In high school, the only sports I played to any significant extent were soccer and basketball. A lot of my friends went snowboarding or skiing, but it was a long drive to the mountains and I could not really afford all the equipment, which cost hundreds of dollars. So I never spent much time on the slopes. However, I have always been fascinated by winter sports. The Winter Olympics in Vancouver was the first of two major international sporting events this year, the other being the soccer World Cup, to be held in South Africa in June. Both events feature the best athletes in the world in their respective sports and enthrall millions across the globe.
However, after watching the Germans steer their bobsleds, the Russians twist and turn in figure skating, and the French ski down steep mountain slopes, I began to realize that the true reason that many athletes from cold-weather countries succeed in this frosty quadrennial competition is not climate or topography or even, dare I say it, talent, but rather privilege, economics, and wealth. Of all the stunning statistics that were tossed around during the fortnight of games in British Columbia, one stat was not mentioned, although its omission is hardly surprising. Of the 238 total medals that were up for grab in Vancouver, over 50 percent were won by eight of the world’s wealthiest nations. The United States, Canada, Great Britain, Japan, Russia, France, Germany, and Italy—industrialized market economies, who together make up the world’s main economic council of wealthy nations, the exclusive Group of Eight, or G8—took home 130 medals and nearly half of the first-place finishes. In addition to the success of the G8 nations, China, widely considered the second wealthiest nation in the world after the U.S., and South Korea, another powerhouse economy in Asia, took home just under 10 percent of remaining medals. It is also worth mentioning that Norway, which the International Monetary Fund places three positions higher than the United States in GDP at purchasing power parity per capita, and Switzerland, which also ranks in the top ten and is just one place behind the U.S., brought home approximately 9 percent and 3 percent of the Winter Olympics medals respectively. If you are doing the math, that means that 72 percent, nearly three-fourths, of all the medals in Vancouver were won by twelve incredibly wealthy nations. While similar patterns were displayed in Beijing and other summer Olympic games, one must remember that the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics were a competition where poorer nations like Ethiopia, Romania, Jamaica, Kenya, and Ukraine walked away with a half-dozen gold medals each. With the exception of Austria, hardly a nation of impoverished citizens, and Yugoslavia, the Winter Olympics has never been held outside of these twelve countries since the competition began nearly ninety years ago.
The lack of success among underdeveloped nations in the Winter Olympics is not for want of trying. Take, for instance, the story of Tugba Karademir, the young figure skater from Turkey, where the capital city Ankara has the country’s only real ice rink. Karademir’s father and mother, who is a certified aerospace engineer, immigrated to Canada and accepted jobs doing menial labor just so their daughter could have a chance to compete in the Olympic Games. While geography could be considered a significant challenge to athletes wanting to ski in the Pacific islands or snowboard in the heart of Africa, a large number of events occur indoors or on manmade ramps and tracks, and more often than not, poorer countries do not compete because they lack the finances to compete in sports that require such a large amount of equipment. Is it surprising that most kids in Brazil have never played ice hockey but are always seen with a soccer ball at their feet? Or that children in Cuba play baseball with a simple wooden bat instead of curling? Or that the best skiers in your dorm usually come from the most privileged families? Understand that I am not insinuating that there is a vast conspiracy in winter sports against poorer nations, but that among all of the athletic competitions in the world, it is the most inherently unequal. While I enjoyed watching ice hockey and the rest of the winter games, as a liberal and a lover of equality, they pale in comparison to the World Cup, where 32 nations from across the globe compete on a much more equal playing field in a truly international competition, where success is determined not by how much equipment you or your country can afford, but by your skill kicking a ball on a field of grass.
Martin Surridge is the associate editor of Religious Liberty TV and a freelance journalist who writes for the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin. He is currently working on his M.A. in Teaching at Walla Walla University.
This comes from the left end of the political spectrum and presents what may simply be rhetorical posturing, or a harbinger of the next big issue. Aside from a one-child policy we can expect it to trickle into areas having to do with euthanasia, health care, etc.
China has recently been calling for an international one-child policy as an answer to global warming, with perhaps the most chilling observation from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-12/10/content_9151129.htm, being a statement from Zhao Baige, vice-minister of National Population and Family Planning Commission of China (NPFPC), “Although China’s family planning policy has received criticism over the past three decades, Zhao said that China’s population program has made a great historic contribution to the well-being of society. . . . . She admitted that China’s population program is not without consequences, as the country is entering the aging society fast and facing the problem of gender imbalance.”
The issue of “gender imbalance” in China has occurred as female babies are disproportionately aborted in response to the policy. We will be watching these developments closely. RLTV Editor
Editor
EXCERPT:
The fix is simple. It’s dramatic. And yet the world’s leaders don’t even have this on their agenda in Copenhagen. Instead there will be photo ops, posturing, optics, blah-blah-blah about climate science and climate fraud, announcements of giant wind farms, then cap-and-trade subsidies.
None will work unless a China one-child policy is imposed. Unfortunately, there are powerful opponents. Leaders of the world’s big fundamentalist religions preach in favor of procreation and fiercely oppose birth control. And most political leaders in emerging economies perpetuate a disastrous Catch-22: Many children (i. e. sons) stave off hardship in the absence of a social safety net or economic development, which, in turn, prevents protections or development.
China has proven that birth restriction is smart policy. Its middle class grows, all its citizens have housing, health care, education and food, and the one out of five human beings who live there are not overpopulating the planet.
For those who balk at the notion that governments should control family sizes, just wait until the growing human population turns twice as much pastureland into desert as is now the case, or when the Amazon is gone, the elephants disappear for good and wars erupt over water, scarce resources and spatial needs.
Read the full article at: http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=2314438
Last month a group of over 150 Christian leaders from the Evangelical, Catholic, Anglican, and Eastern Orthodox faiths united to sign The Manhattan Declaration (http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/), a document declaring that signers will not compromise on the issues of sanctity of human life, the traditional definition of marriage, and the “rights of conscience and religious liberty.” They have pledged themselves to “civil disobedience” in order to avoid violating these Christian standards. As of this writing, they have been joined by nearly 250,000 who have signed the document online.
The Declaration, drafted by Chuck Colson, Dr. Robert George, and Dr. Timothy George, is in direct response to the recent gay marriage debate and is designed to provide a common base of support for activities such as the Catholic Church’s recent high pressure lobbying of Congress to eliminate language from the national health care bill that would have funded abortion.
While they have claimed they will commit “civil disobedience,” essentially this amounts to refusing to perform activities inconsistent with their faith while enjoying non-profit 501(c)(3) status, and signals a willingness to withdraw from providing humanitarian public services if the government makes such activities a prerequisite for non-profit status or funding. In other words, a Catholic adoption agency may shutter its doors rather than provide services for same-sex couples.
Although the groups have not been able to agree on fundamental theological issues, their unity around these points held in common may initially seem to be an admirable step forward in reasserting the Christian voice in America’s culture wars.
So far so good – churches shouldn’t be compelled by the government to do things that violate their sincerely held beliefs. However, the Declaration does not stop with three issues that many American Christians would easily agree upon as protective of their faith. In the midst of the statement on promoting a “thriving marriage culture,” the writers tuck in an ominous sentence that seemingly comes out of nowhere, “But if we are to begin the critically important process of reforming our laws and mores to rebuild such a culture, the last thing we can afford to do is to re-define marriage in such a way as to embody in our laws a false proclamation about what marriage is.” (Emphasis added.)
The writers do not clearly define what they mean by a “thriving marriage culture.” Since same-sex marriage is merely a hindrance to achieving this goal, there must be something beyond defining what constitutes marriage. Culture is a broad sweeping concept, and passing laws would affect not just adherents but everybody in society.
