Moshe Feiglin

Why I Oppose the French Law to Grant Immunity to a Prime Minister

rafifarber Israeli Politics, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

Never give the state any more power than it already has. It will always come back to hurt you, every time. No state official should be immune to any investigation, least of all a Prime Minister. Pretty much the only respite we simple Jews have from constant government harassment is when the state stops spending our money and regulating our behavior and instead fights itself, blissfully forgetting about us for just a moment.

Consider, the only time in recent history there has ever been a government surplus in the US was under President Clinton, who spent most of his time dealing with investigations and impeachment proceedings.

Whether it’s serious harassment like forced evacuations and destruction of Jewish property, or minor harassment like filling out some bureaucratic form or other in order to do construction on your own house, when the State fights itself, the simple people win. So why make it harder for the state to attack itself?

I’m nobody’s chassid. I listen to differing opinions from all sides, but I don’t consider any of them holy, not even the opinions straight from the mouth of the leader of my party. A Prime Minister should never have immunity from investigation.

This new law is called the “French Law”. The point of the “French Law” is to make it almost impossible to indict a sitting Prime Minister. Moshe has his reasons to support the law, I understand them, but I disagree with them. Here is Moshe’s main claim verbatim, which I’ll translate loosely and then object to.

“הרבה יותר משאני מפחד משחיתות המנהיגים, אני מפחד מדיקטטורת חבורת שלטון החוק. את המושחתים בצמרת יש לי כוח להחליף כל ארבע שנים. את הכנופיה אין לי”

Says Moshe, “More than I fear the corruption of our leaders, I fear the dictatorship of the rule of law gang. Corrupt leaders I can vote out of office every four years. Unelected leaders, I can’t vote out.”

He’s referring to what Americans call the Deep State. Supreme Court justices are unelected in Israel, and so are part of the Deep State, as are most of the powerful bureaucratic positions referred to here offhand. It’s the unelected leaders, the Deep State, that mess around with the system to undermine the elected leaders, and therefore this law will be better for the balance of power.

Respectfully, I get it, but don’t agree. Making any part of the government stronger means they will be even worse than before.

Elected leaders and unelected leaders are on the same team. They don’t oppose each other. There is no difference between them. A sitting Prime Minister, immune to investigation, will be much better able to fulfill the goals of that unelected Deep State. Whether that’s destruction of settlements, freeing murderers in a good-will gesture, raising taxes, aggravating businesses, etc. the government will be more powerful than otherwise. Nothing good comes of powerful government.

In what sense is Bibi an “elected” leader anyway? Because 20% of voters dislike him slightly less than everyone else who ran? And then he builds coalitions with the people that these 20% dislike even more, and calls it a “government”? How do you replace him? His replacements will do the same thing he does. We all know this. So what’s the difference?

We can see the futility of “elected leaders” by the direction government goes in, all the time, no matter who you vote for. Consider the direction we are headed, not just in Israel, but globally. Government everywhere is growing – all around the world. Government budgets take up more and more of GDP by percentage, and with ever-growing budgets, government debt all over the world just keeps rising. States everywhere, globally, keep eating more and more and more of our wealth, no matter who we vote for.

Trump, for example, hasn’t cut a dime. He’s only increased spending, made airport travel even more miserable than before, he wants to raise all kinds of taxes, and any “tax reform” he proposes will be “revenue neutral”, meaning the government will, at best, still get the same amount of money from us, just in different slices from different people.

In Europe, despite a continent wide debt-crisis, not a single EU government has cut any debt. Not even Greece. It just doesn’t happen. Elections cannot change it. The unelected Deep State runs the show.

In Israel, no government ever changes policy. They just use different catchphrases that poll well in focus groups for a “demographic”. Nobody ends Oslo, nobody lowers taxes, nobody lowers spending, nobody increases freedom or shrinks government. Not Labor, not Likud, not anyone else. There are the unelected people in charge, and the elected puppets. You can change the puppets. But the puppet show must go on.

