Liberty and Property.pdf - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

Liberty and Property 37system that is called laissez-faire, and whichFerdinand Lassalle dubbed as the nightwatchmanstate, there is freedom becausethere is a field in which individuals are freeto plan for themselves.The socialists must admit there cannotbe any freedom under a socialist system. Butthey try to obliterate the difference betweenthe servile state and economic freedom bydenying that there is any freedom in themutual exchange of commodities and serviceson the market. Every market exchangeis, in the words of a school of pro-socialistlawyers, “a coercion over other people’sliberty.” There is, in their eyes, no differenceworth mentioning between a man’s payinga tax or a fine imposed by a magistrate,or his buying a newspaper or admission toa movie. In each of these cases the man issubject to governing power. He’s not free,for, as professor Hale says, a man’s freedommeans “the absence of any obstacle to his