Freedom on a Leash: How Systems Shape Our Choices

“You can do anything you want.”
Sure…but what happens when every path is pre-paved, every reward pre-assigned, and every “choice” you make leads you right back into someone else’s system?

We love the story of freedom, especially in the U.S. It's central to our identity: freedom to speak, to work, to eat what we want, live how we want, buy what we want. But from a behavioral perspective, freedom isn’t a feeling. It’s a function, a state of being.

Behavior analysts use the term free operant to describe behavior that’s not constrained by discrete trials, limited options, or tightly controlled environments. A child choosing to play with blocks or swing without being told to do so? That’s a free operant. A person who reads food labels, navigates a farmer’s market, or decides to fast on purpose, not because they have to, but because they choose to? That’s agency in action.

Photo by Victoriano Izquierdo on Unsplash

But the truth is, most of our environment isn’t designed to support free operants. It’s designed to channel behavior through narrow tunnels of convenience, compliance, and consumption. Whether under red or blue political banners, the architecture of our systems often quietly steers us, rewarding ease, punishing deviation, and disguising it all as “choice.”

Let’s talk about how that plays out, starting with what’s on your plate.

The Controlled Buffet (Now With Fewer Free Operants)

Walk into a grocery store and it feels like you’re free to choose. Thousands of items. Dozens of brands. Colorful labels, smiling mascots, discounts galore. It’s the illusion of abundance. But look closer.

Those shelves are the result of heavily subsidized produce streams, marketing budgets larger than entire public health campaigns, and lobbying that makes sure corn syrup is cheaper than carrots. Most food options in low-income areas are pre-selected reinforcers: salty, sweet, calorically dense, shelf-stable. Not because they’re better, but because they’re more profitable and easier to distribute at scale.

From a behavior analytic perspective:

• Motivating operations are manipulated constantly. High stress, long work hours, and sleep deprivation increase the value of fast food.

• Response effort is tightly controlled. Cooking from scratch, sourcing local produce, and composting take more time and planning, so the system leans hard on default behaviors.

• Reinforcement schedules are designed to hook you early and often: immediate taste pleasure, rewards apps, childhood branding, food deserts.

Ever wonder why candy and snacks are at the checkout line? That’s not coincidence, it’s behavioral design in action. By the time you're ready to pay, your motivating operations have shifted: you're likely fatigued, decision-weary, maybe even slightly hypoglycemic. You're about to spend money anyway, so the response cost of tossing in a $2 sugar fix feels negligible.

For parents, this zone becomes even more intense. Kids whine, negotiate, or beg, turning a display of Skittles into a socially-mediated reinforcement trap. Give in? You escape the whining (negative reinforcement). Say no? You risk a full-blown meltdown in public (punishment contingency). Either way, the system wins.

This isn't about hunger. It’s about control, and the science of shaping behavior in moments when we’re most vulnerable to suggestion.

This isn’t an open buffet. It’s a predetermined menu with consequences attached to any deviation. Sure, you can opt out. But if you’re underprivileged, overworked, disabled, or just uninformed? You probably won’t. Not because you lack willpower, but because the contingencies are stacked against you.

Dependency Is a Feature, Not a Flaw

The food industry isn’t unique. It’s just the most literal example of manufactured dependency, a system where your survival is tethered to compliance.

Need healthcare? Better have a job.
Need housing? Better tolerate unsafe conditions or rent hikes.
Need rest? Take PTO—but only if your manager approves.
Need to protest? Hope your job isn’t watching.

These aren't individual failings. They're systemic contingencies that rely on negative reinforcement, we act not to thrive, but to avoid harm. We show up to work not because it’s fulfilling, but because being absent risks eviction, starvation, or losing our insurance. This is avoidance-maintained behavior, at scale.

The behavioral trap is that dependency looks like order. You’re not breaking laws, you’re not suffering visibly, you’re just...complying. Day after day. Until anything outside that loop starts to feel risky, even radical. In this context, the ability to not behave, to reject, to abstain, to disrupt, is extinguished by long histories of punishment or non-reinforcement.

And importantly, this isn’t a Democrat vs. Republican issue. Both parties reinforce dependency systems, just through different branding. One offers deregulation and rugged individualism while maintaining corporate welfare. The other offers social safety nets while entrenching bureaucracy and control. The outcomes? Still dependence. Still shaped.

Policy Is the Hidden Antecedent

Behavior doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It’s shaped by antecedent conditions, what comes before the behavior and makes it more or less likely. In macro systems, these antecedents often look like policies, zoning laws, transportation networks, and media narratives.

Examples:

• Zoning that separates homes from grocery stores = food deserts.

• Subsidies for corn and soy = more processed food.

• Restrictive licensing = fewer small farms, herbalists, or holistic health options.

• Corporate media = narrower definitions of health, freedom, success.

From a behavioral view, these policy-level antecedents create the context where certain behaviors are easier, more reinforced, or even necessary. You don’t shop local because the system made it inaccessible. You don’t question your healthcare plan because no one ever taught you how. These aren’t consumer choices. They’re behavioral defaults shaped by policy environments.

Even when we “choose,” we’re often choosing from a menu someone else wrote.

Micro-Rebellions and the Return of Free Operants

So what do we do?

We don’t get out by waiting for the system to liberate us. We get out by reclaiming behavioral flexibility, by creating free operants in our daily lives.

A free operant is a behavior that can occur at any time, is self-initiated, and is not constrained by external prompts or time limits. It happens in an open environment where the individual controls when and how often the behavior occurs, like choosing to cook a meal, go for a walk, or read a book without being told to.

In the context of this discussion, these are the small, deliberate, often effortful behaviors that push back against dependency:

• Growing even a few herbs on a windowsill

• Learning the difference between food labeling terms like “natural” and “organic”

• Teaching your kids where eggs come from (spoiler: not the store)

• Bartering instead of buying

• Sharing knowledge about housing rights, nutrition, healthcare access

These are behavioral cusps, once learned, they unlock entire new sets of options. And they’re shaped not by systems, but by values.

ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) reminds us: you don’t need perfect conditions to act in alignment with your values. You just need awareness, flexibility, and reinforcement that matters to you, not to the system.

It doesn’t always look impressive. It often looks like saying “no” when everyone else says “yes.” Or saying “yes” to something that doesn’t fit in the productivity machine. But these micro-rebellions accumulate. They change your reinforcement history. And eventually, they help you reshape your environment, starting from the inside out.

The Leash Is Real, But So Is the Choice to Bite It

You’re not entirely free. None of us are. I apologize that I’m not offering any solutions here. But acknowledging the leash is the first act of resistance. My purpose in writing this is about awareness and awakening; and blaming a side, or another won’t change the system. However once you see the leash, you can start to loosen it, refuse it, or chew through it one strand at a time.

Behavior science doesn’t just explain how systems shape us. It gives us the tools to reshape ourselves, and maybe, eventually, the systems too.

Because freedom isn’t a slogan. It’s a function of behavior, environment, and reinforcement. And if the world won’t give you that? It’s okay to build your own.

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