So why bother trying to get Moshe Feiglin into the Prime Minister’s seat at all? Because Moshe is not just another candidate puppet. He’s a revolution. He and the Deep State are incompatible. They can’t infect him.

Besides, look at it this way. When Moshe becomes Prime Minister, he will have already won the hearts of the people. With the people behind you, no investigation can ever hurt, French Law or not. Zehut does not need this law to be passed. It won’t help. Bibi being investigated is simply a result of the people of Israel not liking him.

If anything, we should make it extremely easy to indict and evict any Prime Minister from office for any reason reason no matter how small. Like for jaywalking, or sticking gum on the bottom of a public bench. For any Prime Minister who does that, the punishment should be not impeachment, but simply a publicly televised degumming of the bench by the Prime Minister himself. After that spectacle, he’d have no power anyway.

 

Don’t Improve the Israeli Government – Just Shrink It

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

Originally posted at Times of Israel. Please comment there.

Besides war, political campaigns are perhaps the worst thing man inflicts on man. War brings death. Political campaigns…they bring taxes.

Never in my wildest nightmares did I ever guess I would be running in a political campaign. Then again I never guessed I’d end up in the Golan Heights married to a girl I met in kindergarten in Miami. But here I am, playing politician of all things. I’m running for slot #10 on Moshe Feiglin’s Zehut Knesset list.

Let’s get the obligatory politicking out of the way first. Any Jewish person in the world can vote in Zehut’s primaries for slot #10. All you have to do is sign up to Zehut International by December 1st at the link, and you will be eligible to vote online on December 17th. If you believe in what I’m about to say here, then you should vote for me. If you don’t, then you should sign up anyway and vote for somebody else.

So let’s begin. Why are political campaigns such horrible things? Because essentially, they are nothing but a contest for who can convince the most people of the nicest sounding lies. The winners are invariably the worst of the worst, because they are the absolute best liars in the world. If they weren’t they wouldn’t be on top. As Nobel Laureate Austrian School Economist F.A. Hayek wrote in his book “The Road to Serfdom,” it’s always the worst that get on top.

And here I risk another campaign trope to tell you why Moshe Feiglin’s Zehut is different. It’s different because we’re telling you the truth. How can you know we’re telling you the truth? Because the truth isn’t pretty and it isn’t nice, and no real politician would waste his time trying to get votes by telling the truth.

So here’s the truth. The Israeli government stinks, as all governments do. Nothing it does improves anything. Everything it does hurts someone. Everyone in Israel hates the government for one reason or another. Every interest group in Israel hates every other interest group in Israel because of government power used against one group for the sake of the other.

So here’s where I tell you how I’m going to fix it, right? And that’s why you should vote for me, yes? No. I am not going to “fix” the Israeli government. I am not going to make it any better. I am going to shrink it. I am not going to use government in order to make Israel great again. I am going be a voice in the Knesset to allow the People of Israel to make Israel great themselves by getting government out of the way. I am going to do this by supporting any bill
that shrinks the size or scope of the Israeli government and starves the beast, and by voting against any bill that feeds the beast.

In the following paragraphs I’m going to suggest abolishing entire government ministries, and I’m not even going far enough here. If this frightens you, ask yourself if you trust free Jews to provide these services on the free market in the absence of a government ministry. If you don’t, keep in mind, 80% of us never left Egypt.

Do I have any grand master plans? In a manner of speaking, sure. I have an education plan. Not to devise some magical one-size-fits-all curriculum that happens to reflect my personal values and that will make everyone happy somehow. I don’t have that kind of hubris. My plan is nothing. Literally, my plan is to get rid of the entire education ministry, sell off all of its infrastructure and assets and return all proceeds to taxpayers. Let Jews educate themselves on the free market without any government interference. Return education to the private sector and watch schools compete with one another on the free market, instead of watching Jewish kids locked up in inner city Tel Aviv cages where my wife once served as a teaching intern. Teaching basic literacy at these places is considered a major achievement and can get you a serious award. The bureaucrats at the education ministry will all clap for you. It’s a real thrill, I hear.

