You Want Liberty? Which One?

Who knew that liberty comes in two flavors: “Me First” or “We Together?”

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On March 25, 1775, at a church in Richmond, Virginia, an American patriot gave an impassioned speech to his fellow townsmen, urging them to approve of a resolution for Virginian troops to join in the Revolutionary War against British colonialism.

Toward the end of his brief speech, Patrick Henry implored the delegates:

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Partick Henry’s fellow patriots were so taken with his speech that the room stayed quiet for a few moments. Had time travel been available in 1775, it would have been the perfect opportunity for a 20th-century British philosopher to insert himself into the crowd, raise his hand, and ask in a dispassionate voice: “Mr. Henry, sir, which liberty do you prefer — positive or negative?”

What? There’s More Than One Liberty?

Had this fantasy scenario occurred, the time traveler questioning Patrick Henry would have been a Russian-born British philosopher, Isaiah Berlin. In 1958, Berlin published a profoundly important article, Two Concepts of Liberty. In this paper, he proposed two views of liberty: negative and positive.

Berlin wrote that when you coerce a person, you deprive them of their freedom. But, he asked, what is freedom? The answer to this question had always seemed obvious. Freedom has always meant to “do as you please without constraints from others.”

Do whatever you want to whomever you want. This is freedom? But we live in a society of others who also want to act freely. What if what I want to do interferes with what you want to do? What if my freedom diminishes your freedom?

I am amazed that prior to Isaiah Berlin’s seminal essay in 1958, no one seriously questioned the principle of “my freedom versus your freedom.” There seemed to be a historical assumption that “freedom” was an unalienable right reserved for certain persons (like the ruling class), but not for others.

Negative Liberty

Berlin defined negative freedom as being able to do what you want without coercive constraints. He did not consider natural limitations, like being unable to jump 10 feet into the air, to be a coercive constraint. Coercion (negativity) refers to deliberate acts or regulations by humans to limit your freely chosen activities.

Negative liberty, then, is associated with individualism and personal autonomy. In a society of citizens pursuing their own individualistic goals, advocates of negative liberty want to limit civil regulations that restrict their behavior.

At face value, negative liberty might seem a utopian ideal for a free society. The context, however, should be kept in mind. For example, in the early days of the American Republic, only white male property owners enjoyed this right. And the landed gentry pursued this ideal to their profitable benefit.

Negative Liberty: Humanizing or Dehumanizing?

Negative freedom is not inherently dehumanizing if the participants in conflicting freedoms are committed to cooperation.

If my actions interfere with your freedom to act, then you and I can discuss how our actions constrain each other. If our goal is to maintain respect for one another’s freedom, then you and I can find some compromise that minimizes our differences.

Negotiating solutions to differences in our respective freedoms assumes a negotiation between equals. This principle of equality in negotiating differences is true whether the conflict is between two nations, two industries, or on a smaller scale, two people who are partners.

Negative freedom becomes dehumanizing when there is a power difference between the two parties.

Suppose you and I are business partners in a company where you have 60% equity, and I have a 40% share. You propose an expansion of our business into a market that I consider to be high-risk. You want to gamble on our future, and I want to protect it.

A compromise solution might be to enter the risky market on a small scale that doesn’t expose the entire business. If we can compromise, our relationship will retain equity. However, suppose you assert your primary ownership and decide to enter the risky market without constraint. You decide on your own to go “all in.”

Through an “ I-win/you-lose” decision, our relationship suffers an inequity due to your assertion of power. You have asserted your business equity at the loss of our personal equity.

Negative liberty can enshrine humanizing freedom to the extent that conflicts in freedom are resolved through equitable compromises. Unfortunately, conflicts in freedom seldom involve conflicting parties who respect each other’s power differences.

In cases of conflicting freedoms, power differences between parties often lead to inequitable solutions that dehumanize the one with less power by denying their freedom. Social and political hierarchies, with inevitable outgroup exclusions, are based on dehumanizing applications of negative liberty.

Positive Liberty

In contrast to negative liberty, with its resistance to external constraints on your freely chosen actions, positive liberty refers to your freedom to control and direct your own life. Negative liberty involves confronting external constraints, whereas positive liberty involves overcoming internal constraints to find your own path in life.

Living in a society based upon positive liberty means having the personal power and external resources to fulfill your potential. As Belin conceived it, positive liberty can involve state or societal assistance to ensure that you have the education, resources, and opportunities to achieve your goals. This could mean that a certain level of collective or state control is necessary to support individual freedoms.

Rebranding Negative and Positive Liberty: “Me First” versus “We Together”

Negative liberty, with its disdain for social constraints on an individual’s behavior, stands in contrast to positive liberty, with its advocacy for social resources to help you find your path in life.

By distinguishing between these two perspectives on liberty, Berlin turned a spotlight on the roots of the conservative and liberal divide.

