'Marx hated press freedom? Er, I don't think so. He was its most passionate champion' – Brendan O'Neill, The Telegraph, 29th November 2012: “Marx was in fact one of the nineteenth century's greatest champions of press freedom. Marx railed against state censorship of the press by the Prussian authorities. In 1842, when he was 24 years of age, he wrote a series of articles for Rheinische Zeitung, a radical newspaper that was later squished by censorious Prussian rulers, in which he passionately argued for full press freedom. "Goethe once said that the painter succeeds only with a type of feminine beauty which he has loved in at least one living being. Freedom of the press, too, has its beauty – if not exactly a feminine one – which one must have loved to be able to defend it", said the fresh-faced idealist. Marx confessed his love for press freedom: "I feel that its existence is essential, that it is something which I need, without which my nature can have no full, satisfied, complete existence." He marvelled at the ability of some people, particularly those in authority, to "enjoy a complete existence even in the absence of any freedom of the press".
Marx challenged the idea that censoring the press could be a means of improving either the media or society, as today's campaigners who want to do away with the tabloids seem to believe. "What an illogical paradox to regard the censorship as a basis for improving our press!" he said. "The spiritual development of Germany has gone forward not owing to, but in spite of, the censorship."
Of course the press is not perfect, Marx said – but "you cannot enjoy the advantages of a free press without putting up with its inconveniences. You cannot pluck the rose without its thorns!" Those wise words should be borne in mind by all those who now want to "clean up" the press and get rid of the bad bits of it. Far from hating press freedom, Marx made one of the greatest-ever arguments for it: "The free press is the ubiquitous vigilant eye of a people's soul, the embodiment of a people's faith in itself, the eloquent link that connects the individual with the state and the world, the embodied culture that transforms material struggles into intellectual struggles and idealises their crude material form. It is a people's frank confession to itself, and the redeeming power of confession is well known. It is the spiritual mirror in which a people can see itself, and self-examination is the first condition of wisdom. It is the spirit of the state, which can be delivered into every cottage, cheaper than coal gas. It is all-sided, ubiquitous, omniscient. It is the ideal world which always wells up out of the real world and flows back into it with ever greater spiritual riches and renews its soul."
'Leveson wins on long-windedness' - Letter to Financial Times 30th November 2012 from Mr Ian Walker, Riddlesdown, Surrey:
“Sir, Lord Justice Leveson is clearly no Voltaire, who apologised to his friend that he had not time to make his letter shorter. The 2,000-page report needs a good sub-editor to pull out the key issues. Milton's 'Areopagitica' remains the best summary of the issues involved with licensing the press and is commendably much shorter than Leveson's tome. Judges and lawyers sometimes measure their worth by quantity rather than quality”.
Marx's defence of the freedom of the press is an eloquent companion piece to the original bourgeois liberal statement of John Milton in his 1644 tract 'Areopagitica: A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing' which opposed the 1643 Licensing Order. Milton argued that an individual must have unlimited access to the ideas of his fellow men in “a free and open encounter” and “truth will prevail”. Milton passionately wrote “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties”. He believed “If we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must (also) regulate all recreations and pastimes” and that licensing is “a dishonour and derogation to the author to the book, to the privilege and dignity of learning”. Milton also wrote that “books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them”. Freedom of the Press was achieved in England in 1695 when the Licensing Act was not renewed by the House of Commons. This is companion 'legislation' to the 1688 Bill of Rights and the bourgeois liberal Glorious Revolution.
The critical lines in the Leveson Report are probably the following where a newspaper/magazine etc. as a “subscriber to a recognised regulatory body... provides for the claimant to use a fair, fast and inexpensive arbitration service...claims for costs incurred by a claimant who could have used the arbitration service. On the issue of costs, it should equally be open to a claimant to rely on failure by a newspaper to subscribe to the regulator thereby depriving him or her of access to a fair, fast and inexpensive arbitration service”.
Is this not a type of 'licensing' which Milton argued passionately against in 1644 and Marx against Prussian censorship in 1842?
Would the 'Socialist Standard' have to “subscribe” to the “recognised regulatory board”?
It is acknowledged that Tories who oppose Leveson and any diminution of the freedom of the press are defending the bourgeois rights and liberties of capitalist media owners (owners of means of production) like Murdoch to own as many newspapers as he can, and exercise editorial control in support of a capitalist agenda and oppose the interests of the working class.
