Coronavirus gives politicians a taste of absolute power without contradiction

It is shocking how quickly coercion and control have become part of the democratic world. Apparently absolute power, without participation or contradiction, is difficult to resist.

Gerhard Hormann

28 augustus 2021 11:24

Translated from: https://www.rd.nl/artikel/940636-coronavirus-laat-politici-proeven-aan-absolute-macht-zonder-tegenspraak

During the height of the credit crisis, I was driving to the south of Sweden with a photographer. At the time, I was still working as a paid journalist and that week I had the opportunity to test a convertible version of the Saab 9.3. That car brand was then about to fall and there were rumors that it would be taken over by a Chinese company.

That's how we came up with the idea to photograph this car in its own habitat and at the same time interview a few local Saab dealers. It was a nice idea that worked out well, but at the same time it was pointless, wasteful car miles because we could have shot this new model in front of a Swedish restaurant in our own country or in a residential area with Scandinavian-looking wooden houses.

During that long drive, we had plenty of time to philosophize about fossil fuels and global warming. Then, more than ten years ago, we concluded that the necessary behavioral change could only be achieved by sacrificing democratic achievements such as freedom of movement and privacy. You could also say that we already realized then that effective climate policy would automatically lead to a kind of green semi-dictatorship.

That wasn't a value judgement, just a simple observation. Partly for this reason, we concluded that such a radical policy would not be feasible, because in a parliamentary democracy no one would accept such a curtailment of civil rights and freedoms. You can suggest giving every citizen a kind of CO2 quota, but implementation requires a fine-grained monitoring device that registers and analyzes every purchase and every kilometer driven.

What seemed an impossibility during that trip to Sweden has now become an almost everyday reality in some places. If the pandemic has shown anything, it is how surprisingly easy it is to transform a parliamentary democracy into a repressive control society that intervenes in individual choices and freedoms.

History has yet to show whether the government measures taken to combat the coronavirus were wise or exaggerated. Only with retrospective effect can we determine whether the remedy was perhaps worse than the disease, precisely because it affects so many aspects of social life. But already you can see how tempting and intoxicating power can be for reasonably reasonable, democratically elected politicians and how quickly consensus is exchanged for control and state coercion. What is happening now in countries like Australia and Canada, but also closer in France, Austria and Greece, I would not have thought possible until recently. This can be a temporary emergency, but also a testing ground for politicians who have had a taste of power without participation or contradiction.

The author is a publicist. For previous columns see rd.nl/hormann. Respond? hormann@refdag.nl