Under the title “The U.K. Banned a Cream Cheese Commercial Due to Gender Stereotypes,” Reason Magazine journalist Ben McDonald reports:
The first ads to fall prey to the U.K.’s new ban on gender stereotypes in advertising are tepid spots for Philadelphia Cream Cheese and Volkswagen. The law, which is enforced by the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), went into effect in June … The ASA said it received 128 complaints regarding the cream cheese ad and three complaints about the car ad.
It’s worth reading the whole story. Reason Magazine, which used to be a sympathetic libertarian voice, has become an essential source of information about the absurdities and dangers of statism and our authoritarian culture.
I know that some Brexiteers honestly believe that Brexit will allow their sovereign country to return to its classical liberal glory—the cradle of liberty. I hope that they are right. Who knows, they might be? More likely, they are mistaken. “Sovereignty” means unrestrained power. In recent history, the British government has often been tempting tyranny more enthusiastically that the government apparatus of the European Union. And European Union laws, although far from libertarian, could at least provide some form of check on the British Leviathan, if only by allowing British subjects to easily vote with their feet. For example, if you want to express some non-politically correct ideas, you are probably still better off in France or Italy.
The prospects for freedom of speech are not good anywhere in the civilized world, not to mention the non-civilized world. An article in the current issue of The Economist (“The Global Gag on Free Speech is Tightening,” August 15, 2019) confirm this trend, including official assaults on non-politically-correct speech in the U.K.
John Stuart Mill, the famous 19th-century economist and author of On Liberty, must be turning in his grave.
READER COMMENTS
Rob Rawlings
Aug 18 2019 at 9:51am
I do not think this is actually a law.
The Advertising Standards Authority (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_Standards_Authority_(United_Kingdom)) is a private organization and this represents the industry regulating itself and as such may not be a good example of ‘the absurdities and dangers of statism ‘.
Pierre Lemieux
Aug 18 2019 at 10:37am
They do seem to have enforcement powers granted by the state. For example:
So I suspect ASA is, for that purpose at least, the state in disguise—Leviathan in private clothing. If not, my example is not decisive (although John Stuart Mill would still complain about mob power).
People obey the state under threats. The Economist‘s story linked in my post gives more directly muscular examples of repression of free speech in the U.K.
Rob Rawlings
Aug 18 2019 at 11:33am
There is clearly an interesting dynamic between the ASA and the British state as shown by the link. But given the fact that the last few UK governments have all been Conservative and have to appease their large anti-progressive wing I find it hard to see this an example of state-mandated activity but rather of an industry( for whatever reason) regulating itself to embrace more progressive thinking.
Pierre Lemieux
Aug 18 2019 at 4:59pm
Rob: As you said, the relationship between ASA, the UK government, and advertisers is not very democratically clear, if we can use this expression. Have a look at https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN06130#fullreport:
It seems that broadcasters who run advertisements breaking ASA’s “voluntary” codes can lose their government licences. This looks more like imposed “self-regulation” than self-regulation in any voluntary sense.
Rob Rawlings
Aug 18 2019 at 5:44pm
Yes, it looks like the government makes it a condition of granting a broadcast license that broadcasters follow ASA guidelines, and they can lose this license if they don’t comply – so I agree this appears to make ASA ‘guidelines’ de facto laws (at least as far as broadcasters of advertisement are concerned.).
Loquitur Veritatem
Aug 18 2019 at 10:18am
“They” who propose a ban on gender stereotyping probably do not Brexiters, and probably consist of Remainers. You have fallen into the trap of assuming that Britain is a monolith of one mind. If that were the case, there would be no Remainers, and thus no proposed ban on gender stereotyping.
Mark Brady
Aug 18 2019 at 2:10pm
Go here, and find “advertising” and you’ll see that the EU is no friend of freedom of speech in advertising.
