The State Itself Becomes More And More

The Conception That Government Should Be Guided By Majority Opinion Makes Sense Only If That Opinion Is Independent Of Government. The Ideal Of Democracy Rests On The Belief That The View Which Will Direct Government Emerges From An Independent And Spontaneous Process. It Requires, Therefore, The Existence Of A Large Sphere Independent Of Majority Control In Which The Opinions Of The Individuals Are Formed.

Wherever Liberty As We Understand It Has Been Destroyed, This Has Almost Always Been Done In The Name Of Some New Freedom Promised To The People

We Know: Of Course, With Regard To The Market And Similar Social Structures, A Great Many Facts Which We Cannot Measure And On Which Indeed We Have Only Some Very Imprecise And General Information.

From The Fact That People Are Very Different It Follows That, If We Treat Them Equally, The Result Must Be Inequality In Their Actual Position, And That The Only Way To Place Them In An Equal Position Would Be To Treat Them Differently. Equality Before The Law And Material Equality Are Therefore Not Only Different But Are In Conflict With Each Other; And We Can Achieve Either One Or The Other, But Not Both At The Same Time.

We Must Face The Fact That The Preservation Of Individual Freedom Is Incompatible With A Full Satisfaction Of Our Views Of Distributive Justice.