Negative liberty is ”the open door”, or the possibility to act without being hindered by anyone. My freedom is as vast as the space in which I can do everything I want without anybody’s intervention, and particulary without the intervention of officialdom. And [Isaiah Berlin] noticed something which has escaped many of his critics: that the poor also like their negative liberty; they too refuse to be controlled and manipulated in their daily life. The absence of freedom is just one more deprivation they have to bear.
Judith Shklar, ”Positive Liberty, Negative Liberty in the United States”, Redeeming American Political Thought, s. 114.
Björn Östbring 