Those with the least are given the most constrained, surveilled, and weaponized versions of freedom and choice. The old proverb, "beggars can’t be choosers," gets turned inside out: in our world, it’s precisely beggars who are forced to choose—between indignities, between survival strategies, between sanctioned forms of suffering—while those with power are excused from real choice altogether. Their “freedom” is a horizonless expanse; the beggar’s is a trap disguised as agency.

By coding “choice” as a status marker, it becomes a means of control, not liberation. And when weaponized as a moral judgment, “choice” becomes a cudgel: you chose this, so your suffering is deserved.

Meanwhile, those who float atop the machinery of power are curiously exempt from choosing anything that matters. Their wealth automates decision-making. Their status launders consequences. For them, freedom is not a decision but a condition—a background hum of the world arranged in their favor.

GPT