'Man of steel' (2013) was okay and libertarian

This is as evolved as Superman gets.

‘Man of steel’ wasn’t what I expected of a Nolan-produced film. The action, while perhaps more comic book-y than previous Superman films, gets monotonous within the first half hour. Would Superman charge into buildings like that and put innocent people’s lives at risk? I kinda doubt he used his X-ray vision to ensure no one was going to be hit by him flying into walls at faster than a speeding bullet.

And the style was of typical contemporary action flicks, with all the clichéd poses and overdrama which will be ridiculed by future generations, just as we laugh at the stupidities of the silent era. I think the only consistently good actor was Amy Adams.

So ‘Man of steel’ wasn’t a classic, but entertaining enough.

Krypton is collectivism realized

Krypton, after succumbing to collectivism and dictation of lives by the state, implodes. It is then hoped that Earth resists platitudes of ‘for the greater good,’ and that individuals recognize in each other the freedom to become whom they want, thus making for an actual ‘greater good.’ 

Superman isn’t so super, evolutionarily speaking

But why is Superman supposed to be a symbol of hope? Because he’s so much physically stronger? Or that he uses his powers not to enslave humanity?

Either way, mere physical superiority is not in evolution’s recipe. A more advanced race is not about flying or strength or eye beams, but of developed minds, from which greater, further-reaching, longer-term oriented morals come about. In this light, Superman is no more ‘super’ than anybody else. 

As humanity progresses, physical dominance is replaced by decentralized power, and cooperation. What we lose in strength and ‘self-sufficiency,’ we gain exponentially through the division of labor and accumulation of mental, among other forms of, capital.

We could no longer be islands, if we could ever have been at all, and to engage in the alternative to freedom, of asserting advantage via arms and or majorities, as indicated by vertical power structures (e.g. the state), ultimately makes for unsustainable consumption and poverty.

That was forced

Was the last scene an anti-drone message? Or is it being implied that freedom from drones only applies to superhumans whom the government has no choice anyway but to "trust"? In any case, it felt rather trying-hard to insert such a contemporary issue.

Government dependence a symptom of apathy

Belief in government is one way to apathy. One can dismiss social problems with “the government will handle it, I already voted for whom I want” without considering if such things can be accomplished at all, or best, via the state. It’s an assuaging of guilt without regard for the practical. 

Not to say people do not enter government for the purpose of improving things, but even these people manifest divided thinking where violence is justified by majority. On the same principle that genocide can take place, that is, on the say of millions of voters or approvers of certain policies, social services are offered regardless of how ‘universal’ or beneficial they actually are — and they aren’t, opportunity cost-wise, on account of their monopolistic nature.

Can corporate efficiency occur in government?

Pizza I had a couple weeks back

in Da Michele in Naples, Italy.

They do not give receipts, 

but sure provide hell of utility.

Six years ago (holy shit it’s been a while), when I was a government employee, I used to tell people, proudly, that my office was being run in a corporate manner. Our office, that of Mar Roxas, was the only one open during Fridays, in the four-day-workweek Senate. And I had the impression that so many important things (whatever these were) were streamlined so as to be accomplished on time. It seemed all very professional, and involving an impressive work ethic.

But really, what was the basis of thinking things were done in a corporate, i.g. efficient, manner? I mean, the other offices managed to stay closed three days a week. If for the sake of argument we assume that the Senate was productive at all, wouldn’t having only a two-day weekend mean my office was inefficient?

Hard work is not an end in itself

The question is, were we merely aping the ‘hard work’ that we associate with markets, or actually responding in a meaningful way to user feedback?

Regardless of what our office did, or what the Senate as a whole did, we received annual appropriations, to be funded by taxes and debt. The Senate, or Congress in general, or government in general, may not have actually done anything that the private sector left alone wouldn’t do.

