Balancing Freedom with Responsibility
What does it mean to be free? And do our politics actually support it?
Who truly loves freedom and liberty, the right or the left? This is actually a complicated question, because “the left” and “the right” doesn’t adequately describe the full range of political views. And it also depends on what we mean by freedom.
The word freedom implies no limits or restraints, but most adults know that some limits are healthy. Boundaries are limits, and they are actually an essential part of freedom, because they define where the limits of personal sovereignty begins and ends. As the saying goes, your right to throw a punch ends when it hits my face.
Without boundaries, it’s impossible for everyone to be free because one’s person freedom would inevitably end up infringing upon another person’s freedom, whether intentionally or unintentionally. If we didn’t have boundaries, someone could just walk into your house and start sleeping in your bed. They would be exercising their freedom to go where they wished, but in the process infringing on your freedom to privacy in your own home, and the ability to control your own personal belongings.
Honoring other people’s boundaries is a fundamental part of respect and reciprocity, because we all want our own boundaries to be respected by others. This is what it means to be a responsible adult, and it is the basis of the social contract.
Freedom without limits, without responsibility, is a child’s version of freedom: the selfish desire to be able to do whatever you want, whenever you want. Adults (in spirit, not just body) understand the need to be socially responsible, because we know that we aren’t the center of the universe and that society consists of many individuals all cooperating and working together.
Freedom and responsibility are the opposite ends of a spectrum, and give needed balance to each other. Freedom without responsibility is immature and selfish, while responsibility without freedom is oppression.
And here’s where we circle back to politics.
The political spectrum is more accurately represented as two intersecting axes: collectivist and individualist to the left and right (corresponding with communism and capitalism, economically), and authoritarian and libertarian to the top and bottom.
Responsibility without freedom is literally the goal of authoritarianism, because unquestioning obedience and conformity means that the only freedom one has is the freedom to comply to the dictates of another - and that’s not freedom at all.
Left-wing authoritarians are collectivists who espouse the desire for the common good, but are willing to oppress individuals in order to achieve that. This was the goal of the state communism of Stalin and Mao. The problem is that it is internally contradictory, because individuals make up the collective.
Sure, occasionally one person’s freedom must be sacrificed in order to preserve the freedom of others, when that person’s choice of actions breaks the social contract and ends up harming others. Boundaries have no meaning if they aren’t enforced, and people should be held accountable for choosing to be socially irresponsible. I’m not an advocate for prisons in general (and I think we need to deeply rethink how we hold people accountable), but I can see extreme situations where locking someone up is necessary.
But taking away the freedom of everyone in society - even just partially - is oppressive and unjust if it isn’t truly necessary in order to preserve the basic freedoms of others (balancing freedom with responsibility). So it’s simply not possible to take away freedom unjustly for the sake of the common good, because the end result is contrary to the common good.
Right-wing authoritarianism is logically consistent because they don’t pretend to care about the common good. For them the goal of restricting personal liberty is exploitation: milking the masses for as much profit as they can make for the people at the top, giving as little wealth as possible back to the people in return. These authoritarians might still attempt to claim that setting up society to only benefit the richest and most powerful will somehow be best for everyone, but that’s so patently absurd that only a delusional fool (like Ayn Rand) would argue that with a straight face.
They’re ok with the oppression and exploitation of the many by the few because they don’t see all people as being equal. They desire a hierarchy based on wealth (a society divided into different economic classes), and taking away people’s freedom is a tool for enforcing that hierarchy.
Right-wing libertarians are different in some respects, because although they share the love for unfettered capitalism, they also deeply desire freedom - at least for themselves. Because they are hyper-individualists who reject any responsibility to the collective, they are akin to children in their conception of freedom as existing without limits but only for them personally (because if it also existed for others, their own would necessarily be limited).
Their philosophy is internally contradictory for the same reason that the logic of left-wing authoritarianism is inconsistent: individuals make up the collective, so you can’t disregard one without harming the other. Case in point = every factory that dumps pollution into the air that we all breathe (or every citizen that burns garbage and smokes out their neighbors).
They feel justified in their selfish conception of freedom because they don’t truly see other people as being equal to them, either. They may not be economically at the top of the hierarchy, but they still think in those terms - even when they are being exploited by the very hierarchy they support.
In contrast, left-wing libertarians (traditionally called anarchists) understand the need for freedom while also accepting our responsibility to the collective. They honor both freedom and responsibility, ensuring the freedom of all people equally, because they fundamentally reject hierarchy and see everyone as intrinsically equal (and equally deserving). Because of this they are the only political tendency that is logically consistent when it comes to freedom: “freedom for me and freedom for thee.”
Only when a society balances personal freedom with social responsibility can everyone’s needs truly be met, and for harm to truly be minimized, because legal freedom has no meaning as long as economic coercion exists. Only when people are able to spend their time on things that they truly desire to do, such as meaningful work and hobbies and quality time with people they love, can they ever be truly free.