What poppies, Prince George and the NSA tell us about freedom

While Edward Snowden revealed an over-mighty state, there are other symptoms. In Britain, democracy has some way to go

Martin Kettle

As you walk from Rembrandt's house along the canal towards the town hall of Amsterdam, you come upon a statue of a man wrapped in a large cloak. The statue is a monument to the 17th-century philosopher Baruch de Spinoza, who lived nearby. Around the base of the monument, in Dutch, are inscribed the words, "The purpose of the state is freedom".

Spinoza wrote those words in his Theological-Political Treatise of 1670. It is worth reading the words in the context that he used them. The state's purpose, wrote Spinoza, is "not to dominate or control people by fear or subject them to the authority of another". On the contrary, he went on, "Its aim is to free everyone from fear so that they may live in security so far as is possible, that is, so that they may retain, to the highest possible degree, their right to live and to act without harm to themselves and others". Therefore, he concludes (in the modern translation by Michael Silverthorne and Jonathan Israel), "the true purpose of the state is in fact freedom".

That was radical stuff for the often intolerant 1670s. But, more than three centuries on, Spinoza's words still seem remarkably audacious. What can he possibly mean by them that makes sense in this day and age? How can they be squared, for example, with the actions of America's National Security Agency, carnivorously chomping its way through the private communications of millions of people around the world and spying on Europe's leaders too, until Edward Snowden blew the whistle? In what meaningful sense can the US securocrats who testified so unapologetically in Washington this week be said to be advancing not curtailing freedom?

In fact the securocrats would probably find less difficulty squaring their activities with Spinoza's views of the state than many modern citizens may do. The agencies' role, as they see it, is to protect a way of life embodied in the state. In their view, the powers of the state to eavesdrop, gather data and conduct other forms of surveillance are at the service of a larger set of freedoms. In many ways, they are surely right. The problem today is not that the secret state exists. It is that the stupendous scope of its activities seems unethical, indiscriminate and disrespectful of the privacy of the just and good.

In the modern era we have become accustomed, especially in the light of 20th-century totalitarian states, to see the state as a threat to freedom rather than its guarantor. On both the left and the right, many reflexively see the state as overly powerful in various ways. The internet age has undoubtedly intensified this view. It says: there's the state over there, with all its powers and controls. And there's us over here, answerable to it but not part of it.

For many people, the idea that we, the people, might actually own the state seems bizarre. So the possibility – but in my view the profound truth set out by Spinoza long ago – that freedom might be the state's true purpose takes a bit of digesting. I think that is because we are not in the habit of thinking about the state democratically.

This problem exists in a particularly characteristic and chronic form in Britain. It does so, in part, because of the continuities of British history. Unlike the state in France, Germany or the US, the British state has rarely had to start from scratch. The ancient power centres of the British state and empire – the monarchy at its apex, the armed forces which enforce its interests by violence or the threat of it, the security services which protect it from internal threats, even the political and legal institutions which regulate it – are all evolutionary, inherited and given. We are subject to them, but rarely, if ever, they to us.

The age of democracy – and universal suffrage in Britain is still less than 100 years old – has not yet recast these power centres in a democratic image. Instead a timid form of democracy has been grafted on to them, in varying degrees. The relationship between democracy and the British state is a set of compromises which allow limited levels of control and transparency. In theory, the monarchy exists because parliament permits it to do so. In reality, the crown is in no real sense democratically shaped – though it could be. The armed forces answer to the crown and the government, but much less thoroughly to parliament – votes on wars are very modern and still rare. The security and intelligence services remain at arm's length from parliament too.

The British state has always adapted. It is still doing so. Of course, the monarchy, the armed forces, the security services and parliament all look and are different from the way they looked and were a century ago. But the essence of these institutions has not always changed as much as one may think. Some of them have survived in forms which would have been recognisable to Henry VIII. The purpose of the British state is sometimes simply to protect its own freedom, and not pay much attention to the freedoms of the people.

All these issues are alive and real, not abstract or theoretical. But unless the state itself is rooted in democracy, and in citizenship not subjecthood, the relationship between the state and the people is not rooted in a modern conception of freedom. The worship of Prince George, the elevation of the armed services to the status of "heroes" and the denial that the Snowden documents raise issues of over-mighty intrusion, these are all symptoms of a relationship with the state that is rooted more in infantilisation than democracy.

A democratic British state would most naturally take the form of a republic, though it could alternatively take the form of a democratic low-key constitutional monarchy too. A democratic British state would place all the important decisions about the deployment of Britain's armed forces squarely on the shoulders of the elected government, subject to the approval of parliament. And a democratic British state would support the existence and work of the security services, respecting their need for secrecy, but ensuring that parliament exercised proper oversight while balancing privacy and liberty against the genuine demands of national security.

Spinoza was profoundly right. The true purpose of the state is, in fact, freedom. That is why the state is fundamental to a safe and good shared life. It's just that, in a democracy, freedom belongs to all the citizens, not just to those who control the state. And in Britain we do not yet have that kind of freedom.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/30/poppies-prince-george-nsa