The Libertarian behind the World ’s First Freedom of the Press Act

Johan NorbergUNESCO has just designated the Swedish Freedom of the Press Act of 1766 a“Memory of the World.” It ’s a well‐​deserved honor. This more than 250‐​year old document, enacted during a period of strong parliamentary power in Sweden, is the world’s first freedom of the press act, signed into law ten years before the United States of America even existed.In defense of “unrestricted mutual enlightenment,” the1766 act created a  constitutional right to publish one’s thoughts and ideas, abolished censorship (in everything but theological texts) and introduced the principle of public access to official records. The English parliament had let its censorship lapse as early as 1695, but it gave no legal protection to the pre ss, so it could still be subjected to arbitrary intervention.This is in itself enough to make Sweden ’s 1766 act a milestone in libertarian history, but it gets better. The law’s author was the Ostrobothnian priestAnders Chydenius, one of Sweden ’s earliest and most principled classical liberals. Chydenius was a radical natural rights‐​thinker and a staunch defender of limited government, free markets, low taxes and open migration: “I speak only for the one small, but blessed word, freedom. I believe that nature, in this, as in s o many other things, left to itself, accomplishes far more than many elaborate and ingenious plans.”Among his many short books, in 1765 — 11 years before Adam Smith’sWealth of Nati...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs