From Liberty to Permission: How We Lost Freedom.
Freedom is slipping through our fingers, not with a bang, but with quiet, bureaucratic shifts in language and law.
Freedom is slipping through our fingers, not with a bang, but with quiet, bureaucratic shifts in language and law. What once was a natural right is now too often treated as a conditional permission granted by the state.
Steve and the FFF team have launched an excellent initiative to resist this drift.
Society is cooperation
It is time to redirect politics and public discourse away from irrelevant chatter about who is up or down in Westminster and the latest passing scandal, towards the fundamental questions that truly m…
But my focus here is the other half of the struggle: freedom itself. What does it mean in practice? Where did we go wrong? And why, with the Prime Minister now proposing digital IDs, is it more urgent than ever that we restore liberty to its original, rightful place?
What does freedom really mean?
Freedom means many things to many people, but fundamentally boils down to two key definitions, popularised by Berlin in the 20th century, negative and positive freedoms.
The UK’s tradition of negative liberty
Negative freedom is “said to be free to the degree to which no man or body of men interferes with my activity.”1 An example of this is Freedom from something, such as freedom from arbitrary arrest, enshrined in our great country in the Magna Carta of 1215. This is often referred to as “freedom from” an external force.
Historically, the UK has been a negative freedom nation, and many of our thinkers believed in this natural concept of liberty. The Magna Carta asserted fundamental negative freedom concepts, leading to Habeas Corpus. We operated on a very classical definition of liberty, which helped decentralisation during feudal times, and then of course to the Enlightenment, see Hume, Locke, Smith, etc..
Positive freedom: A useful check, then a dangerous shift
Positive freedom is “the wish on the part of the individual to be his own master. I wish my life and decisions to depend on myself, not on external forces of whatever kind.”2 An example of this would be the freedom to practice your religion.
Positive freedom initially emerged to perform checks on the executive and hold them to account. Clause 61 of Magna Carta allowed a council of Barons to petition and even rebel against the King if he violated this Great Charter, which, given the prevalence of divine right to rule, was a significant step in gaining freedoms and a right that would have only been granted by the executive. This led to a fundamental right of the citizen to petition his/her government. That was the point of positive freedom: to constrain the emerging powers and governance of the executive, not legitimise it.
However, the tragic and traumatic world wars revealed not only the value of freedom and its fragility, but also introduced “post-modern” critiques. With most countries on their knees, ideas of state-sponsored freedoms and rights were expanded: terms like the right to housing and the right to healthcare. This has shifted the narrative away from your natural right to build and own a home to a government-required permit to do so. That was never the point of positive freedom, which intends to put the (limited) government at the service of the populace, not as a means to control the public through becoming an arbitrary rights and freedoms monopoliser. We see this today in how debates over universal healthcare, state subsidies, or housing policy are framed not as freedoms protected from state interference, but as entitlements delivered by the state.
When rights replace freedom
I have above committed a grave but common sin of mixing rights and freedom, without explaining the nuances. Freedom is the ideology; right is how our institutions provide our freedom. Therefore, in theory, more rights mean more freedom, though that can be hampered by legislation. Crucially, all rights imply freedoms, but not all freedoms are rights, which is why positive freedom is problematic, as it has now become reliant on rights to achieve freedom, rather than protect natural freedoms with rights. This slight interchange between the two resulted in freedom being a means instead of an end.
The language trap: “right to” vs. “right from”
So why has positive freedom wrecked our liberties? Primarily due to language: freedom to do something meant something completely different to the founding fathers in America than what it means now. Back then, it meant to affirm your rights, guarantee them by the state and fundamentally places a limit, constrains the state. However, in today’s age, when you say you have the right to do something, it is also assumed that such a right is given to you by the government and defines where the government can interfere. It has shifted from defining the limits to defining where the state can come in, passive vs active.
Our relationship with the state has fundamentally changed, all because of the “Right To” narrative. Civil society has become more about governance than civility through everyday interactions. Government is now front and centre, instead of a back-of-the-mind thought and a backstop provision when our freedoms are interfered with.
Modern parallels: Digital IDs and free speech
By coincidence, at the time of writing, the Prime Minister has outlined his intention to introduce digital IDs. Why? To prove one’s “right to” work, ironic. Aside from its impracticalities (see a brief commentary of mine on LBC here), it completely hijacks the role of the government from a guarantor of freedom to a provider.
However, my main example was going to be free speech: the original intent was to protect citizens from censorship. Today, however, it is often argued as a positive right to be given a platform, leading to demands that governments or corporations guarantee access. The freedom ‘from interference’ has shifted into a freedom ‘to be provided for’.
What must be done?
Well, MPs need to consider wording far more importantly when drafting legislation, philosophy and psychology of language has a profound impact on our thoughts and future generations. Some might suggest a codified constitution; I would oppose that on the grounds that it creates more words and risks creating unintended consequences such as these. Furthermore, a codified constitution becomes a bible for governments on what they can do, rather than what we, as citizens, are free to do.
