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Mises Economics Blog

Liberty Defined

August 17, 2007 1:47 PM by Weekend Edition | Other posts by Weekend Edition | Comments (6)


Liberty is not a new issue in the world, writes F.A. Harper. Presumably it has been a concern of mankind from the very dawn of his existence. As he battled for life and life's betterment, he must surely have faced constant threats to his liberty, just as he was confronted with the tides, the tornadoes, and pestilences of all sorts. All these must have been a part of man's experience from time immemorial. Prior to any carefully reasoned contemplation of such obstructions, mankind must have battled them intuitively. We may assume that for an eon mankind has battled for his liberty, for instance, without having any deep sense of what liberty really is, just as he battled for his existence among the forces of nature without knowing precisely and formally the laws of natural phenomena. FULL ARTICLE

Comments (6)

  • billwald

  • "Liberty is the absence of coercion of a human being by any other human being; it is a condition where the person may do whatever he desires, according to his wisdom and conscience."

    Then no one with a wife has liberty for he has entered into a contract to give up his liberty.

    Neither does the person who has bought a condo.

  • Published: August 17, 2007 6:48 PM

  • Kay

  • You were coerced into marriage and into buying condo, Bill? I feel very sorry for you. You should choose who you congregate with more wisely.

  • Published: August 17, 2007 8:28 PM

  • Anthony

  • "Then no one with a wife has liberty for he has entered into a contract to give up his liberty.

    Neither does the person who has bought a condo."

    Limits and constraints imposed by reality (e.g. scarcity) are not coercion, unless you want to see life itself as coercion.

  • Published: August 17, 2007 8:35 PM

  • Lester Luttrell

  • One of the last comments regarding "a germ free society" leads me to remember how Thomas Jefferson called for a revolution every 20 years or so to keep our constitutional republic refreshed. Makes sense in America's "free" society today.

  • Published: August 18, 2007 12:25 PM

  • matt

  • "If, on the other hand, one assumes the alternative of an unordered universe, his course of derived assumptions are these: atheism;"

    By implication the Author states an that an ordered universe is deistic. Another failed and impossible attempt to mix Faith and Reason.

    The universe is orderly it obeys immutable laws
    that have always existed.These laws make flight
    to the moon and all other actions possible and dependable and it is Reason not Faith that we can depend on to understand our role on earth.

  • Published: August 20, 2007 10:35 PM

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