Political theory

Premise: The more complicated the forms assumed by civilization, the more restricted the freedom of the individual must become.

Agree?  Disagree?

Discuss!

you're trying to get us to do your homework aren't you?!

heh.

I remember writing almost this exact paper in college.

And I'm a gonna say "disagree"

okay I'll add...

MUST being the key word.

When human civilizations become more complex, individual freedoms MAY become more restricted if a governing structure of said complex society chooses to limit them.

However, on a fundamental level the increasing complexity of a human society does not itself dictate that individuals will lose their freedoms.  In fact, individuals in complex civilizations will have greater freedoms that those living in simple civilizations.

Original Post by maxx86:

  In fact, individuals in complex civilizations will have greater freedoms that those living in simple civilizations.

Hmm...how so? 

The way I interpreted it, the more complex civilization is, the more responsibilities and duties we owe to each other. Take a state of anarchy, where you could essentially kill anyone with no repercussions. Take modern civilization, where there is a system that attempts to restrict this 'freedom'.

You can say we have 'freedom of speech' but this likewise isrestricted in a variety of ways, not just through government, but also contracts between parties.  

But, yes, "MUST" is a tricky word :)

Original Post by sauvignon:

Take a state of anarchy, where you could essentially kill anyone with no repercussions. Take modern civilization, where there is a system that attempts to restrict this 'freedom'.

Umm... that isn't anarchism.  That's chaos.  Anarchism is about a different type of social organization.  Check out the Anarchist FAQ if you would like to learn more.

Original Post by sauvignon:

Original Post by maxx86:

  In fact, individuals in complex civilizations will have greater freedoms that those living in simple civilizations.

Hmm...how so? 

The way I interpreted it, the more complex civilization is, the more responsibilities and duties we owe to each other. (1)

You can say we have 'freedom of speech' but this likewise isrestricted in a variety of ways, not just through government, but also contracts between parties.  (2)

 

(1) The way I see it, the more complex a civilization is, the greater the variety of people, cultivated skills, options for trading etc.  This means that individuals have the freedom to choose what they would like to do with their life.  In a very basic society, an individual may not have a choice but to farm, or to build, because people need to perform these functions.  In this way people in simple societies have great responsibilities to eachother in order to survive.  In this way, individual freedoms are limited.  

In the complex society, especially the one we live in today, people have great responsibilites to eachother, but we have options of how to fill them, and they rarely revolve around basic survival. EDIT: yes, we rely on each other to survive, but society, instead of individuals, are held responsible...and someone in society will fill the role

This brings me to (2).  I completely agree that our individual freedoms are limited in these ways.  But, our limits are completed constructed, and are the choice of our governments and socially constructed agreements (or disagreements) with one another.  

*rumages through books to find her Plato, but promises not to quote*

The answer depends on your definition of freedom.

Original Post by maxx86:

(1) The way I see it, the more complex a civilization is, the greater the variety of people, cultivated skills, options for trading etc.(A)  This means that individuals have the freedom to choose what they would like to do with their life.  In a very basic society, an individual may not have a choice but to farm, or to build, because people need to perform these functions.  In this way people in simple societies have great responsibilities to eachother in order to survive.  In this way, individual freedoms are limited.  

In the complex society, especially the one we live in today, people have great responsibilites to eachother, but we have options of how to fill them, and they rarely revolve around basic survival. EDIT: yes, we rely on each other to survive, but society, instead of individuals, are held responsible...and someone in society will fill the role

This brings me to (2).  I completely agree that our individual freedoms are limited in these ways.  But, our limits are completed constructed, and are the choice of our governments and socially constructed agreements (or disagreements) with one another. (B)

*rumages through books to find her Plato, but promises not to quote*

 

 A I'm not sure this is necessarily true. The more complex a civilization, the more standardized and rationalized production becomes. Thus, the village chairmaker no longer exists. Now you have laborers who put one part on a chair rather than creating a whole chair. Once we had farmers who grew crops for selling in the market. Now most of our food production is done by the largest 2% of all farms--almost all of which are corporate farms. What we've seen historically is that the more complex a civilization the more the workforce is deskilled. So we have less cultivated skills rather than more. That means less opportunity for people who are too poor or too educationally underdeveloped (not everyone has the ability to understand advanced topics like quantum physics or postmodern literary criticism ). For laborers in complex civilizations there is less freedom to choose what one will do with their life--especially at the minimum wage level.

