Ever since the era that became known as the Renaissance, that word has been used to communicate marked revival and advancement. Leonard Read used it in that sense in his “The Coming Renaissance,” in “Essays on Liberty,” volume 8, published in 1961 by the Foundation for Economic Education.

Read saw a coming renaissance in freedom that had been lost to slavery, something well worth consideration at a time when renaissance would not be a common descriptor for the extent Americans enjoy freedom.

A renaissance suggests something that once existed, was lost, and is being born again. The thing I have in mind is freedom. We once had it in good measure but have lost it to slavery … Seems incredible, but it is so!

Our drift into slavery has been so gradual that it is almost impossible to discern short of rigorous analysis.

Why did Leonard Read assert that the United States has lost freedom to what he called “our drift into slavery”?

Whoever controls a good or a service is the owner of that good or service. Ownership, in any genuine sense, is an empty term without control.

Whoever controls an individual’s actions can be described as the owner of that individual. To the extent that a person is under the arbitrary control of another or others, to that extent is the person a slave.

Slavery – man-control of man – has its roots in antiquity … extending itself into modern times. The framers of the American government-a political arrangement more consistent with freedom than any other ever devised – ignored their own revolutionary idea that men derive their right to life from their Creator, when, in the Constitution, they failed to challenge the institution of slavery.

But wasn’t slavery ended in America long ago?

Most Americans harbor the false notion that we did away with slavery when we ‘freed the slaves’ … as if that act – proper and long overdue – rooted out the evil. It left the real problem untouched.

The institution of slavery is only incidentally a color problem; definitively, it is the practice of the coercive inclinations of man to rule his fellow men. It is the tendency in many of us to play God, to lord it over others, to force compliance to our own wills.

This tendency to man – mastery … over the actions of others, is strong …Yet, this vestige of uncivilized man is relatively harmless so long as individuals with these despotic inclinations cannot compel others to join them in their designs.

But when [someone] … obtains the backing of the State in order to control the life and life substance of others – either to feather his own nest or to gratify his compassionate instincts – then every person in the nation suffers as a consequence. His more or less harmless individual barbarity will turn to effective collective despotism.

How does Read illustrate the striking idea that “more or less harmless individual barbarity” is turned into “collective despotism” via government?

If a person wanted the rest of us to help pay for his power and light, but had no means of compulsion at his disposal, quite likely his wish would go ungratified. But give him and a few of his like-minded friends the police power of government, the power to force a nation of people to do their bidding, and we get ourselves a TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority). Remove this compulsive force, and TVA, as a formal, legal agency to subsidize some at the expense of all, would automatically terminate.

The compulsion observed in TVA is no isolated instance. Rather, the same compulsive principle that makes TVA a reality is part and parcel of national polity.

Compulsive political management, not competitive private enterprise, is now the way to characterize the American economic system. We must not lose sight of the fact that our present system is founded on compulsion, and that this compulsive power has been captured by those whose object is to make everyone else behave their way. This is slavery pure and simple – if slavery be defined as the coercive imposition of someone’s will upon others as relating to productive and creative actions.

Further, once the government controls the power to enslave people, it will extract resources from them. Those resources, in turn, will be used to advance the interests of those who exercise power in government, as well as those they rent their power to via legislation and regulation. And in the process, everyone else suffers from a loss of freedom.

Once this compulsive power is used by those in government beyond the inhibitive, restrictive, punitive functions; once it is permitted to spill over into a control of creative actions, then this ‘spillage’ will be put on sale in the political market. Businessmen will vie for it to minimize competition; farmers will seize upon it as a means of gaining wealth without producing; labor unions will obtain a large share of it to enforce unwilling exchange. This ‘spillage’ is now employed throughout the whole economy; it is the system! Frederic Bastiat referred to this as ‘spoliation.’

To the extent that this compulsive force controls the productive and creative actions of a person, to that extent is the person enslaved. Further, to the extent that this force exerts itself over the productivity and creativity of the American community, to that extent does the institution of slavery exist in this land. Nor does it matter whether the force is exerted directly by government or indirectly by labor unions, businessmen, farmers, or others.

Let this compulsive force get out of hand – as is now the case – and it becomes nearly impossible to put down. It feeds on itself … Having no more power to limit itself than has a runaway truck, it must, eventually, destroy the society on which it has parasitically fastened itself, for it only saps its victims – never strengthens them. This compulsive force will destroy the society in which it is set loose short of one eventuality: a voluntary revolution.

How can such a voluntary revolution take place in a world that doesn’t recognize the partial slavery that has come to exist almost everywhere as slavery?

This voluntary revolution can have its locus only in individuals. It is the distinctly personal accomplishment of overcoming any desire to interfere in any way with the creative actions of any other person … It is the realization that others, as well as oneself, are accountable to their Creator, not to any self-appointed human substitute. In short, it is the elimination of the dictator complex from the human soul.

The voluntary revolution is to forego the childish drive to coerce and to rely instead on voluntary action. The urge to compel is a trace of barbarism; the mastery of the voluntary attitude is a distinguishing mark of civilized man.

Is such a voluntary revolution “too slow” or is it the only way for a renaissance of liberty?

Some … will contend that the civilizing process is too slow … This contention is not valid. This voluntary process, being the only means at our disposal, is thus the fastest one there is.

This doubt is itself but a vestige of the slavery complex – the lack of faith in what others can accomplish as self-controlling individuals – and should be put down. The only positive influence one can have on others in this respect is one’s own exemplary behavior: Any right action … sets enormous forces of emulation in motion. This influence is possible only as there is a concentration on the perfecting of self which, of course, requires that there not be a concentration on the intellectual and spiritual shortcomings of others.

Only where there is insight is there ingathering. Every forward step in civilization has been brought about by this ingathering influence initiated, in each instance, by an individual.

Let each individual do his best to gain and practice this voluntary attitude and, at the same time, have an abiding faith that this is the means to bring about the voluntary revolution; let you and me do this and we can confidently count on. the coming renaissance – a rebirth of freedom.

Adapted from “Freedom in One Lesson, The Best of Leonard Read,” edited with commentary by Gary M. Galles, a professor of economics at Pepperdine University.