User:Walkinxyz/Political Freedom

Political freedom, or agency, is a central concept in Western history and political thought, and one of the most important features of modern democratic societies. It can refer to many things, including freedom from oppression or coercion, the absence of debilitating conditions for a group or individual in society (e.g. political tyranny, slavery, economic compulsion, but also sickness and disability), as well as freedom from "internal" constraints (e.g. conformity, irrationally consistent behaviour, false consciousness).

It can also refer to the positive exercise of rights, or possibilities for action, including social and political rights and capabilities (e.g. free speech, the ability to vote, labour organization, etc.).

Freedom in the political domain is related to ideals such as equality, autonomy, independence and authenticity, and it is closely linked with the historical project of revolution, in that freedom is often the goal or ambit of revolutions. It has been closely identified or associated with the human capacity to begin anew ("natality") by political philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, John Dewey, Hannah Arendt, and Nikolas Kompridis.

Political freedom has been theorized in relation to power, or in terms of "power relations", by philosophers such as Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky, and to human culture by philosophers such as Jacques Derrida, Cornelius Castoriadis, Antonio Gramsci, Jacques Ranciere, Herbert Marcuse, and Theodor Adorno. In addition, some notable philosophers, such as Alisdair MacIntyre, have theorized freedom in terms of our interdependence with others, what Kompridis calls "dependent freedom".

According to Kompridis, the (political) project of modernity can be broadly divided into the pursuit of two motivating ideals: freedom as autonomy, or independence; and freedom as the ability to initiate "a new beginning".

Positive & Negative Liberty

Various groups along the political spectrum differ on what they think political freedom consists in.

Left wing political philosophy often couples the notion of freedom with that of positive liberty, i.e. the exercise in practice of individual (or group) rights, the ability to act politically, and the possibility of having a say in re-shaping the social conditions of one's existence, often in concert with others. On this view, freedom entails both the active exercise of one's potential, but also the presence of certain enabling conditions for that potential (economic equality, access to education and networks of support, access to medicine and social services, etc.).

Negative liberty, on the other hand, refers to the absence of any external regulation, state interference, coercion or other constraint on individual behaviour. This is a definition of freedom which is closely associated with right-wing or libertarian political philosophy.

In the essay "The problem with negative liberty", Charles Taylor writes:

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Many social anarchists see negative and positive liberty as complementary concepts of freedom. They describe the negative liberty-centric view endorsed by capitalists as "selfish freedom". According to Anarchism FAQ

The right-libertarian does not address or even acknowledge that the (absolute) right of private property may lead to extensive control by property owners over those who use, but do not own, property (such as workers and tenants). Thus a free-market capitalist system leads to a very selective and class-based protection of "rights" and "freedoms." For example, under capitalism, the "freedom" of employers inevitably conflicts with the "freedom" of employees. When stockholders or their managers exercise their "freedom of enterprise" to decide how their company will operate, they violate their employee's right to decide how their labouring capacities will be utilised. In other words, under capitalism, the "property rights" of employers will conflict with and restrict the "human right" of employees to manage themselves. Capitalism allows the right of self-management only to the few, not to all. Or, alternatively, capitalism does not recognise certain human rights as universal which anarchism does.

Isaiah Berlin

Response

Freedom and Power

Nietzsche, Foucault, Chomsky, Said,

Contemporary History

The concept of political freedom has been invoked by a variety of people and groups in modern societies, including the anti-slavery or abolitionism movement in the United States, feminism or suffragette movement(s), the civil rights movement, various anti-colonialism or independence movements, campaigns for accessibility or accommodation for people with disabilities, same-sex rights (or LGBTQ) movements, migrant rights and refugee rights movements, and youth rights movements.

It has also been used to advance arguments for specific forms of social, political or economic organization by anarchism, socialism, laissez-faire capitalists, libertarianism and others.

The Limits of Freedom

Environmentalists often argue that political freedoms should go hand in hand with some constraint on use of ecosystems. They maintain there should be no such thing, for instance, as "freedom to pollute" or "freedom to deforest" given that such activities create negative externalities. The popularity of SUVs, golf, and urban sprawl has been used as evidence that some ideas of freedom and ecological conservation can clash. This leads at times to serious confrontations and clashes of values reflected in advertising campaigns, e.g. that of PETA regarding fur.

Civil Rights

The concept of political freedom is very closely allied with the concepts of civil liberties or civil rights, which in most democratic societies is characterized by various freedoms which are afforded the legal protection from the state. Some of these freedoms may include (in alphabetical order):

• Academic freedom
• Freedom of assembly
• Freedom of association
• Freedom of movement
• Freedom of religion
• Freedom of sexual orientation
• Freedom of speech
• Freedom of the press
• Freedom of thought
• Freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, which is related to freedom of privacy
• Freedom to bear arms
• Suffrage
• Scientific freedom

External links

• Freedom House
• Poverty, Political Freedom, and the Roots of Terrorism from Alberto Abadie – Harvard University and NBER, October 2004 (pdf)
• Brief review of trends in political change: freedom and conflict Global trends
• The Discovery of Freedom, a manuscript by Sanjeev Sabhlok

Category:Civil rights and liberties Category:Political philosophy Category:Social philosophy

External links

• example.com