Samizdata quotes of the day

Guy Herbert (London) · Opinions on liberty · Slogans & Quotations

Where coercive institutions are strong a fanatical minority is well placed to capture them and turn them to its own purposes.

– Natalie Solent, in this discussion, which is a an interesting touchstone of liberalism.

November 21st, 2006 |

4 comments to Samizdata quotes of the day

• Robin Goodfellow

  November 22, 2006 at 10:23 am

  That is quite an excellent and succinct summation of the reasons for individual liberty and responsibility and against statism and tyranny. I shall have to remember it.

  What I find particularly interesting, and distressing, about the current political climate in the west is the simultaneous popularity of ideas of massive government perfidy and support for greater concentration of responsibility and power in the government. It’s as if people lack even the most basic of reasoning skills to understand the dissonance of these ideas. I think the reality is that most such folks do not honestly believe in widespread western government malevolence (else, they would be expending much more than words in efforts to escape or change the government). Which implies that we have reached a state where it is no longer possible to discuss matters of supreme importance, such as the balance of government power and individual liberty, with any degree of honesty. Or, perhaps it is more that many people have given up the idea of individual responsibility and cannot imagine responsibility vested anywhere other than the corporation or the state, which is perhaps even more distressing.

• Freeman

  November 22, 2006 at 11:36 am

  I wish, in a way, that Robin Goodfellow had not written his above comments. Unfortunately, they are so true that they make depressing reading.

• Ivan

  November 22, 2006 at 8:40 pm

  Robin Goodfellow:

  What I find particularly interesting, and distressing, about the current political climate in the west is the simultaneous popularity of ideas of massive government perfidy and support for greater concentration of responsibility and power in the government. It’s as if people lack even the most basic of reasoning skills to understand the dissonance of these ideas. I think the reality is that most such folks do not honestly believe in widespread western government malevolence (else, they would be expending much more than words in efforts to escape or change the government).

  One possible explanation is that the people really are dependent on the government more and more, whether they like it or not. In recent decades, the Western society has been moving in the direction of greater individualism in the sense of the decreasing strength of traditional, non-governmental social institutions, such as kinship, neighborhoods, churches, and networks of (true) friends. However, as these institutions decay and perish, people instinctively seek a replacement — and the only readily available one is the government. Hence the need and support for the welfare nanny-state, while the politicians naturally find it highly profitable to play on this card. Thus the modern individualism brought by the collapse of the traditional social institutions has found itself retreating before the government taking over their functions with ever increasing harshness and severity.

  I think that a modern statist would generally agree with the above analysis, but claim that such a development is in fact positive, since the government — supposedly — does a far superior job than the traditional social institutions and delivers uniform treatment to everyone. Observe for example those “it’s for the children” arguments used to justify all sorts of intrusive nanny-statist policies, and the replies one will get if one instead tries to argue in favor of the old-fashioned model where parents are supposed to take responsibility for their offspring.

  Which implies that we have reached a state where it is no longer possible to discuss matters of supreme importance, such as the balance of government power and individual liberty, with any degree of honesty. Or, perhaps it is more that many people have given up the idea of individual responsibility and cannot imagine responsibility vested anywhere other than the corporation or the state, which is perhaps even more distressing.

  I would say it’s the latter. People have nowadays almost completely given up the idea that any sort of power and responsibility may exist outside the government. Even when it comes to corporations (in the sense of private companies), they are viewed with utmost suspicion, being mostly non-governmental creations. Most people nowadays believe that it’s only the benevolent protection by the government that prevents those evil corporations from putting shackles around our necks.

  From my personal life experience, I can compare the modern Western society with that of a country which is still lagging behind the West by about a generation when it comes to the above-described processes. Personally, in such a transition, I was equally stricken both by the level of decay of the informal, traditional sorts of bonds between people and by the scope of the governmental regulation touching on all imaginable aspects of everyday life.

• Paul Marks

  November 23, 2006 at 4:42 pm

  I think Guy is right about this. What is the point of banning certain forms of dress?

  If a person wants to ban a style of dress in their own property (home, shop, whatever) they should, of course, be free to do so – without any nonsense about “discrimination” (being able to “discriminate”, i.e. to choose, is what freedom is).

  But the government comming along and saying “if you dress like a strict Muslim we are going to fine you or put you in jail”, what is that supposed to achieve?

  Let us suppose that certain forms of Islam are hostile to the West (I would agree that they are), making people dress differently (via threats of punishment) is not going to change the ideas in the minds of these Muslims.

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