The essay, with its analytical approach to the definition of political concepts, re-introduced the study of political philosophy to the methods of analytic philosophy. It is also one of Berlin's first expressions of his ethical ontology of value-pluralism. Berlin defined negative liberty, as the term "liberty" was used by Thomas Hobbes, as the absence of coercion, or interference with, agents' possible private actions, by an exterior social-body, and as a comparatively recent political ideal, which, Berlin later writes, re-emerged in the late 17th century, after its slow and inarticulate birth in the Ancient doctrines of Antiphon the Sophist, the Cyrenaic discipleship, and of Otanes after the death of pseudo-Smerdis. In an introduction to the essay, Berlin writes:
"As for Otanes, he wished neither to rule nor to be ruled — the exact opposite of Aristotle's notion of true civic liberty... [This ideal] remains isolated and, until Epicurus, undeveloped... the notion had not explicitly emerged".
Positive Liberty
This is a self-restricted form of liberty. For example, an individual wants to give up smoking, so they ask their friends and family to prevent them from smoking if they have a moment of weakness. Positive liberty means that an individual consents to rules that are made for their own benefit. In the smoking example, an individual doesn't want to smoke, and they require the help of others to prevent them from smoking. If however an individual wants to smoke but their friends and family have decided to prevent the individual from smoking, taking away their choice, then this is not positive liberty. The individual must consent to the restrictions for it to be positive liberty. If someone makes the rules on behalf of the individual, then this is totalitarianism. Positive liberty can easily lead to totalitarianism if the individual decides that their ruler knows best and is more able to decide what is right for the individual.
This may be understood as self mastery; and includes one's having a role in choosing who governs the society of which one is a part. Berlin traced positive liberty from Aristotle's definition of citizenship, which is historically derived from the social role of the freemen of classical Athens: it was, Berlin argued, the liberty in choosing their government granted to citizens, and extolled, most famously, by Pericles.
Occasionally, Berlin says, the defender of positive freedom will take an additional step that consists in conceiving of the self as wider than the individual and as represented by an organic social whole — “a tribe, a race, a church, a state, the great society of the living and the dead and the yet unborn”. The true interests of the individual are to be identified with the interests of this whole, and individuals can and should be coerced into fulfilling these interests, for they would not resist coercion if they were as rational and wise as their coercers.
In Recovering the Social Contract, Ron Replogle made a metaphor that is helpful in understanding positive liberty. "Surely, it is no assault on my dignity as a person if you take my car keys, against my will, when I have had too much to drink. There is nothing paradoxical about making an agreement beforehand providing for paternalistic supervision in circumstances when our competence is open to doubt." In this sense, positive liberty is the adherence to a set of rules agreed upon by all parties involved. Should the rules be altered, all parties involved must agree upon the changes.
In the case where a person removes a driver's car keys against their will because they have had too much to drink, this constitutes positive freedom only if the driver has made, of their own free will, an earlier decision not to drive drunk. Thus, by removing the keys, the other person facilitates this decision and ensures that it will be upheld in the face of paradoxical behaviour (i.e., drinking) by the driver. For the remover to remove the keys in the absence of such an expressed intent by the driver, because the remover feels that the driver ought not to drive drunk, is paternalism, and not positive freedom by Berlin's definition.
Negative liberty is the absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints. For example, if an individual wants to give up smoking then they must rely on their own will power, rather than asking for help from their friends and family. If the smoker has a moment of weakness, they can't ask their friend to stop them from smoking, they have to make that decision for themselves. In this sense, negative liberty means being free to make mistakes, a nobody can limit your choices, even if the restrictions are for your own good.
Occasionally, Berlin says, the defender of positive freedom will take an additional step that consists in conceiving of the self as wider than the individual and as represented by an organic social whole — “a tribe, a race, a church, a state, the great society of the living and the dead and the yet unborn”. The true interests of the individual are to be identified with the interests of this whole, and individuals can and should be coerced into fulfilling these interests, for they would not resist coercion if they were as rational and wise as their coercers.
In Recovering the Social Contract, Ron Replogle made a metaphor that is helpful in understanding positive liberty. "Surely, it is no assault on my dignity as a person if you take my car keys, against my will, when I have had too much to drink. There is nothing paradoxical about making an agreement beforehand providing for paternalistic supervision in circumstances when our competence is open to doubt." In this sense, positive liberty is the adherence to a set of rules agreed upon by all parties involved. Should the rules be altered, all parties involved must agree upon the changes.
In the case where a person removes a driver's car keys against their will because they have had too much to drink, this constitutes positive freedom only if the driver has made, of their own free will, an earlier decision not to drive drunk. Thus, by removing the keys, the other person facilitates this decision and ensures that it will be upheld in the face of paradoxical behaviour (i.e., drinking) by the driver. For the remover to remove the keys in the absence of such an expressed intent by the driver, because the remover feels that the driver ought not to drive drunk, is paternalism, and not positive freedom by Berlin's definition.
