On Freedom and Government
What is freedom? What would perfect freedom look like?
Perfect freedom is the ability to live and do what you like, when you like, where you like, how you like without any impediment or restriction whatsoever.
Sounds good. A single person living in the world would have such perfect freedom. Well, sort of. Human beings have certain requirements such as the need to eat, drink, and sleep. To the extent that we have to satisfy those requirements our freedom is limited.
The world also consists of insects, wild animals, weather and other natural phenomena. To the extent that these affect us and we have to react to them our freedom is constrained. I am, unfortunately, not free from mosquito bites. I am not free from rain, snow, cold, or scorching heat. If I wish to protect myself from these elements I have to build shelter or move to gentler climates. My actions therefore are driven by these outside elements and are limits on my perfect freedom.
Now add a second person along with their (somewhat less than) perfect freedom.
Immediately the potential for conflict between the first persons freedom to do what they want, where they want, when they want, how they want conflicting with the second persons freedom to do what they want, where they want, when they want, how they want becomes evident. What if these two people want to do different things in the same place, at the same time, with the same stuff? How do we resolve that conflict?
One way is to insist on and fight for our individual perfect freedom. If the first person defeats the second person to the point of death, captivity or passivity then the first person has managed to retain their freedom to do what, where, when, how but the second person has clearly lost theirs. Human history is replete with examples of how that process works. In fact, recorded history begins with such a process having already occurred and become the ingrained norm. By the time recorded history begins we already have Kings that are akin to Gods. Have’s and have-not’s. Slavery, peasants and serfs. A stratified society based on previous generations winners and losers.
A second option might be to agree upon a border where one or the other persons freedom ends and the others takes over. On this side of the line I am free to do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want. On that side you are free to do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want. Neither of us retains the freedom of wherever we want. We agree to a border limiting wherever.
Another way our two humans could resolve their conflicting freedoms is to negotiate a settlement agreeable to both. In this case each gives up some measure of their freedom in order to accommodate the other and retain the majority of their own freedom. The above limit on wherever is one form of this. Taking turns would be a similar limit on whenever and so forth. Our two free persons have agreed to give up a little of their freedom and to accept something less than perfect freedom as an acceptable basis for living in harmony with one another and enjoying the additional benefits that accrue from having other people around.
Human society is built on this premise. I don’t know how society built from the earliest humans to the fully stratified society of the early Sumerians and others but it isn’t tough to imagine our lone hunter-gatherer coming into contact with another lone hunter-gatherer and either reacting with fear and violence or with a smile and sharing of berries or nuts or whatever abundance may have been available. Equally it isn’t hard to imagine some sort of family unit being built in cooperative fashion as male and female come together, children are born and adults share responsibility for raising offspring and then later offspring share responsibility for providing for aging adults and so on.
These family units might be run based on the dominance of the strongest or in a cooperative fashion. Anthropology shows that not all societies have grown on the western model of dominance by strength and violence.
Further, it isn’t tough to imagine these family units growing and extending into clans and tribes through a mixture of population growth, intermarriage between clans, or warfare and absorption of defeated clans into winning ones.
As the number of people grows the occurrence of conflict grows as well. Parents freedoms are impinged by children. Children are incapable of enjoying perfect freedom until they age enough years to fend for themselves. Until then their parents dominate and rule their lives. And further, in this primitive state the requirements of mere survival are sufficient to leave little to no time to enjoy any of what is left of this, by now, greatly limited freedom.
How does this family unit handle survival needs? Do the men and women agree to be monogamous, polyamorous, or polygamist? How do they share the resources that are gathered by the group? If an individual finds a pretty stone do they take it and say, "mine!" Or, do they bring it to the group and say, "Ours." Does the hunter who finds an antler take it and say, "My weapon!" Or bring it to the group and say, "Our weapon." Is food shared equitably or do the men eat first and leave only left-overs for the women, children and old folks?
If the one who finds the pretty stone and says "Mine," has it taken away by another, how does the group handle that? Do they fight it out? Does strength prevail? Does age prevail? Is there a single leader to pronounces judgment? Is there a council of elders that decide?
Whatever form these things take become tradition, guidelines and rules that are passed down through generations as children learn them from adults and re-learn them in their own lives. These traditions become rules and rules become laws as the society grows and becomes more complex.
These things become the foundation of government. Answering how we handle the conflicts between my freedom and yours, how we share resources, how we resolve conflicts whether done well or poorly, equitably or inequitably, is how government, of whatever form, comes to be a part of our human societies.
Skipping ahead to our modern ideas of republics and democracy, we have, in theory, done away with the idea that might makes right. We have theoretically embraced the idea that all people are created equal and have the same inalienable rights. We no longer embrace the ideas of slavery, peasantry or serfdom. We argue that all people are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
These ideas sound like the idea of perfect freedom. However, by this time in history it is unquestioned that there are limits on that freedom and that a government of laws freely agreed upon by the members of the society and/or their representatives on their behalf is the vehicle given the power to limit that freedom according to agreed upon, not arbitrary, limitations outlined in those laws.
There we find the constant crux of the problem of government. What is the balance point of reasonable limitation on individual freedom in order to ensure others individual freedom and our harmonious life together in a common society.