Chapter 1 - Preview
Ingredients of Freedom
What is freedom? Where do we get our notions of freedom? Is freedom granted by politicians and authorities, or is our freedom apriori, or innate…does it reside within as part of our being? Is freedom our birthright? John Locke (1632-1704), one of the great influential philosophers of his period, argued against the prevailing belief of his time that God made all people the subjects of Monarchs.
Accordingly, God gave monarchs the power to bestow liberties and rights upon people, or to deny them. People were not born with rights, they were granted rights, by those in positions of authority. Locke argued on the contrary, that people are, by their nature, born free and have inherent, inalienable rights, albeit they willingly and freely cede some of their rights, by social contract to a political body; this body ideally is elected to power. Locke says: "When any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community one body, with a power to act as one body, which is only by the will and determination of the majority..." [1]
The erroneous belief that freedom is exclusively the 'property' of political 'leaders' to be distributed at their whim, or for their advantage, has oddly retained some deference, more so among politicians themselves than the general population. The full expression of this idea resides in the politics of the extreme left or right under dictatorships, but it has been planted subversively in our first world governments and undermines and erodes our freedom. In many countries, democracy is a mere shadow of what it could and should be.
The real balance between government and citizenship, as regards genuine freedom is a kind of trade off. The citizens, freely elect a government, comprised of citizens that they trust, and empower them to implement laws through a legislative process. The laws support some agreement, cooperation and consistency of behaviour to elevate the quality of life for the whole group. In other words, all citizens willingly agree to trade some of their liberties in exchange for services such as protection, security, education and public works. In balance this can, and does in some countries encourage a healthy symbiotic relationship. When, however the legislative process is hijacked by politicians and their corporate cronies, it can become a tool to secure wealth and power for the minority who we trusted and elected. Freedom and democracy thereby decline.
Philosopher Baruch Spinoza, born in Amsterdam in 1632 to Portuguese parents had this to say about freedom as it relates to government. "For reason bids us choose the lesser of two evils….Action in obedience to orders does take away freedom in a certain sense, but …where the weal of the whole people, and not that of the ruler, is the supreme law, obedience to the sovereign power does not make a man a slave, of no use to himself, but a subject."[2]
And so, we choose between a lawless society of individuals and being a governed community, the "lesser of two evils" as Spinoza says, which does require us to sacrifice partial freedom. If the government is just however, if the will of the people, the citizens, is "the supreme law" we do not become slaves. On the contrary we all benefit from the fruits of a healthy leadership and society. Spinoza goes on to say:"…The ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain, by fear, nor to exact obedience, but contrariwise, to free every man from fear, that he may live in all possible security, and to employ their reason unshackled;…In fact the true aim of government is liberty".[3]
In general, historically and across class, race and geography, at least for periods of time, there has been agreement that freedom is desirable; it is preferable to subjugation. In fact, freedom is the golden ring, that which humans desire. Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom to travel, to assemble, to elect our leaders, economic freedom, are all desirable; indeed they are key to a good life. What then is the mechanism by which we secure the precious freedom that we are born with and are entitled to? It would appear that the very same structure which we assign the responsibility of protecting our freedom is the culprit which defeats it…government.
On the one hand we have ideal government as framed by Locke, Spinoza and countless other great thinkers of our time. Perhaps Thomas Jefferson said it best in the American Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men." This famous statement provides the three ingredients of a balanced, healthy, thriving society.
1 All people are created equal
2 All people are born with the right to liberty (freedom)
3 The purpose of government is to secure equality and freedom
for all people (among other things).
The difference between Jefferson's vision for society and the reality of our society today can be summarized by the following points:
1 People are divided by race, gender, and financial status (although government rhetoric and propaganda may claim otherwise).
2 People are believed to be born as subjects of governments and granted or denied freedom by governments.
3 Government believes their purpose to be the attainment of wealth and power for themselves and their corporate counterparts.
Freedom and equality are inextricably linked. A person who does not genuinely recognize equality cannot be free or secure freedom for others; they are trapped in the psychic web of their own delusion that subjugating others to satiate their greed is their purpose and duty; thereby they also destroy their own happiness and given the opportunity, the happiness and freedom of others.
The language used to convey our source of freedom is crucial. That 'freedom is a gift of our government' versus freedom is 'endowed by our creator' as an "inalienable right", is a shift in paradigm that affects the consciousness of nations. It can create an apathetic despair among citizens much like that of a spoiled child caused by an overbearing parent, and open a door for the greedy and power hungry. If government is the culprit, and is not performing its 'true aim' of securing liberty for the citizens, how can they be held to account?
One method that has been used, with varying degrees of success, is the creation of special documents at the time a government is formed. These documents called constitutions, or charters of rights, define a governments commitment to secure freedom and other rights for its citizens.
The content of these documents should direct and influence all actions of government and should be adhered to especially in matters of creating new legislation and the enforcement of existing law. A constitution is the supreme law of a nation.
A healthy constitution must address the threat of inequality. It is through inequality that one person is able to subjugate another, thereby removing their freedom. This is primarily accomplished through economic or financial devices, fortified by law. But how is it possible that a society based on a constitution and charters that contain safeguards of freedom and equality can degenerate to a reign of the greedy and power hungry who subjugate the majority?
Inevitably it would seem that constitutional law is occasionally circumvented by clever and deceptive means. Loop holes are created that allow inequality to creep into new legislation providing economic advantage to the wealthy and/or powerful minority. The Federal Election Campaign Act is designed to provide safeguards against excessive corporate wealth being used to influence political campaigns.
