Freedom? No, thanks!

A commonplace in some left intellectual circles is that freedom is nothing but the freedom of the market. That is to say, when the term freedom is used by American politicians, it really means the freedom of corporations and their investors to enter into an area and exploit it in every way they can. Elaborations on the same theme tend to emphasize free choice in terms of consumer goods or free choice in elections, again, between candidates as different as Coke and Pepsi in comparable (but not quite as creative) ad campaigns.

Of course, there is more to it than this. Over the past five years, Americans have heard a lot about the freedom of our way of life, on the one hand, and the necessity of sacrificing certain liberties in the interests of security, on the other. The willingness to suspend civil liberties might seem to break with the fanatical emphasis on market freedom. But I think it is an extension of the same logic.

The US has always allowed for restrictions on market freedom--particularly if those restrictions are argued for in the name of safety and security. To be sure, restricting the market--requiring companies to attend to the safety of their workers and their products--is usually a matter of political struggle. From unions securing the workplace to consumer advocates (like Nader and the Corvair) demanding testings and recalls, Capital has not acquiesced easily. But, it has adapted and responded. For every recalled plastic toy with easily swallowed components, there are fifty more covers for electric outlets, protective covers for sharp corners, non-flammable pajames, audio monitors, bicycle helmets, and government approved car seats (now required in some states for kids up to 10 years old). At any rate, my point is that security has always been one of the values capable of functioning as a restraint on market freedom precisely because it produces new market opportunities.

Politically, today we see security functioning again as that value in the name of which freedom can and should be curtailed. Folks who follow discussions of networked communications and new media are familiar with this in terms of regulations on decency, hysteria over kiddie porn, over kids accessing porn, over pedophiles accesssing kids. A decade or so ago (in the US and England; the debate is now taking a new form for Moslem women) women complained that the Net was unsafe for women, that it was too rough, too crude, not a safe space. Some argue for ratings on games, music, video, and movies. Wal-Mart (the biggest retailer in the US) refuses to sell items (magazines, books, music, videos) that it deems indecent or not in keeping with Wal-Mart values (which includes locking workers into stores over night, so the restriction on freedom here shouldn't be surprising). In fact, we see restrictions on freedom in the name of security and safety everywhere, once we look--no smoking (health safety), no swimming without a lifeguard, no money shots on porn purchased on pay-per-view (or so I'm told...).

With regard to the so-called war on terror, not only have we who fly given up expectations of privacy and autonomy (sure, go ahead and frisk me, remove my belt and shoes, root through my luggage, monitor my communications and purchases), but limitations on these freedoms have provided economic benefits to all sorts of different groups--those who make surveillance equiptment, those who train event planners, those who keep up with new regulations and consult with local governments. Again, security is a value that can restrain some freedoms as it produces new ones.

To be clear, my point here is not to champion freedom. Rather, it is to note that a willingness to curtain freedom in the name of security is neither a political anomaly nor a view at odds with market freedom. And, it seems to me that at this historical juncture we may be seeing a willingness to jettison even market freedoms. Perhaps we can understand this in terms of "freedom fatigue"--overcome with the burdens of consumerism, sickened by our own excesses and gluttony, and having lost any sense of the demands and responsibilities of actual political freedom, we give it all up.

What do I mean by give up market freedom? I have in mind a sense of being overwhelmed by consumerism, of finding relief in restrictions on consumer choice (this might explain why there has not been an outcry over the price of gas as well as the appeal of the restrictive practices of orthodox religion and, why not, of the Atkins diet).  Many of course never had it--poverty and racism constrain such that the word freedom is both an ideal of an escape and an ideological trap, a ruse. And the middle class is dwindling.. Yet, it seems to me that we can also find in the present moment appeals to rules, appeals to limits, the attraction of fundamentalisms, of regulations, of someone who would choose for us, tell us what to do, someone who won't just give us advice, but will take the responsibility for us. At this point, I'm only revisiting Zizek's discussion of the rise of small authorities (which wasn't my intention when I started this post and so is kinda disappointing).

