2517/. The too vague meaning of "freedom".
Lots of talk about freedom but it is heard differently by throe with different world views. There are two kinds of freedom implied by most discussions, . The first is the freedom to spend your money any way you want which requires a financial system that protects wealth and market machinery that allows transfer from one activity to another. It comes close to allowing you to dump waste in the stream that runs through your property or to pay people to work for you the lowest amount you can get them (motivated by need, hence not free) to accept.
The second is freedom from being abused by those who own the money system. Basically it means you can say what you want and can associate with friends It means no interference in your private space.
Both actually severely limit what you can do. The first limits you because you have to have money to be a player and you can only get what you can pay for.
The limits of the second are harder to grasp but come down to how you cross the boundary from private into public space. Cities had parks and they were closed off for private developers who made private houses for some of the people who used the public parks. Now those few are "free" in their private space but can' go into what is now the private property of others that used to be public space for anyone. The chance of meeting fellow citizens in the parks is replace by seeing fellow consumers in the mall, cafe or restaurant. Public space disappears with this kind of freedom. Obviously talking with another is not possible if you can't pay for the travel or are restricted by regulations or hidden institution's (red-lining).
Not much meaning to freedom if you cant act on it.
This little essay is not very adequate but I hope it points out how fuzzy the idea of freedom is and that you should work on getting clear what your own sense of freedom has become and what politics it fits into.
Comments welcome for discussion.
I’ve been thinking about “freedom” in light of the recent “freedom convoy” trucker protests. There are a great many working class Americans who gravitate to the Republican Party at least in part because they like the emphasis on “freedom.” And I think part of that may come down to the fact that they’ve experienced very little genuine autonomy in their working lives. They’ve been subjected to dehumanizing working environments that have robbed them of their creativity and intrinsic motivation. In other words, efforts like the “freedom convoy” are, at least in part, an exercise in deficiency-need gratification (in the Maslow sense). The irony is of course the Republican Party, despite its mantra of “freedom,” is perhaps the most active defender of the dominator hierarchies that have left these workers feeling sapped of their autonomy in the first place.