Negative Liberty

Liberal theorists have developed different grounds to support negative liberty. On the basis of natural liberty and natural rights of individuals, Physiocrates (Francois Quesnay and Mirabeau), early laissez-faire economists (Smith, Ricardo and Malthus) and contractualists (Hobbes and Locke) proposed individual liberty and argued for either complete non-interference or limited interference by authority in individual liberty. This basis of argument was both for economic liberty as well as political liberty of individual. J. S. Mill and Alex Tocqueville developed the ground for liberty of the individual and minority against the tyranny of majority. Mill’s argument was to protect the civil and social sphere of individual liberty in terms of free expression, thought, belief and actions. Tocqueville also argued against the majority suppressing the minority and the individual’s actions in democracy. Benjamin Constant advocated liberty of religion, opinion, expression and property and argued that these must be guaranteed against arbitrary invasion. Herbert Spencer, a sociologist, argued for individual liberty in a negative sense on the basis of organic analogy of the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest principle. Jefferson, Paine, Sidgwick and others have also argued for non-interference in individual liberty as the ground for liberty. Contemporary political theorists, neo-liberals (Hayek, Berlin, Friedman and Nozick), have combined the concept of natural and inviolable liberty of the individual with criticism of state interference in the name of individual welfare and good to argue for negative liberty. We may briefly discuss the views and arguments in defence of negative liberty proposed by these theorists.

Physiocrats refer to a school of economic thought in France led by François Quesnay and Mirabeau in the eighteenth century. They advocated liberty of production and non-interference of the State in the activity of individual. Their main argument was that the individual left to oneself in a natural condition was the best producer and labour in land was the primary source of production. This was premised on an understanding of goodness of nature and that labour can produce only when performed on land and in the bosom of nature.²⁴ Physiocrats advocated policy of laissez-faire in agricultural activity of individual.

Laissez-faire economists, Smith, Ricardo and Malthus, influenced by Physiocrats, however refined the non-interference argument and applied the argument of labour as productive element to commercial and industrial activity. Adam Smith views self-interest as the moving force in individual for doing and acting in society. However, this basic instinct to do business to our best advantage needs a self-regulated mechanism, if it has to emerge in the form of a market leading to general prosperity. This regulator, Smith identifies as ‘competition’—the conflict of the self-interested actors in the marketplace. In short, Smith deducing from the nature of the individual as self-interested and having natural propensity to trade and do business, concludes that it will result in competition in a situation of similarly self-interested individuals. Thus, Smith’s view of individual is that of a rational calculator, an economic man, in competition with similar individuals. For Smith, the economic man in a situation of competition must not be interfered with if natural liberty is to be protected. Freedom of an economic man and liberty for commerce and industry is the basis of natural liberty for Smith. Smith’s argument is that the economic man, in a situation of an invisible hand of competition, is the best producer and contributor to the wealth of nations, if left without interference from the State or external authority.

David Ricardo developed his theory of rent to show that rent earned by landlord on land and protected by state interference was against the interest of free trade. This was apparent in his fight against the Corn Laws, which protected British grains that were costly. He advocated non-interference of the State in individual activity and enterprise as interference at that point of time was against the rising capitalist class and protected the landlords.

Thomas Malthus developed his theory of overpopulation and natural causes of correcting them. He argued that while subsistence would increase arithmetically, population increased exponentially, creating a gap between subsistence and population. It is natural that some or the other section of population would always be in misery. He also argued that it would be unnatural to correct this imbalance by external interference or charity. As such, there should not be interference from the State or authority that disturbs the natural course of action. Malthus added a new ground to the laissez faire position.

These three theorists provided arguments in defence of non-interference in individual liberty and sphere of economic enterprise from the point of view of capitalist and commercial activities. However, it is apparent that their objective, directly or indirectly, was to provide theoretical support to the emerging capitalist and commercial classes against the landed and agricultural gentry. We can say that the emerging capitalist and commercial class in Europe influenced the laissez fair argument of individual liberty.

On the political ground, Hobbes and Locke developed their arguments to propose and defend the sphere of individual liberty. Thomas Hobbes argued that the individual in the commonwealth is subject to laws as the very purpose of escape from the state of nature is to institute the Leviathan as the supreme lawgiver and protector. The Leviathan provides conditions and grounds for liberty. However, he is of the view that notwithstanding predominance of laws, the individual is free to the extent law does not prohibit a particular action. Wayper identifies this as liberty ‘which men enjoys in the silence of the laws’.²⁵ In this way, Hobbes admits liberty ‘to buy and sell and otherwise contract with one another; to choose their own abode, their own diet, their own trade of life, and institute their children as they themselves think fit.’ This means, liberty of the individual amounts to what laws do not interfere with. We can say that in this sense law is seen as the main obstacle to liberty, in the absence of which the individual enjoys liberty.

John Locke’s concept of inalienable natural rights of ‘life, liberty and estate’ provide individual, exclusive and indefeasible realm, which the State cannot violate or negate. These rights include individual civil and political rights of life, liberty and property. Right to life requires other rights and things, which are necessary to preserve it. The very idea of inalienable natural rights which the individual carries from the state of nature provides Locke an important ground to limit government. Government is limited to the extent these rights should not be violated. Thus, natural rights provide a realm for individual liberty, which is not interfered by external authority. For Locke, individual liberty is based on non-violation of exclusive realm of natural rights and this requires a limited government. However, Locke though proposed a limited government and rule of law as means of putting limit on arbitrary law, he felt that law instead of restricting liberty may defend or enlarge it. He says the end of law is not to abolish or restrain but to preserve and enlarge freedom. In this way, the role of law is to protect the liberty of one from interference or encroachments by others.

J. S. Mill is considered as an important liberal thinker who provides significant arguments to defend the sphere of liberty of individual. He is concerned with protecting the rights of one individual to act, at least, in the matters of those actions, which do not concern other individuals or society, ‘self-regarding actions’. Mill’s defence of individual liberty is directed against the tyranny of the majority. Mill’s primary concern is not the struggle between Liberty and Authority, but what he calls ‘Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual.’²⁶ Mill’s discussions in his On Liberty are meant to deal with this aspect. He is aware that tyranny of the majority is exercised either ‘by the hands of political functionaries or society executing its own mandates’.²⁷ Thus, society can be oppressive, interfering and coercive of individual liberty, either directly or through the political functionaries. Mill wants protection ‘against the tyranny of the magistrate’ as well as ‘against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling’. For Mill, protection against political despotism was as important as against tyranny of the majority. Having realized that society and its majority have become the primary source of curtailing individual liberty in contemporary times, Mill was concerned with separating a sphere of individual liberty that remains un-interfered with. This requires separating: (i) sphere of individual actions that can be protected against the invasion of the majority and its dictates (ii) the sphere in which society can legitimately interfere. With this objective, he differentiates between ‘self-regarding’ and ‘other-regarding’ actions of individuals. By differentiating two spheres of individual actions, Mill’s aim is to protect the sphere of ‘self-regarding actions’ from any external interference.

