BobKKKindle$
8th March 2009, 16:35
"Should freedom come before or after the state?"
The nature of freedom, and specifically the relationship between freedom and the state, and whether the two can be reconciled, are issues that have troubled theorists ever since political theory emerged as a distinct sphere of intellectual activity, and even today there is still a lack of consensus between rival schools of thought. This is primarily because freedom is a concept that is hard to define, but also because freedom is widely seen as something that is integral to our identity as human beings, such that political institutions must be constructed in a way that does not unnecessarily violate freedom in order to be legitimate, and any restrictions that are accepted as in some way necessary are not to be taken lightly. This essay will attempt to deal with some of these themes, by drawing on the works of political theorists who have written extensively on this subject. However, before we begin this task, there is a clarification that needs to be made concerning the expression “before or after”, as the way in which we define this expression will ultimately determine what the essay will be about. It is possible to understand it simply as the issue of whether freedom or authority (as represented and exercised by the state) is more important, but a more interesting albeit not entirely dissimilar way to approach the question is to discuss whether humans require the state in order to enjoy and exercise their freedom, or, to take a different perspective, whether the state exists to enhance or diminish our freedom. This essay will adopt the latter interpretation and will argue that, properly understood, the state is a symptom and integral part of a society in which freedom is systematically denied to the majority, and freedom in its most complete and meaningful sense can only be enjoyed when the conditions which give rise to the state and indeed the state itself have been eliminated. However, at the same time, we also show that the conventional understanding of freedom associated with liberals is seriously flawed. When confronted with such a vast topic, it is difficult to know where to start, but the best starting-point is the meaning of freedom.
The traditional way to define freedom has been to conceive of it solely in terms of what we can or should be able to do without encountering interference from other people or the state, otherwise known as negative freedom, as defined by Berlin.1 This definition is primarily derived from those thinkers who have argued that prior to the creation of the state, men lived in a state of nature in which there was no source of authority to prevent them from violating each other's rights and acting aggressively towards other beings, and that, in this state, the need to access the things they need to survive will drive men into conflict with each other, as men attempt to place themselves in positions of strength and thereafter carry out attacks against those whom they think will try to depose them in order to further their own ends, thereby generating a situation based on mutual distrust and persistent violence. The most extreme version of the state of nature is presented by Hobbes, who argues that humans are motivated primarily self-preservation and are incapable of showing compassion towards each other when doing so would undermine their ability to pursue this goal, such that life in the state of nature is “nasty, brutish, and short”, and, following from this premise, the state is required to punish those who conduct acts of aggression, and maintain order. Hobbes argued that men do not have a right to change their form of government once the state has come into being or demand the execution of their sovereign, on the grounds that the state is a product of a covenant between humans who would otherwise be forced to deal with the problems inherent in the state of nature, and, for Hobbes, the law of nature prescribes that men have a moral obligation to respect and conduct the covenants they have entered into. On this basis, the citizen cannot claim that she has been treated unjustly by the sovereign, except when she is ordered to kill herself, as this would violate the fundamental law of self-preservation, which Hobbes saw as the basic right to which all men are entitled. Locke, on the other hand, presents a softer version of the state of nature by arguing that even in the absence of a state, men retain some level of morality and so generally act in accordance with natural law, and yet, because this law is unwritten, each individual is liable to apply it is her own way, giving rise to misapplications whereby rights are violated and the potential for conflict created. In this case, the state is required to act as an impartial judge and apply natural law universally, which includes the protection of property rights, given that, according to Locke, property is natural, as someone has a right to assert their ownership over a part of the natural world if they change or improve it in some way. Locke also acknowledges, in contrast to Hobbes, that if the state attempts to violate the rights of its citizens and assume tyrannical power, citizens have a right to rebel against the state and establish a new government, on the grounds that an unnecessary and illegitimate increase in the power of the state constitutes a violation of the covenant from which the state was created, and therefore deprives men of any obligation to obey the terms of the contract. These are important differences, but what is important at this point is the premises from which Hobbes and Locke start, and how they conceive of freedom. Both thinkers accept the notion that men exist in a state of nature before the state has been created, in which they are not constrained and can therefore exercise unlimited freedom, and the creation of the state takes place in order to escape from the state of nature, which necessarily requires that the state limit freedom – specifically, the freedom to violate the rights of others. The kind of freedom man can exercise both before and after the creation of the state is negative, meaning it is defined in terms of what men have the legal right to do without being punished or interfered with, such that, when men enjoy negative freedom, they are not being compelled to do or be certain things by the state.2 Or, to use Hobbes's expression:
“...a free man is he that in those things which by his strength and wit he is able to do is not hindered to do what he hath the will to do”3
Despite the historic prominence of this interpretation, there are manifold problems with an understanding based solely on negative freedom. Most importantly, having the legal freedom to do something does not guarantee that someone has the realistic ability to enjoy a given right, because our circumstances have the power to deny us control over our lives and leave us in a state of dependency, in which we have a limited number of options open to us in terms of what we can realistically do with the resources at our disposal, and are subject to the control of other individuals or external forces, such as the state, and the economy. As Taylor points out, the proponents of negative freedom see being free as a matter of what we can do, such that freedom consists just in there being no physical obstacles, whether or not we do anything to exercise our options, and he describes this view of freedom as rooted in an “opportunity-concept”, as distinct from an “exercise-concept”. A broader and more authentic conception of freedom is to see it as linked to autonomy, and as the ability to pursue and achieve self-realization, otherwise known as positive freedom, based on the “exercise-concept” mentioned above. In addition to external constraints (as distinct from physical obstacles), Taylor also regards internal factors such as false consciousness and inner fears as having a role to play in limiting freedom even when no physical interference is present. Following from this, Taylor goes on to argue that positive freedom involves discriminating between different activities and motivation and so on this basis exercising freedom means obeying our real will and behaving in a way that will best allow us to realize our full potential, even if we are not initially aware of what this entails. The implication of this premise is that we may act in a certain way due to internal factors which prevent us from making rational judgements and pursuing what is in our best interests, such as acting spitefully towards others, and in these cases we are not exercising freedom, and are not free in the same way as someone who is not burdened by these internal factors.4 As we shall see, this is a highly controversial argument, as it can easily lead to the notion that, because the individual cannot be trusted to act rationally, the state has the right to limit certain activities which an individual might otherwise have pursued, and to pressure the individual to do certain things which she might not otherwise have wanted to do if she had been allowed to act independently. It would seem, based on this, that positive freedom could actually be used to justify an intrusive and paternalistic state. This indicates that positive freedom is not without its difficulties, as has even been seen as a recipe for a totalitarian society, but we can establish that it is a more persuasive way to conceive of freedom than the negative interpretation. It may seem at this point that we can end the essay by concluding that, because positive freedom requires that the state exist and regulate the lives of its citizens, humans can only obtain freedom through the state, and hence the state exists to enhance freedom. However, this is not the case, as whether this is true depends entirely on how we define the state, and how theorists have understood the realization of positive freedom. This essay will henceforth seek to show how positive freedom can be attained, and especially whether it must be attained through the state. Berlin correctly argues that if we were to place political thinkers in separate categories based on which interpretation of freedom they adopt, then both Marx and Rousseau would be located in the positive category, and would stand out from all other members of that category as the theorists who have had the most intriguing and influential answers to offer. Therefore, this essay will now examine the arguments of both theorists, as well as the continuities and discontinuities between them, and evaluate the extent to which the societies and political systems they supported are consistent with positive freedom.
