Freedom and Money (2)

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Continued from here.

III.

Freedom comes in two variants: the freedom of people as part of a community, such as the freedom of Belgians from German occupation, or the freedom of a family from harassment by neighbours etc. Originally freedom refers to a situation where a group or a person cannot be made the subject of another group or person against the formers' will. One may subject oneself voluntarily to the will of another force, which is not a violation of freedom, while compulsory subjection does violate the principle of freedom. In reality people will accept restrictions of their freedom, but usually only as part of a system of trade-offs and compromises whose overall outcome is more highly esteemed by them than the nuisance of singular restrictions of their freedom.

An entirely individualistic conception of freedom, restricting the term's meaning only to demands of the individual (stylised into inalienable and absolute rights that exist independently of her being embedded in a community with qualifying demands) is a perspective on the matter that holds up neither with historical and nor with contemporary man.

§ 1 Man has always been and always will be a social animal, whose personal requirements and demands must be balanced against those of his fellows. So, freedom will always be qualified, conditional, relative, subject to social dispute and subjective perception , and never absolute.

Still, it may be useful, to some extent, to distinguish between social unfreedom and individual freedom. Indeed, in human history, especially during the past 300 years, there seems to have been a significant movement away from social unfreedom toward individual freedom -— again, without overriding § 1.

Very broadly speaking, liberation from total control by the family, clan or tribe or by absolute authority will bring about significant shifts in the extent to which an individual may act of her own accord, and, incidentally, begin to make (indirect) contributions to overall welfare far more effective than those a vassal is capable of.

For the individual to separate himself from the dominance of his family, clan, tribe or other superiors, he needs to attain an economic base for a more autonomous life.

At this point, money and freedom converge. 

Whether as labourer or as entrepreneur, the individual enters a plane of economic self-sustainability in the era of capitalism in the sense that dependence on family, clan or other superiors (the priest, the lord) is at least mitigated by entirely new means of income and paths of personal development.

The prerequisite to this is sustainable economic growth.

Sustainable economic growth is not possible without a regime of fiat money.

Only the state can organise a viable regime of fiat money which, in turn, makes for enduring economic growth, thus providing the economic basis for extended forms of individual freedom.

It must not be forgotten that freedom is not valuable only to the extent that it widens options for voluntary action desired by the individual (also, how does one distinguish between personal desires and socially inculcated desires of the individual, not always easy, and just another indication of the social side of freedom).

Freedom may pertain to the community, the options of an entire association of people to interact the better with one another, achieving better mutually coveted results.

And this is precisely what a fiat money regime achieves. Not only does it ensure continuous economic growth for the first time in human history, which is to say, people are no longer subject to perennial annihilation (the Malthusian trap) but enjoy ongoing per capital income growth, which is in sync with the most human of human traits, man's unique method of survival: the invention and subsequent satisfaction of new needs. Growth is the economic expression of man's ability to survive by constantly improving his life circumstances.