>Serfs tied to the land were not free, they had a choice to stay and struggle or leave and risk wandering and starving. Not much of a choice. Your example is c

>Serfs tied to the land were not free, they had a choice to stay and struggle or leave and risk wandering and starving. Not much of a choice. Your example is completely orthogonal to liberty. Choices are completely orthogonal. If the serf could leave and not starve, he still wouldn't be free because they would find and drag him back and punish him. He wasn't permitted to make the choice, it being incidental that he wouldn't survive long enough to be punished for it in most circumstances. If they had refrained from punishing serfs that leave you'd still insist there is no freedom there, I think, because of the starvation. But no one is obligated to feed you so that you can choose options that would otherwise starve you. >Also the author seems to be worried that people will make bad decisions with their choices For good reason. Given choices, humans inevitably pick the worst of them. And I'm not talking about those that are only bad options in hindsight. >it’s like there’s this effort to justify limiting our choices and calling that freedom. There's no effort, that's called reality. Reality limits choices, and it is effortless.