Greek Idea Of Freedom Essay

The Greek Idea of Freedom

Greek poleis did not identify as a single unified organization, although they shared a common culture. The basis of their society was a subsistence economy that expected individuals to provide for themselves. Cities only offered protections from danger, not a support system. Freedom was something that existed along a spectrum, and equality was not the goal. Governance was set up to avoid monopolies on power. Those who gained leisure time were expected to use that free time to serve the city, though in a manner of their own choosing. The most obvious issue to be found with this society is the way it relied, at base, on slavery. The Greek concept of freedom was more focused on negative freedom, and it tolerated, expected, and relied upon inequalities.

Subsistence agriculture was the foundation of Greek society. Every household was responsible for its own livelihood, and “all resources necessary for survival… were locally produced” (Mathisen, 2012: 208). There was no enforcement of “equality” which provided for
Isaiah Berlin’s explanation of positive and negative freedoms is particularly helpful in understanding ancient Greek society. In Greek society if you were a slave, you had no freedoms, positive or negative. If you were a landowner, you had some negative freedoms, like being free from having someone else's will forced upon you. Those who were not slaves, but did not have enough land to support themselves, worked for wages, which was considered slavish. If you were well off, you could have positive freedoms, like the ability to practice politics, because you had leisure (or "free") time. You were always striving for more freedom. As Isaiah Berlin puts it, “The 'positive' sense of the word 'liberty' derives from the wish on the part of the individual to be his own master” (Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty, 1969: 8). The disparity between levels of freedom was an accepted part of Greek