Zehut’s official plan is a voucher system, which I support. Why, if I want to get rid of the whole thing? Because vouchers allow a basic level of choice for parents and kids. That does weaken government power just a bit, so I support it. But I’m not going to even try to claim that the voucher system will fix everything. It won’t. Fights over the official State curriculum will still abound, religious and secular will still be at each other’s throats over whether the other deserves voucher coupons, Jews will still argue about what gets to be considered a “school”, and fake “schools” will pop up like mushrooms after the post Simchas Torah rainstorm just to collect a voucher check. These are the problems I foresee with a voucher system, but they’re not as bad as what we have now, so it’s a step forward. The Israeli education system will never be fixed until government education no longer exists.

What about my healthcare plan? Once again, nothing. Get rid of the health ministry and let hospitals and clinics and doctors compete on the free market. And let dying patients try any drug they want, approved or not, at any time. That must sound really controversial, to let dying patients try any drug at all, as if mercy for the terminally ill is a controversial Jewish value. No repeal and replace here. Just repeal. Israelis wonder why there is always a chronic shortage of rooms and doctors at hospitals. When one central government authority controls supply of
doctors and medicine and the movement of resources, there are going to be shortages. People die because of this.

Diplomatic plan? The Israeli government has no interest in ending the conflict, because fighting terror brings votes, and too much peace makes voters restless and puts power in jeopardy. The answer as those familiar with Feiglin and Zehut know, is to pay the Arabs to leave all of Israel voluntarily and with dignity. Zehut’s plan is to have the government pay each Arab family $100,000 to leave. I support that, but I do not believe government is even necessary for this.

Norway for example has a voluntary tax program where people can donate to the government if they believe their tax rates are too low. I want the government to simply allow private Jews to pay Arabs to leave through such a voluntary program and buy Arab property in a concerted worldwide Jewish effort. I believe we could raise much more than the $1,325 the Norwegians raised if we knew the Israeli government acquiesced and did nothing to stop it.

What about an economic plan? I’m an economist, so yes, I have one. First let’s admit that government is the only institution that tries to convince you that the more money it takes away from you, the better off you’ll be. Taxes are spent to “stimulate the economy” right? Sure. The only problem is, a mugger can make the same exact claim when he puts a knife to your throat and takes your wallet. Believe me, he spends the money, too, and it stimulates the economy just fine. Except you’re poorer in the end anyway and you feel violated.

My economic plan is to support any and all tax, spending, and regulatory cuts without exception. That is the only way to shrink government short of a bond and currency collapse when debt gets too high, as happened in Israel in the 1980’s and everyone lost their savings. See below.

The more tariffs, restrictions, and regulations we get rid of, the better. Tax and spending cuts targeted at whatever class and in whatever proportions in whatever department, if it’s a tax or spending and regulatory cut, I support it.

We’ll get to other subjects soon. We have until December after all. But first, here’s the only thing the government should actually do. The Israeli government should be doing nothing except physically protecting the People of Israel and enforcing private property rights. That means fighting to win rather than to prolong the next fight. It means returning Jewish property into Jewish hands, including Gush Katif, the Cave of the Patriarchs, and the Temple Mount.

Zehut will become the ruling party when we stick to these principles and everyone in Israel knows exactly what we stand for. We stand for liberty. For cherut. For the very reason God took us out of Egypt. Anyone remember Pharaoh’s tax rate? It was 20%. Israel’s is 50%.

Just some food for thought

Moshe Feiglin & Zehut Charidy Money Bomb Donate NOW – $400,000 Goal

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

Donate here until 6pm Israel time tomorrow, which is 11am EST.

Every donation will be matched 4x. Here is what Shmuel Sackett sent me. I donated $1,000, which is matched by donors to $4,000.

Go to this website right now at Charidy.com to donate!

