Freedom: some ramblings
Sep. 5th, 2015 09:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerHuman illusions persist, in the face of all evidence; and even well into the Sagittarian Age there were still planets whose people believed in the desirability of what they called "the free market." History had already amply demonstrated that this was equivalent to saying "the free plague of locusts" or "the free barbarian horde," yet they paid no attention. The locust has its due place in a terrestroid ecosystem, certainly, but unless kept in check by the inherent "regulations" of that ecosystem, it can do untold harm. Similarly, a community may choose to live nomadically, in a territory that will support such a lifestyle; but if it breaks out of that territory and begins to despoil other communities, it must be constrained.
The plain fact is that humans, with their well-known tendency to create abstractions out of things and then lose sight of the things in worshipping the abstractions, had no really well-formed notion of what "freedom" was. They believed it meant something like "not having anyone telling you what to do," and was therefore the greatest good to which one might aspire. And yet, put a human for three days in a trackless, lifeless, waterless desert, utterly free and beyond all human control, and they will gladly change places with the most downtrodden slave in a Roman senator's household if only the job comes with water, food and shelter. They may repent later, of course; but in that situation, their "freedom" is actually non-existent, their only choice being to die.
Or consider a man riding a horse. One might say "if the horse is free, then the rider is free." If the horse, though, being free, chooses to break into a gallop, then the rider is actually helpless. His choices are two; to go where the horse chooses to take him, or to throw himself off and lose, possibly his life, at very least his horse.
Consider, then, the proposition "if other people are free, then I am free." It seems logical. Yet if the other people are free to break into your house, to destroy your possessions, to force you to work for them or satisfy them in sexual ways, where is your freedom then?
The simple truth is that "freedom," as an absolute abstraction, does not exist. One can only be, in any meaningful sense, relatively free; and the maximum of relative freedom can only be attained when the objects, abstractions, and other people around one are relatively constrained. The goal of any society should be equality of relative constraint, leading to equality of relative freedom. Human beings are only truly free when no human in a community is more free than any other human in the same community. A moment's thought will show that this is so. In tyrannies, despotisms, and the like, the rulers are more free than the ruled; in a plutocracy, the wealthy are more free than the poor; in an aristocracy, the nobles more free than the common folk; in a theocracy, the priests of the god more free than the laity. Only in a true democracy, wherein each individual citizen has an equal standing, is nobody more free than anyone else, and therefore every citizen is as free as she can ever be.
Democracy, then, is the ideal most commonly sought after, and yet it remains the hardest to achieve; for each individual human instinctively desires to be more free than her fellow humans, or at least more free than she is, and rebels against all constraints. The desire for equality is a product of reasoned thought; no child plays a game called "I am a free and equal citizen of the castle."
A society based upon "the free market" is, in fact, a variety of theocracy, with "the market," the abstracted spirit of Commerce, taking the place of the god. Those who serve the god most effectively become more free by accumulating wealth and power, and then, in most cases that have been observed, begin covertly to constrain and regulate "the market" to maintain their position, at which point the society becomes a simple plutocracy. The end result of a "free market" is an enslaved people.
The definition of a slave adopted by the Sagittarians, for the purpose of their Second Accord, is "a person who has by deliberate action been made less free than others in the same community"; which, in a theocracy, a plutocracy, an aristocracy, a tyranny or a "free market" society, accounts for most ordinary citizens. Therefore, any world which seeks Affiliation must forego, along with all other forms of oligarchy, the worship of "the free market," and must impose such regulations on commerce as will maintain the maximum level of relative freedom for all its citizens.
Typically, the response to this is an outcry along the lines of "But we must have a free market! Suppose it is regulated badly, this way or that way? How can we trust our government to allow us the freedom to trade fairly?" To which the Sagittarians, were they in the habit of arguing the toss, might respond, "But when given freedom, you do not necessarily trade fairly, nor can you guarantee that everyone will even if you do. Fair trade must be enforced, till humanity becomes Mindful and can enforce fairness on itself. As for trust, you are now citizens of a democracy. Form a government that you can trust and you will find it trustworthy."
Only when the institutions and abstractions that constrain us are themselves constrained can human beings be as relatively free as they can be; and that, paradoxically, includes "freedom" itself.
The plain fact is that humans, with their well-known tendency to create abstractions out of things and then lose sight of the things in worshipping the abstractions, had no really well-formed notion of what "freedom" was. They believed it meant something like "not having anyone telling you what to do," and was therefore the greatest good to which one might aspire. And yet, put a human for three days in a trackless, lifeless, waterless desert, utterly free and beyond all human control, and they will gladly change places with the most downtrodden slave in a Roman senator's household if only the job comes with water, food and shelter. They may repent later, of course; but in that situation, their "freedom" is actually non-existent, their only choice being to die.
Or consider a man riding a horse. One might say "if the horse is free, then the rider is free." If the horse, though, being free, chooses to break into a gallop, then the rider is actually helpless. His choices are two; to go where the horse chooses to take him, or to throw himself off and lose, possibly his life, at very least his horse.
Consider, then, the proposition "if other people are free, then I am free." It seems logical. Yet if the other people are free to break into your house, to destroy your possessions, to force you to work for them or satisfy them in sexual ways, where is your freedom then?
