The West renounces freedom of expression
This is a debate that we thought was closed: Westerners had affirmed that freedom of expression is an essential prerequisite for democracy and that they would never violate it again. However, the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, Italy and Germany have already embarked on the path of censorship. Now there are things not to say. | Freedom of expression had been a feature of the West since the 18th century. This was the basis on which the political regime supported by the middle classes was built: democracy. The principle according to which the general will would emerge from the confrontation of various opinions was no longer contested. Any attack on this freedom was seen as a blow to the peaceful resolution of conflicts. ● However, at the beginning of the 20th century, when the World War tore the West apart, the British, then the Americans, did not hesitate to use modern means of propaganda, not only against their enemies, but also against their own population [1]. For the first time, democratic governments were setting up programs to deceive their fellow citizens. At the end of this war, the British prided themselves on their successes, suggesting a possible use of war propaganda in times of peace. Also, when the capitalist economic system was threatened and even before the Second World War had started, democracies and freedom of expression were put on hold, and propaganda resumed, first in Italy and Germany, then throughout the West. ● Today, as in the thirties, the present capitalist system is threatened by the development of inequalities between voters, but in a way that we have never known. If the industrialist Henry Ford said, during the crisis of 1929, that the salary of a boss should not exceed 40 times that of one of his workers, today that of Elon Musk is 38.5 million times that of some of its employees in the United States. The democratic principle “One man, one vote” no longer has any relation to reality.