Books in the Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism series

This book is a systematic and thorough analysis of what post-modernity is and how it emerged. It distinguishes between those who regard post-modernity as a theoretical approach and those who regard it as a culture, and argues that interpreting post-modernity as a culture is more fruitful. It discusses the three factors which led to its emergence, namely liberalism, capitalism, and secularism, highlighting their respective influence in generating the culture of post-modernity within neoliberal societies.The volume provides a lengthy analysis of neoliberal post-modernity in practice, arguing that post-modernism is the cultural condition of neoliberal societies in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Until recently it seemed that neoliberal post-modernity was here to stay, framed by relationship to freedom and time which stressed individual agency but precluded the possibility of historical change at the political level. However, the Great Recession of2008 opened new spaces for agitation and transformation which has resulted in the discordant politics of the last decade. This book will be of interest to scholars working in a number of fields, including economic policy, cultural analysis, political theory, and social critique.

This book offers an alternative to perspectives of distributive justice which fail to resolve economic inequality and exacerbate social problems by ignoring the real causes of inequality. The main impact of the book is to highlight the importance of self-ownership and private property, showing how market participation advances liberty and prosperity.The idea that we should pay reparations to disadvantaged racial groups as compensation for historical injustice is deeply contested. The debates often focus on the practical implications of paying reparations, but overlook more fundamental questions about the meaning of justice. What is justice? What are the implications of wealth redistribution for individual liberty and the rule of law? This book answers these questions through an analysis of classical liberal perspectives in law, philosophy and economics.The book questions whether economic inequality stems from historical injustice, and explores the wider implications of attempting to create equal outcomes through legislative mandates. The book argues that free markets, resting on libertarian rights, are the best way to help disadvantaged members of society and to create the conditions more likely to advance economic equality. The book will be of interest to researchers and students of economics, law, politics and philosophy.

The Wisdom of the Commons examines the history and philosophy of civic education as the essential political part of liberal education. This study distinguishes itself from other works on liberal and civic education by focusing explicitly on the civic and liberal education of those citizens who are not destined for prominent positions within politics and government but are still a part of and relevant to political society. It considers this strand of liberal and civic education, in both its ancient and modern iterations, by focusing on the philosophies of Plato, Cicero, Locke, Rousseau, and Adam Smith.

This book challenges the notion that commodities are always good hedges against inflation, which is the conventional belief today in financial markets. Specifically, it focuses on gold as a traditional hedge and the ways in which crypto assets are argued to be positioned as an alternative hedge against inflationary risk.The book engages with emerging debates around the performance of gold since the 2008 financial crisis, analyzing its characteristics, relationship with inflation, and the role of mining companies, and discusses ways that cryptocurrencies have replaced precious metals as an attractive asset class during an inflationary scenario. In considering the case of crypto as being or not a good inflation hedge, the book devotes particular attention to the theoretical financial and macroeconomic implications of a monetary system based on Bitcoin, dealing with the concept of money and the determination of Bitcoin's supply and purchasing power. Additionally, it outlines the consequences that such a system would entail for the banking industry, and financial conditions involving interest rates, exchange rates, and the inflation-deflation dynamic. The book also analyses the relative impact of past and future events on the different commodity families.This work will be of interest to students and researchers in financial economics, macroeconomics, and monetary economics, as well as analysts and traders in financial and commodity markets.

This book argues for evolutionary epistemology and distinguishing functionality from physicality in the social sciences. It explores the implications for this approach to understanding in biology, economics, psychology and political science. Presenting a comprehensive overview of philosophical topics in the social sciences, the book emphasizes how all human cognition and behavior is characterized by functionality and complexity, and thus cannot be explained by the point predictions and exact laws found in the physical sciences. Realms of functional complexity - such as the market order in economics, the social rules of conduct, and the human CNS - require a focus on explanations of the principles involved rather than predicting exact outcomes. This requires study of the historical context to understand behavior and cognition. This approach notes that functional complexity is central to classical liberal ideas such as division of labour and knowledge, and how this is a far more powerful and adequate account of social organization than central planning. Through comparison of these approaches, as well as its interdisciplinary scope, this book will interest both academics and students in philosophy, biology, economics, psychology and all other social sciences.

Classical liberalism has typically sought to maintain as much room as possible for the exercise of personal initiative in the face of the encroachment of states. This book explores these questions of coercion and authority in the context of the size and scope of the state and argues that the state and its agents should be held to the same moral rules as are the individuals it rules over. The book considers how a distinct feature of the state is its police or coercive power, about which one may ask how the state acquires it and what if anything would justify its use. It considers the implication that there is nothing inherent about state agents that entitles one to behave in ways that we would not accept from a private actor, and how once that argument is made, the state's claim to authority is weakened. The author also discusses the extent to which democracy has been thought to provide any sort of justification for coercion or authority.  This book will be of interest to academics and students of political philosophy, especially classical liberalism, and legal philosophy.  

The book presents a new theoretical approach to the description of economic phenomena over time.

The Wisdom of the Commons examines the history and philosophy of civic education as the essential political part of liberal education.

This book explores the neglected contribution of the American and English "psychological" school to economic theory, especially to the development and refinement of the Austrian school of economics.

First, to provide a critical legal examination of the liberal state and liberal rights in the law, and secondly, to present a systematic alternative to liberal approaches to both the law and rights, grounded in a left wing conception of human dignity.