The freedom of speech and independence of the 'Socialist Standard' in bourgeois capitalist society is 'protected' by the notion of freedom of the press established by the non-renewal of the Licensing Act in 1695, and the abolition of stamp duty tax on newspapers in 1855.
As Marxists we should not support any statutory regulation on the freedom of the press in bourgeois capitalist society.
Steve Clayton
Marx challenged the idea that censoring the press could be a means of improving either the media or society, as today's campaigners who want to do away with the tabloids seem to believe. "What an illogical paradox to regard the censorship as a basis for improving our press!" he said. "The spiritual development of Germany has gone forward not owing to, but in spite of, the censorship."
Of course the press is not perfect, Marx said – but "you cannot enjoy the advantages of a free press without putting up with its inconveniences. You cannot pluck the rose without its thorns!" Those wise words should be borne in mind by all those who now want to "clean up" the press and get rid of the bad bits of it. Far from hating press freedom, Marx made one of the greatest-ever arguments for it: "The free press is the ubiquitous vigilant eye of a people's soul, the embodiment of a people's faith in itself, the eloquent link that connects the individual with the state and the world, the embodied culture that transforms material struggles into intellectual struggles and idealises their crude material form. It is a people's frank confession to itself, and the redeeming power of confession is well known. It is the spiritual mirror in which a people can see itself, and self-examination is the first condition of wisdom. It is the spirit of the state, which can be delivered into every cottage, cheaper than coal gas. It is all-sided, ubiquitous, omniscient. It is the ideal world which always wells up out of the real world and flows back into it with ever greater spiritual riches and renews its soul."
'Leveson wins on long-windedness' - Letter to Financial Times 30th November 2012 from Mr Ian Walker, Riddlesdown, Surrey:
“Sir, Lord Justice Leveson is clearly no Voltaire, who apologised to his friend that he had not time to make his letter shorter. The 2,000-page report needs a good sub-editor to pull out the key issues. Milton's 'Areopagitica' remains the best summary of the issues involved with licensing the press and is commendably much shorter than Leveson's tome. Judges and lawyers sometimes measure their worth by quantity rather than quality”.
Marx's defence of the freedom of the press is an eloquent companion piece to the original bourgeois liberal statement of John Milton in his 1644 tract 'Areopagitica: A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing' which opposed the 1643 Licensing Order. Milton argued that an individual must have unlimited access to the ideas of his fellow men in “a free and open encounter” and “truth will prevail”. Milton passionately wrote “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties”. He believed “If we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must (also) regulate all recreations and pastimes” and that licensing is “a dishonour and derogation to the author to the book, to the privilege and dignity of learning”. Milton also wrote that “books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them”. Freedom of the Press was achieved in England in 1695 when the Licensing Act was not renewed by the House of Commons. This is companion 'legislation' to the 1688 Bill of Rights and the bourgeois liberal Glorious Revolution.
The critical lines in the Leveson Report are probably the following where a newspaper/magazine etc. as a “subscriber to a recognised regulatory body... provides for the claimant to use a fair, fast and inexpensive arbitration service...claims for costs incurred by a claimant who could have used the arbitration service. On the issue of costs, it should equally be open to a claimant to rely on failure by a newspaper to subscribe to the regulator thereby depriving him or her of access to a fair, fast and inexpensive arbitration service”.
Is this not a type of 'licensing' which Milton argued passionately against in 1644 and Marx against Prussian censorship in 1842?
Would the 'Socialist Standard' have to “subscribe” to the “recognised regulatory board”?
It is acknowledged that Tories who oppose Leveson and any diminution of the freedom of the press are defending the bourgeois rights and liberties of capitalist media owners (owners of means of production) like Murdoch to own as many newspapers as he can, and exercise editorial control in support of a capitalist agenda and oppose the interests of the working class.
The freedom of speech and independence of the 'Socialist Standard' in bourgeois capitalist society is 'protected' by the notion of freedom of the press established by the non-renewal of the Licensing Act in 1695, and the abolition of stamp duty tax on newspapers in 1855.
As Marxists we should not support any statutory regulation on the freedom of the press in bourgeois capitalist society.
Steve Clayton
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