Summary: Claus Dierksmeier examines under which banner economic philosophy should advance today. In particular, he proposes a notion of “qualitative freedom” in lieu of customary concepts of “quantitative liberty”.

With breath-taking speed the globalized exchange of people and products is transforming the natural, social, and cultural face of the earth. Biological systems vanish, customary rules of behavior fade away, legal frameworks erode, languages die out, and traditional religions are on the wane. Driven by an exponential increase in information exchange, novel forms of interaction spring up. New fashions and ways of life are quickly spreading from their geographic or, as is the case with internet-based codes of conduct, virtual origins all around the globe.

What will the future look like? Are we heading towards a paradise of freedom and autonomy, where all human needs are met, or are we facing endless war, civil strife, environmental destruction, and cultural poverty? Are we facing one global culture or ‘multiple modernities’? And what will be the future role of the corporations? Will they become an integral part of a global civic society, closing ranks with the various nongovernmental organizations that work for the betterment of human life? Or will business impede our advancement towards a more humane society? In a word, will corporations foster or hinder human progress?

Private business presupposes free-market societies and prefers government based on liberal principles. Yet, the worldwide impact of liberalized trade and production has made governance in the name of freedom suspicious. Immense damage has been caused by an unrestrained realization of self-interest on the part of individuals, corporations, and nation states.

Although only libertarian ideologues are to blame for the drastic failure of laisser-faire policies all around the globe, the idea of freedom itself has come under attack. Many hold the principle of liberty accountable for the social, cultural, and ecological devastations caused by irresponsible libertarian policies. However, this contemporary crisis of liberalism also harbors new prospects. The need to revamp the idea of liberty in light of its present challenges may well make for its rejuvenation.

Freedom can no longer be used as a shield to defend one’s spurious claims to irresponsible conduct and illegitimate possessions. If we are to sustain human life on planet earth, worldwide circumscriptions of business practices, governmental powers, and individual conduct must be had. We are in no position to postpone this quest for global guidelines. Our social and ecological problems do not allow for the pseudo-sophisticated aura of theoretical ambivalence and practical inaction that comes with moral relativism.

However, everyone resents and resists confinement by norms whose rationale they do not share. This problem swells to hitherto unknown proportions in our time of constant change and global interaction. Since regional customs, traditional religions, or the conventions of the past simply no longer command unquestioned obedience, we have to look elsewhere to tackle the problems of global governance. We must avail ourselves of the most potent idea of the modern age: freedom. In a word, we are in need of a self-reflective and self-constraining notion of liberty.

To align the limitation of individual liberty with the very notion of freedom may seem paradoxical to some. This is not surprising. For decades, Anglo-American philosophy has favored an understanding of liberty centered on the protection of private autonomy and property. Important as the preservation of individual choice and personal possessions certainly is, such theories overshoot their goal. Presenting their tenets in the language of sacred human rights, these philosophies contribute, not always unwittingly, to the exclusion of all alternative understandings of liberty.

Communitarian critics from inside open societies, along with more extreme outside voices, contend that such a narrow notion of freedom is a farce: a mask for commercialism; a threadbare cover for a hedonistic and morally undemanding lifestyle. Why restrain traditional (religious and customary) values on behalf of liberty, they ask, if such liberty aspires merely to the maximization of profits at whatever cost, or to the reckless pursuit of individual pleasures? Why esteem this freedom higher than the values we are supposed to yield on its behalf?

Defenders and adversaries alike identify freedom mostly as a quantitative idea (“more choices”, “infinite growth”, “profit maximization”). However, when the idea of liberty is described in terms of quantity alone, its all-important qualitative components are lost. If freedom is to regain and retain respect, qualitative aspects that nail down what kind of freedom we the people have reason to value must be recaptured.

This idea of a qualitative freedom derives from the capacity of personal liberty to define itself by its contributions to universal freedom. The type of liberty we should defend becomes clear when we understand our right to liberty as encompassing the obligation to empower each and everyone to an autonomous life. This includes the poor within our societies, the destitute of foreign nations, and, last but not least, future generations. The idea of qualitative freedom defines and curtails the realm of both individual and societal liberties so that all can live in dignity and freedom.

Qualitative freedom, i.e. the freedom to reasonable self-limitation, cannot – without contradiction – be rejected because, in denying it, this very freedom is, logically, already presupposed. No other ethical principle is as unassailable; no other, therefore, has the same capacity to reach out across cultural and religious borders. That is why the principle of qualitative freedom must be central to every future ethics of global governance.

As soon as we link the idea of freedom with the search for reasonable standards for the use of liberty, economic fairness and ecological sustainability become unveiled as the obvious objectives of a free society that they essentially are. The quest for a global framework to halt the race-to-the-bottom and to secure the socio-economic participation of everyone (e.g., by the Global Marshall Plan and the UN Global Compact) must be seen in this light. They are attempts to realize the true meaning of freedom – and not, as neo-liberals obstinately clamor, an assault upon it.

Just as the principle of freedom has to limit itself, the critique of the free-market society must proceed from the idea of economic liberty, not from an adversarial outside standpoint. Without this internal reform of the idea of economic freedom, the dismal alternative of a theoretical as well as practical rejection of liberty will become attractive to more and more people. We know this alternative all too well. The history of humankind is but a long trail of atrocities committed in the name of holy values. Should we give up on the dream of a common future in qualitative freedom, the nightmares of our past will continue to haunt us.

Claus Dierksmeier is professor for political and economic philosophy at Stonehill College, in Easton (Boston), Mass., USA.
He adds: “I wish to thank my research assistant Amanda Bosson for helping me smooth out my Teutonic English”.