30

This paper examines how the issue of freedom was framed in the intellectual tradition that the CIFE inherited from the personalist movement Ordre nouveau, founded by Alexandre Marc. It synthesizes the many references to freedom in the latter’s journal L’Ordre nouveau (1933–1938). For ON, “the problem of the defense of freedoms comes down in theory and practice to the problem of federalism,” proceeding from the principle “that there is true community only where persons and autonomous groups freely work together in their diversity” (Robert Aron). This model is counterpoised to liberalism, which can just as well leave them “defenseless against massive economic and social trends” in the name of a freedom defined as “man’s right to do whatever is not strictly forbidden,” whereas in the personalist understanding, freedom is “only valid insofar as man stakes his full responsibility in it” (Marc). Through such militant action, “a new order can be built here and now amidst the ruins of the old order,” be it “by running businesses in a way that is conducive to autonomy and freedom” or “by creating, in every commune, a group that resists statism and organizes local autonomy,” or even by “starting to constitute communities that distribute to their members—starting with the unemployed—the vital minimum to which every man is entitled” (“Pour la liberté,” October 1936). Anticipating some contemporary citizen drives for a postindustrial social policy, this unconditional basic income is inseparable from a federative regime ensuring every person and group has access to the preconditions for the exercise of freedom.