Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
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Free<strong>do</strong>m as Power<br />
The account of free<strong>do</strong>m as power that underpins this argument is<br />
distinct from both the Liberal and Republican mainstream in that it<br />
<strong>do</strong>es not reduce free<strong>do</strong>m to one defining feature, be that mere absence<br />
of (external) impediments, the ability to decide for oneself what to <strong>do</strong><br />
(self-determination) or active citizenship within a free state. These are<br />
Berlin’s ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ conceptions of free<strong>do</strong>m and the rival<br />
Republican account respectively. [3] Rather, this alternative account of<br />
free<strong>do</strong>m rejects the common tendency to favour a minimalist conception<br />
of free<strong>do</strong>m above a realistic one. It captures the substantive, concrete<br />
nature of free<strong>do</strong>m by identifying free<strong>do</strong>m with power in at least one<br />
important way. When I say ‘I am free’ normally I am not saying, ‘I am<br />
externally unimpeded’ or ‘I am self-determining’; no, what I usually<br />
mean is ‘I am free to <strong>do</strong> X’ which concretely means ‘I have the power<br />
or ability to <strong>do</strong> X’. So real modern free<strong>do</strong>m here is identified with and<br />
as power in that it conceives of free<strong>do</strong>m as a combination of my ability<br />
to determine what I will <strong>do</strong> and my power to <strong>do</strong> it or bring it about.<br />
This way of thinking about free<strong>do</strong>m chimes very well with a<br />
number of the reasons and concerns that have driven most, if not all,<br />
of the various struggles for free<strong>do</strong>m across the ages, from the sharp<br />
distinction between free<strong>do</strong>m and slavery in Antiquity and beyond, and<br />
the various associated slave revolts, via the myriad liberation struggles<br />
against colonialism, apartheid, and <strong>do</strong>mination based on race, gender<br />
or class (or some mixture of all of these), to the everyday attempts to<br />
gain more independence and free<strong>do</strong>m from others, the state, the law,<br />
poverty or crime. In other words, it captures well an important fact<br />
about human existence: people are interested in free<strong>do</strong>m as a human<br />
ideal, goal or aspiration not in and of itself but because it is thought to<br />
be connected with the actual attainment of ‘something’, that is, some<br />
good or set of goods; and the actual attainment of that ‘something’<br />
depends on my having the power to attain it. The liberation struggle<br />
in South Africa did not have as its goal the abstract idea of being<br />
129<br />
FREEDOM, POWER AND<br />
REPRESENTATION<br />
Lawrence Hamilton<br />
3<br />
Berlin, ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, Four Essays on Liberty (OUP 1996), pp. 118-172; Skinner,<br />
‘The Idea of negative Liberty’, Vision of Politics Vol II (CUP 2002), pp. 160-185; Pettit,<br />
Republicanism; Taylor, ‘What’s Wrong With Negative Liberty?’, The Idea of Free<strong>do</strong>m, ed.<br />
Ryan (OUP 1979), pp. 175-93.