Individual Freedom vs. Social Constraint
Only individuals exist. Societies are conveniences of mind for understanding the relationships of individuals to one another.
“A society” is not a sufficiently precise term to use in any definitive way. “Society” is a collective term for groups. Groups are collections of people who influence one another.
Benefits from group membership: The functions of the ideal group are essentially summed in the idea of supplying the needs of the individual. (Cell and body example). A first-approximation list of such needs might be:
- Existence: being born
- Nurture: being supplied with the physical necessities of life
- Culture: being supplied with the products of the arts of communication.
- Education: assistance in forming mental constructs, attitudes, and skills to be able to adapt actively to one’s environment.
- Opportunity: the chance to produce benefits for other members of the group, to find fulfillment through contribution.
In the ideal group, the opportunity to contribute to it is its greatest benefit.
Problems to the ideal group are principally two:
- Inefficiency inherent in the human situation.
- Exploitation by other individuals.
1. Inefficiency inherent in the situation in necessitated by three factors:
- a. Presence of non-productive members of the group.
- b. Law of entropy; loss of benefit in transmitting benefits from the producer to the consumer.
- c. Lack of knowledge and power to solve certain problems.
2. Exploitation by other individuals is the tendency of some men deliberately to take more from the group than they are willing to give and could give.
Because of the factors of the human situation that create inefficiency, the benefits of society that men are able to imagine usually are greater than what the society can produce for everyone. This gives rise to exploitation.
Exploitation occurs when some individuals of the group contribute less than what they could, thus producing further inefficiency, or forcibly constrain members of the group so that they benefit from group production more than their needs justify relative to the needs of other members of the group. These tendencies are variously known as laziness, feather-bedding, gold-bricking when one produces less, and as tyranny, graft, excess profit when one forcibly takes more than his share.
Individual freedom may now be defined as the opportunity to participate willingly in a group that suffers from no inefficiency or exploitation. This indeed would be fulfillment.
How has history treated human beings? We note an interesting relationship between efficiency and exploitation.
- The Australian aborigine, remarkably free from exploitation, is cursed with extreme inefficiency.
- Groups inhabiting fertile lands of the earth where efficiency is relatively high have traditionally been the most exploited peoples.
- Islanders in tropical climes where nature is benevolent have until recently been little exploited, but have suffered from lack of cultural progress due to their isolation.
In sum, few individuals in recorded history have enjoyed any marked degree of individual freedom, and most of that has been freedom from material want by exploitation of others. Our own national experiment is one of the greatest achievements known to the world. But most men in this or any other age have suffered terribly from inefficiency and exploitation.
What are the possible solutions to overcome inefficiency and exploitation?
The Worldly Solution
- Science as the cure for inefficiency
- Balance exploitation through law
Why the worldly solution won’t work.
1. While it is true that science is doing wonders to subdue the earth, it is inherently incapable of solving value problems or of assuring us of just how we ought to solve an individual problem.
Examples.
Science is the god of the modern world. But it is a god that knows only the past and that only partly, whose stony face turns only to material, to animal problems, and whose high priests are continually rationalizing its failures to hear and answer prayers. But this is not fault of science. Science is a wonderful and exciting way to approach the unknown aspects of the material universe. But it is not God.
2. The attempt to balance exploitation through re-exploitation by law suffers similar difficulties. It supposes now that men are omniscient and can pass equitable laws to redistribute the benefits of society equably. But history again gives the lie to this arrogance. Human law never can catch up with exploitation; it would take an infinity of laws to do so. Historically judged, most lawmakers themselves have suffered from the disease they try to cure: exploitation.
The Lord’s Solution
The mission of Jesus Christ is to make men free so that they might live more abundantly. How does He achieve this?
He overcomes inefficiency through divine omniscience, and through omnipotent power over the laws of nature. Whatever the problems of men, He has the solutions and dispenses aid as fast as men can stand it. The principal reason men can’t stand more is that they put their trust in false Gods.
He overcomes exploitation by freeing men who wish to be free from the power of Satan, from avarice, greed, cruelty, and laziness. He helps them to realize that to give is more blessed than to receive, and that true happiness comes only in helping others to have real benefits.
We must belong to a group. There are two essential choices; join Mammon to exploit and be exploited, or to serve the Lord who exploits no one and blesses all far more than we can possibly repay. May we choose this day to have freedom and eternal life before the curtains of time consign us forever with the exploiters.