Freedom can therefore never mean simply the absence of external interference with the individual’s will to do or not to do what she or he wants, as the Hobbsian tradition claims; freedom is actual power to live life with dignity, to be the artisan of one’s own destiny. When people are kept in abject poverty and illiteracy while others grow rich and “develop their personalities” at the former’s expense we speak of oppression; when structures and persons that perpetuate powerlessness are replaced by structures that allow people to stand on their own feet and have their own voice, we speak of
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