Yet, I think it is important to consider whether we might be in the midst of freedom fatigue. I notice that my students don't want to assert themselves--in the classroom, in campus politics, in opportunities for serving on hiring and tenuring committees. Junior faculty as well tend to want to keep a low profile and let administrators make the choices--faculty governance is too much of a pain. And, in local governance, it's easier to complain about city council than it is to sell the tickets for a fundraiser, circulate petitions, and identify better candidates. Freedom is a pain. It requires responsibility. And most of us just don't seem quite up to it.

Comments

[Matt]

I like the idea of "freedom fatigue," at least so far as wondering if it may someday encourage an intentional or controlled de-development phase–that is, the paradigm shift toward sustainability and beyond once coined by CR, I believe, as "slowtopia" (a phrase perhaps more fitting a shift in industrial priorities than the pace of communications or thinking, per se.)

One thinks of Agamben too, I suppose, and his notion of a day when the law will be something "played with," and in a sense let free, though exactly how responsibility comes back into the picture remains more ambiguous as yet.

[nnyhav]

Aside: Coke, Pepsi, fly in the ointment.

[CR]

What do I mean by give up market freedom? I have in mind a sense of being overwhelmed by consumerism, of finding relief in restrictions on consumer choice (this might explain why there has not been an outcry over the price of gas as well as the appeal of the restrictive practices of orthodox religion and, why not, of the Atkins diet)

The marketting people are already very much there, aren't they. One of the obvious strengths, for instance, of Apple as a brand is the lack of choice / freedom from choice that goes along with adopting the platform. Pick from basically 3 different computer models. Buy Apple's mouse, Apple's mp3 player, Apple's software. As opposed to Windows folk - confronted by 120 different mice at the computer store.

Look out for the word "simplicity" in advertisements. It's everywhere now.

Believe me, most consumer product companies would do the same if they could. Your favorite cookie company, for instance, would much rather offer 4 varieties of cookies rather than 48. People wouldn't really buy any fewer. Know why they do it? It's a good argument for shelf space in the supermarket. The long and the short of it. Regular, double chunk, reduced fat, xtra salty, xtra creamy. They all need their little facing. (I worked for a cookie company as a sales rep when I was a kid...) No one buys six bags of cookies - they just pick one, and it would be cheaper just to offer one. Sure, there's a bit of competition with the guys down the aisle, but more than anything else its shelf space.

an intentional or controlled de-development phase

Absolutely! I'm sure I didn't come up with slow-topia on my own. But to even take the vaguest step in this direction would require a complete overhaul of society, economics, everything. Capitalism doesn't do de-development - at least not without bigger and better re-development.

Easier to imagine the end of the world than, well, you know the rest.

We Americans may be about to entire into an unintentional and uncontrolled (well, sort of - who knows who's pulling the strings, right?) de-development phase, one that we've been, as it were, taking out increasingly steep home-equity loans on our economic well-being in order to defer. I'm quite sure this won't be pleasant, and I'm quite sure that the folks who are in the position to hedge their bets already have, while most of us definitely have not, are powerless to do so.

[Matt]

But to even take the vaguest step in this direction would require a complete overhaul of society, economics, everything.

I disagree.

[CR]

Sure, I was a bit hyperbolic there just now. But, seriously, Matt, there are some very real structural problems with taking steps to reduce growth. (In fact, in a certain sense, I live in a state and a region that is suffering from exactly this dilemma...)

I don't think, to a certain extent, the powers that be are lying when they urge upon us the necessity of "structural reform," here or in Europe or elsewhere. The problems are real. But instead of blindly denying the problems, or giving up and throwing in with the forces of neo-liberal reform, it may be that we need to take a deeper look at the nature of these crisis and what they tell us about the systems in which we live and breathe.

Acknowledging this doesn't necessarily mean that we necessarily throw up our hands and call the fight off. It might, however, mean that the solutions we propose need perhaps to take up the deep structural problems - need to rethink the structure itself that requires this growth. There probably are incremental ways to move in this direction, but they are not, for instance, the ones on the tip of the tongues of, say, even nationally-known "populist" democrats a la Edwards. Who would either, from what can tell, take steps that in the end would deeply, deeply harm the American worker, or reach office and do absolutely nothing at all, as their plans were unworkable from the start.

