Freedom vs Liberty

No more running down the wrong road
Dancing to a different drum
Can't you see what's going on
Deep inside your heart
--Michael McDonald

Interesting discussion of differences between the words "freedom" and "liberty." Like the author, I tend to use the words interchangeably. Also like the author, my sense is that liberty more precisely captures the essence of unencumbered pursuit of one's interests.

He uses the example of FDR's "Four Freedoms" speech, which became the basis for FDR's proposed Economic Bill of Rights, to demonstrate the imprecise nature of the word freedom. Freedom of speech and freedom of religion can be enjoyed universally, as one person's exercise of these freedoms does not impede others from doing so. The sole role of government here is to help people defend against unwanted intrusion by others.

Freedom from want, however, cannot be enjoyed universally. Because of axiomatic scarcity of earthly resources, reducing some peoples' want for goods and services requires that other peoples' freedom to acquire goods and services must be restrained. For some people to become more free of want, others must become less free of want. Government's role here is an offensive one--forcibly intruding on the interests of some to advance the interests of others.

Over time, the concepts of negative and positive freedom have been developed to capture these very different meanings of freedom.

Liberty, on the other hand, has maintained a relatively high degree of fidelity in its meaning. Mises said it as well as anyone: liberty is freedom from government--i.e., freedom from the power of rulers to intrude on individual interests.

This is the context in which liberty is used by the founders. When Patrick Henry famously proclaimed, "Give me liberty or give me death," he was not talking about liberty as freedom from want.

He was talking about liberty as freedom to pursue his wants unencumbered by government interference.