The myth of the cession of Māori sovereignty [sic]

A piece from a Dr Luke Fitzmaurice-Brown is doing the rounds again. It's called 'The Myth of the Cession of Māori Sovereignty' -- and argues (unsurprisingly) that "to accept that Māori surrendered sovereignty when they signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840 requires 'a profound suspension of disbelief'."

So I figured I'd fisk the Fitzmaurice-Brown fiction.

Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown [whose opinion piece excerpts appear in blue] is a law lecturer at the university formerly known as Victoria University of Wellington. Unlike him, I'll begin by defining my terms -- or at least the most important one: "Sovereignty":

Sovereignty is the supreme authority of a state or governing body to rule itself without interference from outside powers. It typically includes a few core elements:

• Political authority – the recognised right to make and enforce laws within a territory
• Independence – freedom from control or dictation by other states or entities
• Territorial integrity – authority over a defined geographic area
• Self-determination – the capacity of a people or government to decide their own political status and course

So this is what's contested. And the opinion piece by Fitzmaurice-Brown begins with some of those basic assumption, especially those last four:

Moana Jackson once said that to accept that Māori surrendered sovereignty when they signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840 required “a profound suspension of disbelief.” As he put it, no country anywhere in the world has ever guarded its independence for hundreds of years only to then relinquish it. He argued that “to assume that is what our people did flies in the face of human history, let alone Māori history, where the notion of giving away the authority to make independent decisions is not just culturally inconceivable, it is politically impossible.”

But there's an immediate problem. He talks about a "country" that "guarded its independence." A country? What country? There was no "country" here to claim independence, let alone to guard it. For hundreds of years -- those years that Jackson claims was spent "guarding" independence -- Māori was set against Māori as each tribe, iwi and hapu struggled, not for independence but for safety. For survival. If anything were guarded here it was tribal claims -- and, more accurately, they were not guarded but contested -- heavily contested. Tell the Te Rauparaha of 1820, for example, that he was guarding the independence of these islands and he would have laughed; he was not trying to guard the "country" as he warred his way from Kawhai to Kaiapoi, but to exterminate his enemies. 

In a series of islands with no visible outsiders, even the idea of a "country" would have been absurd -- you might even say it would require “a profound suspension of disbelief.”

There is no historical disgrace in societies contesting territory over each other-- but for the sake of peace and prosperity and everything that's wroth living for, they do need to get over it. For centuries, Europe endured that struggle. The idea of "sovereignty," which Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown leaps over so quickly, came from the Peace of Westphalia (1648) which ended the massively destructive Thirty Years' War in Europe. The idea came from it that religious authority behind a throne, which created these endless wars, must be replaced with something "better": an idea of nationhood in which each state held supreme authority within its own territory — with no higher power (pope, emperor, or otherwise) entitled to override it.

In this idea, sovereignty was not contested, it was recognised -- even in its breach. Inter-tribal or inter-religious battles were replaced with a recognition of some kind of right. And some kind of peace flowed therefrom.

If we drill down a level, that right to rule within a given territorial area came from the idea that the people within that territory were not subjects, but citizens, each of them holding some kind of rights. As this idea became better understood, it was realised that sovereignty is not a primary, freestanding right of "the state" or "the nation" as an entity in itself — it is a derivative right. It exists only because, and only to the extent that it does protect the individual rights of the people living under that government. In other words: Sovereignty is downstream of individual rights, not the other way around.

This has a sharp corollary that we should spell out explicitly: sovereignty is conditional on being a rights-respecting government.

We are already several miles from Moana Jackson's historical assumptions. Territorial authority for him comes not from the consent of the ruled, but from the point of a taiaha. 

But even if we've disproved the idea that there was one "country" here to cede authority, we're still left with his claim that those several tribal leaders who did control territory here -- not by right, but by military power -- would not have given away that gradually crumbling authority. Why would they when they were (apparently) all-powerful within their fiefdoms. Fitzmaurice-Brown cites Margaret Mutu in support of this idea:

Professor Margaret Mutu [he says] has pointed out the huge amount of evidence that casts further doubt on the myth of the cession of sovereignty. She states, for example, that in 1840 the Māori population numbered about 80,000, while the settler population numbered about 2,000. That the former would give up their sovereignty to the latter seems overwhelmingly unlikely. In some parts of the country, there were single-figure numbers of settlers when Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed.

And this is true, of course. And unanswerable ... unless you go back to that realisation that the territorial authority of each tribe and tribal leader was continually contested. Signing Te Tiriti was not simply handing over the sovereignty of 80,000 Māori to 2,000 settlers for unfathomable reasons. It was an exchange: giving up the notion of continuing and ongoing territorial struggle (highlighted by the horrific self-inflicted Butchers' Bill experienced under the Musket Wars) for this new idea promulgated mostly by missionaries (however imperfectly) of peace within a given territorial area.

The rangatira who signed Te Tiriti were the modernisers of their day. As Lyndsay Head explains, their signatures ceding sovereignty were entirely rational:

"In the 1830s northern Māori sought meaning in their post-contact experience through understanding how the foreigners ordered their world. This was a period of rational and intellectual response to European culture in which Christian teaching became a political primer for change. Consciously replaying the conversion of the barbarians, the missionaries taught that peace was the condition of political and social modernity — that is, of a European-style society.
    "This impacted heavily on culture, because tribal histories were almost exclusively histories of war. Fighting was central to the social identity of Māori. [It set] up peace as the condition of modernity ...
    "Their attention to the missionaries, and subsequent support for a treaty with the British, was not without history, but a response to lived change. By this reading, then, a possible basis of Māori citizenship was rational choice.
    "The rationality of the chiefs has been obscured by the rationality of the British side of the Treaty, which entirely dominates the literature."

