Democracy & Liberty, Part 2(a)

We continue our conceptual and political if not philosophical introduction to democratic theory and praxis provided by the late Professor Raghavan Iyer from a chapter in his book, Parapolitics: Toward the City of Man (Oxford University Press, 1979), with the material on “liberty” and liberties within democratic societies. Part 1(a) is here. Part 1(b) is here, and Part 2(b) is forthcoming.

“While the concept of freedom is both broader and deeper than that of democracy [cf., for example, its metaphysical and ontological meanings in Kant’s philosophy, Sartrian existentialism, or Indian philosophies and, most recently, a book on the subject by the inimitable Raymond Tallis] the concept of liberty is narrower but no less significant. Although it has positive as well as negative aspects, it means, strictly and etymologically, exemption from tutelage and tyranny, from external restraint and arbitrary power. Every notable instance of such an exemption is called from medieval times a liberty, or, in more modern jargon, the establishment of a claim or right. Some of these are often see as natural or fundamental and implicit in the definition of man [here is where liberty merges with freedom]. While these and other rights may be sanctified by notions of natural law, they are safeguarded by sanctions of man-made law. Liberty is the product rather than the sum of particular liberties; it stands for a system rather than a set of rights, as the interrelations of all affect the implications of each. These liberties may be seen as pertaining to different spheres of activity—religious, civil, political, and personal; or to various human functions—thought, conscience, speech, movement, association; or the other things most men value—life, education, happiness, property, power, reputation, conviction, intellectual and social intercourse; or to institutions and organizations—schools, trade unions, parties, the courts, local bodies, reform societies, vocational groups, business firms, the media. Individual liberty seems always to have to run faster to keep in the same place, despite the nostalgia for a simpler and purer world of the past.

The essential elements in the concept of liberty remain unaffected by its ever-expanding application to an expanding social universe. There has always been a commitment to fewer restraints, wider choices, and greater self-determination, although these have been viewed in the varied historical struggles for liberties by master and slave, feudal lord and serf, the rural aristocracy and the urban bourgeoisie, worker and peasant, producer and consumer, landlord and tenant, the intelligentsia and the proletariat, the imperialist and the revolutionary, the haves and the have-nots in every sphere. In Athens, the idea of liberty was incarnated into particular forms such as isegoria or equality of speech, isonomia or equality before the law, isocratia, or political equality, and parrhesia or equality and freedom of speech. It is no doubt a far cry from the claims and concessions of the Magna Carta to William Blackstone’s statement in the eighteenth century concerning the absolute rights that belong to every citizen under a system of law which reduced the natural liberty but increased ‘civil liberty of mankind.’ Today we can see more clearly and state more explicitly the essential elements in the idea of liberty:

1. All men are equally entitled to liberty, for liberty without equality of rights is meaningless in the social context.
2. Liberty for all means equal restrictions and reciprocal obligations for all. There is a contractual as well as an egalitarian element in the idea of public liberty.
3. The restrictions imposed on citizens by the laws of the State must be laid down specifically so that may never be increased without adequate justification in the eyes of those subjected to them.
4. Certain liberties are regarded as inviolable but they need to be supplemented by new liberties.
5. These liberties must be guaranteed by constitutional or statutory law and safeguarded by impartial courts of justice.
6. It must be possible to effect changes in the social and political system to increase the amount of liberty available to all classes of people as well as to secure a better implementation of existing liberties.
7. There must be adequate means to prevent the overthrow or exploitation of the system by the internal and external enemies of liberty.

Implementation of these essential elements  in the concept of liberty through suitable institutional and constitutional devices is not enough for a liberal society. There must also emerge an awareness of their rights among all the members of a community, together with a deep-seated respect for the dignity and worth of the individual. There must be free legal aid and equal access to the law. Every citizen must be competent to claim his own rights and have adequate opportunities to claim and maintain his liberties. This implies a commitment to a minimum standard of social and economic security as well as basic and civic education [emphasis added].

Part 2(b) on liberty and liberties should be our final installment. Part 3 will be our fifth and final installment.