GlobLog - December 2003
A direct link to each entry is obtained by using the button below the entry.

09:45 - LAST THING BEFORE HOLIDAY: Nick Gillespie has made a nice, long interview with me, published in the latest edition of Reason Magazine. Read it here.

12:12 - DON´T WEEP AND REPENT!: The end of this year has been extremely busy for me, something that has already been noticed by those of you whose e-mails I have not had time to answer yet (sorry). Besides my normal work I have used the last month to write and produce a book for Timbro’s 25th anniversary together with Anna Wilson. But now at last it’s finished and it’s time for my favourite time of year, Christmas holidays, with tranquillity, snow, friends and time to read. I’ll be back at the office in two weeks.

Some people ask me how an atheist can celebrate Christmas. Well, it’s not difficult for a Swede, since it is an old heathen holiday here, to celebrate mid-winter, and here the word for Christmas, “jul” bears no relationship to Christ. I cannot defend Christmas in any better way than to quote another atheist, Ayn Rand, who wrote this in December 1976:

"The secular meaning of the Christmas holiday is wider than the tenets of any particular religion: it is good will toward men... The charming aspect of Christmas is the fact that it expresses good will in a cheerful, happy, benevolent, non-sacrificial way. One says: ´Merry Christmas´ – not ´Weep and repent´. And the good will is expressed in a material, earthly form – by giving presents to one’s friends, or by sending them cards in token of remembrance…
The best aspect of Christmas is the aspect usually decried by the mystics: the fact that Christmas has been commercialized. The gift-buying…stimulates an enormous outpouring of ingenuity in the creation of products devoted to a single purpose: to give men pleasure. And the street-decorations put up by the department stores and other institutions – the Christmas trees, the winking lights, the glittering colors – provide the city with a spectacular display, which only ´commercial greed´ could afford to give us. One would have to be terribly depressed to resist the wonderful gaiety of that spectacle."

Merry Christmas!

17:14 - PETER JACKSON IS A GENIUS: I haven´t written a review anywhere, but I must say that The Return of the King is fantastic. It is a great climax of the Lord of the Rings-trilogy, majestic and sentimental - I wept like a child. I am a Tolkien-fan since I first read the book. It is the kind of great story of the battle between good and evil that I couldn´t find in contemporary literature. Granted, Tolkien was a traditionalist, longing for the good old days before industrialisation, female liberation, cars and television sets. But there are good political elements as well. Tolkien was an anti-authoritarian conservative. In 1943 he wrote that he politically was tempted by "Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs)", and The Shire is portrayed as a small-scale utopia with almost no government before Saruman arrives and introduces oppression and rationing (not in the film). And above all, Tolkien wrote this great epic on how power corrupts, and borrowed heavily from the fight in the real world against nazism and communism (two towers...). Peter Jackson has made a worthy trilogy of it. It´s just brilliant.

09:26 - CHYDENIUS EXHIBITION: The father of Swedish liberalism was Anders Chydenius (1729-1803), an individualist priest who fought successfully for free trade and free press in the parliament, and explained the concept of the self-regulating market 11 years before Adam Smith. The library of the Swedish parliament has a small Chydenius exhibition right now, where I gave a guided tour for a couple of friends yesterday. If you´re in Stockholm you have until 18 December to see this collection of scripts, quotes and stories. Here you can read my presentation of this fantastic pioneer in Swedish.

21:39 - WE GOT HIM!: So Saddam Hussein is finally captured. It is always a day of great joy when a murderous tyrant is brought down or brought to justice. This time, when the megalomaniac is finally found in a hole in the ground, dirty and with a not very becoming Karl Marx-beard I come to think of Shelley´s poem Ozymandias. A traveller to an ancient land sees the fallen statue of the tyrant, and reads the words on the pedestal: "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair." And the traveller looks around and sees that nothing of the empire remains. "The lone and level sands stretch far away.

15:21 - OSTALGIA: If you haven´t seen the German film Good Bye Lenin yet, you should. It is the story of Alex who is trying to deceive his ill mother that the Berlin wall is still in place and that communism is alive and well. It is a funny and heart-breaking film about change and lies. Here is a review i wrote in smedjan.com (in Swedish).

14:55 - AID DEBATE: I debated with the Minister for International Development Cooperation Carin Jämtin on Swedish television the other day. She pretended that Swedish aid to dicatatorships like Ethiopia has only been disaster relief, which is not the case. But more positive was that she agreed with me that African nations need free market-institutions and she actually said something like "the government is now changing aid into what Johan says it should be, to create property rights and build market economies".  It seems like the primary motive for Jämtin and her friends is to give away the taxpayer´s money. If they have to distribute it to the creation of laissez-faire-capitalism, they will do it.

Repeat tomorrow Sunday, SVT1, 14.40.

14:16 - FIRST PRESIDENT OF SWEDEN?: I have been nominated for president of Sweden. No kidding. A to me unknown left-wing gentleman has written an article in the Swedish daily Skånska Dagbladet 8 December, saying that I am a better alternative to be the head of State than the crown princess Victoria. That´s really flattering. The minor problems is that Sweden is a monarchy and that I am not interested in a political role. But on the other hand, I want to abolish the monarchy, and if I can facilitate the transition to republic by accepting the nomination, perhaps I can be convinced...

