Liberty depends on a delicate balance between state and society

Liberty is a fragile thing. For thousands of years, civilisations have risen, flourished and fallen, and most of them have been rigid, brutal and despotic. Freedom for the masses is a historical rarity. It arises only as the product of a fine balance between competing interests. That balance is the subject of this book.

According to the authors, both of whom are American economists, the first of those countervailing forces is the state, or what Hobbes called the Leviathan. The second is society. For liberty to exist, the state and society must achieve equilibrium. If one dominates the other, the result is a slide away from liberty towards despotism.

Conversely, the lucky society that strikes a balance between state and society can slip into what the authors term ‘the corridor’, the theoretical space in which liberty flourishes. Society is then free to develop and innovate, with all the economic benefits that brings.