European Parliament resolution of 17 April 2018 on gender equality in the media sector in the EU.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-8-2018-0101_EN.html
Pierre Lemieux
Aug 18 2019 at 4:32pm
Thanks, Mark, and you’re right: this is pretty dangerous and depressing. Note however that it’s only a resolution, not a law. And the Empire is far, as opposed to “us.” But obviously, the tyrannical temptation is not only on one side.
Mark Brady
Aug 18 2019 at 5:31pm
It’s only a matter of time before the EU regulates advertising and much else online.
The EU’s latest assault on internet freedom
Soon online speech will be regulated by Brussels.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/08/16/the-eus-latest-assault-on-internet-freedom/
Armin Chosnama
Aug 18 2019 at 6:39pm
The relationship to Brexit is tenuous. People pushing for Brexit didn’t do it to have more free speech. They did it for independence from the EU. Independence means being able to make your own stupid decisions. It’s preferable to being forced to abide by the stupid decisions of people from far away and with different cultural values.
Shane L
Aug 19 2019 at 4:57am
I’m somewhat sceptical about this narrative of the UK having a classic liberal past prior to their entry to the EU. The great shift left in British politics occurred long before entry to the EU, in the 1945 Labour government led by Clement Attlee – a vociferous opponent of British entry to the Common Market. Indeed, Labour had a powerful Eurosceptic element right into the 1980s, when the opposition Labour manifesto in 1983 (nicknamed the “longest suicide note in history” for its unpopular radicalism) proposed British exit from the European Community without any referendum.
If anything, the UK joined the EEC in 1973 and has shifted considerably to the economic right since then.
Regarding freedom of speech, I’m also sceptical that the UK had a liberal golden age. Erotic or pornographic material is more tolerated today than in the past, for example. (Meanwhile, of the top ten countries in the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index, five are EU member states.
https://rsf.org/en/ranking )
Finally, the people who voted for Brexit were disproportionately cold to some aspects of liberty, according to Lord Ashcroft exit polls.
69% of voters who thought globalisation was a force for ill voted Leave; 51% of those who thought capitalism was a force for ill voted Leave; 80% of those who thought immigration was a force for ill voted Leave. Leave voters were also negative about social liberalism and the internet, and less likely than Remain voters to believe in social mobility in the modern UK.
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/
To summarise, I don’t think the UK was ever in classic liberal glory, exactly; its greatest loss of economic liberty happened before entry to the EU; membership of the EU has coincided with major increases in economic liberty; Leave voters want less liberty, not more!
Pierre Lemieux
Aug 19 2019 at 12:51pm
Interesting post, Shane L. You misread me (or I wasn’t clear), however, when you seem to object that Britain’s “greatest loss of economic liberty happened before entry to the EU.” I agree with that. Britain’s classical-liberal glory was in the 19th century and was only a relative glory. British classical liberalism was far from perfect, but better than in most if not all places.
Shane L
Aug 20 2019 at 4:34am
Fair point, Pierre, I beg your pardon.
Regarding the direction of Brexit, the great constitutional expert Professor Vernon Bogdanor has pointed out that the Brexit voters were not particularly interested in liberalism and openness, but it may be what they end up with:
“For the referendum vote was in essence a cry of rage by the victims of globalisation, the revenge of the betrayed. They sought protection against the excesses of globalisation, against market forces which, so they believed, were costing them their jobs and holding down their wages. They wanted, above all, restrictions on immigration from the EU. Immigration, so they believed, seemed primarily to have benefited the elite who were able to hire efficient Polish builders and Lithuanian au pairs….
But some of the leaders of the Brexit campaign from the Conservative Party were economic liberals who, while agreeing that EU immigration should be restricted, had an entirely different agenda. They sought Brexit for basically Thatcherite reasons, to ensure a more effective operation of the market economy, freed from the restrictions and regulations of Jacques Delors’s social Europe….
It is this economically liberal view of some of the Brexit leaders rather than the populist view of most of the Brexit voters which seems to me more likely to prevail after Brexit. Indeed, it seems to me the view which must prevail if Britain is to survive economically after Brexit. For Brexit makes no sense unless Britain decides to chart a new course towards economic liberalism.”