And what does it mean to “rebuild” such a marriage culture? Despite the imperfections of modern family life, what laws could be passed to restore a “thriving marriage culture”? There are two things that families could use more of: money and time. Tax breaks might help families by relieving a portion economic stress but such changes might only increase family budgets by at most 10% and would require cuts in government services benefiting low income families. Time is a much more valuable commodity and if the supply and demand chain were broken one day a week, families would have opportunity to relax because there would be no reason for the majority of people to go to work that day.
Declaration signers know that it is impossible to pass a law requiring people to “be nice.” However, things can be done to help families. If they are to reinvigorate a thriving marriage culture, sweeping changes must be made across the board to empower families. Right now, with 24/7 commerce it is difficult to give employees a uniform day of rest that they can count on each week so that they can plan family time. (See http://www.keepsundayspecial.org.uk/research/index.php?id=38 for the secular health and safety benefits of a uniform day of rest.) Promoting the family time inherent in Sabbath rest would appear to promote a thriving marriage culture, and would at least require economic penalties against those businesses who required their employers to lose this family time by engaging in commerce.
Such efforts are underway in Europe where Germany has passed a national day of rest for most sectors of the economy. (See http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,462439,00.html to read where the law is being used as a mechanism to block a minority group from practicing its faith.)
In America we are quickly reaching the critical point where expansion of freedom is viewed by some as a threat to religious liberty. Advocates for religious freedom who once took an almost permissive approach so long as the rights and safety of innocent third parties were protected are now actively calling for those types of freedoms to be curtailed.
It is a delicate balancing act, and churches do well to protect their integrity. But if they are also using the power of this unity to “reform laws” and “rebuild the culture” then we are witnessing the emergence of a new threat to liberty. After all, if the problems we face are resulting from too much freedom, a restoration of a prior culture would mean a rollback in freedom.
From a strictly human perspective, the document is troubling as well. It focuses on human power to effect changes in human laws which will in turn effect the hearts of the people – an approach that Christ repeatedly rejected in His earthly ministry. If Christians want to rebuild a moral culture, they must be willing to preach the gospel but rely on the power of God to change hearts – they should not hide behind the power of government.
We are dancing on shifting sands. It may be tempting and even seem safer to join the crowd and push for new laws to change society. It can be frightening to run the risk of appearing in favor of “immorality” if you stand for the principles of separation of church and state, and try to protect the rights of both the religious and the secular. It is true that there are tremendous forces coming at churches from the left but the answer is not for the people of faith to become the threats themselves. Those on left and right should seek to protect themselves and their organizations from those on the opposite side, yet not force their will on the rest of society.
I am afraid we are seeing the emergence of a snowball effect – the forces now assembling will do whatever it takes, and say whatever they need to in order to gain power, adherents, and confidence and will eventually threaten the well-being of all who refuse to conform.
We have no reason to doubt that those who drafted and are signing the Declaration are sincere and trying to do what they believe is best for America. There are many good reasons why it may seem a good idea, but we should raise a voice of caution regarding the unintended consequences of this approach. Christians tempted to set aside theological differences, which include differences in how grace and salvation are viewed so significant that they led to the battles of the Reformation and Inquisition, and unite on points held in common in order to change society should recall the unholy results of such unions. From a Christian perspective, government and even church edicts cannot change hearts, only God can.
As we are admonished in 2 Timothy 3:5, “They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!” (New Living Translation)
Lawrence W. Reed is president emeritus of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Midland-based research and educational institute on September 1, 2008. The Center’s mission is to equip Michigan citizens and other decision-makers to better evaluate Michigan public policy options and to do so from a “free market” perspective.
Revised June 2006
When I first took the podium to deliver the speech reprinted here, I was addressing the Detroit Economic Club, a world-renowned forum for sharing ideas. But even with my natural optimism and the publicity associated with that prestigious venue, I never imagined the amount of attention the “Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy” would receive in the days and years that followed.
By last count, I’ve given this address in about 100 different places, including probably 20 states and a dozen foreign countries. The text has been translated into at least 12 foreign languages, including Chinese, Korean, Spanish and Kiswahili. In a twist stranger than fiction, I was invited to deliver this speech at the People’s University in Beijing. Readers familiar with my views or with the seven principles will no doubt be struck by the irony — and the victory — inherent in my espousing these principles in the heart of the world’s largest communist state.
Why has interest in the “Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy” exceeded all expectations? Looking back, I think it was due to a gamble I took when I first wrote and delivered this address. At the time, I began by telling the audience:
“I know that (the Detroit Economic Club) has heard many policy addresses by many leaders in government, business and academia — policy addresses that dealt in some detail with specific pressing issues of the day, from transportation to education to health care and countless other important topics. At the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, our specialty is researching and recommending detailed prescriptions for today’s policy questions, and I thought about doing that very thing here today.
“But upon reflection, I decided instead to step back from the minutiae of any particular issue and offer you something a little different: a broad-brush approach that is applicable to every issue. I’d like us all to think about some very critical fundamentals, some bedrock concepts that derive from centuries of experience and economic knowledge. They are, in my view, eternal principles that should form the intellectual backdrop to what we do as policymakers inside and outside of government.”
The reception the speech received that day and in the years since suggests that at bottom, people value a serious attempt to deal with issues that matter. They recognize that principles that can be expressed in simple words are not necessarily simplistic.
Moreover, they realize that approaching issues with an open mind does not mean approaching them with an empty one. After all, we’ve learned a few things over the centuries. It’s not uninformed bias that prompts us without debate to accept the notion that the sun comes up in the east. It isn’t blind ideology that tells us that a representative republic is superior to dictatorship or monarchy. The general assumption that private property and free-market economies are superior to state ownership and central planning is no longer just an opinion; rather, it is now a settled truth for people who value reason, logic, facts, evidence, economics and experience.
The seven principles of sound public policy that I want to share with you are pillars of a free economy. We can differ on exactly how any one of them may apply to a given issue, but the principles themselves, I believe, are settled truths.
These principles are not original with me; I’ve simply collected them in one place. They are not the only pillars of a free economy or the only settled truths, but they do provide a solid foundation. In my view, if the cornerstone of every state and federal building were emblazoned with these principles — and more importantly, if every legislator understood and attempted to be faithful to them — we’d be a much stronger, much freer, more prosperous and far better-governed people.
One
Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own.
Ever wonder about those stories of $600 hammers and $800 toilet seats that the government sometimes buys? You could walk the length and breadth of this land and not find a soul who would say he’d gladly spend his own money that way. And yet this waste often occurs in government and occasionally in other walks of life, too. Why? Because invariably, the spender is spending somebody else’s money.
Economist Milton Friedman elaborated on this some time ago when he pointed out that there are only four ways to spend money. When you spend your own money on yourself, you make occasional mistakes, but they’re few and far between. The connection between the one who is earning the money, the one who is spending it and the one who is reaping the final benefit is pretty strong, direct and immediate.
When you use your money to buy someone else a gift, you have some incentive to get your money’s worth, but you might not end up getting something the intended recipient really needs or values.
When you use somebody else’s money to buy something for yourself, such as lunch on an expense account, you have some incentive to get the right thing but little reason to economize.
Finally, when you spend other people’s money to buy something for someone else, the connection between the earner, the spender and the recipient is the most remote — and the potential for mischief and waste is the greatest. Think about it — somebody spending somebody else’s money on yet somebody else. That’s what government does all the time.
But this principle is not just a commentary about government. I recall a time, back in the 1990s, when the Mackinac Center took a close look at the Michigan Education Association’s self-serving statement that it would oppose any competitive contracting of any school support service (like busing, food or custodial) by any school district anytime, anywhere. We discovered that at the MEA’s own posh, sprawling East Lansing headquarters, the union did not have its own full-time, unionized workforce of janitors and food service workers. It was contracting out all of its cafeteria, custodial, security and mailing duties to private companies, and three out of four of them were nonunion!
