Law - What is it Good For? Part 2

Another myth about the purpose of law is that it only exists to restrict the actions of other people. As citizens, we also use it to regulate our own behaviour. This may sound bizarre but some reflection shows this to indeed be the case. Consider, for example, taxation. Those of us who support income tax do so because we believe that wealth should be distributed in order to benefit people who are less well off than ourselves. However, if tax were abolished, do any of us really think that we would voluntarily give up to 40% of our wealth to poor people, as nineteenth century anti-tax libertarians argued that we could? Of course we would not. We know that we need state regulation and the fear of imprisonment to make us do what we already believe is right.

A useful analogy is Alcoholics Anonymous. People who seek support from the AA do so precisely with the intention of having their choices challenged by other people. Superficially, they are agreeing to have their liberty restricted but, at a deeper level, the main threat to their genuine freedom is the drinking itself and hence they are actually increasing their options. People cannot be reduced to straightforward desires but rather are subject to contradictory wants competing for attention. Sometimes it is necessary for the higher rational part of the brain to get help from others to conquer more selfish tendencies.

This example may seem an extreme one that affects a minority of people but we all look for such support from our circle of friends in various ways. Among a crowd of ethical consumers, it is common for them to share information about the pratices of various corporations and about which brands are owned by whom, but also to remind and fortify one another to stick with the often difficult time-consuming path of hunting for alternative sources of goods. It is only a small step to asking the state to play a role in making the tainted brands less widely available and the friendlier ones more so. Just as we delegate our education and wealth distribution to the state to allow it to be more effective, we can also do the same with our economic priorities.

I recently booked an absurdly cheap weekend break to Prague, with a budget airline, after which I will have taken seven flights this year. I feel a bit guilty about this and someone with more environmental willpower would clearly not have made this decision. Perhaps that is why I support the higher taxes on aeroplane fuel recommended by the recent Stern Report. Undoubtedly, this is a massive abdication of responsibility on my part, and I acknowledge that fact. Nevertheless, I am confident that my view is the one with a more realistic approach to human behaviour. In the end, even Foucault acknowledged that the freedom to submit to one's own baser instincts is no freedom at all.