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Fanten sparer!

Vi er heldige i Norge. Vi har vannkraft, masse godt drikkevann, natur, fjell og hei, skog, olje og gass og et sosialt sikkerhetsnett. Vi kaller oss derfor "Verdens beste land^TM".

Alikevel har vi et underskudd i investeringer i hundremilliardersklassen på veivedlikehold, vedlikehold av skoler og offentlige bygg - og vannverk. Riktignok er det nye renseverk under bygging flere steder, men situasjonen er nok alikevel verre enn folk flest aner. Kanskje vår gode tilgang på vann har gjort oss late og gjerrige? Anlegg som ikke renser parasitter er uhørt i de fleste siviliserte land vi liker å sammenlikne oss med.

Og slikt er ikke tilfeldig. Godkjenningsplikten for vannverk er fra 1951. Men 37% av godkjenningspliktige norske vannverk er ennå ikke godkjente. Vi prioriterer det rett og slett ikke. Og som kjent er det ikke nok med bare gode tanker.

Ettersom folketall og befolkningstetthet øker, er mangel på god infrastruktur en ulykke som bare venter på å skje. Episoden med giardia i Bergen for kort tid siden og situasjonen i Oslo kan være et forvarsel.

Nå hører vi også at vannkraften vår lider av underinvesteringer og vedlikehold. Opptil 10 milliarder kWh går tapt på grunn av manglende rensing i rørgatene.

- Vi får mer kraft ut av samme fallhøyde, og det kan ha betydning for eksempel i tørre år, opplyser Direktoratet for Naturforvaltning.

Det er selvsagt tull. I en tid da man oppfordrer folk til å spare på strømmen er det ikke bare i tørre år vi ikke kan sløse bort 10 TWh. I en tid da e-verkene aldri har tjent mer penger klarer en altså ikke engang vedlikeholde dem! For ikke å snakke om den ekstra energi vi kunne hentet ut via fornyelse av selve generatorene. Lite skjer. Til tross for at prosjektet «Verdiskapende vedlikehold innen kraftproduksjon» har et årlig budsjett på 5,6 millioner kroner. Vi får håpe pengene går til gode snitter og kaffe ihvertfall.

Hva er det som gjør at vi er så lite ivrige på vedlikehold av våre kronjuveler? Har vi det så godt at vi tror løpet er kjørt og at vi kan hvile på våre laurbær? Det er en farlig tanke. Det er på tide vi avkrever effektivitet og handlekraft også av våre myndigheter. De er ikke redd for å avkreve oss det samme.

Overvåkings-staten skaper ny kriminalitet

I Storbritannia er det nå oppstått en ny type kriminalitet basert på bruken av stjålne eller falske bilskilt. Myndighetenes stadige satsing på overvåkingskameraer og "automatiske" (og økonomisk besparende) reaksjoner på lovbrudd eller overtramp har ført til en situasjon der det i økende grad er et "marked" for stjålne eller forfalskede bilskilt.

Myndighetene utskriver bøter på grunnlag av "bevis" fra automatiserte nummerskilt-lesere (kameraer tilknyttet databaser), uten menneskelig kontroll. Denne automatiserte håndhevelse av loven gjør det lettere for myndighetene å kreve inn penger, men gjør det samtidig vanskeligere for uskyldige å renvaske seg. Byråkratiet baserer seg nettopp på denne forenklede praksisen, og klager går "utenom systemet" og tar tid - hvis det i det hele tatt viser seg mulig å få saken etterforsket på skikkelig vis.

Titusenvis av nummerkilt blir stjålet hvert år i Storbritannia, og blir brukt for å slippe unna trafikkbøter - stikke av fra bensinstasjoner uten å betale og for annen kriminalitet. Opprinnelig eier får ofte en bot i posten - eller besøk av politiet - og må bevise at nettopp andre har brukt skiltene! Allerede har uskyldige fått - og betalt - bøter. Konsekvensene ved å ikke betale er så store at det tryggeste ofte er å betale i påvente av at saken eventuellt blir etterforsket.

En skulle tro at myndighetene var oppsatt på å holde databasene sine oppdaterte. Men også her, som på så mange andre offentlige områder - er slikt sett på som en utgiftspost - og har lav prioritet. Den britiske DVLA-database (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) holder ikke tritt med alle biler som er blitt "klonet" (kjører med falske nummerplater), og kan heller aldri gjøre det. Det er selvsagt mulig å skifte nummerskilt opptil flere ganger per dag for en kriminell - og så lenge skiltet representerer en eksisterende nummer-rekke er det umulig for et automatisert system å oppdage problemet.

Selve registeret, som i sin tid ble fremstilt som løsningen på trafikkrelaterte lovovertredelser, er nå avslørt som ineffektivt. Det er selvsagt nytteløst å tro at et slikt register kan avsløre annet enn hvilket nummer en bil har - om det er et lovlig skilt er selvsagt umulig å bedømme.

Nettopp derfor er overvåkningsteknologien altså nå brukt aktivt av forbrytere, og har blitt et viktig verktøy for å unngå straffeforfølgelse. Myndighetenes reaksjon? MER overvåking og satsing på nummerskilt som er vanskeligere å stjele. Begge deler er å spille rett inn i hendene på de kriminelle, fordi det gir intet annet enn falsk sikkerhet. Det er de automatiserte systemene som er grunnlaget for deres maskeradespill, og nummerskilt blir stjålet fordi det er det enkleste per idag - men allerede nå er det et marked for forfalskede skilt.

Mange organisasjoner (for eksempel NO2ID) er nå redd for at økt satsing på personlige identifikasjonskort og "automatisert" kriminalitetsbekjempelse vil gjøre det lettere for kriminelle å nettopp utnytte systemet, slik at også annen form for kriminalitet vil føre til identitetstyveri og tilfeller der uskyldige blir dømt. En ting er sikkert. Det finnes ingen lettvint og kostnadseffektiv løsning på kriminalitetsbekjempelse. Nye metoder fører ofte til effektivitetsbesparelse på papiret, men kvalitetssikring koster ofte mer enn opprinnelig antatt. De kriminelle vil som regel uansett alltid ligge ett skritt foran myndighetene.

De eneste som taper på en slik situasjon er selvsagt de lovlydige, som på mange måter får sin rettsikkerhet ofret på effektivitetens og overvåkingssamfunnets alter.

Blir det aldri så galt? I USA alene blir over 8.9 millioner mennesker frastjålet detaljer om sin identitet per år - sensitive data kan aldri bli sikret nok - og skadene beløper seg til over 56 milliarder dollar! (tall fra US. dept. Justice) Heldigvis blir de fleste sakene løst, og dekket av forsikring. Hva skjer den gang en ikke kan bevise sin uskyld - og et automatisert system står på sitt?

Bettong Bjarne ønsker flere sosialklienter!

Mens de rødgrønne ofte liker å fremstille seg som de gode kreftene mot det onde kapitalist-imperiet i sine festtaler - er virkeligheten desverre en helt annen. Få har bidratt mer til å spre fordommer mot syke og mennesker som har falt utenfor arbeidslivet av andre årsaker - enn mannen med hjerte av norsk gråstein - mannen som synes at enten arbeider du, eller så er du null verdt - Bettong-Bjarne.

Veien ut fra fattigdom er veien ut i arbeidslivet, mener Bjarne. Og driter i de som har problemer med den veien. Et mindretall kan lett ofres på alteret mot veien til mer makt for sosialdemokratiet. Velferden skal en gang for alle sikres for de vellykkede som arbeider for å berike AS Norge.

Nå skal det innskrenkes så det monner. Hele tre måneder skal en ha på seg til å få arbeid etter endt attføring.

