Progress in Freedom

Abstract

[...] to assess the prospects of progress in liberty of the decade ahead, it is appropriate to look at the great changes of the decade just past. How great they are, how the very conditions of our lives have altered, reminds us of the central feature of our time: in the span of a man’s life, we live many lives, in many worlds. A decade ago, for instance, Berlin and almost all of Europe, still bore everywhere signs of the ravages of war. Berlin, like much of Europe, has in some sense recovered. Its economy and prosperity could hardly have been anticipated a decade ago. But the greatest change in this city is that, in one respect, there has been no change. Its citizens live with a government and a style of life very largely of their own choice. [...] Ten years ago the Korean War, surely in the making, had not yet broken out; the guns that were to open that limited but most bitter conflict had not yet spoken. Ten years ago one could hardly have imagined that this spring and summer some dozen newly constituted nations would be on the point of seeking membership in the United Nations Organization, nor that the quest for national independence, for rapid modernization, and for appropriate regional or cultural international cooperation could have progressed so far and so fast. [...]