The Trap: Whatever happened to our dreams of freedom? (part 1)

Last night BBC2 showed the first part of The Trap: Whatever happened to our dreams of freedom?, a three part series by Adam Curtis that argues that post-war initiatives that aimed to set mankind free have in fact created new means of entrapment. Curtis was the producer of The Power of Nightmares, an excellent three-part documentary that showed how the neo-conservatives and Al Qaeda both exploited fear of enemies abroad and moral decline at home to dominate the political agenda and promote their own conservative beliefs.

In the first part, subtitled F*** you, buddy!, Curtis discussed how various different branches of scientific thought converged around the paranoia born of the Cold War. My main criticism of the first episode was that it failed to do more than set the scene. It may be that this will lead to fascinating insights in the next two programmes (he has already promised to show how it all led to the culture of “spin”) but the fact remains that the programme did not stand alone, and left too much of the analysis for later episodes.

It began with F. A. Hayek’s warning (available in full or in summary) that governmental efforts to manage the economy would lead not to the tempering of the excesses of capitalism but down a road that led ultimately to enslavement by the state. In fact this was barely touched upon before Curtis had moved on, but before he did so he presented a vary negative view of Hayek’s position, suggesting that his belief in a self-correcting system, in which individuals pursuing self-interest would promote a common good, relied upon the assumption that mankind was essentially selfish and callous.

I will dwell upon that for a moment both because I feel it misrepresented Hayek’s views on liberty, and because it calls into question Curtis’s assessment of other strands of thinking during the programme, about which I have less knowledge and so cannot exercise judgement.. Hayek was quoted as saying that there was no room for altruism in his theory. However, as those who have read Hayek should recognise, his theory does not in fact deny the altruism within people, nor does is suggest that altruism is not a good and worthy thing. Hayek’s concern was that government, with its unique power to coerce individuals, should not attempt to correct the self-regulating mechanism – even for altruistic ends – because ultimately those ends were the ends of fallible (and sometimes selfish) individuals. Instead it should create a sound and predictable legal framework that protected the liberty of individuals, who would then be free to pursue their own interests (even altruistic ones) that would as a by-product benefit mankind. This belief goes back at least as far as Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”.

The programme’s quickly moved on the main point, which was that there were those who thought that mankind could be liberated by rationalising him as an isolated, self-interested and ultimately callous creature (a rather sinister version of the individual at the heart of the Enlightenment). I will attempt to summarise this, though as I only have a limited knowledge of the subject matter I may make some errors – which may be due to my misunderstanding the programme or to its misrepresentation of the facts.

The story begins with the Game Theory logic of the Rand Corporation – promoted by the not-so-beautiful mind of John Nash – which suggested that individuals could never trust one another and so would always prosper if they adopted the most cynical assumptions about one another. Meanwhile, psychiatrist R. D. Laing had proved that much psychiatry was based not on science but a socially-constructed concept of the “normal”, and the role of psychiatry was to force those that were different back into the societal mould. Laing became the father of the anti-psychiatry movement and inspired the Rosenhan Experiment, which suggested that psychiatrists had no idea who was sane and who was not. The result was that psychiatrists were forced to admit that they had no idea what was wrong with the mind, and so the field shifted its attention from focussing on causes (schizophrenia, manic-depression) to symptoms defined by observable phenomena (ADHD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder).

Meanwhile, back in economics, Public Choice Theory (outlined in, for example, The Vote Motive) had fatally undermined concepts such as the “public interest” and “public service”, demonstrating that politicians, civil servants and those working for the state were just as self-interested as those in any other walk of life. As Northcote Parkinson and Yes, Minister captured so humorously, everyone in public service was primarily trying to protect and promote their own interests; the “public interest” was just a cover for what was at best individuals’ concept of what was right and wrong, and at worst selfish rent-seeking.

The result of these three revolutions was a belief that the mess that many nations found themselves in by the 1960s and 1970s was caused by the naïve belief that the public good could be promoted by wise men in ivory towers rationalising the process with the disinterested altruism of platonic guardians. Not surprisingly, there were those who wanted to sweep aside this belief, and the entrenched interest groups that it protected. These included a number of right-wing think tanks. Their proposed solution was to exploit the self-interest of public servants to promote more effective outcomes: for example, by giving incentives to them to achieve results.

