Against the IPA and the whinging anti-nanny staters

One hundred and fifty ways the nanny state is good for us

Simon Chapman attacks the IPA and its generic and predictable "the nanny state has gone too far!" campaign quite effectively, I think; even if one or two on his list of 150 laws which are "good for us" can be quibbled over.

(Just looking at it quickly, the one which I immediately think is legitimately called into scientific question is uniformly enforced bicycle helmets.   I have just read a recent article in the BMJ about the contradictory evidence on this topic, and the reasons why it is so hard to be certain whether it is a net good.   What I think should be clear to everyone is that it is silly to expect city bicycle hire schemes to be wildly successful if riders have to wear helmets while on those bicycles.  Why can't at least those bicycles be exempt?)

But the funniest anti-anti nanny state come back is this quote, which I don't recall seeing before:

Similar attacks once rained down on Edwin Chadwick, the architect of the first Public Health Act in England in 1848. He proposed the first regulatory measures to control overcrowding, drinking water quality, sewage disposal and building standards.

In response, the Times thundered:

We prefer to take our chance with cholera and the rest than be bullied into health. There is nothing a man hates so much as being cleansed against his will, or having his floors swept, his walls whitewashed, his pet dung heaps cleared away.

 That attitude expressed in the The Times uses exactly the same sentiments as Tim Wilson of the IPA and his new bff, the wannabe cultural warrior Nick Cater:

 As News Limited columnist Nick Cater argues in his recent book The Lucky Culture, there is a moralistic crusade by elites who object to “so-called adults” making different choices to themselves.

By standing up against excessive taxes, rules and regulations, Australians are merely objecting to the idea they are “children emotionally and intellectually” because they, for example, like a couple of beers with their barbecue.

 In fact, the idea that The Times could object to laws requiring the cleaning up of a filthy city sounds a bit hard to believe.  But, no, Googling the quote has led me to this page, from the British Library, which confirms that  The Times did indeed editorially campaign against sanitation, as did The Economist (!)  

In fact, in comments very reminiscent of excuses given by small government economists today regarding government led responses to CO2 emissions and climate change, the British Library notes that 160 odd years ago:

While it would seem that many people - from writers like Charles Dickens to social reformers like Henry Mayhew and civil servants like Edwin Chadwick - were in favour of sanitary reform, there were those who were against it. Often, it wasn't that there was opposition to the reform itself but, rather, to the cost or the effort involved in bringing it about.

Some individuals, usually those with an economic interest in property such as landlords, objected to reform measures - including clean water for every dwelling - because of the cost involved to install them in all of their properties.

Others were sceptical that sanitary reform would even improve the population's health. For example, the journal The Economist also objected to the campaign for sanitary reform, mainly because its editor and contributors believed that cholera and other epidemic diseases and illnesses were not directly caused by poor sanitary measures.

 Talk about your lessons from history...