The TV license is unpopular

The argument

The case against a mandatory licence fee begins with the scale of public opposition to it: three-quarters of Britons want the fee abolished. That figure matters more than it might for an ordinary unpopular charge, and the reason lies in what the objection is actually about. It would be easy to dismiss the result as the standard reluctance of any population to part with money. But Britons are not uniformly hostile to taxation; the public is generally supportive of taxes it deems worthy, and accepts compulsory contributions where it believes the purpose justifies them. Opposition to the licence fee cannot therefore be explained as simple resentment at paying. What the figure records is a specific judgement about this particular charge, that the money is wasted, and that what the public receives in return does not justify what it is required to hand over. That distinction is what makes the unpopularity an argument against the fee being mandatory rather than merely an argument that it is disliked. A compulsory charge takes its legitimacy from the proposition that the public would endorse the purpose if asked. Where the public has in effect been asked and three-quarters have answered that the purpose is not worth the money, the justification for compelling payment has been withdrawn. Compulsion is then being used not to overcome free-riding on a service people value but to sustain a service a large majority has judged unworthy of the cost. On this view the licence should not be mandatory: a fee that most of the people paying it regard as a waste of money has lost the consent that made requiring it defensible, whatever is decided about how the broadcaster should otherwise be funded.

Context

Some licenses and taxes are generally acceptable to the public. Any money spent on the NHS, for example, is often welcomed. But the BBC license fee is not popular.

Premises

Counter-arguments

There are many government-funded products or services that the taxpayers don’t like. That doesn’t mean that people can just not pay them. The license fee pays for a national institution which offers a high standard of reporting. It is not up to the public to determine whether or not they should pay.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Not every single expenditure or public service needs to have majority support among the public to be democratic.