I will address this subject head-on, and ask, fi rst, what is the free society? And, second, why should we want such a thing? Of course we only ask the fi rst question because we likely do want it. But being more explicit about it is surely a good idea, probably at any time but certainly today. National Independence is not “freedom” The fi rst point to make is perhaps fairly obvious but really needs to be made every so often. People frequently develop a yen for national independence: their nation, or somebody’s, is under the thumb of some other nation, and they don’t like that. They talk of freedom, but mean by it the freedom of their nation to act independently from other nations. But a society might be altogether unfree and still be independent in that sense. If your country is a totalitarian nightmare state, does the fact that it is so on its own, rather than being oppressed by dictators in some other country, help very much? Indeed, does it help at all?