• Most people think there is a common agreement on the meaning of the word freedom
  • But how to define freedom has been a controversy for decades, if not centuries
  • Protecting our freedoms — properly understood — is the intended role of government

What do you think of when you hear the word “freedom”?

Most of you reading this will think this term is clear-cut and noncontroversial. Indeed, on the John Locke Foundation’s homepage, we proudly proclaim “Freedom is our mission. Follow us.” How to define this term, however, has been a contentious debate for decades, if not centuries.

FDR famously declared nearly 90 years ago that “True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.” Adding “Necessitous men are not free men,” FDR clearly intended this notion of “freedom from want” as a requirement for true freedom to serve as a justification for a new concept of “rights.”

If “freedom from want” is perceived as true freedom, then it is but a small step to conclude that individuals, to be truly free, must have a “right” to the provision of certain necessities of life, like food, housing, and even some semblance of economic security, however defined.

FDR’s treatment of the concept of “freedom” still echoes among the halls of the nation’s political elite to this day. From proposing a new “Economic Bill of Rights” to touting “economic security” guarantees in the “Green New Deal,” the debate over what freedom truly means continues.

FDR’s vision of freedom, however, conflates actual freedom with the economy’s ability to satisfy its citizen’s needs.

“Freedom from want” requires addressing scarcity and the economy’s productive capacity to satisfy needs of the population fully. An economy consists of producers transforming nature into goods and services that satisfy our needs. The economy, however, is limited by its current productive capacity, but such limitations do not imply a loss or restriction of its citizens’ freedom in any meaningful sense.

In the same way that a man who doesn’t have the power to leap over a tall building like Superman is still free — he is just limited by the ability nature has provided him — an economy lacking in productive capacity does not imply anyone’s freedom has been taken away.

Freedom from want also implies the provision of goods — goods like food and shelter that require labor to obtain. How can your freedom only be satisfied by productive effort?

Murray Rothbard in his 1982 book “The Ethics of Liberty” offers a clear and concise definition of freedom: “the absence of invasion (or aggression) by another individual against any man’s person or property.”

Rothbard’s definition of freedom does not require any production or labor of others to be satisfied. Indeed, a key difference is that under the true definition of freedom, everyone can be equally free. As long as no person is invading or engaging in aggression against another individual’s person or property, freedom can be universally enjoyed.

Under FDR’s definition, the reality of scarcity informs us that “freedom from want” cannot be universally enjoyed without a high level of production; that is, a high level of production facilitated by labor.

Which brings us to our next point. A common critique of free-market capitalism is that people are not free if they have to work to earn wages. Typical of this mindset is the “work or starve” caricature of capitalism painted by Jacobin magazine, with the snide comment that under capitalism’s so-called false freedom people are “free to starve.”

In other words, workers face no choice other than to sell their labor to owners of capital to ensure their own survival.

First off, the “work or starve” critique of capitalism is richly ironic coming from socialists, given that V.I. Lenin described as a “socialist principle” the concept “he who does not work shall not eat.”

Moreover, it’s not capitalism that produces the “work or starve” dilemma, but rather nature itself.

In a state of nature, even alone on a desert island, man must engage in productive behavior (work) to attain food for his survival. Food does not just effortlessly fall into his mouth.

It is unavoidable. Work is a necessary prerequisite to the creation of goods and services that satisfy society’s needs.

As a result, we can dismiss claims that needing to work to acquire resources — whether through direct production or exchanging your labor for money that enables you to acquire said resources — makes us unfree.

FDR’s version of “freedom” is actually a threat to freedom. It hardens people with a sense of entitlement and conflates scarce goods and services with “rights.” To satisfy FDR’s version of freedom would ironically require the infringement of the freedoms of many — via forced wealth transfers — to satisfy the imagined “right” to economic security of others.

Instead, when we refer to “freedom” we mean the ability to live free from aggression from others. And, as stated clearly in the Declaration of Independence, government’s sole intended role is to secure its citizens’ unalienable rights, not FDR’s and others’ made up version of “rights.” A citizenry whose government fully protects these rights experiences freedom in the truest sense of the word.