Liberty & Freedom

The difference between “effective” and “formal” freedom is that in formal freedom you are technically free to do something, although not necessarily able. Freedom is limited by how much effective freedom you have, you are not really free just by being formally free, but you can’t be free without being formally free. You are technically free to buy a mansion, but not effectively free.

Arguably, necessary effective freedoms trump superficial formal freedoms, but the tricky part is that “positive” changes to effective freedoms now may not have positive effects in the future. Formal freedom is necessary for effective freedom.
The benefits of formal freedoms may not be immediately accessible by everyone, but it may not justify artificially inflating effective freedoms. Formal freedoms that are not immediately accessible become private goals, which motivate progress. The person who sees it this way is ultimately also concerning themselves with effective freedom.

St. Paul, in Romans 7:19, is emphasizing effective freedom. That does not take away from the importance of formal freedom. Effective freedom to the max would seem like you have no free will over a choice on whether or not to do something. You freedom would not be completely effective if you did not choose to effect it, this situation is of course, only hypothetical.

You’re right to own property, in its most basic sense, is absolute. It would seem though, that the most basic sense is only a theoretical concept. There are varying degrees of justified claims on property and the person with the most claim to it, is entitled to it. That is to say, that if you are paid by a manager whole cheats customers, the customers do have a claim over your wages, but the majority of the claim is yours, and the debt falls on the manager. Lack of absolute certainty does not detract from claims to property. If a claim to private property is always measured the same way, everyone would have the same disadvantages and advantages. If an economy were not based on private property, what would it be based on?

"It is easier for a camel to go in through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom." That is an interesting quote, but all the same, contextually inapplicable when the poorest people now are better off than the richest then.

“By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments.” - Thomas Aquinas