In short, when you hear French politicans, German politicians, American politicians breaking it to the public that the remnants of the welfare state need to go in order to increase competitiveness, the fact is they may well be right, especially since every other nation is involved in a similar process of streamlining, and there is now a globalized "reserve army" of labor available for outsourcing and relocation. Debt will rise, jobs will flee. The question we need to ask is why this bullshit paradox is in fact the case (rising tide empties all boats), what this tells us about the game we were opted into without our consent, and whether we might begin to draft new rules, a new game altogether.

And of course, this requires that any left that means to dare effectiveness in the twenty-first century will by definition be an international left. Cutting separate contracts with the corporatized states will be like running competing unions within one factory - defeats the purpose from the start.

I've cited my favorite little snippet from Woodward's book about Greenspan, right? Where Clinton learns the rules of the game, gets all frustrated when he learns that the fed is going to raise interest rates in order to increase unemployment. It's fantastic - and believable. Even though Clinton wasn't a stupid man, I don't think, I'm sure he never read his Marx, and thus got a bit blindsided by this.

If only every voter could learn the same lesson: one of the central purposes of the fed is to ensure that it is never too easy for you to get a job, as were it automatic, the economy would volcanically implode under the weight of hyper-inflation.

[CR]

But I really shouldn't have suggested that incremental steps are impossible. They're not. They're just very complicated.

For one thing, voting parties out of office that are hellbent on rolling (used to be via economic pressure, but now increasingly military) any other nations that are unwilling to privatize their public sectors are a good start.

And in fact, in this light, "consciousness raising" events like Seattle '99 take on a very positive light indeed, as they highlight the fact that structures like the IMF et al are designed to lower all of our boats, and make every political decision too complicated almost to contemplate.

[Jodi]

CR--interesting remarks. I'm glad Matt gestured to your slowtopia. I also like your cites to Apple and 'simplicity'--Real Simple (magazine) for one.

But, here is where I disagree. You write:

In short, when you hear French politicans, German politicians, American politicians breaking it to the public that the remnants of the welfare state need to go in order to increase competitiveness, the fact is they may well be right, especially since every other nation is involved in a similar process of streamlining, and there is now a globalized "reserve army" of labor available for outsourcing and relocation. Debt will rise, jobs will flee.

First, David Harvey (relying on Dumenil and Levy), the crisis of capital accumulation was propelled by the financial sector, blaming it on the welfare state was convenient to their interests, but not necessary in any strong sense.

Second, competition has little to do with executive salaries, and, again, the political interests in policies that protect this wealth (NYT yesterday had article on change in IRS to go after lower income tax dodgers and stop going after higher income ones). As Harvey makes clear, rather than ending the welfare state, the welfare of people was sacrificed for the welfare of
corporations.

Anecdotally: it's odd to me that in upstate NY we import various goods from Canada, and, the fact that US seniors get drugs from Canada is well known. Yet, they have more of a welfare state than what we have in the US--shoot, they have national health care. If this were so impossibly expensive, wouldn't the situation look different?

[Nate]

I second Jodi's disagreement, which is better put than the comment I was composing in my head prior to reading here. Further, I disagree with the claim that capitalism doesn't do de-development. Capitalism develops and de-develops (the midwestern US rust belt is evidence of both, as are capital flights and economic collapses across the world and disinvestment practices in Chicago and probably elsewhere too), or rather various capitals enact development, underdevelopment, and overdevelopment, sometimes strategically, sometimes tactically, and sometimes rather irrationally. And one can follow from the other, with the amount of shock and violence involved being partially a function of how dramatic the shift is.

One important points is that all of this development regardless of prefix is still capitalist development, which is all capitalism does, contra any progressivist ideology left over from the more problematic sectors of working class movements of the 19th century. This is not to say there aren't better or worse forms of capitalism - considering citizenship as a commodity I'd rather be a passported resident of Sweden than a passported resident of the US, if I could make the purchase - nor to say that moves to lessen particularly horrid moments of capitalism never lay the groundwork for new noncapitalist forms of life.

[?]

"...rather than ending the welfare state, the welfare of people was sacrificed for the welfare of corporations..."

There is indeed a wealth of evidence on that, certainly in continental europe.