It would be nice if that rationality were respected rather than brushed over by the likes of Mutu and Fitzmaurice-Brown.

He continues however:

Nevertheless, the idea that Māori ceded sovereignty in 1840 has been unquestioned by many New Zealanders for much of our country’s history. In large part this has been because of the appearance of the term in the English text of the Treaty of Waitangi. Article 1 of the Treaty states that Māori signatories ceded “all the rights and powers of sovereignty” to the ‘Queen of England’. Case closed, right?

Well, no. The English text of the Treaty of Waitangi was never actually signed on February 6 at Waitangi, with every signatory on that day signing their name to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the text in te reo Māori. Subsequently around the country, about 500 Māori leaders added their name to Te Tiriti, but about 92 percent of those leaders signed the Māori text. ...

So, what does the text in te reo actually say?

Instead of mentioning ‘sovereignty’ (as the English text does), article 1 of the Māori text gives the Queen of England the power of “kāwanatanga”, a transliteration of the English term ‘government’ or ‘governance’. Kāwanatanga was likely intended as a far more limited form of authority, primarily aimed at enabling the Crown to control and discipline its own settlers (who were largely beyond the control of the English legal system in Aotearoa).

Mr FB is right, of course. Rangatira signed the te reo text, after they heard an explanation of it by the translator Henry Williams. Several of those rangatira were readers, but even those wholly reliant on Williams would have heard him say, in describing the Treaty's Article 1, that "the chiefs shall surrender to the Queen for ever the Government of the country, for the preservation of order and peace." That was from the description of his translated speech which Henry Williams wrote about to Bishop Selwyn, 12 July 1847 [reproduced in Hugh Carleton's The Life of Henry Williams]. 

Of course, they would have heard it in te reo, in which Williams translated the word "Government" as "kawanatanga katoa."  That little word katoa is rarely mentioned by today's revisionists. And with good reason. Because, as Ewen McQueen observes, "it means complete, all-encompassing, totally, without exception." 

It’s no wonder [that in 1840] it focussed the minds of the chiefs on the issue of Crown authority. ...  

    Nowhere in the historical records do we find any indication that either the chiefs or the Pākehā protagonists understood anything other than that Kāwanatanga katoa meant the Crown was being established as the pre-eminent governing authority in the land. ...

    Te Kawenata Hou' (the 'Māori New Testament') ... would have had significant influence on how the chiefs understood the Treaty. ... In 'Te Kawenata Hou' the term rangatira is a general term for leadership. In contrast kawana is a very specific term used to denote governors who represent the authority of kings.   To use [the] example of Pilate – as the kawana (governor) he represented the sovereignty of the Roman empire in Jerusalem. He had the authority to tax and to execute judgement. The local Jewish leaders who wanted Jesus crucified had to get his permission. Those leaders are described in Te Kawenata Hou as rangatira. From this the chiefs at Waitangi would have quickly understood what was being proposed in the Treaty. And it certainly did not involve them retaining 'absolute sovereignty'."

But, as everyone from Hugh Kawaharu to Matthew Hooton to Margarat Mutu to Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown would counter, what about "Article 2 of the te reo text [which] guaranteed that Māori would continue to be able to exercise 'tino rangatiratanga' over their whenua, kainga, and taonga katoa – translated by Sir Hugh Kawharu as their lands, their villages, and all their treasures. 

This is the closest the te reo text gets to mentioning sovereignty [says Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown], but in the te reo text it is a power reserved for Māori, not for the Crown.

Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown lectures in law, but appears ignorant of even the first principles of the subject. In law, an earlier Article (which often sets the fuller context) generally takes precedence over later articles. And if Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown were to read that earlier Article, he would see those words "kawanatanga katoa," i.e., complete Government, which the te reo text (as translated by Te Tiriti's first translator) says "the chiefs shall surrender to the Queen for ever." 

Why would they do that? As answer, the Article continues: "For the preservation of order and peace."

If you don't have Hugh Carleton's Life of Henry Williams (and why would you, it's poor reading even for historians) you can read Williams's transliteration of the te reo text on page 481 of Ned Fletcher's tome. Perhaps Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown could read (or re-read) it? Because it contains in only a few words the counter to the first two of his opinion piece's main points.

He continues however. 

The evidence against the cession myth is further bolstered by another document, signed in 1835 – He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tirene: the Declaration of Independence of the United Tribes of New Zealand. Generally referred to just as He Whakaputanga, it is an assertion of Māori mana, sovereignty, and independence, addressed primarily to an international audience ...

This is a pathetic claim, evidence only of the ability to grasp at straws. The Declaration was the idea of James Busby, the British Resident here desperate for something to do. Written by him, signed by thirty-four northern chiefs, it was formally acknowledged by the Crown in May 1836.  

What did it say? 

It asserted that sovereign power and authority in the land (‘Ko te Kingitanga ko te mana i te w[h]enua’) resided with Te Whakaminenga, the Confederation of United Tribes, and that no foreigners could make laws. Te Whakaminenga was to meet at Waitangi each autumn to frame laws ....

