Nozick’s account of the minimum state fails because it contains no theory of taxation. My contention is that this is an unavoidable failure of any Lockean theory of the minimum state.
Sayfa 73
The liberal story instructs me to seek freedom to express and realise myself. But both the ‘self’ and freedom are mythological chimeras borrowed from the fairy tales of ancient times. Liberalism has a particularly confused notion of ‘free will’. Humans obviously have a will, they have desires, and they are sometimes free to fulfil their desires. If by ‘free will’ you mean the freedom to do what you desire – then yes, humans have free will. But if by ‘free will’ you mean the freedom to choose what to desire – then no, humans have no free will
In short, concept- driven sociologists start collecting their data only after having committed themselves to a particular conceptual topic. After all, as we are reminded by Howard Schwartz and Jerry Jacobs, they “are in the business of studying sociological topics, not people. . . . Their job is to make a set of integrated observations on a given topic and place them in an analytical framework.” As such, they study whiteness rather than whites, liberalism rather than liberals, and poverty rather than the poor. Establishing such focal commitment thus constitutes the very first step in their research.
Liberal values are the modern form of the Stoic doctrine of
oikeiosis or belonging, according to which all and only rational beings possess full moral worth. All other beings are viewed either as potential means to human securiy and happiness or as threats to be neutralized. Even if we acknowledge that animals, unlike trees and streams, sufer, their sufering nonetheless counts less than human sufering, because according to the anthropocentric logic of liberalism only human beings possess the highest and purest moral status.
Sayfa 202 - Postmodern Conceptions of the Human-Animal BoundaryKitabı okudu
Mercantilist theorists such as Thomas Mun were in fact strong proponents of capitalism; they just propounded a different model than liberalism.
Sayfa 46Kitabı okudu
In politics, liberalism believes that the voter knows best.
Liberalism traditionally relied on economic growth to magically solve difficult social and political conflicts.
At the close of the twentieth century it appeared that the great ideological battles between fascism, communism and liberalism resulted in the overwhelming victory of liberalism.
The maxim of laissez faire may, then, demand simply that the authoritative or coercive activities of government be restricted to the minimum required for the upholding of justice. (...) On this interpretation of laissez faire, governmental activity may encompass any manner of service functions -even including a welfare state- provided these functions be conducted in a non-coercive fashion.
Sayfa 73