First, what is freedom?

Freedom is generally understood as being able to carry out activities according to one's own will. Or independent activities of people. This means that I can do anything I want, I can do anything I want. This understanding makes people have an infinite desire for freedom and become their own goal. But people's independent activities are not necessarily free. Whether a person's activities are free or not depends on whether the activities are hindered and feasible, that is, whether they meet the requirements of the laws of related things. People who conform to the law have freedom, that is, they can do whatever they want. People who do not conform to the law have no freedom, that is, they can do whatever they want. For example, shopping in the market is an independent activity of people. If it conforms to the market trading rules, it has this freedom, that is, you can buy whatever you want. If there is only "I do" without money, there is no such freedom. Therefore, it can be said that freedom is the expression of people's independent and regular activities. In other words, freedom is the expression of people's legal and independent activities. Law is expressed through human behavior norms. Market trading rules are the behavior norms of people who conform to the laws of market economy.

What people usually say about freedom now generally refers to the connotation of political freedom and the embodiment of people's autonomy in the political field. For example, "everyone is born free and equal in dignity and rights." Freedom here refers to some political rights of the people recognized internationally in the 20th century, such as freedom of speech, freedom of belief, freedom of assembly and association, and so on. The connotation of these freedoms is based on the laws of market economy and meets the needs of the development of market economy. Its existence is beneficial to the development of commodity economy.

Freedom can also be understood as: to carry out activities according to one's own will without being hindered by external forces. When people engage in some autonomous activities, although they meet the requirements of the law of things, they cannot achieve it because of some external obstacles, and there is no such freedom. Therefore, in order to realize some kind of freedom, it is sometimes necessary to remove the related obstacles. For example, in the market, there is no freedom to do business if there are bullies who buy and sell hard. This activity of eliminating external obstacles can be called the liberation of things. If the bully is eliminated, that is, the restrictions on the freedom of buying and selling are lifted, which can be called the liberation of the freedom of buying and selling in this place.

The relationship between freedom and norm is the relationship between freedom and constraint. If people want to enjoy some kind of freedom, they must abide by the relevant code of conduct. Without relevant constraints, there is no relevant freedom. For example, without the traffic rules of "stop at a red light and go at a green light", there would be no freedom of passage in modern cities. If you want to have the freedom to produce qualified products, you must abide by the constraints of relevant operating procedures. To have the freedom to play football, you need to abide by the rules of playing football. To have freedom of speech, we must abide by relevant laws. If this constraint conforms to the operation law of related things, it is the guarantee to realize this freedom.

In social life, codes of conduct are everywhere, and any behavior of people must be bound by relevant norms. All kinds of laws, systems, policies, rules, morality, religion and so on in society are binding norms of human behavior.

Norms are formulated according to people's needs and serve people's survival and development. It provides an activity space suitable for human survival and development. In this space, people's actions are autonomous. But the society is developing and the norms are constantly improving. The free space people have is also expanding. Therefore, the connotation of freedom is not absolute, but relative.

Whether people are free to engage in social activities for their own needs depends on whether the activities are independent or voluntary. That is, whether to make corresponding judgments and choices according to their own needs. So the core content of freedom is autonomy. This is also the most important criterion for people to evaluate freedom. When people are engaged in activities, if they have autonomy, it will help to give full play to their initiative, enthusiasm and creativity. Whether an autonomous activity is free or not depends on whether the activity meets the requirements of relevant norms. If it meets the requirements, there will be freedom; if it does not meet the requirements, there will be no freedom. So the key to freedom is law. Because people's code of conduct is based on relevant objective laws.

Second, the framework of freedom is limited by the development level of productive forces.

The development of human society is a process in which human beings constantly know and grasp objective laws. The philosopher said: "The history of mankind is a history of continuous development from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom." The inevitable state refers to the state that people are blindly dominated by objective laws before they know them. The kingdom of freedom refers to the realm where people consciously use objective laws to serve the society after understanding them. The process of social development is that human beings have never been aware of objective laws, and have been forced to abide by them and consciously use them. For example, before people know and master the law of electricity movement, people have to be killed and afraid of lightning. After understanding the movement law of electricity, it can be used to transform the objective world and benefit the society. For example, the invention of electric light turned darkness into light and expanded people's free space. With the invention of the telephone, people have the freedom to make long-distance calls. The development and utilization of electric energy has expanded people's free space, which is a manifestation of the great progress of human society. It can be seen that people's various freedoms come from the understanding and application of objective laws.

