What is freedom?
Freedom is not just a set of laws that gives you right to do whatever you want.
Freedom is basically your aptitude to find a way to fulfill your basic needs using your won hands.
That is why private property is so important, because in last centuries, you needed land in order to get food for you and your family.
In Europe, people were not land owners, therefore they were not free, when they came to America (U.S. specially) they got land, and they found freedom.
Later, with industrial revolution, private property was not mainly land, but it is still the same principle, as long as you can feed yourself out of your own work, and if you own the tools (land, factory, etc), then you are free.
Changes in global economy
In the past years, global economy changed how the world used to work, some countries, specially developed ones stop producing their own tools, and even their own food, they based its economy in services.
We see how the biggest companies in the world have their business based on services, services we like to use, we need, but services that are not our first need
| Rank | Company | Country | Sector | ($ Bil.) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Microsoft | U.S. | Technology | 1058 |
| 2 | Apple | U.S. | Technology | 959 |
| 3 | Amazon | U.S. | Consumer Services | 959 |
| 4 | Alphabet | U.S. | Technology | 839 |
| 5 | U.S. | Technology | 550 | |
| 6 | Berkshire Hathaway | U.S. | Financial | 496 |
| 7 | Tencent | China | Technology | 436 |
| 8 | Alibaba | China | Consumer Services | 431 |
| 9 | Visa | U.S. | Financial | 389 |
| 10 | JPMorgan Chase | U.S. | Financial | 366 |
The table is from 2019
Now a days, almost all factories are in China, a country where citizens have almost no freedom.
In the last years China has been accumulating reserves, and using those reserves to “help” countries in Africa, Asia and western Europe, even in South America in order to have more countries in their influence circle, with this crisis, they are also investing in Italy and other big economies.
How is freedom in danger?
As more and more people, are losing their jobs around the world (because they used to work in the areas of turism, Internet companies and other service companies, and those areas are not part of our first needs), they need help from the governments. The biggest economy in the world, where being able to always live by one own means, is now giving money to their citizens.
Once one does not have the ability to satisfy his own needs using his own work or tools, he is no longer free.
The options
Our best option is that after some months, everything returns to the place it was before, hopefully with all people more conscious aware of nature.
But we might also face another possible outcome, one where China gets even more influence in the world, and more and more countries start to follow its model, a model where there is almost no freedom.
I am not saying that the actual economy model, where central banks control the economy is the best one, but one where the state controls everything, even how, when and what we eat is even worse.
As you may have already noted, I am no expert in this topic, so this is just my humble opinion about the situation we are facing these days.