Freedom is under threat again - by its own achievements

Lately, I have been increasingly encountering an interesting phenomenon – an awful lot of smart and thinking people, reflecting and commenting on global problems, invariably blame freedom. Starting from offshore zones and banks, through Uber and Airbnb and ending with personal consumer choice and the management of private property, the people in question always come to the catastrophic consequences of the individual’s free will for himself and all of humanity. It is as if the intelligentsia hates freedom. Or rather, it is afraid of it. It constantly showers it with reproaches and tries to discredit it – from books, from television and radio, from newspapers and magazines, but most of all – from public debates, teaching departments and recently – from web-based media and on social networks.

What is freedom and who are the intelligentsia?

But let's first define the concepts: Freedom for me has only an individual dimension and means that each person can completely freely dispose of himself, his skills, knowledge and property, as long as this does not affect the freedom of others. Freedom acquires a social dimension through capitalism, and democracy and the separation of powers ensure the protection of the individual from the arbitrariness of a tyrant, a well-organized clique or the majority, the latter of which can be particularly cruel.

By intelligentsia, I mean the stratum of people who are smart, educated, well-read, and thinking, but somehow absolutely unwilling or unable to find application for their knowledge and skills in the free market.

Historically, the intelligentsia has always been associated with the ruler or the state. These are the former lords, counts, dukes and their close circles, for whom the common man has always been a plebeian, whose sole function is to ensure their carefree and comfortable existence, devoted to deep thinking.

The freedom of the individual acquired significant social dimensions only in the 14th-15th centuries in England and the Netherlands. Until then, 99% of humanity actually belonged to one degree or another to someone – an emperor, king, lord, prince, chieftain or tribal council – and lived, rooted forever in their village and caste. With the guarantee of private property and free trade, the world entered an era of rapid development, from which only the aristocracy, the church and the intelligentsia supported by them lost. Suddenly the plebeians turned out to be mobile – they started moving and doing with themselves and their property whatever they wanted. And the social position of the individual began to depend on their ability to sell or create through their knowledge and skills – and this was fatal for the intelligentsia. Since then, it has had one single calling – to defend the status quo and its privileges from freedom, by creating and spreading philosophical movements, theories and laws that would limit it. One of its most powerful weapons is the idealization of the concept of belonging to a given place, race, or caste, the manifestations of which are feudal serfdom, the communist working class, socialist gentrification, and fascist racism.

Who are these people today? Scientists, journalists, political scientists, sociologists and cultural scientists, teachers, activists, vigilant citizens... They are united by two things - the inability to achieve anything on the free market and, accordingly, the dream of having power. In order to impose their vision of "proper development" on the world. Because the free choice of the individual (the other) ruins it!?

Freedom simply does not need a structure, a detailed thought-out system, complex laws and saviors. It is at the heart of the market – a simple mechanism that relies only on the abilities and desires of the individual and rules to guarantee his inviolability. Alas, the intelligentsia needs a calling, a feeling that it is changing something for the better, a moral pedestal on which to climb and declare its superiority. It needs to create, and since the market ignores its “products”, it tries in every way to impose them in other ways. And the most effective instrument for imposing anything is undoubtedly the state.

The intelligentsia needs social dramas, dangers, problems to “solve” in order to feel useful. Since it is not engaged in real economic activity, the intelligentsia has endless time to “create” and spread its theories through all possible media. The worst news for the intelligentsia is the good news. It deprives it of meaning…

"How is it that the environment is getting cleaner?" - asks the intelligentsia. "Don't you know how much worse it is today and how many things need to be changed, researched, studied, regulated and how bad freedom is for the environment? How is it that people are living better and better? Don't you know what huge and growing inequality there is that the state needs to correct?"

The new generation - with an iPhone to degrowth

Everything would be just fine if the “old” intelligentsia were not so successful in spreading their messages among the “youngest” intelligentsia – the so-called Generation Y. These are a special breed of young people, most often with a humanitarian education – respectively, technically and economically ignorant – who “change the world for the better”. Throw them the “terrible truth” about any technological achievement or business success and watch. They have the power to stop the development of everything, guided by the maxim “If only they had sat still, lest a miracle happen!”, known today more elegantly as the “Precautionary Principle”. They can kill a project, a product, a company or an entire technology in no time – just by hanging around on the net or rolling around in the streets.

They have irrevocable mantras: everything renewable is better than non-renewable; organic is better than industrial; if this or that substance is toxic, then it poisons us; carbon dioxide is the worst air pollutant; smoking, drinking, sugar, vaccines, GMOs, the atom, chemicals… are bad. Such details as natural laws, data, concentrations, availability, technical capabilities, real human behavior, economic efficiency simply do not interest them. And the less they understand about a specific topic, the more firmly they support it with arguments that are so irrational that they simply cannot be rationally refuted.

Considering that the most painful phenomenon for the old intelligentsia is the severing of the plebeians’ eternal connection with the feudal lord’s land, we should not be surprised at all that the ideal of the beautiful village is spreading among Generation Y – slow life, slow food, no unnecessary overload, cars, electricity, hot water, technology… Not that they have any idea what rural life is like, if you have to actually live it. All they need is a tablet, a smartphone and an Internet connection to post content against everything that provides them – bad technologies, energy production, mineral extraction and most of all – against capitalism, that is, freedom! It is so ironic that it would be funny if it weren’t scary…

The most mind-boggling thing, however, is their political ignorance. They verbally reject communism because they have heard that something didn't work. However, they constantly demand that the state regulate, make, create, control and distribute everything "fairly". They verbally value freedom, but they feel unappreciated by the free market and accordingly blame it for their failures - they have studied so much, and no one wants to hire them or pay them as much as they think they deserve. Their biggest problem in the world is that somewhere out there there are some very rich people and they enthusiastically applaud when someone announces that we should all unite together and restore equality. And they don't get excited at all that this is exactly what happened in Bulgaria in 1944. They write and talk about brotherhood, togetherness, degrowth, the gift economy, self-sufficiency and deglobalization, an income ceiling for individuals and a basic income for all... And when you tell them that their dreams are a reality - in North Korea - they declare you a "racist", a "neoliberal" or at least a "corporate lobbyist".

"The beast is still alive" - it has changed its appearance and color, it has become younger and again gently whispers promises of a bright future. Generously fed by the welfare state and armed with ambition, ignorance and an iPhone, today the eternal enemy of freedom raises its head exactly where we least expect it. And step by step it achieves victories.

History has a habit of repeating itself and no generation is immune. Therefore, we must be aware: Freedom is under threat again!

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