All the way back to Magna Carta, the struggle to hold power to account has shaped our society, to the extent that it is possible to argue that dissent is the tradition that best defines the English, from the meadow at Runnymede to the vote for Brexit.
The history of England hinges on a moment of extreme accountability – the beheading of a king in January 1649. Before Charles I climbed the scaffold, theology and tradition were the prime movers in policymaking; following his downfall, deliberation and democracy began to take root. This period of great change is the subject of The Century of Revolution by Christopher Hill. Covering English history from 1603 to 1714, the Marxist historian analyses how, in their struggle to achieve accountability, the people were forced to confront the absolute power of the Stuart monarchy twice within 50 years.
By breaking the power of the crown to grant economic monopolies, the English were able to establish a political system more responsive to the aspirations of business, which led in turn to the industrial revolution taking off in Britain earlier than in nations that continued to be ruled by absolute monarchs. This process is analysed in Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson, in which the authors argue that successful countries require accountable institutions that practise transparency and probity.
Thomas Paine was the greatest revolutionary England ever produced. His critique of the aristocratic rule created by the 1689 bill of rights lit the fuse of the American revolution. AJ Ayer’s short biography Thomas Paine recognises the importance of accountability as a key principle of the Enlightenment and highlights the continuing relevance of Paine’s ideas.
Paul Foot’s masterly study of representative democracy in Britain, The Vote: How It Was Won and How It Was Undermined, was the last book he produced before his death in 2004 and was, he said, the culmination of a lifetime’s political activity, reading and thought. Starting with the Putney debates of 1647, Foot traces the struggle for accountability through various reform acts, Chartist demonstrations and suffragette campaigns. Midway through, however, the tone changes as Foot begins to relate how, following the introduction of universal suffrage in 1928, the powers that be set out to undermine the ability of citizens to exercise agency over their lives through the ballot box.
Though we are no longer subject to the whims and fancies of divinely ordained monarchs, absolute power now resides with the markets and the neoliberal project that drives globalisation. The corporate capture of democracy has led to an economic ideology based on the notion of Tina (“There is no alternative”). In The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Naomi Klein describes how corporations exploit wars, coups and natural disasters to deliver economic shock therapy to reeling communities. Under the cover of supplying aid, the tools of neoliberal engineering – privatisation, deregulation and cuts to social programmes – are imposed to undermine the public sphere.
The term “cavalier” is a fitting appellation for the free marketeers, in that they act with impunity and exhibit the same sense of entitlement as their 17th‑century namesakes. Fortunately, the dissenting tradition is alive and well in movements such as #MeToo, Black Lives Matter and the school climate strikes.
• The Three Dimensions of Freedom by Billy Bragg is published by Faber (£6). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