Her har en glemt at mennesker som går på attføring i utgangspunktet sjelden blir 100% friske gjennom slik attføring. Staten har ingen magisk formel for å reparere alle skader og sykdommer. Svært mange på attføring kjemper for å kunne bli friske nok til å arbeide i tilpasset arbeid. Norge er sannsynligvis verdens dårligste land i forhold til å legge til rette for tilpasset arbeid. Det er årsaken til at for eksempel svært få handicappede er i arbeid i "verdens beste land^TM".

Nå - for at flertallet skal få råd til å holde tritt med den økonomiske utviklingen og bevilge seg nyere mobiltelefoner og flatskjermer og gå på ski i kunstig snø i idrettsanlegg som bruker mer energi enn en middels norsk kommune - mens middelklassen og stemmekveget selvsagt fremdeles skal subsidieres med stadig nye overføringer fra felleskapspotten - løper Staten bort fra sine forpliktelser så godt de kan. Vi har monopolisert støtteapparatet omkring sykdomsrelatert rehabilitering og vet å sno oss unna forpliktelsene. Vi er gode på det i Norge. Kjempenes fødeland. Eller hva det nå var igjen...

For et menneske som er, la oss si 40% ufør - er tre måneder til å komme seg i jobb for lite. Svært mange sliter i tillegg med tildels alvorlige psykiske problemer etter mange år i det beintøffe og menneskefiendtlige norske helse- og trygdesystemet. Slike metoder vil etter alt å dømme føre til videre sykdom for de "heldige" og dertil hørende videre trygd eller alternativt en nedverdigende sosialtrygd for de som står på men mislykkes.

Hensikten med kuttet er å presse hjelpeapparatet og bedriftene til å få folk raskere ut i arbeid igjen, opplyser arbeids- og inkluderingsminister Bjarne Håkon Hanssen.

Og som vanlig lever Bettong-Bjarne i en alternativ virkelighet. Som om bedriftene føler ansvar for å redde mennesker bort fra sosiahjelp! Det har de aldri gjort - og det kommer de aldri til å gjøre.

Fagmiljøene advarer.

- Å måtte gå på sosialkontoret etter en attføringsperiode er et farlig skudd for baugen, er det noe folk trenger på denne vanskelige broen, så er det pågangsmot og tid. Det er energi og tro på seg selv og tillit.

- Å miste støtten etter tre måneder er sosialmedisinsk helt forkastelig, sier professor i sosialmedisin Per Fugelli.

Men de rødgrønne tror ikke på fagkompetanse. Inkompetanse kommer en tydeligvis langt nok med. Helt inn i regjeringskvartalene!

Tillegg: Hvis det er slik at de rødgrønne ikke spesiellt er ute etter å tyne de svakeste bør det ihvertfall i all anstendighetens navn også innføres tre måneders periode ved generell arbeidsledighet. Hvis uføre er ment å kunne finne seg arbeid i løpet av denne tiden, bør ihvertfall friske mennesker klare det.

Men det ville jo ført til at et vesentlig antall mennesker hadde havnet på sosialen en eller flere ganger i sitt liv. Og vi kan jo ikke utsette kjernevelgergrupper for det?

Bjarne slår sikkert folk med briller, også han! Han er for feig til å yppe seg mot de sterke.

Rushtidsavgift på buss

Busselskapet Team Trafikk i Trondheim foreslår "differensierte takster" for å "spre trafikkmengden". Formålet er alikevel å "øke antall reisende". Verden skal tilpasse seg Team Trafikk.

Den naive tror kanskje at bakgrunnen er et genuint ønske om å øke antallet kollektive reisende. At en tenker på miljø. Eller at en tenker på det beste for deg og samfunnet.

Intet er lenger fra sannheten. Team Trafikk lever i en verden der de er gitt makt. De lever ikke av å gi kundene en god service. De lever av å smiske med den politiske junta - som i seg selv heller ikke lever for å gi noen god service.

Alle lever for å øke egen makt og inntjeningsevne. For kontroll av nettopp deg og meg gir makt. Pakket inn i fine ord høres det finere ut enn det er. Men metodene er bare en mer sivilisert (les: spiselig) versjon av mafiavirksomhet.

"For busselskapet Team Trafikk er det en krevende og kostnadskrevende jobb å få effektiv utnyttelse av både bussmateriell og sjåfører, når det må tas høyde for at alle skal på jobb og skole samtidig."

Ja, at et busselskap må forholde seg til den virkelighet som resten av oss må forholde oss til - er synd. Spesiellt når det ikke maksimerer deres profitt. Jeg er nesten overrasket over at de ikke ber oss holde oss hjemme og sende pengene i posten heller. Det er enklest for alle parter!

Anarchists Progress - Albert Jay Nock

[This essay was first published in the American Mercury, 1927, and republished in On Doing the Right Thing.]


I. The Majesty of the Law

When I was seven years old, playing in front of our house on the outskirts of Brooklyn one morning, a policeman stopped and chatted with me for a few moments. He was a kindly man, of a Scandinavian blonde type with pleasant blue eyes, and I took to him at once. He sealed our acquaintance permanently by telling me a story that I thought was immensely funny; I laughed over it at intervals all day. I do not remember what it was, but it had to do with the antics of a drove of geese in our neighborhood. He impressed me as the most entertaining and delightful person that I had seen in a long time, and I spoke of him to my parents with great pride.

At this time I did not know what policemen were. No doubt I had seen them, but not to notice them. Now, naturally, after meeting this highly prepossessing specimen, I wished to find out all I could about them, so I took the matter up with our old colored cook. I learned from her that my fine new friend represented something that was called the law; that the law was very good and great, and that everyone should obey and respect it. This was reasonable; if it were so, then my admirable friend just fitted his place, and was even more highly to be thought of, if possible.

I asked where the law came from, and it was explained to me that men all over the country got together on what was called election day, and chose certain persons to make the law and others to see that it was carried out; and that the sum total of all this mechanism was called our government. This again was as it should be; the men I knew, such as my father, my uncle George, and Messrs. So-and-so among the neighbors (running them over rapidly in my mind), could do this sort of thing handsomely, and there was probably a good deal in the idea. But what was it all for! Why did we have law and government, anyway! Then I learned that there were persons called criminals; some of them stole, some hurt or killed people or set fire to houses; and it was the duty of men like my friend the policeman to protect us from them. If he saw any he would catch them and lock them up, and they would be punished according to the law.

A year or so later we moved to another house in the same neighborhood, only a short distance away. On the corner of the block — rather a long block — behind our house stood a large one-story wooden building, very dirty and shabby, called the Wigwam. While getting the lie of my new surroundings, I considered this structure and remarked with disfavor the kind of people who seemed to be making themselves at home there. Someone told me it was a "political headquarters," but I did not know what that meant, and therefore did not connect it with my recent researches into law and government. I had little curiosity about the Wigwam. My parents never forbade my going there, but my mother once casually told me that it was a pretty good place to keep away from, and I agreed with her.

Two months later I heard someone say that election day was shortly coming on, and I sparked up at once; this, then, was the day when the lawmakers were to be chosen. There had been great doings at the Wigwam lately; in the evenings, too, I had seen noisy processions of drunken loafers passing our house, carrying transparencies and tin torches that sent up clouds of kerosene smoke. When I had asked what these meant, I was answered in one word, "politics," uttered in a disparaging tone, but this signified nothing to me. The fact is that my attention had been attracted by a steam calliope that went along with one of the first of these processions, and I took it to mean that there was a circus going on; and when I found that there was no circus, I was disappointed and did not care what else might be taking place.