Te Whakaminenga, the Confederation of United Tribes, in which sovereignty was supposed to reside, never met to "frame laws" -- in fact it never met again. As the NZ History site acknowledges, For many,  the Declaration was primarily a matter for Ngāpuhi, who were ninety percent of the signatories. For any other rangatira to travel to Ngāpuhi territory for any reason in 1835 was still to take your life in your hands, so it's not surprising no more came of it. Historian Paul Moon sees it as a ‘regional goodwill agreement rather than a national document of truly constitutional significance.'" 

It's only significance, having been recognised by the British Crown, was to ensure that any lingering claim to sovereignty derived from the Declaration was firmly expunged by Te Tiriti -- which is precisely the opposite of Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown's argument.

Persistent as ever, however, he continues:

More recent scholarship suggests the cession of sovereignty (in the sense of all-encompassing power, including over Māori) may not have even been intended in the English text. That is a debate for another day ...

Indeed, that alleged "recent scholarship" by Ned Fletcher is when I entered that debate in two opinion pieces at Newsroom not so long ago.

... but in the meantime, the myth of the cession of sovereignty persists. ... To return to Moana Jackson’s words about the suspension of disbelief, I would add that believing Māori ceded sovereignty in 1840 also requires a suspension of humanity. Put yourself in the shoes of the actual rangatira who signed Te Tiriti. If you assume the humanity of those leaders, if you assume they were intelligent, competent, and humane, you can’t possibly reach the conclusion that they just gave away everything that mattered to them and their people. It’s hard to think otherwise unless you believe Māori were unintelligent, incompetent, and inhumane.

Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown began his opinion piece essentially suggesting that to see Māori ceding sovereignty made you dumb. To that he now adds that it makes you racist. What a vile person he must be.

If you assume the humanity of those leaders, if you assume they were intelligent, competent, and humane [he says, to repeat], you can’t possibly reach the conclusion that they just gave away everything that mattered to them and their people.

And of you think otherwise, he implies, you're a racist. Is this the lowest of the low? Of course an honest person can reach that conclusion. To cite just Lyndsay Head above, she argues it was precisely the intelligence, competence, and humanity of these modernising rangatira that recognised Māori citizenship within a British legal paradigm was, in 1840, a completely rational choice. 

Does Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown answer that? Of course not.

Lyndsay Head's argument is only reinforced by what the signatories themselves were reported to have said in that first signing (as we can read in Colenso's account), and what they said about their signing two decades later in Kohimarama -- what Claudia Orange once called the renewal of a Covenant.

The Kohimarama Conference began with then Governor Gore Browne recalling to those assembled (including more than 100 rangatira from Ngāpuhi in the north to Ngai Tahu in the south, who by then were mostly competent in English, and who could also enjoy translations into to reo):

On assuming the Sovereignty of New Zealand Her Majesty extended to her Maori subjects her Royal protection, engaging to defend New Zealand and the Maori people from all aggressions by any foreign power, and imparting to them all the rights and privileges of British subjects; and she confirmed and guaranteed to the Chiefs and Tribes of New Zealand, and to the respective families and individuals thereof, the full, exclusive and undisturbed possession of their lands and estates, forests, fisheries, and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess, so long as it is their wish to retain the same in their possession.
    In return for these advantages the Chiefs who signed the Treaty of Waitangi ceded for themselves and their people to Her Majesty the Queen of England absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of Sovereignty which they collectively or individually possessed or might be supposed to exercise or possess.

The astute reader will notice that these are almost exactly the words to which Mr Fitzmurice-Brown objects -- that is to say, almost a recapitulation of the Treaty terms. No one rose to object.

The Conference itself concluded on 10 August 1860 with rangatira gathered there giving unanimous agreement that:

the several Chiefs, members thereof, are pledged to each other to do nothing inconsistent with their declared recognition of the Queen's sovereignty and of the union of the two races ... [16] 

It was Apirana Ngata six decades later who reminded Māori that

The Government placed in the hands of the Queen of England, the sovereignty [mana] and the authority to make laws. ... it made the one law for the Maori and the Pakeha. If you think these things are wrong and bad then blame our ancestors who gave away their rights in the days when they were powerful.
    Those ancestors were not stupid. They knew what they were about, and and had a pretty fair idea of what they were promised.

But perhaps they knew less about what they were agreeing to and signing than geniuses like Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown, and the intellectual giants who are sharing his work on social media.

A prime example of TDS

"National[ist] Conservatives have Trump Deification Syndrome (TDS).
    "They feel that He works in mysterious ways.
    "They are faith-based voters."

~ Keith Weiner

"Government immigration restrictions are how tyranny will come to modern America."

Two weeks ago Cato's Alex Nowrasteh debated comedian Dave Smith at NY's Soho Forum on the resolution “Government restrictions on the immigration of peaceful and healthy people make sense from a libertarian standpoint, especially in present-day America."

Alex was on the negative side.

He began by arguing that government immigration restrictions are how tyranny will come to America.

As he says below, "I didn't expect it to happen so quickly."

CLICK to watch (15 min.)

"Nationalism is often its own worst enemy"

"I’ve been very discouraged by the global rise in nationalism. But there is one glimmer of hope. Nationalism is often its own worst enemy. ...

"In yesterday’s election in Canada, we saw an almost perfect example of ... the internal contradictions of global nationalism.

