Freedom at half the price

Renowned British journalist John Kampfner, former editor-in-chief of The New Statesman and now Index on Censorship, has just released the book Freedom for sale. How we made money and lost our liberty (“Freedom for sale. How we made money and lost our independence”).

The question is posed simply: why are people ready to fight for the freedom to earn money, travel to other countries and refuse the freedom to express their opinions? In other words, why did they choose private freedoms but abandon public ones.

Kampfner, an experienced international journalist (for example, he first came to Russia in the late 70s), compared the experience of Singapore, China, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, as well as countries with strong democratic traditions - Italy, Great Britain and the USA, the population which in the last twenty years has shown the same trend - a conscious rejection of public freedoms. Kampfner writes that in each country he asked his interlocutors the same question dozens of times: why did we so easily sell freedom for the illusion of wealth and security?

In fact, this is a book about how the popular model in the 90s collapsed, which argued that increased prosperity would necessarily lead to the development of political freedoms, that capitalism is associated with democracy and is ineffective without democracy. Twenty years later it turned out that capitalism can do without democracy.

Moreover, without democracy, it has proven to be much more competitive, judging by the growth in wealth levels of the rich, super-rich and middle class in all these countries. It’s just that instead of a “social contract,” a new pact was concluded between the state and the population. In authoritarian states, this pact looks (with some national differences) as follows: repression is selective and limited to those who openly criticize the status quo - but this category is very few: opposition journalists, lawyers who defend them, and problematic political activists. The rest can enjoy freedom of movement, live the way they want, earn and spend money. For too many, this scheme turned out to be convenient.

Kampfner writes that for the last twenty years, the rules have been determined by the alliance of government, business and the middle class. What has changed is the number of people who benefit from this scheme, while states are flexible enough to accommodate the growing needs of the population that is worth taking into account. The conditions of this group are: guaranteed property rights, contract rights, the right to earn money, as well as a decent area and the opportunity to choose a lifestyle. That is, financial freedom has become a priority.

At the same time, as a result of the global consumer boom (Forbes added 178 new billionaires to its list in 2006 alone), the elite, according to Kampfner, have sold out just like the middle class. Of course, they are not happy with everything: they are angry that in Singapore the government tells them who to sleep with, and they do not like that the Chinese authorities regulate travel abroad. The elites are also not satisfied with the pressure from the security forces in Russia. List of demands: contracts should not be disrupted by government intervention, deposits should be safe. They also need modern infrastructure and really need low taxes. And they are met halfway: in some countries, like Russia, income taxes are kept at a low level, in the UK tax evasion is practically encouraged, and in Italy tax crimes are almost unpunished.

Of course, this is a book by a British journalist, and most of all it describes what happened to society in the UK and the USA. Kampfner himself explains this by saying that society in these countries had something to lose, and - unlike residents of countries in the first category (Singapore, China, Russia, UAE) - they still had a choice and the opportunity to put pressure on the government.

Kampfner has no illusions about Russia. He describes how liberal journalists renounced their views for the right to live in an elite village near Moscow, and the population is calm about the murders of human rights activists, although they do not occur in a distant Siberian camp under conditions of information blockade, as in Stalin’s times, and all the information about this quite accessible.

At the same time, Kampfner’s book finally breaks those stereotypes about the uniqueness of Russia, which seemed so convenient both for the liberals of the nineties and for the pseudo-statists of the 2000s, when the passivity of the population, and then the middle class, was explained by centuries-old traditions of unfreedom, the legacy of the USSR, Orthodoxy and God knows what else .

No, it was not the Kremlin who figured out how to bribe the middle class with a 13% income tax and the illusion of security. According to Kampfner, the ideal model for such a pact between state and society is Singapore, and it was for this country that the term “cerebral anesthesia by consumerism” was coined. No, Russia is not unique in its fit of patriotism after Dima Bilan's Eurovision victory. All of these countries have experienced an increase in national chauvinism - consumerism has led to the atomization of society, citizens have become “privatized” in their habits, thoughts and way of life, and as a result, their individual activity is encouraged, and unification at any level is persecuted, which leaves room for the emergence of charismatic populist leaders . The desire for security, for the sake of which the wealthy classes are ready to put hard pressure on the authorities, demanding to protect their way of life at any cost, has led to equally terrifying consequences in states of both categories - surveillance technologies are developing, and those who fall into the category of extremist / foreigner / member of a national minority or just a stranger, become the target of attack by the state. And the population complies with the terms of the pact: as Kampfner writes, although elections in Russia and Singapore are held with violations, it cannot be denied that the leaders of these countries are more than popular.

Kampfner makes a reservation that he does not equate countries of the first category with countries of the second, but the difference may not be as great as their residents would like.

The book does not contain answers on how and what can be corrected. This is simply a statement of fact: we have already come to the conclusion that freedom is understood only as the freedom to buy.