Inefficiency Saves Lives

Efficiency is synonymous with good government, and the progress of technology makes it possible to govern more efficiently and more thoroughly than ever before.  Who could possibly object?

Soon, satellites will keep track of the location of every car on British roads and we will all be carrying identity cards which, unlike old-fashioned ones, will be unforgeable and capable of containing most of our life history.  Satellite tracking is needed so that we can be charged for road use and identity cards are needed to prevent refugees from getting jobs. 

The new identity cards will even be equipped with RFID chips (as used to prevent goods from being stolen from shops) so that a wanted person would only have to walk past a suitably equipped lamp-post to be arrested.  Who could possibly object to the dawn of this new crime-free age?

And yet, on 21 February 1952, bonfires were lit up and down the country to celebrate the abolition of identity cards and people rejoiced as they threw the hated objects into the flames.  Most of those who celebrated on that day are now dead; but their actions should still make us hesitate before bringing in a new and infinitely more dangerous technology.

To see why the new proposals are so dangerous, look back another decade, to the early 1940s.  All over Europe, people were committing illegal acts and the State was powerless to stop them.  They hid Jews or disguised their identities, in an effort to impede the administrative decisions of their properly elected government.  They forged papers to allow members of enemy armed forces to return home and fight once more.  They went into hiding to avoid being resettled for the greater good; or conversely, they impersonated officials in order to evade the government's necessary and humane restrictions on travel.  From a rational, dispassionate, civil service viewpoint, the maladministration of the 1940s is something that should never be repeated.  The new technology ensures that it won't be.

Read any story of daring, heroism, escape, and survival from that time and think: could it happen today? Or, rather: could it happen tomorrow?  How could my father (to take a subject on which I am understandably biased) pretend to be a Soviet commissar in charge of a group of prisoners - thereby escaping Russia with his friends and eventually joining the Eighth Army - when his unforgeable identity card would clearly show him to be a member of a criminal nation justly condemned to a labour camp in perpetuity?  How could even the smallest illicit journey by motor vehicle (perhaps to view the site of a suspected missile site) go undetected by the ever-vigilant satellites?

A sense of proportion

If you look carefully at the current proposals, you will see that they are ridiculously disproportionate to their claimed goals.  If road charging is thought desirable, the "black box" to be installed in each car need not broadcast its position: all it needs to do is keep track of the charging points it has passed, counting down like a phone card or counting up like a taximeter.  This would be cheaper than what is proposed: the only inference to be drawn from the Government's preference for universal satellite surveillance is that the surveillance itself is the goal and road charging merely the excuse.

Similarly with identity cards.  For the most part the argument between supporters and opponents of identity cards is a matter of entrenched positions and no amount of argument will convince either side to change its mind; but it is possible to want identity cards and still object to the present proposals.  Making identity cards remotely readable is attractive for government because it makes for a more expensive project — more money and prestige for everyone involved — but none of the claimed benefits of identity cards require it, and once again it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the universal tracking of people's movements is the true goal.

A lesson from electrical engineering

This article has reached you through a machine whose electricity supply is carried, at one point, through a piece of wire barely able to stand the current.  Why this piece of weak engineering?  That piece of wire is a fuse.  It is there to save life.  Of course nothing dangerous can ever go wrong with your computer — nothing ever will, we promise — but if it does, the fuse will blow and you will live.

What is now being designed for us is a system of administration without fuses.   One day a democratically elected government will decide intern all Jews — or Asians or homosexuals or property-owners — or even to inter them (cheaper).  We have a warm feeling about the current lot and trust them not to do this; but to believe that no future government will ever take advantage of the absolute power we are giving it, to believe that history has ended and the tyrannies of every century up to the 20th will never recur — this is not only naive but irresponsible.  It is the exact equivalent of designing an electrical installation with no fuses and no earth.

Democratic accountability

But at least — you will object — if these undesirable consequences start to happen then we can vote against the people responsible for these abuses?  Not quite.  With a truly efficient democratic system, opposition will be suicidal.  A companion paper gives details.

How far have we got?

It is the essence of good government that any really objectionable changes should be more or less complete by the time that anyone notices what is happening: then it is simple to say "it can't be as bad as you think: look, we've already done it and the sky hasn't fallen on our heads".

As I write this, in late 2003, comedians are being arrested for making illegal jokes and the Bishop of Chester is being interrogated to see whether his defence of Christian values amounts to a criminal offence.  According to current definitions, I appear to be a terrorist, a writer of homophobic propaganda, and a distributor of material that may be considered to incite racial and religious hatred.  [Do not follow these links: it may be a crime to do so, and your action will be recorded by your Internet service provider and be available for inspection by law enforcement authorities].

Leaving aside such particular and personal sources of bias, the core of the argument remains: designing a perfectly efficient system of administration and law enforcement is like designing electrical equipment without fuses.  We can trust the present generation of politicians but we cannot predict what things will be like in 100 or even 50 years' time.  Enslaving future generations to the whims of rulers who have not yet been born is the height of irresponsibility; and yet, once done, it can never be reversed. 

In the end, if the worst happens (and, given human history, the worst will happen one day) inefficiency saves lives.

But who will argue for inefficiency?

References

You can find some relevant references here.