An essay regarding the concept of freedom, its relations with human nature and what it truly means.
For the sake of clarity, this essay uses male and other words associated with men as a default term referring to humanity as a whole. The ideas expressed in this essay apply to all human beings, regardless of sex, race and disability.
Man is brought unto this world with but one desire. To be free.
It is truly simple. From birth until death, man is driven entirely by his own want to have as little constraint on his life as possible. This has occurred since the dawn of man.
Those living in pre-historic times, evolving from ape to human expressed this desire. Man evolved through a desire to be free of the constraints of a life in the trees, and instead slowly but surely learned to stand, walk and run in order to expand the possibilities in his life. All of a sudden man’s domain opened up from beyond the trees to across the land.
Throughout the Stone Age we can also observe desire for freedom. Man worked for his family to bring more food, more shelter and more comfort. Man’s entire life – though brutish and short – was one dedicated to expanding possibilities, migrating from place to place hunting new wildlife, finding new berries and fighting to escape the restraints of the world around him.
The desire for freedom echoes throughout history, and everything man has done, and will continue to do is something driven by wanting to be free from the constraints placed upon him. It may not be as obvious as the desire of a slave to be free from bondage, but it is still an innate desire which drives man’s every decision.
In the modern age, the strongest chain holding man back is money. Society is capitalist by nature, supply and demand has always played a part in the value of things, be it food or shelter. Things we want have value, and that value in society is money. From food to fuel, tin foil to toys etc, everything has a monetary cost to the consumer. It is then the finite sum of money one possesses which effects how much of what one wants one can have.
Man wants things, but for the vast majority of mankind the cost of the things he wants is less than the amount of money he has. It is such that he must give up or sacrifice some of his wants in order to best fulfil his needs. His needs are not always immediate, if he makes 200 a week and 150 of that is spent on food, you may wonder why that 50 wouldn’t be spent on a new shirt, for instance, yet if he wants to be able to buy a car he must save that 50 in order to be able to afford the car in the future. Man’s desire is largely not fulfilled for this.
To fulfil his desire he needs enough money to not have to worry about the amount he spends, and as such be free of the enslavement that is cost. He desires freedom.
Every action, every thought, every word is driven by a selfish desire to be free from any constraints, free from wants and needs being prevented, free from the bondage that is the reality of life. He is enslaved by his needs or he is enslaved by conformity, it is the tradeoff he makes when he partakes in society in order to best fulfil his needs, but his desire is always to be enslaved by neither.
Man’s wants and needs can and do come into conflict. What he chooses might not always be what he needs but instead what he wants. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a monetary conflict – for instance one may neglect sleep for the want to continue playing a video game – though it acts in much the same way. Money and time are two similar inventions, both being finite and both acting as currencies. Money is the currency of goods and services and time is the currency of activities.
Whilst conceptually time is equal for everyone – no one person has more hours in a day than any other – it is actually intrinsically linked to money. Those with less money need to work longer hours in order to earn enough survive, and thus have less time to do activities, such as getting a degree, trapping them in a cycle of being unable to earn more money and such not having the time to complete the necessary tasks intended to help earn more money in the first place.
Those of lower wealth don’t just have less capital to make their own choices with purchases – they such also don’t have the time to make their own choices which may lead to earning more capital. It is often said that time is money to mean that you shouldn’t waste time when you could be spending that working, but instead time is money as possessing more money means possessing more time.
We may on paper have the same time to make our own choices – but it is often the case that those of greater wealth have greater ability to choose due to the time they can afford themselves. Those of lower wealth are simply enslaved by the constraints of time itself due to this lack of ability to choose. They do not have the freedom to make their choices.
The working world is centred on the idea of working to retire. Once one has retired he is free to spend his time doing whatever he pleases, and it is this which drives man to work for his entire life, his drive for freedom.
But even with the freedom of retirement, one isn’t truly free. The amount one may have earned over their working life tends to correspond to how strong their pension is, as those who can afford to usually invest in a private pension over their working lives. As such, the constraints of capital still exist even when retired – he who has earned less can do less.
It is he who has earned less who has usually had less time, as he had less to begin with. It is a cycle which enslaves us all. Such it is then that the true constraint of freedom in the modern world is money. It is money by which man is held under bondage without even knowing.
Then it is clear the only way to secure freedom for all is through ensuring no one is held captive by his wealth throughout their working lives, and it is under the social contract the responsibility of his government to ensure he is free from captivity by means of monetary possessions. To secure freedom means to secure welfare, as it is that which is the only protection by which man can never be enslaved by a lack of capital.
If it is that securing welfare is necessary to secure freedom then it is such that he who supports freedom must support welfare and a strong safety net. If it is that to support freedom is to be liberal, and to be liberal is to support freedom then it is such that he who is liberal must support welfare and a strong safety net.
It must be evident now that the only way to truly be liberal is to be one who fights for economic justice, one who fights against homelessness and poverty, one who fights for the rights of workers and one who supports unions in order to ensure workers interests are being protected.
These are not in conflict with capitalism – rather they are in unison with capitalism. Capitalism cannot exist in a society where the market is not free, and the market is not free if those who wish to contribute to the market are unable to do so, if those who wish to start businesses are rejected for loans, if those who earn less are not afforded the time to spend their capital in order to further growth.
Man has always desired freedom, it is then pertinent we ensure he is delivered it such.