How do you maximize personal liberty? Is this a good thing to do?

Captain Harley made a comment to me in another discussion that I interpreted to mean that his principle for making our lives the best we can is to maximize personal liberty. He didn’t say what he meant by that, so I’m asking this question to give people a chance to say what the concept means to them.

Then I’d like to know if this is a good thing. It seems to me there is a tension between cooperation and individual liberty. I believe that cooperation helps more people to a greater degree. Maximizing individual liberty helps fewer people but for those it helps, they get a much greater amount of help.

Is this another version of the socialism vs capitalism debate? Whatever. Try to stay concrete both in definitions and in marshalling facts to support the idea of whether this idea of unfettered personal liberty is good for all of us or not.