The connotation of freedom in the political field also depends on people's understanding and application of objective laws. For example, under the condition of commodity economy, people have the requirements of freedom and equality according to the law of equivalent exchange. Under the employment system of market economy, workers have the requirements of freedom of assembly and association in order to fight for their rights and overcome their weaknesses.

With the development of society, human understanding of the objective world is from ignorance to knowledge, from less to more, from simple to complex, from shallow to deep, step by step. The kingdom of freedom has existed in human society since ancient times. Only its territory is very small. With the development of society, its territory is also expanding from small to large step by step. For the convenience of description, we call the boundary of the kingdom of freedom the framework of freedom.

The level of human understanding and grasp of objective laws determines the level of development of productive forces, which determines the economic base, and the economic base determines the superstructure. The superstructure determines people's code of conduct. However, people's code of conduct has built a free space for people's survival and development, and the boundary of this space can be called the free framework of an era. Within this framework, people are free to do what they want and pursue their goals on the basis of consciously observing relevant norms. Outside this framework, people will be constrained by external forces and will not have this freedom. For example, under the condition of small-scale peasant economy, farmers are not free to leave the land, because they cannot survive without land. Before people master the theory and technology of space flight, human beings can't fly in the sky and have no freedom to fly in the sky. People's various freedoms were limited within the framework of objective laws that people knew and grasped at that time, within the development level of local actual productive forces at that time, that is, within the framework of established local society and behavioral norms at that time. "The understanding of inevitability in each era is the standard to measure freedom."

Real learning is the result of people's understanding and grasping of objective laws. For more than a hundred years, people who have made important contributions in history, such as Newton, Marx, Einstein, etc., are all very learned people. This knowledge means that they have revealed some objective laws, or solved some problems faced by society with some objective laws. They found some laws of nature or society, which provided some practical initiative for human beings to transform objective things. People can use their own theory as a guide to transform the objective world and benefit the society. Their discovery is helpful for human beings to grasp the overall level of objective laws, and is conducive to expanding human free space and expanding the territory of the kingdom of freedom. But society is constantly advancing, and those pioneers can't foresee new things in the future. Therefore, their findings and theories are limited. Ideas and theories that have been proved by later generations' practice and are not in line with reality will be revised or eliminated. No saint can know the world beyond his time. What any sage said can't be true.

With every step forward in history, the framework of freedom expands one step, and the connotation of freedom that people have also expands one step. Therefore, people's freedom, whether individuals or groups, will develop with the development of society, which can neither be stopped nor surpassed. Although the development of history may be briefly repeated, history will not go backwards. The freedom framework of an era, that is, the connotation of freedom owned by human beings, is bound to adapt to the development level of social productive forces in that era and to the level of objective laws grasped by human beings. The expansion of people's freedom is essentially the expansion of people's autonomy in social activities, that is, the expansion of the scope of people's independent handling of affairs.

In the real world, there is a gap between the economically developed advanced regions and the backward regions due to the unbalanced development of productive forces among regions. So there are different free frameworks. Only by learning from advanced areas and developing productive forces can backward areas eliminate this gap.

Thirdly, the expansion of the connotation of freedom is an orderly development process.

The process of continuous progress of human society is the process of continuous improvement of social productivity, continuous improvement of people's living standards and continuous expansion of individual freedom.

In primitive society, because of low productivity, individuals can't survive without groups, so they can only live in groups. When primitive animal husbandry and agriculture appeared and personal productivity had surplus products, private ownership and slave society appeared. This is a great progress of human society. When the agricultural economy developed to a certain stage, the feudal society denied the slave society and the slaves were liberated, which was another great progress. When the commodity economy develops to a certain stage, the capitalist society denies the feudal society, and farmers can not be attached to the land, which is another great progress. The farther back in history, the less independent the individual, that is, the individual who produces, and the more subordinate he is to the larger whole. Therefore, the process of social development is a process in which individuals are constantly liberated from the shackles of groups. The development of human society, from primitive society to slave society, to feudal society and to capitalist society, is a process in which individual independence and autonomy are constantly strengthened, that is, the connotation of individual freedom is constantly expanding, that is, the rules and regulations that restrict individual freedom are constantly lifted. The motive force of lifting the rules and regulations is the continuous development of social productive forces.

The capitalist political system serves the commodity economy. It standardizes the social and economic operation order and creates favorable conditions for commodity production, commodity exchange and commodity consumption. Of course, the formation and perfection of norms is also a historical process. It is the result of people's continuous understanding and application of the laws of commodity economy to transform the objective world.

