LAST TIME WE NOTICED that, at first glance, it seemed the attitude of both liberals and conservatives toward freedom reversed when we turned toward the case of free markets.
"A country can't be free without laws, and a market can't be free without regulation."
While conservatives tend to endorse the freedom of power against individual freedom in the context of school prayer, abortion, or gay marriage, they appear to be against power when it comes to economic matters: less regulation, less taxation, etc.
Liberals, who were all for the individual, against the force of authority, when it came to school prayer, or abortion or gay marriage, are now the ones who want power, in the form of government, to intervene.
So does the pattern hold, or not?
It does, if we look a little deeper.
Conservatives view market freedom as freedom from government intervention. If the most extreme conservatives had their way, government would not try to regulate businesses at all.
Liberals, on the other hand, see the idea of a free market much the way they see the idea of a free country. A country can't be free without laws, and a market can't be free without regulation.
Once again, it comes down to where the focus of freedom lies. For conservatives, the focus is the freedom of businesses, of corporations, employers, and marketers to do what they like. Freedom mean the freedom of the owners—the ones with the power.
For liberals the focus is the freedom of the individual within that market.
There's a direct parallel here to the school prayer scenario. Given a choice between focusing on the freedom of the teacher or the freedom of the students, conservatives chose the freedom of the authority, the one with power.
The same is true of the gay marriage debate. Conservatives opt for the freedom of the States to outlaw gay marriage over the freedom of gays to marry. They chose to focus on the freedom of the powerful.
If conservatives could manage to overturn Roe v. Wade, they would create a situation in which the States would have the freedom to outlaw abortion. They would endorse the freedom of power to impose conservative wishes on pregnant women.
And, when it comes to markets, conservatives are interested in freeing businesses, which are more powerful than both their employees and their customers, at the expense of the freedom of individuals.
Beneath this focus, they hold the belief that the owners—those with the power—have a right to make decisions that affect others.
Liberals, on the other hand, view a free market as a market in which the individual's freedoms are protected from the economic force of giant corporations calling the shots. So liberals are interested in protecting the right to organize unions, the right to a safe workplace, the right to take a corporation to court.
The right of the little guy to self-defense.
In all four cases—school prayer, abortion, gay marriage, and a free market:
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Religious liberals, straight liberals, liberals who would not personally want an abortion, and liberals who own businesses agree that other perspectives than theirs may be legitimate. Conservatives don't.
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Liberals of all stripes agree that government's role should be to protect the powerless from the powerful. Conservatives believe that the role of government is to enforce their single legitimate perspective.
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Liberals see freedom as freedom from power. Conservatives see freedom as the freedom to use power to control the powerless.
So the next time you talk to someone on the other end of the spectrum, remember that they may not mean what you mean by freedom.
At least, that's what I think today.