From my experience, much was done for the sake of mere image-promoting, and not actually providing services, which if actually ventured to be done would be so wide in scope as to render specialization impossible. That is to say, maintenance of our government office was counterproductive, in disregarding the division of labor.

The ‘corporate’ style of office can thus be seen as mere mimicry of productive companies, of lots of incoming and outgoing calls, deadlines, documents printed, charts designed, etc. Missing was the consumer, and providing them with utility.

Government is a false assumption

Profits or sources of funding can’t be assumed as a given. Capital must be made available only to the extent that consumers willingly allocate such money. In politics, the process of ‘capital accumulation’ (i.e. demanding money through taxation) is inconsiderate of the consumer, so as to serve no useful ends, otherwise manifesting in improved living conditions.

In government, there is no consumer. There are only hostages, some more gullible (the ‘good citizen’) than others.

Why a national language is detrimental to individuals of a society

From a concentration camp in Mauthausen,
Austria. The plaque thing explains in three
different languages that the area
was a quarry where prisoners worked.

Having just come from a trip to Europe, I had my share of homesickness. In connection with this, I got to see how a culture’s character is defined primarily by language.

On a train trip, feeling increasingly alienated by flurries of strange words all around me, I was so relieved when a bunch of American tourists entered the train carriage I was in. Just to hear the familiar sounds of the English language was enough to make me feel connected someway to these fellow foreigners, where I could hug them as my ‘kababayan’ (I didn’t though).

Of course, the relief I felt then was not so much a matter of “Kay sarap maging Pilipino!” but rather an appreciation of familiarity, and assurance of being able to communicate. This has nothing to do with divisive national pride as extolled by many.

A national language is illogical

If governments didn’t decree certain languages as ‘official,’ language would be even more individualistic and expressive than it is.

We can see how a national language is against nature, when we go to borders between countries. Amalgam dialects develop in spite of what their respective governments declare to be official. Even at this very moment, all languages are undergoing mutations. Words are born and die, and evolve in meaning.

There is actually no such entity as ‘language,’ only an abstraction based on the countless utterances and inscriptions made by people over time, which are then generalized into English, Chinese, Arabic, etc.

Dictionaries are actually limited in utility, because ultimately, people, being different, express themselves differently, where even the same words do not quite have the same meaning between each person.

Without the state, languages would develop faster, wherein people’s ability to express themselves as individuals would improve. Not to say though that people will understand each other better, because people have their unique viewpoints. And the very concept of language in itself, being socially oriented, makes common of the unique.

And on that fascinatingly confusing note, I end this.

Why the no ‘no return’ policy is anti-consumer

Anyone who’s bought anything knows how reassuring it is to be able to refund or replace an item. Even ‘illegitimate’ pirated ‘dibidi’ sellers succeed in making a sale by telling a buyer “Kung may problema, pwede niyong isauli.” And they are true to their word.

It’s such a good idea to offer returns and refunds that off the cuff, it might seem a good idea to prevent stores from refusing the return of an item, as is stipulated in Philippine legislation.

The morals of it

But morally speaking, to do so is inconsistent to the idea of ‘fair trade,’ because this would mean denying the same ‘right’ to vendors, even though the vendor is just on the other side, and not at some advantage, of the property exchange. The money used to pay vendors has no vaunted status above any other good or service, apart from its easier exchangeability.

If a return policy is made mandatory, why not allow vendors to return a buyer’s money and recall an item, even if a customer is fully satisfied with his purchase?

But morals aside, what are the economic considerations of prohibiting a ‘no return’ policy?

The economics of it

First, we ask, does a return policy encourage consumer purchases? Is it a profitable policy to implement? The example of pirated purchases seems an answer in the affirmative. So why don’t we see businesses doing more of this?

We also notice how stores in the first world are more accommodating when it comes to returning and refunding items. Wouldn’t it then be good to implement the same policy, via legislation?

The problem of focusing on symptoms

We ask, what’s different about these bigger economies? Well, they’re richer, for one thing.

