium became the first country in continental Europe to be transformed economically. Like its British progenitor, the Belgian Industrial Revolution centred in iron, coal, and textiles.

Price’s Law

The square root of the number of people in a domain do 50% of the work.

Derek John de Solla Price provides a mathematical proof as to why a free market economy is so important, firstly to create an excess of wealth required for the modern world, but also to preserve the standard of living we have all become accustomed to. The reason for this essentially is that the square root of the sum total is responsible for half of all the production in a group. To give an example of this rule in practice if we look at Amazon for example. Amazon as of 2019 had 750,000 employees. According to Price’s Law the square root of 750,000 being 866; means that 866 people produce 50% of the total economic output of the entire company. Insane right! But it gets worse than that. As you can again apply the rule to the 866. Meaning that 29.427 people produce 25% of the economic output of a company of 750,000 people.

This is a universal law like gravity that applies to nature. It cannot be altered. It also explains how no matter what inequalities are inherent. Even if everyone had the exact same starting point i.e. an equal opportunity the square root of the number of people involved would eventually accumulate half of all the resources.

What has Ethics got to do with Economics?

There always seems to be an aversion to ethics in an intellectual discussion or debate on economics which is rather bizarre. They see it as a diversion tactic seemingly. But they are wrong, it has everything to do with ethics.

Without ethics you can’t own and maintain property. Without ethics there is no excess for the agricultural revolution, as land would be controlled by individuals most capable of aggression and theft. Ethics is foundational to property ownership being maintained, to contract law being maintained, stable property rights and a fair and just legal system.

Historically there are examples of countries which have been able to progress through unethical means. However they have only been able to progress lagging behind ethical free market countries through being able to steal from the more productive markets. They are parasites, which rely entirely on the markets they steal from.

To simplify this if Bob is able to successfully fish producing 500 fish per day, and John steals 50 fish from Bob, John hasn’t added anything to the economy.

For John to maintain his supply of fish he completely relies on the productivity of Bob. John’s potential of producing anything is zero’d through his lack of respect for Bobs property rights, he has no drive to produce anything for himself. He also likely will fear someone else stealing from him. So the market as a whole has lost output from both Bob and John. As Bob has less wealth through the theft his wealth is unfairly diminished and so the market will suffer further.

Additionally a larger percentage of the market will likely be focussed on the production of goods and services for security rather than other areas to combat and prevent potential theft going forward. This further reduces the efficiency of the market.

Thus you can see that historically ethics was foundational to the first agricultural and industrial revolution.

A rising tide raises all boats.

Conclusion

In the 18th century England’s economy had a strategic inflection point, followed by an exponential growth in the total economic output of the country. This was only achieved because of a Meritocracy, stable property rights, the rule of law, the rule of contract and a free market (Ethics) which led to a reduction in violence and a reduction in the initiation of the use of force. This allowed the productive scope of mankind to have full play to increase its value and demonstrate their true potential. When you get a bidding war for land or labour those best able to maximise its potential output, or that are more efficient get to maintain control of it.

No doubt theories of capital, theories of free markets and general liberal ideas in the enlightenment period contributed greatly, such as from John Locke or Adam Smith.

Getting the government out of the economy, a separation of the economy and state similar to the separation of church and state was integral for the modern world to be achieved. Frighteningly enough the state as I’m sure you are aware now controls the economy again, which is fundamentally why we have insurmountable debts, low interest rates and are on the brink of the next depression. It’s why Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin.

Examples of countries whom lagged behind because they didn’t fulfil the requirements listed above were countless. Even France lagged behind because they were still going through political change transitioning from a mercantilist economic policy thus a market couldn’t exist. Russia lagged behind dramatically too because they still had serfs which prevented them from having the economic incentives required to necessitate investing in potential labour-saving devices.

The immorality of slavery was conceived and became almost universally reprehensible in Britain in the 18th century. The Wealth of Nations also in the 18th century (1776) marked the end of the mercantilist era, the laissez-faire doctrines of free-market economics diametrically opposed the imperialist policies of nation-states. England removed the last vestiges of the mercantile era. Industrial regulations, monopolies, and tariffs were abolished, emigration and machinery exports were freed.

So we can see that Britain’s dramatic improvement of ethics lead to the abolition of slavery, free trade policies, excess food from the agricultural revolution and then finally the industrial revolution which enabled Britain to became the dominant economic power in the world.

Why would it be a surprise that moving closer to the universal application of property rights and the non-initiation of the use of force made humans more productive, safer and prosperous?

Side Note

What did we have prior to Mercantilism?

Prior to mercantilism societies operated through a practice known as Feudalism.

Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism (medieval agricultural economy), and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude, which developed during the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages in Europe around 700 A.D and lasted in some countries until the mid-19th century. Selfdom was ended in Britain with Tenures Abolition Act of 1660 through preceding steep decline.

Feudalism was a hierarchical pyramid-based system with the king at the apex of the pyramid and the peasant underclass of the country at the base of the pyramid. The social class of the peasantry can be differentiated into smaller categories. These distinctions were often less clear than suggested by their different names. Most often, there were two types of peasants:

Freemen: Freemen (or free tenants) held their land by one of a variety of contracts of feudal land-tenure and were essentially rent-paying tenant farmers who owed little or no service to the lord, and had a good degree of security of tenure and independence.

Villeins: (or villain) represented the most common type of serf in the Middle Ages. Villeins had more rights and higher status than the lowest serf, but existed under a number of legal restrictions that differentiated them from freemen. Villeins generally rented small homes, with a patch of land. As part of the contract with the landlord, they were expected to spend some of their time working on the lord’s fields. Villeins were tied to their lord’s land and couldn’t leave it without his permission. Their lord also often decided whom they could marry.