“'[Conservative leader Pierre] Poilievre had been running a disciplined and effective campaign which had him with a 25-point lead in our final poll of 2024, ... But suddenly everything was 'radically disrupted' by several factors ... the 'most important' disruption for Poilievre was the 'visceral recoil' Canadians felt when they heard Trump talk about annexation. ...

"'A wave of nationalism swept the country, with Canadians booing the American national anthem at hockey games, boycotting U.S. products, and all but abandoning cross-border travel.

"'This put Poilievre in a near-impossible position. Much of his base—including many of his MPs—admire Trump. But with Trump openly attacking Canada, and with Poilievre’s own anti-woke rhetoric and disdain for the mainstream media, he found himself trapped. Attempts to distance himself from Trump could alienate core supporters, while embracing the American president would push away everyone else.'

"I would argue that the single most consequential action of President Trump’s first 100 days (for better or worse) was his trade war with Canada, which clearly prevented the election of a Conservative administration. Before the trade war, the Conservatives were set to win by a historic landslide.

"Next up, Australia: ... [where] the prospect of conservative opposition leader Peter Dutton winning power was 'very frightening' [said one voter], after seeing the disruption caused by Donald Trump in the United States'."

~ Scott Sumner, composite quote from his posts 'Global nationalism?' and 'Global nationalism: Part 2'

"Consequently, there is no incentive for the politicians to change their behaviour. It is for this reason we see tariffs consistently fail as a negotiation tool."

"To listen to protectionists, one would think tariffs are something of a miracle drug. Anything and everything can be solved by tariffs. Prices too low? Tariffs will raise ‘em. Prices too high? Tariffs will lower ‘em. Sprained knee? Just take two tariffs and call me in the morning. ...

"Take, for example, the argument that tariffs can be used as negotiation tools. The argument goes that you can threaten another nation with tariffs, impose the costs of the tariffs on them, and force them to bend to your will (whatever that will may be). ...

"[Yet] politicians face a different set of incentives. The major issue with many tariff supporters’ models is that they improperly model these incentives. This is a side effect of collectivist thinking; we must always remember that a 'nation' is a useful abstraction, but ultimately is made up of individuals who choose. A 'nation' never, ever chooses. And a government is not synonymous with the nation or the people located therein. ...

"Consequently, there is no incentive for the politicians to change their behaviour. It is for this reason we see tariffs consistently fail as a negotiation tool.

"Indeed, so-called trade sanctions and tariffs end up having the opposite effect. The American embargo of Cuba entrenched the Castro regime. Tariffs and embargoes on Iran failed to halt their nuclear program or weaken the regime. Putin still wages war in Ukraine despite (or because of?) trade sanctions. Perhaps most damningly, the Chinese government developed DeepSeek as a direct response to Trump’s original 'economic statecraft' against the Communist Party (continued by Biden).

"Adam Smith recognised this problem. In the 'Wealth of Nations' ... he notes that tariffs could be a potential tool to negotiate lower barriers in other nations. ...   Such negotiations could work, he states, but could also lead to war ...."

~ Jon Murphy from his post 'The Political Problem of Tariffs'

"Nationalism is not patriotism!"

"Alchemy is not chemistry.

"Altruism is not caring.
"Socialism is not sharing.
"Astrology is not astronomy.
"H2SO4 is not water.
"Nationalism is not patriotism."

~ Keith Weiner

"Nationalism is not patriotism! A French patriot roots for their Olympic basketball team; a French nationalist grumbles that almost all the players are black....
    "Note that 'identity politics' is not an inherently left or right wing idea. Where it favours minority groups, it is typically framed as left wing. When it favours the majority ethnic group (or more precisely the group in power – recall South Africa before 1994), it’s typically viewed as right wing. Thus [both varieties of] nationalists tend to oppose immigration, which threatens to dilute the [favoured] ethnic group."

~ Scott Sumner, from his post on 'The authoritarian nationalist playbook'

Patriotism ...

"Alchemy is not chemistry.
"Altruism is not caring.
"Socialism is not sharing.
"Astrology is not astronomy.
"H2SO4 is not water.
"Nationalism is not patriotism."

~ Keith Weiner

"How many people can honestly say they are sure that they would have done the right thing, if they had lived in a very different time and place? "

"I don’t believe it makes sense to accuse people of being Nazis or Maoists. Almost everyone, including even extremists, now understand that these were highly flawed political movements.
    "Nonetheless, it’s worth thinking about why Maoism and Nazism were once so popular. Why did so many Chinese college students join the Red Guard and enthusiastically persecute their professors (and others)? Why did 37% of the German electorate vote for the Nazi Party in 1932? These questions cry out for an explanation. ...
    "Of course, not everyone joined the Red Guard, and not everyone voted for the Nazis. [But] which people alive today [in those circumstances] would have joined the Red Guard? And which people alive today would have joined the Nazis?
    "Consider the woke extremists that enthusiastically denounce and shun people for not being sufficiently left wing on a check list of issues. Does anyone seriously believe they would not have been part of the contingent that joined the Red Guard? And think about people that are so anti-immigrant that they don’t even want us to accept high-skilled people from India and China because they worry about America’s European heritage being diluted. Does anyone seriously believe they would not have been among the 37% who voted for the Nazis?
    "I wish more people would do some serious soul searching, and honestly ask themselves how they would have behaved in some of these extreme situations. ...
    "I’m not accusing modern nationalists of literally being Nazis. ... Nor do I believe that today’s woke extremists wish to beat and torture their professors. Instead, I see far left and far right wing ideologies as a sort of virus, which can infect people’s minds, even otherwise reasonable minds. And I see liberalism as a sort of vaccine. ... making [one] immune to the lure of authoritarian ideologies. [I’m not defining liberalism in the American sense of left-of-center Democrat. I am using the term in the international sense of supporter of free speech, human rights, a market economy, democracy, civil rights, opposition to nationalism, etc. ] I have no doubt that if [the liberal] had been born in another time and place, he would have avoided becoming an authoritarian of either the left or the right.
    "How many people can honestly say they are sure that they would have done the right thing, if they had lived in a very different time and place?
    "When politics gets extremely contentious and extremely tribal, people are pressured to take sides. ... People hate it when they are ostracised by fellow members of their 'tribe.' Sorry, but the enemy of your enemy is not your friend. Your only reliable political allies are those that share your core principles."

