There are some values in society and politics that are controversial and violently argued. However, freedom is a value about which everyone is in absolute agreement, it can’t be praised enough – its sung about in songs and made the subject of films and books … and is important enough to lead to wars. Freedom is a supreme value, seen as positive by everyone. The only criticism of freedom that can be heard is that it is not a state of true freedom, that the ideal of freedom is not really implemented. Freedom itself is not touched by this kind of criticism.
If you ask people what they understand by freedom, you usually get to hear “freedom means to be free to do what you want.” However, this is redundant: one does on one’s own only what one has decided for oneself; who else’s will and who else’s purposes are enacted if not one’s own? Now, this statement means not just that one wants to do something, but that one also wants to enact the desire in practice. But this is really already clear, therefore, its redundant – what else should a will be good for than to enact it?
Free will is not a matter of belief, but a fact. Even a slave has one; his free will cannot be taken from him; if he plows the fields, he has decided that he just “prefers” to do this rather than be whipped. On the other hand, a free will also does not mean very much (the slave is certainly not happy when plowing the fields); it only counts if you know what you want, are aware of your needs and wishes, can judge them and take the appropriate actions (something that an animal can do less well – it eats as soon as it has hunger, while a human sometimes ignores his hunger if he has important things to do or waits to enjoy dinner with friends).
Freedom cannot refer to one’s own will, to a relationship with one’s self. A recluse on his island does not need freedom, for him the implementation of what he wants is a purely practical question – what does he want and does he have the means for it? Not: may he do what he wants? Is he free?
So freedom has a social form.
”I want to live in freedom, I want to do what I want” is empty and abstract, there is no material content in it. The realization of it, e.g. “I want the freedom to travel,” never refers to the material implementation of a desire, it does not mean “I will fly to Mexico for two weeks in December,” but praises the permission to be allowed to set a destination in another country as a tourist. One does not refer to whether the will can actually be implemented – that would be a question of the means that one must first in fact have – but praises the mere allowance of the will, and permission is still far from being a guarantee of fulfillment. If it concerns implementation rather than permission, one would indeed say “I want a car in order to travel” instead of “I want to (may) travel.” It can only be about praising the permission: “I may aim at the stuff of my desires,” thus praising the rule that grants one this will.
Someone who praises and upholds freedom thus praises a form of rule in which “one may.” Only someone who is subordinated to this form of rule can enjoy freedom at all. Without rule no freedom is necessary, one no longer asks, “may I?” So one is subordinated to a power that allows one to exercise one’s own will – and for this one should need rule over oneself?
Freedom must always first be granted by state power – and because this could be different, the praise of freedom is always accompanied with a negative comparison to unfree societies (“thank God, how good it is that I can at least do what I want here”). Freedom is thus also a call upon the people as to how they should position themselves to the rule.
May one then really always do what one wants in a free society?
No, and this is not seen as an objection, but as a consequence. Precisely because of freedom, there is the need for barriers to be set by the state to guarantees the freedom of the individual. Thus in the consciousness of the people freedom and its limits always belong together (except for the anarchists; see below). For freedom one needs limits (also true: live together with others in society, but do what you want, that should be unhindered!), one always gets freedom along with a limit (“the freedom of the individual ends where the freedom of another begins”), and this is approved by the people. Freedom and limitation together then define the social relations.
The state guarantees and protects the freedom of the individual – this is seen as if it is a benefit for the people. However, freedom is no service to the people, but is first ordered and prescribed. It is nevertheless also a contradiction: a will should be enacted, and for this reason it must be restricted – only conditional wills matter, always measured in it, whether a will is also permitted.
Freedom is the requirement that the people who exist in a society, whose actions thus affect the others, should treat everything as a private matter, should pursue only their own will, as if they were alone, thus ruthlessly against the interests and needs of the others – within the officially fixed limits. Not exactly a reasonable way to live together… but very suitable for capitalist relations. Freedom exists and is only needed in capitalism.
Freedom, if one is alone, is nonsense, one does not need it or have it – see the hermit. Freedom in society is also not reasonable: if one wants to live together with others, one wants nevertheless not simply to enforce one’s own will (“I want what I want and this should thus apply”) regardless of what others want, but speaks reasonably with the others and implements the common interest together.
Freedom in a community, thus somebody asserting his will against the others, can be allowed only in connection with rule – either one is himself the ruler (then one’s own will counts de facto, but no other wills and they are thereby limited in this respect) or the freedom is – together with the limits to the recklessness – one which is authorized or prescribed by a rule. The claim “I want to be free, my will is to count” is only feasible with force. This means that the realization of freedom as a social principle sets major conflicts into the world, and then the rule needs to set limits.