So the MEA — the state’s largest union of cooks, janitors, bus drivers and teachers — was doing one thing with its own money and calling for something very different with regard to the public’s tax money. Nobody — repeat, nobody — spends someone else’s money as carefully as he spends his own.
Six
Government has nothing to give anybody except what it first takes from somebody, and a government that’s big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you’ve got.
This is not some radical, ideological, anti-government statement. It’s simply the way things are. It speaks volumes about the very nature of government. And it’s perfectly in keeping with the philosophy and advice of America’s Founders.
It’s been said that government, like fire, is either a dangerous servant or a fearful master. Think about that for a moment. Even if government is no bigger than our Founders wanted it to be, and even if it does its work so well that it indeed is a servant to the people, it’s still a dangerous one! As Groucho Marx once said of his brother Harpo, “He’s honest, but you’ve got to watch him.” You’ve got to keep your eye on even the best and smallest of governments because, as Jefferson warned, the natural tendency is for government to grow and liberty to retreat. You can’t wind it up and walk away from it; it takes eternal vigilance to keep it in its place and keep our liberties secure.
The so-called “welfare state” is really not much more than robbing Peter to pay Paul, after laundering and squandering much of Peter’s wealth through an indifferent, costly bureaucracy. The welfare state is like feeding the sparrows through the horses, if you know what I mean. Put yet another way, it’s like all of us standing in a big circle, with each of us having one hand in the next guy’s pocket. Somebody once said that the welfare state is so named because in it, the politicians get well and the rest of us pay the fare.
A free and independent people do not look to government for their sustenance. They see government not as a fountain of “free” goodies, but rather as a protector of their liberties, confined to certain minimal functions that revolve around keeping the peace, maximizing everyone’s opportunities and otherwise leaving us alone. There is a deadly trade-off to reliance upon government, as civilizations at least as far back as ancient Rome have painfully learned.
When your congressman comes home and says, “Look what I brought for you!” you should demand that he tell you who’s paying for it. If he’s honest, he’ll tell you that the only reason he was able to get you something was that he had to vote for the goodies that other congressmen wanted to take home — and you’re paying for all that, too.
Seven
Liberty makes all the difference in the world.
Just in case the first six principles didn’t make the point clearly enough, I’ve added this as my seventh and final one.
Liberty isn’t just a luxury or a nice idea. It’s much more than a happy circumstance or a defensible everyday concept. It’s what makes just about everything else happen. Without it, life is a bore at best. At worst, there is no life at all.
Public policy that dismisses liberty or doesn’t preserve or strengthen it should be immediately suspect in the minds of a vigilant people. They should be asking, “What are we getting in return if we’re being asked to give up some of our freedom?” Hopefully, it’s not just some short-term handout or other “mess of pottage.” Ben Franklin went so far as to advise us, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
Too often today, policymakers give no thought whatsoever to the general state of liberty when they craft new policies. If it feels good or sounds good or gets them elected, they just do it. Anyone along the way who might raise liberty-based objections is ridiculed or ignored. Today, government at all levels consumes more than 42 percent of all that we produce, compared with perhaps 6 percent or 7 percent in 1900. Yet few people seem interested in asking the advocates of still more government such cogent questions as, “Why isn’t 42 percent enough?”; “How much more do you want?”; or, “To what degree do you think a person is entitled to the fruits of his labor?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I yearn for the day when all Americans practice these seven principles. I think they are profoundly important. Our past devotion to them, in one form or another, explains how and why we fed, clothed and housed more people at higher levels than any other nation in the history of the planet. And these principles are key to preserving that crucial element of life we call liberty. Thanks for the opportunity to share them with you today and thanks for whatever you may do from this day forward to put these principles into common practice.
whatever you may do from this day forward to put these principles into common practice.
Free people are not equal, and equal people are not free.
First, I should clarify the kind of “equalness” to which I refer in this statement. I am not referring to equality before the law — the notion that you should be judged innocent or guilty of an offense based upon whether or not you did it, with your race, sex, wealth, creed, gender or religion having nothing to do with the outcome. That’s an important foundation of Western civilization, and though we often fall short of it, I doubt that anyone here would quarrel with the concept.
No, the “equalness” to which I refer is all about income and material wealth — what we earn and acquire in the marketplace of commerce, work and exchange. I’m speaking of economic equality. Let’s take this first principle and break it into its two halves.
Free people are not equal. When people are free to be themselves, to be masters of their own destinies, to apply themselves in an effort to improve their well-being and that of their families, the result in the marketplace will not be an equality of outcomes. People will earn vastly different levels of income; they will accumulate vastly different levels of wealth. While some lament that fact and speak dolefully of “the gap between rich and poor,” I think people being themselves in a free society is a wonderful thing. Each of us is a unique being, different in endless ways from any other single being living or dead. Why on earth should we expect our interactions in the marketplace to produce identical results?
We are different in terms of our talents. Some have more than others, or more valuable talents. Some don’t discover their highest talents until late in life, or not at all. Magic Johnson is a talented basketball player. Should it surprise anyone that he makes infinitely more money at basketball than I ever could? Will Kellogg didn’t discover his incredible entrepreneurial and marketing talent until age 46; before he struck out on his own to start the Kellogg Company, he was making about $25 a week doing menial jobs for his older brother in a Battle Creek sanitarium.
We are different in terms of our industriousness, our willingness to work. Some work harder, longer and smarter than others. That makes for vast differences in how others value what we do and in how much they’re willing to pay for it.
We are different also in terms of our savings. I would argue that if the president could somehow snap his fingers and equalize us all in terms of income and wealth tonight, we would be unequal again by this time tomorrow because some of us would save our money and some of us would spend it. These are three reasons, but by no means the only three reasons, why free people are simply not going to be equal economically.
Equal people are not free, the second half of my first principle, really gets down to brass tacks. Show me a people anywhere on the planet who are indeed equal economically, and I’ll show you a very unfree people. Why?
The only way in which you could have even the remotest chance of equalizing income and wealth across society is to put a gun to everyone’s head. You would literally have to employ force to make people equal. You would have to give orders, backed up by the guillotine, the hangman’s noose, the bullet or the electric chair. Orders that would go like this: Don’t excel. Don’t work harder or smarter than the next guy. Don’t save more wisely than anyone else. Don’t be there first with a new product. Don’t provide a good or service that people might want more than anything your competitor is offering.
Believe me, you wouldn’t want a society where these were the orders. Cambodia under the communist Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s came close to it, and the result was that upwards of 2 million out of 8 million people died in less than four years. Except for the elite at the top who wielded power, the people of that sad land who survived that period lived at something not much above the Stone Age.
What’s the message of this first principle? Don’t get hung up on differences in income when they result from people being themselves. If they result from artificial political barriers, then get rid of those barriers. But don’t try to take unequal people and compress them into some homogenous heap. You’ll never get there, and you’ll wreak a lot of havoc trying.
Confiscatory tax rates, for example, don’t make people any more equal; they just drive the industrious and the entrepreneurial to other places or into other endeavors while impoverishing the many who would otherwise benefit from their resourcefulness. Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have said, “You cannot pull a man up by dragging another man down.”
Two
What belongs to you, you tend to take care of;
what belongs to no one or everyone tends to fall into disrepair.
This essentially illuminates the magic of private property. It explains so much about the failure of socialized economies the world over.
In the old Soviet empire, governments proclaimed the superiority of central planning and state ownership. They wanted to abolish or at least minimize private property because they thought that private ownership was selfish and counterproductive. With the government in charge, they argued, resources would be utilized for the benefit of everybody.
What was once the farmer’s food became “the people’s food,” and the people went hungry. What was once the entrepreneur’s factory became “the people’s factory,” and the people made do with goods so shoddy there was no market for them beyond the borders.
