If there is any word that is thrown around in the capitalist world with reckless abandon it's that omnipresent refrain “freedom” or “liberty.”  According to bourgeois propagandists you're free, I’m free, we’re all free, at least that’s the mantra.  They even have a statue dedicated to liberty (allegedly).  The belief that we are free is drummed into our heads incessantly from cradle to crypt.  Indeed, were the technical means available, we’d find it implanted in our food.  What is absent from all this hype, however, are such critical factors as truth and awareness, because tens of millions have been given a concept of freedom that is definitely at variance with reality.  This can best be illustrated by the following conversation between a Marxist and a Believer in capitalism.

Marxist:  Would you say you are a free man?

Believer:  Yes, I am free and live in a free country.

Marxist:  How would you define freedom?

Believer:  Freedom exists when you have few or no laws restricting what you can do and the government is not telling you what to do.  In other words, I am not prevented from doing, or required to do, anything.

Marxist:  How about this definition?  Freedom is the ability to do what you want to do when you want to do it.

Believer:  That’s OK, too.

Marxist:  Well, then, since you claim to be a free man let me ask:
             Can you fly to Tahiti every weekend in your lear jet or throw half million dollar birthday parties for your friends?

Believer:  No, of course not, but I have no desire to.

Marxist:  Whether you want to or not is irrelevant.  I asked you if you could if you wanted to.

Believer:  No I can’t.

Marxist:  Then how can you say you are free.

Believer:  Because nobody is stopping me.  There are no laws or ruling officials saying I can’t.

Marxist:  Now wait a minute!  What’s our definition of “Freedom.”  IT’S THE ABILITY TO DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO WHEN YOU WANT TO DO IT.  Right!  And the fact is that you can not fly to Tahiti every weekend in your lear jet, even if you wanted to.  But Bill Gates can.  Walter Annenberg could.  Ross Perot can.  They can and you can’t; yet, Marxist telling me you are free.  HOW CAN YOU BE FREE TO DO SOMETHING YOU CAN’T DO.  Either you can do it or you can’t.  It’s either yes or no.  So which is it?

Believer:  But nobody is stopping me.  I am free to go to Tahiti.

Marxist:  Who said anything about people or laws being required to stop you.  What makes you think only those can forestall your journey.  Where did you get that idea?  I’ll tell you from whence it came.  It’s a product of the incredibly sophisticated system of indoctrination the bourgeois puts us all through, a system so subtle, but nevertheless simple, in its deception that even millions of intelligent people are tricked.  The fact is that you are not free to go to Tahiti in your lear jet and, thus, are as limited as you would be under any law ever passed prohibiting such a flight.  In fact, I could spend the rest of the year just listing all the acts you can not commit, even though no one and no law says you can’t.  Can you live in a $20 million home with a 12 car garage.  No, but Johnny Carson can.  He can but you can’t.  Can you buy an entire forest in the west or a $50 million dollar apartment complex in New York?  No, but Steve Forbes can.  Can you purchase a $100 million yacht and spend your days cruising the Caribbean and Mediterranean?  Of course not, but Donald Trump can.  Can you go through your entire life and never be forced to “hire out” or sell you labor?  No, but William F. Buckley can.  This list could be extended indefinitely.  So who has the freedom?  You who think you have; you who have been indoctrinated with a false conception of freedom or those with real freedom.  Because your conception of freedom is erroneous, your prior definition of same was fallacious.  An American organization mirroring this colossal fraud as well as any is the Libertarian Party, a quasi right-wing anarchist outfit whose members can’t even name their party intelligently because they operate under the fallacious assumption that freedom will prevail for all when governmental prohibitions and obligations are all but abolished and taxation has gone the way of steamboats.  What a naive analysis and puerile prognosis.  If governmental regulations were abolished and taxes vanished, all that would remain on the field of struggle for the best life has to offer would be property owners--the rich--versus the propertyless-- the poor--in an every-man-for-himself environment dominated by the fundamental and preeminent standard of “the devil take the hindmost--a prescription for hell to all but a clique.
     You don’t realize, and propaganda agencies such as the schools and media have done everything in their power to make sure you never do, that the amount of freedom you have is directly proportional to the size of your pocketbook (There is no such being as a free poor man; the very concept is an oxymoron).  That is true of power as well, for without the ability to act because of restrictions and limitations due to little or no wealth, your capacity to compete or struggle with those of real wealth, your power, is limited or abolished.  In simple terms, they will eat you alive. because they have the wherewithal and you don’t.  If you have money you have both freedom and power.  If you don’t, you don’t.  The converse is true of problems.  If you have money, you have no problems; if you don’t, you have nothing but problems.
     When the word freedom is accurately viewed as THE ABILITY TO DO RATHER THAN THE ABSENCE OF AN IMPOSED PROHIBITION (a don’t) OR REQUIREMENT (a must), life takes on a whole new meaning and events become far more coherent and transparent.  Now we can understand why the word “freedom” is invariably dripping from the lips of the world’s capitalists in regard to virtually every topic.  They are fully cognizant of the fact that vast wealth gives them an awesome advantage in any competition with actual or potential adversaries, primarily the proletariat.  Why do they scream so loudly for “free” elections in Cuba, for example.  Because they know they can ship enough wealth into that small island to practically sink it, wealth that can be used to buy ads, co-opt and corrupt politicians, hire party workers, co-opt the opponents’ workers, purchase the media, distribute literature in mass, disseminate propagandists, squeeze out or drown contrary voices, spy on the opposition, and so forth ad infinitum.

