Thursday, February 14, 2008

To nanny or not to nanny

Britain's New Statesman has an interesting piece on the UK political class's indecision over whether to preserve some remnant of liberal (in the classical sense) respect for people's right to guide their own lives, or whether the country should whole-hog embrace the nanny state and substitute top-down policy for individual choice.

... Politicians of all stripes are struggling with the failure of liberal democracy to cope with issues which, in the end, come down to the individual. They are fatally equivocating between two ir re concilable approach es: the paternalist desire to use the levers of the state to enforce better behaviour and the liberal instinct that people should be left alone, unless the actions in question are directly damaging to others. It is a strong liberal principle that activities which harm only the actor should not be interfered with. A gambler blowing his life savings at the baccarat table may be as foolish as the bank robber, but the foolishness of the former hurts only himself.

Behaviour leading to obesity is, in strictly liberal terms, beyond the legitimate reach of the state. If I eat badly and live as a couch potato, the only person who will get fat is me. That is why it is ludicrous to talk of an "obesity epidemic". It is hard to imagine genuine liberals such as the late Roy Jenkins getting worked up about weight gain. Nonetheless, the profound impact of obesity on health - some studies suggest obesity knocks a decade off life expectancy - has led to lots of political rhetoric on the issue.

Much of the impetus for the growing British embrace of the state as schoolmarm and personal trainer comes from that country's massively overburdened National Health Service. Having socialized medical costs, the state now feels entitled to a say in how people incur those costs -- and how they'll be treated if they misbehave. That's resulted in threats to withhold medical care from smokers, drinkers and overeaters; but it's also encouraged the tendency to meddle in people's lives so that they don't burden the health system to begin with.

That's part of the problem, but I don't think it's the whole thing. The old liberal ideal of individual autonomy seems to be giving way in some quarters to an increased willingness to direct people's choices with either carrot or stick. Sometimes the authoritarianism is blunt; other times it is cloaked (often creepily as "libertarian paternalism") as firm guidance to "help you make the choices you would make for yourself—if only you had the strength of will and the sharpness of mind." If only you would choose the way the people in charge want you to choose, that is.

We're in a philosophical moment when the people who think they know better than the rest of us feel themselves to be in ascendancy -- and they're having their way with public policy.

So it's nice to know that, even in overgoverned Britain, there's still something of a debate going on.

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Duff said...

I'm wondering if there is anyplace on this earth which doesn't have government coercion. Is anyone truly free?

February 14, 2008 1:37 PM  
Blogger J.D. Tuccille said...

I don't think anyplace that has a government to speak of is truly free. That said, there are places where you can pick your poison depending on what is important to you. Amsterdam has drugs and sex, Las Vegas has gambling and a generally tolerant attitude toward "sin," Hong Kong has low taxes and few business regulations ...

But if you want to be free overall, well ... you're just out of luck.

February 17, 2008 8:23 AM  

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