Citizens United is a misleading title for an association of many large corporations in the U.S. In 2008 a U.S. district court in Austin for the District of Columbia ruled against Citizens United's attempt to fund the release of a politically biased film on cable stations. The district court had argued that there was a compelling governmental interest to prevent "the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have little or no correlation to the public's support for the corporation's political ideas."[4] Citizen's United claimed that the ban violated their first amendment rights.
In 2010 the case proceeded to the Supreme Court. In Citizens United v. FEC the Supreme Court reversed the ruling of the District Court, equating the rights of corporations to the rights of citizens. The Supreme Court determined that the first amendment right of freedom of speech should apply to corporations. This opened the flood gates for unlimited corporate wealth to flow into campaign coffers for federal elections and ultimately strongly influence the selection of federal leaders in the United States.
A principle of freedom, the freedom of speech, which is embedded and protected in the constitution of the United States, was appropriated, by a minority (an association of corporations) and used to diminish the very same constitution; democracy used to destroy democracy.
Giving corporations the power to select candidates to office not only negates the election process, and therefore democracy, but also creates a fiduciary obligation of the candidate to the corporation. Decisions made by the candidate while they are in office may have "little or no correlation" to what is good for all. Rather decisions are bent to the creation of wealth for the corporation (the minority).
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in a society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."[5]
Frederic Bastiat (1801 - 1850)
And so corporations 'plunder' like pirates taking everything from their victims, or turning them into slaves of hopeless debt to suffer in poverty. Freedom is cannibalized…turned inward on itself spawning a new creature…greedom. It is freedom devolved into a vicious hound protecting its master…the minority, the super wealthy and powerful.
Humanity has long made the assumption that our quality or degree of freedom is determined by the type of political system that is adopted by the country we live in.
We generally believe, and justifiably so, that a democracy, versus a dictatorship will uphold the rule of freedom. Eons of monarchic and despotic rule have left lingering, but deeply embedded ideas that our freedom is bestowed upon us by our leaders / politicians. The full embrace that we as individuals are the owners of our freedom is illusive. We become like the elephant tied to a stake by a rope.
Our collective psyche has echoes of 'we are only as free as our government (even a democratic one) will permit'. Politicians of all persuasions and parties spanning the entire left to right political spectrum, exploit these echoes to justify the creation of repressive legislation, opening the door to satiate their greed and lust for power. Subjugation rather that liberation becomes the rule of the day and greed becomes master.
As we have seen, this happens even in democracies, which are typically held to be beacons of freedom for the world to behold. The current administration in the U.S., has engaged the U.S. Supreme Court judges over several issues including immigration. June 27th 2025 the BBC posted: "US Supreme Court issue(d) a 6 - 3 ruling that will curb judges' power to block the President's orders nationwide."[6] The shocking article notes that there is a conservative majority in the Supreme Court (The current President is a staunch conservative) and that the President himself appointed three of the nine Justices. Let's break this down.
1) The Supreme Court enacted a ruling, which would reduce their own power to defend constitutional law (a key process in the arsenal of checks and balances designed to fortify democracy and therefore freedom) thereby, arguably reducing the opportunity for all citizens to be treated equally in the US.
2) This was done in favour of granting the President increased powers and thereby the ability to circumvent the Supreme Court on some important constitutional issues. One person, the President, clearly a minority, is now able to make unilateral decisions of monumental significance, for a majority. This is not an accomplishment in the spirit of democracy. This is a movement in the direction of autocracy.
3) Shouldn't the Supreme Court Justices be non partisan in their duty to represent all people equally? If a President is elected through a biased process i.e. the persuasion of the corporation, and he is unabashedly represented by a majority in the Supreme Court, justice, and therefore equality, will flounder. The bastion of freedom and democracy itself will not stand. The legal system, in this case the Supreme Court, cannot check the President, but rather is impotent to defend decisions in favour of all citizens. Instead one man may serve his own agenda, not the constitution as was intended. With the stage set for inequality, its damage becomes ubiquitous. The impact of economic disparity is devastating.
In his film "Inequality for all" Political activist and former U.S. secretary of labour, Robert Reich states that four hundred Americans have wealth equivalent to that of the lower income half of the United States (170 million U.S. citizens). It is possible that a gathering of people in the U.S. having dinner together in one room could have the same combined wealth as the people that populate half of their country (one of the largest in the world). Disparities of this magnitude create enormous devastation to the psychic, spiritual and general well being of the citizens of a country. Inequality is the handmaiden of greed. It provides the wealthy with opportunities to subjugate and commoditize human beings. It greases the wheels of greedom. And so we discover that only true democracy is a defender of freedom and an adversary of greedom. Democracy undermined by deceit and the trickery of corrupt politicians and their corporate counterparts is as destructive as dictatorship. It is greedom disguised as freedom.
[1]The Great Political Theories, edited by Michael Curtis, copy right 1981, published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics, page 379
[2] The Great Political Theories, edited by Michael Curtis, copy right 1981, published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics, page 351
[3] The Great Political Theories, edited by Michael Curtis, copy right 1981, published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics, page 355
[4] Federal Elections Commission, United States - of - America (official website of the United States)
[5] French economist, writer and member of the French National Assembly
[6] BBC News website, June 27th 2025 "Trump hails 'giant win' after Supreme Court curbs judges' power to block his orders.