"Nothing could be clearer than that the leading spirits in the whole affair were most dreadful swine; and I wondered by what kind of magic they could bring forth anything so majestic, good, and venerable as the law."
On hearing of election day, however, the light broke in on me. I was really witnessing the august performances that I had heard of from our cook. All these processions of yelling hoodlums who sweat and stank in the parboiling humidity of the Indian-summer evenings — all the squalid goings on in the Wigwam — all these, it seemed, were part and parcel of an election. I noticed that the men whom I knew in the neighborhood were not prominent in this election; my uncle George voted, I remember, and when he dropped in at our house that evening, I overheard him say that going to the polls was a filthy business. I could not make it out. Nothing could be clearer than that the leading spirits in the whole affair were most dreadful swine; and I wondered by what kind of magic they could bring forth anything so majestic, good, and venerable as the law. But I kept my questionings to myself for some reason, though, as a rule, I was quite a hand for pestering older people about matters that seemed anomalous. Finally, I gave it up as hopeless, and thought no more about the subject for three years.

An incident of that election night, however, stuck in my memory. Some devoted brother, very far gone in whisky, fell by the wayside in a vacant lot just back of our house, on his way to the Wigwam to await the returns. He lay there all night, mostly in a comatose state. At intervals of something like half an hour he roused himself up in the darkness, apparently aware that he was not doing his duty by the occasion, and tried to sing the chorus of "Marching Through Georgia," but he could never get quite through three measures of the first bar before relapsing into somnolence. It was very funny; he always began so bravely and earnestly, and always petered out so lamentably. I often think of him. His general sense of political duty, I must say, still seems to me as intelligent and as competent as that of any man I have met in the many, many years that have gone by since then, and his mode of expressing it still seems about as effective as any I could suggest.

II. Reformers, Noble and Absurd

When I was just past my tenth birthday we left Brooklyn and went to live in a pleasant town of ten thousand population. An orphaned cousin made her home with us, a pretty girl, who soon began to cut a fair swath among the young men of the town. One of these was an extraordinary person, difficult to describe. My father, a great tease, at once detected his resemblance to a chimpanzee, and bored my cousin abominably by always speaking of him as Chim. The young man was not a popular idol by any means, yet no one thought badly of him. He was accepted everywhere as a source of legitimate diversion, and in the graduated, popular scale of local speech was invariably designated as a fool — a born fool, for which there was no help.

When I heard he was a lawyer, I was so astonished that I actually went into the chicken court one day to hear him plead some trifling case, out of sheer curiosity to see him in action; and I must say I got my money's worth. Presently the word went around that he was going to run for Congress, and stood a good chance of being elected; and what amazed me above all was that no one seemed to see anything out of the way about it.

My tottering faith in law and government got a hard jolt from this. Here was a man, a very good fellow indeed — he had nothing in common with the crew who herded around the Wigwam — who was regarded by the unanimous judgment of the community, without doubt, peradventure, or exception, as having barely sense enough to come in when it rained; and this was the man whom his party was sending to Washington as contentedly as if he were some Draco or Solon. At this point my sense of humor forged to the front and took permanent charge of the situation, which was fortunate for me, since otherwise my education would have been aborted, and I would perhaps, like so many who have missed this great blessing, have gone in with the reformers and uplifters; and such a close shave as this, in the words of Rabelais, is a terrible thing to think upon.

How many reformers there have been in my day; how nobly and absurdly busy they were, and how dismally unhumorous! I can dimly remember Pingree and Altgeld in the Middle West, and Godkin, Strong, and Seth Low in New York. During the nineties, the goodly fellowship of the prophets buzzed about the whole country like flies around a tar barrel — and, Lord! where be they now?

III. To Abolish Crime or to Monopolize It?

It will easily be seen, I think, that the only unusual thing about all this was that my mind was perfectly unprepossessed and blank throughout. My experiences were surely not uncommon, and my reasonings and inferences were no more than any child, who was more than halfwitted, could have made without trouble. But my mind had never been perverted or sophisticated; it was left to itself. I never went to school, so I was never indoctrinated with pseudo-patriotic fustian of any kind, and the plain, natural truth of such matters as I have been describing, therefore, found its way to my mind without encountering any artificial obstacle.

This freedom continued, happily, until my mind had matured and toughened. When I went to college I had the great good luck to hit on probably the only one in the country (there certainly is none now) where all such subjects were so remote and unconsidered that one would not know they existed. I had Greek, Latin, and mathematics, and nothing else, but I had these until the cows came home; then I had them all over again (or so it seemed) to make sure nothing was left out; then I was given a bachelor's degree in the liberal arts, and turned adrift.

The idea was that if one wished to go in for some special branch of learning, one should do it afterward, on the foundation laid at college. The college's business was to lay the foundation, and the authorities saw to it that we were kept plentifully busy with the job. Therefore, all such subjects as political history, political science, and political economy were closed to me throughout my youth and early manhood; and when the time came that I wished to look into them, I did it on my own, without the interference of instructors, as any person who has gone through a course of training similar to mine at college is quite competent to do.

That time, however, came much later, and meanwhile I thought little about law and government, as I had other fish to fry; I was living more or less out of the world, occupied with literary studies. Occasionally some incident happened that set my mind perhaps a little farther along in the old sequences, but not often. Once, I remember, I ran across the case of a boy who had been sentenced to prison, a poor, scared little brat, who had intended something no worse than mischief, and it turned out to be a crime. The judge said he disliked to sentence the lad; it seemed the wrong thing to do; but the law left him no option. I was struck by this. The judge, then, was doing something as an official that he would not dream of doing as a man; and he could do it without any sense of responsibility, or discomfort, simply because he was acting as an official and not as a man. On this principle of action, it seemed to me that one could commit almost any kind of crime without getting into trouble with one's conscience.

Clearly, a great crime had been committed against this boy; yet nobody who had had a hand in it — the judge, the jury, the prosecutor, the complaining witness, the policemen and jailers — felt any responsibility about it, because they were not acting as men, but as officials. Clearly, too, the public did not regard them as criminals, but rather as upright and conscientious men.

"The judge, then, was doing something as an official that he would not dream of doing as a man; and he could do it without any sense of responsibility, or discomfort, simply because he was acting as an official and not as a man."
The idea came to me then, vaguely but unmistakably, that if the primary intention of government was not to abolish crime but merely to monopolize crime, no better device could be found for doing it than the inculcation of precisely this frame of mind in the officials and in the public; for the effect of this was to exempt both from any allegiance to those sanctions of humanity or decency which anyone of either class, acting as an individual, would have felt himself bound to respect — nay, would have wished to respect. This idea was vague at the moment, as I say, and I did not work it out for some years, but I think I never quite lost track of it from that time.

Presently I got acquainted in a casual way with some officeholders, becoming quite friendly with one in particular, who held a high elective office. One day he happened to ask me how I would reply to a letter that bothered him; it was a query about the fitness of a certain man for an appointive job. His recommendation would have weight; he liked the man, and really wanted to recommend him — moreover, he was under great political pressure to recommend him — but he did not think the man was qualified. Well, then, I suggested offhand, why not put it just that way? — it seemed all fair and straightforward. "Ah yes," he said, "but if I wrote such a letter as that, you see, I wouldn't be reelected."

This took me aback a bit, and I demurred somewhat. "That's all very well," he kept insisting, "but I wouldn't be reelected." Thinking to give the discussion a semihumorous turn, I told him that the public, after all, had rights in the matter; he was their hired servant, and if he were not reelected it would mean merely that the public did not want him to work for them any more, which was quite within their competence. Moreover, if they threw him out on any such issue as this, he ought to take it as a compliment; indeed, if he were reelected, would it not tend to show in some measure that he and the people did not fully understand each other! He did not like my tone of levity, and dismissed the subject with the remark that I knew nothing of practical politics, which was no doubt true.

IV. The Prevalent Air of Cynicism

Perhaps a year after this I had my first view of a legislative body in action. I visited the capital of a certain country, and listened attentively to the legislative proceedings. What I wished to observe, first of all, was the kind of business that was mostly under discussion; and next, I wished to get as good a general idea as I could of the kind of men who were entrusted with this business. I had a friend on the spot, formerly a newspaper reporter who had been in the press gallery for years; he guided me over the government buildings, taking me everywhere and showing me everything I asked to see.

