Two Types of Freedom

 

In common with others, I regard the words ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ as interchangeable and I will also treat ‘rights’ and ‘entitlements’ as having equivalence.

Jean Jacques Rousseau said: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” – The Social Contract

What he meant by this was that government was only legitimate if it had the assent of the people through a ’social contract’. This was a revolutionary concept in the early 18^th century when European countries were largely led by monarchs claiming divine authority and rejecting the need for approval from their subjects. These kinds of ideas have been seen as influencing the French revolution and laying some of the philosophical roots of socialism.

By the 19^th century in Britain the ideas of Adam Smith about free markets and the Whig campaigns for free trade strengthened views about the importance of freedom of the individual and property rights. Into the 20^th century writers like Dickens and then the horrors of the 1^st WW, the depression and then the 2^nd WW decisively shifted thought towards the need for the state to provide a comprehensive framework of welfare so that nobody should suffer complete destitution. So the welfare state, which made its first, tentative steps in Lloyd George’s ‘People’s Budget’ of 1909, became fully fledged with the Beveridge report (Full Employment in a Free Society) of 1944 and the legislative programme of the 1945 Labour Government.

The best known modern philosopher to deal with freedom is Sir Isaiah Berlin in his 1958 lecture ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ and his later ‘Four Essays on Liberty’, and it is from his work that this paper is drawn. Berlin examined the difference between what he called the negative freedoms and positive freedoms. Unfortunately these terms carry value connotations which I would prefer to avoid so I will refer to freedoms ‘to’ or freedoms ‘from’.

‘This is a free society’ is a familiar response to perceived abuse of authority by Police or officials, but what is freedom, and a free society? For Rousseau it was sufficient that laws were enacted with the consent of people exercising free will. In that respect, so far as democracies work properly, we are free.

Berlin points out that this doesn’t really get far enough into freedom to be satisfactory. We are all free to lunch at the Ritz, take a box at the Royal Opera House, dine at Claridges and then while away the night drinking fine champagne at the tables of an exclusive gaming club. The problem with that is that most of us lack the means to enjoy such freedoms

It was necessary, he said, to consider whether people were free from hunger, free from fear, free from exposure to the cold of winter without shelter or adequate clothing. This brings us back to the idea that genuine freedom must involve some sort of fairness to the extent that nobody should be so lacking in the capacity to meet such fundamental things as survival needs because that surely takes away their freedom to live.

It becomes clear that establishing some freedoms may take away others and a moral or political judgement must be made on which types of freedom should have priority.

A new phase of development started with the Labour government which came to power in 1974 when we had a wave of legislation on equal pay, anti racism and health and safety aiming to provide freedom from discrimination, prejudice and risk. The change to Thatcherism in 1979 limited the strength of the trade unions, but did nothing to undo the 1974 reforms and when New Labour became the government in 1997 a new wave of laws prohibiting discrimination against gay people, disabled or older people as well as prohibitions on religious hatred being expressed. The state has now entrenched a position in which the law protects freedom from being offended or inconvenienced above the freedom to think, speak or write freely.

As we start to get into the detail, the distinction between freedoms of the ‘to’ and ‘from’ types can become complex. The freedom to smoke in a club, bar or restaurant has been removed in the name of giving staff and others the freedom from secondary smoke. Of course the freedom from secondary smoke is the freedom to breathe smoke free air and resorting to terms like negative or positive freedom does not help in this context.

Anyway, I think we can all recognise the difference between freedom representing an absence of constraint and freedom meaning an enablement to benefit from something that is seen as something which one ought to be able to do or have.

I started nearly three centuries ago with the evolution of ideas of freedom under the law and freedom to have one’s property protected by the state and moved to a current situation in Britain in which freedom has moved so much towards entitlement that the nature of freedom has been obscured in the public mind.

It is no longer a case of ‘I thought this was a free society’ to one of ‘I know my rights’.

