From A Critique of Interventionism — surrounding passage

This misunderstanding, together with an interpretation of freedom that is influenced by the natural rights philosophy, has led to attempts at preventing the development of large enterprises through laws against cartels and trusts. We need not here discuss the desirability of such a policy. But we should observe that nothing is less important for an understanding of

“The essential characteristic of Western civilization that distinguishes it from the arrested and petrified civilizations of the East was and is its concern for freedom from the state. The history of the West, from the age of the Greek polis down to the present-day resistance to socialism, is essentially the history of the fight for liberty against the encroachments of the officeholders.”

In the country of J. B. Clark, Taussig, Fetter, Davenport, Young, and Seligman, it is impossible to ignore all the achievements of economics. It was to be expected, therefore, that an attempt would here be made to prove the realizability and suitability of interventionism. John Maurice Clark, formerly a University of Chicago professor and now, as was his great father John Bates Clark, professor at Columbia University in New York City, has undertaken this very task.