ABSTRACT
Choice is integral to an economic and a social structure which can encourage self-responsibility and self-care, neither of which can be achieved by attempts to impose them centrally. This chapter shows the contrast between two concepts of order. One is of central control in a traditionally static framework, contrasted with one of a society as creatively self-organised, developing by trial and error experiment, welcoming innovation, expecting advantageous surprises. These two conceptual possibilities represent powerful opposing cultural and political images. They represent distinct and contrary ways of looking at the world, at people, at human nature and at cultural possibilities. Enabling choice is also central to 'the power of change' as well as signalling an understanding of the unique nature of all people. The choice is both instrumental and moral. It distinguishes between the language of 'self-improvement' and the rhetoric of positively directed human perfectibility.
