The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Associate Editors
• Editorial
• Bibliographical Essay: Economics and Ideology: Aspects of the Post-ricardian Literature
• I: Political Economy
• The Classical Model of Political Economy
• Modernization, Ideology, and Economic Freedom
• Individualism Vs. Collectivism?
• The Industrial Revolution and Literacy
• Parliamentary Enclosure and Uprooted Labor
• Smith's Critique of Monopoly
• Ricardo and the “dual Development”
• Ricardo On Money
• Inflation and Political Crisis: Germany
• Inflation and Unemployment
• Government and Inflation: the Mccracken Report
• II: Concepts of Liberty
• Liberty and Its Components
• Is the Right to Freedom Vacuuous?
• Liberty, Slavery, and Utilitarianism
• Individualism, Freedom, and Society
• Liberty and Habeas Corpus
• Should Britain Have a Bill of Rights?
• Locke, Women, and Freedom
• Locke, Women, Freedom, and Individualism
• Locke, Property, and Individualism
• Children, Freedom, and Individualism
• Liberty and Mental Illness
• Sismondi and Liberty
• Mill: On Liberty
• Mill, Freedom, and Happiness
• Freedom of Speech and Moral Development
• Freedom In Kant, Hegel, and Marx
• Marx, Freedom, and Property
• Neoconservatives, Liberty, and Equality
• Freedom: the Politics of Justice and Existence
• Liberty and the American Revolution
• American Libertarians
• III: Economics and Public Policy
• How Economics Influences Political Theory
• Why Democracies Choose Deficits
• Inflation and the Welfare State
• Monetarism and the Depression
• Asian Monetary History: Gold & Silver
• Specie Money Vs. Antibullionists
• Inflation Effects On Capital
• Consumption of Public Health Services
• Factory Regulation and Vested Interests
• Poverty Programs and Government
• The Costs of Regulating Market Information
• Rent Regulation
• Engels On Economics
• IV: Social Analysis
• The Depoliticization of Society
• Is Philosophy Politically Subversive?
• Plato's Republic As a Political Dystopia
• Cicero and Modern Political Philosophy
• The Roman Jurist Gaius and Social Thought
• The Myth of Social Hierarchy
• Contract and Political Thought
• Private Vs. Public: the Domain of Freedom
• Montaigne and the Value of Tolerance
• Commerce, Utility, Character, and Republicanism
• Quintin Skinner and Western Political Thought
• Public Choice
• Editorial Board
• Contents of Vol. 33 No. 2
• Contents of Vol. 33 No. 3

Liberty and Its Components

W. E. Draughton

• State University of New York College at Utica/Rome

“Liberty: A Proposed Analysis.” Social Theory and Practice 5 (Fall 1978) 29–44.

In 1955, Harvard scholar Lon L. Fuller observed that “the concept of freedom has been undergoing a progressive deterioration and dissipation of meaning.” Varying definitions of “liberty,” each emphasizing a particular aspect of human experience, have confused and debased this term. We need to revitalize the concept of liberty to solve policy problems.

In formulating his definition, Draughton expressly eliminates the notion of “categorical freedom,” in which a person is either free or not free. Instead, he favors the idea of “comparative freedom” or “degrees of freedom.” This relative view of liberty allows for a large number of interacting components, rather than the single litmus test to determine whether one is free.

One such component is choice. The more alternatives and choices, the more freedom. The notion of “option demand” in urban economics demonstrates that persons are actually willing to pay in order to widen the number of choices to the greatest degree possible. In general, people are more free as the number of acceptable options increases and the number of closed ones diminishes.

Another component in the definition of liberty is utility, which depends directly upon the values of the person who is choosing. In general, a person is more free the greater the positive utility of each open alternative and the smaller the positive utility of each closed alternative. Thus, classic “approach-approach” conflicts are situations of low freedom, since making one choice also involves eliminating another choice of high utility. Degrees of utility can serve as a useful measure of the degree of freedom in a situation. Thus, a person faced with a choice of exile or hanging will feel less free than the same person having to choose between being transferred or fired.

The availability of resources (material and nonmaterial) also affect the level of one's freedom. A person making a decision on the basis of insufficient or inaccurate information experiences a limitation of resources directly relevant to his liberty. Mental and physical abilities, health, and monetary resources, all affect one's capacity to carry out decisions.

Social context is also a strong influence upon one's liberty to choose and to act. The socialization process in a particular culture, the benevolence or hostility of persons in one's environment, a precarious or secure outlook for the future—all these social factors influence the individual's faculty of choice.

Professor Draughton envisions extensive policy implications for his comparative concept of freedom. The question of what constitutes a just distribution of liberty arises since freedom now admits of limits. Thus, future public policy will aim at a general raising of the level of liberty and of the justice of its distribution.