Is the inability to offer a return policy a cause, or a symptom, of insufficient resources for satisfying consumers? And would addressing a symptom directly via government do anything to increase the wealth necessary to sustain the desired services?

By asking this, we soon realize that it isn’t better governance nor regulations, but rather more wealth and more capital by which a return policy becomes feasible.

The costs of government intervention

When implemented via the state, there is opportunity cost, wherein what is ceded to a customer is denied another customer. This is because returns and refunds that are beyond a company’s ability to offer would reduce profits that would otherwise allow for a gradual accumulation of capital, and without this capital, we have lower productivity and lower real incomes for all in the long run.

Conclusion

By distinguishing between cause and effect in an economy, we can determine what actually works. And it isn’t legislation, which does nothing to increase net wealth and productivity.

Just as low interest rates can only be arrived at by saving and not mere monetary easing, with implementation of the latter perpetrating bubbles and redistribution of wealth in favor of the politically connected, intervention via force is no substitute to freer movement of capital, including the right for one party to declare beforehand for a transaction to be final at the time of exchange. There are no shortcuts to prosperity.

Addendum:

This is not to say that companies as they are now, especially the cronies who are at an advantage when it comes to capitalization of projects, are to be condoned. But such problems should be addressed directly, and lead to abolition of all state-sponsored charters and franchises, including of the central banking system, to increase competition and make it so much harder for a crony enterprise to maintain funding in spite of a lack of responsiveness to consumer feedback.

Philippines 2013: Least annoying elections ever

Better as a ‘Wanted’ poster

The best election is still no election. If I were to look among  brands of sour cream n’ onion chips in the grocery, and none fit my fancy, I could elect to buy nothing at all. Elections are different. I can see through the inanities of candidates’ platforms, but even in my abstention, I’m still going to be screwed over by these smiling posters.

Having said that, I’m rather pleased that I haven’t been too exposed to all the campaigning. Earlier, I heard for the first and only time radio ads tailor-made for morons from Bam Aquino and Grace Poe, both running for senator. The moving campaign jingles that modify ‘Call me maybe’ are annoying, but don’t pass by too often. The posters don’t cover as much space on the road as before.

But to say that this is the least annoying elections ever is not condoning it at all. It’s still embarrassing to see people on my Facebook News Feed selecting candidates seriously and not seeing elections for the needless game of dangerous clowns that it is.

The monopoly mindset

Awhile ago, in a shopping center, I saw five or six PNP officers in uniform with their guns, strutting around. Apparently, it’s no problem to the shopping center’s security office to let these people through, even though they have those scary guns which seem to instill fear among those who think gun restrictions are insufficient.

But why trust these PNP officers? Because apparently, they’re assigned a duty to serve and protect, to the exclusion of all other would-be protectors. Funny though, how this monopolization of security is seen to make for greater accountability. But this is an illusion.

How could the concentration of police power among a select ‘government’ entity not be conducive to abuse? Wouldn’t private, competitive wielders of arms be more inclined to affirm people’s property rights, since none would have the untouchability of a government monopoly, which itself breeds criminals by rendering law abiders helpless via firearm regulations?

As it is, the PNP officers can only get away with so much, and the PNP can only get by for as long as public opinion, as stupid as it may be, is with them. This does not make monopolies right, nor does it mean there is no room for improvement.

Government and markets: It’s one or the other

The above serves as a means of understanding people’s tolerance, or naïvete, regarding elections. Little do they know that there is more to choice than is provided in a ballot’s blank spaces.

Just as the provision of security is not something to be entrusted to any one entity, neither should ‘doing something’ about social problems be left to any one ‘representative’ entity. Contrary to what we often take for granted, government is not society, or even representative of it. In fact, it is counterproductive to the social processes that do make people better off.

