George Walford: Anarchists

Anarchists routinely describe their desired society as one in which everybody would be free to act as they choose provided they did not interfere with the freedom of others. The 1945 constitution of Kemalist Turkey agreed:

“Every Turk is born free and lives free. He has liberty to do anything which does not harm other persons. The natural right of the individual to liberty is limited only by the liberties enjoyed by his fellow citizens.” [1]

This does not make Kemalist Turkey an anarchist state; what it does is to show that this concept of freedom has little meaning; every freedom worth arguing about does interfere with somebody else’s.

[1] Quoted by Antony Flew: Equal Liberty versus Equal Value 1991 (?) Libertarian Alliance.

from Ideological Commentary 56, May 1992.