"The liberal conception of freedom has often been described as a merely negative conception, and rightly so. Like peace and justice, it refers to the absence of an evil, to a condition op ening opportunities but not assuring particular benefits; though it was expected to enhance the probability that the means needed for the purposes pursued by the different individuals would be available. The liberal demand for freedom is thus a demand for the removal of all manmade obstacles to individual efforts, not a claim that the community or the state should supply particular goods. It does not preclude such collective action where it seems necessary, or at least a more effective way for securing certain services, but regards this as a matter of expediency and as such limited by the basic principle of equal freedom under the law. The decline of liberal doctrine, beginning in the 1870s, is closely connected with a re-interpretation of freedom as the command over, and usually the provision by the state of, the means of achieving a great variety of particular ends."