Competition is the core mechanism to promote the development of commodity production. Standardizing fair competition order is a necessary condition for developing commodity economy. People's political rights such as freedom and democracy are in line with the laws of commodity economy. This shows that individual producers under the capitalist system have more freedom than those under the feudal system.

If the socialist society is superior to the capitalist society, it should help to overcome the inherent defects of the capitalist system that hinder the development of productive forces, so that the productive forces will continue to develop, and the people will enjoy a higher standard of living and quality, with more free connotations.

The essence of socialism is to liberate and develop productive forces, because developing productive forces is the core of social development. It is the most fundamental standard to measure the quality of any system or policy. This means that the old norms that adapt to the development of productive forces will be preserved and improved, and the norms that do not adapt to the development of productive forces will be reformed.

In real life, some countries or regions make rapid progress, some are slow, and some even have twists and turns. There are many factors that cause this situation, but in the final analysis, the dominant factor is whether the local production relations at that time met the needs of productivity development. If you adapt quickly, you will be slow or even retrogressive if you don't adapt. For example, the former Soviet Union claimed that its social system represented the direction of social development, but in fact their understanding did not conform to the objective reality. Economic operation does not conform to the actual economic law, and political measures do not conform to the requirements of economic law. In the former Soviet Union, where the commodity economy has not been fully developed, economic activities should be organized according to the actual conditions of productive forces and the requirements of the laws of commodity economy. And regulate political activities on this basis. But what they practice is the so-called socialist planned economic system. The variety, quantity and quality of commodity production are determined by the national plan, not by the relationship between market supply and demand. The survival of the fittest depends not on market competition, but on the will (plan) of the Chief Executive. This makes the sensitive and dynamic market activities that the broad masses of the people actively participate in become rigid and lack vitality, and they obey the instructions of a few people, thus causing the products to be aging and unable to be updated in time. The enthusiasm, initiative and creativity of the people are limited by the will of the Chief Executive and cannot be fully brought into play. As a result, the system is rigid, the technology is backward, the development of productive forces is slow, and people's lives cannot be effectively improved. This political and economic system will inevitably hinder the development of society and lead to the ruling class being seriously divorced from the people. When they pull open the iron curtain and collide with the dynamic market economy system, the fate of disintegration is inevitable. The failure of the socialist model in the former Soviet Union illustrates a truth: only by proceeding from reality and according to the actual level of productivity development and the requirements of economic laws can the economic operation order be standardized. Only by adapting the relations of production to the needs of the development of productive forces can we give full play to the vitality of the people. Only when the economy develops can people's lives be improved and the field of freedom be expanded.

With people mastering more and more objective laws, people are becoming more and more intelligent and capable, the relationship between people and nature is becoming more and more harmonious, people's living standards and quality are getting higher and higher, and people's autonomy and freedom space are getting bigger and bigger. In this way, we can gradually enter a "society where everyone is free and fully developed", that is, a society where everyone enjoys full freedom. That is, a society in which the realm of the free kingdom is greatly expanded. If one day, human beings have exhausted all the secrets of the universe, that is, mastered the laws of everything in the universe, then human beings can create anything they need, including perfecting themselves. At that time, everyone had full autonomy and reached the point of "doing whatever they want", thus becoming the master of the universe and becoming a "god". Although this goal is far away and may never be achieved, history must move in this direction.

Fourth, the grasp and pursuit of freedom.

Everyone is pursuing happiness, and an important sign of happiness is that people have a free level. The richer the connotation of freedom owned by producers, the more conducive it is to giving play to people's intelligence, improving social productivity and improving people's living standards and quality. Therefore, expanding free space is an inevitable requirement of social development.

The realistic code of conduct is the fruit of human civilization, the crystallization of social progress and the realistic connotation of freedom. To grasp freedom, we must first grasp the realistic achievements of civilization and the realistic code of conduct.