His differentiation between ‘self-regarding’ and ‘other-regarding’ actions are based on two maxims Application’²⁸ of his book, On Liberty. First that ‘the individual is not accountable to society for his actions, in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself’. Thus in ‘self-regarding action’ there is no accountability admitted except as Mill says, advice, instructions, persuasion, and avoidance by others. However, in ‘other-regarding’ actions, those actions that are prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable. In this sphere of actions, the individual is subject to social or legal punishments as deemed necessary by society for its protection.

Mill’s argument is that ‘in all things which regard the external relations of the individual, he is de jure amenable to those whose interests are concerned, and if need be, to society as their protector.’ This is the sphere of ‘other-regarding’ actions where the individual’s actions have bearing on other individuals and to this extent the actions of each individual have to be interfered with. Having accepted the sphere of individual actions, which is open to interference, Mill proposes a second sphere of individual action. This is ‘self-regarding’ action, which ‘is a sphere of action in which society … has only indirect interest’. This he considers as ‘the appropriate region of human liberty’. ‘Self-regarding’ actions should not be interfered by others and there should be no impediments from fellow beings. In ‘self-regarding’ actions, he includes; (i) inward domain of consciousness, i.e., liberty of conscience, liberty of thought and feeling and also freedom of opinion and sentiment (due to the reason that expressing and publishing opinion concerns others also, the latter are linked to other-regarding actions also); (ii) liberty of taste and pursuits, framing plan of life to suit one’s own character and doing what one likes without harming others; (iii) liberty of combination among individuals, which means freedom to unite for any purpose not involving harm to others.²⁹ He also advocates liberty of free trade and production.

Mill is clear in proposing negative liberty in terms of non-interference by fellow beings and society in ‘self-regarding’ actions of individual. He expresses his proposal clearly when he says, ‘the only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his body and mind, the individual is sovereign.’³⁰ In short, Mill’s argument is that the individual’s liberty consists in being not interfered with or absence of impediments in ‘self-regarding’ actions. He presents a very strong ground for defence of negative liberty.

However, it would not be difficult to identify weaknesses in his arguments. By admitting interference in ‘other regarding actions’, Mill leaves enough space for interference. Mill admits that one person would be justified in preventing another person from crossing a bridge that he/she knows is damaged, though the person feels that his/her liberty lies in crossing the river. In admitting such a ground of interference amounts to agreeing with Rousseau’s position that one would be forced to be free. However, Mill’s position in this regard is that liberty consists in doing what one desires and the person intending to cross the bridge certainly does not desire his/her own harm. However, Barker has criticized Mill’s distinction between ‘self-regarding’ and ‘other-regarding’ actions and has called him prophet of empty liberty. For Barker, Mill’s case could have been more valid, had he argued by separating individual actions in the realms of the State and the society. Barker’s suggestions, however, is influenced by his own liberal-pluralist perspective which seeks to give primacy to society over the State.

It has also been held against Mill that it would not be possible to really differentiate between what is ‘self-regarding’ and what is ‘other-regarding’ in the strict sense of the term. While discussing the realm of ‘self-regarding and other-regarding actions. Is ‘self-regarding’, restriction to control adulteration, sanitary precautions, protection of work people employed in dangerous occupations, sale of poison etc. do require intervention. Similarly, drunkenness that threatens others and offences against decency require intervention.

Sabine has suggested that Mill’s defence of ‘self-regarding’ actions, as the realm of individual liberty should have logically followed natural rights arguments. The argument that the realm or sphere of ‘self-regarding’ actions should be protected could be stronger had Mill grounded this realm on natural rights of the ndividual. However, Mill as an utilitarian could not admit the natural rights arguments. One of the significant contributions of Mill is that he combines his defence of negative liberty with the positive or welfare state. He also supported positive state as the agency for providing conditions for development and self-realization of personality. As such Mill has contributed to both negative liberty as well as positive liberty.

Herbert Spencer, a sociologist, applies the principles of organic evolution to society in terms of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest. He argues against state-interference and objected to state-financed education, or to governmental protection of citizens against fraudulent finances. At one time, he argued that even the management of war should be a private, not a state, concern.³¹ Spencer supported a minimalist state or a watchman state. He suggested that state interference in intricate industrial situations would be inimical for liberty and enterprise. Like Adman Smith, Spencer also held economic relations must be left to the automatic self-adjustment of supply and demand. He also opposed the government attempting equality principle as forced.

Thinkers like Thomas Paine who celebrated the Rights of Man also contributed to the principle of non-interference as the basis of individual liberty. He denounced the State as a ‘necessary evil’ and supported the concept of the natural rights of man. However, Paine did not support the social contract theory and rejected it as a ‘clog on the wheel of progress’. His support to the natural rights is grounded on teleological basis. This means, rights are inherent in the very existence of man as its purpose or teleos is human life. Paine argued for a limited state with limited functions. He says, ‘while society in any state is a blessing, government, even in the best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.’³² It seems Thomas Paine would never accept an interfering state. In Europe, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, emergence of trade, commerce and industrial activity required individual freedom from the interference of governments and state authorities. It may be mentioned that Europe was not yet a fully established democracy with all its constitutional limitations. In fact, the English Revolution (1688) and the French Revolution (1789) and if we may include, the American Revolution (1776), are all symbols of struggle of the industrial and bourgeois class over the receding feudal domination. Demand for non-interference by the State was to protect the sphere of rising industrial and capitalist individual. It is apparent that landlords were trying to hold their ground while emerging commercial and industrial bourgeoisie wanted to establish their position. This required freedom to do business, enterprise, industry, commerce and trade with less or no interference from a political set-up or state authorities that were in nature either absolutist or dominated by the landed gentry. Two main aspects of demand for negative liberty have been: (i) absence of restraint or coercion in economic activity of individuals including freedom to contract and (ii) limited political set-up that does not regulate all aspects of human life by law. Henry Sidgwick, a nineteenth-century advocate of negative liberty suggests that a freely negotiated contract is expression of individual choice notwithstanding the terms being onerous to him. This means that liberty to enter into free contract is an important part of negative liberty.

