Download or read book Liberty and Property written by Ellen Meiksins Wood and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The formation of the modern state, the rise of capitalism, the Renaissance and Reformation, the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment have all been attributed to the “early modern” period. Nearly everything about its history remains controversial, but one thing is certain: it left a rich and provocative legacy of political ideas unmatched in Western history. The concepts of liberty, equality, property, human rights and revolution born in those turbulent centuries continue to shape, and to limit, political discourse today. Assessing the work and background of figures such as Machiavelli, Luther, Calvin, Spinoza, the Levellers, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, Ellen Wood vividly explores the ideas of the canonical thinkers, not as philosophical abstractions but as passionately engaged responses to the social conflicts of their day.
Download or read book The necessary History of Property and Liberty written by Richard Allen Epstein and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 47 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Brief History of Liberty written by David Schmidtz and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-09-19 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through a fusion of philosophical, social scientific, and historical methods, A Brief History of Liberty provides a comprehensive, philosophically-informed portrait of the elusive nature of one of our most cherished ideals. Offers a succinct yet thorough survey of personal freedom Explores the true meaning of liberty, drawing philosophical lessons about liberty from history Considers the writings of key historical figures from Socrates and Erasmus to Hobbes, Locke, Marx, and Adam Smith Combines philosophical rigor with social scientific analysis Argues that liberty refers to a range of related but specific ideas rather than limiting the concept to one definition
Download or read book Property and Freedom written by Richard Pipes and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A superb book about a topic that should be front and center in the American political debate" (National Review), from the acclaimed Harvard scholar and historian of the Russian Revolution An exploration of a wide range of national and political systems to demonstrate persuasively that private ownership has served over the centuries to limit the power of the state and enable democratic institutions to evolve and thrive in the Western world. Beginning with Greece and Rome, where the concept of private property as we understand it first developed, Richard Pipes then shows us how, in the late medieval period, the idea matured with the expansion of commerce and the rise of cities. He contrasts England, a country where property rights and parliamentary government advanced hand-in-hand, with Russia, where restrictions on ownership have for centuries consistently abetted authoritarian regimes; finally he provides reflections on current and future trends in the United States. Property and Freedom is a brilliant contribution to political thought and an essential work on a subject of vital importance.
Download or read book Design for Liberty written by Richard A. Epstein and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following a vast expansion in the twentieth century, government is beginning to creak at the joints under its enormous weight. The signs are clear: a bloated civil service, low approval ratings for Congress and the President, increasing federal-state conflict, rampant distrust of politicians and government officials, record state deficits, and major unrest among public employees. In this compact, clearly written book, the noted legal scholar Richard Epstein advocates a much smaller federal government, arguing that our over-regulated state allows too much discretion on the part of regulators, which results in arbitrary, unfair decisions, rent-seeking, and other abuses. Epstein bases his classical liberalism on the twin pillars of the rule of law and of private contracts and property rights—an overarching structure that allows private property to keep its form regardless of changes in population, tastes, technology, and wealth. This structure also makes possible a restrained public administration to implement limited objectives. Government continues to play a key role as night-watchman, but with the added flexibility in revenues and expenditures to attend to national defense and infrastructure formation. Although no legal system can eliminate the need for discretion in the management of both private and public affairs, predictable laws can cabin the zone of discretion and permit arbitrary decisions to be challenged. Joining a set of strong property rights with sound but limited public administration could strengthen the rule of law, with its virtues of neutrality, generality, clarity, consistency, and forward-lookingness, and reverse the contempt and cynicism that have overcome us.