It is most advantageous to begin with Rousseau. In order to understand why Rousseau is so often seen as part of the canon of positive freedom, we need to begin with his view of human nature, and contemporary society. Rousseau also argued that men once inhabited a state of nature, as described in the 'Discourse on Inequality', but unlike his predecessors, he suggests that men led a solitary existence, such that they did not often come into contact with each other, and as a result conflict did not often occur. It is in this state that men are able to exercise unlimited natural liberty due to the absence of sovereign authority, and men are ultimately bounded by passions and feelings. As Dent notes, an important theme in Rousseau's work is the notion that our preferences and personalities change as a result of developments in material circumstances, and it is for this reason that he sees the state of nature as an ideal and happy state, but only when we actually inhabit it, and not after, because as soon as men begin to enter into social relations with each other and form associations, the state of nature is no longer capable of satisfying their desires.5 In addition to this flexible conception of human behavior, Rousseau also argues that what makes men different from animals is the fact that we are capable of making choices and discriminating between different options, and as we accumulate experience, we become choice-guided instead of merely obeying out instincts. This is highly relevant to the essay, because at this point it is already clear that Rousseau sees autonomy as an important value which involves the ability to exercise our reason and make choices which reflect what would be in our best interests, instead of surrendering our faculties to instinct, as mankind might have done prior to the birth of societies. This is part of a long French tradition involving Pascal as well as other philosophers, the central component of which is the assumption that belief and understanding are the result of practice, and cannot be derived from a fixed human nature. Rousseau does, however, identify two human traits which are natural and therefore “prior to reason” - amour de soi-même, which Rousseau understands as the sentiment that drives us to attend to our self-preservation , and pitié, which consists of a natural capacity to empathize with and feel compassion for others. It is later revealed that these traits form the basis of a legitimate and just political order, but in the context of his own society, Rousseau argues that as men become used to living alongside each other, and as they become reliant on human interaction to satisfy their psychological and material needs, they develop a need for approval, otherwise know as amour propre, and it is this trait that gives rise to pride and envy, and dependence on others, because we come to judge our own lives in relation to the lives of others, and we become conscious of the ways in which other people see us. Therefore, in a modern society amour propre comes to dominate our behavior, and by drawing attention to this, Rousseau seeks to expose polite society for what it really is – a constant exchange and assertion of power whereby the most corrupt members of society are able to gain the approval of others and establish themselves in positions of social dominance, thereby encouraging other men to follow their example. Modernity is, according to Rousseau, essentially decadent, as there exists no sense of common good. In this respect, it seems that Marx chose to follow Rousseau's example, as the former also sought to expose various aspects of his own society that would otherwise have been seen as expressions of compassion as ultimately linked to capitalist property relations – the family, for example, is described in 'The Communist Manifesto' as a “money relation” under capitalism. Rousseau's fascinating criticism of modernity compels him to search for a society in which individual passion is not overstimulated, and in which the individual is not placed in a position of dependency on others, thereby achieving a balance between internal expectations of the world, and what the world is capable of giving to the individual. The answer comes in the form of 'The Social Contract', which opens as follows:
“MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they”6
The term “in chains” in this opening can be interpreted in multiple ways. On a basic level, it can be seen as a reference to the fact that men are forced to live under illegitimate forms of political rule, but it can also be interpreted as the notion that passions act as chains which prevent men from acting freely, and this is affirmed by the second sentence, as we may be led to believe that we are master of others, but have been compelled to assume that position as a result of passions which lie beyond our control. We have therefore established that, due to his emphasis on passions, and dependency, Rousseau is firmly within the canon of positive freedom, and saw his own society as seriously lacking in this type of freedom. Rousseau states at the beginning of 'The Social Contract' that the aim of his body politic is to leave each individual as free as they were before they entered into the contract and became a member of the body politic, whilst also protecting the individual from harm. How then, does Rousseau seeks to solve this problem? As the title of his text suggests, Rousseau saw the transition from the state of nature to a body politic as taking place through a social contract, but in contrast to the covenant advocated by Hobbes, whereby a sovereign is created in order to govern over the citizenry, and active participation by citizens in the creation of laws is not a precondition for legitimate political rule, Rousseau's social contract involves each individual making a contract with herself in her capacity as citizen, even before the citizenry has come into being as a meaningful political concept, in addition to make a contract with the “public”. The problematic notion of making a contract with yourself reflects the form and functioning of Rousseau's vision of what constitutes a body politic. Rousseau argues that the only legitimate body politic is one in which the whole of the citizenry participates directly in the process of creating laws through a collective assembly involving every members of the community, and if at any point the assembly alienates its sovereignty by electing representatives to make laws on its behalf, or by passing sovereign to an individual, it instantly loses its status as a body politic, and men become slaves. According to Rousseau, the aim of the assembly is to rule in accordance with the general will, and corresponds to what is in the shared interests of the citizenry body, and, as Bertram suggests, continues to exist in a metaphysical form, even when the actual decisions of the assembly are misinformed, or reflect the interests of specific groups within society, as may sometimes be the case. The absolute sovereignty of the assembly demands that there cannot be any constraints on what the assembly is allowed to do, because this would require a body of superior authority, or a division of powers between multiple bodies, thereby leading to the alienation of sovereignty. This would alarm a proponent of negative liberty, but it is sensible in the context of Rousseau's understanding of political legitimacy, and freedom. If we accept that there is such a thing as a shared community interest which each individual would do well to follow in order to realize her individual potential, then it follows that anyone who votes against a particular proposal in the collective assembly must be doing so not because she has legitimate grievances, but simply because she is unable to conceive of what she really wants, and has been blinded by passions, and therefore, by being forced to obey the will of the community, she is being “forced to be free”, because her passions are being forcibly disregarded in favour of reason. This conception of freedom is reflected as follows:
“The mere impulse of appetite is slavery whereas the obedience of law we prescribe to ourselves is liberty”7