We now know that the old Soviet empire produced one economic basket case after another, and one ecological nightmare after another. That’s the lesson of every experiment with socialism: While socialists are fond of explaining that you have to break some eggs to make an omelette, they never make any omelettes. They only break eggs.
If you think you’re so good at taking care of property, go live in someone else’s house, or drive their car, for a month. I guarantee you neither their house nor their car will look the same as yours after the same period of time.
If you want to take the scarce resources of society and trash them, all you have to do is take them away from the people who created or earned them and hand them over to some central authority to manage. In one fell swoop, you can ruin everything. Sadly, governments at all levels are promulgating laws all the time that have the effect of eroding private property rights and socializing property through “salami” tactics — one slice at a time.
Three
Sound policy requires that we consider long-run effects and all people, not simply short-run effects and a few people.
It may be true, as British economist John Maynard Keynes once declared, that “in the long run, we’re all dead.” But that shouldn’t be a license to enact policies that make a few people feel good now at the cost of hurting many people tomorrow.
I can think of many such policies. When Lyndon Johnson cranked up the Great Society in the 1960s, the thought was that some people would benefit from a welfare check. We now know that over the long haul, the federal entitlement to welfare encouraged idleness, broke up families, produced intergenerational dependency and hopelessness, cost taxpayers a fortune and yielded harmful cultural pathologies that may take generations to undo. Likewise, policies of deficit spending and government growth — while enriching a few at the start — have eaten at the vitals of the nation’s economy and moral fiber for decades.
This principle is actually a call to be thorough in our thinking. It says that we shouldn’t be superficial in our judgments. If a thief goes from bank to bank, stealing all the cash he can get his hands on, and then spends it all at the local shopping mall, you wouldn’t be thorough in your thinking if all you did was survey the store owners to conclude that this guy stimulated the economy.
We should remember that today is the tomorrow that yesterday’s poor policymakers told us we could ignore. If we want to be responsible adults, we can’t behave like infants whose concern is overwhelmingly focused on self and on the here-and-now.
Four
If you encourage something, you get more of it; if you discourage something, you get less of it.
You and I as human beings are creatures of incentives and disincentives. We respond to incentives and disincentives. Our behavior is affected by them, sometimes very powerfully. Policymakers who forget this will do dumb things like jack up taxes on some activity and expect that people will do just as much of it as before, as if taxpayers are sheep lining up to be sheared.
Remember when George Bush (the first one) reneged under pressure on his 1988 “No New Taxes!” pledge? We got big tax hikes in the summer of 1990. Among other things, Congress dramatically boosted taxes on boats, aircraft and jewelry in that package. Lawmakers thought that since rich people buy such things, we should “let ‘em have it” with higher taxes. They expected $31 million in new revenue in the first year from the new taxes on those three things. We now know that the higher levies brought in just $16 million. We shelled out $24 million in additional unemployment benefits because of the people thrown out of work in those industries by the higher taxes. Only in Washington, D.C., where too often lawmakers forget the importance of incentives, can you aim for 31, get only 16, spend 24 to get it and think that somehow you’ve done some good.
Want to break up families? Offer a bigger welfare check if the father splits. Want to reduce savings and investment? Double-tax ‘em, and pile on a nice, high capital gains tax on top of it. Want to get less work? Impose such high tax penalties on it that people decide it’s not worth the effort.
Right now in both state and federal legislatures, much attention is being given to the question of how to deal with deficits due to recession and declining revenues. At the Mackinac Center, we believe that government ought to deal with such circumstances the way you and I and families all across the state deal with similar circumstances: curtail spending. That’s especially true if we want to stimulate a weak economy so it will produce more jobs and more revenue. When the patient is ill, the doctor doesn’t bleed him.
Five
EXCERPT FROM BLOOMBERG.COM
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev may discuss his proposal to create a new world currency when he meets counterparts from Brazil, India and China this month, Natalya Timakova, a spokeswoman for the president, told reporters by phone today. Russia’s proposals for the Group of 20 meeting in London in April included studying a supranational currency.
“We need some kind of universal means of payment, which could create the basis of a future international financial system,” Medvedev said in a June 1 interview with CNBC. “Naturally, because of the crisis in the American economy, attitude to the dollar has also changed.”
Regional reserve currencies are an “unavoidable” part of “regionalizing” the global financial system, Deputy Finance Minister Dmitry Pankin said in Moscow today.
Read the full article at http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a3X76sjV801Y&refer=worldwide
This news will have significant repercussions for the United States economy. Editor
Brazil and China will work towards using their own currencies in trade transactions rather than the US dollar, according to Brazil’s central bank and aides to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president.
The move follows recent Chinese challenges to the status of the dollar as the world’s leading international currency.
“This matter deserves a full debate engaging all the parties concerned and in particular the minority groups so that the legal position is made clear and that the possible future religious ramifications of this proposed Legislation are considered in light of the aims and objectives of the European Union.” Special thanks to the late Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi who read the earlier RLTV post on the proposed legislation and put us in contact with Dr. Brighton Kavaloh, and to Dr. Kavaloh for sharing his timely research. Editor
Dr. Brighton G Kavaloh is a Postgraduate Law Researcher in European Legislative Studies in London, England and a Seventh-day Adventist minister.
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Introduction
The main purpose for writing this article is to respond to the relentless attempts in recent times to legislate in the European Union, Sunday as an official weekly rest day. The lobbyists championing this cause have been among other associations, the Roman Catholic Bishops (COMECE), some Protestants church representatives and certain Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).[1] I will now provide a synopsis of the background on this issue and show how it has developed to the present day.
The Working Time Council Directive 93/104/EC of 23 November 1993, Article 5, second paragraph stipulated that a minimum weekly rest period ‘shall in principle include Sunday.’[2] Sunday as a weekly rest day was enshrined into European Community Law, but it was annulled by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) after a legal challenge from the United Kingdom government on 12 November 1996.
Based on the Court’s application of Article 137 (ex Article 118a) of the Treaty of the European Union, it was concluded that in so far as the Council was concerned “the connection between the health and safety of workers and the requirement that the weekly rest period ‘shall in principle include Sunday’ in the second sentence of Article 5 of the Directive, had not been established.”[3] There was no satisfactory explanation given “why Sunday, as a weekly rest day, is more closely connected with the health and safety of workers than any other day of the week.”[4] And accordingly the ruling was that the sentence be annulled.
In September 2004, the Commission submitted a proposal to review Council Directive 2003/88/EC. The European Parliament voted the submission at its first reading in May 2005. After a three year period of stalemate, an agreement was only reached in June 2008 at which seven MEPs supported by Catholic Bishops initiated an amendment aiming yet again at attempting to include a Sunday weekly rest day clause previously annulled. The new amendments were not entertained even after the first and the second reading in the House of Parliament due to procedural reasons.[5] And since then, five parliamentarians on 2 February 2009 launched a Written Declaration to lobby the House for its adoption. A majority of 394 MEPs need to sign, before 7 May 2009. The main purpose of the Declaration is to call on “the Member States and the EU institutions to protect Sunday, as a weekly rest day in the forthcoming national and EU working time legislation in order to enhance the protection of worker’s health and the reconciliation of work and family.”[6] I will now proceed to argue that the attempts to enshrine Sunday as a weekly rest day in the European Community remains unlawful, in spite of the launch of a Written Declaration initiative.
