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

10:43 - IT´S DANGEROUS OUT THERE: So far, there has been an international consensus not to have tariffs on IT-equipment. That’s one reason why computers have fallen in price rapidly, and that they are getting better and more advanced. The EU is not happy with the development. Since a lot of the new computer screens have a Digital Video Interface, the EU classify them as television sets, and they are about to introduce a 14 per cent television tariff on them – more than the enitre profit margin from producer to distributor.

This also means that the European market will be closed to a lot of small and medium-sized Asian manufacturers. ”That may happen, but we cannot allow the law of the jungle to prevail”, comments a master of metaphor, Jan Hallberg at Swedish Customs.

Yes, ”the jungle”, that dangerous place where peaceful animals are suddenly ambushed by small, brutal predators, offering them cheap computer screens, with no empathy whatsoever for older and more expensive versions. Hallberg, please protect us before someone gets hurt!

15:31 - MOYNIHAN AT TIMBRO: He has revealed plagiarism at Dagens Nyheter. And the newspaper has responded by trying to smear him as a political extremist. On Friday evening Michael Moynihan will visit Timbro to tell his story. Dagens Nyheter’s representatives have been invited to respond. The invitation is here.

13:43 - TREASON AGAINST ROCK ´N´ ROLL: As PJ just nu reports, John Kerry’s daughters tried to promote their fathers presidential campaign at MTV´s Music Video Awards in Miami, and all they received was prolonged booing from the audience. One of the sisters had to hold her finger to her mouth to try to shush the crowd.

Is this a sign that young people are more pro-Bush than the media expects, as many interpret it? I don’t think so, I think it’s a sign that youngsters are smart, and that they detest any attempt to exploit their culture for political purposes. The rock star Alice Cooper has said it best:

"I call it treason against rock ´n´ roll because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics. If you´re listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you´re a bigger moron than they are.”

08:41 - PJ JUST NU: Today, the first Swedish newspaper starts a blog - PJ Anders Linder and Svenska Dagbladet launches PJ just nu. Good for them. Because mainstream media face the choice to participate to the development of media technology, or be run down by it. And this blog will certainly be worth watching. PJ is one of Sweden´s most important intellectuals, and one of the most eloquent writers in this country.

17:13 - JUST SAY NO TO BARROSO: Many, including myself, have seen Barroso´s EU Commission as a symbol of a ”more liberal, more Atlanticist” European Union (to use the frightened words of outgoing French trade commissioner, Pascal Lamy). That’s true. But even more market-minded Eurocrats wants you to pick up the bill for their pet projects. Barroso has said that he agrees with his predecessor Prodi that the EU budget should increase from €100 billion to €143.1 billion annually, something the big countries so far reject. It would still only be 1.14 per cent of the Union´s gross national income. But it is a huge increase. And if the EU is not to become a special interest–driven, tax-and-spend real life-illustration of public choice-theories, this is where we must draw the line. This time, I’m with the French and the Germans.

16:44 - JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS TIME TO CANCEL THE SUBSCRIPTION: Sweden’s best political journalist, Anders Isaksson, will be working on the editorial page of Dagens Nyheter this autumn. This is the only warning you´ll get, establishment.

23:36 - BREV TILL DAGENS NYHETERS LÄSAROMBUDSMAN: 

Bästa Lilian Öhrström,

Tack för att du i dagens tidning erkände att Peter Borgström har plagierat artiklar ur New York Times. Men tyvärr måste jag konstatera att du i din artikel inte alls gav läsarna någon bild av hur grovt och systematiskt detta plagierande har varit. Du skriver bara vagt att ”Det går inte att vifta bort likheter som påtalas”. Och det kan inte bero på utrymmesbrist, eftersom du ägnar så mycket text åt att ursäkta varför Dagens Nyheter tidigare har ignorerat anklagelserna – vilket faktiskt är den verkliga skandalen i sammanhanget.

Varför skriver du t ex att Michael Moynihan tillhör ”mycket konservativa” kretsar, och antyder att han skulle stå nära Bushs politik, när han i själva verket förespråkar bl a fri abort, gay rights och liberal invandringspolitik? Vem har givit dig denna bild av Moynihan? Och varför har du i så fall inte kollat den med honom, innan du försöker utmåla honom som en reaktionär, vilket (underförstått) skulle förklara varför DN tidigare har struntat i hans avslöjande?

