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Negative freedom is the true way to respect choice, while
positive freedom brings you closer to an illiberal coercive environment.
IT is heartening to see more liberals speaking up these
days. Every time an illiberal idea is put to the public, you can almost rest
assured that someone will fight back to defend their freedom and liberty to
seek happiness in their own ways.
Liberty is the principle that founded this nation.
In fact, our Bapa Malaysia Tunku Abdul Rahman announced
proudly in the Proclamation of Independence and Proclamation of Malaysia that
this nation shall “be forever a sovereign democratic and independent State
founded upon the principles of liberty and justice and ever seeking the welfare
and happiness of its people”.
Liberalism is indeed about liberty and freedom. But when
we at Ideas hosted “The Liberalism 2015 Conference” back in September, the
confusion about what liberalism actually means was obvious.
We intentionally designed the conference to be a platform
for stakeholders to discuss with each other what they thought about the
philosophy.
By stakeholders I mean anyone with an interest in the
topic, regardless of whether or not you agree with it.
We saw a beautiful interaction between the proponents and
opponents of liberal ideas and, of course, we also saw how confused some people
were about the topic.
One of the speakers made a succinct point about the confusion.
Khalid Jaafar, a member of the Ideas Council, said that it was apparent some
speakers were talking about anarchism, despite using the label liberalism.
They thought liberalism meant not having any laws, when
that is actually anarchism. On the contrary, liberalism is about upholding the
rule of law.
One way to understand the meaning of freedom in its
classical sense is by using philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s description of positive
and negative freedom.
It is impossible to give a full description of these two
types of liberties in this short article. But to simplify, positive freedom is
“freedom to” while negative freedom is “freedom from”.
If you take, for example, the fact that I cannot afford
to send all my children to quality private schools, a government that believes
in positive freedom will want to ensure I have the freedom to send my child to
that school.
The government may tax everybody else and pass the money
to me so that I can pay the fees. Or the government could put a cap on the
school fees, coercing the school to reduce their fees for me.
On the other hand, if a government that believes in
negative freedom wants to ensure I can afford that school, it will do so by
removing the hurdles preventing me from being able to pay.
The fees might be expensive because the number of private
schools is small and setting up more is too bureaucratic.
So the government will remove the bureaucracy and give
more licences to create competition, which will in turn reduce the cost.
It gives me the freedom to choose that school by removing
the barriers that prevent me from going there, not by coercing others to help
me.
These two concepts are important to understand when
talking about liberty because they can be competing ideas that are incompatible
with one another.
Positive freedom coerces people into doing something they
don’t want. You are coerced to pay tax to help me even though you might need
the money more than me.
Negative freedom frees up the supply and avoids coercion,
for example by giving more licences and reducing bureaucracy so that you are
free from the limitations that held you back.
Those who believe in liberty in its classical sense
believe in negative freedom and not positive freedom. Negative freedom is the
true way to respect choice while positive freedom brings you closer to an
illiberal coercive environment.
If we apply this to the hot issues that exist today, we
will actually come to some very interesting policy challenges.
Take the desire to practise one’s religion. Let us take
the desire by some Muslims to have hudud.
This is a challenging situation and I myself am still
researching for the most acceptable policy solution.
But a liberal would respect the right of a person to
practise his religion, including to have hudud imposed on him.
The challenge, however, is how to ensure the person can
fulfil his religious obligations while at the same time ensure there is no
coercion on others.
In this case, while I understand the concerns of those
who oppose hudud, I also fear that the opponents may have become illiberals
themselves by denying the right to have hudud.
Similarly, there is an increasing number of people these
days who jump when they see signs of an “Islamised” society.
A liberal would respect and indeed defend the choices
made by those who want to live life in what they deem as “Islamic”.
Islamophobia is not at all liberal.
The policy problem, however, is when government coercive
powers are used to impose a set of values on those who prefer not to live their
lives according to those values.
How to decouple personal beliefs from illiberal
government coercion in a country like Malaysia is one thing that I am still
trying to figure out because it has to be done delicately.
But one thing I do know is that liberals respect choices.
To paraphrase a popular saying, I may not agree with your belief but I will
defend to death your right to believe in them.
If we are liberals, we should look for ways to
accommodate the different beliefs and choices made by individuals for
themselves.
We should not become illiberals ourselves by stopping
others from living their lives the way they choose.
Wan Saiful Wan Jan is chief executive of the Institute
for Democracy and Economic Affairs (www.ideas.org.my). The views expressed here
are entirely the writer’s own.
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See also:
Pol. Ideology 61: Raison d 'Etre of Government, January 30, 2015
Pol. Ideology 62, Marx and Hayek on Property Rights, May 19, 2015
Pol. Ideology 63, Alternative Economic System, May 25, 2015
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