I had some interesting discussions this week on the interwebs. The first was with my little political discussion group, where one of my regular debate partners (I will call her Linda) made a good point; …”first of all we cannot agree on “what is liberty”. Liberty for you, may not be liberty for someone else.” I realized that I use the term a lot, but have not taken the time to properly define what I mean. I will give it a shot here.
The second interesting discussion was with a group of old friends who are, it is fair to say, considerably to the left of me politically. The subject went from climate change to corporate irresponsibility and then to the usual discussion of how corporations are evil, as are profits and shareholders and anyone who makes too much money. Oddly enough, although we are never going to meet in the middle, I think there is common ground and I will address that as well.
Finally, I hope to tie the two together and perhaps explain why so many of us on both sides are so upset by the current state of affairs. I would also like to try and find that elusive common ground between the concerns of the left and right because as Linda pointed out, we are all sick of the US versus THEM mentality…I agree.
“The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty”. –Abraham Lincoln
Liberty in the dictionary is generally described as “the condition or state of being free from restriction or control”. It is “the right and power to do as one pleases; to act, believe, or express oneself in a manner of one’s own choosing”.
Liberty and freedom are generally used to mean the same thing, although they are not identical. Liberty comes from the root word libertas, which means “unbounded, unrestricted, or released from constraint”. Freedom comes from the Germanic word frei, which describes someone with the rights and protections that come with being a free man in a free society. Liberty is a concept of political philosophy that identifies the condition in which an individual has the right to act according to his or her own will. Freedom is the state of not being imprisoned, enslaved, or otherwise constrained.
“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.” -Thomas Jefferson
Liberty is generally divided into two types; negative and positive liberties. Classical liberal concepts of liberty stress the freedom of individuals from outside compulsion or coercion, which is called negative liberty. Negative liberty is the absence of obstacles, barriers, or constraints. This idea of liberty suggests that people should and must behave according to their own free will, and take responsibility for their actions. The idea of negative liberties forms the basis of our bill of rights, for example your right to freely speak or practice religion shall not be infringed.
In contrast, social liberal ideas promote the idea of positive liberties, including the idea that people should be empowered to pursue their goals. Positive liberty is often associated with collectivism and egalitarianism. The idea is that you may have the “freedom” to do something but without the means to accomplish it, also called “agency”, you do not have positive liberty.
“Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance.” -Woodrow Wilson
“In the truest sense, liberty cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt
Liberty as an idea has been discussed and debated throughout the ages. The Greeks and Romans contemplated liberty, but only as a concept applied to those of privilege; slaves and women were not considered. Thomas Hobbes wrote, “A free man is he that…is not hindered to do what he hath the will to do.” John Locke disagreed with that definition of liberty. Locke invoked natural law, or the law of nature; and also acknowledged the constraints of the Rule of Law in society. Locke wrote, “Thus, freedom is not as Sir Robert Filmer defines it: ‘A liberty for everyone to do as he likes, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws’. Freedom is constrained by laws in both the state of nature and political society. Freedom of nature is to be under no other restraint but the laws of nature. Freedom of people under government is to be under no restraint apart from standing rules to live by that are common to everyone in the society and made by the lawmaking power established to it. People have a right or liberty to (1) follow their own will in all things that the law has not prohibited and (2) not be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, and arbitrary will of others.” Note that Locke defines the right for people not to be subject to uncertain and arbitrary rules.
Natural law is based on the idea that humans have certain natural rights as free beings in the world, and these are inalienable. These are the rights that reason dictates free men must have in order to pursue their own lives. They are not given to you by government, or bestowed by a monarch. You have the right to live, to worship as you see fit, to voice your opinions, and to defend yourself. The idea of natural rights has had a profound influence on the development of common law and was one of the founding principles in the US Declaration of Independence and the founding of our nation. It is a major component in the philosophies of Thomas Aquinas and Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, to name just a few.
Legal rights and natural rights are different. Legal rights are conferred to a person by the government or society of which he is a part. Natural rights are not dependent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any society or government and are therefore universal and inalienable.
“We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls.” -Robert J. McCracken
“We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights.” -Felix Frankfurter
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) wrote On Liberty, a seminal book on the topic. Mill wrote, “The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forebear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others to do so would be wise, or even right…The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns him, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”
“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.” -Mahatma Gandhi
“It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.” -George Washington
The United States was founded on the concept of natural law and natural rights. The Bill of Rights is a statement of negative liberties, describing what government cannot take away from individuals. The concept of individual sovereignty is also part of the fabric of our nation’s philosophy. We were founded as a Republic, because we started with a document that recognized our natural rights, and although we are also a Representative Democracy, the US Constitution places restraints on our government, including the power of the majority, to infringe on our rights as individuals.
