Is Free Will Responsible for Poverty?

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How Denying Human Agency Becomes a System’s Most Dangerous Design Flaw

“There is no freedom without structure and no structure without freedom.”

For centuries, humanity believed that technology, knowledge, and access to funds would eradicate poverty. From the scientific revolution through the industrial and technological revolutions, each wave enhanced our ability to produce, connect, and build wealth. Yet prosperity remains concentrated in certain nations and populations, leaving behind nearly four billion people who, as of 2024, live below the middle-class income standard of $12 per day. The continued existence of poverty in an age of abundance suggests that the root cause goes deeper than just external tools or resources.

If progress in technology, knowledge, and finance cannot eliminate poverty, then the cause may not be external at all. It may lie within us, in the way people and their institutions are structured to cooperate, choose, and act. This possibility raises a fundamental question: if the source of prosperity and poverty is internal and structural, can it be changed?

The first time I grasped the conflict between freedom and structure was not in theory but on the streets of Calcutta in 1991, during my first journey to India after my military service. Beneath the bridges, I saw people sleeping on sheets of cardboard, entire families living in the open. I remember thinking, What is the worth of freedom and democracy if one’s only choice is to sleep under a bridge? That moment revealed something I could not yet name: that freedom without structure is not liberation but neglect, and that dignity requires more than the right to choose; it requires the conditions that make choice possible.

Some argue that human behavior is fixed, that people and nations are bound by destiny or by the laws of physics, and therefore cannot change their course. If that view is correct, freedom is an illusion, and our discussion ends here. But if physicists who believe so are mistaken, as the double slit experiment suggests, even subatomic particles can manifest more than one possible outcome depending on observation, and if the universe’s complexity develops through increasing levels of freedom at each layer of structure, then human beings do have free will, and poverty is not inevitable; it reflects structure and can be redesigned.

Through simple elimination, we arrive at the core question behind every failed attempt at creating prosperity: do human beings truly have freedom of choice, and if so, how does that freedom lead to prosperity? From this point, the discussion shifts from history to structure, from the moral question of responsibility to the universal law that governs freedom and design.

What if We Have No Free Will?

The ancient Greek myth of Oedipus is one of humanity’s earliest reflections on fate. In the story, Oedipus visits the oracle at Delphi, where the priestess known as the Pythia is believed to speak the will of the god Apollo. She tells him that he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified, he decides to run away from home so the prophecy won’t come true. But on his journey, he encounters a stranger and kills him out of anger, not realizing that the man is his father, and later marries a widowed queen who, without knowing it, is his mother. In trying to escape his destiny, Oedipus actually fulfills it. The myth remains compelling because it raises a question that has always stayed relevant: if every outcome is preordained, what purpose does choice serve, if there is such a thing as choice?

This question is not limited to tragedy or philosophy. It extends to courtrooms, government offices, and rural villages. In a courtroom, a defendant might say, “I had no choice, my brain made me do it.” In a government office, a policymaker may sigh that poverty in certain nations is destiny, that “we have tried everything.” In everyday life, many people quietly surrender to a similar logic. They abandon ambitions, delay decisions, or stop trying altogether because they believe their future is already written, that what will be will be. The result is the same in every setting: once people or systems accept that outcomes are predetermined, the loss of responsibility follows. A society that stops believing in the possibility of change stops designing for it. Fatalism becomes policy, and policy turns into paralysis. Henry Ford once captured this logic in a single sentence: “Whether you think you can, or you can’t, you’re right.” Belief in possibility is not mere optimism; it is the structural precondition for action and design.

When speaking about farmers in developing economies, many policymakers and experts conclude that everything has been tried and failed, yet what they call everything usually refers to technology, funds, and knowledge. What remains least explored is organizational structure, the way systems align people, roles, and feedback so that opportunity and direction circulate and resources can compound into different outcomes. In the absence of structural innovation, even the best tools and intentions reproduce the same results, and progress becomes motion without transformation within an unchanged design.

If a justice system were built on determinism, it would collapse, for it depends on the belief that each person could have acted otherwise. Without the assumption of choice, responsibility dissolves, and with it the moral and practical capacity to improve. The denial of free will, therefore, carries both ethical and structural costs. When societies treat every outcome as fixed, progress and accountability lose meaning, and institutions cease to adapt or generate internal direction. Before accepting such fatalism, we must first examine what physics itself leaves unexplained.

The Physics of Determinism

The same belief that hampers societies, the conviction that outcomes are predetermined, first appears in science as the doctrine of determinism. To understand what remains unexplained, we explore the realm of physics itself, whose role since Newton has been to describe the motion of matter with such accuracy that prediction becomes its highest form of knowledge.

This idea reached its most complete expression in Laplace’s thought experiment, which imagined an intellect so all-knowing that, if it knew the position and motion of every particle, it could predict the entire future. In that imagined universe, freedom vanishes, for every act is already encoded in initial conditions.

