wHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LIVE IN A FREE SOCIETY?

Freedom is a term that is always mentioned both in everyday conversations and in political debate. It is something highly valued by democratic societies but at the same time what we mean by freedom appears to be a less clear question. The current Coronavirus epidemic is a great moment to question what do we mean by freedom. For example, a few months ago if we described anyone a society in which their citizens were forced to stay at home and their movements were tightly controlled, that person would conclude we were describing a totalitarian dictatorship. However, that is the situation we are currently living in and no one is denouncing Pedro Sanchez or Giuseppe Conte of being Stalinists (lets ignore Libertarian nutjobs). Therefore, what supposedly was previously defined as not-free, does not appear to be under the current circumstances.

Let's give a chance to those libertarian nutjobs such as John McAfee, the infamous billionaire outlaw founder and creator of Mcaffe Antivirus. He claims that the entire reaction to Covid-19 is a huge exaggeration and that the disease is not a threat at all. Furthermore, he claims that in countries such as Canada, freedom is under threat and that the government is enforcing a police state. He is not alone on this opinion, as there has been a number of protests against the “stay at home” orders in state capitals in the US with people bearing signs saying: “Give me liberty or give me death”; these protesters have the support of President Donald Trump who tweeted that these states must be “liberated”.

I would argue these opinions are a bigger threat to freedom: Healthcare professionals claim the disease is not simply a seasonal flu (as claimed by McAffe) it is ten times more lethal and spreads significantly faster; we can see how even under quarantine hospitals were struggling. Not having done anything could lead to up to 4 million deaths in the US alone according to a research paper by [ ]. Isn’t a basic freedom the right to life?

That is the problem with defining freedom, just like with virtues, there are conflicting freedoms. Libertarians such as McAfee exclamate oppression to any intervention from the government but at the same time no government regulations means children working back in factories, people working 12 hours a day with little time to see their own families, and monopolies rising again.

We need to formulate a definitive definition of freedom to get rid of bogus definitions used by people such as McAfee. More specifically, what does it mean to be in a free society.

Cambridge Dictionary defines freedom as: the condition or right of being able or allowed to do, say, think, etc. whatever you want to, without being controlled or limited.

Something that must be cleared away from this debate is the view that equality and freedom are mutually exclusive. I would say it is a necessary condition in a free society for all of its members to be free. A free society where not everyone is free is an oxymoron, this applies to both if the free group is a minority or a majority. We would not call feudalism (where a minority was free) a free society and neither would we call first-half 19th century America (where the majority was free) a free society. Slaves are non-existent, in any shape or form, in a free society.

Could we live in a society where everyone is able to do “whatever they want”? From the surface we say of course not, it would not be a stable society if people were allowed to murder others without consequences or without others discouraging it. Would it be a free society if, If I felt like it, I could have slaves? Therefore, we can conclude that a free society is not one in which people can do “whatever they want”. Libertarians of course do not aim for a society where people can murder, but their list of what people cannot do is rather short; apart from rape and murder and so on, people should be free to do whatever they want, individuals have no responsibility to uphold the wellbeing of society and ,if anything, they should be selfish and only act in their own self-interest. Libertarian ideology can be summarised as “f**ck you, I got mine”.

I would argue Libertarian ideology does not lead to real freedom, being part of society means living with rules which allow for all of us to live in harmony. Like Thomas Hobbes concluded in Leviathan: we must sacrifice some “freedoms” (although It is a misuse of the word to say to hurt others is a freedom) in order to live in a civilized society. Libertarian ideology just leads to Hobbes’ version of the state of nature. Following libertarian logic: why should I follow traffic rules? It is not my fault if other people can’t follow when I am changing lanes whenever I want. It justifies inequality as people in power were just smarter and therefore deserve where they are. However, as we’ve concluded, inequality is a prerequisite to freedom.

Therefore, Libertarian ideology does not give us the answer to how to make a free society.