In many medieval countries, a villein could gain freedom by escaping from a manor to a city or borough and living there for more than a year; but this action involved the loss of land rights and agricultural livelihood, a prohibitive price unless the landlord was especially tyrannical or conditions in the village were unusually difficult.

Cotters: Status-wise the cottar ranked below a serf in the social hierarchy of a manor, holding a cottage, garden and just enough land to feed a family. Cottars were small farm labourers without any rights to land in the latter years. However initially they were allowed to own small pieces of land.

Slaves The last type of serf was the slave. Slaves had the fewest rights. They owned no tenancy in land, worked for the lord exclusively and survived on donations from the landlord. It was always in the interest of the lord to prove that a slave had excessive needs to please others. The status of a man was a primary issue in determining a person’s rights and obligations in many of the manorial court-cases of the period. Also, runaway slaves could be beaten if caught.

The Domesday Book showed that England comprised 12% freeholders, 35% serfs or villeins, 30% cotters and 9% slaves.

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/event/Industrial-Revolution

https://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/industrial-revolution

Click to access the-land-tax-1692-1963.pdf

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The argument for an Anarchist Society

Anarchy: absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual.

The idea that at some point in the distant past societies were anarchic, and that states evolved from anarchy gives one the assumption that states represent a step forward from anarchism, that states are to be considered objective progress in other words. This sets up the argument that getting rid of the state would take society back to a pre-history lawless chaotic society.

The first thing we need to consider is that an anarchic society (freedom), does not mean a complete lack of principles, laws or rules. [Without any principles, laws, rules or the perception of them we frankly would not be talking about the human race].

Anarcho Capitalist’s are not arguing for lawlessness, they are arguing for the NAP (Non-Aggression principle), Property rights and that morality can be proven rationally to be objective; that secular ethics is objectively provable. UPB (Universally Preferable Behaviour), a rational proof of secular ethics by Stefan Molyneux first released approximately 11 years ago (2008), and still remains logically sound. I will do my best to try and explain UPB.

Universally Preferable Behaviour

Definitions:

Moral: If something is “moral,” that implies everyone “ought” to do it. For example, if respecting the property rights of others is “moral,” it means we all “ought” to respect the property rights of others.

Immoral: If something is “immoral,” that implies everyone “ought not” do it. For example, if raping another individual is “immoral,” then no one “ought” to rape another individual.

Amoral: If something is “amoral,” that implies it’s neither “moral” or “immoral” and it doesn’t matter whether anyone does it or not.

UPB is an ethical framework to analyse and test the validity of moral propositions. UPB can be used to scientifically establish objectively verifiable moral truths. It does so in the same way that the theory of relativity establishes objective physical truths.

UPB follows the widely accepted axiom that any proposition which is claiming to be true has to be: testable, logically consistent and supported by empirical evidence.

In science we need theories to test claims about the real world. UPB is a theory of ethics to test moral claims. UPB is not a tool to judge guilt in specific situations, rather it’s purpose is to test the validity of propositions, such as is it moral/immoral to kill?

It is important to understand that where UPB proves something is universally preferable, it does not mean you ought to follow UPB or that you or anyone will be physically forced to follow UPB.

People assume in the context of ethics that because a moral rule does not have to be followed universally that it must be subjective. But this is a misunderstanding. You can choose to set yourself on fire because you believe it will give you divine powers from the gods, however it is objectively true that this will do you considerable harm.

Similarly, if you partake in debating with me on this subject, and believe that I am wrong you can only do so by confirming truth to be an objective preferred conclusion, and this is universally true with all debates. Thus taking part in any debate one must universally prefer truth over falsehood as an objective measure.

Human beings must use UPB to function as a human being, therefore we can ascertain that every moral proposition claims to be universally preferable and not a dyadic interaction. For example a parent telling a child not to hit another child would not just apply to the child being told not to hit, but would apply to all humans, of any age, all the time, everywhere. It would be a universal moral proposition. Therefore we can say that moral claims in society are not portrayed as subjective preferences. Moral rules in societies become laws which are inflicted on the citizenry.

If you personally believe that all moral claims are subjective (no claim is ultimately better than another), you then have no right to claim that your position is preferable over any other as your position logically must also be subjective too. Saying that UPB doesn’t exist, and that all moral claims are subjective requires the use of UPB. Because you are making a proposition, which is that it is universally preferable to believe ethics is not universal, which is self detonating. This would be akin to using the metric of speech to convey to someone that you are unable to speak.

The methodology to test the validity is as follows;

1.) For universally preferable behavior to be possible, a choice is necessary, otherwise it would be ‘preferred behavior’. In other words not ethical but merely physical. I.e more than one person needed.
2) A proposition claiming to be universal must be rationally consistent. For example saying that “rape is moral” would be logically contradictory when universalised, so is therefore irrational.
3) If a proposition is logically contradictory, but not necessarily empirically contradictory for example saying that Lying was moral would make no sense, as it would be profoundly unproductive. However because it is theoretically possible to apply it universally it is merely aesthetically flawed.
4) If the proposition is both logically and empirically contradictory then it is immoral. The Promotion of an act that requires coercion, which would deny another the potential of choice.

If UPB is correct the consequences of applying it would be similar to those of the scientific method being applied consistently brought about. I believe that it would speed up our ethical progress at the same rate that science sped up our technological progress if applied scientifically.

Another point I think which is important to consider is that if you are able to come up with a situation where a clear answer is impossible with regards to whether or not a situation is immoral/moral/amoral, it doesn’t qualify as a “flaw in the theory”. It simply means that we have not got enough data to draw a definitive conclusion.

Science is fundamentally based on the assumption that humans value truth over falsehood. If we accept that, then morality also becomes a scientific field. It’s preferable (or moral) to accept truth. That is the basis of UPB, if we value truth, then we can objectively test moral propositions for their validity.

