We're all ballot boxed in

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In this Adam Smith Institute e-bulletin:
* IDEAS: We want YOU to get us out of this mess…
* TANKING: Overdue planning reform; stopping drug deaths; the making of an entrepreneur; podcasts
* LOCKDOWN BOOKSHELF: My eclectic selection of titles to help you through the dark evenings




** BUT FIRST...
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Alas, Sir Sean Connery is dead. I met him once, but things turned nasty when he tried to teach my dog to sit. And I never realised how much I missed Jeremy Corbyn until he popped up again in the anti-semitism row. Old Jezza could always raise a smile, merely by mentioning one of his policies. Oh sure, he’d have bankrupted the country and thrown millions out of work, but the Tories have shown they can do all that too, and far more quickly and efficiently.

There’s only one topic of conversation around—no, not the US election, I mean the pandemic (though I’m not sure which could cause more damage). Unfortunately there’s no point trying to make a joke about the virus—it would be two weeks before anyone realised they’d got it. I still can’t believe we’ve been thrown in the cooler again—by cuddly Boris Johnson! (And with hairdressers, beauticians and nail bars all closing, things are going to get pretty ugly.) Still, there’s hope: Rapunzel met her future husband while locked down, and it’s a perfect time to change your passwords. (Last time I filled the days compulsively opening the bathroom cupboard, even though deep down I knew we had no toilet rolls.) And this time, I might actually finish Netflix. Then, after this is all over, I’ve got the perfect business idea: reminding people how to smile and what to do in large social gatherings.

Over the other side of the pond some old git has won the race to the White House, which old git it actually is remains a little bit up in the air.

Though I digress…


** ...TO GET US OUT OF THIS MESS
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Our policy chief Matthew Lesh wants your ideas ([link removed]) . Specifically, on how to address our immediate problems, and then on all the things we need to do in order to rebuild our trashed economy. On the first, we’re asking things like what we can learn from experience overseas; what simple regulatory changes would help us to respond and adapt; what simple measures would help businesses. And on the wider issues, we’re looking for reports on red tape, tax reform, the national debt, improving social mobility, harnessing new technologies such as AI, market solutions to environmental problems, the provision of education, expanding free trade, reducing the bureaucracy, decentralisation, internet freedom and more (cor, that’s a lot—Ed.). Read through and send us your thoughts.
EMAIL YOUR IDEAS (mailto:[email protected]?subject=Ideas%20Pitch)


** DO SOMETHING GREAT — DONATE
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Well, we’ve survived this long without taking public money, and we’re sticking to that principle. But now we have a bigger job to do than ever. Who would have believed that the government of a liberal democracy could:
* make people stay in their homes for an indefinite period,
* empower the police and health bureaucrats to forcibly detain and isolate people without a time limit,
* ban events and fine people £10,000 for demonstrating their opposition to the lockdown rules,
* prevent households from meeting their friends, even in open-air public places,
* lower the safeguards on official surveillance powers,
* develop an app that would track our whereabouts (albeit not that accurately),
* authorise people to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act on the advice of a single doctor,
* take over private hospitals and leave non-covid patients untreated,
* prevent people from travelling, even across county borders,
* forcibly close gyms, cafes, most shops and many other businesses,
* impose curfews on pubs and clubs, or close them down entirely (ah, now you’ve got their attention—Ed.)

And that’s just for starters. We need better education—particularly for politicians and officials, not to mention academics and students. We need to teach them that you don’t defeat a virus by taking away people’s rights and freedoms. We need to teach them how freedom works and why their powers should be limited. We need to make them realise how easily, and without thinking about it, granting themselves ‘emergency’ powers can take us down the road to serfdom.

That public education job is down to people like us. We don’t take public money. We don’t have big endowments. But we have hundreds of loyal friends who understand the importance of what we do. Please protect our way of life by donating to our work to explain to the public—and politicians—the vital principles of a free society and a free economy.
Donate to the Adam Smith Research Trust ([link removed])
No lockdown for us, we have produced more research, reports, articles, blogs and suchlike than ever before. That’s because it’s needed more than ever. And because we are just so darn brilliant.

