THE evidence that almost everything for almost everyone almost everywhere is better when governments are smaller and individuals freer is so overwhelming that there is no room for informed doubt. Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek observed that governments can do more for people by doing less. Yet, in this country, the government is bigger and more powerful than ever.Why does coercion and dispossession appeal to seemingly sane people, especially intellectuals? Why do they oppose free people freely interacting in free markets? Do they hate liberty, or prosperity or both? Are antimarket fundamentalists ignorant or deranged? Does megalomania, hallucination or dementia intoxicate them?Personal freedom is conceptually simple yet commonly misrepresented and misunderstood. It exists when no one does anything to anyone or their property without informed consent. It makes no distinction between personal and economic freedom, or private and government coercion. The consent axiom is pro-choice on ...
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