By John Kampfner
Simon & Schuster £18.99, 304 pages
It is no longer a startling observation that the more western governments have spoken about freedom and democracy in the struggle against their enemies, the more the freedom part, at least, has been curtailed. In Britain, the Thatcher government tightened the screws on freedom of expression. The Blair government went further in curtailing historical rights such as habeas corpus and free speech.
In my view, the most profound study of this process in its historical context is Ben Wilson’s What Price Liberty? John Kampfner’s Freedom for Sale, on the other hand, makes up in breadth what it lacks in depth. While Wilson was mainly concerned with Britain, with a few glances across the Atlantic, Kampfner, a British political journalist, includes the US, Italy, Russia, Singapore, China, India and the Arab Emirates, and in nearly all he discovers similar erosion. Like Wilson, he attacks the thesis that capitalism inevitably leads to personal and political freedom as well as democracy. He cites Benjamin Franklin, who declared in 1755 that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”. The excuse has always been that freedom is sacrificed for prosperity and security. Kampfner is inclined to concede that there might be something in this.
If he had only included the Scandinavian countries, for instance, in his survey, he could have seen that personal and political freedom need not be an impediment to prosperity. Too many businessmen regard critics of the Chinese and Russian regimes as doctrinaire nuisances who impede their making of money.
Security is more difficult; but Kampfner has little difficulty in showing that the restraints imposed by the Blair government went far beyond the legitimate struggle against terrorism. During his term of office Blair “had bequeathed to his successor a surveillance state unrivalled anywhere in the democratic world”.
It seems to me that the problem with Blair was – to put it kindly – an aversion to abstract thought. Hence his sneering remarks about the liberal tradition. With Gordon Brown it is different. He believes the hallmark of progressive thinking is a positive attitude to the state against “right wing” laisser faire. While this attitude stems from a preoccupation with the economic and social arguments of the 20th century, it spills over into a carelessness about civil liberties as well. In practice both New Labour prime ministers were guided by the demands of the security chiefs and the desire to be seen to be “tough”.
Politicians and mandarins tend to confuse politically embarrassing leaks with threats to national security, as Kampfner points out. On a more trivial but revealing level, Kampfner quotes a French journalist writing from the UK: “Here you are actively encouraged to denounce your neighbour for not paying road tax or putting a bin out early … There are councils that spy on their taxpayers as if they were common criminals… the Home Office proposes to set up a database holding information on every telephone call made, every email sent and every website visited by every single British citizen.” Nor do the media, who value excessively their access to top government figures, come off much better. To get the point, you only have to hear or read that “Brown has decided” or “Cameron has decided” on matters where these politicians thankfully still have no such power.
Kampfner pessimistically accepts that an authoritarian capitalism on the Singapore model is spreading worldwide: the people have made their Faustian bargain. Yet I still cherish the hope, not that the masses will read John Stuart Mill, but that enough personal experiences of the basic inhumanity of this model will lead to some kind of liberal reaction in some countries and some times.
Posts
