"Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.

" Jean Jacque Rousseau in The Social Contract

A man was born free and pigs can fly With all respect due to the great philosopher, men are not and never were born free. A baby, like any other young mammal, can do nothing but suckle and poop, even that without any choice of time and placehardly a paragon of free will. A child emancipates from her complete dependency slowly, paying with effort and pain for every bit of newly acquired freedom. The liberty of movement comes in a few triumphant first steps only after hundreds of frustrating falls. The skills and abilities, effortlessly used in later life, materialize through hard work and perseverance, not by a birthright. Freedom of expression would be an empty phrase without a babys relentless drive to acquire speech. This is how we gain our freedomseach liberty earned through effort, frustration and persistence, none granted for free. Man could be freewith a lot of effort and good luck, or Man was born with a potential to be free would be a more honest statement from Rousseau who knew disempowering poverty more than once in his life. A failed engraver trainee, dismissed notary clerk and underpaid secretary, the philosopher certainly understood the link between freedom and money, as he scraped by copying music or kept by rich patrons. A gifted writer and deep thinker, Rousseau had to notice the intimate association between his money-generating capacity and his personal liberty. Official declarations of libert, and even his erudition, were nowhere as effective as a few pieces of gold jingling in his pocket. Perhaps it was too obvious to be formally stated. But the legend of men being born free has endured, and it is still used in todays management of the masses, even if not stated openly. Relax! the subliminal message says. All men are free! Have a drink, skip your school and watch another sitcom on TV. Dont go crazy with your work and ambition; all men are free anyway. You could be a president!

This empty reassurance infects minds of those who could be free, but in fact are bound with mortgages, credit car loans and car payments like Gulliver. They could break their ties with hard work and discipline, but the message Relax, you are free leads them into deeper bondage. And then, Rousseau sees chains everywhere. Could the manacles have anything to do with mens lack of abilities, and therefore poor earning power? To grant generous freedomslike those in the Bill of Rightsis cheap as long as grantees have little power or inclination to exercise their rights. Yet, the empty verbiage is useful; it keeps folks happy to be the freest people on the planetcalm and docile. Proud citizens cherish their illusory rights, as they drown in debt, but without too much troublesome fire. Why should they care about the no-fly list if a plane ticket is too expensive anyway? Freedom and wealth are joined at the hip like Siamese twinsyou cant have the first without the other. If it seems terribly unjust, its only because we are habituated to the pernicious message insisting that all man are free, or at least were born free. But we should know better For example, how good is the right to fair trial without money for decent representation? Perhaps it could be rephrased as the right to trial. And even that right could be withdrawn on grounds of national security, leaving the powerless free man with no rights at all. The assurance All men are equal has little value without being bolstered by personal means. Such a societal organizationneither fair nor commendablehas been in place pretty much forever. Participants understood the rules and acted accordingly, making their living as good as their actual social stations permitted. All men are born free statement was nothing but soothing opium tea for the disadvantaged masses, meant to provide a bit of comfort as much as calm down the urge to rebel. A technological progress eventually ended slavery and formal bondage; peopleno longer nailed to his or her spot could change their future. Especially since onset of the Internet, freely available information allowed people to move rapidly, changing their social position, nationality and geographical location. The ruling classes had to be concernedand justifiably soabout a well-arranged social cart being upset. Losing ones subjects was never a winning situation. Rules of the system governing freedom allocation had to be obfuscated and the clear path leading out of the bondage needed to be disguised. The Man was born free declaration, false in Rousseaus times, is even more perfidious now, as it leads many folks to believe that their freedom can be secured by proclamation. And, when short-term needs are guaranteed by welfare net, it is so much easier too reject all evidence indicating that a persons liberty must be backed up by his or her personal abilities. Many underprivileged people remain in their current stationnot hungry, but poor and powerless for all practical reasonswhile they should be striving like hell to grow their personal power. This is how we get a permanent underclass, wasting the potential contributions of many but, in exchange, preserving privilege for our elites. Could men actually be free? Yes, if he has means to ensure his freedom, because liberty is not a natural phenomenon it must be earned. This may be not obvious for young people, because parentsenslaved by the Naturewill usually cough up whatever money are necessary for agreeable life. But after that freedom and capacity to create wealth are quite interchangeable.

One obtains an advance from the society, a credit of liberty against his or her future productive work, but it is not an unrestricted free grant for life. It must be paid off, just like a student loan, or it will be repossessed. And fibs to the contrary are no different from fraudulent loan papers. Man can be free, but only by his own effort.