74 City Air Makes You Free

Sep 6, 2012

This episode is about where you choose to live and the impact that this choice can have on your level of freedom. Many people who have written about personal and political liberty have suggested a link between where you choose to live and how free you are. In the podcast we explore 3 different ideas about this choice:

• The ideas in "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau: finding freedom by living self-sufficiently alone in a rural setting
• The idea of 'Galts Gulch' in "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand: finding freedom by living in a small community of like-minded people (again in a rural setting with an emphasis on self-sufficiency)
• The idea that 'City Air Makes You Free' (expressed by writers such as Jane Jacobs): finding freedom in the division of labour and diversity that cities provide.

Arguably, the benefits of self-sufficiency have been overestimated in books like Walden and Atlas Shrugged, whereas the benefits of interdependence in cities have been under-appreciated by previous writers on liberty. It is suggested that Galt's Gulch wouldn't actually work in real life because it would lack the division of labour of a big city that is necessary to support the kind of advanced and specialised roles of it's inhabitants. In contrast, living in a city can provide many opportunities for greater work and personal freedom because of the benefits of the division of labour in cities.

Show Notes

• Origin of the phrase City Air Makes You Free
• The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
• Previous episode of The Voluntary Life about Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand