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December 2000

Staff Editorial
There is hope in an era of Bush.
by the PERSPECTIVE staff

UC Endorsement
Steve Smith and James Coleman are the liberal's choice.
by the PERSPECTIVE staff

Canadian Comrades
It really is better up there.
by Danny Schlozman

Triumph or Tragedy?
Clinton's legacy is one of calculated compromise.
by Jeffrey Theodore

Buying Survival
Africa needs money, now.
by Ved Lekic and Alexandra Neuhaus-Follini

Pharmitas
Pharmaceutical companies fund Harvard research.
by Nathan Perl-Rosenthal

Students for What?
Folic acid has a hidden message.
by Shelby Meyerhoff

Greens Take Root
PERSPECTIVE talks to Cliff Ginn.
by Dev Purkayastha

A Year to Remember
A year from Seattle, the WTO protests go on.
by Bob Elliott

Cry Freedom
America's ideal of freedom is questionable.
by Nikhil Jaikumar

Introspective
In Defense of Money
by Brad Hershbein

Salmagundi

The Back Page
Keeping Christmas
by Julia Silvis

In the 1980s, Americans often spoke of our nation as the capital of the “free world.” Even today, when the end of the Cold War has made that language largely obsolete, many Americans still think that our nation and its allies lead the world in upholding the ideal of freedom. But America cannot truthfully claim to lead a monolithic bloc of free nations; many types of freedom exist, and our definition may not be as universal as we assume-or as palatable to our own consciences. Indeed, some of the kinds of freedom we strongly protect, especially the personal and economic, can have corrosive effects on us and our society if they aren't tempered or restrained by other values.

The “free world” was a term used during the Cold War to describe countries willing to adopt market-based economies and anti-Soviet foreign policies. But citizens of these “free” countries did not always enjoy political freedom. Through force, intimidation, and election fraud, both America and the Soviet Union routinely violated the independence of their “satellites.” The Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia to replace their government, but the Americans invaded the Dominican Republic at the cost of even more lives. Nor is it correct to say that the governments of the “free world” were democratically elected. Fairly elected governments in Nicaragua and Finland, were never considered part of the “free world,” while extremely repressive dictatorships in Korea and Indonesia were. These dictatorships did, of course, enjoy a “free” economic system, which was, perhaps, the reason we saw them as “free.”

Today, of course, there is no Cold War, and the expression “free world” seems increasingly vacuous. In fact, the third-largest recipient of USforeign aid is Colombia, where journalists are routinely assassinated, voters are intimidated by militias of the left as well as the right, and the army has been complicit with vicious death squads. By contrast, Venezuela, which has, by allowing officials to be removed midway through their terms, actually tried to deepen government's responsiveness to the people, has seen its relations with the United States deteriorate considerably. When a country's foreign policy is warm towards Colombia and cool towards Venezuela, or even democratic India, is that country really leading a “free” world?

Consider some of the worst examples of genocide, state terror, and general lawlessness in the last few decades. The 1972 genocide in Bangladesh was ended by an Indian invasion, which philosopher Michael Walzer used as his classic example of a modern “just war;” the Cambodian killing fields were closed down by a Vietnamese invasion; and Amin's rule in Uganda was stopped by a Tanzanian invasion. In none of these cases did America fulfill its claimed role as defender of freedom. Indeed, America actually sent a warship in 1972 to come to the aid of Pakistani army, which had initiated the genocide.

America, even more than other Western nations, has a fairly clean record in its internal dedication to freedom of expression and similar personal and political liberties that are fundamental to human dignity. Our libel laws, for example, punish only the most intentionally malicious speech; they are narrower than English libel laws, which place the burden of proof on the defendant, or Norwegian laws which ban potentially offensive films.

Of course, measures which might protect such “freedom” against mild infringement sometimes come at the cost of other values. During the 1980s, liberal American newspapers like the New York Times criticized the elected socialist government of Nicaragua for having temporarily closed down La Prensa, a conservative newspaper that was bitterly hostile to the Sandinistas. They seemed to forget that the country they criticized was in a state of emergency, involved in a struggle against a powerful terrorist insurgency. Freedom of the press is important, but we should ask ourselves whether it should be supreme over everything else, even in the most dire circumstances, even when it might lead to victory for terrorism and lawlessness over the wishes of most citizens.