Quantum theory softened this determinism but did not dissolve it. It replaced certainty with probability, describing a world where events occur with calculable likelihood yet without intention. Randomness does not create freedom; it removes control. An electron does not decide where to appear, and a photon does not deliberate before it moves. Likewise, neuroscience observes that neural activity precedes conscious awareness, as though the brain acts first and the mind follows. These observations invite the same conclusion that haunted the myth of Oedipus: that our paths are determined before we know them.

Yet even though all electrons are identical, and the same is true for protons and neutrons, each bound by the same physical laws, the world they compose unfolds in boundless variety. If determinism were complete, the cosmos would repeat itself endlessly, every configuration a mirror of another. Instead, this lawful sameness gives rise to unrepeatable difference, suggesting that within order itself lie the seeds of freedom.

We should note that these physical observations describe motion but not organization. Therefore, they overlook the structural layer where direction arises. Between mechanical causation and random fluctuation, there is a region where matter starts to organize itself through feedback, which is the return of influence from effect to cause; constraint, the narrowing of possibilities that defines form; and interaction, the mutual adjustment among elements. In this region, systems stabilize certain pathways and inhibit others, creating internal bias without breaking any laws. Order and flexibility develop together as properties of organization.

The question that follows is not whether the laws of physics fail but how they give rise to structures that internalize them and create new possibilities from within their boundaries. To address that question, we turn to the Universal Law of Increasing Complexity (ULIC), which extends the physical description of motion, energy, and mass into a structural description of emergence. It shows that every rise in complexity enlarges a system’s capacity for organized choice by multiplying the number of coherent possibilities available within its structure, transforming causality from an external sequence into an internal orientation. Through that lens, freedom reenters the lawful universe not as opposition to determinism but as its natural extension, the point where structure begins to generate direction from within itself.

Figure: Freedom expands with structural complexity. Each new layer of organization, from physical to social systems, builds upon the coherence of the layers below it, extending freedom within structure and deepening interdependence. Prosperity emerges wherever this balance is sustained.

The Law Beyond Mechanics

According to the Universal Law of Increasing Complexity, the universe evolves from low to high order, from simplicity to structured richness. This overall trajectory is determined, yet within it exists room for freedom at every level of existence.

A subatomic particle does not follow a single predetermined path but exists as a spectrum of lawful possibilities until interaction selects one, while molecules add further freedom through the many configurations in which atoms can bind and stabilize. Cells inherit this flexibility and transform it into adaptive behavior, maintaining coherence amid continuous change. Conscious beings extend it further by anticipating multiple futures before choosing among them, and societies amplify it collectively by aligning many minds around shared direction. With each rise in complexity, the number of coherent possibilities and the capacity for internal freedom expand, revealing that freedom is not the absence of law but its most refined expression.

Freedom therefore grows with complexity, yet always remains within the boundaries of law. The direction of the universe is predetermined, but the path it takes can vary and accommodate choice. Determinism provides the structure of motion, while freedom gives it orientation and meaning. As expressed in the Jewish parable from Avot (3:15), “Everything is expected, yet permission is given”, a concise acknowledgment that although events unfold within law, every moment still carries the power of decision. To understand how this universal principle manifests in living and human systems, we now turn to the structures through which freedom becomes agency.

The Architecture of Agency

Every structure that endures does so because it maintains direction within law, an internal orientation that keeps energy and structure aligned toward a shared purpose. When that orientation weakens, coherence begins to break down, and the system loses its ability to stay together. The same principle that governs the atom governs civilization: stability relies on the ongoing renewal of alignment among energy, structure, and direction. Whenever this renewal stalls, decline happens not as failure or punishment but as the natural result of structural imbalance.

The same structural logic that governs matter also governs human prosperity. A society that rejects free will abandons its internal causality. It loses faith that change is possible and, along with it, the mechanisms that make change real. Courts then view wrongdoing as inevitable, governments see poverty as destiny, and citizens accept limitations as if they were natural. Fatalism replaces intention, and motion continues without progress.

I have seen this not only in theory but also in real life. When I asked smallholder farmers in Africa about their dreams, many couldn't name even one. Their silence was not due to ignorance but resignation, an acceptance of reality as it is, a quiet surrender that happens when imagination is replaced by endurance. The absence of a dream isn't just a mental state but a sign of structural loss of hope, the same paralysis that occurs when systems forget how to envision the future. It's not just poverty of income but poverty of direction, a loss of the internal ability to shape what comes next.

When this condition spreads through a society, the triad that sustains all living systems - feedback, anticipation, and coherence - begins to fall apart. Feedback allows systems to learn from the effects of their own actions; anticipation helps them prepare for likely future states, such as a cell activating defenses before damage occurs or a market adjusting prices ahead of shortages; coherence maintains internal stability as these adjustments happen. When any one of these elements weakens, the system loses its ability to guide its own evolution. Without feedback, there is no learning; without anticipation, no purpose; and without coherence, no continuity. The outcome is not stability but stagnation masquerading as order, a state that appears balanced while hiding decay. Economies are social systems that follow the same triadic law: feedback through markets, anticipation through investment, and coherence through trust.

