NO FREEDOM WITHOUT FREEDOM OF OPINION

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24867, 6 May 1946, Page 4

NO FREEDOM WITHOUT FREEDOM OF OPINION

democracy

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SALVADOR DE MADARIAGA.

in the "Manchester Guardian.”]

(Published by Arrangement.)

What is democracy? we are asked. And the very tfhestion deflects our attention from the problem that really matters and prejudges our answer to it. What really matters is not whether a society of men is or is not a “democracy” but what are its standards and how far it lives up to them. “Democracy"—that is, “government by, of. or toi the people”—is but a method, a way. There is no fetish in it, or there should not be. By thus forcing forward an issue of method or means, to usurp the true issue, which is that of aims, two results are achieved: the eclipse of liberty—an inconvenient principle unloved and unwanted by the new-style democrats — and the smuggling of an element of class struggle into the debate. The ascent of the Soviet Union in the political firmament and her entry into the constellation of great world ' Powers have provided yet another reason for displacing the issue from ends to means and from liberty to democracy, for by juggling with this Greek word, imperfectly grafted into our European stems and roots, it is possible to be grateful and graceful towards a gallant ally, explaining her regime as an “economic democracy” equal, if indeed not superior, to our “merely political” branch. "Both conceptions are logically and historically tenable.” writes Professor E. H. Carr, “and it would be absurd to claim dogmatically that one or other is the ‘right’ or only possible view of democracy.” He forgets that Russia does claim dogmatically that her democracy is the only one which is right.

“Economic Democracy” In this antithesis between the political and the economic democracies of West and East economic democracy is like those fake windows painted for the sake of symmetry of which Pascal speaks. There is no such thing as economic democracy. A country cannot be democratic on its

economic and undemocratic on political side. All this talk of economic democracy is, of course, based on the ousting of the shareholder from industry and of the landowner from the land. But even if (which cannot be admitted for a moment) this change had led to a real and effective increase in the worker’s hold and control of production, even then the word “democracy” would be out of place. This becomes clear when the main question is tackled: thtft of the relations between force and law in a human society. “Government by consent (writes Professor Carr) is a contradiction in terms; for the purpose of government is to compel people to do what they would not do of their own volition.” It would be difficult to define more neatly what government in a true democracy is not. What Government would have made the British people accept compulsory service had they not consented to it themselves? What Government was able to enforce prohibition in the United States? Professor Carr seems to think that law is based on force and the State on the policeman; while the fact is that force is based on law and the policeman on the State. Without the State a policeman would be but a bully with an eccentric taste for hats.

This is the central issue, and from it flows a clear definition of democracy No law can be enforced, no State can exist, without the consent of a conitiri! erable number of persons. (Hitler could not have held Germany without the willing support of a few million, of Germans.) we say of a society that it is the more democratic the more widespread, conscious, and spontaneous this consent is. If the group on wh6*e consent rests the State is but small—, privileged nation or class ruling over other nations or classes—we do not consider that society democratic. If the general consent is secured by deceit by deforming, concealing, or inventing news, by controlling the press ana broadcasting, we do not consider that society democratic. A society in which one party forbids all others, muzzles dissentient opinions, and even prevents them from being born, is not a democracy. The distinction between economy and political democracy is puerile. A society without freedom of opinion can have no freedom whatever on any field economic or political. For, since tha executive controls opinion it is the executive which controls all—including the life of any worker who might take his ‘‘economic democracy” in earnest only to find himself in a concentration camp for the rest of his days. Freedom of the Press The core of political democracy is the freedom of the press. Here the “economic democrat * mutters something about financial forces which control the press of democratic countries. No liberal democrat can deny that the press is not what it should be in the West; indeed, that the problem of the press is the most arduous and the most important which liberal democracies have to solve. But attempts at equating the shortcomings of the liberaldemocratic organs of opinion with the “his master’s voice” system prevailing ■ in all “economic democracies" from Jugoslavia to the Soviet Union cannot be discussed in earnest. Nor do we need to worry about the Marxist view that the class which controls the State will always use its power in its own interest. The charge (as a general principle unjustified) it: now and then and up to a point true, classes being human. But the remedy lies precisely in liberal democracy. This flows from our very definition of the term. For us, democracy is a relative concept. There is no such thing as a democracy. There are countriS which are more or less democratic. The more people have to consent in the Government, the more enlightened, and the freer their consent, the more democratic is the nation. Therefore the more democratic the nation, the less likely is a class to bully and exploit the rest. How then develop democracy? By developing the sense of political responsibility and the knowledge of political problems in the greatest number, of persons—a principle in which the word “political* covers, of course, economic affairs as well. This programme requires a free discussion of thems* and a free creation of institutions. Freedom is therefore, from whichever angle we look at it. the condition of all true democracy. And, since democracy would be useless if it did not foster free men. it is also its aim.