Download or read book Classical Foundations of Liberty and Property written by Richard Epstein and published by Taylor & Francis US. This book was released on 2000 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The wide collection of disciplines and periods represented in this five-volume set make it an ideal companion for courses in intellectual and legal history, political history, economic history, and common and constitutional law. The essays involved offer insightful understanding into the evolution of liberty and property in ways that are accessible to students without a strong technical background in economics, philosophy, or law. They contain probing evaluations of the central problems of legal and political thought that should prove of value to advanced students and specialists in these fields. Volumes also available individually. Volume 1. Classical Foundations of Liberty and Property (0-8153-3555-5) Volume 2. Modern Understanding of Liberty and Property (0-8153-3556-3) Volume 3. Private and Common Property (0-8153-3557-1) Volume 4. Contract-Freedom and Restraint (0-8153-3558-X) Volume 5. Constitutional Protection of Private Property and Freedom of Contract (0-8153-3559-8)
Download or read book Liberty and Property written by Ludwig Von Mises and published by Ludwig von Mises Institute. This book was released on 1988 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Originally delivered as a lecture at Princeton University, October 1958, at the 9th meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society"--Page 7. Includes bibliographical references.
Download or read book A Social History of Western Political Thought written by Ellen Meiksins Wood and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 903 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking work, Ellen Meiksins Wood rewrites the history of political theory, from Plato to Rousseau. Treating canonical thinkers as passionately engaged human beings, Wood examines their ideas not simply in the context of political languages but as creative responses to the social relations and conflicts of their time and place. She identifies a distinctive relation between property and state in Western history and shows how the canon, while largely the work of members or clients of dominant classes, was shaped by complex interactions among proprietors, labourers and states. Western political theory, Wood argues, owes much of its vigour, and also many ambiguities, to these complex and often contradictory relations. In the first volume, she traces the development of the Western tradition from classical antiquity through to the Middle Ages in the perspective of social history - a significant departure not only from the standard abstract history of ideas but also from other contextual methods. From the Ancient Greek polis of Plato, Aristotle, Aeschylus and Sophocles, through the Roman Republic of Cicero and the Empire of St Paul and St Augustine, to the medieval world of Averroes, Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham, Wood offers a rich, dynamic exploration of thinkers and ideas that have indelibly stamped our modern world. In the second volume, Wood addresses the formation of the modern state, the rise of capitalism, the Renaissance and Reformation, the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, which have all been attributed to the "early modern" period. Nearly everything about its history remains controversial, but one thing is certain: it left a rich and provocative legacy of political ideas unmatched in Western history. The concepts of liberty, equality, property, human rights and revolution born in those turbulent centuries continue to shape, and to limit, political discourse today. Assessing the work and background of figures such as Machiavelli, Luther, Calvin, Spinoza, the Levellers, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, Ellen Wood vividly explores the ideas of the canonical thinkers, not as philosophical abstractions but as passionately engaged responses to the social conflicts of their day.
Download or read book The Federalist Papers written by Alexander Hamilton and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2018-08-20 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Classic Books Library presents this brand new edition of “The Federalist Papers”, a collection of separate essays and articles compiled in 1788 by Alexander Hamilton. Following the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776, the governing doctrines and policies of the States lacked cohesion. “The Federalist”, as it was previously known, was constructed by American statesman Alexander Hamilton, and was intended to catalyse the ratification of the United States Constitution. Hamilton recruited fellow statesmen James Madison Jr., and John Jay to write papers for the compendium, and the three are known as some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804) was an American lawyer, journalist and highly influential government official. He also served as a Senior Officer in the Army between 1799-1800 and founded the Federalist Party, the system that governed the nation’s finances. His contributions to the Constitution and leadership made a significant and lasting impact on the early development of the nation of the United States.
Download or read book The Guardian of Every Other Right written by James W. Ely Jr. and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-11-30 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Guardian of Every Other Right chronicles the pivotal role of property rights in fashioning the American constitutional order from the colonial era to the current controversies over eminent domain and land use controls. The book emphasizes the interplay of law, ideology, politics, and economic change in shaping constitutional thought and provides a historical perspective on the contemporary debate about property rights. Since publication of the original edition of this work, both academic and popular interest in the constitutional rights of property owners has markedly increased. Now in its third edition, this text has been revised to incorporate a full treatment of important judicial decisions, notable legislation, and scholarship since the second edition appeared in 1997. In particular, Ely provides helpful background and context for understanding the controversial Kelo decision relating to the exercise of eminent domain power for "public use." Covering the entire history of property rights in the United States, this new edition continues to fill a major gap in the literature of constitutional history and is an ideal text for students of legal and constitutional history.