There can be freedom in a community, thus that somebody puts through his will against that of the others only in connection with rule – either one is himself the ruler (then own will counts really, but all the other wills thereby or are not thereby limited) or the freedom is conceded to one by a rule or is prescribed.
The position of anarchists, who want freedom without a state, is therefore also incorrect. They only notice that rule is not useful for their needs, that it limits them (“destroy what destroys you”). However, they have an ideal of freedom, i.e. the current situation is not for them real freedom but its limitation, so they demand an unlimited freedom without rule (“my desires must count, all barriers are wrong, the world must bend to me”), which is not at all possible – if everyone ruthlessly pursues their own will, they inevitably clash with the people they live together with and who also ruthlessly pursue their wills.
One sees that freedom must be prescribed by a rule from above, otherwise one would not want to live together in freedom. People who do not have something in common can unite in a community – but would be wiser to go their separate ways, dissolve the community and instead live together with other like-minded people. Or they can argue and struggle just to resolve the conflicts and try to find solutions for overcoming the conflicts. However, one would never want to voluntarily live in a community in which everybody is granted his freedom so that everyone lives in conflict with each other and must put up with the conflicting wills of others.
Freedom is not reasonable, but harmful!
What is the practical, concrete content of freedom?
In this country you are free nowadays to study what you want and choose the occupation you want. There is free choice of what to study and which career to choose; no one prescribes what you should become. However, whether one then is also able to pursue this occupation (i.e., whether one can fulfill such preconditions as school exams, tuition fees, etc.) and whether one gets to have a job in this profession is not under one’s control. One is not the subject of its conditions.
The problem is not that you're not really free, so that, for example, one is prevented by tuition fees from being truly free to choose his profession. Just the fact that freedom is enforced is harmful. No reasonable planning takes place in which it is determined how many people are needed in which professional guild. But career choice is a private matter for each individual, and unemployment is also his private risk. This means that freedom of career choice is the opposite of a reasonable arrangement.
At the same time, however, a social division of labor exists, i.e. nobody produces for himself in a subsistence economy, but everyone produces for others. Then social production should be seen as a social affair, sensibly planned and agreed upon. Instead, everybody works for their own benefit, the social connection is produced through competition and exclusion and is decided on the market. Economic freedom is something other than an orientation towards social needs and rational planning.
Why is economic freedom so highly regarded?
The people appreciate freedom as a condition for their purposes and as a permission to look after their own advancement (regardless of social needs). In the process they then collide with others who do the same (competition). They confuse the fact that they may do something with the fact that it is also in their interest. Permission comes with unequal means, i.e. just because you may do something, you are still a long way from what you want.
In terms of the free choice of a career: in an economy in which people must sell their labor power as wage labor in order to obtain a wage and thus to obtain the means of survival, in which they depend on bringing home a wage (and preferably a larger one), in which the compulsion of the workers is experienced as a material compulsion (it is not directly ordered, but is made necessary by the social system) – here they appreciate that they are free to choose their job and may try to earn as much money as possible. Whether this works out or not, however, they have no control over, so they must first make sure they find someone who will hire them (for their own profit) and assert themselves against the competition of the other wage laborers. Whoever does not manage to do this is unemployed and is just out of luck.
Economic freedom is at the same time permission (“you may be what you want”) and compulsion (“you must look after yourself at your own risk”). Compulsion in a free society comes as a material compulsion: one is not forced to work by a superior, but by the necessity of providing for one’s own livelihood.
Not only may everybody choose their profession freely, but everybody may also produce what he wants, regardless of what is needed. There are no longer, as in the past, guild restrictions, nor are women excluded from certain occupations.
Its funny: things are produced for the society, but production is not collectively planned for social needs, but production is the private matter of the individual entrepreneurs. The social connection between private production and general needs is accidental, it is always discovered only after the fact on the market whether a social need was met, thus whether the products were socially necessary or not, thus if the need for them exists (namely, if the need is one that makes money!). If the products are bought, they were necessary (so the social need for them evidently existed); if not, they are superfluous, and their production was therefore pointless.
If the producers are not oriented towards social needs are needs then of no concern?
No, production and need are not independent of each other, but the producers use the needs as their means. Something is produced not in order to satisfy a need, but to exploit the need. It is a lever for extortion, by which the goal of doing business is implemented. The weaker the other side (the more urgently someone needs a product), the better for the producer who can then sell the product better. Exclusion by private property is enacted so that everyone is excluded in principle from the means of satisfying their needs, and all products (and means of production) always belong to the producers; one cannot simply take what one needs.
