Ours Is Not a “Liberal” Society

A liberal society is one in which individual rights are both numerous and honored. But more fundamentally it is one whose major features are constructed in the free association of its multitude of individual members. But the mark of all modern developed societies is that they are constructed not at all by free association, but instead in the interactions of only a few very hierarchical institutions such as government bodies, school and university systems, health providers and, setting the pattern, private firms. Employing an ideal-type derived from the basic organization of the modern private corporation, the chapter develops and confirms seven hypotheses characterizing the non-liberal nature of our actual society.