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 practical facts, but did not seem likely to be carried out by the proposed reforms, or only at the cost of loss of efficiency in output. First among these comes the desire for economic freedom. Most of us will admit that freedom is the most precious jewel that we can gain, and that without a certain amount of it no one's mind and character can achieve real growth, any more than his legs can grow if they are encased in plaster of Paris. Economic freedom means to most of us freedom to work or not to work, or if we do work, freedom to work to please ourselves and not at the bidding of anybody else. In this sense it is not possible to the great majority of mankind because we all have to work unless we can induce somebody else to keep us alive, and the work that we do has to be pleasing to somebody in order to make him give us in return for it the money with which, by our choice of the goods that we buy, we exercise control over the work of others and make them turn out things that we want. In other words, we sacrifice freedom as producers in order to increase our freedom as consumers.

A few can induce others to keep them alive, and in some cases exceedingly comfortable, by the claims that they exercise as hereditary