If you haven’t read part I and part II first, please do so before continuing.
Freedom in Anarchist Thought
So far I have outlined the stark differences between the Western neoclassical/libertarian understanding of liberty and the Indigenous egalitarian one. However, there is another vein of Western philosophy which has much more in common with that of Indigenous Americans: anarchism. Anarchism, as a political philosophy rejecting social hierarchy and all forms of oppression, has perhaps the most coherent notion of liberty within the European and Euro-American philosophical tradition. Anarchism explicitly rejects Roman libertas and does not accept Locke’s assertion that the state is necessary to protect individual freedoms. Instead,
“…anarchists believe that genuine freedom can only be achieved in a society without the State. They therefore embrace the traditional socialist freedoms such as freedom from want and insecurity as well as the liberal freedoms of expression, thought, assembly and movement. When they talk about economic freedom, they mean both the liberal sense of freedom from the economic controls of the State and the socialist sense of freedom from economic hardship. The alleged ‘freedom’ of the few on the other hand to exploit and to command is not a desirable form of freedom since it leads to oppression.” (Marshall 2009:37)
According to Marshall, anarchism utilizes both the neoclassical notion of negative freedom (freedom from restraint) and the attainable freedoms facilitated by mutual aid, similar to the Wendat and Iroquois. The revolutionary anarchist Errico Malatesta asserted that “freedom is not an abstract right but the possibility of acting” (p.40). Anarchist philosophy professes that only when individuals are in cooperation with each other can they manifest their full powers and aspirations.
Anarchists are generally skeptical of private property, as they understand it to be an outgrowth of state authority, which they oppose. Private property creates scarcity and social isolation, leading to relationships of domination. Therefore, anarchism does not believe in the possessive individual, and while it does recognize the importance of individual liberty, most anarchists see the need for certain limitations on that liberty in order to protect the freedoms of others: “[William Godwin] rejects the positive right to do as we please on the grounds that we have a permanent duty to contribute to general happiness. Freedom from constraint (except that of reasons presented to the understanding) is of the utmost importance, but ‘moral independence’ is always injurious. We should therefore be free from political constraints, not moral constraints” (p.37). Similar to Indigenous egalitarianism, anarchism holds in high regard the right to refuse, but also recognizes the need for certain types of coercion to help individuals act in the interests of the community. This coercion is generally not by force and does not come from law or punishment, but is instead derived from moral persuasion and social sanction: “Censure, even in the form of reasoned argument, curtails the freedom of some in an anarchist society to enable the maximum amount of freedom for all. By wishing to combine the greatest individual development with the greatest communal unity, Alan Ritter has argued that their overriding goal is ‘communal individuality’ and that they therefore cannot strictly speaking be called ‘libertarians’; their libertarianism is ‘not of direct intention, but of oblique effect’. Freedom is thus valued more as a means than an end” (p.40).
Like many egalitarian Indigenous societies, anarchism understands equality of social and political power to be critical for true freedom, which clearly distinguishes it from libertarianism. Marshall writes that anarchists “recognize that the freedom of all is the necessary condition for the freedom of each; as Bakunin declared, ‘Man is truly free only among equally free men.’” In this way, there is alignment with the Ju/’hoansi foragers of the Kalahari Desert. Richard Lee wrote that Ju/’hoansi egalitarianism “is not simply the absence of a headman and other authority figures, but a positive insistence on the essential equality of all people and a refusal to bow to the authority of others” (quoted in Fowles 2018:24). Furthermore, these communities practice leveling mechanisms to prevent hubristic leaders from consolidating power, even if those mechanisms violate the individual freedoms of the would-be tyrant. Like the Cherokee revolts against the corrupt priestly class previously mentioned, Fowles gives numerous examples of egalitarian societies which used violent force against authoritarian and hubristic leaders including in the Chaco Canyon civilization, the Pueblo, and the Iroquois (pp.27-8). While some may see a contradiction in the violation of a tyrant’s freedom in order to protect the freedoms of others, the severe consequences of refusing to use leveling mechanisms against demagogues is readily apparent in contemporary society with the rise of Trump and other right wing populists. While libertarian and liberal politics have failed to prevent the rise of populist tyrants in recent years, Indigenous egalitarianism and anarchism might have more effective techniques to offer.
Conclusion
The dominance of libertarian rhetoric in political discourse surrounding COVID-19 demonstrates the failure of the Left to lead the debate on liberty. This failure has profound consequences beyond COVID. The neoliberal cooptation of the words liberty and freedom has led to a widespread false consciousness in the underclasses, especially the white working class in the U.S. A number of neoliberal and conservative think tanks and political organizations wrap themselves in the rhetoric of liberty, which acts as an effective cloak against the potential anti-authoritarian scrutiny of the white working class. The Koch brothers and their colleagues have named dozens of organizations using the words freedom and liberty: Freedom Works, Freedom Partners, the Freedom Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives, and so on. As I discussed, this libertarian liberty is primarily negative, defined as Hobbesian free choice without external interference, and almost exclusively focused on a capitalist framing of economic liberty. It is through this limited definition of freedom that the U.S. has transformed into a plutocracy, where those at the top of the economic ladder have every freedom at their disposal while the masses below have fewer and fewer attainable rights. Yet as a result of effective libertarian propaganda, the underclasses may nonetheless believe themselves to be free.
