ABSTRACT
Libertarian writers have pointed out that no satisfactory concept of freedom can emerge until we have developed a proper understanding of the controls exercised by the social system. Recently, interactionist sociologists have developed such an analysis from a broadly libertarian standpoint. The perspective they have adopted has been based on studies of social deviance and society's attempts to control it. Their writings have been persuasive and influential, but also potentially misleading in a number of ways, and particularly in relation to the role of state intervention as an element in social control. Before starting on a critique of their analysis, it is necessary to establish an important point about social control and the individual. Many mothers would rather help run a playgroup for ten children than look after their own one in isolation; and being a social worker with the elderly is regarded by some as preferable to looking after their own parents.