From the earliest tribes to the most advanced institutions, human societies have sought a balance between freedom and structure. In tribal communities, cohesion was strong but freedom was narrow; belonging replaced autonomy, and conformity ensured survival. As civilizations grew, feudalism tied people to land and lords, providing stability at the expense of choice. The Kolkhoz reversed the hierarchy but not the control: collective ownership replaced the lord, yet individual freedom remained absent, and innovation could not flourish.

The traditional village gave families complete freedom but lacked binding structure beyond kinship, dispersing energy and preventing growth. The limited liability company introduced structured freedom, individual initiative within an organized framework, allowing prosperity to increase through cooperation without coercion. The Kibbutz extended this idea further, creating a society where structure encompassed all aspects of life so that freedom could endure within coherence even beyond the workday. Across these forms, the same pattern appears: systems thrive when freedom and structure advance together and falter when one overtakes the other.

The emergence of the limited liability company marked a key moment in human development. It created equality between capital and labor through shared risk and responsibility, giving workers and managers considerable freedom within a clear framework. It formalized structured freedom, allowing complexity to expand without breaking down. This combination of liberty and structure made it the most successful economic organization in history. The Kibbutz expanded on this idea beyond factories and markets. While a company employee is free at work but detached outside, a Kibbutz member lives within a broader system that continues after work ends; a social structure that supports both freedom and a sense of belonging. In this way, the Kibbutz reflects a higher form of the same principle: freedom within coherence across all areas of life. It demonstrates that free will alone isn’t enough for prosperity; only when freedom is channeled within a framework that combines individual effort with collective purpose can systems sustain long-term growth and meaning.

Muki Tzur, one of Israel’s foremost historians and thinkers of the Kibbutz movement, described the Kibbutz as a place where people could change without losing themselves. He distinguished between utopian communes, which sought to create a new kind of human, and the Kibbutz, which accepted people as they were, imperfect and full of contradictions. “The Kibbutz,” Tzur explained, “is not a place where people live together, but a place where each person is fulfilled only through the other.” The Kibbutz succeeded because it allowed difference within unity, freedom within coherence. Trust became its invisible architecture, the social expression of coherence that allowed freedom to endure. It reflected the same law that governs all enduring systems: order is preserved not by uniformity but by structure that contains and amplifies freedom.

The same truth exists across many cultures. In Africa, it expressed itself through the idea of Ubuntu, “I am because we are.” Similar to the Kibbutz, it acknowledges that individuality and fulfillment only come from relationships. While Ubuntu captures the moral essence of interdependence, it lacks the structural framework to turn that essence into sustainable prosperity. The Kibbutz offers such a framework, turning shared responsibility into organized coherence. Both demonstrate the same universal principle: transforming reality requires not only moral insight but also a structural design to implement it.

Across all levels of existence, the same law applies: the universe progresses through structures that transform contradiction into higher order. To act responsibly is to consciously join this process, to participate in evolution rather than oppose it. Responsibility is not imposed from above; it arises from within, because systems that sustain their power to direct also preserve their capacity to stay coherent. Denying free will breaks this participation, separating human life from the universal flow of change that sustains it. When that flow is broken, moral responsibility vanishes, and systems drift into stagnation masked as stability.

Viewed this way, poverty is not just a lack of wealth but also the absence of feedback, anticipation, and coherence, the loss of structural freedom. Its solution is not charity but design: rebuilding systems that can hold tension, learn from it, and select new paths. When individuals, communities, or nations restore that capacity, they reconnect with the natural law that governs all prosperity, aligning themselves with the universal journey from necessity to purpose.

Thus, freedom is not rebellion against ULIC but the highest expression of the law that governs complexity itself. Free will, understood through structure, is the means by which the universe continues its own creation through organized coherence. It is the power of matter to orient itself without violating the principles that sustain it. When societies cultivate that power, they grow in coherence and potential, and when they deny it, they withdraw from the logic of existence. The movement from energy to life, from life to mind, and from mind to responsibility is one continuous act of design. To honor free will is to recognize that the same universal law that shaped the stars also calls upon us to shape the future. Determinism defines direction; freedom defines the path, and prosperity follows those who design for both.

* I strive to stay true to the facts and the reality they reveal. If you find an error or see a need for clarification, your insights are welcome. 

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See you soon,

Nimrod

Dr. Nimrod Israely is the CEO and Founder of Dream Valley and Biofeed companies and the Chairman and Co-founder of the IBMA conference. +972-54-2523425 (WhatsApp), or email nisraely@biofeed.co.il

P.S.

If you missed it, here is a link to last week's blog, “When Watching Creates Reality“.

P.P.S.

Here are ways we can work together to help your agro sector and rural communities step forward and shift from poverty into ongoing prosperity:

* Nova Kibbutz and consultancy on rural communities' models.

* Local & National programs related to agro-produce export models - Dream Valley global vertical value and supply chain business model and concept connects (a) input suppliers with farmers in developing economies and (b) those farmers with consumers in premium markets.

* Crop protection: Biofeed, an eco-friendly zero-spray control technology and protocol.

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*This article addresses general phenomena. The mention of a country/continent is used for illustration purposes only.