Against Politics: On Government, Anarchy and Order (Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought) PDF
254 Pages·1997·2.61 MB·English
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.
Preview Against Politics: On Government, Anarchy and Order (Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought)
Description:
De Jasay's book does an excellent job punctuating the arguments typically used to justify the state. He shows the absurdity of contractariansim (if the state is necessary to enforce contracts, then how did the state make a contract with the people for its establishment?). His essay "Is Limited Government Possible?" is an excellent tonic for those libertarians who feel that the state can be effectively constrained by a constitution. In addition to the problem of enforcement, de Jasay highlights the disturbing tendency of the state to expand indefinitely as an increasingly smaller majority is necessary to exploit an increasingly larger minority (culminating in democracy where a coalition of 50+1 gets to exploit the remaining 49.9). He also demonstrates the flaws of adopting loose limitations on government action (for instance, if governement is supposed to promote fairness, who defines "fairness"?) The second part of the book highlights the functioning of social institutions and conventions that existed prior to governement and evolved independently of the state, strengthening the conclusion that people can lead peaceful, fulfilling lives without the state. I would have given this book five stars, except that it suffers from the same defect as most treatises of academic philosophy in that his writing style is often a bit dry.
See more
The list of books you might like
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.
