Negative freedom, in essence, “the area within which a man can act unobstructed by others” (2). Being able to do what one pleases without interfering with another person’s idea of negative freedom. To illustrate negative freedom, Berlin writes in passive voice because this type of freedom is an action being done towards someone else. It is said, “If I am prevented by others from doing what I could otherwise do, I am to a degree unfree” (2). Negative freedom is not unlimited and therefore if government tried to achieve that, it wouldn’t work “because it would entail a state in which all men could boundlessly interfere with all other men; and this kind of ‘natural’ freedom would lead to social chaos in which men’s minimum needs would not be satisfied”
