Saturday, May 11, 2019

It Is Not by Accident that Feminism Has Had Its Major Impact through the Necessarily Coercive Machinery of the State rather than through the Private Decisions of Individuals; It Is a Totalitarian Ideology

This, in short, is the thesis of the present book: It is not by accident that feminism has had its major impact through the necessarily coercive machinery of the state rather than through the private decisions of individuals. Although feminism speaks the language of liberation, self-fulfillment, options, and the removal of barriers, these phrases invariably mean their opposites and disguise an agenda at variance with the ideals of a free society. Feminism has been presented and widely received as a liberating force, a new view of the relations between the sexes emphasizing openness and freedom from oppressive stereotypes. The burden of the present book is to show in broad theoretical perspective and factual detail that this conventional wisdom is mistaken. Feminism is an antidemocratic, if not totalitarian, ideology.

Feminism is a program for making different beings--men and women--turn out alike, and like that other egalitarian, Procrustes, it must do a good deal of chopping to fit the real world into its ideal. More precisely, feminism is the thesis that males and females are already innately alike, with the current order of things--in which males and females appear to differ and occupy quite different social roles--being a harmful distortion of this fundamental similarity. Recognizing no innate gender differences that might explain observed gender differences and the broad structure of society, feminists are compelled to interpret these manifest differences as artifacts, judged by feminists to benefit men unfairly. Believing that overtly uncoerced behavior is the product of oppression, feminists must devise ever subtler theories about the social pressures "keeping women in their place"--pressures to be detected and cancelled.

--Michael Levin, overview to Feminism and Freedom (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1988), 2-3.


Friday, May 10, 2019

The American Nickname ‘‘Yankee’’ Originated in the Dutch Word for ‘‘Smuggler’’ Suggesting that Violation of European Economic Restrictions Had Been Second Nature to the Colonists

The challenge to Whitney’s claim of originality rested on supposedly preexisting devices already in use outside the borders of the United States. Southern juries and state legislatures believed that the cotton gin was brought over from Europe rather than invented by Whitney because just about everywhere they turned they encountered imported technology. Whitney’s failure to cash in on the fruits of his invention highlights the central paradox of the emerging American understanding of intellectual property. The United States enacted a patent law in 1790 that restricted patent protection exclusively to original inventors and ruled that prior use anywhere automatically invalidated a patent. Alas, this principled commitment to absolute intellectual property had little to do with reality. Smuggling technology from Europe and claiming the privileges of invention was quite common and most of the political and intellectual elite of the revolutionary and early national generation were directly or indirectly involved in technology piracy. And they were following in the footsteps of their ancestors. Americans had welcomed such practices since the early days of European colonization. The American nickname ‘‘Yankee’’ originated in the Dutch word for ‘‘smuggler,’’ and suggests that violation of European economic restrictions had been second nature to the colonists from the early days of settlement.

--Doron S. Ben-Atar, introduction to Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the Origins of American Industrial Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), xv.


Gentry Families of the West Indian Planter Elite Combined with the London Merchants Who Imported Sugar to Compose a Formidable Sugar Interest--More Influential Than Any Other Colonial Interest

On Barbados, the great planters monopolized seats in the elected assembly as well as the appointed council and judiciary. Because most land belonged to a small elite, the property requirement disenfranchised about three-quarters of the white men (to say nothing of either the white women or the black majority, neither of whom had any political standing). No other English colony so tightly restricted the electoral franchise.

The planter elite also enjoyed unusual clout in Parliament and with the crown. Many English gentry families possessed investments and sons in Barbados, and many successful planters retired to England and entered the gentry class by purchasing country estates. In Parliament these gentry families combined with the great London merchants who imported sugar to compose a formidable "sugar interest"--more influential than any other colonial interest. The sugar lobby protected the planters from the nearly ruinous taxes the crown levied on Chesapeake tobacco. In 1668-69 the West Indian sugar crop sold for about £180,000 after it paid about £18,000 in customs duty--compared with the £50,000 reaped by Chesapeake planters over and above their customs duty of £75,000. The Chesapeake planter worked primarily to benefit the crown; the West Indian planter kept most of the value his slaves made.

--Alan Taylor, American Colonies: The Settling of North America, The Penguin History of the United States 1 (New York: Penguin Books, 2002), 216.