Note: I sent the email below to 200 people. In order for this big event to work, we MUST get pre-pledges before the start of the telethon.

It is now time for me to start sending to our team, as well – and that means you… and me.

Just to let you know:
Moshe Feiglin pledged 1,000 shekel.

Shai Malka pledged 1,000 shekel.

Shmuel Sackett pledged 1,000 shekel – after they twisted and almost broke my arm… just kidding!

(With the current exchange rate, 1,000 shekel is around $270)

Anyway, we need your pledge as well.

Please read the email and REPLY to me with your pledge.

Thanks,

Shmuel

 

Things for ZEHUT are going very well, Baruch Hashem.

The Jerusalem Post ran an article about us last week and Moshe is interviewed 3-4 times/week on radio and tv.

Lapid is rising in the polls – which is good for us – because we are the “flip-side” of everything he says.

Lapid and Feiglin have succeeded in changing the narrative from right/left to Israeli/Jewish.

We now have 15 chapters around the country plus another 7 in universities and our office in Tel Aviv is bussing with volunteers.

A recent poll was taken by “Ma’agar Mochot” showing that 71% of our supporters identify themselves as either “secular” or “traditional”.

This proves that we are getting to the right people…

 

As you know, TOMORROW we are running a big “Charidy” crowd-funding event where all donations are matched 4-1.

Aish HaTorah ran a Charidy program and they raised $1,364,557.

Charidy has run 900 programs so far including for the Lakewood Yeshiva, dozens of Chabad organizations, Hatzola and even Mayanot where they raised $2,306,044!!

These guys are very good and extremely professional.

Actually, today starts their biggest campaign ever. Yeshiva University is looking to raise a whopping $5,000,000!!

Our goal is to raise a total of $400,000. (We are very humble guys…)

The way it works is that on the actual day of Charidy – which is tomorrow – Sept 21st – the 18th of Elul (the birthday of the Ba’al Shem Tov) – we try to raise $100,000.

Before that day, it has been my job to find “MATCHERS” which will commit to a total of $300,000.

They will ONLY give their money if we hit our goal of $100,000 on Wednesday.

 

I divided the $300,000 into 3 groups.

#1 – One matcher for $100,000. I am proud to say that I achieved this goal! Michael Farkas of Miami Beach, FL has pledged this entire amount. Baruch Hashem.

#2 – Several USA matchers that collectively pledged $100,000. Baruch Hashem I reached that goal with 14 different donors.

#3 – Several ISRAELI matchers that collectively pledged $100,000. Baruch Hashem, just yesterday we hit our goal with 13 donors who actually pledged a total of $102,900.

(Note: I will gladly send you the names and amount of all “matchers’, if you would like to see them. This is 100% real – nothing is “fudged”)

Medical Marijuana Government Monopoly to Sarel has been Broken, but not for long

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , , ,

Moshe Feiglin announced today on his Facebook page that Sarel, the company with a government monopoly on supplying government hospitals, has lost its privilege as the only company allowed to supply government hospitals. Feiglin got interested in Sarel when it was suddenly given monopoly privilege over the entire medical cannabis industry. This is a great thing of course, and Feiglin deserves credit for putting pressure on whatever mafia boss is in charge of determining who gets a monopoly on the government health care sector.

However, the problem is that nothing has been solved. Listen to this stupidity:

Government hospitals are in extreme debt, meaning the government health ministry is over budget. They’ll raise taxes to fix that of course. Nothing is being cut. The health ministry itself is what determines that its own hospitals must buy from a favored company, this case Sarel. When a monopoly is established, prices rise, and Sarel was of course charging prices over market value for all the equipment they sold to government hospitals. So government hospitals were forced into debt by the health ministry which runs the hospitals which forced the hospitals to buy equipment over market value by forbidding it to buy from anyone else under threat of imprisonment.

