ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book offers a defence of the ancient political ideal of liberty against both the liberal view and the idealist interpretation of liberty as an internal condition of the self. It discusses the idea that freedom consists in the absence of deliberate interference by other people. The book presents a conception of negative liberty that is in many respects the direct opposite of F. A. Hayek's. It examines freedom as 'the personal possession of physical objects' and shows that coercive threats interfere with freedom, since, threats make courses of action less desirable without making them impossible to follow. The book considers the possibility that a certain form of socialism would extend freedom more widely than the private property system characteristic of capitalism.
