Freedom Confusion

There's a widespread confusion about freedom, capitalism and socialism. Freedom is usually associated with capitalism and free markets, while authoritarianism is associated with socialism and communism. This is wrong, and I'll try to begin to explain why.

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Many libertarian capitalists, anarcho-capitalists and other thoroughly confused people, like the MAGA Republicans and QAnon believers, believe that politics and government are the problem. They blame both the ideological left and right for the problems they see in society and in their personal lifes. "The left and the right are both wings of the same cancer", they say, and go on to proclaim that it's possible for society to exist with no politics at all. That's so wrong. Any human collective is necessarily going to have politics, and the larger the group, the the greater the need for politics will be. To agree on how to protect everyone's interests fairly, to cohabitate peacefully and productively, there has to be some expectation of conduct and behavior, which results in an adherence to customs, norms and ultimately these will be encoded in laws; that requires politics.

In any modern collective there will be those who advocate the sharing of resources to take care of everyone, as contrasted with others who are only interested in their own ambitions; this is one way we can characterize the difference between the political left and right respectively. This is why capitalism, a political and economic system that's built on the assumption that every individual acts like a rational self-interested agent out to maximize their own wealth, is completely aligned with the political right, and socialism is found on the left side of the political spectrum. This is why capitalism is built on competition whereas socialism is built on collaboration, which happens to be our species' naturally evolved inclination; humans are weak and can't survive on their own on the savanna in prehistory.

Apart from the horizontal axis from left to right, there's a vertical axis from authoritarian to libertarian, from coercion to freedom. Whichever end we're on that vertical axis, either commands you to do as you're told, or allows you to do as you will. It's on this axis that we find most confusion with regards to the differences between the left and right; here it's much clearer to speak of progressives and conservatives respectively. Contrary to the popular belief that's been cultivated during the Red Scare and through massive anti-communist propaganda, it's capitalism's tendency to concentrate huge amounts of wealth and power into the hands of a tiny group of capitalists that leads to authoritarianism. The government or the state was born out of the need for private wealth to be protected, and that is its primary objective to this day. On the political right therefore we find advocacy for the protection of traditional hierarchies as opposed to the left, where we find the will to return to our egalitarian roots, before wealth was concentrated through government-protected private property.

So, where does all this leave us? Look no further than the rise of authoritarianism and fascism in America and western European countries. When capitalists see their precious hierarchies threatened, their reactionary response leads to right-wing extremism. They descend into a fit of rage, running around arms flailing and destroying all the liberties progressives have fought for, like when they overturn Roe v. Wade, try to steal the 2020 election and stoke irrational fear for transgenders while imposing gender- and hetero-normativity wherever they can. They don't want freedom, they want their own material and ideological interests restored and protected. And they'll do so in an authoritarian way, using the power of government if given the chance. The working class people who follow and support the leaders at the helm of this reactionary movement are being duped, scammed and misinformed; these leaders are out for one thing only, their own interests. This is exemplified by Trump scamming his followers out of their money with worthless NFT trading cards, Elon Musk banning people willy-nilly from Twitter if they criticize him, and red state government officials who ban books from schools.

These so called freedom fighters, or "free speech absolutists", are not our allies, they're our enemies, the enemies of freedom and democracy itself. Throwing your support behind them is a self-defeating exercise that will destroy whatever little freedom you've got left when they are in power. Progressivism doesn't destroy the nuclear family; feminists do not force women out of the house to chase after their own careers, feminists merely want women to have the choice to do whatever they want. It's capitalism and capitalists who force women to go to work because their greed has lowered the incomes of men to a point where women have no choice but to contribute to the family income. In the end, families, the environment and social cohesion are broken by the hyper-individualist socioeconomic system that serves few individuals at the top at the expense of the freedom and happiness of everyone else.

The authoritarianism inherent in right-wing ideology often takes form in religious dogmatism, again illustrated very well in the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The religious far right in America therefore has much more in common with Islamic countries than they care to admit. Progressives on the other hand are for freedom, which includes freedom of religion. Irony has it that atheists are far better defenders of religious freedom than the Evangelical Christians at the heart of the reactionary right. To illustrate this, I'll leave you with an interesting debate between an atheist and an American Muslim; please watch it and draw your own conclusions.

Note that I don't agree with the atheist when they discuss our tribal roots, because he asserts that stone age societies started out as a collection of nuclear families, which is not true. He does have many valid arguments for why it would seem that way though.

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