Furthermore, it is clear that the institutions of freedom must be structured in a principled, uncompromising manner, since to countenance exceptions to the basic principle of freedom is to embark on the degenerative course described in our analysis of the mixed economy. The acceptance of compromises such as slavery, for example, led eventually to the failure of the American experiment in liberalism, culminating in the bloated, statist government of today. Similarly, halfway measures in Russia are now floundering and seem likely to result in another repudiation of capitalism. For instance, efforts to privatize Russian businesses are backfiring in the absence of a firm commitment to property rights, as enterprises are milked by their new owners in anticipation of imminent re-nationalization. In this climate bereft of moral principles, privatization's effects are exactly opposite to those that would be expected in a system based on a principled commitment to freedom and individual rights. If such a commitment is present initially, on the other hand, we have seen that a free society is highly resilient, since its internal cultural, economic, and ethical tendencies are strongly consistent with the principle of freedom.

In accordance with these conclusions, we consider two final issues in the last two subsections of this course:

  1. How might a free society be structured in detail?
  2. How can it brought into existence?      Next page
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