This book offers a sustained and vigorous defence of free expression and objective enquiry situated in the context of the current culture wars.

After reprising their explanation and defense of natural rights, Rasmussen and Den Uyl explain metaphysical realism and defend it against neo-pragmatist objections.

This book analyses the egalitarian foundations of equality law from a classical liberal perspective by asking two central questions: does justice ideally demand equality? In defending the classical ideal of formal equality in contexts of racial diversity this book questions the ethical status of egalitarian social and moral ideals.

This book considers the "three Ps" of liberty: pragmatism, pluralism, and polycentricity. These concepts enrich the complex tradition of classical liberal jurisprudence, providing workable solutions based on the decentralization, diffusion, and dispersal of power.

If a necessary link exists between the classical liberal tradition and the moral and institutional dimensions of the rule of law, then this tradition is bound to uphold a substantial form of social justice.

This book fills a gap in the literature on economic liberalism in France as it strives to resolve a paradox. How do we reconcile the fact that while France has been among the most fertile of soils for the liberal intellectual tradition, the theoretical ideas it has produced has little impact on its own public debate and public policies? Using a wide range of data on public policies, it demonstrates that neo-liberal thought has had far less influence in France than in other European nations during the period from 1974 to 2012. The failure of neo-liberalism to propagate in public policies France is shown to be mainly due to the strong resistance of public opinion towards it. In addition, the structure of French institutions has reinforced the effect of "path dependence" in the making of public policy by valuing state expertise above that of actors likely to question the post-war consensus, such as academics and think tanks. Finally, the book identifies other more incidental factors which contributed to neo-liberalism marginality: the fragmentation and radicalism of neo-liberal advocates, as well as the absence of charismatic political actors to effectively embody these ideas. This book is a useful educational tool for students of economics, sociology, political science, and of French political history. This book is also of interest for journalists, think tank researchers and professionals of politics and administration.

This book uses the concepts of freedom, indeterminism, and fallibilism to solve, in a unified way, problems of free will, knowledge, reasoning, rationality, personhood, ethics and politics.

In times of pandemic and global economic crisis, little more than a decade after the last, there are serious questions about how the liberal order can stand, who its friends are, and what the future will look like. This edited collection provides a comprehensive overview of the principles and stakes at play in the dispute between liberalism and socialism. It explores the 21st century appeal of socialism, particularly to millennials and other relatively young citizens, and shows why modern classical liberalism and neoliberalism have generated tepid support, leading to the resurgence of socialism after it was thought dead and buried due to the dramatic failures of statist models in 1989.The authors put modern socialism and liberalism into renewed dialogue with another to examine whether the two can coexist peacefully, or even reach an overlapping consensus on social reform going forward. It delves into the history and theory of both liberalism and socialism to determine points of overlap and tension, in addition to a cross-disciplinary interpretive analysis of the present epoch to determine how both traditions have evolved since the 20th century. The book is interdisciplinary and provides a broad array of perspectives including a diversity of ideological perspectives ranging from committed Marxists to libertarians. It will be of interest to academics and students in economics and contemporary political culture.

Yet, the book concludes that free markets are not a solution to the problems of liberal democracy because both market and democratic liberal institutions rest on the liberal satisfaction of preferences, an ethic which hurts group evolutionary fitness.

Looking at discrimination, education, environment, health and crime, this volume analyses United States Supreme Court rulings on several legal issues and proposed libertarian solutions to each problem.

1)    Introduction (Chapter 1) 2)    Pluralism (Section One)a)    Epistemological pluralism (Chapter 2)i)      Modality distinctionsii)     Logical category distinctionsb)    Value pluralismi)      Critique of monism (Chapter 3)ii)     Incompatibility of values/value systems (Chapter 4)iii)    Incommensurability of values/value systems (Chapter 5)iv)   Practical Reason and Moral Choices (Chapter 6)3)    Liberalism and Pluralism (Section Two)a)    Pluralist liberalism-Berlin, Hampshire, et al. (Chapter 7)(1)  Negative liberty as one value among many(2)  Positive liberty not really libertyb)    Modus Vivendi liberalism-Gray, McCabe, et al. (Chapter 8)(1)  Negative liberty not necessarily important(2)  Positive liberty not necessarily importantc)    Nomocratic liberalism-(Chapter 9)(1)  Negative liberty as primary value(2)  Positive liberty not really liberty; dangerous to negative liberty and to liberty under rule of law(3)  Liberty under rule of law as third concept of liberty(4)  Toleration as primary political virtue-toleration as putting up with something which find distasteful, not as approbationd)    Further implications-(Chapter 10)i)      The place and character of politics in a nomocratic stateii)     Dealing with monistic individuals and groups in a pluralist societyiii)    Value pluralism, Nomocratic liberalism, and international relations4)    Conclusion (Chapter 11)

1. Carl Schmitt''s Philosophy2. From Normal Justice to Exceptional Law: 1912-19193. Law, Politics, and Sovereignity: 1919-19234. Chaos Versus Dictator: 1923-1926 5. Politics or Law: 1927-19286. Constitutional Issues: 1928-19317. Constitutional Chaos and Political Turmoil: 1930-19328. Schmitt and the Recovery of Law and Liberalism