Locke Among the Radicals

Locke Among the Radicals
Author: Daniel Layman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2020-07-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190939087

Capitalism in the western world is currently facing a crisis of legitimacy in the face of growing inequality. But many forget that the global, capitalist world as we know it today emerged largely during the industrial revolution. Four remarkable thinkers of the long nineteenth century, the Lockean radicals--Thomas Hodgskin, Lysander Spooner, John Bray, and Henry George--responded to the horrid and rampant economic injustices at the time by picking up the loose ends of Locke's property theory and weaving them into two competing strands. Each strand addressed problems of liberty and equality then emerging from industrial capitalism, but each did so in a different way. As Daniel Layman argues, in one camp, Hodgskin and Spooner, libertarian radicals, argued that the world of resources is common to all people only in the negative sense of being originally "unowned" by anyone. According to them, there are no just grounds for state redistribution except to correct past injustices, and governments are typically little more than thieving and oppressive gangs. In the other camp, Bray and George, egalitarian radicals, held that all people have a positive claim to share equally in the world's resources. According to them, states should ensure, through redistributive taxation and other progressive policies, that our institutions respect this common right. Locke Among the Radicals tells the forgotten story of the Lockean radicals and the crucial role they played in addressing problems latent in Locke's theory. Layman argues persuasively that some of the radicals' insights provide a blueprint for a form of liberal distributive justice possible to achieve today.

Locke Among the Radicals

Locke Among the Radicals
Author: Daniel Layman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2020-07-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190939095

Capitalism in the western world is currently facing a crisis of legitimacy in the face of growing inequality. But many forget that the global, capitalist world as we know it today emerged largely during the industrial revolution. Four remarkable thinkers of the long nineteenth century, the Lockean radicals--Thomas Hodgskin, Lysander Spooner, John Bray, and Henry George--responded to the horrid and rampant economic injustices at the time by picking up the loose ends of Locke's property theory and weaving them into two competing strands. Each strand addressed problems of liberty and equality then emerging from industrial capitalism, but each did so in a different way. As Daniel Layman argues, in one camp, Hodgskin and Spooner, libertarian radicals, argued that the world of resources is common to all people only in the negative sense of being originally "unowned" by anyone. According to them, there are no just grounds for state redistribution except to correct past injustices, and governments are typically little more than thieving and oppressive gangs. In the other camp, Bray and George, egalitarian radicals, held that all people have a positive claim to share equally in the world's resources. According to them, states should ensure, through redistributive taxation and other progressive policies, that our institutions respect this common right. Locke Among the Radicals tells the forgotten story of the Lockean radicals and the crucial role they played in addressing problems latent in Locke's theory. Layman argues persuasively that some of the radicals' insights provide a blueprint for a form of liberal distributive justice possible to achieve today.

Rules for Radicals

Rules for Radicals
Author: Saul Alinsky
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2010-06-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0307756890

“This country's leading hell-raiser" (The Nation) shares his impassioned counsel to young radicals on how to effect constructive social change and know “the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one.” First published in 1971 and written in the midst of radical political developments whose direction Alinsky was one of the first to question, this volume exhibits his style at its best. Like Thomas Paine before him, Alinsky was able to combine, both in his person and his writing, the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on rational political discourse and adherence to the American democratic tradition.

Democratic Enlightenment

Democratic Enlightenment
Author: Jonathan Israel
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 1083
Release: 2013-01-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199668094

That the Enlightenment shaped modernity is uncontested. Yet remarkably few historians or philosophers have attempted to trace the process of ideas from the political and social turmoil of the late eighteenth century to the present day. This is precisely what Jonathan Israel now does. In Democratic Enlightenment, Israel demonstrates that the Enlightenment was an essentially revolutionary process, driven by philosophical debate. The American Revolution and its concerns certainly acted as a major factor in the intellectual ferment that shaped the wider upheaval that followed, but the radical philosophes were no less critical than enthusiastic about the American model. From 1789, the General Revolution's impetus came from a small group of philosophe-revolutionnaires, men such as Mirabeau, Sieyes, Condorcet, Volney, Roederer, and Brissot. Not aligned to any of the social groups represented in the French National assembly, they nonetheless forged "la philosophie moderne"-in effect Radical Enlightenment ideas-into a world-transforming ideology that had a lasting impact in Latin America, Canada and Eastern Europe as well as France, Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries. In addition, Israel argues that while all French revolutionary journals powerfully affirmed that la philosophie moderne was the main cause of the French Revolution, the main stream of historical thought has failed to grasp what this implies. Israel sets the record straight, demonstrating the true nature of the engine that drove the Revolution, and the intimate links between the radical wing of the Enlightenment and the anti-Robespierriste "Revolution of reason."

The New Negro

The New Negro
Author: Alain Locke
Publisher:
Total Pages: 508
Release: 1925
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN:

Radical Enlightenment

Radical Enlightenment
Author: Jonathan Irvine Israel
Publisher:
Total Pages: 848
Release: 2001
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0198206089

Readership: Readers with an interest in the European Enlightenment; intellectual and cultural historians; scholars and students of philosophy.

A Revolution of the Mind

A Revolution of the Mind
Author: Jonathan Israel
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2010
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691152608

Declaration of Human Rights.

Revolutionary Politics and Locke's Two Treatises of Government

Revolutionary Politics and Locke's Two Treatises of Government
Author: Richard Ashcraft
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 639
Release: 2021-07-13
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1400823420

Richard Ashcraft offers a new interpretation of the political thought of John Locke by viewing his ideas, especially those in the Two Treatises of Government, in the context of his political activity. Linking the implications of Locke's political theory with his practical politics, Professor Ashcraft focuses on Locke's involvement with the radical Whigs, who challenged the established order in England from the 1670s to the 1690s. An equally important aim of the author is to provide a case study of a revolutionary movement that includes a discussion of its organization, ideology, socio-economic composition, and political activities. Based upon a detailed examination of manuscripts, diaries, correspondence, and newspapers, Professor Ashcraft presents a wealth of new historical evidence on the political life of Restoration England. This study represents an example of an approach to political theory that stresses the importance of authorial intentions and of the political, social, and economic influences that structure a particular political debate.

Of the Abuse of Words

Of the Abuse of Words
Author: John Locke
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 107
Release: 2009-08-27
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0141956577

John Locke was one of the greatest figures of the Enlightenment, whose assertion that reason is the key to knowledge changed the face of philosophy. These writings on thought, ideas, perception, truth and language are some of the most influential in the history of Western thought. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.