(Freedom vs Liberty)
Is it just my own selection bias in action, or has the term FREEDOM been sufficiently appropriated as to mean “Positive Freedom and liberty” and LIBERTY such that it currently means “Negative Freedom and liberty”?
It’s too bad we LIBERTARIANS don’t have such energetic literary activists who can put together a campaign to ‘reconstruct’ the meanings of liberty and freedom the way the marxists have, and by doing so appropriated our terminology: via editing, shaming and critique.
LIBERTY IS DETERMINED BY
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The available means of production.
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The impact of the means of production on reproduction (family)
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The allocation of property rights between individual, family and commons to suit production and reproduction.
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The Freedoms and Duties we grant each other according to those rights, and the flexibility of altering those relations in response to changes in the means of production.
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The degree of rent-seeking (corruption) by leaders of the hierarchy or network of organizations that resolve conflicts and facilitate investments (ownership or government).
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The degree of contribution by individuals willingly paid to the extended family (commons) in exchange for status which increases their opportunities for mating, experience, and opportunity.
THE STATUS ECONOMY – THE OTHER INVOLUNTARY APPROPRIATION
(Government members obtain status as well as compensation and earners do not obtain status OR compensation. The need is to create status signals such that the earners are willing to contribute to the commons of their extended family. If instead, high tax payers were publicly identified and given political voice, if not political vote, then the world would be a very different place. But politicians fear this fact. And to some degree, the corrupt on both sizes are protected by their anonymity. Imagine a state of the union meeting where the top 500 taxpayers instead of 500 elected politicians, were required to give their opinions on the state of the union. )