I think, for most people, freedom is primarily associated with political freedoms; of free speech, freedom of association, democracy.
In their seminal books, The Road to Serfdom and Capitalism and Freedom Hayek and Friedman consistently link state regulation and control of markets to a broader erosion of freedom. They were particularly successful because of the Cold War, which enabled them to conflate their extreme brand of economics with the civil and political rights championed by the West, and any state intervention with Communism. This is of course, not true at all.
There is no necessary positive link between neo-liberal market ‘freedoms’ and civil and political rights. A coal-fired power station ‘liberated’ from the red tape of ‘burdensome’ environmental regulations, is in no way a guarantee of the right to protest, the right to free speech, or the right to freedom of assembly.
This is a key difference I think between neo-liberalism and the classical liberalism of thinkers like Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. It is not that the advocates of neo-liberalism support authoritarianism.
But when a commitment to neo-liberal economics comes together with authoritarianism and a suppression of civil and political rights, they have repeatedly shown they are more than happy to hold their nose. This was true for Friedman in his support of Pinochet, and this recent tweet from The Economist shows that not much has changed.
In our annual Davos paper, we try and make a small contribution to reclaiming the word freedom. The focus of our paper is on the power of public services and social protection to reduce the gap between rich and poor. Of health and education to fight inequality. And of the need to tax wealth more fairly to pay for this.
Amartya Sen, in his famous book from twenty years ago, Development is Freedom points out that despite huge wealth, the world denies even the most basic freedoms to most humanity. Whilst nominally free, most of humanity remains effectively imprisoned by poverty, illness and ignorance. To be truly free, you need to not be worried about whether you or your family will have enough to eat today.
Yet in so many countries it is your bank balance that dictates whether you will have good healthcare, enough food or a good education.
My son Ernest recently learned to read, and I can see first-hand the true liberation that it is bringing – he is hoovering up books, hungry for knowledge. It reminds me of when I worked on adult literacy programmes in Malawi – talking to women about how, before they learned to read, they felt like they were living at the “bottom of a dark cooking pot”, unable to understand the world around them.
These are true freedoms, and to achieve them the richest corporations and individuals will have to become a little less free. Less free to avoid tax. Less free to pay poverty wages. Less free to pollute and less free to purchase politics. This seems a small price to pay.
25-31 January 2019 was celebrated as the global week of action against inequality, organised by activists across the world as part of the Fight Inequality Alliance. It is timed to coincide with Davos, to demonstrate that the answers to the inequality crisis come not from elites on a mountain top but from ordinary citizens.
In 2018, we held a festival in Dandora, one of the slums in Nairobi, and this year we are doing it again, but it will be bigger and better. Not least there will be a children’s tent and I am volunteering to police the bouncy castles!
Excitingly this year, inspired by Kenya, similar events are taking place in slums all over the world – in India, in the Philippines, in Mexico, and we expect campaign actions in forty countries. In London are gathering near the Grenfell Tower to hear from artists and activists on the growing inequality in the UK, and what can be done to fight it. You can follow it all on Twitter if you follow #fightinequality.
Kenya is seemingly full of amazing activists, dedicating their time and energy to fighting injustice and inequality, and I have been so privileged to work with many of them in the last year as part of the ‘Fight Inequality Alliance Kenya’ programme.
Beth is one of the brave ones willing to fight back against this. It is people like Beth, joining together across the world, that will bring an end to the inequality crisis.
(Max Lawson is the Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam International and is based in Nairobi. He can be reached at @maxlawsontin on Twitter. This is a personal blog and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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