Add to that the fact that business consultants as a rule recommend to corporate power holders the massive increase of bureaucracy (via bloated software-based controlling schemes, obfuscated lines of reporting, overreliance on mathematical predictability) and welfare or rent seeking (from tax evasion to lobbying) clearly aimed at an attempt to corner the market rather than to enhance any form of competition.

[Craig]

Jodi: "Anecdotally: it's odd to me that in upstate NY we import various goods from Canada, and, the fact that US seniors get drugs from Canada is well known. Yet, they have more of a welfare state than what we have in the US--shoot, they have national health care. If this were so impossibly expensive, wouldn't the situation look different?"

Two things here: our entire economy is financed through a net trade surplus with the United States. You spend all your time worrying about Mexico and Japan and China - it's with Canada that you're getting killed. (In addition to that surplus, we have more fresh water than we know what to do with and a nearly infinite supply of oil and natural gas.) Despite our relative wealth (the federal government posts massive surpluses for the past few years - always over $5B/a and the province of Ontario just announced a minor surplus of about $250M), increasingly powerful segments of the population believe that America has the best system of healthcare in the world and that we, as Canadians, should accept nothing less than the best. Or somesuch.

[CR]

Jodi,

I might have gotten a bit carried away with myself above. The specific issue that I meant to be writing about was the practicability of a "slow" or "no growth" platform given the current degree of market interconnectivity, the ease of moving jobs and capital. It is not easy, probably impossible, to reign in growth, except strategically, of course, to cool down an overheated market etc. given the structure of the international economy.

Nate - of course you're right about that. But that falls under the rubric of "creative destruction," no? It's not that the rust belt decided that they had had enough of this fast paced economy and opted out. De-development happens as a means, not an end. Rather, shifts in capital are exactly what I'm talking about.

In my neck of the rust-belt, and I live in one of its capitals, sad to say, it's high levels of taxation + worker friendly laws that keeps the jobs, and the native population, flowing toward the anti-union, low-tax southern states. I hate this, but it is in fact the case. The US is not a level playing field, state to state. There is no other good reason for the jobs not to return to my city.

(And, btw, I suspect that if the US ever does get socialised medicine, it will be the business interests that push it through, tired of paying for something that it doesn't make sense that they pay for... Ford Motor Company is basically at this point a large insurance company that happens to make a few SUVs on the side etc... In other words, socialized medicine will come in the name of growth, not against it. This is what is so especially absurd about the Canadian turn against their system. Without national healthcare, those Ford plants in Ontario come right back to Detroit).

(Another btw - it looks as though the Swedes are about to vote in a new "reform" government that will be hellbent on rationalizing away the welfare state. Just fyi...)

clearly aimed at an attempt to corner the market rather than to enhance any form of competition.

Increasingly competitiveness and increasing levels of competition are two entirely different things. In fact, in practice, they are generally at odds with each other. Companies or nations doing what they can to increase the bottom line has very little to do, unless you're some sort of free market libertatian, with levelling the playing field. Hell, I'd take a level playing field - as long as it was truly level!

People on this thread seem to be misunderstanding me. And I'm sure that the fault is mine - seriously, not being snarky. I am not against the welfare state, I'm certainly not against socialism. I do not endorse the reforms that are "necessary" or even just plain necessary. And I do believe that parties right and center cynically deploy the rhetoric of crisis to erode the welfare state. It's simply that I believe that in the highly interconnected world in which we live, and in which capital and corporations have the huge advantage of mobility not shared by the average worker, there are certain deep difficulties that I think we need to face. Given the organization of the international labor market, first-world nations may in fact be facing or about to face a crisis of employment. This can't simply be sneered away.

I believe that there is a deep strain of naivete that runs through the technocratic center-left and even the further left about the outcomes on hand for us in the first world. The sense that a justly run economy will leave us all white collar workers, shuffling paper for the transnational corporations after the last factory leaves, is naive. As is the dimly defined (and deeply, historically imperialist) sense that we can, all of us, lapse into a sort of subsidized unemployment or semi-employment - naive as well. Capital, especially since the end of the cold war, has gained the ability to give up the fight in one country if they start to lose - head on to the next nation desperate for jobs and investiment. This puts us in a tough place, calls for a rethinking of tactics, and, in particular, I believe, insists that our thinking become distinctly internationalist.