The above clearly indicates that Rousseau upholds positive liberty, specifically the recognition that internal factors prevent us from being free, and sees participation in the assembly and living under the assembly's laws as the means by which these factors can be overcome. In essence, the primary function of the social contract is to create a basis for authentic self-willing. The type of freedom described above is “moral freedom”, distinct from natural liberty, which men enjoy in the state of nature, and civic liberty, which consists of the rights and freedoms accorded to each individual citizen in the body politic. This shows that Rousseau fulfills his promise not to diminish freedom, as the body politic replaces natural freedom with a more meaningful form of freedom which liberates us from the control of our passions and thereby allows us to make rational choices. When investigating the nature of the laws which can be passed by the assembly, and how such laws should be implemented, Rousseau stresses that the only just laws are those which apply to the whole of the citizenry instead of just one segment of it, as targeting a specific segment would mean that the general will would no longer be general, but particular. The egalitarian character of the general will, both in terms of participation and living under the community's laws, leads us back to the concept of amour propre, as it suggests that the general will confers on each of us an equal standing in the eyes of others, thereby negating the destructive impact of amour propre on human relationships, and further liberating the individual from her passions. It has been shown above that Rousseau's primary concern is with the internal obstacles to freedom, especially in the form of passions such as amour propre, and he believes that the only way in which these passions can be overcome and moral freedom attained is through a state which meets certain criteria for political legitimacy, such that, for Rousseau, the state comes before freedom. It should also be pointed out, however, that in addition to recognizing internal obstacles to freedom, Rousseau also argues that a body politic which aims to maintain its legitimacy should avoid extremes of wealth and poverty, such that nobody should be so poor that they are forced to sell their labour, and nobody should be so rich that they have enough money to purchase labour power. This indicates that Rousseau was aware of the ways in which economic inequality could subvert political democracy and lead to a section of society be able to exercise more political power by virtue of their wealth, even when everyone is theoretically accorded equal power. On a more abstract level, it seems that Rousseau was conscious of the role of economic circumstances in determining the level of freedom a individual can enjoy which, as noted above, also falls within the scope of positive liberty. These insights will be addressed in greater depth shortly. In sum, however, it can be said that Rousseau acknowledged the distinction between positive and negative liberty, and provided a credible solution, in the form of the social contract. However, this solution is not without its problems – most importantly, and as Berlin emphatically states, the logic of Rousseau's argument could easily lead to the unique preferences of individuals being disregarded on the grounds that individuals cannot be trusted to think for themselves due to the unfreedom of passions. In addition, Rousseau's solution is also at odds with the argument established at the beginning of this essay – that the state is an oppressive entity, and real positive freedom can only be attained when the state is no longer needed, and has been done away with. This raises a paradox, in that we normally associate positive liberty with policies that can only be carried out by the state, such as income redistribution, and national education. We now confront the question: how can positive liberty be achieved without the state, and in what way is the state oppressive from a perspective based on positive liberty?
Marx presented a unique understanding of the state which derives from his analysis of human society and historical development. Prior to Marx, other theorists had seen the state as an entity which exists above and independently of the social relations which comprise, to use Hegel's term, “civil society”, and as an entity which allows social tensions to be resolved in favour of the common good. In contrast to this approach, Marx sought to show that the state is inextricably bound up with the balance of classes forces, and ultimately functions as an instrument of class domination, in order to secure the position of the ruling class and enforce the dominant relations of production in each historical epoch, or, in Marx's terminology, each “mode of production”. The implication of this statement is that prior to the emergence of class antagonisms – which Marx saw as being historical in nature – the state did not exist, and if at some point in the future mankind found a way to eliminate class divisions once and for all, the state would cease to have a useful social function, and would thereafter “whither way”. From this it is clear that Marx did not see the state as an eternally necessary feature of human societies, and certainly not the only method by which freedom can be obtained. There must, for Marx, be a form of society in which men enjoy positive freedom, and yet this society cannot be organized in the same way as capitalism, given that capitalism can only exist with the aid of a state to protect property rights. In order to understand why Marx might have seen the abolition of class division as progressive, and why Marx is so important for this essay, we need to look at freedom under capitalism, and in what way freedom would be changed in a post-revolutionary society. It would be wrong, based on the egalitarian thrust of contemporary critiques of capitalism, or the historical legacy of Marx's ideas, to assume that freedom is only a minor theme within Marxism, and Brenkert emphatically states that freedom lies at the heart of Marx's ethics, and any other concerns such as justice and equality are secondary in terms of where the imperative to overthrow capitalism ultimately lies. As Brenkert points out, Marx established his own view of freedom as distinct from what he sees as the bourgeois conception of freedom which emphasizes the importance of being free from external compulsion, not only in terms of the state's powers of coercion, but also, Marx argues, in terms of economic forces. By acknowledging that liberating man from the control of economic forces would comprise the fulfillment of bourgeois freedom, Marx is setting a high standard for himself, by promising a type of freedom that offers even more than this, and cannot even be partly realized under existing conditions.8 In fact, Marx explicitly criticizes those socialists who argued that the bourgeois concept is limited to state coercion, and on that basis contended that the advance of freedom under communism would constitute only the liberation of man from economic forces, and nothing more, expressed as follows:
“By 'external compulsion' the true socialists do not understand the restrictive material conditions of live of given individuals. They see it only as the compulsion exercised by the state [...] which far from being the foundation of society [is] only a consequence of its structure”9
The basis of Marx's view of freedom is self-determination, or the notion that man should be able to control the way in which he develops himself through the active fulfillment and development of desires and capacities, otherwise known as self-objectification. This view is rooted in the Marxist view that what makes mankind different from animals is our capacity to engage in conscious labour with the natural world, and our fellow humans, and that by doing so we are also capable of developing ourselves and our knowledge of the world around us. The developmental aspect is key here, as this is what differentiates Marx from negative freedom, allows us to identify him as an adherent of freedom in its positive form. The meaning of this will become clear in due course, but first it is useful to look at why capitalism is a mode of production which denies self-determination. Marx recognized that, as a class society based on the private ownership of the means of production, the vast majority under capitalism have no other way to survive except by selling their labour power as a commodity to a member of the ruling class, in exchange for which they are given a wage to purchase the goods they need to reproduce their labour power and thereby return to work at the beginning of each working day, these goods taking the form of commodities exchanged on the market place in order to realize the surplus value generated during the production process. This set of dynamics give rise to different forms of unfreedom, which Marx characterizes in Feuerbach's terminology as alienation. The nature of the wage-labour relationship is such that what should be a meaningful activity that allows man to exercise his creative faculties becomes something that man performs as a means to realize an end, in violation of his species-being, as work consists of the repetition of a small range of meaningless tasks, with the worker being deprived of any control over the way in which the work-process is organized, and the worker does not control the products of his labour, which remain in the hands of the capitalist and, as noted above, are sold as commodities, thereby transforming them into objects which exercise power over the worker. The role of the community in allowing individuals to realize freedom is distorted as workers are forced into competition with each other by the dynamics of the labour market, and the dominance of commodity production means that men only encounter each other as beings who possess and are willing to buy commodities, thereby leading to social relationships being transformed into commercial transactions instead of genuine human interaction intended to treat men as ends in themselves, and not merely as beings who can be manipulated in pursuit of profit, as occurs under capitalism. In this way, as a result of wage-labour, which constitutes the basis of the