Nathan J Robinson: “One of the most important aspects of leftist thought is its insight that ‘power’ is more than just the government putting people in jail. Power relationships are everywhere… And you can make people freer in lots of different ways. If you have strong laws protecting political speech, then while an employer is less free to discipline people for what they do outside of work, the employees are freer to speak their minds. If you are free to easily unionize, then workers have the power to collectively withhold their labor if there are managers who abuse their power. If being a single mother wasn’t such a financially terrifying prospect, because we had a more generous welfare state that made it easy to raise children, the idea of leaving a bad marriage or relationship wouldn’t be quite as difficult to contemplate. If healthcare is provided free at the point of use, and funded through progressive taxation, then people are freer to go about their lives without having to worry about whether they can afford to get sick. … Having fairer and more equal society is not in tension with having a free society. It is a free society.”
16 April 2019