_{Štěpán Drábek is a young Czech economist and commentator. Since August 2024 he has been the head of the analytical team of ECONET, the association of winners of the Economics Olympiad. He is also an analyst at the Centre for Economic and Market Analysis (CETA) as well as at the Institute of Liberal Studies. In his spare time, he translates essential economic writings (primarily by Austrian School economists) and popularizes economic science. He is the author of the project Economics Simply (“Ekonomie Jednoduše”), which aims to increase the economic literacy of students in the Czech Republic. He is the laureate of several economic and scientific prizes for high school students, including the Prize of the Learned Society of the Czech Republic, which brings together the most prominent scientists in the country.}

Abstract

The concept of freedom has long been acknowledged as a cornerstone of civilization, yet its significance is often questioned in times of crisis or when faced with the pressures of expediency. F. A. Hayek, a prominent economist and philosopher, emphasizes the precarious nature of freedom in society. His work argues that the preservation of individual liberty is not simply a means to other ends but an end in itself, an essential value that forms the foundation of human progress. This essay explores Hayek’s views on freedom, its limitations, and its crucial role in maintaining social order, while highlighting the dangers of sacrificing liberty for particular ends.

The Battle for the Meaning of Freedom in a Shifting World

The freedom to act according to one’s own goals and intentions is a fundamental value in every civilization that has ever developed. Yet, it is a fragile virtue whose universal importance is frequently questioned. Indeed, whenever the conflict between freedom and coercion becomes a matter of expediency, freedom yields. However, prioritizing expediency over adherence to the general principles that individuals in society often follow unconsciously in their conduct inevitably destroys freedom and with it, the entirety of civilization. For this reason, advocates of liberty must often be uncompromising in their arguments, treating individual liberty not as a means to other ends, however noble, but as an end in itself.

It is revealing that, although few would openly deny the value of freedom or its importance to society, there is rarely unanimous agreement on what the term actually means. Nearly everyone claims to support freedom, yet their definitions of the concept often differ significantly. As Charles Louis Montesquieu aptly observed, “there is no word that admits of more various significations and has made more varied impressions on the human mind, than that of liberty.”

Compounding this issue, even among leading social theorists, no clear consensus exists regarding the definition of freedom. Liberal philosophers such as David Hume, Immanuel Kant, John Locke, and Adam Ferguson have argued that freedom and law are mutually dependent, each necessitating the other. By contrast, French thinkers, modern legal positivists, and figures like Thomas Hobbes and Jeremy Bentham have contended that law is an obstacle to the full realization of freedom, even asserting that the two are inherently incompatible. The Polish philosopher Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz similarly notes that the term philosophy, much like freedom, has never acquired a sufficiently unambiguous definition that most people could agree upon at any given time.

The vagueness of the term freedom does not merely pose semantic or abstract challenges. As George Orwell clearly demonstrated, the meaning of the word freedom is often among the first victims of state propaganda in totalitarian regimes. F. A. Hayek, in The Road to Serfdom, writes that “few traits of totalitarian regimes are at the same time so confusing to the superficial observer and yet so characteristic of the whole intellectual climate as the complete perversion of language, the change of meaning of the words by which the ideals of the new regimes are expressed.” He stresses that freedom, above all, suffers most in this respect. This is because, wherever freedom has been undermined and destroyed, it has often been done in the name of some new freedom promised to the people by the regime. Confucius’s assertion that when words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom is strikingly applicable here, though one could also argue the inverse, that the suppression of freedom may precede the deterioration of language.

How Limits Preserve True Freedom

In this essay, we adopt a negative conception of freedom, defining it as a framework delineated by boundaries that cannot be crossed, ensuring that the extent of this sphere is equal for all individuals. Adam Ferguson captures this idea succinctly: “Liberty or Freedom is not, as the origin of the name may seem to imply, an exemption from all restraints, but rather the most effectual applications of every just restraint to all members of a free society, whether they be magistrates or subjects.” The highest attainable level of freedom for all members of society can only be achieved by uniformly limiting individual freedoms according to general principles, what Hayek calls “abstract rules”, that prevent anyone’s sphere of freedom from being violated by coercion or violence.

Full freedom of action is unattainable at the societal level, as the diverse intentions of individuals would inevitably clash, resulting in constant conflicts, disputes, and strife. Such persistent collisions would undermine even the smallest degree of cooperation within society, rendering smooth coordination of individual plans impossible.

If freedom is understood as the ability to pursue one’s own ends, it can only be secured for everyone by establishing clear boundaries that define an equally wide field of freedom for all individuals. These boundaries must take the form of prohibitions, preventing actions that jeopardize the maintenance of what Adam Smith termed the “great society” and Hayek referred to as the “extended order of human cooperation.” When individuals’ legitimate plans are arbitrarily prevented by others, the functioning of such a society is inevitably harmed. However, where the abstract rules that uphold this order impose no prohibitions, individuals are free to act according to their own will.

