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Roger Warren Evans
Roger Warren Evans
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You are in the company
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Roger Warren Evans |
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item0044C 742/4, 742/5 Use your grey cells..
And the The dilemma for socialists is this. The evil of private property power becomes apparent only in high concentrations. Thousands of millions of our fellow citizens enjoy private ownership of their house, their car, their personal clothing, their immediate personal possessions. And at that level, we recognise that "property ownership" is a valuable vehicle for the expression and maintenance of personality. Property power is simple, absolute. But as soon as the power-concentration exceeds a minimal level, it turns into an instrument of oppression, of the subjugation of man by man. The relationship of "master and servant" (as it was still known when I took up the study of law in the 1960s) has long been a means of exploitation, countered by trade union activism, continues to cause havoc and injustice throughout society. The property relationship of lender-to-borrower, while heavily regulated in many countries, continues to threaten the quality of life of millions upon millions of people, including the profound scandal of debt-slavery passing from generation to generation. The relationship of landlord and tenant, also property-based, is similarly exploitative, and has to be tightly constrained by law. All these destructive relationships are now further contained by human rights laws.
Socialists must confront the intellectual challenge of defining the proper limits of private property power, particularly when wielded by artificial persons. This is one of the themes of my plans for the reform of corporate law - see Tame the Corporations. There is no single, simple solution. Trade union powers should be strengthened, to enable them to play their market role, in asserting the dignity of working people. The companies' right-to-secrecy must be eroded, allowing in the oxygen of publicity to inhibit the practices of evil. Companies should not be permitted to act arbitrarily in the exercise of their property powers, and the Courts should be empowered to call them to account for the wrongful exercise of such powers.
Where do you stand, on the issues of "private property"? Drop me a line
Use your grey cells..
My fifth and final theme is the management of state coercion in civilised society. Let me come clean - this is partly the conventional sector of "civil liberties" within the nation; and it is the containment of unacceptable aggression and coercion between nation-states. These are two sides of the same coin. And these lines have to re-drawn, with care and perception, every day, every week, every month. When are we justified in using the ultimate weapon of coercion against our fellow citizens.At Home Within UK society, we are passing through a miserable and illiberal phase, led by an deeply inadequate Home Secretary, who is supported by a misguided Prime Minister. As a society, we are using coercion far too easily and destructively. We ought not to force unwilling teenagers to school, after the age of 14. We ought not to be permitting parental child-beating, even smacking. We ought not to prohibit the consumption of certain intoxicants and stimulants, known as "prohibited substances", under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. We ought not to be so aggressive towards newcomers, merely to placate racist public opinion. We ought not to maintain differential VAT and Excise rates with the Continent, to reduce the scourge of smuggling. We have gone too far in limiting personal freedoms, in the "war against terrorism". We should abandon social-control Court Orders, seeking the micro-management of bad neighbourly behaviour. We should seek to become a more generous, less vindictive, less punitive society. Our prison population should be reducing - not careering madly out of control, as it is. Abroad And in international affairs, we should reject every form of unilateral aggression. This is not to be pacifist, but rather to adopt a "policing" view of the international order. State sovereignty and sovereign territoriality should be respected, in the absence of imminent threat or UN sanction. The invasion of Iraq was an appalling error of judgment by Tony Blair, which has set back the cause of consensual international order for many years, perhaps decades. It is a matter of the deepest shame that Britain was dragged into a mischievous American war, and we must work hard to recover from this grievous error. That means delivering positive and full-hearted support for the United Nations - as a matter of personal symbolism, I have recently joined the United Nations Association, and I commend the same action to you. It also means spending time, and creative resources, in devising and proposing solutions to the most difficult political problems which the world confronts. As socialists, we must not turn away from the injustices the international order, however difficult they are to resolve.
What do you think? Drop me a line
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I am a self-confessed,
practising intellectual. That is, I have absolutely no doubt about the
simple power of ideas and the originality of the intellect.