09:27 - HOW WE DESTROYED ETHIOPIA: Tonight you should watch Dokument Utifrån in Swedish television. Not primarily becuase I am in the debate after the documentary, but because the film - Bengt Nilsson´s "Jorden, maten, makten, folket" - is very important and well done. It is about one of the world´s poorest countries, Ethiopia. Sweden and other countries always blamed Africa´s poverty on colonialism and drought, and therefore sent "development" aid to authoritarian regimes and planned economies. Surprise: Ethiopia was never a colony, and the communist dictatorship we supported was more disastrous than the weather. Without property rights to the land, with American food aid that destroys domestic agriculture, without the freedom to sell anything else than coffee to European markets, and with a warmongering regime, Ethiopia is still condemned to misery and starvation. Read a Swedish review here.

11:20 - IN FRENCH: Recently I gave a speech at a big globalisation conference in Paris. It has now been published in the respected French business magazine Le nouvel Economiste, and you can also read it here.

11:02 - BAD CAPITALISTS DO NOT EQUAL BAD CAPITALISM: Scandals in companies like Enron and Skandia are excellent arguments for capitalism, not against it. I explained that in Swedish radio show Godmorgon, världen on Sunday. You can read my views here (in Swedish).

10:13 - THIS YEAR´S FILM EVENT: Wonderful! I just got tickets to the first night of The King Returns 17 December. It cheers me up after the depressing Russian election. Tolkien tells the story of heroes who weren’t corrupted by power. The real world could use some of them...

07:09 - HOW TO STEAL AN ELECTION: Putin’s and the power faction’s party and the parties they have bought get a comfortable majority in the new Russian duma. Nothing else was to be expected, since the opposition media has been closed down and those who could make a difference are in jail. But if - at it seems right now - the liberal parties Yabloko and SPS not even make it into the duma, it is even worse than expected. That must be a clear signal to the only true opposition: All good forces must stop quarelling and unite if Russian democracy is to survive. No, not "survive", because it has already been killed, "restored" is a more appropriate word.

17:10 - BREATHING SWISS AIR: Now I am in Zurich to discuss globalisation. In 1945 one Swiss franc was worth one Swedish krona. After half a century of high Swedish and low Swiss taxes it is now worth about 5,6 Swedish kronor. How do you know you are in wealthy Switzerland? The street musicians have fashionable clothes and expensive amplifiers. Probably they take credit cards as well...

15:10 - PEACE IN THE TRADE WAR: At last Bush abolished the steel tariffs. It was not a very brave decision. The tariffs hurt American steeel consuming industries more than they helped the American steel industry, and EU retaliatory tariffs would have hurt states Bush needs in the next election. Furthermore the weak dollar has already made foreign steel more expensive, without the help of tariffs. But with all this being said, it was an extremely important decision. If the US would not have followed the ruling of the WTO, that institution would have been severely damaged, perhaps beyond repair. And it saves the world from a big trade war between US and the EU. At last there is some free trade momentum now, which might help to launch new WTO negotiations. Bush has the chance to repair his reputation and once again style himself as the free-trader that he was before the farm bill and the steel tariffs. Let’s hope he takes it.

09:42 - KYOTO BREAKDOWN: Russia refuses to ratify the Kyoto agreement, and the EU will also fail to curb greenhose gases as it promised. European protesters, politicans and media has compared US president Bush to a monster becuase he pulled away from Kyoto. But it appears that he was the honest one, who said from the beginning that the US couldn’t do it. Will they now attack humbugs like Putin, Chirac and Schröder as violently as they attacked Bush? Of course not, their primary motive is not love for the environment, but hatred of the US. How predictable.

00:03 - ON MY STEREO: Oh, and I forgot to mention that the best thing about the LYMEC seminar was that they gave me the new CD by Broder Daniel, the Swedish alternative rock band, as a gift. Great record, and great people, those young European liberals!

12:09 - OPEN EUROPE: This weekend I outlined a liberal vision for the EU at LYMEC, the European Liberal Youth. My critical, but optimistic speech was followed by a lively and very good discussion about the future of the EU, and many shared my ideas. One of my thoughts is that we need strong institutions to make sure that decisions are not made by those with a vested interest in increasing centralisation to Brussels. For example we could create a second chamber in the European parliament, consisting of representatives from national parliaments. This "subsidiarity chamber" would have the right to veto decisions in the first, legislative chamber. And we could also create a subsidiarity court. Read about how this would work here.

09:36 - GROWTH IS THE CURE: Today is World AIDS Day, and everybody will be talking about the need for a quick fix, the need for cheap medicines for example. But it’s important not to see the AIDS problem in isolation. The need for controlled distribution of drugs, and to take them in specific intervals requires better health care infrastructure. And the drugs are strong, so you need to be well-nourished to take them, so you need better access to food as well. And you need more political and economical emancipation for women, so that they can say no to ruthless men. And furthermore, malaria, diarrheal diseases and acute respiratory infections kills millions more than AIDS. So we need other drugs as well, better health care, more information, and sanitation. All of this takes resources, wealth and growth. What the poor need is not cheap drugs, but the wealth to get the drugs and everything else they need. Free trade is more important than free drugs.