What is Liberty?
{{otheruses}} [[Image:Majestic Liberty Large.jpg|150px|thumb|right|The [[Statue of Liberty]] is a popular [[icon]] of liberty]] '''Liberty''' means the condition in which an [[individual]] has the ability to act following his or her own [[free will|will]] and alternatively, achieve their potential, within the context of other words like political [[freedom]]. It is a term that has contested meanings. [[Communism]] and [[socialism]] claim to have something defined as liberty for them because of their [[social equality]] ideals. [[Libertarianism|Libertarians]] and [[Classical liberalism|classical liberals]] think communism is against Liberty because communism is most of the times against the individual basic rights (life, freedom and [[property]]). Classical liberalism conceptions of liberty conceive mainly of the freedom of the individual from outside compulsion in terms of freedom from restraint and [[social liberalism|social liberalist]] perspective, on the other hand, highlights the need for social and economic [[Egalitarianism|equality]], as in the power and resources to fulfill one's potential. As such, a social connects liberty (i.e. freedom) to the equal distribution of [[politics|political]] [[Influence|power]] (i.e. [[democracy]]) in the sense of positive liberty. They argue that liberty without equality means the domination of the most powerful. Thus, freedom and democracy are seen as connected and ultimately, antagonistic.<ref>Rawls, John 1996. ''Political liberalism''. New York: Columbia University Press.</ref><ref>Rawls, John 1999. ''Law of peoples''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.</ref><ref>Rawls, John 1999. ''A theory of justice'', revised edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.</ref><ref>Rawls, John 2001. ''Justice as fairness: a restatement''. Erin Kelly (ed). New York: Columbia University Press.</ref> [[John Stuart Mill]], in his work, ''On Liberty'', was the first to recognize the difference between liberty as the freedom to act and liberty as not being forced to do some