Background
The European weekly rest day legislation initially was linked more to the health and safety measures of employees in the work place. The legal basis for it was the Treaty of the European Community Article 137 (previously Article 118a). The Community organisation was to support and complement the endeavours of the Member States to improving primarily ‘the working environment to protect workers’ health and safety.[7] To accomplish its objectives, the Council was to “adopt by means of directives, minimum requirements for gradual implementation…”[8]
The Council of the European Community adopted a Resolution on 21 December 1987 entitled “Safety, hygiene and health at work.”[9] There was no link made between the protection of the worker’s health and safety and Sunday as a weekly rest day nor was it raised as an issue. This argument is supported by the Council’s own affirmation when it officially adopted the measure as a formal Directive on 12 June 1989. It stated that “the objective of this Directive is to introduce measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work.”[10] However, Sunday as a weekly rest day with a sociological connotation in Europe began to emerge when the Commission requested the Economic and Social Committee (hereafter ECSOC) to appraise the elements of the Community Charter of Basic Rights. [11] In order to expedite time, ECSOC’s recommendation was for a list to be drawn of basic social principles to be enacted and adhered to by all Member States.
Furthermore, the Community Institutions were to “take the procedural steps necessary to ensure that the scope of these basic principles and rights is interpreted with due respect for the standards already recognised in other international social legal instruments.”[12] The International Labour Conventions 14[13] and 106[14] were cited and reference was made to the weekly rest period but no particular day was suggested. Further, the Council of Europe, Social Charter, Article 2(5) stipulated that “The weekly rest period shall, whenever possible, coincide with the day of the week established as a day of rest by the traditions or customs of the country or district.”[15] Article 2(5) again did not specify the actual week rest day but left it to each country to determine.
The International Labour Convention 106 noted that “The traditions and customs of religious minorities shall, as far as possible, be respected.”[16] The short guide to the Social Charter provided an addendum on respect of Article 2(5) that cited Sunday as the day which all states that had ratified the Charter should incorporate as an official day of rest. At this point, not all Member States had ratified the Charter and therefore the European Parliament could not legislate it. It was left to the discretion for each Member State to decide on the issue.
On 5 October 1990, the Council approached ECSOC for its opinion on the proposal for a Council Directive on the organisation of working time. ECSOC made reference to health as defined by the World Health Organisation which was to be understood as signifying the physical, mental and social conditions and in so doing linked the worker’s health and safety measure to Sunday as a weekly rest day.”[17] In justifying this stance, ECSOC stated that “in countries with Christian traditions the day of rest has to be Sunday.”[18]
The European Parliament debate on the subject of organisation of working time pertaining to Sunday as a rest day followed. I will now provide brief extracts of some arguments put forward by MEPs.
Van Dijk (NL) argued that “The premise that night work ought in principle to be forbidden is, in my opinion, much more important than preserving Sunday as a day of rest. After all, you do not get sicker through working during the day on Sunday than on Mondays, but the same cannot be said of about night work.”[19]
Pronk [PPE]-(NL) said “It remains a day for the family. It is a day of rest in our increasingly hectic societies. We have tabled amendments on this point. We consider it important to preserve that day of rest. After all, one cannot sacrifice everything to society. Certain values remain that we always keep sacrosanct.” [20]
And, Van Der Waal (NI)-(NL) said “I do not wish to plead for EC regulations of Sundays. Sunday legislation is eminently a matter for Governments of Member States and ought to remain so. But it would be important if, in the Directive before us, it were clearly stated that Sunday, as the Christian day of rest, as God’s day, merited a place apart in the internal market.”[21]
However, Papandreou, a Member of the Commission (GR) argued “I do agree, of course, that the week end is the usual acceptable time for rest but given that the proposal is concerned with the health and safety of workers and that there is no direct connection between heath and safety and the weekend. I do not think that we can rightly establish this assumption in the proposal.”[22]
After considering all the arguments, Parliament and the Council of the European Union adopted Directive 93/104/EC of 23 November 1993 inserting Article 5b which included the provision that the minimum rest period ‘shall in principle include Sunday”.[23]
The Sunday weekly rest day in Europe was by law anchored into the European Union in 1993. It must be noted that recital 10 stated that “with the respect to the weekly rest period, due account should be taken of the diversity of cultural, ethnic, religious and other factors in the Member states.”[24] It was “ultimately for each Member State to decide whether Sunday should be included in the weekly rest period, and if so to what extent.”[25] Here again the issue of Sunday law legislation was left for the Member States to decide. But no sooner was the Council Directive in operation, that it faced a legal challenge from the British Government.
Legal Challenge
In March 1994, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland brought an action under Article 230 (ex Article 173) of the Treaty for the annulment of Working Time Council Directive 93/104/EC of 23 November 1993.[26] The UK Government requested the European Court of Justice to annul the Directive in its entirety or failing which in the alternative to repeal selected provisions which included Article 5, second paragraph (the minimum weekly rest period shall ‘in principle include Sunday’). However, the Council’s rebuttal was that the UK application was unfounded.
The UK Government based its legal challenge on four pleas alleging, (1) defective legal basis (2) breach of the principle of proportionality (3) misuse of powers and (4) infringement of essential procedural requirements.[27] In the first instance, the applicant observed that “Directives adopted under Article 118a(2) of the EEC Treaty must have a genuine and objective link between health and safety, on the one hand, and the situation to be governed by those Directives, on the other.”[28] However, it argued that “In the present case, the link between health and safety is too tenuous for the Directive to be properly based on Article 118a of the EEC Treaty. Thus, for example, the link between the rule of Sunday rest … on the one hand, and on the other, health and safety of workers is as remote as the link between the health of employees and generous conditions of pay.”[29]
However, the UK and the Council of the European Union both recognised the social dimension of the Directive as it comes under the title of Social Policy. Whereas the UK saw a dichotomy between Article 118a, health and safety on the one hand and the social dimension on the other, the Council did not. The UK argued that “the legislator should explain that numerous elements of the Directive were concerned with improvement of the living and working conditions of employees and/or with the social dimension of the internal market rather than with health and safety considerations.”[30] The Council stated however that “any measure adopted on the basis of the Article 118a will thus necessarily pursue a ‘social’ objective” due to Chapter 1 of Title VIII of the Treaty which includes Article 118a.[31]
The most crucial point to bear in mind, especially as relates to the current debate to legislate Sunday as an official weekly rest day by the European Parliament is to seriously consider the legal reasoning and subsequent judgment of the Court of Justice delivered on 12 November 1996.
The European Court of Justice in this leading case considered both arguments and counter arguments from the UK (applicants) and the Council of the European Union (respondents) respectively. It summed up that “In order to deal with those arguments, a distinction must be drawn between the second sentence of Article 5 of the directive and its other provisions.”[32] There was a clear intention by the Court to seek to separate Article 5 second sentence.
The Court concluded in its judgement as follows:
“As to the second sentence of Article 5, while the question whether to include Sunday in the weekly rest period is ultimately left to the assessment of Member States, having regard, in particular, to the diversity of cultural, ethnic and religious factors in those States (second sentence of Article 5, read in conjunction with the tenth recital), the fact remains that the Council has failed to explain why Sunday, as a weekly rest day, is more closely connected with the health and safety of workers than any other day of the week.”[33]
Based on the above the Court upheld the UK government’s alternative claim and annulled the second sentence of Article 5.
Article 5b Annulment and its Compliance
Subsequently, the European Community institutions immediately complied with the judgment of the Court of Justice. At its sitting, the European Parliament on Thursday, 12 December 1996 adopted a Resolution on Sunday work. The adopted measures called:
“Member States and social partners in their transposition of the working time Directive to pay due regard to the traditions and cultural, social, religious and family needs of their citizens and to recognise that special character of Sunday as a day, as usually all family members are free on that day; reaffirms the right of workers to a weekly day of rest…” And also “Member States to recognise that in a multi-cultural society there are also religious communities who may have preference for an alternative rest day.”[34]
Here again, it is important to note that the European Parliament reiterated the discretion of Member States but significantly stated it was imperative that each Member State in their consideration of Sunday as a weekly rest day should take due regard to minority religious groups who may have an alternative rest day.