When freedom from want has come to embrace a commitment to eliminate child poverty, among many other similar commitments, the freedom of the working citizen to use the product of their own labour has been greatly constrained by the tax burden and the maintenance of the national debt. It is obvious that when you define child poverty as the situation in which a child lives in a household living on less than 60% of the median income you cannot do that unless you also eliminate most differences in income. To do either thing requires massive redistribution of wealth away from those who produced it to those who didn’t. This in turn, as Adam Smith comprehensively showed, would result in a fall in national income. Paradoxically this could result in the child freed from relative poverty being absolutely poorer than before this absurd objective was achieved.

Today in Britain between two thirds and three quarters of households receive more in state benefits than they pay in taxes. The top one percent of earners pay twenty five percent of tax. Approximately forty three percent of the economy is directly controlled by the government and one in five employed people works for local or national government (that does not include the large number of people employed by quangos or large charities receiving government grants, etc.). Communist China has a more free enterprise economy than the capitalist UK, and the GDP of China has overtaken that of Britain.

Where the elimination of want by use of state benefits has extended to the point where providing for oneself and ones family has become a lifestyle choice; is part of being human lost? Where the state is a universal parent and no citizen is allowed to fully grow up, hasn’t some vital element of the freedom to live been lost.

Berlin was right to distinguish between different types of freedom. Should we now return to this subject as philosophers and examine whether we can probe further into what it means to be free?

As far as I am concerned, I think the government is taking a liberty, but like Mr Humphries in ‘Are You Being Served’. I’m free!

Wirral Libertarians New Year New Party

 

Yes it is something to get really excited about. Not just a drink and the company of good friends although it will be that I am sure.

What this is really about is getting together to discuss the problems of Wirral and finding solutions through clean, decent, honest politics. In recent times our politicians have disgraced themselves by their secrecy, deception and fiddled expenses, but the truth is that we cannot do without government or politics. We have to do politics differently.

Instead of Party puppets who vote however the whips tell them, Libertarians believe in independence and individuals who are happy to be held to account for everything they do and say. The Government that has bankrupted this country is probably in its last weeks, but there will be no solution from Caneron’s Tories who offer nothing other than Blairism with a blue rosette. The Liberal Democrats are a directionless irrelevance who will be used by one of the two big parties as crutch to help them cling onto power.

What has been happening to us for too many years now is that government has grown and taxes have been increased by stealth until the state now directly controls nearly half of the economy and you cannot move without being on CCTV, needing a Police check or permit, or having to follow endless amounts of expensive and useless red tape.

Libertarians know the way to get lower taxes, safer streets, full employment and freedom from officials interfering in the private lives and decisions of adult citizens, but I can’t deal with all that in this note. We need to get together and discuss it.

Please come along and join us at 8pm on Wednesday 13^th January 2010 at:

Punch Bowl Hotel
77 Market St

Hoylake
Wirral
Merseyside
CH47 2BH

The pub is a five minute walk from Hoylake railway station. If you are unsure how to find it please contact me for further directions.

Everyone is welcome. You do not have to be a member of the Libertarian Party UK. The meeting will be relaxed, friendly and informal. At this first meeting we will be getting to know each other and having a chat about what Libertarianism is. I am delighted to tell you that Councillor David Kirwan, Prospective Independent MP for Wirral West, is in agreement with the Libertarian approach and will be coming to our meetings. This is your opportunity to meet the man who will break the grip of the failed Parties in Wirral and take a truly independent, honest voice to represent us at Westminster.

We look forward to meeting you.

Best regards

Malcolm Saunders

malpoet@hotmail.co.uk

Sons of Liberty

Listen to Frank Turner. Great folk rock artist singing for freedom.

 

http://www.we7.com/track/Sons-Of-Liberty?trackId=3203453&m=0

Liberty and knowledge

 

Free choice in education

Vouched safe with Libertarians.

All Hail President Rompoy and Foreign Minister Ashton

Rompoy and Ashton have no legitimacy. When they spend our money and speak on our behalf throughout the world there will be no way for us to hold them to account for what they do.

Queen Elizabeth is an unelected, unaccountable head of state, not just of the United Kingdom, but of dependencies and former colonies scattered across the globe; the remnants of a long gone empire.

The monarchy has a place in history, but no legitimacy in a modern democracy. All that could be said for the monarchy is that its powers have been effectively removed.