Believer:  But that’s democracy.  Everyone should be able to speak unhindered.

Marxist:  That, my friend, is not democracy but a formula for disaster, because elections belong to those with the riches.  As any vendor of commodities knows, in order to sell your product, be it merchandise or people, you have to advertise and propagandize, and those with vastly superior financial resources are all but certain of victory.  Candidates whom few know much about don’t get elected.  Why is the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press such a sham?  Why?  Because the capitalists know that freedom does not exist for you until you own the resources by which to exercise it.  The only ones having freedom of the press are those who own the press or media.  How can you have freedom of the press if you don't have a press.  Again:  YOU CAN’T BE FREE TO DO SOMETHING YOU CAN’T DO.  You can either do it or you can’t.  There is no inbetween.  The capitalists realize freedom of the press only exists for an infinitesimal number of rich tycoons such as Rupert Murdock and Ted Turner.  For all others it’s a sham.  You are told you are free to create a competing press but that requires wealth and you not only don’t have the wealth and your opponent does but you can only obtain wealth from the capitalists and their agencies such as banks and credit companies.  He who runs the dough runs the show.   You are referring to what Lenin called bourgeois democracy--democracy for the  ruling elite of capitalist property owners--as distinguished from proletarian democracy or rule by the population at large.

Believer:  Democracy is democracy.  You are playing with words.

Marxist:  How wrong you are!  Let me ask you a question and I want you to think long and hard on this one because, like your erroneous conception of freedom, it goes to the very heart of the clash between socialism and capitalism.  Tell me how you can have a democracy that is worthy of the name, a democracy that is anything other than a laugh, a joke, a farce and a fraud when one guy has a buck to his name and another has a billion.  To speak of democracy under such an arrangement is too ludicrous to discuss.  The latter will have the former for lunch, and it won’t be as a guest.  To speak of equal representation or a reasonably comparable voice in government is beyond the pale of sanity.  Plutocrats will be able to put vast sums into the right hands at the right time and, in effect, buy politicians, gain access, have their calls returned, and be owed favors by their political puppets.  The entire set-up is nothing less than dictatorship by the rich and there is no chance whatever of any sort of electoral financial reform or similar anemic activity rectifying the situation.  Be realistic!  How could laws possibly control the flow of billions of dollars when all policing agents (legislators, police, investigators, judges, officials, etc.) are the hand-picked marionettes of the very people to be policed and the number of stratagems by which one can circumvent attempts to reduce or eliminate the flow of funds and favors is only limited by the capitalists’ ingenuity.  Pinning them down would be like trying to nail jello to the wall.  The outcome is a foregone conclusion.
        When freedom is viewed correctly and seen as dependent upon, and an adjunct to, wealth, we can see much more clearly why the bourgeoisie, especially the most  right-wing, denounces taxes with such vehemence.  It is the major mechanism within the capitalist system by which some of the wealth stolen from the masses through the exploitation of labor can be redistributed downward along with the accompanying freedom and power.  We have heard a lot of discourse lately about world-wide free trade, along with such regional pacts as NAFTA (The North American Free Trade Association).  There’s that word “freedom” again and what does it signify.  What does the word “freedom” always automatically signify?  It’s only another way of saying rule by the property owners and under capitalism the owners are the bourgeoisie, not the proletariat. Those with the aces determine all cases and the most prominent faces.  No one is more conscious of this fact than the multi-national corporations and big bourgeoisie based in the United States who not only drain the non-competitive underdeveloped countries for all they can plunder but know full well that they enjoy a far more potent position vis a vis their Western Pacific and West European competitors.  Since the demise of feudalism no group in the modern history has stressed the word “freedom” more than the capitalists, the richest class, because they vividly realize that only they will exercise and enjoy real freedom; only they will be the real recipients.  The vast mass of humanity will be a victim of illusion or only experience momentary glimpses of liberty.  All the time bourgeois propaganda agencies are telling you how free you are, that’s exactly what you aren’t, unless, of course, you hit the lottery and we all know what the possibility of that is.  As long as private ownership of that which matters prevails, the overwhelming majority of mankind will never know what freedom is really like.  They will never feel the pleasure and exhilaration of entering the most luxurious of stores or markets and buying anything offered from rings to planes in whatever quantities are desired without ever looking at the sticker price.  Now that’s real freedom, not the bogus kind.
        So, how then, can the masses obtain freedom?  In light of the fact that the amount of freedom one has is directly related to, and dependent upon, the amount of wealth one has, the answer is quite simple.  If capitalism and its inherent exploitation, in which absolutely appallingly obscene differentials in wealth are amassed through unpaid labor, i.e., theft, is minimized or abolished, then wealth will not only be distributed according to work performed, rather than property owned, but major disparities in freedom and power will be relegated to the annals of history.  That can only be done under socialism--the only viable alternative.  Only under socialism can there be democracy for the masses.  Until the means of Production, Distribution, and Exchange are owned by all, freedom, liberty and democracy will be a mockery, a mirage, possessed by a mere few.