Liberty in a negative sense as being absence of restraint or coercion has been an important principle of liberalism. This has contributed in establishing theoretical and operation bases of individualist–capitalist system and limited political order. It is based on the maxim that everyone knows one’s interest best. In economic terms, every individual becomes the master of his own labour, resources and material capacity that can be exchanged in a freely negotiated situation. This becomes the basis of freedom of contract. Workers are free to contract for selling labour in exchange of wages and capitalists are free to contract for purchase of labour. The State should not interfere to regulate the economic sphere and disturb a self-regulated market. In political terms, it means the State should not have extensive powers of law making for regulating the wide range of individual life. Neither should state interfere for redistribution of resources allocated in society based on freely contracted market. Since the assumption is that market is self-regulated and provides conditions of liberty, external interference by distorting this will hamper liberty. In the twentieth century, neo-liberals have argued for negative liberty. But before we take the neo-liberal position on liberty, we may discuss the concept of positive liberty.

Positive Liberty

We have seen previously the context in which the liberal theorists argued for negative liberty. Renaissance philosophy had argued and fought for installing the individual as the centre of all human activity. Classical liberal philosophy suitably trimmed this and spread understanding of human psychology as basically self-interested or self-centred. Many may call it triumph of bourgeoisie psychology. The tenor of negative liberalism seeks to ensure the realm of this self-interested individual in the political and economic field.

But by the dawn of the nineteenth century, two significant factors could be identified that led to the realization that mere negative liberty could not provide a holistic realm of liberty for individuals, at least, not to those who are the owners of labour and the authority of the State could be useful for regulating certain aspects such as contract and providing support to the industrial economy. Firstly, the conflict of interests between the landed or the aristocratic class and the rising capitalist class was already won in favour of the latter. This removed the perceived fear of state authority harming the interests of the rising class. Secondly, the growing problem of inequality and economic hardship in terms of working conditions, poor sanitation, health and habitation and other attendant problems were staring in the eyes of the labour class. Growing miserable conditions of the workers led to the realization that substantive liberty—liberty with equality and enabling conditions for self and moral development, were required. Liberty had to shift its ground from the ‘sphere of individual actions not interfered’, i.e., ‘freedom from’ outside authority, to ‘freedom to’ moral and self-development and self-realization. This avatar of liberty is called positive liberty. In Table 7.1, we have differentiated between negative and positive liberty. We may discuss the views of Mill, Green, Barker, Tawney, Hobhouse, Laski, and Macpherson on positive liberty. In recent times, Amartya Sen has argued for expansion of freedom in terms of capabilities.

When liberty is understood in a negative sense, it means what is not limited or interfered from outside. Liberty of an individual is premised on being unobstructed. To this extent, intention to bring equality and social justice will amount to obstructing someone’s liberty. Those who understand liberty in a negative sense generally hold the view that liberty and equality, or for that matter, social justice, are incompatible. On the other hand, liberty in its positive sense means some kind of self-development and moral development of the personality. Liberty can be positive only when it is premised not merely on absence of obstructions but on presence of capability and ability to act or enjoy. It means the effective ability to act and self-realize. This requires enabling conditions. While negative liberty deals with the condition of liberty, whether interfered/obstructed or not, positive liberty deals with the sources of liberty like moral, material and educational capabilities to enjoy the condition of liberty. Positive liberty is generally associated with welfare measures and distributive justice.

J. S. Mill is a thinker who started with the conception of negative liberty but subsequently supported positive liberty and advocated the idea of a positive state. His idea of liberty if seen in the perspective of his revision of utilitarianism, insists on moral development, self-realization and self-mastery of the individual. Mill revised Bentham’s utilitarian principle, which held quantitative pleasure as the end of individual efforts. He argued that instead of quantitative pleasure, qualitatively higher pleasure is the end to be sought. His views of individual liberty and freedom of thought, opinion and action is related to a qualitative aspect of individual personality. For Mill, they are necessary for making choices.

In fact, Mill terms ‘individuality as one of the elements of well-being’ On Liberty is captioned as such. Individuality as a unique and special character of each individual comes when each has freedom to think, express and make choices. This leads to self-development. The idea behind such a premise is what Mill attributes to Wilhelm von Humboldt, the German philosopher who said, ‘the end of man, or that which is prescribed by the eternal or immutable dictates of reasons, and not suggested by vague and transient desires, is the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole’. By invoking such a premise of Humboldt approvingly, Mill associates moral purpose with liberty of individual action. Every individual must direct his efforts to seek the individuality of power and development.³³ This, in turn, requires ‘freedom and variety of situations’. Mill insists that freedom and variety of situations are important because they are the basis of making choices. And in making choices, only the ‘human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity and even moral preference, are exercised’. For example, a person who does something because it is the custom, makes no choice. Making a choice implies mental and moral improvement.³⁴ This is where Mill has weaved liberty and self-development together. For self-development and improving mental and moral faculties, liberty is essential.

Mill, starting with the definition of liberty as ‘being left to oneself’ shifts to define it as ‘doing what one desires’.³⁵ The first, being left to oneself or not interfered, gives a meaning of negative liberty. The second, doing what one desires, requires making choices by applying moral and mental faculties, gives a positive sense of liberty. Macpherson in his book, The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy, calls the model of democracy based on Mill’s idea as Developmental Democracy, which seeks personal self-development of individual.³⁶ For Mill, development of powers and capabilities of moral, mental and personal realization is the end of individual actions. Macpherson feels that L. T. Hobhouse, A. D. Lindsay, Ernest Barker, Woodrow Wilson and R. M. MacIver also followed Mill’s vision of developmental democracy.

Mill’s idea of positive liberty in terms of self-development requires availability of conditions that facilitate this or remove obstacles in its realization. Mill is known for denying private property in land. In fact, he termed rent from land as ‘unearned income’. Probably on the same line as Ricardo has done while opposing the Corn Laws in England. Mill also advocates state supported compulsory education. He also supports the right to inheritance to be limited, factory legislation in case of children, limited working hours, and also right of the State to intervene in economic affairs.³⁷ Thus, liberty is essential for making choices and mental and moral development, which in turn, is required for self-development. Self-development implies positive liberty, liberty in terms of effective decision-making, self-mastery and inner freedom. Positive liberty requires a positive state. This is how Mill becomes the advocate of positive liberty that another British philosopher, Green sought to explain further.

T. H. Green, an idealist, presents a positive conception of freedom and relates it with the moral and self-development of individuals. He defined freedom as ‘positive power or capacity of doing or enjoying something worth doing or enjoying’. What does this positive power or capacity refer to? Is it effective power and ability to act, do or enjoy what one should? For Green, liberty is not absence of restraint as beauty is not absence of ugliness. It is freedom to do something worth doing or enjoying—freedom to pursue an objective which is worth pursuing. And the ‘worth’ is to be measured by the contribution it makes to the development of man. It is this objective that makes Green deviate from Hegel’s idealist position on the State. Green treats the state not an end in itself but a means to development of man’s moral nature and fulfilment of moral capacity without which man would not be man. If freedom is the right of a man to make the best of himself, the State must then remove obstacles in this endeavour. For Green, the State actually is a remover of obstacles.

