ll men, since
man is a social creature, the play of will must fall short of
absolute freedom. Perfect human liberty is possible only to a
despot who is absolutely and universally obeyed. Then to will
would be to command and achieve, and within the limits of
natural law we could at any moment do exactly as it pleased us
to do. All other liberty is a compromise between our own
freedom of will and the wills of those with whom we come in
contact. In an organized state each one of us has a more or
less elaborate code of what he may do to others and to
himself, and what others may do to him. He limits others by
his rights and is limited by the rights of others, and by
considerations affecting the welfare of the community as a
whole.

"Individual liberty in a community is not, as mathematicians
would say, always of the same sign. To ignore this is the
essential fallacy of the cult called Individualism. But in
truth, a general prohibition in a State may increase the sum
of liberty, and a general permission may diminish it. It does
not follow, as these people would have us believe, that a man
is more free where there is least law, and more restricted
where there is most law. A socialism or a communism is not
necessarily a slavery, and there is no freedom under
anarchy....

"It follows, therefore, in a modern Utopia, which finds the
final hope of the world in the evolving interplay of unique
individualities, that the State will have effectually chipped
away just all those spendthrift liberties that waste liberty,
and not one liberty more, and so have attained the maximum
general freedom."...

That is the gist of the Socialist's answer to this accusation. He asks
what freedom is there to-day for the vast majority of mankind? They
are free to do nothing but work for a bare subsistence all their
lives, they may not go freely about the earth even, but are prosecuted
for trespassing upon the health-giving breast of our universal mother.
Consider the clerks and girls who hurry to their work of a morning
across Brooklyn Bridge in New York, or Hungerford Bridge in London; go
and see them, study their faces. They are free, with a freedom
Socialism would destroy. Consider the poor painted girls who pursue
bread with nameless indignities through our streets at night. They are
free by the current standard. And the poor ha