Liberty and Property.pdf - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

38Liberty and Propertyuse of material goods.” This means: I amnot free, because a woman who has knitteda sweater, perhaps as a birthday present forher husband, puts an obstacle to my usingit. I myself am restricting all other people’sfreedom because I object to their using mytoothbrush. In doing this I am, according tothis doctrine, exercising private governingpower, which is analogous to public governmentpower, the powers that the governmentexercises in imprisoning a man in Sing Sing.Those expounding this amazing doctrineconsistently conclude that liberty isnowhere to be found. They assert that whatthey call economic pressures do not essentiallydiffer from the pressures the masterspractice with regard to their slaves.They reject what they call private governmentalpower, but they don’t object to therestriction of liberty by public governmentpower. They want to concentrate all whatRobert L. Hale, Freedom Through Law, Public Control of PrivateGoverning Power (New York: Columbia University, 1952),pp. 4 ff.