Liberation on the Subject of Freedom
If one were to describe the positions to which Leonard E. Read, the founder of The Foundation for Economic Education, adhered consistently in a lifetime devoted to liberty, there are many phrases which could be used. But one especially accurate description is that he was adamantly devoted to the liberation of people from their misunderstandings on the subject of freedom. One of the best illustrations comes from his essay “Liberated!” in the March 1962 issue of Notes from FEE.
The essay begins with a response to Read’s question, “How long have you been interested in this philosophy [of freedom]?” from a graduate student “who obviously wanted to know more about the subject of freedom.” It was “I have now been liberated for six months.” Read then turned to why that answer was “sensational in the clarity of what it revealed.”
This conjures up a picture of a person imprisoned by a host of myths, superstitions, fallacies. Then, in a flash, by some unforeseen encounter, she was freed of them all and launched on a new road to enlightenment. Liberation, as she used the term, suggested a sudden illumination, a breakthrough to a higher level of consciousness: “Whereas I was blind, now I see.”
What was the source of the blindness?
Reflect on the preliberation notions. In many cases we find lying at their root the primitive doctrine that man derives his rights to life and liberty from some man-concocted collective — the tribe or the state. This doctrine was frankly expressed in the old divine-right-of-kings thesis, an egotism few present-day statists have the nerve to admit.
The logical sequence to such a premise is the conviction that the state is responsible for a people’s welfare, security, prosperity. And if the state can grant a man’s rights, it can also retract them; that is, it is in control of rights.
Freedom of choice as to how one employs himself or what he does with the fruits of his own labor is expanded or contracted according to the caprice of those who have gained command of the political apparatus. Wage and price controls, government education, public housing, federal urban renewal, government power and light, socialized medicine, government mail delivery, social security, federal subsidies to any and all groups who think themselves in distress, protection against competition, progressive taxation, and a host of other socializations or nationalizations are simply extensions of the premise that man’s rights derive from the state.
What is the source of finally becoming able to see the reality that can be unleashed by freedom? Read uses an analogy of a seed, which much like the mustard seed illustration in the Bible, produces amazing results.
Out of this confusion emerges … the moment of liberation, the break-through! An idea or fact or observation … suddenly comes to life, opens a crack, and the light floods in. It’s something like a seed embedded in a crevice of solid granite, the forces of its growth slumbering but, when released, stronger than its rock-bound prison. Its destiny undeniable, the seed splits the stone and is freed to friendly and life-giving elements.
Once this opening has taken place, old ideas take on a different perspective and new ideas come into one’s comprehension. Relegated to the junk heap of myths is the absurd premise that man derives his rights from a political apparatus.
Rid of this bedeviling notion, a new premise insinuates itself into consciousness: Men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Read then invokes Frederic Bastiat’s summary of this point from his justifiably famous The Law:
We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life — physical, intellectual, and moral life.
But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.
Life, faculties, production — in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.
Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
What follows from stripping away the illusion that the state is to be the ultimate determiner of the rights we will have and the burdens we must bear as a result? What if our rights are inherent, from God?
One logical deduction from the premise that man’s rights are endowments of the Creator is that each individual is an end in himself, that is, each person owes allegiance, above all else, to his Creator. No other person or set of persons, however organized, has any moral sanction to interfere with this Creator-man relationship; no person is warranted in compelling any human being to serve merely as a means to his own ends. When anyone violates this relationship, he is saying, in effect, “I am your god.”
It follows from the above premise that manmade laws can be no more than codified social taboos or a set of prohibitions, for the purpose of preserving inviolate the Creator-man order. All true law finds its origin and its limitation in such rights of protection as inhere in each of us.
How can we tell what these rights are? Merely ascertain if universality can be applied to them. Do I, for example, have a right to defend my life, livelihood, liberty against those who would take these from me? Only if the same right may rationally be conceded to everyone else. Can it be? Obviously, yes! Now, then, do I have a right to take the life, livelihood, liberty of another? Only if the right of murder, theft, slavery may rationally be conceded to everyone else. Can it be? Obviously, no!
It follows logically from this premise that government may properly do no more than perform the defensive function. All productive and creative actions are then freed of any man-restraint, flowing solely from the Creator-man order.
When an individual is liberated, he becomes aware of the miracles which come to pass once creative human energy has no organized, man-concocted force standing against it. An unwavering faith in free men expels any lingering, misplaced confidence in little men playing god.
The omnipotent state — authoritarianism — will not be liquidated except by liberated individuals. It is only they who go in search of freedom’s answers.
What will the search for freedom’s answers reveal?
The state can no more assume responsibility for one’s welfare, security, prosperity than can a committee of baboons. Indeed, the responsibility for self is no more transferable than is breathing. Yet, people can be lulled into this false notion and, as a consequence, forego attention to self-responsibility, becoming purposeless and useless.
We need more liberated individuals.
Read then asked “How can we liberate them?” followed by some good advice.
The individual not yet liberated is no more educable as to the free market, private property, limited government philosophy than you or I are educable on subjects in which we have no interest. Thus, it is patently absurd to scold or rant at them, to be impatient, to regard them as not bright, to try poking our ideas down their necks. Such tactics will only send them scurrying.
Work naturally; make freely available such insights as you possess, but do not entertain any notions about setting someone else straight. Go only where called, but qualify to be called. The few within your orbit who are susceptible to the freedom philosophy will find you out. We need never worry about that, only about our own qualifications. In this manner we will liberate as many minds as will open to our own keys…. And you will have struck another blow for freedom!
Those of us who can see the wonders freedom can accomplish want more people to understand that. It is the only way the constraints which have been increasing lashed upon freedom have a chance to be sufficiently recognized and opposed. Leonard Read recognized that clearly. But today we face an even more daunting task, because every government dictation to the “losers” who will be forced to bear the burdens of government-bestowed “winners” benefits creates a special-interest group that will oppose freeing the people government has thus enslaved. While that is appalling, all that can be effectively done about it that is consistent with liberty is for those who have been captured by the possibilities that inhere in liberty learn better how to achieve liberation on the subject of freedom. And Read offers us a great deal of light on that path.
This article is adapted from Freedom in One Lesson: The Best of Leonard Read, edited with commentary by Gary M. Galles (2025).
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