The flavour of freedom

The flavour of freedom by Sauvik Chakraverti

28 Jan 2006, 0000 hrs IST, The Times of India

Journalists are the first to defend the 'freedom of expression'. However, in reality, this is a completely meaningless right. Private property rights alone enable the freedom of expression.

Where these rights are non-existent, or flouted by the authorities, the freedom of expression disappears. To begin, let us take an example from my own life as a journalist. A newspaper just rejected one of my articles.

Can I complain that my freedom of expression has been violated? Certainly not! My freedom ends where someone else's property begins. The newspaper is the private property of its proprietor; the editor is his appointee.

They must be free to publish what they like on their property. However, this does not leave me 'unfree' or 'victimised'. Rather, I have the freedom to send my article to other newspapers, whose editors may take a different view.

If my article is still rejected, I could try to install it in the blogosphere. It is the existence of all these little, little pieces of private property that enable me to enjoy my 'freedom of expression'.

If all these private properties had not existed, and we had a monolithic state media, millions would find themselves with no freedom to express themselves, despite any 'right' granted by law.

Thus, journalists should not fight for the freedom of expression; rather, they should fight for private property rights. There is a lot at stake, especially if you value liberty.

I am upset at the manner in which the dancing girls of Bombay have had their freedom of expression violated by the legislators of Mumbai.

As one who enjoyed many an evening in these establishments, my mind can instantly conjure up the horrifying picture of hundreds of thousands of musicians, crooners, waiters, bouncers, cooks and bartenders losing their livelihood and, along with the dancing ladies, hitting the streets in order to survive.

Again, we must see that the only cure lies in private property rights being inviolable by the state. Thus, every dance bar is the private property of its owner or lessee with 'rights of admission reserved'.

Under the common law, even the king cannot violate the private property of an Englishman. Private property rights are a protection against the sovereign and his officials.

Each of these private properties is a sanctuary maintained by the owner where many a flower can bloom. The owners of these bars need to focus on the loss of their private property rights and secure them and that is the only way to secure the 'freedom of expression' of the dancers.

These swinging ladies, it must also be noted, are the owners of their own bodies and must be free to do what they like with their bodies within the 'private law' system operated by the proprietor of the establishment.

The audience, who have tickets, possess temporary property rights to be where they are. My reader can now sit back and dream of the limitless world of 'expression' that will open up if the state is kept out of private property.

We can have cabarets that challenge the Moulin Rouge. We can have XXX movie theatres for the sex-crazed. We can have access to all kinds of 'adult' literature andmagazines that are still banned in the Internet age.

Indians who want to model nude in any of these magazines will only have 'freedom of expression' if property rights are respected of the model, the studio, the photographer, the publisher and, finally, the magazine vendor.

Private property rights are not only the secret to discovering the 'mystery of capital', they are the key to liberty itself. People who believe in liberty do not succumb to the seductive lure of collectives.

To them, there is nothing called 'we': no nation, no society, no commune. There is only I, me, myself. I must be protected, along with my liberties and properties.

That is, for libertarians, the only true purpose of both the law and the state: To preserve and protect individual rights and individual liberty.

The state violates private property rights, as with nationalisation and taxation — it only plunders. We need to strengthen private property rights. Therein lies capitalism and liberty.

The writer is an economist.