The difference between UPB and Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative

People routinely confuse UPB with Kant’s CI (Categorical Imperative), which leads them to falsely accuse Stefan Molyneux of re-hashing or plagiarising CI.

At first glance UPB seems similar to CI, however there are a few critical differences.

CI acts as a method for a person to judge moral values of their own actions, where as UPB acts as a method to test whether a moral proposition that is imposed or proposed on an individual is moral or immoral.

The common misconception is the difference between Propositions (principles, theories) and Actions (real life instances of the proposition).

Propositions and principles are abstractions like mathematics. They do not represent reality as it always is, but rather a specific, isolated part of it, using logic and empiricism. For example if you see 4 apples on a table, you do not see a tangible number four hovering above the apples. You know that there are 4 apples however through logical, empirical, objective theoretical propositions. Therefore this is an example of not being able to find tangible theoretical propositions anywhere in reality, and yet they can still be valid and objective, and by using them, we can make specific testable predictions about the nature of reality.

CI proves that humans are subjective beings, that they have the freedom to choose for themselves what they believe to be moral. UPB concurs with this finding completely. As stated above UPB does not have to be followed, and it does not forbid actions which are considered detrimental to well-being such as laziness or recreational drug use. Those choices are of course for the individual to decide. It is when you try to apply such moral propositions on others that UPB comes into play.

When using UPB with moral propositions you will find that all immoral propositions have one thing in common. The initiation of the use of force. Through the use of UPB you can infer that the initiation of the use of force is immoral, and that not initiating the use of force is universally preferable.

Under UPB actions that can be considered to be both moral and immoral without logical contradictions are morally neutral, amoral (lacking a moral sense). For example you can make the moral proposition that it’s moral to have sex with people, other than your husband/wife. However the opposite moral proposition that it’s immoral to have sex with people other than your husband/wife is also logically sound. So this cannot be universalised.

Thus this action would be considered a morally neutral proposition as it doesn’t matter from a fundamental logical viewpoint whether you follow it or not, as it doesn’t imply that people who remain faithful are immoral. However, the same is not true for actions where the initiation of force is used, such as murder or rape as you cannot universally apply that proposition because you immediately run into logical contradictions.

UPB doesn’t deal with aesthetically preferable behaviour, such as a preference for chocolate ice cream over vanilla. Personal preferences have no moral content.

UPB I believe is not a moral system as it does the opposite of any moral system since it doesn’t tell people what they should and shouldn’t do. It instead is a ethical framework that helps us in discovering invalid universal propositions that are already being applied in our society.

But Moral behaviour is situation dependent so must be subjective

As mentioned above if ethics were completely subjective, you would have no capability to argue against any position an individual holds, since whatever I subjectively decide is correct would be subjectively correct for me. I could even claim that rape is the right thing to do for me, and no one could counter my proposition if ethics were completely subjective.

Using a universally preferable standard is fundamental to achieve any human interaction.

We all to some extent understand this. If you were not capable of appealing to reason and logic, you would obviously not bother debating other people. Everyone makes universal moral propositions, but that doesn’t mean that they are all equally valid. That is the purpose of UPB to ascertain validity.

UPB does not disagree with moral behaviour being situation dependent. If ethics were subjective, then making a moral judgement would be impossible as there would be no standard. If ethics were subjective and Bob believes that murder was moral, in the event that Bob murders Alan would you say that Bob was moral? Of course not.

Mistaking Absolutism with Objectivity

Definitions:

Objectivity: Objectivity is a characteristic of scientific claims, methods and results. It expresses the idea that the claims, methods and results of science are not, or should not be influenced by particular perspectives, value commitments, community bias or personal interests, to name a few relevant factors. Objectivity is often considered as an ideal for scientific inquiry, as a good reason for valuing scientific knowledge, and as the basis of the authority of science in society.

Absolutism: Absolutism refers to the idea that reality, truth, or morality is “absolute”— the same for everybody, everywhere, and every-when, regardless of individual culture or cognition, or different situations or contexts.

Whether you choose to value and use logic is of course optional. However claiming that 2 + 2 = 5, or that rocks fall here but float in Texas is still objectively wrong. We do not require other areas of science to be “absolute” in order to be objective and valid, so ethics should be held to the same standard and not an absolute.

Mistaking Tribalism for Anarchism

Another argument statist’s use against the anarcho capitalist model is to compare historical or modern-day examples that they believe to fit the definition of an anarchic society such as Ancient Celtic Ireland or present-day Somalia.
The societies statists routinely use as examples have a multitude of issues. For example, the countries they perceive to be anarchic universally have a religious approach, a tribalistic mindset, ruled through a theocracy (a system of governance believed to be in the name of god) and a profoundly primitive philosophical mindset. This is clearly then not an example of anarchy.

Tribalism is not Anarchism.

Tribalism is a hierarchical society with a primitive, savage, chief, at the centre with all of the power. This societal setup allows no capacity for independent thought, no capacity for an independent evaluation of reality. The people in a tribal society are embedded into a religious illusion of the world outside of reality due to the illusions the fantasists have created. Typically tribal societies partake in primitive practices such as ancestor worship, animal worship, tree worship and various forms of physical mutilation.

The tribalist approach is to deal with problems not using principles formulated through reality, but instead using brute force. Ayn Rand referred to this as The Alliance of the Attila and the Witchdoctor. Tribalism manifests through either the gangster, the dictator, the military conqueror or any man who believes that force is practical. Any man who refuses to think, and who wishes to loot and enslave others. All throughout history societies were ruled through an alliance, a man of faith ‘The Witchdoctor’ and a man of force ‘The Atilla’. A combination of faith and force. The Witchdoctor kept men under control by persuading them that the world was irrational, that their minds were impotent, and that the self-seeking pursuit of happiness was sinful. The Atilla kept men under control by the exertion of physical force. The Witchdoctor supplied Attila with a coherent view of the world and human destiny, in addition to performing as opiate of the masses. Attila supplied the Witchdoctor with power and the material means of survival. Each hated, feared and envied the other. Together they kept mankind in a state of poverty and moral degradation.

