Freedom, Liberty, Equality, Possibility
TOPIC BARUCH SPINOZA GO VOLTAIRE GO JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU GO ADAM SMITH GO IMMANUEL KANT GO GEORG W. F. HEGEL GO JOHN STUART MILL GO ALBERT EINSTEIN GO MARTIN HEIDEGGER GO ALDOUS HUXLEY GO FRIEDRICH A. HAYEK GO PETER F. DRUCKER GO MILTON FRIEDMAN GO EDWARD ELIE AYOUB GO
Freedom
 Liberty
Equality
Possibility
Free Will
Free to Act
Power to Act
Right of Property
Dignity
Lord v.
    Bondsman
Political Freedom
Human Liberty
Inward
   Consciousness
Liberty of
   Conscience
Liberty of Thought
Liberty of Feeling
Freedom of
   Opinion
Freedom of
   Sentiment
Liberty of Tastes
Liberty of Pursuits
Liberty of
   Combination
 Freedom to Unite
Free Trade
External
   Compulsion
Inner Necessity
Essence of Truth
Enslavement by
   Technology
Free Private
   Enterprise
Free Society
Social
   Responsibility
States FREE and
   SLAVE

 

The Ethics.

"In the mind there is no absolute, or free, will. The mind is determined to this or that volition by a cause, which is likewise determined by another cause, and this again by another, and so ad infinitum."1a*

"If men were born free, they would form no conception of good and evil so long as they were free."1b*

"The free man never acts deceitfully, but always with good faith."1c*

Philosophical Dictionary.

"On freewill. A: Your will is not free, but your actions are. You are free to act when you have the power to act."1a

Discourse on Inequality.

"As we trace the march of inequality in these various revolutions, we find that the establishment of law and the right of property was the first stage, the institution of the magistrate the second, and the transformation of legitimate into arbitrary power the third and last. Thus, the status of rich and poor was sanctioned in the first age, that of strong and weak in the second, and in the third that of master and slave, the ultimate degree of inequality to which all the others at last lead until new revolutions dissolve the government altogether or bring it closer to legitimacy."1a

The Social Contract.

"Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains."2a

The Wealth of Nations.

"It is not . . . difficult to foresee which of the two parties must . . . have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms.  The masters . . . can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen."1a

 The Metaphysics of Morals.

" . . . [A] human being regarded as a person, that is, as the subject of a morally practical reason, is exalted above any price; for as a person (homo noumenon) he is not to be valued merely as a means to the ends of others or even to his own ends, but as as an end in himself; that is, he possesses a dignity (an absolute inner worth) by which he exacts respect for himself from all other rational beings in the world."1a*

Phenomenology of Spirit.

" . . . [T]here is posited a pure self-consciousness, and a consciousness which is not purely for itself but for another . . . The former is lord, the other is bondsman."1a [See Edward Ayoub's Quantum Theory of Economics.]

Philosophy of Right.

"As a living thing man may be coerced . . . ; but the free will cannot be coerced at all . . . Only the will which allows itself to be coerced can in any way be coerced."2a

Philosophy of Mind.

"The English . . . recognize the rational less in the form of universality than in that of individuality. . . For this reason, political freedom with the English exists mostly in the shape of privileges, of rights which are traditional, not derived from general ideas."3a

"In the formula, I=I, is enunciated the principle of absolute Reason and freedom."3b

 

 On Liberty.

"This, then, is the appropriate region of human liberty. It comprises, first, the inward domain of consciousness; demanding liberty of conscience, in the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. . . Secondly, the principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow . . . Thirdly, from this liberty of each individual, follows the liberty, within the same limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others; the persons combining being supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived.
"No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free . . . ; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified."2a

"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."2b

" . . . [I]t is now recognized . . . that both the cheapness and the good quality of commodities are more effectually provided for by leaving the producers and sellers perfectly free, under the sole check of equal freedom to the buyers for supplying themselves elsewhere. This is the so-called doctrine of Free Trade, which rests on grounds different from, though equally solid with, the principle of individual liberty asserted in this Essay."2c

"In this and most other civilized countries . . . an engagement by which a person should sell himself, or allow himself to be sold, as a slave, would be null and void; neither enforced by law nor by opinion. . . by selling himself for a slave, he abdicates his liberty . . . He is no longer free . . . The principle of freedom cannot require that he should be free not to be free. It is not freedom, to be allowed to alienate his freedom."2d ARISTOTLE HEGEL SANTAYANA [See Edward Ayoub's Quantum Theory of Economics.] AYOUB

 Ideas and Opinions.

"I do not at all believe in human freedom in the philosophical sense. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity. . . "1a

 Pathmarks.

"The essence of truth reveals itself as freedom."1a*

The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic.

"Only a free being can be unfree. . . only seldom do we exist freely."2a

"Being-free . . . is understanding oneself out of possibility."2b

Brave New World Revisited.

"The cry of 'Give me television and hamburgers; but don't bother me with the responsibilities of liberty', may give place, under altered circumstances, to the cry 'Give me Liberty or give me death'. . . Perhaps the forces that now menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for very long, It is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist them."1

The Mirage of Social Justice.

" . . . [F]reedom is inseparable from rewards which often have no connection with merit . . . "1a*

Technology Management and Society.

"Aware that we are living in the midst of a technological revolution, we are becoming increasingly concerned with its meaning for the individual and its impact on freedom, on society, and on our political institutions. Side by side with messianic promises of utopia to be ushered in by technology, there are the most dire warnings of man�s enslavement by technology, his alienation from himself and from society, and the destruction of all human and political values."1a

Capitalism and Freedom.

