Dialectics of “Free

Dialectics of "Free Speech"Capitalism quite legitimately, from its standpoint, insists on honourable withholding of that vaunted Absolute "free speech".Capitalist companies demand commercial-in-confidence non-disclosure agreements [NDA] to prevent staff, suppliers or collaborators who, in a free market, are potentially staff, suppliers or collaborators of competing rival firms, from sharing the company's so-called "intellectual property" beyond the confines of the company. Such folks are expected to honour their NDAs as condition for their collaboration and work within the company. It is a legal offence to violate this confidence.Police and military demand a need-to-know "free speech" policy to prevent unintended disclosure of vital information that might jeopardize their operations. Folk are considered incompetent or saboteurs if they divulge such confidential or classified information. In many cases, failure to withhold "free speech" may endanger the lives of their active personnel.International diplomacy is the supreme task of unfreeing some other nation's withheld, or unfree, speech.And we all know about cabinet solidarity, which deliberately leaks cabinet-confidential "free speech" when expedient to fly a political kite or when its hostile band-of-rivals sneakily settle political scores against each other. There is often greater honour of silence among theives.What about a prisoner's "right" to remain silent in his own defence as part of his own defence?On the other hand, how about the coercive side of "free speech".Thrusting "free speech" upon people whether they like it or not must surely be a good thing!   Well, what is enemy torture but a means of thrusting upon a captured enemy the great capitalist Right of "free speech"?The vaunted capitalist rights are absolutely not Absolute. Their multifarious concrete manifestations are all explained rationally as consequences of the capitalist social base of production — just like everything else that is social in capitalism.