The Meaning of Freedom
by George Walford

Here is the 'Wildcat' cartoon from the anarchist journal, Freedom, for March 1987:

[transcription of comic strip]

Wildcat: I demand LIBERTY FOR ALL!

Stork: So does everybody. What exactly do you mean by LIBERTY? Marx said it was 'the realisation of necessity' - a phrase which lost everything in translation. St. Paul said it was not fulfilling the desires of one's lower nature. Horst Wessel the Nazi song-writer said it was getting shut of Jews and traitors. Norman Tebbit said -

Wildcat: SHUT UP! All I want is for everybody to be able to do what they like, so long as they don't prevent others from doing the same.

Stork: Then why not say so, insted of using catch-all slogans like LIBERTY FOR ALL?

Wildcat: Oh, you're so clever with words [CLUNK! on the head with a dictionary]

"All I want is for everybody to be able to do what they like, so long as they don't prevent others from doing the same."

It is a recognition that the claim sometimes made for anarchism, that it stands for freedom without limit or qualification, cannot stand up. To accept freedom with the condition that one shall not interfere with the freedom of others, is to accept a massive restraint. But there is no alternative; if all are free to be free then all must respect the freedom of others, that is to say, must exercise self-restraint. There can be no freedom without restraint.