proletarian's existence under capitalism, man lacks control over his life and is free from the effects of capitalism only when he is engaged in those activities which mankind shares with animals, such as sleeping and eating, and he therefore lacks opportunities to develop his abilities and interests, constituting an enhanced state of unfreedom in the Marxist sense. Marx was also conscious of the ways in which mankind's relationship with nature impacted the potential for freedom, because as long as mankind remains subject to the control of natural forces, and is compelled to spend the greater part of each day simply accumulating enough resources to avoid starvation and protect against natural disasters, then, even in a classless society, man would not enjoy genuine freedom, as his capacity for self-determination would be severely constrained by his material circumstances. In this respect capitalism is progressive insofar as it allows for the rapid development of the productive forces and thereby establishes a basis for the realization of freedom once capitalism has been overthrown, even if life under capitalism itself is unfree. For Marx, then, man can only enter the “true realm of freedom” when he has moved beyond the need to labour as a means to an end, which requires both mankind's mastery over nature and the abolition of wage-labour (and hence private property). This is not meant to imply that life under communism would not require man to do any necessary labour, as interaction with the natural world remains the basis of material reproduction, but Marx does make it clear that even this labour would not be alienated as under capitalism because it products would not take the form of commodities, and communism would allow humans to spend more of their time performing intrinsically enjoyable and fulfilling activity, expressed as follows:
“[the true realm of freedom] can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working day is its basic prerequisite”10
For Marx, “the true realm of freedom” would entail men being allowed to engage in range of different activities, and to develop their talents in each, in contrast to the monotony of labour under capitalism. This is expressed in the infamous passage where Marx lists the activities that someone could potentially choose to do during the course of a single day, although it remains unclear as to whether Marx was being serious, and there are obvious objections that can be made as to the feasibility of not having a predominant sphere of activity. It is perhaps best to understand this passage in terms of the idea that Marx is expressing – that diversity of activity is important for freedom, and that the activities men enter into should be the result of conscious choices – and not the exact manifestation of this idea, or the poetic language in which it is conveyed, as is it highly unlikely that Marx would expect the inhabitants of a communist society to develop their abilities in literally every single way imaginable. It is only any engaging in this form of labour – labour for its own sake, conducted through diverse activities – than we can develop our abilities and thereby become capable of appreciating the products we create (as well as the natural objects we use in order to create these products) for their concrete and aesthetic qualities. As Brenkert points out, this contrasts with capitalism in that, under capitalism, the abstract qualities of goods become prominent, as they exchange as commodities in ratios determined by the amount of abstract labour time required to produce them, and are considered useful by individuals only when they are owned as private property.11 The idea that changes in our internal psychology can constitute an advance in freedom by removing obstacles to us being able to enjoy a fully-rounded existence returns us to the subject of this essay, and reminds us that Marx is rightfully associated with positive freedom. This notion of appreciation also extends to relations between human beings under communism, and Marx makes it clear that his view of freedom cannot be enjoyed as an isolated individual. This is true primarily in the sense that men need to interact with each other in order to exert control over nature and so the material preconditions for the successful attainment of communism can only be created through collective action, but in the context of a discussion of freedom, Marx also recognizes that, as social beings, men are capable of being free and developing themselves only when they are members of a community and can thereby satisfy their emotional needs. As noted above, Marx reveals his knowledge of Kant by arguing that the only legitimate way to relate to others is by treating them as an end, and by seeking to appreciate the qualities that are specific to them as individuals so that we can, in turn, develop our own particular qualities, and gain admiration for these qualities. This constitutes a further form of self-determination and so falls within the category of positive freedom. The form of community Marx advocates differs from the state in that the state is necessarily an institution designed to secure the privileges of a specific group within society and maintain the subordination of the working population, and is therefore incapable of supporting the kind of mutually beneficial relations that Marx seems to be advocating. It is however wrong to assume that the the abolition of the state is synonymous with the end of functions which are currently carried out by the state, as at no point did Marx suggest that a communist society would have no need of laws to prevent individuals from denying each other opportunities for self-determination. Rather, for Marx, the state in a communist society does not have a class character because class antagonisms have been resolves, and is not distinct from civil society such that, in the Marxist sense of the term, the state does not exist at all. The withering away of the state as a distinct and class-orientated entity is, for Avineri, the abolition of alienation of the political from the social sphere, and of the private individual from political being. Avineri goes on to argue that the attainment of communism represents the Hegelian Aufhebung of both the state and civil society as the two merge together and become synonymous with each other, denoting both preservation and transcendence.12 It is tempting, on this basis to suggest that Marx may have been well disposed towards the Rousseauian state, given that Rousseau was also keen to eliminate class division, and his emphasis on universality, and yet a crucial way in which Marx differs from Rousseau is that he is aware of individual differences and therefore does not give any rules on the form that self-determination should take, and nor does he lay out an institutional framework that would allow the community to control the way in which the individual determines herself. In this respect Marx's conception of freedom combines the choice component of negative freedom with a profound understanding of positive freedom, as Marx seeks to establish a society in which productive activity is inherently valued and freely chosen, and allows for the development of individual talents, expressed as follows:
“Free activity for the Communists is the creative manifestation of life arising from the free development of all abilities of the whole person”13
It would seem from this that Marx's understanding is more advanced even that Rousseau's, and the promise of bourgeois freedom seems pathetic by comparison. In conclusion, this essay has shown that any attempt to establish conditions for the realization of freedom must take positive freedom as a more authentic and meaningful manifestation of the term, which allows for internal obstacles, emphasizes the desirability of emotional and psychological development, and is not restricted to physical or economic obstacles. It has also been shown that both Rousseau and Marx fit within the category of thinkers who have endorsed positive freedom, albeit in slightly different ways – whereas Rousseau seeks to constrain mankind's passions by subjecting all to reason, as embodied in the general will, Marx seeks to remove all barriers to the development of desire and personality, otherwise known as self-determination. Rousseau' vision takes place through a state with unlimited power, whereas Marx's vision of freedom is rooted in a communist society which comes into being after the state has been overthrown. We should not overstate the differences between the state and the administration of a communist society, but if we accept that Marx presents a more advanced understanding of freedom, and if we accept that Marxist analysis of the state, then, to return to the essay title, freedom comes before the state, as we do not require the state to exercise freedom – merely a society organized on a communist basis with an advanced productive apparatus. Marx's vision is truly revolutionary, as it poses deep challenges to a system whose ideologues so often claim to support individual freedom and yet, according to Marx, dismally fail to deliver. In a world in which individuality and development are so often crushed beneath market forces, his critique retains its force.