~ Scott Sumner from his post 'Liberalism as a vaccine'

 

"... a broader, decade-long 'crank realignment' in American politics."

"Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s transition from semi-prominent Democrat to third party spoiler to Donald Trump endorser is emblematic of a broader, decade-long 'crank realignment' in American politics.…
    "The partisan shifts of both Trump and RFK Jr. are part of a long term cycle in which .... a generic suspicion of institutions and the people who run them has come to be associated with conservative politics. Conservative cranks are not even close to new (the John Birch Society, for example), but they’ve become increasingly prominent ...

    "If I’m agitating for a 'liberal' realignment of American politics, it’s partly because I live in terror that the realignment will come anyway—but it will be illiberal….
    "Let’s talk about what kind of implicit idea would cause someone to combine a traditionally conservative proposal (keeping out immigrants) with a traditionally leftist proposal (government price controls)—and do so in a way that so overwhelms every other consideration, including democracy itself, that it causes them to flip their vote.
    "The implicit premise is that government exists to hand out favours to 'people like me'—and to kick everybody else in the teeth, especially poor immigrants coming here in search of a better life. That particular policy combination indicates a tribal mindset….
    "At any rate, this is precisely the political realignment I’m trying to avoid, one that brings together the worst of both worlds: bloated Big Government welfare-statism and paranoid, xenophobic nationalism."

~ Matt Yglesias from his post 'The crank realignment is bad for everyone.'  Hat tip Robert Tracinski who comments, "There’s still a good chance that this is exactly what we’re going to get."

 

Productivity. In medals, at least.

 

Economist Robert MacCulloch notes that New Zealand's productivity growth, as measured in Olympic medals, is astonishing.

In the 1924 Paris Olympics, New Zealand won one bronze medal in total. It was in athletics for the 100m by Arthur Porritt. The race was later immortalised in the film, 'Chariots of Fire.' NZ had a population of around 1 million back then. Just over 100 years later, the tally is 10 golds, 7 silvers and 3 bronzes*, which after adjusting for population increase, is a huge rise. Meanwhile the United States won 45 Golds at the 1924 Paris Olympics, a tally which has plummeted down to around 37 at the Paris 2024 Olympics. So productivity in this sphere in New Zealand, compared to other countries, is phenomenal.

As you're probably aware, for all sorts of reasons New Zealand is shit at economic productivity. 

So why the difference?

On this MacCulloch suggests the reason for this is simple: In sports, unlike elsewhere, New Zealanders value meritocracy "where the fastest, highest, longest .. the best .. wins, regardless of other considerations?"

Kiwis clearly respond to merit being rewarded and produce amongst the finest output in the world when it is. Meanwhile in many other spheres in NZ, everything but meritocracy is winning the day. And productivity is paying the price.

In microcosm, he's probably right. And it's great to see these athletes triumph.

Mind you,  if I were to carp — and I will, even if it's a mite too soon — I can't help wondering how much taxpayers and ratepayers are dunned for all this nationalistic gold. You know, how many millions it's cost taxpayers per medal.

Consider, Arthur Porritt paid his own way to Paris in 1924. So that was zero-taxpayer-dollars** per gold then. And now? Well, I'd like someone somewhere to do the calculation ...

* I've updated the totals.

** Yes, it was pounds then. But using that there would be too confusing.

National/Ethnic Pride

"I've never understood national pride; I've never understood ethnic pride....
    "Because ... to me pride should be reserved for something you achieve or attain on your own, not something that happens by accident of birth.
    "Being Irish isn’t a skill. It’s a fuckin’ genetic accident.
    "You wouldn’t say, 'I’m proud to be 5 foot 11 inches. I’m proud to have a predisposition for colon cancer.”
    "So why the fuck would you be proud to be Irish, or proud to be Italian, or American or anything?
    "If you're happy with it, that's fine. Put that on your [bumper sticker]."

~ George Carlin from his monologue 'Proud to be American' [VIDEO]

"The larger meaning of Free Trade..."

"The larger meaning of Free Trade ranks it as a phase in social evolution by which, on the one hand, militarism is displaced by industrialism, and, on the other hand, political limits of nationalism yield place to an effective internationalism based upon identity of commercial interests."

~ J.A. Hobson, from his 1898 article 'Free Trade and Foreign Policy'

"No force in the world since 1848 has been more powerful, more deadly, more pervasive, or more persistent, than nationalistic zeal."

