The people over at News International have been very naughty boys, that much is clear. Yet there is something troubling about the way this saga has been covered that stretches even to the libertarian blogosphere. Murdoch’s bid to buy BSkyB was a perfectly non-aggressive transaction, yet it was blocked. An application for permission he should not have needed was “deferred” and then abandoned due the pressure of the mob on the State to exercise it’s discretion over a private sale. I wonder if I am alone in noticing that this was wrong; that the State should never have had that discretion in the first place?

News International, Rupert Murdoch and his executives have become the target of sustained speculation, and vilification in daily bulletins over the accusations of privacy infringement and bribery. I have nothing new to say about those accusations and will spare you, reader, a token rehearsal of why those acts were wrong. It is good that Rebekah Brooks has been arrested and I support the application of the rule of law to the whole host of them, Rupert Murdoch included, but I cannot ignore the obvious violation of property rights codified into that law, as it stands.

For a right-libertarian life liberty and the pursuit of happiness requires ownership of our property. Since property is the justly acquired outcome of ones life depriving a man of his property, or of his control over it, is to deprive him of a part of his life. The state’s power of discretion over the sale of BSkyB is an imposition upon Rupert Murdoch’s life and upon the lives of shareholders who own the other 61% of BSkyB. Those shareholders are prohibited, on the basis of one man’s whim, from selling their own property. This means they are prohibited from making good on their investment and achieving the outcome they expected from part of their lives.

This is justified with reference to media plurality, and a fit and proper persons test. Neither of these justifications deserve our sanction. The second should be simple to dismiss, we do not endorse a society which welcomes participation only from screened and favoured applicants, but one based on personal initiative and the consent of those directly involved. This is the law of “mind your own” and the same principle is at work when we stand up to oppose CRB checks and the formalisation of family life. We should be consistent when it comes to the affairs of businessmen.

On the topic of monopolies I will need to set out my case.

Some people see giant corporations currying favour with Government and react emotionally by condemning all corporations above a certain size, while letting the state off the hook for creating those corporations and granting those favours in the first place.

Remembering that limited liability companies are a legal invention, Libertarians identify the actions of corporations as natural for artificial persons in an economy thick with artificial regulations, and the power of Government as the root cause of both. We know that regulations increase the cost of setting up a business, and that larger businesses tend to cope better with new regulation. As such, regulation causes consolidation and reduces the number of competing firms to a few large ones. In broadcasting the Government apportions the available spectrum, and in doing so limits the number and picks the names of the winners before the game even starts. The subsidised BBC also provides stiff competition and crowds out alternative broadcasters. It is little wonder then that media plurality is an issue. The perfect conditions for oligopoly were created by government.

As ever, the state’s answer to a problem caused by imposing it’s will on others is to impose it’s will on them again. Before it was revealed that the Dowler’s had been affected by phone hacking Murdoch was playing a perverse economic game to avoid the arbitrary competition rules that eventually prevented the bid. Painted as populist and only concerned with short term profit he was asked to hive off Sky News and exchange success in one dimension for success in another. He could not have both market share and maximum profit, but isn’t a bid for market share a long term strategy?

Afterwards the game changed. Murdoch became so unpopular that allowing the bid through on the basis of media plurality was unthinkable to the government, who knew it would cost them votes. Responsibility for the proper application of the law was shirked and the decision delayed and passed on to bureaucrats. This is not the Rule of Law but Rule by Popularity Contest. The perverse consequence is that Murdoch was forced to make himself more popular by sacrificing his past success and closing News of the World. Knowing that he was still unable to win sufficient popularity to please his coalition masters he eventually abandoned the bid and was left without News of the World or BSkyB.

Justice is not a popularity contest to determine the use of aggression; it is the use of arbitration and objective rules to replace aggression. As libertarians justice is at the centre of our creed right along with the non- aggression principle which these laws violate. Despite that, we have not applied it when discussing this story on our blogs. Every aspect of the story but the property rights angle has been discussed, but not that one.

On Saturday we turned out in the rain to defend the unpopular smokers of Stony Stratford. We did that because the restriction of one class of people is the thin end of a wedge which represents the persecution and exclusion of any unpopular minority. Rich businessmen – Bill Gates, the bankers, the supermarkets etc – all  have different problems but don’t they also enjoy the protection of the non-aggression principle? Isn’t this mad law just the same wedge applied to another crack?

I hope Murdoch is not so unpopular that he will not be defended on principle.

Simon Gibbs – Libertarian Home
Hanging Murdoch image by Surian Soosay

Ted Treen July 22, 2011 at 15:40

Valid point that for the state to dictate to its citizens what they can do
with their own property is an injustice.

If the victim of an injustice is unsavoury, that does not in itself render
the injustice acceptable.

Government should not be dictating to us – rather the other way round!

John Leon July 21, 2011 at 08:44

No Zaphod, It is the MSM which tries to tell you what to think, often by
not very clever or subtle propagander and outright distortion of the truth,
not me, if you seriously think I have nothing better to do with my time than
to try to impose my understanding of any situation onto anybody reading the
comments of any blog you are very mistaken, as to being not worthy, is that an
admission of humility in the Uriah Heep sense of the words or do you suffer an
inferiority complex?

Zaphod July 21, 2011 at 19:20

John Leon, propaganda is all around us. We all need to be aware of that.
Those of us who write about it should be able to spell it, too.

I have no serious thoughts about what you do with your time. Personally,
I have been known to try to impose my understanding of situations on others.
But I expect to have to work at it. I don’t just talk loudly.

Irony is a concept you should become familiar with. There’s a lot of it
about, and you need to recognise it if you want to be taken seriously.

