How "Free to Choose" Are You?

“Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow man”
-Milton Friedman

Recent trends suggest (as did his recent death) occasion for another look at those words from the great economist who spent most of his life reminding people they should strive to be “free to choose”.

Dr. Friedman was describing the fundamental understanding of a free society as one in which others, including the government, can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. You could say you are assured non-interference…but that’s all. Success and happiness are up to you.

You have your rights and others have theirs, so long as nobody demands anything from anybody else but non-interference. Simple enough you’d think, but in practice we’ve been all too quick to drop that understanding for personal preferences. We want to be free to choose for ourselves, but have no problem employing force when others don’t choose what we think they should.


As America’s most brilliant Longshoreman Eric Hoffer said: “We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.”

So, who are these “troublemakers” anyway? Well we pretty much all are. But while folks of every political leaning are guilty, today only those of the liberal/progressive persuasion are actually proud of it. Try as you will you’d be hard pressed to find initiatives from today’s Democrats that don’t take from someone or mandate something. While Republicans have their share of liberal impulses (huge agricultural subsidies to the tune of half all farm income and a vast expansion of Medicare) they at least acknowledge the rights of people to their earnings and property.

In fact, in this sense liberalism/progressivism the world over shares the same fundamental flaw as Islamic fundamentalism: They both attempt to foster virtue through force, which of course is impossible. An act can only be virtuous when you are free to choose otherwise.

For instance some fundamentalists argue that women be made to cover themselves because modesty is a virtue. Modesty certainly is a virtue, but by making burqas mandatory they actually remove the possibility of virtue there. Only those women who freely choose it have claim to said virtue.

Back home liberals/progressives use force all the time in the name of virtue. Raising taxes is the most glaring offense, but others examples like affirmative action, minimum wage laws, campus speech codes, eminent domain land seizures, etc. abound.

Some taxes are necessary, but today the fact is that over 40% of your income will go to the government one way or another and well over half of those taxes are simply given to someone else deemed more in need. We actually spend three times as much on welfare as it would cost to raise every poor family above the poverty level. Personally giving help to someone in need is virtuous. Paying taxes with the the threat of jail if you don’t is not.

Affirmative action is doubly problematic. Not only do forced quotas effectively negate the virtue of mostly nondescriminating employers but they also needlessly cast a shadow of doubt over the virtuous achievements of so many.

Now comes Barack Obama’s call for “Universal” health care. As I pointed out before, rights are only valid if they impose no measurable burden on another person. So can we provide health care to everyone without imposing a burden on anybody else? Not a chance. If you’re healthy and your neighbor drinks like a fish and smokes like a chimney, who bears a heavier burden with “Universal” health care? The answer is simply whoever makes more money. I see no virtue in that.

Not only is virtue through compulsion impossible, but often the rhetoric of those arguing for it runs in stark contrast to virtue by appealing to envy. Dr. Thomas Sowell writes “Envy was once considered to be one of the seven deadly sins before it became one of the most admired virtues under it’s new name ‘social justice’.” Charges like “tax cuts for the rich” come to mind.

Friedman also wrote” A society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither.” And he was right. When we take our eyes off of the prize (freedom) to demand superficial equality and pretend we’re virtuous we forget that our successes are all the more remarkable precisely when they aren’t guaranteed. Only when we are truly “free to choose” can our actions take on true meaning.