What is freedom?

[i love new things]

What does freedom mean to you? For me it means blood and sacrafice. Look out over a national cemetary and you can see exactly what the sacrafice is. Men, thousands of selfless men, mad the ultimate sacrafice so I can wake up in the morning and see a flag waiving over my yard and say what I wish to whom I wish.

[florida87x]

Personally, I think I would take freedom to mean control over your own life, body, and thoughts.

I always find freedom to be a little vague though.

[fromo]

To put it into a single word, for me it means 'choice'.
To be able to choose you life's own path.

[mistress ct]

Abstract concept but for the sake of discussion I shall raise this question

Mathias, an East German born in 1976 didn't have the freedom to cross to any town in Germany which was outside the German Democratic Republic(aka East Germany, aka ''Communist Germany'') when he was 10 years old due to the regime at the time. Mathias in 2011 doesn't have the freedom to cross to any town in what is now geographically located in West Germany because he can't afford to buy train tickets.

Politics and how accurate the scenario above is, my point is that people often forget the constraints of economic freedom (or the lack of)

[Slavemasteruk]

Originally Posted by mistress ct

Abstract concept but for the sake of discussion I shall raise this question

Mathias, an East German born in 1976 didn't have the freedom to cross to any town in Germany which was outside the German Democratic Republic(aka East Germany, aka ''Communist Germany'') when he was 10 years old due to the regime at the time. Mathias in 2011 doesn't have the freedom to cross to any town in what is now geographically located in West Germany because he can't afford to buy train tickets.

Politics and how accurate the scenario above is, my point is that people often forget the constraints of economic freedom (or the lack of)

You're right in a sense that money constrains freedom: but your issue is that you need to think about the concept in a more systematic way. In doing so you can understand the difference between the situation in Communist Germany and that in Germany today.

Whereas in Germany (as in all advanced countries) it is true that money acts as a barrier to freedom, we can say think about the concept as being about the compossibility of actions. Compossibility is taken to mean all those actions which can be performed for a given possible world. A lack of money obviously constraints the amount of actions that can be performed in a given possible world: clearly I can only buy so much stuff with the money I have in my possession. If I try to take things without money, I will either be stopped physically from doing so, or I will be put in prison, which further reduces the amount of actions I can perform.

So in the case of Germany today, while it is true someone might stopped from travelling to West Germany due to money based constraints, they have many other significant actions which they can compossibly perform. Two points can be taken from this analysis.

Firstly, money limits Mathias in a less strict way than the East German regime did (i.e. because it is possible to walk to West Germany from East Germany today). This means that even in a direct comparison of the case being discussed (i.e. travel) Germany today is clearly more free than East Germany was then, because it is possible to travel to the West of Germany by some means (e.g. by walking, or by bike) but not others (e.g. by train, car or aeroplane).

Secondly, a lack of money does not limit Mathias' actions in lots of others ways not related to travel - for example he is able to choose his own religion and speak out against the government, both of which he could not have done as a ten year old boy.

[mistress ct]

Originally Posted by Slavemasteruk

You're right in a sense that money constrains freedom: but your issue is that you need to think about the concept in a more systematic way. In doing so you can understand the difference between the situation in Communist Germany and that in Germany today.

My point was highlighting the importance of bringing money into perspective when thinking about freedom, not the situation in Germany and how applicable my story was.

I'm talking about how money(and by that I don't mean just how much you or your family) affects relative freedom. In theory and I'd say in practice all Australian citizens have freedom. Born to immigrant parents but still growing up in a very middle class environment I have the freedom (ie 'upward mobility') to do anything I want with my life. In stark contrast, someone my age born in lets say Fresno, California for all his/her ''freedoms'' is more or less bound not to receive any college education and have a fucked up life.

What I'm trying to say is that when speaking about freedom in a Western context, whereby we don't have dictators, military regimes etc, its important to look beyond ''freedom of speech'' and ''the valour of men who fought...''. Much like we distinguish between absolute and relative poverty. Have some sort of ''freedom treshold''.