As we walked through some corridors in the basement of the Capitol, I remarked the resonance of the stonework. "Yes," he said, thoughtfully, "these walls, in their time, have echoed to the uncertain footsteps of many a drunken statesman." His words were made good in a few moments when we heard a spirited commotion ahead, which we found to proceed from a good-sized room, perhaps a committee room, opening off the corridor. The door being open, we stopped, and looked in on a strange sight.

In the center of the room, a florid, square-built, portly man was dancing an extraordinary kind of breakdown, or Kazakh dance. He leaped straight up to an incredible height, spun around like a teetotum, stamped his feet, then suddenly squatted and hopped through several measures in a squatting position, his hands on his knees, and then leaped up in the air and spun around again. He blew like a turkeycock, and occasionally uttered hoarse cries; his protruding and fiery eyes were suffused with blood, and the veins stood out on his neck and forehead like the strings of a bass-viol. He was drunk.

About a dozen others, also very drunk, stood around him in crouching postures, some clapping their hands and some slapping their knees, keeping time to the dance. One of them caught sight of us in the doorway, came up, and began to talk to me in a maundering fashion about his constituents. He was a loathsome human being; I have seldom seen one so repulsive. I could make nothing of what he said; he was almost inarticulate; and in pronouncing certain syllables he would slaver and spit, so that I was more occupied with keeping out of his range than with listening to him. He kept trying to buttonhole me, and I kept moving backward; he had backed me thirty feet down the corridor when my friend came along and disengaged me; and as we resumed our way, my friend observed for my consolation that "you pretty well need a mackintosh when X talks to you, even when he is sober."

This man, I learned, was interested in the looting of certain valuable public lands; nobody had heard of his ever being interested in any other legislative measures. The florid man who was dancing was interested in nothing but a high tariff on certain manufactures; he shortly became a Cabinet officer. Throughout my stay I was struck by seeing how much of the real business of legislation was in this category — how much, that is, had to do with putting unearned money in the pockets of beneficiaries — and what fitful and perfunctory attention the legislators gave to any other kind of business. I was even more impressed by the prevalent air of cynicism; by the frankness with which everyone seemed to acquiesce in the view of Voltaire, that government is merely a device for taking money out of one person's pocket and putting it into another's.

V. The Unique Anomalies of the State

These experiences, commonplace as they were, prepared me to pause over and question certain sayings of famous men, when subsequently I ran across them, which otherwise I would perhaps have passed by without thinking about them. When I came upon the saying of Lincoln, that the way of the politician is "a long step removed from common honesty," it set a problem for me. I wondered just why this should be generally true, if it were true. When I read the remark of Mr. Jefferson, that "whenever a man has cast a longing eye on office, a rottenness begins in his conduct," I remembered the judge who had sentenced the boy, and my officeholding acquaintance who was so worried about reelection. I tried to reexamine their position, as far as possible putting myself in their place, and made a great effort to understand it favorably.

My first view of a parliamentary body came back to me vividly when I read the despondent observation of John Bright, that he had sometimes known the British Parliament to do a good thing, but never just because it was a good thing. In the meantime I had observed many legislatures, and their principal occupations and preoccupations seemed to me precisely like those of the first one I ever saw; and while their personnel was not by any means composed throughout of noisy and disgusting scoundrels (neither, I hasten to say, was the first one), it was so unimaginably inept that it would really have to be seen to be believed. I cannot think of a more powerful stimulus to one's intellectual curiosity, for instance, than to sit in the galleries of the last Congress, contemplate its general run of membership, and then recall these sayings of Lincoln, Mr. Jefferson, and John Bright.[1]

"Government is merely a device for taking money out of one person's pocket and putting it into another's."
It struck me as strange that these phenomena seemed never to stir any intellectual curiosity in anybody. As far as I know, there is no record of its ever having occurred to Lincoln that the fact he had remarked was striking enough to need accounting for; nor yet to Mr. Jefferson, whose intellectual curiosity was almost boundless; nor yet to John Bright. As for the people around me, their attitudes seemed strangest of all. They all disparaged politics. Their common saying, "Oh, that's politics," always pointed to something that in any other sphere of action they would call shabby and disreputable. But they never asked themselves why it was that in this one sphere of action alone they took shabby and disreputable conduct as a matter of course. It was all the more strange because these same people still somehow assumed that politics existed for the promotion of the highest social purposes. They assumed that the State's primary purpose was to promote through appropriate institutions the general welfare of its members.

This assumption, whatever it amounted to, furnished the rationale of their patriotism, and they held to it with a tenacity that on slight provocation became vindictive and fanatical. Yet all of them were aware, and if pressed, could not help acknowledging, that more than 90 percent of the State's energy was employed directly against the general welfare. Thus one might say that they seemed to have one set of credenda for weekdays and another for Sundays, and never to ask themselves what actual reasons they had for holding either.

I did not know how to take this, nor do I now. Let me draw a rough parallel. Suppose vast numbers of people to be contemplating a machine that they had been told was a plow, and very valuable — indeed, that they could not get on without it — some even saying that its design came down in some way from on high. They have great feelings of pride and jealousy about this machine, and will give up their lives for it if they are told it is in danger. Yet they all see that it will not plow well, no matter what hands are put to manage it, and in fact does hardly any plowing at all; sometimes only with enormous difficulty and continual tinkering and adjustment can it be got to scratch a sort of furrow, very poor and short, hardly practicable, and ludicrously disproportionate to the cost and pains of cutting it. On the other hand, the machine harrows perfectly, almost automatically. It looks like a harrow, has the history of a harrow, and even when the most enlightened effort is expended on it to make it act like a plow, it persists, except for an occasional six or eight percent of efficiency, in acting like a harrow.

Surely such a spectacle would make an intelligent being raise some inquiry about the nature and original intention of that machine. Was it really a plow? Was it ever meant to plow with! Was it not designed and constructed for harrowing? Yet none of the anomalies that I had been observing ever raised any inquiry about the nature and original intention of the State. They were merely acquiesced in. At most, they were put down feebly to the imperfections of human nature which render mismanagement and perversion of every good institution to some extent inevitable; and this is absurd, for these anomalies do not appear in the conduct of any other human institution. It is no matter of opinion, but of open and notorious fact, that they do not. There are anomalies in the church and in the family that are significantly analogous; they will bear investigation, and are getting it; but the analogies are by no means complete, and are mostly due to the historical connection of these two institutions with the State.

Everyone knows that the State claims and exercises the monopoly of crime that I spoke of a moment ago, and that it makes this monopoly as strict as it can. It forbids private murder, but itself organizes murder on a colossal scale. It punishes private theft, but itself lays unscrupulous hands on anything it wants, whether the property of citizen or of alien. There is, for example, no human right, natural or constitutional, that we have not seen nullified by the United States government. Of all the crimes that are committed for gain or revenge, there is not one that we have not seen it commit — murder, mayhem, arson, robbery, fraud, criminal collusion, and connivance. On the other hand, we have all remarked the enormous relative difficulty of getting the State to effect any measure for the general welfare.

Compare the difficulty of securing conviction in cases of notorious malfeasance, and in cases of petty private crime. Compare the smooth and easy going of the Teapot Dome transactions with the obstructionist behavior of the State toward a national child-labor law. Suppose one should try to get the State to put the same safeguards (no stronger) around service income that with no pressure at all it puts around capital income: what chance would one have? It must not be understood that I bring these matters forward to complain of them. I am not concerned with complaints or reforms, but only with the exhibition of anomalies that seem to me to need accounting for.

