More from Chapter 1 of the too-little-read masterpiece, The Constitution of Liberty:
“It is often objected that our concept of liberty is merely negative. This is true in the sense that peace is also a negative concept or that security or quiet or the absence of any particular impediment or evil is negative. It is to this class of concepts that liberty belongs: it describes the absence of a particular obstacle—coercion by other men. It becomes positive only through what we make of it. It does not assure us of any particular opportunities, but leaves it to us to decide what use we shall make of the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
But while the uses of liberty are many, liberty is one. Liberties appear only when liberty is lacking: they are the special privileges and exemptions that groups and individuals may acquire while the rest are more or less unfree. Historically, the path to liberty has led through the achievement of particular liberties. But that one should be allowed to do specific things is not liberty, though it may be called “a liberty”; and while liberty is compatible with not being allowed to do specific things, it does not exist if one needs permission for most of what one can do. The difference between liberty and liberties is that which exists between a condition in which all is permitted that is not prohibited by general rules and one in which all is prohibited that is not explicitly permitted.”
Our collective impatience for the alleviation of some social ill is too often capitalized upon by government, which directs that impatience into a distrust of the seemingly slow-working forces of the market, and molds a voting block large enough to procure greater power to intervene, and therefore hamper, the forces at work within a market. But before we give in to an impatience-turned-politicized-outrage, we should remember that only through the elimination of coercion within society will everyone be fed, clothed, housed, and living a life not constantly threatened by famine, disease, or war. Only nations that attempt to eliminate market forces will you find authoritarian governments, bread lines, starvation, disease, and mass death.
