Today is the day that people in the United States celebrate their Independence from England. We’ll be having cookouts, keggers, lighting off fireworks, singing the Star Spangled Banner, and saluting the Stars and Stripes.

Independence is a wonderful thing. The possession of Independence directly relates to what Freedoms you enjoy. Here in the US, we enjoy the right to Free Speech, preventing the government from passing laws to restrict our ability to criticize it. We enjoy Freedom of the Press which prevents the government from restricting or suppressing the right of newspapers, television, radio, and websites to pass along real, truthful news. We enjoy Freedom of Religion, which prevents the government from restricting when, where, or in what way we worship.

But the thing that amazes me the most, as I reflect upon the word Independence, is how many residents of this planet, who live in free countries, actually CHOOSE to sacrifice one of the most basic types of independence: Economic Independence.

Far too many people in the world who have the ability to utilize self-determination, instead choose to place their financial and economic futures in the hands of the government, or in the hands of an employer, or in the hands of a labor union. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-government, I’m not anti-corporation, and I’m not anti-union. All of those entities serve important roles in our society.

The disturbing thing is that the average person in the US, UK, Australia, and the rest of the industrialized world are so Dependent upon someone or something else, they are little more than economic slaves. This economic slavery comes from two sources (both of which are self-induced): Employment and Debt.

With employment, we agree to be paid a certain dollar amount in exchange for helping someone else become wealthy. Don’t kid yourself - if you are trading time for money, then you are a slave. Just because you’re being paid well does not make you free. When I talk about economic freedom, I’m talking about the ability to quit your job at any time. If your financial situation is such that you cannot walk into your job tomorrow, and tell your boss that you quit, then you are an economic slave to that job.

Likewise, if you live in fear of being fired or laid off, then you live in economic slavery. If you need permission to take a day off from work to spend with your kids, or if you are on the receiving end of a guilt trip because you need to leave work early to take your 4-year-old to the dentist, then you live in economic slavery. And, if you sacrifice your moral values in order to get a leg up, so that you can get a raise or a promotion, then you are an economic slave.

The problem stems from people *depending* upon their jobs to fulfill their needs in life, for life. I remember back to when I first joined the Marine Corps. My dad (God bless him) was very happy for me, because “After twenty years, you’ll get a pension and medical care for life! What great security!” It didn’t matter that the pension would have been about $600 a month, and that the “free medical care for life” has been seriously degraded in the past 20 years. It was the “safety” and “security” that really got his blood pumping.

I have to ask - can anyone show me an example of a truly “safe” or “secure” job? Look at Enron. Look at the recent mass layoffs in the US auto industry. What about government jobs? Congress can remove funding for any department at any time, effectively eliminating that job.

Now, self-employment and owning your own business are not “safe” or “secure” either - after all, the internet could be gone tomorrow, and that would put a lot of internet entrepreneurs out of business. But the crucial factor with self-employment is self-determination. You can’t control whether the CEO of your company embezzles the pension fund. You can’t control whether Congress continues to fund your government job. And you can’t control whether you get laid off or not.

Since both having a job, and owning your own business lack “safety” and “security”, I would rather be able to self-determine how much money I make, versus having a pre-determined ceiling on my earning potential. And the only way to do that is by being self-employed, or by owning the company yourself.

However, most people still see being employed as the “safe” thing to do, and therefore sacrifice their right to self-determination in exchange for a feeling of (false) security.

The other major factor that plays a part in financial slavery is debt. Quite simply, every time you accept money now with a promise to repay that money over time later puts you in a position where you are spending money that you have not even earned yet. When people who have jobs go into debt, they are further locking themselves into an economic slavery position. Whereas you may have been able to safely quit your job at anytime, once you are saddled with tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt, you no longer have options available to you.

This is exactly the position I was in - I was so far in debt, and I was locked in to such a low paying job, that if things had stayed the same, it would have taken me 22 years to pay off my debts (assuming I didn’t incur any new debt along the way.) In other words, because of bad employment and borrowing decisions I had made during my 11 years in the Marine Corps, I found myself in a position where I would have been a financial slave for twice as long as I had already put in.

Debt is the single most insidious thing in today’s society. But debt coupled with a job that provides you a pre-determined amount of money each month is a recipe for financial disaster, and long term indentured servitude.

By being self-employed, you at least have the ability to increase your monthly income at any time, simply by creating and marketing a new product or service. If you find yourself riddled with debt, you can more easily increase your monthly income in order to offset that debt.

Imagine walking into your supervisor’s office and telling him you need a $1000 a month raise because you want to buy a Porsche. What would his reaction be? Now imagine that you’re self-employed (or own a business), and you’ve spent the time and money to educate yourself so that you understand basic business principles, and you understand how to conduct market research, and how to create and market a product.

If you want a Porsche, all you need to do is expand your business so that your new income level pays for your Porsche payment (preferably, you’d want to pay for your new Porsche in cash so you would not be in debt, however.)

If you are currently an economic slave, what can you do to grant yourself Independence? First of all, you’ve got to educate yourself. If you don’t understand how to build, run, and expand a business, you’re almost guaranteed to fail. Don’t expect your education to be completed over night - it took me 5 years to finally “get” the whole online business thing.

Part of your education should include experimentation. If you learn how to build a website and get traffic to it, actually do it, and evaluate the results. If your experiment succeeds, try to determine why it succeeded. If it fails, likewise try to identify exactly why it failed. These small, inexpensive experiments will teach you far more than any book, course, or seminar will ever be able to teach you.

If you’re deeply in debt, get out of debt before striking off on your own. It may take a year or two (or longer), but this can be done concurrently with your business education and experimentation.

Once you’re out of debt, have a number of online business experiments under your belt, and have a strong belief that you can create money at will (which you will once your basic online business education is completed), you are no longer an economic slave.

At this point you have the OPTION to quit your job at any time. Who knows, maybe you love your job and don’t want to quit… if that is the case, then don’t. The important thing is that you will no longer be a SLAVE to that job, and a whole new world of options will open before you.

If you have already started the journey to economic independence, I salute you - keep on keepin’ on, and never give up. If you have not yet started your journey, I urge you to begin now. This is not something you can do overnight, and the sooner you start, the sooner you will be free.

I wish you continued success in your online efforts. I’m going to go shoot off some fireworks with my kids.

Happy Independence Day!