It's time to take another look at the Atlantic Charter
On 9th August 1941, Churchill sailed into Placentia Bay, just off Newfoundland. He was there to meet Roosevelt on the USS Augusta to discuss the new world order, to be forged once the war was won by ‘the allies’. This was quite a leap of imagination; Europe was in the process of being Blitzed under the seemingly unstoppable Nazi war machine; everything was kicking off in the Pacific… and the Americans hadn’t yet joined the war.
The result of this meeting is a dogeared side of A4 known as the ‘Atlantic Charter’. The eight points in the communique had no legal status and very few immediate policy implications.
The document did, however, set out eight objectives which the UK and US could agree on. President and prime minister stated that neither of their countries would make territorial gains from the war. They also established that all countries should have the right to self-determination and self-government. In signing up to this, Churchill effectively ended the age of empire – consider that when you’re being lectured by a Corbynite on why Churchill is just another ‘imperial bastard’.
Churchill and Roosevelt agreed that trade barriers were to be lowered and social welfare was to be advanced through commerce. All states were to have freedom to the seas, so they could export and import freely.
Lastly, it was stated that all should work for a world free of fear and want. Aggressor nations should be disarmed with the ambition to abandon the use of force generally.
The Atlantic Charter laid the foundations for the world as it is today. It has helped give more people access to development, education, healthcare, wealth and knowledge than any other political declaration, movement, religion, ideology or empire in the history of humanity.
But now, the three pillars the charter was built on – the nation state, free trade and power of the collective to protect the individual – are all under attack.
The nation state was seen by Roosevelt and Churchill as the best way to exercise democratic expression while protecting the individual. Large international bodies such as the EU are usurping the nation state. And the EU fails to protect democracy in a supposed trade-off for ‘peace and prosperity’. This democratic deficit is starting to unravel: populist, eurosceptic parties are on the rise throughout Europe. How long before these movements become revolutions? The Atlantic Charter makes clear that the dominance of the nation-state was key for democracy to flourish. The more time goes on, the more it’s proved correct.
The western nation state is also under threat from repressive empires such as China and Putin’s Russia. They’re militarily aggressive, see Syria, use trade to distort the western capitalist economies, and try to corrupt the democratic system. The Atlantic Charter was the assertion that the Western vision of the nation-state was worth fighting for and we must carry this on to protect liberty and democracy.
Churchill and Roosevelt saw capitalism as the engine room for commerce. Competition and the ability for poorly run institutions to die is needed for capitalism to function. The 2008 banking crisis demonstrated that ‘too big to fail’ monopolies now exist at the heart of capitalism. The problem has not been fixed, and is now damaging sectors outside of banking. For example, Facebook has such a monopoly on social data which can be used to corrupt the democratic expression of the people it states to serve. Monopolies are growing, competition is shrinking and wealth is pushed into the hands of a global elite. This is not what the Atlantic Charter had in mind.
Blame for the damage these un-competitive global monopolies have created is being heaped on the on unwritten free trade constitution developed over the last 70 years. Trump’s tariffs fly in the face of the Atlantic Charter and will do damage by limiting opportunity for all.
In today’s highly personalised society the individual is everything, and the group is often seen as the enemy. Modern individualised politics struggles to see other points of view, lacks empathy and struggles to find common interest. Without this notion of ‘the collective’ the individual will wither. A grape needs the vine.
We need to look again at the Atlantic Charter and reassert its values. We should keep faith that capitalism generates opportunity while destroying poverty. We should reassert faith in the Nation State as the best way of protecting individual liberty and democracy. Lastly, we must be aware that the only way to protect the nation state, democracy and liberty is through fighting for them as a collective and finding common ground with others. The Queen said this week that we should do this by “speaking well of each other and respecting different points of view, coming together to seek common ground, and never losing sight of the bigger picture.” It is as if she knew Churchill personally.
