Atmosphere of freedom

Persons of genius are, it is true, rare and are always likely to be a small minority, but in order to have them, it is necessary to prepare the soil in which they grow. Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom.

– J.S. Mill (1806-73), On Liberty






Democratic theory rests on the idea that individuals will vote for their own self-interest. In America, institutions were built upon that idea; the constitutional framers assumed that men were selfish and formed a government functioning under that assumption.

However, things seem to have gone awry. At some point, people stopped voting for themselves and started voting for others in an attempt to reverse perceived social inequalities. Even as the voting population remains mainly middle class, employed, and salaried, more and more they have voted for social justice programmes like minimum wage, unemployment, and government health care. Governments have instituted these programmes dutifully and expanded a bureaucratic and inefficient system based not on what the less fortunate want for themselves, but for what the middle classes feel bad for having.

This is more dangerous than self-interested voting because it destroys the idea of a responsive government. In America, those voting for minimum wage hikes and increased national medicine, with the possible exception of the labour unions, are not those living on minimum wage or government health care programmes. If the people receiving the benefits aren’t the ones voting on the benefits, then nothing is done about ineffective policies and the supposed beneficiaries have a system imposed on them that

Source: www.adamsmith.org/blog





Central to the civil approach is the recognition of the need to overcome the influence of confused and flammable readings of human relations that generate group-specific disaffection and hatred. Even though all human beings have many affiliations, with many distinct patterns of sharing (including the important commonality of a shared human identity), these multiple identities are systematically downplayed in the cultivation of group violence, which proceeds through privileging exactly one affiliation as a person's "real identity", thereby seeing people in an imagined confrontation against each other across a single line of prioritised divisiveness.

Guardian, Cif, Amartya Sen, 10 Nov






There can have been few more exquisite moments for lovers of the iron way. On Tuesday evening, St Pancras enthusiasts gathered at last for the resurrection of the life. The war had been long and bruising, but this was sweet triumph. The occasion was gatecrashed by the Queen..................................

But how much blood has flowed over these old stones? On Tuesday one thousand of the great and good congratulated themselves at the marvel of Barlow's shed and the detailing of Gilbert Scott's great hotel, at his gargoyles of drivers and engineers, his majestic brick arches, his great ticket hall like a cathedral confessional, his towers, gables, dormers, fireplaces, swirling staircase and celestial ceiling. They marvelled today, but once they condemned as "heritage freaks" those without whom all this would have vanished.

simon.jenkins@guardian.co.uk