Government is vastly inferior as a representative of people’s preferences in comparison to the market, which does not require coercion, that is, the thwarting of ‘the people’s will,’ to function. And if you find yourself disagreeing, I would be glad to expound on this; just mail your questions.

Don’t vote. It only encourages these idiots.

Markets apply to ALL human action

Ludwig von Mises, for all his genius, failed to take the concept of free markets to its logical conclusion, to include a competitive judicial system and security.

Here are excerpts from his ‘Omnipotent government,’ followed by my snotty comments in bold.

The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.

— So how can the alternative of anarchy be not worth trying?

Anarchism believes that a social order could be established in which all men would recognize the advantages to be derived from cooperation and be prepared to do voluntarily everything which the maintenance of society requires and to renounce voluntarily all actions detrimental to society. But the anarchists overlook two facts. There are people whose mental abilities are so limited that they cannot grasp the full benefits that society brings to them. And there are people whose flesh is so weak that they cannot resist the temptation of striving for selfish disadvantage through actions detrimental to society.

— The fact that such types of people could be mere exceptions makes general lawfulness possible. Or will entrepreneurs in an anarchist society somehow be blind to the opportunities that lie in security provision?

The essential teaching of liberalism is that social cooperation and the division of labor can be achieved only in a system of private ownership of the means of production…

— If anarchism is so naïve a notion on account of possible deviants, isn’t a free-market philosophy just as naïve on account of business failures? In fact, neither are naïve because they recognize that people respond to such deviations or failures, thus making for accountability within the system.

Liberalism assigns to the state the task of protecting the lives, health, freedom, and property of its subjects against violent or fraudulent aggression.

— In spite of it being THE main aggressor.

Outside of the market stands the social apparatus of compulsion and coercion, and its steersmen, the government. To state and government the duty is assigned of maintaining peace both at home and abroad.

— The provision of security is not necessarily “outside of the market.” If people can somehow assign such a duty to a monopoly, why could it not be “assigned” among more competitive forces? Are monopolies more responsive somehow to the security needs of people than competitive entities, as they are not in other sectors? Or are they more responsive than competitive entities in general? Why not give to government control of the market? Oh that’s right, the economic calculation problem, which for no reason should not apply to security.

It is one of the fundamental insights of liberal thought that government is based on opinion, and that therefore in the long run it cannot subsist if the men who form it and the methods they apply are not accepted by the majority of those ruled. If the conduct of political affairs does not suit them, the citizens will finally succeed in overthrowing the government by violent action and in replacing the rulers by men deemed more competent.

— Why is this electoral system not feasible with overall trade but feasible with maintaining peace and order?

The population of every territory is free to determine to which state it wishes to belong, or whether it prefers to establish a state of its own.

— What good reason is there that matters of security need be geographically dependent, unlike ‘public utilities’ or chairs? As it is, the “population” Mises refers to could only act collectively or by majority — rendering elections adverse to individual choice — and with violent revolution.

Whoever wants lastingly to establish good government must start by trying to persuade his fellow citizens and offering them sound ideologies. He is only demonstrating his own incapacity when he resorts to violence, coercion, and compulsion.

— Like in demanding taxes (Blank out!).

The establishment of a supernational world government is an old idea of pacifists.

Such a world government is not needed for the maintenance of peace, however, if democracy and an unhampered market economy prevail everywhere.

— If a world government is a bad idea on account of “an unhampered market economy prevail[ing] everywhere,” why the need for national governments still, since order is still possible without a singular maintainer of peace? It might be argued that governments would be the one coming up with ‘laws,’ but this could not presume justness of such laws.

‘Law’ is an after-the-fact concept established among peoples by their study of what works; just law could not be something written down by appointees for the sake of universal application; otherwise, world government would be a good idea.

So if we were to choose between competition and monopoly to maintain order, why would we go with the latter, i.e. government?

But will all men rightly understand their own interests? What if they do not?

— If they don’t, no government alternative could be an improvement anyway.