The purpose of production is not to satisfy the needs of others, but to exploit their predicament so as to promote one’s own purpose: enrichment. To produce in this way, against each other, to mutually exploit one another, is not rational. The result is overproduction (things are produced by the dozens for which no need exists; food is destroyed – the milk lakes and butter mountains of the EU, etc.) and poverty (people starve in front of full warehouses; many needs are not met because there is no solvent demand for them, i.e. people cannot pay for them).
Free production sets up the requirement that everybody, regardless of social needs, should make this the means to increase their own advantage, which is calculated in money (“free to become rich”). Then the people stand in economic conflict with each other: one person wants to sell something at an expensive price; the other person wants to buy it for cheap. Everyone should assert himself against the others, so the people come into conflict with each other … quite harmful!
Here it is about the production of things for others – but the producer should orient himself so that he only produces if it promotes his self-interest and exploits the needs of others for this purpose. Whoever has a lever in hand against the others should use it to increase his private interest. Production is social, but the free producer can exclude all the others from his products and dispose of them as he wants (he may destroys them if he so wishes while others starve or urgently need them). He provides things when they serve his private interest (enrichment) – they were produced only for this reason. There is nothing for anybody to consume if is not profitable for a producer. The benefit of the producer is set free, a free producer gives nothing to society (otherwise he would not be free), but only pursues what benefits him.
There are free producers only in and for a society (and only makes sense there) in which conflicts are useful, in which people with her opposing interests are in competition with each other and extort each other in their neediness – that is capitalism. Economic freedom is the harmful state in which economically conflicting subjects are opposed to each other.
What is political freedom, what is it for, why does it fit capitalism so well?
In the past we could not vote (or the right to vote was linked to property or social status), nor were there political parties. Nowadays, every adult citizen has the equal, free, confidential and universal right to vote and establish a political party. One is politically free and empowered to vote for whomever one considers suitable. If you do not find anyone suitable, you can even start your own political party.
Political freedom, the freedom to vote and the freedom to establish parties, is qualified from the outset, for example: extremist parties are suppressed. These contingencies will not be the subject here, but the content of political freedom, what it is and why it is such a good fit for capitalism.
The political interests of the citizens:
If someone criticizes something in this country, if one is not content with the prevailing conditions, you often hear that you should just pick another party or vote the ruling party out of office in the next election. How does a citizen come to his political interest by right?
An economically free citizen has the task of looking after his own private advancement. There are certain basic conditions that the state establishes for this which are important for him. The state power establishes the terms with which the people cope so that they can advance their own interests. The state also acts as the facilitator and guarantor of economic freedom. Then it is also to the state that the people turn in their discontent, according to the idea: “if freedom is my means, I must also be interested in what it guarantees me.”
The link between economic and political freedom:
Precisely because of the economic freedom in which everyone tries with whatever means he has to use the others, people constantly push against their arranged diverging interests and the damages produced by competition. They do not draw the conclusion that a society based conflicting interests quite fundamentally and systemically harms them, but criticize the conditions set by the state as not adequately arranged for them. They grasp their damage as a deficient authorization of their interest; they think their interests are not sufficiently taken into account.
Demands to validate special interests:
In their finding that their needs are not met and that over and over again they experience their own damage, the citizens turn critically to the subject of their conditions, the state. They demand that despite all the conflicting interests, nevertheless, their (special) interest should count (as a mother, a pensioner, a student, etc), not those of the others. This attitude is doubly stupid: on the one hand, it presumes the harmfulness of the conflicting relations, does not criticize them any further, does not care about the cause of the damage and also has nothing against the continued existence of these conflicts. The main thing is that their own success, their own private interest, can be enforced - against the others!
On the other hand, if they feel they have come up short, they make their demands on, of all things, the state, which has nevertheless established the conflicts in the first place.
For example, the single mother:
Why is the situation of a single mother (or father) really problematic? Where does the demand come from that the politicians should pay more attention to the needs of people in this situation? First, it is not a problem to bring up a child alone, and everyone knows that it is less than a problematic situation for rich people, but single parents are always linked with poverty as a problem. And also here calls for changes in their situation are made to the state which has nevertheless set up the situation of single parents in the first place: the entire responsibility for child rearing is dumped on the mother, and that means above all the financial responsibility. Raising children is not addressed as a social task, but is a private matter and therefore the private risk of the parents. It is a risk in that they remain further obliged to provide for their own livelihood – and now also for that of the child – even though they have to devote their time to the upbringing of the child. Single mothers are especially dependent on an income (more so by the high financial needs of the child) and have to find a boss who hires them. On the other hand, the boss has the freedom to determine the working hours and terms of employment – regardless of the needs of the mother who must have time for the child. On the contrary: because of the restrictions on her time, the single mother is worse off in the competition and is better exploitable due to her higher vulnerability to extortion, and therefore may be bought for cheaper wages.
