A restraint of liberty — by George Monbiot
Faced with a choice between market freedom and human life, governments have chosen to preserve the former
George Monbiot
Tuesday May 24, 2005
The Guardian
The British government recognises two kinds of freedom. There is the freedom of the citizen, which it appears to perceive as a threat to good order. It has permitted (through the Serious Organised Crime Act) the police or courts to ban any public protest. It is introducing identity cards, restricting immigration, seeking to curb the right of habeas corpus and extending antisocial behaviour orders.
Then there is the freedom of business. Though the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise are already incapable of dealing with tax evaders, Gordon Brown is cutting 10,000 of their staff. Tony Blair is trying to destroy the European working time directive, which prevents companies from working their employees to death. The draconian measures in the Queen's speech restraining the citizen were immediately followed by a promise to deregulate business. The government is prepared to micro-manage us, while leaving the more powerful agents - the corporations - free to manage themselves.
Like the patricians in Coriolanus, Tony Blair will "repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain the poor". For business to be free, we must be kept in check.
This isn't, according to the high priest of this religion, how it was meant to be. Adam Smith held that market freedom was desirable for one reason: that it improved people's lives. Where he perceived that it had the opposite effect, he called for restraint. "Those exertions of the natural liberty of a few individuals, which might endanger the security of the whole society, are, and ought to be, restrained by the laws of all governments," he wrote. Governments have "the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it". [...]
Click here for the full comment piece published by the Guardian.
George Monbiot
Tuesday May 24, 2005
The Guardian
The British government recognises two kinds of freedom. There is the freedom of the citizen, which it appears to perceive as a threat to good order. It has permitted (through the Serious Organised Crime Act) the police or courts to ban any public protest. It is introducing identity cards, restricting immigration, seeking to curb the right of habeas corpus and extending antisocial behaviour orders.
Then there is the freedom of business. Though the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise are already incapable of dealing with tax evaders, Gordon Brown is cutting 10,000 of their staff. Tony Blair is trying to destroy the European working time directive, which prevents companies from working their employees to death. The draconian measures in the Queen's speech restraining the citizen were immediately followed by a promise to deregulate business. The government is prepared to micro-manage us, while leaving the more powerful agents - the corporations - free to manage themselves.
Like the patricians in Coriolanus, Tony Blair will "repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain the poor". For business to be free, we must be kept in check.
This isn't, according to the high priest of this religion, how it was meant to be. Adam Smith held that market freedom was desirable for one reason: that it improved people's lives. Where he perceived that it had the opposite effect, he called for restraint. "Those exertions of the natural liberty of a few individuals, which might endanger the security of the whole society, are, and ought to be, restrained by the laws of all governments," he wrote. Governments have "the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it". [...]
Click here for the full comment piece published by the Guardian.
posted by Sean M. Madden at
11:51 AM
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