Freedom for one does not mean freedom for everyone

It seems like many people still hold the belief that it is a good idea to deregeulate markets and the economy, to abolish the vast amount of laws that we have and to let corporate leaders freely choose what's best for them. This would result in economic growth and thus to a raise in standard of living for everyone. Fewer rules always mean more freedom, right?

This view is fundamentally flawed. Though deregulation leads to fewer rules which in turn may seem like it leads to more freedom, we need to raise the question: Whose freedom?

I need to clarify first that deregulation can affect basically every aspect of life and and indeed is beneficial in some areas. For example, abolishing discriminating regulations, such as the ban on gay marriage, is undeniably a good thing. In this piece though, I exclusively write about deregulation in the economic sector. In the following, I will examine two specific prominent examples of deregulation in further detail: Labor relations and the envoironment.

The expansion of exploitation

Regarding labor relations, deregulation first and foremost means the abolishment of collective bargaining agreements (or the alteration thereof in favor of the employer) or the relaxation of worker protection laws. The goal is to expand the frame in which the employer can make decisions over wages and protective meansures, to get rid of "nasty" laws and to generally let employers reign freely without interference by the government.

Proponents of this idea justify it by claiming that deregulation serves primarily to lower labor costs on order to make the creation of more jobs more attractive to employers. The reality is though that this sort of deregulation does in fact not lead to more jobs and even less so better ones. The truth is quite the opposite. Longer working ours at the same wages lead to less people being necessary for the same amount of work. Those who keep their job work longer hours for lower wages (as I mentioned, these get deregulated too) and under worse working conditions. Those who do the actual work in the company will get a smaller amd smaller share of the profit.

By regulating labor relations, we put part of the decision about those relations into democratic hands. Thanks to regulation, it is not only those who wield corporate power who decide about wages, hours and working conditions but the entire electorate takes part in the arrangement thereof. A minimum price, for which labor may be sold, is established by democratic means. Though this price may not be determined through direct democracy, the decision is indeed democratically legitimized by representative means.

As labor regulations are abolished or realxed, the power to regulate goes from the hands of the public into the hands of cororate leaders who are then able to impose their conditions upon workers. Captains of industry, board members or shareholders though, in contrast to political rule-makers, have never been elected. Those affected by their decisions have no influence whatsoever over those decisions. By nature, this power relation disadvantages workers disproportionally. The decision becomes undemocratic.

Workers being able to just get another job if they're unhappy with their working conditions is an obvious illusion. The truth is, this option is only available for highly qualified individuals who employers will not find easy to replace. For most employees, specially those in minimum wage jobs, changing jobs at will is not possible.

Thus, through deregulation, the power to decide over labor relations lies no longer with democratically elected lawmakers but in the hands of a few non-elected corporate leaders.

The species in the hands of the few

In the field of envoironmental and climate policy, deregulation too shifts power. Democratically elected lawmakers are already for the most part unwilling to act on climate policy in any substantial way in order to precent the looming climate catastrophe. Deregulation now would take the decision over, say, CO₂ emissions regulation out of the hands of the electorate entirely and let those make the rules who are almost exclusively driven by their desire for profit and not promarily interested in the survival of the species.

But the climate crisis affects not only those who decide on climate policy but all human beings. Deregulationg climate and envoironmental policy means having a very small group of people decide over the lives of all people. This is indisputably undemocratic, one might even say authoritarian.

Just like you usually can not escape inhumane working conditions, escaping the climate crisis is impossible as well. With regards to climate, the situation is even more grave as changing jobs may technically be possible but changing the plannet is (as of today) entirely out of the question.

And still, a small group claims rule-making power over envoironmental and climate matters and aims to abolish any existing democratic control. The claim that there would be a certain democratic mechanism through consumer choices has no support in reality. First, it is based on the premise that consumers select the products they purchase in a completely free and informed decision. The fact that most consumer choices are based on how much money the consumer has is complertely ignored. And second, "vote with your dollar" is in no way democratic, as it breaches the principle of "one person, one vote" but rather, those with more welath have more votes. It is true that consumer choices do have an impact on corporate envoironmental policy but this is by no means a democratic mechanism.

The freedom to decide over your own life

As explained thoroughly, with deregulation inevitably comes a de-democratization of the deregulated field. The rule-making power is transferred from the many to the few.

The freedom of the few is being extended while the freedom of the many is being limited. Freedom does not just mean fewer rules but also the freedom from being overpowered. It means to take part in decisions that affect your own life. The next time deregulation is talked about, better keep this in mind.