Bibliography:
Avineri, The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx
Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty
Brenkert, Marx's Ethics of Freedom
Dent, Rousseau's
Heilbroner, Marxism: For and Against
Hobbes, Leviathan
Locke, Two Treatises of Governent
Marx, The Communist Manifesto
Marx, The German Ideology
Marx, Das Kapital, Volume III
Miller, The Liberty Reader
Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality
Rousseau, The Social Contract
The nature of freedom, and specifically the relationship between freedom and the state, and whether the two can be reconciled, are issues that have troubled theorists ever since political theory emerged as a distinct sphere of intellectual activity, and even today there is still a lack of consensus between rival schools of thought. This is primarily because freedom is a concept that is hard to define, but also because freedom is widely seen as something that is integral to our identity as human beings, such that political institutions must be constructed in a way that does not unnecessarily violate freedom in order to be legitimate, and any restrictions that are accepted as in some way necessary are not to be taken lightly. This essay will attempt to deal with some of these themes, by drawing on the works of political theorists who have written extensively on this subject. However, before we begin this task, there is a clarification that needs to be made concerning the expression “before or after”, as the way in which we define this expression will ultimately determine what the essay will be about. It is possible to understand it simply as the issue of whether freedom or authority (as represented and exercised by the state) is more important, but a more interesting albeit not entirely dissimilar way to approach the question is to discuss whether humans require the state in order to enjoy and exercise their freedom, or, to take a different perspective, whether the state exists to enhance or diminish our freedom. This essay will adopt the latter interpretation and will argue that, properly understood, the state is a symptom and integral part of a society in which freedom is systematically denied to the majority, and freedom in its most complete and meaningful sense can only be enjoyed when the conditions which give rise to the state and indeed the state itself have been eliminated. However, at the same time, we also show that the conventional understanding of freedom associated with liberals is seriously flawed. When confronted with such a vast topic, it is difficult to know where to start, but the best starting-point is the meaning of freedom.
The traditional way to define freedom has been to conceive of it solely in terms of what we can or should be able to do without encountering interference from other people or the state, otherwise known as negative freedom, as defined by Berlin.1 This definition is primarily derived from those thinkers who have argued that prior to the creation of the state, men lived in a state of nature in which there was no source of authority to prevent them from violating each other's rights and acting aggressively towards other beings, and that, in this state, the need to access the things they need to survive will drive men into conflict with each other, as men attempt to place themselves in positions of strength and thereafter carry out attacks against those whom they think will try to depose them in order to further their own ends, thereby generating a situation based on mutual distrust and persistent violence. The most extreme version of the state of nature is presented by Hobbes, who argues that humans are motivated primarily self-preservation and are incapable of showing compassion towards each other when doing so would undermine their ability to pursue this goal, such that life in the state of nature is “nasty, brutish, and short”, and, following from this premise, the state is required to punish those who conduct acts of aggression, and maintain order. Hobbes argued that men do not have a right to change their form of government once the state has come into being or demand the execution of their sovereign, on the grounds that the state is a product of a covenant between humans who would otherwise be forced to deal with the problems inherent in the state of nature, and, for Hobbes, the law of nature prescribes that men have a moral obligation to respect and conduct the covenants they have entered into. On this basis, the citizen cannot claim that she has been treated unjustly by the sovereign, except when she is ordered to kill herself, as this would violate the fundamental law of self-preservation, which Hobbes saw as the basic right to which all men are entitled. Locke, on the other hand, presents a softer version of the state of nature by arguing that even in the absence of a state, men retain some level of morality and so generally act in accordance with natural law, and yet, because this law is unwritten, each individual is liable to apply it is her own way, giving rise to misapplications whereby rights are violated and the potential for conflict created. In this case, the state is required to act as an impartial judge and apply natural law universally, which includes the protection of property rights, given that, according to Locke, property is natural, as someone has a right to assert their ownership over a part of the natural world if they change or improve it in some way. Locke also acknowledges, in contrast to Hobbes, that if the state attempts to violate the rights of its citizens and assume tyrannical power, citizens have a right to rebel against the state and establish a new government, on the grounds that an unnecessary and illegitimate increase in the power of the state constitutes a violation of the covenant from which the state was created, and therefore deprives men of any obligation to obey the terms of the contract. These are important differences, but what is important at this point is the premises from which Hobbes and Locke start, and how they conceive of freedom. Both thinkers accept the notion that men exist in a state of nature before the state has been created, in which they are not constrained and can therefore exercise unlimited freedom, and the creation of the state takes place in order to escape from the state of nature, which necessarily requires that the state limit freedom – specifically, the freedom to violate the rights of others. The kind of freedom man can exercise both before and after the creation of the state is negative, meaning it is defined in terms of what men have the legal right to do without being punished or interfered with, such that, when men enjoy negative freedom, they are not being compelled to do or be certain things by the state.2 Or, to use Hobbes's expression:
“...a free man is he that in those things which by his strength and wit he is able to do is not hindered to do what he hath the will to do”3
Despite the historic prominence of this interpretation, there are manifold problems with an understanding based solely on negative freedom. Most importantly, having the legal freedom to do something does not guarantee that someone has the realistic ability to enjoy a given right, because our circumstances have the power to deny us control over our lives and leave us in a state of dependency, in which we have a limited number of options open to us in terms of what we can realistically do with the resources at our disposal, and are subject to the control of other individuals or external forces, such as the state, and the economy. As Taylor points out, the proponents of negative freedom see being free as a matter of what we can do, such that freedom consists just in there being no physical obstacles, whether or not we do anything to exercise our options, and he describes this view of freedom as rooted in an “opportunity-concept”, as distinct from an “exercise-concept”. A broader and more authentic conception of freedom is to see it as linked to autonomy, and as the ability to pursue and achieve self-realization, otherwise known as positive freedom, based on the “exercise-concept” mentioned above. In addition to external constraints (as distinct from physical obstacles), Taylor also regards internal factors such as false consciousness and inner fears as having a role to play in limiting freedom even when no physical interference is present. Following from this, Taylor goes on to argue that positive freedom involves discriminating between different activities and motivation and so on this basis exercising freedom means obeying our real will and behaving in a way that will best allow us to realize our full potential, even if we are not initially aware of what this entails. The implication of this premise is that we may act in a certain way due to internal factors which prevent us from making rational judgements and pursuing what is in our best interests, such as acting spitefully towards others, and in these cases we are not exercising freedom, and are not free in the same way as someone who is not burdened by these internal factors.4 As we shall see, this is a highly controversial argument, as it can easily lead to the notion that, because the individual cannot be trusted to act rationally, the state has the right to limit certain activities which an individual might otherwise have pursued, and to pressure the individual to do certain things which she might not otherwise have wanted to do if she had been allowed to act independently. It would seem, based on this, that positive freedom could actually be used to justify an intrusive and paternalistic state. This indicates that positive freedom is not without its difficulties, as has even been seen as a recipe for a totalitarian society, but we can establish that it is a more persuasive way to conceive of freedom than the negative interpretation. It may seem at this point that we can end the essay by concluding that, because positive freedom requires that the state exist and regulate the lives of its citizens, humans can only obtain freedom through the state, and hence the state exists to enhance freedom. However, this is not the case, as whether this is true depends entirely on how we define the state, and how theorists have understood the realization of positive freedom. This essay will henceforth seek to show how positive freedom can be attained, and especially whether it must be attained through the state. Berlin correctly argues that if we were to place political thinkers in separate categories based on which interpretation of freedom they adopt, then both Marx and Rousseau would be located in the positive category, and would stand out from all other members of that category as the theorists who have had the most intriguing and influential answers to offer. Therefore, this essay will now examine the arguments of both theorists, as well as the continuities and discontinuities between them, and evaluate the extent to which the societies and political systems they supported are consistent with positive freedom.
