Freedom vs. Four Freedoms

by Bruce Webb

In a previous post I made a stab at explaining the differences in Republican and Democratic responses to the economics of stimulus by an appeal to differences in world view. With limited success due I think to my not developing my major premise. Here I want to back up a little and explore the very different ways right and left define ‘freedom’. I want to assert that the modern right draws their definition from Milton Friedman while the left fundamentally looks to FDR. Contrasting quotes and some commentary below the fold.
From the right we have their secular saint Milton Friedman Capitalism and Freedom excerpted here Chapter I: The Relation between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom (bolding mine)

The citizen of the United States who is compelled by law to devote something like 10 per cent of his income to the purchase of a particular kind of retirement contract, administered by the government, is being deprived of a corresponding part of his personal freedom. How strongly this deprivation may be felt and its closeness to the deprivation of religious freedom, which all would regard as “civil” or “political” rather than “economic”, were dramatized by an episode involving a group of farmers of the Amish sect. On grounds of principle, this group regarded compulsory federal old age programs as an infringement of their personal individual freedom and refused to pay taxes or accept benefits. As a result, some of their livestock were sold by auction in order to satisfy claims for social security levies. True, the number of citizens who regard compulsory old age insurance as a deprivation of freedom may be few, but the believer in freedom has never counted noses.

and here (note when Friedman uses ‘liberal’ he means classical economic liberal, these days we would probably use something like ‘libertarian’ or ‘economic conservative’)

As liberals, we take freedom of the individual, or perhaps the family, as our ultimate goal in judging social arrangements. Freedom as a value in this sense has to do with the interrelations among people; it has no meaning whatsoever to a Robinson Crusoe on an isolated island (without his Man Friday). Robinson Crusoe on his island is subject to “constraint,” he has limited “power,” and he has only a limited number of alternatives, but there is no problem of freedom in the sense that is relevant to our discussion. Similarly, in a society freedom has nothing to say about what an individual does with his freedom; it is not an all-embracing ethic. Indeed, a major aim of the liberal is to leave the ethical problem for the individual to wrestle with. The “really” important ethical problems are those that face an individual in a free society – what he should do with his freedom. There are thus two sets of values that a liberal will emphasize — the values that are relevant to relations among people, which is the context in which he assigns first priority to freedom; and the values that are relevant to the individual in the exercise of his freedom, which is the realm of individual ethics and philosophy.

So to Friedman while the free man was not autonomous, he is no Robinson Crusoe, on the other hand freedom is explicitly equated with individualism with possible (but interestingly not necessary) extension to the family. In this world view ‘Me First’ becomes a first principle.

Now the modern liberal (which for Friedman equates roughly to ‘socialist’) takes a much different view of freedom. Instead we would appeal to Franklin Roosevelt’s State of the Union Speech from 1941.

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in the world.

I submit that there is no way to fundamentally reconcile these two world views. You can believe that freedom is ideally marked by an individual operating in the marketplace

Fundamentally, there are only two ways of co-ordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion–the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary co-operation of individuals–the technique of the market place.

or you can believe that freedom is a societal responsibility not realized until no one anywhere is lacking in healthy sustenance. Friedman is not a monster, indeed he considers the market the best mechanism to create the greatest good for greatest number outcome:

So long as effective freedom of exchange is maintained, the central feature of the market organization of economic activity is that it prevents one person from interfering with another in respect of most of his activities. The consumer is protected from coercion by the seller because of the presence of other sellers with whom he can deal. The seller is protected from coercion by the consumer because of other consumers to whom he can sell. The employee is protected from coercion by the employer because of other employers for whom he can work, and so on. And the market does this impersonally and without centralized authority.

Indeed, a major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it does this task so well. It gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

Well despite the popular stereotype of liberals as being mushyheaded kumbaya types we tend to be a lot more hard headed than this. We do not see a lot of historical evidence that markets prevent coercion, nor do we see that there really is totally free mobility of labor, in particular many of us see employer paid health insurance precisely as a device to prevent labor mobility and indirectly to suppress wages. Where Friedman sees individuals cooperating on an even playing field we see power relations of all types putting some people on the top of the rises preventing people in the dips from getting to the top. Where Friedman sees government intervention in the market as inherently distorting the playing field we liberals see it partially if not totally smoothing it.

Given this the difference between the Republican and Democratic views of the stimulative effects of government spending each are seen to be rational given the very, very large differences in their basic definitions of things like freedom itself. Liberals stamping our feet because there seems to be no real data to support the Treasury View or similar conclusions is pretty much a waste of time because such views pretty much flow right from the foundations of right thought as seen in Friedman’s work. You are not going to get a meeting of minds when one party singles out Social Security as the poster child of state coercion.

On grounds of principle, this group regarded compulsory federal old age programs as an infringement of their personal individual freedom and refused to pay taxes or accept benefits.

as opposed to

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world.

Not only are Friedman and FDR not looking eye to eye here, they are looking in totally different directions using very different lenses.