“A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”—Milton Friedman.
Friedman’s quote above is a succinct and wholly accurate analysis of freedom vs. tyranny, capitalism vs. socialism, the Right vs. the Left, conservatism vs. (current) liberalism, (some) Republicans vs. (all) Democrats. Tyrants don’t want you to be free. If you are free, then obviously they cannot control you, and modern Leftism is about nothing if not controlling the lives of as many people as possible and shooting or starving those whom they can’t control.
The Left does not believe in the free market. The government is to order you to drive an electric car, not have the choice of one powered by fossil fuels, because they say so, and they know better how to direct your life than you do. They will save the planet. Top-down control by your superiors.
Freedom is not an issue here. Leftists do not believe in letting people choose because they believe people will invariably choose the wrong things, i.e., things that are not what the Left wants them to choose and things that will lessen the Left’s control. By definition, you can’t control freedom. People will choose wrong, will not choose what the Lefts thinks they should choose, thus choices must be taken away. Humans are only to be allowed to “choose” the things the Left wants them to choose. That is not the definition of “freedom.”
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The critical point here, and one that people don’t grasp, is that “allowed” freedom is not freedom at all; it is, actually, slavery. “But I have the freedom to go to bed with whoever I want to, to choose my gender. The Left allows me that…” And that last statement is the key. The Leftist government ALLOWS it. That’s not freedom. What they allow, they can just as easily disallow. And that’s slavery, control, not freedom.
There were slave holders in the past who “allowed” their slaves to travel; passes were given and the slave was “free” to go to another destination to, perhaps, visit his family or loved ones. But think: is that true “freedom”? Of course it isn’t. The slave was only “allowed” to go visit his family or whatever. He wasn’t told he HAD to do it, he was just granted the “freedom” to do it—a “freedom” “granted” by his owner. A “freedom” granted is a “freedom” that can be taken away.
Dependence on the government is also not true freedom. Those who live on government welfare today are not truly “free.” They are reliant upon the government; they are, in effect, “slaves” of the government because, just like with the traveling slave in the paragraph above, what is given can be taken away. The “slaves” that DOGE is taking money away from now are screaming to high heaven; the last thing they want is freedom, which involves the necessity of accepting responsibility and having to take care of one’s self. It is amazing how many people really prefer slavery to freedom. They say they want freedom, but in reality, what they are truly asking for is government to take care of them. Slave owners took care of their slaves—gave them a home, food, health care (well, they did if they were smart. A dead slave can’t do much work.). How many Americans want exactly that from their government?
The difference between true freedom and government-granted freedom is just this—taking responsibility vs. being taken care of—risk (freedom) vs. dependence (slavery). And that’s the difference between capitalism and socialism. But there is a serious lack of understanding of true freedom. So many people think government-granted “freedom” is freedom. But it’s not.
I read a Chinese student on Chinese social media say one time how wonderful his government was. “I can go to movies, go out to eat, go out and play,” etc. etc. But that same government doesn’t let him surf the net to YouTube, Facebook, Substack, or thousands of other websites. And that government which permits him the “freedom” to go to movies can determine which movies he can watch and certainly take away that “freedom” if it so chooses. Just ask the 60-70 million Chinese who Mao Zedong murdered. How much “freedom” did their government give them?
In 2015, I was working at a university in Dalian, China. The time came to extend my contract for another year. I wanted to stay. The university wanted me to stay. The government DIDN’T want me to stay. Guess who got their way?
You see, I had no freedom, and the college had no freedom, to make a mutually agreeable and beneficial contract between us. The government decided, totally arbitrarily, not to allow me and the school to renew my contract freely. The government, not the school, and I made that decision. Don’t tell me that China is “free” when people can only do what the government allows them to do.
Freedom gives people the right to choose, which implies the right to make mistakes and do stupid things, which I have been guilty of countless times. But those choices were freely made, and I accept the responsibility for them. The Left doesn’t want you to have that for the simple reason that totalitarianism wants to control what you do. Yes, the totalitarian government will ALLOW you to go to movies—movies it approves of. ALLOW you to go to bed with whomever you choose, whomever they ALLOW you to choose. But if they don’t want you to work at a certain school—out the window goes your freedom. THEY decide, not you.
Just like the slaveholders of old.
"Allowed” freedom—what the Democratic Party wants you to have—is not freedom at all.
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