Berlin contended that under the influence of Plato, Aristotle, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant and G. W. F. Hegel, modern political thinkers often conflated positive liberty with rational action, based upon a rational knowledge to which, it is argued, only a certain elite or social group has access. This rationalist conflation was open to political abuses, which encroached on negative liberty, when such interpretations of positive liberty were, in the nineteenth century, used to defend nationalism, paternalism, social engineering, historicism, and collective rational control over human destiny. Berlin argued that, following this line of thought, demands for freedom paradoxically could become demands for forms of collective control and discipline – those deemed necessary for the "self-mastery" or "self-determination" of nations, classes, democratic communities, and even humanity as a whole. There is thus an elective affinity, for Berlin, between positive liberty, when it is rhetorically conflated with goals imposed from the third-person that the individual is told they "should" rationally desire, and the justifications for political totalitarianism, which contrary to value-pluralism, presupposed that values exist in Pythagorean harmony.
Negative Liberty
Its later proponents (such as Tocqueville, Constant, Montesquieu, John Locke, David Hume and John Stuart Mill, who accepted Chrysippus' understanding of self-determination) insisted that constraint and discipline were the antithesis of liberty. Political liberalism tends to presuppose a negative definition of liberty: liberals generally claim that if one favours individual liberty one should place strong limitations on the activities of the state. Negative liberty means that the state has no power to intervene in the actions of individuals, and no control over the economy.
Chronic economic crisis throughout the 1980s, and the collapse of the Communist bloc at the end of the 1980s, helped foster political opposition to state interventionism in favour of free market reform policies. From the 1980s onward, a number of communist and socialist countries initiated various neoliberal market reforms, such as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under the direction of Ante Marković (until the country's collapse in the early 1990s), and the People's Republic of China under the direction of Deng Xiaoping.
Changes occurred from the 1970s to the 1980s. Started off with most of the democratic world governments focused primarily on the primacy of economic individual rights, rules of law and roles of the governments in moderating relative free trade. Stances of organized labour shifted when governments of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher took strong stances to break down trade barriers entirely to reduce government power; thus allowing the market to be more important. The policy of privatisation was a main component of Thatcherism. When Thatcher was forced to resign as British Prime Minister in 1990 British economic growth was on average higher than the other large EU economies (Germany, France and Italy). However this was accompanied by poor social conditions compared with the rest of the EU. The price of these economic policies was a temporary and dramatic increase in unemployment that embarrassed the Thatcher government so much that the definition of unemployment was changed 31 times in order to come up with lower figures. Despite this, the official rate of unemployment in the United Kingdom increased to 9.1% in the years 1979-89 after it had been 3.4% between 1973–79 and 1.9% between 1960-73.
In reference to contemporary British political culture it could be said that a "post-Thatcherite consensus" exists with regard to economic policy. In the 1980s the now defunct Social Democratic Party adhered to a "tough and tender" approach in which Thatcherite reforms were coupled with extra welfare provision. Neil Kinnock, leader of the Labour Party from 1983–1992, initiated Labour's rightward shift across the political spectrum by concurring largely with the economic policies of the Thatcher governments. The New Labour government of Tony Blair has been described as "neo-Thatcherite" by some since many of their economic policies mimicked those of Thatcher. The coalition government of Cameron and Clegg, that came into office in 2010 has been described as Neoliberal, with neoliberal 'Orange Book' Liberal Democrats playing key ministerial roles.
The Administration of Ronald Reagan, from 1981 to 1989, made a range of decisions that served to liberalize (in contemporary US terminology, this is more likely to be described as conservative economics rather than liberal; in the sense of this article, liberalize refers to an economic system involving few regulations) the American economy. These policies are often described as Reaganomics, and are often associated with supply-side economics (the notion that, in order to lower prices and cultivate economic prosperity, policies should appeal to producers rather than consumers).
During Reagan's tenure, GDP grew at an annual rate of 2.7% per year. Per capita GDP in real terms was $31,877 in 1989 a rise of 24% from the $25,640 in 1981. Unemployment dropped from its high in the 1983 recession but it averaged higher than the previous decade and the subsequent decade. Also, inflation significantly decreased. Average real wages were stagnant, however, as inequality began to grow for the first time since the 1920s. Some, like William Niskanen, would point out two facts in response, the first being that average compensation for workers (that is wages+fringe benefits) went up through the 1980s, and that every quintile of society performed better during the 1980s. He neglects to mention that inequality increased significantly, beginning a trend that continued through to 2007. [See the work of Emanuel Saez] The policies were derided by some as "Trickle-down economics", due to the significant cuts in the upper tax brackets. There was a massive increase in Cold War related defense spending that caused large budget deficits, the U.S. trade deficit expansion, and contributed to the Savings and Loan crisis. In order to cover new federal budget deficits, the United States borrowed heavily both domestically and abroad, raising the national debt from $700 billion to $3 trillion, and the United States moved from being the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest debtor nation.
Peter Gowan has argued that the United States has been the main force behind the adoption of neoliberal policies in the rest of the world. The basic argument is that since the dollar is the international reserve currency, American banks are at a competitive advantage with respect to non-American banks, which cannot directly lend in dollars, so that their operations involve more foreign exchange risk. (Since the dollar is the international exchange currency, most international reserves are held as dollars, and the price of commodities such as oil are set in dollars, it is in general less risky to hold dollars than to hold other currencies, in the short term, at least.) Thus, once the United States liberalized its financial markets and controls over its banking industry, other countries were forced to follow suit.
