Freedom And Democracy

Democracy exists where no one is so rich as to be able to buy another, and no one is so poor as to be forced to sell themselves.
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Within the horizon of modernity, freedom and democracy are frequently elevated as pillars of contemporary civilization, presented as markers of moral, political, and economic progress. Yet a critical reading—drawing on the analytical paths of Erich Fromm, Kant, Hegel, and Freud—reveals these notions to be words devoid of objective substance, more linguistic and symbolic tools than concrete experiences. They do not define reality itself, but rather the possibility of representing it, serving as ideal coordinates within a complex social and political universe where the gap between promise and practice is often unbridgeable.

Democracy, understood as an institutional mechanism intended to guarantee popular sovereignty, does not necessarily coincide with the individual’s actual capacity to influence their own destiny. As Marx emphasized in his analysis of economic structures, material conditions determine the concrete possibilities of participation; and while the right to vote and political representation are tangible instruments, they remain mediated by a context of power, economic interests, and structural inequalities. The illusion of democracy thus becomes an ideological phenomenon: a cultural code legitimizing a social order rather than an actual guarantee of freedom. In his Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel had already pointed to the tension between abstract freedom and real freedom: the former as a moral concept, the latter as a concrete, historically determined experience. Modernity, despite boasting formally advanced democratic procedures, struggles to translate them into genuine autonomy for its citizens.

Likewise, radical freedom is a concept that frightens more than it attracts. Existential philosophy, from Kierkegaard to Sartre, has shown how total autonomy forces the individual into an unavoidable confrontation with their own responsibility, generating anxiety and disorientation. Freud had already noted how the human psyche seeks defense mechanisms against the anguish of choice, favoring adherence to authoritarian figures or reassuring social norms. Fromm himself observed that freedom can become a source of alienation: the modern individual, freed from feudal or religious constraints, is faced with the void of individual responsibility and often reacts by seeking refuge in social or consumerist structures that mitigate the sense of isolation.

From a political and economic standpoint, freedom is not neutral: it is structurally conditioned by the distribution of resources and the power of productive systems. The Frankfurt School’s critical theory underscores how economic and media structures shape the perception of freedom, fostering conformity and acceptance of invisible constraints. The individual, formally free, is often ensnared in networks of economic and social dependence, experiencing freedom more as a theoretical ideal than a tangible reality. The promise of self-determination thus collides with concrete precarity: managing one’s life, relationships, and resources requires skills and material conditions not equally available to all.

The paradox of freedom, therefore, lies in the fact that it is both desired and feared. It represents the pinnacle of individual fulfillment, yet it entails facing the risk of failure, existential solitude, and ethical responsibility. The anxiety that arises from this is not a sign of individual weakness, but a manifestation of the ontological tension between autonomy and belonging, between ethical aspiration and structural limitation. In this sense, freedom cannot be considered a purely formal right: it is a critical experience requiring historical awareness, reflective capacity, and adequate material tools.

Ultimately, freedom and democracy—while powerful symbolic regulators—remain words without objective referent if detached from the social, economic, and psychological contexts in which individuals operate. They point to possibilities rather than realities, to ideals rather than empirical data, and their effectiveness depends on the ability of social structures to make individual responsibility sustainable. The fear of freedom, then, is not a mere psychological regression: it is an indicator of the gap between what society promises and what it actually delivers, between the myth of personal sovereignty and the material conditions that limit its exercise. Freedom and democracy thus remain essential tensions, existential challenges, and instruments of critical reflection—capable of revealing the fundamental paradox of the modern human condition: the promise of total autonomy and the structural fear of sustaining it.

In his analysis of modernity, Erich Fromm described freedom as an ambivalent experience: desired in theory, yet often feared in practice. The modern individual, freed from the feudal constraints and rigid hierarchies of the past, is faced with the responsibility of self-determination. This void of security—this radical autonomy—produces anxiety, solitude, and often a deep drive to “escape from freedom” by yielding to authoritarian figures or systems that offer illusory certainties.

Democracy, formally understood as participation and popular sovereignty, thus reveals itself to be limited in its actual power. Growing economic inequalities—the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, the expansion of precarious work, and the erosion of the middle class—render the concept of “people’s power” increasingly abstract. The illusion of democratic participation often serves to legitimize a social order that preserves the status quo, while individuals’ real freedom remains conditioned by material circumstances. In other words, the promise of personal autonomy remains largely theoretical, while the fear of losing concrete points of reference drives many toward authoritarian solutions, both political and cultural.

The dynamic of escaping from freedom is thus intertwined with economic distress and social anxiety: financial precarity and the perception of structural injustice create fertile ground for adherence to simplistic narratives and charismatic leaders capable of offering symbolic security in exchange for a partial surrender of autonomy. In this sense, Fromm remains strikingly relevant: freedom is not simply a right guaranteed by institutions, but an ongoing tension between aspiration and fear, between ethical ideality and material vulnerability.

This phenomenon is also visible in cultural polarizations and identity wars: faced with the complexity of a globalized world—marked by migratory flows, climate change, technological innovations, and cyclical economic crises—individuals feel compelled to reduce anxiety by choosing strong affiliations, clear-cut narratives, and figures of authority. From this perspective, freedom ceases to be an ideal to pursue and becomes a burden to escape; democracy itself, as a system that requires active participation and responsibility, becomes a challenge that is difficult to sustain.

Ultimately, Fromm’s perspective offers an essential conceptual tool for understanding contemporary tensions. Freedom and democracy remain words of great symbolic value, but their concrete implementation clashes with unequal economic structures, social precarity, and individuals’ psychological vulnerability. The escape from freedom, far from being a surpassed historical phenomenon, reappears today in new forms: from the rise of nationalisms to global political polarization, to the widening gap between rich and poor. Freedom and democracy, therefore, must be reinterpreted not only as normative ideals, but as real challenges requiring social, economic, and cultural tools capable of making both individual and collective responsibility sustainable.

Today, the paradigm of the “escape from freedom” is dramatically confirmed by global political scenarios. The return of authoritarian right-wing movements in Europe, the Americas, and other regions of the world is no isolated phenomenon: it reflects the same tension described by Fromm. The promise of individual autonomy and self-determination collides with growing economic inequalities, labor precarity, and social instability. The contemporary individual—exposed to unstable labor markets, unsustainable housing costs, and fragmented welfare systems—perceives freedom not as an opportunity, but as a burden that amplifies existential insecurity.

The concentration of wealth and the erosion of the middle class deepen the divide between formal and real freedom: democracy, though formally guaranteed, remains conditioned by economic and social structures. In this context, the escape from freedom manifests in adherence to authoritarian figures or simplified narratives capable of offering symbolic security in exchange for part of one’s autonomy. Freedom thus ceases to be an abstract ideal and becomes a demanding task, one that requires material and cultural tools to be effectively exercised.

In this light, an unsettling and fundamentally rhetorical question emerges—both existential and political: Which economic powers, to which politics inevitably bows, truly care about the cultural emancipation of the people, about their full access to democratic choice, and about the concrete possibility of living freedom without fear?