Freedom, Society, and State - Ludwig von Mises Institute

es p 0 n sib iii ties wh i c h rna d e i timp0 s sib I e ,t 0 t r ace the
impact 0 fan yind i v i d ua I 's act ion s . Co nseq uen t 1y, a I 1
feelings of individual initiative and responsibility
were lost. Furthermore, communal ownership was intended
as a means to insure social cooperation. But, in
Warren's view, a worse method could hardly have been
found. When individual responsibilities and individual
interests are accumulated, disagreements can be solved
on I y bye 0 n f 1 i ct. " I f my i n t eres t we r e un i ted wit h
yours," says Warren, "and we differ at any point in its
management •• one must yield and the other must decide,
or, we must leave the decision to a third party,"
viz., a government.(13) But disagreements, he held are
an inevitable fact of nature. "There are no two obj
e c t sin the un i v er s e wh i c h are pr e cisely alike ," a rgues
Warren's follower, Stephen P. Andrews. "Each has
its own constitution and peculiarities, which distinguish
it from every other. Infinite diversity is the
universal law."(·14) But if individuality is indeed an
immutable law of nature it follows that the more interests
are combined the larger and more intense the scope
of conflict. And the larger the conflict, the greater
the need for more and stronger government. But government
cannot create social cooperation; it can only enforce
conformity. Further, the more government, the
less control each individual has over his own life and
therefore the less free he is. The solution, thought
Warren, lay in the opposite direction: the disconnection,
rather than the aggregation, of interests.
Since" infin·ite diversity is the universal law,"
harmony can only be attained by allowing each individual
the greatest possible freedom to follow his own conscience
and his own desires. Harmony, in other words,
can preva i I only when every individual is his own sovereign.
The "sovereignty of the individual" .clearly
does not mean the power to attain any goal desired by
the individual. Rather, it means the freedom from restraints
imposed by others upon the use of one's own
life and property. Only when society is broken down
into its individual parts can the law of cause and effect
operate and the consequences of each individual's
actions be made to redound upon himself, alone. If A
can shift the costs of his actions onto B, then B is
not sovereign and, therefore, not free. He is a slave
w0 r kin g for the ben e fit 0 fA. Thus, f r e e dom en t a i I s
each individual "living and acting at his own
cos t • " ( 1 5 ) Clear I y , such a s 0 ci e t y is cons i s ten t on 1y
wi th the recogn it ion of private property. As Andrews
writes, "The essential condition of freedom is discon-
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