It must be noted here that simple civilizations might not have a specialized economic organization, limiting these folks from becoming lawyers, economists, automobile repairmen, McDonald's cashier, etc, but since their populations tend to be much smaller their productive output can be shared in a much more egalitarian fashion. That means they don't have to sell their labor power to meet their survival needs. Freedom from want is the best individual freedom because it means you are not beholden to anyone else.

One of the misconceptions people have is that acting towards the good of the community means that we give up individual freedom, but that's just not so. In fact our individual freedom is dependent on the community being healthy. I understand that if my neighbors are all sick then my children or I will probably get sick too. It is in my individual interest to make sure my neighbors stay well. It is in my individual interest to make sure that there is a community fire fighting unit ready. If my neighbor's house is on fire, letting it burn out of control increases the chances that my house will also catch fire. In this way, people in simple societies understand that when they hunt and gather with the rest of their clan their chances of getting meat or finding berries increases. The easier it is for them to find berries or hunt meat the easier it was to pursue more individual interests such as small scale agriculture which is what led to large agriculture and on to complex civilizations. Or that egalitarianism allowed them to create works of art or develop tools.

So while it may seem that complex civilizations might give us more freedom through more choices as to what to do with our time that is only because we are looking at history from the end of a process of complexity. We find it hard to imagine that people in the past felt less individual freedom because we define individual freedom in a different way than they did.

Also remember that in contrast to the relative egalitarianism of simple societies complex civilizations have almost always entailed some level of slavery. Even here in the US we had institutionalized slavery and a level of non-institutional slavery (such as sharecropping or the development of company towns) up until fairly recently.

B I'm not sure how this differs from simple societies. Surely, everyone in a band or tribe limited their individual freedom to the extent that they understood that their survival depended not only on keeping the community as a whole healthy. That's no different than today with the exception that in simple societies there was much more freedom to move between bands or tribes than there is today and in fact there was certainly much more freedom to go off and live by one's self--a total impossibility nowadays in our much more complex society.

One more thing should be noted beyond economic considerations. Politically speaking the more complex a civilization, the more centralized political power becomes.

Original Post by jewelsmcblah:

The answer depends on your definition of freedom.

Hmmm....how do you define freedom?  In the context of the OP I took it as simple choice.

If I define freedom as "free will" I'd like to think that no form of civilization could take that away.  But, I think as society becomes more complex, it creates expectations, and we relinquish our free will in order to meet those expectations...but its not a MUST.

EDIT: and you agh^ I shall read that in the morn' :)

Rest assured, Maxx, I'm many years out of college and my Plato is dusty as well. 

I agree that the definition of "freedom" is critical, and I'm wondering if in some of the posts above, freedom is being conflated with opportunity.  In other words, a complex society with a well-developed economy may provides more options for livelihood, entertainment, goods, etc.  However, it doesn't necessarily give you the freedom to choose among those options - the degree of choice depends upon the political structure of society. A person in North Korea may have more opportunities than, say, a bushman; but her freedom may be much more restricted.

One distinction that political theorists like to discuss is whether freedom comes from the government, or in spite of the government.  Do we need rules for people to be free?  Or do people give up freedom in favor of the structure of rules?

@#7 - Interesting ideas.  I'm not sure I agree that simple societies are more egalitarian, but mainly because I'm not sure what would be considered a simple society.  The Iroquois confederacy was somewhat sophisticated politically but the member tribes were fairly simple economically.  They had a definite hierarchy between member tribes and practiced slavery.  Tribes also had internal hierarchies through clan membership. 