We need to have empiricism with regards too anarchy. Therefore, the best example of the benefit of anarchic principles in society we can find is not an ancient theocratic tribe or a lawless cesspit but your own life.
Presumably you are married, have had children, had a job, partook in a college course or bought a house or a car. With all of these interactions you have operated without violence. When you completed an application form and attended an interview for a job you sold yourself to the employer with the hopes of a mutually beneficial outcome. You didn’t require a centralised coercive entity to force the employer to employ you. Your husband/wife I’m sure isn’t in a relationship with you through force, or because you convinced her that she would go to hell if she didn’t marry you.

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The truth about the NHS

I want this post to be the definitive post that people can share when people make factually incorrect assumptions, fallacious claims or down right lies about the UK’s NHS (National Health Service).

The real cost of the NHS

The official NHS statistics, facts and figures shows that the cost incurred for the NHS continues to climb. The Labour party will tell you that the Conservative government have reduced the funding due to austerity however the statistics prove this is a lie. Additionally the Conservative government will tell you they intend to pour more money into the NHS than any government has before. Therefore both parties clearly demonstrate that they are socialists and that they do not fundamentally understand economics.

In the year 2016/17 the NHS cost the UK tax payers £120.512 billion pounds. The UK population today is approximately 66.44 million people. If we presume that at least two thirds of the population of the United Kingdom today work that is 44.293 million people. [According to the 2011 Census nearly two thirds of the population at the time were of ‘working age’]. That means that the NHS for the year 2016/17 cost each individual tax payer £2720.79 per year or £226.73 per month.

The data also shows that the NHS funding has continued to increase. Their estimated budget for 2018/19 is expected to be £123.202 billion pounds. The NHS routinely exceeds their budget and ends up in a deficit. So the absolute best case scenario for the real cost to tax payers for the year 2019/20 will be £231.79 per month, how much is too much? We should also bare in mind that we have an aging population, which of course means that the figures I’ve used were very generous as I assumed that at least two thirds of the population are in gainful employment. We also need to take into account that both the Conservative party and the Labour party wish to increase this cost as expressed in their manifesto’s. So the figure is almost certain to be higher than this already ridiculous number.

But look at how bad America’s “private” healthcare is in comparison

The world perceives the US healthcare system to be a laissez-faire free market health care system, so they then look at the disasters that occur and blame the free market.

You routinely see videos showing how expensive healthcare would be without the NHS using the American system as an example of what healthcare would cost without our leaders forcing us to pay for the NHS. They routinely reference that in the US childbirth on average costs $10,000, ambulance call outs cost $2,500 or that contraception such as the coil or IUD costs on average $1,300. They without a shred of research, statistics or data annoyingly assume that this is the result of the free market. They explain that this somehow proves that the state forced NHS monopoly works and that the “free market” healthcare in the US doesn’t work. They blame the free market for the insane costs even though they recognise that the US healthcare system is monopolised itself. The issue here of course is that their assumption itself contains a contradiction.

They espouse that the free market is made up of people, and people are likely to become dangerous capitalists if they have freedom. They say that the Capitalist will gain monopolies and take advantage of customers. They fear the freedom to associate, the freedom to choose and instead prefer a democratically elected government to force everyone to do what most voters prefer to happen. They fail to see that the government is made up of people from the same society. They fail to see that the only way monopolies can form and be maintained is through government intervention. Capitalists must use the power of the state to gain a monopoly, there is no other way to do so. They finally fail to see that they hold the view that monopolies are bad in the US, and that monopolies are good in the UK. The reason they end up holding such insane contradictory views is because they are starting with a conclusion, a provably wrong one.

The reason that the NHS really is costing each tax payer at the very least £231.79 per month is because it is a government forced monopoly. The reason the US healthcare system costs so much is… you guessed it, again because of the government intervention.

Healthcare is not actually that expensive. There is a vast difference between what it costs and what people get charged in the US healthcare system. Dr. Keith Smith from the Surgery Center of Oklahoma has provided a comprehensive pricing list of what the cost of surgery can cost even with these overreaching regulations. Because of their competitive pricing they have treated patients from all 50 US states. Price gauging occurs in the US healthcare system due to the dysfunctional nature of the regulations that the government have inflicted on the US citizens. The healthcare providers have used the state to create regulations which enable this scenario to occur. The entities involved have worked very hard and spent a lot of money to gain these regulatory favours that allowed them to gain monopolies, maintain their monopolies and price gouge the consumer.

The US healthcare system is insurance based, however it is unlike any other insurance that occurs in the free market. When you insure your car for example you wouldn’t insure an oil change, or with your house insurance you wouldn’t insure a light bulb change either. However in the US with healthcare insurance they have conditioned people to think of healthcare insurance as a universal coverage for every eventuality even the most basic, this is because there are many financial benefactors for orienting the system in this way. This is only possible due to the government interference i.e. regulation benefiting their benefactors. The purpose of insurance is fundamentally for the purpose of covering uncertain situations. For healthcare that would be health and medical uncertainty, for cars potential accidents, damage or theft and house insurance for similar uncertain potential eventualities.

