Full authoritarian totalitarianism, clearly. We do want the people to be free after all.

Freedom is removal of restrction. Less restrictions, more freedoms.

Absolute freedom is the removal of all restrictions. Including the restriction of absolute freedom. — god must be atheist

I recognise this is tongue-in-cheek, but I think this isn't entirely absurd. Or rather, it hints at a real problem with defining freedom as the absence of restrictions. It would imply that you generally have the freedom to kill and enslave others, and laws against this must be justifiable as restrictions on your freedom.

It is not just freedom-to that matters but freedom-from. This is the difference between liberty rights and claim rights: the former is having to obligations, the latter is someone else having obligations to you, such as not to assault you.

Also relevant are the second-order versions of both if those: the power to make changes to those first-order liberties and claims, and the immunity from such powers.

The usual conception of a maximally free society allows maximal liberty, except as limited by claims to property, including one’s own body (“that’s me/mine, you can’t do that unless I consent”) as well as maximal immunity except as limited by the power to contract (nobody can change your liberties or claims unless you agree to it).

I like to note that we generally make an exception on those minimal claims, and say that it is okay to act upon someone or their property without their consent as necessary to stop them from acting upon others likewise.

And I also advocate a similar exception to the power to contract, saying that people are immune from contracts that would limit their ability to exercise their power to contract. This not only means that you can’t sell yourself into slavery, but also things like non-compete clauses, and broadly all contract of rent and interest, fall afoul of this exception.

I think that that last bit is the big thing really missing from the notion of freedom advocated by modern American-style libertarians, and that adding it is the solution to reconciling their propertarian libertarianism with libertarian socialism.

The usual conception of a maximally free society allows maximal liberty, except as limited by claims to property, including one’s own body (“that’s me/mine, you can’t do that unless I consent”) as well as maximal immunity except as limited by the power to contract (nobody can change your liberties or claims unless you agree to it). — Pfhorrest

This usual conception is bourgeois in origin though, and it shows in the way it frames social relations in commercial terms. That is as a system where the only positive relationship between people is a contract, and outside of this you only have purely negative relations to other members in the society, i.e. the only obligations are those to refrain from a specific set of actions.

It ignores the way humans are dependent on mutual aid from one another, and can thus treat a homeless beggar as free as Jeff Bezos.

And I also advocate a similar exception to the power to contract, saying that people are immune from contracts that would limit their ability to exercise their power to contract. This not only means that you can’t sell yourself into slavery, but also things like non-compete clauses, and broadly all contract of rent and interest, fall afoul of this exception. — Pfhorrest

But do not all ongoing relationship limit your power to contract? Or even large individual purchases? Taking up a mortgage to buy a house is a very significant limitation to my further ability to contract.

And this also puts wage labor in a problematic position, because part of a contract as a laborer is that you place yourself under the authority of another person in a limited and specific way. While the obligation is generally not enforceable in industrialised countries, it's still there.

In a society of absolute freedom the only restrictions required are the ones we place on ourselves. Tempered by ethics and morality, one can live in a free society without infringing on the freedom of others.

The idea that one requires statism and laws to prevent him from doing harm to others is infantile.

The idea that one requires statism and laws to prevent him from doing harm to others is infantile.

Someone has never had to commute in Jersey.

Do you require laws to teach you right from wrong?

No, not an ascended being such as myself. But let me tell you, I once worked with people who would eat co-workers' lunches straight out of the fridge. There is no accounting for the rabble.

Although, come to think of it, while I was in high school a hotel left its bar unlocked and we stole all the liquor we could carry out of there...

So far you all had good points... very good points. Somehow I tied the freedom to political freedom with introducing the problem by presenting the title. That was not my intention. I meant any total freedom excludes itself as a function of itself, therefore it is not total freedom.

I meant the entire mental exercise as an exercise to see the paradoxical set-up in the single notion "absolute freedom".

If a thing can't contain itself, then it's not a thing... or something.

Wow. Heavy...

You may be living in a different part of the world, England, but currently I feel that I have barely any freedom left. I know that it is lockdown and the reasons for it but it seems ironic that you are posting by saying perhaps more restrictions are needed.

But currently where I am it is not allowed to meet friends or family unless it is as part of a household or care bubble. It is no longer possible to go out to a cafe for coffee or a pub for a drink. Masks have to be used on travel for journeys which must be for 'essential' journeys only and the same applies to shops too.

I find this all extremely difficult and so do others. People are struggling in terms of mental health and wellbeing. And there is no clear end in sight: breaks in lockdown, more lockdown restrictions in 2021, possible vaccination regimes.

Sometimes I wonder if I will wake up from what seems like a totalitarian nightmare.

