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Money buys liberty. Choices buy happiness. If you have more money, you have more choices available to you.
If money bought happiness there would be no sad rich people, but there are plenty of them.
Money can't buy freedom.
I don't think anything can.
I think the only way to experience true freedom would be to live, alone, on an unrecognised island, or in a space capsule.
The moment you encountered another person, you'd need to establish rules so you could co-exist in peace. No theft, for example.
At which point you aren't free.
You can never be free by isolating yourself. Freedom includes the ability to mingle with others, the majority of what freedom is only comes into play if you are a member of society.
You cannot be free unless your fellow wo/man is free
By that logic:
- Isolation is not freedom
- Freedom (includes¹) the ability to mingle with other societies. But whilst you are in the company of other societies, you are bound by their social constructs (rules,laws). So you aren't free, except of course you're free to leave. In which case, see (1).
¹ The use of the word "includes" implies other examples exist. What are they?
bound by their social constructs
let me pre-empt with a disclaimer: I understand the argument you are making, as saying that in the wilderness you are free to do as you please without any limitations to what actions or inactions to take. While in society your freedom is curtailed by having to consider others.
I would like to attempt to refute the underlying argument as I understood it here.
The willdernes puts very harsh restrictions on a man. You are liable to be toren apart by wolfs, starving after injuring yourself and falling ill due to contminated food or water. There are many more Harshnesses met out by the wilderness but I stop here.
Society can of course impose all sorts of arbitrary rules and laws, however the original discourse treated the state of freedom not the state of living in a non-free society. In a free society the limitations put on you are just based upon the freedom of others. For example i can not steel from you your dinner. I would not describe that as an impediment to my freedom, not being allowed to murder, loot and pillage is not a limitation to my freedom. As a free man I would not want to commit these crimes even without society enforcing this. If i met you in the wilderness I would not want to violate you.
Instead think of a society of people who value their freedom, who are free from anything that is not necessitated by the protection of freedom of others. in such society communing with other free individuals would be voluntarily and not by force. What i mean by that is that it would be based on a mutual interest. among free men freedom increases by forming a community. For example colaborating with others allows me to be achieve feats that are larger than the sum of the capabilities of the individual. A wolf alone can do much less per capita than a pack of wolves can do.
** my bad i just noticed this would take a lot longer to type out the rest so i cede the point cause i cant be arsed to continue typing. I am gonna watch some GOT instead.**
Fair enough, I take your points too. Take it easy, enjoy the GOT, I enjoyed the philosophical wrangling
There is this thing - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice that argues that choice does not always bring happiness, and too many choices can even make one less happy.
Well, money generally has been used for exchange of material items and ordering specialized services.
Above the availability of such, relations in community have represented the difference between living decently and living meaningfully.