All Posts Tagged With: "John Locke"
Private Guns, Public Health
David Hemenway, a professor of health policy at Harvard University, harbors a deep aversion to guns. His book embodies the institutional prejudices of a cohort of academics notable for their abiding predisposition for state control over individuals for “the public good.” So ingrained is the bias that it almost dashes one’s hopes that firearms can [...]
12Jul2010 | Timothy J. Wheeler | 0 comments | ContinuedDid Locke Really Justify Limited Government?
John Locke (1632–1704) was a physician, statesman, and political philosopher, filling that last office in a dry, “empirical,” and militantly antipoetic English mode. Locke’s stock has risen and fallen over the years. Contemporaries called him a Socinian (a precursor of Unitarianism), a deist, a Muslim, and an opportunist. Later critics have seen Locke as the [...]
24Feb2010 | Joseph R. Stromberg | 15 comments | ContinuedEurope Meets America: Property Rights in the New World
When Europeans arrived in the Americas and began to claim the rich lands they encountered, they brought with them an equally rich European tradition of property law and justifications for establishing property rights. Today these are often mistakenly lumped together into the law of conquest, sometimes in an attempt to cast modern titles into doubt [...]
1Jan2007 | Andrew P. Morriss | 2 comments | ContinuedVindicating Voluntaryism
Voluntaryism. Other than to those who have seriously considered the overwhelming case for liberty in human affairs, the word doesn’t have a very catchy ring. As a result, it would not survive vetting by our modern gamut of political focus groups and public-relations gurus. Yet that was what Englishman Auberon Herbert used to describe and [...]
1Nov2006 | Gary M. Galles | 2 comments | ContinuedFor Equality; Against Privilege
The freedom philosophy can be boiled down to two phrases: for equality, against privilege. Intuitively, this should sound uncontroversial. We just finished celebrating the Fourth of July, which commemorates the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson’s elegant statement of the freedom philosophy proclaims: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. [...]
7Jul2006 | Sheldon Richman | 2 comments | ContinuedLiberty: The Other Equality
Equality is an ideal upheld by a number of ideologies,
but nowadays it is seldom associated with
libertarianism or classical liberalism. Indeed, both
libertarians and their critics typically think of equality as
an ideal in tension with the ideal of liberty as libertarians
understand it.
Life, Liberty, and Retirement Pensions
The right to acquire property is a staple of liberal political theory. But why would anyone bother accumulating property? If my monthly expenses are a thousand dollars, then what use could I possibly have for any monthly income larger than a thousand dollars? I could plausibly reason that if I work harder today, I might [...]
1Sep2005 | Aeon J. Skoble | 1 comment | ContinuedBook Reviews – May 2003
The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power by Max Boot Basic Books • 2002 • 448 pages • $30.00 hardcover; $16.00 paperback Reviewed by Ivan Eland Max Boot provides a thorough and relatively candid history of the U.S. government’s involvement in small wars. The section of the book on [...]
1May2003 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedBook Reviews – April 2003
Guns and Violence: The English Experience by Joyce Lee Malcolm Harvard University Press • 2002 • 352 pages • $28.00 Reviewed by Clayton Cramer Joyce Lee Malcolm’s new book is not the masterpiece that her previous book, To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right, was. Still, there is much to commend, [...]
1Apr2003 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Perils of Positive Rights
Tibor Machan is a professor at the Argyros School of Business and Economics, Chapman University. One of the most powerful ideas opposed to the free society is a notion political philosophers call “positive rights.” Sounds good, doesn’t it? What could be wrong with being positive? Sounds like something out of Anthony Robbins or Norman Vincent [...]
1Apr2001 | Tibor R. Machan | 5 comments | ContinuedThe Right of Resistance
Many politicians talk as if citizens were obliged both to revere and obey their government. But there are few things more dangerous than swallowing the notion that government is entitled to boundless obedience from the people under its power. Throughout history, governments have occasionally overstepped the bounds of their legitimate power. What should be done [...]
1Aug2000 | James Bovard | 3 comments | ContinuedTensions in Early American Political Thought
According to the eminent historian of political thought J.G.A. Pocock, republican theory (or “civic humanism”) was the most significant current of eighteenth-century English and American political philosophy. In the form of “country ideology,” republicanism gave “left” and “right” critics of government policies a framework and believable rhetoric for their arguments.
1May1999 | Joseph R. Stromberg | 0 comments | ContinuedWritten on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law by J. Budziszewski
InterVarsity Press • 1997 • 252 pages • $15.99 The canard that free-market economists are so narrowly focused on economic concerns that they miss the big picture seems as indestructible as it is indefensible. It was Ludwig von Mises, after all, who said that one cannot be a good economist if he is only an [...]
1Jan1999 | Robert Batemarco | 0 comments | ContinuedDefining State and Society
Two of the most important concepts in any discussion of liberty are state and society. But it is often far from clear what any given person means by those terms. Part of the confusion stems from the fact that the definitions can shift dramatically depending upon the theoretical approach of the speaker. Virtually all individualists [...]
1Apr1998 | Wendy McElroy | 0 comments | ContinuedGovernment and the Market: Chicken or Egg?
John Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation, a nonprofit think tank based in Raleigh, North Carolina. One evening not too long ago, I was invited to participate in a debate about state welfare policy. As much of our work at the John Locke Foundation had been directed toward various welfare bills in the [...]
1Mar1998 | John Hood | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Non-Absurdity of Natural Law
There is an immense difference between disagreeing with a theory and considering it to be absurd. The former can be a respectful process that encourages discussion; the latter implies that anyone who holds the theory must be a fool. In vernacular language, the difference can be expressed as, “Is the other guy wrong, or is [...]
1Feb1998 | Wendy McElroy | 2 comments | ContinuedWho Said What About Liberty? (a quiz)
The literature of liberty offers double pleasure. You can often enjoy both dynamic ideas and great eloquence. Just for fun, see if you can match the following unforgettable quotations with their authors. The quotations are representative views of many of the greatest thinkers in the history of liberty: A. Lord Acton B. Benjamin Franklin C. [...]
1Jul1997 | FEE Admin | 1 comment | Continued-
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