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This book is about the relationship between different concepts of freedom and happiness. The book's authors distinguish three concepts for which an empirical measure exists: opportunity to choose (negative freedom), capability to choose (positive freedom), and autonomy to choose (autonomy freedom). They also provide a comprehensive account of the relationship between freedom and well-being by comparing channels through which freedoms affect quality of life. The book also explores whether the different conceptions of freedom complement or replace each other in the determination of the level of well-being. In so doing, the authors make freedoms a tool for policy making and are able to say which conception is the most effective for well-being, as circumstances change. The results have implications for a justification of a free society: maximizing freedoms is good for its favorable consequences upon individual well-being, a fundamental value for the judgment of human advantage.
What is freedom? Can we measure it? Does it affect policy? This book develops an original measure of freedom called 'Autonomy Freedom', consistent with J. S. Mill's view of autonomy, and applies it to issues in policy and political design. The work pursues three aims. First, it extends classical liberalism beyond exclusive reliance on negative freedom so as to take autonomous behavior explicitly into account. Second, it grounds on firm conceptual foundations a new standard in the measurement of freedom that can be fruitfully coupled with existing gauges. Third, it shows empirically that individual preferences for redistribution and cross-country differences in welfare spending in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries are driven by the degree of 'autonomy freedom' that individuals enjoy. By means of an interdisciplinary approach and a sophisticated econometric methodology, the book takes an explicit stand in defense of freedom and sets the basis for a liberalism based upon people's actions and institutions.
We have laid down a theoretical measure of choice grounded on the Millian notion of individuality (autonomy) together with a fully fledged set of justifications for upholding it. In this chapter, we want to move from the theoretical measure to its empirical counterpart. If successful, we would have a powerful tool for conducting an enquiry into the effects of autonomy freedom in society. A tool firmly grounded on an established literature and on an important liberal tradition.
But how to construct such an empirical measure? We cannot rely on objective data since they are not available at the individual level of analysis that our axiomatic framework requires. We have then to search for information at the subjective level; surveys are the only source of this information. Our opening considerations must then start with the survey question that we shall use to gauge the extent of autonomy freedom enjoyed by individuals. More specifically, we point out that the A173 – How much freedom of choice and control – question in the World Value Survey (WVS) database captures the degree of autonomy freedom people enjoy. As we will show, the question gives an indication of how much freedom of choice and control people perceive over the way their lives unfold. We shall argue at length that the information captured by the question proposed by the WVS is consistent with the theoretical measure developed in Chapter 3.
The centrality of the idea of freedom in cultures and societies is undisputed; the meaning of freedom is essentially contested. Some scholars use this term to indicate a space where each individual may act as he likes; others refer to the exercise of autonomous judgment; others underline the development of an inner self; others equate freedom to availability of choices; and the list is not exhaustive.
Take the case of the United States. Although the idea of freedom is at the heart of the nation's creed, two different visions of individual liberty emerged in the twentieth century. The difference between them becomes most apparent when we compare their prescriptions in the touchy domain of social security. On the progressive camp, inspired by Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, the promotion of freedom from want and fear is not necessarily diminished by the intervention of the state; instead, it can often be advanced only through the vigorous action of government. In this perspective, economic fairness and distributive justice have been the guiding principles at the basis of the progressive conception of social security. Differently, on the conservative camp, individual liberty is affirmed in a civil society where the role of government is limited and families, neighborhoods, and faith communities sustain the moral foundations of freedom. In this view, public policies are based on three major ingredients: freedom of choice, individual responsibility, and freedom from government dependence. In the words of George W. Bush’s second inaugural address, “in America’s ideal of freedom the public interest depends on private character […] Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self.”
The last chapter in a book is almost obliged to offer a summary of the arguments tackled and deployed in the pages that precede. In the case at hand, the obligation is inescapable as the journey has been long and across disciplines. We do not want to dodge such duties. Yet, we feel that an important aspect – albeit one that cannot be exhausted here – of our measure of freedom is still open. This has to do with its contribution to the design of a satisfactory view of liberalism and a good society.
The accomplishment of this final task cannot be eschewed if we want to provide a complete picture of the effort undertaken in these pages. After all, the value of developing a measure of freedom must extend beyond the measure itself to involve considerations that embrace, first and foremost, a view of liberalism and a good society. However, a fully fledged prescriptive picture would require the deployment of an argument for which adequate space – and probably even the reader's patience – is not available, at this point. We then limit ourselves to a simple sketch of the view of liberalism that our interpretation of autonomy freedom entails. To this end, we exploit a powerful tool: the reasons why choice is valuable. Such a tool turns out to be incredibly flexible. The rankings of choice introduced in the first part of the book can be interpreted in the light of the value that each of them attributes to choice.