Green’s idea is that the State must interfere to remove obstacles and provide chances for fulfilment of moral capacity of individuals. Removal of ignorance and poverty from the untaught and unfed, as symbols of mental and physical malnutrition is essential. The State should remove these obstacles along with gin-shops and should also provide against contracts that result due to helplessness of one of the parties. Green’s idea of positive liberty and the State as a remover of obstacles for self-realization of the individual, supports welfarism, positive state and social justice. Green tries to establish a relationship between human consciousness, liberty, rights and authority. He says, human consciousness needs liberty, liberty needs rights and rights need the State.

Ernest Barker, R. H. Tawney and L. T. Hobhouse are also considered as advocates of positive liberty. They argued for liberty of each to be adjusted in such a manner that it provides an equal chance to all not only in terms of the condition of it being legally available but also in socioeconomic terms. They feel that liberty cannot be left un-interfered with or unregulated. Whether equal opportunity to liberty is enough condition of liberty or does it require relevant ability to enjoy that opportunity to liberty. Barker, Tawney, Hobhouse and later Laski and Macpherson feel that for liberty to be a means for moral and self-development of an individual, not only should it be adjusted to the equal liberty of others but should be understood in terms of sources, socioeconomic conditions. Amartya Sen has also talked in terms of the individual’s capability expansion as freedom.

Ernest Barker in his book Principles of Social and Political Theory opines that the State must treat every individual as a moral person and free agent, capable of developing his own capacity in his own way. He relates liberty as a means of development of personality. To have liberty in such a way that one enjoys concurrently with others, adjustment of liberty of one with the others is required. Enjoyment of liberty by all requires adjustments and adjustment of liberty of one with others requires regulation. Liberty is also relative because there should be specific liberty for each personality realizing specific capacities. According to Barker, liberty is always relative and regulated. His views on relative liberty arise from his premise that liberty is a derivative value, a value derived from the higher value of development of moral personality of individuals. We have mentioned earlier that Mill insisted on individuality as a unique and special character of each individual. Barker also suggests that there is need for definite liberty of a defined personality to realize specific capacities.

Barker formulates two basic principles to account for regulated and relative liberty. Firstly, the greatest common possible measure of liberty can be determined and defined by the need of each to enjoy similar and equal liberty with others. Thus, liberty of each adjusted to others, hence regulated. Secondly, there is a need of all to enjoy the specific liberty of realizing specific capacities, liberty of each relative to others as per requirements. Barker is critical of Mill’s differentiation of ‘self-regarding’ and ‘other-regarding’ actions and the exclusion of ‘self-regarding’ actions from the scope of regulated and relative liberty. Barker calls Mill a ‘prophet of empty liberty’, liberty that is not grounded in social situations. Further, he feels that Mill should have separated individual actions in the sphere of society and the State rather than that of the individual itself (‘self-regarding’ and ‘other-regarding’).

For Barker, liberty needs to be balanced both internally and externally. He has talked about three types of specific liberties—civil, political and economic. Civil liberty implies liberty in the capacity of an individual as a person. This includes physical freedom from injury, threat to life, health and movement of the body, intellectual freedom such as expression of thought and belief, and exercise of choices in the field of contractual actions. Political liberty implies liberty in the capacity of a citizen. This involves liberty of constituting and controlling government. Economic liberty implies liberty in the capacity of a worker and Barker would like to treat this as part of contractual actions. When Barker says, liberty needs to be balanced internally, what he suggests is that civil, political and economic liberty should condition each other. Liberty should also be balanced externally means it must also be conditioned by other principles—principles of equality and justice.

R. H. Tawney and L. T. Hobhouse also advocate balancing liberty with equality. Tawney in his book Equality maintains that equality is necessary to make liberty substantive. For him, liberty should imply not only civil and political rights, but also security for the economically weak. L. T. Hobhouse in his book Elements of Social Justice argues that a freedom to be enjoyed by all must be put some restriction upon all other freedom of one. Hobhouse treats system of rights as system of harmonized liberties. It means maximum degree of freedom to each, compatible with the same degree of freedom to others.

Harold Joseph Laski relates freedom with the development of personality. He treats freedom as an opportunity essential for development of personality. His definition of liberty matches with Green’s understanding of liberty and freedom. For Green, liberty is positive power or the capacity of doing or enjoying something worth doing or enjoying, and for Laski it is ‘the positive and equal opportunity of self-realization’.³⁸ His further explanation of liberty as eager maintenance of that atmosphere in which men have the opportunity to be their best selves also supports his concern for positive liberty. It is clear that an enabling and facilitating atmosphere, in the shape of rights, is required for men achieving their best selves. Laski mentions three kinds of liberty—private, political and economic, which are helpful in development of the human personality. For Laski, three conditions, namely absence of privileges, presence of a set of rights and a responsible government are required for realization of liberty.

Laski is known to have shifted his position on liberty. Broadly, he supports positive liberty as an essential factor for development of personality and his views are close to that of Green. However, at one point of time he even regretted having supported the conception of positive liberty. In the preface to the second edition of the A Grammar of Politics (1929), he declared, ‘In 1925, I thought that liberty could most usefully be regarded as more than a negative thing. I am now convinced that this was a mistake and that the old view of it as an absence of restraint can alone safeguard the personality of the citizen.’³⁹ It seems Laski now supports negative liberty. Assuming that he does, as is apparent when he says ‘…the old view of it as an absence of restraint …’, it could be possible that Laski was apprehensive of the growing corporatist and fascist states that may legitimize interference in the name of providing conditions of liberty. Nevertheless, his conception of liberty in terms of absence of restraint may also be interpreted in terms of positive liberty. Laski in Liberty in the Modern State, says, ‘I mean by liberty the absence of restraint upon the existence of those social conditions which, in modern civilizations, are the necessary guarantees of individual happiness.’ He explains his conception of liberty as absence of restraints but in terms of social conditions. This is no different from his earlier definition of liberty as the positive and equal opportunity of self-realization. Positive and equal opportunity cannot be available unless social conditions are conducive.

C. B. Macpherson has supported the case for liberty in a positive sense. But instead of accepting the division between positive and negative liberty, he calls it developmental liberty or creative freedom. According to him, positive liberty is the same thing as developmental liberty. This is liberty to act as a full human being and achieve the fullest development and enjoyment of one’s faculties. Fullest development may be understood in terms of development of human capacities—moral, intellectual, aesthetic as well as material productive capacities. This is what Mill argued for when he introduced the qualitative principle and revised Bentham’s utilitarian principle based on quantitative principle.

Macpherson makes a distinction between developmental and extractive power. While extractive power relates to the use of other’s potentialities for serving one’s own ends, developmental power requires development of one’s own capacities and its application to one’s self-appointed goals. While extractive power is based on treating the individual as consumer, developmental power views the individual as an agent and creative being.