Striving for freedom is to reform the old norms that do not meet the requirements of real economic laws, thus expanding the free space. The norms formed in history are reasonable and legal, legal and unreasonable, unreasonable and illegal. In a society where slavery exists, it is legal for slave owners to own slaves. After slavery was abolished, it was illegal to own slaves. But slavery is an inevitable product under certain historical conditions and has its rationality. Only when the social productive forces develop to a certain stage will there be a need to liberate slaves. Only in this way can the rationality of slavery be denied. Therefore, under certain historical conditions, a certain code of conduct is legal, reasonable and necessary. Under another historical condition, although a certain code of conduct is legal, it is unreasonable and it is necessary to get rid of it. Another historical situation is that this code of conduct is neither reasonable nor legal, so it is not allowed to exist. So the connotation of freedom has the characteristics of the times. What kind of norms to reform must be decided according to the local actual situation at that time, that is, according to the economic law formed by the level of productive forces. The expansion of the connotation of freedom cannot lag behind the needs of the times, nor can it surpass the needs of the times. This timing problem needs to be carefully explored and grasped during the reform. Otherwise, it is not conducive to the development of productive forces and the improvement of people's living standards. The legal norms mentioned here refer to the norms that conform to the law, and the reasonable norms mentioned here refer to the norms that conform to the objective laws of things.

Reforming the old code of conduct first refers to those legal and unreasonable norms that hinder the development of productive forces in real life. For example, those developing countries that are vigorously developing commodity economy must reform those norms left over from feudal system that hinder the development of productive forces, as well as those subjectivist norms that are divorced from reality and do not meet the legal requirements. Vigorously create norms that are compatible with the real commodity economy and promote the healthy development of social productive forces. For example, China's economy once established the so-called socialist planned economic system according to the model of the former Soviet Union, and used this system to regulate the economic operation order, which broke away from the reality that China still dominated the small-scale peasant economy and commodity production was still underdeveloped. Rejecting the basic role of the laws of market economy has led to difficulties in economic development. When the Chinese people are liberated from the mode of blind worship, the planned economy system is transformed into a socialist market economy system that conforms to the conditions of China's actual productive forces, and the economic operation order is standardized based on the laws of market economy, so that the national economy has gained a broad space for free activities. Production has developed and people's lives have improved.

Reforming the old norms, some involving the redistribution of interests of different groups, will inevitably lead to various conflicts, which requires reasonable and fair adjustment of social public power. This adjustment should not only meet the requirements of objective laws, but also protect the legitimate rights and interests of vulnerable groups. Only in this way can we achieve social harmony and stability.

It is often said that innovation needs freedom most. When people are in a state where their thoughts are not bound and they can be brought into full play, that is, when they are engaged in activities, they have full autonomy, so they have the most subjective conditions for innovation. In this state, people can explore the regularity of things freely according to the actual situation. That is: not only on the top, not only on books, but only on reality, that is, to explore from reality. But to achieve innovation, we must rely on human talent and the corresponding material conditions provided by society. The essence of innovation is that people explore the unknown objective laws on the basis of the known objective laws of related things, and then create new things that are beneficial to society. The process of innovation is the process of developing new free space. The social system that adapts to the development of productive forces should provide the best social conditions for creative activities; Provide talents, material basis and mechanism conducive to creative activities.

The so-called talents refer to people who are innovative and good at solving practical problems, that is, people who master relevant objective laws and can flexibly apply them to practice. They are leaders who consciously use objective laws to transform the objective world and benefit the society. Therefore, grasping and exploring the regularity of related things is the fundamental requirement of people's social practice and study. Mastering the regularity of related things is equivalent to getting a visa to enter the kingdom of freedom.

The connotation of human freedom is different not only in different times, but also in different countries, races, religions and geographical environments. Due to different cultural traditions and social systems, people's behavior norms are also different. In today's economic globalization, under the dominant condition of modern commodity economy, various norms will develop with the development of modern commodity economy, and norms that do not meet its operational requirements in society will be reformed.

In the same country, the same race, the same religion and other groups, people have different connotations and degrees of freedom because of their different social status, wealth and knowledge. For example, the connotation of freedom of slave owners and slaves in slave society is different. Because social members are divided into classes, strata and grades, they are determined by the development level of social productive forces, not by human will. Freedom allowed by society and freedom that people can realize are two different things. Therefore, a person's connotation and freedom depends not only on the freedom framework allowed by society, but also on the material and spiritual conditions that individuals have to realize freedom, that is, their ability to grasp laws (rules). For example, rulers and ruled, haves and have-nots, people with professional knowledge and people without professional knowledge have different connotations and degrees of freedom. The kingdom of freedom is an abstract concept, which exists only in people's minds and of course in the cultural heritage of society. It is the steering wheel for people to practice freedom. The territory of a free kingdom is different for different people and individuals. The free kingdom of human groups is grasped and won by groups, while the free kingdom of individuals must be grasped and won by individuals. To make everyone have full freedom, it depends on the high development of social productive forces, the high perfection of social system and the overall improvement of people's quality.