Home Improvement: Fixing England’s Broken Planning System Once and for All. ([link removed]) You have to hand it to our policy supremo Matthew Lesh, he comes up with the catchiest sub-titles. This one’s almost on a par with Testing Times: The Urgent Need to Decentralise Covid-19 diagnostic testing in the United Kingdom. Anyway, the government has been consulting on its planning white paper, which we reckon is a one-off opportunity to fix our outdated system. Better land use would see more accommodation being built and give younger people the opportunity to afford decent housing close to where they work. Several new ideas are suggested, such as street voting on development, land value tax on larger sites, and eliminating uncertainties about new housing targets.

Streamlining the Quango State: ([link removed]) Personally I’d strangle it, but let’s go with streamlining for now. Government is covered in quangos, like barnacles on a ship, says ASI Senior Fellow Tim Ambler. Some are part of the executive, but oddly ‘independent’ of it. They can’t have it both ways. Their performance should be measured against set targets (You mean they’re not? No surprise, I guess.—Ed.) And they need to be accountable. If regulators, for instance, are supposed to be independent of ministers, they should answer to Parliament; tribunals should be part of the judiciary. Proper controls, says Ambler, would not only improve our democracy but would slim the bureaucracy and save £3bn a year.
Our webinars feature real experts challenging orthodox thinking on key issues. They get thousands of viewers and win praise from politicians (and normal people) around the world. To see them in real time, just reply to this email and I’ll send you invites. You can also see the recent ones on YouTube.

The making of an entrepreneur: ([link removed]) My interview with Joe Foster, who took Reebok from a start-up in Bolton to be the world’s Number One maker of leisure and sporting shoes. It’s a fascinating insight into the mind of an entrepreneur, driven to succeed against all odds.

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Stopping Britain’s Drug Deaths: ([link removed]) Our vice expert Daniel Pryor (Wish I had that job—Ed.) hears why harm reduction should be at the centre of drugs policy—not harsher penalties or forlorn attempts to stifle drug dealing. Arda Ozcubukcu of Neurosight, Paul North of Volteface and Steve Rolles of Transform Drug Policy Foundation explain why people take illegal drugs and how we can reduce the harm that drugs do.

Lands of the Free Trade ([link removed]) : Professor Marc Busch of Georgetown University gives our Matt Kilcoyne some frank expert opinions on the realities of Biden, Brexit and British-American trade.

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The Future of Cities: ([link removed]) Cities are the engine of modern economics. They are where we socialise, entertain ourselves, and find the most productive workers. At least they were… Have the changes we’ve made because of virus lockdowns become permanent? Are people going to move to other places? Or will things gradually revert to normal? Our experts Rory Sutherland of Ogilvy, Michael Hendrix of the Manhattan Institute, and Vera Kichanova of Zaha Hadid Architects review the issues with the ASI's Matthew Lesh.
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The Sun and the I Newspaper picked up the story from our latest report that getting planning right could help the British economy overtake that of the German’s, while report author John Myers was in CapX ([link removed]) explaining how reforming permissions could help you ensure your kids and grandkids escape decades of mortgage payments.

Matt Kilcoyne wrote for The Scottish Sun and for the Scottish Daily Mail on the hellish half-way house that Sturgeon’s restrictions on pubs and restaurants serving alcohol, along with strict 6pm curfews, was having on the businesses she was expecting to open without good recourse to support. The system up in the SNP fiefdom could very well end in tiers (That's enough — Ed.).

Daniel Pryor appeared on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Moral Maze’ ([link removed]) to discuss whether young people are now a ‘lost generation’ as a result of Covid-19. We usually use that term in reference to the hundreds of thousands of young people that were shot to pieces in the trenches of World War 1, and Daniel wasn’t convinced that problems facing today’s yoof—like the housing crisis and lockdown restrictions on socialising—measure up.

