Slaves and slaves

The words 'liberty' and 'freedom' are often used interchangeably but they don't have to be. It's open to anyone to propose a distinction between them and then operate accordingly. Stein Ringen proposes a distinction:

Liberty is not freedom. It is a condition of freedom. To live freely is to be... the author of one's own life. For those of us who are blessed with liberty, that means not just indulging but taking control.

Again:

[P]eople who demand liberty to indulge unexamined impulses are slaves... After liberty, the second condition of freedom is control, specifically the self-control that is required to avoid becoming a prisoner of one's own immediate desires.

The argument isn't a new one: if you don't command your own impulses, subject them to reason and deliberation, they control you rather than the other way round and you're unfree. But this argument works better for some wants than it does for others: low wants, so to say, smoking, boozing, physical 'excesses' of one kind and another. Think, however, of Philippa. What she wants to do is to read lots of books, go to the opera occasionally, likewise a movie now and again, see her friends, knit, grow flowers. This is, by chance, just what her friend Meg also gets up to. The difference is that Meg has thought a lot about how it would be best to spend her time, and decided on her bundle of activities, whereas Philippa has never given it a moment of consideration - she simply goes with the flow, doing as she pleases in more or less spontaneous fashion.

Using 'freedom' as Ringen proposes you can't tell whether a person is free without knowing of their inner mental and emotional processes or assessing how rational they are; you're also involved, arguably, in a value judgement about how worthwhile their chosen activities are. It seems clearer to say that Philippa is free when she satisfies her wants - to read, go to the opera, knit, and so on - and so is Gary when he drinks every night; even though, you might think, she could make better use of her freedom than by going to the opera, and he of his than by drinking so much.

Here's another kind of unfreedom (subscription only) than being a slave to your wants:

Standing in New York City, you are five hours away from being able to negotiate the sale, in broad daylight, of a healthy boy or girl. He or she can be used for anything, though sex and domestic labor are most common. Before you go, let's be clear on what you are buying. A slave is a human being forced to work through fraud or threat of violence for no pay beyond subsistence. Agreed? Good.

Most people imagine that slavery died in the 19th century. Since 1817, more than a dozen international conventions have been signed banning the slave trade. Yet, today there are more slaves than at any time in human history.