GlobLog - February 2004
A direct link to each entry is obtained by using the button below the entry.

13:32 - A TRUE STORY: I´ve been asked what I think about Mel Gibson´s The Passion of the Christ. I don´t know, I haven´t seen it. But I can say this: I don´t understand the criticism of Gibson´s obsession with the suffering and death of Jesus, rather than his teachings. After all, the basis of Christianity is the obsession with sacrifice. After all, this is the religion that chose an instrument of torture - the cross - as its symbol. And it´s the religion that taught us that we must sacrifice all our worldly and material interests, and that we are all born evil, but forgiven because God sent his son to be tortured and murdered. If the film is bizarre, it´s because these teachings are bizarre. Concerning the accusations of anti-Semitism, it seems that Gibson deserves the backlash.

15:27 - QUOTE OF THE DAY: Aron Etzler, one of the founders of ATTAC Sweden, explains the difference between his own ultra-leftist and the ultra-rightist opposition to globalisation: "I do not sound like the National Democrats [Swedish neo-nazis], it is them who sound like me." (Jag låter inte som Nationaldemokraterna, det är de som låter som jag.)

13:58 - ILO AND STIGLITZ: In Financial Times today, economist-turned-liberalisation-skeptic Joseph Stiglitz explains that globalisation has "not lead to economic growth and stability" and "may not entail social progress". He builds his case on a new report from ILO, the International Labour Organisation and 26 commission members, A Fair Globalization: Creating Opportunities for All. The report has several valid points, but the overall perspective is just wrong. The fact that there are problems in the world does not prove that they are globalisation´s fault, no more than the co-existance of disease and doctors prove that the doctors are to blame. On the contrary, the problems are most persistent in the places where globalisation has not made its entrance. On average, economic growth in the most liberal economies is twice as high as in the least liberal. And every indicator of social progress discussed in the report - wages, the creation of jobs, standard of living, environmental protection and so on - is positively correlated to economic growth. How can so many experts be so blind to the most basic facts and connections? Perhaps because they were particularly influenced by one of the commission members in particular - Mr Stiglitz?

17:15 - A GOOD REASON NOT TO VOTE FOR BUSH: President Bush has just said that he supports a same-sex marriage-ban amendment to the American Constitution. We already knew that he is in favour of the old institutionalised discrimination which stops gays and lesbians from marrying. Republicans are in favour of family values and life-long relationships only for some people. What is new is that Bush sacrifices the Republican principles about states´ rights. Federalism? Only when the states act as Bush say. Remember that the next time Republicans use the federalist argument to allow states to outlaw abortion.

11:51 - MARXIST METHODS: The Swedish marxist professor Sven-Eric Liedman "reviewed" Frihetens klassiker (ed by me and Mattias Bengtsson) in the cultural radio show Obs on Tuesday. Liedman concluded - without explaining why - that our words are hollow and without interest, if it wasn´t for the fact that we represent a world of "a lot of money and power". This seems to be some sort of standard manual for socialists who are not interested in intellectual debate: 1) Don´t bother discussing facts and arguments, and 2) simply go for the person, and suggest that he is bought by big business. And then you have the afternoon off.

Liedman in his own words: ”Frihetens klassiker hade kunnat betraktas som ett kuriosum om inte den tankevärld som den förhärligade representerat så mycket makt och så mycket pengar. Det finns kort sagt kraft bakom orden, även om orden är ganska tomma.” (Obs, 17 februari 2004)

10:57 - EXPENSIVE CASTLES IN THE AIR: The Swedish government - especially the Minister for Industry and Trade, Leif Pagrotsky - thinks it’s glamorous to use the taxpayer’s money to promote Swedish culture abroad. The musicians don’t think the same, according to an interview with Esbjörn Svenssons Trio in Swedish radio this morning. The jazz band claims that it’s a way of building castles in the air and that the government is their worst tour manager ever. Esbjörn Svenssons Trio has been on tax funded journeys to Denmark, UK and South Africa, and the only audience has been Swedish friends there, “that’s nice, but is it really the right way to use the tax payer’s money?”, they ask. Another example that there is something rotten about export subsidies in every business.

