Monday Links
- Under new policy guidelines from the Obama administration, federal drug agents won’t pursue medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they follow state laws. Cato scholars have long called for drug policy reform, and have examined other drug decriminalization program that have shown tangible, positive results.
- Ignored by the media: Antarctic ice melt lowest ever measured.
- Obama visiting China in November to discuss expanding military agreements. Here’s what’s at stake.
- Video: Why American health care kills.
- Podcast: “Coerced into Medicare“
Curb Your Enthusiasm: Americans Should Not Expect Much from Obama’s Visit to the UN
President Obama’s address to the United Nations General Assembly this morning, and his chairing of the UN Security Council on Thursday, is a grand attempt to tell the world–after eight years of George W. Bush–that the United States will no longer go it alone.
The president has a very difficult task, however, if he expects to invest the United Nations with renewed credibility. The UN is a weak and fractured institution, whose limited power and authority has been steadily undermined by a progression of U.S. presidents, both Democrats and Republicans. We should not forget that President Bill Clinton explicitly circumvented the UN Security Council when he chose to intervene militarily in Kosovo in 1999. Clinton’s evasion of the UNSC established a precedent for future military intervention that the Bush administration happily capitalized upon to send troops into Iraq in 2003.
Susan Rice, our current UN ambassador, endorsed this approach in 2006 when she called for U.S. military action against Sudan. Prior UN approval of such a mission was unlikely, but ultimately unnecessary, Rice argued at the time, because of the precedent set by President Clinton in Kosovo.
For American policymakers who have demonstrated such disdain for the UN in the past to now profess great respect for the institution should not surprise us. The UN is only as relevant as the member states wish it to be. In areas of common concern, the desire to cooperate and compromise may temporarily trump concerns over protecting state sovereignty and preserving freedom of action to deal with urgent security threats. In most cases, however, we can expect the member states, with the United States in the lead, to pursue policies that they believe (not always correctly, as we learned in Iraq) will advance their security. And if the UN weakly sanctions such actions after the fact, or refuses to do so, that will only reveal its irrelevance.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; General
Superb Defense of Tax Sovereignty in New York Times
My friend Pierre Bessard of Switzlerand’s Liberales Institut has a column in today’s New York Times defending financial privacy from the predations of both international bureaucracies and American tax collectors. Pierre sagely notes that the Swiss system respects the privacy of citizens, unlike the “Orwellian” systems in places like America. This approach results in a very high level of tax compliance in Switzerland, and also provides a refuge for oppressed people around the world:
…for us here in Switzerland, our financial privacy laws are a foundation for individual dignity and basic property rights. Unfortunately, the confidentiality that is the hallmark of Swiss banking is coming under increasing pressure. … We think government exists to serve us, not the other way around. We understand that we have to pay taxes — and we do, with numerous studies showing that the Swiss are extraordinarily honest about paying what we owe — but we do not think it is the government’s role to intrude on our privacy and wrench them from us. …Today, Swiss citizens continue to vote on any tax increases in referendums (and sometimes even accept them). These healthy curbs on government contrast with the Orwellian concept of the “transparent citizen” whose every act is known to government. We see our system as a social pact between citizens and the state. Swiss privacy laws help preserve basic property rights. Bank secrecy was introduced in 1934, most notably to protect the identities and assets of Jews in Nazi Germany.
I make many of the same points in a three-part video series produced by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity. With so-called tax havens under increasing pressure, this is a good time to review The Economic Case for Tax Havens, The Moral Case for Tax Havens, and Tax Havens: Myths v Facts.
Filed under: International Economics and Development; Tax and Budget Policy
Adam Smith Goes to Somalia: “Competition Keeps Prices Low”
Many people would agree that modern-day Somalia represents a Hobbesian state of nature. But could anarchy strengthen Somalia’s private sector? This article is certainly very old, but I came across it yesterday and thought the argument would be of interest to political theorists and classical liberals:
…local businesspeople find it easier to do business in a country where there is no government. “There is no need to obtain licences and, in contrast with many other parts of Africa, there is no state-run monopoly that prevents new competitors setting up. Keeping price low is helped by the absence of any need to pay taxes.”
Of course, the absence of a stable and legitimate political and judicial system, compounded by unyielding internecine violence, means individual and private property rights can never be fully protected and we aren’t likely to see foreign businesses flocking to this chaotic country in the foreseeable future. Generally speaking, the proper role of government is to protect individual rights. But the proper role of our government — abroad — should be limited to instances when our national sovereignty or territorial integrity is at risk. As exemplified in Somalia, America’s attempts to stabilize failed states or pacify foreign populations usually fail, exacerbate already disastrous situations, and are, in principle, gratuitous abuses of American power [See: the calamitous U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia].
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; International Economics and Development; Political Philosophy
Tax Havens Should be Emulated, Not Prosecuted
My March 23 Capitol Hill speech defending tax havens against fiscal protectionism is now a two-part Youtube series, complete with the powerpoint slides from my presentation. Unfortunately, we are fighting a defensive battle and the other side is making progress. If you have any suggestions for making stronger arguments for tax competition, fiscal sovereignty, and financial privacy, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
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