Freedom is Different People: Cities & Inclusive Freedom

In “Of the Origin of Justice and Property,” David Hume memorably says:

 

Adam Smith enriches this idea with his elaboration of a market with a division of labor, which enables greater production.  As anyone who has heard of Smith well knows, 

 

Hume and Smith both argue that it is society, and the systems of cooperation that it enables, that expand our capacities.  Systems of social cooperation, such as markets, allow us to augment our capacities with those of other people, enabling the system to do far more than individuals could.  

 

It is then natural to see why cities are one of our great inventions.  Cities work to dramatically expand the scope of our possible cooperation, increasing our productivity, and expanding the range of possible ways to specialize.  Cities can support pediatric heart surgeons, while small hamlets might share a general practitioner with nearby communities.  Instead of just butchers, bakers and brewers, we might find specialists in charcuterie alongside pastry shops and craft mead producers.  Of course, the generative power of cities is that we don’t simply make finer and finer divisions of existing tasks – we come up with new things altogether.

 

In his recent book, The Open Society and its Complexities, the late Gerald Gaus noted that free, open societies are marked by what he calls “autocatalytic diversity” – our diversity creates more diversity.  New products inspire still-different ones. Old ideas are combined into new ones. The new ones foster a reaction and other ideas are developed.  And so on.  As this process unfolds, the “adjacent possible” – the set of things we start noticing are possible – expands as well. This can spur us to develop still new ideas to reach those new possibilities.

 

What I want to call attention to is that these processes of specialization, increased productive capacity, refinement, and recombination that generate autocatalytic diversity are not unique to economic cooperation.  We will find these processes in all areas of our social lives together.  Cities, and the diverse others that we find there, help fuel cultural, social, and political innovations as well.  What we can do, and who we can be expands when there are other people around.  This is especially true when those other people bring different ideas, different values, and different skills to the systems of social cooperation that we are embedded in.  Those differences fuel the expansion of our capacities.

 

Of course, those differences can also generate conflicts of various kinds.  It’s easy to be pleased to find new kinds of vendors at the market, perhaps harder to be happy about new religious groups competing for adherents, or political groups arguing for the promotion of social ends you disagree with.  These kinds of differences undoubtedly generate social frictions, and the social rules that we generally find in cities are often a product of unspoken negotiations that aim to manage those frictions.  It’s these social rules that can leave some with the impression that city life is less free than, say, rural life, or that living in a diverse environment is more restrictive than living in a homogenous community.  Undoubtedly, those rules may leave us at times frustrated of constrained – we can point to an instance where we’d like to be able to do something or say something that we feel prevented from doing or saying.  That can feel like a loss – perhaps one that wouldn’t be present in an alternative environment.  If one’s view of freedom is a freedom from constraint – no one can stop you from doing what you want – then cities will feel less free.  But this is a vision of freedom that hasn’t learned the lessons of Hume, Smith and others.  Freedom isn’t merely a state of license.  Freedom is one’s capacity to choose a life they wish to lead.  Other people – especially when they are different – expand what’s possible for us.  They augment our abilities.  They expand our horizons.  They give us cause to disagree and formulate our own views.

 

There’s an important consequence to this view of freedom.  Because my freedom is caught up in a system of cooperation with others, who help to augment my capacities, my freedom is enhanced when there are more abilities around.  There are two margins to consider. First, we can simply add more people.  We have ample evidence at this point that expanding the size of the market does great things.  But equally important, my freedom is enhanced when yours is too.  On this account, freedom is inclusive in a way the negative conception of freedom is not.  We are partners in our freedom.  I can’t be made more free on the back of someone else’s oppression.  My freedom is enhanced by drawing more people into a system of cooperation with me and helping to ensure that their capacities are able to be augmented as well.  

 

This means we have good cause to make sure that our institutions that help shape our social cooperation are doing a good job of including everyone.  Cities enhance our freedom, but almost assuredly they could be far more successful at it.  Fostering more inclusive cities – whether that’s through better zoning, or through better service provision, or a more robust civic life with more cross-cutting institutions – is going to foster more freedom.  Almost certainly most of those gains will flow to those who are currently left out, but freedom is a positive-sum enterprise. 

Want to Read More?
Ryan Muldoon's book Social Contract Theory for a Diverse World
Gerald Gaus’s book The Open Society and its Complexities
Kyle Swan’s ASW post Three Cheers for Adam Smith's Cities | Adam Smith Works
Sarah Skwire's ASW post Adam Smith on the Country-City Debate | Adam Smith Works
Andrew Smith's ASW post On the Development of Communities | Adam Smith Works

For Teachers:
Reading Guide, Wealth of Nations, Book III, Chapter 3 | Adam Smith Works
#WealthOfTweets in the Classroom | Adam Smith Works (which goes with #WealthofTweets: Book 3.3 | Adam Smith Works)
Lesson Plan: On Whom Do You Depend? | Adam Smith Works
Lesson Plan: Division of Labor and the Future of Work | Adam Smith Works
Lesson Plan: Division of Labor and the Wealth of Nations | Adam Smith Works