What is freedom?
Freedom is the ability to self-govern: to make and implement decisions in pursuit of our individual and group interests, without outside interference. Group interests are the interests that the members of a group—and only those members—have in common. They arise from similar, reciprocal, complementary or even competing individual interests.
For example, the people living in the same home—and only they—have a common interest in when and what they will eat together for dinner. People in other homes may have similar but distinct interests of their own.
Similarly, the residents of a neighborhood—and only they—have a strong common interest in the walkways, playgrounds, green spaces and kindergartens they use every day or often. Residents of other neighborhoods generally have similar interests in their own neighborhoods.
Residents of all of a city’s neighborhoods do, however, share a common interest in its public transportation, air quality and large parks.
Our most fundamental interest is the freedom to form our individual and group interests in the first place: to determine what matters to us, individually and together with others.
Freedom is therefore recursive: a group is only as free as its members are, and a nation only as free as its communities and citizens are.
We make and implement decisions in one of three ways: directly, through representatives, or through automated systems.
Direct decision making
The established mechanisms of direct decision-making include the general assembly and the referendum. A proper referendum is legally binding, has no participation quorum requirement, puts concrete proposals to the vote, has reasonable petition requirements and excludes no topics. It comes in three main types: the citizen initiative, the mandatory referendum and the veto referendum.
Decision-making through representatives
A representative is a person or entity elected by their constituents, authorized to act on their behalf in pursuit of their common interests, and individually accountable to them for the exercise of that authority. This individual accountability is crucial. Someone whom we have elected but cannot hold accountable can easily turn into a tyrant. Elections are the principal means by which constituents hold their representatives accountable. They should therefore be frequent and regular, and use an electoral system, such as the single transferable vote, in which the voter’s primary choice is between individual candidates rather than between party lists.
Organizing for freedom
It follows that self-governing institutions should be organized around specific group interests, so that people or entities who do not hold those interests cannot take part in deciding them, either directly or through representatives.
A large city government, for example, should preferably not be empowered to decide neighborhood-specific matters such as playgrounds or walkways. Otherwise, residents of other neighborhoods, who do not live there and do not normally use its amenities, would be deciding for that neighborhood through their representatives in the city government. This is the curse of overly centralized government, and it typically shows up as neglect or mismanagement of lower-level interests.
By the same token, neighborhoods should govern themselves in pursuit of their neighborhood-specific interests. Each neighborhood should also have at least one representative of its own, elected by its residents alone, in the higher-level government—the municipal council. That representative’s first job is to protect the neighborhood’s ability to govern itself; only their second is to take part in governing the municipal interests that all neighborhoods share, such as public transportation.
Free markets, secure property rights, enforceable contracts and agency, a limited tax burden and the rule of law enable people to form and pursue their individual and group economic interests—directly or through agents they authorize and hold accountable, on their own or through voluntary cooperation—without arbitrary interference and while respecting the rights of others.