Freedom must be conceived negatively as freedom from the economy
Evidence
Such new modes can be indicated only in negative terms because they would amount to the negation of the prevailing modes. Thus economic freedom would mean freedom from the economy—from being controlled by economic forces and relationships; freedom from the daily struggle for existence, from earning a living. Political freedom would mean liberation of the individuals from politics over which they have no effective control. Similarly, intellectual freedom would mean the restoration of individual thought now absorbed by mass communication and indoctrination, abolition of “public opinion” together with its makers. The unrealistic sound of these propositions is indicative, not of their utopian character, but of the strength of the forces which prevent their realization. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 112
Categorization
- XREF: The absurdity test — ‘utopian’ as a measure of repression — parallels the reader’s silence work on how dominant systems mark alternatives as unreal. — connects to: Empirical freedom is a negative concept defined by absence of constraint within a situation. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1158; Consumer-capitalist integration threatens rather than benefits individual freedom. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 7; Capitalism structurally requires negative liberty and rejects positive liberty — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 299 (+7 more)
Broader Connections
- Modern freedom rests on an unacknowledged capitalist metaphysic
#corroborates(0.85) - Market ideology functions to repress freedom rather than secure it
#corroborates(0.82) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 600 - Capitalism structurally requires negative liberty and rejects positive liberty
#corroborates(0.78) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 299