The American system is a pre-pay system through a third party intermediary. Because of this the prices are driven very high, as the patient isn’t paying so does not receive a bill during the use of the service, so rarely see the actual cost. On top of this there is evidence of government regulations preventing entrepreneurs from providing the level of insurance which offers what people actually want. The insurance industry is essentially then forced to provide and promote services that nobody actually want but are forced to buy anyway due to regulations. To then make the situation even worse the deductibles/excess is/are so high (in some cases over $5000), that the insurance policies become null and void. Obamacare is so horrendously thought out that people in the US in some cases are actually better off not having insurance, paying the fine for not having insurance and then pay for the surgery/treatment with their own money as the deductible would be more costly.

Furthermore the US healthcare insurance requires employers to provide healthcare insurance policies for employees. This has a catastrophic effect. People become woefully dependent on their jobs and potentially accept a lower salary than they would otherwise. But most importantly this is what is driving the cost of healthcare in the US to such ridiculous levels. Because insurance is being forced to be provided to people with pre-existing medical conditions, meaning that the insurance model is no longer insurance by definition. It would logically be the same as insuring your car after you’ve had an accident, or insuring your house after it’s burnt down. You know what would happen to car insurance premiums if insurance companies were forced by the government to cover people after they’d had an accident don’t you. Of course the cost of car insurance would rocket to un-affordable levels as no one would bother to buy insurance until they had an accident. Or cars or other automobiles would become prohibitively expensive if the government created regulations which further monopolised the automobile industry.

Therefore the US healthcare system is according to Cambridge Dictionary definition not insurance and it is certainly not an example of a free market healthcare system because of the government dictating the insurance provided, forcing companies to insure pre-existing conditions and government regulation preventing competitors to enrich their donors.

Sadly because people are not aware of basic economics such as the reality that nothing is free and because most people are truly great, well intended, kind and caring individuals they get taken in by the Socialist ideology. Sadly the opposite outcome to their intend goal almost universally occurs. Because of this there are literally zero examples of a free market healthcare system anywhere in the world today.

The argument against socilised healthcare from morality

We must firstly deal with the central problem which is that people assume when someone argues to stop the NHS that they wish to do away with health care all together. This is predicated on the assumption that if the government do not provide a health service that no one else will. This of course is false. We need healthcare in the same way that we need sustenance to survive. Yet we do not need to rely on a single entity for sustenance rather an entire plethora of choice is available to us courtesy of the free market. In the West we no longer just eat to survive we have made an art form out of cooking. In towns and cities across the UK we have food available to us from the four corners of the world. We celebrate a hither to unheard of diversity of choice thanks to the lack of state intervention in the means of production.

The fundamental issue I believe is that so many people in the Western world hold an entitled mentality. They believe that they have a right to health care. On the face of it, it seems distasteful to say that no one has a right to health care doesn’t it. However we need to break this down further, if we are to say that we have a right to health care we are saying that we have a right to the property, labour and skills of individuals in the health care sector, Doctors, nurses, surgeons, physiotherapists, mental health specialist ET AL. These individuals have spent 1000’s of hours honing their skills in this field over doing something else. They have chosen to better themselves, give themselves a skill which they can use to be more productive to society. It is immoral, evil even to say we are entitled to their property. Sounds an awful lot like slavery really doesn’t it.

Imagine how ridiculous it would sound if someone stated they had a right to a coffee from Starbucks, or a right to a shopping trolley full of groceries from Tesco’s. Imagine arguing with the security guards at the supermarket that it is not theft because I have a fundamental human right to sustenance. People would think you were unstable, yet this is the argument people routinely use for socialised healthcare.

If we look at all countries historically or currently where the state holds a complete monopoly through controlling of the means of production (raw materials, facilities, machinery and tools used in the production of goods and services) we see extreme poverty, increased infant mortality, increased violent crime and of course empty supermarket shelves. This happens because when everyone is given a right to a good or service for “free” eventually what happens is that there is an extreme shortage of that good or service meaning many starve to death. Imagine for a second that you live in a society where the state controls everything. No matter what effort you put in you get the same outcome. You see work colleagues doing literally nothing get the same outcome as you. If you produce value far in excess of what you receive, just how long do you think even the best of us will continue in such an ambition destroying nightmare. This is why in Socialist countries people queue for hours and hours for loaves of bread only to find that the supermarket shelves are empty, this is why people die waiting for life saving treatments. Nothing is free.

Venezuela under Socialism the currency is worthless

Venezuela supermarket shelves empty under Socialism

If state intervention has almost universally caused monopolies to form, which has universally reduced the overall quality of goods, services, overall life quality, life expectancy, reduced poverty, increased crime and increased infant mortality amongst other stone age level problems then anyone who argues for state intervention who know that is in fact immoral must prefer human suffering. They must operate on the assumption that they are inferior and that in a free market they would not be productive enough to exist. They would rather everyone suffered to prevent their personal delusional nightmares from coming true.

I believe that many government officials understand at least at a subconscious level the immorality that predicates their position, the fact that they are able to have their opinions be re-labelled as law and forced on the citizenry. An example of people understanding this is that whenever a corporation or bank is on the brink of collapse people worry that the public will have less choice if there is one less car manufacturer or if there is one less travel agency. They fear monopolies forming, so almost universally they want to bail them out, and sadly typically they succeed which couldn’t be worse for society. They fear monopolies forming, yet they ignore that the NHS is a a monopoly itself. They simultaneously hold the views that monopolies are bad and that monopolies must be defended. It goes without saying that these view points are contradictory. With the NHS we have no choice, we are forced to pay for this service whether we use it or not and in the event that we do need to use it typically we realise it isn’t adequate in the same way that people in socialist countries hoard supplies because without cost it’s human nature to take more than one needs and quickly the shelves are bare in supermarkets and queues a mile long form daily. Thus people are forced to pay again for their healthcare through savings or debt using instead private healthcare or what ever vestiges of it remain through the state enforced monopoly which is the NHS.