VI. The Assumption of a Professional Criminal Class

In the course of some desultory reading I noticed that the historian Parkman, at the outset of his volume on the conspiracy of Pontiac, dwells with some puzzlement, apparently, upon the fact that the Indians had not formed a State. Mr. Jefferson, also, who knew the Indians well, remarked the same fact — that they lived in a rather highly organized society, but had never formed a State. Bicknell, the historian of Rhode Island, has some interesting passages that bear upon the same point, hinting that the collisions between the Indians and the whites may have been largely due to a misunderstanding about the nature of land tenure; that the Indians, knowing nothing of the British system of land tenure, understood their land sales and land grants as merely an admission of the whites to the same communal use of land that they themselves enjoyed.

I noticed, too, that Marx devotes a good deal of space in Das Kapital to proving that economic exploitation cannot take place in any society until the exploited class has been expropriated from the land. These observations attracted my attention as possibly throwing a strong side light upon the nature of the State and the primary purpose of government, and I made note of them accordingly. At this time I was a good deal in Europe. I was in England and Germany during the Tangier incident, studying the circumstances and conditions that led up to the late war. My facilities for this were exceptional, and I used them diligently. Here I saw the State behaving just as I had seen it behave at home.

Moreover, remembering the political theories of the 18th century, and the expectations put upon them, I was struck with the fact that the republican, constitutional-monarchical, and autocratic States behaved exactly alike. This has never been sufficiently remarked. There was no practical distinction to be drawn among England, France, Germany, and Russia; in all these countries the State acted with unvarying consistency and unfailing regularity against the interests of the immense, the overwhelming majority of its people.

So flagrant and flagitious, indeed, was the action of the State in all these countries, that its administrative officials, especially its diplomats, would immediately, in any other sphere of action, be put down as a professional-criminal class — just as would the corresponding officials in my own country, as I had already remarked. It is a noteworthy fact, indeed, concerning all that has happened since then, that if in any given circumstances one went on the assumption that they were a professional-criminal class, one could predict with accuracy what they would do and what would happen; while on any other assumption one could predict almost nothing. The accuracy of my own predictions during the war and throughout the Peace Conference was due to nothing but their being based on this assumption.

"All these political permutations resulted only in what John Adams admirably called 'a change of impostors.'"
The Liberal Party was in power in England in 1911, and my attention became attracted to its tenets. I had already seen something of liberalism in America as a kind of glorified mugwumpery. The Cleveland Administration had long before proved what everybody already knew, that there was no essential difference between the Republican and Democratic parties; an election meant merely that one was in office and wished to stay in, and the other was out and wished to get in. I saw precisely the same relation prevailing between the two major parties in England, and I was to see later the same relation sustained by the Labour Administration of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald. All these political permutations resulted only in what John Adams admirably called "a change of impostors."

But I was chiefly interested in the basic theory of Liberalism. This seemed to be that the State is no worse than a degenerate or perverted institution, beneficent in its original intention, and susceptible of restoration by the simple expedient of "putting good men in office."

I had already seen this experiment tried on several scales of magnitude, and observed that it came to nothing commensurate with the expectations put upon it or the enormous difficulty of arranging it. Later I was to see it tried on an unprecedented scale, for almost all the governments engaged in the war were liberal, notably the English and our own. Its disastrous results in the case of the Wilson Administration are too well known to need comment; though I do not wish to escape the responsibility of saying that of all forms of political impostorship, liberalism always seemed to me the most vicious, because the most pretentious and specious. The general upshot of my observations, however, was to show me that whether in the hands of Liberal or Conservative, Republican or Democrat, and whether under nominal constitutionalism, republicanism or autocracy, the mechanism of the State would work freely and naturally in but one direction, namely, against the general welfare of the people.

VII. The Origin of the State

So I set about finding out what I could about the origin of the State, to see whether its mechanism was ever really meant to work in any other direction — and here I came upon a very odd fact. All the current popular assumptions about the origin of the State rest upon sheer guesswork — none of them upon actual investigation. The treatises and textbooks that came into my hands were also based, finally, upon guesswork. Some authorities guessed that the State was originally formed by this or that mode of social agreement; others, by a kind of muddling empiricism; others, by the will of God; and so on. Apparently none of these, however, had taken the plain course of going back upon the record as far as possible to ascertain how it actually had been formed, and for what purpose. It seemed that enough information must be available; the formation of the State in America, for example, was a matter of relatively recent history, and one must be able to find out a great deal about it. Consequently I began to look around to see whether anyone had ever anywhere made any such investigation, and if so, what it amounted to.

I then discovered that the matter had, indeed, been investigated by scientific methods, and that all the scholars of the Continent knew about it, not as something new or startling, but as a sheer commonplace. The State did not originate in any form of social agreement, or with any disinterested view of promoting order and justice. Far otherwise. The State originated in conquest and confiscation, as a device for maintaining the stratification of society permanently into two classes — an owning and exploiting class, relatively small, and a propertyless dependent class. Such measures of order and justice as it established were incidental and ancillary to this purpose; it was not interested in any that did not serve this purpose; and it resisted the establishment of any that were contrary to it. No State known to history originated in any other manner, or for any other purpose than to enable the continuous economic exploitation of one class by another.[2]

"No State known to history originated in any other manner, or for any other purpose than to enable the continuous economic exploitation of one class by another."
This at once cleared up all the anomalies which I had found so troublesome. One could see immediately, for instance, why the hunting tribes and primitive peasants never formed a State. Primitive peasants never made enough of an economic accumulation to be worth stealing; they lived from hand to mouth. The hunting tribes of North America never formed a State, because the hunter was not exploitable. There was no way to make another man hunt for you; he would go off in the woods and forget to come back; and if he were expropriated from certain hunting grounds, he would merely move on beyond them, the territory being so large and the population so sparse. Similarly, since the State's own primary intention was essentially criminal, one could see why it cares only to monopolize crime, and not to suppress it; this explained the anomalous behavior of officials, and showed why it is that in their public capacity, whatever their private character, they appear necessarily as a professional-criminal class; and it further accounted for the fact that the State never moves disinterestedly for the general welfare, except grudgingly and under great pressure.

Again, one could perceive at once the basic misapprehension which forever nullifies the labors of liberalism and reform. It was once quite seriously suggested to me by some neighbors that I should go to Congress. I asked them why they wished me to do that, and they replied with some complimentary phrases about the satisfaction of having someone of a somewhat different type "amongst those damned rascals down there."

"Yes, but," I said, "don't you see that it would be only a matter of a month or so — a very short time, anyway — before I should be a damned rascal, too!"

No, they did not see this; they were rather taken aback; would I explain!

"Suppose," I said, "that you put in a Sunday-school superintendent or a Y.M.C.A. secretary to run an assignation house on Broadway. He might trim off some of the coarser fringes of the job, such as the badger game and the panel game, and put things in what Mayor Gaynor used to call a state of 'outward order and decency,' but he must run an assignation house, or he would promptly hear from the owners."

This was a new view to them, and they went away thoughtful.

Finally, one could perceive the reason for the matter that most puzzled me when I first observed a legislature in action, namely, the almost exclusive concern of legislative bodies with such measures as tend to take money out of one set of pockets and put it into another — the preoccupation with converting labor-made property into law-made property, and redistributing its ownership. The moment one becomes aware that just this, over and above a purely legal distribution of the ownership of natural resources, is what the State came into being for, and what it yet exists for, one immediately sees that the legislative bodies are acting altogether in character, and otherwise one cannot possibly give oneself an intelligent account of their behavior.[3]

Speaking for a moment in the technical terms of economics, there are two general means whereby human beings can satisfy their needs and desires. One is by work — i.e., by applying labor and capital to natural resources for the production of wealth, or to facilitating the exchange of labor-products. This is called the economic means. The other is by robbery — i.e., the appropriation of the labor products of others without compensation. This is called the political means. The State, considered functionally, may be described as the organization of the political means, enabling a comparatively small class of beneficiaries to satisfy their needs and desires through various delegations of the taxing power, which have no vestige of support in natural right, such as private land ownership, tariffs, franchises, and the like.

