Some Speccie readers may not realise why August 1 is an important date. It was the date on which the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, an act of the British parliament, came into operation the following year. It goes by the name Emancipation Day.

Over the years, I have given speeches on topics about which I don’t necessarily know much. But as a commonsense economist and with pals who are good at twisting my arm, it’s a situation in which I have sometimes found myself. The end result this time was speaking at an Emancipation Day breakfast organised by the Australian Institute for Progress.

I had at least read William Hague’s monumental biography of William Wilberforce, the driving force behind the Slavery Abolition Act, that was published in 2008. It is a very long book, in part because the campaign to abolish slavery in the British empire took so long. After all, the famous Somerset case was handed down in 1772 and the statute outlawing slavery in England became law in 1807.

More recently, I read Nigel Biggar’s Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning. While Biggar’s well-researched book stirred considerable controversy at the time, he makes three eminently sensible points.

First, there were pluses and minuses of colonisation for the receiving countries.  Secondly, the British were the best colonists of all. Thirdly, the abolition of slavery by the British, and the government resources that were devoted to ensuring this outcome, is one of the greatest acts of moral altruism in world history.

When I read Hague’s book, I was struck with the similarities between the campaign to abolish slavery and the tariff debate in Australia. In both instances, fears were raised about job losses, the concentration of those job losses in particular cities and, more quietly, the capital losses for slave-owners. The decision by the British parliament to award substantial monetary compensation to slave owners is often seen as a black mark on what was otherwise a very significant step to ushering in universal human rights.  The reality is that without this political compromise, the legislation would never have passed.

Economists understand this in terms of Pareto optimality: where the winners can compensate the losers and, on balance, everyone is better off, then the change is worth making. In the case of reducing the high tariff barriers that existed in Australia up to the 1980s, various plans and means of offsetting the costs to those affected were put in place.

But rather than speak too long in my talk about the abolition of slavery – its genesis had much to do with the spread of Enlightenment values at the time as well as what might be termed ‘humanitarian Christianity’– I embarked on a related theme.

While we now take for granted the immorality of slavery, democratic governments around the world have no qualms about telling people how to live their lives. In many instances, it goes beyond giving ‘sage’ advice. Governments now frequently make certain changes to people’s lifestyles compulsory or semi-compulsory, lest penalties be imposed. It’s a case of the state knows best, and citizens need to comply, even if it involves their loss of agency.

There are just so many instances that illustrate this point, although the Covid period represents a dismal nadir in terms of instructing people how to live their lives.  It now turns out that many – most – of the dictates issued in the name of containing the virus were never based on any serious analysis. The closure of playgrounds and the imposition of a curfew in Victoria spring to mind. This didn’t prevent governments from insisting that everyone should comply with the restrictions.

There is often an assumption in government actions that many people simply don’t appreciate what is in their best interests and the government must at least nudge them in the direction of ‘correct’ decision-making.   Indeed, there is a proliferation of so-called ‘nudge units’ located in various government bureaucracies here and around the world, handing out bossy instructions to ‘low information’ citizens. At the federal level, our nudge unit goes by the acronym, Beta – Behavioural Economics Team of Australia.

The fundamental condescension of these units, as well as the supposition that these bureaucrats do know better than ‘ordinary folk’, are infrequently queried, including by journalists. One of the principal activities of Beta has been to convince people that paying taxes and fines on time is good for them and good for the nation.

Examples of removing the autonomy of individuals and households to make their own decisions particularly abound in the climate change space. Many politicians believe that saving the planet – or being seen to be saving the planet – trumps the right of people to make their own decisions – about the car they drive, about the type of heating they have, about the appliances they can buy, and the list goes on.

Certain states in Australia have taken this bossiness to new levels; it is also paralleled in parts of Europe and the UK. The Victorian government, for instance, has moved to prohibit gas connections to all newly constructed homes as well as prohibiting the replacement of existing gas appliances in existing homes.

Consumers are assured that they will save money by electrifying their homes, although the estimates are extremely rubbery. Subsidies are available for heat pump water heaters as well as the purchase of electric vehicles. The argument is that the freely determined preferences of consumers based on their assessment of the costs and benefits must be obstructed, for the public benefit.

I was particularly taken recently by a proposal being examined by the UK government that supermarkets will be required to alter the calorific value of their offerings to ensure that the typical weekly shop of a household – whatever that is – contains 100 fewer calories than currently. Evidently, this follows on from a similar initiative of the French government. Note here that several European countries already have a sugar tax.

The mind boggles. The argument is that obesity is a national problem, and this change will somehow make a difference. The fact that people do understand that ice cream and potato chips contain more calories than celery and cucumbers clearly hasn’t occurred to the witless politicians and bureaucrats overseeing this initiative.

At this stage, it was obvious to me that I had way too much material to cover the encroachments on our personal freedoms.  Think of the restrictions on free speech, 18C and penalties for so-called ‘hate speech’.  And there are the limitations on freedom of contract in the labour market where workers cannot make choices based on their personal preferences because of what is set down in statutes – think here minimum wages and forms of employment, including independent contractor status.

Of course, the complete deprivation of personal liberty of slavery is at the extreme end of the spectrum. But the fact is that the governments of democratic countries around the world increasingly infringe upon our freedom to act, purchase and speak. That’s a message for Emancipation Day.