You spake well, this what you wrote is very good. Your freedoms have been deemed necessary to be curtailed because we try collectively to combat a nasty disease.

My topic, with a misleading title, which I now find unfortunate to have written, was meant to be about not only political freedom. Yes, political freedom is part of it, but I sort of thought of ABSOLUTE FREEDOM that applies to all situations and all movement types, not just political, not just moral, not just human-activity oriented and human-values oriented. Freedom from any restriction. The question or dilemma proposed thus, is not a practical dilemma to be solved on one or a few select areas of what freedom means. I meant to propose the dilemma and paradox, on a level of complete conceptualization; a level which may use practical examples, but nevertheless is a conceptual dilemma, not a practical one. (Although conceptuality may affect the practicality.)

Yes, I do see your point. I am have found some freedom amidst restrictions. When the weather is up to it I have spent some great moments reading and writing in my room or outside on benches, which is a different option to squeezing into crowded corners of dimly lit cafes and bars.

So, I do believe that restrictions do not rule out freedom. Perhaps they enable us to find new ways.

Ultimately, freedom is a state of mind.

the way it frames social relations in commercial terms — Echarmion

I see it rather as framing the foundations of commerce in social terms.

That is as a system where the only positive relationship between people is a contract, and outside of this you only have purely negative relations to other members in the society, i.e. the only obligations are those to refrain from a specific set of actions. — Echarmion

Such that if you are doing nothing, you are doing nothing wrong, which is as it should be.

It ignores the way humans are dependent on mutual aid from one another, and can thus treat a homeless beggar as free as Jeff Bezos. — Echarmion

The problem stems from there being such a difference between the beggar and Bezos in the first place, which my modification to the usual contractual-propertarian libertarianism is meant to address. If a society's deontic principles result in the already-rich getting richer and the already-poor getting poorer, rather than everyone trending toward the middle over time all else being equal, then something somewhere has been done wrong, and I identify that "something done wrong" as primarily the institutes of rent and interest.

But do not all ongoing relationship limit your power to contract? Or even large individual purchases? Taking up a mortgage to buy a house is a very significant limitation to my further ability to contract. — Echarmion

In practice perhaps, but not in the structure of the contract itself. A mortgage contract doesn't say that you may not enter into other kinds of contracts. It does, however, say that upon certain conditions you pre-emptively agree to owe more money than you've already agreed to owe (interest), which would be invalid under my principles.

And this also puts wage labor in a problematic position, because part of a contract as a laborer is that you place yourself under the authority of another person in a limited and specific way. While the obligation is generally not enforceable in industrialised countries, it's still there. — Echarmion

That is a plausible interpretation of my principles and I don't object to its implications.

I will stand by what I said in my previous comment about having found great moments reading and about freedom being a state of mind. But I am someone who can enjoy myself alone and I know that some people find this extremely hard.

But a sense of restriction or freedom is still a subjective judgement and t@the madfool would say it is 'a paradox'.

I see it rather as framing the foundations of commerce in social terms. — Pfhorrest

Freedom is rather central to our moral systems though, so I'd argue more than just commerce is at stake.

Such that if you are doing nothing, you are doing nothing wrong, which is as it should be. — Pfhorrest

Is it? Doing nothing is already a value judgement. You're only really doing nothing when you're not conscious. So refering to doing other things as nothing is already judging them as irrelevant to the question. But can your everyday conduct, which falls under the "nothing" here, really be ignored when talking about freedom?

The problem stems from there being such a difference between the beggar and Bezos in the first place, which my modification to the usual contractual-propertarian libertarianism is meant to address. If a society's deontic principles result in the already-rich getting richer and the already-poor getting poorer, rather than everyone trending toward the middle over time all else being equal, then something somewhere has been done wrong, and I identify that "something done wrong" as primarily the institutes of rent and interest. — Pfhorrest

But even if Jeff Bezos and the beggar were trending towards the middle, that'd still not address the imbalance in their relation to each other.

For the beggar, the ability to stop others from disposing of his property is very limited, to the point of being almost entirely theoretical. Meanwhile, for Jeff Bezos, that ability is so wide ranging that it might potentially rob others of the essentials they need to survive.

It's all well and good to conclude that both persons have the same theoretical ability to exercise their freedom of will. But this is also true regardless of the actual laws. Even slaves have freedom of will and the ability to make this freedom practical through actions, the problem is that they face very different consequences.

