Discussion
Freedom can be defined as the relationship among individuals and the relationship between individuals and the government. Liberals are identified by the way they value the freedom of individuals, freedom of markets, and democratic freedoms. The term freedom is characterized by Liberals as they use it within the context of the relationship between individuals and society. This paper tries to explain ways classical liberals and modern liberals define freedom. It also enumerates the problems associated with these definitions.
All liberals state individual freedom as the core value (Eccleshal 2002 p.24). Classical theorists defined the concept of freedom in terms of individuals enjoying certain civil liberties which are not interfered with by the state. According to them, these freedoms included freedom for individuals to acquire property, freedom of expression, and freedom of worship. They insisted that freedom flourishes only when a society that regulates individual ambitions allows them to practice free enterprise. In the eyes of classical liberals, too much government curtails the freedom of people. They challenged arbitrary powers held by the state. In the name of individual freedoms, early liberal’s majority who were radical Protestants challenged. In summary, early liberals advocated for freedom of religion and religious tolerance, freedom of speech, free markets for labor, and freedom for private property among other things they were concerned with during the early times. It was these classical liberals who enabled revolutions that transformed Western Europe and North America politically and economically.
Historically, modern liberals emerged during the 17th and 18th centuries as an intellectual response to the kind of liberalism advocated by early liberals (Eccleshal 2002 p.24). They abandoned the ideas of limited government intervention and acknowledged the freedoms that afforded people little opportunity to make the best of their abilities. Many of these modern liberals think that ignorance, poverty, and other deprivations constraint people’s freedoms, and that the government has the ability to step in and assist through welfare provision. Most important, they emphasize on a less individualistic perspective, one which sees as collective and mutually dependent individuals who are not self-sufficient unless government intervenes for the public good (Eccleshal 2002 p.24).
While promotion of freedom in the early days was exclusively performed by liberals only, today freedom is championed and supported by many parties. To liberals, the idea of freedom cannot be divorced from them. Freedom takes primary priority in their thinking. The notion of a free society and the promotion of freedom is their main concern.
There are several problems associated with the way freedom is defined by the liberals. First, liberals hold the view that the government should intervene on behalf of the disadvantaged to remove obstacles that hinder their freedom to get out of poverty, ignorance, and other deprivations. This is welfare or social advocacy. Hayek, Nozick, and others reject these notions as according to them the government has no business to intervene in society in order to assist the less fortunate (Heywood 1998 p.212).
This will amount to wealth redistribution as it will amount to taking wealth from others and spreading out to others. This amounts to being unfair to those who work hard and create wealth. Second, Liberals define freedom as individual freedom. They define individual freedom as getting freedom from society. This manner of thinking does not allow individuals to understand that collective culture is something that forms both the individual and society (Gray 1998 p.51). Furthermore, absolute emphasis on individual freedom will lead to egotism, exploitation, and possible breakdown of the social arrangement.
References
Eccleshal R., Moya L., & Finlayson 2002, Political Ideology, Introduction, Routledge Publishers, London.
Gray J. 2002, Liberalism, Critical Concepts in Political Theory, Taylor & Francis, London.
Heywood A. 1998, Political Ideologies, An Introduction, Macmillan, London.