Introduction Why Liberalism? Why Freedom? "a criticism which has at heart the interests of liberalism might find its most useful work not in confirming liberalism in its sense of general rightness but in putting under some degree of pressure the liberal ideas and assumptions of the present time." - Lionel Trilling, The Liberal Imagination In this book I defend a liberal politics: one that treats liberty (or freedom - I will use the words interchangeably) as the first political value to be pursued. In doing so I hope to restore freedom to its proper place at the center of liberal political thought - a place that, despite the etymology of the word "liberal," has largely been ceded in recent years to the values of equality and justice. I also hope to show that the liberal conception of freedom is distinct from and superior to the two freedom-centered political ideals that have attracted the most attention in recent decades: the market-centered or "libertarian" (to its opponents, "neoliberal") view on the one hand, and the state-centered or "republican" (to its opponents, "socialist") view on the other. By showing that liberalism can absorb the insights and avoid the pitfalls of each of these positions, I hope to persuade the reader not only that freedom is the first political value to be pursued, but that the cause of freedom is best advanced under a liberal banner. Thus the title: Liberal Freedom"--