Discussion of individual freedom usually revolves around what laws and governments do or do not forbid or compel. But there are other dimensions of freedom that lie largely outside laws and government, and which have a great practical effect on what people can or cannot do, and therefore their perception of what degree of freedom they have or lack. Let us call it practical freedom.
For example, money. The late Malcolm Forbes once opined that one of the best aspects of having money is the freedom it gives its owner. He meant it gives its owner options he or she otherwise would not have. Someone without money cannot buy a car, and so his mobility is severely limited compared to someone who can. With some income and a little bit of savings, he can lease a car, giving him a lot more freedom of action. With more money, he gains more options. He becomes able to buy a Chevy or a Honda Civic outright, and not have to worry about its condition when he has to turn it in after the lease expires. If he has as much money as Forbes had in his day, he can write a check for a Maserati without turning a hair. Or not. He is free to choose because he has the money to pay for his choices. Greatly more options are available to him in many other aspects of his life as well. Vacationing in Tahiti, if he chooses, instead of being restricted to taking a bus to the nearest beach, or hanging out in the local park. Living in a gated community instead of a crime-ridden slum. Getting medical treatment not covered by insurance. More options means more practical freedom of action. People sometimes call it empowerment, and that is a valid description too, but in fact it is increased freedom of choice. As general wealth increases, so does people’s practical freedom.
Technological advances have afforded more people more practical freedom than almost any other factor, perhaps excepting the spread of democratic principles of government. That vacation in Tahiti is feasible only because jet airliners have put Tahiti only a couple of days away from almost any developed country with an international airport. A century ago it was not a vacation; it was an expedition taking months. Today, even a person of modest means can carry a personal cell phone in his pocket with which he can call anyone in the world for whom he has a phone number, and send them a photo he’s just taken with it that does not entail a delay of several days to be processed in a photo lab. A mere generation ago, neither was possible, so he was not free to do that.
Another important dimension is the effect of prevailing social mores, as opposed to laws and governmental diktats. The gradual loosening of many such mores in the US and elsewhere has removed many constraints, and visibly enlarged the degree of freedom with which people can conduct their daily lives without prohibitive social opprobrium. Once, an unmarried couple living together was subjected to shaming and general disgrace in the US; some landlords would not rent to them. They were “living in sin.” Today, no-one turns a hair. Whether that is a good or bad thing may be debated, but it is an accepted fact, and people have the freedom to accept it for themselves or, if they consider it wrong, to reject it for themselves. Even such a mundane thing as freeing up standards of dress and appearance is liberating. Where once many American women felt they needed to replace wardrobes according to the dictates of Paris fashion houses and follow the current fashion in hairdos on pain of embarrassment about being unfashionable, today they can wear what they feel comfortable in or looks good on them, and wear their hair any way they darn please. There used to be lesser, but still restrictive, standards for men’s appearance, also now greatly diminished or gone. This is liberating. It may seem minor, but it is something that affects people’s freedom of choice literally every day of their lives on matters that have an immediate personal effect on them.
Far less minor may be loosening of mores in places like China, where it is hard tor westerners to imagine the liberating effect of the early communist regime’s banning of the formerly widespread custom of binding women’s feet, which physically hobbled them for life. Such changes make people more free.
Yet another, closely related dimension, with worldwide repercussions, is the general increase in material abundance, whether people are living in the money economy or not. When people are living at subsistence level or struggling to escape from it, they are likely to be more concerned with securing basic biological necessities like food, potable water, and shelter from the elements than with enjoying their rights to speech or voting. People at risk from threats and violence will sacrifice much, even freedom, to assure safety. These brutal facts may do much to explain the persistence in many parts of the world of tyrannical regimes. Such a regime’s excesses may be overlooked when you and your children are finally able to count on having enough to eat, and to eat in peace, because of it. This may be particularly true in societies that have little or no experience of political freedom, and are therefore inured to authoritarianism.
It remains to be seen what will happen in such societies when large numbers of people finally rise through Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs beyond physiological necessity and security and find their further progress hindered by such a regime. Will the result be similar to the experience of South Korea, whose people eventually threw off a harsh military dictatorship and established a full-fledged democracy? Will they regress instead, by embracing ideology or old values that favor authoritarianism, as seems to be happening in Russia and Turkey, and perhaps in China at this time? Only time will tell.
