The Hindu : Opinion / News Analysis : Not libertarian but anti-social

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Wednesday, Dec 21, 2005

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Opinion - News Analysis

Not libertarian but anti-social

George Monbiot

The car is slowly turning the British, like the Americans and the Australians, into a nation that recognises only the freedom to act.

THE ROAD-RAGE lobby could not have been more wrong. Organisations such as the Association of British Drivers or Safe Speed — the boy racers' club masquerading as a road-safety campaign — have spent years claiming that speeding does not cause accidents. Safe Speed, with the help of some of the most convoluted arguments I have ever read, even seeks to prove that speed cameras "make our roads more dangerous."

Other groups, such as Motorists Against Detection (officially known as Mad), have been toppling, burning, and blowing up the hated cameras. These and about a thousand such campaigns maintain that speed limits, speed traps, and the U.K. Government's "war on the motorist" are shakedown operations whose sole purpose is to extract as much money as possible from the poor oppressed driver.

Last week, the U.K.'s Department for Transport published the results of the study it had commissioned into the efficacy of its speed cameras. It found that the number of drivers speeding down the roads where fixed cameras had been installed fell by 70 per cent, and the number exceeding the speed limit by more than 15 mph dropped by 91 per cent. As a result, 42 per cent fewer people were killed or seriously injured in those places than were killed or injured on the same stretches before the cameras were erected. The number of deaths fell by more than 100 a year.

But this is not, or not really, an article about speed, or cameras, or even cars. It is about the rise of the anti-social elements who believe they should be allowed to do what they want, whenever they want, regardless of the consequences. I believe that while there are many reasons for the growth of individualism in the U.K., the extreme libertarianism now beginning to take hold begins on the road. When you drive, society becomes an obstacle. Pedestrians, bicycles, traffic calming, speed limits, the law: all become a nuisance to be wished away. The more you drive, the more bloody-minded and individualistic you become. The car is slowly turning us (the British), like the Americans and the Australians, into a nation that recognises only the freedom to act, and not the freedom from the consequences of other people's actions.

TV motoring journalist Jeremy Clarkson articulates the doctrine that he should be permitted to swing his fist — whoever's nose is in the way. For years he has championed the unrestrained freedom of the road. Mr. Clarkson wants society out of his way when he is driving, and he is not too particular about how it is done. One day, one of his fans will take him seriously.

But, doubtless cheered by the response of his readers, he now rails against "nannying bureaucrats sticking their index-linked snouts into the trough" (health and safety inspectors).

His acolytes are also venturing on to new ground. The website of the Association of British Drivers carries the usual links to campaigns against humps in the road (yes, people really are that sad), speed cameras, and the congestion charge. But it also directs its readers to about 50 sites claiming that global warming is a fraud and a lie, several tirades against the evils of the nanny state, and an article calling for lower taxes. Libertarianism has left the road and is now driving down the pavement.

Of course, these politics are possible only while we have a state capable of picking up the pieces. If there were not a massive hidden subsidy for private transport, those who decry the nannying bureaucrats could not afford to leave their drives. Speed cameras, according to the Government's study, now save the country £258 million in annual medical bills: a fraction of the billions in health costs inflicted by Mr. Clarkson's chums. Just as the Left-wing movements of the 1970s, in geographer David Harvey's words, "failed to recognise or confront ... the inherent tension between the quest for individual freedoms and social justice," the new libertarians fail to recognise the extent to which their freedoms depend on an enabling state. They hate the institution that allows them to believe they can live without institutions.

It is strange to see how the car has been overlooked as an agent of political change.

We know that the breaking of the unions, the dismantling of the welfare state and the sale of council houses that Margaret Thatcher pioneered made us more individualistic. But the way in which the transition from individualism to the next phase of neoliberalism — libertarianism — was assisted by her transport policies has been largely ignored. She knew what she was doing. She spoke of "the great car-owning democracy," and asserted that "a man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure." Her road-building programme was an exercise in both civil and social engineering. "Economics are the method," she told us, "the object is to change the soul."

The slowly shifting consciousness of the millions who spend much of their day sitting in traffic makes interventionist government ever harder. The difference between the 1950s and today can be accounted for, in part, by the motorcar.

It should not be hard to see how politically foolish the current British Government's transport policies are. The £11.4 billion that it is spending on road building is an £11.4 billion subsidy to the Conservative party.

However much Tony Blair seeks to accommodate the new libertarianism, he cannot consistently position himself to the right of the Opposition. The longer Prime Minister Tony Blair sustains Ms. Thatcher's programme of social engineering, the more trouble he stores up for his successors. Every branch railway line that is closed, every bus that is taken off the road, every new lane that is added to a motorway hastens the day when the Tories get back behind the wheel.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

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