It is most advantageous to begin with Rousseau. In order to understand why Rousseau is so often seen as part of the canon of positive freedom, we need to begin with his view of human nature, and contemporary society. Rousseau also argued that men once inhabited a state of nature, as described in the 'Discourse on Inequality', but unlike his predecessors, he suggests that men led a solitary existence, such that they did not often come into contact with each other, and as a result conflict did not often occur. It is in this state that men are able to exercise unlimited natural liberty due to the absence of sovereign authority, and men are ultimately bounded by passions and feelings. As Dent notes, an important theme in Rousseau's work is the notion that our preferences and personalities change as a result of developments in material circumstances, and it is for this reason that he sees the state of nature as an ideal and happy state, but only when we actually inhabit it, and not after, because as soon as men begin to enter into social relations with each other and form associations, the state of nature is no longer capable of satisfying their desires.5 In addition to this flexible conception of human behavior, Rousseau also argues that what makes men different from animals is the fact that we are capable of making choices and discriminating between different options, and as we accumulate experience, we become choice-guided instead of merely obeying out instincts. This is highly relevant to the essay, because at this point it is already clear that Rousseau sees autonomy as an important value which involves the ability to exercise our reason and make choices which reflect what would be in our best interests, instead of surrendering our faculties to instinct, as mankind might have done prior to the birth of societies. This is part of a long French tradition involving Pascal as well as other philosophers, the central component of which is the assumption that belief and understanding are the result of practice, and cannot be derived from a fixed human nature. Rousseau does, however, identify two human traits which are natural and therefore “prior to reason” - amour de soi-même, which Rousseau understands as the sentiment that drives us to attend to our self-preservation , and pitié, which consists of a natural capacity to empathize with and feel compassion for others. It is later revealed that these traits form the basis of a legitimate and just political order, but in the context of his own society, Rousseau argues that as men become used to living alongside each other, and as they become reliant on human interaction to satisfy their psychological and material needs, they develop a need for approval, otherwise know as amour propre, and it is this trait that gives rise to pride and envy, and dependence on others, because we come to judge our own lives in relation to the lives of others, and we become conscious of the ways in which other people see us. Therefore, in a modern society amour propre comes to dominate our behavior, and by drawing attention to this, Rousseau seeks to expose polite society for what it really is – a constant exchange and assertion of power whereby the most corrupt members of society are able to gain the approval of others and establish themselves in positions of social dominance, thereby encouraging other men to follow their example. Modernity is, according to Rousseau, essentially decadent, as there exists no sense of common good. In this respect, it seems that Marx chose to follow Rousseau's example, as the former also sought to expose various aspects of his own society that would otherwise have been seen as expressions of compassion as ultimately linked to capitalist property relations – the family, for example, is described in 'The Communist Manifesto' as a “money relation” under capitalism. Rousseau's fascinating criticism of modernity compels him to search for a society in which individual passion is not overstimulated, and in which the individual is not placed in a position of dependency on others, thereby achieving a balance between internal expectations of the world, and what the world is capable of giving to the individual. The answer comes in the form of 'The Social Contract', which opens as follows:
“MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they”6
The term “in chains” in this opening can be interpreted in multiple ways. On a basic level, it can be seen as a reference to the fact that men are forced to live under illegitimate forms of political rule, but it can also be interpreted as the notion that passions act as chains which prevent men from acting freely, and this is affirmed by the second sentence, as we may be led to believe that we are master of others, but have been compelled to assume that position as a result of passions which lie beyond our control. We have therefore established that, due to his emphasis on passions, and dependency, Rousseau is firmly within the canon of positive freedom, and saw his own society as seriously lacking in this type of freedom. Rousseau states at the beginning of 'The Social Contract' that the aim of his body politic is to leave each individual as free as they were before they entered into the contract and became a member of the body politic, whilst also protecting the individual from harm. How then, does Rousseau seeks to solve this problem? As the title of his text suggests, Rousseau saw the transition from the state of nature to a body politic as taking place through a social contract, but in contrast to the covenant advocated by Hobbes, whereby a sovereign is created in order to govern over the citizenry, and active participation by citizens in the creation of laws is not a precondition for legitimate political rule, Rousseau's social contract involves each individual making a contract with herself in her capacity as citizen, even before the citizenry has come into being as a meaningful political concept, in addition to make a contract with the “public”. The problematic notion of making a contract with yourself reflects the form and functioning of Rousseau's vision of what constitutes a body politic. Rousseau argues that the only legitimate body politic is one in which the whole of the citizenry participates directly in the process of creating laws through a collective assembly involving every members of the community, and if at any point the assembly alienates its sovereignty by electing representatives to make laws on its behalf, or by passing sovereign to an individual, it instantly loses its status as a body politic, and men become slaves. According to Rousseau, the aim of the assembly is to rule in accordance with the general will, and corresponds to what is in the shared interests of the citizenry body, and, as Bertram suggests, continues to exist in a metaphysical form, even when the actual decisions of the assembly are misinformed, or reflect the interests of specific groups within society, as may sometimes be the case. The absolute sovereignty of the assembly demands that there cannot be any constraints on what the assembly is allowed to do, because this would require a body of superior authority, or a division of powers between multiple bodies, thereby leading to the alienation of sovereignty. This would alarm a proponent of negative liberty, but it is sensible in the context of Rousseau's understanding of political legitimacy, and freedom. If we accept that there is such a thing as a shared community interest which each individual would do well to follow in order to realize her individual potential, then it follows that anyone who votes against a particular proposal in the collective assembly must be doing so not because she has legitimate grievances, but simply because she is unable to conceive of what she really wants, and has been blinded by passions, and therefore, by being forced to obey the will of the community, she is being “forced to be free”, because her passions are being forcibly disregarded in favour of reason. This conception of freedom is reflected as follows:
“The mere impulse of appetite is slavery whereas the obedience of law we prescribe to ourselves is liberty”7
