Freedom is a balance between justice and liberty; between repression and chaos; Dirty Harry and Mad Max; repression and isolation. Both extremes appeal to different people, and in the airy world of theory both extremes would lead to perfect societies - an ordered society of social openness for authoritarians, and a fragmented mass of individual privacy for libertarians.

But the world of theory, of ideas, is not the real world. In reality, the inherent fallibility and emotional imperfection of humanity has historically led to East Germany and the Stasi on one side, and Mogadishu and Somalia on the other.

A society of total freedom would only work on a planet with one person, for no matter what the objectivists say we have to modulate our behaviour to take account of the needs of others; and a society of total justice would only work on a planet with one mind, for no matter what the authoritarians say we have to modulate our concern for others with the need to take care of ourselves.