In practice perhaps, but not in the structure of the contract itself. A mortgage contract doesn't say that you may not enter into other kinds of contracts. It does, however, say that upon certain conditions you pre-emptively agree to owe more money than you've already agreed to owe (interest), which would be invalid under my principles. — Pfhorrest

This seems a fairly thin justification. After all, you know in advance just what interest you own, and hence you're not under some arbitrary authority of the lender. The problem is entire practical, i.e. interest reduces your financial means and thereby limits your future ability to contract. But if your monthly food costs 80% of your monthly income, your freedom is similarly circumscribed regardless of rent or interest.

In legal terms, neither rent nor interest impact your ability to contract further. They only do so in practice.

Freedom is rather central to our moral systems though, so I'd argue more than just commerce is at stake. — Echarmion

I agree and didn't mean anything contrary to that. Rather, that moral principles (including those regarding freedom) apply to commerce as much as they do to anything else.

Is it? Doing nothing is already a value judgement. You're only really doing nothing when you're not conscious. So refering to doing other things as nothing is already judging them as irrelevant to the question. But can your everyday conduct, which falls under the "nothing" here, really be ignored when talking about freedom? — Echarmion

By "doing nothing" I mean making no noticeable difference from if you hadn't existed at all. Failing to help someone who would be in the same situation if you had never existed to begin with is doing nothing, and doing nothing wrong. (It is still omitting a good, but an omissible one, not an obligatory one; it's not prohibited, it's just suboptimal). If the person is only in that situation because of something you did, or are doing, that's a different story; that's not doing nothing.

(I like to think of this in terms of an example given for part of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics: the part about "...or through inaction allow a human to come to harm", that being supposedly necessary because without it a robot could set some events into motion that would not harm any human provided the robot followed up with some other action, but then simply not perform that followup, and merely "allow through inaction" a human to come to harm, but not "harm a human". I think that's an unnecessary complication of the laws, because if the robot performs the initial action without the followup then it is directly harming a human, not just allowing a human to come to harm. The robot is already required to act however necessary to prevent any of its actions from harming humans, because if it didn't, it would have harmed a human. An additional requirement prohibiting inaction is unnecessary).

But even if Jeff Bezos and the beggar were trending towards the middle, that'd still not address the imbalance in their relation to each other. — Echarmion

The point is that were it not for the runaway concentration of wealth and poverty, Bezos and the beggar would not have that imbalance to begin with. If we're starting with a situation where that imbalance already exists, then we need to take some positive actions to correct that injustice, sure. But in a properly structured society it should not be possible for such imbalances to come to be in the first place, so no such measures should be needed.

(We are, obviously, not in such a properly structured society, because those imbalances do exist, and so corrective measures are needed, in our society).

This seems a fairly thin justification. After all, you know in advance just what interest you own, and hence you're not under some arbitrary authority of the lender. — Echarmion

You don't know in advance exactly what interest you will owe. That depends on when you make your payments and how much those payments are. In agreeing to interest, you haven't just agreed that you owe someone a certain amount of money in exchange for some good or service, but you've agreed to owe them more money later, whether at that later time you want to agree to owe them more or not, and not in exchange for any further good or service, but just automatically: for every unit of money, for every unit of time, you owe them some further unit of money, on top of the amount you already agreed you owe them.

Under my principles, you couldn't have such a contract: a contract consists only of waiving a claim (transferring ownership of a good) or waiving a liberty (taking on an obligation to do or not do something) in exchange for the other party doing likewise. You do not have the power to waive your immunities, in other words to transfer away your exclusive power to change your first-order rights (by contract); and you do not have the power to waive your powers, in other words to take on obligations to permit or not permit things. Contracts of rent or interest purport to be "selling" someone the temporary use of your property, but letting someone do something is not itself doing something.

Also, adjustable-rate mortgages are a thing in the real world, and that's an extremely clear case of not knowing what your interest is going to be.


To summarize my original point. and I think our important point of agreement here (bolded in the below):

At first glance, one would think a maximally libertarian society would be one in which there were no claims at all (because every claim is a limit on someone else's liberty), and no powers at all (because powers at that point could only serve to increase claims, and so to limit liberties).

But that would leave nobody with any claims against others using violence to establish authority in practice even if not in the abstract rules of justice, and no claims to hold anybody to their promises either making reliable cooperation nigh impossible.

So it is necessary that liberties be limited at least by claims against such violence, and that people not be immune from the power to establish mutually agreed-upon obligations between each other in contracts.

But those claims and powers could themselves be abused, with those who violate the claim against such violence using that claim to protect themselves from those who would stop them, and those who would like for contracts not to require mutual agreement to leverage practical power over others to establish broader deontic power over them.

So too those claims to property and powers to contract, which limit the unrestricted liberty and immunity that one would at first think would prevail in a maximally libertarian society, must themselves be limited as described above in order to better preserve that liberty.