We can understand natural liberty in terms of liberty naturally available to the people. It implies unrestricted and unfettered liberty to do what one wills in a stage of natural condition. This can be possible only when we conceive a stage in which either there is a situation of licentious liberty as Hobbes thought it existed in his state of nature, or a situation of idyllic liberty as Rousseau portrayed in his state of nature. We can also think of Daniel Defoe’s portrayal of Robinson Crusoe’s position, which can be equated with natural liberty. However, liberty conceived in such a way may not be socially relevant which requires some type of regulation. In fact, all the three contractualists—Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau—talk of natural liberty being available in the state of nature. However, transition to civil society or the commonwealth requires surrender of natural liberty. For Rousseau, natural liberty is based on impulse, which requires to be replaced by civil liberty within the fold of General Will. Adam Smith, while laying the doctrine of laissez faire, insists that everyone should be left perfectly free to pursue his own interest in his own way. He is primarily seeking a free sphere for business and industry as a means of ‘wealth of nations’. Smith calls this as a system of natural liberty or system of perfect liberty. The origin and working of commercial capitalism is based on natural liberty for Smith.20
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