It is a primary instinct of human nature to satisfy one's needs and desires with the least possible exertion; everyone tends by instinctive preference to use the political means rather than the economic means, if he can do so. The great desideratum in a tariff, for instance, is its license to rob the domestic consumer of the difference between the price of an article in a competitive and a non-competitive market. Every manufacturer would like this privilege of robbery if he could get it, and he takes steps to get it if he can, thus illustrating the powerful instinctive tendency to climb out of the exploited class, which lives by the economic means (exploited, because the cost of this privilege must finally come out of production, there being nowhere else for it to come from), and into the class which lives, wholly or partially, by the political means.

This instinct — and this alone — is what gives the State its almost impregnable strength. The moment one discerns this, one understands the almost universal disposition to glorify and magnify the State, and to insist upon the pretence that it is something which it is not — something, in fact, the direct opposite of what it is. One understands the complacent acceptance of one set of standards for the State's conduct, and another for private organizations — of one set for officials, and another for private persons. One understands at once the attitude of the press, the Church and educational institutions, their careful inculcations of a specious patriotism, their nervous and vindictive proscriptions of opinion, doubt, or even of question. One sees why purely fictitious theories of the State and its activities are strongly, often fiercely and violently, insisted on; why the simple fundamentals of the very simple science of economics are shirked or veiled; and why, finally, those who really know what kind of thing they are promulgating, are loath to say so.

VIII. After the Revolution, Napoleon!

There is a powerful instinctive tendency to climb out of the exploited class and into the class which lives, wholly or partially, by the political means. This instinct is what gives the State its almost impregnable strength.
The outbreak of the war in 1914 found me entertaining the convictions that I have here outlined. In the succeeding decade nothing has taken place to attenuate them, but quite the contrary. Having set out only to tell the story of how I came by them, and not to expound them or indulge in any polemic for them, I may now bring this narrative to an end, with a word about their practical outcome.

It has sometimes been remarked as strange that I never joined in any agitation, or took the part of a propagandist for any movement against the State, especially at a time when I had an unexampled opportunity to do so. To do anything of the sort successfully, one must have more faith in such processes than I have, and one must also have a certain dogmatic turn of temperament, which I do not possess. To be quite candid, I was never much for evangelization; I am not sure enough that my opinions are right, and even if they were, a second-hand opinion is a poor possession.
Reason and experience, I repeat, are all that determine our true beliefs. So I never greatly cared that people should think my way, or tried much to get them to do so. I should be glad if they thought — if their general turn, that is, were a little more for disinterested thinking, and a little less for impetuous action motivated by mere unconsidered prepossession; and what little I could ever do to promote disinterested thinking has, I believe, been done.

According to my observations (for which I claim nothing but that they are all I have to go by) inaction is better than wrong action or premature right action, and effective right action can only follow right thinking.

"If a great change is to take place," said Edmund Burke, in his last words on the French Revolution, "the minds of men will be fitted to it."

Otherwise the thing does not turn out well; and the processes by which men's minds are fitted seem to me untraceable and imponderable, the only certainty about them being that the share of any one person, or any one movement, in determining them is extremely small. Various social superstitions, such as magic, the divine right of kings, the Calvinist teleology, and so on, have stood out against many a vigorous frontal attack, and thrived on it; and when they finally disappeared, it was not under attack. People simply stopped thinking in those terms; no one knew just when or why, and no one even was much aware that they had stopped. So I think it very possible that while we are saying, "Lo, here!" and "Lo, there!" with our eye on this or that revolution, usurpation, seizure of power, or what not, the superstitions that surround the State are quietly disappearing in the same way.[4]

"What little I could ever do to promote disinterested thinking has, I believe, been done."

My opinion of my own government and those who administer it can probably be inferred from what I have written. Mr. Jefferson said that if a centralization of power were ever effected at Washington, the United States would have the most corrupt government on earth.

Comparisons are difficult, but I believe it has one that is thoroughly corrupt, flagitious, tyrannical, oppressive. Yet if it were in my power to pull down its whole structure overnight and set up another of my own devising — to abolish the State out of hand, and replace it by an organization of the economic means — I would not do it, for the minds of Americans are far from fitted to any such great change as this, and the effect would be only to lay open the way for the worse enormities of usurpation — possibly, who knows! with myself as the usurper! After the French Revolution, Napoleon!

Great and salutary social transformations, such as in the end do not cost more than they come to, are not effected by political shifts, by movements, by programs and platforms, least of all by violent revolutions, but by sound and disinterested thinking. The believers in action are numerous, their gospel is widely preached, they have many followers.

Perhaps among those who will see what I have here written, there are two or three who will agree with me that the believers in action do not need us — indeed, that if we joined them, we should be rather a dead weight for them to carry. We need not deny that their work is educative, or pinch pennies when we count up its cost in the inevitable reactions against it. We need only remark that our place and function in it are not apparent, and then proceed on our own way, first with the more obscure and extremely difficult work of clearing and illuminating our own minds, and second, with what occasional help we may offer to others whose faith, like our own, is set more on the regenerative power of thought than on the uncertain achievements of premature action.


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Albert Jay Nock (October 13, 1870 – August 19, 1945) was an influential American libertarian author, educational theorist, and social critic of the early and middle 20th century. Murray Rothbard was deeply influenced by him, and so was the whole generation of free-market thinkers of the 1950s. Nock's essays are collected in The State of the Union. You can find Nock's development of Franz Oppenheimer's work in Our Enemy, the State.

This essay was first published in the American Mercury, 1927, and republished in On Doing the Right Thing.

Notes

[1] As indicating the impression made on a more sophisticated mind, I may mention an amusing incident that happened to me in London two years ago. Having an engagement with a member of the House of Commons, I filled out a card and gave it to an attendant. By mistake I had written my name where the member's should be, and his where mine should be. The attendant handed the card back, saying, "I'm afraid this will 'ardly do, sir. I see you've been making yourself a member. It doesn't go quite as easy as that, sir — though from some of what you see around 'ere, I wouldn't say as 'ow you mightn't think so."

[2] There is a considerable literature on this subject, largely untranslated. As a beginning, the reader may be conveniently referred to Mr. Charles A. Beard's Rise of American Civilization and his work on the Constitution of the United States. After these he should study closely — for it is hard reading — a small volume called The State by Professor Franz Oppenheimer, of the University of Frankfort. It has been well translated and is easily available.

[3] When the Republican convention which nominated Mr. Harding was almost over, one of the party leaders met a man who was managing a kind of dark-horse, or one-horse, candidate, and said to him,

You can pack up that candidate of yours, and take him home now. I can't tell you who the next President will be; it will be one of three men, and I don't just yet know which. But I can tell you who the next Secretary of the Interior will be, and that is the important question, because there are still a few little things lying around loose that the boys want.

I had this from a United States Senator, a Republican, who told it to me merely as a good story.

[4] The most valuable result of the Russian Revolution is in its liberation of the idea of the State as an engine of economic exploitation. In Denmark, according to a recent article in The English Review, there is a considerable movement for a complete separation of politics from economics, which, if effected, would of course mean the disappearance of the State.

Goddag mann økseskaft!

FNs klimapanel og Al Gore har fått fredsprisen. Det skulle vel heller vært miljøprisen - hvis den hadde eksistert - men ok, Nobelkomiteen følger jo med i tiden må vite. Klima er hipt.

Og jeg som holdt en knapp på Saddam... Spøk tilside.

Vår egen Helen Bjørnøy uttaler: -"Klimapanelets viktigste oppgave er å framskaffe vitenskapelig informasjon om klimaendringene, konsekvensene av disse og muligheter til å redusere problemet gjennom utslippsreduksjoner og tilpasning. Fredsprisen går til flere tusen eksperter som har arbeidet med dette i 19 år, mange av dem norske. Det er vi stolte av i dag. Al Gore har gjennom flere tiår satt søkelyset på klimaproblemet og mulighetene for løsning gjennom sitt politiske engasjement".