The Commission concurred with the European Court of Justice for it noted “Article 5 (weekly rest): the second sub-paragraph of Article 5, which refers to Sunday rest, is deleted. This formalises the decision of the European Court of Justice.”[35]
Directives 93/104/EC and 2000/34/EC were both codified.[36] The changes came into force on the date of the Directive’s publication in the Official Journal of the European Communities.”[37]
Attempts to reinstate Article 5b of Directive 93/104/EC
Directive 2003/88/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 4 November 2003 concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time without Article 5 subparagraph two was in operation. In 2008, during the revision of the Working Time Directive 2003/88/EC, seven MEPs supported by Catholic Bishops (COMECE) initiated two amendments aiming at including a Sunday weekly rest clause.
The first amendment was a new recital (6a) which sought to explain that “the likelihood of sickness in companies that require staff to work on Sundays is greater than in companies that do not require staff to work on Sundays. The health of workers depends, among other factors, on their opportunities to reconcile work and family to establish and maintain social ties and to pursue their spiritual needs. Sunday, as the traditional weekly rest day, contributes to the objectives more than any other day of the week.”[38]
What then followed was the current proposal amending Article 5(2a) to include “The minimum rest periods referred to in the first paragraph shall in principle include Sunday.”[39] It should be noted this would constitute the introduction of the previously annulled Article 5(2). The justification for these amendments lay in “… Eurofound findings demonstrate that absenteeism and sick-leave increase significantly in companies working on Sunday…””[40]
The amendments aimed at including the protection of Sunday as a weekly rest day were neither debated nor voted on by the European Parliament for procedural reasons.[41] However, the Catholic Bishops appealed to churches and various organisations to stay mobilised on the Sunday issue.
Law Infringement
On 31 January 2000, Jorge Hernandez Mollar (PPE DE), a European Member of Parliament in a written question (E-0170/00) to the Commission sought clarification on the Community’s position on the subject of weekly rest days on religious grounds.
Given the influx of immigrants from Maghreb countries working in various EU states, inquired what provisions were in place considering that “the rest days generally given are Fridays and Saturdays, allowing them to keep these days sacred.”[42] And furthermore, that they be the opportunity “to extend the regulation of weekly rest days on religious grounds and introduce the necessary coordination with the practice usually followed in the Member States of the EU of keeping Sunday as a day of rest.”[43]
The legal response from Mrs Dianantopoulou on behalf of the Commission on the 15 March 2000 reiterated that it was not for the European Parliament or Council to legislate but rather to support and complement Member States.[44] . To the contrary, the Commissioner underlined legal obligations the European Community was expected to adhere. She wrote:
“On 25 November 1999, the Commission adopted a package of two legislative proposals and a proposal for a programme to combat discrimination in the Community based on Article 13 (ex Article 6a) of the EC Treaty.”
“One of these initiatives is a proposal for a horizontal directive to combat discrimination, inter alia, on grounds of religion. Article 12 of this proposal requires Member States to encourage social partners to contribute to the implementation of the principle of equality of treatment by adopting collective agreements, codes of conduct, research or exchange of experiences and good practice aimed at preventing discrimination.”[45]
The ethos of the European Union is therefore to fight religious discrimination. To ignore the annulled Article 5(b) of the Council Directive 93/104/EC as argued by the Court of Justice would be tantamount to an infringement of the Community Law on discrimination.
Submissions
- In the light of the annulment of Article 5(b) of the Council Directive 93/104/EC, I argue that as long as Article 137 (ex Article 118a) is linked to health and safety measures, Sunday law legislation whatever form it may take will be anchored into the European Union by default and thus render it as unlawful. Notwithstanding it is for this reason UK and the Council seemed to have invoked the sociological approach, which seems to provide the current preoccupation on the part of those intending to anchor Sunday law in the European legislation.
- European Member States by law are to decide whether to have Sunday as a weekly day of rest and not the European Community institutions or any other religious group or associations. It is the Member States who must “pay due regard in particular to diversity of cultural, ethnic, and religious factors in those Member States.”[46]
- Religious discrimination is prohibited by European Community law. According to Case 13/63 Italy v Commission “Discrimination may consist not only in treating like cases differently but also in treating different cases alike.”[47] And as such to enact a law that treats the minority groups, who worship on alternative days such as Fridays and Saturdays in the same way as those who worship on Sundays is to discriminate against those minority religious groups.
- Sunday as a weekly rest day violates the human rights against those who may want to worship on an alternative day. Article 9(1) of the Convention provides “the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion...”[48] But also continues “freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society… for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”[49]
The Convention has three measures to test the limitations of Article 9 and these are:
(1) when prescribed by law
(2) legitimate aim and
(3) and when is ‘necessary in a democratic society’
Legislation of Sunday as a weekly rest day in the European Union fails on all three counts.
Conclusion
I sincerely applaud efforts to enhance the protection of workers’ health and safety at their workplace and the reconciliation of work and family life, but there is no correlation between these objectives and the need for a legally instituted Sunday rest day.
In my view, the attempt to enshrine Sunday Law in Europe currently in progress through the Written Declaration procedure still remains unlawful. This issue was last before the ECJ in 1993 and it was decided that although the Working Time Directive was properly adopted and in keeping with the Treaty, the second sentence of Article 5 was not, and so was annulled.[50]
The Written Declaration is merely repetition, wrongly adopted and at variance with Article 137 (ex 118a) of the Treaty of the European Union and as such manifestly falls outside of the scope of the Directive. Those pushing for this motion are misdirected in arriving at the inference that their efforts to amend the Directive would be successful by a mere explanation as to why Sunday as a weekly day of rest contributes more than any other day of the week to the health and safety of workers. The fact remains that the explanations submitted with the Written Declaration are repetition of the arguments rejected in previous attempts to amend the Directive and therefore must fail even today.
MEPs are earnestly requested to consider the fundamentals upon which the Union is founded as follows:
- “The Union is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, principles which are common to the Member States”.[51]
- “The right to equality before the law and the protection of all persons against discrimination constitutes a fundamental right and is essential to the proper functioning of democratic societies”.[52]
- “The right of individuals not to be discriminated against on arbitrary grounds has long been recognised by International Organisations, the European Union and its Member States”.[53]
My concern is that those advocating for this proposal have again failed to consider the implications of this Legislation. It remains unclear how this law would be monitored, enforced and whether there will be penalties for non compliance. Europe is a multi- cultural and diverse region.
Removing the cloak on this issue, it appears to me that this is just another attempt to use Parliament to make laws which benefit only (Sunday worshippers) and to discriminate those that do not fall within this Criterion. In my view it is clear that accepting the proposed amendment will only serve to infringe the rights conferred by Article 9 (1) of the Convention and will thus discriminate against those that worship on alternative days. None of the measures put in place by the Convention to test the limitations of Article 9 have been established.
Whilst it is wholly appreciated to provide legal protection to ensure that every individual has the right to observe any day of their choice for worship it is entirely inappropriate to force a doctrinal position on all Union Citizens. This matter deserves a full debate engaging all the parties concerned and in particular the minority groups so that the legal position is made clear and that the possible future religious ramifications of this proposed Legislation are considered in light of the aims and objectives of the European Union.
I respectfully ask for a stay of the Written Declaration for reflection and consultation.
[1] http://www.comece.org 07/04/2009
[2] Official Journal of the European Communities, Vol.36, L307, 12 December 1993
[3] Case-84/94 United Kingdom v Council of the European Union, Industrial Relations Law Reports, Vol.26, No.1, January [1997] IRLR 32.
[4] Case 84/94 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland v Council of the European Union. Court of Justice of the European Communities Reports of Case before the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance. ECR 1-5805 and 1-5806, para, 37.
