What is Freedom?
What does it mean to be free? What does freedom mean to me or to others? What would real freedom feel like in our lived material reality? Is freedom an objective goal or is freedom subjective to the individual based on their own conceptions of what constitutes being free? Is freedom an arbitrary point by which we become free once we have reached that threshold? Or is constant struggle necessary to ensure that freedom and progress towards it are continually maintained for all?
Our current socio-political climate under late stage capitalism, the overt resurgence of fascism and white nationalism, and an ongoing (mismanaged) pandemic that has left individuals fending for themselves or dead has resulted in an excess of debate around the idea of freedom. The vaccinate hesitant, the willingly unvaccinated, and the more extreme anti-vaxers seem to be consumed by the notion that their rights and/or freedoms are being infringed upon by wider public health and safety measures being implemented by governments at all levels. Measures which are intended to protect the most vulnerable in our society — those who genuinely cannot get vaccinated for medical reasons, young children, as well as our healthcare workers fighting on the frontlines to save us from this virus.
I’m not an expert on public health policies myself, but I know that there is a mountain of trusted scientific evidence out there in support of the benefits to getting vaccinated — including the decreased likelihood of death, hospitalizations, transmission, long term side effects, and the creation of new variants. It seems to me that these people (who I will continue to refer to as the willingly unvaccinated) feel that they should be free to do as they please which includes their decision to turn down the vaccines, regardless of what unintended impact this may have on others they encounter. From what I can see, read, and hear, it seems that the willingly unvaccinated believe that their lives should return to normal, free of any and all restrictions regardless of their necessity in the current moment, and that vaccination requirements (in public spaces or places of employment) are unfairly barring them from participation in society. As if our pre-pandemic society and way of life was ever truly free to begin with.
I’m not writing this piece to further stoke the debate between the vaccinated and unvaccinated, because I am much more interested in the idea of freedom, and how divergent our ideas around freedom can be between individuals and communities within the working class despite our shared struggle. Yes, there are likely many radical conspiracy extremists within the anti-vax movement, but not every single unvaccinated person is a completely unhinged whacko. I think that many of these individuals are frustrated with the current situation we find ourselves in, but they don’t have a safe, healthy, or rational space to share these frustrations outside of their social media bubble which only helps to reinforce their skewed opinions and potentially leads them down the path towards conspiracy theorizing. Despite any disagreements we may have around getting vaccinated, they are still our comrades in the working class, and I think that by trying to engage with them in a meaningful way we might be able to help convince some of them to reevaluate their point of view for the better.
What is the freedom that the unvaccinated are truly seeking? Is it just the ability to sit down to eat at restaurants, to go on vacation to foreign countries, to exercise at gyms or fitness studios, or to go out drinking and dancing? Has this really been so disruptive to their way of life that they feel oppressed by the loss of these privileges and luxuries? Or, are they seeking the freedom to return to workplaces that exploit their labour for 40-hours a week to ensure the continued growth of profits for the owners and shareholders of those businesses?
Freedom — to me, is having the ability to own the question of what I should do with my time. Our lives are finite, and we have only a limited amount of time to fully embrace our existence and flourish as both individuals and communities. Freedom would therefore mean that I could wake up every single morning and reassess my commitments to myself, to others, to society, and decide how I want to spend my time so that I can feel I have lived a fulfilling and enriching life with the short time I have available to do so. Unfortunately, under late stage (or neoliberal) capitalism, our entire existence — regardless of whether we want it to be or not, is organized around the continued growth of profits for the owners of capital.
Freedom is not the Americanized, colonial, libertarian, gun wielding ability to go wherever I please and to do whatever I want without consequence. Despite living in a wealthy western democratic nation, I am not free, and I have never been free, because the only two ways I can sustain my existence are through selling my labour in return for a wage, or by becoming a capitalist myself and exploiting people and/or the environment for profits. The privilege to dine at my favourite restaurant does not make me free, it means that I have been forced to live and participate within a system that only allows me to buy and/or sell products and services that are profitable. We spend our lives working 40-hours (or more) per week to make ends meet for ourselves and our families, and in our down time we are coerced into spending those earnings back into the market to ensure the continued flow of capital.
Regardless of the nature of your employment — whether you work for a for-profit business, a charity, an NGO, or for the government, your survival depends on an economy with the singular goal of profits. Businesses exist to generate profit, governments are funded through the taxation of profits, and charities exist because of a mixture of government funding and corporate donations, there’s no escape. Profits are pursued at the expense of all else, which is how we end up in a situation where we are questioning the future habitability of our entire planet and people continue to die from covid-19 because of unnecessary exposures in workplaces that were only open to ensure that profits continue to flow.
My conception of freedom would give me the opportunity to wake up tomorrow morning and question how best I can serve my community? How can I help to alleviate the suffering of others? We shouldn’t have to spend the majority of our lives working a job that many of us find unfulfilling only to ensure that capitalists continue to get richer at our expense. Real freedom would mean that if I decided that tomorrow I wanted to just rest, or write, or start planting a garden, that I could do so without compromising my own survival because I missed a shift at work. The freedom to own the question of what to do with our finite lives would give each and every one of us the opportunity to decide how we want to spend our time each and every single day. This isn’t an argument for being lazy, because a division of labour is always going to be necessary to reproduce the conditions of our society. But real freedom would allow us to collectively determine what’s truly necessary for our lives to flourish in an equitable and sustainable manner, rather than our lives being determined for us by the interests of capital.
I can’t be certain whether or not the unvaccinated have recognized that we share the same class struggle beyond the confines of this pandemic. I think that their desire for freedom is a noble cause, but I think that their anger is misdirected and their idea of freedom could be much more expansive than they have likely ever considered. This is why I think that we need to at least attempt to engage with them on some level to try and build that shared class consciousness necessary for the fight against exploitation for a more equitable future for all.
