It is a strange thing to contemplate, but does an excess of freedom (or, more accurately, a particular kind of freedom) lead to a form of thought-slavery? And is that formal freedom (in exchange) actually based on co-ercion, exploitation? The underlying power structure, the social relations in production, remain. Quite simply: I have time, an education, capital; you have your increasingly redundant physical labour, are time-bound, debt-ridden. Stephen Marglin's question from his classic paper gets to the heart of things: What Do Bosses Do?

We do not exchange with one another on an equal basis and in production there are people with power to make decisions while the rest of us simply obey (as wage slaves and as slaves to the notion that ever-greater consumption will bring us fulfillment). More than that, the lifestyles of the rich are based on a whole army of unseen workers-either in the host country or, increasingly, from the "third world"- who live in appalling conditions. The whole system has always depended on the "availability" of cheap inputs from non-market sectors: natural resources, the affective (and unpaid) work of women, the labour of slaves, the resources from colonized countries. No, let's stick to the idea of free trade! Let's keep the old Edgeworth model of exchange: I've got some wheat, you've got some potatoes, y'know... 

If freedom is autonomy then what control do we actually have over the kind of life we want to live? The more radical critiques of capitalism (back in the early 19th c) looked at issues of the meaning and purpose of work and its products (and not just the distribution of a 'given' pie). The uncomfortable fact may be that, actually, democracy and capitalism are not ultimately compatible. Economic democracy, for instance, is diametrically opposed to the vast inequalities generated by capitalism (and economic theory is not actually concerned about equality per se).

What role does the 'thin' theory of the individual play in all this? This is the atomistic-universal-disengaged individual who has no nature to speak of, no essence..a man with no qualities whose formal freedom resides in the fact that he eludes all social and metaphysical determinations. A veritable Robinson Crusoe living just enough for the city. 

I am determined and willing to be a commodity that fulfills everyone's fantasies.

--Sasha Grey, porn star.