The above clearly indicates that Rousseau upholds positive liberty, specifically the recognition that internal factors prevent us from being free, and sees participation in the assembly and living under the assembly's laws as the means by which these factors can be overcome. In essence, the primary function of the social contract is to create a basis for authentic self-willing. The type of freedom described above is “moral freedom”, distinct from natural liberty, which men enjoy in the state of nature, and civic liberty, which consists of the rights and freedoms accorded to each individual citizen in the body politic. This shows that Rousseau fulfills his promise not to diminish freedom, as the body politic replaces natural freedom with a more meaningful form of freedom which liberates us from the control of our passions and thereby allows us to make rational choices. When investigating the nature of the laws which can be passed by the assembly, and how such laws should be implemented, Rousseau stresses that the only just laws are those which apply to the whole of the citizenry instead of just one segment of it, as targeting a specific segment would mean that the general will would no longer be general, but particular. The egalitarian character of the general will, both in terms of participation and living under the community's laws, leads us back to the concept of amour propre, as it suggests that the general will confers on each of us an equal standing in the eyes of others, thereby negating the destructive impact of amour propre on human relationships, and further liberating the individual from her passions. It has been shown above that Rousseau's primary concern is with the internal obstacles to freedom, especially in the form of passions such as amour propre, and he believes that the only way in which these passions can be overcome and moral freedom attained is through a state which meets certain criteria for political legitimacy, such that, for Rousseau, the state comes before freedom. It should also be pointed out, however, that in addition to recognizing internal obstacles to freedom, Rousseau also argues that a body politic which aims to maintain its legitimacy should avoid extremes of wealth and poverty, such that nobody should be so poor that they are forced to sell their labour, and nobody should be so rich that they have enough money to purchase labour power. This indicates that Rousseau was aware of the ways in which economic inequality could subvert political democracy and lead to a section of society be able to exercise more political power by virtue of their wealth, even when everyone is theoretically accorded equal power. On a more abstract level, it seems that Rousseau was conscious of the role of economic circumstances in determining the level of freedom a individual can enjoy which, as noted above, also falls within the scope of positive liberty. These insights will be addressed in greater depth shortly. In sum, however, it can be said that Rousseau acknowledged the distinction between positive and negative liberty, and provided a credible solution, in the form of the social contract. However, this solution is not without its problems – most importantly, and as Berlin emphatically states, the logic of Rousseau's argument could easily lead to the unique preferences of individuals being disregarded on the grounds that individuals cannot be trusted to think for themselves due to the unfreedom of passions. In addition, Rousseau's solution is also at odds with the argument established at the beginning of this essay – that the state is an oppressive entity, and real positive freedom can only be attained when the state is no longer needed, and has been done away with. This raises a paradox, in that we normally associate positive liberty with policies that can only be carried out by the state, such as income redistribution, and national education. We now confront the question: how can positive liberty be achieved without the state, and in what way is the state oppressive from a perspective based on positive liberty?
Marx presented a unique understanding of the state which derives from his analysis of human society and historical development. Prior to Marx, other theorists had seen the state as an entity which exists above and independently of the social relations which comprise, to use Hegel's term, “civil society”, and as an entity which allows social tensions to be resolved in favour of the common good. In contrast to this approach, Marx sought to show that the state is inextricably bound up with the balance of classes forces, and ultimately functions as an instrument of class domination, in order to secure the position of the ruling class and enforce the dominant relations of production in each historical epoch, or, in Marx's terminology, each “mode of production”. The implication of this statement is that prior to the emergence of class antagonisms – which Marx saw as being historical in nature – the state did not exist, and if at some point in the future mankind found a way to eliminate class divisions once and for all, the state would cease to have a useful social function, and would thereafter “whither way”. From this it is clear that Marx did not see the state as an eternally necessary feature of human societies, and certainly not the only method by which freedom can be obtained. There must, for Marx, be a form of society in which men enjoy positive freedom, and yet this society cannot be organized in the same way as capitalism, given that capitalism can only exist with the aid of a state to protect property rights. In order to understand why Marx might have seen the abolition of class division as progressive, and why Marx is so important for this essay, we need to look at freedom under capitalism, and in what way freedom would be changed in a post-revolutionary society. It would be wrong, based on the egalitarian thrust of contemporary critiques of capitalism, or the historical legacy of Marx's ideas, to assume that freedom is only a minor theme within Marxism, and Brenkert emphatically states that freedom lies at the heart of Marx's ethics, and any other concerns such as justice and equality are secondary in terms of where the imperative to overthrow capitalism ultimately lies. As Brenkert points out, Marx established his own view of freedom as distinct from what he sees as the bourgeois conception of freedom which emphasizes the importance of being free from external compulsion, not only in terms of the state's powers of coercion, but also, Marx argues, in terms of economic forces. By acknowledging that liberating man from the control of economic forces would comprise the fulfillment of bourgeois freedom, Marx is setting a high standard for himself, by promising a type of freedom that offers even more than this, and cannot even be partly realized under existing conditions.8 In fact, Marx explicitly criticizes those socialists who argued that the bourgeois concept is limited to state coercion, and on that basis contended that the advance of freedom under communism would constitute only the liberation of man from economic forces, and nothing more, expressed as follows:
“By 'external compulsion' the true socialists do not understand the restrictive material conditions of live of given individuals. They see it only as the compulsion exercised by the state [...] which far from being the foundation of society [is] only a consequence of its structure”9
The basis of Marx's view of freedom is self-determination, or the notion that man should be able to control the way in which he develops himself through the active fulfillment and development of desires and capacities, otherwise known as self-objectification. This view is rooted in the Marxist view that what makes mankind different from animals is our capacity to engage in conscious labour with the natural world, and our fellow humans, and that by doing so we are also capable of developing ourselves and our knowledge of the world around us. The developmental aspect is key here, as this is what differentiates Marx from negative freedom, allows us to identify him as an adherent of freedom in its positive form. The meaning of this will become clear in due course, but first it is useful to look at why capitalism is a mode of production which denies self-determination. Marx recognized that, as a class society based on the private ownership of the means of production, the vast majority under capitalism have no other way to survive except by selling their labour power as a commodity to a member of the ruling class, in exchange for which they are given a wage to purchase the goods they need to reproduce their labour power and thereby return to work at the beginning of each working day, these goods taking the form of commodities exchanged on the market place in order to realize the surplus value generated during the production process. This set of dynamics give rise to different forms of unfreedom, which Marx characterizes in Feuerbach's terminology as alienation. The nature of the wage-labour relationship is such that what should be a meaningful activity that allows man to exercise his creative faculties becomes something that man performs as a means to realize an end, in violation of his species-being, as work consists of the repetition of a small range of meaningless tasks, with the worker being deprived of any control over the way in which the work-process is organized, and the worker does not control the products of his labour, which remain in the hands of the capitalist and, as noted above, are sold as commodities, thereby transforming them into objects which exercise power over the worker. The role of the community in allowing individuals to realize freedom is distorted as workers are forced into competition with each other by the dynamics of the labour market, and the dominance of commodity production means that men only encounter each other as beings who possess and are willing to buy commodities, thereby leading to social relationships being transformed into commercial transactions instead of genuine human interaction intended to treat men as ends in themselves, and not merely as beings who can be manipulated in pursuit of profit, as occurs under capitalism. In this way, as a result of wage-labour, which constitutes the basis of the proletarian's existence under capitalism, man lacks control over his life and is free from the effects of capitalism only when he is engaged in those activities which mankind shares with animals, such as sleeping and eating, and he therefore lacks opportunities to