Saturday, January 30, 2016

Freedom: Three Varieties and a Caveat

What follows is a very brief summary of an appendix in my micro textbook that addresses the libertarian case for free markets.  It was triggered by the comment of Tyler Cowen that the left needs more Mill.

There are three kinds of freedom, each valid.  The first is negative freedom, “freedom from”, which means simply freedom from external coercion.  This is what underlies the libertarian attachment to free markets.  The second is positive freedom, “freedom to”, which seeks to provide people the means to realize their (feasible) objectives.  Traditionally the left has seized on this notion to justify redistributive institutions and policies.  The third is “inner freedom”, freedom from habit, custom, and unreflected assumptions, which was the core message of German idealism, English and French Romanticism and American Transcendentalism (and, at its best, rock and roll).

In a perfect world we would bask in all three of them.  Unfortunately, each makes demands on the others, and there is no universal criterion for striking a balance.  The first step toward a reasonable politics of freedom, however, is to simply recognize that no one conception is sufficient by itself.

Finally, it’s important to recognize that freedom, according to any interpretation, is always limited by obligation.  In particular, we have obligations toward children, the very old or disabled and others who depend on us for the necessities of life.  One way collective action can widen the domain of freedom is by helping us to meet these responsibilities more efficiently.  Consider, for instance, how public education and pension systems (like Social Security) widen the scope for parents and children of their elderly parents to be freer in other aspects of their lives.

12 comments:

Eric Walker said...

Freedom is a conserved quantity: whenever someone has a bit more of it, someone else has a bit less.

dilbert dogbert said...

I liked this response to Tyler: http://crookedtimber.org/2016/01/28/millian-liberalism-and-the-irish-famine/

Mike Huben said...

You may want to update your textbook to include a more modern idea of freedom: One Concept of Liberty: Freedom as a Triadic Relation.

Eric is also right: every freedom is due to a duty not to interfere. That's a basic Hohfeldian principle.

I have a small index to relevant articles at my Critiques of Libertarianism website: Liberty.

Sandwichman said...

"The first is negative freedom, “freedom from”, which means simply freedom from external coercion. This is what underlies the libertarian attachment to free markets."

Except "free markets" presuppose the originary coercion of private property, as Robert Hale pointed out nearly a century ago. What tota-libertarians mean when they speak of "freedom from coercion" is freedom from any coercive responses to that private property founding coercion.

Hale, "Coercion and Distribution in a Supposedly Non-Coercive State"

"But a careful scrutiny will, it is thought, reveal a fallacy in this view, and will demonstrate that the systems advocated by professed upholders of laissez-faire are in reality permeated with coercive restrictions of individual freedom, and with restrictions, moreover, out of conformity with any formula of " equal opportunity " or of " preserving the equal rights of others. …"

"What is the government doing when it "protects a property right"? Passively, it is abstaining from interference with the owner when he deals with the thing owned; actively, it is forcing the non-owner to desist from handling it, unless the owner consents. Yet Mr. Carver would have it that the government is merely preventing the non-owner from using force against the owner. This explanation is obviously at variance with the facts - for the non - owner is forbidden to handle the owner's property even where his handling of it involves no violence or force whatever. Any lawyer could have told him that the right of property is much more extensive than the mere right to protection against forcible dispossession. In protecting property the government is doing something quite apart from merely keeping the peace. It is exerting coercion wherever that is necessary to protect each owner, not merely from violence, but also from peaceful infringement of his sole right to enjoy the thing owned.

"That, however, is not the most significant aspect of present-day coercion in connection with property. ... In the case of the labor, what would be the consequence of refusal to comply with the owner's terms? It would be either absence of wages, or obedience to the terms of some other employer. If the worker has no money of his own, the threat of any particular employer to withhold any particular amount of money would be effective in securing the worker's obedience in proportion to the difficulty with which other employers can be induced to furnish a "job ". If the non-owner works for anyone, it is for the purpose of warding off the threat of at least one owner of money to withhold that money from him (with the help of the law). Suppose, now, the worker were to refuse to yield to the coercion of any employer, but were to choose instead to remain under the legal duty to abstain from the use of any of the money which anyone owns. He must eat. While there is no law against eating in the abstract, there is a law which forbids him to eat any of the food which actually exists in the community - and that law is the law of property. …

"The distribution of income, to repeat, depends on the relative power of coercion which the different members of the community can exert against one another. Income is the price paid for not using one's coercive weapons. One of these weapons consists of the power to withhold one's labor. Another is the power to consume all that can be bought with one's lawful income instead of investing part of it. Another is the power to call on the government to lock up certain pieces of land or productive equipment. Still another is the power to decline to undertake an enterprise which may be attended with risk. By threatening to use these various weapons, one gets (with or without sacrifice) an income in the form of wages, interest, rent or profits. The resulting distribution is very far from being equal, and the inequalities are very far from corresponding to needs or to sacrifice."

