Freedom is Not a Right

If you can’t afford it, you don’t get it.

You hear it all the time: “You have to buy your freedom.” Like it’s a clever truth. Like it’s not an indictment of the entire system.

For most of us, it’s not a metaphor. It’s a life sentence.

I’ve been trying to escape capitalism my entire adult life. Not because I’m lazy. Not because I hate work. But because I couldn’t stand the feeling of being owned. Told where to be, when to show up, what my time was worth, how many minutes I had to eat lunch. The rituals of control were so baked in that even thinking about freedom felt like breaking a rule.

So I did what was told to do—I tried to become my own boss. I thought, if I can just work for myself, I’ll finally be free. But I was young, broke, and idealistic. And nobody tells you that “being your own boss” comes with an invisible toll booth. You need capital. You need credit. You need a map to a maze you’ve never seen.

And unless you were born into money or handed the playbook, you’re left guessing. Stumbling through a world of trap doors dressed up as opportunities. Like opening a credit card to buy textbooks because they offer you a free T-shirt at orientation. Like taking out loans for a car you need to get to work, only to find out one missed payment can tank your credit and cost you your job.

There’s a reason they make entire college degrees about how to start a business. If you can’t afford the degree, chances are you can’t afford the business either. And that’s the scam. They keep the blueprint locked behind tuition paywalls and legacy knowledge—and then tell you to hustle harder when you fall behind.

So I ran. I packed everything I cared about into a truck and drove away. No plan. Just instinct. I headed toward the Florida panhandle, thinking I could outrun the whole machine. But life doesn’t let you stay gone. My grandmother died, and I had to borrow cash just to make it to the funeral. Then I had to get a job to pay for the gas, the food, the bare minimum of survival. I was right back where I started.

I kept trying. Working by day, dreaming by night. Hoping if I could just figure it out—how to plan, how to build, how to budget—I could finally break through. But I didn’t have good credit. I didn’t have savings. I didn’t have a network or a safety net. And when you’re living on the edge, the margin for error disappears. One wrong step and you’re back under water.

Eventually I realized I wasn’t just struggling. I was stuck. Not because I didn’t try hard enough. But because everything I need to escape—the credit, the capital, the information—is behind a locked door. And the key costs more than I’ve ever had in my pocket.

You don’t own your freedom here. You rent it. Monthly. With interest. And the second you can’t pay, it disappears.

One of the clearest moments I ever felt that was when I had to work on the Fourth of July. Selling cars. Watching fireworks through the glass while helping someone sign a loan they probably couldn’t afford. And I remember thinking: This is what freedom looks like in America. A transaction. A slogan. A shift you can’t say no to.

Because that’s the quiet violence of this system: the illusion of choice under conditions of coercion. You’re free to quit your job—but not free from needing money. You’re free to start a business—but not free from debt, gatekeeping, or market failure. You’re free to speak your mind—but not free from the consequences if it costs you your livelihood.

So what do we call that? It’s not liberty. It’s a simulation of liberty. A performance of agency for people who have no power. A game where the rules change the moment you start to win.

And even when you try to break out—when you try to build something honest, something that doesn’t rely on exploitation—you run into the next wall: the moral trap.

Because once you understand how capitalism really works, you realize you don’t just need money to escape it. You need to become the thing you hate. You need to sell labor. You need to charge people more than you pay others. You need to participate in the same exploitation you’re trying to escape. And that’s where so many of us get stuck—trying to thread the needle between survival and integrity.

It’s not that we don’t want to build. It’s that we don’t want to build this. A business that thrives only by doing to others what’s been done to us.

And that’s the part no one teaches you. That freedom under capitalism isn’t a right. It’s a product. And the cost isn’t just financial—it’s moral. You can have your dignity, or you can have a shot at escape. But rarely both.

That’s why this isn’t just a personal story. It’s a system story. Because it’s not just me. It’s millions of people who feel this ache. People who did everything they were supposed to do and still ended up stuck. People who tried to follow the rules but found out the rules were written for someone else. People who still dream of something freer—not just for themselves, but for everyone they love.

We need to stop pretending this system is neutral. It’s not. It’s designed to extract, to confuse, to shame you for not having what was never meant to be accessible in the first place.

We need to stop calling it freedom when it’s conditional.

And we need to stop blaming ourselves for not being able to buy our way out of a prison that was built to keep us in.

If any of this hit home, drop a comment. Tell me where you’re at. What you’ve tried. What worked, what didn’t. What keeps you going—or what’s got you feeling stuck.

I know I’m not the only one who’s tried to build something just to feel free, only to run into wall after wall. I know I’m not the only one trying to live with some kind of integrity in a system that punishes you for it.

Let’s have this conversation and help each other see the cage we’ve been locked in.