If you make a living, if you earn your own money, you’re free - however free one can be on this planet.

White’s remark links personal freedom to economic self-sufficiency: earning one’s own living reduces dependence on patrons, institutions, or family and therefore expands one’s practical choices. The qualifying clause—“however free one can be on this planet”—adds a sober, almost fatalistic note: even the financially independent remain constrained by law, social obligation, chance, and mortality. In that sense, the quote is less a celebration of wealth than an argument for autonomy through work and self-reliance, while acknowledging that freedom is always partial and contingent rather than absolute.