Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty - Institute of Economic Affairs

2 INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM, COERCION AND
PROGRESS (Chapters 1–5 and 9)
Hayek starts by defining a state of liberty or freedom: ‘We
are concerned in this book with that condition of men in which
coercion of some by others is reduced as much as is possible in
society’ (11). Who are the ‘some’ who must be protected from
coercion, and who are the ‘others’ who must be restrained? By
what means can coercion in society be reduced, and how much of
it will necessarily remain? These are questions that Hayek wrestles
with throughout The Constitution of Liberty.
Individual freedom and responsibility
Freedom, for Hayek, belongs to individual human beings. There
are several reasons why he begins from ‘the individual.’
First, the human individual is the being that chooses, thinks
and acts; and it is primarily to such an agent that the concept
of freedom properly applies. Hayek acknowledges that human
agency raises perplexing questions about the individual’s capacity
to choose or to will freely; but in defining a condition of freedom,
it suffices to consider only external impediments to action as they
might arise not from nature, but from other human beings.
Second, freedom must be defined by reference to individuals.
Hayek believes that he is recovering the earliest understanding of
freedom when he defines it as ‘[t]he state in which a man is not
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