Sadly, this proved rather less successful in practice that in theory. Robert McNamara’s attempts to run the Vietnam War as a mathematical exercise, calculating exactly how much explosive tonnage needed to be dropped to achieve the cowed submission of the Communists, resulted in failure and resignation; in attempting to achieve body counts that met their targets, self-interested soldiers would kill anything that looked like a Viet Cong fighter, which in a guerrilla war meant just about anyone. Margaret Thatcher’s NHS reforms began the process – so beloved of Gordon Brown – of setting central targets for local hospitals and financially rewarding or penalising them accordingly. It has been an ill-starred venture.

And that is where the programme left off. There was no broad analysis or discussion; no sense of conclusion; and no clear vision of where the rest of the series would take us. We were left dangling in the wind, waiting for Mr. Curtis to explain it all on BBC2 next Sunday at 9pm and the Sunday following.

I have my reservations. Firstly, as I outlined regarding the approach to Hayek, Mr. Curtis’s analysis is not always correct – he is stronger on his psychiatric home-ground than on other topics. Secondly, I fear that his intention is to question much of what has happened in the past thirty years. While there have undoubtedly been colossal failures and terrible errors, there have also been successes and benefits: it is a sign of how much time has elapsed that some are now able to look fondly upon the 1960s and 1970s as though they were some sort of golden age, rather than a wasteland of inflation and unemployment, bubbling revolution and counter-revolution, and abject poverty. If it is Mr. Curtis’s intention to suggest that the positive elements of the revolution of the past thirty years – the deregulation and liberalisation that has led to wealth and freedom beyond the imagination of those living through the Winter of Discontent – have been accompanied by a creeping centralisation and rising state power, then he is correct (and in good journalistic company). But if, as I suspect, he intends to suggest that we would all be better off returning to the age of collectivism and public duty, of trusting citizens and paternalistic administrators, then he is simply swapping a flawed concept of freedom for no freedom at all.


I have separately reviewed part 2 and part 3. Curtis's conclusion and my analysis of it are discussed in a final post.

The Great Global Warming Swindle?

Last night I watched The Great Global Warming Swindle on Channel 4. It was a very interesting programme, whether or not one believes in anthropomorphic global warming. In essence, it argued that

1) Our climate is always changing. The current change is not out of the ordinary if one considers the Little Ice Age of C16-C18th, or the Medieval Warm Period

2) Man produces only a small amount of carbon dioxide compared with natural causes

3) Changes in carbon dioxide do not precede global warming. They follow global warming

4) If the theory of climate change science is correct, temperatures should be rising more rapidly in the troposphere. This is not the case

5) Global temperatures are dependent on cloud formation, which in turn are seeded by sub-atomic particles from the sun. In periods of high solar activity, such as now, fewer particles reach the earth leading to fewer clouds and therefore more warming

6) Support for global warming science began in the 1980s with an unholy alliance of anti-capitalists and anti-coal Thatcherites; after the death of communism, environmentalism became a useful rack on which to hang otherwise-discredited socialist beliefs

7) Promoting climate change was a great way for climate scientists to leverage money for their research. It has since become a way for any researcher to attract cash. It has spawned a massive industry that is now devoted to protecting its “rents”.

8) The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change is a political body, and its findings are shaped by politics, not science. Of the thousands of scientists listed as contributing, many are not scientific contributors but reviewers and government officials. Other scientists that demurred from the agreed position had their names added to the IPCC’s list of supporting scientists anyway. Sceptical portions of the IPCC’s report were excluded in the final draft

9) The global environmental movement has been radicalised by its own success: once they became mainstream, movements such as Greenpeace could only continue to make headlines and generate revenue by becoming ever more extreme (e.g. their campaign to ban chlorine, an element!).

10) Efforts to convince Third World nations to limit their development to the use of renewable energy sources will retard their economic development and leave them mired in poverty.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten large parts of it, but I think that’s a reasonable précis. Other viewers are welcome to add (or disagree with) bits.

What was interesting was that the programme interviewed many physical and climatic scientists from renowned institutions (including MIT and Harvard), as well as Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder and critic of Greenpeace and now a hate figure for some environmentalists. On the one hand this would appear to undermine the suggestion that only a few kooks and petrophiles still question the “global warming consensus”. On the other hand, at least one blogging colleague has suggested that some of these academics and researchers may not be all that they seem.

Other criticisms include The Independent saying that many of the scientific objections have already been addressed long ago (certainly no.1 is not new), and suggestions that the producer of the programme, Martin Durkin, has in the past used selective editing and misrepresentation to present interviewees’ beliefs in a manner that supports his views (though, to be fair, the people interviewed last night seemed fairly categorical).

