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Originally Posted by B~E You will have to demonstrate that control over the economy (means of productions, trade, finance) correlate with a control over an individual's social freedom. You can partly understand individuals as economical agents, but they are much more than that, they act in other dimensions of society. So how does controling individuals as economical agents allow you to control them when they act as agents in other aspect of society? |
That's only true if you limit what is meant by an economic agent. The end result of any activity is from an economic motive, however an economic motive is merely the desire for power to achieve unspecified ends. Maybe it is money, on the other hand, maybe it is the power to want to help animals, people, the environment, and countless other aims that are not aimed at gaining something of monetary value, but that require money to do. For example, if I want to use my life to help animals and my money is allocated by an authority instead to subsidize farming, my individual freedom is being infringed upon because I cannot use my resources to meet the end I have specified.
When the government slowly takes away our ability to spend our resources, be it in big government or complete socialism, there is not merely an economic loss, but also the loss of our power to choose which of our individual likes and dislikes are effected, be it money, an individual's dislike of cruelty towards animals, or any other number of economic motives.
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Originally Posted by B~E Secondly, in a truly liberal free market, people may freely trade what they can, but they can't trade on equal footing. This inequality between economical agents allow the most powerfull to exploit and significantly curb the freedom of less powerfull economical agents. Thus you're liberal economy is only a children's playground without rules to regulate the behavior of bullies. |
I am not saying that economic liberalism is perfect, but unfortunately the choice is not between Utopia and economic liberalism - it is between a system in which a few people decide who gets what, when, and how and a system in which who gets what depends on the ability of individuals combined with an unknown future (luck). A poor man may be less likely to end his life rich than one who inherits a fortune, however the only system known in which a man's fortune depends solely on himself without coercive hindrance and not from favors from those with power is competitive capitalism. The only alternative is a system in which a ruling group has more and more authority over all human ends as the system proceeds closer and closer to socialism.