Individual freedom and the state: are they germane today?

Debates on issues relating to individual freedom, happiness and society have a long history going all the way back to Plato and Aristotle. Rousseau’s famous words, “man is born free but is found everywhere in chains,” encapsulates the classical dilemma of: individual versus society.

Human beings are free in nature, unbound by custom, norms and laws. But they are subjugated as property and society evolve. The only way to regain some semblance of freedom is by joining an organised state and subjecting oneself to its general will. If the individual renounces the general will, Rousseau enigmatically announces that a state can ‘force a man to be free’.

Is man more or less happy and free today as part of a state? The unequal contest between individual freedoms and the claims of the state continue to this day as the powers of the state, overt and covert, along with instruments of social control expand. The ultimate battle thus is of the quest for human freedom and socio-economic welfare by challenging structures of dominance and control.

What claim can lie to individual happiness and freedoms when more than 26% of the world population lives in extreme poverty. Julian Assange is being deported for having exposed truths about powerful governments. Freedom of expression is under attack and alternate voices are treated as threats, best silenced.

Workers, minorities, females and social movements are feared as inimical to social stability. Paradoxically, Rousseau, who was one of the inspirations of the French Revolution, is also criticised for sowing the seeds of totalitarianism by positing the concept that man can only realise his real, meaningful emancipation after being subsumed as part of the total ‘general will’. By spelling out freedom in such a way, Rousseau has been accused of providing justification to autocrats appropriating powers under the guise of democracy to define what constitutes the larger interests of the individual and the state — not by consent but through unaccountable coercion. The individual compromises his freedoms and, in a convoluted way, is portrayed as partaking in an imaginary ‘exalted freedom’.

History shows numerous examples where, in the very name of democratic freedoms, individual rights have been denied. How and to what extent does man obtain the moral right to define the freedoms and interests of the individual and the state?

There’s the rub.

Social contract theorists believed in an imagined contract — an agreement between individuals who forgo unlimited freedoms for constituting a state that will in turn ensure security of life and property. The state thus derives its legitimacy from the willing consent of individuals. To that extent, state powers are circumscribed by individual freedoms, right to life, happiness, culture and the common good. The state or rulers act as ‘trustees’ of the rights of individuals and of society. Where the state fails to guarantee these rights, the fundamental bond of ‘consent’ underlying the social contract breaks down and individuals or society can exercise their right under natural law to change a state or government. In the extreme, if human life is endangered, individuals have the right to revolt against the state.

On the other hand, the evolution of society and the state is conceived from the point of view of economic determinism. The history of mankind is characterised by the economic domination of a few, exercised — through the ownership of the means of production — on the labouring masses who earn their livelihood by expending their physical or mental labour.

In search for greater wealth, capitalism spread to foreign markets instituting colonialism with an ensuing bitter period of European imperialist wars. In subsequent stages, wealth was diversified into financial assets, leading to control over the monetary system of the world, which characterises modern capitalism.

The debate between the individual and the state was central to the European Reformation, the Enlightenment and the French Revolution — three watersheds in the evolution of human thought. The contest between the rights of the Church, the Crown and the individual resolved into recognition of the rights of the individual, though mostly the aristocracy, against arbitrary monarchical power. From the crucible of these seminal movements arose humanism, liberalism, individualism and democracy in tandem with the scientific and industrial revolution. Is the contest over?

The history of thought and social change has not been without its cruel paradoxes. The concern for the rights of mankind in actual practice has often led to denial of individual liberties in the very name of democracy. Millions have paid the price in the quest for human emancipation and economic welfare. Long periods of war and destruction in Europe, the fierce contest for colonial wealth, and perceived past injustices led to emergence of new forms of state power symbolised by Italian autocracy and revanchist Germany. Individuals and their freedoms had meaning only as part of the state. Plurality and free press were secondary to the state interests. Criticism of the state became synonymous with sedition. Young minds were moulded by being taught nationalist and exclusionary narratives. Means of communication like the radio were used to influence opinions. Massive rallies were held with thousands of flailing battle flag accompanied by inspirational songs and anthems.

Ultra-nationalism and chauvinism were spread through pervasive propaganda. Narratives of foreign conspiracies were created to arouse patriotic passions. Intolerance and social violence were promoted explicitly or through insinuations to compel conformity. In social constructs, unlike theism, only relative truth persists and no body of thought can claim, to the exclusion of competing beliefs or policies, an absolute truth. No policy or plan has monopoly to certainty in resolving the various problems of society.

History, unfortunately, is replete with examples of experiments with social organisation or political movements that claim finality to truth. In mass psychology, their effects appear in hero worship, emotional outbursts and mass hysteria, appealing to instincts rather than reason, logic or facts. Inevitably, when the reality of the unsustainability of social, economic and political formulations, based not upon an actual but a created reality, is confronted, such ventures collapse and in turn cause socio-economic and national disruptions. This implosion leads to extreme polarisation, even geographical disintegration, with serious ramifications.

Questions about individual freedom and the state are therefore still germane today as they were thousands of years ago. Legitimacy of a democratic state or government subsists in the promotion of individual freedoms and the promise of socio-economic improvement of the people in whose name it attains power. The moral right to govern is forfeited once the rulers fail to protect and promote human freedoms along with individual and social welfare.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 19^th, 2022.

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