Safetyism: a fatal conceit

The law was once relatively simple: enforcing contracts and protecting our bodies and property from fraud, violence and theft. Guilt was decided by juries, and reasonableness by the legendary man on the Clapham omnibus.

These days, governments insist that their job is to keep us safe. The claim has grown exponentially, to the point where it even has its own name - safetyism.

During the Covid panic it became very clear how widespread it has become. In the name of keeping us safe we were imprisoned in our homes, unable to see loved ones, and banned from travelling, working, running our businesses, sending our kids to school and practising our religion. The rules were enforced with brutality, cheered on by heartless bureaucrats and politicians.

We were told we would be safe, and we would keep others safe, if we got vaccinated against Covid. Vaccination then became a condition of participation in society including, for many, keeping their job.

Separately, state and federal governments claim their role is to keep us safe from droughts, floods and fires, which of course they attribute to climate change (against which we must also be kept safe). Increasingly, this translates into telling us where and how to live. They also promise to rescue us (although only by government-supervised vaccinated volunteers), and of course we must be kept safe from drinking, smoking and gambling.

Even more disturbingly, governments purport to save us from things such as shock, offence and hurt feelings. This has led to nanny state regulations infringing on speech. Common forms of abuse, insult and swearing are characterised as assault, while simple disagreement or a raised voice are labelled as bullying. The days of ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me’ are long forgotten.

The idea that the government can keep each of us safe, or that it should even seek to do so, is based on similar thinking to the notion that the government can manage the economy by determining production and setting prices.  The Nobel Prize winning economist, FA Hayek, described it as a Fatal Conceit and the fundamental flaw of socialism, which assumes governments are both knowledgeable and competent and that man can “shape the world around him according to his wishes.”

In reality, government intervention in the economy invariably results in a worse outcome for everyone except the politically privileged. When the economy is free of government constraints, in which millions of people each make their own decisions, prosperity is not only greater but more widespread. Indeed, the less the government is involved, the better the outcome.

For similar reasons, it is fanciful to believe that governments can keep us safe. As most are now well aware, while lockdowns and other restrictions may have delayed the spread of Covid, the virus is now endemic and infecting us all. Moreover, it makes little difference if we are vaccinated; the vaccine does not prevent infection or transmission, protection against serious illness varies between individuals and only lasts a few months, and the vaccines cause side effects in some.  We have not been kept safe.

Natural disasters have always been a part of living in Australia. Dorothea Mackellar’s famous poem My Country, which describes a sunburnt country of droughts and flooding rains, was written in 1908. The government can warn us of risks, including for flood prone land and bushfires, but it is neither our mother nor our master. As adults we are capable of making choices in relation to our own safety and of taking responsibility for the consequences. That is exactly how it works if we engage in criminal behaviour, so why should we be let off the hook when it comes to choices involving safety?

In relation to feelings, what offends one person will not bother another. Being called a bastard in Australia can be intended as a serious insult, a minor criticism or a term of endearment, yet someone may find the term insulting irrespective of the intent of the person making the comment.

Laws attempting to protect feelings can have significant consequences for the way we speak. Given the inability to know in advance how a recipient might choose to feel, no matter what we might intend, the only safe option is to avoid saying anything much at all. This is clearly not something that any of us want.

Politicians and bureaucrats only profess to keep us safe because that’s what they believe we want. Despite knowing full well that’s it not achievable, they tell us what they believe we want to hear. No doubt there are some people who prefer to be treated like a helpless child, but it’s the same as assuming they can control the economy: it’s a fatal conceit.