[EN] Freedom?

Posted on November 6, 2011
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A society that is obsessed with money and property, a society that has organized its political process around money and property, a society that extends status and influence to those who have money and property, will never achieve freedom, or even an approximation thereof. Even if the political process is based on pluralism, on the so-called ‘marketplace of ideas’, it will never lead to more freedom if the currency of that marketplace is money and property, and not the greatest good for all.

When the political decision-making process is driven (both in terms of agenda-setting, and in terms of expending energy and means to achieve an outcome) by monied interests, almost entirely excluding or ignoring interests that try to achieve outcomes that benefit the lives of the broadest possible population in the longer term, it can never achieve an equitable, reasonable outcome. When inequitable outcomes are the norm, or even an outspoken ideal, liberty goes out the window.

The smaller the fraction of the population that can “buy” freedom by influencing the political decision-making process, the bigger the part of the population that will have less freedom, not only expressed in terms of money and property, but also in terms of opportunity, rights, and social mobility — in other words: freedom. When it is clear that a society is organized around this type of political decision-making, with maximizing of opportunity, rights, and freedoms for the few, and minimizing the exact same things for the majority, there will be no actual freedom across the board at all, not even for those who attempt to secure it by investing money in the process; likely even least for them.

There will be high walls, not only symbolical walls, but increasingly also real walls, dividing those who have, hoard, and keep, and those who want, strive, but can’t get. There may even be a street named after this phenomenon, who knows. A government that perpetuates this situation by continuously helping those who need walls to keep out the rest of society (hiring influential contractors to erect and maintain those walls at the same time) is in fact suppressing the majority of its people, and actively incapacitating its quest for freedom.

Without a political process based on achieving the greatest good for all, there will never be a government that will do anything other than take money from, and dispense desired outcomes to those who provided that money. And in that type of society, freedom, even the type that is bought and paid for, is minimized, and forever gridlocked in a spiral of guns (‘freedom defenders’), violence (‘achieving equitability’), lies (‘fair and balanced media’), and pork (‘home state development’).

Luckily, such a society does not exist anywhere. I guess there must be a God.