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• Associate Editors
• Editorial
• Bibliographical Essay: Economics and Ideology: Aspects of the Post-ricardian Literature
• I: Political Economy
• The Classical Model of Political Economy
• Modernization, Ideology, and Economic Freedom
• Individualism Vs. Collectivism?
• The Industrial Revolution and Literacy
• Parliamentary Enclosure and Uprooted Labor
• Smith's Critique of Monopoly
• Ricardo and the “dual Development”
• Ricardo On Money
• Inflation and Political Crisis: Germany
• Inflation and Unemployment
• Government and Inflation: the Mccracken Report
• II: Concepts of Liberty
• Liberty and Its Components
• Is the Right to Freedom Vacuuous?
• Liberty, Slavery, and Utilitarianism
• Individualism, Freedom, and Society
• Liberty and Habeas Corpus
• Should Britain Have a Bill of Rights?
• Locke, Women, and Freedom
• Locke, Women, Freedom, and Individualism
• Locke, Property, and Individualism
• Children, Freedom, and Individualism
• Liberty and Mental Illness
• Sismondi and Liberty
• Mill: On Liberty
• Mill, Freedom, and Happiness
• Freedom of Speech and Moral Development
• Freedom In Kant, Hegel, and Marx
• Marx, Freedom, and Property
• Neoconservatives, Liberty, and Equality
• Freedom: the Politics of Justice and Existence
• Liberty and the American Revolution
• American Libertarians
• III: Economics and Public Policy
• How Economics Influences Political Theory
• Why Democracies Choose Deficits
• Inflation and the Welfare State
• Monetarism and the Depression
• Asian Monetary History: Gold & Silver
• Specie Money Vs. Antibullionists
• Inflation Effects On Capital
• Consumption of Public Health Services
• Factory Regulation and Vested Interests
• Poverty Programs and Government
• The Costs of Regulating Market Information
• Rent Regulation
• Engels On Economics
• IV: Social Analysis
• The Depoliticization of Society
• Is Philosophy Politically Subversive?
• Plato's Republic As a Political Dystopia
• Cicero and Modern Political Philosophy
• The Roman Jurist Gaius and Social Thought
• The Myth of Social Hierarchy
• Contract and Political Thought
• Private Vs. Public: the Domain of Freedom
• Montaigne and the Value of Tolerance
• Commerce, Utility, Character, and Republicanism
• Quintin Skinner and Western Political Thought
• Public Choice
• Editorial Board
• Contents of Vol. 33 No. 2
• Contents of Vol. 33 No. 3

Freedom in Kant, Hegel, and Marx

Mieczyslaw Maneli

• Queens College, CUNY

“Three Concepts of Freedom: Kant-Hegel-Marx.” Interpretation 7 (January 1978): 27–51.

Kant, Hegel, and Marx are three influential writers on freedom. Though often condemned, their philosophies can be seen in a more favorable light if they are considered as dialectically related to one another.

Kant's idea of freedom depends upon his distinction between the phenomena of the everyday world and the noumenon, or thing-in-itself. It is only the noumenal self that is free; the empirical self is determined by outward events. Kant's conception wrongly reduces freedom to a purely inner state. One can be free, in his view, even under a despotic government. He believed, however, that one could deduce by pure reason the proper principles of political organization. His ideas on philosophy of law have been very influential.

Hegel criticized Kant's views on freedom for being unhistorical. It is only in society that true freedom can exist. The notion of freedom as arbitrary will most particularly be rejected. Furthermore, freedom develops concretely in history by means of struggle.

The latter theme Marx took up and greatly expanded. He argued that each social system has its own conception of freedom, as determined by the system's economic development. Marx himself, in contrast to his Stalinist disciples, was a strong proponent of freedom of the press. He believed that true freedom could exist only if the state ceased to exist.