Unknown said...

http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2016/01/freedom-three-varieties-and-caveat.html?showComment=1454279663006#c5464585983158552036

January 31, 2016

"The first is negative freedom, “freedom from”, which means simply freedom from external coercion. This is what underlies the libertarian attachment to free markets."

Except "free markets" presuppose the originary coercion of private property, as Robert Hale pointed out nearly a century ago. What tota-libertarians mean when they speak of "freedom from coercion" is freedom from any coercive responses to that private property founding coercion....

-- Sandwichman

[ What does this exchange mean? Could presuppose be the wrong word? ]

Unknown said...

Except "free markets" presuppose the originary coercion of private property, as Robert Hale pointed out nearly a century ago. What tota-libertarians mean when they speak of "freedom from coercion" is freedom from any coercive responses to that private property founding coercion....

What about?

Except "free markets" [overlook] the originary coercion of private property, as Robert Hale pointed out nearly a century ago. What tota-libertarians mean when they speak of "freedom from coercion" is freedom from any coercive responses to that private property founding coercion....

-- Sandwichman

Unknown said...

Gack, I made the terrible mistake of clicking on the link from Tyler Cowen. What a reprehensible person. I would as soon follow his ideas as those of a snail, though I would likely prefer a snail and hope snails do not feel disparaged by the analogy.

Cowen, writing wise, is a morally mean, conservative extremist. Simply look at the manipulative writing and that is clear.

Peter Dorman said...

Mike Huben: I don't know what this says about me, but I found the treatment in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to be confused. Aside from logical issues, it seems to have completely missed the practical, historical significance of the socialist argument of necessary means. But I also thought Berlin was confused, to the point of wondering whether there was an element of guile in his presentation.

For instance, Sandwichman, in his comment, is making the claim that not starving is a precondition for freedom. This is not an argument for self-determination in a Kantian/idealist sense. Rather, it is a precondition for the freedom to pursue certain goals (like staying alive), which is how I have defined positive freedom. But one can certainly starve to death and remain internally free.

Mike Huben said...

Peter Dornan: I don't expect an overview of the many conflicting ideas of liberty to be clear, let alone resolve the issues. However, the article does mention very briefly "socialists and egalitarians have tended to claim that the poor in a capitalist society are as such unfree".

Personally, I agree with MacCallum's triadic relationships, which make the distinction between positive and negative liberty mere value-laden wordplay for rhetorical purposes. That's why I also agree that "not starving is a precondition for freedom."

But all this focus on freedom overlooks the main issue that every freedom creates duty in turn. This means that we need to negotiate which freedoms we prefer to enforce, perhaps the ones with the best side effects and the least onerous duties. Different classes will have different preferences.

Peter Dorman said...

I’m aware of the freedom-creates-duty argument, but I’m sympathetic to the negative freedom crowd here. The duty corresponding to freedom as noncoercion is to refrain from coercion. I can accept that this is qualitatively different from the duties corresponding to what I designate as positive freedom, which entail cooperative or supportive actions. This is not a brief for libertarianism, just a recognition that the constraints on behavior required to achieve the libertarian paradise can be collectively justified under the banner of “don’t coerce”. That is not the case with the duties arising from positive freedom, which are about the diverse activities one should undertake.

In the end, of course, categorical distinctions rest on the salience of the criteria on which they depend. It’s always possible to create ever finer categories or deny the value of existing ones. I think there are practical (political) differences in the form and consequences of positive and negative freedoms that justify distinguishing them–not to mention their historical roles–and I would extend that to the idealist notion of freedom too.

Incidentally, the promotion of idealist freedom for A does not necessarily impose any duties on B. It might do this in the form of support for education or other measures to enhance A’s capacity for self-realization, but, unlike the duties corresponding to other types of freedom, it is situational. What duties constrained Thoreau’s fellow citizens while he was finding his inner liberation at Walden Pond?

Sandwichman said...

Peter,

The enclosure, parceling and granting of private property is not some abstract philosophical principle but a series of concrete historical actions that were expressly conditional: "I grant you this land in exchange for your promise to supply and equip X number of soldiers."

If later the "owner" of the land reneges on the quid pro quo and the sovereign shrugs and conscripts and taxes non-beneficiaries instead then the latter coercion is a consequence of the grant of private property and the subsequent evasion of the reciprocal duty.

That's how it happened. But now, for argument's sake, let's pretend that there was some hypothetical primeval parceling of all the land to all the individuals and the current owners acquired their monopoly through fair exchanges or let's pretend that they "mixed their labor with the land" or some other assumption that creates a duty-free ownership.

No, let's not play let's pretend with the tota-libertarians because even when you beat them at their own game they simply wipe the score off the board and announce that they have won.

Sandwichman said...

I realize that there is a tremendous allure to the idea that one is engaging with one's ideological opponents but here is the deal: it is not a "debate" in which the side with the best argument wins. The problem with liberals is that they believe in the "free market of ideas." No body else does.