Freedom is Slavery

One of the principle goals of modern society has been the expansion of freedom. The underlying issue has been a conflict as to what freedom actually means. In answer, western society has taken two basic stances. The first was championed by John Stuart Mills 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 to the point where they infringe upon the rights of another. The Second was that of Jean Jacque Rousseau in his social contract. He held that freedom was the right of self-determination. While these things seem mutually compatible, in practice they are antithetical views, where the counterpart is viewed as tyranny.

Mills was an advocate of British empiricism, and free trade. He held with Adam Smith, that the greatest freedom would be found in spontaneous order. 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 valued production through 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 said nothing that mankind had accomplished with their science and technology was of any value whatsoever. Primitive life is superior to modern man in every aspect.

In response Voltaire Wrote

"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 humanities loss of innocence. In a natural state, equality was the proper state of society.  With ownership came a sense of dependency between the master and the servant. This lead to a growing alienation, because the love of self was replaced with the concept of social status. This lead to our sense of consumerism, and the need to maintain our image within society. To this he said

 Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains

The solution he devised was the social contract. That humanity must enter into a self-ruling community based on equality.  That we would work together to serve the community, and not individual interest. This leads to the underlying question of Freedom.

Can a wealthy drug addict be free?

JS Mills 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 is identified by what is best for the community. By taking drugs, they are diminishing their role in society, and surrendering their freedom to self-interest and vice. So by taking corrective action, we are setting them free.

So we have our contradiction. A freedom of individual action, and the freedom of society as a whole. This has lead to all sorts of problems within our popular political debate.