Both constrained and unconstrained visions are ultimately concerned with social results. The unconstrained vision seeks directly to achieve those results socially—that is, through collective decisions prescribing the desired outcomes. The constrained vision considers it beyond the capability of any manageable set of decision-makers to marshal the requisite knowledge, and dangerous to concentrate sufficient power, to carry out their decisions, even if it were possible.
(Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles [New York: Basic Books, 2002], 246)
Note from KBJ: The constrained vision corresponds to conservatism. The unconstrained vision corresponds to progressivism.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 