"If you had convened a meeting of the great European thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and asked them what would drive future global politics, not one of them would have put nationalism on the list.
    "The leaders of the Enlightenment anticipated a coming age when reason and universal values would shape the course of events. Marx and his fellow travellers trusted that class struggle and economics oppression would serve as the spire to change. The positivists in the camp of Auguste Comte championed science and progress as the driving force in future history. Social Darwinists postulated evolutionary models; political economists attributed power to Adam Smith's 'invisible hand'; and Neo-scholastics put faith in the hand of God. 

    "Everybody had a theory. But none of the thought leaders anticipated a future when war and bloody carnage would be instigated by chauvinistic impulses and love of country. The illustrious philosophers dismissed those as archaic loyalties, irrational sentiments no longer useful for human society, and destined for the dustbin of human. history.
    "But the theorists were wrong. No force in the world since 1848 has been more powerful, more deadly, more pervasive, or more persistent, than nationalistic zeal."

~ Ted Gioia, from his book Music: A Subversive History

"If the rulers really wanted to communicate with their subjects, they did not use the grotesque doctrine of 'Marxism-Leninism'; they appealed, rather, to nationalist sentiments"

 

"Marxism was a philosophical or semi-philosophical doctrine and a political ideology which was used by the communist state as the main source of legitimacy and the obligatory faith. This ideology was indispensable, regardless of whether people believed in it. In the last period of communist rule it hardly existed as a living faith; the distance between it and reality was so great, and hopes for the joyful future of the communist paradise were fading so rapidly, that both the ruling class (i.e., the party apparatus ) and the ruled were aware of the its emptiness. But it remained officially binding, precisely because it was the main instrument of the the legitimacy of the system of power. If the rulers really wanted to communicate with their subjects, they did not use the grotesque doctrine of 'Marxism-Leninism'; they appealed, rather, to nationalist sentiments or, in the case of the Soviet Union, to imperial glory Eventually the ideology fell apart, together with the empire; its collapse was one of the reasons that the communist system of power died out in Europe."

~ Leszek Kolakowski, from the 2004 Preface to his 1976/8 book Main Currents of Marxism

 

Self-determination: 'The atomisation of human society'

"Self-determination, which has nothing to do with self-government but has become confused with it, is barbarous and reactionary: by sanctioning secession, it invites majorities and minorities to be intransigent and irreconcilable. It is stipulated in the principle of self-determination that they need not be compatriots because they will soon be aliens. There is no end to this atomisation of human society. Within the minorities who have seceded there will tend to appear other minorities who in their turn will wish to secede."

~ Walter Lippmann -- who, a world-war before, had helped draft Woodrow Wilson's 'Fourteen Points'; from his 1944 critique of US War Aims

 

Colonialism was not Capitalist

Colonialism is under attack again -- criticised all too often not by by the mercantilist* motivations of most empire builders, but because ( it is claimed all too frequently) it is inspired by and a ruthless example of laissez-faire capitalism. Yet as Hans Sennholz writes in this guest post based on his 1956 article 'The Myth of Capitalist Colonialism: "The exploitation of colonial possessions is inconsistent with the concepts of competitive private enterprise and voluntary exchange."  

"The adherent of capitalism [therefore] need not defend the acts of mercantilist governments, for capitalist philosophers and economists have exploded and opposed the doctrines of mercantilism since the beginning of the eighteenth century. Even today they are the bitter enemies of the modern expressions of [the] mercantilist international relations [that inspired colonialism]."

The Myth of Capitalist Colonialism

Guest post by Hans Sennholz

The exploitation of colonial possessions is inconsistent with the concepts of competitive private enterprise and voluntary exchange.... [Yet in the past few decades, academics and politicians across the spectrum] have attacked the political and economic position of the West [and what they frequently describe as "colonial expoitation."] 

Classical Liberal sympathy for undeveloped nations 

[Classical liberal] sympathy for the colonial peoples and our hostility against colonialism stemmed originally from our liberal conception of the natural rights of all men. Liberty and independence were precious ideals worth every sacrifice to gain and defend.

But the nineteenth century liberals often committed tragic blunders by encouraging liberation movements which in fact were nationalist movements toward the substitution of one collectivist order for another. The concepts of individual liberty and the inviolability of property rights were so foreign to most dependent nations that their uprising meant only the displacement of the established order by an even less desirable order....

[Marxian sympathisers and fellow travellers] level the charge that Western colonialism has kept the economically backward nations subjugated for more than two centuries. Western capitalism tortured and exploited colonial people, they say, until they began to free themselves from the strangling grip of capitalism... Today there is hardly a textbook on recent history that is not perverted in one form or another by Marxian and Leninian ideas on capitalist colonialism.

The Marxian Interpretation of Colonialism

What a communist conceives to be “colonialism” is in the words of V. I. Lenin “the territorial expansion of the system of exploitation of labor by capital.” New human capital is drawn into the orbit of wage slavery through colonial conquest. Once the world was divided among the colonial states of Western Europe, finance capital—especially from America—then became the decisive power of subjugating whole countries and nations to the capitalist profit greediness, even though these nations retained their political independence. The latter stage often is labeled “capitalist imperialism.”