“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” -James Madison
“The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.” -Louis D. Brandeis
Frederick Bastiat (1801-1850) asserted that the sole purpose of government is to protect the right of an individual to life, liberty, and property. He concluded that the law cannot defend life, liberty, and property if it promotes “legal plunder”, or using government force and laws to take something from one individual and give it to others. In his bookThe Law, Bastiat argues that if the privileged classes or socialists use the government for “legal plunder”, then other social classes will do the same. He says the correct response to both the socialists and corporatists is to cease all “legal plunder”.
In The Road to Serfdom Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992) writes, “Democracy is essentially a means, a utilitarian device for safeguarding internal peace and individual freedom. As such it is by no means infallible or certain. Nor must we forget that there has often been much more freedom under an autocratic rule than under some democracies.” He also writes, “The idea that there is no limit to the powers of the legislator is in part a result of popular sovereignty and democratic government. It has been strengthened by the belief that, so long as all actions of the state are duly authorized by legislation, the Rule of Law will be preserved. But this is to completely misconceive the Rule of Law.”
Hayek argues that in order for government to make laws that are fair, they must apply to general types of situations, they must be fixed and predictable, and they cannot be arbitrary. “Government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand-rules that make it possible to foresee with fair certainty how the authority will use its coercive powers in given circumstances and to plan one’s individual affairs on the basis of that knowledge.”
“The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.” -Edmund Burke
“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” Thomas Jefferson
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) wrote Democracy in America and was an ardent supporter of liberty. He also saw dangers in our system. He wrote, “But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.” Tocqueville saw democracy as a system that balanced liberty and equality, concern for the individual as well as the community. But he also warned that modern democracy may be adept at inventing new forms of tyranny. He warned of the “tyranny of the majority”, where a majority would vote to give themselves “petty pleasures” and endanger the liberty of individuals.
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” -Benjamin Franklin
“Men fight for freedom, then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves.” -Unknown
Corporatism is the organization of society by interest groups. Early concepts of corporatism were developed by the ancient Greeks. Aristotle described natural classes of people such as priests, rulers, slaves, and warriors. People organize themselves by interest groups such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labor, military, or religion. In history this has manifested as guilds or trade groups.
From Wikipedia:
“Liberal corporatism was an influential component of the Progressivism in the United States that has been referred to as "interest group liberalism".[29] The support by U.S. labor representatives of liberal corporatism of the U.S. progressives is believed to have been influenced by the syndicalism and particularly the anarcho-syndicalism at the time in Europe.[29] In the United States, economic corporatism involving capital-labour cooperation was influential in the New Deal economic program of the United States in the 1930s as well as in Keynesianism and even Fordism.”
“Attempts in the United States to create neo-corporatist capital-labour arrangements were unsuccessfully advocated by Gary Hart and Michael Dukakis in the 1980s.[40] Robert Reich as U.S. Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration promoted neo-corporatist reforms.”
When many people today are critical of capitalism and its effect on income inequality what they actually object to is corporatism. Free Market Capitalism would not allow the kind of government-corporate collusion that is currently taking place in the US. Bailouts and subsidies and cronyism are incompatible with capitalism and competition but are hallmarks of modern corporatism. The lobbyist influence and special interest groups are corporatism.
Free market capitalism, along with natural rights and individual liberties, are the bedrock upon which this nation was founded, and the tyranny of the majority along with special interests and cronyism are the dangers we have been warned about. I am pro competition and pro freedom and free markets, but I wince when I hear the term “pro-business”. The current collusion between the government and the insurance companies is either fascism or corporatism.
Hayek warned that as politicians try to create not a fair and predictable societal framework but to instead control specific outcomes, the rules must become more arbitrary and less predictable. Witness this edict from those unconcerned with the Rule of Law but only with ensuring specific outcomes for various interest groups:
“Schools also violate federal law when they evenhandedly implement facially neutral policies and practices that, although not adopted with the intent to discriminate, nonetheless have an unjustified effect of discriminating against students on the basis of race.” -Eric Holder
It seems as though we are losing the war to maintain our liberties, losing to a tyrannical majority and special interests and corporatism. And that is why people like me are up in arms and upset. That is why we are rallying and texting and tweeting and shouting about freedom. That is why we don’t seem to want to “play nice” and get along with all of the entrenched powers. We have been studying history and we don’t like what we see happening before our eyes.
“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” –Thomas Paine
I will leave you with links to three videos.
The first addresses the concept of liberty. http://youtu.be/muHg86Mys7I
The second discusses the difference between capitalism and corporatism. http://youtu.be/VRQCbcZtu_c
The third discusses the meaning of fascism. http://youtu.be/R9Wfb-C_MK4
And finally here is Ayn Rand with Dan Rather discussing capitalism versus socialism. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1RxKW-P5V8&sns=em
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