Thursday, May 9, 2019

The British Prime Minister Lord North (the Prime Minister Who Lost America) Used to Say that Jamaican Planters Were the Only Master He Ever Had

The jewel in the British imperial crown in eighteenth-century plantation colonies was undoubtedly Jamaica. It may have been a failed settler society, with white population persistently low after the disasters of the 1690s, especially the advent of regular bouts of deadly epidemic disease. The proportion of black to white was too high for contemporary comfort, and the colony was full of transients with relatively little commitment to developing a coherent community ethos and collective identity in the ways that happened in established colonies of British North America. But Jamaica was a stunning success in imperial terms. It was not only the plantation colony par excellence, the colony in which the large integrated plantation was most dominant, and in which the values and structures of the plantation was most pronounced. Strategically, it was also immensely important to Britain as a strongly defended island set among the established American colonies of Spain and the growing colonies of France in the Antilles. Most important, it was the wealthiest part of the British empire. Overall colonial wealth might have been slightly higher in the longer settled and much more populous colony of Virginia, and individual planters in St. Kitts and Grenada may have been able to acquire more wealth from their enslaved population than Jamaicans; but no eighteenth-century British American colony matched Jamaica as the quintessential plantation colony, with the richest and most influential planter ruling elite.

By the eve of the Seven Years’ War in 1756, the natural historian Dr. Patrick Browne declared Jamaica “not only the richest, but the most considerable colony at this time under the government of Great Britain.” It was an island that surpassed “all the other English sugar-colonies, both in quantity of land and the conveniencies of life.” It was “so advantageously situated, in regard to the main continent, that it has been for many years looked upon, as a magazine for all the neighboring settlements in America” and “the quantity or value of its productions, the number of men and ships employed in its trade [and] the quantity of valuable commodities imported there from various parts of Europe.” Browne wanted to show in part how far Jamaica “may yet be improved.”

The British prime minister Lord North used to say of Jamaican planters that they were the only master he ever had. That was a considerable overstatement, but their wealth and political clout, exemplified in the mid-eighteenth century by the wealthy London magnate and absentee planter William Beckford (1709–1770), was sufficient for Jamaicans to get their way about most political matters affecting their island. The power that the small white population of Jamaica had was based on the extraordinary ability of its planters to grow sugar and the equally extraordinary abilities of its indigenous merchant class to extract bullion from Spanish America. Britons were mightily impressed. Despite its well-deserved reputation as a white person’s graveyard, Europeans flocked to the island to acquire great fortunes. Most died; some did indeed make fortunes. William Beckford’s family was one family that became immensely rich in Jamaica.

--Trevor Burnard, Planters, Merchants, and Slaves: Plantation Societies in British America, 1650-1820, American Beginnings, 1500-1900 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 157-158.


Wednesday, May 8, 2019

The Issues of Censorship and Copyright Were Closely Linked in the Eighteenth Century, As They Are Today; Copyright Is a Form of Monopoly Pricing Most Readers out of the Market

Indeed, the issues of censorship and copyright were closely linked in the eighteenth century, as they are today. Copyright is a form of monopoly, and long copyright terms restrict the circulation of books by eliminating competition and reducing production, thereby pricing most readers out of the market. Although the 1710 ‘‘Copyright Act’’ stipulated a fourteen-year copyright term, renewable once, stationers claimed a perpetual common law right in their copies independent of the statute; most argued their cases successfully in chancery for decades, until the House of Lords ruled against perpetual copyright in 1774. In the pivotal case of Donaldson v. Beckett (1774), Lord Effingham expressed concern that lengthy copyright terms impinged on the ‘‘Liberty of the Press,’’ thus ‘‘choaking the channel of public information.’’ Lord Chief Justice DeGrey and Lord Camden lamented the ‘‘engrossing’’ of knowledge that perpetual copyright allowed, Camden declaring that ‘‘science and learning are in their nature publici juris, and they ought to be as free and general as air or water.’’ In his landmark study The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, William St. Clair concludes that the ‘‘high monopoly period’’ from 1710 to 1774 impeded the dissemination of books, a finding that ratifies the peers’ concern.

--Randy Robertson, Censorship and Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England: The Subtle Art of Division, The Penn State Series in the History of the Book (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009), 202-203.