The very premise of “capitalist exploitation” is an absurdity. Where the price of labor is determined through the operation of demand and supply in a free labour market, exploitation is impossible. Only where the mobility of labour is impeded through government decrees and regulations can labour possibly be underpaid. Indeed, true exploitation may be observed in all socialist and communist economies.

Equally untenable is the communist contention regarding American financiers and their imperialist endeavors. By investing their capital funds abroad they increase the productivity of the backward areas. They attract the services of foreign labor not by brute force, but through higher wages and better living conditions. Of course, their incentive is the possibility of profits to be derived from the new wealth created through their initiative.

Colonies Acquired under Mercantilism and Nationalism

The existence of colonies, i.e., underdeveloped territories dependent on a ruling power, is not a phenomenon of capitalism, as its enemies so ardently contend, but of the very absence of it. The colonial empires of the Western nations were built in periods of mercantilism or rising nationalism. During the short intervening age of capitalism, colonies were considered in herited burdens to be disposed of sooner or later. “Our colonies are millstones around our necks,” said the British stateman, Disraeli, in 1852 when Great Britain was about to embark upon her famous open-door policy.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries England, Holland, France, and Spain were the foremost colonial powers. That was the age of mercantilism. And mercantilist ideas led governments to acquire dependent territories. Every nation endeavored to be self-sufficient through tariffs, other import restrictions, and acquisition of colonies. The balance-of-trade theory prevailed and the notion that one nation’s prosperity is another nation’s loss and misery determined international relations. Europe was always fighting or preparing to fight.

The adherent of capitalism need not defend the acts of mercantilist governments, for capitalist philosophers and economists have exploded and opposed the doctrines of mercantilism since the beginning of the eighteenth century. Even today they are the bitter enemies of the modern expressions of mercantilist international relations.

The hostile attitude of the fathers of capitalism toward the existence of colonies can easily be recognised by the role they played in the American War of Independence. They were the friends of the colonists and insisted that colonial independence should be granted and maintained even after the War of 1812. Furthermore, has there ever been a more devastating critique of colonialism written than the one by Adam Smith in his famous Wealth of Nations?** To attach colonialism to capitalism is an obvious absurdity.

Capitalism Transformed the British Empire

Around the 1820′s England was practically the only colonial power. The Spanish and Portuguese colonies had become independent and the remaining French and Dutch possessions depended on the grace of the British Navy. But England, at this time, refrained from further expansion of her empire because British liberalism had begun to shape Britain’s foreign policies. Capitalism fundamentally began to transform the British Empire into a market economy.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the British overseas settlers were virtually independent—enjoying a dominion status. All other territories dependent on British rule were governed according to open-door principles. Britishers, foreigners, and natives were treated alike. The British Empire became a vast free-trade area in which the British government merely undertook to maintain law and order.

Complete evacuation of all foreign territories would have been the logical solution for British classical liberalism. But such a step in almost all cases would have brought about anarchy, civil war, and famine in the colonies evacuated.... [Yet clearly the indigenous populations] themselves ... approved of British rule. This is clearly attested to by the fact that tiny occupation forces sufficed to maintain peace and order among natives outnumbering them immensely.

And yet in spite of her most beneficial administration, England today [continues to reap criticism] because of her policies of racial segregation. The British civil servants in their exalted positions among the natives seldom withstood the temptation for social snobbishness and racial pride. This [justified] grievance on the part of hundreds of millions of Asians undoubtedly contributed to the dissolution of the British Empire in Asia.

Expansion of Colonies under Nationalism

During the last three decades of the nineteenth century the colonies of the Western nations experienced an unprecedented expansion. France vastly expanded her empire in Africa, and Germany acquired dependent territories in Africa and Polynesia. Also Russia, Japan, and the United States occupied new territories in various parts of the world. In all these cases of colonial acquisition adventurous governments under various pretexts seized foreign territories against the interest and advice of business and finance in order to reap cheap glories and advantages for their own administration [and advance the prospect of plunging the world into war. None of these adventures either advanced or were inspired by capitalism].

Take the example of German colonial acquisition. There is abundant proof that the German bankers and businessmen opposed as senseless every single occupation of colonial territories... [and] German business remained disinterested. At the outbreak of World War I less than one-half of one per cent of Germany’s foreign trade was conducted with her own colonies.... The German colonies were acquired by an interventionist government which constantly disparaged capitalism, and loved the display of its own political and military strength. To accuse capitalism for the existence of German colonies acquired by the Iron Chancellor Bismarck and his Kaiser is founded on neither fact nor reason.

In the case of territorial acquisitions by Japan and Russia the political conditions were similar. Omnipotent governments under their absolute sovereigns embarked upon colonial conquest under various pretexts. No matter what their stated reasons, Japan and Russia did not invade foreign countries because of pressure by conspiring businessmen... Neither the Czar nor the Mikado was a stooge of his subject bankers and merchants....

During this period of nationalist and interventionist colonisation France was a republic. But the military debacles of the Franco-German War of 1870 severely hurt the pride and self-confidence of the French Army. It urgently needed new fields of activity from which to feed again its pride and glory and display its fighting morale to itself and the world. And it found a welcome opportunity in the campaigns against the natives of North Africa.... The following expansion of the French colonial empire thus was the outcome of diplomatic considerations and feelings of military glory and pride. The French generals fighting in the passes of the Atlas Mountains wanted war with the natives, not trade relations.

