ABSTRACT

This chapter reveals two fundamental flaws of the negative view and discusses how they are remedied by the positive view. However, positive freedom as the power for self-determination has both political conditions and economic condition. The chapter draws attention to the consensus between these three thinkers about the social conditions of positive freedom, in so far as they emphasize the link between freedom, equality and democracy. It describes an advantage of the notion of self-development is its critical power in evaluating the effects of a specific social system on the positive freedoms of people. The chapter explores how the Marxist historical account of concrete freedom illuminates freedoms and unfreedoms that are specific to capitalism, by making an immanent critique of capitalism. In a competitive capitalist economy, in the relation between owners and non-owners of capital, all power is reduced to extractive power.