“Progressives” disdain freedom because it gets in the way of their plans for a perfect society. They believe that the state can give us the ideal world by having government functionaries tell people what they must and must not do.
That notion leads to serious problems. The people who get to do the ordering are prone to mistakes just like everyone else, but they rarely see and correct them. The trouble their interventions create usually cause them to increase their control. Worse, the power that the state obtains will attract people who don’t mind coercion and violence; often they enjoy it.
With that in mind, I recommend Walker Wright’s Law & Liberty article “The Violence Inherent in the System.”
He points to the horrifying numbers of people killed by all-powerful (but invariably “well-intentioned”) governments in the 20th century. And even where government officials are not executing their enemies, they obstruct the natural progress of civilization.
I particularly like Wright’s argument that liberty is conducive to peace and prosperity:
Private ownership of the means of production—private property—is the core tenet of the market system. It’s a defining characteristic. And the overwhelming empirical research finds that secure private property rights and an open market are essential to the economic development and prosperity of a society. It’s not hard to see why. When people don’t live under the constant threat of expropriation, they save, invest, take risks, and care of their property. “Property rights,” the late UCLA economist Armen Alchian reminded us, “are human rights.”
Government intervention almost always has hidden, damaging costs. Conversely, economic liberty has hidden benefits — the reduction in conflict and violence. That’s why we must oppose the “progressive” administrative state.