One of the principal goals of modern society has been the expansion of freedom. The underlying issue has been a fundamental disagreement over freedom's true meaning. In response, Western society has largely adopted two basic stances. The first was championed by John Stuart Mill in his discourse on liberty. In this view, freedom exists in the absence of coercion. He famously argued that the rights of the individual extend only to the point where they infringe upon the rights of another. The second was that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his Social Contract. He held that freedom was the right of self-determination. While these ideas may seem mutually compatible, in practice they are often antithetical views, where the opposing concept is perceived as tyranny.
Mill was an advocate of British empiricism and free trade. He believed, as did Adam Smith, that the greatest freedom would be found in spontaneous order. He argued that, guided by the invisible hand of market forces, prices would be regulated by the random interaction of self-interest. It was an economy that, in this view, valued production through what might be considered vice. In this new world, there was no need for tradition, or nobility, or even God to guide human affairs. The merchant would rise, as a new middle class, that would guide humanity into the future. And this was the ideal of the modern man.
Rousseau would have none of it. He was of the firm opinion that when humans left the trees, that was generally a bad idea. He asserted that nothing mankind had accomplished with its science and technology was of any value whatsoever. Primitive life, he believed, was superior to modern man in every aspect.
In response, Voltaire famously retorted:
"I have received your new book against the human race and thank you for it. Never was such a cleverness used in the design of making us all stupid. One longs, in reading your book, to walk on all fours. But as I have lost that habit for more than sixty years, I feel unhappily the impossibility of resuming it. Nor can I embark in search of the savages of Canada, because the maladies to which I am condemned render a European surgeon necessary to me; because war is going on in those regions; and because the example of our actions has made the savages nearly as bad as ourselves."
To Rousseau, the first evil was ownership. That possession had led to humanity's loss of innocence. In a natural state, equality was the proper condition of society. With ownership came a sense of dependency between the master and the servant. This led to a growing alienation, because the love of self was replaced with the concept of social status. This led to our sense of consumerism, and the need to maintain our image within society. To this he famously said:
"Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains."
The solution he devised was the social contract. He argued that humanity must enter into a self-ruling community based on equality, where we would work together to serve the collective, and not merely individual interest. This leads us to an underlying question of freedom.
Can a wealthy drug addict be free?
J.S. Mill would answer yes. They can afford the habit. They only hurt themselves. They are not being coerced into bondage; they have chosen this lifestyle of their own accord.
Rousseau would answer no. The true self, for him, is identified by what is best for the community. By taking drugs, they are diminishing their role in society, surrendering their freedom to self-interest and vice. So, by taking corrective action, we are setting them free.
Thus, we have our contradiction: a freedom of individual action versus the freedom of society as a whole. This has led to all sorts of problems within our popular political debate.
