Milton Friedman hated children, and so does your government (probably)
In a capitalist, patriarchal, and white supremacist society, we hear the word "freedom" bandied about, but what exactly constitutes freedom? In Milton Friedman's (1962) book Capitalism and Freedom, he mentions the words free or freedom over 200 times, yet after the first two chapters of the book, I didn't quite know what he meant when he used the word "freedom." For many of us, freedom is something we strive towards, yet remains elusive, especially for us in societally marginalized groups.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, freedom as a noun is defined as: "The state of being able to act without hindrance or restraint; liberty of action. Frequently with to and infinitive (Oxford University Press)." Freedom as a verb is defined as "Transitive. To set free; to free (Oxford University Press)." When Friedman talks about freedoms ('political' or otherwise, I would argue that the word "freedom" is always political), he imagines that a capitalist system with very minimal government intervention would create the most 'free' society (1962).
Yet, there are many times when government intervention was needed to offer those on the margins of society a modicum of more freedom, which often led to positive generational gains, despite what the market likely would have done if the state had not stepped in. Katherine Moos, in her analysis of the fascinating relationships between the state, capital, labor, and ultimately, societal control, mentions that the decline in child labor due to compulsory state education was a significant contributing factor to "greater human capital development in England (Moos, 2020, p. 18)." A more educated workforce is usually a boon to society overall (provided they are not literally in bondage, as was the case with centuries of Afro-descendant peoples in places like the United States and Caribbean Islands), which would be of benefit to capital owners as well. Yet, it took social movements from groups such as impoverished families of England working in the textile industry (children as well) to get the government involved to lower the working hours of people, children included (Moos, 2020, pp. 17-18).
The Factory Acts did not eliminate child labor altogether, but it did increase the minimum age of workers from 10 for half-days of work and 14 for full days (Moos, 2020, p 18). There are many reasons for this, including strong cultural norms of the "male breadwinner" and technological change. By Friedman's admission, it is sometimes permissible for the government to intervene on behalf of children. However, he sees them as "consumer goods and potentially responsible members of society (Friedman, 1962, p35)." However, he does not believe that neither madmen nor children deserve freedom because it is a tenable objective only for responsible individuals (Friedman, 1962, p. 35).
It is a little strange, but I see a connection between how Friedman and Moos think that the government and capital class are willing to work together to keep societal norms, including inequalities that affect children and women, amongst other groups. Moos says: "The history of the British factory legislation demonstrates that the state may intervene to stabilize both capitalist and patriarchal relations, which, through policy, can be designed to structurally enforce each other (Moos, 2020, p3)." I posit that Friedman would agree that the government and state should work together to stabilize society (Friedman, 1962, p 28), which would somehow lead to a freer society. He often uses the word "we" to suggest that what he is writing are commonly held beliefs. While the framing of his writing infers that the "we" he is referring to are white men (even though his wife, an economist herself, is credited as assisting with creating the book), those beliefs are not so inclusive.
For instance, free markets and the state, in the form of the United States and our industries, have contributed heavily to the restriction of freedoms and life itself for millions of people, with Black people from the Caribbean and indigenous groups bearing the brunt of that. Keston K. Perry's article about Caribbean climate refugees and quotes from Peter James Hudson's concept of 'racial capitalism,' which "suggests both the simultaneous historical emergence of racism and capitalism in the modern world and their mutual dependence that is often defined by actions of the nation-state (Perry, 2023, p172)." For groups such as women, children, and especially women and children of color, it seems freedom is not easily given or earned. In fact, in countries like the US and England, the government and the free market demand that stability is preferable to too much social change. In that case, what can people with little to no freedom for generations do to attain it?
