Concerning Freedoms - Page 2

liberty, and a
general permission may diminish it. It does not follow, as these
people would have us believe, that a man is more free where there is
least law and more restricted where there is most law. A socialism
or a communism is not necessarily a slavery, and there is no freedom
under Anarchy. Consider how much liberty we gain by the loss of the
common liberty to kill. Thereby one may go to and fro in all the
ordered parts of the earth, unencumbered by arms or armour, free of
the fear of playful poison, whimsical barbers, or hotel trap-doors.
Indeed, it means freedom from a thousand fears and precautions.
Suppose there existed even the limited freedom to kill in
vendetta, and think what would happen in our suburbs. Consider the
inconvenience of two households in a modern suburb estranged and
provided with modern weapons of precision, the inconvenience not
only to each other, but to the neutral pedestrian, the practical
loss of freedoms all about them. The butcher, if he came at all,
would have to come round in an armoured cart....

It follows, therefore, in a modern Utopia, which finds the
final hope of the world in the evolving interplay of unique
individualities, that the State will have effectually chipped away
just all those spendthrift liberties that waste liberty, and not
one liberty more, and so have attained the maximum general freedom.

There are two distinct and contrasting methods of limiting liberty;
the first is Prohibition, "thou shalt not," and the second Command,
"thou shalt." There is, however, a sort of prohibition that takes
the form of a conditional command, and this one needs to bear in
mind. It says if you do so-and-so, you must also do so-and-so; if,
for example, you go to sea with men you employ, you must go in a
seaworthy vessel. But the pure command is unconditional; it says,
whatever you have done or are doing or want to do, you are to
do this, as when the social system, working through the base
necessities of base parents and bad laws, sends a child of thirteen
into a factory. Prohibition takes one definite thing from the
indefinite liberty of a man, but it still leaves him an unbounded
choice of actions. He remains free, and you have merely taken a
bucketful from the sea of his freedom. But compulsion destroys
freedom altogether. In this Utopia of ours there may be many
prohibitions, but no indirect compulsions--if one may so contrive
it--and few or no commands. As far as I see it now, in this present
discussion, I think, indeed, there should be no positive compulsions
at all in Utopia, at any rate for the adult Utopian--unless they
fall upon him as penalties incurred.

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Section 2.

What prohibitions should we be