Equality or individual liberty A primer to progressivism- history, strategies, rules, and applications. The debate equality or individual liberty: The French revolutions social justice, redistribution, and economic equality vs American independence and Adam Smith's free market principles. Marxist government intervention, the social sciences utopia, bureaucracies, activist judges, and inequities vs the founding fathers, inalienable sovereign rights, free speech and constitution. The totalitarian socially engineered centralized political rule vs James Madison's local decentralized electoral college free society republic.  Walter E. Williams, Professor of Economics at George Mason University, defines liberty as a peaceable, voluntary exchange without interference by others. Williams claims this voluntary exchange is a recent phenomenon in America, that the norm throughout most of mankind was arbitrary abuse and control by others. Before capitalism, the free market system, the road to riches was through plunder and the enslavement of our fellow man. With the free market system, the road to enrichment is pleasing our fellow man. Adam Smith’s capitalism was based on the principle that the exchange of the products of one’s best efforts for the products of another’s best efforts required people to act virtuously. Free markets create new wealth and opportunity while Progressivism/Marxism redistributes limited finite resources. Progressivism/Marxism is a finite system that destroys the free market initiative through redistribution. Capitalism, free markets, are structured to peacefully meet the needs of each individual while socialism promotes malcontent and violence. The famous economist Milton Friedman said: “Those people who put equality before liberty are not likely to have much of either. Those people that put liberty before equality are likely to have a large measure of both.”  Williams says there is a temptation among all human beings to live at the expense of somebody else (e.g., farmer, businessman wanting subsidies, poor person wanting welfare, healthcare). If someone held a gun to your head to take your property, they would go to jail. But if someone lobbies Washington to pass a law to take your property, it is called compassion and legalized. Sighting UC Berkeley as an example, Williams says that we are losing our liberty and free speech. Ronald Reagan said: “Every time Congress meets; we lose a little bit of our liberty.”