Also, the American acquisitions of dependent territories following the Spanish-American War of 1898 were clearly the doings of an ambitious administration.... Now what economic interests could American bankers and businessmen possibly have had in Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines? Even today American trade and investments in these territories remain insignificant. To blame American bankers and brokers for the conquests of a political administration that looked to Europe for guidance, is an outright misrepresentation of facts.

Throughout this period [however] England continued to conduct her open-door policies. While the other colonial powers more or less severed their territories from the unhampered world market through tariffs and other trade restrictions, England clung to free trade. At the outbreak of World War I, Great Britain and her colonies were practically the only unhampered part of the world market. Several times during this period Britain expanded her territorial control over underdeveloped areas merely to safeguard the world market and its international division of labour. Occupation by any other colonial power would have meant further destruction of world trade and aggravation of international relations through more trade barriers.

Britain Unfortunately Follows Suit

But toward the end of the nineteenth century the spirit of interventionist colonisation also came to Great Britain. It was the time of the Fabians and the growth of social conflict through socialist and neo-mercantilist ideas. “To solve the social conflict and to spare England a murderous civil war, we colonial politicians must acquire new territories which are to receive our surplus population.” This was Cecil Rhodes’ excuse for his colonial conquests in South Africa; and his reasoning was socialist, if not Marxian. 

A classical liberal philosopher or economist finds no social conflict in capitalism, rejecting the Marxian doctrine of proletarian revolution and denying the possibility of exploitation in capitalism which, according to all our experience, improves the living conditions of the workers. He knows that capitalist countries are the desired targets of immigration; not emigration, as Rhodes believed....

NOTES

* In The Logic of Action II, Murray Rothbard defined mercantilism as "a system of statism which employed economic fallacy to build up a structure of imperial state power, as well as special subsidy and monopolistic privilege to individuals or groups favored by the state."

** In his Wealth of Nations Adam Smith characterises colonialism as a costly monopoly:

The monopoly of the colony trade, therefore, like all the other mean and malignant expedients of the mercantile system, depresses the industry of all other countries, but chiefly that of the colonies, without in the least increasing, but on the contrary diminishing, that of the country in whose favour it is established . . .

* * * * 

Hans F. Sennholz (1922-2007) was Ludwig von Mises' first PhD student in the United States. He taught economics at Grove City College, 1956–1992, having been hired as department chair upon arrival. After he retired, he became president of the Foundation for Economic Education, 1992–1997. His full article first appeared in the November 1956 edition of 'The Freeman.' [pdf]

"Nationalists focus on unifying around a given ethnic group..."

"Nationalists focus on unifying around a given ethnic group, rather than people who happen to be living in a particular political entity. Thus to the Chinese leadership, Han people in Taiwan (or even Singapore) are far more “Chinese” than Uyghurs living in western China. To the Hungarian leadership, an ethnic Hungarian living in Romania is more Hungarian that a Roma individual living within Hungary. Nationalism is not patriotism! A French patriot roots for their Olympic basketball team; a French nationalist grumbles that almost all the players are black....

    "Note that 'identity politics' is not an inherently left or right wing idea. Where it favours minority groups, it is typically framed as left wing. When it favours the majority ethnic group (or more precisely the group in power – recall South Africa before 1994), it’s typically viewed as right wing. Thus [both varieties of] nationalists tend to oppose immigration, which threatens to dilute the [favoured] ethnic group."

          ~ Scott Sumner, from his post on 'The authoritarian nationalist playbook'

"I see dishonesty as a core nationalist concept. When nationalists are in power, this requires covering up failures in order to make the nation seem 'great again'." #QotD

"I see dishonesty as a core nationalist concept, as the ideology cannot easily survive in an environment of honest inquiry. Thus nationalist governments hide their true intentions in order to appear patriotic.... When nationalists are in power, this requires covering up failures in order to make the nation seem 'great again'."

~ Scott Sumner, from his post 'Dishonesty is a core nationalist value, perhaps the core nationalist value'
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"Economic freedom, personal freedom, and cosmopolitanism are Very Good Things, and (b) Western elites are at least less opposed to all three Very Good Things than the deeply authoritarian Western masses." #QotD

"On average, I do trust Western elites more than Western masses. My main reason, though, is not that the modern world is too 'complex' or 'interconnected,' but that (a) economic freedom, personal freedom, and cosmopolitanism are Very Good Things, and (b) Western elites are at least less opposed to all three Very Good Things than the deeply authoritarian Western masses. Back in 2012, I described the median American voter as a 'moderate national socialist,' and subsequent events have reaffirmed my doleful perspective."
        ~ Bryan Caplan, from his post 'Open Borders in the New Yorker'
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"The difference between patriotism and nationalism is the difference between the love a father has for his family and the love a mafia Godfather has for his 'family'" #QotD

"The difference between patriotism and nationalism is the difference between the love a father has for his family and the love a [mafia] Godfather has for his 'family'... Patriotism is a warm and personal business. Nationalism is another business entirely. It’s the kind of business Salvatore Tessio talks to Tom Hagen about after Tessio’s betrayal of Michael Corleone. Tessio: 'Tell Mike it was just business.' ...
    "Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism… By 'patriotism' I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people... Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other [ideological, theological, racial, etc.] unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.
    "Sinking your own individuality into anything is not a prescription for happiness. Even if what you’re sinking it into is beer."
   ~ PJ O'Rourke partly paraphrasing George Orwell, in his post Patriotism v Nationalism
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