[5] http://www.comece.org/comece.taf?_function=news&_sub=&id=1&langauge=en 18/12/2008
[6] European Parliament Written Declaration DC763921EN.doc
[7] Nigel Foster, Blackstone’s EC Legislation 2005-2006 (Oxford: University Press, 2005), 16th Edition, p.42
[8] Ibid
[9] Official Journal No. C28/1 (88/C28/01) 3rd February 1988 – The Council Resolution of 21 December 1987.
[10] Official Journal of the European Committees No. L183/1 (89/391/EEC), 26 May 1989
[11] Official Journal of the European Communities No. C126/4 (89/C126/04), 23 May 1989.
[12] Ibid
[13] Convention 14 Weekly Rest (Industry), 1921, Article 7, International Labour Conventions and Recommendations, Vol.1, 1949-1951, International Labour Office, Geneva, International Labour Organisation. (This Convention came into force on 19 June 1923).
[14]Convention 106, Weekly Rest (Commerce and Officers), 1957, Article 6, International Conventions and Recommendations 1952-1976, Vol. 11, International Labour Offices, Geneva, International Labour Organisation, p.91
[15] European Social Charter, collected texts (3rd edition) 2002, Council of Europe Publishing, 2003, p.13
[16] International Labour Conventions and Recommendations 1952-1976 Vol. 2 Convention No.106 (Weekly Rest in Commerce and Offices) Article 6(4), p.93
[17] Official Journal of the European Communities, C60, Vol. 34, 8 March 1991, Information and Notices
[18] Ibid
[19] Official Journal of the European Communities, Debates of the European Parliament 1990-1991 session, Report of Proceedings form 18-22 February 1991, Europe House, Strasbourg, p.30. Note that the ILO did not specify the day of the week.
[20] Ibid, p.32
[21] Ibid, p.36
[22] Ibid, p.38
[23] Official Journal of the European Communities, Vol. 36, L307, 12 December 1993
[24] Ibid
[25] Ibid
[26] Case 84/94 UK v Council of the European Union, Court of Justice of the European Communities, Reports of Case before the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance (ECR 1-5755). In details see also Case 84/94 United Kingdom v Council of the European Union, Industrial Relations Law Reports, Vol.26, No 1. January ([1997] IRLR 1-76)
[27][1997] IRLR 30
[28][1997] IRLR 33
[29] Ibid
[30] UK (Applicant) v Council of the European Union (Defendant) Case 84/94, Industrial Relations Law Reports, Vol. 26, No.1, January 1997, pp 30-31
[31] Ibid
[32] Case 84/94 UK v Council of the European Union, ECR 1-5805
[33] Case 84/94 UK v Council of the European Union, ECR 1-5806
[34] Official Journal of the European Communities C20 Vol. 40 20/01/1997 Minutes of sitting of Thursday, 12 December 1996 B4-1354, 1368,1413 and 1433/96 – Resolution on Sunday Week.
[35] Official Journal of the European Communities, C249, Vol.42, 1 September 1999 (1999/C249/04), Information and Notices
[36] Official Journal of the European Union, C61, Vol. 46, 14 March 2003, Information and Notices
[37] Ibid.
[38] www.cec-kek.org/pdf/CSCProtectionofSunday_EN.pdf 30/03/2009
[39] www.cec-kek.org/pdf/CSCProtectionofSunday_EN.pdf 30/03/2009
[40]www.cec-kek.org/pdf/CSCProtectionofSunday_EN.pdf 30/03/2009
[41] www.cec-kek.org/pdf/CSCProtectionofSunday_EN.pdf 30/03/2009
[42] Official Journal of the European Communities C280 E 03/10/2003 P.0193-0193 http//eur_lex.europa.eu
[43] Ibid
[44] Ibid
[45] Ibid see also Commission of the European Communities, Establishing a General Framework for Equal Treatment in Employment and Occupation, COM (1999) 565 Final, Brussels.
[46] ECR 1-5785 to 1-5786 ECR para.139. see also tenth Recital in OJ L307 Vol.36 13.12.1993
[47] Case 13/63, Italy v Commission [1963] ECR 165 and also Case 130/75, Vivien Prais v Council of the European Communities [1976] ECR 1-1592 and 1-1593.
[48] Henry Steiner and Philip Alston, International Human Rights in Context, Law, Politics and Morals (Oxford University Press, 2000) p.1425
[49] Ibid
[50] Case-84-94 United Kingdom v Council of the European Communities [1996] ECR 1-5809 para.49 and [1997] IRLR 57 para.49. For Actions of Annulment see http://europa.eu/institutions/inst/justice/index_en.htm
[51] Nigel Foster, Blackstone’s EC Legislation 2005-2006 (Oxford: University Press, 2005), 16th Edition , p.92.
[52] Commission of the European Communities, On Certain Community Measures to Combat Discrimination, COM (1999) 564 Final, Brussels, p2.
[53] Ibid.
[
Given the recent state of the economy, it is important to explore whether there is a strong correlation between religious freedom and economic freedom, or individual property rights and the interest of the state. The following was published in Ayn Rand's "Objectivist" newsletter in 1966, and reprinted in her book, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, in 1967. Regardless of what you think of Rand or Greenspan, the issue is just as relevant today as it was then. Given the history since 1966, it would be interesting to see whether Alan Greenspan still agrees with his previous conclusions. Emphasis has been added. Editor.]
An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense — perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire — that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other.
In order to understand the source of their antagonism, it is necessary first to understand the specific role of gold in a free society.
Money is the common denominator of all economic transactions. It is that commodity which serves as a medium of exchange, is universally acceptable to all participants in an exchange economy as payment for their goods or services, and can, therefore, be used as a standard of market value and as a store of value, i.e., as a means of saving.
The existence of such a commodity is a precondition of a division of labor economy. If men did not have some commodity of objective value which was generally acceptable as money, they would have to resort to primitive barter or be forced to live on self-sufficient farms and forgo the inestimable advantages of specialization. If men had no means to store value, i.e., to save, neither long-range planning nor exchange would be possible.
What medium of exchange will be acceptable to all participants in an economy is not determined arbitrarily. First, the medium of exchange should be durable. In a primitive society of meager wealth, wheat might be sufficiently durable to serve as a medium, since all exchanges would occur only during and immediately after the harvest, leaving no value-surplus to store. But where store-of-value considerations are important, as they are in richer, more civilized societies, the medium of exchange must be a durable commodity, usually a metal. A metal is generally chosen because it is homogeneous and divisible: every unit is the same as every other and it can be blended or formed in any quantity. Precious jewels, for example, are neither homogeneous nor divisible. More important, the commodity chosen as a medium must be a luxury. Human desires for luxuries are unlimited and, therefore, luxury goods are always in demand and will always be acceptable. Wheat is a luxury in underfed civilizations, but not in a prosperous society. Cigarettes ordinarily would not serve as money, but they did in post-World War II Europe where they were considered a luxury. The term “luxury good” implies scarcity and high unit value. Having a high unit value, such a good is easily portable; for instance, an ounce of gold is worth a half-ton of pig iron.
In the early stages of a developing money economy, several media of exchange might be used, since a wide variety of commodities would fulfill the foregoing conditions. However, one of the commodities will gradually displace all others, by being more widely acceptable. Preferences on what to hold as a store of value will shift to the most widely acceptable commodity, which, in turn, will make it still more acceptable. The shift is progressive until that commodity becomes the sole medium of exchange. The use of a single medium is highly advantageous for the same reasons that a money economy is superior to a barter economy: it makes exchanges possible on an incalculably wider scale.
