On Freedom

by Timothy Snyder

The problem is one not of technology but of worldview. Following the logic of negative freedom, we concern ourselves with an abstraction (the economy) rather than the bodies of people. Instead of free people, we find ourselves speaking of a “free market.” The people become the barriers, to be removed—or penetrated. The myth of the free market instructs us that things should be free to circulate without hindrance. When the word freedom is conceded to the economy, it follows that the market has rights. Such rights will be enforced against people, who are expected to experience the market’s rights as duties. On this logic, people have a duty not to concern themselves with how things are bought and sold, or with how money is moved, or with monopolies, or wage slavery, or pollution, or carbon dioxide emissions.