What are you first reactions to reading this?

In any society, the main function of government is to provide status and incomes for the ruling class. However recruited, the members of such a class will be motivated by a disinclination to earn their living by voluntary exchange, or by a delight in coercing others, or by a combination of the two. Its size and activities will be determined by the physical resources it can extract from the people, by the amount of force it can use against them, and by the nature and acceptance of the ideology that legitimises its existence. None of these factors by itself will be decisive, but each is a necessary factor. Change any one, and the working of the other two will be limited or wholly checked.

 Just the use of the phrase ‘ruling class’ is sufficient, among many people, to conjure up unfortunate images of Trotskyite college professors and bed-sit Che Guevarras. But read the above paragraph carefully. If you assumed that this was a bit of Marxist cant, you were wrong. In fact, it is an extract from the Introduction to the latest book by classical English liberal academic, Dr. Sean Gabb.
 

A large part of the book actually consists of reprints of three long articles that Sean originally penned in the late 1980’s for FOREST. Each article consists of defence of the right to smoke from a historical perspective, a Christian perspective and a Conservative perspective. Each is discussed is more detail below.

But this is more than just a reprint of previously iterated views. Dr. Gabb now concedes that while has analysis of the methodology of the anti-smoking lobby was accurate, even he was unclear as to the primary motivation behind the crusade, blaming various phenomena such as junk science, resonant Puritanism or decaying Marxism. But, as he now admits, he overlooked (or failed adequately to comprehend) the primary cause of the war on tobacco.

Introduction

The pattern is so wearily familiar. One day, seemingly out of the blue, a shock, horror report about the dangers of [insert as appropriate] appear in some national news organ, apparently penned by some notable medically or scientifically qualified person or persons. Next thing, similar reports are making headline news right across the land. Then everyone starts talking about it and, more importantly, worrying about it. About this time, a hastily-assembled and previously unheard of squadron of ‘experts’ are appearing on every TV screen with furrowed brows and ominous assurances that [insert as appropriate] is a catastrophe that is blighting the lives of a every man, woman and child in the land and the government must act now before it is too late. By the time you have switched over to the football, the legislative prohibition/restriction/regulation/taxation is already being spewed out of the government printing presses.

We all know how it works, but why? Why is it that these ridiculous crusades march on relentlessly from inception to fruition without a pause for debate, discussion, analysis or rebuttal?

The answer lies in the need for the political ruling class to maintain their legitimising ideologies:

An economy based on voluntary exchange is not inherently unstable and in need of programmes of demand management and a welfare state. People of different nationalities can live together without having to be bullied by law into pretending to love one another. We are not running out of natural resources, and our industrial pollutions do not threaten life on earth. There are no satanic child abusers. Sexual abuse of children is statistically insignificant. Smoking and drinking and consuming other drugs and fatty foods are at least less dangerous than is claimed, and there is no good reason to believe that passive smoking even exists. But whether a problem is real is far less important than whether the people can be brought to believe in its reality and in the need for solutions that justify income and status for the ruling class and its various client groups.”

Take out the word ‘tobacco’ and one could replace it with fatty foods, firearms, marijuana, sport utility vehicles, pornography, alcohol or any number of other hobgoblins du jour.

Although this book is ostensibly presented as a defence of smoking, it is so much more than that. What Dr. Gabb has done is to present what I consider to be the most plausible unifying theory to explain the intrusions and predations of the modern welfare state and he does so by means of class analysis; a tool which, Dr. Gabb would contend, is every bit as essential to the free market movement now as it was to the Marxists in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

Historical View

This section (written in or around 1990) takes us first of all through an infuriating account of the advance of the current anti-smoking lobby whose barely-occluded goal is the complete prohibition of tobacco in all forms.

It is impossible to deny that these people have all the political, legal and cultural momentum on their side right now but it may not always be so. Despite recounting in the gloomiest detail, the relentless success that these foes of liberty have enjoyed, Dr. Gabb takes us on a fascinating tour of the history of smoking to provide a soaring note of optimism. Anti-smoking laws may seem to us to have modern provenance but, in fact, they first started appearing only a few short years after the tobacco plant made its journey across the Atlantic.

Further, the previous rounds of anti-tobacco fury have often manifested themselves in draconian punishments for smokers ranging from excommunication to torture, castration and death. The good news is that every single one of these campaigns has ended in failure. Despite being threatened with the most blood-curdling of sanctions, people continued to smoke because they enjoyed smoking and, after a few short years, with the law in a state of disrepute, the authorities have always relented and let smokers simply do their thing.

The current crusaders may appear to be unstoppable but history is not on their side. They are merely the latest wave of killjoy busybodies whose ambitions will, sooner or later, be stubbed out.

Christian View

It is necessary to say at the outset that this is not a treatise on faith or theology. Rather, it is an analysis of the philosophical development of Christendom and the praxeological effects of the religion as reflected in both politics and morality.

No atheist or agnostic should be deterred from reading this finely wrought and scholarly essay which examines the pivotal role that Christianity has played in the development of Western canon in general, and Anglo-Saxon liberalism in particular.

Conservative view

Dr. Gabb is just about the only person I know who sees no inconsistency in calling himself both a Conservative and a Libertarian and in this essay he not only lays bare the base and scurrilous methods of the anti-smoking lobby but also persuasively argues the case that all Conservatives should defend both the right and freedom to smoke.

The right to advertise

This penultimate section of the book deals with the attack on advertising which has already succeeded in creating considerable limits and restrictions in pursuit of what are touted as altruistic aims.

Advertising is freedom of expression and that fact that the motives are commercial does not make it any less worthy of defending. In fact, Dr. Gabb makes the customarily persuasive point that it is precisely because of its unpopularity that it must be defended so resolutely:

It will be said against me, I have no doubt, that I am simply arguing for the right of people who are already very wealthy to go on making money from the needless suffering of others—that I am using the great names and arguments of liberalism to defend the most sordid of motives. That, however, is an occupational hazard. Unless its enemies are able to mount a frontal assault, freedom of any kind is invariably attacked in its outermost extensions, in those places where it is often least convenient or productive of honour to fight in its defence. But it is there that the battle is won or lost.”

In conclusion, Smoking, Class and Legitimation of Power is a fascinating, compelling, infuriating, uplifting and powerful book which resounds with quotable lines. It is not just a Weapon of Mass Debunkment, it is also, in my view, a highly valuable resource for anyone who seeks to maintain and defend the traditions of Western liberty from the various forces that threaten it.

In my humble opinion, this ranks as Dr. Gabb’s finest work to date and I cannot recommend it highly enough.