PARADOXES OF PRESCRIBED FREEDOM

If you claim there is no freedom in our society, then don't protest when you are deprived of freedom, since you cannot be deprived of what you don't have.

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If you desire the comfort of neat conclusions, you are lost in this space. Here, we indulge in the unsettling, the excessive, the paradoxes that define our existence.

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The Trumpian populism is a unique combination of formal social freedoms and political expert dictatorship; a world ruled by corporate "monarchs" supported by experts. One cannot but recall here Marx's critique of anarchism, where he pointed out how their self-organization was extremely authoritarian. Elon Musk promises to get the government "off the backs of Americans" and "out of their pocketbooks": less taxation, less regulation, even a lower military budget, decentralization, and free initiatives from below. However, the lesson we have learned over the last hundred years is that strong state regulation is needed to prevent market competition from gradually turning into monopoly. This is the ultimate reason why the new oligarchs so passionately advocate for less state regulation. And does Trump not also practice state regulation when needed? Paraphrasing Marx's ironic description of the "free" contract between a capitalist and a worker as the "very Eden of the innate rights of man—there alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property, and Bentham," one can say that Trump promises freedom, openness, deregulation... and protective tariffs. Plus, of course, no freedom for those who criticize Trump's politics, even if they have nothing whatsoever to do with the Left: "Trump threatens to sue media after Wall Street Journal editorial criticizes tariffs."¹

The same goes for Jeff Bezos, who announced on February 26, 2025, a new regime at The Washington Post: "his paper's comment pages will promote libertarianism ('free markets and personal liberty'), and will not publish opinions contradicting these central principles."² This stance was taken to an extreme by J.D. Vance, whose notorious Munich speech, delivered on February 14, 2025, was a masterpiece of "terror on behalf of freedom." Arguing that the true threat to Europe stemmed not from external agents such as Russia or China but from Europe's own internal retreat from some of its "most fundamental values," he repeatedly questioned whether the U.S. and Europe any longer had a shared agenda. "What I worry about is the threat from within." Among other things, Vance said:

"If you are afraid of the voices, the opinions, and the conscience that guide your very own people... If you're running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you, nor, for that matter, is there anything you can do for the American people... People dismissing voters' concerns, shutting down their media, protects nothing. It is the most surefire way to destroy democracy."³

The reality of this defense of freedom? "A French researcher was denied entry to the United States after U.S. authorities found messages about President Donald Trump on his phone, a French government official said on Thursday (March 20, 2025)."⁴ How does this crazy logic work? A unique incident that took place in Turkey back in 2011 explains it. The Minister of the Interior, Idris Naim Sahin, made a speech worthy of very subtle dialectical speculation: he claimed that the Turkish police were imprisoning thousands of opposition members without evidence and without trial to convince them that they were indeed free prior to their imprisonment. In short, they put them in prison to make clear to them that they were committing a pragmatic contradiction when they simultaneously claimed that (1) there is no freedom in Turkey, and that (2) they were imprisoned (i.e., freedom was taken from them) illegally. Here is a key passage from Sahin's speech:

"Freedom... What freedom are you talking about when you complain about being imprisoned? If there's no freedom outside the prison, then the inside is no different. When you are complaining, it means there's a freedom outside. There's even a freedom to say 'I want to divide this country; freedom and autonomy do not suffice, I want to rebel,' or whatever. You can't deny this. The only thing you deny to yourself is the freedom to talk about the freedoms you live in, because your head, your heart, your thought is mortgaged. You are not free to tell this. You don't have the freedom to tell that the freedoms you enjoy really exist. By destroying you as well as those who make you talk like that, we are trying to make you free, to save you from the separatists and their extensions. This is what we do. It is a very deep, very sophisticated job."⁵