What Is Freedom?

Freedom. When you ask people what it is, or what freedom means to them, you get many different answers. But even then, there's a common thread, and in the end it means to mean the same to almost everyone. So, here's my attempt to crystallize this fuzzy concept into terms we can all agree with.

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Freedom is doing what you want to do. It's being able to express yourself without having to apologize for it. Freedom is peace. Love is freedom, and freedom is love. Freedom is when you can reach your fullest potential (I really like this one). Or how about this one: freedom means no boundaries, to exist, like the wind, like the air, like the breeze. Freedom means to be able to follow your heart. All these and many more spontaneous answers to the question "what is freedom?" can be seen in the first short video embedded in this post. Nowadays we see many discussions about the freedoms we're all supposed to enjoy in modern democratic western societies: freedom of choice, freedom of association and assembly and freedom of speech.

The problem I have with most discussions on freedom is that they're based in the individualism that has become the be all and end all of all discussions nowadays, whether it's on politics, economy or indeed freedom. It's the over-represented libertarian view on freedom that, in my opinion, limits not only our understanding of the concept, but limits freedom itself. Freedom is the ability to do whatever I want, as long as I don't hurt anyone else. On first glance that seems completely reasonable, it even concedes to the reality that freedom is enjoyed not just by ourselves, but in a community of people, that our individual freedoms should not interfere with our ability to get along with each other. That's all well and good, but it places the community aspect of freedom in second place, when it should be the first priority. Why? Well, because we're not really alive and we certainly can't thrive all by our lonesome self.

We're social creatures, which means that whatever we're talking about has to be seen from a perspective of living together. We're not hermits. Absolute freedom is impossible as soon as there are other people to reckon with. I'm not a Christian myself, but I heard a very sensible description of freedom from a Christian perspective: "Freedom is living in harmony with restraints, not without them." You might be surprised, but it's the inclusion of the word "restraints" that makes this description so sensible to me. You see, it's not the existence of restraints that hinder freedom, it's the place where they come from. When the restraints on our freedoms are dictated by a dictator, or any other entity where power is centralized, that's when we feel that our freedoms are constrained. The absence of such centralized power is what makes us free. But that's only half the story, because we're talking about negative freedom now.

Negative freedom is best explained as "freedom from". To be free from the constraints imposed by the government, or any other power-hierarchy. People start their own business to be free from the constraints imposed on them by their boss. This focus on negative freedom, on the eradication, as much as possible, of government, rules, regulation and laws, is at the heart of the anarcho-capitalist, libertarian and neoliberal view on freedom. It's the view on freedom that places the individual above all else, including the community of people that produces those individuals. Central to this view on freedom are the right to individual property, and the freedom to engage in the voluntary exchange of goods and services in a free market, without interference from the government. That sounds good.

However, all this says nothing about the other, equally important half of freedom. Positive freedom is best explained as the "freedom to" do things. It's having the ability, the means and the time to do the things you want to do. Under the current libertarian view on freedom everyone is free to go on vacation. That freedom means nothing at all however, if you don't have the means to go on that vacation. Everyone is free to purchase a home, but that basic part of "the American dream" is increasingly difficult to realize in a socioeconomic system that concentrates all the wealth into the hands of a few. Remember how I said it's not the existence of restraints, but where they come from? Well, somehow this libertarian version of freedom fails to reckon with the most obvious source of restraint on freedom, which is the concentration of wealth, and therefore the concentration of power.

Let me be blunt and give my definition of freedom, crystallized into a sentence:

Freedom consists of the equal distribution of power, despotism in its concentration.

That's it. There's nothing more to it. Capitalism, at its core, prohibits that distribution to ever be realized, as the concentration of wealth is the concentration of power. We need look no further than our current western societies to see the truth of this statement with our own eyes. Democracy was supposed to be that equal distribution of power with one man one vote. But under the capitalist concentration of power, our votes don't mean much at all. Government has been bought by the extremely wealthy. The distribution of power needs to go hand-in-hand with a distribution of wealth if it is to mean anything at all. And when considering that, try to avoid the false dichotomy that's painted by the libertarian capitalist. In the words of economist Milton Friedman there are but two ways to coordinate the economic activities of millions of people; it's either central direction or central planning through the use of coercion, or the voluntary cooperation and exchanges of individuals in a free market. That's a false dichotomy that leaves out of the picture the crucial private ownership of the means of production.

For the sake of simplicity, we can consider the "means of production" to mean anything we all need access to in order to live a decent life; land to grow food and build houses, the houses themselves, the food and every other place where we produce the stuff we need. As soon as these things are owned privately, freedom is lost. If I own a piece of land, that is, a piece of the planet (just think about how ridiculous that really is), I have the power to deny anyone access to that piece of land. That's power. And the more land I own, the greater my power. So, the key to more freedom, the only way to maximize freedom for the maximum number of people, is to expand democracy from the realm of politics into the realm of ownership of all the stuff we all need. And that, my friends, is socialism. It means that the places we use to produce the goods and services we all need, are no longer the little dictatorships they are now, where the boss decides where you work, what you produce, when you have a lunch-break, and what's done with the profits, but that they're run democratically by all the people who work there. It means that we collectively make sure that everyone has a place to live and that everyone has access to education and healthcare. It means that we finally get the government of the people, by the people and for the people that's been promised all along.

And with such freedom, it'll finally mean that "freedom is when you can reach your fullest potential". People think of capitalism and socialism or communism as economic ideologies, when they're in fact ideologies of freedom. Or, one of them is about true freedom, and the other about the freedom of individuals to suppress the masses. I hope that after reading this, you know which is which. Ben Burgis explains it very well in the below linked video:

One way the people often think about the debate about capitalism and socialism is that socialists care more about equality than we do about freedom, and defenders of capitalism care more about freedom than they do about equality. But that's just wrong. Socialists object against rampant inequality precisely because we care about freedom.

Please watch that video; it's the perfect addendum to this post, and it'll only rob you from seven minutes of your precious time :-)

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