Excerpt from Economic Liberty

This book consists of a series of essays. They are grouped together under one title because they are all inspired with one purpose - the desire to defend economic liberty against the attacks made upon it by men and women who think that they can secure progress by various schemes for curtailing freedom. In reality the path these professed reformers are treading leads downwards, not upwards. Without liberty there can be no enterprise, and without enterprise there can be no progress. Liberty can be abused, but it is the business of the community to prevent the abuse, not to destroy the liberty. The real test to be applied is whether the individual is injuring others by the use he makes of his own liberty. If so he must be restrained. But it does not follow that in all cases the best form of restraint is the employment of the power of the State. That power may legitimately be used to repress the cruder forms of wrong-doing such as murder, or highway robbery, or the sale of adulterated goods, or the acceptance of secret commissions. But the methods of the State are not, and never can be, elastic enough to deal with the ever-varying complexities of social life. Therefore it is better wherever possible to look to the persuasive power of the individual conscience rather than to the coercive power of the State.

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