Rupert Murdoch just doesn’t get the message
Gerard Jackson
It seems that Mr. Murdoch is moving to support leftwing Democrats. My, my, he has certainly come a long way since he complained in a speech some years ago about the emergence of what he called “neo-socialism”, a term that would certainly fit the Democrats, particularly ones like Hillary Clinton. I actually read his speech and I distinctly recall that it gave me the strong impression that he has absolutely no historical perspective. Perhaps this is one of the reasons he hires people who, like himself, have no genuine feel for history and may even consider it an obstacle
The phenomenon described as “neo-socialism” is to be found in every civilisation, from the Code of Hammurabi and the edicts of Diocletian to the Democrats’ demands for higher taxes and more regulation. John U. Nef's Industry and Government in France and England 1540-1640 describes in detail the then equivalent of Murdoch’s creeping ‘neo-socialism’. In France rules were piled upon rules so that, for instance, the number of regulations laid down for the textile industry between 1666 and 1730 needed to be printed on more than 2000 pages. (A not dissimilar situation prevails today in all advanced countries, particularly in Europe).
The regulations were so rigorously applied that it took four years for French weavers to persuade the government to allow them to introduce something as simple as a black warp. And enforcement did not stop at bureaucratic directions and simple fines. Breaking rules could be a painful and bloody affair. In one notorious occasion in Valence 631 persons were sentenced to the galleys, 58 to be broken on the wheel and 77 to be hanged: Their crime was to breach the government’s regulations governing printed calicoes. It has been estimated that around 16,000 people were either killed in armed clashes with government regulators or executed.
Yet while French monarchs were busy effectively putting France into an economic straitjacket the very reverse was happening in England. Despite the efforts of the Stuarts to emulate the French kings they were frustrated by several factors, the most important of which was the reluctance of local officials to carry out the King’s economic orders. This reluctance had the support of Parliament which demonstrated its opposition to royal economic favours by abolishing monopolies in 1624. The Stuart’s economic writ was therefore limited by Parliament, trading interests and hostility of local officials. The result was that England experienced the first Industrial Revolution while France experienced the storming of Bastille and the guillotine.
What drove past regulatory expansions was the belief that governments had the right, the ability and even a duty to intervene in economic relations. This belief has never died. So what Murdoch, and many like him, overlooked is that what he calls “neo-socialism” is the creeping bureaucratisation of economic and social affairs that every civilised society has experienced, democratic or otherwise. Of course, this expansion is invariably aided by self-serving bureaucrats who will always become willing handmaidens to any group that wants to extend the role of the state for whatever purpose. Nevertheless, it needs to be emphasised that creeping bureaucratisation always needs a rationale, even though the atavistic belief that government needs to regulate economic affairs still has a strong following — especially among lefty academics and ignorant journalists.
The current rationale for expanding strengthening regulatory regimes comes from new class activists who have ruthlessly exploited the ignorance and fear of the masses to impose regulatory measures that have done much to hinder economic growth and so keep living standards lower than they would otherwise have been. Protecting the environment is one excuse for these measures. Whether these people are motivated by an aristocratic or religious impulse is really neither here nor there for this article. However, we have the advantage of having a vast store of experience from which to draw, not to mention the weapons that economics has provided. The problem at the moment is a lack of resources.
The irony is that while Murdoch preached in the US against neo-socialism his media empire seemed to hire nothing but neo-socialists. His Australian flagship The Australian is left-wing in its ‘reporting’ (it’s coverage of the midterm elections is scandalous) and most of its so-called journalists are thoroughly anti-market, pro-green and deeply hostile to classical liberalism. The Melbourne Sunday Herald Sun, another of his papers, isn’t much better.
The very least Murdoch should do is ensure that at least one columnist on each of his newspapers is thoroughly acquainted with free-market economics, economic history, the history of economic thought and classical liberal thought. Such columnists would be able to defend the market and genuine liberalism against all comers, including — or should I say especially — their fellow journalists. At the moment the situation is truly woeful.
It is not the Murdochs of this world who are defending the market and genuine liberalism but hundreds of independent web sites. These are run by people with a genuine commitment to the cause of liberty. People who spend their own money and sacrifice their own time. This, I fear, is something the likes of Murdoch simply do not understand. Maybe that’s why he is cosying up to Hillary Clinton.
Gerard Jackson is Brookes’ economics editor
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 13 November 2006