Eller noe slikt, ja. Søkelyset på klimaendringene er det ingenting i veien med. Det er verre med effektive tiltak.

Samtidig som verden godter seg over sin grønne samvittighet ved å ihvertfall snakke om problemene, leser vi at Norske Seabed Rig planlegger oljeutvinning under Nordpolen.

Lider vi av kollektiv schizofreni eller er det bare svekkede sjelsevner?

Takk - Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing har fått Nobelprisen i litteratur. Selv er hun likeglad.

Og det er kanskje likegodt. Nobelkomiteen har så sterke politiske føringer for hva de driver med at alt blir et ufarlig kompromiss. Slikt passer ikke kompromissløse Lessing. Hun burde fått prisen for ti år siden - minst. Mens hun ennå var brennaktuell og prisen kunne betydd noe.

Nå er det en pris på fallrepet - og det er hun klar over. Slik blir prisen mer et verktøy for å kaste glans over nobelkomiteen enn å promotere god litteratur under vekst. For et pliktløp å regne.

Selv om selvsagt Doris Lessing har skrevet god litteratur! Takk for alt, Doris! Alle tanker og timer i "ditt" selskap er vel verd en pris. Men det ufarlige etablerte er ikke vår verden!

Syke meldinger?

Bedriftsforbundet melder at de synes det er for lett for samfunnstopper å sykemelde seg.

Og - tenker nok de fleste - at, ja - disse rikingene og maktmenneskene bør skamme seg. Overpriviligerte som de er, bør de ta både kritikk og mediaomtale på strak arm.

Gerd-Liv Valla, Märtha Louise, Per Sandberg, Cecilie Ditlev-Simonsen, Morgan Andersen med flere, har alle sykemeldt seg etter at media har blåst omkring ørene deres. Er reaksjonen basert på reell sykdom? Bør det være slik?

Og her kommer ikke tiraden mot toppene. Overraskende nok.

De på toppen av samfunnslivet er mennesker de også. Det er viktig å huske på. Mediaomtale av kritikkverdige forhold både kan og må disse menneskene være forberedt på. Men vi kan ikke kreve at de skal være overmennesker.

Snarere tvert imot! En aksept av deres menneskelighet og svakheter er jo nettopp det som samfunnet mangler. Fokus er alltid på at syke mennesker eller de som havner utenfor i Elitesamfunnet^TM er de svake - de som ikke gidder - de som er snyltere eller i beste fall utilpassede mennesker. Sannheten er imidlertid at skillet mellom suksess og fiasko - målt etter samfunnets karrierebaserte brutale dommerpanel - er mindre enn en skulle tro. Selv om en er priviligert kan en også falle.

Kanskje slike situasjoner som beskrevet istedet kunne få oss til å forstå menneskets rolle i samfunnet. Er det viktigste karriere - makt - penger? Er samfunnets svakeste snarere et offer for et brutalt effektivitets-samfunn enn sin egen udugelighet? Kan de mektigste behøve fredningstid kan også den narkomane - den yrkesskadde - den syke - den mobbede. Kanskje vi heller bør forstå at også slike mennesker behøver pusterom?

Istedet er fokus her at de syke og svake er snyltere. I all vår sivilisasjon er vi blitt usiviliserte.

Prisen vi betaler - og bør betale - for et hyper-effektivt og til tider kaldt moderne samfunn er sikkerhetsnettet. Det koster. Men det er samfunnet som genererer slike kostnader - la oss være ærlige å innrømme det. La spørsmålet heller være om vi skal kreve mer av de svake enn de sterke!

Problemstillingen her er ikke at kjendiser og maktmennesker får pusterom. De kan bli syke av press de også. Psykiske plager er det moderne samfunns epidemi, og forebygging er viktigste virkemiddel. Problemstillingen er heller at selskapene eller organisasjonene forventer at mennesker skal sykemelde seg. Slik at fokus blir rettet bort fra den organiserte kynismen.

Illustrasjon: FireWater fra Magdalene.net

Spillreklame...

...i offentlig regi er skremmende. Spesielt når det offentlige bruker de spilleavhengige til å fremme sitt eget monopol.

Reklamen er der. Vi er fostret opp på den. Norsk Tipping bruker 250 000 kroner på reklame hver dag, i tillegg til at de gratis får eksponeringstid verd millioner av kroner i en annen statsbedrift - NRK. Norsk Tipping er et begunstiget selskap, som alle andre stats-selskaper. AS Norge driver business - de leker ikke butikk! Og staten har gitt seg selv immunitet overfor kritikk. Fordi de ønsker jo alle alt bra. Ikke sant? Og da blir alt så meget bedre.

Gull-Lotto. Løp og kjøp. Kanskje blir du også en vinner. Penger og rikdom er det staten anser som lykke. Nå er det store beløp i potten! Heng deg på før det er for sent! Er slik reklame mer moralsk enn blinkende automater?

Ja. Etter Norsk Standard. Norsk statsmonopolisert moral er bedre enn all annen moral. All virksomhet er moralsk når staten står for den. For Staten er rene julenissen og vil alle godt - både spilleavhengige og andre. Bare spill du - og ikke tenk. Gi noen kroner ekstra til den trengende norske stat. La oss for all del finansiere idrett og kultur gjennom kommersielle spill. La oss finansiere veier med bompenger, etc. Så får vi mer i den store potten vår som vokser og vokser og forteller oss hvor forbasket gode vi er som nasjon. Så vellykkede at vi er verdens beste og mest selvgode land.

- "Norsk spillpolitikk er basert på at det er bedre med et kontrollert spilltilbud enn en fremvekst av et illegalt tilbud. Og skal Norsk Tipping klare seg i konkurransen med utenlandske spill, må de utvikle seg", sier kulturminister Trond Giske.

Samme logikk kan selvsagt også brukes for å promotere statlige innbrudd. Vinningskriminalitet er selvsagt illegalt - så hvis Staten overtar også DET markedet, kommer det inn i kontrollerte former.

Og andre spille-tilbud er faktisk bare illegale fordi AS Norge definerer dem som illegale. Det er ikke hva du gjør, men hvem som gjør det, sier Staten. Med et glis.

Spøk tilside. Giske sier uansett rett ut at formålet er å gi Norsk Tipping særfordeler som selskap i forhold til konkurrerende virksomheter. Statsmonopolenes land sikrer med andre ord nok et statsmonopol - nok et maktgrunnlag for Staten. Det er godt noen passer butikken...

Penger er makt - og makt er herlig, sa Herodes Falsk en gang... Og hadde forsåvidt rett i det.

Nå kommer et nytt spill - Keno. Moderne og fristende automater samt TV reklame skal lokke folk inn i dette og andre av Norsk Tippings spill. Og tro ikke at Norsk Tipping sparer på kruttet. Rekrutteringen må stadig opprettholdes for å garantere inntekt. Villedende reklame er heller intet hinder for statens gullkantede racketeering.

Jeg foreslår at Norsk Tipping også får enerett på å selge og reklamere for sigaretter. Da kommer også dette uvesenet inn i kontrollerte former, og slikt sorterer jo forsåvidt også under gambling... med helsa...

Skattleggingen Kristin soper under teppet

Neste år øker skattleggingen av norske husholdninger med opp mot 15 milliarder kroner på grunn av CO2 avgift som i praksis også legges på vår vannkraftbaserte og CO2 frie el-kraft. Ikke bare kortslutter det enhver økonomisk fordel ved å produsere forurensningsfri kraft (noe som favoriserer dyr kjerne- og kullkraft - som er akkurat det de europeiske energistrategene ønsker) - prisregimet øker i tillegg skattenivået på en meget regressiv og usosial måte.

