Myths Of Our Economy: We Are Free!
Freedom. A word we use a lot, but think about too little. And this is a shame, because freedom and the building of a free society is one of the most interesting things to try and wrap your mind around. I'm told, by so many people, books, movies and politicians, that freedom is important; it is the highest ideal to strife for in life and a key ingredient for true happiness. Yet nobody tells me what freedom is, or exactly why it is so important.
source: Creative Commons Images
The best they all can do is say that freedom means different things to different people and that we all need to decide for ourselves what it means to us and how we go about obtaining it. And the free market is there to provide more freedom to more people than ever before because it enables societies to produce enough wealth for people to climb up in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's simple really: only if you can be free from the need to spend all your time surviving and reproducing, you can spend time on the higher ideals in life.
source: Wikimedia Commons - Maslow's hierarchy of needs
So to climb in Maslow's hierarchy we can quickly conclude we cannot manage that on our own, or even in a small community. Only when the first industrial revolution made possible large amounts of overproduction, our hands and minds were literally free to do and think about other things. This represents the first obstacle to true freedom as some may understand it: we have to form a society, organize the efforts of large groups of people towards the common goal of creating wealth. With organization comes rules, schedules, you have to be educated to be able to adhere to these rules, communicate and navigate through the labyrinth of actors in society. As an individual you have to do your part in reaching that common goal in order to gain your own freedom.
At least that's how we think and hope it works. And it does; in smaller communities up to a maximum of around 500 people, all actors in the common game are visible; no laws or police force are needed. In small communities social pressure is enough to keep the individuals "in line". If someone refuses to play their part, or otherwise hinders that common goal, they simply don't get spoken to anymore, they don't get help if there's repairs to be made to their house. If they damage Fred's property and refuse to pay for the repairs, Fred's good friend Bob will make sure the bad actors don't get any eggs, meat or corn from his farm anymore. This is why so called Utopian communities like Quakers and Israeli kibbutzim also almost never grow beyond that maximum of 500 people per community.
source: Flickr - Members of Kibbutz Amir
Humans are tribal creatures, but in larger communities this principle doesn't change: we're just as dependent on each other as we were in the tribe, only this interdependence is made completely invisible through the economy. Now we are given, on a daily basis, the illusion that we're independent, free agents who can choose to do and even be whatever and whoever we want. This compels some people to really think that being free means being able to do whatever you want whenever you want with whom ever you want. This unrealistic view on freedom would never have a chance in a community of people who are constantly aware of their interdependence.
Whatever dependencies we have, they disappear with every extra dollar we can manage to get for ourselves. Because if you have enough money you simply pay a doctor when you're sick or when it's that time to get a new nose or better lips. You never have to feel dependent on anyone as long as you can afford the price of this imagined freedom. You still are dependent on the knowledge and expertise and craftsmanship of other people, you just never have to feel that way, like you did in the tribe. And we are reminded that freedom is an individual thing in every depiction of the word. Just look at this collage of pictures I found when searching for the word "freedom", and notice how they all contain one lonely person:
Because freedom is something all humans long for, whatever that freedom may hold for any given individual, and because we are made to believe that independence from other people is a large part of that freedom, we have money our highest goal in life. A good way to show this is, as almost always, through art and stories. I'll try to illustrate by giving an example from modern culture, a world famous movie, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly".
The story is very simple: three men who have every reason to mistrust each other, form a hostile alliance to find a treasure with 400 gold coins that would be worth several million dollars today. They don't want to, but are forced to work together to find this treasure because each of them holds a piece of the puzzle to find its exact location. This spaghetti western with Lee Van Cleef and a very young Clint Eastwood is a remarkable movie for what is not in it. But first, if you've never seen it, please take a two minute break to watch the trailer and enjoy the legendary music by Ennio Morricone:
There's no love, no friendship, no beauty, no joy, intimacy or even a cheap sex-scene. The three conspirators are all murderers, they want to kill each other every step of the way, none has a higher or nobler cause than to get the money, the desert locations used are all harsh and lifeless, and there's no justice or righteousness to be found, not even after the ending of the film. The only reason the story grabs us, is that treasure. The treasure is the fulfillment of our deepest wish for freedom and happiness and we forgive all ugliness needed to reach that coveted goal. We even admire the smartest scammer of the bunch for succeeding.
Is this movie not a perfect summary of our modern western culture? We are not only made to believe we are independent from other people, no we're even their competitors. Contrary to the truth of our ever growing interdependence we're raised to be as independent as possible, and at the workplace we have colleagues who are at the same time our competitors because no one wants to lose their job, their income, their little slice of freedom and happiness they can celebrate in the weekends...
Many so called anarcho-capitalists and voluntarists believe that freedom means to be free from coercion, be it from other individuals or governments. Their free society is based, roughly, around the non aggression principle and respect for property rights. All interactions and transactions should be voluntary and therefore no forced taxes can exist and no government can exist to force people to do things or threaten them with force if they fail to do so.