For me, we should draft legislation that protects privacy from government surveillance, ensuring free markets stay open to small businesses without burdensome regulation, and defending free speech without imposing obligations on others to provide platforms.
I also believe the general public has taken freedom for granted; it has not endured the hardships of fighting for it. We have thankfully lived in a relatively peaceful world in the Atlantic West. As such, people do not know what’s at stake, as it is given. Education, therefore, plays a key role in ensuring that this natural right is not forgotten.
This simple shift from “right from” to “right to” has redefined our relationship with the state and its duties. Where government was once a guarantor of liberty, it now risks becoming the monopoliser of it. If we allow this distortion to continue, we hand over our natural freedoms in exchange for conditional permissions.
A call to restore liberty
The path back is clear. We must restore negative freedom to the centre of our political culture: freedom from arbitrary interference, freedom to live, trade, speak, worship, and assemble without the state standing in the way. That means drafting laws that protect privacy from surveillance, keeping markets genuinely open to small businesses, and defending free speech without forcing others to provide platforms.
Our tradition has always placed liberty first, and government second. It is time to remember that lesson. We must demand that the state step back into its rightful role: a last-resort guarantor of freedom, not its gatekeeper.
Let us act as free citizens, not managed subjects, protecting each other’s natural rights through civility, and insisting that government remain limited, restrained, and accountable. Liberty is not granted by the state; it is ours already.
Mike Salem is the UK Country Associate at the Consumer Choice Center. The Consumer Choice Center is an independent, non-partisan consumer advocacy group championing the benefits of freedom of choice, innovation, and abundance in everyday life. Mike regularly appears in broadcast media as a political commentator.
Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty, in Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 122.
Ibid, p.131.
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Really good to read how you describe the use of language and the shift.
One comment I wanted to make is about rights, and an individuals right. An individuals right to something should have no imposition on another individual to observe. In this way rights naturally are a negative, i.e. right to defend your life, liberty and property as Bastiat wrote in The Law.
Food, shelter and clothing are really necessities as everyone learns in school, but none of us had a right to it. If we had a right to food i.e. a positive right, then we can enslave another individual to provide food without their consent which conflicts with the right to defend ones liberty and property.
As you so eloquently put, we have forgotten this and what it took to get the level of individual liberty that once existed.
A very considered piece. It would be so nice if everyone’s right were observed appreciated and accepted whether negative or positive. But they are not. Trying to be free while others stop or hinder or are plain obtuse is as hard as it is to describe and pin down by words or means. It’s trying to wrestle a slippery eel! You think you have a handle on it but then, it just slips away. If it were easy then we would need governments or charters or the law. But clearly we need all snd I would assert more. We need care, protection and fairness just as much as a wish freedoms especially in the face of those trying their level best to deny you of them or in your case trying to set a default base line beyond which is a never to go boundary. To be honest with you, I’m struggling to place a handle on it myself. Its simple parameters and boundary’s are difficult to place in a modern thoughtful society. For example DNA. Your argument still wants that knowledge to be ‘unknown’ as its use would be an infringement to liberty in disclosing it. Yet it is used in law as a method of proof. I would assert we need it to be known. So we can instantly track down perpetrators to protect the very freedoms of the rest. The same for ID cards. In a modern society I think it’s about time we accepted the need for identity checks. It’s accepted at every level of society from a library card to a bank account from a passport to loan agreement. Yet we shy away from a one fits all card to take the place of all the these different ones. I’m all for these to protect us and our freedom to live in peace as an aid to it not as an overstep. I’m all for a framework if evenness as you elude to in business and speech etc but we live now in a modern democracy where we accept that the decision of the majority rule. I assert now this has become the backstop to freedoms. We must accept the will of the collective as in Brexit. The 49% must adhere to the 51%. Which somewhat conflicts with the freedoms you want clearly to hang on to. Recently for example we have had the uproar from the on line bill and the fight for free speech. But it’s aimed at the protection of children! No adult has been harmed in the process and outcome of the bill! Snd yo use it as an overreach for the now archaic stand on freedoms is wrong in my view. Protections have to be just that protective. Children are not free! Not even to parents snd schools. So no rights are to be handed to monsters on the internet who wish to use freedoms as a way to attack them in their bedrooms from the internet. We have to be reasonable. We can’t just accept a line over which we can’t step. We have to accept a straight line is sometimes wavy for very good reasons. Who knows what, The authors of the Magna Carta or those who decided on the US Constitution or even those authors of the bibles commandments as written, not said, might have come up with in a modern democracy rather than those at the time of writing. We all move on from anarchy. Yet it still exists! So we can’t be complacent as we must be diligent of course we should! That means rules and laws under the democratic backstop we have decided upon. By all means change laws that are not perfect. But we can’t not do things because if the argument of freedom. That’s my opinion.