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Liberty, Equality and Justice, , , , , , , , , , “There is no better test of excellence of a government than the efficiency of its judicial, system. ...... if the lamp of justice goes out in darkness, how great is that darkness.”, —Bryce, LIBERTY, , The ideal of liberty has made powerful appeal to man in all times and climes and has, been a source of inspiration to millions of people. As a writer once observed, “Liberty is a, thing that we have to conquer afresh for ourselves every day like love.”, , Its meaning. The term ‘liberty’ comes from the Latin word liber which means free. In, Political Science, however, it has not meant the same thing to various thinkers. Leacock, points out, “Let us begin by observing that such terms as liberty, and freedom are used in, variety of senses and with great latitude of connotation...the term liberty is used also as a, vague generality to stand for something evidently desirable and get so simple in its nature as, to need no further definition. It is freely assumed that every one ought to have complete, liberty and that every violation of liberty is an injustice with the need being felt for any, special enquiry into the meaning of liberty itself.”' According to Hobbes, liberty implies an, absence of restraints and opposition. Such absolute freedom or limited power may be enjoyed, by Robinson Cruisoe in an isolated island but is certainly unavailable in civil society to all, except to an absolute ruler; even to him, it may not always be available or be feasible. In fact,, unrestricted freedom for one would be a negation of liberty for others. It would not be, , freedom, but licence.

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—_, , 190 Political Theory, , To sum up, we may say that liberty has two aspects, one negative and another positive. In, its negative aspect, liberty means an absence of unreasonable restraints; in its positive aspect,, it means the presence of such opportunities as are essential to the fullest development of, one’s faculties. it needs three factors; (i) harmonious balance of personality; (ii) absence of, restraint; and (iii) opportunities for the exercise of a continuous initiative.!, , Kinds of Liberty, Th m_‘li as we said above, has been given varied meaning. In the words of, , Montesquieu, “There is no word that admits of more various significance, and has made, more different impressions on the human mind than that of liberty.” There is more than one, form of liberty and it is possible for one of the forms to be in conflict with the other. In order, to understand properly the idea of liberty in a multiple concept we must explain different, kinds of liberty., , (a) Natural Liberty, , The term ‘natural liberty’ is used to mean complete freedom from interference or from, social conventions. It is another name for licence to do what one likes. Man is supposed to, have enjoyed such liberty in ‘the state of nature’. The advocates of natural liberty hold that, man is free by nature and that is civilization which is responsible for his bondage. They point, out that man loses his natural liberty and an unlimited right to things when he gives up the, State of nature in favour of the civil society. The social contractualists spoke of natural, liberty., , Rousseau who remarks, “Man is born free but he is everywhere in chains”. What man, loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries, to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he, possesses.”, , This concept of liberty is illusory. In the so-called state of nature, assuming it to have, been pre-social, the essential conditions of the existence of liberty seem to the lacking. The, liberty which could possibly prevail in the State of Nature there would be only for the, strongest person. Liberty for the individual is possible only in an organised society. There, can be no liberty without some sort of regulations and authority., , (b) Liberty in Society, , There are various aspects or kinds of liberty which might prevail in an organised society., Laski and Barker agree in classifying them as, (i) private or civil liberty. (ii) public or, political liberty, and (iii) economic liberty., , Civil Liberty. Private or civil liberty means the Opportunity an individual has to be fully, himself in the private relations of life. It belongs to him in his capacity as an individual. As, against natural liberty, it can exist only in civil society. It consists of the right of the, |. Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences, Vol. 9 (1984), p. 444. f, 2. Rousseau : Social Contract Book 7, Chapter VIII.

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Liberty, Equality and Justice 191, , individual to do as he pleases within the limits laid down by law. According to Barker, “Civil, liberty consists in three differently expressed articles: physical freedom from injury or threat, to the life, health and movement of the body; intellectual freedom for the expression of, thought and belief; and practical freedom for the play of will and the exercise of choice in the, general field of contractual actions and relations with other persons.” It is concretely, manifested in rights like the freedom of person, freedom of movement, equality before the, law, security of personal possessions, freedom of speech and expression, freedom of belief, and religion, etc. In the history of political thought, personal liberty, especially the freedom, of person, has been attached great importance, Mill valued right to personal freedom so, greatly that he even went to the extent of saying that the individual should be free to, experiment with his own life, so only as his actions do not directly and definitely affect, others. On the same ground, slavery is universally condemned today. In the words of, Rousseau, “Jo renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of, humanity and even its duties.”, , This liberty is generally made available to all persons in the state, nationals and, otherwise. Modern states make no distinction between citizens and non-citizens in assuring, it. Civil liberty is rightly regarded as basic to any other kind of liberty. If civil liberty is not, assured and safeguarded, there can hardly be any other kind of freedom., , (c) Political Liberty, , Political liberty which belongs to an individual in the capacity of citizen means the, opportunity to be active in affairs of the state. Political liberty is positive in its natute and, consists of the political rights that the state confers on its citizens. Politicad rights consist of, the right te-vote, right fo contest election, right to hold public office, right to petition, etc., Leacock refers to political liberty as ‘constitutional liberty’ and means thereby the right of, the people to their government. Gilchrist regards political liberty as being “practically, synonymous with democracy.” According to him political liberty is not an end in itself. it is, only a. means to the higher moral end of the perfection of humanity. In the opinion of Laski,, two conditions are essential for political liberty to be real. First, every one must be educated, to the point where one can express what one wants in a way that is intelligible to others., Laski holds “Nothing is more striking than the way in which our educational systems train, the children of rich or well-born men to habits of authority while thé children of the poor are, trained to habits of deference. Such a division can never produce political freedom because a, class trained to govern will exert its power because it is conscious of it, while a class trained, to deference will not fulfill its wants because it does not know how to formulate its, demands.”! The second condition of political liberty is the provision of an honest and, straightforward supply of news. The press should disseminate truthful news, so that those who, decide about public business have‘ all relevant material before them. “But if the facts are, deliberately perverted, our judgment will be unrelated to the truth,”? The people deprived of, teliable news are a people without the basis of freedom., , , , 1. Encyclopaedia of Social Science, p.147., 2. Ibid.

