Freedom, Happiness and Necessity

Reviewing a book on Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom in the October 7 Nation, academic Peter E. Gordon summarizes a number of philosophical arguments in favor of socialism. One of these has a familiar ring to it: "People can realize themselves and achieve true happiness only if they have the freedom to pursue their individual and collective goals, and they can do that only if they do not find their life paths obstructed at every turn by economic need." This echoes a Marxist distinction between a "realm of necessity" and a "realm of freedom" that non-Marxists, conservatives in general and perhaps most people have never accepted. The criteria for freedom and happiness implicit here are simply too stringent without reflecting people's historic lived experience. It's not "false consciousness" to believe both that the world doesn't owe you a living and that you can be both free and happy in such a world. Happiness is self-evidently subjective, but so is freedom -- it wouldn't be freedom otherwise. To assert that freedom only exists only certain conditions may seem philosophically sound, but the consciousness of freedom and the sense of happiness that follows from it are not answerable to logic. The sort of formulation paraphrased by Gordon presumes an objective definition of both freedom and happiness when none really exists. It tends to reinforce the impression that socialists, or leftists in general, simply can't cope with the world as it is -- that they, in short, are losers. It's a wrong impression so long as not everything about "the world as it is" is unalterable, and some things ought to be altered. But holding out for the abolition of necessity, or believing it can abolished by legislation, is overly idealistic and contrary to past socialist (or at least communist) practice. Fortunately for socialists, there are other potentially more persuasive philosophical arguments they can employ. But the revulsion at necessity cited here seems all too much like the way many of today's younger leftists feel about the world. It makes you wonder what they really mean when they talk about the necessity of change.