Warning: Long, probably unoriginal and intensely self-indulgent post focused on ideological rambling to follow. Ignore if you (perhaps justifiably) suffer a tendency to hurl accusations of pomposity at such posts; it’ll be better for us all.

The State and the Citizen: Or, Why I am a Democratic Socialist, part 1.

We move from first basics; we assume, in general, that people seek what they define as happiness, as Bentham suggests. It’s the only definition of human activity beyond the soul-destroying vagaries of genetic struggle which accommodates the more perverse elements of human behaviour. And it creates few problems; who would deny they want to be happy in life?

This should, for the most part, mean people are left to their own devices; happiness is subjective, and can only be achieved for each individual by those individuals. Anyone who pursues their own happiness and does not infringe upon the attempts of others to do the same only does what seems natural. They have every right to do so.

There are, however, conflicts likely to arise; some citizens will attempt to derive their pleasure at the expense of others. Say, if an individual chooses to steal from another the fruit of their labour; thereby furthering their pleasure at the expense of another. A state is thus necessary, with its primary purpose to balance the interests of citizens. It must seek to create the greatest happiness for the greatest number - in essence, a utilitarian tool.

Clearly, by virtue of universal humanity, we can assume certain freedoms are essential for that pursuit of happiness. The state must seek to safeguard those freedoms if it wishes to create the greatest happiness for the greatest number; and the classical libertarian definition of freedom won’t do, as it allows individuals and corporations to assault individual freedom. The state must, of course, have clear boundaries and be bound by the rule of law - but we must accept an interventionist state is necessary for greater freedom.

Instead of the libertarian definition of freedom, we should consider a doctrine of applied freedom; where theoretical liberty characterised by absence of legal restraint is useless if held back by real-life circumstances. Clearly, people aren’t free if they’re hungry; they cannot focus on the pursuit of happiness as they need to find food first. People aren’t free if a thief breaks down their door and ransacks their home. People aren’t free if they’re freezing - or suffer extreme poverty and have no escape, or lack support in their old age, or are orphaned, or ignorant, or their planet is dying through the negligence of others. They cannot act independently, and so cannot move towards happiness.

The state must guarantee these essential needs and freedoms if it’s to create the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Taxation becomes necessary; those who can afford it should be taxed at a level which won’t seriously impede their ability to seek happiness to allow those who can’t to seek that same happiness. The money raised funds the apparatus of freedom; state education to ensure all have the chance to pursue happiness, a police force to protect that chance and pensions to allow those who can’t work the same chance.

But even that’s not enough. The power of organised capital and corporations can be as damaging to individual freedom and happiness as any level of state power. Consider the relationship between an unskilled worker and a multinational corporation; there are many of the former, and despite the absolute necessity of many of the roles they fill, their sheer numbers ensure that employers can, in effect, screw them over. They need to work to survive, and so will work for virtually any wage - yet their employers don’t need them in particular, so can pay them any wage, no matter how low. The workers can’t refuse that piddling wage, as they’ll lose their jobs; and without those jobs, they’ll find themselves thrown on the mercies of society. In short, a clear example of certain individuals grossly profiting and the expense of others. So, the state must intervene, ensuring all employers pay a minimum wage on which it is possible to survive.

Likewise, if a group of selfish individuals control an essential and universal service, they can wreak havoc on the lives and livelihoods of others; witness the cruel absurdities of healthcare in the USA. Those who control an industry can take control, jack up the prices and so the profits - and if people can’t afford the service, they suffer. Universally necessary services in private hands are conducted to the benefit of those private hands - not the majority who desperately need them.

So, the state must take any essential services for which there is a universal human need, and ensure they’re universally accessible. You cannot be truly free if you’re sick; so a universally accessible national health services is necessary. You cannot be truly free if you’re freezing; so mass energy generation should be nationalised and energy - or the means of generating it at a household level - made accessible to all. This can take place on a partial basis too, if it’s all that’s needed. You can’t be free if you’re homeless but want a roof - so the state should build and control some housing. You can’t be free if you can’t reach your place of work as you don’t own private transport - so the state needs to provide some level of nationalised transport. And so on. The objective is to prevent one group of individuals gaining so much power over others as to make those others’ existence a misery; and the means of delivering this is placing the means by which life might be made into a misery into the hands of a neutral entity which exists for the benefit of all.

To ensure those services are rendered to the benefit of all, those who control the state must be rigorously accountable - and subject to regular elections. The power of the electorate to demolish any government that doesn’t act in the interests of the greatest number ensures that governments will act in the popular interest. Here, we see the superiority of nationalised essential services over the same services when they exist in private hands; democratic elections ensure those services are administered to the benefit of citizens, rather than the owners as they are when privatised.

