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More Europe? Less Europe?
A More Free Europe!
Juan Pina
PRESIDENT, SPAIN’S INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM PARTY (P-LIB)
Madrid, June 17th, 2013
Libertad es prosperidad.
1. How did we get here?
This crisis is just the
result of European
(and Spanish) trans-party
social democracy.
The wrong and unsustainable
social democratic consensus
is to blame, although most
people refuse to see this
and wish for an even larger
bubble to swallow its ruins.
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
This crisis is the result of trans-party social democracy
 For the past 60 years, the socialists in
all parties have established a transparty social democracy in Europe.
 Pushed by politicians, central banks
followed Keynesian policies aimed
at full intervention of the economy.
 By manipulating interest rates and by
keeping a controlled, closed and
state-privileged financial system,
central banks made investment grow
far beyond the existing saving.
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
This crisis is the result of trans-party social democracy
 Too much and too easy credit gave birth to an artificial economic
boom, and people were misled to take it for true prosperity.
 Many investments fostered
by the loan frenzy were just
unworthy. But in fact, all
investment not backed up
by saving worsens the cycle.
 Therefore, this crisis is
just the outcome of wrong
monetary policies driven
by technical and political
fatal conceit.
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
This crisis is the result of trans-party social democracy
 Six years into the crisis, Spain continues to be particularly hit by
the grave mistakes made by Aznar, Zapatero and Rajoy alike.
 Everyone is to blame:
•
•
•
Frankfurt — ECB
Brussels — EU
Madrid — Government
 And both large parties, as
they are equally Keynesian
and social-democratic. Rajoy’s
taxation and interventionism
so far beats the socialists’.
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
This crisis is the result of trans-party social democracy
 The first industry hit by the crisis was the banking industry,
because it had lent too much, and often with a high risk.
 Then the industrial sector was also hit, as it needed to settle
huge debts and get rid of malinvestments.
 This boosted our
traditionally high
unemployment
rates even further,
up to the current
disaster.
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
This crisis is the result of trans-party social democracy
 And finally, the public sector fell itself into crisis as it tried to
rescue large companies and especially banks, while also
maintaining a huge public expenditure, which had been
inflated by the tax money flow during the bubble years.
 Bubbles can’t be
extended, elongated
and overinflated
once and again.
They eventually
explode.
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
This crisis is the result of trans-party social democracy
 Spain as a country and Spaniards individually did live in an
artificial economy for decades. We grasshoppers often
disregarded any austerity suggestion from the Central and
Northern European ants who were actually funding us.
 We spent too much and too
unwisely while we received
enormous transfers of other
European taxpayers’ money,
as well as easy, cheap loans.
 Spain saw this coming, but our
politicians just kept inflating their
bubble and kicking the ball further.
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
This crisis is the result of trans-party social democracy
 This crisis serves us all well: our politicians, for doing it;
and the rest of us, for not resisting social-democracy.
 But it is unfair to our young: homeless, jobless, future-less.
 Brainwashed since childhood
to believe free services were
a right, they now feel robbed.
And because thinking hurts...
 …very few get it right: the
promises were false because
the premises were untrue: the
system was UNSUSTAINABLE.
“homeless, jobless, future-less... fearless”
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
This crisis is the result of trans-party social democracy
 The young are right to be angry, outraged (“indignados”).
 But they have been misled into blaming the wrong villains...
 ...and into demanding even more of the same:
•
•
•
•
•
More “rights” (services) for free, and therefore more of
other people’s tax money —or in fact, more debt.
More public sector and public
banks (yes, the ones that actually
went bankrupt in Spain!)
More easy loans for anyone.
More regulation of finance and
the rest of the economy.
MORE SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY
“Eat the rich”
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
2. How to get out of the maze
No long-lasting solution
can be engineered within
trans-party, Welfare State
social democracy.
A paradigm shift needs to be
induced onto our society:
 Collective >> Individual
 Coerced >> Voluntary
 State-run >> Privately held
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
Out of the crisis >> out of social democracy
 We classic liberals / libertarians believe that banks and any
other corporations in trouble should be rescued by their own
shareholders and creditors, NEVER by taxpayers.
 Therefore, we stand
for the enactment of
strong legal (or even
constitutional) provisions
to drastically prohibit any
future bailing out of
banks or any other kind
of businesses, no matter
how large.
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
Out of the crisis >> out of social democracy
 Bank privileges need to disappear.
 Central bank funding of commercial
banks under special conditions
and rates should be terminated.
 Deposit Guarantee Funds should
be dismantled.
 Central banks should be shut down,
and compulsory currency abolished.
 Free emission should be legal, with
an initial return to the gold standard.