Why would the “owners” of a company, in this case the Health Ministry, force its own assets to buy equipment over market value? Because the “owners” of the Health Ministry are not owners of a company. They are tax loot distributors. They don’t have to make money. They just take it. And they give it to whoever they want, and it doesn’t matter how much their assets (hospitals) go into debt because they can always take more money from us. And they will, believe me they will.

Now Sarel has lost its monopoly privileges, for now. What is going to happen now is that some other favored company is going to get that privilege instead, and the same thing will happen again. They will frame it by saying that hospital equipment and medication must be properly supervised for quality and therefore it must only come from one company for public safety reasons, and whoever mafia thug is in charge of deciding which company will get that privilege will pick his best friends and get a big kickback for it in some offshore bank account in the Seychelles Islands.

Sarel is not the problem. Government hospitals are the problem. If government controls hospitals, the primates who run the operation in government will funnel the money to whoever they like best. Some other company is going to screw us now.

Demand a separation of government from health care. That is the only solution to ending this problem. In a few weeks, the monopoly will be transferred to some other company. Mark my words.

If I ever become a Knesset member, I will go after the whole system, not just one company that happens to benefit from the system at any given time. I wouldn’t even go by the title of Knesset Member, in Hebrew חבר כנסת. I will insist on the title אויב כנסת. Enemy of the Knesset. And I wouldn’t take a Shekel in tax funds for anything whatsoever.

Feiglin tears into Bayit Yehudi and others for condoning state torture of Jewish children

rafifarber Israeli Politics , , , ,

All 120 primates in the current Knesset are evil and should be expelled from the country. I have said repeatedly that I never support violence against State officials and discourage anyone from acting violently against the State. However, given that all 120 of them support the torture of children by jackbooted State thugs, if any of them died of natural causes I would not mourn their passing.

The back story here is that 2 kids are suspected by the State of arson against Arabs that ended up killing a family in a place called Duma. The kids have been tortured by the Shabak, including being strung up by the legs while having their testicles repeatedly squeezed, presumably to get a confession. One of them was not allowed a lawyer for 3 straight weeks with no contact with the outside world, not to mention his parents.

The government gang is now made up of 61 primates, the minimum number required for a ruling gang. That means any one of them could bring down the ruling gang in response to this torture by simply voting no confidence and showing there is some sort of humanity in them, but all of them are doing nothing, preferring to stay in the gang. They are therefore complicit in the torture of children, with all the moral implications of being complicit in such a crime. Even so, I still discourage active violence against them.

Here is Moshe Feiglin at his very best, the one and only human being in Israeli politics. Translation below:

אינני מצליח להבין כיצד חברי הכנסת של הבית היהודי והיותר לאומיים בליכוד – לא מפסיקים את הזוועה הזו.

הרי מענים את הילדים של הבוחרים שלכם עינויים קשים – עינויי תופת! אין שום תירוץ לדבר הזה, אין שום פצצה מתקתקת ולא שום דבר שמתקרב לזה.

בקואליציה של 61 כל אחד מכם יכול לעצור את הזוועה הזו בהינף אצבע – ואתם לא עושים את זה.

לא רק חיי הנערים ושפיותם תלויים בצואריכם, כל עתידה של המדינה תלוי באצבע הקטנה שלכם.

כי לאיזו מן סדום נתתם למדינה שלנו להתדרדר! איזו מן מדינה נשארת לנו אחרי שזוועה שכזו מתחוללת כאן “ברשות ובסמכות ובפיקוח”…

היום השמאל מענה את הימין, מחר הימין יענה את השמאל – איזה יופי… העיקר שהכל “ברשות ובסמכות”…

כשהיה צריך הצבעתי נגד (!) הקואליציה (כששחררו מחבלים ובמקרים עקרוניים נוספים) מדוע אתם לא מסוגלים לעשות זאת עכשיו?!

הרי הממשלה והבוגי מבצעים את הזוועה הזו מכוחכם!
אף אחד מכם לא יכול להגיד – “יש להם רוב ממילא גם בלעדי…” ואם האופוזיציה תתגייס לתמוך (והיא לא) אז לפחות לא מכם יידרש הדם.

