Robinson Essay

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” (Benjamin Franklin) Do you agree?

It is widely recognised that Benjamin Franklin was not, in reality, referring to a straight tradeoff between liberty and security in the above quote. However, the quote has assumed this exact meaning in the centuries since its formulation: popularly understood, it suggests that more security equals less liberty. It is this understanding that will frame this essay, according to which people should be reluctant to surrender their liberty, especially to governments, due to the danger that their liberties will be withdrawn more comprehensively than envisioned, potentially leading to their permanent loss. The first argument that must be considered is Franklin’s own: that surrendering liberty for greater security is always inadvisable. The second argument is that liberties should sometimes be surrendered ‘temporarily’ for the greater good of enhanced security: as Michael Ignatieff puts it, this is doubtless a ‘moral evil’1 (i.e. something which is undesirable) but is sometimes necessary to stave off a greater evil. The final argument, and the one taken by the author of this essay, posits that Franklin’s quote is too black and white in dealing with security and liberty. Rather than a trade-off between liberty and security, there exists a necessary balance or ‘hostile symbiosis.’ between the two.2 3 Thus, security and liberty are not mutually exclusive. This essay will thus argue that Benjamin Franklin’s claim is flawed, not because it is desirable to surrender liberty for security, but because it presents a false and overly simplistic trade-off between the two.

Despite this essay arguing against the soundness of Franklin’s claim, we must start by acknowledging the counter-argument, and the very real dangers that come with surrendering liberty for security. The first danger is that often many people do not know that their liberties are being surrendered, which is extremely dangerous, as people therefore do not know how many liberties they are losing. This can eventually lead to a society with no liberty whatsoever, and a tyrannical government, which is bad for society and democracy, and actually has less security on a day-to-day basis for its citizens. If people are not originally aware of losing liberties, then it becomes easier for the government to take more liberties away, which is particularly dangerous, as it can lead to a slippery slope, or a spiral, as they are constantly losing liberties, and by the time they realise it, it becomes too late to recover those liberties. This is often witnessed in the process by which democracies become authoritarian dictatorships, with the most infamous example being Weimar Germany’s descent into Nazism, in which a majority of ordinary people willingly gave up their liberties due to their fear of communism. It is in such circumstances of perceived vulnerability that people must pay the greatest attention in order to avoid surrendering their liberties to budding authoritarians.

The second danger is a point that Franklin’s quote, as popularly understood, seems to miss: it is often the liberties of others that are surrendered, which they suspect will not affect them. For example, in the aftermath of 9/11, many American citizens were willing to surrender the liberties of Muslim Americans and Arab Americans, as they were ethnically profiled and perceived as a threat to the majority non-Muslim population. However, they did not realise that changes in the laws protecting civil liberties would then lead to them being harmed later on. This is because after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States and its allies fought a ‘war on terror’. This is a very amorphous term, distinct from previous wars with clearlydefined objectives, such as World War One. Therefore, many people still believe that the ‘war’ is still ongoing, with many of the laws still in place today. The US was not alone in passing laws that decreased liberty in favour of security after 9/11, of which a majority are still active. The UK has introduced various laws, such as the UK Terrorism Act 2000, that  has led to the arrest of many individuals, that would not have been arrested on conventional  grounds. The Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, meanwhile, has increased the powers of the police by allowing them to listen into phone conversations, taking away citizens’ privacy in an unprecedented fashion. The final way in which surrendering liberty for greater security can be dangerous is that the authority of governments often expands beyond what was originally envisioned. During times of crisis, governments are given ‘emergency’ powers to handle the crisis, enabling them to infringe the rights of their citizens. For example, after 9/11 the federal government used its newly-granted powers of surveillance to keep mosques in New York City under watch, infringing on the rights of Muslim Americans. The government’s power to define what is meant by ‘crisis’ or ‘wartime’ can indeed be disturbing: it is duly up to the government to decide when the ‘crisis’  is over. This can lead to the government constantly having emergency powers and removing liberties with their increased power, creating a slippery slope that is hard to escape and setting a dangerous precedent for the removal of liberties. During the Covid-19 pandemic, for example, Viktor Orban – the already authoritarian leader of Hungary – was granted many emergency powers to deal with the pandemic, allowing him to rule through decree for an indefinite period. Many commentators suggested this could ultimately lead to him using these powers to enhance his power, making Hungary a democracy in name only by further eroding the freedom of speech. 4 All of this has come fromthe need for increased security in during the pandemic, demonstrating Franklin’s point that solving a ‘temporary’ problem through surrendering liberties might cause their indefinite removal. This is not just the case in Hungary; due to the pandemic, many other countries have taken severe measures, giving increased power to their leaders to deal with the pandemic in an increasingly authoritarian fashion. Along with Hungary, Cambodia, Serbia, Turkey, China, India, El Salvador, Uganda, Togo, and Azerbaijan have all weakened their constitutions, granting expansive executive powers to their leaders in order to deal with the Coronavirus.

