What are some of the costs of democracy/freedom in a nation?

Question

It is said that freedom is not free. What do you see as the price, the cost of freedom? How is this cost changing with time?

Answer 1

The price of freedom is to exert the energy necessary to attain and keep it.  To build upon this, I will define freedom as the ability to act as one sees fit.  In so acting, there are two potential restrictions: nature and the actions of others.

We will never be entirely free from the requirements of nature.  There must always be some amount of energy spent keeping ourselves alive.  People tritely say that no one is free who is hungry.  That is perhaps true.  The range of actions available to such a person is severely limited.  Yet there are no magic bullets to providing for the hungry.  What's more, contrived claims to require others to provide food (or any other good) violate the freedom between acting humans.

Humans are free from one another when their dealings are mutually voluntary.  In the course of human relations, we frequently violate each others' freedom.  These range from trivial cases of misunderstanding to intentional crimes to political oppression.  Freedom from the actions of others is tricky because often cunning individuals act in such a way as to benefit from enslaving others.  If they are truly skilled, they may convince their victims that their actions are actually intended to protect them or to provide security.

They also entice slavery by appealing to various noble inclinations in their victims.  It is injust, they say, to allow any person to go hungry.  So we will take from you to give to any person who needs food.  The multitudes who acquiesce to such arguments ignore the grand potential to provide for the needs of humanity by voluntary arrangement.  They also ignore the tendency of people who promote such institutions of theft to enrich themselves at the expense of both their victims and the intended beneficiaries.

The price of freedom among humans is to have the courage to resist oppression whatever its nature or source.  It may involve taking unpopular stands.  It may even require defending oneself violently.

I've only addressed the price of freedom.  It is tragic that democracy and freedom are often interchanged.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  If freedom among humans is to deal by mutual, voluntary consent, then democracy is the antithesis to freedom.  Its very nature is to subject the will of some people according to the voice of others.  As any government, its mode of enforcement is violence.  The price of freedom therefore must be to oppose democracy in favor of voluntary institutions [1].

Over time, the ideals of freedom are becoming less and less clear.  In order to restore a greater level of freedom, there are many popular fallacies to overcome.  People will defend institutions of enslavement and proclaim that they are defending freedom.  The price of rolling back such thinking is great.  However, it need not be violent or involve upheavals.  It may only require patience.  I am optimistic that with greater connectivity, reasoned arguments may eventually chip away at the superstitions that restrict freedom.

Answer 2

The cost of freedom in a democracy (or a representative democracy) is said to be the responsibility to stay informed and to vote.  But just as a doctor needs “informed” consent before he operates, the voting population also needs to be informed.  This requires that the population is educated to a level where they are able to understand the issues and what we refer to as an independent media to inform them. All of these things require dollar costs and are perhaps failing in one form or another with the expected consequences. It has been said that a democracy is perhaps the worst form of government except for all the other forms of government.  

But democracy is not the only form of government and with other forms any freedom that can be obtained will also have costs that are related to that form of government.  However there is one thing that might be said about any form of government.  Any freedom available under that form of government will require the national equivalent of discipline.  

For an individual freedom comes at the cost of discipline.  If in my writing I am constantly exercising my freedom to throw failed edits on scraps of paper over my head, assuming an unlimited supply of paper, my room will eventually get filled and thereby limit my physical freedom.  I exercise the discipline to take aim for the garbage pail and occasionally take out the garbage, not because I want to but because it is necessary for my continued freedom.  Similarly, when I am hungry I will get in my car and must necessarily avoid the potential “coercion” of state sanctions by stopping at several stop signs on my way to the market.  I also realize that pedal to the metal full speed ahead might get me into an accident with a similarly minded fellow.  Therefore I accept the state’s potential “coercion” for the benefit of the freedom that it leaves me for the same reason that I accept the necessity to take out the garbage.

The national equivalent on the national level of discipline for the individual are the laws and treaties, recognition of the courts, etc that we live under.   There is a constant balance that must take place between freedom and the laws that provide for it.  When that balance gets too far out of askew, freedom will necessarily suffer.  Similarly if education fails or the media fails in their needed function the consequences may take many generations and dollars to repair.  

Answer 3

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