כשמדובר היה בזכויות אדם – תמיד הצטרפתי לשמאל.
נגד מעצרים מנהליים, נגד הזנה בכפיה, בעד זכותם לסרב, הפגנתי נגד קציר האיברים בסין ועוד.

אם הימין היה היום באופוזיציה – הזוועה הזו לא היתה מתרחשת.

I don’t understand how Knesset Members from the Jewish Home and the more nationalist Likud members do not stop the horror of the torture of the Duma suspects. After all, they are severely torturing the children of your constituents. There is no excuse for this. They are not suspected of being ‘ticking bombs’ or anything even similar to that.
In a coalition of 61 Knesset Members, it takes only one person to topple the government and to stop the horror. And you are not doing it. Not only are the lives of these boys and their sanity on your shoulders. The future of the State of Israel depends on your vote.
What kind of Sodom has the State brought upon us? What kind of state will be left after this horror, taking place with the authorization and oversight of the ‘law’?
Today it is the Left torturing the Right. Tomorrow the Right will torture the Left. As long as it is all with the authorization and oversight of the ‘law’…
When it was necessary, I voted against the Coalition (when they released terrorists and on additional matters of principle). Why can’t you do the same now? The government and the Defense Minister are perpetrating this horror with your vote!
Not one of you can say, “The Coalition enjoys a majority even without me.” Even if the Opposition would support the continued administrative detention and torture (and it won’t) at least the blood would not be on your account.
If the Right was in the Opposition today, this horror would not be taking place.

My impression of the Zehut Founders Conference

rafifarber Israeli Politics, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

I have very high standards. I don’t trust anyone when it comes to political events, or what I term antipolitical events. The Zehut conference I see as an antipolitical event, which is why I attended. It is why I’m a paying member. There were about 20 people who each came up for a 90 second speech. Almost all of them were liberty-centered. One introduced herself as a feminist. Another as a homosexual. I don’t know which one took more courage.

There was only one speech that I did not like, which centered on improving people’s incomes and other economic interventionist stuff. But all the others were decent to very good. That is a very good record for a rag tag group of people who are not studied libertarians but only have a vague sense of a right direction.

There were all kinds of people there, most of whom I didn’t even recognize, and I’ve known Feiglinites for a long time. At the end, I saw a couple I know, who I was surprised actually came. I originally got them into Likud and they understand more about liberty than most.

The husband urged me to try to build myself up in the party and run for Knesset on the list. The thought of trying to build support for myself in that context in Hebrew makes me enervated and exhausted, but the wife then says, “There’s no way. Rafi has the least tact of any human being alive.”

That may be true, but I suggested I could be like Donald Trump (להבדיל), saying stuff that is so caustic that everyone loves me just for that. I may try, but I doubt I have the energy.

Sign up for Zehut here.

Nitzan Horowitz: Without Government, There Would be No Cultural Activities At All!

rafifarber Humor, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

There’s this whole totally unnecessary controversy right now in Israel about some play about some Arab who kills some soldier and the State having to subsidize the play but not wanting to, and somehow not subsidizing a play with with tax money is tantamount to violating free speech.

If that’s so, what I’m doing right now is not free speech because the government isn’t paying me to do it. I can’t tell if the people who say these things are actually that stupid, or they are just incredibly dishonest. Probably a mix.

Then there’s another play about Yigal Amir somewhere that other people don’t want to be subsidized. And again, both sides hate each other.

Here’s an idea. Don’t subsidize any play whatsoever, and let people watch or not watch them, and leave us all alone. Ah, but then there will be no more plays at all, in fact no cultural activity at all, says Nitzan Horowitz! Wow!

Moshe’s pretty good in this one. Horowitz says something like “If you take away state money from cultural activities, you could say the same about education, housing, and everything else!”

Feiglin: Yes, exactly.

Horowitz: Then there will be nothing!

Feiglin: So you’re saying that if the Minister of Outer Space suddenly resigned, then the cosmos would stop existing.