Personally, this reminds me of much of the debate that flies around many major issues. It is a debate between scientists, which we poor mortals are obliged to look upon with increasing incomprehension as the debate becomes ever-more arcane. As we have been warned many times, the tyranny of “experts” is one of the most dangerous of all; we need to keep strict democratic control of policy, while trusting neutral and well-informed people to judge the evidence and advise accordingly.

However, if there is one accusation within the programme that is undoubtedly true, it is that those who dissent from the “global warming consensus” are increasingly being treated not as mistaken or even stupid, but as callous or wicked. As liberals we should be open minded to debate. As I have argued elsewhere in other contexts, we need sceptics. If we are correct then they will help sharpen our arguments and iron out any inaccuracies in our theories; if we are wrong they will save us from disaster.

So I welcome Mr. Durkin’s programme (as long as it was not deliberately disingenuous or based on misrepresentation or lies), not because I believe that the “climate consensus” is exaggerated, but because I believe that it is important that people question received wisdom.

Let the debate roar on!

Spoilsports undermine the silent motorbike

Ask people what the two worst things are about road transport and they’ll probably tell you that they are noise and pollution. We have turned our cities into loud, dirty places, spitting climate-changing gasses into the atmosphere while the air below causes respiratory diseases among our children. A few loons derive from this a loathing for modern society and a desire to return to a more Arcadian existence. The saner elements accept this as the grudging price of progress and hope that a combination of moderation (aka. conservation) and innovation can make the future brighter. Or even, brighter still.

So one would have thought that the development of a silent, pollution-free vehicle would be greeted with universal joy. The bicycle is such a device, but is not suitable for all – those with a long commute or no showers at their destination, for example. It is also reviled by drivers and pedestrians alike. But if a motorised vehicle could be made both whisper-quiet and carbon neutral, that would be a miracle of modern science, wouldn’t it?

Apparently, not.

The hydrogen powered motorcycle is now a reality. It is a matter of opinion whether it looks sleek and shiny like a freshly-pressed cyberman, or plastic and boxy like a glorified Sinclair C5, but the designers of the Emissions Neutral Vehicle or ENV bike claim it has the running noise of a PC and produces waste that is drinkable. It’s a miracle of modern science.

Unless you are a killjoy. So when it was launched last year, the killjoys crawled out of the woodwork. The bike, they complained, was too quiet. It will confuse unsuspecting motorists and pedestrians who are – they fear – too stupid to stop and look, as well as listen. So instead it is being suggested that the ENVs be fitted with a false engine noise, a synthesised “vroom” to alert other people that it is comingh.

This has disturbing echoes the Locomotives on the Highway Act that required men with red flags walk in front of every motor car. That piece of meddling legislation was eventually repealed once it was realised that both drivers and other road users could be trusted to use the road responsibly, and a few accidents could not be allowed to stymie progress.

Similarly, adding an unnecessary whine to the silent motorbike would be as counter-productive as adding smoke to the exhaust to make a visible plume. The potential benefits to quality of life from reducing the high levels of noise in busy urban areas is incalculable. The ENV may not itself be the vehicle of the future, but it may prove to be the antecedent of generations of silent, pollution-free vehicles that will transform our cities into cleaner, quieter but still lively places to live.

If you listen very carefully, you can hear the future.

Mill, liberty and ID cards

On Monday night those of us not worn smooth by constant fringes over the weekend trudged our way to the National Liberal Club for an event organised by the John Stewart Mill Institute. The lecture was entitled John Stewart Mill and Actual Liberty, and was presented by the fantastically bemaned Professor A C Grayling, professor of philosophy at Birkbeck College, London.

Grayling sought to set our understanding of liberty and that of Mill in the context of what he saw as the emerging concept of liberty through the ages. At the end he sought to link this to “actual liberty” in our time, concentrating mostly on the excrescence that is the Government’s ID card scheme.

The bulk of the lecture was therefore a tour through the ages from Erasmus to Mill and beyond, reminiscent of Lord Acton’s History of Freedom in Christianity. Half a millennium ago liberty was the preserve of aristocrats and kings; the rest of us were serfs or at least subjects. But in the early 16th century began the first stirrings of liberal thought, as first Erasmus and later the protestant reformers began to discuss freedom of conscience. From freedom of conscience came freedom of thought more generally – if we are free to worship God in our own way, is it not also logical to look at the world in our own way. Once free to question God and nature, it was only logical that we would question our rulers, and so the Enlightenment logically led to the Glorious Revolution in England and (more belatedly) the American and French Revolutions. And once we were free it became natural to wonder why others were not, so that the 18th century saw a flourishing of emancipation movements: the campaign against slavery is currently the most germane, and triggered others such as the movement for the emancipation of women.