Jag kan tyvärr inte frigöra mig från intrycket att du tycker att det är viktigare att rädda DN:s ära än att redogöra för vad som faktiskt har skett, och att du gör det genom att dra misstankar över den person som avslöjat plagiaten. Jag hoppas att du är medveten om att det undergräver din trovärdighet som en neutral granskare. Man undrar om inte DN skulle behöva en läsarombudsman till vilken man kan klaga över läsarombudsmannen.

Med vänliga hälsningar,
Johan Norberg, Stockholm

15:36 - A LESSON IN MANIPULATION: Tomorrow is the opening night for Michael Moore´s Fahrenheit 9/11 in Sweden. One good idea is to see the film first, and afterwards read about the distortions, the missing contexts and the outright lies in the film. It is a great lesson in how to detect propaganda and manipulation. Dave Kopel has found 59 deceits in the film. Here you can read his text in Swedish, translated by the new network Pro Veritas - which will distribute it as leaflets outside the theaters.

10:55 - CONFESSION FROM DAGENS NYHETER: As you know, Dagens Nyheter has until now refused to comment on Michael Moynihan’s exposure of plagiarism in the newspaper. But after an article in Expressen, the Reader’s ombudsman in Dagens Nyheter finally comment, acknowledge plagiarism in the paper and is sorry about the attempt to silence it down.

But it is still not a full confession. She says that politics is not an issue here, but Moynihan’s political leanings are mentioned again and again (in a misleading way), to try to explain why DN didn’t care until now – an obvious scandal in itself. And the reader never really understand the extent of plagiarism, and the editor-in-chief says that an apology to the readers would be ”incomprehensible” such a long time after the publication. I find it more incomprehensible that Dagens Nyheter didn’t confess until now, is not interested in getting to the bottom of this, and won’t explain to the readers what they have done wrong.

10:36 - RADICAL CENTRISTS, UNITE!: The Economist has always counted itself to the ”extreme centre” – in favour of both free markets and free men, opposed to both conservative bigotry and intolerance, and to left-wing tax-and-spend. With Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California, ”radical centrism” finds new followers and exponents, and might be the next big thing in American politics, according to Wired. Schwarzenegger is a fiscal conservative and a social liberal (in other words, a classical liberal), and he wants to take back government from special interests in both unions and corporations. And he is an outsider, above and beyond the traditional secterism of the old parties. I think it’s time to change the constitution and allow foreign-born to become president. ”For the people to win, politics as usual must lose.”

18:26 - CHANGING A WINNING TEAM: 
Today, Mattias Bengtsson resigned as president of Timbro, the market-liberal think tank where I work. I find it sad, since Mattias is one of the most gifted, knowledgeable and judicious intellectuals on our side. And he is also a good friend and a great ally in my work. Mattias has introduced me to many of the ideas I use and develop in my books and lectures. But you would never know, because he is the most generous boss you can imagine, always willing to give employees credit for things that he has initiated and inspired.

But I find comfort in the fact that Mattias will stay close to Timbro and help us in matters of importance, now that he becomes an entrepreneur in ideas. And I am also happy that the Swedish Free Enterprise Foundation, which funds most of Timbro, has expressed their deep appreciation of Timbro under Mattias’ leadership, and that they want to find a successor with the same profile. I don’t think they can find anyone like Mattias. But the ambition is admirable.

01:22 - POEM OF THE DAY: 

Oh, the weary souls who are chained by chance
To a treadmill track they must always amble,
Who never thrilled to a mad romance,
Who feared the risk of a mighty gamble.
They are the failures in life, not those
Who dreamed and struggled and risked and lost,
Who toiled and battled and baked and froze
But never flinched when the dice were tossed.

It´s the thought that lifts us above the beast,
The dream that moves us to discontent,
The thing that´s driven us west and east
And conquered ocean and continent;
And when we win to the heaven true
We´ll find a place, when we come to view it,
Where men do work that they want to do
In the way that they want to do it!

Berton Braley, The Great Adventure

14:13 - SCOOP: Sweden´s biggest broadsheet, Dagens Nyheter, has refused to comment the fact that one of their US-correspondents, Peter Borgström, is a systematic plagiarist. But today Michael Moynihan, who revealed the story, has written about it in Expressen, and then it is no longer possible for Dagens Nyheter not to comment. But the editor-in-chief, Jan Wifstrand, pretends that it is only a mistake and that it is only about one article. An excuse to the readers is "not relevant", he says.