develop his abilities and interests, constituting an enhanced state of unfreedom in the Marxist sense. Marx was also conscious of the ways in which mankind's relationship with nature impacted the potential for freedom, because as long as mankind remains subject to the control of natural forces, and is compelled to spend the greater part of each day simply accumulating enough resources to avoid starvation and protect against natural disasters, then, even in a classless society, man would not enjoy genuine freedom, as his capacity for self-determination would be severely constrained by his material circumstances. In this respect capitalism is progressive insofar as it allows for the rapid development of the productive forces and thereby establishes a basis for the realization of freedom once capitalism has been overthrown, even if life under capitalism itself is unfree. For Marx, then, man can only enter the “true realm of freedom” when he has moved beyond the need to labour as a means to an end, which requires both mankind's mastery over nature and the abolition of wage-labour (and hence private property). This is not meant to imply that life under communism would not require man to do any necessary labour, as interaction with the natural world remains the basis of material reproduction, but Marx does make it clear that even this labour would not be alienated as under capitalism because it products would not take the form of commodities, and communism would allow humans to spend more of their time performing intrinsically enjoyable and fulfilling activity, expressed as follows:
“[the true realm of freedom] can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working day is its basic prerequisite”10
For Marx, “the true realm of freedom” would entail men being allowed to engage in range of different activities, and to develop their talents in each, in contrast to the monotony of labour under capitalism. This is expressed in the infamous passage where Marx lists the activities that someone could potentially choose to do during the course of a single day, although it remains unclear as to whether Marx was being serious, and there are obvious objections that can be made as to the feasibility of not having a predominant sphere of activity. It is perhaps best to understand this passage in terms of the idea that Marx is expressing – that diversity of activity is important for freedom, and that the activities men enter into should be the result of conscious choices – and not the exact manifestation of this idea, or the poetic language in which it is conveyed, as is it highly unlikely that Marx would expect the inhabitants of a communist society to develop their abilities in literally every single way imaginable. It is only any engaging in this form of labour – labour for its own sake, conducted through diverse activities – than we can develop our abilities and thereby become capable of appreciating the products we create (as well as the natural objects we use in order to create these products) for their concrete and aesthetic qualities. As Brenkert points out, this contrasts with capitalism in that, under capitalism, the abstract qualities of goods become prominent, as they exchange as commodities in ratios determined by the amount of abstract labour time required to produce them, and are considered useful by individuals only when they are owned as private property.11 The idea that changes in our internal psychology can constitute an advance in freedom by removing obstacles to us being able to enjoy a fully-rounded existence returns us to the subject of this essay, and reminds us that Marx is rightfully associated with positive freedom. This notion of appreciation also extends to relations between human beings under communism, and Marx makes it clear that his view of freedom cannot be enjoyed as an isolated individual. This is true primarily in the sense that men need to interact with each other in order to exert control over nature and so the material preconditions for the successful attainment of communism can only be created through collective action, but in the context of a discussion of freedom, Marx also recognizes that, as social beings, men are capable of being free and developing themselves only when they are members of a community and can thereby satisfy their emotional needs. As noted above, Marx reveals his knowledge of Kant by arguing that the only legitimate way to relate to others is by treating them as an end, and by seeking to appreciate the qualities that are specific to them as individuals so that we can, in turn, develop our own particular qualities, and gain admiration for these qualities. This constitutes a further form of self-determination and so falls within the category of positive freedom. The form of community Marx advocates differs from the state in that the state is necessarily an institution designed to secure the privileges of a specific group within society and maintain the subordination of the working population, and is therefore incapable of supporting the kind of mutually beneficial relations that Marx seems to be advocating. It is however wrong to assume that the the abolition of the state is synonymous with the end of functions which are currently carried out by the state, as at no point did Marx suggest that a communist society would have no need of laws to prevent individuals from denying each other opportunities for self-determination. Rather, for Marx, the state in a communist society does not have a class character because class antagonisms have been resolves, and is not distinct from civil society such that, in the Marxist sense of the term, the state does not exist at all. The withering away of the state as a distinct and class-orientated entity is, for Avineri, the abolition of alienation of the political from the social sphere, and of the private individual from political being. Avineri goes on to argue that the attainment of communism represents the Hegelian Aufhebung of both the state and civil society as the two merge together and become synonymous with each other, denoting both preservation and transcendence.12 It is tempting, on this basis to suggest that Marx may have been well disposed towards the Rousseauian state, given that Rousseau was also keen to eliminate class division, and his emphasis on universality, and yet a crucial way in which Marx differs from Rousseau is that he is aware of individual differences and therefore does not give any rules on the form that self-determination should take, and nor does he lay out an institutional framework that would allow the community to control the way in which the individual determines herself. In this respect Marx's conception of freedom combines the choice component of negative freedom with a profound understanding of positive freedom, as Marx seeks to establish a society in which productive activity is inherently valued and freely chosen, and allows for the development of individual talents, expressed as follows:
“Free activity for the Communists is the creative manifestation of life arising from the free development of all abilities of the whole person”13
It would seem from this that Marx's understanding is more advanced even that Rousseau's, and the promise of bourgeois freedom seems pathetic by comparison. In conclusion, this essay has shown that any attempt to establish conditions for the realization of freedom must take positive freedom as a more authentic and meaningful manifestation of the term, which allows for internal obstacles, emphasizes the desirability of emotional and psychological development, and is not restricted to physical or economic obstacles. It has also been shown that both Rousseau and Marx fit within the category of thinkers who have endorsed positive freedom, albeit in slightly different ways – whereas Rousseau seeks to constrain mankind's passions by subjecting all to reason, as embodied in the general will, Marx seeks to remove all barriers to the development of desire and personality, otherwise known as self-determination. Rousseau' vision takes place through a state with unlimited power, whereas Marx's vision of freedom is rooted in a communist society which comes into being after the state has been overthrown. We should not overstate the differences between the state and the administration of a communist society, but if we accept that Marx presents a more advanced understanding of freedom, and if we accept that Marxist analysis of the state, then, to return to the essay title, freedom comes before the state, as we do not require the state to exercise freedom – merely a society organized on a communist basis with an advanced productive apparatus. Marx's vision is truly revolutionary, as it poses deep challenges to a system whose ideologues so often claim to support individual freedom and yet, according to Marx, dismally fail to deliver. In a world in which individuality and development are so often crushed beneath market forces, his critique retains its force.
Bibliography:
Avineri, The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx
Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty
Brenkert, Marx's Ethics of Freedom
Dent, Rousseau's
Heilbroner, Marxism: For and Against
Hobbes, Leviathan
Locke, Two Treatises of Governent
Marx, The Communist Manifesto
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Rousseau, The Social Contract