So that you understand how the NHS is funded you must understand that the government has no money of it’s own. In order to fund the NHS the Central Bank of England must create money out of thin air. Of course doing so increases the money supply. Remember the government and the Bank of England is just a small group of people like you or I. If you or myself was to create money out of thin air the same way these people do it would be called money forgery and we would be criminally prosecuted. Having an unsound currency I believe is the root cause of almost all societal, political and economic issues we see today, it’s the reason the government has managed to grow so large. We’ve established that the government’s prevent other people from creating currency and force people to use their currency such as the £ pound sterling in the UK.

If you bought a print from an artist and the cost was based on the fact that only 50 copies will ever be produced, what do you think the value of your print would be if the artist was to print 100’s of copies? The value of your print would obviously nose dive. Thus when the state choose to increase the money supply they are stealing from the citizens by eroding the value of the currency that the citizens are forced to use. This was only achievable through force initially and now it’s achieved through ignorance. This process is a fairly new process in the Western world which all started when America came off the gold standard in September 19th 1931 and the rest of the world followed suit. This is the a hidden tax, the worst tax of them all by a considerable margin.

It’s preferable for couples to have have happy marriages, it’s better for the children, it’s better for the economy and it’s more stable. However I’m sure you wouldn’t want the government to choose your partner and force you to marry who they choose, with the threat of imprisonment if you do not marry your government chosen suitor.

Do you think that people should be able to disagree with you without the threat of being thrown in jail? I would imagine you are a sane person and obviously agree with this. However that is exactly what will happen to anyone who tries to resist the force being initiated on the citizens by the government to acquire the capital necessary through direct taxation or inflation. You have one way of providing healthcare to the poor, I have another way which I want to use to solve the healthcare problem. For the NHS to continue to exist I am forced to agree with you. So this means that all socialists want the government to force everyone else to follow their opinion or else. The use of force is of course an act of violence.

It is a performative contradiction or a logical contradiction to be a socialist and be against violence as social programs require the use of violence. To say that violence is wrong, and that I want to use violence to achieve my ends is a logical contradiction. If violence is wrong it must be universally wrong, it cannot be wrong today but right tomorrow, it cannot be right when the state is big, but wrong when the state is small. It’s either right or it’s wrong. Otherwise there is no such thing as good or evil and everything must be relative. If you profess to be against violence you cannot say that violence is right if we are pursuing the education of children, or pursuing the healthcare or welfare for the poor. This would be to say that the violence is legitimized by the end, or that violence is good if the outcome is preferable to you. This is immoral, this is evil and this is precisely what the government is.

Moral Relativism is in and of itself a self detonating presupposition, as saying that something is relative is saying that it is always relative or universally relative, which of course makes it not relative. This is because the concept of moral relativism presumes that there is no universal or absolute moral principles. For example if you say that I am wrong you can only do so by confirming truth to be an objective preferred conclusion, and this is true with all debates. For moral relativism to be true; truth, falsehood, good and evil have to be subjective i.e. you would have to not prefer truth over falsehood or for that matter have no measure at all. However taking part in any debate one must universally prefer truth over falsehood as an objective measure. If moral relativism was correct it would mean that there is no difference between good and evil, rape, murder, genocide or any other despicable action you can imagine would not be considered evil to a moral relativist. So you see the central problem here is that you can profess to be a moral relativist, you can discuss moral relativism abstractly, however no one can possibly be a moral relativist as it does not exist in reality. This is Aristotelian metaphysics.

Violence is always wrong, except in an extremity of self defense.

Arguing against socialised healthcare with the argument from effect

The common notion today sadly is that people on the political left supposedly care about the poor, and that libertarians or anarcho capitalists supposedly do not care about the poor. However the free market has a far greater track record on reducing poverty, and providing services to people in society. Essentially it is logical to say that socialists have clearly not looked at the historical evidence or the statistics which are readily available online, rather they have fears or conclusions which are outside of reality and are provably irrational. This of course does not mean that they do not care about the poor, just that anarcho capitalists are much more morally consistent.

In the West slavery was once considered to be moral only 154 years ago, homosexuals were repressed and in some cases were chemically castrated for their sexuality only 67 years ago and the subjugation of women only 99 years ago in Western culture these were all once considered perfectly accepted norms. We have certainly come a long way thankfully. Morally speaking you could argue confidently that moral values have advanced. I can not imagine anyone in the right mind arguing for these barbaric practices to come back into being, however the moral sphere needs to be widened further.

In the 19th century arguments from effect were made by the majority of the population to maintain slavery as it was considered a normal practice, a moral practice and people did not believe the population could survive without slaves. Go forward 154 years and those same arguments are being used today for governments. “Government violence is OK, because the outcome is preferable to the many.” “Without governments providing healthcare the poor will die.” “Without governments we wouldn’t have roads.” In the 19th century those same arguments would have been something like this; “The violence used to maintain slaves is OK, because we need them for farming.” “Without slaves the cost of living would cause the poor to die due to starvation.” “Without slaves who will work the fields.” These statements sound morally reprehensible don’t they. Well hopefully in another 154 years people will look back at these statements the majority use today and realise those statements to be equally despicable.

How are we going to take care of the sick and the poor without the NHS?

The main reason people want the NHS is because they believe that without the NHS disabled, vulnerable or poor people are going to die, because they will be unable to afford healthcare.

The first thing we must ask is, is this a fact or an opinion? I care about the poor, you care about the poor too and I’m sure as do many individuals who are pro NHS seemingly as it is their assumption that the poor would have no healthcare without the NHS or could not afford what the market offered. If the majority of voters were disinterested in ensuring healthcare is provided voluntarily for the sick, disabled, vulnerable or the poor then the NHS or the Welfare system as a whole would not have been democratically voted into being in the first place. Therefore this must be an anti-rational position.

