Freedom According to classical liberal political philosophy, freedom is the absence of direct physical constraint; freedom being essentially negative, it is always freedom from something. This point of view ignores poverty, unemployment and wage labour as examples of constraints and lack of freedom. Under capitalism, however, the working class are unfree. Although individual workers may have some ‘freedom’ of action (to change jobs, for example), as a member of the working class we are coerced into selling our labour power, or taking on any of the roles involved in the reproduction of labour power, such as student, housewife or pensioner. Because the capitalist class own the means of life, workers cannot escape from their class position in society: we are wage slaves. For socialists, freedom is self-determination. On the new basis of common ownership, democratic control and production solely for self-determined needs, socialism will be a society in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. --- worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/z-marxism/f
Posted on: Sat, 05 Oct 2013 19:05:18 +0000
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