Macpherson accepts the liberal premise of individual liberty and the central ethical principle of liberalism, ‘the freedom of the individual to realize his or her human capacities’.⁴⁰ But he says, this central ethical principle should not be confined for its realization to the capitalist market society. His idea is that men are not merely consumers of material things but ‘exerters and enjoyers of the exertion and development of their own capacities’. While as a consumer one consumes by oneself, for one’s own satisfaction or to show superiority to others; as an exerter or enjoyer of one’s capacities, one acts in conjunction with others.⁴¹ Macpherson’s emphasis on developmental and creative freedom focuses on development and realization of inner faculties and capacities of human beings. He opposes the position of early liberalism of the individual as a possessive individual, proprietor of own labour, capacity and power unconcerned with society. He advocates that human beings should change their consciousness of themselves as consumers and appropriators to exerters and enjoyers of their own capacities. For this, reduction in social and economic inequality and availability of means of life and labour are required. He argued for equal liberty and participatory democracy. He is considered as a radical liberal as he rejects the early liberal position and advocates non-market-based participatory democracy.

Let us try to understand what Macpherson says as consumer and exerter. in contemporary times, the market projects many products as if they are meant to define your existence. You are what you wear, what you drink, what you eat! This is true in the field of fast food, men and women dressing, fashion and personal care industry. Though they are meant as a provocation for consumption, they are projected as if you are not yourself unless you do what they say. Whichever way they are projected, they are meant to catch you as consumers. To the consumer, market seeks to project a somewhat distorted picture. Socrates is not Socrates because he drank hemlock but because he drank soft drink, Cleopatra was not beautiful and empowered because she was beautiful and queen of Egypt but because she seduced Caesar and had courage to die of snake bite, Einstein was not Einstein because he was a scientist but because he had a designer hair and moustache, Arthur Miller was not Arthur Miller because he wrote Death of a Salesman but because he married Marilyn Monroe, Mr Harry is not Mr Harry because this is his name but because he wears Harry collections and neither Karl Marx nor Herbert Spencer were Marx and Spencer as they did not wear from Marks and Spencer and so on so forth. A person is a person not because he or she merely wears, drinks or eats but how he or she actually realizes one’s inner faculties. in short, a person who drinks cold drinks to meet thirst is a consumer but the one who drank hemlock is an exerter, a woman who grows her hair long to advertise for shampoo is a consumer but the one who grows it to enjoy herself as a beautiful lady is an exerter.

Amartya Sen argues for ‘expansion of basic human capabilities’ in terms of education, health, employment, etc. as they are important for overall development not only in individual terms but also in economic terms. He has focused on how ‘variations in social opportunities not only lead to diverse achievements in the quality of life but also influence economic performance…, ’⁴² This means that human beings if not provided with basic opportunities like education, health, minimum livelihood, housing, gender equality etc. will neither neither be able to enjoy ‘capability’ nor contribute effectively in the economic development. Capability means ‘the range of options a person has in deciding what kind of life to lead’.⁴³ Let us assume a person ‘A’ who is educated, skilled and has employability has employed another person ‘B’ who is uneducated, unskilled and poor. It is apparent that has more choices over B in choosing how to live. Further, capability in the sense of choice to decide how one wants to live gets restricted due to poverty, illiteracy, gender, social and economic inequalities. This is what Sen would call ‘capability deprivation’. In a situation of capability deprivation, people will also not be able to participate effectively in the economic process. As such, he argues for expansion of capabilities as freedom. Sen’s conception of capability expansion as freedom adds to positive freedom of human beings.

Liberalism: Classical and Modern, Neo-liberalism and Libertarianism

Before we proceed to discuss the contemporary liberal thinkers and their views on liberty, it may be suitable to explain the relationship between classical and modern liberalism and libertarianism. Liberalism as an ideology emerged after the breakdown of the feudal economic, political and social set-up. Liberalism is associated with commitment to individual liberty and freedom, especially in the economic and political field, limited authority based on consent, self-regulating market, etc. Liberalism treats the individual as rational and capable of deciding his or her own good. It does not support wide range intervention by the State in the name of good of the individual. This position is identified with classical liberalism. Classical liberalism supports individual liberty, laissez-faire policy, minimal state, self-regulating market and consent-based authority. Locke, Smith, Ricardo, Bentham, Mill and Spencer are considered as classical liberals.

However, by the end of the nineteenth century, operation of capitalism has generated undesirable consequences in the form of injustice, poor condition of workers and has left the mass of people unattended by the market. A sympathetic form of liberal ideology emerged which supported welfare and betterment of people. This form of liberalism is identified as ‘social or welfare liberalism’.⁴⁴ This is called modern liberalism. It argues for protecting people from the vagaries of the market and its evils. While classical liberal ideology focused on negative liberty, liberty as absence of external constraints upon the individual, modern liberalism focuses on positive liberty, liberty in terms of self-realization and personal development. While negative liberty assumes the individual as a rational being capable of willing and achieving if only not interfered with, positive liberty seeks individuality and self-realization of individual by requiring removal of constraints that hamper such realization. Thus, while the first aims to pre-empt constraints on liberty, hence a minimal state, the second seeks to remove constraints in way of individuality, hence a welfare and positive state. While negative liberty finds ideal of equality inimical to itself, positive liberty argues for equality as an important ally of positive liberty. Key writers and thinkers who support modern liberalism and positive liberty include Mill (qualitative aspect of utilitarianism and developmental view of individual personality), Green, Tawney, Hobhouse, Barker, Rawls and others.

By the second half of the twentieth century, many writers and thinkers started asserting the view of negative liberty, market individualism, economic freedom and minimal state as the basis of liberal philosophy. As opposed to the modern liberalism and its view of positive liberty, liberalism reasserted itself in the form of neo-liberalism. It asserted tenets of liberal ideology in an updated version and argued for a minimal state as nightwatchman, negative liberty in terms of laissez-faire ideology and economic freedom as the basis of other forms of freedom. It opposes any form of planning, central direction for resource allocation in society and intervention in the name of justice and equality. Hayek, Berlin, Friedman and Nozick are some of the prominent neo-liberals.

Libertarianism as an ideology is associated with classical liberalism as well as neo-liberalism. Libertarian ideology argues for increasing the realm of individual liberty and economic freedom based on laissez-faire doctrine. Individual liberty, in the negative sense and minimal state or authority along with complete freedom to economic activity, is the basis of libertarian ideology. Smith, Spencer, Hayek, Friedman and Nozick are considered as prominent libertarians.

