Thanks for your response. To make that clear: I'd be very happy if people in Cuba could experience more individual freedoms.
If it's the latter (which I'd guess), then it's not really a restriction on individual freedom.
That perhaps is the main source of our disagreement :) 'Freedom' (or similar concepts like justice) an be approached from to angles. The first is the deontological, or institutional approach, e.g. freedom is what the laws provide. The second way is the consequentialist approach: freedom is what the individual actually experiences. Both ways have advantages and disadvantages. I personally lean more towards the latter, because that approach makes it possible to differentiate between classes of people inside a society.
Another anecdote :)
I live in the eastern part of Germany, which as you know was socialist 25 years ago. People could not really vote, dissidents didn't have it easy etc. The current Germany is definitily more free from an institutional viewpoint. Yet, when I look out my office window, I can reguarly see people searching for food in the dumpsters. In the dumpsters! Thats a thing that was unthinkable in the former Eastern Germany. We now have children coming to school without having breakfast because of poverty and mismanagement of their parents. That, too, was unheard of before (schools provided breakfast in those cases, there was no mass unemployment -> way less parents were like that, without hope and self-regard etc.)
People like me definitely practically profit from the new institutional freedom, people like them don't. From a consequential viewpoint on freedom, their score dropped significantly.
I've read a really nice book about the theories of freedom and justice from Amartya Sen, it's called The Idea of Justice. Highly recommended, it's both informative and approachable.
If it's the latter (which I'd guess), then it's not really a restriction on individual freedom.
That perhaps is the main source of our disagreement :) 'Freedom' (or similar concepts like justice) an be approached from to angles. The first is the deontological, or institutional approach, e.g. freedom is what the laws provide. The second way is the consequentialist approach: freedom is what the individual actually experiences. Both ways have advantages and disadvantages. I personally lean more towards the latter, because that approach makes it possible to differentiate between classes of people inside a society.
Another anecdote :) I live in the eastern part of Germany, which as you know was socialist 25 years ago. People could not really vote, dissidents didn't have it easy etc. The current Germany is definitily more free from an institutional viewpoint. Yet, when I look out my office window, I can reguarly see people searching for food in the dumpsters. In the dumpsters! Thats a thing that was unthinkable in the former Eastern Germany. We now have children coming to school without having breakfast because of poverty and mismanagement of their parents. That, too, was unheard of before (schools provided breakfast in those cases, there was no mass unemployment -> way less parents were like that, without hope and self-regard etc.)
People like me definitely practically profit from the new institutional freedom, people like them don't. From a consequential viewpoint on freedom, their score dropped significantly.
I've read a really nice book about the theories of freedom and justice from Amartya Sen, it's called The Idea of Justice. Highly recommended, it's both informative and approachable.