The definition of “liberty” — a concept much beloved of our Founding Fathers* — has undergone a severe narrowing in recent years. Free-marketers, Randians, Tea Partiers and Wall Streeters, the Koch Brothers, big-haired Congressmen Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor, and their local brethren such as El Jefe General John McClaughry and the oleaginous Rob Roper, have done their level best to take this noble and free-flying concept and shackle it to the pure pursuit of financial advantage.

*Mothers having been persona non grata in the smoky taverns of Revolutionary-era discourse, and considered — along with any person of dark-hued skin — fundamentally ineligible for the blessings of liberty).

If these folks had their way, we’d all be “free” to make as much money as we could. Let loose from burdensome regulation and taxation, we would rise ever upward on the Ladder of Success. (And somehow, the LoS won’t topple when all of our weight is gathered on the top rung.) The flood tide of capital would right all wrongs, cure all ills, and allow humanity to reach its full potential.

Color me unconvinced. In their definition of “liberty” I see oppression. And lest you think me overwrought, let’s look at what a lifetime of such “liberty” would entail.

(After the jump: life on the hamster wheel, the big lie of “the opportunity society,” and the true meaning of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)

We begin in grade school, where Newt Gingrich would have our children learn “the dignity of work” by cleaning toilets. In high school, you’d better keep up that GPA so you can get into a top college. Take courses (plus privately-offered test-prep services) tailored to get you the requisite high scores on achievement tests. And load your spare time with productive activities that look good on an application.

In college, f**k the humanities. Best pursue a major that will maximize your income. If you don’t, you’ll be crushed under the weight of student loans. And you’ll fail to get an early start on building a retirement plan sufficient for your “golden years” in a post-Social Security, post-Medicare, post-defined-benefit world.

So yeah, get a good job. Top law firm or investment bank would be nice. If you have a yen for helping people, go to med school. But don’t become a family doctor, pediatrician or psychiatrist; you need a flashy specialty to pay off those med-school loans.

As your adult years fly by, be careful not to alienate your employer. Put in as many hours as it takes, including unpaid overtime. In the words of Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss, “work like a frightened idiot.” Many employers regularly fire the bottom 10% of their workforce, so the pressure is always increasing. In your spare time, develop work skills unrelated to your current job in case your employer becomes obsolete, crashes, gets outsourced, or goes through bankruptcy in order to shed its old wage scale, union contracts, and obligations to retirees.  

Don’t forget to keep a sharp eye on your investment portfolio! Since the great Reagan deregulation, we’ve been averaging a major financial scandal/crisis/meltdown about every five years, so you’d better stay one step ahead of the next one, whenever and wherever it might happen. Otherwise, pffft goes your retirement.

A house is always a good investment. Unless you buy it in the wrong place, or there’s an unfortunate correction in the housing market. Try not to be stuck with a hefty mortgage when your employer offers you the chance to either move to Sheboygan or, ahem, “pursue other interests.”

In retirement, you will require a lawyer’s mastery of fine print in order to navigate the rough seas of post-Paul Ryan Medicare and Social Security, and the devious and unforgiving health-care marketplace. Try not to get a lingering illness. Be healthy until you die. And whatever you do, don’t stay alive past the expiration of your retirement funds.

Oh yeah, that sounds like liberty to me. But this is the reality of what the latter President Bush liked to call “the opportunity society” — a society where the giant hand of government is removed, freeing the people to reach their full potential. Which is always defined in strictly financial terms.

And there’s the rub. Some of us (Mitt Romney, come on down!) are good at finances and actually enjoy it. The rest of us would rather undergo minor surgery than rebalance our investment portfolios, go into deep daydream mode whenever we try to read financial news, and get the heebie-jeebies when we have to do our taxes.

To people like me, “liberty” means, as much as possible, not having to worry about such stuff. And having, thanks to a strong social safety net, a backstop in case things go sideways. “Liberty” does not mean spending all our time and energy on financial matters and making every decision with revenue-maximization in mind.

There’s a concept at the foundation of modern economics called homo economicus — basically, the idea that each human being is a rational and self-interested creature who makes decisions based on his or her financial interests. Economic modeling depends on a society of these creatures acting in predictable ways.

Well, look at yourself, or at any person you know. How often do you make decisions based  on financial interest? Is that how you choose your friends or your spouse? Is that why you have children? Or decide where to live, or what career to pursue? Or what to eat for dinner? If you’re anything like me, the primary factors are things like happiness, love, security, and comfort.

Now, even economists who are critical of the H.Econ. idea still say it’s a useful tool for building economic theory. Maybe, but I think it leads to bad ideas and bad policies. And it’s certainly a necessary precondition for “the opportunity society.”

The downside of “the opportunity society” is that with opportunity comes responsibility. I don’t want to have to make all those choices. I don’t want to have to be H. Econ, to constantly have an eye on finances, to spend much of my life reading the fine print and trying to outwit bankers, brokers, and insurers in order to be successful and secure.

I want a government regulatory system robust enough to keep an eye on all those guys, with the resources and expertise to keep an eye on their ever-more-complicated schemes and, when necessary, shut down the tricksters.

I want a guaranteed Social Security benefit, even if it’s not the highest possible rate of return. I want guaranteed Medicare waiting for me when I retire, not a voucher and a hearty push into the insurance marketplace. I would gladly trade some of my freedoms in return for security — and by that I don’t mean airport patdowns, I mean paying enough taxes to maintain the social safety net.

To be clear, I don’t want a free ride. I’m not expecting to be coddled so I can navel-gaze or smoke all the pot I can score. I do want the freedom — the liberty — to seek personal fulfillment rather than sheer financial maximization. It’s that other thing in the Declaration of Independence: “the pursuit of happiness.” My personal fulfillment might well entail a great deal of work. But it will be work on my terms, in pursuit of my goals, not those of some distant corporation or venture capitalist.

“The opportunity society” isn’t liberty in action; it’s the commoditization of every aspect of our lives. It’s a life sentence on the hamster wheel of commerce. It’s “liberty” of a cramped and narrow sort which makes us all subordinate to the interests of big business. (Thanks to widespread personal investing, particularly for retirement, we are all dependent on a rising stock market for our own individual security.)

And unless you’re Mitt Romney or someone like him, this is the very antithesis of “the pursuit of happiness.”