Freedom A Qualitative Good

Introduction

Fareed Zakaria, in his book, The Future of Freedom, has written that: "We live in a democratic age." The book initially presents its premise as a critique of democratizing forces and countries throughout the world. However, the actual thesis is that it is constitutional liberalism, not democracy that causes nations to flourish. The author backs this claim up with historical facts and examples that prove that the Western, and more specifically Anglo-Saxon, traditions of separation of powers and a responsible elite that have made Western democracies so successful in the world today.

Democracy has always been associated with ideas of freedom. the relationship between these two ideals is less than straightforward; and complicated by the different meanings that ascribed to 'freedom' (Du Bois, Pp: 4). One celebrated way of distinguishing between different ideas of freedom is simple dichotomy between negative and positive concepts of freedom. That distinction has been repeatedly criticized, and the labels 'negative' and 'positive' are potentially misleading, but they do identify two ways of thinking about freedom that are importantly different, and whose difference is particularly relevant for democracy.

Discussion

In Mr. Zakaria's words, "democracy, with all its flaws, represents the last best hope' for people around the world." However, it has become an ugly and inefficient organization and is blatantly becoming discredited here at home in the United States.

Negative liberty describes a concept of being free as being un-prevented from doing or being. One's freedom consists in the area within which one is un-prevented from being or doing what one chooses (Daniel, pp.29-32). Quite what should count as being 'un-prevented' disputed so that different theorists have different conceptions of what should count as negative liberty, but those disputes are contained within a shared view of liberty as the absence of impediments of one sort or ...