Microsoft Word - Political Economy Review 2015 cover.docx

PER 2015

punch is itself freedom of expression. Even Chami Chakribati, the leader of the pressure group, Liberty, said “people have the right to get offended”. I think that these examples show that unrestricted individual freedom does not serve the interests of all. The right to freedom of expression carries with it many negative externalities, not just offence. In fact, I think that because satirical magazines are able to depict certain sections of society so horrifically, there are high levels of discrimination against them. We can easily see this happening against Muslims in education, employment and all aspects of life in France. Reducing inequality is a Macro Economic Policy Objective, and therefore we would assume that a constraint on ridiculing certain sections of society would be beneficial. Furthermore, there are examples of the same magazines knowing that it is not ok, for example, to joke about the holocaust. A veteran cartoonist Maurice Sinet at Charlie Hebdo was sacked in 2008 for making an allegedly anti-Semitic remark. This proves that even those that are pro freedom of expression know that it is not always in the interests of all. Therefore, I would conclude that ultimately unrestricted individual freedom does not serve the interests of all because not only is it inevitable that there will be actions that are at the cost of someone else; the main example of this being the difference between freedom of speech and the right to be offended. So where would one draw the line between when freedom of expression allows for the maximum social progress and when it is detrimental to society. Of course it is subjective where the social optimum of free speech is but that doesn’t mean we cannot understand what is more dangerous - a society that has no constrains on an individual and one that does. However, I believe that for a truly liberal society to thrive, it needs to be tolerant of all sections of society. Therefore, because freedom of speech can be detrimental to that, we can see that unrestricted individual freedoms do not, in fact, serve the interests of all.

Would unrestricted individual freedom serve the interests of all?

Oliver Laurie

This has often been the argument of anarchist movements; unrestricted freedom is only achievable through the creation of stateless societies. However, true “unrestricted individual freedom” is a strange idea. From a psychological standing, it is impossible to achieve, and even if it were, would unrestricted mean that people would be free to kill, murder and ravage at their own will? If so, this “freedom” would inhibit other people’s right to do the same.

Psychological freedom, our freedom to make decisions and how we think, is limited through a number of factors, which greatly affect the way we think, our decisions, and ultimately, our life styles. These can be categorised into the following: rewards, punishments, restraints and compulsions (Skaggs, 2013). Rewards and punishments can vary from the small, often forgotten, actions, such as facial expressions and verbal approval and disapproval, to the large, such as prize money or the other extreme, imprisonment or execution. These two factors

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