As you all are probably familiar with, a lot of real unsavory types like to claim that some version of "maximizing personal freedom" is one of their core values, even if the things they actually support seem to contradict that.

Is personal liberty a good thing to have as a core value, and it's their interpretation that's wrong? Or is it something about the concept itself, where it sounds good but actually pursuing it leads to negative outcomes?

Alternatively, is it just a big empty signifier that can be used to support basically anything, i.e. it's impossible to meaningfully distinguish between correct and incorrect applications of the concept?

  • Nagarjuna [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I like talking about liberty--i am an anarchist after all--. There's clearly something fundamentally different between the life of a slave and the life of a wage laborer. I'm happy to call that thing liberty.

    But here's the thing, one of the main differences is that wage laborers are allowed to keep their consensual relationships--friends, family, even union membership.

    The problem with libertarian and liberal politics is that they don't define liberty as something to do with relationships. To them, a person can be free on a deserted island. In fact, in some formations, the lonely yeoman is the peak of freedom.

    So when they say they're maximizing liberty, they mean something very different than we (anarchists) do when we say the same words.