At the heart of these boundaries lies the institution of property rights, which grants specific individuals the authority to manage specific resources. As John Locke and Lord Acton, among others, have noted, property rights are foundational to the development of every known civilization. Hayek writes: “[Property] serves as much the interest of those who at the moment own no property as that of those who do, since the development of the whole order of actions on which modern civilization depends was made possible only by the institution of property.” In another chapter of Law, Legislation and Liberty, Hayek aptly argues that “law, liberty, and property are an inseparable trinity.”

Since the government is uniquely positioned to enforce property rights effectively, it can be said that individuals are free to the extent that the government to which they are subject is powerful enough to protect them. At the same time, this freedom exists only insofar as governmental power is sufficiently constrained to prevent its abuse. Without such constraints, government power could be used to oppress citizens rather than to amplify their freedom.

Freedom and Foreseeability

A defining characteristic of freedom praised by its advocates but often criticized by those who, whether avowedly or covertly, deny or fail to recognize its benefits is its capacity to generate countless opportunities, producing outcomes beyond the imagination of any single mind. Some appreciate this adaptability to unknown circumstances, which enables society to utilize dispersed knowledge that no single entity can fully grasp. Others, however, view this unpredictability, intrinsic to the spontaneous order of a free society, as a drawback. For them, the uncertainty arising from others’ freedom can undermine their plans, as unexpected changes in external circumstances disrupt the expectations on which those plans are based.

The notion that all harm caused by the unforeseen consequences of others’ actions on individual intentions can be eliminated is, however, an illusion. Such a state could only be achieved by denying all individuals any freedom to act, as every action inevitably produces effects unforeseen by others. Ironically, the process of adapting to random changes, guided by newly acquired knowledge, results in greater overall predictability within the social order. This occurs even though individuals cannot align all actions with the prior expectations of others, a goal rendered impossible by the frequent conflicts between those expectations. While some actions may be predictable to others, this partial predictability would come at the cost of less predictability in the broader outcomes of the system as a whole.

The ability to pursue one’s intentions using maximum available knowledge fosters the spontaneous coordination of individual plans, ensuring smoother functionality of the social order. Without this capacity, the result is not a world of certainty but rather chaos and dysfunction. Such dysfunction arises from the system’s diminished ability to respond to sudden changes, which can never be fully suppressed. These changes can only be mitigated when individuals adapt effectively, aided by a social order capable of rapidly gathering and disseminating the most relevant information. This dynamic allows individuals to adjust their decisions to changes that may not yet be directly known to them, ensuring the best possible responses.

Hayek’s central thesis, recurrent throughout his works, is that only a decentralized system can effectively utilize the knowledge of particular circumstances that is dispersed in society. In small, primitive groups, cooperation among members can occur when all share identical knowledge of the circumstances. Advanced civilizations, however, rely on the distribution of knowledge among individuals, allowing society to harness a far greater pool of information than any single person could ever possess. According to Hayek, much of civilization’s progress stems from the ability of individuals to benefit from knowledge they do not personally possess.

It is through spontaneous coordination, neither planned nor directed by any single authority, but achieved through adherence to abstract rules, that critical information reaches decision-makers, enabling their actions to align with those of others. This process, whereby individuals account for circumstances known only to others yet essential to their own success, ultimately allows for the fulfillment of a vastly greater number of individual preferences. While economics has long highlighted the advantages of the division of labor, a concept dating back to Adam Smith, Hayek uniquely emphasized the equally vital benefits of the division of knowledge within society.

Hayek’s Vision of a Flourishing Society

Perhaps no one has more succinctly expressed the thesis common to all collectivist ideologies against which, due to its fundamental incompatibility with freedom, we must define ourselves than Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. He said: “A thousand goals have there been so far, for a there have been a thousand peoples. Only the yoke for the thousand necks is still lacking; there is lacking the one goal. Humanity still has no goal. But pray tell me, my brothers, if the goal of humanity is still lacking, is humanity itself – not also lacking?” This statement highlights that in a society where each person’s actions are guided by their own hierarchy of goals, the decisions of its members are not subject to any universally determined set of values at the societal level. This is indeed true. As Hayek wrote, “individual freedom cannot be reconciled with the supremacy of one single purpose to which the whole society must be entirely and permanently subordinated.” However, according to Zarathustra, the absence of a unifying goal means that such a community is entirely devoid of meaning.

The truth, however, is that the development of civilization did not begin with the authoritative declaration of unified goals, but rather with the application of rules of conduct that allowed individuals to pursue their own purposes in a manner that did not harm others by frustrating their expectations, which were legitimately derived from a correct understanding of these rules. It became crucial for each individual to adhere to these rules because the achievement of any one person’s goals ultimately depends on the cooperation of all members of society in following them. Not only may the specific goals of various individuals differ, but it is not even necessary for these individuals to explicitly know or describe the rules in their exact form. What is required is simply the knowledge of how to act in a way that respects these rules.

These rules were initially applied not because their specific purposes were known in advance, but because the groups that adhered to them tended to dominate those that followed different customs and principles. As a result, individuals from these weaker groups were drawn into communities governed by more effective rules. However, the members of these successful groups often did not know which specific features of their rules contributed to their success over other groups and therefore not consciously cultivate these features further to ensure the community’s continued growth. These rules evolved through a process of natural selection, as groups adopted behaviors that enabled them to thrive.

