In contemporary times, he looks at an American trade union, a Japanese company, and the Swedish welfare state. The common strain through all these cases is the need to balance power. Thus, the theory of freedom seeks to identify groups and structures that neither allow opposing authority to become tyrannical nor become oligarchic themselves. By examining the variables of freedom versus tyranny, community versus egoism, centralization versus decentralization, and power derived from authority versus force, Pope elucidates the ways in which the arrangement of our organizations determines our degree of freedom. Such conflict should not be viewed as an evil but as a necessity.
Institutionalized argument is required lest government, democratic or otherwise, becomes tyrannical.
Hampshire stresses the need to recognize the usefulness and desirability of debate in deciding moral matters, as the alternative is a reliance on rationality, which does not provide a powerful bond between people when passions are strong on both sides. In the wake of this understanding, Hampshire emphasizes the continued relevance of socialism in arguments of distributive justice. This work is brief but compelling. He touches on a myriad of philosophers along the way, and in the end, one does indeed respect his argument.