This is not the case for the unelected and unaccountable members of the House of Lords, including the bishops of the established church, who happily lie about where they live to collect massive ‘expenses’
 while passing laws to interfere ever more in our lives. This affront to democracy is an even greater anachronism than the monarchy.

Monarchy, aristocracy, state religion and a secretive, establishment judiciary all have the excuse of history and tradition to justify themselves. That is a weak excuse which freedom lovers should reject.

When it comes to the United Nations, which is a clique of the victorious powers of 1945, having no democratic legitimacy; the EU, which has been cobbled together in an authoritarian way, to prevent the re-emergence of German nationalism and then to consolidate the victory in the cold war we have anti democratic affronts growing up in our own times and we should be far more ashamed of that.

To cap it all, our daily lives are run by 800 quangos spending £35 billion pounds every year. Appointed by cronies, accountable to nobody, these people are the embodiment of the snooper, nanny state that steals our money and controls our lives.

Rompoy is a parasitic nonentity put in place by a cabal of Euro oligarchs. Give him the respect he deserves. At the same time help us get rid of the unrepresentative parasites on our doorstep who really control our lives.

Being Quango’ed into a Soviet State

 

The reason why western democracies have the highest standards of living in the world and why the Soviet Union and its satellites collapsed in economic ruin is that wealth creation is driven by private enterprise.

 

When the state owns and controls most of the economy the generation of new ideas and products withers. This causes public discontent because they are deprived of the things they need and which they can see being enjoyed in freer societies. The government which cannot face letting go of the control that it has grabbed from its own citizens can only respond by ever more interference in personal choice.

 

When the Labour Government came to power in 1997 about 33% to 35% of the British economy was owned and controlled by the government. That was an unacceptably high proportion and very damaging to the efficient development of wealth creating companies. The laws we have to control monopolies and to try to stop large corporations from completely dominating a market define an unacceptable monopoly as control of one third or more of a market. On this basis the British Government had a monopoly grip on our economy even in 1997. Since then the government stake in gross domestic product (GDP) has risen to nearly 45% and it is growing at an increasing rate.

 

According to Dominic Lawson in the Sunday Times there were almost 1,200 quango’s in 2001 costing £20 billion a year to run. By last year the cost of quango’s had risen to £34.5 billion a year. In just seven years the quango bill has risen by 75% at a time when inflation has only been around 2.5% and at the moment it is close to zero.

 

This government has taken the country into near bankruptcy. We have a national debt so huge that our grandchildren we be left with trying to pay it off and it is still increasing at a rate of £200 billion a year.

 

Desperate all the time to find more money to finance their lust for control, the government continually increases taxes. The recent increase in top rate income tax from 40% to 50% will actually produce almost nothing if not even reduce the tax take because high earners will move away, but an even more damaging consequence is that the decline of the wealth producing sector will accelerate. This is the road to collapse that killed off European communism twenty years ago.

 

We need to call a halt before we are all ground into destitution and subservience. A good start is to kill off the quangos.

NICE is Nasty

 

NICE is a bloated quango which interferes in which medicines we may or may not be permitted to use. Apart from providing excessive incomes and gold plated pensions to its over sized staff, the purpose of this body was supposed to improve health care by regulating the introduction of new treatments and ending a ‘postcode lottery’ of availability. For those who may not know, quango means quasi-autonomous non-government organisation. That in turn means a mysteriously appointed, completely unaccountable bunch of politicians cronies who interfere in the lives of everybody.

 

What is often attacked and derided as a ‘postcode lottery’ is actually the healthy variation that results from local services being provided appropriately to meet local needs. Crofters in the Hebrides do not have the same health issues or requirements as coke snorting, champagne swillers in Knightsbridge. While ordinary people can recognise that, the nanny loving broadcast media and their mates in government cannot.