The simple truth is that "freedom," as an absolute abstraction, does not exist. One can only be, in any meaningful sense, relatively free; and the maximum of relative freedom can only be attained when the objects, abstractions, and other people around one are relatively constrained. The goal of any society should be equality of relative constraint, leading to equality of relative freedom. Human beings are only truly free when no human in a community is more free than any other human in the same community. A moment's thought will show that this is so. In tyrannies, despotisms, and the like, the rulers are more free than the ruled; in a plutocracy, the wealthy are more free than the poor; in an aristocracy, the nobles more free than the common folk; in a theocracy, the priests of the god more free than the laity. Only in a true democracy, wherein each individual citizen has an equal standing, is nobody more free than anyone else, and therefore every citizen is as free as she can ever be.
Democracy, then, is the ideal most commonly sought after, and yet it remains the hardest to achieve; for each individual human instinctively desires to be more free than her fellow humans, or at least more free than she is, and rebels against all constraints. The desire for equality is a product of reasoned thought; no child plays a game called "I am a free and equal citizen of the castle."
A society based upon "the free market" is, in fact, a variety of theocracy, with "the market," the abstracted spirit of Commerce, taking the place of the god. Those who serve the god most effectively become more free by accumulating wealth and power, and then, in most cases that have been observed, begin covertly to constrain and regulate "the market" to maintain their position, at which point the society becomes a simple plutocracy. The end result of a "free market" is an enslaved people.
The definition of a slave adopted by the Sagittarians, for the purpose of their Second Accord, is "a person who has by deliberate action been made less free than others in the same community"; which, in a theocracy, a plutocracy, an aristocracy, a tyranny or a "free market" society, accounts for most ordinary citizens. Therefore, any world which seeks Affiliation must forego, along with all other forms of oligarchy, the worship of "the free market," and must impose such regulations on commerce as will maintain the maximum level of relative freedom for all its citizens.
Typically, the response to this is an outcry along the lines of "But we must have a free market! Suppose it is regulated badly, this way or that way? How can we trust our government to allow us the freedom to trade fairly?" To which the Sagittarians, were they in the habit of arguing the toss, might respond, "But when given freedom, you do not necessarily trade fairly, nor can you guarantee that everyone will even if you do. Fair trade must be enforced, till humanity becomes Mindful and can enforce fairness on itself. As for trust, you are now citizens of a democracy. Form a government that you can trust and you will find it trustworthy."
Only when the institutions and abstractions that constrain us are themselves constrained can human beings be as relatively free as they can be; and that, paradoxically, includes "freedom" itself.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-06 02:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-06 10:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-07 06:26 am (UTC)For decades I believed that the "free market" is voluntary and the state is coercive, because that is what everybody says and I never really thought about it. When I finally thought about the issue, I came up with the following ways in which the "free market" may be coercive:
* A market economy in which goods are sold requires private ownership of property, which requires coercion.
* In a pure market economy, if you don't have money, you starve.
* Everything you do in a market economy requires someone else's permission. If you wish to buy or sell at a particular price, you need to find someone willing to sell or buy at that price.
* Every company is a little command economy in which the CEO tells her minions what and how much to produce.
* Maybe life itself is inherently coercive because we live in an environment of limited resources.
The other half of the belief I held for decades is the the government is coercive. Maybe it isn't as coercive as people think.
Suppose I order a hot dog that costs $5. The hot dog vendor gives me the hot dog. She expects me to pay her $5. She is relying on the coercive power of the state, because if I don’t pay her for the hot dog she can have me arrested for stealing the hot dog. Do I say, “You’re using the coercive power of the state to take my money”? Of course not. I pay her the $5 because I bought the hot dog and I owe her the money. In the same way, when I pay taxes, am I am not paying money that I owe to the government?
Yes, there are important differences between the hot dog example and the government example. In the hot dog example, the hot dog vendor and I agree on the price of the hot dog. In the tax example, society agrees, through our democratic form of government, what services the government provides and the cost to each person of those services. Nevertheless, I'm not sure that the government is any more coercive than the hot dog vendor.
These ideas seem to contradict the widespread belief that, whenever possible, we should "let the market decide" because the "free market" is voluntary, but government is coercive.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-07 10:56 am (UTC)We form governments, partly, in order to regulate the exercise of that power over us. In order to do so, governments require a certain amount of coercive power of their own, and again, it is up to the government concerned to choose, ideally according to the will of its citizens but more usually according to its prevalent ideology, where and how far to exercise its power; whether to constrain the controlling institutions to make it easier for citizens to pursue survival, or to constrain the citizens further so that the controlling institutions gain more profit. All of which is a roundabout way of saying what you just said perfectly well.
I was expecting someone to comment to the effect that by my reckoning a society in which all humans were equally enslaved (by aliens or robots or some such) would be okay. This was an oversight on my part; I should have made it clear that while equality of relative constraint is certainly an absolute desideratum, the goal should actually always be to find the lowest level of relative constraint, and thus the highest level of relative freedom, that is consistent with equality.
Or to say something like "but I'm a CEO of a company, I pull down two hundred grand a year, and I'm not free! I have to eat, sleep, pay for my children's education, attend meetings, I work late and on weekends, I have social obligations, I do church work...I can't remember when I last had a free moment!" To which I can only reply, paraphrasing Garry Trudeau with sympathy, "Yes, but with respect, you're as free as you want to be. Your employees are as free as they can be, and they're actually still a lot less free than you."
Thank you for these thoughts.