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About this quote

What does it mean?
Mises defines external freedom as independence from the arbitrary power of other people.
In plain terms
Freedom means not being at the mercy of others' arbitrary power.
What can you take from it?
True freedom requires independence from others' arbitrary control.

Where it applies

  • political theory
  • rights analysis

Putting it to work

  • protect individual rights
  • limit arbitrary power

Questions to consider

  • What threatens freedom most?
  • How do you measure arbitrary power?

Another view

This ignores systemic constraints beyond other individuals.

More from Ludwig von Mises

  1. No wonder that all who have had something new to offer humanity have had nothing good to say of the state or its laws.

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  2. . . . [A]s soon as we surrender the principle that the state should not interfere in any questions touching on the individual's mode of life, we end by regulat…

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  3. If history could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization.

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