Lord Robens on liberty in an accelerating culture
From a man who when he was barely sixteen years of age found himself in a prison cell in Frankfurt, and subsequently in a concentration camp for distributing leaflets against the SS State, one would expect the six Reith Lectures on the New Liberty to be absorbing and of more than passing interest, and the reader will certainly not be disappointed. In his first lecture, he says "it was during the ten days of solitary confinement that an almost claustrophobic yearning for freedom was bred, a visceral desire not to be hemmed in, neither by the personal power of men, norby the anonymous power of organisations." This book is longer than the original Reith Lectures and those who actually heard the BBC Radio broadcasts will find this publication all the more rewarding and will be grateful for the -filling in of the arguments in pursuance of its The New Liberty. The Reith Lectures, Ralf Dahrendorf (Routledge and Kegan Paul t 3.00) theme. Because of his very wide experience, Ralf Dahrendorf is well qualified to speak on this subject. Academic, politician and administrator, and recognised as one of the leading sociologists of the day, he applies considerable powers of investigation and analysis to these problems of this fast moving and complex society.
His seven years in active politics occupying high office, as when he served as Parliamentary Under Secretary to the German Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs and for a period until last October as a member of the Commission of the European Communities responsible for education, science and research, more than adequately qualify him to utter on this intensely interesting subject. If you add his work as Director of a research institute in the University of Tubingen, as an adviser of the Land Government of Baden-WUrttemburg, and as a member of advisory comn-Attees, such as the German Council, on Education, his choice as Reith Lecturer is easy to understand and the London School of Economics who now have him as their Director, is to be congratulated in the appointment of a man who will add lustre to an educational centre that has educated and trained so many men and women who hold and have held positions of responsibility and power in many countries throughout the world. After all, the book is fundamentally about power and the dangers that exist in exercising that power, though often with the best of intentions and as a consequence destroying personal liberty. This is a fast moving society, faster than ever before in the world's history. There are no cushions of time for people to thoroughly grasp and digest one change, before another is upon us. The change affects not one country, but the whole world, and there has, therefore, been created in the comparatively short period since World War Two a world which has masses of people puzzled and bemused.
A society has emerged of great expectations on the back of the rapid development of technology and the promises of politicians. The non-realisations of these expectations has led to upheaval, violent at times, and made it more and more difficult for leaders of industry and the trade unions and political parties and Government itself to find the solutions to the recurring political, economic and personal problems. There is a constant demand for leadership, without the kind of leadership being recognised or defined. As Ralf Dahrendorf remarks, -There is too much yearning nowadays for the King who takes us all out of our miseries or at least the philosopher who explains them all." The author does not himself claim to have found the answers; indeed he confesses in his last lecture that he may well have disappointed his hearers and his readers because he cannot provide the solutions to all of the problems.
Even if he finds himself unable to solve all the difficulties, for my part his book succeeds beyond all expectations at compelling his
readers to think, and provides a tremendous stimulant to constructive discussion. Where are we to turn? To socialism? To capitalism? To an authoritarian society? He deals with these questions and many more beside. His conclusion is simple and clear. There is no easy way for humanity. Solutions to the human problems that abound are not determined by decisions that are clear and easy to make, like the difference between black and white. The solutions to the problems created by an affluent society, the desire for a fairer distribution of wealth, the environmental problems, what people want and expect of the new society, the awakening of the slumbering masses of the third world and the increasing poverty of the fourth will only be found by convincing others by argument, applying knowledge sensibly and despite any short comings of which we may be aware, of our faculties for reasoning.
Solutions are made the more difficult because of the many conflicts and sweeping changes that a world of inflation, of rising prices, of an increase in disorder and crime, and of a rapid decline of confidence in politics and politicians and even in the institution of Government has brought about. The establishment and indeed authority everywhere is under strong attack and the political structure faces a severe testing time. Some people may well prefer a revolution to a gradual change, but there will not be full liberty if democracy is refuted. Critical individuals must be allowed to express their impatience and desire for liberty in the new world in which the potential of advanced societies can be converted into reality.
Leaders of political parties in particular and politicians in general should find the time to read these hundred pages. There is much to question in the direction that political doctrines are taking us and with it a danger to the new liberty.
I think that he is right to question the political doctrines and their impact upon people and the economy. Is the present movement towards co-determination and worker participation as democratic as it is made out to be? Is it likely to -end up in a sectional ganging up of capital and labour to divide the cake between them? As he says, capital and labour have much in common and the distance between a law and order socialism and a conservatism with a social conscience is not very great.
Dahrendorf is right to point out that the comparison of the two ideologies is not as between .the USA and Russia, but between East and West Germany, where a handicap of a century does not exist. Here we have one country divided into two and both on the way to expansion, but taking different roads. "From production figures to consumption opportunities, national income to private income, the result is clear; in any case, a country which has to lock in its citizens with walls, minefields and barbed wire, can hardly claim to have maximised the life chances of individuals." The motive force of the political economy needs the emphasis not upon expansion, but upon improvement, qualitative rather than quantitive development.
Full employment, equality, education, its future use and purpose, are all carefully explored in the light of providing more and varied life chances for people and with it not only a greater sense of liberty, but a real taste of it. As he says in the closing words of the last lecture, -the subject of history is changing; and the change in approach is reflected in the words we use — new words — improvement instead of expansion, good husbandry instead of affluence human activity instead of work, and of course one word which is quite old — liberty." Mr Wilson, Mrs Thatcher, Mr Thorpe should surely read these Reith ,Lectures, The New Liberty. It almost seems as though the Lectures were given and the book was written especially for them.
Lord Robens is the chairman of Vickers Ltd
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