Neo-liberal Views on Liberty

Debate on negative and positive aspects of liberty has focused on sphere and condition versus sources of liberty. Whether condition of non-interference and non-restraint in the sphere of individual actions are enough conditions of liberty or does it require sources for actually enjoying liberty. In short, whether liberty means being left alone and un-interfered by the authority of law and the State or does it require enabling conditions like education, employment, health etc., to realize the available liberty and achieve self-development. This debate has been discussed previously. However, regarding negative liberty, in the contemporary period some neo-liberal thinkers have taken up the debate and argued in favour of liberty as being free from others intervention. Hayek, Berlin, Friedman and Nozick have argued for negative liberty and negative state or minimalist state.

Friedrich A. Hayek is a prominent neo-liberal who advocates negative liberty and thin state. In his books, The Road to Serfdom (1948), The Constitution of Liberty (1960) and Law, Legislation and Liberty (1979), he has supported a free liberal order based on capitalist economy, which he considers as the only guarantee of individual liberty.

Hayek distinguishes individual liberty or freedom from three other forms of liberty namely, political freedom, inner freedom and freedom as power. He defines individual freedom as ‘freedom from subjection of coercion of arbitrary will of others’. This is a negative concept of freedom and liberty and is characterized by absence of coercion. Hayek rejects the positive or developmental view of liberty as he considers it inimical to individual liberty. This is because he apprehends that any form of intervention of the State in the name of securing sources of liberty, as the conception of positive liberty does, may lead to collectivist justification of state interference. On this ground, Hayek opposes planned economy and distributive justice. He feels that the conception of distributive justice imposes some other’s conception of merit and requires allocation of resources through central intervention. Further, there is equality of opportunity but since individuals differ in their talent and skill, it results in inequality which should not be tampered with.

For Hayek, equality and liberty are incompatible. In the name of equality or justice, there should not be enactment of rules that specify how people should use the means at their disposal. Interference with people’s own capacity to determine their objective becomes coercive and hence incompatible with individual liberty.

For him, political freedom means participation in the choice of government, process of legislation, control of government, etc. This does not necessarily ensure individual freedom. An undemocratic political system may be more permissive of individual freedom than a democratic set-up. Political freedom then does not automatically translate into individual freedom. In fact, though for different reasons, Mill and Tocqueville had also suggested that democratic order is not a guarantee of individual freedom, and majority itself can become a reason for restricting or hampering individual liberty. Inner freedom stands for the extent to which one is being guided by a considered will or choice and not by momentary impulses or inducements. This arises not due to the absence of coercion but due to moral strength or control on impulsive behaviour. As such, it is also different from individual freedom. Freedom as power is related to choices available to a person to make decisions or satisfy wishes. A person may have the power to do what is prohibited or may not be able to do what others are not prohibiting. Freedom as power is also different from individual freedom.

Hayek’s opposition in allowing liberty understood in terms of power arises from his apprehension of intervention. He feels that if liberty or freedom understood as power is given primacy, there would be legislative intervention from the State in the name of enlarging choices or extending the range of choices of individuals. This, in fact, would be inimical to individual liberty as Hayek defines. He argues that since people are different in their capacities and skills, they should not be treated equally, treating them equally would result in inequality in actual position. He says, desire for making people more alike in their condition becomes a basis for discriminatory coercion. Hayek’s defence of individual liberty is aimed at preserving the original liberal and laissez-faire meaning of liberty as the individual not being interfered. He opposes the positive conception of liberty as it relates to sources of liberty, which requires a positive state and a state that may plan and control economy and attempts distributive justice. He contends that it is better if some should be free than none and many should have full freedom than all have a limited freedom.

Hayek’s conception of individual liberty as differentiated from any other conception such as liberty as power, political freedom or inner or moral freedom, is aimed at installing the original laissez-faire view of individual liberty. It seeks the absence of external restraint and freedom from coercion from the state. He opposes planned for the reason that it imposes certain external view of merit and is coercive to individual liberty. He also opposes mixed economy because it is neither planned nor market and hence cannot allocate resources rationally. For Hayek, then only free-market economy can become the basis of liberal order and individual liberty. His is a negation of bases of the welfare state and distributive justice, planned and mixed economy and support for liberal–capitalist order and minimal state. This theme appears in the writing of others such Berlin, Friedman and Nozick.

Sir Isaiah Berlin, a neo-liberal, advocates negative conception of liberty. However, he is known for making a distinction between negative and positive liberty in such a way that it amounts to conceiving both types of liberty as the same thing.

Generally, negative conception of liberty was identified with the laissez-faire economists like Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Robert Malthus and limited government liberal theorists such as John Locke, J. S. Mill, Herbert Spencer, Benjamin Constant, Alex de Tocqueville and others. They understood and advocated liberty as ‘sphere of individual actions unobstructed by others‘. Negative liberty was understood to be applicable both to the economic activity as well as the political field. In economic aspects, it was freedom to do business, commerce and economic activity including contract without interference. In the political aspect, it meant a limited government and provision of political rights not being interfered. Critiques of negative freedom were developed by thinkers such as J. S. Mill, T. H. Green, L. T. Hobhouse, R. H. Tawney and later on by Barker and Laski. In its positive aspects, liberty was understood as related to self-realization and development of the individual personality. This, in turn, required opportunities and sources such as socio-economic conditions that help in such development and realization. In this debate, while negative liberty was based on the sphere of individual actions not interfered by others, positive liberty advocated sources that were essential for enjoyment of liberty. Negative liberty advocated individual as sovereign (what Macpherson calls possessive individual), having full right and sovereignty over his capacities, labour, and talent. Positive liberty advocated conception of individual as developer or one who seeks self-realization (what Macpherson calls developmental freedom) and has ability to act. These are the two ways of conceiving liberty or freedom within the liberal tradition.

Berlin looks at liberty in a new way and in his seminal essay, ‘Two Concept of Liberty’ (1958), he portrays that in its negative and positive sense, liberty means the same thing. He extended the same arguments in his ‘Four Essays on Liberty’ (1969). He uses the term freedom or liberty interchangeably. According to Berlin, liberty in the negative sense is involved in the answer to the question ‘what is the area within which the subject—a person or group of persons—is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without interference by other persons?’ Liberty in the positive sense is involved in the question ‘what, or who, is the source of control or interference, that can determine someone to do, or be, one thing rather than another?’ Accordingly, he defines liberty in both the negative and positive sense.

Liberty in the negative sense is defined as ‘an area within which a man can act unobstructed by others’.⁴⁵ Liberty is an area of unobstructed or unimpeded action of individual. One lacks liberty or freedom only if one is prevented from attaining a goal by other human beings and not because of incapacity to do so. Mere incapacity to attain a goal is not lack of liberty. Berlin elaborates this thus: ‘if my poverty were a kind of disease, which prevented me from buying bread or paying for journey round the world, or getting my case heard, as lameness prevents me from running, this inability would not naturally be described as lack of freedom’. Berlin differentiates between availability of un-interfered area and capacity to make use of it. Liberty is said to be present even when the second aspect is lacking. I have liberty to buy bread though I may not have money to buy it. While the first is liberty in negative sense, the second is incapacity to buy. For Berlin, incapacity to buy is a limitation and a not a problem. However, this is questionable as one can accept individual’s limitation in not flying as one does not have wings or aerodynamic shape but to accept that socio-economic deprivations are also limitations in the same sense is unacceptable. Limitations and alterable deprivations must be differentiated which Berlin either overlooks or confuses.