To Promote the Publication of Catholic Counter-Reformation Literature, Kings Granted Copyrights (Privilèges), Cementing Relations between Monarchs and Printers

In the early years of the Reformation Calvinism spread quickly through France, encouraging some printers to set up in provincial towns either to meet the new demand or to compensate for the shortages of imported books provoked by the religious wars that developed. The Reformation also inspired an enormous Catholic publishing response that was to last for the next two centuries. In order to offset the influence of Calvin, Catholic apologists wrote many devotional works, all of which required printing in large quantities. In their desire to promote the publication of Catholic Counter Reformation literature, kings granted copyrights (privilèges), which helped cement relations between monarchs and printers.

The regulation of printing became an important part of the campaign for control. The Affair of the Placards—the simultaneous publication, on 17 October 1534, of broadsheets against the Catholic Eucharist in Paris and other French towns—constituted a turning point in the persecution of Protestantism in France by firmly linking heresy and sedition in the minds of royal officials. At least twelve men were arrested and convicted in this affair, and nine were burned at the stake. Henceforth, printers were increasingly persecuted. The celebrated Lyonnais scholar-printer Étienne Dolet was sentenced by the Parlement of Paris to be burned at the stake for blasphemy, sedition, and the selling of banned books. A man of fiery and volatile personality who had been arrested previously for trading in banned books, Dolet was hanged as a repeat offender and then burned. Dolet, not a Calvinist but a classically trained scholar and an accomplished humanist, was one of those scholar printers of the era who participated in the cosmopolitan republic of letters created by the advent of print. His persecution underlines how the Reformation made governments focus on shielding the faithful from corrupting influences.

--Jane McLeod, Licensing Loyalty: Printers, Patrons, and the State in Early Modern France, The Penn State Series in the History of the Book (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011), 23-24.


Tuesday, May 7, 2019

Copyright's Roots Literally Lie in Censorship; Queen Mary Created the Stationer's Company in 1557 to Control the Press and What Information the People Could Access

What about copyright? The roots literally lie in censorship. It was easy for State and church to control thought by controlling the scribes, but then the printing press came along, and the authorities worried that they couldn’t control official thought as easily. So Queen Mary created the Stationer’s Company in 1557, with the exclusive franchise over book publishing, to control the press and what information the people could access.When the charter of the Stationer’s Company expired, the publishers lobbied for an extension, but in the Statute of Anne (1710) Parliament gave copyright to authors instead. Authors liked this because it freed their works from State control. Nowadays they use copyright much as the State originally did: to censor and ban books.

--Stephan Kinsella, "How Intellectual Property Hampers the Free Market," The Freeman 61, no. 5 (June 2011): 17.


Mercantilist Literature Consisted Mainly of Writings on Behalf of Merchants and Businessmen Who Had the Usual Capacity for Identifying Their Own with the National Welfare

The mercantilist literature, on the other hand, consisted in the main of writings by or on behalf of "merchants" or businessmen, who had the usual capacity for identifying their own with the national welfare. Disinterested exposition of trade doctrine was by no means totally absent from the mercantilist literature, and in the eighteenth century many of the tracts were written to serve party rather than self. But the great bulk of the mercantilist literature consisted of tracts which were partly or wholly, frankly or disguisedly, special pleas for special economic interests. Freedom for themselves, restrictions for others, such was the essence of the usual program of legislation of the mercantilist tracts of merchant authorship.

--Jacob Viner, Studies in the Theory of International Trade (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1960), 59.


Monday, May 6, 2019

Adam Smith Concluded that "in the Mercantile System, the Interest of the Consumer Is Almost Constantly Sacrificed to that of the Producer"

Mercantilism, then, was not simply an embodiment of theoretical fallacies; for the laws were only fallacies if we look at them from the point of view of the consumer, or of each individual in society. They are not fallacious if we realize that their aim was to confer special privilege and subsidy on favored groups; since subsidy and privilege can only be conferred by government at the expense of the remainder of its citizens, the fact that the bulk of the consumers lost in the process should occasion little surprise.

Contrary to general opinion, the classical economists were not content merely to refute the fallacious economics of such mercantilist theories as bullionism or protectionism; they also were perfectly aware of the drive for special privilege that propelled the “mercantile system.” Thus, Adam Smith pointed to the fact that linen yarn could be imported into England duty free, whereas heavy import duties were levied on finished woven linen. The reason, as seen by Smith, was that the numerous English yarn-spinners did not constitute a strong pressure-group, whereas the master-weavers were able to pressure the government to impose high duties on their product, while making sure that their raw material could be bought at as low a price as possible. He concluded that the
motive of all these regulations, is to extend our own manufactures, not by their own improvement, but by the depression of those of all our neighbors, and by putting an end, as much as possible, to the troublesome competition of such odious and disagreeable rivals.
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. . . . But in the mercantile system, the interest of the consumer is almost constantly sacrificed to that of the producer; and it seems to consider production, and not consumption, as the ultimate end and object of all industry and commerce.
--Murray N. Rothbard, "Mercantilism: A Lesson for Our Times?" in Economic Controversies (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2011), 642-644.

