thesis of this chapter is that such a view is a delusion, that there
is an intimate connection between economics and politics, that
only certain combinations of political and economic arrange-
ments are possible, and that in particular, a society which is
socialist cannot also be democratic, in the sense of guaranteeing
individual freedom.

Economic arrangements play a dual role in the promotion of
a free society. On the one hand, freedom in economic arrange-
ments is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so
economic freedom is an end in itself. In the second place, eco-
nomic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the
achievement of political freedom.

The first of these roles of economic freedom needs special
emphasis because intellectuals in particular have a strong bias
against regarding this aspect of freedom as important. They tend
to express contempt for what they regard as material aspects of
life, and to regard their own pursuit of allegedly higher values
as on a different plane of significance and as deserving of special
attention. For most citizens of the country, however, if not for
the intellectual, the direct importance of economic freedom is at
least comparable in significance to the indirect importance of
economic freedom as a means to political freedom.

The citizen of Great Britain, who after World War II was not
permitted to spend his vacation in the United States because of
exchange control, was being deprived of an essential freedom
no less than the citizen of the United States, who was denied
the opportunity to spend his vacation in Russia because of his
political views. The one was ostensibly an economic limitation
on freedom and the other a political limitation, yet there is no
essential difference between the two.

The citizen of the United States who is compelled by law to
devote something like 10 per cent of his income to the purchase
of a particular kind of retirement contract, administered by the
government, is being deprived of a corresponding part of his
personal freedom. How strongly this deprivation may be felt
and its closeness to the deprivation of religious freedom, which
all would regard as "civil" or "political" rather than "eco-
nomic", were dramatized by an episode involving a group of
farmers of the Amish sect. On grounds of principle, this group

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