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
Out of the crisis >> out of social democracy
 Simultaneously, we believe the new phenomenon of
decentralized, peer-to-peer currencies deserves
encouragement and a close study of its development.
 With all due PRUDENCE,
bitcoin or a similar currency
might provide an alternative
to the centralized control of
the money supply by any
issuer (public or private), as
tampering with the amount
of units is fully avoided by
the P2P technology used.
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
Out of the crisis >> out of social democracy
 Unemployment is partly due to minimum wages. Currently,
only workers producing over 14,000 euros per year can get a
job. We promote full wage liberalization.
 All taxation is a burden, but overtaxing employment with six
million unemployed is just suicidal. Drastic cuts are urgent.
 Collective negotiation
shouldn’t be compulsory.
Union privileges and state
funding must finish now.
 Union lobbying harms
small businesess and
independent workers.
Spain’s unions: still assaulting the Winter Palace.
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
Out of the crisis >> out of social democracy
 The Rajoy administration has increased taxes dramatically.
Our Tax Freedom Day is already on the 3rd of July for the
average Spaniard, if the employer’s
contributions are taken into account.
 VAT now contributes highly to the
average citizen’s unbearable tax effort.
 Apart from employment taxation, high
taxes also apply to petrol and power,
while new fees and charges proliferate.
 We believe that a drastic tax cut is
the only sensible economic “stimulus”.
Mariano Rajoy’s Spain:
30 tax increases in 16 months!
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
Out of the crisis >> out of social democracy
 We reject deficit calculations made on GDP. Our national
deficit is not around a mere 7%, but around 25% of the
state’s actual, true income. And this is every year!
 The point is not simply to balance our accounts. It’s no use to
do this by increasing taxation on businesses and citizens.
 Instead, state expenditure should be
decimated. But, which expenditure?
 Although we all want to return all key
services to civil society by privatising
and liberalising them, these are long
term reforms needing a transition.
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
Out of the crisis >> out of social democracy
 Privatising healthcare, education or the pension system is of
course necessary, but it takes time —and possibly a better
economic and social climate. Transitions may start (in fact,
the pension transition should begin as soon as possible)…
 …but the urgent cuts we need are in the
state’s own expenses, not necessarily in
the bad services the state still provides.
 We should cut the exaggerate amount
of civil servants, and especially over a
quarter of a million state employees
discretionarily hired by politicians (at
all levels: local, regional and national).
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
Out of the crisis >> out of social democracy
 We need to auction all state-owned companies, including
media corporations, railways, urban transportation, mail, toll
motorways, etcetera. A lot of real estate should also be sold.
 We need to stop subsidizing
businesses, including media,
and many large companies
in bed with the political elite.
 We should also reduce the cost
of our political system, and
prohibit subsidies to parties,
unions and any other types of
civil society entities.
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
Out of the crisis >> out of social democracy
 About Europe’s role, we classic liberals / libertarians are in
favour of a real free market with fully free circulation
of people, capital, goods and services.
 But we’re euro-critic when it comes to the expensive,
unaccountable
and often arrogant
eurocracy, which
is nowadays the
guardian of
Europe’s choice
for trans-party
social democracy.
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
Out of the crisis >> out of social democracy
 So far the euro and the ECB have been good for Spain in one
important way: they have prevented devaluation and
inflation. There is no doubt that our politicians would have
made an even worse mess if they
had controlled monetary policy.
 But of course, it’s still fiat money.
Within the current, un-Austrian
economic system, we should
support the euro only insofar as
it proves to work as a restraint
against domestic monetary abuse.
More Europe? Less Europe? A More Free Europe!
Out of the crisis >> out of social democracy
 We don’t think the point is more Europe or less Europe, a
more united monetary policy or a single European
supervision of banking. Forcing all other Europeans to share
our losses is unfair. And it may save us today, but then…?
 The point is to get rid of as much state interference in the
economy as possible, and this applies to both the national
and European level, and also to all sub-national levels.
 The historic task ahead is to separate economy and state just
like we managed to separate church and state.
 The point is, in other words…
A MORE FREE EUROPE!
Out of the crisis >> out of social democracy
 And for this we need to be as active as ever through think tanks,
 publishing, media, academia...
...but also in politics!
 No matter how much we dislike the system, we can’t keep
relinquishing the political battlefield to our enemies.
 Trying to make use of the system’s parties has proved to be
a worthless strategy. They won’t be changed from within.
 We need strongly Austrian, classic liberal / libertarian
parties that pursue their goals openly.
 Fortunately, such parties are being formed all throughout
Europe, and we make no compromise on Freedom.
Thank-you!
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@partidolibertad
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[email protected]
www.p-lib.es
You may download the
full presentation at:
www.p-lib.es/fmrs