What is freedom?
Kind of a dumb question isn’t it?
Everybody knows what freedom is.
It’s obvious – isn’t it?
But even the simplest words and concepts are corrupted in today’s world (remember the peacekeeper missile?). Maybe we should think about the meaning of freedom.
“Freedom” by itself doesn’t really have much meaning. Its importance, and meaning, comes when we consider freedom from what, and freedom to do what.
Freedom from can’t include a great variety of “freedoms”, ranging from the merciful release from some private burden, to the abolition of a political restraint.
Nevertheless, “freedom from” remains negative and limited to eliminating a particular “evil”. This, freedom from, is the most popular use of the word “freedom”, and the argument is often made the fact that piling or would these removal of restraint on top of each other – expending areas of freedom – must eventually lead to total and therefore positive social liberty.
Certainly most people would agree that freedom from hunger and insecurity are important, but people in prison, more or less, have this freedom from. Clearly, the terms of our “freedom” need to be considered and examined.
The context in which “freedom” takes some positive meaning is freedom to. Each of us could think of many things that we would like to be free to do, but what it adds up to is freedom to choose.
A society can only be truly free if everyone has the freedom to choose.
The Las defined our freedoms. And Canada the law defines it’s the “freedom of speech”. It defines the freedom to own property, and the other freedoms to which we are accustomed. It even defines equality.
As an act of France said,” the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, too beg in the street, and to steal bread”.
As well as defining freedoms, the map also restricts them. For example, the freedom to eat is limited by your ability to buy food. If you need food, but cannot afford it, the law denies you the freedom to eat. This denial is evident in Canada today when children go to school hungry because their parents cannot afford to feed them.
The highly prized “freedom of speech” is also restricted. In Canada the invocation of the War Measures Act not long ago was only the most obvious example. During the gulf war even the media admitted that they were restricted in what they could report and what information they could get.
A common saying is that society can approve “liberty but not license”. The Oxford English dictionary defines “license” as “excessive liberty”, so the saying actually means that you may have liberty, but not too much.
Who decides how much liberty is too much?
Presumably that is decided by the governments. Is it therefore the electorate (you) that decides on these limits? Do the politicians seriously listen to you, and do what you want, or do they just mouth platitudes and excuses?
The limits on liberty, or freedom, are the limits that “work” on society as it currently exists. Society and its laws provide all the freedom from and freedom to that we want, as long as these freedoms do not impinge upon the “normal” functioning of society.
Everything, of course, has boundaries. One might want the freedom to walk to the moon, but because it is impossible to do so, this “freedom” is limited – by the laws of physics in this case.
The existence of society, in any form, also places boundaries on “freedom”.
Libertarians want the freedom for an individual to do anything they can do. Some libertarians allow that the exercise of freedom mustn’t harm others, but this restriction is usually limited to direct physical attack, not the social result or indirect results of one’s actions.
This freedom to do anything at all is the kind of “freedom” that allows the powerful to exploit the weak – because they can. Mutilating an other person’s freedom is not freedom.
Freedom is relative, always, to the fact that we exist only as social creatures.
In simple everyday experience, every relationship or contract made is a limitation on what might be called “absolute freedom”. Your friends will not remain your friends if you continually ride roughshod over them to satisfy your “absolute freedom”.
When you join an organisation, including society as a whole, you tie yourself to the obligations that are part of that organisation, including the recognition of rules and majority decisions.
Freedom allows that relationship and contracts are entered, and obligations accepted, but by one’s conscious choice. We will always have obligations, but “freedom” means we have real choices.
Some argue that we all do have real choices, but in many cases our lives are controlled by circumstances over which we have little or no real control. For example, poor children (in far greater % then rich children) end up as poor adults, not by choice, but by circumstance.
The “freedom to vote for the candidate of your choice” allows Canada to claim that it is democratic and free. But again reality disproves this illusion. We get to vote for the candidate from a wide political spectrum. So we are told. But the liberals, NPD, conservatives, greens, communists, reform party, and the rest of them are all very effective supporters of the current system of society – the system that causes the problems.
Some of them claim to oppose this system, but after they get elected they seem to forget their principles and are incapable of fulfilling their promises to improve society.
Except for cosmetic differences they are all the same – no choice.
If freedom is to exist, then real choices must be available to all!
Society today does not give us freedom in this sense. A poor or ill-educated person has considerably fewer choices than the rich person as to where he will live, or what work she will do. Financial worries, insecurity, and hostile circumstances of all kinds are obstructions to freedom.
These obstructions are built in this society and try as we might, they will never go away (except maybe by replacing them by other obstructions).
This is the nature of the production-for-profit society of capitalism. We can never be free under capitalism.
Freedom is the natural and immediate result of the establishment of socialism. Not just an abstract judicial “freedom”, but real freedom. The economic basis of socialism – production for use – means free access by everyone to the material wealth of society. That will give each of us the freedom to choose the sort of life we want.
The socialist party claims that the current mode of production in society (production for profit) is incompatible with freedom. The socialist party also believes that a scientific understanding of society, past and present, is required to build a society that can meet the needs of humanity.
Freedom is one of those needs.