Our plans to promote a new Hong Kong right here in Blighty appear to have annoyed the Communists in Beijing. State censor, sorry broadcaster, CGTN ([link removed]) took aim at us and any Hong Kongers planning to come to the UK next year when the visa pathway opens. To which we say: you’re welcome here Hong Kongers, this is your home.

Brexit deals might have fallen off the radar for most people in the midst of a pandemic and the American election, but the end of the transition period is still coming down the track. Matt Kilcoyne says that the EU and Boris are in a game of pretending that their fake deadline is more real than the other’s fake deadline and that the only one that really matters is the end of the year, with the mood music suggesting a deal much earlier than that. His comments on the matter were picked up by the Guardian and the Scotsman ([link removed]) .

With trade talks hotting up between the UK's English speaking allies, our Matthew Lesh was quoted in CityAM ([link removed]) talking up the benefits of free trade also including freer movement for Poms and Aussies to call each other's countries home.

Finally, Senior Fellow Sam Bowman took aim at road communism in the capital city for CityAM ([link removed]) . As usual, the solution is the price system.


** FOLLOW US
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** On our mega-blog
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Incompetent government ([link removed]) . Another gem from The Observer this week. Seems to be saying that the government’s incompetent so we should have stronger government. Can’t have it both ways, says Tim Worstall. If our rulers are incompetent, the solution is to allow them less power, not give them more.

Yes In My Back Yard. ([link removed]) King’s College London don Dr Billy Christmas goes back to John Locke’s writings to make the case that the planners don’t understand the moral status and importance of private property at all. He argues that local streets should be managed by those who live in them, and to whom they rightly belong. The trouble is that distant bureaucrats have simply asserted rights to control property that just isn’t theirs to control. Restoring the ‘urban commons’ to those who truly hold the rights to them will help the housing crisis by encouraging development—but development that local people are happy with.

The grand old duke of York. ([link removed]) Britain’s Committee on Climate Change, chaired by Lord Deben (aren't we in debenough trouble as it is?!—Ed.), can see the top of the hill, but doesn’t know how to get there, so marches around just as ineffectively as our commander in the Napoleonic wars, says ASI Senior Fellow Tim Ambler. Sure, the Committee has produced a 304-page report and another 277-page one, but it’s all more aspiration than action. At this rate the idea of ‘zero carbon by 2050’ is not going to happen. But then, do we really want it to?


** Seen Elsewhere
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Why the new lockdown ([link removed]) is a mistake. Science writer Matt Ridley supported the lockdown last spring, but says we are in a very different situation now.

Government by decree ([link removed]) —it’s a bad idea, former UK Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption told Cambridge lawyers. The government deliberately stoked up fear, he says, to justify its lockdown restrictions—the “most significant interference with personal freedom in the history of our country.” He went on: “The sheer scale on which the government has sought to govern by decree, creating new criminal offences sometimes several times a week on the mere say so of ministers, is in constitutional terms truly breathtaking."
Watch it here ([link removed]) . Or read the full lecture here ([link removed]) .

The trouble with No.10’s stats. ([link removed]) Ross Clark on why predictions of 4,000 deaths a day were already looking ropey even before they had been published.

We’re not the only place ([link removed]) worried about the loss of personal liberty. Our friends at the Instituto Bruno Leoni in Italy have been tracking that country’s weekly and daily assaults on mixing, meeting, religious freedom, education, health and private life. It’s not pretty. You can get the picture here, or whack it through a translator to read more detail.

Liberty Fund ([link removed]) has a brand new website, and very impressive it is too. They publish and sell an amazing selection of books on economics, history and political thought, and of course the Online Library of Liberty has a spectacular array of classic books (Locke, Smith, Mill and hundreds of others), commentaries, plus quotations about liberty, Check it out here.

