By C.B. Macpherson
This seminal paintings through political thinker C.B. Macpherson used to be first released through the Clarendon Press in 1962, and is still of key significance to the examine of liberal-democratic concept half-a-century later. In it, Macpherson argues that the executive hassle of the inspiration of individualism that underpins classical liberalism lies in what he calls its "possessive quality"--"its notion of the person as primarily the owner of his personal individual or capacities, owing not anything to society for them." lower than this kind of perception, the essence of humanity turns into freedom from dependence at the wills of others; society is little greater than a process of financial kinfolk; and political society turns into a method of safeguarding inner most estate and the procedure of financial kin rooted in property.
As the New Statesman declared: "It is unusual for a booklet to alter the highbrow panorama. it really is much more strange for this to occur whilst the topic is one who has been completely investigated through generations of historians. . . till the looks of Professor Macpherson's ebook, it appeared not going that whatever considerably new should be stated approximately so well-worn an issue. The unforeseen has occurred, and the surprise waves are nonetheless being absorbed."
A new advent by way of Frank Cunningham places the paintings in a twenty-first-century context.
Read Online or Download The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (Wynford Books) PDF
Best Political History books
Political Utopias: Contemporary Debates
Political concept, from antiquity to the current, has been divided over the connection among the necessities of justice and the constraints of people and associations to fulfill these specifications. a few theorists carry concept of justice could be utopian or idealistic--that the derivation of the proper rules of justice are not consider human and institutional barriers.
Historians have lengthy assumed that immigration to the us used to be unfastened from legislation till anti-Asian racism at the West Coast brought on the advent of federal legislation to limit chinese language immigration within the Eighties. reviews of ecu immigration and executive keep an eye on at the East Coast have, in the meantime, interested in Ellis Island, which opened in 1892.
A Defense of Rule: Origins of Political Thought in Greece and India
At its middle, politics is all approximately kin of rule. for this reason one of many significant preoccupations of political conception is what it potential for people to rule over each other or proportion in a strategy of ruling. whereas political theorists are likely to regard rule as an important evil, this publication goals to give an explanation for how rule don't need to be understood as anathema to political existence.
Philosophy, Politics, Autonomy: Essays in Political Philosophy (Odéon)
Those impressive essays contain Cornelius Castoriadis's newest contributions to philosophy, political and social idea, classical reports, improvement concept, cultural feedback, technological know-how, and ecology. analyzing the "co-birth" in historic Greece of philosophy and politics, Castoriadis indicates how the Greeks' radical wondering of demonstrated rules and associations gave upward push to the "project of autonomy".
Extra resources for The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (Wynford Books)