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192 Political Theory, , (qd) Economic Liberty, , In recent years, much has been said on economic liberty. It is said that mere civil yberty, and political liberty are insufficient. A person should also have adequate comes” over, economic conditions governing his life. It has been rightly said that economic aes must, accompany political liberty, because political liberty is meaningless in itself if people remain, half-starved and ill-clad., , By economic liberty, Laski means, “Security and the opportunity to find reasonable, significance in the earning of one’s daily bread.” It means primarily that a man must be free, from the fear of unemployment and starvation. He must be safeguarded against wants of, tomorrow and enabled to enrich his personality. It is now generally admitted that only a, gainfully employed person can really enjoy his political rights., , Economic liberty also aims at the creation of a society where there is sufficient for all, before there is luxury for any. In the absence of such a society, “men are hardly less truly, slaves than when they were exposed for purchase and sale.”2 Another aspect of economic, liberty is democracy or self-government in industry. In the absence of this, the worker lives, at the behest of other men. “His initiative becomes not the free expression of his own, individuality, but a routine made from without and enforced upon him by fear of starvation., A system built upon fear is always fatal to the release of the creative faculties and it is,, therefore, incompatible with liberty.”, , (e) National Liberty, , National Liberty is synonymous with national independence. It means the right of every, nation to be free from political domination of other} The American colonies won, independence in 1796 from England through a war. The Greeks fought a war of, Independence with the Turks. India gained national liberty on August 15, 1947. In the recent, past, a number of African states also gained independence- National liberty is the foundation, , of all other individual liberties, since only a free people can enjoy political and economic, freedoms., , It is the National Liberty which inculcates love for the country and induces the people to, sacrifice their lives for the sake of their Native land. They are prepared for all baffling, eventualites to protect the honour and integrity of the country., , (f) Moral Liberty’ , The idealistic interpretations of the concept of liberty by Plato and Aristotle in the, primitive past and of Rousseau, Kant, Hegel and T.H. Green in the modern era suggests that, if a person lacks the essential qualities of a human being, he is said to be a ioral im Iris, type of liberty exists if an individual acts according to his rational self, pays roper res ect, for the real worth of his fellow beings and does not attempt to impair dignity of others Kant, , , , 1. Ibid., 2. Ibid., 3. Thid., pp. 148-49.

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Liberty, Equality and Justice 193, , calls it autonomy of the rational will. Hegel traces objective realization of such freedom in, the state which is ‘March of God on the earth’. Thus, moral liberty is man’s self realization, in the furtherance of common good., , Intra-liberty Quarrel. Barker has drawn our attention to another aspect of liberty and, this:is what he calls ‘Intra-liberty quarrel’, According to him, a quarrel may arise between, one form and another of liberty. Thus, economic liberty, for instance, may quarrel with, political liberty. To quote Barker “if liberty and law do not quarrel, liberty may quarrel with, itself.”' Even if it is accepted that law is an aid of liberty and not its enemy, the different, form of liberty may quarrel with one another. For instance one person enjoys civil liberty,, one of the articles of which is freedom of speech and expression of that person publishes a, political pamphlet critising some of the government policies, he may be hauled up by the, government. It may take action against him on the plea that his pamphlet is calculated to, create disaffection against the government. In such a case, the civil liberty of the individual, person comes into conflict with the political liberty of the parliamentary majority. A conflict, may arise between economic liberty, and civil liberty or political liberty. By virtue of civil, liberty, a factory-owner may employ workers on contract in his factory. The workers may, launch a movement for granting them higher wages. Here, it involves a conflict between the, civil liberty of the factory-owner and the economic liberty of the workers. It is quite possible, that the parliamentary majority may impose certain limitations detrimental to the enjoyment, of economic liberty of the labourer. In such a case, a quarrel might arise between political, liberty and economic liberty., , Barker aptly comments, “Liberty is indeed a complex notion, which at once unites men in, its allegiance and divides them by its division...It is the task of justice to conciliate and, harmonise different forms of liberty.”