Supreme Court Justice Clarance Thomas has interesting thoughts on the role of the state and the market and how he thinks they promote or constrict freedom for Black Americans. In Corey Robin's chapter on the longest-serving (Robin, 2021, p. 413) and second (out of 3) Black justices on the Supreme Court of the US, he provides some insight into the influential judge's political and economic philosophies and how he thinks that, like Friedman, capitalism is the key to liberation and the state's role should be limited in it (Robin, 2021). Thomas grew up extremely impoverished in the southern state of Georgia in the US and looked up to his grandfather, a very stern man who was fairly well off (Robin, 2021, p 414). Thomas' journey to the Supreme Court (shaped by racism and colorism that he remembered as a child) and his chasing of power, coupled with his deep disillusionment from the deep, deep roots of racism (Thomas was quoted as saying: "...discrimination, racism, and bigotry have gone no place and probably never will (Robin, 2021, p415) is quite peculiar.
He received the opportunities he got in life from state intervention, specifically affirmative action. Yet, he believes that the state intervening in society on behalf of marginalized people, specifically Black people, harms them (Robin, 2021, p 419). He strongly agrees with conservative economist Thomas Sowell's assertion that "the laws of capitalism…did the most to mitigate and constrain the despotism of White America (Robin, 2021, p 420)." Robin notes that Thomas found this thought of the market somehow helping black people to be "so satisfying, it was 'like pouring half a glass of water on the desert (Robin, 2021, p 420)."
Yet, as one of the most powerful people in the US government, if not the planet, he does not believe in the state's ability to solve inequality; rather, that inequality is a necessary part of society (Robin, 2021, p 419). Thomas is aware that "enacted against a backdrop of systemic racism and accumulated inequality, formerly neutral policies simply reinforce that racism and those accumulations (Robin 2021, p419)", yet is against laws and policies that directly address bigotry.
Thomas may be right about the state's role in solving issues of discrimination; when the Factory Acts that Moos discusses were passed, the laws addressed men, women, and children. However, working-class women (and, of course, children), in particular, were still considered to be in subordinate positions to men after the passage of the acts, with Moos claiming that "the state contributed to the gendering of industrial capitalism, and to the social construction of gender difference (Moos, 2020, p. 19)" by creating the cultural norm of men being able to negotiate for their labor but not women. Updating a system that was already unfair to women who needed to work long hours at a factory and still were expected to do household chores and raise children (Moos, 2020, p 14) by taking away work didn't really confer freedom, and did not encourage equity for women in the face of accumulation of social and physical capital that men had.
Perry also agrees that the state is an active agent in the oppression of people and is a major driver of climate change. He states that even US policies that are supposed to address the climate crisis also reinforce (racist) capitalism, which drives climate change in the first place. We know that the effects of climate change deprive people, especially those on the frontlines of it, of the most basic freedoms of health, mobility, and self-determination. In the case of climate change, the nexus of the state and markets reinforce each other, making addressing the issue inequitably very difficult.
As for freedom, it appears there is some consensus between these writings on freedom and how it is difficult to attain for those on the frontlines of global warming, who are often people from marginalized groups as well. All of the authors discussed here think that neither the state alone nor the market can confer freedom in the sense of the noun ("being able to act without hindrance or restraint; liberty of action") nor the verb ("to set free; to free) Oxford University Press (n.d.).
We have seen some liberation in our history, but as Moos shows, that usually comes from the urging of social movements. I am not as callous as Friedman or cynical as Thomas, yet I agree that freedom won't necessarily come from a government in a symbiotic relationship with capitalism. I think what Friedman was afraid of, and many other people (not just neoclassical economists), is that people will get together, understand our common causes, and change social norms to the point where those currently in power lose their positions. That is what makes freedom so hard to define because inequality makes one person's freedom another's lack thereof.
References:
Friedman, M. (1962). Capitalism and Freedom. University of Chicago Press.
Moos, K. (2020). The political economy of state regulation: The case of the British Factory Acts. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 45(1), 61-84.
Oxford University Press. (n.d.). Freedom Dictionary Search. Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved October 13, 2023 from: https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/reference-examples.pdf.
Perry, K. (2023). (Un)Just transitions and Black dispossession: The disposability of Caribbean 'refugees' and the political economy of climate justice. Politics, 43(2), 169-185.
Robin, C. (2021), Clarence Thomas: Race Pessimism and Black Capitalism. In Rogers, M., Turner, J. (2021). African American Political Thought: A Collected History pp. 413-423). University of Chicago Press.
