Freedom of Association and Cancel Culture
Talk to the author of, Economic Freedom and Social Justice
PUBLIUS SPECIAL GUEST: Wanjiru Njoya, is a Scholar-in-Residence for the Mises Institute, a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian school of economics, and individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
TO BOOK INTERVIEWS EMAIL: aj.publius@gmail.com or drew.publius@gmail.com
The axiom of civil rights and equality, now often expressed in the language of DEI, is a powerful weapon in the hands of those who take it upon themselves to dictate “our shared values.” They use the tools of cancel culture to control who is or is not permitted freely to associate with others. The cancel mob is against freedom of association for rebels who reject DEI values. Although the cancel mob can be shown to be wrong in most cases, as their reasons for cancellation are based on ideological disputes in which reasonable people strongly disagree with each other, it must be emphasized that freedom of association is not dependent on showing that the cancel mob has incorrectly stated the facts or that the cancel mob is unjustified in its opinions. Liberty based on self-ownership does not depend on showing that everyone agrees on how that liberty is to be exercised. Freedom of association is an absolute freedom whose boundaries lie only at the point where they encroach upon other people’s right freely to associate.
While anyone is entitled to boycott those with whom they disagree, and to encourage others to join the boycott, it is wrong to harness the backing or power of the state to prevent people from freely associating on grounds that they happen to hold different opinions or values. An example is the ongoing furor over preserving Confederate history, which has recently targeted a museum in Georgetown, Delaware, for displaying the Confederate battle flag. The NAACP objected to the museum receiving public funds, arguing that “supporting a group that displays the confederate flag makes a statement of public policy that’s an affront to the sensibilities and dignity of a majority of Americans.” In September 2024, the activists were back in the news: “The debate over the Confederate flag flying at the Marvel Museum in Georgetown continues as Delaware action group Speak Out Against Hate (SOAH) works to bring the issue back to the spotlight and have the flag taken down.”
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BIO: Wanjiru Njoya, is a Scholar-in-Residence for the Mises Institute. She is the author of Economic Freedom and Social Justice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), Redressing Historical Injustice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023, with David Gordon) and “A Critique of Equality Legislation in Liberal Market Economies” (Journal of Libertarian Studies, 2021).
She was born in New Jersey but grew up in Kenya. After graduating with a law degree from the University of Nairobi, she won a Rhodes Scholarship and studied at St. Edmunds College, Cambridge University. Her doctoral research on the conceptual framework of the employment relationship was published under the title “Property in Work: The Employment Relationship in the Anglo-American Firm.”
She has taught law at St. Johns College, Oxford, the London School of Economics, Queens University in Canada, and, for the past six and one-half years, at the University of Exeter Law School, where she was a Senior Lecturer in Law. She is also a Fellow of the UK Higher Educational Academy. She has published widely in employment law and labor regulations, most recently in the King’s Law Journal, the Journal of Law, Economics & Policy, and the Journal of Libertarian Studies.
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Wanjiru Njoya, is a Scholar-in-Residence for the Mises Institute, a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian school of economics, and individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
TO BOOK INTERVIEWS EMAIL: aj.publius@gmail.com or drew.publius@gmail.com