The Online Library of Liberty

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• Associate Editors
• Editorial
• Bibliographic Essay: Forrest Mcdonald, a Founding Father's Library
• Bibliographic Essay: Murray N. Rothbard, Modern Historians Confront the American Revolution
• I: Paradigms of Freedom
• Conflicting Paradigms
• Paradigms As Procrustes' Bed
• Interest and Ambition
• Thesis and Antithesis
• Freedom and Authority
• Sin and Society
• Autonomy and Authority
• Virtue and Status
• Utility and Progress
• Diversity and Equality
• II: Nonspontaneous Order
• State Vs Society
• The Therapeutic State
• Order and Elites
• Order and Virtue
• Self-perfection
• Socialism and Freedom
• Market Socialism
• Centralism Vs Decentralism
• Voluntary Servitude
• Authority and Obedience
• Social Control
• Power and Ideology
• Hegemony
• III: Spontaneous Order
• Freedom and Knowledge
• The Case For Government
• The Case Against Government
• Community Vs. State
• State and Morality
• Freedom and Creativity
• Order Without State
• IV: Individual and Social Good
• The Right to Privacy
• Autonomy and Psychiatry
• Personal Choice
• Individuals, Groups, and States
• Social Dynamics
• Social Engineering
• Individuals and Groups
• Personal Vs. Social Goods
• Individual Rationality
• Self-interest and Social Good
• Self-interest Vs. Slavery
• Art and Autonomy
• Radical Individualism
• V: Ethics, Rights, and Freedom
• Objective Values
• Natural Law
• Preambles to Freedom
• Social Sciences and Values
• Reason and Change
• Reason and Choice
• Economics and Values
• Legal Naturalism
• Justice As Restitution
• Justice As Punishment
• Rights and Contract
• Virtue In the Market
• Justice Under Capitalism
• Profits and Choice
• Social Framework and Prosperity
• Ecology and Rights
• Business' Social Ethics
• VI: Equality
• Problems With Inequality
• Equality, Power, and Values
• Unequal Income
• Equal Opportunity
• Equal Liberty
• Equality of Condition
• The Egalitarian State
• Sexual Equality
• VII: Power
• Empire, Equality, and Envy
• Imperial Presidency
• Empire and Inflation
• Watergate As a Symptom of Empire
• The Pragmatic Presidency
• “absolute Power” and Corruption
• VIII: Planning Vs. Choice
• Origins of Planning
• Bureaucratic Growth
• Prediction and Control
• Government Planning
• Government Experts
• Useless Usury Laws
• Wartime Regulation
• Government Inflation
• Neomercantilism
• Compulsory Schooling
• Planning In Nonprofit Agencies
• Private Capital and Education
• Choice and Spontaneous Order

Socialism and Freedom

Connolly, William E.

• University of Massachusetts

“A Note on Freedom Under Socialism.” Political Theory (USA), 5 (1977): 461–471.

Socialists, before attempting to refute it, must recognize the cogency of the classical liberal attack upon the irreconcilability of socialism and freedom.

Criticism of socialism advanced by classical liberals such as Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek can be surmounted. However, the contentions that socialism and freedom cannot be reconciled should be seriously entertained. When these antisocialist assaults are combined with similar conclusions reached by socialists such as Frank Parkin—that “equality requires socialism and equalitarian socialism seems to require the suppression of civil liberties”—such arguments present a devastating attack upon socialism, if they are correct.

Initially, one can reject the two typical ploys by which socialists attempt to deflect the attack upon socialism as incompatible with freedom. The first ploy contends that it is invalid to cite communist states to support the antisocialist argument; in reality unique historical circumstances prevented them from establishing a regime compatible with freedom. The second ploy counterclaims that the freedom judged to be irreconcilable with socialism is not freedom at all; in reality this “freedom” is an atomistic, bourgeois notion. As regards the first point, even if this were true, it still fails to demonstrate that under more favorable historical circumstances, a socialist regime tolerating freedom could and would have been instituted. On the second point, one can dismiss the “positive freedom” position because it sanctions a slave or conformist mentality.

Three requirements seem necessary for an ideal of freedom appropriate to socialist aspirations: 1) social relations must embody mutual respect so that each individual can develop as a social being and “obey oneself” while responding to shared norms and objectives; 2) each citizen must have options available to carve out his own life; and 3) each must be encouraged to attain self-consciousness. The second requirement necessitates a free interchange of ideas, some autonomy for education, and protection for dissenters. A further difficulty in reconciling socialism and freedom is the problem of identifying local communal interests. Under socialism how can the individual always identify his own interests with the nation as a whole? That is, how can citizens come to identify themselves with the state without the persuasion of repression?

The solution for the socialist is to reformulate the socialist ideal so as to include the three mentioned conditions required for socialist freedom. Such a reconstruction would be founded upon partially autonomous work places and local community control within the nation state. Voluntary consent by citizens to national objectives would follow from this local autonomy. Other institutional arrangements would include local control of schools and publications. These local arrangements would exercise some independence from state control (maybe even a “modest market sector,” here), possess an independent judiciary, and guarantee the right of workers to strike. Thus, the socialist's solution to the antisocialist challenge of Friedman and Hayek is to synthesize socialist aspirations with liberal constitutional restraints.