If it is simply something people are afraid of happening then we can look at historical examples, of course again historical evidence counters this fear. Statistics almost universally show that when the market is freer poverty reduces [Link link]. When the government nationalise or provide a welfare state the level of poverty has almost universally increased. Welfare programs trap people in poverty rendering them dependent on the state through the encouragement and rewards they provide for making bad decisions which would otherwise have been a life lesson to provide one with a opportunity for self improvement. The special favours that governments grant to companies lead to monopolies forming through tax breaks or barriers to entry via draconian regulation preventing competition leaving the poor with fewer opportunities for work, thus being stuck with a low income job. Quite frankly I believe the poor can handle being free to choose for themselves.

Problems caused by socialised healthcare

It is well understood that in order to remain healthy we need to have regular exercise, maintain a healthy diet, 6-8 hours of sleep, refrain from consuming alcohol, not smoke cigarettes/e-cigs or partake in other substances which are scientifically proven to detrimentally effect health and well-being. However in the West it is understood that around 70-75% of healthcare costs are attributed to behavioral or lifestyle choices. People eat too much fatty foods, they are lazy, they drink too much alcohol and smoke too many cigarettes. According to the NHS statistics they deal with approximately 1 million customers every 36 hours. This means that between 700,000 – 750,000 of their customers require assistance due their own bad lifestyle decisions.

As previously mentioned above government social programs completely remove the consequences for bad decisions and instead reward bad decisions and penalize good decisions. With healthcare this is proven by the fact that people who choose to lead healthy lifestyles are forced to subsidize the cost of providing the healthcare to those who lead unhealthy lifestyles.

This is why in the West we are faced with a drug epidemic, an obesity epidemic, a dramatic increase in diabetes, people suffering from high blood pressure, high cholesterol amongst many other conditions that are dramatically increased by bad lifestyle choices. The purpose of healthcare fundamentally is to cover you for the unforeseen and the unlikely. It is supposed to aide those terribly unlucky ones who develop horrible conditions through no fault of their own.

Would you think it wise to encourage a gambling addict to continue his habits by giving him a loan? This is essentially what the NHS does when it enables people to make bad lifestyle choices through subsidising and obfuscating the negative financial and personal consequences.

In a free market system the cost of medication for obesity for example would make becoming obese, or maintaining unhealthy levels of excess body fat prohibitively expensive to most and they would be more likely to spend more time on preparing healthy food and maintaining a healthy diet, over unhealthy diets causing an inflating money supply through inefficient socialised healthcare. Take into account that according to the NHS statistics children growing up in a poor household are far more likely to be obese. They suggest that changes in society, rather than poverty itself, is behind the shift. For example, people with less time to prepare food are more likely to choose ready made meals high in saturated fats and other nasty preservatives that are scientifically linked to various forms of cancer and other diseases. Whilst there is a short term time benefit to this, the long term health costs would make this decision untenable in a free market as individuals would face the consequence of making bad decisions. In a free market this would only effect the parents, however with socialised healthcare everyone pays for this mistake and the entailment of bad habits and abuse continues. The fact that the cost for healthcare is being excluded from the parents equation (the perception that healthcare is free) I believe is attributing to the parents decision to increase their children’s likeliness to develop life altering conditions through child obesity. This I believe is child abuse as parents are choosing to feed their children foods which they know to negatively effect their health, for the sake of laziness.

A free market healthcare system encourages exercise, healthy diets and discourages partaking in the consumption of alcohol or other drug use which provably effect their health because it is much cheaper to be healthy in a free market than to be unhealthy. In a socilised system that difference is eradicated. People in a free market system are of course free to eat unhealthy foods or drink alcohol but they maintain responsibility for their own actions. We are not children afterall, surely we have the self confidence and self worth as a society to be accountable for our own mistakes.

Another issue socialised healthcare causes is that the end user is not aware of what the service is costing. In a free market situation going to see ones GP (General Practitioner) would incur a cost, either directly based on a per visit basis or covered through an insurance scheme presumably. This cost would deter someone from scheduling an appointment to see a GP which could be considered to be a waste of time. In a socialised system because the cost is hidden through inflation the end user will be far more likely to schedule appointments with their GP. Everyone instinctively knows this. Imagine walking in a city and you see a street vendor presumably selling drinks, he/she looks to be doing the hard sell approach it seems. What would happen if you realise having got closer to the vendor that he/she is handing out the drinks for free. Of course most people will take one.

They want to sell off our NHS

First of all socialism is using force to extract capital from capitalists to redistribute to where socialists believe capital is needed rather than where it would naturally be distributed. Every aspect of the NHS or any social program for that matter must steal funds through taxation or inflation from the market capital created by capitalists. Socialism does not create anything. This is why millions have universally died through democide because the government have co-opted the entire market through force and there is practically nothing left for them to steal, other than from the black markets that form to keep people alive.

Look at the NHS, who produces their pharmaceutical supplies? Who trains the doctors, surgeons? Who designs and develops their machinery such as MRI machines or X-Rays? Who builds the buildings? All aspects of the NHS rely on the market. Private companies compete to produce pharmaceutical products, which the NHS then uses funds it’s forcefully obtained from taxation or inflation to purchase.

Limiting the companies that can supply the NHS increases the cost and reduces the efficiency of the system, yet people argue that allowing competition to provide these services is somehow “selling” the NHS. We have established that the NHS produces nothing itself, it operates inefficiently, and so therefore if it was a business it would be bankrupt. The NHS is an amalgamation of capital assets and individuals from the free market who are forced to operate how the government believe best, to provide a service through force that people already need, and that the market would be providing anyway.