Me First

Negative liberty is the fundamental principle driving the individualism that characterized the earliest days of the American Republic. When negative liberty is systemically applied in a dehumanizing manner, we have a “Me First” worldview of liberty.

An enduring symbol of the American Revolution was the Gadsden flag, which features a rattlesnake coiled around the motto: “Don’t Tread On Me.” Today, the slogan for the U.S. State of New Hampshire is “Live Free or Die.” But free from what? Free to do what?

We Together

Positive liberty is the freedom of personal expression and self-mastery that is not constrained by the social norms of rigid conformity. Berlin recognized that “no person is an island” and that each of us lives in a society of others where personal needs must be considered in the context of collective needs.

The foundation of a society built on positive liberty is each person having the resources and opportunities to realize the potential of their unique identity. I refer to a society built on this principle as the “We Together” worldview.

The Great Divide Between “Me First” and “We Together”

Here is a thought experiment that highlights the fundamental difference between the Me First (individualist) and We Together (collectivist) values. At the heart of this difference is a question about governance: who makes the rules about what is good for me?

The problem for this thought experiment is the outbreak of the COVID-19 infection worldwide. The world was unprepared for a highly infectious and lethal virus for which there was no protection.

Lacking any better defense, many nations imposed lockdown isolations that had huge economic and social consequences. Within several months of the lockdown mandates, a second defense was proposed: a vaccination that was developed within an extremely short timeline.

In the world of individualism versus collectivism, the individualists (believers in negative liberty) asserted that governments had no right to force them to isolate or vaccinate. The collectivists (believers in positive liberty) counter-argued that by not isolating or being vaccinated, these individualists were infectious hosts who would harm others by spreading the virus.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced very difficult choices: the voluntary adoption of preventative measures or administrative regulations that forced preventive measures.

In the context of these opposing options, we find the great divide: conservatism vs. liberalism, negative liberty vs. positive liberty, Me First vs. We Together.

Those who hold the Me First worldview abhor limits on their personal freedom. Those who hold the We Together worldview abhor individualists who put others at risk. Can these opposing worldviews ever be reconciled?

Can Two Flavors of Liberty Co-Exist?

The concept of a democracy built upon a singular principle of liberty has been torn asunder. The conservative intelligentsia accuses the liberals of destroying democracy by having created an administrative state that imposes coercive regulations on all aspects of citizens’ behaviors related to health, public welfare, and the economy (see Deneen, 2018 and Slack, 2023).

In contrast, liberals have identified administrative regulation as a primary strategy for distributing and protecting scarce resources, like water conservancy or limits on overfishing.

Related to the problem of overfishing, at this writing, the conservative Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is considering a case that could greatly restrict federal agencies from using scientific expertise in regulating public health policy and distributing scarce public resources.

In theory, the Me First and We Together worldviews of liberty should be able to co-exist. In a healthy society, representatives of the two worldviews should identify their self-interests and conflicting collective interests. Through quid pro quo negotiations, the two sides could negotiate win-win compromises.

However, in today’s world, the principle of compromise between conservatives and liberals has all but vanished. The Me First factions are in ascendance worldwide, and the We Together proponents are struggling to hold their base together.

In just one example, Germany is dealing with the increasing popularity of the ultra-conservative Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, whose platform includes the mass deportation of asylum seekers and German citizens of foreign origin. Germans who value We Together have taken to the streets in mass protests against this Nazi-like party while the AfD continues to gain in popularity.

To the great misfortune of our world democracies, compromise between worldviews is viewed as a sign of weakness.

What Would You Do?

As I conclude this essay, my self-critique tells me the text feels drier and much more academic than I might prefer. The topic, conflicts between two worldviews of liberty, is complex, and the implications for our world order are profound. There appear to be no happy endings to battles about which worldview of liberty prevails.

One way to make this topic less academic and more personal is to put you in the driver’s seat. What’s your view of this conflict?

Let’s role-play. Suppose you have in your hands the reins of your nation’s government.

Yes, you are The One.

You have read reports from the World Health Organization (WHO) that in 2022, deaths from measles infections have increased globally by 43% (compared to 2021). You read further that 33 million children did not get fully vaccinated against measles in 2022. You have also been given reports that parents in your country (your voters) are increasingly resistant to having their children vaccinated against measles.

You hold the reins, and as The One, you enjoy holding the reins. What would you do? Is it a parent’s right to deny vaccination for their child, or is it the obligation of your government to protect every child from the spread of a deadly disease that is entirely preventable?

Will your decision be driven by the popular vote that keeps you in power or by a positive worldview about liberty?

Your choice between the Me First and We Together factions will reveal much about your leadership values and the flavor of liberty you will feed to your citizens.

References

Berlin, I. (1958). Two concepts of liberty. In Liberty Reader (pp. 33–57): Routledge.

Deneen, P. J. (2018). Why Liberalism Failed.

Slack, K. (2023). War on the American Republic: How Liberalism Became Despotism