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With the rise of the Tea Party movement, libertarian principles have risen to the forefront of Republican politics. But libertarianism is more than the philosophy of individual freedom and unfettered markets that Republicans have embraced. Brennan offers a nuanced portrait of libertarianism, proceeding through a series of questions to illuminate the essential elements of libertarianism and the problems the philosophy addresses, and overturns numerous misconceptions.
Michael Otsuka's ingenious and exciting book vindicates left-libertarianism, a political philosophy which combines stringent rights of control over one's own mind, body, and life with egalitarian rights of ownership of the world. He reclaims the ideas of John Locke from the libertarian right, and defends a view which is both more libertarian and more egalitarian than the Kantian liberalism of John Rawls. Otsuka endorses a fully egalitarian principle of equal opportunity for welfare and defends a pluralistic, decentralized ideal of political society. Libertarianism without Inequality is a book which everyone interested in political theory should read.
Ever since the publication in 1974 of Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia, libertarianism has been much discussed within political philosophy, science and economy circles. Yet libertarianism has been so strongly identified with Nozick's version of it that little attention has been devoted to other than Nozick's ideas and arguments. While Nozick's version of libertarianism has preoccupied the academic discussion Nozick himself did not respond to the many criticisms raised and yet other defenders of libertarianism have not remained silent. Jan Narveson, Loren Lomasky, Eric Mack, Douglas Rasmussen, Douglas Den Uyl and many others have contributed impressive arguments of their own in supp...
Libertarians often bill their theory as an alternative to both the traditional Left and Right. The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism helps readers fully examine this alternative without preaching it to them, exploring the contours of libertarian (sometimes also called classical liberal) thinking on justice, institutions, interpersonal ethics, government, and political economy. The 31 chapters--all written specifically for this volume--are organized into five parts. Part I asks, what should libertarianism learn from other theories of justice, and what should defenders of other theories of justice learn from libertarianism? Part II asks, what are some of the deepest problems facing libertar...
Historically, Americans have seen libertarians as far outside the mainstream, but with the rise of the Tea Party movement, libertarian principles have risen to the forefront of Republican politics. But libertarianism is more than the philosophy of individual freedom and unfettered markets that Republicans have embraced. Indeed, as Jason Brennan points out, libertarianism is a quite different--and far richer--system of thought than most of us suspect. In this timely new entry in Oxford's acclaimed series What Everyone Needs to Know®, Brennan offers a nuanced portrait of libertarianism, proceeding through a series of questions to illuminate the essential elements of libertarianism and the pro...
"Recent writing on the nature of freedom has served to underline a crucial gap in the academic experience. First--and most obviously--the concept of freedom has been modernized by its application to contemporary institutions. Second, a new approach to the concept of liberty has been pioneered in the construction of new typologies of freedom. Finally, awareness of variety in concepts of freedom has been paralleled in variations in the practice of freedom. The tumultuous history of Western man may be conceptualized as the story of how freedom has become embodied. What is missing from the story is the relationship of concepts to actions.This relationship has been established for some specific n...
The essence of libertarianism is the view that coercive political institutions, such as the state, are justified only insofar as they function to protect each person’s liberty to pursue their own goals and well-being in their own way. Libertarians accordingly argue that any attempt to enforce top-down concepts of social justice or economic equality are fundamentally misconceived. In this book, leading expert Eric Mack provides a rigorous and clear account of the philosophical principles of libertarianism. He offers accounts of three distinctive schools of libertarian thought, which he labels the natural rights approach, the cooperation to mutual advantage approach, and the indirect consequ...
This first systematic analysis of the full range of classical liberal thinking covers the utilitarianism of Hume, Smith and their successors, the Austrian and Chicago schools of political economy, 'contractarian' liberalism and the ethical individualism of Ayn Rand and Robert Nozick. Norman Barry also discusses the hitherto barely understood theory of anarcho-capitalism and throughout his analysis draws attention to the differences in fundamental philosophical outlook that underline superficially similar policy positions.
Have you ever wondered what libertarians think about vaccine mandates? About gun control? About racial and sexual inequalities? While libertarianism is well known as a political theory relating to the scope and justification of state authority, the breadth and depth of libertarian work on a wide range of other topics in social and political philosophy is less well known. This handbook is the first definitive reference on libertarianism that offers an in-depth survey of the central ideas from across philosophy, politics, and economics, including applications to contemporary policy issues. The forty chapters in this work provide an encyclopedic overview of libertarian scholarship, from foundat...
Free marketeers claim that theirs is the only economic mechanism which respects and furthers human freedom. Socialism, they say, has been thoroughly discredited. Most libertarians treat the state in anything other than its minimal, 'nightwatchman' form as a repressive embodiment of evil. Some reject the state altogether. But is the 'free market idea' a rationally defensible belief? Or do its proponents fail to examine the philosophical roots of their so-called freedom? Anti-libertarianism takes a sceptical look at the conceptual tenets of free market politics. Alan Haworth argues that libertarianism is little more than an unfounded, quasi-religious statement of faith: a market romance. Moreover, libertarianism is exposed as profoundly antithetical to the very freedom which it purports to advance. This controversial book is for anyone interested in the cultural and political impact of free market policies on the modern world. It will be invaluable to students and specialists of political and economic theory, social science and philosophy.