Another example I would consider is literacy rates.  Most of the western world is now highly literate, compared to a thousand years ago when we had a simpler feudal society.  True, lots of folks will never work their way through Derrida (lucky ones!), but most people are able to read the news of the day as well as their ballots.

Do we need rules for people to be free?  Or do people give up freedom in favor of the structure of rules?

Or do people give up freedom in favor of the opportunities that structure brings?

If so, I think we're adopting the social contract theory of government.  People are naturally free, but recognize that through cooperating with others and submitting to the rule of law, they can improve their position in the world.

Only because I forsee this thread getting out of control in the morning, and the fact that I can't sleep, I will respond now...please forgive any delusional ramblings as I'm mucho tired.

aghasd - A. ehhhh I sort of agree with your assessment with the deskilled/lack of economic mobility argument, and your point with the freedom from want, but I'm not sure I would consider this a 'restriction' on freedom in more complex societies.  

I COMPLETELY agree that individual freedoms are dependent on the community being healthy.  In a simple society, this may require people to follow pretty directly the 'best' way of doing things.  In a complex society, there are many ways to serve the common good, and therefore you have the freedom/choice/opportunity to serve society in a way that suits you.  Admittedly, this ignores one's capacity (pending intelligence, financial situation etc. as you mentioned) to serve the common good in the way they would like.

Slavery...thats a whole different cup o' tea, though not irrelevant.

B. Erm...why can't I go live by myself in a complex society?  Maybe in the 21st century US the IRS and the Feds would come after me...but in general I see no problem with leaving society if it floats your boat.

As for power becoming centralized in complex societies, well, that depends on your definition of a complex society :)  One with lots of governing bodies and little oversight could get pretty complex! (thats just not how it turned out for the U.S!)

lys - yes, a person in NK may have less freedom than a bushman, but in the context of your OP, it didn't NEED to be that way...thats just how it turned out.  It was the choice of the gov't.

Original Post by lysistrata:

If so, I think we're adopting the social contract theory of government.  People are naturally free, but recognize that through cooperating with others and submitting to the rule of law, they can improve their position in the world.

YES.  that.

Submitting to rule of law also enables individuals to practice more 'free will' if they operate within a society that is better able to watch out for the common good, a more complex society if you will.

and yes, I am a social contractist. (No, that is not a word.) Our primary concern is ourselves and family, but as humans we enter a social contract in order to benefit the common good, which in turn enables us to be selfish. (No, not the best choice of words but I think you get my drift)

EDIT: Yes, I just repeated lys's point twice, with different words 

Original Post by lysistrata:

If so, I think we're adopting the social contract theory of government.

People are naturally free, but recognize that through cooperating with others and submitting to the rule of societal law, they can improve their position, or survival, in the world.

We signed that contract before we were bipedal.

Original Post by jewelsmcblah:

Original Post by lysistrata:

If so, I think we're adopting the social contract theory of government.

People are naturally free, but recognize that through cooperating with others and submitting to the rule of societal law, they can improve their position, or survival, in the world.

We signed that contract before we were bipedal.

 we did?  I don't remember consenting :(

You didn't go to that meeting?  Grok must have forgot to holler for you.

Original Post by class_matters:

Umm... that isn't anarchism.  That's chaos.  Anarchism is about a different type of social organization.  Check out the Anarchist FAQ if you would like to learn more.

I know very little about political theories in general, being a scientist and not having taken those courses, and using 'anarchism' in the context I usually heard it used. The link is enlightening, and now I know better than to assume lack of state = lack of gov't.

People are free to do what exactly:

Eat?

Steal?

Plant a tree?

Not have to work?

To breathe?

???? What freedoms are we talking about??

I also argue that one must have a definition of freedom.  But on the most basic level.  Yes, in our complex society we have laws to govern our behavior.  But we are actually free to NOT participate.  Laws do not actually affect our behavior - we do.  Individuals.  We live in a trust based society.  Therefore we trust that others will choose to obey laws that are for the good of the community.  We obey by choice. or not. 

In the case of true slavery there is obviously no choice - but slavery is not limited to complex societies. 

Half formed idea but I forgive myself because it is 5 am.