 

It is now reported that a sub committee this nasty NICE bureaucracy has done some work at the request of the Department of Health (HaHa – Department of Sickness Management and Drug Administration wouldn’t have quite the same ring would it?) and come up with the recommendation that Council staff and Health & Safety inspectors should be given the right to enter every parent’s home to check if you have stair gates, hot water temperature restrictors, window locks and a whole load of other stuff. Many of these things could be useful and sensible, but all of them are things to be decided by adults dealing with the needs and priorities of their lives. We all know what the result of the snooping would be. Apart from the terrible invasion of privacy, branding people with different approaches to the bureaucrats as child harming criminals and the further infantilisation of every citizen there would be prosecution of poor parents so that their difficult lives would be made impossible. The next thing would be to take some of these children into institutional care where they would be exposed to abuse and condemned to a future in which they would have a far greater likelihood of becoming criminals or abusers in adult life.

 

If all this was not bad enough, NICE also recommends a new government database to allow GPs, midwives and other officials visiting homes to log health and safety concerns they spot. These people would be asked to provide home safety advice and where necessary conduct a home risk assessment.

 

“If possible they should supply and install home safety equipment”

 

This revolting, Orwellian garbage has been put out to consultation with the intention of introducing it next year. We must tell the government clearly and quickly to scrap this stupid idea now. My own children are long grown up, but if any of these busybodies want to come and check on my grandchildren or great grandchildren in my home I can only suggest that they preserve their own safety by not exposing themselves to the risks they would face by coming here.

 

Doctors, midwives, etc. are well regarded for their professional skills and services. I wonder how people would feel about them if they are turned into Stasi style state snoopers?

Childcare Vouchers

 

Two parents who are both higher rate tax payers can receive up to £2,400 per year of public money towards their child care. Who is paying for these wealthy families to bring up their children while they follow their fulfilling lives? All of the rest of us of course, but the burden falls hardest on people with low incomes who still have to buy clothes, furniture and all the other necessities of life and for whom VAT is a bigger proportion of their commitments than it is for the wealthy.

 

In a cynical attempt to buy middle class votes the Labour Government introduced this mad scheme and now he has bankrupted the economy Gordon Brown is trying to stop it. His big problem is that he doesn’t command any authority in his own party and the Labour MP’s who are scared of losing their seats are threatening to vote against him.

 

Face up to it Gordon, you do not have the remotest chance of winning a general election whenever you call it. Having wrecked the economy, crippled business and swamped us with a multitude of idiot laws in your periods as Chancellor and PM you must spend your last months making sure that the debt burden you pass on to our children and grandchildren does not get any worse.

 

You must scrap the childcare vouchers. It will go through parliament because the Tories will have to support it. You have to ignore Caroline Flint and her mates, the country cannot afford to feather bed the wealthy. If they threaten to throw you out as PM just say thank you. Months of misery from the revolting Sun followed by a humiliating defeat at the polls will do your family and health no good. Better to go down now by doing the right thing.

Twitter

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http://twitter.com/Malpoet

 

Poverty, Welfare & Big Government

 

The Labour Government set an impossible target to reduce child poverty and then it damaged the economy so badly by its excessive spending, enormous debt creation and crippling burden of bureaucracy on business that it made every one of us poorer than we should be.

 

David Cameron is quite right in saying that there needs to be smaller government and that individuals and voluntary organisations should be encouraged to take more responsibility improving their own life opportunities and assisting people close to them when they face difficult times. Our interfering state has made it increasingly difficult for people to help out with child care, volunteer in a youth group or do any kind of constructive community activity. The bureaucratic systems set up by local government and some of the huge charities have no ability to build genuine relationships with the people they are supposed to serve. Although usually well intentioned to begin with, they become self serving empires for their managers and the staff get reduced to box ticking target hunters rather than genuine carers.

 

The problem with the Tories is that they have not put forward any concrete proposals to show how they would cut the interfering state and we know that in government they will be hard to distinguish from the appalling Labour government they hope to replace.

 

The welfare dependency that has been built up over decades, including such deceptions as the incapacity system introduced by Thatcher to try to hide unemployment, cannot be wiped out overnight, but real progress must be made immediately.

 

Cameron says that people should not be worse off when they go off benefit into work. Of course not. He will not achieve that by fiddling with tax credits. The tax credit system is a costly, over complex, bureaucratic monster that needs to be scrapped. Incapacity benefit must be ended and the benefits for all people without work frozen at their current level.

 

As wages increase and benefits stay fixed the incentive to find work and not be penalised for taking it increases.