Human Freedom: The Cause of It All

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, p. 1
I disagree with Rousseau.
Most of the history of mankind man hasn’t been born free. When we look back on all of human history, until just very recently, the person at the top of society told the rest what to do. Its only very recently that the common citizen began dictating his demands to the government.
Why the change?
Modern man (from a biological standpoint) came into existence about 200,000 years ago. But historians seem to think that it was 50,000 years ago that man began behaving modernly (had developed culture, writing, etc). Then some 8,000 years ago we learned how to plant crops which started us down the road to a sedentary lifestyle. Now a bunch of us could live in a relatively small space instead of having to wander all over creation. Here’s an abbreviated summary of where we’ve been:
Its only in the last couple hundred years that people actually became free; most people; the average man. That’s just an eye-drop in the lake of time when you think about 50,000 year of human history. The tiny ruling class of past societies (whether they were the government rulers or the clergy) have always been relatively unconstrained to do what they wanted, but not the average person. Until recently.
This change was caused by the rise of capitalism. Until free markets emerged the common man was the serf, the peasant, the slave. BUT under capitalism he became the boss:
[In] a capitalistic society the common man is the sovereign consumer whose buying or abstention from buying ultimately determines what should be produced and in what quantity and quality.
~ Ludwig von Mises, The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality, p. 1
This was, from my examination, the turning point. No longer were the masses treated like they were too stupid to know what was “best”. No longer did they need a noble, or a chief, or a priest or some other totalitarian figure to tell them what they needed. It was that taste of freedom that has propelled mankind forward. The power of hundreds of millions of people finally free to each pursue their own individual self interests as they see fit. And with that taste of economic freedom mankind demanded he be given his other civil liberties to go along with the first civil liberty he ever gained: economic independence.
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Rick Kelo July 20, 2014 , 8:21 am Vote0
How free do YOU think we are today?
Under Feudalism serfs had to pay 1/3 of their production to their overlords. What’s your total tax burden today? Perhaps mankind has made substantial progress…. perhaps not.
Gary Singleton July 20, 2014 , 9:17 am Vote0
Rick I really liked your article. In defense of Rousseau, I believe that he meant that man’s birthright is to be free and yet nowhere was that evident.
This morning I awoke and stared at the ceiling. Code demands that the ceiling be no less than 7′ 2″ in height. My feet hit the floor and I realized that the floor joists had to be a minimum of 2″ x 10″ and be placed no closer than 16″ apart. As I walked through the bedroom door I realized that the door was required to be a minimum of 28″ in width and no less than 70″ in height. When I flushed the toilet it occurred to me that the waste pipe had to be a minimum of 4″ in diameter and had to have at least a 1/8″ in 12″ pitch while running to the soil stack. How free do I think I am today. Prisoner would be an apt reply.
Mike Vroman July 20, 2014 , 9:18 am Vote0
For too many people freedom is only an illusion. If we combine the tax burden with the mandatory spending, such as insurance, the burden easily exceeds that of the serfs of the past, yet so many are completely unaware of the depths to which they are tied to this system.
Rick Kelo July 20, 2014 , 12:03 pm Vote0
@mikevroman65 – most people certainly are unaware. To show how much so just ask anyone how much they paid toward the public school system last year. I’ve yet to meet a person who knew the answer to that question.
Mike Vroman July 20, 2014 , 1:02 pm Vote0
We have independent school systems here, which you would think would make it easier for people to keep track of their spending, but the opposite is true. The administrators have become so adept at floating bonds and shuffling funds that it is a multi week project for one person to even begin to get a handle on it.