Seniorøkonom Lasse Torgersen i ECON slår fast at milliardene til slutt vil bli som skattepenger å regne.

- "Mesteparten havner i stats-og kommunekasser gjennom beskatning, og blir som en klimaskatt det offentlige kan disponere til hvilket formål de vil."

Det offentlige skrur oss med andre ord igjen. Hvor ble det av valgløftet om å holde skattene på -04 nivå? Var det noen som trodde på at en sosialistisk regjering var for å stabilisere skattenivået? Og hvor er skjemmevettet til SV (AP har intet uansett) når de kan øke beskatningen på en slik usosial måte ved å heve prisen på en nødvendighetsvare? Alle vet at det er de aller fattigste som vil føle denne type beskatning hardest på kroppen.

(Skjønt de skal vel tynes til de må ut i arbeid - alle sammen inkludert faens oldemor på gamlehjemmet - og de lavtlønnede får ta seg to jobber, vi har jo mangel på arbeidskraft vettu!)

Skjønt "klimaskatt"??? Klimaskatt på 99% ren vannkraft? Frekkheten kjenner ingen grenser. Disse pengene bør anses som blodpenger. Og bør sementere det faktum en gang for alle at miljøvern = beskatningsmulighet og intet mer for denne visjonsløse regjeringen.

15 milliarder er ransbeløpet. Men desto større forbrytelsen er, desto mer sannsynlig at den blir akseptert.

(hundre stjerner i boka til den som ser ordspillet i illustrasjonen)

Tillegg: Kullkraft er nå, på grunn av kvotesystemet, mer lønnsomt enn noensinne!

Miljøbløff II

Mye kan sies om statsbudsjettet. Men egentlig er det bare mer av det gamle. Noe flikking her og der - litt mer regressive skatter - og mye skuespill.

Og det største skuespillet omhandler miljøet og energiforsyningen. Helt uten å fortrekke en mine blir vi fortalt at dette er et budsjett for fremtiden. Selv om det er et budsjett som ikke engang begynner å ta tak i de problemstillinger vi i fremtiden (dvs våre barn og våre barnebarn) vil måtte takle.

Helt uten å fatte at fossile energikilder på grunn av minkende reserver vil bli vesentlig dyrere i fremtiden, kjører vi på som før. Fordi Norge AS vil tjene på høyere oljepris. Mens norges borgere vil blø.

Helt uten å fatte at det å vingle mellom diesel og bensinbiler ikke engang er morsomt som slapstick humor. Vi er allerede så beskattet på bilbruk og bilhold at pengene kunne kjøpt oss flunkende ny hydrogen-infrastruktur og nullutslipp - istedet går de til...jeg vet ikke... Opera og barnehageplasser? Visjonene er fremdeles vekstsamfunn og å binde arbeidskraft til statens fortjeneste.

"Vi må løse vår tids største utfordring ved å tenke klima og miljø i alt vi gjør", sier vår røde finansminister. Tanke er ikke nok, Kristin. Tanke har aldri vært nok!

Våre største forurensende industrier - oljeindustrien og rederiene - får særfordeler. Rederne får nullskatt. Oljå får konsesjon til å hente opp enda mer - igrunnen alt de kan finne der ute i havet. Og er der ikke nok, kjører vi på med tjæresand. Det redder nok klimaet, skal du se!

Vi får høyere ligningsverdi på nødvendig bolig og noen hundrelapper fra eller til på bilbudsjettet. Dette redder nok verden, Kristin! Tyn de fattige og la oss for all del ikke drepe gullkalven!

Jeg er imponert. Ikke av handlekraft eller visjoner - for de eksisterer ikke. Men av modigheten til våre folkevalgte. De oser av bravour mens de ikke leverer en ting. Det krever mot.

Slikt mot - mens vi , mot forskningens råd, går videre mot et stup som kommer stadig nærmere - er imponerende.

Men ikke beundringsverdig. Fordi når alt kommer til alt forspiller vi muligheten til å gi våre etterkommere en god verden å leve i. For det vil historien garantert dømme oss som noksagter og idioter.

Miljøbløff

Miljøvernet er på villspor. Hva som fungerer og hva som ikke fungerer kan være vanskelig å forstå - nettopp fordi våre politikere også desverre har manglende forståelse av hva som er effektive virkemidler kontra hva som bare er effektivt i forhold til propagandavirksomhet og/eller pengeinnkrevning.

Satsing på gasskraftverk er ikke et skritt i riktig retning. (gasskraft øker utslipp av CO2)

Satsing på dieselbiler er ikke et skritt i riktig retning. (dieselbiler er en minimal innsparing i forhold til CO2 utslipp - og skaper nye utslippsproblemer i forhold til mikropartikler)

Satsing på CO2 kvoter er ikke et skritt i riktig retning. (kvotene gjør det mulig å fortsette utslipp - og kraftmarkedet priser forurensningsfri kraft likt forurensende kraft)

Satsing på videre uttak av fossil energi er ikke et skritt i riktig retning. (all produksjon leder til forbruk med dertilhørende utslipp)

Alikevel er dette myndighetenes strategi. De riktige veivalgene er tydeligvis for vanskelige.

Både myndigheter og private selskaper bør imidlertid arresteres når en bruker villedende reklame - spesiellt i klimaspørsmålet - fordi det står så store verdier på spill, og fordi resultatet av å ikke takle klimaspørsmålet på en effektiv måte har store konsekvenser for verden generellt og menneskets sivilisasjon spesiellt.

WWW.co2fri.no lover deg imidlertid å kunne betale for garantert utslippsfri kraft. I teorien er dette bra. Ved å velge bort forurensende kraft kan slik kraft teoretisk presses ut av markedet.

Men teorien stemmer ikke med virkeligheten. Fordi våre myndigheter svikter miljøspørsmålet totalt. Istedet for å legge tilrette for muligheten til å velge bort forurensende energi skaper hele kvotesystemet istedet et alibi for å fortsette som før. CO2 avgifter er også lagt på forurensningsfri kraft - og, viktigst av alt - hele kraftmarkedet er organisert som en eneste stor suppe der forskjellige typer kraft selges i samme marked - for samme pris.

El er samme vare uansett er argumentet. Og det er selvsagt riktig. Men effekten av produksjonen av el er overhodet ikke den samme. Og det er her fokuset bør være. Produksjon av forurensende el må ilegges avgifter - ikke bruken av el-markedets minste felles multiplum. Slik vil produsentene av forurensende el måtte konkurrere med billigere forurensningsfri kraft.

I og med at de største el-produsenter faktisk er statlige, forutsetter en slik strategi en fullstendig privatisering av kraftmarkedet. Myndighetene vil ellers skjerme sine melkekyr som ren reflekshandling - slik som de faktisk gjør. Å tro på annet har vist seg i praksis å være som å tro på julenissen. Kun når rene økonomiske forhold favoriserer renere kraft kan frie kapitalkrefter søke mot produksjon av renere kraft.

Teorien om at all el må bli dyrere er verre enn å pisse i buksa for å holde seg varm. Det har ikke engang begrenset effekt. Vi kan spare strøm så mye vi vil, men så lenge produksjon av forurensende kraft er skjermet for negative effekter, er det eneste vi oppnår at myndighetene kan bygge ut mindre ny kraft - som en må anta er negativt fordi ny kraftutbygging burde være basert på forurensingsfrie teknologier. På grunn av veksten i samfunnet gir vår eventuelle energisparing istedet myndighetene mindre incentiver til å fornye energiproduksjonen!

Slik blir vi lurt. Fordi kraftproduksjonen totalt sett er nasjonale anliggender. Og fordi ingen nasjoner i virkeligheten er interesserte i å gjøre radikale utskiftinger i teknologi.

Det er så mye morsommere å lage nye subsidieringsordninger for sine kjernevelgergrupper.