Sean Gabb

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Dr Sean Gabb (b. 1960, Chatham, Kent) is the director of the Libertarian Alliance, a British free market and civil liberties think-tank.[1]

Career

Sean Gabb joined the Libertarian Alliance in 1979. He graduated in History from the University of York in 1982.[2] He became the Director in 2006, shortly before the death of its founder Chris Tame.

In 1991 and 1992 he was the Economic and Political Adviser to Jan Carnogursky, the Prime Minister of Slovakia[3] where he was attacked for being a free market radical.[4] He was a director of the Sudan Foundation[5] which existed "to promote better relations between the British and Sudanese peoples". He resigned from this post in January 1999.

Political Views

Gabb is for the legalization of drugs and is an opponent of multiculturalism and mass immigration as a political policy.[6] He sees no harm in gay marriage or gay adoption, but defends the need to be able to speak in open criticism of homosexuality as part of his stance for freedom of speech from political interference.[7] He is an isolationist in foreign affairs (he is as much anti-American as Eurosceptic)[8] and an advocate of the widest social and economic liberty. He has written in support of the monarchy[9] and House of Lords,[10] in defence of the rights of holocaust deniers[11] and in enabling a time limitation law on the charge of child abuse.[12]

Gabb is controversial to some because of his views, for example: "the Commission for Racial Equality and all similar organisations should be abolished, and their records burned."[13] Gabb explained this by often likening the British government to a police state, saying, "Every so often, someone stands up and tells us what benefits we have had from diversity. Such may be, but we must also consider that part of the price has been a police state. In this country, we have severe restrictions on freedom of speech, on freedom of association and on freedom of contract - all in the name of good race relations."[14] He compared the government to a police state as far back as 1989, when he wrote, "The Thatcher Government has brought into being the full coercive apparatus of a police state."[15]

Regarding freedom of speech, Gabb has written: "It is no business of the State to tell people what they can and cannot think. Our bodies are our own. Our minds are our own. What we do with them is our business."[11] He has also said that the government "should cut benefits, taxes and regulation, and leave people alone. The people will do the rest."[16] Gabb is against the European Union. He has said of immigration: "I do not necessarily object if people want to come to this country to look for a new life. I do object if they want this at my expense - at my expense as a tax payer, and at the expense of the constitutional rights which are my birthright."[14]

In favor of free markets, Gabb has taken a position against limited liability corporations on that basis that they shield shareholders from their debt obligations, representing a state subsidy. He said in an Oxfam debate that their creation was "one of the greatest legislative mistakes of the 19th century. Their existence is based on a separation of ownership from control. The owners are released from all responsibility."[17]

Publications

Gabb has written for a number of conservative leaning websites including vdare[18] and lewrockwell.com.[19] He has also written for newspapers such as The Times[20] and the Birmingham Post.[21] He also wrote an obituary for Chris Tame.[22]


Contact

Websites:

Notes

  1. Officers and Advisory Council of the Libertarian Alliance.  The Libertarian Alliance.
  2. Alumni.
  3. Slovak Writings.  Sean Gabb.  Retrieved 2010-11-13.
  4. Reply to Mimochodom, an Article by Zuzana Szatmary.  Seangabb.co.uk.  Retrieved 2010-11-13.
  5. Free Life 30, May 1999.  Seangabb.co.uk.  Retrieved 2010-11-13.
  6. Sean Gabb, Cultural Revolution, Culture War, August 2007
  7. Sean Gabb, Culural Revolution, Culture War, The Homophobic Heresy, August 2007
  8. Arguments for a British Foreign Policy, Daniel P. Mulroney, igreens.org.uk, 2004
  9. Why Libertarians Should Sing "God Save the Queen", Sean Gabb, Free Life Commentary, 7 September 1997
  10. Why the Hereditary Peers Should Stay in the House of Lords, Sean Gabb, Free Life Commentary, 25 November 1998
  11. 11.0 11.1 Defending the Right to Deny the Holocaust, Sean Gabb, 24 April 2007.  Seangabb.co.uk.  Retrieved 2010-11-13.
  12. Reflections on the Gary Glitter Case, Sean Gabb, Free Life Commentary, 14 November 1999
  13. The Right, the Left and 'Free Expression'.  Whatnextjournal.co.uk.  Retrieved 2010-11-13.
  14. 14.0 14.1 BBC Censors Discussion of Multiculturalism: Shuts off Microphones on Libertarian Alliance Spokesman.  The Libertarian Alliance.  Retrieved 2007-09-17.
  15. The Full Coercive Apparatus of a Police State: Thoughts on the Dark Side of the Thatcher Decade.  Libertarian Alliance.  Retrieved 2007-09-17.
  16. Be fair to all parents. 2007-07-11.  The Evening Standard
  17. Free Trade v Fair Trade.  Free Life Commentary.  Retrieved 2007-09-17.
  18. Sean Gabb Articles.  VDARE.com.  Retrieved 2010-11-13.
  19. Mark Oaten, Rent Boys and the Secret Police: A View of How England Is Governed at the End of Its History by Sean Gabb.  Lewrockwell.com.  Retrieved 2010-11-13.
  20. Should the Church be disestablished Yes says Dr Sean Gabb. 2008-10-24. 
  21. Why all true citizens need their own guns - Life & Leisure.  Birmingham Post.  Retrieved 2010-11-13.
  22. Chris R. Tame. 2006-03-23.