Whether the single medium is gold, silver, seashells, cattle, or tobacco is optional, depending on the context and development of a given economy. In fact, all have been employed, at various times, as media of exchange. Even in the present century, two major commodities, gold and silver, have been used as international media of exchange, with gold becoming the predominant one. Gold, having both artistic and functional uses and being relatively scarce, has significant advantages over all other media of exchange. Since the beginning of World War I, it has been virtually the sole international standard of exchange. If all goods and services were to be paid for in gold, large payments would be difficult to execute and this would tend to limit the extent of a society’s divisions of labor and specialization. Thus a logical extension of the creation of a medium of exchange is the development of a banking system and credit instruments (bank notes and deposits) which act as a substitute for, but are convertible into, gold.
A free banking system based on gold is able to extend credit and thus to create bank notes (currency) and deposits, according to the production requirements of the economy. Individual owners of gold are induced, by payments of interest, to deposit their gold in a bank (against which they can draw checks). But since it is rarely the case that all depositors want to withdraw all their gold at the same time, the banker need keep only a fraction of his total deposits in gold as reserves. This enables the banker to loan out more than the amount of his gold deposits (which means that he holds claims to gold rather than gold as security of his deposits). But the amount of loans which he can afford to make is not arbitrary: he has to gauge it in relation to his reserves and to the status of his investments.
When banks loan money to finance productive and profitable endeavors, the loans are paid off rapidly and bank credit continues to be generally available. But when the business ventures financed by bank credit are less profitable and slow to pay off, bankers soon find that their loans outstanding are excessive relative to their gold reserves, and they begin to curtail new lending, usually by charging higher interest rates. This tends to restrict the financing of new ventures and requires the existing borrowers to improve their profitability before they can obtain credit for further expansion. Thus, under the gold standard, a free banking system stands as the protector of an economy’s stability and balanced growth. When gold is accepted as the medium of exchange by most or all nations, an unhampered free international gold standard serves to foster a world-wide division of labor and the broadest international trade. Even though the units of exchange (the dollar, the pound, the franc, etc.) differ from country to country, when all are defined in terms of gold the economies of the different countries act as one — so long as there are no restraints on trade or on the movement of capital. Credit, interest rates, and prices tend to follow similar patterns in all countries. For example, if banks in one country extend credit too liberally, interest rates in that country will tend to fall, inducing depositors to shift their gold to higher-interest paying banks in other countries. This will immediately cause a shortage of bank reserves in the “easy money” country, inducing tighter credit standards and a return to competitively higher interest rates again.
A fully free banking system and fully consistent gold standard have not as yet been achieved. But prior to World War I, the banking system in the United States (and in most of the world) was based on gold and even though governments intervened occasionally, banking was more free than controlled. Periodically, as a result of overly rapid credit expansion, banks became loaned up to the limit of their gold reserves, interest rates rose sharply, new credit was cut off, and the economy went into a sharp, but short-lived recession. (Compared with the depressions of 1920 and 1932, the pre-World War I business declines were mild indeed.) It was limited gold reserves that stopped the unbalanced expansions of business activity, before they could develop into the post-World War I type of disaster. The readjustment periods were short and the economies quickly reestablished a sound basis to resume expansion.
But the process of cure was misdiagnosed as the disease: if shortage of bank reserves was causing a business decline — argued economic interventionists — why not find a way of supplying increased reserves to the banks so they never need be short! If banks can continue to loan money indefinitely — it was claimed — there need never be any slumps in business. And so the Federal Reserve System was organized in 1913. It consisted of twelve regional Federal Reserve banks nominally owned by private bankers, but in fact government sponsored, controlled, and supported. Credit extended by these banks is in practice (though not legally) backed by the taxing power of the federal government. Technically, we remained on the gold standard; individuals were still free to own gold, and gold continued to be used as bank reserves. But now, in addition to gold, credit extended by the Federal Reserve banks (“paper reserves”) could serve as legal tender to pay depositors.
When business in the United States underwent a mild contraction in 1927, the Federal Reserve created more paper reserves in the hope of forestalling any possible bank reserve shortage. More disastrous, however, was the Federal Reserve’s attempt to assist Great Britain who had been losing gold to us because the Bank of England refused to allow interest rates to rise when market forces dictated (it was politically unpalatable). The reasoning of the authorities involved was as follows: if the Federal Reserve pumped excessive paper reserves into American banks, interest rates in the United States would fall to a level comparable with those in Great Britain; this would act to stop Britain’s gold loss and avoid the political embarrassment of having to raise interest rates. The “Fed” succeeded; it stopped the gold loss, but it nearly destroyed the economies of the world, in the process. The excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy spilled over into the stock market, triggering a fantastic speculative boom. Belatedly, Federal Reserve officials attempted to sop up the excess reserves and finally succeeded in braking the boom. But it was too late: by 1929 the speculative imbalances had become so overwhelming that the attempt precipitated a sharp retrenching and a consequent demoralizing of business confidence. As a result, the American economy collapsed. Great Britain fared even worse, and rather than absorb the full consequences of her previous folly, she abandoned the gold standard completely in 1931, tearing asunder what remained of the fabric of confidence and inducing a world-wide series of bank failures. The world economies plunged into the Great Depression of the 1930’s.
With a logic reminiscent of a generation earlier, statists argued that the gold standard was largely to blame for the credit debacle which led to the Great Depression. If the gold standard had not existed, they argued, Britain’s abandonment of gold payments in 1931 would not have caused the failure of banks all over the world. (The irony was that since 1913, we had been, not on a gold standard, but on what may be termed “a mixed gold standard”; yet it is gold that took the blame.) But the opposition to the gold standard in any form — from a growing number of welfare-state advocates — was prompted by a much subtler insight: the realization that the gold standard is incompatible with chronic deficit spending (the hallmark of the welfare state). Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes. A substantial part of the confiscation is effected by taxation. But the welfare statists were quick to recognize that if they wished to retain political power, the amount of taxation had to be limited and they had to resort to programs of massive deficit spending, i.e., they had to borrow money, by issuing government bonds, to finance welfare expenditures on a large scale.
Under a gold standard, the amount of credit that an economy can support is determined by the economy’s tangible assets, since every credit instrument is ultimately a claim on some tangible asset. But government bonds are not backed by tangible wealth, only by the government’s promise to pay out of future tax revenues, and cannot easily be absorbed by the financial markets. A large volume of new government bonds can be sold to the public only at progressively higher interest rates. Thus, government deficit spending under a gold standard is severely limited. The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit. They have created paper reserves in the form of government bonds which — through a complex series of steps — the banks accept in place of tangible assets and treat as if they were an actual deposit, i.e., as the equivalent of what was formerly a deposit of gold. The holder of a government bond or of a bank deposit created by paper reserves believes that he has a valid claim on a real asset. But the fact is that there are now more claims outstanding than real assets. The law of supply and demand is not to be conned. As the supply of money (of claims) increases relative to the supply of tangible assets in the economy, prices must eventually rise. Thus the earnings saved by the productive members of the society lose value in terms of goods. When the economy’s books are finally balanced, one finds that this loss in value represents the goods purchased by the government for welfare or other purposes with the money proceeds of the government bonds financed by bank credit expansion.
In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.
This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.
EXCERPT:
A single clause in Point 19 of the communiqué issued by the G20 leaders amounts to revolution in the global financial order.
“We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity,” it said. SDRs are Special Drawing Rights, a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund that has lain dormant for half a century.
Read the Telegraph article here.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Renowned investor George Soros said on Friday the world financial system has effectively disintegrated, adding that there is yet no prospect of a near-term resolution to the crisis.
Soros said the turbulence is actually more severe than during the Great Depression, comparing the current situation to the demise of the Soviet Union.
He said the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September marked a turning point in the functioning of the market system.
“We witnessed the collapse of the financial system,” Soros said at a Columbia University dinner. “It was placed on life support, and it’s still on life support. There’s no sign that we are anywhere near a bottom.”
His comments echoed those made earlier at the same conference by Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman who is now a top adviser to President Barack Obama.
Read more at: http://www.cnbc.com/id/29308452/for/cnbc/
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