Classical liberal thinkers were concerned with liberty in the sense of liberty to buy bread and were not bothered about whether one has capacity to buy or not. For them, sphere and area of individual action were the main concerns, though they may disagree on how wide the area should be or could be. Different bases for defining scope of this area have been invoked. These include natural law, natural rights, utility, sanctity of social contract or self-regarding actions. While they all, like Locke and Mill in England, Tocqueville and Constant in France, agreed that law could limit area of the individual’s actions, they also argued that a certain minimum area of personal freedom must not be violated. Berlin explains his concept of negative liberty in this classical sense. Thus, defence of liberty consists in a negative goal of warding off interference.

Berlin notes three characteristics of negative liberty. Firstly, all coercion in so far as it frustrates human desires is bad; secondly, the concept of liberty as ‘to be left to oneself’ is modern and individual liberty is not found as a political ideal earlier than the Renaissance or the Reformation; and thirdly, liberty in this sense is principally concerned with the area of control and not with its source (whether the individual himself is the source of liberty or it emanates from being not interfered from outside). Thus, the form of government, autocracy or democracy has no direct relationship with negative liberty. Democracy may deprive individuals of many liberties, while a liberal-minded despot may allow a large measure of personal freedom. Hayek also held Berlin’s view that there is no necessary connection between individual liberty and democratic rule. Berlin is categorical when he says, the connection between democracy and individual liberty is a good deal more tenuous than it seemed to many advocates of both. Berlin differentiates between the questions, ‘who governs me?’ from ‘how government interferes with me?’ negative liberty is concerned with the latter. According to Berlin, liberty is neither related to capacity nor to its condition (poverty, sickness, illiteracy, deprivation) or to its source (democratic or autocratic rule).

Positive liberal thinkers ruefully realized the inadequacy of the negative liberty and argued for capacity to buy as essential for freedom than the mere presence of liberty to buy. For the positive liberals, liberty meant making the best of oneself or realizing one’s own capacity. Adequate conditions of freedom must be provided for enjoying freedom. For Berlin, liberty in a positive sense means answer to the question: what or who is the source of interference or control? Berlin defines liberty in positive sense as ‘being one’s own master’.⁴⁶ This means one’s life and decisions depend on one’s own choices. One wants to be an instrument of one’s own, self-directed, and deciding and to be conscious of oneself as a thinking, willing, active being, bearing responsibility for choices. Berlin holds that being one’s own master (positive liberty) and being not prevented from choosing as I do by other men (negative liberty) are not logically different from each other except saying the same thing in negative and positive ways.

However, it may not always be the case when the two conceptions of liberty coincides. It may be possible that a person is free in the negative sense as being not interfered by others but may be unfree in positive sense as not self-directed, deciding or active-being due to impulsive behaviour, inebriated condition or lack of self-control. Thus, negative and positive liberty may be present or absent at the same time. However, Berlin is very concerned with two aspects of positive liberty, which may lead to interference from the State. Firstly, interpretations of self-mastery by differentiation in the lower and higher self. While the former may be characterized by irrational impulse, uncontrolled desires, immediate pleasure, etc. autonomous self in the moral and creative sense characterizes the latter. It may happen that the State, in the name of making those realize the higher self and come out from the lower self, will justify coercion. This will be coercing others in the name of their own sake. Berlin argues that this is not desirable. Secondly, zeal for providing conditions such as justice, public health and other socio-economic conditions for realizing freedom, may distort the very logic of freedom itself. He differentiates liberty per se from the condition of liberty. He says that in an excessive zeal to create socioeconomic conditions in which it is claimed, real freedom is realized, freedom itself is forgotten. He apprehends that ‘paternalism can provide condition of freedom, yet withhold freedom itself’. He differentiates between freedom as not being coerced or interfered by others from conditions of freedom. He apprehends that once conditions for freedom and justice are invoked, it will lead to state intervention and hence curtailment of individual liberty through coercion and interference.

Berlin depicts positive and negative liberty as if they mean the same thing. But he also contends that liberty per se is concerned only with area or sphere and not with sources or enabling conditions, as that would be inimical to the very concept of liberty. In fact, he somehow suggests that any attempt at viewing liberty in positive sense will lead to intervention and hence restriction on sphere of individual liberty. Critics have pointed out that Berlin’s contention that mere limitations should not be treated as absence of liberty is misplaced. This is because what he calls limitations and seeks analogy of natural limitations such as the individual not flying like an eagle or swimming like a whale, are wrong. There are socio-economic deprivations hence, problem of resource allocation and not limitations. Charles Taylor, Bhikhu Parekh and Crawford Macpherson have criticized Berlin for ignoring conditions as one of the important enabling factor for enjoying liberty.

Charles Taylor maintains that presence or absence of obstacles is important for liberty. However, he suggests that obstacles can be internal as well as external. And liberty cannot simply be interpreted as absence of external obstacles only as negative liberty portrays. Both external obstacles like interference from others and internal obstacles like irrational fear or spite or even too great a need for comfort, are inimical to liberty. He argues: is it sufficient to establish that I am free when I can do what I want? If I follow my strongest desire and do what I want, is it liberty? Taylor, in fact, suggests that freedom should defined as ‘the absence of internal or external obstacle to what I truly or authentically want’. Taylor conceives freedom in terms of self-mastery or self-autonomy free from both external and internal obstacles.

Taking up Berlin’s distinction of negative liberty as an area in which subject/individual should be left without interference and positive liberty as concerned with who or what controls, Taylor differentiates between positive and negative liberty in terms of exercise concept and opportunity concept. According to him, positive freedom is exercising of control over one’s life. One is free to the extent one has effectively determined oneself and the shape of one’s life. On the other hand, negative liberty can rely on the opportunity-concept where one is free to do what one is open to do whether or not one does anything to exercise these options. Thus, negative liberty in terms of opportunity-concept is just there being no obstacle. Positive liberty in terms of exercise-concept requires we discriminate among motivations. Taylor suggests that it is difference in motivations, e.g. irrational fear, etc. that put internal obstacles to freedom. According to Taylor, freedom must be viewed as the ability to fulfil one’s purpose. This, in turn, requires being able to recognize adequately one’s important purposes and also being able to overcome or neutralize motivational fetters as well as being free of external obstacles. Thus, Taylor feels that freedom cannot be based on absence of external obstacles alone as Berlin and others say.

