Freedom or liberty?

Two major political and philosophical principles are freedom and liberty. To the casual observer, the are identical but in reality they are extremely different ideas. Freedom is where an individual is able to do whatever they like whenever they like. This would lead to total anarchy. For example: a man who is poorly paid but particularly wants a certain laptop-computer and cannot afford it either robs a bank to get the money or steals it off the shop’s shelf. If the whole of society had total freedom then chaos would ensue. Grudges would be solved by a murder. Racists would go into areas of towns where minorities lived and assault them or destroy property. To put it concisely society would break down and order dissolve. The politicians would have no power and violent crime would be rife.

Liberty is the idea of being bound by certain rules but having the flexibility to do more or less whatever you want within legal reason. A lack of freedom doesn’t mean a complete restriction on the activities of the individual. Instead they have to follow laws for the greater good. The law of having to drive on the right or left side of the road is so that transportation is safe. Murder and violent crime is illegal so that civil stability is theoretically insured. Drugs are banned so that the side-effects put less people in danger. A cannabis user has the potential to become so paranoid that if they get stoned and start to do stupid things in public, they could assault someone that looks at them in the wrong way.

Freedom has been taken away from society so that they can get the most benefits out of liberty. Another excellent example is the principle of free marketing. The idea of the Free Market is the unrestricted trade of any legal product such as bananas, steel, paper, and plastic. The freedom has been taken away from the individual by banning the trade of certain products such as drugs, weaponry and certain chemicals but the liberty is the opportunity to buy or sell as much of the legal products as you can.

Most people would say freedom if you asked them what they would prefer but they don’t realise how dangerous it could be. Politicians frequently talk about freedom but rarely liberty. In the English language we say that you free prisoners but liberate the unjustly prosecuted. My opinion on this is that a prisoner has been restricted in what they can do, so when they are freed and for example choose to get a random bus too an unknown destination they feel that their activities are unrestricted. A school pupil who has been isolated for bad behaviour will feel that everything is open to them when they leave the room that they have been confined to for a few hours.

With liberation, you feel that you can do much but aren’t entirely unrestricted. When American and British tanks rolled across Iraqi cities to liberate the locals from the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein, many felt as if under the dictator, they had been carrying a pack-load of bricks (the suppression of political beliefs and persecution of anyone who dared to speak out against the regime) but when the Americans and British arrived a large weight had been lifted but they were still not completely able to live normal and free lives. For example, they have to carry ID cards and are subjected to curfews yet they generally live better lives under the Americans and British than Saddam Hussein.

Another interesting thought I picked up on after this was first posted was that freedom has been taken away by incarcerating them without trial but they still have the liberty of life.
(Thanks to Alexander Brodkin for this idea)