The NHS routinely overpay for supplies. The National Audit Office found that the NHS have been found to be paying on average 50% more for products than the cost which said products are readily available in the marketplace. In some cases they were even found to be paying 100% more. This report was done in 2011. Another report was done in 2019, which found that the overspending had continued. The mainstream media however instead of blaming inefficiency now blame austerity, but if they actually looked at the figures for the funding the NHS receives they would not be making this argument as they are factually wrong. Article from 2019. This demonstrates that the NHS is inefficient, and has been for some time. The reason for this should be obvious by now. If you had the ability to steal money “morally” from people of course you wouldn’t think twice about how it is spent. Where as if money is earnt through competing to provide a better good and service to the consumer than anyone else, then the moneys true value is realised and so the money is efficiently spent. Easy come easy go.

Conclusion

The NHS is inefficient, ineffective compared to free market alternatives, coercive, heavily in debt, slow, subject to pressure group influence, immoral and completely unsustainable. Socialised healthcare encourages bad decisions through subsidising the cost of ailments relating to poor lifestyle decisions. Socialised healthcare discourages good decisions through forcing healthy people to pay for other peoples poor lifestyle choices.

The majority of people do care about the poor, the disabled and the vulnerable and would willingly voluntarily donate to make sure that healthcare will be available to those in need. We have to back away from using violence to solve problems.

Hopefully people one day will realise that violence is universally bad, in the same way that slavery is universally bad. We need to.

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Introduction

Why I’ve decided to start blogging?

I’m sure I’m not the only one out there that seems to be getting more and more frustrated with the Mainstream Media. Every article I read nowadays seems to be littered with fallacies or just lies frankly. I’ve read articles where the media presume to know motive, someones political leaning and even sometimes what someone “really” means from what they’ve said, as if they are in fact mind readers.

People like myself who espouse ideas such as the non-aggression principle, property rights or the scientific method are routinely labelled as fascist, far right or white nationalists. The Jefferey Epstein situation is another insane example. Project Veritas managed to leak a hot mic conversation involving Amy Robach and her off screen producer which revealed that ABC News stopped the story from airing. Now 3 years later we only know about this because of alternative news.

Every Mainstream Media outlet in the western world seemingly published stories labeling Project Veritas as “the right wing media” not realising that in doing so they are essentially saying that the left wing are pro-paedophilia. They focus on maligning the source of the leak rather than the content of the leak. I would like to think that the way the Mainstream Media reports on these kinds of stories will wake people up to the fact that they are not consuming news, rather propaganda.

Here are my thoughts on the Jeffrey Epstein matter. Firstly Amy Robach is a mother, she has 5 children, 2 daughters and 3 step sons. Seemingly she had the option to go to another media company to get this information out into the public domain. But she didn’t. I ask myself how a mother of 5 children can allow a previously convicted paedophile (Jeffrey Epstein) to continue on with his repulsive ways for 3 years to potentially procure, rape and molest many more children. Can you imagine having this knowledge and not making sure it got out to protect children!

A scary thought enters my mind. Maybe, maybe Amy Robach wanted to get this news out into the public domain but couldn’t. What if every single one of the media outlets just didn’t want the public to know.

Jeffrey Epstein did not kill himself.

I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates and follow me on Twitter @Ancapzero if you like what you’ve seen so far.

Government building houses in floodplain then intentionally flooding them to save frogs.

This on the face of it looks like something Alex Jones would say but here me out here.

This all became possible thanks to the creation of the Environment Agency in 1997 and subsequently the adoption of the European Water Framework Directive in 2000. Because of this Directive the authorities now no longer have a perceived duty to prevent flooding. Instead the emphasis is now primarily on an obligation to achieve “good ecological status” for our rivers. Their definition for this statement is “as close as possible to undisturbed natural conditions” or “unmodified waters.”

Therefore, rivers dredged or embanked to prevent flooding cannot by definition ever satisfy the terms of the directive. In order to comply with the EU directive, we are obligated to stop dredging, embanking and allow rivers to re-connect with their floodplains. Therefore, any dredging that has occurred is technically not legal. This does not mean that dredging of course no longer happens. It means that it is far less frequent than it was prior to said directive.

Flooding is a natural phenomenon that will always happen; however, it is entirely fair to say that the directive could potentially have had an impact when we see how frequent towns end up under water and main roads end up closed for several weeks every year.

In order to prove that the directive is causal we will need evidence to prove that flood events have occurred due to a lack of dredging taking place after the directive came into effect.

In 2013-14 the rivers Parrett and Tone both broke their banks leaving large areas of Saltmoor and Northmoor literally underwater. People were evacuated and the major A road A361 was closed for 10 weeks. A report was released which confirmed that dredging would have significantly reduced the number of houses submerged underwater. Had the rivers been dredged according to the report 90% of the homes wouldn’t have been underwater. The agency used a computer model to replicate the impact of the flooding to get said results.

Every year similar situations are occurring all over the United Kingdom costing the tax payer billions when preventative measures (dredging) would cost significantly less.

Whilst following the EU directive to allow rivers to re-connect with their floodplains the government is also granting consent to build new houses on the very same floodplains/land the directive wishes to flood, all over the country. What would be the purpose of this madness, why would the government approve houses on land they want to flood? Incompetence maybe. Maybe however they willingly setup this situation so that they can blame Climate Change. People will be forced to take seriously a literal example of towns underwater annually over an argument.

The state essentially is a small group of people with a monopoly on the use of force. Laws are essentially opinions with guns. If I want you to do something you can of course refuse and nothing will happen. However if the government tell you to do something that is another matter. You will be forced at gun point.

I will expand on this in future blog posts. But once you understand that the state, the government is just a small group of people with opinions who’s only tool is force you realise why issues like this occur. People who want to control other people with guns typically won’t be the best of us shall we say.

When you use force to achieve a goal usually the opposite desired effect occurs.