In my mind this is paradoxical. Property is a legal construct that's backed by the laws decided on within the society, which are enforced by a police force payed for by that society. The voluntary police force in this anarcho-capitalist utopia must eat to. So only those who think they need a police force wil voluntarily pay for such a force. So what do you do with those who didn't pay? And will anyone pay? What do you do with the burning house of the one who volunteered to not pay for the fire-department? Leave it burning so the flames can travel to those who have payed? As a society we have known since centuries ago that some things are better done as a community. These anarcho-capitalists want to go back in time to even before that...
source: Wikimedia - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had some one pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: "Do not listen to this imposter. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!"
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I am of the opinion that private property and the accumulation of as much personal gains as possible are detrimental for true freedom and a truly free society. We will have to find a way to separate riches from freedom in our consciousness, because the riches blind us from our interdependence and make us compete where we should be working together. I think true freedom comes from the constant realization that we all depend on each other, and that should make us feel safe. Because with that realization we also understand that we are not each others enemies but each others liberators.
This is how I believe freedom works, or should I say, how it doesn't work in modern western cultures. I hope you will let me know how you see freedom and if you have any ideas on how to organize a free society. It's just something that's worth your time to think about, or at least it was worth my time to think about... Time isn't money, it doesn't have to be.
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Finally! Someone on Steemit addressing the elephant in the room. In my early days on Steemit and discord I got into fierce debates with Anarcho-Capitalists (which, let’s face it, is already a contradiction in terms) who claim that privatization was the key to the end of environmental destruction and human economic slavery, but that notion is actually far more pie-in-the-sky than simply relearning how to share, cooperate and support each other.
Anarchy-capitalism cannot work because it is merely an idea formed as a backlash against the modern mainstream Neo-feudalist system we are currently pinned underneath. Just like how the pritikin diet (a precursor to veganism) was merely a backlash against the modern mainstream American diet. It provided some answers, but was ultimately doomed because it was inherently flawed.
No political system will ever work. Big statement right? Let me quantify why.
No political system can ever work if there is no evolution of consciousness as it’s foundation.
The communes you’ve mentioned are rest examples of this. The participants at least have evolved their ‘mine’ indoctrination into a mutually beneficial ‘sharing’ belief in order to function within the community.
Anyway, could rave for hours on this.
Fabulous post, as usual, mate.
There. You said it all. Right there. Also, congrats on a wonderful interview at @clayboyn!! :-)
This was an interesting post because you approached the subject in a most enlightening and engaging manner. The concept of "freedom" is difficult to fathom because of all the nuances involved and all of our -isms tend to cloud the issues further. Thank you for your musings here. I do not have any answers, and perhaps am leaving this post with more questions than I had going into it, which was probably your goal — to make us think! Bravo! 😉
I can rest now... My task is done :-)
Thanks for reading and responding @thekittygirl! And keep asking questions: they're so much more interesting than most answers we think we already have ;-)
I would like to start by saying, "I do not have the answer, I have only my observations and thoughts, which express the things I consider and my own leanings." Imo, the purely "voluntary society" is a utopian dream, therefore sadly I have come to the conclusion that it cannot work and probably will not work. Most proponents at this point always seem to defer to ideals of "raising our collective awareness" or similar ideas. But this always comes with the ideals of subjectivity. Thus creating a gap for human nature to exploit.
Aha! Exactly, we need to change our nature! And the cycle starts over again. If you read between the lines you will see something taking shape. Ignore it and you are doomed to infinite regress, acknowledge it and you are not necessarily the better! But at least your not chasing your proverbial tail.
Expectations, desire to control, discontent when things don't go your way, then anger and resentment, eye for an eye, destruction, rebirth, diverging paths, one where trust is dead and bitterness takes hold, another where love rises above self and forgives.
The cycle continues.
It's not a new obstacle, as you can see from reading, history has had many "idealist," whom have cried for the betterment of our condition. But show me a man that lived his ideals. That is the only obstacle I have come to know - myself.
But isn't this acknowledging the we as individuals must change? Yes, again, read between the lines, learn from history, learn from your own experiences.
To conclude, while I can see the sentiment in the desires that the "earth belongs to all," I think that this is another pipe dream, that will not happen the way some hope. Show me a man who lives his ideals! If we neglect to turn our ideals inward we are not being honest! What we are really doing is nothing short of being hypocrites that have objectified ideals and spend our days pointing fingers... aha! aha! I know the answers! They don't aha!
The cycle ends with when we stop making excuses and focusing on the problems of others. Read between the lines of life!
I love your responses @odrau, and I agree; no one man or woman has the answer, I don't even think most of us are asking the right questions yet. This is why I'm glad you share your thoughts here. Let me respond to two points and share my ideas on those:
We do not need to change our "human nature", we need to understand that there's no such thing as human nature. Drop a baby in a wolves nest and it will grow up to be a wolf. Or die. We are the most malleable creatures on earth and we're formed by whatever we encounter in life. We are also the only creature that has the power to change what we encounter in life. We can reason, we compare the past to the present and from there plan a path to the future, we can count higher than 4, the limit of all other creatures on Earth... Together we form the surroundings that form us as individuals. In my mind, we're losing touch with the "together" part of that statement.
You'll never find him. Idealism and Ideals are a conjured up fantasy world where everything is perfect and perfectly arranged around one quality or trait of humans. You can only find people who strife for those ideals, they never live them. But is that bad? True democracy can never exist, but should we therefore quit trying to make a better democracy? I believe not.
Thanks for a beautiful response. I agree with most of it ;-)
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