Is freedom something that is given to individuals, and thus can be taken away, or is it something with which we were born?

“Freedom is your birthright,” said James R. Harrigan, director of the Freedom Center at the University of Arizona. “But you have to actually want it and you have to earn it. You have to deserve it.”

Harrigan, along with Antony Davies, associate professor of economics at Duquesne University, co-authored the new book, “Coercion and Cooperation: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What That Means for Economics and Politics.”

Davies and Harrigan sat down for an interview with Freedom Mindset Radio host Curt Mercadante about the new book. Mercadante asked the co-authors if freedom “is our default state when we're born and then it's a matter of how much coercion and restrictions there are on our freedom?”

“Look, freedom is your birthright as a human being, whether you're born with it or not is a separate and distinct question,” replied Harrigan. “The vast majority of human beings who have lived on this planet have not been born in a condition of freedom. That doesn't mean it wasn't their birthright, but they weren't born in that condition. Freedom is something that has to be earned absolutely by collections of people over time.”