Download or read book A Concise History of the Common Law written by Theodore Frank Thomas Plucknett and published by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.. This book was released on 2001 with total page 828 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published: 5th ed. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1956.
Download or read book On Civil Liberty and Self government written by Francis Lieber and published by . This book was released on 1859 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Declaration of Independence written by Carl Lotus Becker and published by Jazzybee Verlag. This book was released on 2017 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this long essay Becker analyzed the structure, drafting, and philosophy of the Declaration. He recognizes that it was not intended as an objective historical statement of the causes of the Revolution, but merely furnished a moral and legal justification for rebellion. Step by step, the colonists modified their theory to suit their needs. Whenever men become sufficiently dissatisfied with the existing regime of positive law and custom, they will be found reaching out beyond it for the rational basis of what they conceive ought to be. This is what the Americans did in their controversy with Great Britain.
Download or read book Property and Freedom written by Richard Pipes and published by Knopf. This book was released on 1999 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Property, asserts Richard Pipes, is an indispensable ingredient not only of economic progress but also of liberty and the rule of law. In his new book, the Harvard scholar demonstrates how, throughout history, private ownership has served as a barrier to the power of the state, enabling the Western world to evolve enduring democratic institutions. He traces the development of private property, beginning with ancient Greece and Rome, where property rights in the modern sense first made their appearance. He explains how notions of ownership matured in late medieval times with the great expansion of commerce and the growth of cities. He shows how England, as the first country to treat land as a commodity and to develop a robust defense of property rights, also became the first to institute a parliamentary government capable of restraining the powers of royalty. In pre-nineteenth-century Russia, on the other hand, the absence of private land ownership deprived its citizens of the leverage to limit the authority of their tsars. Pipes describes the attitudes toward property of twentieth-century totalitarian states and points out that in the United States the protection of private property, rooted in the principles of the Founding Fathers, has been a major contributor to the commonweal. However, he warns that contemporary trends in the treatment of property--in a century that, he suggests, has been unfavorable to the institution--threaten to undermine the rights of citizens. And he makes clear why he believes that excessive interference by government, even when intended to promote the "common good," could lead to a diminution of freedom.
Download or read book The Prehistory of Private Property written by Karl Widerquist and published by Screening Antiquity. This book was released on 2021-02-28 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining the origin and development of the private property rights system from prehistory to the present day This book debunks three false claims commonly accepted by contemporary political philosophers regarding property systems: that inequality is natural, inevitable, or incompatible with freedom; that capitalism is more consistent with negative freedom than any other conceivable economic system; and that the normative principles of appropriation and voluntary transfer applied in the world in which we live support a capitalist system with strong, individualist and unequal private property rights. The authors review the history of the use and importance of these claims in philosophy, and use thorough anthropological and historical evidence to refute them. They show that societies with common-property systems maintaining strong equality and extensive freedom were initially nearly ubiquitous around the world, and that the private property rights system was established through a long series of violent state-sponsored aggressions.
Download or read book The Liberty of Ancients Compared with that of Moderns written by Benjamin Constant and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an essay by Benjamin Constant. In this essay, Constant contrasted two views on freedom: one held by "the Ancients," particularly those in Classical Greece, and the other by members of modern societies. He investigates the dangers of attempting to impose ancient liberty in a modern context, as well as the risks associated with each type of liberty. The danger of ancient liberty was that men, preoccupied with securing their share of social power, might place too little value on individual rights and pleasures. The danger of modern liberty is that we will give up our right to participate in political power too easily, absorbed in the enjoyment of our independence and the pursuit of our particular interests." Constant believes that the two types of liberty must eventually be combined.
Download or read book The History of Freedom written by John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton Baron Acton and published by . This book was released on 1907 with total page 690 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
