Does the welfare state contribute to the development of human freedom? This central problem of political evaluation has been answered in various ways. Some have seen the mechanisms of a redistributive tax-transfer scheme and the state supply of education and health services as steps down the road to serfdom. Others have seen the welfare state as providing a set of institutions through which individuals could realize the positive freedom that came with identifying individual interest and social interest. Yet others have seen the economic security provided by the welfare state as a necessary condition for the enjoying of the traditional social and political liberties. And again others have seen the principle of satisfying needs as prefiguring a form of social organization in which persons are freed from the constraints of private property.