Freedom

I saw this the other day in an essay on Socialism, masturbation, and Christine O’Donnell by William Saletan. What do you think?

I don’t think the absence of government is sufficient to define freedom. I think social control over individuals can be exercised not just by the state but by other agents of what’s described broadly, in definitions of socialism, as the “public,” the “community,” or the “collective.” In the context of another moral issue, abortion, I wrote a whole book about this disagreement. Short version:

Liberals tend to think that freedom belongs to the individual, whereas conservatives tend to think that freedom belongs to private or local institutions such as families, communities, and businesses. The debate over prayer in school, for example, pits individual freedom against community freedom. Child abuse laws pit the rights of children against the sovereignty of families. Consumer product safety laws pit the asserted rights of consumers against the freedom of businesses. In such disputes, liberals are more inclined than conservatives to distinguish the interests of the individual from the interests of private institutions and to enlist the government to protect the former from the latter.

I think his distinction is apt, though I wouldn’t draw it strictly as between liberals and conservatives in all cases.