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/britain-and-the-eu-in-or-out-one-year-on
So they may get a kind of liberty almost by accident, against the instincts of most of the people who voted for Brexit.
Pierre Lemieux
Aug 23 2019 at 5:53pm
Shane: Thanks for the reference. I hope Bogdanor is right. It would be an interesting and not inconceivable result. As liberty-leaning people often vote themselves into tyranny, some tyranny-leaning people would vote themselves into liberty.
Phil H
Aug 19 2019 at 9:50am
I’m reasonably happy to bite the bullet on this one. These actions are on the face of them somewhat silly and trivial, but in a progressive spirit, it does seem like advertising and music are two areas which have simply not caught up with the rest of the world in terms of gender equality.
As with most such rules, I think the way to construe it is giving a formal frame to a specific kind of rudeness that we have decided is not wanted in the public square. As with all definitions of rudeness, this one looks a bit silly around the edges (knowing obscenity when we see it, watershed rules, etc.), but the principle doesn’t seem too alien.
Pierre Lemieux
Aug 19 2019 at 12:55pm
Phil: In “we have decided is not wanted,” who is “we”?
Mark Z
Aug 19 2019 at 7:34pm
Defining an advertisement as rude isn’t the ‘silly’ part; it’s enforcing standards of politeness with force (I’d also use a more severe word to describe it than ‘silly’).
Dan Q
Aug 19 2019 at 9:37pm
I don’t even see how these are standards of politeness. Is it impolite for a man to set up a campsite? For a woman to read on a bench next to a baby stroller? Does it offend anyone to see these things in real life? Would you tell someone to stop performing the offending actions, for reasons of politeness? If not, why is it rude to portray them?
Phil H
Aug 20 2019 at 1:07am
Hi, thanks for the replies.
Pierre, the “we” is the interlocking set of political and legal institutions that make up the country. In the same way as “we” choose a prime minister or we leave the EU, it’s the outcome of a series of processes with sufficient legitimacy.
Mark Z: I understand the argument, but the world simply isn’t like that. You don’t get swearing in adverts. That’s not a mysterious common will. It’s an enforced standard. You don’t get nudity in adverts. You don’t get false claims in adverts. All of these things are enforced. You may disagree with that, but it’s how it is. I’m saying that the new British rule is arguably a reasonable extension of how the world is. It’s not a radical redefinition.
Dan Q: if you really don’t understand, a few minutes on the internet will enlighten you. I’m not sure I believe it myself. I think you’re using the “I don’t understand” pose as a way to imply that no reasonable person could possibly understand this ruling. I get that rhetorical ploy – I use it myself sometimes! But it’s just rhetoric. If you have an argument, lay it out, and I’ll try to engage with it.
Pierre Lemieux
Aug 23 2019 at 5:48pm
Phil: On the non-existence or the tyranny of the political we, you might want to read my short article “The Vacuity of the Political ‘We’.”
Phil H
Aug 31 2019 at 12:00pm
There is a certain kind of mathematical analysis which, when performed on large numbers of agents, produces complicated results… therefore countries cannot be assumed to have preferences.
You have made a straightforward error: you operationalised “preference” as a mathematical construct called the indifference curve; you observed that you (can) get contradictory results when applying that construct to large numbers of agents (like a society); you concluded that a society cannot have preferences. The error is that you assumed the operationalisation *is* the preference. But it is not. It is a mathematical tool used by economists.
I like cheese. I prefer to eat it, often. Sometimes, I don’t prefer to eat it. What the indifference curve says about that is utterly irrelevant. Today, I ate cheese. I preferred to eat it. Tomorrow, I may not eat cheese. I may not prefer it. Companies, countries, charities, and clubs prefer and disprefer things all the time, and the way to tell what they prefer is to look at their revealed preferences: what they do.
The use of “we” to describe the actions of a state is a rhetorical device, and you may dislike it. But it is not inaccurate.
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