Now that’s good stuff.

Only one objection. Feiglin says that no one should be forced to subsidize any plays, and Horowitz correctly says that he shouldn’t be forced to pay for settlers. That’s a good point, and Horowitz is correct there.

Moshe tries to answer with a non-sequitur, saying that he doesn’t pay for settlers because settlers are more productive than other sectors. But that’s nonsense. He pays for their protection and everything else public in Judea and Samaria regardless of how productive they are, and he shouldn’t have to because he has a moral problem with where they live. Moshe can’t say that though because then he becomes an anarcho capitalist so he has to say something illogical to keep his minarchy intact.

The other nutty thing about this video was the subtitle that appears around minute 4: “Privatization of Culture: A good solution or morally bankrupt?”

Privatization of culture is morally bankrupt of course. Before the State, there was no culture. First there were people who were in charge of everyone who told the little people who they stole from how to do culture. Then they did culture. Without governments, there would be no culture, and we’d basically be monkeys. Yeah. Sounds right. Sometimes I can’t stop thinking how sick this State is.

 

Rotem Sela is Awesome, Publicly Breaking the Law of Book Price Controls

rafifarber Economics, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

This guy Rotem Sela is pretty cool. I know nothing about him, but what he’s doing is awesome. In this video, he’s wearing a shirt that says, “Books at illegal prices.” I’ve written about this minimum book price law twice, here and here. It’s a law that says prices on books by new authors must be above market level, in so many words.

By doing that, they make the books impossible to sell, putting new authors completely out of business.

It makes me want to cry how politicians just simply refuse to understand supply and demand, no matter how simple it is. Supply and demand meet at the market price. Make the market price illegal, and you have a surplus, meaning unsold stuff. The producers of the unsold stuff lose money. They stop producing it.

That’s it. That’s it that’s it that’s it. There’s nothing else to it. Same with minimum wage. Make market price wages illegal, and you have a surplus of workers, AKA permanent unemployment. That’s it that’s it. Nothing else to it.

Moshe Feiglin wrote a pretty good post today explaining the bad effects of the minimum book price law, but he still talks in socialist jargon and it bothers me. This paragraph, specifically, was pretty crappy: (worst parts in bold)

הכוונה היתה טובה – אין ספק (גם מרכס לא חשב להרעיב מיליונים). הרי סופרים מתחילים מקבלים גרושים ואת כל הרווח גורפות הוצאות הספרים המשומנות – אז למה לא בעצם? לקחת מהעשירים ולתת לעניים? מה יותר פשוט מזה. החוק עבר ברוב כמעט מוחלט

The intention was a good one, no doubt. (Marx wasn’t trying to starve millions either.) Of course beginning authors get peanuts and all the profit goes to the fattened book publishers, so why not price controls? Take from the rich and give to the poor? Nothing simpler than that. The law passed easily.

The implication is that, indeed, it would be nicer if authors got more money, but they don’t, and people are greedy, and there’s nothing we can do about it. These “reluctant libertarian” positions I call them are really annoying. It WOULDN’T be “better” if authors got more money. They get the money they get because that’s the market price for it. That’s it.

There is no and there cannot be any value judgement about what market prices are. They just are. They take into account what people want or don’t want and how much they are willing to pay, the supply the demand and the meeting point between the two.

And how does Feiglin know how much “profit” (by which he means interest) goes to the book publishers and how little goes to the authors? Has he looked at their profit margins? Does he see definitively that if the fat book publishers gave more of their fat profit to the sickly authors, they would still be net positive?

Whatever. He sneaks in these wacky sentiments sometimes when he makes a good point. And it’s annoying.

So Rotem Sela is breaking the law publicly and challenging the State in the open. I like this. Let’s see if he gets thrown into the Gulag by our enlightened lunatics in the Knesset. Also, interestingly, if you’ll notice he wording at the beginning of the video – “How did banks become so hated by the public?”

Good segway.