In Identifying a Free Society Milan Zafirovski offers a holistic sociological approach to modern free society as a total social system. The book examines the main conditions and indicators of modern free society such as democracy, a free economy, a free culture, and a free civil society, hence political, economic, cultural, and individual liberty entwined with equality and justice. It provides specific and aggregate free-society estimates for Western and related societies based on a variety of objective rankings, data, and reports. On the basis of these estimates, the book identifies liberal societies as the freest as a whole, and their anti-liberal opposites as the most unfree.
Foundations of a Free Society brings together some of the most knowledgeable Ayn Rand scholars and proponents of her philosophy, as well as notable critics, putting them in conversation with other intellectuals who also see themselves as defenders of capitalism and individual liberty. United by the view that there is something importantly right—though perhaps also much wrong—in Rand’s political philosophy, contributors reflect on her views with the hope of furthering our understandings of what sort of society is best and why. The volume provides a robust elaboration and defense of the foundation of Rand’s political philosophy in the principle that force paralyzes and negates the functioning of reason; it offers an in-depth scholarly discussion of Rand’s view on the nature of individual rights and the role of government in defending them; it deals extensively with the similarities and differences between Rand’s thought and the libertarian tradition (to which she is often assimilated) and objections to her positions arising from this tradition; it explores Rand’s relation to the classical liberal tradition, specifically with regard to her defense of freedom of the intellect; and it discusses her views on the free market, with special attention to the relation between these views and those of the Austrian school of economics.
Throughout history, kings and emperors have promised “freedoms” to their people. Yet these freedoms were really only permissions handed down from on high. The American Revolution inaugurated a new vision: people have basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and government must ask permission from them. Sadly, today’s increasingly bureaucratic society is beginning to turn back the clock and to transform America into a nation where our freedoms—the right to speak freely, to earn a living, to own a gun, to use private property, even the right to take medicine to save one’s own life—are again treated as privileges the government may grant or withhold at will. Timothy Sandefur examines the history of the distinction between rights and privileges that played such an important role in the American experiment, and how we can fight to retain our freedoms against the growing power of government. Illustrated with dozens of real-life examples—including many cases he litigated himself—Sandefur shows how treating freedoms as government-created privileges undermines our Constitution and betrays the basic principles of human dignity.
The future of the sociologist's profession is jeopardized by an ongoing trend toward the politicization of sociology and the radicalization of social problems. This book calls for the rethinking of the culture of social, political, and economic liberty to create a resurgence of a sociological agenda. Social Problems in a Free Society offers an original perspective on social problems such as violations of the principles of individual rights and the free market. This book is a vision for reinvigorating the discipline in a fashion undreamt of within the wearisome strains of today's radical social problems theory.
Argues that the privacy of individuals actually hampers accountability, which is the foundation of any civilized society and that openness is far more liberating than secrecy
Too many laws, too many lawyers--that's the necessary consequence of a complex society, or so conventional wisdom has it. Countless pundits insist that any call for legal simplification smacks of nostalgia, sentimentality, or naivete. But the conventional view, the noted legal scholar Richard Epstein tells us, has it exactly backward. The richer texture of modern society allows for more individual freedom and choice. And it allows us to organize a comprehensive legal order capable of meeting the technological and social challenges of today on the basis of just six core principles. In this book, Epstein demonstrates how. The first four rules, which regulate human interactions in ordinary social life, concern the autonomy of the individual, property, contract, and tort. Taken together these rules establish and protect consistent entitlements over all resources, both human and natural. These rules are backstopped by two more rules that permit forced exchanges on payment of just compensation when private or public necessity so dictates. Epstein then uses these six building blocks to clarify many intractable problems in the modern legal landscape. His discussion of employment contracts explains the hidden virtues of contracts at will and exposes the crippling weaknesses of laws regarding collective bargaining, unjust dismissal, employer discrimination, and comparable worth. And his analysis shows how laws governing liability for products and professional services, corporate transactions, and environmental protection have generated unnecessary social strife and economic dislocation by violating these basic principles. Simple Rules for a Complex World offers a sophisticated agenda for comprehensive social reform that undoes much of the mischief of the modern regulatory state. At a time when most Americans have come to distrust and fear government at all levels, Epstein shows how a consistent application of economic and political theory allows us to steer a middle path between too much and too little.
All aspire to liberty and security in their lives but few people truly enjoy them. This book explains why this is so. In what Conor Gearty calls our 'neo-democratic' world, the proclamation of universal liberty and security is mocked by facts on the ground: the vast inequalities in supposedly free societies, the authoritarian regimes with regular elections, and the terrible socio-economic deprivation camouflaged by cynically proclaimed commitments to human rights. Gearty's book offers an explanation of how this has come about, providing also a criticism of the present age which tolerates it. He then goes on to set out a manifesto for a better future, a place where liberty and security can be rich platforms for everyone's life. The book identifies neo-democracies as those places which play at democracy so as to disguise the injustice at their core. But it is not just the new 'democracies' that have turned 'neo', the so-called established democracies are also hurtling in the same direction, as is the United Nations. A new vision of universal freedom is urgently required. Drawing on scholarship in law, human rights and political science this book argues for just such a vision, one in which the great achievements of our democratic past are not jettisoned as easily as were the socialist ideals of the original democracy-makers.