Here are the quotes in Swedish: ”Jag har varit runt på lanseringar i Danmark, England, Sydafrika. Man har bara hällt in pengar, skattemedel så vitt jag förstår, på nåt som bara är totala luftslott, som bara brinner upp på en gång, och inte ger någon som helst förlängning… Det var bara svenskar, våra kompisar. Åka ned till Sydafrika och spela för lite kompisar …det är i och för sig kul men ska man verkligen använda skattepengar till sånt? ... Jag har spelat för arrangörer och promotorer i hela världen och den sämsta arrangör jag någonsin haft det var svenska regeringen... Man åker ut och gör magplask i olika länder helt enkelt… hur gör man att det verkligen blir musikexport av det, om det nu är det som är meningen?” (Kulturnytt, 19 februari 2004)

09:27 - BOOK RECOMMENDATION: One of the best works in economics lately is The Free-Market Innovation Machine, by William J Baumol. It is a theory about how market incentives make sure that innovations are encouraged and spread in the economy - and why this is the engine for economic growth in the world. Here is an extract, and here is a Swedish review by Gunnar Wetterberg. Wetterberg is correct, Baumol deserves the Nobel Prize in economics.

21:47 - THE POLITICS OF SURVIVOR: Tonight at a book launch for Mauricio Rojas´ great new work Farväl till gemenskapen, an interesting question was raised by Maciej Zaremba. Why is Survivor (in Sweden: Expedition Robinson) such a popular reality show, with its wallowing in manipulation and darwinist morality? Is Survivor an expression of ruthless neo-liberal capitalist values, as some socialist thinkers argue?

Let me suggest another explanation: Survivor is about a group of people who are confined to a small territory. They don´t create anything, instead they fight over limited resources so someone´s gain is the other´s loss. It is not about their ability, it´s about their social relations. And in the end, the collective decides who is to survive and who is not.

Survivor is about socialism.

19:52 - I DIDN´T EXPECT THAT PRAISE: The French daily Le Monde has reviewed the French edition of my book In Defence of Global Capitalism, and concludes that my arguments against several of the paper´s own positions are "vigorously documented".

09:25 - NEW PARTY: Sweden just got a new party, Junilistan, a euroskeptic party that aims for the European Parliament in the June elections. The initiators are the liberal economist Nils Lundgren and former Central Bank president Lars Wohlin. They are in favour of the EU membership, but want less power to Brussels - just like me. I don´t support all their ideas, for example they want to give nation states the opportunity to erect border controls towards other members to keep out alcohol, drugs or illegal immigrants. I can´t see how that is consistent with the ideal of an open and borderless EU. But nonetheless, it´s a good initiative in a Sweden where the liberal parties have been far too submissive to Brussels. This new party will force them to begin to be as critical of centralisation to Brussels as they are of centralisation to Stockholm. That is already beginning to happen. Competition works!

09:18 - ON KINGS AND SULTANS : The Swedish King Carl XVI Gustav has on a formal visit to Brunei said that it is "a more open country than any other imaginable". So according to him, this dictatorship is not merely the most open country in the world, but also more open than any country he can imagine. He supports the conclusion by saying that the Sultan travels around a lot, shaking hands with people (didn´t Lenin?). It is tragic that the King doesn´t have deeper knowledge or attachement to the idea of liberal democracy. Some have called for his abdication because of this. Of course he should abdicate, but the biggest reason is not this single quote - after all the Swedish prime minister has applauded China´s "political stability" - but the fact that the monarchy is a remnant from the days when Sweden were as closed a society as Brunei.

09:43 - THE MUSIC OF MODERNITY: Yesterday I was at the Kraftwerk concert at Cirkus, Stockholm. The electronic legends gave a great and memorable show. The four of them never took a step away from their computers, all the movement was confined to the music, the lights and the movie screen - just as it should be. One of the unique things about Kraftwerk is that their records are about technology: Autobahns, trains, computers and artifical intelligence. When everybody else wrote tired old clichés about love, Kraftwerk celebrated the scientific breaktroughs and their everyday applications. They wrote the music of modernity. That´s one reason to love them. (My favourite is Trans Europa Express, from 1977.)

