False Freedom
by Joseph Rowlands
One common criticism of free markets is that they aren't really free. When an employer and an employee negotiate terms, the employer has an unfair advantage. The employee needs a job in order to make a living. It is said that his choice isn't really free because he really don't have much of a choice at all. He has to take what he can get. And if he isn't really free, than defenses of the free market are really dishonest. They are really siding with the employer at the expensive of the employee.
There are many examples of this view of freedom. One argument is that a volunteer army isn't really voluntary because many people have few alternatives and probably none that compensate as well as joining the military. It's not that they are actually coerced. It's not even that there isn't some other options available to them. It's the fact that it is the best option available that makes it problematic. There's no real choice in the matter.
Another example is when a natural disaster hits. If someone attempts to sell goods at a higher price than before the disaster, some people claim they are price gouging. Any argument that it's a free market at the buyer doesn't have to purchase it is dismissed. The buyer is said to not really be free in his choice, since his other options are limited or undesirable.
According to this viewpoint, a person's choice isn't free if there is pressure or a strong incentive to select one option over another. If one choice is superior to another, then a person has no real choice. He's driven by his interests. He can't say no to the better deal, and it would be crazy to suggest that he's free to do so.
This is the view that lets modern day 'liberals' view themselves as promoting freedom. In their ideal, people have abundant wealth so that they never are forced to make choices. The only actions they need to take are ones they want to, and there should be no cost if they choose to do nothing at all. Along with this 'economic freedom', they promote social freedoms as well. You should be free to live your life anyway you want. If you want to take drugs, have promiscuous sex, or anything else, you should be free to. This ideal combines both freedoms, allowing people to live a life without hard choices and without restrictions.
There are obviously problems with this view. For people to be given abundant wealth without the need to earn it, someone else has to produce that wealth. Someone else's freedom must be curtailed as their wealth is forcibly taken from them. But that curtailment doesn't fit these two ideals of freedom. You're still permitted to work and produce if you really want, you just won't get all of the proceeds. But your choices are still free because there is no significant cost driving your choices. Yes, there is coercion, but it's the right kind of coercion from this point of view.
This view of freedom has interesting implications. Any time that you make a choice because it best serves your interest is considered coerced. It isn't coerced by people, but by your needs. Consequently any choice where there are real consequences can never be free.
What would count as a free choice? It would be one where you selected the less optimal choice. When you sacrifice, you are acting freely. You are rejecting your needs or interests, and that is the only kind of action that can be free.
This ties is to Immanuel Kant's view of morality and freedom. Actions taken as means to ends are never free. If you act to preserve your life, there is no choice in the action. You have to pick whatever option preserves your life. The choice is made for you. The only free choices are ones where you pick the ends yourself. Only by disconnecting your choices from your interests and your life can they be free.
And in this view, the only moral choices are the ones that you pick freely. Actions taken to benefit your life cannot be moral choices, as they are not truly free. Only actions taken in contradiction to your life can be free.
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