As the harbingers of socialism tell us again and again, socialism will not only make all people rich but it will also bring perfect freedom to everybody. The transition to socialism, declares Frederick Engels, the friend and collaborator of Marx, is the leap of mankind from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom. The treatment of this problem of freedom and bondage has been muddled by confounding it with the issues of the nature-given conditions of man's existence. In nature there is nothing that could be called freedom.
Nature is inexorable necessity.
It is the state of affairs into which all created beings are placed and with which they have to cope. Man has to adjust his conduct to the world as it is. If he wants to substitute more satisfactory conditions for less satisfactory, he has to comply with them. The concept of freedom and its antithesis make sense only in referring to the conditions of social cooperation among men. Social cooperation, the basis of any really human and civilized existence, can be achieved by two different methods.