Bhikhu Parekh poses this question: what would be Berlin’s answer, if one individual said that lack of means was the result of social arrangements and hence amounted to interference by others. Berlin would say, this relates to condition for enjoying liberty and is not liberty per se. Macpherson has also criticized Berlin for differentiating positive and negative liberty in such a way that it revolves round the negative view and ignores the role of impediments such as lack of access to means of life and labour. Berlin’s view on positive liberty is not the same as we have discussed in a positive liberal sense. It goes without saying that for liberty to be meaningful, it is not enough to have formally unlimited opportunity or choice, but it should also be effectively unlimited in conditions. While negative liberty is a guarantee for absence of obstacles or unwanted restraints, positive liberty is insurance for removal of constraints that impede enjoyment of choices. Berlin either misses or overlooks this aspect.

Milton Friedman, a neo-liberal, who defines liberty in terms of a competitive market economy, equates liberty or freedom with economic freedom, which means freedom of choice in the market place—freedom of the producer what to produce and whom to employ, freedom of the consumer what to buy, freedom of the worker to choose a job or profession.⁴⁷ Economic freedom is found only in free market capitalist economies and freedom stands for absence of government’s interference. His book Capitalism and Freedom (1962) and Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (1980) cover the theme of economic freedom. Friedman’s contention is that economic freedom is not merely a component of freedom, rather a prerequisite of it. Thus, freedom effectively means presence of economic freedom and a vital condition of political freedom.

He defines freedom as ‘absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men’. This means the individual is not to be restrained, interfered with or face obstacles in performing one’s activities. Given the fact that economic freedom and free-competitive to capitalist-market economy are vital, as corollary of this, it is easy for Friedman to say that market must have a larger sphere of activity so that sphere of freedom is enlarged. There should be minimal interference from the state as sphere of freedom lies not in the state but in the market. Friedman allows role to the state only to sustain and supplement market.

Friedman suggests that free-competitive to capitalist-market economy promotes liberal society in two ways: (i) freedom of private enterprise and private initiative being a component of the broader concept of freedom, economic freedom is an end in itself, and (ii) free-competitive to capitalist-market economy and economic freedom ‘promotes political freedom because it separates economic power and political power and thus enables the one to offset the other’. While Plato wanted to marry philosophy and power, Friedman seeks to divorce power and money.

Friedman forces us to accept two inescapable conclusions: (i) political freedom is dependent upon economic freedom and economic freedom is inseparable from free-competitive to capitalist-market economy and (ii) the history of growth of political freedom is the history of development of capitalist institutions. Friedman’s conclusions are far-fetched and partial. What he calls free-capitalist to market economy is based on separation between capital and labour. Macpherson suggests that labour having no capital of its won enjoys no ‘choice’ compared to one who has capital. We can say that Friedman equates choice of a capitalist with choice of a worker. What a pity! Further, as the whole production process is beyond the worker, it does not allow him to engage creatively. Many thinkers and writers, especially Herbert Marcuse, have dealt with alienating and dehumanizing the effect perceived as inbuilt in the capitalist system. Given these circumstances, what Friedman advocates as freedom of choice in a capitalist economy, turns out to be freedom of capitalists.

Robert Nozick, in the tradition of Adam Smith, Herbert Spencer, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, is a staunch libertarian. In his book, Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974), Nozick has developed a form of libertarianism, which combines defence for the realm of negative liberty of the individual with the concept of inviolable property right. Nozick developed his arguments in response to the ideas of John Rawls contained in his book A Theory of Justice (1971) which argued for distributive justice based on the equality principle.

Nozick seeks to protect the realm of individual liberty so much that Nozick warns against governments coercing citizens even for their own good or protection. In this, Mill’s influence on Nozick is visible. Mill says that a person’s own good, either physical or moral is not a sufficient warrant for interference. Nozick goes further and asserts that the state may not be justified in compelling people to help others. This implies that the state should not tax people or take away their earned property in the name of welfare redistribution or justice or equality. This position of Nozick is important for not only arguing for a minimalist state but also from the point of view of the inviolability of property.

Nozick supports Lockean’s principle of inviolable property rights. Locke maintained that property is created by adding value by a person or on his behalf by someone else (this aptly covers value of property created by paid labour). Being part of natural rights, whatever property one acquires becomes an inviolable part of property rights. Nozick defends inviolable property rights by arguing on the basis of what he calls, ‘entitlement theory’ of justice. According to this, the principle of distribution should be ‘from each according to what he chooses to do, to each according to what he makes for himself (perhaps with the contracted aid of others) and what others choose to do for him and choose to give him what they’ve been given previously … and haven’t yet expended or transferred’. Thus, Nozick fully covers the Lockean premise of property and its possession. There should not be any redistribution except by market process. Nozick upholds property rights justly acquired or transferred by others. Clearly, this is a statement of defending the individual’s liberty in acquiring and possessing property without being interfered for giving it away or part of it in the name of, welfare, distributive justice or taxation. This, in turn, implies minimal state and refutation of any basis of welfare state.

Nozick has sought to refute Rawls’s philosophical justification of neo-welfarism and redistribution. Rawls, considered an equalitarian liberal, has sought to justify welfare state on individualist assumptions. According to Rawls, social and economic inequalities are to be so arranged that they be reasonably to everyone’s advantage and inequalities are allowed when this will lead to greater benefit and long-term prospect of the least advantaged. Nozick shows no such concern and argues for non-interference by the state in a market-based process. He holds that all inequalities of wealth and power are due to individual differences in talents and efforts and this should not be removed or reduced by interference. He also advocates an ultra-minimalist state and supports that even protection should be provided to those who can purchase it the market. He favours only maintenance of peace and the security of persons and property and enforcement of contract as the end of the state and nothing beyond this.

Nozick presents an extreme position of right-based libertarian justice. However, one can say that even capitalist states do not exactly follow or are expected to follow such a vision of ultra-minimal state. Despite, the welfare and interventionist state having been hurled with the placard of ‘roll back the state’ and been Thatcherized and Reaganized, it has not come down to what Nozick prescribes.

In the twentieth century, a few more writers and theorists have supported negative freedom and have argued against the state. A. J. Nock in his book Our Enemy the State (1950) has criticized the power of the state as if it has been arrogated from society. The state having no original power should not interfere in the sphere of society and individual. Michael Oakeshott also in his Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (1962)⁴⁸ argues for a minimal state. He rejects ‘collectivism’ as an enemy of free society, as Popper would term Plato, Hegel and Marx as enemies of an open society. Oakeshott holds that freedom can exist only in an unregulated competitive society and collectivism stands for a managed society. Rejection of power and authority of the state is a pointer to the extent that the State does not interfere and individual liberty is safeguarded. It is a concept of negative liberty.