Nowadays, in capitalist liberal democracies we hold a different definition of freedom- the liberal definition. I would summarise it as: People’s freedom ends where another person’s freedom starts. Mill’s “On liberty” argues how real freedom is achieved when minimizing society’s power over the individual. Isaiah Berlin’s concept of negative and positive freedoms helps us understand this definition further; we not only should have “freedom to” but also “freedom from”.

At first it sounds like this is the definitive version of freedom, one where people can be “their true selves”. However, it does not come without problems.

Continuing with the concept that freedom is “being able to be yourself”; to say we are free in a society when we are free to pursue what we want is a bit meaningless. During the Cold War, the western conception of freedom was that having all these choices of consumer products. To be free is that you can buy H&M clothes if you want, drink CocaCola because that is the drink you like, or watch Love Island because you feel like it. However this concept of freedom is complete nonsense. None of us are born with a predisposition to like a certain brand or like to dress a certain way. We like those things because it is what's trending and we want to fit in, because the adverts that follow us to every corner brainwash us into liking it, and because those are all the options we are given and know of. This post-modern concept that consumer society allows us to be “our true selves” is just wrong. It is a contradiction that consumer products allow us to “escape social norms” when it is society -the marketing companies, mass-media, the people around us- which tells us what we like. The liberal definition of freedom is a chimera. Where liberals fail can be encapsulated by the Ubuntu saying “I am because we are”. Humans cannot be free of society because society is what makes us. Humans have never lived on their own.

Therefore, since both of the most famous concepts for freedom we have fail, what comes next?

We need to find a better starting point to define when we are free. Let's start by asking, why do we want to be free in the first place? Why have previous revolutionaries and activists spoken of freedom? Humans from all generations advocated ending their servitude because it made them miserable, it killed them, it limited them to be born and die in the same position. What makes human lives worth living and satisfying is the concept of growth and maturing: flourishing. Humans have certain necessities:

·Material: Having food and shelter to survive and continue our existence

·Social: Meaningful relationships with friends and families and partners

·Psychological: Similar to the previous but also including learning and having an education.

When humans have all of these met, they are happy, and I would argue, truly free. They are able to look back at their lives with satisfaction; as a roller coaster of mistakes and achievements of which they have gathered valuable wisdom which they can pass to the next generation. When the political system has satisfied these necessities, they do not feel like advocating for radical social change.

Why is this definition better than the previous? It recognizes how we are heavily integrated with the people around us, it does not tolerate current inequalities and justify people being homeless or hungry (like libertarians do), it captures where the real evil of slavery and other tyrannical systems reside, not merely because we weren’t free, but because they did not nourish our human necessities and thus took our humanity away from us.

Where do libertarians get it wrong? They are fixated on that simple definition of “freedom is to do whatever you want”. Is people dying of a preventable disease because you want to go to the gym really a situation where we are all free human beings? Libertarians confuse privilege with freedom. To have the “freedom” to go out to infect vulnerable people is not liberty. To have the “freedom” to buy multiple properties in urban areas just to inflate the prices (and not allow others to have secure and stable shelter) is not freedom, it is nothing more than another privilege, just like owning slaves or the “right” to prima nocta.

Where do liberals get it wrong? They assume that we have a “true selves”. We cannot escape society, in a way, we are always gonna be “slaves” to it. How we think, the limits of our imagination and thoughts, how we dress and what we like, is always going to be shaped by the culture and the language we grow in (which we do not choose). I am not rejecting individuality, of course human beings need time to be alone and must be allowed to have their own thoughts and opinions. This new definition of freedom does not reject that, it fits into our psychological needs.

In conclusion, we must move beyond our current and ,a bit outdated, definitions of freedom since they do not give satisfying answers to what it means to live in a free society. We must change the focal point of our definitions of freedom away from “doing what you want”. A society is truly free when they all are, and when all their basic human necessities are met and they are allowed to have meaningful relations, learn and flourish.