What can be done to solve this conundrum? Corey Robin suggests it is time the Left wrests back the rhetoric of freedom from conservatives. Beginning in the 1950s and gaining momentum in the 1970s, the new libertarian counter-revolution led by Fredrich Hayek, James McGill Buchanan, Milton Freeman, Dean Russell, and other conservative thinkers strategically identified liberty and freedom as critical concepts to coopt (at the time claimed by the Left) in order to control U.S. politics (MacLean 2018). As Robin states, “In the U.S., freedom has always been the leading political vernacular, and Eric Foner, the historian at Columbia, has a great book called ‘The Story of American Freedom’ and one of the basic arguments of that book is: whoever controls freedom talk controls political discourse” (Left Anchor 2019). Robin believes that in order to win back control of political discourse, the Left must frame its arguments in the context of freedom (Robin 2015).
The public health response to COVID-19 must be framed in the same way. Discussion of liberty in the context of the pandemic has primarily focused on negative freedoms such as freedom to not wear a mask or not to vaccinate. The libertarian possessive individual features prominently in this discourse, with arguments of self against society abounding. To shift the framing, the Left needs to redefine the individual not as possessive, but as communitarian, and delineate the many positive freedoms that lack of community cooperation on COVID safety protocols endanger, such as the freedom to be healthy from communicable diseases, the freedom to be in public spaces without fearing harm, the freedom to trust one’s neighbor, the freedom of access to healthcare, and so on. The gradual rightward slide of U.S. politics has had a quickening as a result of the effective conservative propagandizing with regards to COVID. The false consciousness sown by COVID conspiracy theories against so-called “liberal elites” and the reframes of plutocratic operatives as anti-establishment activists have seduced many who would otherwise be uninterested in conservative or neoliberal politics (DiMaggio 2022). The Left must make clear that the plutocratic agenda detracts from essentially every freedom except those enjoyed by the world’s wealthiest one-percent, and that if we are to truly be free in the face of COVID we must practice mutual aid and re-embrace the liberties defended by the original Enlightenment thinkers: Indigenous North Americans.
References
Baumgold, D. 2009. “Hobbes and Republican Liberty”. The English Historical Review, 124(509):973-974.
Bell, David A.. 2012, June 22. “Happy Birthday to Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Why the World’s First Celebrity Intellectual Still Matters”. The New Republic. Retrieved May 2022. (https://newrepublic.com/article/104165/jean-jacques-rousseau-celebrity-intellectual)
Berlin, Isaiah. [1958] 2009. “Two concepts of freedom”. Revista De Occidente, (338-9):9-12.
Birch, Jennifer. 2015. “Current research on the historical development of northern Iroquoian societies”. Journal of Archaeological Research, 23(3), 263-323
Borrows, John. 2016. Freedom and Indigenous constitutionalism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Brody, Hugh. 2002. The other side of Eden: Hunters, farmers, and the shaping of the world. New York: Macmillan.
Buchanan, James M. 1999. The logical foundations of constitutional liberty (Vol. 1). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Carlsson, Chris, and Francesca Manning. 2010. “Nowtopia: strategic exodus?.” Antipode, 42(4): 924-953.
Cohen, Felix S. 1952. “Americanizing the white man”. The American Scholar: 177-191.
Dawes, Andy and Nsamenang, A. Bame. 1998. “Developmental Psychology as Political Psychology”. Political Psychology, 47(1):73-87.
DiMaggio, Anthony R. 2022. “Conspiracy Theories and the Manufacture of Dissent: QAnon, the ‘Big Lie’, Covid-19, and the Rise of Rightwing Propaganda”. Critical Sociology.
Federici, Silvia. 2004. Caliban and the Witch. New York: Autonomedia.
Fowles, Severin. 2018. “The evolution of simple society”. Asian Archaeology, 2(1):19-32.
Graeber, David. 2011. Debt: The first five thousand years. New York: Melville House.
Graeber, David, and David Wengrow. 2021. The dawn of everything: A new history of humanity. Penguin UK.
Gray-Garcia, Lisa (Tiny), and Garcia, Dee. 2019. Poverty Scholarship: Poor People-Led Theory, Art, Words, and Tears Across Mama Earth. Oakland: Poor Press.
Hobbes, Thomas. [1651] 2016. Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan (Longman Library of Primary Sources in Philosophy). London: Routledge.
Johansen, Bruce E. 1982. Forgotten founders. Harvard: Gambit Inc. Publishers.
Johansen, Bruce E. 1991. “Native American roots for freedom of expression as a form of liberty”. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 15(2):48-69.
Kadmus. 2018. True to earth: Pagan political theology. Olympia: Gods&Radicals Press.
Lahontan, Baron. 1735. A Conference or Dialogue Between the Author and Adario, A Noted Man Among the Savages. London.
Left Anchor. 2019, May 10. Left Anchor – Corey Robin on Freedom and Clarence Thomas [Podcast]. YouTube. Retrieved May 2022. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e3ZJI8EhtI)
McGilchrist, Iain. 2009. The Master and His Emissary. Yale: Yale University Press.
MacLean, Nancy. 2018. Democracy in chains: The deep history of the radical right’s stealth plan for America. New York: Penguin Books.
Macpherson, C. B. 1962. The political theory of possessive individualism. Oxford: Oxford University.
Marshall, Peter. 2009. Demanding the impossible. Oakland: PM Press.
McGregor, Deborah. 2018. “Freedom and indigenous constitutionalism by John Borrows”. University of Toronto Quarterly, 87(3): 272–274.
Robin, Corey. 2015, June 29. “Reclaiming the Politics of Freedom.” The Nation. Retrieved May 2022. (https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/reclaiming-politics-freedom/)
Zibechi, R. 2013, September. “Freedom According to the Zapatistas”. Schools for Chiapas. Retrieved May 20, 2022. (https://www.schoolsforchiapas.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Freedom-According-to-the-Zapatistas.pdf)
Sylvan Revolutions 
Leave a comment