Similarly, in the debates over freedom of the press, too often ignored is the point that the media should be fair as well as free-that is, objective and honest in their coverage and opinions. Freedom of the press can mean freedom for everyone to broadcast self-serving propaganda, and let the loudest voice win-or in our society, the voice who can afford the most media outlets. Or it can mean the equal freedom of everyone to seriously inquire about the truth, and to speak the truth and voice one's honest opinion without fear of being punished by anyone. This claim does not necessarily imply which restraints, if any, should exist, or who should impose them-the state, the individual's own conscience, or as Simone Weil suggested, ordinary citizens. Rather, it suggests that this debate is perhaps one that ought to be reopened.

What about other interpretations of freedom, pertaining to economic and social issues? One could claim that freedom involves choosing how and to what extent to make use of the political, economic, and social opportunities that society deems important. But that kind of freedom demands a substantial equalization of incomes. Society's conception of a “fulfilling life” changes as society itself becomes wealthier: if your income rises more slowly than the average, even though you might be richer in absolute terms, you are less able to participate fully in society, and you become marginalized. As incomes rise, cheap foods become less marketable and disappear from the stores. Public transportation atrophies as cars become more popular, telephones and private washing machines become increasingly viewed as a necessity, and those who can't afford them suffer more than they did before. In a society as unequal as ours, this kind of freedom-the right to participate in the kind of life that society deems good-is not being respected for a great many people.

The specific conception of economic freedom that our country recognizes causes even more problems. As Orlando Patterson points out, “freedom” is the basis of our economic system-freedom of enterprise, the freedom of the market, the freedom to own and sell property, and to use it to make a profit however you can. Proposals that nationalize businesses, require people to donate their labor for the social good, or implement confiscatory taxation-all of which attentuate this conception of economic individualism-would be unlikely to succeed in the present-day United States. But the free market has costs as well as benefits, and we should consider both when evaluating this “economic” conception of freedom.

Most of the benefits of living in American society depend on the recipient's ability to pay-and the age-old question remains, what happens if she can't? Exorbitant rents in cities like Boston have forced many families to live in substandard, dangerous, crowded housing; such conditions call into doubt the ability of the free market to meet a human need like housing. The restrictions that the market places on people with low incomes frustrates attempts to overcome racial, ethnic, and class separation; after all, people are still forced to live in neighborhoods whose rents they can afford. To overcome this problem would require a substantial equalization of either incomes or rents, neither of which is possible if we refuse to interfere with the sanctity of private property.

Not only does this belief in freedom of enterprise have some unpleasant outcomes, but on many occasions it seems to threaten other, much older values that we hold. Investing one's money might seem to be a great example of free enterprise, a competition in which each of us is “free” to choose the stocks in which we want to invest, and to take our chances at winning a financial payoff. On closer examination, though, this freedom is more morally troubling.

Christianity long condemned the lending of money at interest, on the grounds that it was a way of making money without working. Success investment is yet another way for a person to make money without laboring. It also offers disproportionate opportunity to the rich, who have disposable income, to get even richer, and it allows some people to profit from the financial ruin of others. We accept it because we've grown accustomed to it, and become desensitized to its implications.

Meanwhile, capitalizing on others' misfortune continues unabated. Presently, nations like Zambia, in the throes of an AIDS epidemic, are condemned to divert needed resources away from health care to pay down interest on their debt. The existence of a large debt relief movement demonstrates that many people are troubled by this immoral arrangement. However, so  far, the movement has had limited success. Investment incarnates a certain kind of freedom that our society likes to venerate, but it also corrodes some older values that I think most of us would be loathe to give up.

There are many different things that people have in mind when they use the word “freedom”-it may be one of the most multifaceted words in our language. Our concept of a united “free world” has always been highly suspect, and we should examine more closely the ideals of freedom we uphold. We certainly do protect some kinds of freedom, but these need to be tempered with other values so that their abuse doesn't challenge other ideals to which we aspire. Some interpretations of “freedom” are so callous in their real-world implications that they barely seem to deserve the title. Perhaps we ought to give this sacred word a close, hard examination.    p

Questions? Comments? Please contact perspy@hcs.harvard.edu