Choice is Freedom ⎯ NOT!

Across our nation, Fourth of July celebrations have come to a close. Birds have devoured any potato chips left over from picnics in city parks; hot dog and ice cream vendors have packed up and moved on. We have celebrated freedom. Now we can concentrate on surviving the hot summer and getting the kids ready for the beginning of school, which comes all too soon.

Perhaps we should be less hasty to dismiss the idea of celebrating freedom, and ask a more fundamental question⎯what do we mean by freedom? What is, and is not, freedom?

We are free from a tyrannical governmental dictatorship. We are free to criticize our government, and there are limits on our government’s power. Most of all, we are free to enjoy what we’ve come to call the “American way of life.”

The American way of life always seems to involve choice. Economists like choice. Choice is a necessary condition for the functioning of that modern miracle, the perfectly competitive market (or if you like, free market). But choice and freedom are not necessarily the same.  Granted, in a dictatorship, there are few choices. And there is power exercised with the making of any choice. And with a choice comes responsibility for the outcome. But choosing from a dizzying number of alternatives (many of them meaningless) does not make us “free.”

We have more choices of products and services to buy than any other people in the history of humanity. Lemon-scented underarm deodorant? No problem. Lilac-colored, ocean-breeze-scented, skin softening  bath beads with aloe vera and vitamin E? We’ll sell them to you by the crate. Gooey chocolate junk food cupcake with so many preservatives it doesn’t need an expiration date? Order a truckload, we’ll deliver to your home!

So, what if I want clean air to breathe here in the city where I live? Sorry, no can do. What if I want water free of pollution? Sorry, that would hamstring the profitability of our business community. What if the families in my neighborhood don’t want to sell their homes and move in order for the children to get a good education? Realtors are very happy with this situation, thank you.

How free are we, when we can choose from a plethora of consumer electronics and 700 flavors of chewing gum, but have minimal control over alternatives affecting our health, education, or employment? Are there options we need that are unavailable to us? Have the corporations that sell to us, our city councils, employers, or legislators in Washington failed to provide alternatives that we genuinely need or want? Or have these elite and powerful people purposefully chosen to preclude key options, thus  replacing freedom with mind-numbing superficial choice?

There are times when choice masquerades as freedom. The power we can exercise over inane alternatives placates our desire for freedom and leaves us with the illusion that freedom is abundant, when, in fact, it is in danger of fading away or may be already gone.

Arden Rea lives  in Oklahoma City.