  This is a version of the republican idea of freedom as independence or nondomination (Skinner 1998; Pettit 1997), though for Oakeshott as for Kant independence is defined in moral rather than material terms and stripped of certain other elements of republican political thought, such as that the people must make its own laws. Individual freedom, which is distinct from the freedom inherent in agency, is not compromised by law in civil association. One reason for this is that in civil association, as a mode of association, laws are general rules, not particular commands. The more nearly a state resembles an enterprise association in practice, the less it can accommodate activities “eccentric or indifferent to its purpose” (OHC 316). Participating in a purposive enterprise can express individuality only if participation is freely chosen. The subjects of an enterprise state are not independent, because the purposes they are compelled to serve have been chosen for them. And although some may contingently escape servitude, whether they are permitted to go (or for that matter to stay) is a management decision (OHC 317). Because individual freedom in enterprise association is the freedom to dissociate as well as to associate, it can exist only if the association itself is voluntary, and this cannot be assumed if the association is a state.