In short - what I am wondering, down deep, is how we start to answer the very difficult problems that lead a nation as blissfully organized as Sweden to turn against socialism, like most of their fellow Europeans and nearly all Americans.

Yes, welfare before growth! Absolutely! But how, now?

[Alain]

I work in the financial services industry in the United States (unfortunately at a relatively low technocratic level) and I completely agree with CR's comments. The nature of globalization is such that national economic issues are quite often beyond the control of domestic governments or even smaller domestic business interests. This is not to say that the market is an unstoppable organism or that the left must abandon the ideal of an economically just society.

But CR is correct to point out that the fluidity of capital, and the intense competition of cheap labor, provide an obstacle not easily overcome. The cost of health care, and health insurance, in the United States is running completely out of control. My employer pays some of the cost, but my personal health insurance to cover a family of 4 is over $400 a month. The cost of drugs, co-pays, deductibles, etc... create a tremendous hinderance for the average family and employer - this is a problem begging for a collective response. And yet all we hear from the government is more nonsense about "market competition," tort reform and consumer choice.

While I don't necessarily think we at Long Sunday should take up the challenge of coming up with specific solutions, I would like to see progressives (and even democrats) start to articulate an alternative to the economic suicide of our current coarse. I think the difficulty comes back to Jodi's suggestion that we collectively suffer from "freedom fatigue," that true freedom requires responsibility, and that most Americans are too busy either struggling to pay their bills or worrying about Jon Benet. To really demand

[?]

So go back to the foundations:
self-government in the name of shared interests, personal responsibility and freedom in the community of free individuals,
in opposition to the ever increasing hunger of the totalized bureaucracy (inside (in)corporated institutions, either "private" or "public")

so we wre back at square 1 again, with Locke and Montesquieu, the Salonnieres and the Encyclopedists against the Leviathan about to emerge from total online surveillance, inescapable as the king's tax collectors...

welcome in 1706, ladies and gentlemen!

(forgive the lyrical outburst, but aren't the similarities striking? - first wave of globalization, sudden surge of scientific discoveries and technolgical progress anyone...?)

[Craig]

Sorry - how does Montesquieu fit in there?

[Nateq]

hi CR,
Thanks for clarifying. How to fix things? Hell if I know. I spend a bit of my outside of work time trying to workplace organizing, not least because I'm better at and enjoy more the stuff involved with that than the stuff connected with other activist options. I'm also pretty convinced of a certain economistic account of how counterpower works (concerted action at the point of production). Aside from that, while I don't do legislative stuff (find it dull) if I were to I think the push would not be against the welfare state but against capital mobility, and for a greater welfare state in order to spread money around - a social wage to alleviate some downward pressures on job wages. Raising taxes on the wealthier, increasing tairiffs, that too. None of this seems to me to be very complicated, just really hard to actually accomplish.

Craig, I hope there's a good counterinfo campaign about the US/Canadian healthcare systems. The US system is atrocious. I ran a hotline for a year for uninsured people in Chicago, heard really ghastly stories all the time (part of why I didn't become a social worker as I once considered, it's too depressing for a fragile flower like me). Healthcare provisioning is the most convincing argument for the old marxist saw about capitalism being irrational.
cheers,
Nate

"Sorry - how does Montesquieu fit in there?"

to remind me(I obviously can't speak for anyone else here)

that seemmingly absolute power can always be decomposed into its constituent parts

that balanced processes are just as important as the goals one tries to reach

that every supposedly universal principle has its life time and requires careful scrutiny even if it's been unchallenged for almost 300 yrs

[Craig]

Montesquieu was a defender of the monarchy, although of a peculiar understanding of it. He was no democratic and he didn't argue in favour of the separation of powers. He did, however, write a chapter on the mixed regime of England - the single longest chapter in his lengthy book - but, of course, he wasn't a fan of it. Charles-Louis was pro-monarchy through and through. Hence the long and fascinating final part of the book where he simultaneously argues against Boulainvilliers (representative of the these nobilaire) and Dubos (representative of the these royale).

For Montesquieu, the political dilemma facing mondernity was the choice between monarchy and despotism.