You should get a bit more up-to-date with your literary references,
too.

john malpas July 21, 2011 at 06:31

By now the entire lot of readers of the NOTW should have been arrested. Is
this not the custom in the UK.
All the outrage in a country littered with
CCTVs and data banks on everybody seems a bit selective.

Zaphod July 20, 2011 at 23:55

Having now been told what to think by John Leon, I shall refrain from
commenting again, for fear of revealing that I “know very little about what is
actually going on”.

John Leon, we are to assume, does know.

We are not worthy.

John Leon July 20, 2011 at 21:49

I would suggest those who think R. Murdoch is some sort of victim would
spend their time better by finding out what the whole situation is really
about rather than posting comments that reveal they know very little about
what is actually going on, or have you all been told what to think by the MSM,
(BBC included).

Gewyne July 20, 2011 at 22:22

The MSM, (BBC included) are not suggesting that R.Murdoch is a victim,
how can we be told how to think by them, if we are disagreeing with their
main premise ?

Your post makes no sense, and suggest you know even less those those your
trying to denigrate .

John Leon
July 20, 2011 at 22:43

Read my comment, then try to work out what I am alluding to; I was not
suggesting that RM was being portrayed as a victim by the MSM, what I was
suggesting was there is much more to this chain of events stretching back
many years than has been reported, rather it has been deliberately hidden
by the MSM and it leads right back to the highest echelons of Government,
the Police service and even the secret services. They have all been
compromised by deliberate NI policy, allegedly overseen and directed by a
certain media mogul; do try to keep up, old chap(pess)

Simon
Gibbs July 21, 2011 at 00:00

I was acutely aware that I did not know – as I believe very few do – the
extent of all the criminality. Morality is primarily a system of making
choices, not a system of judging outcomes, and I do not believe we should
choose to violate people’s property rights simply because they did the same
thing in the past.

J van J July 20, 2011 at 19:30

As a right libertarian (well, almost), I would agree 100%.
But please,
please learn and use the differences between “its” (possessive)
and “it’s” (contraction of “it is”) . The easiest way, I tell my post-graduate
pupils, is always to use the full “it is” and never to use an
apostrophe.
/pedantry

Zaphod July 20, 2011 at 20:12

It’s unusual for a noun, (or pronoun), to not have an apostrophe in its
possessive. I think it’s the only one, innit?

Single
Acts Of Tyranny July 20, 2011 at
18:52

Mrs M is a goddess, almost (but not quite) eclipsing la Raccoon, although I
would not fancy a domestic tiff with ‘crouching tiger hidden dragon’ just buy
her the shoes Rupert.

As to monopolies, they cannot exist IF the state gets out of the way. There
is a really good Murray Rothbard lecture on this on youtube (sorry I have lost
the link), but in essence if you can make monopoly profits, expect competition
double quick.

Tom
Paine July 20, 2011 at 12:38

“I wonder if I am alone in noticing that this was wrong; that the State
should never have had that discretion in the first place?”

No, you are not alone. But there are only a handful of us. The tone of the
public discussion as to whether “we” should “let” News Corporation buy more
shares in a company it founded is disgusting. Why do “we” (who never put a
penny into either company) have the right to decide? Why do “we” have the
right to wipe millions off the value two great companies to gratify “our” lust
for vengeance on an old man?

Personally, I don’t think the share prices now reflect the real value of
either business and will buy. Thanks for the opportunity, comrades.

ivan July 20, 2011 at 14:24

I hope you got in quick – the share price for both has risen today.

Ed P July 20, 2011 at 09:05

The freedoms we cherish, including the pursuit of power & profit,
surely depend upon “not doing harm to others” in their achievement. This
grubby mess is littered with harm: politicians, journalists & police all
corrupt and undermining these freedoms. Whether Murdoch should have been
allowed to take over (more of) BSB is moot – the whole structure is rotten and
a lick of paint will not disguise or repair it.

Livewire July 20, 2011 at 08:49

With broadcasting the reason for heavy state control is historical (I’m not
justifying it, just pointing out the state reluctance to give up power even
when the original reason has gone).
Mass broadcasting only became possible
due to inventions after WW1, and they were turbulent times. The British govt
eyed events in Russia and heard the calls for international revolution from
the Bolsheviks. The last thing they wanted was unrestricted
speech over the
airwaves.
That was then, this is now. I remember the reluctance to
allow
commercial radio in the 60′s by the Wilson govt but it arrived
eventually, along with music channels that weren’t Radio 3!
There may be a
leftist policy to control all media as someone else said, they may feel
that
“the plebs are all true socialists, they just need to be persuaded of
it”, or it could be establishment fear of change because they can’t predict
the consequences (their biggest fear would be an adverse effect on them!).

Randy Hack July 20, 2011 at 07:20

Only a lunatic from UKuncut could give Rupert Murdoch a publicity coup and
get him public sympathy

Livewire July 20, 2011 at 08:09

Sorry, gravitas comment probably later.

Simple Simon met a pieman going to the fair
“I’m off to make our cause
look ‘good’, I’ll splat and even swear”

While ploddie snoozed he swung his pie but Rupe was fast and
ducked
Then Lucy Liu showed plod the way and pieman he was f*cked

So lads the lesson learned from this is clear for all to see
When
Cupid’s arrows hit the dick a Chinese gal’s for me

Randy Hack
July 20, 2011 at 08:21

Yep! Quite a gal!

Gewyne July 20, 2011 at 13:29

Jonnie Marbles who threw the Pie was paid by the BBC for a Newsnight
commissioned piece early in the year on UK uncut.

In Westminster the 6 degrees of separation is by far to great a
number.