Since the kind of order, we have described, emerged spontaneously, and was not consciously created by any one mind, it cannot be said to serve a purpose in the way we usually think of purpose in relation to individual actions. As Hayek argues, the most we can say is that such an order rests on the “purposive action of its elements, when ‘purpose’ would, of course, mean nothing more than that their actions tend to secure the preservation or restoration of that order.” The purpose of such a social order, therefore, is not to serve specific, predetermined goals, but rather to allow individuals to pursue their own objectives without harming others. The fact that such an order serves purposes that were unknown in advance is not its downfall, but rather its greatest strength. It is this very characteristic that allows the order to develop and expand at a rate unmatched by any other social system.

Why Compromising Freedom Undermines Society

A latent distrust or resistance to freedom can often be seen in the desire, widespread among certain technical experts, for the most direct path to achieving specific goals. When these experts fail to accomplish what, from their perspective, would be beneficial for society as a whole in their field of expertise, they may revolt against an order in which their technical ideals, so important to them, are not prioritized over other objectives. Indeed, any such technical ideal might be achievable in a relatively short time, provided it becomes humanity’s central mission. However, a free society is defined by the freedom of individuals to choose their own goals, with no hierarchy of purposes that must be prioritized over others.

The specialist often views the world through a narrow lens, seeing only what is immediately relevant to his specific focus. This leads him to overestimate the importance of his own goals, based on his technical ideals, while simultaneously downplaying the perspectives of others and disregarding the plurality of different Weltanschaung. The fact that pursuing his goals to the extent he desires would necessarily come at the expense of frustrating the equally legitimate aims of others does not seem to concern him, as he views those other goals as inferior. As Hayek aptly points out regarding this insidious feature of specialization, “that these things cannot all be done at the same time, that anyone of them can be achieved only at the sacrifice of others, can be seen only by taking into account factors which fall outside any specialism, which can be appreciated only by a painful intellectual effort (…)”

Those who prefer to pursue specific goals over following the general principles that safeguard freedom are often easily seduced by the supposed benefits of central planning, which promises them a society where their goals are placed at the highest priority. According to Hayek, our natural inclinations often mirror those of specialists, who believe that our personal values are not merely individual but that, in a rational discussion, we could easily convince others that our view is the correct one. In reality, however, the intentions of different people are often completely contradictory, and central planning only exposes and magnifies the conflicts between individual goals. As Hayek also writes, “there can be no doubt that planning necessarily involves deliberate discrimination between particular needs of different people, and allowing one man to do what another must be prevented from doing.”

There is no greater injustice than when certain needs are systematically ignored, not due to the action of “impersonal forces” or circumstances beyond control, but because these needs are deliberately overlooked by the arbitrary decisions of the planning authority. The fact that blindness was one of the attributes of the goddess of justice in ancient civilizations was no accident; when formulating social rules, no one should be able to predict which individuals will benefit from them and which, in contrast, will be harmed by their application.

The Sisyphean Struggle to Defend Freedom

According to Hayek, who aptly summarizes the idea in the title of one of the chapters of Law, Legislation and Liberty, “freedom can be preserved only by following principles and is destroyed by following expediency.” In the conflict between liberty and expediency, liberty is always at a disadvantage. This is because we can rarely know the full extent of what we sacrifice when we relinquish our freedom of choice in a particular area. As a result, we tend to underestimate the losses that come from eliminating the unforeseen beneficial effects that liberty fosters. Since the essence of freedom is that we cannot predict or fully understand where it will lead individuals, we can never truly be aware of the harm that arises when it is sacrificed to some goal. Hayek argues that “if the choice between freedom and coercion is thus treated as a matter of expediency, freedom is bound to be sacrificed in almost every instance.”

The reason liberty is such a fragile value and why the free order of society is so difficult to maintain over time is that it requires the constant rejection of measures needed to achieve specific objectives, measures that conflict with the general rules that uphold social order. The challenge is further compounded by the fact that we cannot always predict the exact form the negative consequences of disregarding these rules will take in individual cases.

Finally, it seems fitting to conclude with Hayek’s concise words: “A successful defence of freedom must therefore be dogmatic and make no concessions to expediency, even where it is not possible to show that, besides the known beneficial effects, some particular harmful result would also follow from its infringement. Freedom will prevail only if it is accepted as a general principle whose application to particular instances requires no justification.”

Concluding remarks

A. Hayek’s writings remind us that freedom is a fragile and invaluable virtue, one that requires firm commitment to principles over expediency. As societies face increasing pressure to achieve specific goals, the temptation to sacrifice liberty for perceived efficiency becomes ever stronger. However, as Hayek argues, such compromises ultimately undermine the very foundations of civilization. The defense of freedom, therefore, must be uncompromising, rooted in a strong belief that liberty is an end in itself, essential for the flourishing of individuals and society as a whole. Only by safeguarding freedom as a guiding principle can we ensure the continued prosperity and cohesion of free societies.