13:04 - WATER FOR SALE: Anti-globalists claim that privatisation of water in developing countries hurts the poor. On the contrary, state-controlled systems create enormous waste, and makes it profitable for the authorities only to connect the politically connected. Water markets is a way to give the whole population access to clean and safe water, as shown by the examples in Chile, Argentina and other places. Fredrik Segerfeldt explains this in an important new book from Timbro (so far only in Swedish), today I write about the subject together with him in Sydsvenska Dagbladet

09:57 - MORE TOLKIEN: In the new Liberal Debatt, I discuss the tension between conservatism and liberalism in Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings. In Upsala Nya Tidning today, I explain how the great epic can be read as an attack on the social democrats (only in Swedish).

09:49 - SOCIALISM FOR CAPITALISTS: Today in Dagens Nyheter, there is an incomprehensible essay by Svante Nycander, which argues that early American liberals like Jefferson, Jackson and van Buren, were against the free market. His examples? That early liberals fought against the central bank, and against tariff protection and subsidies for corporations. Is it that difficult to understand that socialism for capitalists is not more pro-market than socialism for workers?

18:09 - OPEN EUROPE BETRAYED?: I just heard on the news that the two (normally) most liberal parties in Sweden, the moderates and the people´s party, are thinking of supporting the social democrats´ restrictions on workers from the new EU states. It they decide to do that, it is treason against their own ideas of an open economy and free movement, and it would give the socialists an excuse not to put an end to the abuse of the Swedish welfare system. It would certainly destroy the two parties´ credibility as defenders of an open Europe.

16:43 - THE NATIONALIST WEFARE STATE: The Swedish government has made it official that it wants 2 to 7-year restrictions on the inflow of people from the ten new EU-states - mostly from central and Eastern Europe - when they join on 1 May. Now Ireland is the only country that wants to give citizens from the new countries equality before the law. Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson says that we would be naive if we allowed people from Eastern Europe to "work for peanuts and giving them access to our social benefits". This is cyncial welfare nationalism at work. We cannot combine our costly welfare state and our benefits unrelated to the individual´s work and saving with an open world. And therefore we close the borders. The West rightly criticised the communist states for not allowing their citizens to leave the country. Now when they are permitted to do so for 15 years, we don´t allow them to enter our countries.

16:15 - TV RECOMMENDATION: June Arunga is a 22-year old Kenyan law student, who helped me when I made the documentary Globalisation is good. She has now made a film of her own, The Devil´s Footpath for the BBC. June is making a 5000-mile, six-week journey, to explore why Africa´s best and brightest minds are leaving the continent in their millions - a film which leaves her angry at the continent’s leaders and proud of everyday Africans. If you live in the UK, you can see it on BBC Three on the 5th, 6th and 8th February.

11:21 - HE WOULD ALSO MAKE A GOOD GOVERNOR: Clint Eastwood is not merely a great actor and director, he also has sensible political views. This is an extract from a recent USA Weekend interview:

So, socially, you´re live-and-let-live. How about politically?
- I suppose. I don´t see myself as conservative, but I´m not ultra-leftist. You build a philosophy of your own. I like the libertarian view, which is to leave everyone alone. Even as a kid, I was annoyed by people who wanted to tell everyone how to live.
As an ex-politician, does that extend to your view of same-sex marriages? That could be the polarizing issue of the presidential race.
- From a libertarian point of view, you would say, "Yeah? So what?" You have to believe in total equality. People should be able to be what they want to be and do what they want -- as long as they´re not harming people.

11:35 - WHISKY & FREEDOM: The last few days I have been on the island Islay in Scotland where I have visited whisky distilleries with a couple of friends. This is the home of Ardbeg, Lagavulin, Laphroaig, Bowmore and other great single malts. Why did so many great distilleries start production on this small island in late 18th and early 19th century? Partly because of all the water and the fertile soil, but also because of freedom. As the Reverend Archibald Robertson wrote in 1794: “this island hath the liberty of brewing whisky, without being under the necessity of paying the vital Excise Duty to the government. We have not an Excise Officer on the whole island". Some think it was because Islay was forgotten when the law was drafted, some think that the island was too remote and wild to allow a customs officer to be stationed there. No matter why, it gave the world the best whisky imaginable.