Freedom, Benefit, Social Happiness, Market, Akbelen Forest

The only freedom worthy of the name is to pursue our own good, so long as we do not seek to deprive others of their freedom or thwart their efforts to obtain it.

The above quote belongs to John Stuart Mill (1806-73), a philosopher and one of the founders of the liberal philosophy of economics.

Mill was one of those who created the philosophy of free market economics. In Mill's understanding of "freedom", there is a "condition that an individual should not restrict the freedom of others" in exercising his right to freedom. This means that a freedom without rules and regulations is unthinkable. It means that a person's use of his freedom should not reach the point where it will "harm" someone else.

In Mill's world, the basis of freedom is "utilitarianism." There is a "moral" system underlying utility. Morally, steps taken to pursue utility freely bring "happiness."

The individual who seeks benefit on a moral basis, provided that he does not restrict the freedom of others, finds happiness. The basic benefit is happiness. Therefore, freedom is happiness .

According to Mill, the only reason for social intervention against an individual is if it harms someone else. Unlike the ancient Greek understanding of utility, the modern understanding of utility has a “social” character.

The task of politics is to provide and secure the private sphere in which the individual can realize his happiness. John Locke also sees the happiness of the individual above the desire of the state for power.

Let's look at Akbelen Forest through the lens of Mill's understanding of freedom.

In the region, there is the Yeniköy - Kemerköy thermal power plant and the lignite mine field that provides fuel for this plant. The aim of the government and the owners of the power plant is to expand the lignite mine field. The expansion of the field means buying land from the residents of the village of İkizköy in the region. Then, to expand the field, they cut down the trees in the Akbelen Forest. The trees were cut down.

The people do not want to sell their land, but they want to take the people's land by force . The people are being oppressed by the state.

The people of Akbelen do not want this project and have been struggling to protect the area where they live and breathe for 4 years. The issue has also been taken to court . In the end, the lands were expropriated.

The people in İkizköy live their lives within the framework of their “individual freedoms”. They do not “harm” others while exercising their right to freedom. What they see as “benefit” for themselves is to be able to maintain their current order. While pursuing what is beneficial to them, it is not observed that they create any problematic situations regarding the “morality” underlying the benefit.

The people of İkizköy seek to make their lives socially happy by using their individual freedoms without harming others and by providing moral benefit. As described in Mill's freedom.

The owners of the Yeniköy-Kemerköy thermal power plant are trying to obtain a “benefit” that has no “moral” basis by using their individual freedoms in a way that will “harm” the people of İkizköy. The people of İkizköy are reacting to this. The Akbelen Forest is being massacred .

The effort of a group of people to achieve benefit and happiness, which has no moral basis, by using their freedom to harm others and restricting their freedoms, turns into the unhappiness and suffering of others.

What did Mill say? The only reason for social intervention against an individual would be if it harmed someone else. At this point, the law should work equally for everyone. It should distribute justice to both parties without discrimination. If someone's happiness is the source of someone else's unhappiness, then intervention is necessary, according to Mill. In other words, liberalism does not mean lawlessness and tyranny.

Isn't the duty of politics to provide and secure the private sphere in which the individual can realize his happiness? Doesn't Mill's utilitarian liberal understanding explain this? Not in Turkey and countries similar to Turkey.

In Turkey and similar countries, politics mediates the use of some individuals’ freedoms at the expense of harming others. Politics supports the efforts of some individuals to be happy by gaining benefits that have no moral basis, by causing the unhappiness of others.

The source of the desire for power through politics finds social reflection as the happiness of some individuals and the unhappiness of others. The view of Türkiye seen in Akbelen also contradicts what Locke described.

According to Mill, freedom, when used with the methods in Turkey, does not deserve its name. What is happening has nothing to do with freedom, benefit, morality, happiness or market rules.

Turkey became the 20th largest economy in the world in 2022. With this feature, it is one of the countries that should make significant contributions to solving the global climate crisis. The world has been burning for days. Temperature records are breaking one after another.

The glaciers are melting rapidly and the reason for this is the economic order that humans have established. This order is unsustainable. There is no need to explain the graph below. The red curve shows the extent of melting recorded in Greenland's glaciers in 2023 alone. The blue curve shows the average melting between 1981-2010.

Source: https://nsidc.org/greenland-today/

Turkey is removing a part of the lungs of the Earth by cutting down trees and imposing an energy source that will choke the Earth instead. Freedom, benefit, social happiness,…?

Businesses are having a hard time becoming institutions that offer profitable solutions for the benefit of the universe and humanity, rather than being institutions that are solely for profit. What happened in Akbelen Forest is an indication of Turkey's anachronism.

Why does politics prioritize and prioritize the benefit and happiness of a limited number of people instead of supporting the transformation to clean energy sources and contributing to the benefit of Turkey and the planet, and therefore to its freedom and happiness? Even though a period of only 4 years is enough time to realize a significant energy transformation. Why? What is your goal? Why don't you have a plan for energy source transformation?

There are no announcements on the website of the Climate Change Presidency of the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change of the Republic of Turkey that mention any actions or project results other than the meetings.

In this article, I neither mentioned social democracy nor any other ideology that contradicts liberal economics. I deliberately chose to remain within the boundaries of liberalism.

In Turkey, the practices that are claimed to be in line with the rules of the free market economy are not of a type that would be approved even by those who wrote the book on liberalism. This is called crony capitalism , which was one of the important reasons for the Asian Crisis in 1997.

Economics is not just stock market, exchange rate, interest. Economics is a discipline based on sociology. Akbelen is economics itself.

What happened in Akbelen is the imposition of the search for benefit and happiness by a small number of people who are following those who can use the power of the state onto another group. Mill says intervene in this situation.