This is the real scoop. A good newspaper can by mistake hire a plagiarist (New York Times, for example). But only a lousy newspaper would refuse to apologise and correct the mistake.

11:57 - THE PROPHET MACAULAY: Recently I got hold of an old 12-volume edition of the collected works of the English Whig Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859), one of the best political writers and historians of all time. Do you want an examle of his insights? In his History of England he writes about the State of England in 1685, and explains with examples and statistics why the golden era is not in the past. So why do so many think so - now and then? Macaulay gives us the answer:

"The general effect of the evidence which has been submitted to the reader seems hardly to admit of doubt. Yet, in spite of evidence, many will still image to themselves the England of the Stuarts as a more pleasant country than the England in which we live. It may at first sight seem strange that society, while constantly moving forward with eager speed, should be constantly looking backward with tender regret. But these two propensities, inconsistent as they may appear, can easily be resolved into the same principle. Both spring from our impatience of the state in which we actually are. That impatience, while it stimulates us to surpass preceding generations, disposes us to overrate their happiness. It is, in some sense, unreasonable and ungrateful in us to be constantly discontented with a condition which is constantly improving. But, in truth, there is constant improvement precisely because there is constant discontent. If we were perfectly satisfied with the present, we should cease to contrive, to labour, and to save with a view to the future. And it is natural that, being dissatisfied with the present, we should form a too favourable estimate of the past."

And just read this brilliant prophecy about future results of this delusion:

"It is now the fashion to place the golden age of England in times when noblemen were destitute of comforts the want of which would be intolerable to a modern footman, when farmers and shopkeepers breakfasted on loaves the very sight of which would raise a riot in a modern workhouse, when to have a clean shirt once a week was a privilege reserved for the higher class of gentry, when men died faster in the purest country air than they now die in the most pestilential lanes of our towns, and when men died faster in the lanes of our towns than they now die on the coast of Guiana. We too shall, in our turn, be outstripped, and in our turn be envied. It may well be, in the twentieth century, that the peasant of Dorsetshire may think himself miserably paid with twenty shillings a week; that the carpenter at Greenwich may receive ten shillings a day; that labouring men may be as little used to dine without meat as they now are to eat rye bread; that sanitary police and medical discoveries may have added several more years to the average length of human life; that numerous comforts and luxuries which are now unknown, or confined to a few, may be within the reach of every diligent and thrifty working man. And yet it may then be the mode to assert that the increase of wealth and the progress of science have benefited the few at the expense of the many, and to talk of the reign of Queen Victoria as the time when England was truly merry England, when all classes were bound together by brotherly sympathy, when the rich did not grind the faces of the poor, and when the poor did not envy the splendour of the rich."

17:14 - US POOR ARE INCREASINGLY BETTER OFF: Today Aftonbladet claims that ”US poor are increasingly worse off”. The article doesn’t support the headline though, since it is only about inequality - the poorest 20 per cent have seen their share of the income decline from 4.2 to 3.5 per cent since 1973.

There are two mistakes here:

1) A slightly smaller share of a rapidly increasing pie is bigger. Because of the rapid growth in the US, the poorest 25 per cent are more than 25 per cent richer than they were in 1973.

2) Because of the social mobility in the US, the poor are not the same today as in 1973. As a matter of fact, the majority of the poorest 20 per cent in 1975 have since also been in the top 20 per cent. And young students and new immigrants make up the poor today, and will rapidly climb the social ladder in the years to come.

09:47 - SUMMER WRITING: Here are some articles in Swedish I have published this summer: One tribute to the Estonian EU-commissioner Siim Kallas, another critique of Michael Moore, an estimate of the gains from free trade, and an attack on Sweden´s regional subsidies.

16:40 - ADRESSED TO YOU AND ME: You might have noticed that I am an advocate of free trade. Therefore, I had to read this Open letter to advocates of international free trade. In this letter the excellent Swedish economist Richard Johnsson explains why the argument against tariffs is an argument against taxes as well, since taxes at home also destroys the comparative advantage of the individual. Short and powerful.

14:58 - BACKLASH IN LATIN AMERICA?: Hugo Chávez now claims victory in the Venezuelan referendum on his presidency. We don´t know yet if this is a result of his massive spending of oil money to buy the votes of the poor, or of election fraud. The latter is not unlikely, considering the democratic credentials of Chávez, who attempted a coup in 1992, and has harassed oppositional media and unions since he was elected in 1998.

