Like many people of a literary inclination, I read the Guardian with attention and often with advantage. It seems to me that the literary pages are lucid and well-judged, and the finest of their kind amongst the quality papers. But as a libertarian I find myself at odds with a strain of politics endemic to the paper which assumes that the majority of people are incapable of organising their own lives, and should be regulated minutely by the state.
The Guardian is a complex and heterogeneous animal, but it has tended too often to represent and give voice to the bureaucratic side of the left. I do not find this merely an irritating quirk. It genuinely annoys me. This is largely because of my belief that during the past century, more harm has been done by the authoritarian left who believed that the state should control all aspects of society than the fascist right. Hitler’s count of 20 million deaths through war and genocide is exceeded by the estimated 100 million (and probably more) deaths caused by Stalin and Mao.
I do not think this strand of the British left wing establishment is Stalinist or Maoist (though I do wonder at the sentimental affection shown towards Castro by Labour figures such as Harriet Harman). At the same time, it seems to me that a bureaucratic left which believes that the state knows better than the adult citizen how that citizen’s life should be controlled and regulated is separated from its authoritarian cousins only by a matter of degree. If the left is to be a consistent and humane progressive force, it should detach itself not only quantitatively but qualitatively from the belief that state intervention is the answer to all problems.
As a libertarian, I’m going to set up another occasional blog called “antiGuardian”. The central assumption will be that the great majority of adults are capable of running their lives with intelligence and discrimination, and the state’s function should be highly limited to areas of clear benefit and optimum impact. The essence of this position was summarised by Walter Lippman, the American political commentator, who wrote, “In a free society, the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs.” I aim to comment each week on the tendency that the state should intervene at every level, and to draw attention to some of the more egregious examples.
Having said that, I would be the first to admit that there are some fine things in the Guardian, and that credit should be given where credit is due. In a second posting in antiGuardian, I have commented on (and liberally quoted from) a superb recent article by Elizabeth Pisani, an epidemiologist who specialises in HIV prevention. She argues that the attitude towards the oldest profession epitomised by the disgraced New York state govern Eliot Spitzer — that prostitution is a form of “slavery” and should be suppressed — is just as damaging as the traditionally repressive views of the religious right. Social policies, she argues, should be moulded on reality, not morality — whether that morality is the disapproval of the conservative right, or the insistence, in some parts of the left, that all prostitutes are victims.
The Guardian is a complex and heterogeneous animal, but it has tended too often to represent and give voice to the bureaucratic side of the left. I do not find this merely an irritating quirk. It genuinely annoys me. This is largely because of my belief that during the past century, more harm has been done by the authoritarian left who believed that the state should control all aspects of society than the fascist right. Hitler’s count of 20 million deaths through war and genocide is exceeded by the estimated 100 million (and probably more) deaths caused by Stalin and Mao.
I do not think this strand of the British left wing establishment is Stalinist or Maoist (though I do wonder at the sentimental affection shown towards Castro by Labour figures such as Harriet Harman). At the same time, it seems to me that a bureaucratic left which believes that the state knows better than the adult citizen how that citizen’s life should be controlled and regulated is separated from its authoritarian cousins only by a matter of degree. If the left is to be a consistent and humane progressive force, it should detach itself not only quantitatively but qualitatively from the belief that state intervention is the answer to all problems.
As a libertarian, I’m going to set up another occasional blog called “antiGuardian”. The central assumption will be that the great majority of adults are capable of running their lives with intelligence and discrimination, and the state’s function should be highly limited to areas of clear benefit and optimum impact. The essence of this position was summarised by Walter Lippman, the American political commentator, who wrote, “In a free society, the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs.” I aim to comment each week on the tendency that the state should intervene at every level, and to draw attention to some of the more egregious examples.
Having said that, I would be the first to admit that there are some fine things in the Guardian, and that credit should be given where credit is due. In a second posting in antiGuardian, I have commented on (and liberally quoted from) a superb recent article by Elizabeth Pisani, an epidemiologist who specialises in HIV prevention. She argues that the attitude towards the oldest profession epitomised by the disgraced New York state govern Eliot Spitzer — that prostitution is a form of “slavery” and should be suppressed — is just as damaging as the traditionally repressive views of the religious right. Social policies, she argues, should be moulded on reality, not morality — whether that morality is the disapproval of the conservative right, or the insistence, in some parts of the left, that all prostitutes are victims.
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