Intrusion ([link removed]) . The gifted young director Sophie Sandor, formerly of this parish, has created an interesting short film, a vignette-style comedy-drama set in a dystopian near-future, which follows the lives of several young people as they deal with their bizarre (and of course sugar-free) new reality forced on them by overbearing but unseen authorities. It’s supposed to be a fable, but right now it’s looking more and more like reality…



** Lockdown bookshelf (or lockdown handheld device thingy)
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Some titles to cheer up those long lockdown evenings

Shoemaker ([link removed]) by Joe Foster
If you saw my webinar with Joe Foster last week you’ll know all about this book. It’s the (rather modestly titled) autobiography of the man who took Reebok from start-up to the £3bn world number one maker of leisure and sports shoes. Joe’s grandfather pioneered spiked running shoes; his dad took over the business but it rested on its laurels and Joe decided to think much, much bigger, even if it meant taking on a big debt and having to live in the factory. There is fascinating detail on how various events nearly sank the company more than once, and how Joe and his team—he thanks a lot of people in the book—changed things and innovated to overcome them. It all shows how entrepreneurs are driven—not by money or ‘greed’ as the Left believe, but by the ambition to be the best and the compulsion to solve problems.

The Myth of the Entrepreneurial State ([link removed]) by Deirdre McCloskey and Alberto Mingardi.
We have partnered with the American Institute of Economic Research on this important book that knocks Mariana Mazzucato for six. According to her, almost any useful innovation (from the internet downwards) has been invented or created by the state. Tosh, say our heroes. Our rich and inventive modern economy was a product of social and political openness in the 16th-18th Centuries. Human ingenuity has always come from the bottom up, not the state down.

The Sphinxing Rabbit ([link removed]) by Pauline Chakmakjian, illustrated by Nilesh Mistry
Well, here’s an oddity. It’s a story about a wise rabbit who thinks a lot and builds up a well functioning community through simply persuading others to collaborate—unfortunately attracting the attention of the ‘masters', who send in their loyal dogs (who don’t think at all and have to be beaten into doing things). But it’s not just a carrots-versus-sticks kid’s bedtime story (the illustrations are fabulous, btw). It’s a deeper fable about political systems. Thwarted by the rabbit’s privacy tech, for example, the dogs go after a showy peacock instead. Which is exactly what happens in reality when anyone has a success, of course. We leave with the rabbit assembling her resistance to the masters. We’re promised two more volumes, so I’m intrigued to see how the story turns out. I’m hoping our side will win, but who knows?

Infrasocial Power ([link removed]) by Lorenzo Infantino
Now we’ve discovered just how much power supposedly liberal and democratic governments can give themselves, here’s a book that explains what power is and where it comes from. We live mostly through voluntary cooperation, says the author—the 'infrasocial power’ that improves our lives. Things go wrong when the state—however noble its intent—expands its power until it becomes arbitrary and excessive. Which ain’t entirely uncommon. But we understand the birth and function of public power, and the processes by which it expands, he says, we can do something about it. The answer is not unlimited democracy, which just gives power to the majority to exploit minorities, but a limited liberal democracy that allows the improving power of civil society to expand instead.

An Introduction to Entrepreneurship ([link removed]) by Eamonn Butler
Well, I had to include this one, didn’t I? It’s the latest in my series of very short introductions that explain things simply rather than try to show off (no words longer than an inch, was my colleague Madsen Pirie’s demand when I started on this series back in the 80s; it was good advice). Anyway, I explain that economists and politicians underestimate the importance of entrepreneurship as it is the unseen factor of production. Land, labour and capital are all pretty obvious, but they are all barren until focused on valued uses by purposive minds. I look at questions such as whether government can be entrepreneurial (Spoiler alert—no) and what conditions we need for entrepreneurship to flourish.
AND I QUOTE…

“The premise of lockdown now is to ‘Save the NHS’. Once again, we’re sacrificing our freedoms and our economy, and seeing enormous carnage across the country, because of what I think is a failure of public health.”

Jonathan Neame, CE of Shepherd Neame, on BBC Today Prog, 2 November.


Bye,

E.

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