But nonetheless, many have asked if Chávez is a symbol of a wider backlash against liberal reforms and democracy in Latin America. In a way, that is the case. Reforming governments have lost power to leftists in many countries, and many voters express a lack of belief in democracy. But if you look more closely, it is not that simple. The Latinobarómetro poll in The Economist, reveals that Latin Americans are unhappy with the way democracy works, and would prefer authoritarian government if it solved the economic problems. But it also reveals that they don´t think that an authoritarian government could solve the economic problems, and that a wide majority prefers a democratic government. And a majority in every country believes that only a market economy can create development.

Several leftist politicans, like Brazil´s Lula, have continued with liberal policies, to expand free trade and give the poor property rights. The reason is that it works. In the 1980s, when the old isolationist and authoritarian system collapsed, Latin Americans got poorer. But after reforms in countries like Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Chile, they are back to growth. This year, the region will grow by 4.5 per cent. If they continue to reform the legal system and the business climate, that will continue.

Hugo Chávez, who adores Cuban dictators and has overseen how Venezuelan real incomes have fallen to their level of the 1950s, is not a symbol. He´s an anomaly.

09:48 - COMMISSION SURPRISE: One of the worst aspects of the EU is the lack of a real division of powers. And within that structure, the only thing you can wish for is that the president of the European Commission that the governments appoint just happens to think and act independently. And as a matter of fact, Portugal’s José Manuel Durao Barroso seems to be doing that. He has begun by rejecting the Germans’ and the French’ demand for his approval – the creation of a ”super commissioner” in charge of planning the European economy and promoting “industrial champions”.

The new commissioners are not supposed to represent their countries, but of course they do represent the thinking of their governments. And therefore, it’s good that Barroso only gave the French responsibility for transport, and that the Swedish social democrat Margot Wallström has moved from responsibility for the environment to becoming a PR-agent for the commission. And it’s very reassuring that Britain got trade, and that Dutch and Danish liberals are in charge of competition and agriculture. And the commissioner in charge of tax policy comes from Latvia, a country with a flat tax of 25 per cent and a corporate tax of 15 per cent. The enlargement seems to have shifted the balance in Europe from statism to reform.

And keep your eyes open for my favourite in the new commission, Estonia’s Siim Kallas, one of the vice chairmen, responsible for tackling fraud. He is a very principled and effective classical liberal who has successfully reformed his own country. Now he’s going to make life hard for regulators and harmonisers in Brussels. If you don´t think he is brave enough to fight for what he thinks is right against everybody else, you haven´t seen his moustasche.

15:17 - THERE AND BACK AGAIN: The reason why I have been quiet for a week is that I have been in Oxford. A wonderful and romantic city, with a countryside that would delight a Hobbit. Among other things I saw the window at Brasenose College where the paths of Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte cross for the first time in the wonderful film version Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.

And that tragic story about the fall of an old aristocratic family got me thinking about a fascinating fact from Robert Fogel’s The Fourth Great Awakening: In the early 19th century, the average member of the British aristocracy was five inches taller and lived almost two decades longer than the average Englishman. Today he is less than one inch taller and lives only two years longer.

The aristocracy could eat and live well before industrialism and capitalism. The rest of us couldn’t.

09:55 - SHORT REVIEWS: The best thing about summer is neither travelling nor swimming. It’s reading. I had the time to read quite a few books this summer, and here are some that I can recommend:

Mario Vargas Llosa: The Feast of the Goat: A fantastic and shocking story about the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. A convincing illustration of the mentality of a tyranny, and how it effects everyone involved. A story about courage, cowardice, treason and terror. Exciting and horrifying. This is Nobel Prize material.

Dan Brown: The Da Vinci Code: Yes, I had to read it to see what all the fuzz is about. And yes, it is a very clever mystery story about medieval conspiracy theories, science and religion. It is a bit like Umberto Eco’s wonderful Foucault’s Pendulum, written by an author with less interest in human psychology and more in action, and who makes up what he lacks in detailed historical knowledge with a fable that is actually quite appealing.

David Day: The World of Tolkien – Mythological Sources of The Lord of the Rings: Did you ever wonder where Tolkien got it all from? This is a detailed, though sometimes too speculative, description of the classical myths, legends and stories that Tolkien used to create his fantastic world.