Political freedom to make the special interests valid:
If there is political freedom, everyone may be discontent from the standpoint of his economic role and can express this. And this is also done: “as a pensioner, as a student…” one pipes up and claims one’s own special interest, which is in conflict with the others – and at their expense. Someone who justifies his views “as a ____,” thus from a role, does not declare his needs and interests, but has accepted his role and now says that his interest is entitled and should therefore be implemented against the others in accordance with the motto: “I accept my role – but in my role I want more benefit for myself.”
If someone economically free wants to get going with whatever he has for his purposes, then the offer of political freedom sounds just right to him.
Then he can vote for the party that offers him the best conditions for his program, to make headway and to pursue his own benefit. As a political suitor he has permission to refer his particular interest to the state and to demand support from it for the pursuit of this interest – against the others.
What is affirmed when you demand “as a ______”?
In a free society, everyone is free in damages and benefits. And everyone’s own benefit is the damage of the others. “As a student I want more” opposes the others. One champions one’s own role (“If I am already a student, I must also be able to live”) and its dissolution is not desired, but has nothing against the established and continuing relations and roles, one only wants to be better off within the role, and precisely on its basis. Someone who makes demands “as a student” has accepted the entire society and its higher education system as existing for their purposes. Your own role and the conflicts between the different roles (landlord-tenant, buyer-seller, worker-boss, student-professor, but also, if it is about the distribution of funds, student-pensioner) are accepted instead of rejected. In accepting one’s own role, the roles of the others are also accepted. They have a right to insist on their own particular interests, but one does not care about their needs, one is confined to the role in whose name one formulates one’s benefits according to his interests. Everyone should just see what he is left with in his role.
The public good:
Why does everyone qualify themselves as being for the public good (“as a farmer,” “as a student,” instead of “I want”)?
Instead of arguing for their own need, it is always the needs of the whole group that are referred to, the universality of one’s interest. And this is not hypocrisy, because the people think they would get more this way or that it would be more persuasive to the politicians. No, they are not pretending, but championing their role and the established relations.
Political freedom is the ban on arguing out opposing interests and disposing of them once and for all. Instead, everybody should argue within his role and for his particular interest, while the conflicts persist. The roles of the others and their right to articulate their interests must be recognized – nobody can come along and say: “I am a student and want no more tuition fees, and if there is no more money left for the pensioners, I don’t give a damn.” With that he would deny the principle of political freedom, that pensioners may also demand sufficient means of sustenance. Hence, as a student one can argue only in a way that shows understanding for the pensioners and accepts their desire for adequate pensions. But unfortunately, unfortunately, one must persist with one’s own desire for lower tuition fees because otherwise the nation’s young and its future would be jeopardized … The interest is thus argued for so that the proof of public good must be attended to and the others taken into account – in their right to make demands, which is absolutely not the same as the realization of their interests.
Parties:
This matters by the way for the party leaders and politicians. They cannot come out with the program of self-interest (“elect me, I do not want an airport built in front of house and will prevent it”), but must always argue for the common good. So they always make a quick – necessary – transition from the party of interests to the people's party. A party that protests against existing conditions must eventually decide whether it wants to remain in this protest … or wants to represent and choose the common good. One sees this, for example, with the Greens and their transition from pacifism and ecology to a party that almost immediately when in power ordered combat missions in Yugoslavia.
Political freedom is the granting of the right to work from the particular interest towards the public good. And this is very useful for capitalist domination.
Political freedom fits and belongs to capitalism; it is only useful for rule there. Because only in capitalism does the state set its people free in economic conditions that it establishes with the call for them to assert their own interest against those of the others so that their own benefit damages the others. The state-established social cooperation happens only through the implementing and exerting of conflicting interests, such as the supply of consumer goods only happening through the competition for purchasing power by competing producers who make use of the needs of consumers to achieve their profits. Because of these systematically established opposing interests, the people are bound to be constantly discontent with all their damaged interests. For the articulation of this dissatisfaction, they get with political freedom a sphere of activism in which they should exercise their prescribed right to criticize. They should direct their criticism at the creator of these relations, which prepares the constant damage to their interests, that it should nevertheless take more consideration of their interest and promote them, but by maintaining the systematic conflicts which thereby become contractual and are allowed to continue. This is also contrary to the ideology of social studies books, according to which everybody can bring themselves by political freedom “constitutive.” There is within the meaning of freedom only if existing, namely the conflicts also remain, otherwise freedom makes no sense. To put it up for discussion, to agree and to eliminate the conflicts is indeed something else ...
Conclusion:
There is political freedom only in the capitalist sense… and capitalism is harmful!