The Backstory of the Boston Tea Party: The East India Company Went Broke, So "A Fair Consumer" Suggested Beating the Black Market Smugglers by Dumping Surplus Tea on America

From the board, the desperate Laurence Sulivan came up with a plan to float a loan in Amsterdam, with the tea to be used as collateral: a rather lame suggestion, as the largest Dutch banks were also close to failure. An equally hopeless proposal came from Colebrooke, who wanted to ask investors in England for £1.5 million to refinance the business. With money so tight in London this was out of the question. But while these feeble ideas went the rounds, a more practical scheme had begun to emerge. In late September, a writer calling himself “A Fair Consumer” published a letter in the press that made a telling point. In London, wholesale Bohea cost three shillings and four pence a pound. In Amsterdam, where the taxes were tiny, the same packet of tea cost only one shilling and eight pence.

As everyone knew, this situation created the vast black market that ate away at the company’s position. The solution was obvious: turn the tables on the Europeans by slashing the price in London to the same low level even if the company took a temporary loss. By flooding the market with cheap tea, the company would drive the smugglers to the wall and cripple its competitors in the China trade.

It was only the germ of an idea, but gradually it evolved into a scheme to send the surplus tea to America. Before it could reach fruition, it would be warped out of shape by intrigue and political maneuver on both sides of the Atlantic. At times the story that follows will resemble an intricate jigsaw puzzle in the style of the rococo, but without it the Boston Tea Party would never have taken place.

--Nick Bunker, An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), e-book.


In 1776 Adam Smith Attacked Mercantilism, the Policy Whereby British Sugar Was Given an Effective Monopoly on the Home Market in Return for Using British Ships and Buying British Manufactures

In other ways the sugar barons were losing their lustre. In 1776, the Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith published his hugely influential The Wealth of Nations, in which he argued in favour of free trade and against mercantilism, the policy whereby British sugar was given an effective monopoly on the home market in return for using British ships and buying British manufactures. The first sugar barons had hated the Navigation Acts, but by the middle of the eighteenth century, the protected British market that was part of the original deal was of overwhelming importance to the British sugar producers. Because of soil exhaustion and a failure to invest in new technologies, the British islands now needed four times the labour to produce the same sugar as the newer French possessions, led in production by St Domingue. This, of course, made British sugar more expensive, thus the British consumer paid up to 30 per cent more for his sugar than customers in other parts of Europe. A pamphleteer of 1761 estimated that what he called the ‘fraudulent Trading of the Sugar Planters’ had deprived the kingdom of ‘over and above Twelve Million Pounds Sterling’.

--Matthew Parker, The Sugar Barons: Family, Corruption, Empire, and War in the West Indies (New York: Bloomsbury, 2012), 314.


The Royal Naval Squadron in North America Was Made Responsible for Enforcing Trade Legislation Including the Molasses Act; the Navy Treated Their Orders "As Declarations of Commercial Martial Law"

West Indian and North American interests continued to clash when Britain began in earnest to enforce the Molasses Act during the closing years of the Seven Years' War (1754-63). The North American trade with the French West Indies had continued during the war with France. Insurance rates on shipping with the French Caribbean were openly quoted in North America. In 1759 the Board of the Commissioners of Customs reviewed the service in North America and prepared a report for the Board of Trade. In 1760 William Pitt the Elder launched an inquiry into the French trade and issued a circular letter to colonial governors to carry out the commissioners' instructions against the trade. Customs officers in North America began to enforce the letter of the Molasses Act. The navy prosecuted seizures in West Indian vice-admiralty courts, especially in Jamaica where condemnations were easy. British and British West Indian privateers were even more effective than colonial officials in capturing North American ships trading with the French Caribbean. In July 1763, the Treasury ordered absentee customs officers to return within a month to their posts in North America and it proceeded to dismiss officers for noncompliance. It threatened prosecution of officers practicing "compounding" and "composition" and offered rewards to informants who exposed disobedient officers. "The publication of orders for strict execution of the Molasses Act," wrote Governor Bernard of Massachusetts to a Treasury official, "has caused a greater alarm in this Country than the taking of Fort William Henry did in 1757."