However, while there are surely some compelling arguments that support Franklin’s quote, this essay will disagree with the fundamental assumptions underlying it. The first argument against the quote is that liberties can be, and often are, sacrificed in the short term in order to ensure liberty in the long term. Such is the argument put forward by Michael Ignatieff. Ignatieff argues that ‘If there’s nothing done to protect liberty, liberty can be destroyed, therefore, some liberties have to be sacrificed to maintain all liberty.’6 In essence, Ignatieff’s argument is that liberties often need to be sacrificed in the short-term in favour of ensuring security, which in turn is necessary for the preservation of fundamental liberties; Ignatieff thus recognises the trade-off but believes it is often the lesser of the two evils. By increasing security through sacrificing liberties in the short-term, a government can prevent protect liberty in the longer term. Security measures from the post-9/11 moment still exist today as we live in a society still threatened by terrorism, as shown by recent attacks both in Western

The only issue with Ignatieff’s argument is that, while liberty may be surrendered to defeat a greater evil, there is no guarantee of the government ever returning it. Only if people are aware of the liberties that are being surrendered can they be vigilant in ensuring that these powers are not abused, and that the government does not seek to expand its power beyond what is reasonably required. What is required is a careful balance between surrendering sufficient liberty to safeguard our security whilst retaining the ability to reclaim those liberties once that task is achieved.

Another argument that goes against Benjamin Franklin’s quote is that liberty is something that is worth fighting for, and if it is not defended then there’s the risk of losing it all together. Ignatieff argues ‘Democracies live by free markets, but a free market in everything — enriched uranium, ricin, anthrax — will mean the death of democracy.’7 What Ignatieff is trying to say here is that security and liberty can go together, and this often this is the best combination. This is because, whilst almost everyone agrees that liberty is essential, but often having too much can lead to its downfall. Liberty needs to be protected, through various means, which the majority of require an increased security of the state. However, an increased security in a state, which is still very much on the liberal and democratic side, is better than a complete authoritarian state, with no liberties at all. This shows that often having ‘less is more’, as if we surrender a few liberties, we can protect the majority of them, rather than risk losing all of them. This again brings us back to the first argument mentioned against the quote, as it can often be the case that these liberties are only surrendered in the short term. Losing liberties may seem bad, but as Ignatieff puts it, there are ‘greater evils’, which liberties are sacrificed to fight against, and ‘lesser evils’, which are the society we live in,
when we lose some of our liberties, which is still better than the alternative. Therefore,liberties are worth fighting for.

Another argument against Franklin’s quote, is that liberty and security can go well together, and the quote is flawed, as it is not as simple as black and white, or one or the other. The way in which they go together has been termed a ‘hostile symbiosis’ by Benjamin Wittes.8 The reason this phrase is used is that it represents the complicated nature of how the two go together. The term ‘hostile’ implies that it is uncomfortable and bad, whilst ‘symbiosis’ shows that it is mutually beneficial. As Wittes himself puts it, ‘The relationship here is not as crude as balance. It is far more complicated and multivariate than that.’9 One example of this complicated relationship is the fact that in ‘free’ democratic countries, people often feel safer than they do in more authoritarian countries such as China and North Korea. Yet, at the same time, when we are comparing them to ‘free’ countries even the ‘free’ countries such as the US and UK, have lost many liberties due to security reasons as mentioned beforehand. This shows why the relationship is so complex, and even though a ‘balance’ is an oversimplification, it needs to be found, so that liberties need to be maintained, but people also feel safe. For example, if there’s absolutely security, in an anarchistic society, with no police or anything similar, without there even being laws to condemn does who commit violent crimes, violence and murders will rise. People will feel insecure, and if citizens are constantly being killed, this brings up the question, that in this ultra-liberal society, do people actually have the fundamental right, which is the right and liberty to live? This shows why the problem with Franklin’s quote, and why even though the essay agrees with Franklin that a having too much security is a problem, a balance is needed, but the fundamental question Franklin proposes is incorrect, which is why the essay disagrees with it.

This essay has discussed whether or not to agree or disagree with Benjamin Franklin about if ‘Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.’ I have argued that the quote is fundamentally flawed. The essay  does acknowledge the risks associated with giving up too much liberty, which could ultimately lead to tyranny, where many freedoms could be taken away, such as the freedom of speech and expression, as well as the right to vote, leading to the death of democracy. However, this essay makes the point that a balance can be achieved, as too much liberty is also potentially dangerous, as a lawless anarchic society could be just as dangerous as an  authoritarian one. This essay will not state what this exact balance will be between enough liberty to be a free society and enough security to be safe, but it will make the point that given the nature that Franklin deals in absolutes, this essay fundamentally disagrees with the quote’s underlying assumption. This is a much more complex question than Franklin suggests, as the choice between liberty and security is not as simple as a straightforward trade-off between the two.

Works Cited

• Wittes, B. ‘Against a Crude Balance: Platform security and the Hostile Symbiosis Between Liberty and Security.’
• Ignatieff, M. ‘Lesser Evils,’ New York Times magazine.
• M. Dornan, ‘Security vs Liberty? Is There a Trade Off?’ E-International Relations, June 23 2011 ().
• Economist Article