In Our Time

BBC Radio 4

Contents

Rationality, Optimism and the Good Society

Aristotle's Politics

Hobbes

Tyrants and Revolutionaries

Bertrand Russell: Power

Naked Power

[If] human life is to be … anything better than a dull misery punctuated with moments of sharp horror, there must be as little naked power as possible.
The exercise of power, if it is to be something better than the infliction of wanton torture, must be hedged round by safeguards of law and custom, permitted only after due deliberation, and entrusted to men who are closely supervised in the interests of those who are subjected to them. …

It involves …

• the elimination of war, for all war is an exercise of naked power. …
• a world free from those intolerable oppressions that give rise to rebellions. …
• the raising of the standard of life throughout the world …
• some institution analogous to the Roman tribunes … for every section that is liable to oppression, such as minorities and criminals [and]
• above all, a watchful public opinion, with opportunities of ascertaining the facts.

It is useless to trust in the virtue of some individual or set of individuals. …
No real solution of the problem of power is to be found in irresponsible government by a minority …
(p 71)

Revolutionary Power

A government without psychological authority must be a tyranny.
(p 80)

The decay of Liberalism has many causes, both technical and psychological.
They are to be found

• in the technique of war,
• in the technique of production,
• in the increased facilities for propaganda, and
• in nationalism, which is itself an outcome of Liberal doctrines.

All these causes, especially where the State has economic as well as political power, have immensely increased the power of governments. …
A modern community, just as much as those of the eighteenth century, requires, if it is to remain happy and prosperous, a sphere for individual initiative, but this sphere must be defined afresh, and safeguarded by new methods.
(p 81)

Priests and Kings

Bertrand Russell: Power

Both religious and secular innovators … have appealed, as far as they could, to tradition, and [sought] to minimise the elements of novelty in their system.
The usual plan is to invent a more or less fictitious past and pretend to be restoring its institutions.
(p 39)

In the United States at the present day, the reverence which the Greeks gave to oracles and the Middle Ages to the Pope is given to the Supreme Court [— which] is part of the forces engaged in the protection of the plutocracy.
(p 49)

Sunday Extra

ABC Radio National

Budget of the Century

John Hewson (1946): Coalition Opposition Leader, 1990-4; Professor and Chair, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Australian National University

[The] inequity of the process!
To argue that everyone is sharing the burden, when obviously they are not, because, people at the bottom end of the income scale are losing between 12-15% of their disposable income and people at the top are losing less than 1%.
The inequity just screams at you …

I think [Abbott and Hockey] actually did believe they had brought down the 'budget of the century' — [one] that actually will be remembered as probably one of the worst; because, it was so ill conceived, so many incoherent messages, so many partial attempts to solve problems, with massive inequity overriding the lot.
A lot a pain for very little gain.
What do they do now?
If the revenue continues to be weaker than predicted, which is … a pretty high probability, and the deficit will start to blow out and they can't go back an try and fix it again.

(The rise of anti-establishment political parties, 25 May 2014)