The colonial customs service was reorganized and its size increased. New instructions were sent to royal governors to be more active in enforcing the duties. The Royal Naval Squadron in North America was given a larger peacetime fleet and made responsible for enforcing trade legislation including the Molasses Act. The navy treated their orders "as declarations of commercial martial law, with themselves replacing, rather than aiding, the regular enforcement agencies." North Americans associated these changes with the lobbying activity of West Indians.

--Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean, Early American Studies (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 64-65.


Sunday, May 5, 2019

The Illegal Molasses Trade Was Largely with the French West Indies; of All the Illegal Commerce, the Molasses Trade Was the Most Benevolently "Indulged" by the Customs Officials

Of all the mercantilist measures that had not been enforced before 1763, perhaps the most important was the Molasses Act of 1733. This act had provided for a prohibitive duty of sixpence a gallon (amounting to 100 percent) on the import of foreign molasses, in order to grant inefficiently produced British West Indies sugar a monopoly of the American market. The molasses trade was vital to the North, which could sell its staples in the West Indies in exchange for molasses. The molasses could be used either as a sweetener or to produce rum, which could be then sold at home or exported. The illegal molasses trade was largely with the French West Indies (Guadeloupe, Martinique, San Domingo) and the Dutch West Indies ( Surinam, St. Eustatius). Of all the illegal commerce, the molasses trade was the most benevolently "indulged" by the customs officials. Domestic vessels were openly permitted to import foreign molasses on payment of a negligible duty, most of which was pocketed personally by the officials, as well as fresh fruit and wine directly from southern Europe. The duty charged in this way usually amounted to less than a half penny per gallon. This open indulgence put the molasses trade on a footing far different from that of most imports from Europe or the East Indies, which had to be smuggled secretly.

--Murray N. Rothbard, Advance to Revolution, 1760-1775, vol. 3 of Conceived in Liberty (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2011), 805.


The Free Rider Typically Makes Voluntary Collusion Impractical; the Free Rider Plays a Key Role in Maintaining Effective Competition

Consider the government-enforced tobacco production cartel in the United States. Product prices are supported above the competitive level through a quota program which assigns production allotments to individual producers. The price support program operates under sanctions of the federal government because of the "free rider problem." Government sanctions are said to be necessary because the free rider would otherwise prevent the formation of an effective voluntary cartel.

This result can be generalized. Producers of any product have an incentive to act in concert to restrict production and increase price. In the absence of government sanctions, however, the free rider typically makes voluntary collusion impractical. Each producer has an economic incentive to "chisel," i.e., to agree along with other producers to restrict production and, if they do so, to increase his own production. Thus, the free rider rather than posing a "problem" plays a key role in maintaining effective competition. The incentive of the individual producer to "free ride" in this case supports the "invisible hand" which harmonizes the selfish acts of the individual and the spontaneous forces of the market.

--E. C. Pasour Jr., "The Free Rider as a Basis for Government Intervention," Journal of Libertarian Studies 5, no. 4 (Fall 1981): 459-460.


Gustave de Molinari Wrote: "No Government Should Have the Right to Prevent another Government from Going into Competition with It, or Require Consumers of Security to Come Exclusively to It for this Commodity"

In 1849, at a time when classical liberalism was still the dominant ideological force and "economist" and "socialist" were generally-and rightly so-considered antonyms, Gustave de Molinari, a renowned Belgian economist, wrote, "If there is one well-established truth in political economy, it is this: That in all cases, for all commodities that serve to provide for the tangible or intangible need of the consumer, it is in the consumer's best interest that labor and trade remain free, because the freedom of labor and trade have as their necessary and permanent result the maximum reduction of price. And this: That the interests of the consumer of any commodity whatsoever should always prevail over the interests of the producer. Now, in pursuing these principles, one arrives at this rigorous conclusion: That the production of security should in the interest of consumers of this intangible commodity, remain subject to the law of free competition. Whence it follows: That no government should have the right to prevent another government from going into competition with it, or require consumers of security to come exclusively to it for this commodity." And he comments on this whole argument by saying, "Either this is logical and true, or else the principles on which economic science is based are invalid."

--Hans-Hermann Hoppe, "Fallacies of the Public Goods Theory and the Production of Security," Journal of Libertarian Studies 9, no. 1 (Winter 1989): 27.