[net.politics] freedom from/to

keith (03/10/83)

#N:hp-pcd:17400008:000:1684
hp-pcd!keith    Mar  9 16:30:00 1983


The recent discussions about "freedom" prompts me to share an observation.

Many years ago, I was playing with a shortwave radio and managed to tune
in Radio Moscow (in English).  They had their Christmas special on at the
time and a nice lady was talking about how, in the Soviet system, they no
longer need religion, etc.  

Anyway, the talk eventually moved to comparisons of the "freedom" of the 
Soviet and U.S. systems.  The freedoms that were stressed were what
I decided to call "freedom froms".  Freedom from unemployment, freedom 
from hunger, freedom from being without a place to live, and so on.
In each case, it was claimed that the Soviet system provided better 
assurances of these freedoms.

In the U.S. we generally talk about "freedom tos" (excuse my terms).
Freedom to live where you want, freedom to work or not, etc.
The system of government in the U.S. is better suited to providing such
freedoms.

So given that the meaning of freedom can be bent in several ways, one must
be sure of the context when declaring one society to be more free than 
another.  I suspect that in a relatively poorer (economically) society,
the first set of freedoms ("freedom froms") becomes more important.  An
individual would want the government (or somebody) to take care of him
when things are bad.  In a relatively richer society, the "freedom froms"
are taken care of.  An individual has the luxury of considering the 
"freedom tos" and would prefer that government stay out of the way.

I think we are all looking for that balance in government so that both
kinds of freedom are addressed. 

				     Keith M. Taylor
				     Corvallis, Oregon
				     hplabs!hp-pcd!keith

hutch (03/14/83)

Only one point to make before I duck out of this discussion
(I really can't afford to be in too many forums - workers have to work)

Michael Turner made the point that in Cuba, the wealth really did get
redistributed.  Ah, but to whom, and how?  Michael, I hope you don't
seriously think that it got to that ephemeral and extremely subjective
entity, "the people" because it just ain't so, and in fact what seems
to be the situation there at the present time is a system that is just
as economically stratified as before Castro, but with the military
government holding all the wealth and having real trouble getting any
of it to "the people" even when it tries.

Oh well - just trying to redusce simplification.

-Steve Hutchison