We’ve all played musical chairs; chairs arranged, typically in a circular fashion, with one fewer chair than people, the music stops and everyone scrambles to take a seat and not be the sole remaining person standing and eliminated from the game. Some players attempt to alter their pace and strategically place themselves at angles they anticipate will be the quickest route to a chair, but ultimately the music stops and no matter how smart, agile, skilled, and strategic ALL the players are, the structure of the game requires that someone MUST lose each round. With each passing round another chair is eliminated, until one remaining player is left with a seat. This isn’t a game of skill; it’s mostly a matter of luck. The structure of the game itself and our relative position on the floor largely dictate the outcome, not to mention the subjective decisions on the part of the person in control of the game who determines when the music stops. In effect, the players have much less influence over outcomes than they may assume. Everyone may have the freedom to play the game, but successes and failures are largely the result of luck, position and opportunity, and decisions made by those in power. It isn’t difficult to understand musical chairs from this perspective, yet most political debate about the structure of capitalism, opportunity, and our ability to be free in this country is nearly devoid of this context. A narrative of skill, intelligence, and hard work dominates and conceals our history and a socio-political economic system built on an uneven playing field. Through an erasure of history, the mythical rugged individualist exemplifies the American archetype for freedom.
Those who subscribe to this meritocratic fantasy of a level playing field typically express the loudest opposition to any public policies that attempt to create more inclusive opportunity structures for people who have been historically marginalized. There is a certain logic to this opposition if you fail to understand or care about the present-day impact of history, the structure of social systems and opportunities, and you’re completely incapable of self-awareness as it relates to the context of your own life, inheritance, and the well-documented impact of the social variables of class, race, and sex on opportunities. One effort to negate the socio-historical impact of these variables is to celebrate and glorify the successes of select minority people as evidence of equal opportunity and assert that anyone is capable of achieving what they want if they simply work hard enough, despite the fact that these successes are anomalies within the system. One of the more recent and ludicrous examples of this are people who declared the end of racism in the United States after President Obama was elected, which is delusional and emblematic of a complete misunderstanding of racism.
Complicating matters further, some who are situated in one or more positions of privilege ALSO work hard, and for these folks in particular it can be quite confusing, upsetting, and challenging to question a playing field tilted in their favor. The meritocratic frame insists that public policies intended to minimize inequality and expand opportunities for marginalized people is reverse discrimination against majority group members and violates the basic tenets of freedom by taking something from those who have earned it and giving it to others who are underserving. If you doubt the relevance and socio-political impact of this mentality, look no further than the anti-government, anti-taxation ideology that has gripped this nation from its inception.
Americans imbibe the most peculiar and pernicious ideas about freedom, and some get very upset, verbally abusive, and violent when their highly personalized and infantile notions of freedom are challenged. This is evident in what passes for informed, public debate on a whole range of issues. From racism, to sexism and gender inequality, to homophobia and heteronormativity, to extreme forms of economic deprivation, exploitation, and inequality, to mass shootings and pandemic mitigation efforts, the American public regularly demonstrates disregard for public well-being. As a result, we inadvertently protect and maintain grotesque levels of inequality, environmental despoliation, and individual & structural violence in the name of safeguarding a narrow & limited definition of freedom that justifies and rationalizes the denial of freedom & liberty. The inequalities of white supremacist patriarchal capitalism are reinterpreted as the natural order of freely chosen, merit-based outcomes.
The dominant ideas about the meaning of freedom and how to protect freedom in the United States are increasingly market-based and individualized, which is exactly what you’d expect in a nation dominated by four decades of neoliberal policy-making that has led to historic levels of economic inequality, weakened labor power and elevated corporate power, equated free speech with money, and weakened the social contract by prioritizing personal liberties over public health & safety. Any attempt to legislate on behalf of the well-being of marginalized people, public health and safety, and planetary justice is characterized as an attempt to implement a socialist hellscape that will inhibit personal freedom & liberty. “In practice, this has meant conflating the defense of individual liberty with the defense of free markets and ownership rights. Once this conflation is accepted, any interference in the market—such as taxing the rich to feed the poor—can be framed as a violation of individual freedom by a coercive state.” Additional violations of this narrow & limited version of personal freedom may include providing universal healthcare, implementing policies of affirmative action, reparations for slavery and the colonization of indigenous people, or addressing the widespread and well-established institutional patterns of discrimination based on class, race, sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Instead of accurately assessing these aforementioned policy initiatives as efforts to expand freedom & liberty for ALL citizens and more fully democratize this nation, the dominant narrative of straight, white, male hegemony insists that such public policies are a violation of their personal freedom.
Scholars of philosophy and political science use the terms “negative freedom” and “positive freedom” to debate the meaning of freedom and to evaluate the extent to which various nations are free. It seems apparent throughout most of American history that the American mind has been largely enslaved in a silo of negative freedoms–freedom from government, with little capacity or interest in contemplating the impact of positive freedoms and the role of public policy to democratize society and empower people with the freedom to express personal and political agency. There are brief periods in American history when we have broken free of this silo and enacted public policies of social transformation that represent everything that is right and just about the United States. However, most of the time we fail to address social problems that inhibit freedom.
Poverty and inequality pose a fundamental threat to freedom. “This is because a lack of sufficient economic resources to meet one’s needs undermines one’s capacity to realize and actualize freedom.” If poverty and inequality inhibit freedom, then central to any analysis of freedom is the question, “Why are people poor and why is there so much racial and sexual inequality?” People who are unabashed bigots will reply to this question by framing inequality as rooted in biological deficiencies and inherent abilities. Adherents of a strict and militant meritocratic ethos will answer this question by stating that poverty & inequality is the result of cultural deficiencies and that the reason poor and marginalized people are falling further behind is because they are failing to exhibit the determination, work ethic, skill, and intelligence that the free-market rewards. Any kind of structural & historical analysis of poverty, inequality, opportunities, and freedom is ultimately deemed unpatriotic and un-American.
Not surprisingly, research has found that “individuals with the highest level of perceived freedom were those with the most money. The data show that with every additional dollar of income, there was an increase in the probability of having a high level of perceived freedom.” A nation built upon and plagued by extreme inequalities is fundamentally incapable of achieving the promise of freedom & liberty for all. Thus, we return to the foundational contradiction at the core of this nation, the simultaneous longing for freedom & liberty for some while denying freedom & liberty for all and failing to enact the necessary public policies to extend and secure these rights for all. This country’s foundational principles are beautiful, but they remain elusive & aspirational. While eliminating inequality is unrealistic, educating people to exert their influence within the democratic process and enact public policies that equalize opportunities and minimize inequality and environmental destruction is a moral & ethical imperative, and this is the only way democracy can survive and for ALL people to truly be free.
Inspired by, On Inequality and Freedom, edited by Lawrence M. Eppard & Henry A. Giroux. All direct quotations taken from the book.
The Sociological Post 