Government Philosophy

Against the Left explores something basic to libertarianism that many people today have forgotten. As everyone knows, libertarians view the state and the individual as fundamentally opposed. People who freely interact in the market create on their own a wonderful society that advances progress. In Against the Left, we examine some key battlegrounds in the struggle to preserve and advance real libertarianism against its enemies.

From the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference there was a concerted international effort to stop climate change. Yet greenhouse gas emissions increased, atmospheric concentrations grew, and global warming became an observable fact of life. In this book, philosopher Dale Jamieson explains what climate change is, why we have failed to stop it, and why it still matters what we do.

In his book, Peter Hitchens describes the misjudgements made by politicians over the years that have led to the increase of class distinction and privilege in our education system. This is of course the opposite of what was intended, especially by former Minister of Education Shirley Williams and Margaret Thatcher, her successor in that role, who closed down many more Grammar Schools than Williams.

A dazzlingly original account of the life and thought of Adam Smith, the greatest economist of all time. In Adam Smith, political philosopher Jesse Norman dispels the myths and caricatures, and provides a far more complex portrait of the man. Offering a highly engaging account of Smith's life and times, Norman explores his work as a whole and traces his influence over two centuries to the present day. Finally, he shows how a proper understanding of Smith can help us address the problems of modern capitalism.

Politics in America are polarized and trivialized, perhaps as never before. In Congress, the media, and academic debate, opponents from right and left, the Red and the Blue, struggle against one another as if politics were contact sports played to the shouts of cheerleaders. The result, Ronald Dworkin writes, is a deeply depressing political culture, as ill equipped for the perennial challenge of achieving social justice as for the emerging threats of terrorism. Can the hope for change be realized?

Der kanadische Philosoph Alain Deneault stellt sich der wohl bedrohlichsten aller Bedrohungen: der Mittelmäßigkeit. Die Mittelmäßigkeit schmückt sich selber zwar mit Bildern der Macht, hat aber nicht mehr zu bieten als Konformismus, das Bedienen von Software oder die Einhaltung von Grundsatzwerten. Wir leben in einer Welt, in der eine mediokre Ordnung zum Modell für die gesamte Gesellschaft erhoben wurde und in der Denkfaulheit belohnt wird. Dabei wird nicht etwa Spitzenleistungen und Elitenbildung das Wort gesprochen. Vielmehr geht es in dieser scharfen Analyse um die Ermutigung zum Gebrauch des eigenen Verstandes.

From Trump’s America to Putin’s Russia, and from Poland to the Philippines, rapid change and rising inequality have fueled a retreat into tribalist nationalism fed by a fear of being left behind. Populist leaders tap into this fear, with empty promises of looking out for the little guy and promising a return to national greatness. This is happening in countries across the globe and the political spectrum. Political scientists Drache and Froese have turned original research into a compelling analysis of the rise of populism and reveal what it will take to douse the flames.

Reparations for slavery have become a reinvigorated topic for public debate over the last decade. Most theorizing about reparations treats it as a social justice project—either rooted in reconciliatory justice focused on making amends in the present; or, they focus on the past, emphasizing restitution for historical wrongs. Olúfemi O. Táiwò argues that neither approach is optimal, and advances a different case for reparations—one rooted in a hopeful future that tackles the issue of climate change head on, with distributive justice at its core.

In Not a Day Care, Dr. Everett Piper, president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University and author of the viral essay, "This Is Not a Day Care. It's a University!" takes a hard look at what's happening around the country - including the demand for "safe spaces" and trigger warnings at universities like Yale, Brandeis, and Oberlin - and digs in his heels against the sad and dangerous infantilization of the American spirit.

In this seminal work of political philosophy, Boétie asks one of the most obvious questions of political theory: Why is it that a minority of rulers can remain in power over a majority of subjects who pay all the taxes? The answer might be quite surprising to us all. The conclusion is that the people tend to enslave themselves, to let themselves be governed by tyrants. Liberty is the natural condition of the people. Servitude, however, is fostered when people are raised in subjection. It is we who enslave ourselves at the beck and call of "authority".

For 200 years, conservatism has defied its reputation as a backward-looking creed by confronting and adapting to liberal modernity. By doing so, the right has won long periods of power and effectively become the dominant tradition in politics. Yet, despite their success, conservatives have continued to fight with each other about how far to compromise with liberalism and democracy - or which values to defend and how. In Conservatism, Edmund Fawcett provides a gripping account of this conflicted history, clarifies key ideas, and illuminates quarrels within the right today.

The AOC Generation examines the resurgent young left - including groups like Justice Democrats, the Democratic Socialists of America and Brand New Congress - and documents how and why they got active and energized in political organizing, the success and limitations of their approaches - and through their stories, it tells the history and the future of a generation.

In Talking Across the Divide, social justice activist Justin Lee explains how to break through the five key barriers that make people resist differing opinions. With a combination of psychological research, pop-culture references, and anecdotes from Justin's many years of experience mediating contentious conversations, this book will help you understand people on the other side of the argument and give you the tools you need to change their minds - even if they've fallen for "fake news."

This treatise comprises questions 90–97 of the Summa Theologica, in which St. Thomas Aquinas presents a philosophical analysis of the nature and structure of law. Believing that law achieves its results by imposing moral obligations rather than outright force on those subject to it, he proceeds to explore vital questions about the essence of law, kinds of law, effects of law, eternal law, natural law, human law, and changes in law.

David Harvey's Companion to Marx's Grundrisse builds upon his widely acclaimed companions to the first and second volumes of Capital in a way that will reach as wide an audience as possible. Marx's stated ambition for this text is to reveal "the exact development of the concept of capital as the fundamental concept of modern economics, just as capital itself is the foundation of bourgeois society."

When it comes to politics, in today's day and age our country is more divided than ever. Furthermore, this divide has transcended politics and now determines where you are allowed to live, who you can be friends with, and even what beer you can drink. Well, if you are like me then this status quo of "us vs them" politics is far from ideal.

In June 2020, prominent business and political leaders gathered for the fiftieth annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, under the rubric of "The Great Reset." In the words of WEF founder Klaus Schwab, the Great Reset is a "unique window of opportunity" afforded by the worldwide COVID-19 panic to build "a new social contract" ushering in a utopian era of economic, social, and environmental justice. But beneath their lofty and inspiring words, what are their actual plans?

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness by William Godwin (1756-1836) was first published in February 1793, the month following the execution of Louis XVI of France. It proved to be immediately popular and influential. Godwin, the son of a Calvinist preacher, was educated at Hoxton Academy, after which, he became a minister to a dissenter congregation in Ware.

The left and right will always have strong policy disagreements, but constructive debate and negotiation are not possible when each side demonizes the other. In this book, social psychologist Ronnie Janoff-Bulman provides a new framework for understanding why and how we disagree. Janoff-Bulman asks listeners to consider the challenging possibility that both liberalism and conservatism are morally based and reflect genuine concern for the country. Understanding that our political differences are rooted in two natural forms of morality can help us begin to detoxify our politics.

In 1848, THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO was published by two émigrés from Germany. Marx and Engels' apocalyptic vision of an insatiable system that penetrates every corner of the world reduces every relationship to that of profit, and burst asunder the old forms of production and of politics. It is still a recognisable picture of our world–the vampiric energy of the system being once again highly contentious.