Having set out this context, Grayling turned to Mill and noted that one of Mill’s greatest concerns was the tyranny of the majority. Aware of the march of progress and the inevitability of an ever-expanding franchise, Mill was well aware that demos might become the greatest tyrant of all. (I have often thought about writing a posting on the inherent tension within Liberal Democracy). Mill argued that the State only had a right to limit people’s freedom where their actions might impact upon others – the State has no right to interfere in what individuals do to themselves.

What bearing does this have on “Actual liberty” – our experience of liberty today? Grayling began by noting that in 1975 just about everybody was free, and compared it to the situation in 1500 when freedom was the private preserve of the rich and powerful. However, we were now in danger of losing that liberty, giving it up in pursuit of the chimera of security. He illustrated this through the execrable ID card scheme. We are often told that ID cards will hold no more information that the dozens of cards we carry with us all the time; my loyalty cards and credit cards tell people where I shop and what I buy and so feed information to advertisers and store managers. However, these are all schemes that we choose to opt into: we are not required to have a Visa card, to carry it or to produce it. But ID cards must be compulsory or they are pointless.

The justification for them is based upon what Grayling considers the most monstrous illusion of our times (as touted by David Blunkett and two European interior ministers in an article published several years ago): that Government’s primary responsibility is to protect the security of its citizens. In fact, noted Grayling, Government’s primarily responsibility is to protect our liberty, and while our freedom to live is one key liberty, it is not the only one (and, he might have added, is worth little on its own). ID cards, rather than enhancing our liberty, will limit it, with little hope that it will deter terrorism.

Grayling also noted that when ID cards were introduced in 1939 only two Government departments had access to the information behind them. By 1945 this had expanded to 62. He added that they were introduced when “300,000 soldiers were massed across the Channel, and their associated bombers were dropping thousands of bombs on us a night”. He compared this to the present situation, where at most 3,000 enemies are massed against us and their bombers do not strike every year.

Finally, the point was made that the present scenario has echoes of George Orwell’s 1984 and the perpetual war between Oceania, Eurasia and East Asia. The War on Terror has no defined conditions for its completion, which means that (as with the situation in 1984, and also the Cold War) it can be used to justify ongoing and in essence permanent “emergency measures”. Just as Eisenhower warned against the “Military-Industrial Complex”, so Grayling warned against what one might call (though he did not use the term) the “Security-Industrial Complex”, of which the biometric data companies are a significant part.

The full lecture is due to be published by the John Stewart Mill Institute shortly.

A bloggers drink at Harrogate

Peter has taken the initiative. Bloggers' drinks after the Lib Dems Online event on Saturday evening.

Without me, they can cut crime

Conference would not be Conference without administrative hiccup and the odd officious official (which sounds slightly like a tautology).

I attended last night's We Can Cut Crime rally in the hope, among other things, of hearing the Great Leader speak. In times gone by other leaders did not attend the pre-Conference rallies, but now it has been turned into a second opportunity for a leaders speech.

Unfortunately, late in the evening as it was, it followed a couple of jars in the bar at the Holiday Inn, and what goes in must come out. So during the We Can Cut Crime movie, which turned out not to be the usual Political Slot snippet but an epic of Ghandiesque proportions, I popped to the bathroom. Upon my return the Stewards announced that re-entry was strictly forbidden, a policy which Andrew Wiseman later told me was news to the Federal Conference Committee and had probably been made up on the hoof.

So I missed Ming's wise words, and nearly triggered a bomb alert as my bag was still in the hall. Sigh! Not the ideal start to Conference.

And so it begins...

I have arrived in Harrogate, and using my usual charm and a few inside contacts to insinuate myself into the auditorium and access the computers just outside.

The best news so far is that due to our having, for the most part, been sent our passes well in advance, there appears to be no repeat of last year's registration fiasco.

Now to check into my hotel and return for the Better Governance consultation session - an opportunity to wax about constitutional reform.

Still no news about Bloggers' drinks, unfortunately. I expect we are all too anarchistic and libertarian to organise (something about herding cats comes to mind).

More updates will follow.