Each person is naturally the best judge of his own interests, and, if left free from the influence of artificially imposed restrictions, will express his judgment in his choice of work and exchange of services and goods.
This quote reflects Dewey's belief in individual autonomy and the importance of personal choice in economic matters.
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More from John Dewey
The relationships of husband and wife, parent and children, older and younger children, friend and friend, are the bonds from which authority proceeds.
The easiest way out was to go back to the naked individual, to sweep away all associations as foreign to his nature and rights save as they proceeded from his own voluntary choice, and guaranteed his own private ends.
Nor can the liberating and confirming results of public action be construed to yield a wholesale idealization of states in contrast with other associations.
For the very familiarity with the phenomena conceals their significance and blinds us to their relation to immediate political problems.