"A working model of a society organized through voluntary exchange is a free private enterprise exchange economy - what we have been calling competitive capitalism."1a*

"Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible."1b

 The Essence of Capitalism.
   

The Essence of Capitalism. Quantum Theory of Economics. Copyright � 1998-2000 by Macroknow Inc. All Rights Reserved. Copyright [Digital Art]  ï¿½ 1998-2000 by Edward T.M. Ayoub. All Rights Reserved.

" . . . [T]he idea of a quantum theory of economics must capture the essence of economic Being. . . By analogy with quantum mechanics, the wave function |Y> of a system (consisting of one or more persons, corporations, States, etc.) can be expressed as a linear superposition: 

|Y> = a|F>+b|S>. 

The weighting factors a and b are the probability amplitudes of states FREE and SLAVE, respectively."1c

   
* Italics in the original. 1 Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677). The Ethics. Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect. Selected Letters . Translated by Samuel Shirley. Edited, with Introductions, by Seymour Feldman. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1992.
a Proposition 48, Part II, at 95.
b Proposition 68, Part IV, at 192.
c Proposition 72, Part IV, at 194. 		1 Voltaire (1694-1778). Philosophical Dictionary (1764). Edited and translated by Theodore Besterman, 1972. London, England: Penguin Books Ltd.
a de la Libert�: On freewill, at 278.

1 Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Translated by Franklin Philip. Edited with an Introduction by Patrick Coleman. Franklin Philip, 1994. Patrick Coleman, 1994. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1994.
a Part II, at 78-79.

2 Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Discourse on Political Economy and The Social Contract. Translated with Introduction and Notes by Christopher Betts. Christopher Betts, 1994. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1994.
a Book I, at 45.

 1 Adam Smith (1723-1790). The Wealth of Nations (1776). 2 vols. in 1. Edited by Edwin Cannan. Preface by George J. Stigler. The University of Chicago, 1976. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, at 74 (vol. 1, bk. 1). (Cannan's ed. was originally pub. 1904 by Methuen & Co., Ltd.)
a Vol. 1, bk. 1, at 74.

1 Immanuel Kant. The Metaphysics of Morals (1797). Translated and edited by Mary Gregor. With an Introduction by Roger J. Sullivan. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
a The Doctrine of Virtue, at 186.

1 G. W. F. Hegel. Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by A.V. Miller with Analysis of the Text and Foreword by J.N. Findlay. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1977.
a Independence and Dependence of Self-Consciousness: Lordship and Bondage, at 115.

2 G. W. F. Hegel. Hegel's Philosophy of Right. Translated with Notes by T.M. Knox. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1967.
a Coercion and Crime, at 66.

3 G. W. F. Hegel. Hegel's Philosophy of Mind. Part Three of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830). Translated by William Wallace. Together with the Zus�tze in Boumann's Text (1845) translated by A.V. Miller. Foreword by J.N. Findlay. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1971.
a Anthropology, at 50.
b Self-Consciousness, at 165.

 1 John Stuart Mill. On Liberty. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications Inc., 2002. (Originally published by J.W. Parker in Great Britain in 1859.)
a Chapter I: Introductory, at 10.
b Chapter II: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion, at 14.
c Chapter V: Applications, at 80.
 d Ibid., at 86-87.		 1 Albert Einstein (1879-1955). Ideas and Opinions. Based on Mein Weltbild, edited by Carl Seelig, and other sources. New translations and revisions by Sonja Bargmann. New York, NY: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1954.
a The World as I See It., at 8-11. Originally published in Forum and Century, Vol. 84, pp. 193-194, the 13th in the Forum series, "Living Philosophies"; included also in Living Philosophies (pp. 3-7), New York: Simon and Schuster, 1931.  		1 Martin Heidegger. Pathmarks. Edited by William McNeill. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Originally published as Wegmarken by Vittorio Klostermann GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1967.
a On the Essence of Truth, translated by John Sallis, at 136-154. (Originally published in Marting Heidegger: Basic Writings, edited by David Farrell Krell (2nd revised and expanded ed.) (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1993), at 115-138.)

2 Martin Heidegger. The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. Translated by Michael Heim. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1984.
a Freedom and World, at 191, and Transcendence and Temporality (Nihil Originarum), at 199.
b Transcendence Temporalizing Itself in Temporality and the Essence of Ground, at 215.

1 Aldous Huxley (1894-1963). Brave New World Revisited. With an Introduction by David Bradshaw. Laura Huxley, 1958. London, UK: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994, at 177-179. 1 F.A. Hayek. Law, Legislation and Liberty. Volume 2: The Mirage of Social Justice. F.A. Hayek, 1976. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
a The Game of Catallaxy, at 120. 		1 Peter F. Drucker (b. 1909). Technology Management and Society: Essays. Peter F. Drucker, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1970. New York, NY: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1977.
 a Ch. 7: The First Technological Revolution and Its Lessons, at 117. Presidential address to the Society for the History of Technology, December 29, 1965; First published in Technology and Culture, Spring 1966. 		1 Milton Friedman. Capitalism and Freedom. With the assistance of Rose D. Friedman. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago, 1962, 1982.
a The Relation between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, at 13.
b Monopoly and the Social Responsibility of Business and Labor, at 133. 		1 Edward E. Ayoub, with the assistance of Trudé K. Ayoub. The Essence of Capitalism. Toronto, ON: Macroknow Inc., 2000.