Gregg Easterbrook: The Progress Paradox – How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse: An excellent book filled with statistics and examples detailing the fact that we have never had it this good. And a rich discussion about all the psychological reasons why people don’t understand this. A bit economic education would have given Easterbrook a stronger case, and prevented a few strange moderate-left suggestions. But nonetheless it is a great and thought-provoking book.

Martin Wolf: How Globalisation Works: A very good description and defence of the globalisation process by one of the real experts, the classical liberal who makes Financial Times worth reading at least on Wednesdays. This is the book that Bhagwati’s In Defence of Globalization could have become, if Bhagwati could decide on which audience he had in mind. Bhagwati´s book has far too many passages that are too difficult for the layman, but not of sufficient novelty or interest to the scholar. But Wolf manages to strike the right balance

Fareed Zakaria: The Future of Freedom – Illiberal democracy at Home and Abroad: An elegant and insightful demonstration of the classical liberal insight that democracy isn’t the same as liberty. A majority can be just as oppressive as a minority. Zakaria’s sometimes makes a bit too much of his case, and is very fast to blame democracy for problems that someone else created, and there is too much nostalgia for the past for my taste. But it is still very good.

16:29 - INSTEAD OF MOORE: At last a serious film about terrorism and September 11...

16:22 - WHAT A DIFFERENCE A CONTEXT MAKES: Myths die hard. Today, Niklas Ekdal writes in Dagens Nyheter (not on the internet yet) that the torture at Abu Ghraib took place in a ”permissible atmosphere” since the military command had known about it for months when the TV show 60 minutes exposed it. Yes, they knew about it for months, but why doesn’t Ekdal mention what the military did during those months?

As I have written before, news about the abuse reached Army command in Iraq on January 13, and they started a criminal probe the next day. By March 20, they announced that criminal charges had been brought against six soldiers. At the same time, three other Army investigations were looking into the matter. One of them detailed the torture at Abu Ghraib, and got hold of the pictures. It is from this report CBS and other media learned about the abuse. A “permissible atmosphere”? You be the judge.

16:03 - DEREGULATION, KENYAN STYLE: In my film Globalisation is good I pointed out that one of the reasons why Kenya stays poor is that it takes a Kenyan 11 bureaucratic procedures, 68 days and half a year’s income to start a business legally. When I talked to the country´s corruption minister, he said that it was a priority to deregulate the process, to reduce corruption. Well, soon afterwards it only took 11 bureaucratic procedures, 61 days and half a year’s income. And this year we can see that it takes even less time to get the permissions. But the government has compensated by adding a bureaucratic step to the process. Now it takes 12 bureaucratic steps, 47 days and half a year’s income to start a business legally. Does anyone wonder why most Kenyans work in the informal sector?

17:22 - "ALMOST GENOCIDE": The United Nations isn’t sure about what to do about the mass murder in Dafur in Sudan, which has claimed perhaps 50 000 lives so far. Not because they are uncertain if an intervention would be succesful or not, but because they don’t know if this is ”genocide” or not. Sweden’s foreign minister has said that it is ”almost genocide”. That’s what you get when bureaucrats rule the world. Rudolph Rummel has an enlightening comparison:

It is as though a group of karate experts were walking down the street, and suddenly see across the street a man beating an old woman with a baseball bat. While the beating goes on they stop, and staring across the street, one asks, "Why is he doing that?"

Another asks, "Do you think it is a hate crime?"

"I don´t know," says a third, shrugging his shoulders, "how do you define hate crime?"

12:37 - BREAKTHROUGH: In the last minute, the 147 WTO members agreed on a framework for substantial trade negotiations, so the Doha round could be saved. The result will probably be reduced agricultural subsidies in rich countries, and less industrial protection in the poor countries. Ironically the first is seen as a concession from the rich countries, and the latter as a concession from the poor ones. Ironically - because the rich countries stand to gain most from the first, and the poor ones from the latter.

Many wonder why developed countries are suddenly willing to discuss agricultural protectionism. Simple: In the beginning of the year, the so called peace clause expired, which means that agricultural subsidies can now be challenged at the WTO, which Brazil has done succesfully against US cotton subsidies earlier this year. So the rich countries now understand that they have to begin serious negotiations and get something in return for a reduction in subsidies, before they are ruled illegal. Once again, the WTO is the best friend of the poor countries.