Redefining the fight for freedom

Freedom has become the rallying-cry of our time. It is the prism through which we view the world, providing the platform for war, the basis of popular protest and the foundation of arguments between individuals. The attainment and protection of liberty is the struggle that now takes precedence over all others.

We have though defined this struggle in a very particular way. Our view of freedom is defined by the individual, expressed through unilateral action and devoid of responsibility to others. The term has slipped into lazy usage to become a catch-all justification for any course of action, however harmful, selfish or unreasonable.

In pursuit of this peculiar brand of freedom we seem to have lost sight of the original ideal. As the philosopher Isaiah Berlin noted, freedom is not simply autonomy of action but also (and equally) freedom from the consequences of the actions of others. By focusing almost exclusively on the former we have almost entirely over looked the latter. By pursuing individual freedom of action, the majority of people in the world are now less free from the consequences of the actions of others than ever before.

To have a truly free society we must assert the general public good against the private good, a view that has nearly been completely marginalised in the lemming rush to self-referential freedom. It is the basis for ensuring both the greatest good for the greatest number of people and that the most powerful in society do not oppress the weakest.

In pursuit of freedom, we have acquired rights and shed responsibilities at an alarming rate. These rights have disproportionately benefitted the wealthiest and most powerful at the expense of the rest of society. In any trade-off between social good and personal liberty, the latter has rarely lost out.

A good example is the argument that has been made in recent years, for the emancipation of business from the dual burdens‚ of regulation and taxes. This argument has been so successfully advanced that is has become the conventional wisdom.

Yet the results of this wisdom‚ and the costs of this particular type of freedom have become increasingly clear: Exxon argues that any action to constrain carbon dioxide emissions is an attack on its liberty, attempts to limit excessive boardroom pay or to ensure a decent minimum wage are portrayed as an assault on the rights of business and legislation to ensure that some of the richest companies in the world provide reasonable working conditions to its poorest workers in the third world, is caricatured as an attempt to curtail the right of companies to make as much money as possible.

In this light it becomes apparent that complete freedom is a self-defeating objective. Vast freedom of action has meant that few are free from the consequences of those actions. We pay the price for this in grievous environmental damage, extraordinary inequality between the wealthiest and poorest people and deprived and squalid public services.

Conservative thought has appropriated the idea of freedom and used it to legitimise its own political agenda. Its success in this endeavour has been so great that we have become desensitised to what is liberty and what is personal licence. What results is a feral version of liberty whereby each individual is given free rein to act according to their individual agenda and to advance their individual interests. Under the banner of liberty‚ these interests are portrayed as legitimate in their own right, no matter the costs or consequences for others.

The pre-eminence of the individual in the conservative view of freedom has led to a redistribution of freedom from the weakest to the most powerful. Inequalities of freedom now mirror the unprecedented inequalities of wealth that grossly disfigure global society.

This is not to argue that individual freedom is unimportant. Rather that liberty is too complex a notion to be reduced to autonomy of action alone and the inevitable might is right‚ philosophy that results. Freedom of action needs to be balanced against other forms of freedom, that are equally or more important.

This is where the notions of liberty and social justice collide. Freedom from deprivation, starvation and pollution for example are arguably (and some would suggest, self-evidently) more important than the freedom from taxes and regulation. The achievement of social justice to deliver the essential needs and freedoms for the greatest number of people necessarily requires curbing the inessential freedoms of others. To deliver the greatest freedom for the greatest number paradoxically requires taking some freedom away. Only by restricting the freedom of companies to pollute and exploit, for example, can we safeguard other people‚s freedom to breathe clean air, drink unpolluted water and to have decent living standards. Only by restricting the freedom of governments to wage war can we limit the number of people maimed or killed by bombs and bullets.

The fight for freedom, to be truly successful, must deliver substantive freedom for all, not just total liberty for the privileged few. It must above all be premised on social justice. It must move beyond the one-dimensional view of freedom as autonomy of action that defines Conservative theology. This view is beset either by ignorance or minimal imagination which is perhaps the same thing but morally worse; the dog-eat-dog, every man for himself view of freedom is really no freedom at all. In the rush to the dazzling bright lights of the promised land of individual freedom, we've lost sight of what freedom really means and forgotten that it must be inclusive in practice, not simply in theory. Delivering a fairer, more balanced and more inclusive vision of freedom will be one of the defining battles of the 21st century. It is a fight we must win or more people will lose long-cherished liberties in the pursuit of a false freedom.

July 2003
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Andrew Leedham
Articles by Andrew Leedham