The state thus exists to benefits citizens - and only to benefit citizens. Regular elections should ensure this; while a codified constitution setting out the fundamental rights of citizens and the barriers of government ensure the same in between elections. If, though, the state breaks that constitution, and so assaults the population’s basic liberty, then citizens have a right to legal redress; the state is as bound by the constitution as citizens are by the rule of law, and so must be answerable. If the state prevents that legal redress from occurring, it ceases entirely to act in the interests of citizens, and so becomes a Tyranny. If a state descends into Tyranny and sheds the essential manacles of democracy, then citizens in turn are no longer obliged to obey that state’s laws.  Why should they sacrifice their happiness and liberty if they receive neither security nor the happiness of others in return? They shouldn’t. They have a right to rebel, throwing off the chains of the state which betrayed them and reclaiming that happiness. This right to insurrection must be written in the constitution; for only then will potential tyrants remember their peril.

Quite why am I reading Robespierre? Specifically, his Justification of the Use of Terror. It’s terrifying (hah…):

It has been said that terror is the principle of despotic government. Does your government therefore resemble despotism? Yes, as the sword that gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles that with which the henchmen of tyranny are armed. Let the despot govern by terror his brutalized subjects; he is right, as a despot. Subdue by terror the enemies of liberty, and you will be right, as founders of the Republic. The government of the revolution is liberty’s despotism against tyranny. Is force made only to protect crime? And is the thunderbolt not destined to strike the heads of the proud?

Emphasis mine. The doublethink inherent here boggles the mind. State-terror is justified should it be directed at enemies of liberty, he cries. That this terror requires a basic negation of liberalism appears beyond him. If some people are legitimate target of oppression, and others are not, then clearly freedom from that oppression cannot be a universal value. If that freedom isn’t a universal value, then we clearly aren’t born equal or free - and so on. Robespierre’s words are those of a tyrant.

They represent an extreme perversion; the enabling state gone bad. He posits that we must rid ourselves of tyrants to be free. True enough. But here he falters, with crashing rhetoric demanding an outright tyranny against tyrants. That requires a universal negation of liberty - and a restoration of tyranny. The enabling state exists to make basic freedoms viable for all. When, in order to create liberty, those basic freedoms are cut off - very literally, in Robespierre’s case - that concept ceases to make sense.

Now, let’s put this arcane rambling into a modern context. Quoth Robespierre:

Society owes protection only to peaceable citizens; the only citizens in the Republic are the republicans. For it, the royalists, the conspirators are only strangers or, rather, enemies. This terrible war waged by liberty against tyranny- is it not indivisible? Are the enemies within not the allies of the enemies without? The assassins who tear our country apart, the intriguers who buy the consciences that hold the people’s mandate; the traitors who sell them; the mercenary pamphleteers hired to dishonour the people’s cause, to kill public virtue, to stir up the fire of civil discord, and to prepare political counterrevolution by moral counterrevolution-are all those men less guilty or less dangerous than the tyrants whom they serve?

Emphasis mine. The same principles abound as before; some are permissible targets for Terror, and so liberty isn’t a universal value. We can kill some of you to make the rest free, and you’d better appreciate it or you’ll be next.

And guess where that logic crops up today? Substitute, “terrorism,” or, “anti-social behaviour,” for, “counterrevolution,” and it becomes clear. The same clear logic of the, “Justification of the Use of Terror,” runs through virtually all modern counter-terrorist thought.

Even the rhetoric matches, give or take the linguistic drift of 214 years and translation. Take that last question - on whether the servants of tyrants are as guilty as those tyrants. Doesn’t that sound just like Bush’s axiom that, “if you feed a terrorist, or fund a terrorist, you are a terrorist?” It’s exactly the same principle; if you’ve any connection with terrorism/counter-revolution, you are a terrorist or counter-revolutionary.

Thus, Melanie Phillip’s, “terrorist nation.”  A wall around the West Bank because Hamas exists there, regardless of the blameless children who also happen to exist there. Because, in this system, they’re not blameless.

And it goes beyond that. The enabling state and the values of positive liberty again become perverted. The 42 Days detention farce serves as the perfect example. Labour claims it protects the basic freedoms of life and liberty by introducing the measures; but effectively jeopardises those basic freedoms by allowing the police to grab a citizen off the street and hide them away for 6 weeks without telling them why. In a perverse twist of illogic whereby liberty becomes tyranny for liberty’s sake, liberty loses. And so do we.

It’s absurd to equate Revolutionary Terror with the present situation. But it’s the same thought that underlies both; freedom must be restricted for its own sake. It’s a perverse step which attacks the real purpose of the Enabling State. Certain intervention can make greater liberty available to all - but not when that liberty is undermined at a basic level. Modern politicians would do well to learn that, or face the consequences of their own petty tyranny.